“Ideas never left their source” is a vitally important theme in the ACIM’s metaphysics, and one of the most daunting to fully integrate, since we made up an entire universe to use as propaganda against this understanding! We explore this topic in this video recording of a class given for the School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) curriculum hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise, as Bruce Rawles reads and discusses related content from a variety of places in the Course.
It also explains why the “Golden Rule” applies on the level of the mind, and if we deal with our choice of thought system (by choosing Holy Spirit instead of ego) we needn’t be too concerned about behavior or form. It also fits beautifully with the metaphor of our prodigal dreaming, and how we will all wake up from the silliness of believing in separation when we’re ready… inevitably!
“Listen to the story of the prodigal son, and learn what God’s treasure is and yours: This son of a loving father left his home and thought he had squandered everything for nothing of any value, although he had not understood its worthlessness at the time. ²He was ashamed to return to his father because he thought he had hurt him. ³Yet when he came home the father welcomed him with joy, because the son himself was his father’s treasure. ⁴He wanted nothing else.” T-8.VI.4:1-4 (page 148-149)
When we want nothing else besides the treasure waiting in our mind that God has kept inviolate for us – our eternally, infinitely, all-inclusively shared innocence – we will have nothing else.
The importance of the Course principle that ideas don’t leave their source can’t be overestimated, nor the patience required for us to learn what this truly means with Holy Spirit’s mentoring.
As always, the Course helps us see the contrast of how 2 thought systems see “reality” – in mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed ways, even though Truth has no opposite … so our opposition (a.k.a. ego) is completely made up!
Juxtaposed side by side, the Course presents the sanity of Holy Spirit’s gentle awakening call beckoning us to return to Source … with ego’s harsh soporific (tending to induce drowsiness or sleep) dirge diverting us from its fraudulent cause… the imagined source of our up-set – the set-up is obscured by the world, and we face enormous resistance to looking at the cause of our unhappiness: unfounded, unconscious guilt. A testament to the amazing power of our minds to over-learn a fake identity is our tendency to not look at ego’s insanity! We should not underestimate the ego’s intense fear of looking at this horror movie, lest we get blind-sided. Fortunately, we’re reminded that our Innocence – eternally and all-inclusively shared by all, not just some – isn’t subject to our dreams in Truth, although we can keep hitting the snooze alarm on Holy Spirit’s wake-up call for many lifetimes in our Groundhog Day movie fantasy until we just can’t tolerate any more ego abuse.
A few “pep talks” for motivation before we go further:
“You need not fear the Higher Court will condemn you. ²It will merely dismiss the case against you. ³There can be no case against a child of God, and every witness to guilt in God’s creations is bearing false witness to God Himself. ⁴Appeal everything you believe gladly to God’s Own Higher Court, because it speaks for Him and therefore speaks truly. ⁵It will dismiss the case against you, however carefully you have built it up. ⁶The case may be fool-proof, but it is not God-proof. ⁷The Holy Spirit will not hear it, because He can only witness truly. ⁸His verdict will always be “thine is the Kingdom,” because He was given to you to remind you of what you are.” T-5.VI.10:1-8 (page 88)
“Take pity on yourself, so long enslaved.” T-22.in.1:1 (page 467)
The happy inevitability of joining Jesus’ mind-training crew and returning to our right mind; we can afford to be really, really grateful for the feedback system built into our classroom; Holy Spirit helps us slowly turn up the sensitivity to psychological pain to the maximum – a very good thing! How can we escape from ego’s mad Machiavellian machine unless we pay attention to even our most minor discomforts? These minor upsets are the same “nothing” as the alleged major catastrophes – in Truth, but obviously not within the context of our dreams of duality. Dreamt hangnails and dreamt holocausts are the same hallucinations in content even though the form may vary widely.
