Conscience Revisited

Then learn that God has given you the means by which you can return to Him in peace. Do not see error. Do not make it real. Select the loving and forgive the sin by choosing in its place the face of Christ. (S-2.I.3)

Whenever I write something about morality students become full of questions. My last blog was about conscience being another word for ego. “Does that mean I can do anything, even if it hurts others?” students have asked.

Nothing you do in this world changes God. You cannot change the Truth in you, you cannot change God’s Eternal, Perfect Love for you. So the question really is, why would you do something that hurts others? You would do it because you feel separated from God and you think that by attacking another you would somehow bring yourself relief from your feelings of lack, fear, emptiness and unhappiness. And, of course, you would actually end up perpetuating them.

What is the role of conscience here? Does it heal your sense of lack and unhappiness? Does it eliminate the guilt that is manifested in feelings of emptiness and fear? No. It only brings your guilt to conscious awareness. And in your fear of punishment, you are likely to act erroneously again to try to appease it. A guilty conscience results in a merry-go-round of separation-guilt-fear-separation-guilt-fear-separation-guilt-fear.

Your conscience may lead you to make amends for your actions, but does that heal your sense of separation from God? Has your guilt ever been undone by making amends? Of course not, because you cannot undo what you believe was truly done. This is why the world’s version of forgiveness (forgiveness-to-destroy) actually makes more guilt rather than lets it go. It validates that separation from God is real. True forgiveness recognizes only the Truth in you is true and that your actions in this world are actions in a dream and have no real effects. Guilt does not heal; forgiveness heals your sense of separation from God because it recognizes you are not separate from God.

www.acimmentor.com

Comments

hannah said…
thank you
8:15 PM
Erich said…
I remember reading something about conscience, being distinctive in type. The first type is what seems to connote guilt - an authoritarian type of conscience or internalized authority. The second type is be involved with empathy - a humanistic conscience - where you put yourself in other's position as a ethical compass. I prefer the term ethics rather than morality - which seems to be concerned with the judgment ethics is not. Something that's not clear to me is how micro-managed is the HS upon my every conscious breath - whether my subconscious awareness is doing the breathing for me - type of thing. I find it exhaustive to be hyper self-conscious about the minutest detail of decisions - if that makes any sense!
1:20 AM
ACIM Mentor said…
Erich, the HS is always with you, but not micro-managing you. You certainly do not have to be hyper conscious of It in your every decision. If you center yourself in the HS every day and turn to It when you remember, you can trust It is with you in your important decisions.
7:54 AM
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