The miracle does nothing. All it does is
to undo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what has been done. It
does not add, but merely takes away. And what it takes away is long since gone,
but being kept in memory appears to have immediate effects. This world was over
long ago. The thoughts that made it are no longer in the mind that thought of
them and loved them for a little while. The miracle but shows the past is gone,
and what has truly gone has no effects. Remembering a cause can but produce illusions
of its presence, not effects. ACiM - Text Chapter Twenty-eight - The Undoing of
Fear - Section 1 - The Present Memory
Nothing at all has happened
but that you have put yourself to sleep,
and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself, and but a part of someone
else's dream. The miracle does not awaken you, but merely shows you who the dreamer is. It teaches you there is a choice of dreams while you are
still asleep, depending on the purpose of your dreaming. Do you wish for dreams
of healing, or for dreams of death? A dream is like a memory in that it
pictures what you wanted shown to you. ACiM - Text Chapter
Twenty-eight - The Undoing of Fear - Section 2 - Reversing Effect and Cause
The miracle establishes you dream a
dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with
illusions.
ACiM - Text Chapter
Twenty-eight - The Undoing of Fear - Section 2 - Reversing Effect and Cause
The separation started with the dream the
Father was deprived of His Effects, and powerless to keep them since He was no
longer their Creator. In the dream, the dreamer made himself. But what he made
has turned against him, taking on the role of its creator, as the dreamer had.
And as he hated his Creator, so the figures in the dream have hated him. …
Effect and cause are first split off, and then reversed, so that effect becomes
a cause; the cause, effect. ACiM - Text Chapter Twenty-eight - The Undoing of
Fear - Section 2 - Reversing Effect and Cause
Accepting the Atonement for yourself
means not to give support to someone's dream of sickness and of death. It means
that you share not his wish to separate, and let him turn illusions on himself.
Nor do you wish that they be turned, instead, on you. Thus have they no
effects. And you are free of dreams of pain because you let him be. Unless you help him, you will suffer pain with him
because that is your wish. And you become a figure in his dream of pain, as he
in yours. So do you and your brother both become illusions, and without
identity. You could be anyone or anything, depending on whose evil dream you
share. You can be sure of just one thing; that you are evil, for you share in
dreams of fear.
There is a way of finding certainty right
here and now. Refuse to be a part of fearful dreams whatever form they take …
You stand apart from them, but not apart from him who dreams them. Thus you
separate the dreamer from the dream, and join in one, but let the other go. The
dream is but illusion in the mind. And with the mind you would unite, but never
with the dream. It is the dream you fear, and not the mind. ACiM - Text Chapter Twenty-eight - The Undoing of Fear - Section 4 -
The Greater Joining
Like you, your brother thinks he is a
dream. Share not in his illusion of himself, for your Identity depends on his
reality. Think,
rather, of him as a mind in which illusions still persist, but as a mind which
brother is to you. … And yet, between your minds there is no gap. To join his dreams is
thus to meet him not, because his dreams would separate from you. Therefore release
him, merely by your claim on brotherhood, and not on dreams of fear. ACiM - Text Chapter
Twenty-eight - The Undoing of Fear - Section 4 - The Greater Joining
Join not your brother's dreams but join
with him, and where you join His Son the Father is. ACiM - Text Chapter
Twenty-eight - The Undoing of Fear - Section 4 - The Greater Joining
You share no evil dreams if you forgive
the dreamer, and perceive that he is not the dream he made. And so he cannot be
a part of yours, from which you both are free. Forgiveness separates the
dreamer from the evil dream, and thus releases him. Remember if you share an
evil dream, you will believe you are the dream you share. And fearing it, you
will not want to know your own Identity, because you think that It is fearful.
And you will deny your Self, and walk upon an alien ground which your Creator
did not make, and where you seem to be a something you are not. You will make
war upon your Self, which seems to be your enemy; and will attack your brother,
as a part of what you hate. There is no compromise. You are your Self or an
illusion. What can be between illusion and the truth? A middle ground, where
you can be a thing that is not you, must be a dream and cannot be the truth. ACiM - Text Chapter
Twenty-eight - The Undoing of Fear - Section 5 - The Alternate to Dreams of
Fear
Creation proves reality because it shares
the function all creation shares. It is not made of little bits of glass, a
piece of wood, a thread or two, perhaps, all put together to attest its truth.
Reality does not depend on this. There is no gap that separates the truth from
dreams and from illusions. Truth has left no room for them in any place or
time. For it fills every place and every time, and makes them wholly
indivisible.
You who believe there is a little gap
between you and your brother, do not see that it is here you are as prisoners
in a world perceived to be existing here. The world you see does not exist,
because the place where you perceive it is not real. The gap is carefully
concealed in fog, and misty pictures rise to cover it with vague uncertain
forms and changing shapes, forever unsubstantial and unsure. Yet in the gap is
nothing. And there are no awesome secrets and no darkened tombs where terror
rises from the bones of death. Look at the little gap, and you behold the
innocence and emptiness of sin that you will see within yourself, when you have
lost the fear of recognizing love. ACiM - Text Chapter Twenty-eight - The Undoing of
Fear - Section 5 - The Alternate to Dreams of Fear
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