“These eyes, made not to see, will never see. ²For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. ³What was its maker’s goal but not to see? ⁴For this the body’s eyes are perfect means, but not for seeing. ⁵See how the body’s eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond. ⁶Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. ⁷Nothing so blinding as perception of form. ⁸For sight of form means understanding has been obscured.” T-22.III.6:1-8 (page 475-476)
“Sight of form…” here refers to buying ego’s dubious misinterpretations about everything; always some variation of subtly or not-so-subtly reinforcing guilt through projection; the last thing ego would want to consider is overlooking any opportunity to use the world’s challenges as justification for victimhood, martyrdom, and perpetuation of the ceaseless guilt-attack-defense cycle.
“The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a matter of time. ²This may appear to contradict free will because of the inevitability of the final decision, but this is not so. ³You can temporize and you are capable of enormous procrastination, but you cannot depart entirely from your Creator, Who set the limits on your ability to miscreate. ⁴An imprisoned will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. ⁵Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. ⁶Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. ⁷As this recognition becomes more firmly established, it becomes a turning point. ⁸This ultimately reawakens spiritual vision, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. ⁹The alternating investment in the two levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict, which can become very acute. ¹⁰But the outcome is as certain as God.” T-2.III.3:1-10 (page 21-22)
We first need to ask Holy Spirit’s help bringing our projections back into the mind where the problem and solution can be seen together. Getting past this outer shield of oblivion takes gentle, patient, discipline, and practice, practice, practice!
In Truth, we never left the Heart of God, the Mind of Pure Non-Dual Being… our True Source.
In our dualistic dreams, our projected world never left its made-up source in ego-mind.
Notes from Tim Wise from the past weekend (paraphrased): Ego will tediously persist in whining and gossiping (about a seemingly endless variety of grievances, both obvious and hidden): these are just two weapons in ego’s extensive arsenal of defenses against breaching the outer shield of oblivion; we just need to become sensitive to when we whine or gossip (bear false witness against our brother or ourselves by listening to ego’s separate self propaganda.
Anger is projected guilt. Ego spreads out guilt across the world and shouts that specifics are all important differences justifying our attacks so that we don’t see the common theme, the common cause; the sameness in the mind that would unlock the undo program that Holy Spirit would love to help us launch.
We actually believe there are other minds (all part of the same mind) projected onto individual brains and that our brain is one of them, limited by what its feeble senses and rampant misinterpretations feed us. We have the audacity and arrogance to take ego’s propaganda seriously without questioning its dark matrix of mandatory zombie-hood.
Hermetic Philosophy’s First Law: The Law of Mentalism
“THE ALL is MIND; The Universe is Mental.” is the terse but profound summary from The Kybalion, published in 1912; a book of ancient Hermetic philosophy consisting of seven natural laws.
The book – The Geometry Code: Universal Symbolic Mirrors of Natural Laws Within Us; Friendly Reminders of Inclusion to Forgive the Dreamer of Separation – is devoted to how the two thought systems – ego and Holy Spirit reach completely opposite conclusions – as they do with everything – interpreting these classic seven universal laws. This book, released in 2012 on the 100th anniversary of the Kybalion’s original publication brings these ancient Hermetic Laws into the context of the pure non-dual metaphysics of ACIM.
We live in mental universe, but have convinced ourselves that we’re limited to specific forms – constrained to mortal bodies that exist in a horrific, surreal world subject to time and space.
