"The Ego Does Want to Kill You"

by Greg Mackie

A couple of newsletters ago (A Better Way #41), I shared a remarkable spiritual experience of
mine, an experience of universal love. Recently, I had another remarkable experience, this one
of the opposite end of the spectrum—what could be called an experience of universal hate. It
was a terrifying encounter with the ego unmasked, the false self in me that is utterly malevolent
and quite literally wants to kill me.

I would like to share this experience in the hope that, like the first one, it may be helpful to
others on the path. It was certainly helpful to me. It brought with it some powerful lessons, which
I will share below. Terrifying though it was, I am very grateful for this experience. It felt like a
significant milestone in my journey with the Course.

The prelude: whispers of the murderer within

It all started in late May. For a couple of days, I had been experiencing vague feelings of
depression and self-loathing. I'm fairly certain the trigger was a conversation I had with a friend
of mine on May 24, which brought up a lot of anger and defensiveness in me. Though the
conversation was outwardly amicable and the disagreements that came up in it totally resolved,
my inward anger and defensiveness made me aware of just how much I attack and condemn
others in my mind. I saw myself as an attacker, and that made me feel grimy and loathsome. I
did Course practices to address these feelings and the thoughts behind them, and this actually
helped quite a bit. But my negative feelings did not dissipate entirely.

It's not that I was walking around in abject, full-blown self-hatred. In fact, as I look over my
practice notes for those days, I see that my overall mood was positive. I was definitely
consciously aware of my depression and self-loathing, but I had no idea of the extent of those
feelings. It was as if something dark lurked just below my awareness; there was a shark
swimming in the depths of my mind, and all I was seeing was the dorsal fin breaking the
surface. I had a dim sense of a vicious thought in me, a kind of malevolent force that truly hated
me and literally wanted to kill me. But at the time, it wasn't very strong.

The experience: a terrifying encounter with the murderer within

That dim sense remained with me as I went to bed on May 26. I don't remember how much
sleep I got, but I'll never forget that at about three o'clock in the morning, the awareness of this
malevolent force hit me like a ton of bricks. There wasn't anything in particular that brought it on;
it just happened. There's really no way to adequately describe it. There was just this something
in me that felt like pure evil, something that was bent on destroying me. It literally wanted to stop
my heart. It wanted to take control of my hands and wrap them around my throat. It was a real
force—real in my experience, anyway—that gripped me with incredible intensity.

Before anyone gets too worried about my mental health here, let me assure you that I was
never truly suicidal. I'm normally an upbeat, emotionally stable person who is not prone to
dramatic mood swings. The "normal" part of my mind could look upon this murderous impulse
from "outside" of it, as it were; the impulse did not take over my entire mind. On the contrary, it
felt almost as if it were independent of my mind. I think I now understand something of what
people experience in cases of apparent demon possession. I didn't think I was really being
taken over by a demon—as a Course student, I immediately identified this apparently demonic
force as a product of my own mind, my ego unmasked. But it felt like something from outside my
mind, and it was truly terrifying.

I had to do something to assuage my terror. So, I did various Course practices and called upon
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit for help. I don't remember every single practice I did, but I
definitely remember saying, "Help me, Father," "Steady my feet, my Father" (based on W-
pI.rV.In.2:1), "Help me, Holy Spirit," "Help me, Jesus," "There is nothing to fear" (W-
pI.48.Heading), and "God is but Love, and therefore so am I" (W-pI.rV.In.4:3). Unfortunately,
nothing really seemed to work.

As I was doing all this, I remembered the Course's idea that the ego really wants to kill us. I also
remembered the idea from Lesson 196 that we will one day see the murderer within us—the
ego as it really is—totally unmasked. It occurred to me that this was exactly what I was
experiencing right now. I felt prompted to read some of this material, so I turned on my lamp,
picked up my Course, and began to read. I read T-13.I-II., which discusses how we believe that
we have crucified the Son of God. It says that "the ego does want to kill you, and if you identify
with it you must believe its goal is yours" (T-13.II.5:6). I also read Lesson 196, "It can be but
myself I crucify," which says that our attacks on others in the name of "self-defense" lead to our
fear of crucifixion at the hands of God and the world. I had read this material many times before,
but it spoke directly to my experience now in a way it never had before.

The material that hit home for me the most began with paragraph 10 of Lesson 196. I'll quote
the most relevant lines here:

There is an instant in which terror seems to grip your mind so wholly that escape appears quite
hopeless. When you realize, once and for all, that it is you you fear, the mind perceives itself as
split. And this had been concealed while you believed attack could be directed outward, and
returned from outside to within....
Now, for an instant, is a murderer perceived within you, eager for your death, intent on plotting
punishment for you until the time when it can kill at last. (W-pI.196.10:1-3,11:1)

I was stunned by these words, because they described precisely what I was experiencing at that
moment. I was immersed in that "instant in which terror seems to grip your mind." My mind felt
split between a terrified "me" and a homicidal maniac out to get "me." I was face to face with a
murderer within me, bent on my death.

But the lesson went on to say that this grim encounter was not a bad thing at all. On the
contrary, this terrifying instant had a priceless gift to give me, if I was open to receiving it:

Yet in this instant is the time as well in which salvation comes. For fear of God has disappeared.
And you can call on Him to save you from illusions by His Love, calling Him Father and yourself
His Son. Pray that the instant may be soon,—today. Step back from fear, and make advance to
love. (W-pI.196.11:2-6)

My perception of the experience really began to shift as I read this. This passage was
tremendously reassuring. It told me that what I was going through was a precious opportunity,
because getting in touch with the fearsome murderer within me opened the door for God to heal
me with His Love. This experience was not one the Course wanted me to avoid, but one it
wanted me to have soon—today. Well, I was having it today. So, I tried to take advantage of the
opportunity. I tried to do exactly what this passage instructed me to do: call on God's Love to
save me from this terrifying but illusory murderer. And while my earlier calls for help had
seemed ineffective, this time I felt a glimmer of a response. My practicing was finally beginning
to work.

It was clear from this lesson that my attacks on others were what gave birth to and sustained
this murderer within. This whole experience was tied in directly with the depression and self-
hatred I had been feeling the past few days, since those feelings came directly from my
attacking and condemning others. Whatever benefits I thought my attacks brought me, my
current experience was their actual result. And I didn't want this result, to say the least. I now
had all the incentive in the world to stop attacking others and set my murderous ego aside.

I prayed about this to Jesus, and this was exactly the message I got: "Give up your attacks on
others. This experience you are having is what your attacks on others really bring you. This is
their actual result, all the time, whether you are aware of it or not. It is a blessing for you to
experience this, because now you know what you're really giving yourself when you attack and
condemn others. Never forget this. You now have all the reason in the world to give up attack."

Now, I was actually thankful for the experience, even in the midst of it. I was still highly aware of
that murderer within, though the terror had dissipated somewhat as a result of my reading,
repetitions, and prayers. It was as if my practicing allowed me to look upon the experience from
even farther "outside" of it than before. More and more, I was finding a place of refuge at the
center of my being. More and more, I was feeling God's answer to my call on His Love.

