Dialogues At The End Of The Search
"Peace and ACIM" (Chapter 35)
Wayne: Nothing can give you Peace. Nothing can take it away from you. Since this is a list with many people who are now or were students of ACIM, I would like to speak to something that is often heard in ACIM circles. When someone asks for “peace” or how to attain it - in the ACIM belief system, one is often told it is a choice between “listening to the ego or to the Holy Spirit,” and if one listens to the Holy Spirit, one will find peace. In light of what we have already said, that Peace is not lost, therefore, it need not be found, it follows that one need do nothing - including making a choice of who to listen to.
Peace is not concerned with ego or Holy Spirit. To create a concept of ego and Holy Spirit and say that, if one wants peace (That has not moved) one must choose the Holy Spirit, sets up the person for guilt and other sufferings. If one asks the conceptual Holy Spirit and does not find peace (which they will not), they blame themselves for not finding it. If they do ask the Holy Spirit and temporarily arrive at a state of peace, they will think they have succeeded until such time, as this peace leaves, (which it always will), at which time, they again begin the choice routine. They do not see that they are chasing a mental construct that has no reality.
EM: My mate says (I read him your post)... “In ACIM 'choosing' is really only a metaphor for surrender.”
Wayne: Certainly the majority of students do not see “to choose” as “surrender.” But, even if they do, there is a catch - because surrender also implies a choice: to surrender or not. To see any action at all as real, including surrender is to still be caught in the illusion of reality. Let's say that you are in a very stressful situation right now. If you believe in the spiritual concept of peace, you will attempt to remove, change, or modify the situation in order to bring this “peace” into existence. You could leave the situation, you could try to change it, or take some other action, such as “choosing between ego and Holy Spirit and/or surrender.”
But all these attempts and actions miss the point – the point that the suffering (of not having Peace), is trying to bring you. Let's look at this lesson. You have un-peaceful or stressful situations in your life because you do not know what Peace is. You will continue to have situations until
you “Realize” that you have everything wrong - beginning with the idea that you are your body. But you cannot “Realize” this unless you have unpeaceful situations.
Now you and your ancestors have been trying for a long time to bring peace into your lives, and you should begin to see that after all these centuries of studying, following paths, and listening to gurus, that something is not working.
What has not occurred to you is to do nothing. When you see or are involved in a situation that you term un-peaceful, if you will just leave it alone and BE un-peaceful, instead of trying to remember to “choose” or some other strategy to get away from what you don't want, then you may begin to Realize something: that the peace you are looking for is not Peace, but only a phenomenal event that comes and goes just like a stomach-ache.
When people have suffered enough they begin to somehow “get” that conceptual peace is not Peace. When this happens they begin to get the fact that they really don't know what Peace is. With this admission; after all of the strategies of choosing and being nice and forgiving, etc. have been laid aside, they begin to realize there is nothing they can do to Realize Peace, because Peace has never gone anywhere. When they relinquish all strategizing, spiritual or secular, they stop for a moment - and in this stoppage, if they are aware, they Realize Peace!
In the willingness to just stop for a moment, they “Realize” that in that Stillness Peace Is, never moving, always Still. And with this Realization many have the biggest laugh of their life. They have been chasing that which was not lost, and if they had only stopped chasing it, they would have Realized it anytime they wanted to.
With the Realization of That, which does not move, life goes on. One finds oneself in stressful situations just as before, but one lets them be and does not look to change them. Stress will still arise, and one may find oneself on the street or in continual bliss, but Realization has nothing to do with the circumstantial world. Those who have Realized Peace may look like they haven't to those who haven't Realized Peace, but that is because they are looking at results in the world and at a form for a clue, but it can't be found there.
And also, for those on this list who are attempting to reconcile what we are saying with ACIM, Christianity, Buddhism, or whatever, you will only end up confused. This is why I recommend you put them aside for a while. You can always pick it up again if needed.
