"Creation"

Everything God created is like Him. (T-2.I.2)

The law of creation is that you love your creations as yourself, because they are part of you. (T-10.I.1)

Creation and communication are synonymous. God created every mind by communicating His Mind to it, thus establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of His Mind and Will. (T-4.VII.3)

What else but you did the Creator create, and what else but you is His Kingdom? (T-4.III.1)

In common usage “to create” means “to make” or “to bring into being”. In the world’s theologies, “creation” is the physical universe, including bodies and egos. As the Course uses the term, “to create” is to extend yourself to or to know as One with yourself. And “creation” is everything in God’s Mind – you, as God’s Extension.

The Course also tells us that, being like God, we too are creators. But we have distorted that ability with projection:

Because of your likeness to your Creator you are creative. No child of God can lose this ability because it is inherent in what he is, but he can use it inappropriately by projecting:


The inappropriate use of extension, or projection, occurs when you believe that some emptiness or lack exists in you, and that you can fill it with your own ideas instead of truth. (T-2.I.1)

The physical universe is not our creation either. It is a projection we made to fill the void left by our rejecting God. When we rejected God, we rejected out true creation, too. Our creation is to us what we are to God – an extension of our True Mind. So, in essence, as an extension of God our Mind extends Itself – God. Can you see how the Course uses a concept we made – creation - to bring us back again and again to God as the only Truth? God extends God extends God extends God extends God…into infinity. That is creation.


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Comments

jandvig said…
Hi Liz:
I get stuck on language a lot, even though I know the words themselves are meaningless. But I'm so glad you posted this piece on Creation, because it's one of those words that always confuses me in the Course.
If God is One, we are an extension of God's (His creation) and we also extend God by knowing our oneness - if it's all One creation, why does the Course use the plural version: creations?

Creation(s) are really One creation right?

In gratitude for your constant Source of Light,
Janet
ACIM Mentor said…
Janet, the Course straddles your perception of separation and the Truth of Oneness, so it speaks in the plural from your point of view, but its deeper message is that there is only One Mind.
It's the same with using our language, like Creator and Creation. In God, Where all is One, there are none of these delineations.
David Richer said…
Liz,

Thank you for writing your thoughts. I look forward to your blogs with relish and joyful anticipation.

I know that creation is a big part of ACIM, and I have often wondered what creation really means.

I understand logically that creation is extending oneself or to know oneself. And I understand logically that God created me (His Son), I didn't create God. But it's difficult for me to understand these terms in non-dualistic terms.

When I think of God creating me, my ego mind thinks of this as God creating something separate. The course says that the difference between me and God is that God created me, I did not create God. I have difficulty thinking of this with only unity and not levels.

I equate creation with love, but my ego mind wonders what "other" there is to love. If God is all there is and I am part of God, what am I extending into? If God is perfect and whole, doesn't extending add to Him? If it does, then does this not make Him not whole?

Perhaps it's a limitation of my finite, time-limited ego mind in the same way that I can't fathom infinity. My ego mind wants to add 1 to infinity and get infinity + 1.

lol. Usually when I think of logical puzzles like this, I like to remember my goal of peace and recognize that God is perfect Love and that there is nothing to be afraid of. It helps.

With inspiration,

David
ACIM Mentor said…
David, what the Course does with the familiar philosophical, religious, and everyday terms (symbols) of duality that we made is redefine them in a way that moves us away from duality and toward an awareness of Oneness. 'Creation' is the clearest example of this. 'To create' means 'to extend', rather than 'to bring into being'. 'Creation' is God extending God Infinitely. In other words, in God there is only God (Oneness). The Course says specifically that 'to extend' here does not add to God, Which is already Complete. 'God extends God' simply means that God is everywhere. Like the ocean extending to the horizon, all there is in the extension of the ocean is the ocean.
When it says that God 'created' you but you didn't 'create' God the Course is speaking to you from your perspective of duality. It simply means God is, and there is nothing else.
Love is Oneness. In God, Love is a noun, not a verb, so there is no 'other' to love.
When you don't understand something in the Course, David, just ask the Holy Spirit, then let go. You will always be answered. This is how I learned to understand the Course.
David Richer said…
Thank you for sharing your understanding as well as your process. I feel blessed you have you in my life.
carrie genevachild said…
Creation and communication are synonymous. God created every mind by communicating His Mind to it, thus establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of His Mind and Will. (T-4.VII.3)

My mind is forever a channel for the reception of the Mind and Will of God. I love it!

"The physical universe is not our creation either. It is a projection we made to fill the void left by our rejecting God."

Yes.
Since creation and communication is synonymous and communication is not just verbally spoken words, I can communicate my projections or my extensions and create an existence based on those thoughts. Wow that's so powerful that should propel me to think only with the Holy Spirit!
hannah said…
wonderful timing as usual, many thanks again liz.

i understand more now what i was hearing that i shared in your most recent blog, where i shared "i just woke from a dream where i was worrying about someone, and i heard liz' voice telling me that this form of 'care' for the person was simply a reflection of self absorption". and i understand more clearly now.. thats what projection is, the seeing outward of an inward picture of lack. and the last question on that blog, has been answered after reading this blog too, as lows and highs are just.. lack unfulfilled and lack fulfilled. or rather, the belief in those states.. both just part of the parcel of belief in individual selves. (nothing to mourn in letting go of the highs after all, though i still feel glad that i dont have to try and stop enjoying the highs of discovery.. im glad to have read your words so many times that these errors of attachment and perception fall away naturally. it loosens the guilt i usually feel after realising that something i enjoy is part of keeping the ego identity strong, so thank you very much indeed!)

i can hear ken saying 'metaphysics schmetaphysics.. dont use this as avoidance for doing the work in the dream, where you still think you are, even if youre starting to understand that youre not really real or here.'


even though ive had this experience of growing understanding, i still feel guilty and responsible for how my family feel, i still feel i fail them and myself when unless i try and do what they want, to make them feel better. i WANT to reject their company if they are in deep pain, not see them until ive healed myself and no longer project guilt or lack at all.

hmm. just seeing how highs and lows go together.. i was imagining letting go of one, then the other.. but theyre not such different things to let go of after all, are they!? ok. this is weird. its lessening my fear of this detachment process, i guess my trust is growing, while at the same time i feel really quite frightened.
hannah said…
im wondering about this..

"The physical universe is not our creation either. It is a projection we made to fill the void left by our rejecting God."

i understand that we made the world to try and put the guilt from rejecting god outside of us, to establish 'ourselves' as innocent victims of forces that we have no control over.. and to keep us distracted and mindless, so we can keep choosing the 'selves' we feel guilty for wanting. but having said that, ive been becoming more aware of a feeling of deep emptiness, as i move toward loosening my attachment to self. is this what youre speaking of here? another layer to why we 'made the world'?
ACIM Mentor said…
Hannah, the experience of Truth is abundant nothingness. There are no forms (material form, thoughts, feelings) but there is an awareness of wholeness. So if you feel empty you are still experiencing the ego.

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