A Course In Miracles - Chapter 7, Section VIII

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 7,

The Gifts of the Kingdom.

Section 8,

The Unbelievable Belief.

To summarize my takeaways,

In Section 8 of Chapter 7,

We learn a fundamental law of the mind.

That without projection,

There can be no anger,

And that without extension,

There can be no love.

To the Holy Spirit,

This is the fundamental law of sharing,

While to the ego,

This is the law of deprivation.

The choice is up to us whether we extend our minds,

Producing abundance and expressing as love,

Or whether we project our minds,

Producing scarcity and expressing as anger.

We are told not to be afraid of the ego,

Because its existence depends on our belief.

As we made the ego by believing in it,

So can we dispel it by withdrawing belief from it.

When we are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego's existence,

We will have laid aside all anger and all attack.

And when we realize this,

The error of putting our belief in the ego,

We are asked to quickly turn this error over to the Holy Spirit,

Undoing it completely,

And eliminating the ego's effects from our mind and from the Sonship as a whole.

The Holy Spirit will teach us to perceive beyond our beliefs,

Because Truth is beyond belief,

And the Holy Spirit's perception is always true.

We are reminded that the whole purpose of this course is to teach us that the ego is unbelievable and will forever be unbelievable.

By accepting the Atonement for ourselves,

We are deciding against the idea of separation and affirming our true identification as creations of God.

This identification is as beyond doubt as it is beyond belief.

Our wholeness has no limit,

Because Being is Infinity.

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 you will hear within this reading.

Projection.

A law of mind.

What we see inwardly determines what we see outside ourselves.

This then is our perception,

Which we project onto the world around us.

Extension.

Offering Christ's vision in the form of forgiveness and peace.

Kingdom.

The non-dualistic world of knowledge,

Wherein God and His creations dwell in perfect unity.

Life.

The principle of spiritual vitality or reality,

Imparted by God.

It has no separate parts,

No opposites,

No degrees,

And cannot be extinguished or lessened in any way.

This definition was comprised from the Circle of Atonement glossary of terms,

Which can be found at circleofa.

Org.

Ego.

Our belief in the separated or false self 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.

God.

The Creator.

The source of all being or life.

God's essence is Spirit,

Which is shared with all creation.

Sonship.

All of us.

The creations of God.

Atonement.

The Holy Spirit's plan of correction.

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

And now,

On to the reading.

A Course in Miracles Chapter 7,

The Gifts of the Kingdom.

Section 8,

The Unbelievable Belief.

We have said that without projection there can be no anger.

But it is also true that without extension there can be no love.

These reflect a fundamental law of the mind,

And therefore one that always operates.

It is the law by which you create and work created.

It is the law that unifies the kingdom and keeps it in the mind of God.

To the ego,

The law is perceived as a means of getting rid of something it does not want.

To the Holy Spirit,

It is the fundamental law of sharing,

By which you give what you value in order to keep it in your mind.

To the Holy Spirit,

It is the law of extension.

To the ego,

It is the law of deprivation.

It therefore produces abundance or scarcity depending on how you choose to apply it.

This choice is up to you,

But it is not up to you to decide whether or not you will utilize the law.

Every mind must project or extend,

Because that is how it lives,

And every mind is life.

The ego's use of projection must be fully understood before the inevitable association between projection and anger can be finally undone.

The ego always tries to preserve conflict.

It is very ingenious in devising ways that seem to diminish conflict,

Because it does not want you to find conflict so intolerable that you will insist on giving it up.

The ego therefore tries to persuade you that it can free you of conflict,

In order to prevent you from giving the ego up and freeing yourself.

Using its own warped version of the laws of God,

The ego utilizes the power of the mind only to defeat the mind's real purpose.

It projects conflict from your mind to other minds,

In an attempt to persuade you that you have gotten rid of the problem.

There are two major errors involved in this attempt.

First,

Strictly speaking,

Conflict cannot be projected because it cannot be shared.

Any attempt to keep part of it and get rid of another part does not really mean anything.

Remember that a conflicted teacher is a poor teacher and a poor learner.

His lessons are confused,

And their transfer value is limited by his confusion.

The second error is that idea you can get rid of something you do not want by giving it away.

Giving it is how you keep it.

The belief that by seeing it outside,

You have excluded it from within,

Is a complete distortion of the power of extension.

That is why those who project are vigilant for their own safety.

They are afraid that their projections will return and hurt them.

Believing that they have blotted their projections from their own minds,

They also believe their projections are trying to creep back in.

Since the projections have not left their minds,

They are forced to engage in constant activity in order not to recognize this.

You cannot perpetuate an illusion about another without perpetuating it about yourself.

There is no way out of this because it is impossible to fragment the mind.

To fragment is to break into pieces,

And mind cannot attack or be attacked.

The belief that it can,

An error the ego always makes,

Underlies its whole use of projection.

It does not understand what mind is,

And therefore does not understand what you are.

Yet the ego's existence is dependent on your mind,

Because the ego is your belief.

The ego is a confusion and identification.

Never having had a consistent model,

It never developed consistently.

It is the product of the misapplication of the laws of God by distorted minds that are misusing their power.

Do not be afraid of the ego.

It depends on your mind,

And as you made it by believing in it,

So you can dispel it by withdrawing belief from it.

Do not project the responsibility for your belief in it onto anyone else,

Or you will preserve the belief.

When you are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego's existence,

You will have laid aside all anger and all attack,

Because they come from an attempt to project responsibility for your own errors.

But having accepted the errors as yours,

Do not keep them.

Give them over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely,

So that all their effects will vanish from your mind and from the Sonship as a whole.

The Holy Spirit will teach you to perceive beyond your belief,

Because truth is beyond belief,

And the Holy Spirit's perception is true.

The ego can be completely forgotten at any time,

Because it is a totally incredible belief,

And no one can keep a belief he has judged to be unbelievable.

The more you learn about the ego,

The more you realize that it cannot be believed.

The incredible cannot be understood,

Because it is unbelievable.

The meaninglessness of perception based on the unbelievable is apparent,

But it may not be recognized as being beyond belief,

Because it is made by belief.

The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable and will forever be unbelievable.

You who made the ego by believing the unbelievable cannot make this judgment alone.

By accepting the atonement for yourself,

You are deciding against the belief that you can be alone,

Thus dispelling the idea of separation and affirming your true identification with the whole kingdom as literally part of you.

This identification is as beyond doubt as it is beyond belief.

Your wholeness has no limits,

Because being is infinity.

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