In this video, we focus on the folly of forgetting to forgive all our friends because we have followed the fraudulent fake fiend (ego) that fights freedom and fullness, favoring fearsome fantasy. (This conversation was a class facilitated by Bruce Rawles as part of the School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) curriculum hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise.)
There is only 1 instance of the word “fool” in ACIM:
“You need not fear the Higher Court will condemn you. It will merely dismiss the case against you. There 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. Appeal everything you believe gladly to God’s Own Higher Court, because it speaks for Him and therefore speaks truly. It will dismiss the case against you, however carefully you have built it up. The case may be fool-proof, but it is not God-proof. The Holy Spirit will not hear it, because He can only witness truly. His verdict will always be “thine is the Kingdom,” because He was given to you to remind you of what you are.” (ACIM, T-5.VI.10:1-8)
However, there are 57 instances of the word foolish in the Course, so there is plenty of reason to explore how our Inner Kindness Teacher kindly reminds us that we’re being foolish believing in separation.
We began by reading and exploring this vital lesson from A Course In Miracles: “Lesson 92: Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one (ACIM, W-92.)
Here are the first 3 paragraphs of Workbook Lesson 92:
“1. The idea for today is an extension of the previous one. ²You do not think of light in terms of strength, and darkness in terms of weakness. ³That is because your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain. ⁴Thus you believe that you can change what you see by putting little bits of glass before your eyes. ⁵This is among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body’s eyes can see.
2. You also believe the body’s brain can think. ²If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. ³It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go. ⁴Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body’s eyes can see; the brain can think.
3. It is God’s strength in you that is the light in which you see, as it is His Mind with which you think. ²His strength denies your weakness. ³It is your weakness that sees through the body’s eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. ⁴These are seen through eyes that cannot see and cannot bless.”
Resuming with some of the 57 instances of the word foolish in the Course, here are the first few:
“Innocence is not a partial attribute. It is not real until it is total. The partly innocent are apt to be quite foolish at times. It is not until their innocence becomes a viewpoint with universal application that it becomes wisdom. Innocent or true perception means that you never misperceive and always see truly. More simply, it means that you never see what does not exist, and always see what does.” (ACIM, T-3.II.2:1-6)
“To the ego it is kind and right and good to point out errors and “correct” them. This makes perfect sense to the ego, which is unaware of what errors are and what correction is. Errors are of the ego, and correction of errors lies in the relinquishment of the ego. When you correct a brother, you are telling him that he is wrong. He may be making no sense at the time, and it is certain that, if he is speaking from the ego, he will not be making sense. But your task is still to tell him he is right. You do not tell him this verbally, if he is speaking foolishly. He needs correction at another level, because his error is at another level. He is still right, because he is a Son of God. His ego is always wrong, no matter what it says or does.” (ACIM, T-9.III.2:1-10)
“When you teach anyone that truth is true, you learn it with him. And so you learn that what seemed hardest was the easiest. Learn to be a happy learner. You will never learn how to make nothing everything. Yet see that this has been your goal, and recognize how foolish it has been. Be glad it is undone, for when you look at it in simple honesty, it _is_ undone. I said before, ‘Be not content with nothing,’ for you have believed that nothing could content you. It is not so.” (ACIM, T-14.II.5:1-8)
“The meaning of love is lost in any relationship that looks to weakness, and hopes to find love there. The power of love, which is its meaning, lies in the strength of God that hovers over it and blesses it silently by enveloping it in healing wings. Let this be, and do not try to substitute your “miracle” for this. I have said that if a brother asks a foolish thing of you to do it. But be certain that this does not mean to do a foolish thing that would hurt either him or you, for what would hurt one will hurt the other. Foolish requests are foolish merely because they conflict, since they always contain some element of specialness. Only the Holy Spirit recognizes foolish needs as well as real ones. ⁸And He will teach you how to meet both without losing either.” (ACIM, T-16.I.6:1-8)
“Never forget the world the sightless “see” must be imagined, for what it really looks like is unknown to them. They must infer what could be seen from evidence forever indirect; and reconstruct their inferences as they stumble and fall because of what they did not recognize, or walk unharmed through open doorways that they thought were closed. And so it is with you. You do not see. Your cues for inference are wrong, and so you stumble and fall down upon the stones you did not recognize, but fail to be aware you can go through the doors you thought were closed, but which stand open before unseeing eyes, waiting to welcome you.
“How foolish is it to attempt to judge what could be seen instead. It is not necessary to imagine what the world must look like. It must be seen before you recognize it for what it is. You can be shown which doors are open, and you can see where safety lies; and which way leads to darkness, which to light. Judgment will always give you false directions, but vision shows you where to go. Why should you guess?” (ACIM, T-21.I.1-2)
“The Father keeps what He created safe. You cannot touch it with the false ideas you made, because it was created not by you. Let not your foolish fancies frighten you. What is immortal cannot be attacked; what is but temporal has no effect. Only the purpose that you see in it has meaning, and if that is true, its safety rests secure. If not, it has no purpose, and is means for nothing. Whatever is perceived as means for truth shares in its holiness, and rests in light as safely as itself. Nor will that light go out when it is gone. Its holy purpose gave it immortality, setting another light in Heaven, where your creations recognize a gift from you, a sign that you have not forgotten them.” (ACIM, T-24.VII.5:1-9)
“How just are miracles! For they bestow an equal gift of full deliverance from guilt upon your brother and yourself. Your healing saves him pain as well as you, and you are healed because you wished him well. This is the law the miracle obeys; that healing sees no specialness at all. It does not come from pity but from love. And love would prove all suffering is but a vain imagining, a foolish wish with no effects. Your health is a result of your desire to see your brother with no blood upon his hands, nor guilt upon his heart made heavy with the proof of sin. And what you wish is given you to see.” (ACIM, T-27.II.7:1-8)
We closed this session with a reading from “As for the Rest…” reminding us how foolish it is to trust ego’s malicious propaganda and how wise it is to trust our Inner Kindness Teacher (Holy Spirit) to guide our minds from guilt to sinlessness.
“The curriculum is highly individualized, and all aspects are under the Holy Spirit’s particular care and guidance. ⁷Ask and He will answer. ⁸The responsibility is His, and He alone is fit to assume it. ⁹To do so is His function. ¹⁰To refer the questions to Him is yours. ¹¹Would you want to be responsible for decisions about which you understand so little? ¹²Be glad you have a Teacher Who cannot make a mistake. ¹³His answers are always right. ¹⁴Would you say that of yours?
3. There is another advantage,—and a very important one,—in referring decisions to the Holy Spirit with increasing frequency. Perhaps you have not thought of this aspect, but its centrality is obvious. To follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance is to let yourself be absolved of guilt. It is the essence of the Atonement. It is the core of the curriculum. The imagined usurping of functions not your own is the basis of fear. The whole world you see reflects the illusion that you have done so, making fear inevitable. To return the function to the One to Whom it belongs is thus the escape from fear. ⁹And it is this that lets the memory of love return to you. ¹⁰Do not, then, think that following the Holy Spirit’s guidance is necessary merely because of your own inadequacies. ¹¹It is the way out of hell for you.” (ACIM, M-29.2:6–3:11)
Although we didn’t talk about the opposite, there are plenty of references in ACIM to the words “wise” (9) and “wisdom” (24) … a worthy candidate for a future conversation!
(This YouTube video recording was made on April 2, 2024.)
