ACIM Glossary A-B
A
accepting the Atonement for oneself
Accepting the healing of your own thinking, accepting right-mindedness into your mind (even if only briefly), which leads directly and automatically to extending healing to others. Accepting healing is the precondition for extending healing, for you must have before you can give. This acceptance is the sole responsibility of the miracle worker, because once Atonement is allowed into your mind, it will automatically extend through you and give miracles to others (unless you block it). Thus, rather than implying that others are of no concern to you, this idea tells you how you can be truly helpful to them. You can accept Atonement by changing your perception of self or others, as well as by joining with your holy relationship partner. (See T-22.VI.4:4-5:3. See T-2.V.5:1, M-7.3:2-6).
altar
Conventional: a raised structure on which are performed acts of worship or sacrifice towards a deity. ACIM: An inner altar, not an outer altar. The place in your mind that contains what you are devoted to, worship, consider sacred. "These altars are not things; they are devotions" (T-5.II.8:7). You have placed the ego's idols upon this altar and worshipped them, yet it is God Who really belongs on your altar and Who really is there. Sometimes spoken of as a single altar that is (only apparently) defiled; sometimes spoken of as two altars, one to the ego and one to God. See T-5.II.8:5-9, T-11.VI.5:1-2.
angels
Helping spirits from God whose job is to protect our minds from the ego and light our way home. The helping function of angels is very similar to that of the Holy Spirit, implying that perhaps angels are simply extensions or aspects of the Holy Spirit. See W-pI.183.2:2.
anger
The emotion which stems from condemnation, from the judgment that someone is not fulfilling the function you allotted her and is attacking you, from the perception that she has sinned and should feel guilty. Anger is expressed as attack and results in guilt and finally fear of punishment. This fear of outer attack seems to justify further anger (see W-pI.153.2:1-2), and the cycle starts over. Anger results in guilt and fear because it comes from your unconscious attraction to guilt and fear. Behind mild annoyance, anger over specific situations, and anger over certain attributes in particular people, lies intense, total and non-specific fury (see W-pI.21.2-5). "Anger is never justified" (T-30.VI.1:1; see M-17.8:6). Even the destruction of the body does not justify anger, for the body is not real. Jesus taught this in the crucifixion (see T-6.I.4). Anger obliterates your helpfulness, obscures the peace of God, and is a sure sign that your thinking is guided by the ego. The major lesson of the teacher of God is to learn how to respond without anger to his pupil's egoic thoughts (see M-17.4). See attack thoughts. See T-15.VII.10:3, T-30.VI.1:1, W-pI.192.9:4-5.
Atonement
Root meaning: The reconciliation of God and His estranged children, the recovering of at-one-ment (not the state of at-one-ment). Conventional: Atonement is achieved by paying for our sins; in Christianity, by Jesus paying on the cross for the sin of our break with God. ACIM: Atonement is achieved by the realization (first Jesus' and then ours) that we never left God, that the split was an illusion, that no sin was committed and no payment necessary. Atonement is thus the undoing of a split that never occurred, "the way back to what was never lost" (T-12.VIII.8:8). The Atonement releases us from all that stands between us and God--guilt, fear, the past and all illusions--through its realization that all this has never been. Jesus made this principle accessible to us through his resurrection, not his death (see crucifixion). This placed him in charge of the Atonement. Atonement is one of the major terms in the Course and has many aspects: 1. It is a principle: that the separation (or fall) never really occurred (see T-6.II.10:7). In this sense, it is the final lesson. 2. It is a power which, when we accept it, comes into our minds and heals our thinking (see T-1.I.37, T-14.IX.3:2). The miracle is thus the expression of the Atonement. 3. It is a plan for the return of all God's sons (see plan for salvation), a plan based on the Atonement principle. 4. It is a process, in which the Sonship progressively approaches the final reunion with God (see T-1.III.1:1). 5. And it is a purpose--the goal to which the plan and process aspire (see T-2.II.6:9). See salvation. See accepting the Atonement for oneself.
attack
The expression of anger, in the attempt to punish others for their sins and defend oneself from their attack. Its true result is guilt and fear of retaliation. It is the fundamental expression of the ego. It blots out the awareness of Heaven and is the cause of all of our experience of being attacked. Exists first on the thought level (see attack thoughts), from which it may also be expressed physically. Attack is one of the primary purposes the ego sees in the body (since only bodies can actually attack), a purpose which is the source of physical sickness. Attack, however, is not real. Minds cannot attack each other, for they are joined. And minds cannot be attacked, for they cannot be truly injured. Thus, since it is unreal, attack is never a sin. It is merely a call for love.
attack thoughts
Thoughts of anger. The source of our entire perception of the world. We entertain attack thoughts, then project them onto the world (see projection), and then interpret the world as wanting to take vengeance on us for our attack on it. A term found only in the Workbook. See W-pI.22.1.
