A Course In Miracles - Chapter 3, Section IV

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. (Foundation for Inner Peace, 448 Ignacio Blvd #306 Novato, CA 94949 USA).

Glossary-Index for a Course In Miracles, 8th edition, Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.
Music by 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 3,

The Innocent Perception,

Section 4,

Error and the Ego.

To summarize my takeaways,

In Section 4,

Chapter 3,

We are told that our current abilities are a mere shadow of our real strength.

This is because we are not yet certain of our abilities,

And are therefore incapable of knowledge.

As a quick review,

We learn back in Section 6 of Chapter 2 of the three levels referred to throughout the course,

Which are Body,

Mind and Spirit.

The Body level is a device for learning,

And is the domain of the ego,

Which was made by us rather than created.

The level of Spirit is perfect,

Being created by God,

And cannot be harmed in any way,

By anything,

Including errors carried out at the levels of the body or mind.

The level of mind is where we make the choice.

The mind can choose to divide itself,

Perceiving separation from God,

Which is in service to the ego,

Resulting in confusion and uncertainty.

Or we can choose the Will to Know,

Placing us in service to Spirit,

Where our perceptions are healed,

Uniting us with God.

Only the levels of the Trinity are capable of such unity,

Resulting in one-mindedness,

Which is certainty without confusion.

Jesus,

Our elder brother,

Our equal,

Tells us in this section that He was a man that remembered Spirit and its knowledge.

As a man,

He did not try to counteract error with knowledge,

But instead chose to correct error from the bottom up.

By uniting His Will with His Creator,

He naturally remembered Spirit and its real purpose.

He asks us to reframe the verse,

Quote,

Many are called,

But few are chosen,

End quote,

To All are called,

But few choose to listen.

We are told that we can choose now,

And in so doing,

We are at peace,

Which is our true reality.

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 definitions of terms you will hear within this reading.

Perception What we see inwardly determines what we see outside ourselves.

It is the post-separation world of form and differences.

Knowledge Also referred to as Heaven or the real world.

It is the pre-separation world of God and His unified creation in which there are no differences in form,

And therefore exclusive of the world of perception.

Spirit The nature of our true reality,

Which being of God is changeless and eternal,

Contrasted with the body which changes and dies.

Ego Our belief in the separated or false self we made as a substitute for the self that God created.

Sin The untrue belief in sin that affirms our identity as separate from God.

This idea is represented by the ego,

Which results in a world filled with the perception of pain,

Suffering,

And death.

Trinity The levels of the Trinity are not understandable in the world of illusion or the ego.

The Trinity consists of God,

The Father and Creator,

The Son,

Christ,

Our True Self,

Which includes our creations,

And the Holy Spirit,

The bridge of communication,

The voice for God.

To the reading.

The abilities you now possess are only shadows of your real strength.

All of your present functions are divided and open to question and doubt.

This is because you are not certain how you will use them and are therefore incapable of knowledge.

You are also incapable of knowledge because you can still perceive lovelessly.

Perception did not exist until the separation introduced degrees,

Aspects,

And intervals.

God has no levels,

And all conflict arises from the concept of levels.

Only the levels of the Trinity are capable of unity.

The levels created by the separation cannot but conflict.

This is because they are meaningless to each other.

Consciousness,

The level of perception,

Was the first split introduced into the mind after the separation,

Making the mind a perceiver rather than a creator.

Consciousness is correctly identified as the domain of the ego.

The ego is a wrong-minded attempt to perceive yourself as you wish to be rather than as you are.

Yet you can know yourself only as you are because that is all you can be sure of.

Everything else is open to question.

The ego is the questioning aspect of the post-separation self,

Which was made rather than created.

It is capable of asking questions,

But not of perceiving meaningful answers,

Because these would involve knowledge and cannot be perceived.

The mind is therefore confused,

Because only one-mindedness can be without confusion.

A separated or divided mind must be confused.

It is necessarily uncertain about what it is.

It has to be in conflict,

Because it is out of accord with itself.

This makes its aspects strangers to each other,

And this is the essence of the fear-prone condition in which attack is always possible.

You have every reason to feel afraid as you perceive yourself.

This is why you cannot escape from fear until you realize that you did not and could not create yourself.

You can never make your misperceptions true,

And your creation is beyond your own error.

That is why you must eventually choose to heal the separation.

Right-mindedness is not to be confused with the knowing mind,

Because it is applicable only to right perception.

You can be right-minded or wrong-minded,

And even this is subject to degrees,

Clearly demonstrating that knowledge is not involved.

The term right-mindedness is properly used as the correction for wrong-mindedness,

And applies to the state of mind that induces accurate perception.

It is miracle-minded because it heals misperception,

And this is indeed a miracle in view of how you perceive yourself.

Perperception always involves some misuse of mind because it brings the mind into areas of uncertainty.

The mind is very active.

When it chooses to be separated,

It chooses to perceive.

Until then,

It wills only to know.

Afterwards,

It can only choose ambiguously,

And the only way out of ambiguity is clear perception.

The mind returns to its proper function only when it wills to know.

This places it in the service of spirit,

Where perception is changed.

The mind chooses to divide itself when it chooses to make its own levels.

But it cannot entirely separate itself from spirit,

Because it is from spirit that it derives its whole power to make or create.

Even in this creation,

The mind is affirming its source,

Or it would merely cease to be.

This is impossible because the mind belongs to spirit,

Which God created,

And which is therefore eternal.

The ability to perceive made the body possible because you must perceive something and with something.

That is why perception involves an exchange or translation,

Which knowledge does not need.

The interpretive function of perception,

A distorted form of creation,

Then permits you to interpret the body as yourself in an attempt to escape from the conflict you have induced.

Spirit which knows could not be reconciled with this loss of power,

Because it is incapable of darkness.

This makes spirit almost inaccessible to the mind and entirely inaccessible to the body.

Thereafter,

Spirit is perceived as a threat,

Because light abolishes darkness merely by showing you it is not there.

Truth will always overcome error in this way.

This cannot be an active process of correction,

Because as I have already emphasized,

Knowledge does not do anything.

It can be perceived as an attacker,

But it cannot attack.

What you perceive as its attack is your own vague recognition that knowledge can always be remembered,

Never having been destroyed.

God and his creations remain in surety,

And therefore know that no miscreation exists.

Truth cannot deal with errors that you want.

I was a man who remembered spirit and its knowledge.

As a man,

I did not attempt to counteract error with knowledge,

But to correct error from the bottom up.

I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body and the power of the mind.

By uniting my will with that of my Creator,

I naturally remembered spirit and its real purpose.

I cannot unite your will with God's for you,

But I can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance.

Only your misperceptions stand in your way.

Without them,

Your choice is certain.

Same perception induces same choosing.

I cannot choose for you,

But I can help you make your own right choice.

Many are called,

But few are chosen.

Should be.

All are called,

But few choose to listen.

For they do not choose right.

The quote chosen ones,

End quote,

Are merely those who choose right sooner.

Right minds can do this now,

And they will find rest under their souls.

God knows you only in peace,

And this is your reality.

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