Ask: Is a matter-of-fact experience akin to what ACIM calls "Innocence"?
“I live - by
choice - in a very quiet rural area. Every summer the house next to mine is
used by a family of brothers from New York City… I can always tell when the
youngest brother is around by the level of noise coming from the house -
yelling, non-stop talking, and extremely loud music… For four summers now I
have experienced an intense emotional charge in reaction to this "barbarian"
intrusion…I have essentially demonized these people in my mind, making them
bad, wrong etc. My anger knows no bounds when I think about them. Whenever I
think about talking to them about the situation however, I dissuade myself… The
other day their music was so loud and lasted so long (hours) that I suddenly
found myself transported to what I can only describe as The Land of
Matter-of-Fact. All anger and fear vanished along with any sense of
self-righteous importance…So when I arrived home one afternoon and the music
was blasting, I simply parked in front of their house and with my new-found
Bearable Lightness of Being, dove in. I found the young man in charge in the
midst of his cohorts drinking beer and grilling barbeque and simply stated the
facts: "I'm your neighbor next door and I need a favor. Your music is so
loud I can hear it in my house even with all my doors and windows closed. I
can't sit outside with friends and family on my porch. Could you tone it
down?" I could see that even through a mild fog of intoxication, he was
getting it. "Too loud? No problem." Since then things have been much
quieter.
Do you think
Liz, that when one can flatten the effect of a situation and experience it in a
matter-of-fact way it is akin to what the Course calls Innocence?” – ES
What you experienced was the miracle of
guilt dropping away from your mind so that you looked on a situation without an
emotional charge. This led to your matter-of-fact experience and presentation,
which in turn resulted in the young man that you spoke to being open to you
without feeling defensive. This is a great example of how a shift in your
perception – a miracle – can have results in your interaction with others. If
you had gone in angry it is very likely that the young man would have gotten
defensive and angry himself. Then you two would have been in a vicious cycle of
anger-attack-defense.
In my experience coming from a place of
no-guilt is different from the perception of Innocence. Both are miracles, but
the perception of Innocence is what I would call a “higher” miracle. No-guilt
is a shift in perception away from not-Truth and toward Truth. It leads to what
you described, a charge-neutral (matter-of-fact) experience. This is a more
“common” miracle and one toward which you can work by undoing the guilt in your
mind.
The perception of Innocence is an
extension of the awareness of Truth in your perception. This is impossible to
describe, but the best I can say is that the body’s eyes see the same forms but
they are washed in Innocence. This type of “higher” miracle is often
accompanied by an uplifting joy. It is a radically different perception that happens
spontaneously when you are, often unconsciously, ready to accept it.
>>>>>
Learn about one-on-one mentoring, how to send a donation for this blog, and 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
Didn't happen instantaneously - had to dig deep.
Out of curiosity, when I was reading lesson 46, P.2 in your book Practicing a Course in Miracles, it is talking about forgiveness undoes what you made with fear, returning your mind to an awareness of God. If you stop your spiritual practice do you retain this awareness or does it fade over time?
I have spiritual lethargy. It has been going on for some time. There is little in my personal mind that I am not tired of. But it is not enough to want atonement is it? When I see Evangelical’s or Fundamentalist’s with their arms raised saying praise Jesus they appear to have made the transition. I won’t say it is ego because I don’t know what is going on with them. Is it this level (not type) of commitment that the course talks about when it says you need to change how you see things for atonement to happen?
One, you cannot make the changes yourself, they have to come from the Holy Spirit
Two, you cannot experience the changes unless you yourself bring them about : meditation, the “effort to remember truth,” as well as a whole host of ‘requirements’ in both the text and lessons. Sometimes when I think about the course literature that’s about all it is, You Have to do This and This and This. If you don’t, then it “will fade from your awareness.”
I am experiencing lethargy.
Remember, even if Truth is not in your conscious awareness It is still here. It goes on within you whether you are consciously aware of It or not. You can take comfort in that.
Maybe it's the willingness to not have lethargy