In this School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) video conversation, we read and explore the Introduction to Chapter 22 (Salvation and the Holy Relationship) and the section “The Little Hindrance” (ACIM, T-26.V) in Chapter 26.
To maintain and grow our glimpses of sanity – the resurrection of non-dual thinking – we need help from our Inner Kindness Teacher, Holy Spirit, or the Course’s Jesus. This help is emphasized in numerous places in the Course; here are a few of these:
- There are 368 instances of “help” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 2 instances of “rescue” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 104 instances of “guide” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 47 instances of “guidance” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 31 instances of “aid” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 3 instances of “assist” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 38 instances of “support” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 166 instances of “serve” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 21 instances of “service” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 40 instances of “comfort” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 230 instances of “strength” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
However, since ACIM is a “not no” curriculum, to avail ourselves of the help that the Holy Spirit provides, we need only not interfere with that help.
“I need do nothing except not to interfere.” (ACIM, T-16.I.3:12)
- There are 77 instances of “interfere” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 19 instances of “resist” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
- There are 8 instances of “hinder” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
The truth does not need any help, but we need the help that is automatically ours when we cease interfering, resisting, and hindering the automatic process of undoing our belief in separation that arises when we look at the ego’s insanity without condemnation.
The true need of every heart is to see our situation from the vantage point of our real, unlimited shared Identity. This brings genuine compassion to all, including ourselves, when we see that we are suffering (from buying into ego’s propaganda of sin, guilt, fear, death, and oblivion) needlessly and that the solution (forgiveness) is waiting patiently in our mind for us to apply it. We need to see how we have needlessly enslaved our minds.
Here are the first three paragraphs from the Introduction to Chapter 22 (Salvation and the Holy Relationship) of which the first sentence became the opening meditation to remind ourselves we need to go easy on ourselves, to “cut ourselves some slack,” or in other words, just forgive ourselves:
“1. Take pity on yourself, so long enslaved. ²Rejoice whom God hath joined have come together and need no longer look on sin apart. ³No two can look on sin together, for they could never see it in the same place and time. ⁴Sin is a strictly individual perception, seen in the other yet believed by each to be within himself. ⁵And each one seems to make a different error, and one the other cannot understand. ⁶Brother, it is the same, made by the same, and forgiven for its maker in the same way. ⁷The holiness of your relationship forgives you and your brother, undoing the effects of what you both believed and saw. ⁸And with their going is the need for sin gone with them.
2. Who has need for sin? ²Only the lonely and alone, who see their brothers different from themselves. ³It is this difference, seen but not real, that makes the need for sin, not real but seen, seem justified. ⁴And all this would be real if sin were so. ⁵For an unholy relationship is based on differences, where each one thinks the other has what he has not. ⁶They come together, each to complete himself and rob the other. ⁷They stay until they think that there is nothing left to steal, and then move on. ⁸And so they wander through a world of strangers, unlike themselves, living with their bodies perhaps under a common roof that shelters neither; in the same room and yet a world apart.
3. A holy relationship starts from a different premise. ²Each one has looked within and seen no lack. ³Accepting his completion, he would extend it by joining with another, whole as himself. ⁴He sees no difference between these selves, for differences are only of the body. ⁵Therefore, he looks on nothing he would take. ⁶He denies not his own reality because it is the truth. ⁷Just under Heaven does he stand, but close enough not to return to earth. ⁸For this relationship has Heaven’s Holiness. ⁹How far from home can a relationship so like to Heaven be?” (ACIM, T-22.in.1:1–3:9)
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (summarized from a web search) is a “fundamental concept in quantum mechanics that states you cannot precisely know both the position and momentum of a particle at the same time. The more accurately you measure one of these properties, the less accurately you can know the other.”
… seems to hint at the content in sentence 2 in paragraph 1:
“No two can look on sin together, for they could never see it in the same place (position) and time (momentum, velocity or any other temporal property).” (ACIM, T-22.in.1:3)
… with this quote typifying this tariff-eyed (false) perception of lack that dualistic, polarized thinking invokes:
“Deny me not the little gift I ask, when in exchange I lay before your feet the peace of God, and power to bring this peace to everyone who wanders in the world uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear.” (ACIM, T-31.VIII.7:1)
This connection to modern physics is just a guess on my part, but the Course does point out that the ego’s uncertainty (41 instances of that word) is an integral part of its intrinsic fearful nature. Unlike fraudulent separate ego identities, our real shared Identity is outside space and time, within Perfect Oneness (pure non-duality), where misunderstandings, misperceptions, and different perspectives are not only no longer a problem, but aren’t even possible! The real Holy Relationship (that forgiveness leads us all happily to return to in our mind) is with the Holy Spirit we all share which is independent of form, but perfectly congruent in the content of perfect innocence.
