ACIM Glossary P-R
P
peace
A state of rest, contentment and fulfillment, characterized by the absence of war, conflict, anxiety, guilt, fear and want. 1. The state of eternity or knowledge, the peace of God, in which there is eternal stillness and perfect freedom from danger, war, guilt or lack. The peace of God rests on the fact that His Will has no opposite. This peace, when first discovered, is entirely unlike all previous experiences. 2. The state just short of Heaven which is the goal of the Course (see T-8.I.1:1-3), the pre-condition for remembering knowledge. Through forgiveness, we relinquish all guilt and attack. This brings about a peace which is not knowledge, but does not attack or obstruct knowledge. It thus allows knowledge to flow into our minds. 3. The ego tries to obstruct peace, for the ego is sustained by attack, by war and by guilt. See M-11, M-20.
perception
The process of trying to know an object while separate from it, by interpreting or judging information received by our physical senses. Also, the interpreted images that result from this process. Necessarily involves a separation between subject and object, between us and what we are trying to know. It is thus inherently uncertain (as well as partial and changing) and outside the realm of knowledge. It seems that outer things and events themselves produce our perceptions of them, yet our perceptions are actually produced by projecting outward our own belief system, especially our self-concept (see "projection makes perception"). How we perceive the world determines our experienced condition, and this perception is our choice. Healing perception is the goal of the Course. 1. The ego engages in false or upside-down perception. This sees the world of form and time as real, interprets that world as guilty and attacking, and thus justifies emotional responses of fear and anger. 2. The Holy Spirit teaches us true perception. This makes way for the final step in which God will lift us from perception to knowledge. See judgment.
plan for salvation, plan of Atonement
God's plan for our awakening, conceived at the moment of the separation and given to the Holy Spirit to carry out. It is guaranteed to work, for it was accomplished the instant it was conceived, even though its accomplishment seems to be in the distant future. Jesus has been placed in charge of this plan, for he was the first to perfectly fulfill his own part. 1. In content, the plan is to forgive, to overlook illusions (see W-pI.99.4-6), to let go our belief that others have sinned. 2. In form, this plan is applied to each person very individually, to suit his particular needs. 3. Each person is given a part in this plan (see special function). His part is essential to the plan (see W-pI.100); the whole plan depends on it. His part is to forgive and heal those who are sent to him. The plan thus uses those who are more awake to release those who are more asleep (see T-1.III.3:3), and so is called "the plan of the teachers" (M-1.2:10). 4. The plan includes all needed specifics for each individual, specific contacts to be made, specific decisions for each situation. It guarantees that we will be in the right place at the right time (see W-pI.42.2). It allows for no accidents. 5. It, in fact, includes a script (written by the Holy Spirit) which covers our entire journey through time and space (see W-pI.158.4:2). 6. To receive God's plan, we must let go of our plans. The ego's plan for happiness revolves around holding grievances, which are emotional demands that others change so we can be happy (see W-pI.71.2-4). This is the opposite of God's plan of forgiveness. Our plans for the future are defenses against the Holy Spirit's plan for us, and block us from finding our part in His plan. See Atonement, Will of God.
prayer
Root meaning: Asking God. Conventional. Asking God to supply us with external things, people, conditions and events that we think will protect us and satisfy us. According to the Course, these are prayers not to God but to our idols. ACIM: Asking God for the healing of the mind (our own or that of others) and for the revelation of His Presence. All prayers are answered, except when we ask for what would hurt us (see T-9.I.10:1), or when we are afraid to receive the answer (see T-9.I.1-2). We must ask in confidence; asking merely to accept what we already have. For this reason, the prayers in the Course are generally affirmative statements and never contain the word "please." The Course considers the various statements it asks us to repeat in the Workbook lessons or in the Text to be prayers. What is important is not the words of our prayers but the "prayer of the heart" (M-21.1:3). It is perfectly all right to pray to Jesus, the Holy Spirit or the Christ. However, the Course's prayers are generally addressed to God. God does not hear our words, but our prayers in some sense do reach Him through the Holy Spirit (see T-15.VIII.5:5). Prayer can serve different functions: 1. "Prayer is the medium of miracles" (T-1.I.11), which means that through prayer we receive the love, the healing, which we extend to others in the miracle. We must truly ask for this healing with the prayer of our heart, and not merely with our words (see M-21.1-3). 2. Most of the Course's prayers ask for the healing of our own minds, ask to accept forgiveness (in some form) into our minds (see T-3.V.6). 3. The prayers in Part II of the Workbook are meant to be invitations to God to come and give us the experience of oneness with Him (see W-pII.In.3:3,4:6). 4. In the Course itself, prayer does not occur in Heaven. However, in The Song of Prayer, prayer occurs not only in the separated state, but in Heaven. There, it is no longer asking, but is formless communion with God, an eternal song of love (see song of Heaven) we sing to God and He sings to us (see S-1.In.1).
