To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

[markpierre]

Posted by EmEx (here)
Wow, I don't know what to think of ACIM anymore after all these negative
posts about it and also reading the link that TOTHE posted, what is that
all about? ''disturbing'' as Markpierre said.

Many things said in the book just confirm my own experience and understanding
but perhaps I should not get carried away with this book and believe everything it says?!...
I don't need the book but I thought it would be a good supplement...now I am not so sure what to think anymore.

Sounds like people here seem to have a mix of positive and negative experiences with it.

It won't serve you very well as a 'supplement' EmEx. It's not to be believed or disbelieved, you just accept it's purpose.
It won't agree with much if any 'new age' literature. And it may take you directly into conflict. But only because conflict is inevitable whatever you do. It takes
you through it quicker. It's a fast track.

It's a 'method' to undo your human conditioning. It won't leave you empty, and it won't replace your mind with new better concepts.
It's directing you to a 'right use of mind' which is a way of using your mind, not using judgement.
Conceptual mind functions exclusively with judgement.
What happens if you lose the ability to judge between the concept of 'right' and the concept of 'wrong'? All things become useful and purposeful.

I'm not selling it. It's not easy. It's a commitment. Used frivolously, it's a waste of time. There is a method somewhere that's right for you,
that should find you before you find it. That's if you're ready for discipline. You have to want the outcome more than what you have now.

You might, if you're feeling naughty, consider that the 'fruit of the tree of discernment' from Eden, was that change in the use of mind. Judgement. Deciding what something
is or means, rather than allowing it to 'be' what it is. It'll show you what it is, if you don't judge it something different first.
The Bible calls it 'sin', and religion makes a big nasty perverse deal out of that word. Jesus calls it 'error'. 'You won't find what you're looking for, looking where you're looking.'
They actually mean exactly the same thing. The bullseye is where the bullseye is. Not wherever the arrow wants to go.

[Lalaji]

I really like the philosophy of ACIM. Sometimes it is hard to understand, but it makes sense to me. What really helped me to "get it" was the Book "The Disappearance of the Universe" By Gary R. Renard. It is so interesting that I couldn't stop reading. All the questions I had were answered. After reading that book, ACIM got clear to me. A Course in Miracles really gives you the shortcut to get "there". It is impressive how my life changed and still is, after reading it. Amazing piece of literature. :-)

[Lalaji]

To me, the best teacher around is Kenneth Wapnick. You can search on YouTube his videos; he is the most reliable source of information, since he is the only one still alive who Helped Helen Schucman (the writer of ACIM) to edit the book. He also has many books written by him that will help to understand the course. I am lucky to live where the ACIM center is and had the privilege to listen to Ken in one of his workshops. He is amazing. The energy and kindness of that man fills up the room with peace. it is worth to watch his workshops; there are all over in youtube.

[conk]

[/QUOTE]
....
The 'change of mind' occurs through doing the workbook. The lessons themselves. The rest is lovely concepts, but nothing more useful than that.
There are instruction in the front of the workbook and you have to read them. Hermite sums it up beautifully, the human mind is in a state of rebellion.
I'm sure her friends discovered that as well, even in their efforts.
I did the 'one year course' three times before I ever read the instructions. So there's the clue. I'd accomplished nothing. Then I did it again, and again, and again,
but because it's such a masterpiece. You don't really 'do' the Course, the Course 'does' you.

Thanks again mate.[/QUOTE]Dr. David Hawkins says to go straight to the workbook. The book is nice, but the real deal is the workbook.

[Rich]

Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
Well, I should have known better than to have an agenda. Totally forget what I had intended to quote and I moved the bookmark so that’s that. Let me just open the book at random then...

Chapter 18, VII: I Need Do Nothing

You still have too much faith in the body as a source of strength. What plans do you make that do not involve its comfort or enjoyment in some way? This makes the body an end and not a means in your interpretation, and this always means you still find sin attractive. No one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. You have thus not met your one responsibility. Atonement is not welcomed by those who prefer pain and destruction.

There is one thing that you have never done; you have not utterly forgotten the body. It has perhaps faded at times from your sight, but it has not yet completely disappeared. You are not asked to let this happen for more than an instant, yet it is in this instant that the miracle of Atonement happens. Afterwards you will see the body again, but never quite the same. And every instant that you spend without awareness of it gives you a different view of it when you return.

At no single instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or anticipated, but never experienced just now. Only its past and future make it seem real. Time controls it entirely, for sin is never wholly in the present. In any single instant the attraction of guilt would be experienced as pain and nothing else, and would be avoided. It has no attraction now. Its whole attraction is imaginary, and therefore must be thought of in the past or in the future.

