Simple ACIM
Original Edition
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v1.0 · Course text used under CIMS license
The Text
Contents
Opening
Introduction
Tx.In
Chapter I
Introduction to Miracles
2 sections
Chapter II
The Illusion of Separation
6 sections
Chapter III
Retraining the Mind
9 sections
Chapter IV
The Root of All Evil
9 sections
Chapter V
Healing and Wholeness
9 sections
Chapter VI
Attack and Fear
8 sections
Chapter VII
The Consistency of the Kingdom
12 sections
Chapter VIII
The Journey Back
11 sections
Chapter IX
The Correction of Error
11 sections
Chapter X
God and the Ego
8 sections
Chapter XI
God's Plan For Salvation
10 sections
Chapter XII
The Problem of Guilt
7 sections
Chapter XIII
From Perception to Knowledge
9 sections
Chapter XIV
Bringing Illusions to Truth
7 sections
Chapter XV
The Purpose of Time
11 sections
Chapter XVI
The Forgiveness of Illusions
8 sections
Chapter XVII
Forgiveness and Healing
9 sections
Chapter XVIII
The Dream and the Reality
11 sections
Chapter XIX
Beyond the Body
8 sections
Chapter XX
The Promise of the Resurrection
9 sections
Chapter XXI
The Inner Picture
9 sections
Chapter XXII
Salvation and the Holy Relationship
7 sections
Chapter XXIII
The War Against Yourself
5 sections
Chapter XXIV
Specialness and Separation
8 sections
Chapter XXV
The Remedy
10 sections
Chapter XXVI
The Transition
11 sections
Chapter XXVII
The Body and the Dream
9 sections
Chapter XXVIII
The Undoing of Fear
8 sections
1.Introduction
Tx.28.I
2.The Present Memory
Tx.28.II
3.Reversing Effect and Cause
Tx.28.III
4.The Agreement to Join
Tx.28.IV
5.The Greater Joining
Tx.28.V
6.The Alternate to Dreams of Fear
Tx.28.VI
7.The Secret Vows
Tx.28.VII
8.The Beautiful Relationship
Tx.28.VIII
Chapter XXIX
The Awakening
10 sections
Chapter XXX
The New Beginning
9 sections
Chapter XXXI
The Simplicity of Salvation
8 sections
Back
Chapter 28 · The Undoing of Fear
The Secret Vows
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54Who punishes the body is insane. For here the little gap is seen, and yet it is not here. It has not judged itself nor made itself to be what it is not. It does not seek to make of pain a joy and look for lasting pleasure in the dust. It does not tell you what its purpose is and cannot understand what it is for. It does not victimize because it has no will, no preferences, and no doubts. It does not wonder what it is. And so it has no need to be competitive. It can be victimized but cannot feel itself as victim. It accepts no role but does what it is told, without attack.
55It is indeed a senseless point of view to hold responsible for sight a thing that cannot see and blame it for the sounds you do not like, although it cannot hear. It suffers not the punishment you give because it has no feeling. It behaves in ways you want but never makes the choice. It is not born and does not die. It can but follow aimlessly the path on which it has been set. And if that path is changed, it walks as easily another way. It takes no sides and judges not the road it travels. It perceives no gap because it does not hate. It can be used for hate, but it cannot be hateful made thereby.
56The thing you hate and fear and loathe and want, the body does not know. You send it forth to seek for separation and to be a separate thing. And then you hate it, not for what it is, but for the uses you have made of it. You shrink from what it sees and what it hears and hate its frailty and littleness. And you despise its acts but not your own. It sees and acts for you. It hears your voice. And it is frail and little by your wish. It seems to punish you and thus deserve your hatred for the limitations which it brings to you. Yet you have made of it a symbol for the limitations which you want your mind to have and see and keep.
57The body represents the gap between the little bit of mind you call your own and all the rest of what is really yours. You hate it, yet you think it is your self and that without it would your self be lost. This is the secret vow which you have made with every brother who would walk apart. This is the secret oath you take again, whenever you perceive yourself attacked. No one can suffer if he does not see himself attacked and losing by attack. Unstated and unheard in consciousness is every pledge to sickness. Yet it is a promise to another to be hurt by him and to attack him in return.
58Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that it will suffer pain. It is the obvious effect of what was made in secret, in agreement with another's secret wish to be apart from you, as you would be apart from him. Unless you both agree that is your wish, it can have no effects. Whoever says, "There is no gap between my mind and yours" has kept God's promise, not his tiny oath to be forever faithful unto death. And by his healing is his brother healed.
59Let this be your agreement with each one—that you be one with him and not apart. And he will keep the promise that you make with him because it is the one which he has made to God, as God has made to him. God keeps His promises; His Son keeps his. In his creation did his Father say, "You are beloved of Me and I of you forever. Be you perfect as Myself, for you can never be apart from Me." His Son remembers not that he replied "I will," though in that promise he was born. Yet God reminds him of it every time he does not share a promise to be sick but lets his mind be healed and unified. His secret vows are powerless before the Will of God, Whose promises he shares. And what he substitutes is not his will, who has made promise of himself to God.