projection
The ego's distorted use of forgiveness, which seems to reverse cause and effect. The main defense of the separation, what keeps it going (see T-6.II.1:5). In extension, an idea goes forth from our mind without leaving it, thus linking our mind to the minds we extend to. In projection, we try to throw an idea out of our mind onto a supposedly external world. This makes the idea appear to be disconnected from us and objectively real; not our own effect, but an independent cause with power over us. In this way, the pain we gave ourselves now seems given to us by others (see T-7.VII.8-9). Projection thus masks the very law it applies: that it is our own thoughts that cause our perceptions and experience (see "projection makes perception"). 1. In the separation, we projected our belief in separateness outward, thus making the world. A world of separation now appeared to be an objective, real cause with power over us, rather than our own illusory projection (see T-18.I.5-6). 2. We now use projection to try to throw outside of us our feelings of guilt. This takes the form of blaming others. Yet this simply causes more guilt, and produces a perception in which the world seems poised to take vengeance on us for our attack on it (see W-pI.22.1). In other words, we fear that our projections will return to our mind (see T-7.VIII.2-3). Projection, then, is an ego device not to rid us of guilt, but to compound guilt and increase fear. 3. Projection produces our fear of God (along with such related beliefs as the traditional interpretation of the crucifixion; see T-3.I.3:8). We project onto God our belief that we are guilty, making it appear that He believes in our guilt, too, and wants to punish us for it. We think He accomplishes this through the attacks and calamities visited on us by the world (see W-pI.153.7:3).
"projection makes perception"
The Course's theory of perception, which is a reversal of the common sense belief that our perception is caused from without. External objects seem to be sending information through our senses to our brains, seemingly causing our perception of them. Yet our perceptions are caused internally. Over time we build up beliefs about reality. These beliefs guide our attention, causing our eyes to search for those things that fit our pre-existing categories (M-8.4). Once we find these things, our beliefs guide our interpretation of them, and these interpretations are our perceptions (see T-11.VI.1-3). Our perceptions are thus projections of our beliefs, through the means of selective attention and subjective interpretation. As a result, what we see is simply a mirror, a reflection of our state of mind. See perception, projection. See T-13.V.3:5, T-21.In.1:1.
R
reality
Root meaning: What truly and permanently exists independent of deception, illusion and subjective opinion. Conventional: the physical world and cosmos. ACIM: a transcendental realm known as Heaven, eternity or the Kingdom of God. Reality is pure spirit. It is changeless, eternal, formless, boundless. It has no different orders or levels. It is total, one and cannot be known partially. In it part and whole are identical; we are part of reality and all of reality. Even though reality is completely obvious, we lost awareness of it when we tried to be the author of reality, including our own reality. See illusion. See T-30.VIII.1,4.
real world
Conventional: The world of harsh rules and hard knocks that doles out painful consequences for our mistakes and does not leave room for our naive fantasies of how things ought to be. ACIM: The world of happiness and joy made by the Holy Spirit (see T-25.III.3-5), revealed by forgiveness and looked upon by vision, by true perception. The goal of the journey, the state of mind which immediately precedes the awakening to Heaven. An intermediate state which incorporates elements of reality and illusions (see T-26.III.3). Not Heaven, but a perceptual reflection of Heaven; a dream of waking. The real world is not the world of physical form (it has no buildings, streets, stores, day or night; see T-13.VII.1 and cannot be seen with the body's eyes (see C-4.2:1). When we have forgiven the world, we will look out from the holiness, the Christ, within. The eyes of Christ in us will reveal an inner vision of a non-physical realm. This realm, the real world, might be said to have two aspects: 1. It is composed of the loving thoughts that went into the making and maintaining of this world (see T-11.VII.2), which are all that is real about the world we made. The Holy Spirit made the real world by inspiring these loving thoughts and then by putting the rest of our thoughts through a purification process that retained only the love (see T-5.IV.8:1-6). In this state we assign a different meaning to the physical world. We interpret the same familiar physical things as symbols of loving thoughts (see T-17.II.5-6) rather than of fear. We see in all things nothing but the purpose of forgiveness (see T-30.V.1:1). 2. The real world is also composed of the holiness in all things, the Son of God in every person (see T-17.II.1:1-2:1). Based on this vision, we look past all things physical. We see physical things as mere shadows, mere illusions, and so they appear transparent as we look beyond them to the face of Christ.
