In this video, David Van Dyke shares a helpful PowerPoint presentation depicting a simple flowchart of how we’re all always either being guided by our Inner Kindness Teacher (a.k.a. Holy Spirit) or misguided by the insane thought system of separate interests (ego) and we choose one or the other throughout every day in a seemingly infinite loop … until we – eventually – give up completely on ego’s broken promises and failure to deliver any peace whatsoever.
After questions and comments from attendees, Bruce shared some related quotes highlighting the importance of mindfully watching the multitude of repeated opportunities to reinforce the Truth of our Real Identity instead of the insanity of the sin-guilt-fear paradigm that reinforces the attack-defense cycle of ego’s craziness. This helpful “get outta jail” card quote for our “dark nights of the soul” moments gives us a clue how we can – slowly-but-surely – reinforce what works by noticing how we feel: If I’m not at peace, I must have chosen the teacher of guilt and upset instead of the Teacher of Peace and Forgiveness.
“Were not each step in this direction so heavily reinforced, it would be hard indeed!” M-4.A.5:9
Other shared quotes about related topics from the Course (boldface emphasis added):
Reinforcement (30 instances of REINFORCE in ACIM)
“Error cannot really threaten truth, which can always withstand it. Only the error is actually vulnerable. You are free to establish your kingdom where you see fit, but the right choice is inevitable if you remember this:
Spirit is in a state of grace forever.
Your reality is only spirit.
Therefore you are in a state of grace forever.Atonement undoes all errors in this respect, and thus uproots the source of fear. Whenever you experience God’s reassurances as threat, it is always because you are defending misplaced or misdirected loyalty. When you project this to others you imprison them, but only to the extent to which you reinforce errors they have already made.” (T-1.III.5:1-9)
“Whenever you are not wholly joyous, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to one of God’s creations. Perceiving this as “sin” you become defensive because you expect attack. The decision to react in this way is yours, and can therefore be undone. It cannot be undone by repentance in the usual sense, because this implies guilt. If you allow yourself to feel guilty, you will reinforce the error rather than allow it to be undone for you.” (T-5.VII.5:1-5)
“Yet projection will always hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its only purpose is to keep the separation going. It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different from your brothers and separated from them. The ego justifies this on the grounds that it makes you seem “better” than they are, thus obscuring your equality with them still further.” (T-6.II.3)
Gentle Feedback (186 instances of GENTLE in ACIM)
“Teaching and learning are your greatest strengths now, because they enable you to change your mind and help others to change theirs. Refusing to change your mind will not prove that the separation has not occurred. The dreamer who doubts the reality of his dream while he is still dreaming is not really healing his split mind. You dream of a separated ego and believe in a world that rests upon it. This is very real to you. You cannot undo it by not changing your mind about it. If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system and open it to me, I will correct it very gently and lead you back to God.” (T-4.I.4)
“The ego made the world as it perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the reinterpreter of what the ego made, sees the world as a teaching device for bringing you home. The Holy Spirit must perceive time, and reinterpret it into the timeless. He must work through opposites, because He must work with and for a mind that is in opposition. Correct and learn, and be open to learning. You have not made truth, but truth can still set you free. Look as the Holy Spirit looks, and understand as He understands. His understanding looks back to God in remembrance of me. He is in communion with God always, and He is part of you. He is your Guide to salvation, because He holds the remembrance of things past and to come, and brings them to the present. He holds this gladness gently in your mind, asking only that you increase it in His Name by sharing it to increase His joy in you.” (T-5.III.11)
“The only safety lies in extending the Holy Spirit, because as you see His gentleness in others your own mind perceives itself as totally harmless. Once it can accept this fully, it sees no need to protect itself. The protection of God then dawns upon it, assuring it that it is perfectly safe forever. The perfectly safe are wholly benign. They bless because they know that they are blessed. Without anxiety the mind is wholly kind, and because it extends beneficence it is beneficent. Safety is the complete relinquishment of attack. No compromise is possible in this. Teach attack in any form and you have learned it, and it will hurt you. Yet this learning is not immortal, and you can unlearn it by not teaching it.” (ACIM, T-6.III.3)
Course Correction (287 instances of CORRECTION in ACIM)
“Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles. They thus correct, or atone for, the faulty perception of lack.” (T-1.I.41)
“The miracle sets reality where it belongs. Reality belongs only to spirit, and the miracle acknowledges only truth. It thus dispels illusions about yourself, and puts you in communion with yourself and God. The miracle joins in the Atonement by placing the mind in the service of the Holy Spirit. This establishes the proper function of the mind and corrects its errors, which are merely lacks of love. Your mind can be possessed by illusions, but spirit is eternally free. If a mind perceives without love, it perceives an empty shell and is unaware of the spirit within. But the Atonement restores spirit to its proper place. The mind that serves spirit is invulnerable.” (T-1.IV.2:3-11)
“The idea of orders of need, which follows from the original error that one can be separated from God, requires correction at its own level before the error of perceiving levels at all can be corrected. You cannot behave effectively while you function on different levels.” (T-1.VI.3:1-2)
Here is the related RMMC post. This presentation/conversation was part of the ongoing weekly Sunday Gathering series at Rocky Mountain Miracle Center (RMMC) in Denver, Colorado; recorded Sunday, July 12, 2020.
RMMC has an abundance of excellent local (Denver-area) ACIM teachers, including, but not limited to: Bob Bennett, Lyn Corona, Tim Wise, Susan Dugan, Whitney Walpole, Barnes Knowles, Lillian Paes, Sue Wiggins, and Charles Lang.
The post Holy Spirit’s Gentle Feedback, Reinforcement, and Course Correction: Dave Van Dyke and Bruce Rawles – RMMC July 12, 2020 appeared first on ACIM blog.
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