Acim Village

~ Death and Dying Academy, Temecula, March 2011 – Part 9 ~

(Winnie’s notes posted at Acimvillage.com. Many thanks to Winnie from Bernard)

Q………………………I hope this isn`t a stupid question

Ken interjects…….If it is, I`ll give you a stupid answer

Q continues ………I could dedicate all my time to the Course but what if that only amounts to 98%? Do you ever get to be right-minded 100% of the time. How long is going to take me? When is it going to happen?

Ken……………..It will never happen because you are making the error real. How long is an instant? The more you say you want to finish the more you will never finish. It wasn`t a stupid question.

Q………. I need clarification on being kind. When playing the role for being an advocate, I stop and ask for help?

Ken………That`s a good idea. When you`re excited or angry, you`ve plugged into the ego`s socket. Teachers get burnt out after a while because they are running on their own energy. When you have no investment in the outcome you will be much more efficient. What you want to know is that that really frightens you. You want to be in control. In theory we could accept the Atonement instantly, but we are so afraid. Do not deny the little steps He asks you take to Him. The bottom line for the ego is the fear of no longer existing. This is the fear at the bottom of everyone`s unconscious mind. The ego has convinced the decision-maker that the separation actually happened. We are very sure of who we are, and we want to protect and preserve our identity. One of the things that firmly establishes our identity is death. When a loved one dies or as we get older, mortality looms. A part of us is afraid. The other part welcomes it. Consciously we are afraid. Unconsciously we like it.

God had to be sacrificed so we could exist. If you are a Christian, God`s son had to be sacrificed. Sacrifice is all through the Old Testament and all through the New Testament and in most religions. Tp418 Those who fear death see not how often and how loudly they call to it, and bid it come to save them from communication. For death is seen as safety, the great dark savior from the light of truth, the answer to the Answer, the silencer of the Voice that speaks for God.

When we are afraid of death, we are saying that there is something to be afraid of. The unconscious ego that`s buried in our minds is attracted to death. Freud showed us that we act and seek the opposite of what we believe – Reaction Formation. A wonderful summary of what the world is Tp236 The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws that seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds seem to be trapped in their brain, and its powers to decline if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and are no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.

We loved God and we lost him because we loved ourselves more. ……………..If you truly loved God why are you here ?

Despite his psychological sophistication, Freud did say some stupid things, so did Plato. This world isn`t God having a dream or God needing to experience himself or God at play. This world is attack on God. This Course would have you realize that you do not know the thing that you are. When you make any little judgement, a little voice says “Ah this is reminiscent of what you did long ago”……”Think not He has forgotten”. We get angry and project because we are reminded of the original ontological mistake which is ongoing.
This Course is brilliant because it gets to the root of the matter. If this is a play, and I am a playwright, why do I have to write that everybody dies in the end like a Shakespearean tragedy? The Veil of Forgetfulness is all important. Helen awoke one morning to hear in her head “Never underestimate the power of the ego” which was written into the Course as Never underestimate the power of denial.
Denial is a primitive response. We stuck our heads in the sands of the world. First we had to build beaches. You`ll never look at beaches the same again. I`m a body with my head in the sand.

You undo guilt by reversing the arrow. The Holy Spirit is no use if we don`t choose to listen to it. This is a one-handed Course. I can`t hold Jesus`hand and the ego`s hand at the same time. It`s one or the other. The ego says “If you keep holding this Jesus fellow`s hand, he`s gonna lead you back to God and you know what he wants to do to you”……….So we drop Jesus` hand like a hot potato. The ego becomes vicious. And now you stand in terror before what you swore never to look upon. Your eyes look down, remembering your promise to your “friends”. The “loveliness” of sin, the delicate appeal of guilt, the “holy” waxen image of death, and the fear of vengeance of the ego you swore in blood not to desert, all rise and bid you not to raise your eyes. For you realize that if you look on this and let the veil be lifted, they will be gone forever. All of your “friends”, your “protectors” and your “home” will vanish. Nothing that you remember now, will you remember.

