ACIM Dissolves Rather Than Absolves Guilt
Despite its use of Christian symbols there are many ideas in
A Course in Miracles that are
radically different from Christianity. In fact, they undo what is traditionally
taught in Christianity. It is important for students of ACIM to not only
recognize this but to meditate on these differences. Doing so clarifies ACIM
and how learning what it teaches can set you free.
The betrayal of the
Son of God lies only in illusions, and all his "sins" are but his own
imagining. His reality is forever sinless. He need not be forgiven but
awakened. (T-17.I.1)
A major tenet in the
ego's insane religion is that sin is not error but truth, and it is innocence
that would deceive. Purity is seen as arrogance, and the acceptance of the self
as sinful is perceived as holiness. And it is this doctrine that replaces the
reality of the Son of God as his Father created him, and willed that he be
forever. (T-19.II.4)
In a nutshell, the fundamental and radical difference
between A Course in Miracles and
Christianity is in their approaches to guilt. Christianity presents a path to
absolution from guilt. It validates guilt (sin) as real and then presents you
with a way to escape from consequences for it through its god’s grace. ACIM
teaches that guilt is not real. It is never justified no matter how much you
feel that it is. It presents the way to dissolve your belief in guilt.
The path of absolution does not free you from guilt, only
from punishment for it. The sin occurred but you are just not going to pay for
it. So absolution increases your guilt because, in your guilt, you feel unworthy
of absolution. Bow down and kiss your god’s feet because you who are unworthy
have been granted undeserved freedom! How beholden you now should be to that
merciful god! (Who, by the way, you feel can turn on you at any moment because,
after all, you really are guilty and do deserve to be punished).
The path of dissolving guilt releases you not from actual
guilt but from your belief that guilt is real. This is what is meant by “He
need not be forgiven but awakened” in the quote at the top. You do not need to
perfect or to seek absolution for the self but rather become aware of (awaken
to) your Perfection in Truth.
To sin would be to
violate reality, and to succeed. (T-19.II.2)
The Son of God can be
mistaken; he can deceive himself; he can even turn the power of his mind
against himself. But he cannot sin. There is nothing he can do that
would really change his reality in any way, nor make him really guilty.
(T-19.II.3)
This difference between Christianity and ACIM is not small!
They are fundamentally opposed. What Christianity says is a real, therefore
uncorrectable, sin, ACIM says is a mistaken perception that can be corrected
for your peace of mind. Absolution does not offer freedom or peace. But the
awareness that there is no guilt but only a belief
in guilt that can be undone offers true and lasting freedom and peace.
>>>>>
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.
Comments
ive been looking at this for a couple of weeks now, and im starting to experience a lot of pain in my shoulders.
background experience.. in childhood my dad had a lot of affairs, he once had sex with a lady in front of me, (when i was about 9) i tried to make him stop by hitting him on the back but he just shouted at me. it was a full on thing for me to do as i was scared of him. ive been really looking at so many aspects here.. societal conventions on relationships, desperately seeking for wholeness in sex, plus seeing that dad was never actually 'messing' me up, but in this fullness of time has actually offered me an opportunity for awakening, a gift. i have also been focusing on the non reality of the guilt i feel and project, and noticing how i still believe in right and wrong choices. selfish and considerate.. helpful and unhelpful!?
(i had a 'vision' the other day of how good and bad are like.. flip sides of the same coin/idea, and how when you bring them together (i saw it like heading toward the centre of a horizontal axis, toward and up the vertical axis), the.. ideas of them get smaller and smaller the closer you get to truth, and also less outside yourself, less 'revolting on the one hand, and less unattainable on the other hand) til they disappear altogether. and how the same.. um, model? applies to every aspect of duality ideas).
