The Journey Back
Dec 14, 2021
ACIM Chapter 8: The Journey Back - 1. The Direction of the Curriculum
T-8.I.1. Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. 2 Peace is. 3 This is the prerequisite for knowledge only because those who are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the condition of knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom. 4 Knowledge can be restored only when you meet its conditions. 5 This is not a bargain made by God, Who makes no bargains. 6 It is merely the result of your misuse of His laws on behalf of an imaginary will that is not His. 7 Knowledge is His Will. 8 If you are opposing His Will, how can you have knowledge? 9 I have told you what knowledge offers you, but perhaps you do not yet regard this as wholly desirable. 10 If you did you would not be so ready to throw it away when the ego asks for your allegiance.
Knowledge belongs to the truth of Perfect Love that is Home to the peace of God (the right mind of revelation). The ego will never know for it is not whole, it is part, thus it perceives. You cannot have knowledge without peace, for peace belongs to Perfect Love (where knowledge resides). The transfer of Perfect Love in the name of wholeness. You must be complete to have knowledge and completion is mutually exclusive from the ego thought system of separation and specialness. To oppose God’s will is to choose the ego over Him, for there are only two choices in every moment you can make. You are always choosing between God or the ego, even though it seems you have a myriad of choices ahead of you. How does the ego ask for your allegiance? It makes true the story of the separate self and judges and attacks. To find the peace of God is to locate the right mind hidden deep within the darkness of the subconscious that covers the wholeness of holiness that is Home to peace and thus knowledge.
And it is the gift of God, His FAITH and The Treasure Map that allow you to purify your perception from false to true, which thus leads to knowledge. Yes, you must learn to change your mind from the wrong to the right; which is what the miracle is about.
T-8.I.2. The distractions of the ego may seem to interfere with your learning, but the ego has no power to distract you unless you give it the power to do so. 2 The ego's voice is an hallucination. 3 You cannot expect it to say "I am not real." 4 Yet you are not asked to dispel your hallucinations alone. 5 You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results to you. 6 If you do not want them on the basis of loss of peace, they will be removed from your mind for you.
If you truly want to be at peace, which I highly recommend, you must be willing to give up your judgmental thoughts for they reinforce the belief in separation, which is the true cause of your loss of knowledge. Hidden deep within you is the truth you seek to know but you must move from the wrong mind of false perception and purify what you think to true. Separation is not real for you are being not body. It is this mind-correction from the wrong mind to the right that precedes knowledge.
You do not do the mind-correction alone. You do this with the gift God has granted, The Treasure Map, which is the Holy Spirit in form. The peace you seek does not belong to the ego-mind, so if your awareness is in the brain, you are still bound to the belief in separation. My awareness sits, at most times, in the lower gut area of the body, where the right mind is. It is to here The Treasure Map takes you, and where the peace of God that is found in Perfect Love resides.
T-8.I.3. Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war does deprive you of peace. 2 Yet in this war there is no opponent. 3 This is the reinterpretation of reality that you must make to secure peace, and the only one you need ever make. 4 Those whom you perceive as opponents are part of your peace, which you are giving up by attacking them. 5 How can you have what you give up? 6 You share to have, but you do not give it up yourself. 7 When you give up peace, you are excluding yourself from it. 8 This is a condition so alien to the Kingdom that you cannot understand the state that prevails within it.
There are no opponents as there is only You here. As the world of form projects from the sleeping Mind of the Son of God (the split-mind). To attack another is to make real the belief in ego (the idea of separation from Source) which cuts you off from your truth of being Perfect Love and thus you let go of the peace of God. To reinterpret reality is to switch thinking from the wrong mind to the right, as it takes you from the belief in separation to the truth of sameness within, Perfect Love. I truly healed and found the peace of God for no matter what happened, how dark or dirty the lesson in time was, I truly forgave it, not with the ego but with the FAITH of God. By withdrawing the shadow of suffering within until the entire ray of darkness dissolved and the great rays of golden love extended outward.
To share to have refers to the sharing of the right mind of wholeness and holiness. For this is the mind that we all share in the name of sameness (being). The more you reclaim the right mind the more you will have, for having and being cannot be parted. So, you want to be more (right-minded) and it is this that allows you to have more.
In summary, to have belongs to what you are being. So when you give up your attack thoughts you let go of the separate self to find the true Self that is so whole fear cannot enter. In this truth of wholeness you extend love outward and you will have the happy and kind dream that is overflowing with goodness and grace on the level of form. You must give up fear to find the truth of love within with the Holy Spirit, which is The Treasure Map. It is how you truly forgive. By giving up the ego attraction with your forgiving within, you will remember the truth of your being Perfect Love and you will have everything, for there could be no lack in the Kingdom of God.
T-8.I.4. Your past learning must have taught you the wrong things, simply because it has not made you happy. 2 On this basis alone its value should be questioned. 3 If learning aims at change, and that is always its purpose, are you satisfied with the changes your learning has brought you? 4 Dissatisfaction with learning outcomes is a sign of learning failure, since it means that you did not get what you wanted.
The truth of happiness is within. It belongs to Perfect Love, a love so complete fear cannot enter. I first experienced this in 1982 and it was something I could never forget. It was more real than this world itself. When you reclaim the right mind within that offers the true & positive Thoughts you share with God you will find your purpose and follow His directive. This will bring you so much joy. For what God guides is what you truly wish for You, for God’s voice is your own; for You are an extension of His Perfect Love. And I have the perfect example.
