In
A Course in Miracles’ version of the myth of separation, everything began with
the one mind of God’s only Son seeming to fall asleep and dream a dream of
separation. And that one mind was split into the wrong mind (the ego) and the
right mind (the Holy Spirit), along with the part of the mind that had the
power to choose between the two (the decision maker or the dreamer). In the
dream, there is only that one split mind. But as part of the ego’s defense
against its own guilt and anxiety, to hide from God so that the life the Son
stole from Him would not be seized back, the Son adopted the ego’s strategy of
further seeming separation into billions and billions of seemingly unique
fragments that would be experienced as independent, individual minds. But each
fragment, as a split off part of the one split mind of the Son, shared the same
basic content: a wrong mind, a right mind and the power to choose between them. http://www.facimoutreach.org/qa/questions/questions33.htm
With respect to coincidence or synchronicity, since only one mind has
written all the scripts, everything is interrelated and connected. Only because
of our continued investment in seeing separation and differences do we fail to
recognize the common threads running through all of our experiences. When
coincidences are recognized, they can be used for the purposes of either the
ego or the Holy Spirit. The choice is always ours. When serving the Holy
Spirit’s, they are a reminder that decisions are being made at a level we are
not usually conscious of and therefore they challenge the ego view that our
reality is limited to this physical world. But a preoccupation with them can
once again serve the ego’s purpose of specialness.
And so, whether we are dealing with deja vu, synchronicity, past lives
or psychic powers, in every situation and circumstance, “the first
thing to consider, very simply, is ‘What do I want to come of this? What is it
for?’” (T.17.VI.2:1,2). If our purpose is to see beyond the petty specialness
and judgments of the world, the Help we need will lift us above the
self-imposed limits of our ego to a place where we can recognize our shared
purpose with every brother and experience the joy of our interconnectedness
with the entire Sonship. http://www.facimoutreach.org/qa/questions/questions33.htm
Guilt over prosperity, or anything
symbolizing success in the world, most often stems from the belief buried in
our minds that we stole what we have attained and therefore it is not
legitimate. Our very existence as individuals in the world, we believe, is not
legitimate because it came by means of stealing God’s power, making it our own,
and in the process killing Him off. Therefore success and prosperity in the
world would be associated with that "crime" (illusory of course) of
which we accuse ourselves. A terrible sense of guilt and unworthiness would
automatically follow, which is why we are taught in many different ways in A
Course in Miracles that our only responsibility is to accept the Atonement --
the principle that the separation from God never happened. When these
self-accusations are seen as unjustified, then all guilt would simply
disappear; and if there is no longer any guilt in our minds, then we would be
instruments for the extension of love, which would occur regardless of our
financial status.
So the voice that continually reminds you
of your unworthiness is the voice of the ego, for guilt is its life blood: no
guilt, no ego. Thus the first obstacle to peace is the attraction of guilt (T.19.IV.A.i). And since another name for guilt is
self-hatred, the shrieks accusing you of not doing your best might well be
self-judgments haunting you over your (all of our) stupidity and viciousness in
thinking you could get away with killing God and granting to yourself what He
would not grant you. That is always the bottom line of our guilt. Being
critical of our less-than- commendable efforts in the world is a smokescreen
intended to keep our attention away from the real cause of our agony, which is
our ongoing decision to prefer a special separate existence apart from God and
the unity of the Sonship.
The correction of this madness begins by
regarding everything in the world -- including everything about bodily
existence -- as neutral, and then focusing only on the purpose for which we
would use everything: to reinforce the separation (following the ego’s
guidance) or to undo the separation (following Jesus’ or the Holy Spirit’s
guidance). In this sense, then, wealth is neither holy nor unholy. The purpose
for which we would use it gives it its meaning. Making this kind of a shift in
our minds is usually a long and gradual process because of our defenses and our
resistance, both of which are hidden from plain sight in our terrified minds.
In that sense we just do the best we can. Our denial is so massive and the fear
behind the denial is so intense that it is a wonder that we make any progress
at all in extricating ourselves from the ego’s pernicious web. To use an
experience common to all of us: If you wake up in the morning a little groggy,
you may be unsteady on your feet, and your vision may be blurry. You do the
best you can until you are fully awake and feeling normal again. You can’t do
more than that, and no one who is kind and gentle would expect you to do more
than that. Given our groggy, fearful state of mind and blurred vision, Jesus as
our kind and gentle teacher knows that we are doing only what we are capable of
doing and he would never reprimand us for not doing our best, for that would
serve only to make the error real, and above all he is helping us to remember
that we, with him, are the eternally sinless Son of God. http://www.facimoutreach.org/qa/questions/questions72.htm#Q402
In A Course in Miracles, angels are regarded as
extensions of God’s Thought. They can be thought of as symbols of the light and
protection of God that always surrounds us, since in truth we have never left
Him. When Jesus speaks of angels in A Course in Miracles , he is always
referring to the loving thoughts of God within us, not external beings. He is
using a term that evokes a sense of comfort and protection, but he does not
mean that there are actual spiritual beings called angels, as is taught in some
religions. These are symbols representing thoughts in our mind.
http://www.facimoutreach.org/qa/questions/questions74.htm#Q413
http://www.facimoutreach.org/qa/questions/questions74.htm#Q413
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