Join us this Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022.
11:00 AM to Noon (Mountain Time)
Sunday Gathering: In person at the RMMC and via zoom.
Topic: Metaphysical Foundations of ACIM
ACIM references:
- Preface – What It Says (paragraphs 1-5)
- What Is the World? (ACIM, W-pII.3)
- Dream Roles (ACIM, T-29.IV) paragraphs 1-2 (details below)
- I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts. paragraph 3 (details below)(ACIM, W-23)
- The Vision of Sinlessness (ACIM, T-20.VIII) paragraphs 7-9 (details below)
“1. Do you believe that truth can be but some illusions? ²They are dreams because they are not true. ³Their equal lack of truth becomes the basis for the miracle, which means that you have understood that dreams are dreams; and that escape depends, not on the dream, but only on awaking. ⁴Could it be some dreams are kept, and others wakened from? ⁵The choice is not between which dreams to keep, but only if you want to live in dreams or to awaken from them. ⁶Thus it is the miracle does not select some dreams to leave untouched by its beneficence. ⁷You cannot dream some dreams and wake from some, for you are either sleeping or awake. ⁸And dreaming goes with only one of these.
2. The dreams you think you like would hold you back as much as those in which the fear is seen.²For every dream is but a dream of fear, no matter what the form it seems to take.³The fear is seen within, without, or both.⁴Or it can be disguised in pleasant form.⁵But never is it absent from the dream, for fear is the material of dreams, from which they all are made.⁶Their form can change, but they cannot be made of something else.⁷The miracle were treacherous indeed if it allowed you still to be afraid because you did not recognize the fear.⁸You would not then be willing to awake, for which the miracle prepares the way.” (ACIM, T-29.IV.1:1–2:8)
…
“3. The world you see is a vengeful world, and everything in it is a symbol of vengeance. ²Each of your perceptions of “external reality” is a pictorial representation of your own attack thoughts. ³One can well ask if this can be called seeing. ⁴Is not fantasy a better word for such a process, and hallucination a more appropriate term for the result?” (ACIM, W-23.3:1-4)
…
“7. Judgment is but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination.²But vision sets all things right, bringing them gently within the kindly sway of Heaven’s laws.³What if you recognized this world is an hallucination?⁴What if you really understood you made it up?⁵What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal?⁶Could you have faith in what you see, if you accepted this?⁷And would you see it?
8. Hallucinations disappear when they are recognized for what they are.²This is the healing and the remedy.³Believe them not and they are gone.⁴And all you need to do is recognize that you did this.⁵Once you accept this simple fact and take unto yourself the power you gave them, you are released from them.⁶One thing is sure; hallucinations serve a purpose, and when that purpose is no longer held they disappear.⁷Therefore, the question never is whether you want them, but always, do you want the purpose that they serve?⁸This world seems to hold out many purposes, each different and with different values.⁹Yet they are all the same.¹⁰Again there is no order; only a seeming hierarchy of values.
9. Only two purposes are possible.²And one is sin, the other holiness.³Nothing is in between, and which you choose determines what you see.⁴For what you see is merely how you elect to meet your goal.⁵Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness.⁶They are the means by which the outside world, projected from within, adjusts to sin and seems to witness to its reality.⁷It still is true that nothing is without.⁸Yet upon nothing are all projections made.⁹For it is the projection that gives the “nothing” all the meaning that it holds.”
Facilitated by Doug Sparks
Doug’s (archived) website: DougSparks.ACIMblog.com