reason
Root meaning: Sound or sane thinking. Logical thinking based on true premises, on solid reasons. Conventional: The proper exercise of the human intellect. ACIM: The Holy Spirit's thinking, logical thinking based on God's premises. Sane thinking by which illusions are judged as illusory and sin is reinterpreted as a mistake. The means of salvation (see T-22.III.3:1); the opposite of insanity. The ego, being insane, has no reason. It applies logic to insane premises and thus is logical but totally unreasonable. Since the conscious mind is the domain of the ego (see consciousness), left to its own devices the intellect is completely irrational (see T-21.V.4). Our thinking only becomes rational when it is not generated by our conscious mind, but is inspired by our right mind, the home of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Holy Spirit is not arational or non-intellectual, but quite the reverse. He actually applies the rules of sound thinking far better than we do. Reason is not an ability invented by the ego and reinterpreted by the Holy Spirit, for it is fundamentally antithetical to the ego. See T-21.V,VI, T-22.III.
receiving
See giving/receiving.
response to temptation
Responding with right-minded thoughts to the temptation to engage in egoic thinking. According to the Course, whenever we notice any kind of upset, we should have a habit of instantly responding with a right-minded thought, especially our Workbook idea for the day. The phrase is introduced in the Text (see T-31.III.1:3) and used (with variations) in the Workbook. It denotes a crucial element of Course practice.
resurrection
Christian: The rising of the body (either Jesus' body or the bodies of all people) from the dead. ACIM: 1. The rising of the mind, and of the entire Sonship, from the ego's dream of death to the awareness of eternal life, from insanity to perfectly healed perception. The release from guilt by guiltlessness (see T-14.V.10:3). This is followed by the ascension, by God taking the final step and lifting us into Heaven. 2. The resurrection of Jesus, the reawakening of his own mind (not the revivification of his body), which paved the way for his own return to knowledge (see T-3.V.1:3), for his own final step (see C-6.1:1). The resurrection demonstrated that truth cannot be destroyed, for it showed that the crucifixion did not harm Jesus (see T-3.I.7:6-7). His resurrection set in motion the Atonement (see T-3.I.1:2). In it was contained the resurrection of the entire Sonship. Thus, by identifying with it we will experience our own resurrection. Although the reappearance of Jesus' body can be seen as a symbol of the resurrection of his mind, the real resurrection was the disappearance of his body, not the reappearance. See M-28.
revelation
Root meaning: God revealing Himself to us. Christian: God revealing to us ideas and truths, usually through the words of Scripture. ACIM: God revealing knowledge of Himself through direct, wordless, imageless experience of union with Him (traditionally called the mystical experience). Refers to both the final or permanent experience of God in Heaven (which is the end or goal of the journey) and to temporary experiences of God while in this world (which reveal the end of the journey). Yet to reach this end, miracles are needed. They are the means and are more valuable now than revelation. See grace. See T-1.II.
right mind
Conventional: A state of sanity and decency that one can be in. ACIM: A state of mind and a place in one's mind that is completely sane. The home of the Holy Spirit, right-mindedness, forgiveness and miracles. It is still within the separated mind, but is the solution to the separation. This level of mind is totally unconscious, except for brief, occasional flashes. Yet the goal is to make it our normal conscious state of mind. See T-5.I.3:3-6.
right-mindedness
The state of mind in which salvation lies. The answer to wrong-mindedness which paves the way for One-mindedness. The state of mind the miracle worker must be in to extend miracles to others (see accepting the Atonement for oneself). "Right-mindedness listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ's vision sees the real world in its place" (C-1.5:2). Used only in the first four chapters of the Text and clarified in the Clarification of Terms. See (T-2.V.3-4).
Return to top | Send Reader Feedback | | Printer friendly version
Dear friend: We offer the materials on this website to you in the hope that they can serve you well on your journey home. Your continuing donations support the work of the Circle of Atonement. Thank you.
Click here to make a Donation.
This material is copyrighted by the Circle of Atonement, P.O. Box 4238, W. Sedona, AZ 86340. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed are the personal interpretation and understanding of the author(s).
Please report problems to the webmaster.