You need not believe anything I say, I only ask you to check it out and see if Peace has gone anywhere.
EM: What you have shared is pretty basic information from the Course, as far as it goes.
Wayne: Yes it is. I do not argue this point.
EM: However, in saying that surrender “just happens,” do you insinuate that the ego can go on its merry way making idols and believing in their illusions?
Wayne: First, I am not saying that surrender just happens. And notice how you seem to want to change the ego. You say that I insinuate that the ego just go on its merry way. I am more than “insinuating,” I am saying to let it: that is the whole point! By attempting to change the ego all you are doing is “putting lipstick on a corpse” - remember this phrase from the Course? To attempt to make the ego better, to attempt to change it as you say, is exactly what the Course says you do and that is why it puts it in such graphic terms. The ego is not real. And to attempt to make it better, or to behave, or to improve it, is exactly like putting lipstick on a corpse – exactly like putting new clothes and jewelry on the corpse and then parading it around and proclaiming, “See how much better I'm doing? See how my understanding of the Course is making me a better person?” I have said in the past (another time, another list), that you do not have an ego, you are the ego; but almost universally this is met with rejection and attack. “How dare you say I'm the ego”, ACIM students say, “I am the Son of God!”
The answer to that is: Yes and No. The one proclaiming that it is the Son of God is indeed the ego. The silent one “witnessing” this is indeed the Son of God. You are both, but you are only listening to the ego; that is why you are trying to improve it by understanding ACIM and trying to manage the ego and not liking what it (you) do/does. If you will look silently for a moment you will see that this unconscious identification with the ego/mind is the cause of guilt. The ego/mind is hiding behind itself pretending it is not what it is.
If you will just leave it alone (why would you want to improve an illusion or anything in it?), you will begin to Know that you are not who you think you are, and the Truth that ACIM is pointing to will indeed begin to be less obscure. Of course you can go on as you are, attempting to improve. You can study the Course relentlessly and say you understand and try to forgive, and try to surrender or you can just be surrendered. To be surrendered is to be surrendered not to be Joe or Jane or whomever. And then you can begin to Know yourSelf as You really are. You cannot have it both ways: this is a pointer to the real Teaching behind the concept of the “decision maker” that is being discussed on this List.
I realize that many will reject anything I say and with this I have no concern. But someone will Hear – if not you then someone, by your gift of responding as you did and allowing me to respond as I did – someone silently watching this will get it, and this day will be the day they begin to lay down the army of concepts of the ego mind and walk off the battlefield. To them I speak.
EM: I like this Wayne. Especially that we can be surrendered.
Wayne: Thank you for this. We can now use our time together in “revelation” rather than “discussion,” a distinction that I hope will become clear. And allow me to share with you that what I am pointing to is not “Wayne’s truth,” as some like to say. It is what all Great Paths and Masters point to including, but not exclusively, ACIM.
EM: The way I see it thought, is that as long as I have a block preventing it, it won’t happen.
Wayne: Yes, so long as you think you have a block you will not see, but “blocks” too are illusory. You only think they are real. A friend once told me that she had “blocks” to truth. I told her that I have a friend who is a Surgeon and he told me that he has yet to cut a person open, including into the brain and find a “block.” He finds wet, soppy matter but no “blocks.” :))
Granted this is just a funny story, but it points to something that can maybe help you drop your “belief” in blocks. Blocks are not real, they are imaginations made by ego in order for it to be able to continue searching. Obviously, if there is a “block,” that means that a way must be found around it. Do you see that in order to overcome a block you must “do”
something, but if you begin to see all blocks as the illusions they are, then there is really nothing to do because there is nothing to overcome. But since you think you are who you think you are; the one who gets things done and is trying to Awaken, you will continue to make “blocks.” You can live happily with a block the second you see they are all made up and have no reality what so ever.
EM: “Guilt” is that block and the forgiveness process of the Course is how to get rid of it.
