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
Chapter XXIX
The Awakening
10 sections
1.Introduction
Tx.29.I
2.The Closing of the Gap
Tx.29.II
3.The Coming of the Guest
Tx.29.III
4.God's Witnesses
Tx.29.IV
5.Dream Roles
Tx.29.V
6.The Changeless Dwelling Place
Tx.29.VI
7.Forgiveness and Peace
Tx.29.VII
8.The Lingering Illusion
Tx.29.VIII
9.Christ and Anti-Christ
Tx.29.IX
10.The Forgiving Dream
Tx.29.X
Chapter XXX
The New Beginning
9 sections
Chapter XXXI
The Simplicity of Salvation
8 sections
Back
Chapter 29 · The Awakening
The Closing of the Gap
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4The gap between you is not one of space between two separate bodies. This but seems to be dividing off your separate minds. It is the symbol of a promise made to meet when you prefer and separate until you both elect to meet again. And then your bodies seem to get in touch and signify a meeting-place to join. But always is it possible to go your separate ways. Conditional upon the "right" to separate will you agree to meet from time to time and keep apart in intervals of separation, which protect you from the "sacrifice" of love. The body saves you, for it gets away from total sacrifice and gives you time in which to build again your separate selves, which you believe diminish as you meet.
5The body could not separate your minds unless you wanted it to be a cause of separation and of distance seen between you. Thus do you endow it with a power that lies not within itself. And herein lies its power over you. For now you think that it determines when you meet and limits your ability to make communion with each other's mind. And now it tells you where to go and how to go there, what is feasible for you to undertake, and what you cannot do. It dictates what its health can tolerate and what will tire it and make it sick. And its "inherent" weaknesses set up the limitations on what you would do and keep your purpose limited and weak.
6The body will accommodate to this if you would have it so. It will allow but limited indulgences in "love," with intervals of hatred in between. And it will take command of when to "love" and when to shrink more safely into fear. It will be sick because you do not know what loving means. And so you must misuse each circumstance and everyone you meet and see in them a purpose not your own.
7It is not love that asks a sacrifice. But fear demands the sacrifice of love, for in love's presence fear cannot abide. For hate to be maintained love must be feared and only sometimes present, sometimes gone. Thus is love seen as treacherous because it seems to come and go uncertainly and offer no stability to you. You do not see how limited and weak is your allegiance and how frequently you have demanded that love go away and leave you quietly alone in "peace."
8The body, innocent of any goal, is your excuse for variable goals you hold and force the body to maintain. You do not fear its weakness, but its lack of strength or weakness. Would you recognize that nothing stands between you? Would you know there is no gap behind which you can hide? There is a shock that comes to those who learn their savior is their enemy no more. There is a wariness that is aroused by learning that the body is not real. And there are overtones of seeming fear around the happy message, "God is love."
9Yet all that happens when the gap is gone is peace eternal. Nothing more than that, and nothing less. Without the fear of God, what could induce you to abandon Him? What toys or trinkets in the gap could serve to hold you back an instant from His Love? Would you allow the body to say "no" to Heaven's calling, were you not afraid to find a loss of self in finding God? Yet can your Self be lost by being found?