So, I expressed my gratitude to God for His Love. I also continued to practice as the experience
went on. I used some of the same lines as before, and added things like "Thank you, God, for
showing me this," "My ego may want to kill me, but I am not an ego," "My ego is an attacker, but
I am not," "This murderous impulse is an illusion that cannot harm me at all," and "This will
disappear when I stop attacking others." In addition, when I had turned to Lesson 196, I had
stumbled upon the Lesson 198 practice along the way: "Only my condemnation injures me.
Only my own forgiveness sets me free" (W-pI.198.9:3-4). This really appealed to me, so I
started repeating it over and over. With this constant repetition going through my mind, the
experience finally dissipated enough for me to go to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, I read Lessons 196 and 198, and decided to use them both
as the basis for the day's practice. From Lesson 196, I picked various lines from the paragraphs
that discuss the experience of the murderer within (paragraphs 10-12), and adapted them to suit
my needs. One line I used was "Father, I call on You to save me from illusions by Your Love"
(based on W-pI.196.11:4). From Lesson 198, I used the practice lines quoted above: "Only my
condemnation injures me. Only my own forgiveness sets me free" (W-pI.198.9:3-4). I used
these practices during my quiet time, and many times during the day.

I also felt prompted to bring to mind various people whom I had been attacking, and extend
forgiveness to them. This felt like the perfect thing to do, since attacking others is what feeds
that inner murderer and sustains its killing spree, while forgiving them is what starves it until it
can kill no more. So, I pulled out my favorite forgiveness practices and applied them to people
against whom I had been holding grievances. I said things to them like "Awake and be glad, for
all your sins have been forgiven you" (P-3.II.4:10), "You are the holy Son of God Himself" (W-
pI.191.6:1), "Light and joy and peace abide in you. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God" (W-
pI.93.11:3-4), and "Your holiness gives life to me" (based on T-26.I.7:2). The goal I wrote down
for the day was "to stop crucifying myself by withdrawing my attacks on others, and forgiving
them instead."

Over the next few days, the sense of that murderer within me remained, but gradually faded
away. My guess is that this was due partly to all the forgiveness practice I was doing, and partly
to my denial mechanisms clicking back into place. I don't think anyone could tolerate the full
experience of his or her ego unmasked for too long. I'm sure this experience will come to me
again at later stages of my journey, whenever I am ready for it again. But I know now that
whether I'm consciously experiencing it or not, that murderer is still down there, feeding off of
my every attack on others. I try to remember that when I am tempted to attack.

The lessons: benefits of encountering the murderer within

As I've said, I am now very grateful for this experience. Like the universal love experience I had
before, this one taught me a number of valuable lessons. As I reflect on what it taught me, three
lessons stand out.

1. The Course's descriptions of the ego and its pure malevolence are really true.

Just as my earlier experience confirmed what the Course says about the sheer joy and love of
true perception, so this later experience has confirmed what it says about the sheer insanity and
hatred of the ego. Just as the Course's account of our light is true, so is its account of our
darkness. This is a crucial lesson for me. I think most if not all Course students tend to minimize
and soften the Course's statements about the ego's malevolence. I've done that as much as
anyone. Surely, we think, it can't be that bad. Surely Jesus is engaging in a bit of hyperbole
when he says all that grim, gory stuff about the ego. Maybe he's doing it for dramatic effect,
making it sound worse than it really is to shock us into changing our minds.

But all that material about the murderous ego is no longer just abstract theory or vivid literature
to me—what it talks about is now part of my practical experience. Those graphic descriptions of
the ego's madness are not hyperbole, but dead-on accurate descriptions of the force that
actually drives our lives most of the time. Jesus really means what he says. However illusory it
is, that shark is really swimming down there in the depths of our minds, and he's out for blood.
Over the years, a number of Course students have asked me if I have ever really experienced
the grim ego stuff the Course talks about. Now, I can unequivocally say yes.

A brief aside concerning the truth of the Course's descriptions: As I compare my experience of
the murderer within to that passage in Lesson 196, I am truly amazed at how well that passage
matches my experience. I'm amazed that my experience is described perfectly by something
Jesus dictated to Helen over thirty years ago. This demonstrates to me that when Jesus says in
the Course that certain things will happen to us as we progress on the path, he means it very
literally. He is describing quite precisely what will happen to us at various stages. Often, as in
Lesson 196, he also gives us specific instructions for what to do when those things happen.
Jesus has the entire map of the journey in his mind, and he has laid it all out for us in detail.

2. I have every reason in the world to forgive my brothers. It is totally in my self-interest to do

so.

Just as my earlier experience gave me an incentive to forgive others because it feels so good to
do so, so this later experience has given me an incentive to forgive others because it feels so
bad not to do so. This, too, is a crucial lesson for me. In the Course's view, seeing plainly the
stark contrast between the joy of the spirit and the pain of the ego is the key to salvation, and
that contrast is much clearer to me now. My experience of the ego unmasked has given me
ample reason to give up attack. I don't want a murderer within me—especially one that wants to
murder me—and the only way to let that murderer go is for me to stop attacking and
condemning others.

Unfortunately, I must admit that I haven't entirely given up attack, which shows just how
committed to my ego I really am. But this experience has definitely soured me on the ego to
some extent. I feel that I'll never attack with quite the same relish again. Giving up attack is not
a sacrifice for the sake of being a good person, but a way to free myself from guilt, fear, and
pain. Putting both experiences together, I now know both how desirable God's Love is and how
undesirable the ego's attack is. How can I not eventually succeed with motivation like this?

3. Practice really works.

Finally, just as my earlier experience came as a result of intensified Course practice, so this
later experience did also. In April, I started using a structured checklist for my practicing, and
from then on, my practice really took off. I was doing much more than I had before. I'm sure it is
no coincidence that this dramatic experience came on the heels of a couple of months of greatly
increased practice. Once again, I feel that I have received confirmation of what the Course says
about its entire program: "If you do it, you will see that it works" (T-9.V.9:2).

Conclusion
It may seem that a terrifying experience of a bloodthirsty murderer within is hardly evidence that
Course practice really works. But it is. For the Course's path is not just about giving us glorious
experiences of love and light, as wonderful and necessary as those are. It is also about bringing
us face to face with the dark motives which drive our lives, but which stay safely hidden under
multiple layers of denial most of the time. It is about learning what we really want through
experiencing both the spirit and the ego as they really are.
The experience I've described here was not pleasant to say the least, but I consider it a real gift.
I thank God that I was given a brief glimpse of what my attacks on others and myself have truly
wrought, for now that I have seen it, I have the power to do something about it. As Lesson 196
concludes, seeing that "it can be but myself I crucify" (W-pI.196:.Heading) is not a curse, but a
blessing. Seeing the murderer within reveals the savior within. And that is cause for great
rejoicing:

How kind and merciful is the idea we practice! Give it welcome, as you should, for it is your
release. It is indeed but you your mind can try to crucify. Yet your redemption, too, will come
from you. (W-pI.196.12:3-6)

Miracles Happen to Everybody

by Greg Mackie

Source of material commented on: http://tinyurl.com/62hmt6, http://tinyurl.com/5h3pma,

http://tinyurl.com/6mdk94, http://tinyurl.com/6r3kzw

Recently I came across the remarkable story of Ingrid Betancourt. She is the former
candidate for the presidency of Colombia who was recently rescued (with fourteen others) after
six years of being held hostage by the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
She and her fellow captives endured an incredible ordeal so hellish that it is difficult for me to
even imagine. But I find in her response to that ordeal a powerful demonstration of Course in
Miracles principles of forgiveness, devotion to the welfare of others, and conviction in the power
of God to bring about miracles even in the darkest of times.