Wayne: Thank you so much for bringing this up, this is perfect because we now get to tie in “guilt” with “blocks.” This is the way the ego mind intentionally misinterprets the Course. Yes, “guilt” for sure is a “block.” Now, follow this very carefully and just listen. Try and not listen to how the mind is going to want to interpret it. Here goes:
When the Course speaks about “foregiveness,” it is speaking about “letting go.” It is the same to be surrendered. Forgiveness includes, I say again, INCLUDES everything. And this everything, obviously, includes the ego.
True forgiveness means to forgive, let go of all things. You can see by this, that if you will just let all blocks be, the imaginary blocks that they truly are, then the block you call guilt has no power. It is just another meaningless imaginary block. Guilt is a block because you “feel guilty.” That is what a block is, a feeling. Now, I want to give you a little help. The next time you feel this block called guilt, do not call it “guilt” just let it be a feeling. Just be surrendered to the feeling that has the story called “guilt” attached to it, and see what happens.
EM: I know that forgiveness is an illusory process and totally redundant to Truth, but until I am surrendered, I am not.
Wayne: We do not know that forgiveness is an illusory process, until; we actually forgive and let it go. Until then, it is an “intellectual truth,” which means that is a concept used by the ego mind in order to continue to overcome. Can you see that you have laid a condition upon “surrender?” You say that something must happen, before you can surrender. Look silently and see the way the ego mind has tricked you.
EM: From some of your other posts, I gather that you feel forgiveness is a done deal. It’s not for me. I still attack, so I still forgive.
Wayne: Yes, that’s the way it works; first believe in attack, and then look for a way to forgive. But, if one begins to See that attack is also an illusion (and here the ego mind brings out it’s “big guns”), one begins to also see that it naturally follows that forgiveness must also be an illusion.
EM: The forgiveness process will be completed for me when I am surrendered.
Wayne: You see that you have made a complete prison? You (ego mind) have made a complete “infinity loop.” You cannot surrender until you are forgiven and you cannot be forgiven until you surrender. It is a classic ego trap. Now, if you can disengage for a second, watch what the mind does in order to attempt to explain it.
EM: As long as I have “guilt,” I forgive.
Wayne: Yes, but, I hope by now perhaps a little light is being shed upon this game. And don’t forget the other side of this trap; as long as you forgive, you must have guilt or what is forgiveness all about? :))
EM: It’s real simple for me… “buried guilt = attack = forgiveness.” It’s illusory and silly.
Wayne: Yes, it is “illusory and silly” that is the truth and look what’s coming...
“But…”
And here comes the lie…
Nonetheless necessary for my awakening.
The lie is that anything is necessary for your awakening. But so long as you do, you will think you are asleep.
EM: This is why most of the Course is about forgiveness.
Wayne: Yes, but not for me or anyone else, only for you. Forgive the ego that is all. And you forgive ego by just being surrendered, by being surrender itself. That is who you are. You are surrender. You are forgiveness.
EM: I am just not one of them.
Wayne: You are! You are! It is only the ego mind that says you are not. If you listen to the ego mind, you will search for ways to do surrender. You will never find out how to surrender. Many have tried. You will Realize (capital “R”) that, not find as the result of a search, you are indeed what you have been searching for. Those who have begun to Realize the Truth of Who they are, are those who have finally begun to Hear the True meaning of Surrender.
EM: When I have no more “guilt, “ I will allow myself to be surrendered.
Wayne: If we have been in this time together as one Heart, then I think my Sister/Brother, that you can see the statement above for what it is and from where it comes. If you are still not sure, you can be assured that others on this list who can begin to lend a hand, as they always and eternally will, for those who Truly want to Know Truth.
EM: As you said, the ego cannot surrender itself. I say, but it can be undone through forgiveness.
Wayne: And we end on Truth.
Thank you for this time together, and to all of you who have listened.
