A Course In Miracles - Chapter 5, Section II
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 5,
Healing and Wholeness.
Section 2,
The Voice for God.
To summarize my takeaways,
In Section 2 of Chapter 5,
Jesus tells us that His mind will always be like ours because we were created as equals,
And that it was only His decision,
The decision to heal the separation by letting it go,
That gave Him all power in heaven and earth.
He tells us that His only gift to us is to help us make the same decision.
This decision is very simple and is made on the basis of which call is worth more to us.
We must choose to hear the call of only one of the two voices within us.
One voice is made by us,
Which is not of God.
The other voice is given to us by God and asks us only to listen to it.
God's voice is the Holy Spirit.
Our bridge of communication that calls us back to where we were before and will be again before we chose to perceive our separation from God.
We will know we have chosen right because the voice for God does not command because it is incapable of arrogance.
It does not demand because it does not seek control.
It does not overcome because it cannot attack.
It merely reminds us of the truth.
The voice for God is always quiet because it speaks of peace.
It is our call to awaken and be glad.
Jesus,
Our brother,
Our guide reminds us that our joint motivation is beyond belief but not beyond accomplishment.
What we can accomplish together has no limit because the call for God is the call to the unlimited.
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.
Miracle,
The change in mind that shifts our perception,
Transcending the laws of this world to reflect the laws of God.
The miracle provides the means to heal our own minds and the minds of others.
Time,
A learning device,
A means of undoing the ego by choosing love and forgiveness of ourselves and others.
When forgiveness is complete,
The world of time,
Which is simply an illusion,
Has served the Holy Spirit's purpose and will simply disappear.
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.
Creation,
The extension of God's Spirit.
Although we are creators,
Created in the likeness of God,
Our creations are either true,
Sourced from love,
Or untrue,
Sourced from fear.
Ego,
Our belief in the separated or false self that we made as a substitute for the self that God created.
Holy Spirit,
The communication link between God and us,
Bridging the gap between the mind of Christ and our human minds.
Through this bridge,
Our worldly perception of sin,
Guilt and fear is transformed into the reality of love and forgiveness.
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.
Alter,
Not an external structure,
But an attitude.
It represents the part of our minds that chooses the world of God,
Or chooses instead the earthly world of illusion.
Whichever attitude we choose,
That is our alter.
And now,
On to the reading.
A Course in Miracles Chapter 5,
Healing and Wholeness.
Question 2,
The Voice for God.
Healing is not creating,
It is reparation.
The Holy Spirit promotes healing by looking beyond it to what the children of God were before healing was needed and will be when they have been healed.
This alteration of the time sequence should be quite familiar because it is very similar to the shift in the perception of time that the miracle introduces.
The Holy Spirit is the motivation for miracle-mindedness,
The decision to heal the separation by letting it go.
Your will is still in you because God placed it in your mind.
And although you can keep it asleep,
You cannot obliterate it.
God Himself keeps your will alive by transmitting it from His mind to yours as long as there is time.
The miracle itself is a reflection of this union of will between Father and Son.
The Holy Spirit is the spirit of joy.
He is the call to return with which God blessed the minds of His separated sons.
This is the vocation of the mind.
The mind had no calling until the separation because before that it had only being and would not have understood the call to right thinking.
The Holy Spirit is God's answer to the separation,
The means by which the atonement heals until the whole mind returns to creating.
The principle of atonement and the separation began at the same time.
When the ego was made,
God placed in the mind the call to joy.
This call is so strong that the ego always dissolves it at sound.
That is why you must choose to hear one of two voices within you.
One you made yourself and that one is not of God.
But the other one is given you by God who asks you only to listen to it.
The Holy Spirit is in you in a very literal sense.
This is the voice that calls you back to where you were before and where you will be again.
It is possible even in this world to hear only that voice and no other.
It takes effort and great willingness to learn.
It is the final lesson that I learned and God's sons are as equal as learners as they are as sons.