For those that have known me they will tell you that part of my own story of suffering has been to move through eating disorders. I loved my weight when it was 43 kilos. This was from the ego-mind of course. The mind that loves to demonstrate sickness for it teaches we are sinful of separating from Source. Yet, as I began to wake, my mind began to heal for I shifted from the wrong mind to the right. I still had fragments of preferring 'skinny', until one day God came to me. He simply said something like, “You cannot represent me at this weight. It is not healthy.” I had already gained a significant amount of weight at this stage. Yet, within two weeks I had gained more weight that changed the shape of my body. Every now and then I could hear the ego-mind when I found myself back in it, uncomfortable with this shift, but then I would be back in the right mind and I could sense it say that it was following the directive of God. It was happy to be a loyal servant of the Creator. So happy. The truth of who we are is so loyal to God, but we must find the right mind to know this.
Do not listen to the ego-mind that dreams a different dream or nightmare for you. I remember before my ego crumbled to reveal the right mind, whilst I was highly spiritual I would often pray to God. “God, I love you. I just want to see what I can do without you and then I will be back Home. Love you, bye!” This is an ego prayer. It reinforces the belief in separation. You cannot know the Course whilst still operating from ego consciousness, for the ego will interpret the Course in its own manner. The simplest way to get to the true meaning of the Course is to forgive within via the process of FAITH to locate the right mind from where the Course was written. And you will know via revelation, which the ego cannot understand. For its basis is separation and the Course is wholeness. Thus, they are mutually exclusive. And yes, when you find the truth of Perfect Love within you are so happy. Even if you lose your job or your partner leaves you, fear cannot enter where love has been made known. The freedom this offers is miraculous for no longer are you dependant upon a good turn of events to be happy. It no longer matters what happens in the world, for you have the peace of God and the knowledge You are His innocent Child. Undeserving of pain and punishment which belongs to ego thinking.
T-8.I.5. The curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum you have established for yourself, but so is its outcome. 2 If the outcome of yours has made you unhappy, and if you want a different one, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary. 3 The first change to be introduced is a change in direction. 4 A meaningful curriculum cannot be inconsistent. 5 If it is planned by two teachers, each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it cannot be integrated. 6 If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously, each one merely interferes with the other. 7 This leads to fluctuation, but not to change. 8 The volatile have no direction. 9 They cannot choose one because they cannot relinquish the other, even if it does not exist. 10 Their conflicted curriculum teaches them that all directions exist, and gives them no rationale for choice.
The ego teaches you to look outward to solve your problems. The only problem you have that appears in a myriad of ways is the belief you are separate from Source. The Holy Spirit, or The Treasure Map in form, takes you within to undo the fear to find love. And you learn via revelation. For example, if you find yourself unemployed and struggling to take care of your family you might blame those around you for not giving you an opportunity. The ego will list the blame, but when you follow The Treasure Map, she takes you deep within the darkness of the subconscious mind to locate the right mind. Hidden deep within you find the true cause. You believe you did not take care of God, for you threw Him away to take the hand of the ego. You are seeing this without, what was buried within. The curriculum of the Atonement is that we each clean up the shadows of suffering we see in time. If you suffer with anxiety, this is your shadow of lack of truth to truly forgive to free. If you move through disappointment and depression, this might be your shadow of punishment for choosing the ego over God. We must stop judging the story and instead unite to forgive within to undo the belief in separation to shift from the wrong mind to the right mind that leads to One-mindedness. However, before this happens we welcome in the happy dream in time, which is where I am now. As you can see, you cannot follow both teachers as one teaches division the other unity. In each moment you choose your teacher. If you choose judgment and attack, the story of separation, you choose the ego. If you choose to undo the ego-mind to find the right mind hidden deep within, then you choose for God. How do you choose for God? You follow The Treasure Map which is the gift God has granted to undo fear to find love, Perfect Love. It is how you will come to know the true meaning of A Course in Miracles via revelation and not ego interpretation.
T-8.I.6. The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully recognized before a real change in direction becomes possible. 2 You cannot learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in total disagreement about everything. 3 Their joint curriculum presents an impossible learning task. 4 They are teaching you entirely different things in entirely different ways, which might be possible except that both are teaching you about yourself. 5 Your reality is unaffected by both, but if you listen to both, your mind will be split about what your reality is.
The ego has even tried to conceal the true way to forgive that was once in the world of form, but was lost. It teaches forgiveness-to-destroy, which simply reinforces the belief in separation. If you find yourself forgiving the thoughts in your ego-mind (brain) you are following the forgiveness granted by the ego, which does offer limited release, but it will not undo the belief in sin, which is located where the choice for separation was made. The change of direction refers to going within, deep down, into the lower gut area of the body where the choice for separation from Source has been concealed from your awareness. Here, the right mind Jesus speaks of can be found. In time, it will be well-known that there are two minds. The right mind and the wrong mind. Find the right mind by forgiving within, the way that Jesus did and the way that I have now followed, and you too will come to know truth. Innocence is true, but it belongs to the right mind that knows separation does not exist. You will know when you have found the right mind for there is no belief in separation within. You do not feel you are the body. You are so complete that fear cannot enter and this is where your true safety and security comes from, not to mention your peace and love. Forgive within by truly forgiving every barrier that covers the truth of wholeness inside (the right-mind) and you will walk into the abundant dream in time that is witnessed by the innocent Mind. It is so beautiful, for God can be seen behind the painted pictures of separation the ego once told you was true. However, you must find the right mind to know this and if you still have your awareness in the brain, this is a certain sign that you are aligned to the wrong mind and not the right. Yes, my awareness sits in the lower gut at most times, which is what allows me to be in constant communication with God. When I find myself back in the ego-mind I must mentally dig through the darkness once more, truly forgiving each layer presented with the 'I Forgive' principle to return to the right mind of revelation. Where our being Perfect Love holds true.
Follow The Treasure Map Home, back to God, to truth, to knowledge, to Perfect Love, and you will know the truth of happiness the peace of God protects.
Much love, peace, and Truforgiveness,