The “little hindrance” implies that from the Holy Spirit’s perspective, the barriers in our mind to peace are negligible, even though we see them as impossibly difficult to overcome. The last two paragraphs in “Where Sin Has Left” set the stage for a closer examination of this hindrance:
“5. Where sin once was perceived will rise a world that will become an altar to the truth, and you will join the lights of Heaven there, and sing their song of gratitude and praise. ²And as they come to you to be complete, so will you go with them. ³For no one hears the song of Heaven and remains without a voice that adds its power to the song, and makes it sweeter still. ⁴And each one joins the singing at the altar that was raised within the tiny spot that sin proclaimed to be its own. ⁵And what was tiny then has soared into a magnitude of song in which the universe has joined with but a single voice.
6. This tiny spot of sin that stands between you and your brother still is holding back the happy opening of Heaven’s gate. ²How little is the hindrance that withholds the wealth of Heaven from you. ³And how great will be the joy in Heaven when you join the mighty chorus to the Love of God!” (ACIM, T-26.IV.5:1–6:3)
Here are the first three paragraphs from “The Little Hindrance” (ACIM, T-26.V) in Chapter 26:
“1. A little hindrance can seem large indeed to those who do not understand that miracles are all the same. ²Yet teaching that is what this course is for. ³This is its only purpose, for only that is all there is to learn. ⁴And you can learn it in many different ways. ⁵All learning is a help or hindrance to the gate of Heaven. ⁶Nothing in between is possible. ⁷There are two teachers only, who point in different ways. ⁸And you will go along the way your chosen teacher leads. ⁹There are but two directions you can take, while time remains and choice is meaningful. ¹⁰For never will another road be made except the way to Heaven. ¹¹You but choose whether to go toward Heaven, or away to nowhere. ¹²There is nothing else to choose.
2. Nothing is ever lost but time, which in the end is meaningless. ²For it is but a little hindrance to eternity, quite meaningless to the real Teacher of the world. ³Yet since you do believe in it, why should you waste it going nowhere, when it can be used to reach a goal as high as learning can achieve? ⁴Think not the way to Heaven’s gate is difficult at all. ⁵Nothing you undertake with certain purpose and high resolve and happy confidence, holding your brother’s hand and keeping step to Heaven’s song, is difficult to do. ⁶But it is hard indeed to wander off, alone and miserable, down a road that leads to nothing and that has no purpose.
3. God gave His Teacher to replace the one you made, not to conflict with it. ²And what He would replace has been replaced. ³Time lasted but an instant in your mind, with no effect upon eternity. ⁴And so is all time past, and everything exactly as it was before the way to nothingness was made. ⁵The tiny tick of time in which the first mistake was made, and all of them within that one mistake, held also the Correction for that one, and all of them that came within the first. ⁶And in that tiny instant time was gone, for that was all it ever was. ⁷What God gave answer to is answered and is gone.” (ACIM, T-26.V.1:1–3:7)
I frequently quote this profoundly reassuring passage that reminds us that real loss is impossible, only the “sacrifice” of the idea of sacrifice:
“The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God’s Son was the beginning of the separation, as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end. ²The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. ³Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. ⁴For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws that seem to govern it are the laws of death. ⁵Children are born into it through pain and in pain. ⁶Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. ⁷Their minds seem to be trapped in their brain, and its powers to decline if their bodies are hurt. ⁸They seem to love, yet they desert and are deserted. ⁹They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. ¹⁰And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and are no more. ¹¹Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.
3. If this were the real world, God would be cruel.”(ACIM, T-13.in.2:1–3:1)
Our dogged determination to be part (instead of whole) keeps us (seemingly) separate and miserable.
- Illusion A = Illusion B = Illusion C = …
- Problem A = Problem B = Problem C = …
- Solution A = Solution B = Solution C = …
From the perspective of our truly inseparable nature, all illusions are the same; all problems are the same, and the solution (forgiveness) is always the same. In each of the “bullets” above, the form of each specific takes countless variations. However, the content in the mind is all functionally equivalent, and every solution requires our implicit trust in the Holy Spirit’s correction, regardless of the label we give that ego-free presence in our mind.
The instantaneous correction (the Atonement; the tiny ) of was simultaneous with the “tiny mad idea”
(This conversation was facilitated by Bruce Rawles as part of the School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) curriculum hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise. This YouTube video recording was made on Saturday, May 3, 2025.)
Extracurricular levity: some of the videos mentioned in the conversation:
- Talking Heads – Road to Nowhere (Official Video)
- Talking Heads – Heaven (lyrics on clip)
- Home (David Byrne & Brian Eno)
- Talking Heads – Moon Rocks (2005 Remaster)
