Questions and Answers
In Light of ACIM
By Rev Reja Janaki Joy Green
Graphic by Deposit Photos
The following is a question often asked by students of A Course in Miracle:
QUESTION: “How do I know when I am actually hearing Guidance from my Right Mind, a.k.a. Holy Spirit and not the ego?”
ONE POSSIBLE ANSWER:
That is the $64,000-dollar question. [Baby boomers will remember that TV Show. ;-] And the ANSWER, for me, is: “Know Thyself”.
When I listen to students of A Course in Miracles talk about the “Holy Spirit”, and when I listen to myself, I notice that often there is a reference to Holy Spirit as if IT were a Being outside of ourselves and separate from who we are. Perhaps that is just a habit of ours, here in this seeming world of separate bodies. The Course, however, reminds us several times:
9 The Holy Spirit is nothing more than your own right mind. He was also mine. The Bible says, “May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,” and uses this as a blessing. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as I thought, joining with me in Christ-thinking.
ACIM CH 5 II 9
Even though the above quote makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is our “own right mind” and is present when we are “Christ-thinking”, the sentence before that quote makes it seem as though it comes from outside of us:
9 I told you that I could reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you, but I can bring Him to you only at your own invitation.
ACIM CH 5 II 9
If the first quote were true, and of course it is, then this bringing down of the Holy Spirit is in a figurative sense, and not literal. Our Elder Brother can open the way to our “own right mind”, but he is reminding us that it must be at our own invitation.
78 “The Holy Spirit’s Voice is as loud as your willingness to listen.”
ACIM CH 8 VIII
If our Elder Brother could open the way to our “own right mind”, that could only mean that our Minds are joined and that there is one MIND and that the communication within this MIND is universal and internal.
56The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication which is an eternal property of mind. But the communication is internal. [It is not made up of different parts which reach each other.] Mind reaches to itself. It does not go out. Within itself it has no limits, and there is nothing outside it. [It encompasses everything.] It encompasses you entirely; you within it, and it within you. There is nothing else, anywhere or ever.
ACIM CH 18 VII
Thus, the Holy Spirit is Mind reaching to itself, pulling itself up by its own boot straps. We might call it the cosmic REBOOT. As they say in the computer programming world, when all else fails—REBOOT and if that fails: “Read the Manual”.
49 Ideas are of the mind. What 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.
ACIM CH 26 VIII
Again and again, one finds that our sense of identity is at the center of this Miraculous thought system offered through A Course in Miracles. Every truth we believe is in direct relationship to who we think we are and who we think our brothers are and Who we think Jesus and God are. Minds communicate in ideas. Our Source gave of itself in the idea of us and we are also able to give of ourselves, which is our selfhood. The Course keeps reminding us that we are an idea, in full communication with all that ever was, which has never left its Source.
63 It is through us that peace will come. Join me in the idea of peace, for in ideas minds can communicate. If you would give yourself as your Father gives His Self, you will learn to understand selfhood. And therein is love’s meaning understood. But remember that understanding is of the mind and only of the mind. Knowledge is therefore of the mind, and its conditions are in the mind with it. If you were not only an idea and nothing else, you could not be in full communication with all that ever was. Yet as long as you prefer to be something else, or would attempt to be nothing else and something else together, the language of communication, which you know perfectly, you will not remember.
ACIM CH 15 VII
The Course is teaching us, or reminding us, of a radical new perspective, which is based on this language of communication that we have forgotten. We have forgotten that MIND extends to itself, being all there is. Love is all there is and what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. VIOLA! No separation, unless we choose to separate ourselves away from our Reality through judgment and unforgiveness – a.k.a. “wrong-mindedness,” a.k.a. the ego. We are adrift until we make the choice to “think” with our CHRIST MIND.
11 The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind, which senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception. It came into being with the separation as a protection, inspiring the beginning of the Atonement at the same time. Before that, there was no need for healing and no one was comfortless.
ACIM CH 5 II
In any given instant I could ask myself: Are my thoughts the loving Thoughts of God? Are my thoughts those of my Source, which is LOVE? Do I see no separation between myself and my brother? “Every altar to God is part of your Soul because the light He created is one with Him.” ACIM CH 10, 33 Also, He tells us, “It is possible even in this world to hear only that Voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God’s Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Souls.” ACIM CH 5, 20
Am I relating to the TRUTH within that KNOWS that I am whole and complete and still as God created me? Or am I relating to a separate self, with separate needs and desires? One sense of Self dwells in eternity and abundance and the other in time and scarcity. “Those who see themselves as whole make no demands.” ACIM LESSON 37, 2
In every instant I make that choice. Now is the only time there is. What am I choosing now? What am I identifying with? Is it the Voice for Love that sings within, waiting to be acknowledged and expressed or the dirge of the ego.
The original question was: How do I know when I am actually hearing Guidance from my Right Mind, a.k.a. “Holy Spirit”, and not the ego?
And the Answer is: Know ThySelf. If the guidance is aligned in the knowledge of Who you are in truth, that you are one with your Brother and one with your Source, then it is a reflection of Love and Reality. Your next thought, and the one after that, and the one after that, are either from your Christ Mind, a.k.a. the Holy Spirit, a.k.a. Love, and are healing or they come from a misperception of who you are, born of fear. When we feel that tinge of separateness in our heart and there is no peace, that’s not the Holy Spirit. That’s our call to choose once again. There is no judgment. Who you are hasn’t changed. You are always the sinless and guiltless Son of God and now you get to choose for that knowledge once again in each new moment.
Ɲαɱα§ɫé ॐ
*Reverend Reja Joy Green is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She is the CIMS webmaster and producer of the Daily Lesson Rev. Reja Joy facilitates the Course in Miracles study group in Omaha and is ordained as a Community Miracles Center minister. Rev Reja Joy and her husband Chris will be presenters at the 2018 Bi-Annual ACIM International Conference in San Francisco.
As a registered Yoga Instructor, Rev. Reja Joy teaches through her RejaJoy-Yoga-Studio from the perspective of A Course in Miracles and hosts several social media groups for those who share this journey. Rev. Reja Joy currently resides with her loving husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.
Course in Miracles Society (CIMS) is an international group of Course students and teachers organized to discover, authenticate and propagate the divine teachings of A Course in Miracles. As students, we seek to increase our knowledge of Jesus’ words and to deepen our experience of his teaching. As teachers, we work to circulate the message of A Course in Miracles throughout the world by our words, by our deeds and by the example of our lives. Jcim.net