so.. recently a man came back into my life who i had strong feelings for years ago. he has married, and moved back to albany to start his own business, while his wife has stayed in a town hours away doing her thing there.. they alternate visiting each other on weekends and that seems to work for them. i still react to him as strongly as ever, and for a while at any rate he is in my sphere of life. i feel the attraction is mutual, and if he were single we would explore that. im pretty sure he feels guilty for the attraction, though hes not acting upon it, and i know i do, but only because while im in no position to act on these feelings, i am quite aware that if i were, i am simply not sure if i would act according to my moral beliefs, in the way i think is right, respectful and loving to all concerned, or if i would follow my own other wishes. the only reason its such an issue for me is that i very rarely feel anything like this, i havent felt like this about anyone since i saw him last seven years ago or so.
can you shed some light to help me move through this?
It is at first freeing and then baffling how, in reviewing some past "sins" - most of them go away easily, but some persist until I ask for Strength to overcome the continued "practice" of that "sin" - and here the word "temptation" pops up. In line with your writings Liz, I now feel the Strength, as a son of God, to (most of the time) overcome the temptation to "sin" again. I now say "no" to something I couldn't say "no" to, when I thought of myself as a sinner, or a compulsive overeater, or a "whatever type of sinner I may think of myself."
Nancy Reagan just passed away. I remember thinking how "absurd" was her solution to everything: "Just say No". We used to laugh about that in 12th step groups. How simple she made it sound compared to how impossible a thing we then thought it was to do.
ACIM is an alternative workable way to understand and use Truth to be free of what we thought was sinful.
The ego will always tell you that you are guilty. In other words, guilt will not go away until the ego goes away. You will stop believing in guilt, however, when you stop believing that there is a power outside of you and over you (a god) sitting in judgment on you. So if you want to undo your belief in guilt you need to focus on undoing your belief in a judgmental god. This is what RGIP is about.
I find peace in Lesson 185, and then Lesson 47. Thank you for your gift of sharing.
It does not matter if you do not do the moral thing. There is no absolute-morality. There is no god that decrees an absolute morality. Forgiveness would be recognizing this. If you were in a forgiving place in your mind you would not care about whether or not the self acted morally, except in a personal, social-moral way. And then the choice would be easy because you would not want the personal consequences: "Oh, yeah, if I do that I won't feel good about myself. And then I'll have to make amends to others. Okay, I won't do it." In fact, it's guilt that drives one to act in a social-immoral way. All that's in the book.
Let yourself off the hook. You'll never be perfect as a person. But you are eternally perfect in Truth. It's amazing how moral the self is when you stop worrying about it being moral!
(Fast forward) This girl grows up and in her thirties, the man of her dreams walks into her life and she remembers even saying to him, “it's like I knew you in another lifetime”. An affair ensues. Now the social/moral guilt comes in, in a big way. The judgment was huge so huge it was unbearable that this woman ended the affair or she thought. The burden of guilt that was lifted was short lived as this man shows up at her door proclaiming he left his wife and children for her and then for 8 long “resentful” years, he keeps her waiting until his wife was ready to grant him a divorce. They eventually marry and shortly after he dies (her punishment).
Now alone and abandoned, she suffers and in her suffering she asks for a better way. In a holy instant, she is guided to the bookshelf that held ACIM that her spiritual mentor (who also died a year before her husband) gifted her 18 years prior. Now the real work begins, undoing the belief in guilt. First the forgiveness work of looking at the social/moral guilt and then the deeper unconscious intrinsic guilt. What arrived at the perfect time since she was ready for it, was Liz Cronkite's book, RGIP.
Also within this story, she was blessed with miracles that strengthened her belief in Truth and what naturally unfolded was a desire to meditate and with much guilt released she began to experience the Awareness of Truth. My story, Deb
Grow your awareness of Truth and all else will follow.
thank you. nicci
...but the "effects" of your thoughts about your Aunt Mary are not limited to you as a personal self; they "affect" your entire mind where you perceive a world as well as what you think of as 'you.'
Could you explain the effects and affects part?