A Course In Miracles - Chapter 13, Section I
ACIM is read one section at a time. It is a guidebook leading us back to our true natures, as we open to the awareness of love's presence. All quoted material is from A Course in Miracles, copyright ©1992, 1999, 2007 by the Foundation for Inner Peace, publisher, and the copyright holder. This material is used with permission. Glossary-Index for a Course In Miracles, 8th edition, Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. Music: Bensound
Transcript
Hi,
I'm Teresa Hubbard.
Welcome back to our continued reading of the text,
To A Course in Miracles.
We continue today in Chapter 13,
The Guiltless World,
Section 1,
Guiltlessness and Invulnerability.
To summarize my takeaways,
In Section 1 of Chapter 13,
We are shown that as we look upon ourselves and judge what we do honestly,
We may be tempted to wonder how we can be guiltless.
Yet we must consider this,
We are not guiltless in time,
But in eternity.
We have sinned in the past,
But there is no past.
Although time seems to go in one direction,
When we reach its end,
It will roll up like a carpet spread along the past behind us and will disappear.
As long as we believe we are guilty,
We will walk along this carpet believing that it leads to death.
The journey will seem long and cruel and senseless,
For so it is.
Yet love and guilt cannot coexist,
And to accept one is to deny the other.
The journey we have set for ourselves is useless indeed,
But the journey on which the Father sets us is one of release and joy.
When we have accepted the atonement for ourselves,
We will realize our guiltlessness.
And as we perceive the holy companions who travel with us,
We will realize that there is no journey,
But only an awakening.
We are saved because we are guiltless,
And being holy pure,
We are invulnerable.
I invite you to keep a few things in mind as you listen to the reading.
The course uses male pronouns,
Yet this is simply a way of pointing to the spiritual being,
Having no gender.
The course is written in first person,
And although not introduced directly to the reader,
It becomes clear that the words are from Jesus,
Often quoting from the Bible.
The course uses traditional Christian terms in a non-traditional manner.
These words are simply pointers to truth,
Nothing more.
A few terms you will hear within this reading.
Atonement.
The Holy Spirit's plan of correction,
Healing our minds from the earthly world of illusion to God's world of truth.
Sin.
An illusion whereby we believe in the reality of our separation from God.
This stems from our egoic sense of our unworthiness of forgiveness,
Which leads to guilt.
Such guilt is projected onto ourselves and others.
Salvation.
We are saved from our belief in sin and guilt through the change of mind that forgiveness and the miracle bring about.
Now,
On to the reading.
A Course in Miracles Chapter 13,
The Guiltless World.
Section 1,
Guiltlessness and Invulnerability.
Earlier I said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers,
Whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary by teaching their pupils all they know.
The Holy Spirit wants only this,
For sharing the Father's love for His Son,
He seeks to remove all guilt from His mind that He may remember His Father in peace.
Peace and guilt are antithetical,
And the Father can be remembered only in peace.
Love and guilt cannot coexist,
And to accept one is to deny the other.
Guilt hides Christ from your sight,
For it is the denial of the blamelessness of God's Son.
In the strange world that you have made,
The Son of God has sinned.
How could you see Him then?
By making Him invisible,
The world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt that you accepted,
And you hold it dear.
For the blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was,
And can never be.
Without guilt,
The ego has no life,
And God's Son is without guilt.
As you look upon yourself and judge what you do honestly,
You may be tempted to wonder how you could be guiltless,
Yet consider this.
You are not guiltless in time,
But in eternity.
You have sinned in the past,
But there is no past.
Always has no direction.
Time seems to go in one direction,
But when you reach its end,
It will roll up like a long carpet spread along the paths behind you,
And will disappear.
As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty,
You will walk along this carpet believing that it leads to death,
And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless,
For so it is.
The journey the Son of God has set Himself is useless indeed,
But the journey on which His Father sets Him is one of release and joy.
The Father is not cruel,
And His Son cannot hurt Himself.
The retaliation that He fears and that He sees will never touch Him,
For although He believes in it,
The Holy Spirit knows it is not true.
The Holy Spirit stands at the end of time where you must be,
Because He is with you.
He has already undone everything unworthy of the Son of God,
For such was His mission given Him by God,
And what God gives has always been.
You will see me as you learn the Son of God is guiltless.
He has always sought His guiltlessness,
And He has found it.
For everyone is seeking to escape from the prison He has made,
And the way to find release is not denied Him.
Being in Him,
He has found it.
When He finds it is only a matter of time,
And time is but an illusion.
For the Son of God is guiltless now,
And the brightness of His purity shines untouched forever in God's bind.
God's Son will always be as He was created.
Deny your world and judge Him not,
For His eternal guiltlessness is in the mind of His Father and protects Him forever.
When you have accepted the atonement for yourself,
You will realize there is no guilt in God's Son,
And only as you look upon Him as guiltless can you understand His oneness.
For the idea of guilt brings a belief in condemnation,
Of one by another,
Projecting separation in place of unity.
You can condemn only yourself,
And by so doing you cannot know that you are God's Son.
You have denied the condition of His being,
Which is His perfect blamelessness.
Out of love He was created,
And in love He abides.
Goodness and mercy have always followed Him,
For He has always extended the love of His Father.
As you perceive the holy companions who travel with you,
You will realize that there is no journey,
But only an awakening.
The Son of God,
Who sleepeth not,
Has kept faith with His Father for you.
There is no road to travel on,
And no time to travel through.
For God waits not for His Son in time,
Being forever unwilling to be without Him,
And so it has always been.
Let the holiness of God's Son shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens your mind,
And by accepting His purity as yours,
Learn of Him that it is yours.
You are invulnerable because you are guiltless.
You can hold on to the past only through guilt,
For guilt establishes that you will be punished for what you have done,
And thus depends on one-dimensional time,
Proceeding from past to future.
No one who believes this can understand what always means,
And therefore guilt must deprive you of the appreciation of eternity.
You are immortal because you are eternal,
And always must be now.
Guilt then is a way of holding past and future in your mind to ensure the ego's continuity.
For if what has been will be punished,
The ego's continuity is guaranteed.
Yet the guarantee of your continuity is God's,
Not the ego's.
And immortality is the opposite of time,
For time passes away,
While immortality is constant.
Accepting the atonement teaches you what immortality is,
For by accepting your guiltlessness you learn that the past has never been,
And so the future is needless and will not be.
The future,
In time,
Is always associated with expiation,
And only guilt could induce a sense of a need for expiation.
Accepting the guiltlessness of the Son of God as yours is therefore God's way of reminding you of His Son,
And what He is in truth.
For God has never condemned His Son,
And being guiltless,
He is eternal.
You cannot dispel guilt by making it real and then atoning for it.
This is the ego's plan,
Which it offers instead of dispelling it.
The ego believes in atonement through attack,
Being fully committed to the insane notion that attack is salvation.
And you who cherish guilt must also believe it,
For how else but by identifying with the ego could you hold dear what you do not want?
The ego teaches you to attack yourself because you are guilty,
And this must increase the guilt,
For guilt is the result of attack.
In the ego's teaching,
Then,
There is no escape from guilt,
For attack makes guilt real,
And if it is real,
There is no way to overcome it.
The Holy Spirit dispels it simply through the calm recognition that it has never been.
As He looks upon the guiltless Son of God,
He knows that this is true.
And being true for you,
You cannot attack yourself,
For without guilt,
Attack is impossible.
You then are saved because God's Son is guiltless,
And being holy pure,
You are invulnerable.
