I am as God created me … not the (unkind, fragmented) self I made up!
Yesterday I gave an unrecorded presentation (via Zoom) for the Rocky Mountain Miracle Center (RMMC) headquartered in Denver, Colorado, sharing a vital Course-related topic: kindness. I had set the topic for this talk before realizing that it was Easter Sunday and realized how the ACIM’s very different idea of resurrection (always about the mind, never about the body or form) fits beautifully with genuine kindness.
Below are my notes from the related RMMC post:
Happy Easter! ACIM uses resurrection in a completely different way than formal religion – we resurrect our Identity as whole, innocent and all-encompassing, all-inclusive – from the tyranny of ego’s special interests that seem to doom our minds to the oblivion of crucifixion.
There are 44 appearances of the word “resurrection” and its variations in ACIM. I hadn’t planned on talking about resurrection, but rather about kindness. Resurrection, Atonement, Pure non-duality is our inheritance, and kindness, forgiveness, patience, and gentleness are examples of the means whereby we return that that state in our mind. As we can remember to be more and more consistently kind, the resurrection becomes easier and easier!
KIND rhymes with MIND … Kindness from ACIM’s perspective is all about the mind and never about behavior or form, although kindness is reflected in the world when we become “spotless mirrors” …
those moments when we accept Holy Spirit’s translation of everything instead of ego’s misinterpretation of every little thing.
“In this world you can become a spotless mirror, in which the Holiness of your Creator shines forth from you to all around you. ²You can reflect Heaven here. ³Yet no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God’s reflection in it.” T-14.IX.5:1-3
Kindness heals.
Kindness blesses.
Kindness comforts.
These all take place in my mind. I needn’t worry about the expression on the level of form, because if I’m listening to Holy Spirit (which I like to call my Inner Kindness Teacher) the expression, manifestation, and reflection in this dream world are automatic.
We can afford to be kind when we see everyone and everything as the SAME as what (not “who”) we are. Just noticing our ego’s predisposition to want to make a big deal about differences – seemingly ranging from enormous to tiny – can be – as Ken Wapnick points out – “useful information” because we’ve aligned our decision making Mind with our Inner Kindness Teacher when we dispassionately notice our resistance without condemnation.
Ego (unkindness) fights for forgetting … Holy Sprit (Kindness) rejoices in remembering. Kindness doesn’t ask that we have no unkind thoughts, just none that we would keep … Just notice how the ego wants to hang onto grievances … seemingly great and small … and make federal cases out of them, endlessly preparing “legal briefs” in our minds and accumulating arsenals of ordnance to defend our positions, stories, and above all, our silly seemingly separate selves.
Kindness doesn’t ask that we have no unkind thoughts, just none that we would keep … Just notice how ego wants to hang onto grievances … seemingly great and small … and make federal cases out of them, endlessly preparing “legal briefs” in our minds and accumulating arsenals of ordnance to defend our positions, stories, and above all, our silly seemingly separate selves.
There are 219 appearances of the word “kind” and its variations (including kindness) in ACIM and 187 appearances of “gentle” and its variations but only…
16 appearances of kindness in ACIM.
Since ACIM is an indirect course, it emphasizes the blocks to the awareness of Love’s Presence, rather than “trying” to become aware of what we already are directly. We don’t really have any “where” to go to become kind or to “arrive” at a peaceful state of mind. Metaphorically, since the Course meets us where we think we are, no amount of trip planning and/or preparation will work if we keep our car’s parking brake on, or fail to remove the tie-downs on the wings if we’re flying a plane.
When we look at our unkindness – our “kindness to destroy” – without self-condemnation, Every unkind thought – each minuscule upset that we hold onto, tiny tantrum, grievance we grow, nurtured irritation, condoned condemnation, or welcomed war keeps us from being lifted up by Holy Spirit’s “tractor beam” that pulls our mind above the battleground of duality.
Here is a quote from a related video of Dr. Kenneth Wapnick from the FACIM YouTube channel (Kindness created me kind_Themes from “A Course in Miracles”)
“Any time we’re tempted to have an unkind thought about anyone – a critical thought, a mildly judgmental thought, an enraged thought – we should say that line (from Lesson 67) ‘Kindness created me kind.’ If that’s true, then I’m substituting my version of it and saying ‘unkindness created me unkind.’ In other words, I’m a child of the ego instead of a Child of God.” – Kenneth Wapnick, Kindness Created Me Kind, Themes from A Course In Miracles
Exercise: notice my unkind thoughts, words, and deeds … projected to myself directly or indirectly through my projections to “others” who all reside in my mind, anyway.