It is impossible to accept the holy instant without reservation unless, just for an instant, you are willing to see no past or future. You cannot prepare for it without placing it in the future. Release is given you the instant you desire it. Many have spent a lifetime in preparation, and have indeed achieved their instants of success. This course does not attempt to teach more than they learned in time, but it does aim at saving time. You may be attempting to follow a very long road to the goal you have accepted. It is extremely difficult to reach Atonement by fighting against sin. Enormous effort is expended in the attempt to make holy what is hated and despised. Nor is a lifetime of contemplation and long periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the body necessary. All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their purpose. Yet the means are tedious and very time consuming, for all of them look to the future for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy.

Your way will be different, not in purpose but in means. A holy relationship is a means of saving time. One instant spent together with your brother restores the universe to both of you. You are prepared. Now you need but to remember you need do nothing. It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this than to consider what you should do. When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against the giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization; “I need do nothing.”

Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time. You do not need this time. Time has been saved for you because you and your brother are together. This is the special means this course is using to save you time. Save time for me by only this one preparation, and practice doing nothing else. “I need do nothing” is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation.

To do anything involves the body. And if you recognize you need do nothing, you have withdrawn the body’s value from your mind. Here is the quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and escape from time. This is the way in which sin loses all attraction right now. For here is time denied, and past and future gone. Who needs do nothing has no need for time. To do nothing is to rest, and make peace within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides. He will remain when you forget, and the body’s activities return to occupy your conscious mind.

Yet there will always be this place to rest to which you can return. And you will be more aware or this quiet center of the storm than all its raging activity. This quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. For from this center will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly. It is this center, from which the body is absent, that will keep it so in your awareness of it.

That was very random Ernie...NOT.

It's funny I started reading ACIM more and more because of quotes and excerpts I read on this forum, I already known the book for a long time, but never really gotten into it.
And this Chapter "I Need Do Nothing" is what gave me the most.

[Teleios_wonder]

I loved this book, and did the lessons twice over for 2 years! I have since discovered it may have been an implant by MKultra; for mind control.
Which makes sense because the first half of the lessons break down your beliefs and ego, and the second half work on re-building it with ACIM beliefs (called Truth, Reality).
Any book which claims to be The Truth is suspicious to me now. I am far less gullible. ACIM is mainly directed towards people who are desperate and suffering, and so are willing to give up their beliefs very readily to follow a path that promises the Truth and the end of suffering.

Speaking from my experience, living and breathing these lessons put me into an altered state and eventually led me to a very dangerous choice which took me half way across he world and nearly homeless. I thought I was working for God when in fact I was killing my soul (individuality) and most likely on the other end of the spectrum.

[Rich]

Welcome Teleios, I see you just joined recently.
Well, ACIM does not claim to be the only path, in fact it says there are 1000's of teachings that lead to the same truth.




For me ACIM helped to get a glimpse of what I/we really are - it is so beautiful words cannot do it justice.
And at the same instant you know you are eternal.
All fear of death is out the window, there is no death.

Why hold on to scraps of dust when you are a perfect being? Not a body!
It's the believe that love is fear.
I can see in my own past where I had this belief that caused me to run away
from my own Self, when all I had to do was stay still.


The Little Willingness

The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy. It is the answer. The desire and the willingness to let it come precede its coming. You prepare your mind for it only to the extent of recognizing that you want it above all else. It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is necessary that you realize that you cannot do more. Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what he does not ask, or you will add the ego to him and confuse the two. He asks but little. It is he who adds the greatness and the might. He joins with you to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand. It is your realization that you need do so little that enables him to give so much.

Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why you came. If you could come without them you would not need the holy instant. Come to it not in arrogance, assuming that you must achieve the state its coming brings with it. The miracle of the holy instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it is. And in your willingness for this lies also your acceptance of yourself as you were meant to be.

Humility will never ask that you remain content with littleness. But it does require that you be not content with less than greatness that comes not of you. Your difficulty with the holy instant arises from your fixed conviction that you are not worthy of it. And what is this but the determination to be as you would make yourself? God did not create his dwelling place unworthy of him. And if you believe he cannot enter where he wills to be, you must be interfering with his will. You do not need the strength of willingness to come from you, but only from his will.
The holy instant does not come from your little willingness alone. It is always the result of your small willingness combined with the unlimited power of God's Will. You have been wrong in thinking that it is needful to prepare yourself for him.

