ACIM TEACHER REFLECTS ON GOOD VERSUS EVIL

When discussing ACIM's definition of the ego, we could go with the term what is egotistical, to mean, not exactly evil, but so selfish, that most of us like to call a spade a spade without trying to make something ugly, into something less offensive to the senses.

It's true, if you believe in God, that God is all forgiving. However, it is man that is unforgiving. It is the individual ego which does not forgive, or takes eons to get around to it.

True forgiveness is a sign of the more refined and evolved soul. ACIM says we do not know how to forgive, and so must call upon God to learn how to forgive. And the sooner the better.

ACIM does not say, that if we are in the business of prosecution within legal fields, or working in the law firms, that we forgive all and throw away our livelihood and stop efforts to increase justice in the world. That is not true forgiveness. Only by going into your closet and asking God what it is and to help you with it, can you learn what true forgiveness is, and then the action to take to incorporate justice will be given to you.

ACIM actually makes it easier to learn forgiveness, which means "to give as before" the grievance took place. To give as before, means that balance has been restored to a relationship, either with a person, or with a situation or circumstance, nation or personal matter.

Balance to say, order is restored. All is in divine order, whether we perceive this truly or not.

Down through the ages Christianity has constantly tried to project onto Satan or the devil all the crimes of the earth plane. It's easy to say, the devil made me do it. Then of course, one need not change, as one was just weak and tempted of the devil.

It's not quite that simple anymore. Along came J who is the great spirit of love itself, and transcribed to Helen A Course In Miracles.

It doesn't matter whether you believe this is possible or not. The material speaks for itself. Only a master psychologist could have written it, and Helen was not that. She was quite an ordinary psychologist with one difference: she one day prayed for enlightenment, joined in prayer with another psychologist, as to why they were constantly fighting about everything, and oh God, if they could just break the pattern?

ACIM, and J (Jesus) was the answer. This was along about 1957 ACIM was happening.

Helen was thinking she had gotten more than she asked for. She had been chosen by J to write this material down, to the tune of 3 volumes. She barely understood what she was writing and flew into emotional turmoil over it, as think about it. Writing a simple letter is hard for me, but 3 volumes of spiritual psychology that would sweep through the world someday. It took it's toll on her nerves, but she had her partner with her to help her with it. After all, they had joined in prayer and the work on ACIM brought them together and it did break their cycle of always arguing over the running of the mental facilities they both worked at.

It broke the fighting cycle, and they began to grow a new relationship with ACIM as their sole focus, and understanding it's message. And so there you have it; prayer works, especially when joined with another being in the same desire for peaceful conditions.

Back to what this ego thing is. The first thing is to admit we actually have one. Nobody wishes to see themselves as bad. Consequently J does not come right out and say the ego is bad. He uses very acceptable, modern terminology, such as true perception versus false perception.

Clearly though, J does not say anything about a Satan nor evil beings on the outside of you waiting to plunder and spoil the innocent wayfarer here, he places the responsibility for good and evil within the individual, so that by taking responsibility for your own thoughts, we might then see our way out of despair and those temptations that we used to blame the devil for. Taking responsibility requires vigilance on our part, to what we are thinking and feeling, but it is not undo-able, and if it were, J would not have bothered to have Helen pen this masterpiece.

You have to have a basic trust in J, to get into this stuff, but you don't have to believe it is the historical J speaking. You can if you wish assign him a master, and respectfully go into it with an open mind and a prayer on your lips for understanding, knowing that prayer does work when done in all sincerity. If you find the book in your hands, it's supposed to be there.

Sooner or later, we will all possess the truth but only when we are prepared to receive it. We have all of eternity and Christianity has no stronghold on heaven's doors, although I hesitate to classify ACIM as the usual Christian fare we've gotten in the past. There's just no comparison.

It's about the brotherhood of mankind. More on that later. Let me tell this story that I've been itching to tell and tell me if it doesn't make you wonder how this could have happened.