Betancourt was kidnapped on February 23, 2002 when she and other political candidates
met with FARC for peace talks. So began the nightmare. She and her fellow captives were
whisked deep into the Colombian jungle, where they wouldn't see the sky for days at a time.
They were constantly blindfolded and moved from one location to another, forced to march up to
fifteen miles in a stretch. They were incessantly ravaged by biting insects. They were chained,
physically tortured, and humiliated in such brutal ways that she says of her captors, "I think they
themselves were disgusted."

She tried to escape five times, actually succeeding in the final attempt but returning because
one of her fellow escapees had diabetes and needed treatment. After this final attempt, she was
chained by the neck and forced to remain standing for three days. From then on, she was in
chains twenty-four hours a day, a solitary woman surrounded by men who had not seen a
woman for years. She was sexually abused, an experience so traumatic that she cannot yet
even speak of it. In short, in her words, "It was hell. It was hell for the body. It was hell for the
soul. It was hell for the mind. Everything was so horrible." Contemplating her experience now,
she says that "the worst thing is realizing that…human beings can be so horrible to other human
beings."
 Betancourt and her fellow captives tried to hold on to their sanity any way they could. She
told stories, taught the others French, sewed, wrote, and read books that others passed to her.
(At one point, she found a newspaper that to her horror contained a story about her father's
funeral; he had died a week after she was captured.) In a place where she couldn't see the sun
and it was all too easy to lose her bearings, she said, "The important thing was to fill the day
with activities that could be repeated like in a schedule: to give yourself stability in a world of no
stability, that was the key." Fortunately, she had an old radio with which she could not only keep
up with current events, but also get precious messages from her mother and children.

A devout Roman Catholic, Betancourt also endured by turning to the spirit. Looking at her
harrowing experience in retrospect, she now says that "the thing I can give is testimony, of the
importance of a spiritual connection with God." During her captivity, she read her Bible. She
said her rosary. She practiced prayer and meditation. She turned her mind to God and
experienced His personal care for her: "I know that I talk to him, and that he responds." And she
also turned to her fellow hostages, giving them strength, hope, and inspiration and receiving it in
return. The power of joining together to light each other's way was one of the most significant
lessons she drew from the experience: "That's the magic of all things. You can have the dark
side of man but you can also plug yourself to light and be an enormous light to others. And I
think that's what being spiritual means."

For six long years the hostages suffered and clung to each other for support, having no idea
if their ordeal would ever end. But on July 2, they were rescued in a way that felt truly
miraculous. A FARC helicopter came to pick up the hostages and transfer them to a new
location—or so the rebels on the ground thought. In fact, the Colombian military had tricked
them into believing that the transfer was ordered by a FARC commander. By the time the ruse
was discovered, the helicopter with the fourteen hostages was safely off the ground and the
FARC commander who boarded with them was apprehended.

The hostages, who weren't sure exactly what was going on at first, finally heard the wonderful
words they thought they might never hear: "This is Colombian Army, you are free." And the
celebration began. Betancourt was overcome with emotion:

I couldn't talk. I screamed….It was a scream that went from the bottom of my stomach. And
then I hugged everyone I could hug. I would have hugged anyone at that second. I hugged the
one that was beside me, front—I would kiss everybody. It was crazy. It was very intense. We
were crying.

So Betancourt's nightmare ended, and a new life began. And it is here, in how she is
choosing to respond to what happened to her, that I see Betancourt demonstrating Course
principles most powerfully. I see three main aspects to this. First, she is committed to forgiving
her captors. When Larry King asked her if she hated the FARC, she emphatically said no. She
has spoken instead of how she wants to forgive and forget what her captors did to her, only
bringing back her memories of her ordeal for the purpose of processing them and sharing her
story with others:

It's like a kind of position I took many years ago, that when I would be released, I wouldn't take
out of the jungle any kind of bitterness or any kind of eager to—seek for revenge, anything of
that.…The only thing I want is—I pray God to give them his blessing.
The only thing I've settled in my mind is that I want to forgive, and forgiveness comes with
forgetting. So I have to do two things. I have to forget in order to find peace in my soul, and be
able to forgive. But at the same time, once I've forgiven and forgotten, I will have to bring back
memories. Probably they will be filtered by the time, so they won't come with all the pain I feel
right now.

This is a truly amazing stance when you consider what she went through. Her FARC captors
chained her, tortured her, and degraded her to the point that she says "they themselves were
disgusted." If anyone would have a motive for revenge, she would. But instead, she wants to
forgive them, and she wants God to give them not the brutal punishment they would seemingly
deserve, but a blessing. What a marvelous "extreme example"! I can only hope that I would
respond as lovingly under such circumstances.

Second, she is committed to helping others. Above all, she wants to help the many others
who are still held hostage in the Colombian jungle by FARC. "For me, it's very, very important—
it's very important to ask to all the people that can help us to fight for the release of the ones
who are still in the jungle." But her desire to help others extends beyond those who are suffering
as she did. Indeed, she says that her experience has shifted her priorities in a fundamental way.
She used to have many goals—she may yet run for president of Colombia again—but now "I
think that the only thing that remains perhaps is my desire to be there for others and to help."
And she calls upon all of us to answer the world's call for help as well: "No matter where you
are, you can do beautiful things if you have the disposition, the devotion and the ability to work
for those who are suffering, for those who don't have a place in the world." How can we do this?
"Love is the key."

Finally, she is a shining example of the Course principle that no matter what has happened to
us—even if we have experienced the most brutal degradation imaginable by human standards
—we can choose how to respond to it. We can become bitter and see nothing but evil, or we
can look past appearances and behold God, love, and miracles. In Betancourt's words:

I never lost my faith. And God was with me from the first day to the end of this horrible
experience. And He's still with me. And I pray every day.…I mean, for me it was a miracle.
Sometimes people think that miracles are something that happens to others, and very seldom. I
think that they happen to everybody, but we just don't understand what's happening to us and
we prefer to talk about coincidence. We should give the credit to God.

Miracles happen to everybody. They happened to Ingrid Betancourt. They can happen to you
and me. They are ready and waiting to come to us and through us if we will turn away from
anger and hate, open our minds and hearts to God, and choose to bless those who seem to
persecute us. What else but this does A Course in Miracles want to teach us?

Acting out Fantasies Is Just Plain Acting out

by Robert Perry

This document explores the concept of "acting out" in A Course in Miracles. This is mainly about
the acting out of fantasies, but the Course appears to mix in with that the notion of just plain
"acting out."

"Acting out" in normal usage

When the Course speaks of acting out, it is mainly referring to the common idea of "acting out
fantasies," where we attempt to take some private, inner fantasy and act it out on the outside,
so that it can become reality. We are all familiar with this notion.