Death is not something we fear. That`s Reaction Formation. Our fantasies are witnesses to the exact opposite of what we believe. Tp418The obstacle of your seeming love for death that peace must flow across seems to be very great. For in it lie hidden all the ego`s secrets, all its strange devices for deception, all its sick ideas and weird imaginings. Here is the final end of union, the triumph of the ego`s making over creation, the victory of lifelessness on Life itself.

The first half of this poem shows our resistance. The stranger is the Jesus in all of us.

STRANGER ON THE ROAD

The dead are dead. They do not rise again.

And yet I see in You a look I knew

In One so recently destroyed and laid

Away to wither on a slab of stone.

I almost could believe – but I have seen

Your blue and bloodless hands and broken feet,

The way You crumpled when they took You down.

This is a stranger, and I know Him not.

The road is long. I will not lift my eyes,

For fear has gripped my heart, and fear I know –

The shield that keeps me safe from rising hope;

The friend that keeps You stranger still to me.

Why should You walk with me along the road,

An unknown whom I almost think I fear

Because You seem like someone in a dream

Of deathlessness, when death alone is real?

Do not disturb me now. I am content

With death, for grief is kinder now than hope.

While there was hope I suffered. Now I go

In certainty, for death has surely come.

Do not disturb the ending. What is done

Is done forever. Neither hope nor tears

Can touch finality. Do not arouse

The dead. Come, Stranger, let us say “Amen.”

You said You would return, and I believed

Too long already. Now my eyes are sealed

Against the slender thread of hope that cuts

Into my calm despair. 0 let me go!

Your Word surrounds You like a golden light,

And I can scarcely see the road we walk

Because my eyes are veiled. Disturb me not,

I beg of You. I would not see You now.

Must I remember now? And yet the light

Seems even brighter, and the road becomes

A sudden splash of sunlight. Who are You

Who dares to enter into fear and death?

Your Voice reminds me of an ancient song

My lips be& to sing, although I hoped

It was forgotten. Now I hear again

A Word I thought had been forever dead,

As You had died. I cannot keep my eyes

From looking up. Perhaps I did not see

The things I thought. Perhaps this light has come

To heal my eyes and let them see again.

Lord, did You really keep Your lovely Word?

Was I mistaken? Did You rise again?

And was it I who failed, instead of You?

Are You returned to save me from the dead?

Dear Stranger, let me recognize Your face,

And all my doubts are answered. They are dead

If You are living. Let me see again,

And hope will be transformed to certainty.

The dead are dead, but they do rise again.

Let me remember only that. It was

The rest that was the dream. The light has come.

My eyes are opening to look on You.

By Helen Schucman,

April 2, 1977

From “The Gifts of God”©, pp. 103-105

Published by the Foundation for Inner Peace

Tp420 What would you see without the fear of death? What would you feel and think if death held no attraction for you? Very simply, you would remember your Father.

~ Death and Dying Academy, Temecula, March 2011 – Part 10 ~

(Winnie’s notes posted at Acimvillage.com. Many thanks to Winnie from Bernard)

Ken………….I`m so glad I don`t have to ask questions

Q……………..Was Jesus Freud`s student since ACIM couldn’t have come about without him?

Ken…….. the other way round. Freud was inspired. I`m in the process of writing a book about Freud. Freud`s insights of the ego are part and parcel of what the Course represents. The Course is a complete picture. Freud wasn`t.

Q…….What I`m about to say makes me want to throw up

Ken….. I make you throw up?

Q………not you

Ken….. We gotta get a bucket

Q continues…There`s no consciousness? There`s no “I am”? It seems like the dream of awakening has two deaths. First your body dies and then your consciousness.

Ken……It seems to be two deaths but there`s only one awakening….so that`s good news, you only have to worry about one death……Hold the bucket [tee hee]

Q…………. So right minds and wrong minds continue after we die when we come back?

Ken …….. yes, as we get more right-minded, we become more identified with the right mind than the wrong mind….. that`s why some people are said to be “old souls”, like my grandson….but the process is not linear. Some people ask “when I die and come back, do I have to do the Workbook again?’ [ more laughter]

Q………..When I`m in the blue dot, how do I know I`m not in denial? I might think I`m being right-minded but I might just be in denial.

