A Course In Miracles - Chapter 6, Section V(C)
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 6,
The Lessons of Love.
Section 5,
The Lessons of the Holy Spirit.
Subpart C,
Be Vigilant,
Only for God and His Kingdom.
To summarize my takeaways,
In Section 5,
Subpart C of Chapter 6,
We are offered the third in a series of lessons given to us by the Holy Spirit.
This third lesson,
Be Vigilant,
Only for God and His Kingdom,
Is a major step toward fundamental change.
The first lesson,
To Have All,
Give All to All,
Taught us that having rests on giving,
Not on getting.
The second lesson,
To Have Peace,
Teach Peace to Learn It,
Taught us that we learn what we teach and that we want to learn peace.
This third lesson,
Be Vigilant,
Only for God and His Kingdom,
Is a statement of what we want to believe and entails a willingness to relinquish everything else.
While the first lesson seems to increase conflict,
And the second may still entail conflict to some extent,
This third lesson calls for consistent vigilance against it,
Although it does not deny that the temptation to make exceptions will occur since everything the Holy Spirit rejects the ego will accept.
Our consistency here then is called on despite the chaos we may experience.
Yet we are lovingly told that chaos and consistency cannot coexist for long because they are mutually exclusive.
Jesus reminds us here that He has already told us that we can be as vigilant against the ego as for it.
And this lesson reminds us that we not only can be,
But must be.
This lesson does not concern itself with order of difficulty,
But with clear-cut priority for vigilance and is unequivocal in that it teaches us there must be no exceptions.
We are reminded here that we create from our true being,
But what we are we must learn to remember.
The way to remember is inherent in this third lesson,
Since the voice for God speaks only for belief beyond question,
Which is the preparation for being without question.
The Holy Spirit will enable us to take this step if we follow Him,
And our vigilance is the sign that we want Him to guide us.
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.
Kingdom – the non-dualistic world of knowledge,
Wherein God and His creations dwell in perfect unity.
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.
Video – 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,
Also referred to as the voice for God.
And now,
On to the reading.
A Course in Miracles,
Chapter 6 – The Lessons of Love Section 5 – The Lessons of the Holy Spirit Subpart C – Be vigilant,
Only for God and His Kingdom We said before that the Holy Spirit is evaluative and must be.
He sorts out the true from the false in your mind and teaches you to judge every thought you allow to enter it in the light of what God put there.
Whatever is in accord with this light,
He retains to strengthen the Kingdom in you.
What is partly in accord with it,
He accepts and purifies.
But what is out of accord entirely,
He rejects by judging against.
This is how He keeps the Kingdom perfectly consistent and perfectly unified.
Remember however,
That what the Holy Spirit rejects,
The ego accepts.
This is because they are in fundamental disagreement about everything,
Being in fundamental disagreement about what you are.
The ego's beliefs on this crucial issue vary,
And that is why it promotes different moods.
The Holy Spirit never varies on this point,
And so the one mood He engenders is joy.
He protects it by rejecting everything that does not foster joy,
And so He alone can keep you wholly joyous.
The Holy Spirit does not teach you to judge others because He does not want you to teach error and learn it yourself.
He would hardly be consistent if He allowed you to strengthen what you must learn to avoid.
In the mind of the thinker then,
He is judgmental,
But only in order to unify the mind so it can perceive without judgment.
This enables the mind to teach without judgment,
And therefore to learn to be without judgment.
The undoing is necessary only in your mind so that you will not project,
Instead of extend.
God Himself has established what you can extend with perfect safety.
Therefore the Holy Spirit's third lesson is this,
Be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom.
This is a major step toward fundamental change,
Yet it still has an aspect of thought reversal since it implies that there is something you must be vigilant against.
It has advanced far from the first lesson,
Which is merely the beginning of the thought reversal,
And also from the second,
Which is essentially the identification of what is more desirable.
This step,
Which follows from the second as the second follows from the first,
Emphasizes the dichotomy between the desirable and the undesirable.
It therefore makes the ultimate choice inevitable.
While the first step seems to increase conflict,
And the second may still entail conflict to some extent,
This step calls for consistent vigilance against it.