I'm speaking of the holocaust. For a period of nearly 10 years, after I'd finished ACIM, I read nothing but personal accounts of what went on in the Holocaust. I lost count of the number of biographies of survivors that I found but it had to be at least 75 and likely over a 100. I was asking why it happened, hoping one of these survivors could tell me the answer so I could stop reading about the atrocities a whole race of people even remotely having an ancestor with Jewish blood endured. I did find out why it happened. I knew why it happened after I read ACIM, although in an unconscious knowing.

I think I was supposed to study these books so I could tell others that evil is not on the outside of man, but exists, as ACIM tells us in the form of the self serving ego which would rather be "right" than happy, and sets out to prove it's "righteousness." Sounds a bit like old time fundamentalism, don't you think?

That's not to say man is not connected to God. Man yearns after God. That is the holiness in him. We are about ready to shift into peace, what God wants for us.

First, let me tell you about the babies. Don't blame the Germans. The ego is something all races have. And ACIM says the ego can be corrected. That's the good news. We are talking then, about a training period for the ego and we are talking about belief systems.

The babies were smashed against walls; ripped from the arms of mothers according to some of my studies. In one story several families were squished into an attic in hiding. The Jews became good at building fake walls in attics and basements so that when the German patrols came to take them to the camps or ghettos, they would search the house and find it empty. The partitions built could provide only a small space. Perhaps 2 or 3' wide only. Generally, a large piece of furniture hid the opening.

On this occasion, an apt building was being emptied. Some of the tenants asked to join another family upon hearing news they would be raided that night. Although there was space for only four, they somehow managed to cram in eight people and one newborn baby.

While in hiding you couldn't sneeze or breath hard or make a sound, let alone have a baby cry at an inopportune moment. Well you guessed it, just as the doors below swung open with a crash, the baby woke from it's nap and begin to cry. The people heard the heavy boots coming up the stairs and all looked at the mother and told her, it was either all of them would die if she couldn't make the baby stop crying immediately.

I don't remember who pinched off the baby's nose and smothered it's mouth. Surely the mother could not, or maybe she could if she knew the baby would die anyway, along with the others. Think what an awful dilemma that would be for a mother. How they must have panicked, how much they wanted to live.

It's not the mother who was evil. Nor the booted club wielding German on the stairs who was evil. It was the doctrine of the times, that they called the law which let loose a legal blood letting party. Man disregarded Mose's laws "thou shalt not kill." This law is perhaps the most important one given to us. Now, during this time killing was made legal. You could fight, or you could flee, but you had to do one or the other to try and survive.

I write this to report what ACIM says about the ego, that a small bit of impatience in the ego holds back a storm of fury, and that is out of control, mayhem and death can and do happen in our world, due to lack of control, self control, and to false perception.

For surely it was false perception to declare a whole race as mere vermin to be wiped out. To kill for the sake of peace only makes us better killers.

The psychology of the Course offers us tools to work with our own egos. ACIM tells the student what they really want. Peace of mind. No matter what we strive for in this world, peace of mind heads up the list, if you could condense all your desires into just one priority, you would discover, yes, it's true, the value of peace of mind supersedes anything I can imagine I'd want in a world where it's seldom seen in a person.

And so we are told the value of forgiveness, so we can gain that peace of mind that surpasses understanding. What did I learn about the holocaust after subjecting myself to read painful diaries?

I studied the works of a Mr. Levi, one who went after the Nazis after the war. He told me in two words what the holocaust was about. Just two words and I finally understood: "never again."

Let us admit, we do have a say in whether it will happen again. We think on brotherhood, we think constantly on peace; and by this method, we declare "never again" do we let a government get so out of control that it's legal to kill babies and throw people in ovens even while they still yet breath after being gassed in the fake showers.

And all those Jews that got killed? What of them? They all were born again in another body.

I believe I was there. I fought in the resistance. That is my belief. We must not forget our history. We must not forget what mankind is capable of. The most extreme cruelties. However, we have tools now. We have the capacity to learn, to correct our egos, and to ask God for help in all that we do, to promote brotherhood on every level.