Ken….. This question is a form of the “How do I know whether I am listening to the Holy Spirit of the ego?” question. If you are really right-minded, the peace must embrace all people – that`s a good way to tell. Otherwise it`s a false sense of peace, a good feeling that tells you I got away with murder again.

Q………….I never believed in Hell. Does that mean things can only get better?

Ken….. In Sartre`s play, “No exit”, Hell is other people. Special relationships are hell. Helen`s sister-in-law said “There has to be hell for all the people I hate”. Dante`s Divine Comedy takes us from Hell, to Purgatory and then Heaven.

Q………When we choose to leave here, it should be better?

Ken……….Of course, but we have to bring everyone with us.

A question of time……

Ken ….There is no one place that gives a single coherent discussion about time. It is strewn throughout. because we can`t understand time, but we can understand forgiveness.

Now I want you to suspend everything you think you know. WB p359 Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

On Tp550, there is a blockbuster of a sentence ->
The tiny tick of time in which the first mistake was made, and all of them within that one mistake, held also the Correction for that one, and all of them that came within the first. Linear time is unreal. Everything happened at once, all within the blue circle. For every wrong-minded thought, there was a right-minded thought side by side. The correction for something happened was nothing happened. Each day, and every minute in each day, and every instant that each minute holds, you but relive the single instant when the time of terror took the place of love. Everything is still happening in that instant.

Nothing so blinding as perception of time. Everything bespeaks of time. In time this happened long ago and what seemed to happen long ago is still happening. We are creatures of time. Plato said that time was a “moving image of eternity”. I hate to say anything negative about Plato, but it`s not. Each fragment of a pane of glass has the same chemical composition. Each fragment of the sonship`s split mind has the same mental composition. Everyone has 100% hate in their mind and 100% love, and everyone has the same decision-making power.

We all have memories of everyone. Psychics just have the ability to tune in. It`s still part of the same lie. We are reliving the moment when the two huge dvd libraries arose, and they are complete with every single expression. It is the law of the split mind that we must choose. You cannot be neutral. You must choose. What I am watching has already happened. Everything is deja vu. Yogi Bear said “It`s deja vu all over again.” It`s deja vu all over again.

WB p298 The time is set already. It appears to be quite arbitrary. Yet there is no step along the road that anyone takes but by chance. It has already been taken by him, although he has not yet embarked on it. For time but seems to go in one direction. We but undertake a journey that is over. Yet it seems to have a future still unknown to us.

Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. The script is written. When experience has come to end your doubting has been set. For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again, reviewing mentally what has gone by.

We have two sets of scripts. The ego`s script is long, involved and incredibly complicated. The Holy Spirit`s script is the same script not taken seriously. You can`t just say “I dont wan`t to be in this body anymore” and just die. You`ll get another script. It does not matter when revelation comes, for that is not of time.

We like being special. We like being able to choose – it gives us power! So we don`t go anywhere near the Gold Star library. But it has already happened. The purpose of the Course is to help us not to be so afraid so that we will choose the Gold Star library. there is no step along the way that anyone takes by chance.

It`s like I go home tonight to watch a movie and I watch the movie but I`ve forgotten I`ve already seen it and how bad it was. That`s why no one is entitled to his bitterness. There must be another film. I have to choose to see it again and forgive it, because I have made it real.

The Christians say “Salvation is here, but it`s not yet”. I haven`t chosen Him as my teacher if I think that.

Time but seems to go in one direction. We don`t learn linearly. The Course is so clever. Take the workbook. It is linear. There are 365 lessons and sometimes we are told what to do every hour. The Course appears in a linear framework. He gets us to think he`s in our camp. Time is a trick.

The Gnostics were very wise but they got it wrong. The ego magician has fooled the best brains throughout history. He`s laughing up his sleeve as he thinks, “I`ve got you again!”
And all of this is protected by the double shield of oblivion.

The world of time and bodies protect us from an internal shield of guilt. The miracle undoes the first shield by getting us to look at the other shield, and then we can choose again. Tp424 Together we will disappear into the Presence beyond the veil, not to be lost but found; not to be seen but known.