Yet the Course also seems to have in mind the more psychological concept of simply "acting
out." We often associate this with a child who has deep-seated issues, probably from his home
life, and instead of verbalizing these issues, he "acts out" in the form of destructive, antisocial
behavior. This usage of "acting out" has no single, agreed-upon meaning. It was first coined by
Freud but has since passed into more general usage. Here are some definitions I found online:

Acting out is defined as the release of out-of-control aggressive or sexual impulses in order to
gain relief from tension or anxiety. Such impulses often result in antisocial or delinquent
behaviors. The term is also sometimes used in regard to a psychotherapeutic release of
repressed feelings, as occurs in psychodrama. (Encyclopedia of Children's Health)
The expression of unconscious feelings and fantasies in behavior; reacting to present situations
as if they were the original situation that gave rise to the feelings and fantasies.
( Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers)
Expressing unconscious emotional conflicts or feelings, often of hostility or love, through overt
behavior, thus bypassing conscious awareness and experience of feeling.
(www.bpdresourcecenter.org/what_glossary.htm
Expressing emotional conflict or stress through behavior and actions rather than reflections or
feelings.
(www.schizophrenicpen.com/)
A term that is generally used when the observer believes that the child's behavior is an
expression of unconscious wishes or feelings. Frequently used in describing undesirable
behavior.
( www.ourspecialkids.org/definitions.html)
(psychiatry) the display of previously inhibited emotions (often in actions rather than words);
considered to be healthy and therapeutic
( wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

If we put these definitions together, then "acting out" appears to be the expression of
unconscious feelings, fantasies, and wishes, often aggressive or sexual in nature, in order to
relieve tension (tension which appears to come from them being pent-up). This expression may
bypass conscious awareness and feeling, so that it is not expressed verbally but erupts directly
into behavioral expression. This frequently results in undesirable, antisocial behavior. However,
the release of tension involved is sometimes considered therapeutic, and may be elicited by a
situation, such as psychodrama, that mirrors (but is not) the original situation which gave rise to
the unconscious feelings.

While most of the Course references to "acting out" clearly speak of acting something out,
especially fantasies (which is the first meaning of the two), what is said about such acting out
sounds a great deal like just plain acting out. Further, there is one reference in the Course that
seems to smack more of the second meaning: "You do not realize that you are making them act
out for you" (T-18.II.5:6). In that reference, nothing in particular is being acted out. The
reference is to sheer "acting out" (this reference also follows a comment in the preceding
paragraph about "temper tantrums"). All in all, then, the Course seems to have melded the two
notions together into a single concept.

"Acting out" in the Course

There are fifteen references in the Course to the term "act out," found in the twelve passages at
the end of this piece. The overall tapestry of thought that emerges from these references is
remarkably consistent, even in the more brief, seemingly offhand references. It echoes the
conventional meanings of "acting out" (I'll address the relationship between those conventional
usages and the Course's usage later on), yet takes a more philosophical approach, one that
ends up overturning the underlying assumptions behind behavior itself—or at least
conventionally-motivated behavior.

In the Course, acting out fantasy refers to us taking an internal fantasy, dream, or wish and, by
expressing it through behavior, attempting to turn that fantasy into reality, to make our dream
come true. The assumption behind this is that something only becomes truly real when it is
manifested or enacted in the physical realm. Thus, for a fantasy to be fulfilled and find
satisfaction, it must be acted out in the physical world.

Acting out is often discussed under the heading of special relationships (1, 2, 3, 4, 5—these are
the numbers of the passages in which this theme appears). This makes sense, for these
relationships are the primary arena in which we seek to turn our fantasies into reality. In these
relationships, however, we don't recognize the real nature of the fantasy that we are acting out.
We think we are acting out love, but in fact we are acting out hate (2) and fear (5). This includes
acting out vengeance on past partners (3), which is really vengeance on ourselves (4), and
attempting to kill God (1).
By attacking (covertly or overtly) our partner, then, we are symbolically attacking past partners,
ourselves, and God. The relationship has thus become a kind of bizarre psychodrama in which
our partner plays many roles in our mind, any role except him- or herself.

This acting out almost always takes the form of attack (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12). For this
reason, we may actually deny ourselves the acting out, because we fear the guilt and
punishment that may ensue (9). For this same reason, we may find surrogates to act out our
hostile fantasies for us. We may dream a dream in which the figures in the dream act out for us,
so that our hateful impulses can still be expressed while we appear to be innocent (6). Or we
may tell ourselves that in attacking, our body acted on its own, that its own needs and instincts
motivated the destructive behavior (8).

The most radical aspect of the Course's approach to "acting out" is a notion that runs through
these passages, the notion that "it is impossible to act out fantasies" (8). How can a fantasy,
which is by nature divorced from reality, ever turn into reality? In the Course, fantasy and reality
are two entirely separate realms; never the twain shall meet. To look at an example, if our
fantasy is that of killing God, how can that fantasy ever become reality? How can you actually
kill God (1)? Another example: If our belief that we are powerful is only a dream, an illusion, how
can acting out that dream really change anything? How can it make us truly powerful (10)? In
other words, what's true is true, and what's false is false, regardless of what plays out in the
physical. Certain fundamental verities are simply the way they are, regardless of what happens
in the world of form.

Herein lies the problem: the physical is just a realm of form, and form is meaningless. It is
neutral. It is content-free. Thus, it doesn't really mean anything when our body acts out our
fantasies. All that is happening is that a meaningless form is waving around its meaningless
arms and legs. How can meaning result from that? The waving of the arms and legs by itself,
then, cannot satisfy the mind, which runs on the fuel of meaning. The mind, therefore, is
required to add on its own overlay which says, "This waving of limbs really is the true and actual
fulfillment of my fantasy. My dream has come true!" But notice that the mind is making that
statement, not the body. The fantasy, then, remains a thing of the mind. What happens in the
bodily realm doesn't, in and of itself, actually accomplish anything, even mental satisfaction.

This undercuts the basic assumption behind acting out of fantasies. That basic assumption is
that something is only real, and thus satisfying, when it is made manifest in the physical realm.
The Course is saying the exact opposite: you can't make something real by making it manifest
in the physical realm. When you do make it manifest, nothing has really happened; nothing has
really changed. By acting out your fantasy, then, you haven't turned it into reality. You've just
gone through an elaborate charade in your mind.

By undercutting the assumption behind acting out, the Course undercuts the assumption that
drives conventional behavior. For isn't conventional behavior largely a process of acting out our
hopes and dreams? We think that by taking our hopes and dreams and acting them out in the
physical, we can make them come true and thereby satisfy them—and satisfy ourselves in the
process. What if we realized that by acting out our fantasies we were only engaging in more
fantasy, that in our behavior nothing was really happening, nothing except more fantasizing? At
that point, what would happen to behavior itself?

Relationship between the Course usage and the conventional meanings of "acting out"

Clearly, the Course is referring to what we normally call the acting out of fantasies. However, as
I said earlier, its concept of this also seems tinged with the notion of "acting out" full stop. For
what the Course says about acting out fantasies contains a remarkable number of elements
found in just plain "acting out."