I have already told you that you can be as vigilant against the ego as for it.
This lesson teaches not only that you can be,
But that you must be.
It does not concern itself with order of difficulty,
But with clear-cut priority for vigilance.
This lesson is unequivocal in that it teaches there must be no exceptions,
Although it does not deny that the temptation to make exceptions will occur.
Here then,
Your consistency is called on despite chaos.
Yet chaos and consistency cannot coexist for long,
Since they are mutually exclusive.
As long as you must be vigilant against anything,
However,
You are not recognizing this mutual exclusiveness and still believe that you can choose either one.
By teaching what to choose,
The Holy Spirit will ultimately teach you that you need not choose at all.
This will finally liberate your mind from choice and direct it towards creation within the Kingdom.
Choosing through the Holy Spirit will lead you to the Kingdom.
You create by your true being,
But what you are you must learn to remember.
The way to remember it is inherent in the third step,
Which brings together the lesson implied in the others and goes beyond them toward full integration.
If you allow yourself to have in your mind only what God put there,
You are acknowledging your mind as God created it.
Therefore you are accepting it as it is.
Since it is whole,
You are teaching peace because you believe in it.
The final step will still be taken for you by God,
But by the third step,
The Holy Spirit has prepared you for God.
He is getting you ready for the translation of having into being by the very nature of the steps you must take with Him.
You learn first that having rests on giving and not on getting.
Next you learn that you learn what you teach and that you want to learn peace.
This is the condition for identifying with the Kingdom,
Since it is the condition of the Kingdom.
You have believed that you are without the Kingdom and have therefore excluded yourself from it in your belief.
It is therefore essential to teach you that you must be included and that the belief that you are not is the only thing that you must exclude.
The third step is thus one of protection for your mind,
Allowing you to identify only with the center where God placed the altar to Himself.
Alters are beliefs,
But God and His creations are beyond belief because they are beyond question.
The voice for God speaks only for belief beyond question,
Which is the preparation for being without question.
As long as belief in God and His Kingdom is assailed by any doubts in your mind,
His perfect accomplishment is not apparent to you.
This is why you must be vigilant on God's behalf.
The ego speaks against His creation and therefore engenders doubt.
You cannot go beyond belief until you believe fully.
To teach the whole Sonship without exception demonstrates that you perceive its Wholeness and have learned that it is One.
Now you must be vigilant to hold its Oneness in your mind because if you let doubt enter you will lose awareness of its Wholeness and will be unable to teach it.
The Wholeness of the Kingdom does not depend on your perception,
But your awareness of its Wholeness does.
It is only your awareness that needs protection since being cannot be assailed.
Yet a real sense of being cannot be yours while you are doubtful of what you are.
This is why vigilance is essential.
Doubts about being must not enter your mind or you cannot know what you are with certainty.
Certainty is of a God for you.
Vigilance is not necessary for truth,
But it is necessary against illusions.
Truth is without illusions and therefore within the Kingdom.
Being outside the Kingdom is illusion.
When you threw truth away you saw yourself as if you were without it.
By making another Kingdom that you valued you did not keep only the Kingdom of God in your mind and thus place part of your mind outside it.
What you made has imprisoned your will and given you a sick mind that must be healed.
Your vigilance against this sickness is the way to heal it.
Once your mind is healed it radiates health and thereby teaches healing.
This establishes you as a teacher who teaches like me.
Vigilance was required of me as much as of you and those who choose to teach the same thing must be in agreement about what they believe.
The third step then is a statement of what you want to believe and entails a willingness to relinquish everything else.
The Holy Spirit will enable you to take this step if you follow Him.
Your vigilance is the sign that you want Him to guide you.
Vigilance does not require effort,
But only until you learn the effort itself is unnecessary.
You have exerted great effort to preserve what you have made because it was not true.
Therefore you must now turn your effort against it.
Only this can cancel out the need for effort and call upon the being which you both have and are.
This recognition is holy without effort since it is already true and needs no protection.
It is in the perfect safety of God.
Therefore inclusion is total and creation is without limit.