Motivation: we’ll feel better when we listen to our Inner Kindness Teacher, who undoes our dis-ease:
“…as we live a life of ease, every one of us has (is) all we need.” – Ringo Starr
Using Holy Spirit’s counsel with gentle vigilance – we need to look at our ego’s fake kindness – unkindness (or “kindness to destroy” as ACIM calls it) in order to undo our unconscious, unfounded guilt, seemingly hidden away and unredeemable in the deep recesses of our mind.
Here are some examples of kindness-to-destroy:
“You think that everyone outside yourself demands your sacrifice, but you do not see that only you demand sacrifice, and only of yourself. ²Yet the demand of sacrifice is so savage and so fearful that you cannot accept it where it is. ³The real price of not accepting this has been so great that you have given God away rather than look at it. ⁴For if God would demand total sacrifice of you, it seems safer to project Him outward and away from you, and not be host to Him. ⁵To Him you ascribed the ego’s treachery, inviting it to take His place to protect you from Him. ⁶And you do not recognize that it is what you invited in that would destroy you, and does demand total sacrifice of you. ⁷No partial sacrifice will appease this savage guest, for it is an invader who but seems to offer kindness, but always to make the sacrifice complete.” T-15.X.8:1-7
“All of the mechanisms of madness are seen emerging here: the “enemy” made strong by keeping hidden the valuable inheritance that should be yours; your justified position and attack for what has been withheld; and the inevitable loss the enemy must suffer to save yourself. ²Thus do the guilty ones protest their “innocence.” ³Were they not forced into this foul attack by the unscrupulous behavior of the enemy, they would respond with only kindness. ⁴But in a savage world the kind cannot survive, so they must take or else be taken from.” T-23.II.10:1-4
“No one wants madness, nor does anyone cling to his madness if he sees that this is what it is. ²What protects madness is the belief that it is true. ³It is the function of insanity to take the place of truth. ⁴It must be seen as truth to be believed. ⁵And if it is the truth, then must its opposite, which was the truth before, be madness now. ⁶Such a reversal, completely turned around, with madness sanity, illusions true, attack a kindness, hatred love, and murder benediction, is the goal the laws of chaos serve. ⁷These are the means by which the laws of God appear to be reversed. ⁸Here do the laws of sin appear to hold love captive, and let sin go free.” T-23.II.14:1-8“
Lesson 197 It can be but my gratitude I earn.
Here is the second step we take to free your mind from the belief in outside force pitted against your own. ²You make attempts at kindness and forgiveness. ³Yet you turn them to attack again, unless you find external gratitude and lavish thanks. ⁴Your gifts must be received with honor, lest they be withdrawn. ⁵And so you think God’s gifts are loans at best; at worst, deceptions which would cheat you of defenses, to ensure that when He strikes He will not fail to kill.” W-197.1:1-5
There are 90 occurrences of the word “destroy” in ACIM, so the author evidently wants us to note how we have the capacity to (seemingly) destroy our own peace!
Even when the Course refers to HS’s kindness (as contrasted with ego’s counterfeit version), it gently reminds us to notice when we’ve dropped the hand of our Inner Kindness Teacher and have resorted to our addiction to grievances (which seem to protect our silly, seemingly separate selves from the “others” that threaten our special innocence.
Here are some other references given during this talk/presentation:
The Thought System Comparison Chart which was reviewed in much greater detail in this post: Beyond this Thought System is One I Want: Holy Spirit’s Marketing Brochure
I (Bruce) attended a talk given around 1980 (give or take a few years) by Holocaust survivor, Jack Schwarz in Merced, California, and was inspired by his story where – in an epiphany – he realized that the Nazi guard who was whipping him was in just as much (psychological) pain as he was … and this led to spontaneous healing in his mind, and as a by-product (which doesn’t always appear to be the case) his body as well. This post gives some additional details about Schwarz’s life and work.
RMMC has an abundance of excellent local (Denver-area) ACIM teachers, including, but not limited to current and prior contributors: Lyn Corona, Tim Wise, Susan Dugan, Whitney W., Barnes Knowles, Lillian Paes, Sue Wiggins, and Charles Lang.
