ACIM and the End of War

There is no way to God, just like there is no way to the self. You are already fully present; so, too, is God. Wholeness is not waiting to be reconstructed; it is waiting to be recognized.

The Wholeness of God, which is His peace, cannot be appreciated except by a whole mind that recognizes the Wholeness of God’s Creation. By this recognition it knows its Creator (T-6.II.1:2-3).

The salient quality of wholeness is inclusion (e.g., T-6.II.1:4). God’s Creation excludes nothing. You and I exclude a lot. So one way to begin to remember wholeness is to notice who – and what – we insist must be apart from it.

Perhaps we want to exclude Vladimir Putin. He’s an autocrat and a warmonger. Perhaps we want to exclude Russian soldiers who target Ukrainian civilians. They are war criminals. This feels rational, no? In Heaven there is no war, so only peacemakers need apply.

Go slowly with me here.

We are dismayed by war because we know that violence and conflict are of the ego, and peace and happiness are of God.

But the solution to war is not the additional violence of excluding our brothers and sisters who make war. It is not the additional violence of choosing sides in war. All that merely doubles down on the original error that conflict has value in and of itself.

The one we reject is our savior, and by our rejection, we not only refuse to save them, we also deny our own salvation. This is obviously contrary to God and to Love.

There is complete forgiveness here, for there is no desire to exclude anyone from your completion, in sudden recognition of the value of his part in it. In the protection of your wholeness, all are invited and made welcome (T-15.VII.14:6-7).

Nonviolence is not an optional response to conflict. It is the only response that actually means anything, because it is the only one that refuses to accept the violence inherent in separation, and thus reestablishes our shared interest in peace and happiness with all our brothers and sisters.

To see any brother or sister as a wrongdoer who is worthy of exclusion is to effectively damn all of us, including our own self. This is what projection is, and also why projection is so effective at sustaining the illusion of separation.

The ego projects to exclude, and therefore to deceieve. The Holy Spirit extends by recognizing Himself in every mind, and thus perceives them as one . . . Wherever he looks He sees Himself, and because He is united He offers the whole Kingdom always (T-6.II.12:2-3, 5).

Thus, as I pointed out in yesterday’s newsletter, we have to become responsible for projection by refusing to do it. That means that when we are scared or angry, full of righteousness or hatred, convinced that conflict is just, et cetera, we have to do nothing other than just sit with the feelings.

To “sit” with our feelings is to give them – and the circumstances apparently giving rise to them – to the Holy Spirit. We aren’t projecting, arguing, improving or anything. We are simply refusing to be part of the ego’s war on God.

If you think this is merely a metaphor, and has no relationship to the war you perceive outside yourself, I encourage you to at least try it. Refuse the ego’s call to war – what happens? Refuse to crucify anyone, no matter how evil they seem – what happens?

I make you a promise: if you refuse to be a pawn in the ego’s bloody war, then you will remember God’s peace, because your refusal of ego is your acceptance of the Holy Spirit and its message of Love, which is God’s peace. Thus, you will feel abiding peace in your heart, and in your mind you will know with calm certainty exactly what you need to do to manifest this peace unto the world so that all our brothers and sisters might remember peace with you. Hint: it’s not about what you do but how you look.

When you look with gentle graciousness upon your brother, you are beholding [the Holy Spirit]. . . . You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see your brothers truly. And the light in them will show you all that you need to see. When the peace in you has been extended to encompass everyone, the Holy Spirit’s function here will be accomplished (T-19.IV.3:2, 4-6).

Is it clear? Be still and hold all the world, all your brothers and sisters, without exception. Place no condition on this welcome. Hold the young mother who died with her baby outside a maternity hospital in Ukraine. Hold the baby. Hold the young men who fired the weapons who killed this woman and her child. Hold the profiteers who sell the weapons. Hold the so-called leaders who give the orders.

A Course in Miracles is not fucking around. It is a beautiful, radical, rigorous spiritual path. It is teaching us how to become peacemakers and saints, so that all our brothers and sisters – broadly defined to include butterflies, maple trees and rain drops – might rest in the peace and happiness of the wholeness that is our shared inheritance as creations of God.

God is; you are. There is no gap anywhere, only the mistaken perception of a gap. Yet in that gap are the seeds of war, starvation and pestilence (T-28.III.4:2-3). Will you join me in stillness today – a few moments only – in which we refuse to be combatants in ego’s endless conflict, and instead become peacemakers intent on allowing our minds to hold only those thoughts that we think with God?

There is an end to suffering and violence. I am telling you: together we are it.