• Both speak of us expressing an unconscious fantasy (though in the Course's usage, the fantasy
itself may be conscious; what is unconscious is its real content)
• Both say that this expression of the fantasy brings a kind of satisfaction or relief of tension (either
real or illusory)
 • Both speak of this expression often resulting in aggressive or hostile behavior
• Both associate this expression with sexuality (in the Course, special relationships)
• Both speak of the expression possibly taking place in a situation that is not the one that originally
gave rise to the feelings, one that merely reminds the person of that situation
• Both see this expression as (at least potentially) being an inappropriate translation from the
mental realm into the physical (in the conventional definitions, there is the implication that there is
something inappropriate about translating these unconscious feelings into behavior, that they
should instead be brought into awareness and simply verbalized)

It is hard to imagine that all of these elements from "acting out" made it by pure chance into the
Course's concept of the acting out of fantasies. It looks like a deliberate marriage of the two
concepts. This marriage has profound implications, for once the Course injects "acting out" into
the acting out of fantasies, it then treats virtually all behavior as the acting out of fantasy. Think
of the implications of this. It means that, in the Course's eyes, our normal behavior, our normal
pursuit of our hopes and dreams, is something quite different from what we think it is. Our
normal behavior is a case of acting out. It is the inappropriate eruption of unconscious, hostile
inner conflicts into the behavioral realm. Not a very glowing commentary on normal behavior!

We can see this attitude in the following comment from the Course (which Greg just reminded
me about): "Dreams are perceptual temper tantrums" (T-18.II.4:1). Since the Course says that
even our waking experience is a dream, this means that our life as we know it is a massive
temper tantrum, one big case of acting out.

The Course, however, undermines conventional behavior even further. It says that the
foundational assumption behind acting out fantasies is that something only becomes real when
it is made manifest in the physical realm. In this view, our dreams "come true" when they pass
from mere mental fantasy into actual physical reality. This assumption, we might assume, is why
it feels good to move something from an inner feeling to an outer behavior. It has gone from
theory to actuality, from dream to reality. It has become real.

What could be more basic to behavior than that simple idea? Yet that simple idea is exactly
what the Course negates. It says that real truth consists of the eternal verities of the mental
realm. Such truths are unaffected by what happens in the bodily realm, especially since the
bodily realm is meaningless. It is just a bunch of meaningless forms engaged in meaningless
motions. What happens in that realm changes nothing. Therefore, what is not true in the eternal
mental realm cannot be made true by being acted out in the physical realm. Dreams stay
dreams; they cannot come true. No amount of physically acting them out will ever alter their
metaphysical status.

In the end, then, by first saying that acting out our fantasies is really just acting out, and by then
negating the whole assumption behind acting out fantasies, the Course has dramatically
undermined conventional behavior itself. It has said that, first, conventional behavior is far more
sick than we realize. It amounts to acting out. It is (as I said above) an inappropriate eruption of
unconscious, hostile inner conflicts into the physical realm. It is one big tantrum. And it has said
that, second, conventional behavior is far more ineffectual than we realize. It cannot bring
something from theory to actuality. It cannot turn fantasies into reality. It cannot do anything real
at all.

Of course, the Course does see an important role for behavior. Behavior, in its view, has the
crucial role of communicating love to other minds, in a form they understand. This, however, is
still understood to be taking place within a dream. Since it is a dream, behavior cannot do
anything real. It cannot make dreams and fantasies come true. But it can send a message to the
minds of the other dreamers, a message that helps them move closer to awakening.

Reflections

Aside from causing sobering reflection in me about my behavior, this material gives me a
glimpse of the Course's genius. For the Course has accomplished everything I said above
through mere hints. Its entire view of acting out fantasies is communicated in a relatively small
number of passages in which the term "acting out" plays only a minor role. All of these
passages are about other things. Yet somehow the term is used in such a way as to
communicate an entire thought system in miniature, a thought system whose features repeat
again and again in the various passages. One gets the impression that whenever the author
used the term, however briefly and offhandedly, behind that usage was this strikingly original
system of thought, complete in every detail. It makes one wonder how an author could innovate
like this without announcing it more openly (I certainly would if I were him). Or, alternately, how
an author could be so spontaneously yet deeply innovative with even the tiniest details of his
thought system.

Passages

What follows are the passages on which the foregoing discussion is based. First I quote the
passage and then I comment on it.

Passage 1: "The central theme in its [the special relationship's] litany to sacrifice is that God
must die so you can live. And it is this theme that is acted out in the special relationship" (T-
16.V.10:4 5).

Comments: What we are really acting out in the special relationship, unbeknownst to ourselves,
is that God must die so that we can live. It seems as if we are acting out the idea that if we
sacrifice ourselves, we gain life. But in sacrificing ourselves, we are really trying to kill God (this
is explained more fully in the section itself).

Passage 2: "The fantasies it brings to its chosen relationships in which to act out its hate are
fantasies of your destruction" (T-16.VII.3:4).

Comments: What we are really acting out in the special relationship, again unbeknownst to
ourselves, are fantasies not of our supreme pleasure, but of our destruction.

Passage 3: "There is no fantasy that does not contain the dream of retribution for the past.
Would you act out the dream, or let it go?" (T-16.VII.4:2-3).

Comments: Again we are acting out a fantasy, a dream, just as in the previous passage. Again,
this is talking about the special relationship, and again saying that the fantasy we are acting out
is generally hidden to us. That fantasy is "the dream of retribution for the past." Rather than
acting this fantasy out, we really ought to let it go.

Passage 4: "In the special relationship it does not seem to be an acting out of vengeance that
you seek. And even when the hatred and the savagery break briefly through, the illusion of love
is not profoundly shaken. Yet the one thing the ego never allows to reach awareness is that the
special relationship is the acting out of vengeance on yourself" (T-16.VII.5:1-3).

Comments: This passage is the very next paragraph after the previous passage. So it
continues the same themes: In the special relationship, we are acting our vengeance on the
past. This passage, however, pulls this theme even further into hidden motivations. For it says
that we merely seem to be acting out vengeance on others who "sinned" against us in the past.
We are really acting out vengeance on ourselves for our own "sins" against our ego.

Passage 5: "Fear is both a fragmented and fragmenting emotion. It seems to take many forms,
and each one seems to require a different form of acting out for satisfaction. While this appears
to introduce quite variable behavior, a far more serious effect lies in the fragmented perception
from which the behavior stems. No one is seen complete. The body is emphasized, with special
emphasis on certain parts, and used as the standard for comparison of acceptance or rejection
for acting out a special form of fear" (T-18.I.3:3 7).

Comments: This passage is a bit difficult, so I'll try first just to understand it. Fear is a
fragmented emotion. Each one of its fragmented forms needs to be acted out by a different
behavior in order to be satisfied. Behind these variable behaviors lies a fragmented view of the
world. People are seen in fragments, as just bodies, even just particular body parts. These are
then compared with the body parts of others, and on this basis we accept or reject those people.
(This acceptance of some and rejection of others means that we see the Sonship in fragments.)
Once we accept someone on the basis of her preferred body parts, we then act out with her
what we see as a special form of love, a kind of love that applies only to her, to her special body
and its special parts. Our behaviors toward her apply only to her, not to anyone else. Yet we
don't realize that we aren't acting out a special form of love, but rather a special form of fear.

What does this say about acting out? It says that the things we act out are so various because
we are acting out fear, and fear takes many, many forms. Some of those forms seem to be love,
a very special kind of love the basis of which is very special body parts. But it is really just
another form of fear.