“Every brother you meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego, depending on what you perceive in him. ²Everyone convinces you of what you want to perceive, and of the reality of the kingdom you have chosen for your vigilance. ³Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought system you want to be true. ⁴Every brother has the power to release you, if you choose to be free.” T-11.V.18:1-4 (page 207)
“You see what you expect, and you expect what you invite. ²Your perception is the result of your invitation, coming to you as you sent for it.” T-12.VII.5:1-2 (page 230)
“Minds are joined; bodies are not. ²Only by assigning to the mind the properties of the body does separation seem to be possible. ³And it is mind that seems to be fragmented and private and alone. ⁴Its guilt, which keeps it separate, is projected to the body, which suffers and dies because it is attacked to hold the separation in the mind, and let it not know its Identity.” T-18.VI.3:1-4 (page 385)
“Let, then, your dedication be to the eternal, and learn how not to interfere with it and make it slave to time. ²For what you think you do to the eternal you do to you. ³Whom God created as His Son is slave to nothing, being lord of all, along with his Creator. ⁴You can enslave a body, but an idea is free, incapable of being kept in prison or limited in any way except by the mind that thought it. ⁵For it remains joined to its source, which is its jailer or its liberator, according to which it chooses as its purpose for itself.” T-19.I.16:1-5 (page 401-402)
Mental Discipline As Freedom Instead of Punishment
“An untrained mind can accomplish nothing.” W-in.1:3 (page 1)
“The correction of fear is your responsibility. ²When you ask for release from fear, you are implying that it is not. ³You should ask, instead, for help in the conditions that have brought the fear about. ⁴These conditions always entail a willingness to be separate. ⁵At that level you can help it. ⁶You are much too tolerant of mind wandering, and are passively condoning your mind’s miscreations. ⁷The particular result does not matter, but the fundamental error does. ⁸The correction is always the same. ⁹Before you choose to do anything, ask me if your choice is in accord with mine. ¹⁰If you are sure that it is, there will be no fear.” T-2.VI.4:1-10 (page 29)
To the Holy Spirit, discipline brings guiltless, happy freedom, happiness; To the ego, discipline is punishment and imprisonment for unhappy guilt for imagined sins made real only in a nightmare of separation minds and separate bodies.
We don’t know we’re invulnerable until we offer it to everyone we meet or think about.“
The miracle takes us back to the mind where the real problem is.” – Jeff Seibert (paraphrased slightly)
Black holes (imploding super-massive, super-dense “nothingness” resulting from the death of a supernova star have unimaginable gravity – a.k.a. seriousness – which is so intense that not even light escapes!
Some* theorize that the entire material Universe is a black hole and that every particle in the entire material Universe is a black hole.
(* Nassim Haramein and Elizabeth Rauscher; not sure if this is how they would express it, but I’m just sharing my limited understanding/interpretation solely for the benefit of the symbolism.)
Ego’s “dark light” doesn’t leave its source (a black hole) … We are dreaming that we’re inside the ego’s event horizon (the limiting sphere where light can’t escape) when we believe in separation.
To be free of anger, we need Holy Spirit’s help to get back to the source – the projection of unconscious guilt onto a world of bodies that do uncaring, cruel, and merciless things… within a dream.
“You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgment.” T-3.VI.3:1 (page 47)
“In the calm light of truth, let us recognize that you believe you have crucified God’s Son. ²You have not admitted to this “terrible” secret because you would still wish to crucify him if you could find him. ³Yet the wish has hidden him from you because it is very fearful, and so you are afraid to find him. ⁴You have handled this wish to kill yourself by not knowing who you are, and identifying with something else. ⁵You have projected guilt blindly and indiscriminately, but you have not uncovered its source. ⁶For the ego does want to kill you, and if you identify with it you must believe its goal is yours.” T-13.II.5:1-6 (page 240)
Here are counts of these related words and the phrase “ideas leave not their source” in ACIM:
ideas: 730
source: 228
ideas leave not their source: 7
“Perception’s laws are opposite to truth, and what is true of knowledge is not true of anything that is apart from it. ²Yet has God given answer to the world of sickness, which applies to all its forms. ³God’s answer is eternal, though it works in time, where it is needed. ⁴Yet because it is of God, the laws of time do not affect its workings. ⁵It is in this world, but not a part of it. ⁶For it is real, and dwells where all reality must be. ⁷Ideas leave not their source, and their effects but seem to be apart from them. ⁸Ideas are of the mind. ⁹What is projected out, and seems to be external to the mind, is not outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has not left its source.” T-26.VII.4:1-9 (page 554)
“Let us consider what the error is, so it can be corrected, not protected. ²Sin is belief attack can be projected outside the mind where the belief arose. ³Here is the firm conviction that ideas can leave their source made real and meaningful. ⁴And from this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise. ⁵This world is an attempt to prove your innocence, while cherishing attack. ⁶Its failure lies in that you still feel guilty, though without understanding why. ⁷Effects are seen as separate from their source, and seem to be beyond you to control or to prevent. ⁸What is thus kept apart can never join.
