Sacrifice & the Dream

“Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God’s teachers.” ACIM Manual for Teachers, pg. 32

“The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment. The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be.” ACIM Manual for Teachers, pg. 36

“It will merely cease to SEEM to be.” We are dreaming up this illusion that we call the world. The Course makes that very clear. My thoughts are creating the world that I see with my eyes. I must step aside and allow the Thoughts of the Holy Spirit to look at the world and judge it for what it is - meaningless.

“The first illusion, which must be displaced before another thought system can take hold, is that it is a sacrifice to give up the things of this world. What could this be but an illusion, since this world itself is nothing more than that?” ACIM Manual for Teachers, pg. 33

When I first read this passage, I thought it was saying that I had to physically give up my material possessions - all of them - in order to see the Truth. Well, to do that - to give everything away - would be to keep it because by doing that and by my thinking that I am giving it up - I make it real, and nothing in this world is real. It would be akin to looking on sin and then forgiving it. You can’t do that because sin is not real, nor are the “things” that I possess. To give up the things of the world in the Course’s context, then, is not to be attached to them. Not to see loss if they are taken from me. Some people may view this thought system as escape from reality, but it is actually an escape into Reality. The thinking of the world is upside down from what the Truth is. You keep what you give away. Give away love, then. Give away the Word of God.

“’And the last to be overcome will be death.’ Of course! Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation’s final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God and still can die?” ACIM Manual for Teachers, pg. 67

“There is no death. This sword does not exist. The fear of God is causeless. But his Love is Cause of everything beyond all fear, and thus, forever real and always true.” ACIM Manual for Teachers, pg. 46

See what we call "death" for what it is - meaningless, and a merely laying aside of the body. See no loss in it. If you can forgive death, then you can break through to the Truth.