Passage 6: "It is the figures in the dream and what they do that seem to make the dream. You
do not realize that you are making them act out for you, for if you did the guilt would not be
theirs, and the illusion of satisfaction would be gone" (T-18.II.5:5 6).

Comments: In a dream (this refers to nighttime dreams, but would apply to the daytime dream
as well), the figures in the dream (the people in it) seem to be acting independently. But in fact,
we are controlling them. We are making them act out for us. But we keep this fact hidden from
ourselves. This is because we are having them do things that we want done, yet things that if
we did them we would feel guilty for. We have something inside of us that needs to be acted out
in order to be satisfied, but we need someone else to act it out.

Passage 7: "Mind cannot attack, but it can make fantasies and direct the body to act them out.
Yet it is never what the body does that seems to satisfy. Unless the mind believes the body is
actually acting out its fantasies, it will attack the body by increasing the projection of its guilt
upon it." (T-18.VI.3:5 7).

Comments: Here again the body is acting out fantasies in order to make them become real,
and thus to find satisfaction. Yet what actually brings satisfaction? Is it what the body does? No,
the body isn't what experiences satisfaction. The mind is what experiences satisfaction. So
satisfaction doesn't come from the body acting out the fantasies, but from the mind's belief that
the body is really doing so. If the mind does not believe that the body is successfully acting out
its fantasies, the mind will heap blame upon it for not doing its job right.

Passage 8: "It is insane to use the body as the scapegoat for guilt, directing its attack and
blaming it for what you wished it to do. It is impossible to act out fantasies. For it is still the
fantasies you want, and they have nothing to do with what the body does" (T-18.VI.6:1-3).

Comments: Now we have the other side of the story. Before, we blamed the body for our
perception that it was not acting out our fantasies. Now we blame because it is acting them out.
This current dynamic is another version of what was discussed in T-18.II: the idea that I have
certain things I want acted out, but I want to make it look like I didn't do the actual acting out.
The other dream figures did it. My body did it. It wasn't me.

This passage, however, addressed a deeper issue: "It is impossible to act out fantasies." We
can approach this in two ways. First, the very nature of fantasy is that it is divorced from reality.
How, then, can it be acted out in reality? How can it ever become reality (which, of course, is the
whole goal of acting it out). If you have a fantasy of sprouting wings and flying like a
hummingbird, what are your hopes of ever really acting that out?

Second, and this is the angle taken by the passage itself, fantasies are of the mind. Acting is of
the body. They are two different realms. Even when the body is "acting out" fantasies, it is
merely going through meaningless motions. It does not invest any significance or feeling in
those motions, because it does not feel; it does not appreciate significance. It is not aware. It is
just meat. Thus, even when the fantasy is being physically acted out, it still requires the mind to
add its own overlay on, and say, "This is my fantasy being acted out, and acted out
successfully." So the fantasy and its "fulfillment" is still really happening in the mind, not the
body. For all we know, we could be having a dream, and the body that is acting out our fantasy
could be a dream body. In this scenario, the acting out would still feel exactly the same; it would
feel every bit as real. The point is that it's all in the mind, which means that the physical acting
out is actually irrelevant.

Passage 9: "Fear can become so acute that the sin is denied the acting out" (T-19.III.1:3).

Comments: In this passage, we are afraid to act out sinful impulses because of the potential
repercussions. This fear can be so great that it is actually greater than our desire to act out
those impulses, and so we don't act them out. This is related to those passages where we
would be afraid to act something out ourselves and so instead get a surrogate to act it out.

Passage 10: "Those who are strong are never treacherous, because they have no need to
dream of power and to act out their dream" (T-21.VII.3:6).

Comments: Here again we are acting out dreams, fantasies, in an attempt to make them come
true, when instead we should be secure in reality, particularly our reality as perfectly strong. Yet
because we are not secure in this reality of strength, we dream up a fantasy of power and act
that out through treachery.

Passage 11: "And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them
and think them real" (W-pI.132.4:3).

Comments: Here again we have insane wishes that are not anchored in reality. However, we
see them in the world, written on the world's blank slate, so that we can look at them and think
they are real. Once again, we are engaging in a false process of trying vainly to turn fantasy into
reality.

Passage 12: "Or it may also take the form of intense rage, accompanied by thoughts of
violence, fantasied or apparently acted out" (M-17.4:5).

Comments: Here, we are acting out hostility again-"thoughts of violence." But notice the actual
phrase: "apparently acted out." Again, our acting out seems to turn thought/wish/dream into
reality. But it doesn't, because the acting out is not real.

Here I Am, Lord

by Robert Perry

In the early months of the Course's dictation, Jesus gave quite a bit of personal guidance to
Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, personally shepherding them in their understanding and
application of the Course. I find this guidance extremely instructive. You can read about it in
Absence from Felicity, Ken Wapnick's account of Helen Schucman and her scribing of A Course
inMiracles.

In this article I want to look at an instance of Jesus applying the Course's principles specifically
to Bill. He gives Bill a very simple prayer: "Here I'am, Lord." This prayer is actually a biblical one
(as my friend, Randall Keller, pointed out to me). It is, in essence, Isaiah's famous response to
his calling from God. In the sixth chapter of Isaiah, he has a vision in which he sees the Lord
lifted up on a throne, surrounded by angels, and then hears the Lord's voice saying, "Whom
shall I send, and who will go for us?" His reply to the Lord is, "Here am I! Send me."
Now a four-word prayer from the Old Testament may not seem very profound, or even very
Course-like. Yet Jesus keeps returning to this prayer for Bill, discussing it on at least four
separate occasions. He explains why Bill needed this prayer, how exactly he should use this
prayer, what the prayer actually means, and what effects it would have. In the process, he
manages to endow this simple prayer with profound psychological and spiritual meaning.

Why Bill needed this prayer

According to Jesus' descriptions of Bill, Bill had adopted a mental stance of standing apart,
playing the uninvolved observer. This had tragic consequences in Bill's mind. For it resulted in
Bill seeing himself as standing on one side, alone and excluded, while all that is real--God,
Jesus and the Sonship--stood on the other side. In his mind, reality was a gigantic party to
which he was not invited. As a result, he doubted that he was loved and cared for by God and
Jesus, that he was entitled to universal love, that he was a real part of theSonship. To put it
more bluntly, by seeing himself as separate from the rest of reality, he doubted that he
possessed reality. He doubted that he was truly real. This is why Jesus repeatedly said things
like, "He lacks confidence in his identity, and needs to strengthen it" (p. 222).

All of that may sound abstract, but it had very down-to-earth implications. For example, when
Bill asked for guidance, he would ask with little confidence that Jesus would answer, and then
would give up and stop listening too soon. Jesus said, "Since I don't know when he's going to
ring off I have to be very short and even cryptic. It chops messages up too much" (p. 197).
Jesus then gave this sage counsel to Bill:

He doesn't have much real confidence that I will get through. He never just claims his rights. He
should begin with much more confidence. I'll keep my promises...(p. 197).

