Why "One With" God?

A couple of weeks ago a student asked an important question: Why do I say “You are One with God” instead of “You are God”? Aren’t they the same thing? Yes, but there is a reason for making a distinction between these statements, just as there is a reason why A Course in Miracles makes a distinction between the “Son of God” and “God”, between "Christ/Holy Spirit" and "God", between “perception” and “Knowledge”, and between “miracle” and “revelation”. It is a distinction between the levels of your mind, which seems to be split between not-God, where you have the choice to experience God or not, and God, Where there is no choice because All is God.

Knowledge cannot change but perception can. God in God’s Totality is the level of Knowledge. This is the level of “You are God”. If you have a direct experience of God you have a “revelation”. In a revelation of God there is only God. The Son of God is the level of perception and here you have a choice between perceiving a reflection of God or the illusion that not-God is real. When your mind shifts towards God it is called a “miracle”. The highest your perception can rise to is a full awareness of God (Christ/Holy Spirit), which is just short of Knowledge of God. Because it is not God in God’s Totality this is the level of “You are One with God”.

There’s also a practical reason to use “You are One with God”, especially for a new student of the Course. When you are almost wholly identified with a personal self, the personal mind will misuse the statement “You are God”. It will find a way to use it to glorify itself and will deliberately misinterpret this statement to mean that the personal mind is what is God. This is always a risk for students who have not yet had enough experiences of their True Self in God to realize that It is a different experience from the personal self. “You are One with God” keeps you grounded in the awareness that there is a distinction between perceiving God and a total experience of God. It keeps the personal mind from grasping onto God for its own identification. In time, when you have shifted enough away from a personal identity, there is no distinction between “You are One with God” and “You are God” because then you are fully aware that the personal self and God are two completely different parts of your mind.


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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.

Comments

Mariah B said…
Love the post Liz. I was wondering, though: when the Course says that our Creations are waiting for us in Heaven, what does that mean? If we Create something, would that mean is separate from us?
~Mariah~
1:55 PM
ACIM Mentor said…
"Creation" in the Course means God's extension of God, WHich is you.Your "Creations" are your extensions of God. It's like saying the ocean extends itself to each drop of the ocean and each drop, being one with the ocean, extends the ocean. It's a way of saying in God there is only God. So "your Creations waiting for you in Heaven" means that your every experience of God is not lost to you; you will find them all again in Heaven.
2:55 PM
Anonymous said…
Could you give a specific example of what this would look like in a wordly situation?
8:45 AM
ACIM Mentor said…
Anonymous, I'm not certain what you are asking. An example of "one with God"? It's an inner awareness that result in inner Peace.
2:49 PM
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