Cause and effect are one, not separate. ²God wills you learn what always has been true: that He created you as part of Him, and this must still be true because ideas leave not their source. ³Such is creation’s law; that each idea the mind conceives but adds to its abundance, never takes away. ⁴This is as true of what is idly wished as what is truly willed, because the mind can wish to be deceived, but cannot make it be what it is not. ⁵And to believe ideas can leave their source is to invite illusions to be true, without success. ⁶For never will success be possible in trying to deceive the Son of God.” T-26.VII.12:1–13:6 (page 556)“There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. ²Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly. ³Ideas leave not their source. ⁴This central theme is often stated in the text, and must be borne in mind if you would understand the lesson for today. ⁵It is not pride which tells you that you made the world you see, and that it changes as you change your mind.” W-132.5:1-5 (page 242)
Here’s a recent related post about Workbook Lesson 132: Lighten Up on the World!
A lesson earlier repeated once must now be stressed again, for it contains the firm foundation for today’s idea. ²You are as God created you. ³There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. ⁴How can a world of time and place exist, if you remain as God created you?
What is the lesson for today except another way of saying that to know your Self is the salvation of the world? ²To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself. ³There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought.” W-132.5;9:1–10:3 (pages 242, 243)“You think that death is of the body. ²Yet it is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seen as physical. ³A thought is in the mind. ⁴It can be then applied as mind directs it. ⁵But its origin is where it must be changed, if change occurs. ⁶Ideas leave not their source. ⁷The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. ⁸It is the reason you can heal. ⁹It is the cause of healing. ¹⁰It is why you cannot die. ¹¹Its truth established you as one with God.
Death is the thought that you are separate from your Creator. ²It is the belief conditions change, emotions alternate because of causes you cannot control, you did not make, and you can never change. ³It is the fixed belief ideas can leave their source, and take on qualities the source does not contain, becoming different from their own origin, apart from it in kind as well as distance, time and form.” W-167.3:1–4:3 (page 318)
To conclude, here the first 3 paragraphs of Lesson 156: I walk with God in perfect holiness:
“1. Today’s idea but states the simple truth that makes the thought of sin impossible. ²It promises there is no cause for guilt, and being causeless it does not exist. ³It follows surely from the basic thought so often mentioned in the text; ideas leave not their source. ⁴If this be true, how can you be apart from God? ⁵How could you walk the world alone and separate from your Source?
2. We are not inconsistent in the thoughts that we present in our curriculum. ²Truth must be true throughout, if it be true. ³It cannot contradict itself, nor be in parts uncertain and in others sure. ⁴You cannot walk the world apart from God, because you could not be without Him. ⁵He is what your life is. ⁶Where you are He is. ⁷There is one life. ⁸That life you share with Him. ⁹Nothing can be apart from Him and live.
3. Yet where He is, there must be holiness as well as life. ²No attribute of His remains unshared by everything that lives. ³What lives is holy as Himself, because what shares His life is part of Holiness, and could no more be sinful than the sun could choose to be of ice; the sea elect to be apart from water, or the grass to grow with roots suspended in the air.” W-156.1:1–3 (page 294-295)
This class was recorded on January 25, 2021.
Here’s an excellent related video on the “Ideas leave not their source” theme by Ken Wapnick (Foundation for A Course In Miracles):