ACIM contemplations

[CoolDreamThanks]

One of the main sources of upsets in the human experience is not getting what we desire. Jesus says everything here has disappointed you since time began. This world is the opposite of Heaven. If you are perfectly taken care of forever in Heaven, then there's a lack everywhere on earth, and you will never get what you desire.

That has to be accepted. Losing all hope was freedom - Fight Club.

He does say that if you choose to awaken as your sole purpose, your needs will be taken care of without your effort. The keyword is needs; he says nothing about desires. So you will have a roof over your head and food. He doesn't promise anything else. We accept that this world is a place where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. We are grateful that our needs are cared for with little effort and focus on forgiveness to awaken from the dream. 

[CoolDreamThanks]

Exactly as Keith says: you try, you manifest, you work hard at your career, you try to find a relationship, all just to fail miserably.
 

 “But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There is no choice in its alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that problems could not be escaped.” 
 

The only way out is through Silence, which leads out of this world back Home. There will never be happiness on earth. We are not creatures of time. Time is stressfull for an eternal being. We accept the misery of the dream and choose to transcend it through forgiveness. 
 

There’s so much pain all throughout our lives that our tolerance for pain is high, but not without limit. We have to see clearly and feel deeply the pain this world causes us and use that as a motivation to leave it.

[CoolDreamThanks]

So we first understand the ego and the world that it has made, but only until we see the cost of choosing it and then saying I no longer want this. There’s a danger of getting enamered by the ego and digging deeper and deeper into it, which is not the goal. The goal is to choose peace instead of ego. Psychoanalysis tends to do this - it looks at the shadows, thus making them even more real. Now, when you are in the trap of the ego - miserable and in despair, how do you swim to the surface and begin to reach the end of the lake? If I look at the ego’s thoughts they remain, they do not dissapear. 

[CoolDreamThanks]

Okay, so full forgiveness is saying this is not okay to your egoic thoughts - either about others, yourself or your life situation. We always have the power to choose Peace instead of this. We have to control our negative, not observe them. Apostles in DU says that looking at your judgements is not the same as forgiving them. When Gary was asked why, after completing the forgiveness technique we still hear bad thoughts, he says that we didn’t do it right. If we do it right, then we remain in Peace. So we always remind ourselves that unkind thoughts are never okay, and we can always let them go and choose Peace now. We shouldn’t delay atonement, it’s always now. The mistake I made was observing my fear - it didn’t help. I have to stop it in it’s tracks and choose Peace instead of it.  
 

Now that feels healing and powerful. Knowing that I can always choose Peace and stay there is very healing and empowering. I should never tolerate mind wandering.

Edited Friday at 08:44 PM by CoolDreamThanks

[CoolDreamThanks]

Even sharing your problems is a wrong-minded decision. Jesus says that we are always free to choose Peace instead of fear. We might think that we have problems in the world, but that is not so, the problem is always our choice for the ego instead of Peace. Observing ego is still being with ego. True forgiveness is being with Peace alone. Thoughts can come up but they dissapear immediatelt when they don’t get fed our attention, which is what gives them strength.

Hakim said when people ask me: what do you think? He says he never wants to be in a position to answer. He never wants to rely on his own thinking. He knows all thinking is bullshit. He wants to get to The Answer. He wants to point people to the answer in their own minds. All other answers are nonsense. 

"Being afraid seems to be involuntary; something beyond your own control. (ACIM, T-2.VI.1:1)"

 

When you are fearful, you have chosen wrongly. ³That is why you feel responsible for it. ⁴You must change your mind, not your behavior, and this is a matter of willingness. ⁵You do not need guidance except at the mind level. ⁶Correction belongs only at the level where change is possible. ⁷Change does not mean anything at the symptom level, where it cannot work.

4. The correction of fear is your responsibility. ²When you ask for release from fear, you are implying that it is not. ³You should ask, instead, for help in the conditions that have brought the fear about. ⁴These conditions always entail a willingness to be separate. ⁵At that level you can help it. ⁶You are much too tolerant of mind wandering, and are passively condoning your mind’s miscreations. ⁷The particular result does not matter, but the fundamental error does. ⁸The correction is always the same. ⁹Before you choose to do anything, ask me if your choice is in accord with mine. ¹⁰If you are sure that it is, there will be no fear.

(ACIM, T-2.VI.3:2–4:10)

It is possible to reach a state in which you bring your mind under my guidance without conscious effort, but this implies a willingness that you have not developed as yet. ²The Holy Spirit cannot ask more than you are willing to do. ³The strength to do comes from your undivided decision. ⁴There is no strain in doing God’s Will as soon as you recognize that it is also your own. ⁵The lesson here is quite simple, but particularly apt to be overlooked. ⁶I will therefore repeat it, urging you to listen. ⁷Only your mind can produce fear. ⁸It does so whenever it is conflicted in what it wants, producing inevitable strain because wanting and doing are discordant. ⁹This can be corrected only by accepting a unified goal. (ACIM, T-2.VI.6:1-9)

Everyone experiences fear. ²Yet it would take very little right thinking to realize why fear occurs. ³Few appreciate the real power of the mind, and no one remains fully aware of it all the time. ⁴However, if you hope to spare yourself from fear there are some things you must realize, and realize fully. ⁵The mind is very powerful, and never loses its creative force. ⁶It never sleeps. ⁷Every instant it is creating. ⁸It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power surge that can literally move mountains. ⁹It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is arrogant, but that is not the real reason you do not believe it. ¹⁰You prefer to believe that your thoughts cannot exert real influence because you are actually afraid of them. ¹¹This may allay awareness of the guilt, but at the cost of perceiving the mind as impotent. ¹²If you believe that what you think is ineffectual you may cease to be afraid of it, but you are hardly likely to respect it. ¹³There are no idle thoughts. ¹⁴All thinking produces form at some level. (ACIM, T-2.VI.9:1-14) 

Uh oh, better control the mind. 

Edited Friday at 11:00 PM by CoolDreamThanks

[CoolDreamThanks]

Now that I am living from the queit center I notice how there is no thinker for 99% of thoughts - they are just nonsensical things popping up and passing away in my awareness. The trick is not to I give them my attention, so they rise and fall, rise and fall.  
 

The more conscious I am the less they appear, but if I am sleepy and I have’t been practicing stillness, then the light of awareness is not strong enough and thoughts are on a constant rampage. But if I go for a slow walk and remove drowsiness then there’s less of them.  
 

Although if I practice Presence alot then even slepiness isn’t able to reduce that bright awareness and there’s not many thoughts at all.  
 

When you begin to practice Presence it might seem impossible to silence this mind, but the stronger the Presence is, the less place there is for darkness to hide, and thoughts become less and less. 

[CoolDreamThanks]

Our attention is like saying to the universe - I want of this more. So judgement always comes back to us. If we focus on someone being selfish, then we show the universe - I want to see more selfishness in my life. If we think of others as bad people, that's what the universe will bring to us. And we can always choose Peace instead of our judgments. That's what forgiveness is, and we always forgive ourselves. It's also helpful to remember that you were probably like that person at some point as well, and you can remember that you did not have another choice - at that level of consciousness, that's all you are capable of. Not to mention that you projected them out - it's your dream. So they are innocent, but if you judge them, then you are guilty, because your mind knows it's only you. Guilt always requires punishment, so whenever you judge, you make yourself guilty, and then the mind sends you proof of it. It hurts you because guilt requires punishment. That's why Jesus says, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' Very important. Live in Peace and life will reflect that peace back to you. That's what Jesus is teaching again and again.