Another implication of Bill's lack of confidence in his reality was that he saw himself as
particularly vulnerable to how others saw him. If Bill was nothing but an insubstantial image,
then the perceptions of others had enormous power to re-shape that image, to re-create Bill in
his own eyes. A flimsy leaf can be blown about by even the slightest breeze. An example is that
Bill was particularly vulnerable to his parents's misperceptions of him. Unlike many modern
therapies, Jesus did not indulge Bill in this. He insisted that Bill's giving his parents so much
power to shape his self-image was not humility, but instead a case of "simple spite" (p. 271)--
spite, because by giving them power to hurt him he made them appear cruel; he accused them
of sin. Jesus' counsel is quite firm:

It is your duty to establish beyond doubt that you are totally unwilling to side with (identify with)
anyone's misperceptions of you, incl uding your own (p. 272).

Yet another implication of Bill's sense that he was excluded from the totality is that he was afraid
to act as a teacher in a classroom. Jesus has a great deal to say about this, and the causes
behind it. Here is my best attempt at a summary of the causes, which I feel provide a poignant
window onto the troubled psyche of a normal human (these are found in the section called "Bill's
Class," pp. 269-280):

• Bill felt cut off from teaching ability because he felt cut off from reality. "When Bill says that he
cannot teach, he is making the same mistake that we spoke of before, when he acted as if the
universal laws of love applied to everyone but him" (p. 275).
• He also feared to engage in a teaching role because he felt that he had been abused by authority
figures (his parents) and so, in his mind, becoming an authority figure was synonymous with
abusing others (p. 274).
• He also associated being a teacher with elevating himself above others, which made him feel
even more separate from them, and so increased his separation anxiety. If the students didn't
approve of him as a teacher, he would feel more like one of them, like one of the gang. This
would lessen his separation anxiety but the disapproval would make him depressed (p. 278). The
obvious "solution" is to not play the role of a teacher at all.
• He also associated teaching with playing God, and so feared that God would punish him for
usurping His role (p. 276).
 • Finally he sensed that being a teacher would challenge his current way of seeing things, and he
wanted to protect his thought system. Since change had gotten him into this mess, he thought he
might as well hold firm right where he was; further change might only make things worse (p. 278).

It is remarkable that such sweeping and life-determining effects can flow from the simple mental
posture of standing apart and playing the uninvolved observer.

The practice itself

Jesus gives Bill the prayer, "Here I am, Lord," as one antidote to Bill's sense of being unreal.
We will see in a moment how this prayer was meant to address Bill's psychological malady.
First, let us look at Jesus' instructions for how Bill should say the prayer, which were part of
Jesus' counsel on how Bill could better receive guidance:

He has to learn better concentration. His mind flits about too much for good communication.
Suggest a very short phrase like "Here I am Lord" and don't think of anything else. Just pull in
your mind slowly from everywhere else and center it on these words. This will also give him the
realization that he really is here. He's not too sure (p. 197).

Notice the explicit instructions here:

• Slowly pull your mind in from everything else.

• Center it on these words.
• Don't think of anything else.

These, of course, are standard meditation instructions. This practice is meant to help Bill keep
his mind from flitting about so much; if he can stabilize his mind, he can better receive guidance.
Notice the advantage of using a "very short phrase." If your concentration is already bad, you
don't want to juggle some long, involved prayer in your mind. You want something short and
sweet.

You really have to use this prayer for yourself to appreciate it. It has many benefits, as we will
see, but one of them is the very one mentioned here: It is terrific for centering your mind, for
improving concentration. If you are meditating and you (perchance) find your mind wandering,
simply say, "Here Iam, Lord," and you will be surprised at how effectively this brings your mind
away from daydreams and back to focus.

What the prayer means

Whatexactly does "Here I am, Lord" mean? Saying the words is useless unless you know what
they signify. At one point Jesus explains their meaning:

When I told Bill to concentrate on the phrase "Here I am, Lord," I did not mean "in this world" by
"here." I wanted him to think of himself as a separate consciousness, capable of direct
communication with the Creator of that consciousness (p. 285).

In other words, "Here I am, Lord," does not mean, "Here I am, in this world," or, "Hello, I'm over
here." The "here" does not refer to a physical location. Instead of physical location, it denotes
mental presence. It really refers to being present to God, available to God. It means, "Here I am,
totally present to you, Lord." Or, "I am with You, near You, able to communicate withYou, my
Creator." Or, "My whole mind is on You, available to You."

Also, let's go back to the instructions for the prayer. It was designed to convince Bill that he is
here, since he isn't too sure. Thus, "I am here" means "I exist, I am real." In summary, the
prayer means:

I am real, and I am totally present to You, the Creator of my reality.

The intended effects of the prayer
The intended effects have already been hinted at, but I want to draw them out. Besides helping
improve Bill's concentration, this prayer was meant to convince Bill of two things: First, that he
himself was real; second, that God and HisLove were near and available to Bill. Let's take these
one at a time.

As I said, the prayer was designed to convince Bill that he was real. In a fascinating discussion,
Jesus likened the practice of this prayer to the exercise that the French philosopher, Rene'
Descartes, used as the foundation for his philosophical system:

Descartes engaged in a very interesting teaching procedure, and one from which he himself
learned a great deal. He began with doubting the existence of everything, except himself. He
insisted that his own existence was not open to doubt, and rebuilt his entire thought system on
the one premise "I think,therefore I am" [see lesson 54.2:3 for the Course's rewording of the
Cogito]. It is noteworthy that he arrived at accepting the entire system he originally doubted,
solely on the basis of this one piece of knowledge. There was, however, a distinct shift in his
own perception. He no longer really questioned the reality of what he perceived, because he
knew he was there (p. 275).

I love this discussion. What it reports about Descartes's process is something anyone can read
about in any philosophy textbook--except the last remark. Here Jesus adds some inside
information about the psychological impact of this process on Descartes: He experienced a shift
in perception, and, as a result, he knew he was real. This impact on Descartes's own mind is
what is relevant for Bill. Jesus is promising that if Bill goes through a parallel process--by using
this prayer--he, too, will experience a shift in perception and come to know that he is real.

Let's move on to the second effect: The prayer was designed to convince Bill that God and His
Love were near and available to him. Jesus said the meaning of the prayer was that Bill was "a
separate consciousness, capable of direct communication with the Creator of that
consciousness" (p. 285). This is not normal language for the Course, since it came early in the
Course dictation. What it means is that Bill is a real being who can make direct contact with his
Creator.

This is the actual effect of using this prayer. You feel like God is right here, near, available.
Quite simply, it makes God feel present. You really have to use it to have any idea of how
effective it is in this regard. One suggestion I have is, when using it, to remember that God is
already totally present to you. He is always here. In using this prayer, I often focus on the line
from lesson 153, in which we are asked to "pause a moment, as He tells us, `I am here'" (19:6).
This line implies that He is always saying to us, "I am here"; He is always saying to us His
version of this prayer. Thus, saying to God, "Here I am," does not mean calling to Him from a
distance; reaching across some gulf to contact Him. It means coming out of my fog and
becoming at last present to He Who is always present to me. It means matching my little "Here I
am" with His eternal "I am here." The only distance between us is the gap between my
distracted mind, which is usually not on Him, and His ever-present Mind, Which is always on
me. Once I say this prayer, then, the gap is gone. Now we are both present to each other. We
are both here.

