ACIM Speaks on The Script of the Holy Spirit

This is Episode 23 of ACIM Speaks podcast. We continue with "the scripts" discussion and read from Workbook Lesson 169 in A Course in Miracles. The previous episode in the series covered "possession, the script of the ego," the extension of the idea that a script outside yourself controls your life; "what has been given you;" and the "script you write." Now, the final clarification on what is given us, the grace that we can bring back to the world.

In the previous episode, there was something mentioned that is worth mentioning again. If you go back and listen to that episode, you will notice the words reliability and validity. In the context of the podcast, these could be heard as an inside joke, although, if you have been listening to the ACIM Speaks podcast from the beginning, or are aware of the history of the Course, you would know what it is about. Helen and Bill, the scribes of A Course in Miracles were psychologists and part of their jobs was in research and data collection in this field. The words reliability and validity were common to them. Reliability, as used in the Course, means something that the ego does over and over again and produces the same illusion to protect itself from the truth about you. And validity means what is True, the truth about you. It is a good idea to keep that in mind. The passage containing these words was about the compulsions, addictions, and other "driven" behaviors that we adopt. They are not What We Are.

Text read in this podcast is from Workbook Lesson 169, and here as The Script of the Holy Spirit

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The Script of the Holy Spirit

from Workbook Lesson 169

Grace is an aspect of the Love of God which is most like the state prevailing in the unity of truth. It is the world's most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely. It is past learning, yet it is the goal of learning, for grace cannot come until the mind prepares itself for true acceptance. Grace becomes inevitable instantly in those who have prepared a table where it can be gently laid and willingly received, an altar clean and holy, for the gift.

Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. By grace alone, the hate and fear are gone, for grace presents a state so opposite to everything the world contains that those whose minds are lighted by the gift of grace cannot believe the world of fear is real.

Grace is not learned. The final step must go beyond all learning. Grace is not the goal this Course aspires to attain. Yet we prepare for grace in that an open mind can hear the call to waken. An open mind is not shut tight against God's Voice. It has become aware that there are things it does not know, and thus is ready to accept a state completely different from experience with which it is familiarly at home.

We have perhaps appeared to contradict our statement that the revelation of the Father and the Son as One has been already set, but we have also said the mind determines when that time will be, and has determined it. Yet we urge you to bear witness to the Word of God to hasten the experience of truth, and speed its advent into every mind which recognizes its effects on you.

Oneness is simply the idea God is, and, in His Being, He encompasses all things. No mind holds anything but Him. We say "God is" and then we cease to speak, for, in that knowledge, words are meaningless. There are no lips to speak them and no part of mind sufficiently distinct to feel that it is now aware of something not itself. It has united with its Source and, like the Source Itself, it merely is.

We cannot speak, nor write, nor even think of this at all. It comes to every mind when the total recognition that its will is God's has been completely given and received completely. It returns that mind into the endless present, where the past and future cannot be conceived. It lies beyond salvation, past all thought of time, forgiveness, and the holy Face of Christ. The Son of God has merely disappeared into His Father, as His Father has in Him. The world has never been at all. Eternity remains a constant state.

This is beyond experience. We try to hasten, yet forgiveness, taught and learned, brings with it the experiences which bear witness that the time the mind itself determined to abandon all but this is now at hand. We do not hasten it, in that what you will offer was concealed from Him Who teaches what complete forgiveness means. All learning was already in His Mind, accomplished and complete. He recognized all that time holds and gave it to all minds that each one might determine, from a point where time has ended, when it is released to revelation and eternity.

We have repeated several times before that you but make a journey that is done, for Oneness must be here. Whatever time the mind has set for revelation is entirely irrelevant to what must be a constant state, forever as it always was, forever to remain as it is now. We merely take the part, assigned long since and fully recognized, as perfectly fulfilled by Him Who wrote salvation's script in His Creator's Name and in the Name of His Creator's Son.

There is no need to further clarify what no one in the world can understand. When revelation of your Oneness comes, it will be known and fully understood. Now, we have work to do, for those in time can speak of things beyond and listen to words which explain what is to come is past already. Yet what meaning can the words convey to those who count the hours still, and rise and work and go to sleep by them?

Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done. It does not matter, for your part is still what all the rest depends on. As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God. Forgiveness is the central theme which runs throughout salvation, holding all its parts in meaningful relationships, the course it runs directed, and its outcome sure.

And now, we ask for grace, the final gift salvation can bestow. Experience that grace provides will end in time, for grace foreshadows Heaven, yet does not replace the thought of time but for a little while. The interval suffices. It is here that miracles are laid, to be returned by you from holy instants you receive through grace, in your experience, to all who see the light that lingers on your face.

What is the Face of Christ but his who went a moment into timelessness and brought a clear reflection of the unity he felt an instant, back to bless the world? How could you finally attain to it forever while a part of you remains outside, unknowing, unawakened, and in need of you as witness to the truth?

