A Course In Miracles - Chapter 3, Section VI

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 6,

Judgment and the Authority Problem.

To summarize my takeaways,

In section 6 of chapter 3,

We are reminded of the true meaning of the term,

Last Judgment,

Which we learned back in section 8 of chapter 2.

We learned in that section that judgment is not an attribute of God,

And that the Last Judgment is actually our part of the atonement.

A final healing,

Rather than a meting out of punishment,

As we learn to look at our own creations,

Sorting the true from the false,

And choosing to preserve only what is true.

The Last Judgment is actually a process of right evaluation.

It is the first step towards freedom,

And the doorway to life.

In this section,

We are reminded that we are creations of God.

God is the true author of his creations,

Meaning he is the author of us.

When we refuse to accept God's authorship,

Our inheritance as children of God,

We deny ourselves peace and the power to create in the likeness of our Creator.

It is possible for us to look upon reality without judgment,

And merely know that it is there.

We are also told that wishes are not facts.

To wish is to imply that willing is not sufficient.

Yet no one in his right mind could believe that what is wished is as real as what is willed.

We are asked to reframe the verse,

Quote,

Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven,

End quote,

To will ye first the kingdom of heaven.

In so doing,

We are actually saying,

I know what I am,

And I accept my own inheritance.

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 that we made as a substitute for the self that God created.

Separation.

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 a perception of pain,

Suffering,

And death.

Atonement.

The Holy Spirit's plan of correction.

Dealing our minds from the earthly world of illusion to God's world of truth.

Reality.

Pure spirit,

Which is changeless,

Eternal,

Formless,

And boundless.

It has no orders of levels.

Even though reality is completely obvious,

We lose our awareness of it when we try to be the author of reality,

Including our own reality.

Reality is also referred to in the course as heaven or the kingdom of God.

This definition was extracted in part from Glossary of Terms from A Course in Miracles,

Written by Robert Perry.

This useful tool can be found at circleofa.

Org under the tab Resources.

And now,

On to the reading.

A Course in Miracles,

Chapter 3.

The Innocent Perception.

Section 6.

Judgment and the Authority Problem.

We have already discussed the Last Judgment,

But in insufficient detail.

After the Last Judgment,

There will be no more.

Judgment is symbolic,

Because beyond perception,

There is no judgment.

When the Bible says,

Quote,

Judge not that ye be not judged,

End quote,

It means that if you judge the reality of others,

You will be unable to avoid judging your own.

The choice to judge,

Rather than to know,

Is the cause of the loss of peace.

Judgment is the process on which perception,

But not knowledge,

Rests.

I have discussed this before in terms of the selectivity of perception,

Pointing out that evaluation is its obvious prerequisite.

Judgment always involves rejection.

It never emphasizes only the positive aspects of what is judged,

Whether in you or in others.

What has been perceived and rejected,

Or judged and found wanting,

Remains in your mind because it has been perceived.

One of the illusions from which you suffer is the belief that what you judged against has no effect.

This cannot be true unless you also believe that what you judged against does not exist.

You evidently do not believe this,

Or you would not have judged against it.

In the end,

It does not matter whether your judgment is right or wrong.

Either way,

You are placing your belief in the unreal.

This cannot be avoided in any type of judgment because it implies the belief that reality is yours to select from.

You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgment.

When you recognize what you are and what your brothers are,

You will realize that judging them in any way is without meaning.

In fact,

Their meaning is lost to you precisely because you are judging them.

All uncertainty comes from the belief that you are under the coercion of judgment.

You do not need judgment to organize your life,

And you certainly do not need it to organize yourself.

In the presence of knowledge,

All judgment is automatically suspended,

And this is the process that enables recognition to replace perception.

You are very fearful of everything you have perceived but have refused to accept.

You believe that because you have refused to accept it,

You have lost control over it.

This is why you see it in nightmares or in pleasant disguises in what seem to be your happier dreams.

Nothing that you have refused to accept can be brought into awareness.

It is not dangerous in itself,

But you have made it seem dangerous to you.

When you feel tired,

It is because you have judged yourself as capable of being tired.

When you laugh at someone,

It is because you have judged him as unworthy.

When you laugh at yourself,

You must laugh at others,

If only because you cannot tolerate the idea of being more unworthy than they are.

All this makes you feel tired because it is essentially disheartening.

You are not really capable of being tired,

But you are very capable of wearying yourself.

The strain of constant judgment is virtually intolerable.

It is curious that an ability so debilitating would be so deeply cherished.

Yet if you wish to be the author of reality,

You will insist on holding on to judgment.

You will also regard judgment with fear,

Believing that it will someday be used against you.

This belief can exist only to the extent that you believe in the efficacy of judgment as a weapon of defense for your own authority.

God offers mercy.

Your words should reflect only mercy because that is what you have received and that is what you should give.

Justice is a temporary expedient or an attempt to teach you the meaning of mercy.

It is judgmental only because you are capable of injustice.

I have spoken of different symptoms and at that level there is almost endless variation.

There is however only one cause for all of them,

The authority problem.

This is quote the root of all evil end quote.

Every symptom the ego makes involves a contradiction in terms because the mind is split between the ego and the Holy Spirit so that whatever the ego makes is incomplete and contradictory.

This untenable position is the result of the authority problem which,

Because it accepts the one inconceivable thought as its premise,

Can produce only ideas that are inconceivable.

The issue of authority is really a question of authorship.

When you have an authority problem it is always because you believe that you are the author of yourself and project your delusion onto others.

You then perceive the situation as one in which others are literally fighting you for your authorship.

This is the fundamental error of all those who believe they have usurped the power of God.

This belief is very frightening to them but hardly troubles God.

He is however eager to undo it,

Not to punish His children but only because He knows that it makes them unhappy.

God's creations are given their true authorship but you prefer to be anonymous when you choose to separate yourself from your author.

Being uncertain of your true authorship you believe that your creation was anonymous.

This leaves you in a position where it sounds meaningful to believe that you created yourself.

The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in your mind that it may even doubt whether you really exist at all.

Only those who give over all desire to reject can know that their own rejection is impossible.

You have not usurped the power of God but you have lost it.

Unfortunately to lose something does not mean that it is gone.

It merely means that you do not remember where it is.

Its existence does not depend on your ability to identify it or to even place it.

It is possible to look on reality without judgment and merely know that it is there.

Peace is a natural heritage of spirit.

Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance but he is not free to establish what his inheritance is.

The problem everyone must decide is the fundamental question of authorship.

All fear comes ultimately and sometimes by way of very devious routes from the denial of authorship.

The offense is never to God but only to those who deny Him.

To deny His authorship is to deny yourself the reason for your peace so that you see yourself only in segments.

This strange perception is the authority problem.

There is no one who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way.

If this is the result of his own free will he must regard his will as not free or the circular reasoning in this position would be quite apparent.

Free will must lead to freedom.

Judgment always imprisons because it separates segments of reality by the unstable scales of desire.

Wishes are not facts.

To wish is to imply that willing is not sufficient.

Yet no one in his right mind believes that what is wished is as real as what is willed.

Instead of quote seek ye first the kingdom of heaven end quote say quote will ye first the kingdom of heaven end quote.

Then you have actually said I know what I am and I accept my own inheritance.

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