attraction of guilt
The ego's desire for guilt, which is the unconscious motivation behind all the ego does, including all its uses of the body. Guilt is the ego's only need (see T-15.VII.10:4). It finds guilt attractive because guilt preserves it, confirming its foundation of sin and producing its essence of fear. The attraction of guilt makes God and love seem repulsive. Because we find guilt intolerable, the ego promises to relieve guilt, but does so in ways that actually maintain and increase it (see T-15.VII.4:1). For instance, the ego urges us to relieve our guilt by attacking others, projecting guilt onto others, and looking for sin in others. If we simply realized that these things only increase guilt, we would let them go. This is why we must look at our unconscious attraction to guilt (see T-15.VII.3). The solution to the attraction of guilt is the holy instant.
authority problem
Conventional: Our problem with other people wielding authority over us, stemming from our desire for self-determination. ACIM: Our problem with the fact that God is our Author, and our attempt to author ourselves, to usurp God's power, throne, place or function. This attempt, which we believed seriously attacked or killed God, is the hidden source of all guilt. In the separation, we rejected His role as Creator and tried to be creator in His stead. We tried to create our own self and even to create God (see T-21.II.10:4). However, we only succeeded in making a self-image, the ego. Now we believe we can change ourselves (a form of creating ourselves) by modifying our image. A conventional authority problem results from projecting this belief (in self-creation) onto another person, which leads us to fear that he or she can take our function of self-creation away from us and can exercise creative power over us, can modify us against our will. All of this, though, is illusion. Since we did not author ourselves we have no power over what we are, nor do others. We have not usurped God's power and have no cause for guilt (see "I am as God created me"). See T-3.VI.7-8, T-11.In.2.
B
body
The dream symbol of the ego; a physical wall around the mind that reflects the ego's mental wall; an illusory prison that seems to keep the mind separate from all else. 1. The ego made the body as proof that we really are separate, and that our separateness is outside our power of choice, being enforced by an objective wall of flesh. As a result, deep down we hate the body, blaming it for all the pain that separation brings. We also hate it because we think it is not good enough to be our house. 2. The ego uses the body as a device to reinforce itself. It does so by using it to attack others and to seek physical pleasure. It adorns the body to make itself feel special (see specialness) and to attract special love partners (see special relationships). It uses the body's sickness, aging and death to "prove" to us that we are frail and guilty and that God is dead. 3. The Holy Spirit sees the body as neutral, as having no power over the mind. He sees it as a means not an end, as an instrument for reaching our brothers and extending love, forgiveness and healing to them. Thus it can be a useful tool here. 4. Yet because it is an illusion, when we awaken in Heaven it will be gone, for there is no form in Heaven.
bridge
A bridge that spans the distance between our awareness and God, between illusions and truth, perception and knowledge. This bridge is described as the Holy Spirit, Christ's vision, peace and forgiveness, among other things. It is described as being built by us, and also built by God. To be literal, it is a transition in our perspective on reality (see T-16.VI.7:1). It is described both as the transition to true perception, and also as the transition to knowledge, as the final step in which God will bridge the gap Himself. See T-16.III.8-9, T-16.VI, T-17.II.2, T-28.III.6.
bringing darkness to light, illusions to truth
Bringing our dark, secret, egoic beliefs out of unconsciousness and into full awareness to meet the light of the Holy Spirit, of reason. There our illusions will be dispelled, for light automatically dispels darkness (see T-2.II.1:14). "To bring" means "to see from the perspective of" or "see in the light of." We have brought truth to illusions--seen truth from the perspective of illusions (see W-pI.107.5:3-4). Now we must reverse that. Our job is not to bring the light, which would imply that we are separate from the light and it is up to us to make or earn it. Our job is simply to bring our darkness to the Holy Spirit, and it is He Who brings the light. We have hidden the ego's darkness behind walls of denial, which the Course describes metaphorically as dark doors in our minds, guarded by sentinels of darkness (see T-14.VI.2:5,8:4). Since darkness vanishes automatically in light, it is not our darkness that keeps us from God, but the act of hiding it behind the dark doors. Once we have brought it to light we can fulfill our function of bringing light to the darkness of the world, just as the Holy Spirit does (see T-18.III.7:1-3). See T-14.VII.6, T-14.IX.1-2, T-14.VI.4.
brother
One who is like you and shares the same Father. All members of the Sonship, which includes all living things, are brothers. Sometimes refers specifically to our holy relationship partner, especially in chapters 17-22 in the Text. By calling us all "brothers," the Course is filling a traditional word that refers only to male siblings with a profound and non-traditional content that embraces all reality (see he, him). The term "brother" in the Course implies that underneath our apparent differences of gender, culture, age, status and even species, we are all absolutely the same. It also implies that underneath our worldly relationships as parents, children, enemies and strangers, we are really only brothers to each other--equal offspring of the same Father. "...you have come with but one purpose; that you learn you love your brother with a brother's love. And as a brother, must his Father be the same as yours, as he is like yourself in truth" (T-31.II.10:5-6).
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