Be grateful to return, as you were glad to go an instant, and accept the gifts which grace provided you. You carry them back to yourself and revelation stands not far behind. Its coming is ensured. We ask for grace and for experience that comes from grace. We welcome the release it offers everyone. We do not ask for the unaskable. We do not look beyond what grace can give, for this we can give in the grace that has been given us.

Our learning goal today does not exceed this prayer. Yet, in the world, what could be more than what we ask this day of Him Who gives the grace we ask as it was given Him?

Anger is never justified. Attack has no foundation. It is here escape from fear begins, and will be made complete. Here is the real world given in exchange for dreams of terror, for it is on this forgiveness rests and is but natural. You are not asked to offer pardon where attack is due, and would be justified. For that would mean that you forgive a sin by overlooking what is really there. This is not pardon. For it would assume that, by responding in a way which is not justified, your pardon will become the answer to attack that has been made. Thus is pardon inappropriate, by being granted where it is not due.

Pardon is always justified. It has a sure foundation. You do not forgive the unforgivable, nor overlook a real attack that calls for punishment. Salvation does not lie in being asked to make unnatural responses which are inappropriate to what is real. Instead, it merely asks that you respond appropriately to what is not real by not perceiving what has not occurred. If pardon were unjustified, you would be asked to sacrifice your rights when you return forgiveness for attack. But you are merely asked to see forgiveness as the natural reaction to distress that rests on error, and thus calls for help. Forgiveness is the only sane response. It keeps your rights from being sacrificed.

This understanding is the only change that lets the real world rise to take the place of dreams of terror. Fear cannot arise unless attack is justified and, if it had a real foundation, pardon would have none. The real world is achieved when you perceive the basis of forgiveness is quite real and fully justified. While you regard it as a gift unwarranted, it must uphold the guilt you would “forgive.” Unjustified forgiveness is attack. And this is all the world can ever give. It pardons “sinners” sometimes, but remains aware that they have sinned. So they do not merit the forgiveness that it gives.

This is the false forgiveness which the world employs to keep the sense of sin alive. Recognizing God is just, it seems impossible His pardon could be real. Thus is the fear of God the sure result of seeing pardon as unmerited. No one who sees himself as guilty can avoid the fear of God. But he is saved from this dilemma if he can forgive. The mind must think of its Creator as it looks upon itself. If you can see that your brother merits pardon, you have learned forgiveness is your right as much as his. And you will not think that God intends for you a fearful judgment that your brother does not merit, for it is the truth that you can merit neither more nor less than he.

Forgiveness recognized as merited will heal. It gives the miracle its strength to overlook illusions. This is how you learn that you must be forgiven too. There can be no appearance that can not be overlooked. For if there were, it would be necessary first there be some sin that stands beyond forgiveness. There would be an error that is more than a mistake, a special form of error that remains unchangeable, eternal, and beyond correction or escape. There would be one mistake that had the power to undo creation, and to make a world that could replace it and destroy the Will of God. Only if this were possible could there be some appearances that could withstand the miracle, and not be healed by it.

There is no surer proof that idolatry is what you wish than a belief there are some forms of sickness and of joylessness forgiveness cannot heal. This means that you prefer to keep some idols and are not prepared, as yet, to let all idols go. Thus you think that some appearances are real and not appearances at all. Be not deceived about the meaning of a fixed belief that some appearances are harder to look past than others are. It always means you think forgiveness must be limited. And you have set a goal of partial pardon and a limited escape from guilt for you. What can this be except a false forgiveness of yourself, and everyone who seems apart from you?

It must be true the miracle can heal all forms of sickness, or it cannot heal. Its purpose cannot be to judge which forms are real and which appearances are true. If one appearance must remain apart from healing, one illusion must be part of truth. And you could not escape all guilt, but only some of it. You must forgive God’s Son entirely or you will keep an image of yourself that is not whole and will remain afraid to look within and find escape from every idol there. Salvation rests on faith there cannot be some forms of guilt that you cannot forgive. So there cannot be appearances that have replaced the truth about God’s Son.

Look on your brother with the willingness to see him as he is and do not keep a part of him outside your willingness that he be healed. To heal is to make whole. What is whole can have no missing parts that have been kept outside. Forgiveness rests on recognizing this, and being glad there cannot be some forms of sickness which the miracle must lack the power to heal.

God’s Son is perfect, or he cannot be God’s Son. Nor will you know him, if you think he does not merit the escape from guilt in all its consequences and its forms. There is no way to think of him but this, if you would know the truth about yourself.

I thank You, Father, for Your perfect Son, and in his glory will I see my own.
Here is the joyful statement that there are no forms of evil that can overcome the Will of God, the glad acknowledgement that guilt has not succeeded by your wish to make illusions real. What is this except a simple statement of the truth?

Look on your brother with this hope in you and you will understand he could not make an error that could change the truth in him. It is not difficult to overlook mistakes that have been given no effects. What you saw as having power to make an idol of the Son of God, you will not pardon, for he became to you a graven image and a sign of death. Is this your savior? Is his Father wrong about His Son? Or have you been deceived in him who has been given you to heal for your salvation and deliverance?