You are the kingdom of heaven but you have let the belief in darkness enter your mind and so you need a new light.
The Holy Spirit is the radiance that you must let banish the idea of darkness.
His is the glory before which dissociation falls away and the kingdom of heaven breaks through into its own.
Before the separation you did not need guidance.
You knew as you will know again but as you do not know now.
God does not guide because he can share only perfect knowledge.
Guidance is evaluative because it implies there is a right way and also a wrong way.
One to be chosen and the other to be avoided.
By choosing one you give up the other.
The choice for the Holy Spirit is the choice for God.
God is not in you in a literal sense.
You are a part of him.
When you chose to leave him he gave you a voice to speak for him because he could no longer share his knowledge with you without hindrance.
Direct communication was broken because you had made another voice.
The Holy Spirit calls you both to remember and to forget.
You have chosen to be in a state of opposition in which opposites are possible.
As a result there are choices you must make.
In the holy state the will is free so that its creative power is unlimited and choice is meaningless.
Freedom to choose is the same power as freedom to create but its application is different.
Choosing depends on a split mind.
The Holy Spirit is one way of choosing.
God did not leave his children comfortless even though they chose to leave him.
The voice they put in their minds was not the voice for his will for which the Holy Spirit speaks.
The voice of the Holy Spirit does not command because it is incapable of arrogance.
It does not demand because it does not seek control.
It does not overcome because it does not attack.
It merely reminds.
It is compelling only because of what it reminds you of.
It brings to your mind the other way,
Remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you may make.
The voice for God is always quiet because it speaks of peace.
Peace is stronger than war because it heals.
War is division not increase.
No one gains from strife.
What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
If you listen to the wrong voice,
You have lost sight of your soul.
You cannot lose it but you cannot know it.
It is therefore lost to you until you choose right.
The Holy Spirit is your guide in choosing.
He is in the part of your mind that always speaks for the right choice because he speaks for God.
He is your remaining communication with God which you can interrupt but cannot destroy.
The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
Both heaven and earth are in you because the call of both is in your mind.
The voice for God comes from your own altars to him.
These altars are not things,
They are devotions.
Yet you have other devotions now.
Your divided devotion has given you the two voices and you must choose at which altar you want to serve.
The call you answer now is an evaluation because it is a decision.
The decision is very simple.
It is made on the basis of which call is worth more to you.
My mind will always be like yours because we were created as equals.
It was only my decision that gave me all power in heaven and earth.
My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision.
This decision is the choice to share it because the decision itself is the decision to share.
It is made by giving and is therefore the one choice that resembles true creation.
I am your model for decision.
By deciding for God,
I showed you that this decision can be made and that you can make it.
I have assured you that the mind that decided for me is also in you and that you can let it change you just as it changed me.
This mind is unequivocal because it hears only one voice and answers in only one way.
You are the light of the world with me.
Rest does not come from sleeping but from waking.
The Holy Spirit is the call to awaken and be glad.
The world is very tired because it is the idea of weariness.
Your task is the joyous one of waking it to the call for God.
Everyone will answer the call of the Holy Spirit or the sonship cannot be as one.
What better vocation could there be for any part of the kingdom than to restore it to the perfect integration that can make it whole?
Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you and teach your brothers to listen as I am teaching you.
When you are tempted by the wrong voice,
Call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my decision and making it stronger.
As we share this goal,
We increase its power to attract the whole sonship and to bring it back into the oneness in which it was created.
Remember that yoke means join together and burden means message.
Let us restate,
Quote,
My yoke is easy and my burden light,
End quote,
In this way.
Quote,
Let us join together for my message is light,
End quote.
I even join you to behave as I behave but we must respond to the same mind to do this.
This mind is the Holy Spirit whose will is for God always.
He teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought and to behave like me as a result.
The power of our joint motivation is beyond belief but not beyond accomplishment.
What we can accomplish together has no limit because the call for God is the call to the unlimited.
Child of God,
My message is for you to hear and give away as you answer the Holy Spirit within you.