It is impossible to make arrogant preparations for holiness, and not believe that it is up to you to establish the conditions for peace. God has established them. They do not wait upon your willingness for what they are. Your willingness is needed only to make it possible to teach you what they are. If you maintain you are unworthy of learning this, you are interfering with the lesson by believing that you must make the learner different. You did not make the learner, nor can you make him different. Would you first make a miracle yourself, and then expect one to be made for you?
You merely ask the question. The answer is given. Seek not to answer, but merely to receive the answer as it is given. In preparing for the holy instant, do not attempt to make yourself holy to be ready to receive it. That is but to confuse your role with God's. Atonement cannot come to those who think that they must first atone, but only to those who offer it nothing more than simple willingness to make way for it. Purification is of God alone, and therefore for you. Rather than seek to prepare yourself for him, try to think thus:

I who am host to God am worthy of him. He who established His dwelling place in me created it as he would have it be. It is not needful that I make it ready for him, but only that I do not interfere with his plan to restore to me my own awareness of my readiness, which is eternal. I need add nothing to his plan.
But to receive it, I must be willing not to substitute my own in place of it.

And that is all. Add more, and you will merely take away the little that is asked. Remember you made guilt, and that your plan for the escape from guilt has been to bring Atonement to it, and make salvation fearful. And it is only fear that you will add, if you prepare yourself for love. The preparation for the holy instant belongs to him who gives it. Release yourself to him whose function is release. Do not assume his function for him. Give him but what he asks, that you may learn how little is your part, and how great is his.

It is this that makes the holy instant so easy and so natural. You make it difficult because you insist there must be more that you need do, and it is very hard for you to realize it is not personally insulting that your contribution and the Holy Spirit's are so extremely disproportionate. You are still convinced that your understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing. Salvation is easy just because it asks nothing you cannot give right now.

Forget not that it has been your decision to make everything that is natural and easy for you impossible. If you believe the holy instant is difficult for you, it is because you have become the arbiter of what is possible, and remain unwilling to give place to One Who knows. The whole belief in orders of difficulty in miracles is centered on this. Everything God wills is not only possible, but has already happened. And that is why the past has gone. It never happened in reality. Only in your mind, which thought it did, is its undoing needful.

[greybeard]

Teleios welcome to Avalon.

I went to the funeral of my best friends wife yesterday.
It was uplifting but traditional Christian (Im not of any religion)
As is usual there was the bit where Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins.
Well if that works for a person fine--certainly my friend and the congregation got a lot of support from the sermon.

Similarly people get a lot from ACIM.
I went to a study group for several years but I have always crosschecked with various other forms of spirituality to find what works for me-- which is the serenity prayer and being still, being quiet, at least once a day. (meditation)

All teaching including ACIM is open to misinterpretation, miss understanding
---such is life.

Best wishes
Chris

[Teleios_wonder]

Thanks, Chris. Nice to be here! I am not sure if the MKultra/ACIM connection is true. I loved the workbook and text while I was studying it.
It gave me great comfort and I was amazed at the depth and breadth of the material in terms of understanding my suffering and myself.
Years later, my personal issue with it is the savior complex/idea. That doesn't sit right with me anymore.
But like you said, to each his/her own. Whatever works and harms no one.

P.S. is your signature quote by David R. Hawkins? It rings a bell.

[greybeard]

Teleios
you are astute.
Yes its a Dr Hawkins quote--I learned a lot from his books--also went to the USA to his "Living the dream" Seminar.
He was an advocate of ACIM as you probably know.
What you truly are has no need to be saved.
You are That.
In the illusion it appears that there is a need to be helped and help others--and that's ok

Best wishes
Chris

[Teleios_wonder]

Ha! I knew it
I was at his "Peace" lecture in 2009 and his last lecture in 2011.
Very lucky; I consider him one of my greatest teachers.

One of my favorite sayings (of his): 'Yours is the saddest story I ever heard!'

Hehe

Some people don't get him. But I loved his humor and his way of teaching really resonated and I loved how he would say something like, "If you're scared, be MORE scared" i.e. step on the gas and run it out,
and how perception is worse than we think That really reassures me.

He was the one who introduced me to ACIM. He said it could cure any disease. Cured his eyesight and he had no reaction to poison ivy!

[greybeard]

TW the thread I started April 2010
Was initially based on the work of the late Dr David Hawkins

Chris

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...ull=1#post7764

[Teleios_wonder]

364 pages!! It's like the world equivalent of a Netflix binge for me!

[greybeard]

Posted by Teleios_wonder (here)
364 pages!! It's like the world equivalent of a Netflix binge for me!

Pick a page any page. smiling
It shows an evolution of "my" understanding.
It just happened--certainly not my intention to keep it going this length of time.

Chris

[Ernie Nemeth]

It's so nice to see this thread revived. And it is nice to see new faces here. Especially nice to see you here, Chris. We haven't engaged much of late.

Hawkins is cool. Not my cuppa, but I respect his approach.