In case you think that such a simple prayer can have only limited, weak effects, I recently
discovered that this was one of the favorite prayers of Brother Lawrence. His version of the
prayer was, "My God, here I am, all Yours." For those who don't know of him, Brother Lawrence
was the seventeenth-century monk known for The Practice of the Presence of God. His practice
was to continually remind himself that God was in him, with him, near him, surrounding him, etc.
Through the continual use of prayers like this one, he went beyond the mere practice of the
concept of God's presentness, and entered into the profound life-long experience of God's
Presence. In other words, Brother Lawrence used this prayer for the same purpose that Jesus
asked Bill to use it. And it worked!
In summary, then, this prayer was specifically designed to help Bill overcome his primary stance
of separation, his primal sense of being split off from reality, cut off from the warmth of God's
Love, excluded from the Sonship and deprived of reality and substance. And since this prayer
was designed to overcome Bill's basic separation pattern, it also promised to heal the various
symptoms of that pattern, including his feeling that he had no right to receive guidance, his fear
of his parents and his fear of teaching. Jesus attached the following remarkable promise to Bill's
use of this prayer:

You will lose all your fear of teaching and relating in any form once you know who you are (p.
275).

It is truly amazing how much psychological wisdom, spiritual meaning and practical power Jesus
could pack into a four-word prayer from the Old Testament.

Conclusion
This brief example of how Jesus worked with Bill and Helen not only has value in itself, it also
tells us a great deal about the living of the Course. It underscores the great value of the kind of
practice we find in the Workbook, the concentrated, repeated use of potent phrases. It tells us
that the generic ego thought system, as described by the Course, manifests differently in each
of us, in the form of very individual personality patterns. It tells us that we can find specific
practices that are tailor-made for our particular versions of ego. And, it tells us that Jesus is truly
a loving brother who is deeply concerned with our minds, and is willing to adapt his teaching in
whatever way she needs in order to reach us and to heal us. I would like to close by quoting a
longer version of this prayer, which Jesus gave for Bill to say to him. You can see in it some of
the same ideas that we have discussed, but you will only see its sublime beauty when you say it
to Jesus:

I would like to pray that my will be united with Thine, recognizing that Thy perfect love will
suffice (or correct) for my imperfect love. I pray that I may accept the Atonement with conviction,
recognizing its inevitable worth, and my own divine worth as part of this identification with Thee.
I pray that my fear be replaced by an active sense of Thy love, and Thy continual willingness to
help me overcome the split, or divided will, which is responsible for my difficulty with this. I
accept the divinity of the messages we have received, and affirm my will in both accepting and
acting upon the Atonement principle.

Here I am, Lord.

What is the Course's process for healing our minds?

by Greg Mackie

Question: What is the Course's process for healing our minds? What is our part and what is the
Holy Spirit's part?

Answer: A Course in Miracles is all about healing our minds, so in broad terms the entire
Course is the process: We heal our minds by taking the Course. That being said, there is a
basic three-part process for healing our minds that the Course presents either in whole or in part
countless times. I'd like to focus on that here, indicating along the way what is our part and what
is the Holy Spirit's part.

1. We receive healing

First, we receive healing in our minds. There are a number of ways this can happen, of course.
But broadly speaking, the way the Course provides us is the study and practice of its ideas.
Through study and practice, we call into question our current interpretation of things, open our
minds to a new interpretation, and enable the Course to give us that new interpretation, an
interpretation that heals our minds. We might receive this by reading a Text section, repeating a
Workbook lesson, or by doing a meditation in which we open our minds to healing.

For instance, Lesson 136 calls into question our current belief that sickness comes to us against
our will. Through reading the lesson, we learn the Course's new interpretation of sickness: that it
is actually something we bring upon ourselves as a defense against the truth. And then we do a
meditative practice in which we both let that new interpretation sink deeper into our minds and
open our minds to the truth we've used sickness to defend against. We introduce that meditative
practice with these words: "Sickness is a defense against the truth. I will accept the truth of what
I am, and let my mind be wholly healed today" (W-pI.136.15:6-7). Then, we are told that as we
do the meditation, "Healing will flash across your open mind, as peace and truth arise to take
the place of war and vain imaginings" (W-pI.136.16:1).

In all of this, the Holy Spirit has both provided us with our curriculum (the Course) and is the
agent who brings about our healing when we open our minds to him. Our part is simply to
attentively study and practice what He has given us. As the Text tells us, "You need offer only
undivided attention. Everything else will be given you" (T-12.V.9:4-5).

2. We give healing

Second, we give the healing we received to another person: "Having received the idea of
healing, [you] must give it to hold it" (T-5.IV.7:2). If the first two components of the Course's
program are study and practice, the third is extension. Extension is a huge theme in the Course;
an entire volume, the Manual for Teachers, is devoted to it. Once we receive the miracle of
healing into our minds, our job becomes to extend it to others. This is actually the import of the
title A Course in Miracles: It is a course intended to train miracle workers in how to extend
healing miracles to miracle receivers. You could say it is a course in extension.

The Holy Spirit (or Jesus) both tells us which miracles we should do and is the agent of
miracles, "the bringer of all miracles" (W-pI.106.6:5). Our part is to bring ourselves into a state of
"miracle-mindedness" (T-2.V.3:1) through letting our minds be healed (the previous point), and
then offer up our willingness to let miracles come through us as the Holy Spirit or Jesus directs.
As Jesus says, "I will provide the opportunities to do them, but you must be ready and willing"
(T-1.III.1:8).

3. We fully recognize that we have received healing

Third, through that act of giving, the extension of a healing miracle to another person, we come
to fully recognize that we have received the healing of our minds. This is not really a step in the
process; rather, it is the result of the process. Giving what we have received enables us to fully
receive it; it is what finally heals our minds completely. Workbook Lessons 154 and 159
beautifully capture this process:

To give is how to recognize you have received. It is the proof that what you have is yours. You
understand that you are healed when you give healing. (W-pI.159.1:7-8-2:1)
No one can receive and understand he has received until he gives. (W-pI.154.8:6)
Let us but learn this lesson for today: We will not recognize what we receive until we give it. You
have heard this said a hundred ways, a hundred times, and yet belief is lacking still. But this is
sure; until belief is given it, you will receive a thousand miracles and then receive a thousand
more, but will not know that God Himself has left no gift beyond what you already have; nor has
denied the tiniest of blessings to His Son. (W-pI.154.12:1-2)

In other words: Until we give to our brothers the healing miracles we have received, we will not
know that God has already given us total healing. This idea that we fully receive only through
giving to others is the core of the Course's path to salvation. As Lesson 122 says about the
healing gift of forgiveness: "Forgive and be forgiven. As you give you will receive. There is no
plan but this for the salvation of the Son of God" (W-pI.122.6:3-5).
What a wonderful process! I think the power of it is something we have all experienced: We
receive a new idea into our minds, give it to others, and through that giving our own conviction
in it grows even stronger. We don't really understand the full import of what we have received
until we give it away and see the profound impact it has on those it touches:

Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them. If you are to save the world, you first
accept salvation for yourself. But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles
it brings to everyone you look upon. (W-pI.187.3:1-3)

In short, to echo the earlier quote from Lesson 159, "Giving is proof of having" (W-pI.187.1:2).
Let's get this process started, then, by giving the Course's path our undivided attention, so we
can receive the healing of our minds, give that healing to our brothers through miracles, and
thereby make it fully our own.