It Is All Unfolding Perfectly

This mind used to hear others says that “it is all unfolding perfectly” and couldn’t understand their point of view. It understood “the script is written” as “the outcome is inevitable” and yet it still didn’t have the full picture. But it does now.

Truth (or God, if you prefer) is Formless Being extending without limit. Being All, Truth must have within It the idea of Its Own opposite. But, being All, Truth cannot have an opposite. The opposite-of-Truth can only ever be an idea, and it is an idea that is undone by Truth’s All-encompassing nature the instant that it is thought. It is as though Truth said, “What is my opposite? Oh, yeah, I cannot have an opposite.” Poof! It was undone.

(In A Course in Miracles the part of the Mind of God where this idea is supposed to have occurred is called the “Son of God”).

Since Truth is formless, infinite, eternal, and one, or the same, throughout, the idea of the opposite-of-Truth, or not-Truth, is time-bound, limited, diverse forms. So within the idea of not-Truth, or the story of time and space, it seems as though the-opposite-of-Truth began long ago and will be undone in some indefinite future. What you see as the unfolding story of the universe of form is that instant of not-Truth/the undoing of not-Truth playing out in time. (In ACIM all of this is playing out in the mind of the Son of God). Though it was meant to be not-Truth since it was undone instantly it is really the story of the undoing of not-Truth. In the story that undoing shows up as figures in the story becoming aware of Truth and seeing that it is just a story.

So a life in the world is not a cause. It is not heading toward some future goal of heaven or hell or purgatory or Truth. It is an effect, an expression of the undoing of the idea of not-Truth. Each individual life in the world does not have a purpose in the sense that it will make something happen. It has a purpose in the sense that it is a playing out of an idea. It is an effect of a long-ago cause. At the level of form where it seems to play out, it seems to be the effect of multiple causes at the level of form. But all of those causes were caused long ago.

Because the “script is written”, or the outcome is inevitable and not-Truth will be undone, since it is already over, the story is unfolding perfectly. And everyone is playing their part perfectly. They cannot do otherwise. If someone becomes aware of Truth then that is their role. However far they take that awareness, that is their role. If someone does not become aware of Truth then that is their role. None of it has any effect on Truth. It is all a meaningless playing out of a meaningless idea.

Within the story you cannot see the larger picture. You cannot see how it is all unfolding perfectly toward an inevitable ending where it is undone. You are distracted along the way by so much that seems to go so wrong. But think of it like a movie. If you don’t know the ending then you agonize over every trial that the protagonist goes through. But if you know ahead of time that the movie has a happy ending then you do not suffer over the protagonist’s every trial. You relax, watching with curiosity how the happy ending will unfold.

The “protagonist” in this unfolding story is the one split-mind (“Son of God”). It is this mind which is headed toward a happy ending. But an individual story within that “protagonists” greater story may not be happy. However, an individual mind will find happiness and purpose in understanding, if that is its role (and it is yours since you are reading this), that it is part of the Great Undoing (Atonement). A mind aware of Truth is happy no matter how the self’s life unfolds. It knows that only the Truth is true and simply watches the unfolding without judgment.

Within the story you feel autonomous. You feel as if your decisions and choices and lessons are unique and apart from everyone and everything else. But really they are all part of an interconnected whole. Whatever you feel moved to do or to not do is your role. The unfolding story of the universe of form lives through you, though you do not experience it that way. You can learn to live in the flow of the universe by quieting your mind and following your intuition. You can know that you cannot make a wrong choice or wrong move. Whatever you choose or do is part of the unfolding.

The ego (personal thought system) obsesses on the minutiae of everyday life. Every little thought, mood, feeling, decision, etc. is significant to it. But the Holy Spirit takes in the larger, longer view and sees the whole unfolding. That is why in ACIM it says to not judge, not because it is wrong to judge, but because you cannot see the whole picture. Only if you could, could you judge correctly. And that judgment would be that it is all unfolding perfectly.

To summarize: The idea of not-Truth manifests as a universe of form that is the opposite of Truth in every way. In time this idea took form long ago. Simultaneous with this thought was its undoing. So the unfolding of time is the story of the undoing of the idea of not-Truth. Everyone has a part to play in this undoing even if they cannot see it and their part does not look like it is a part of a happy ending. There is relief in coming to a conscious awareness of this. There is relief in not judging it and simply watching it unfold.

How would you approach the self’s life in the world differently if you knew that it is an effect rather than a cause? If you really knew, and had not just read, that the outcome is inevitable and that your role, and everyone’s, no matter what it is, is an integral part of that outcome? This mind is not sure it is possible to know this until you can really see it. It couldn’t see it before even though it had read these ideas. It didn’t wholly understand them. And it couldn’t see it until it had undone its belief in guilt. Guilt is what made all the minutiae so real and hard to overcome. Guilt is what kept this mind so involved with the self and its story. There is no place for guilt when the outcome is inevitable and where the self is known to be an effect and not a cause.

The irony is that this mind came to see all this clearly only as it saw that it is blissfully meaningless because an idea that is undone has no meaning. Perhaps it couldn’t see it clearly until it could see that it is meaningless.

(This article is likely to spark some questions. Please hold off as next week I will write more on this topic. Here are links to other articles I wrote last year that touch on this topic and that may answer some questions:

http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2015/03/in-flow-of-universe.html

http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2015/04/one-story.html

http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-present-and-process.html

http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2015/08/ask-any-insights-on-accepting-not.html)

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Learn about the books The ACIM Mentor Articles, The Plain Language A Course in Miracles, 4 Habits for Inner Peace, and Releasing Guilt for Inner Peace at www.acimmentor.com.