To me this lesson has got to be the most damnable hard thing to understand, unless I use ACIM rhetoric, of course. But I have learned my lesson in the other thread - nobody believes a person can come from two completely different places depending on circumstance and the best use of Will. They can, but no biggie. HS is always there, and does come through loud and clear, to some at least. That in itself is a miracle, I suppose...

To have, give all to all. Imagine. There cannot be a statement more fully reversing the universally accepted rules of exchange. To 'have' means what here? It cannot mean anything 'tangible' because to give of a finite sum means you have less.

What could 'give all to all' mean, too? To give anything the world values means you will have less. But to give all? You would have to be dead. For the most valuable thing in this world is life itself. Why must I give all to all in order to have? And have what?

The goal of the Course that's what. And what is the goal of the course? To brainwash you? To fill your head full of lies. To give you a savior's complex? To kill your ego and drive yourself insane doing it? To walk around spouting rhetoric? To perform miracles? To learn to love truly? To become the next guru? Nope. None of these, although you might feel inclined from time to time to display the more sensationalist side of your truth, to the marvel of the crowd. But no, that's just to hasten the inevitable and to save time.

No. The goal of the course is to set your mind at ease. The goal of the course is for the individual. The earnest seeker.

The goal of the course is Peace.

I've a ways to go yet.

How about you?

[greybeard]

Ernie that is a splendid post.
Its good to be on the same page with you.
We have to die to our Self to be born again--thats not literal. (Ego must go)
Also God is a jealous God--not true but Truth has to come first.
Through giving we receive.
Seek ye first the Kingdom and all things will be added unto you.
Wear the world like a loose garment.

There are many pointers through the words of Jesus and through ACIM

You have had many difficult times Ernie and you have come through--all respect for you.

Much love
Chris

[Rich]

Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
To have, give all to all. Imagine. There cannot be a statement more fully reversing the universally accepted rules of exchange.

There is an excellent explanation in ACIM on why giving is receiving:

If you share a physical possession, you do divide its ownership.
If you share an idea, however, you do not lessen it. All of it is still yours although all of it has been given away.
Further, if the one to whom you give it accepts it as his, he reinforces it in your mind and thus increases it.
If you can accept the concept that the world is one of ideas,
the whole belief in the false association the ego makes between giving and losing is gone.
Let us start our process of reawakening with just a few simple concepts:

Thoughts increase by being given away.
The more who believe in them the stronger they become.
Everything is an idea.
How, then, can giving and losing be associated?

[Ernie Nemeth]

Thanks Rich. That is a nice quote from the book.

Every day we go to work, get caught in traffic jams, and worry about finances, health, relationships, retirement, etc, etc, - we cement over the last vestiges of our true reality. This world is anchored to our fundamental ideas of reality and there is no erasing it from our minds.

Yet if we cannot erase it we are doomed to continue re-enforcing it. It is a vicious circle.

The only way out is through. But the path is dark and the pitfalls many. We can only speculate about the direction to follow and stumble towards it in fits and starts...

That is why the book contends that one of the first lessons in the attainment of peace is: in order to have, give all to all.

What do I have that I can give, though? I don't know anything for certain, my worldly possessions are few, my talents can only serve so many, and my life I can only give once.

But I can give all my attention to the bigger picture: to the real, the now, the voice from above, the higher self.

You cannot serve two masters. You cannot pick and choose which bits of this reality you will keep and which parts of your true reality you will drop - a mixture of the two more to your liking. It is this world or the real world.

Every moment is another choice.

[Rich]

We have to see our self as the mind and not the body, the body is limitation/separation.
The mind can give and receive everything.

Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
I have said that the Holy Spirit is the motivation for miracles. He always tells you that only the mind is real, because only the mind can be shared. The body is separate, and therefore cannot be a part of you. To be of one mind is meaningful, but to be one body is meaningless. By the laws of mind, then, the body is meaningless.

[petra]

Posted by Teleios_wonder (here)
I loved this book, and did the lessons twice over for 2 years! I have since discovered it may have been an implant by MKultra; for mind control.
Which makes sense because the first half of the lessons break down your beliefs and ego, and the second half work on re-building it with ACIM beliefs (called Truth, Reality).
Any book which claims to be The Truth is suspicious to me now. I am far less gullible.

I laughed at the last statement, because the book that's getting on my nerves the most has actually got the word Truth in it's title! Could it BE any more suspicious?!?
The "Truth Book" came with a warning about needing to read the chapters IN ORDER, which in hindsight could have been an attempt at conditioning.
A lot of our understanding is based on our perspective at the time. For example Lalaji mentioned they didn't understand ACIM until after they had read The Disappearance of the Universe.