ACIM Glossary S
S
sacrifice
The act of voluntarily losing something, a) in order to gain something else, b) for the sake of a deity, c) for the sake of another person or some worthy cause. 1. Sacrifice is totally unknown to God, for He only gives without cost and knows nothing of loss. 2. We think, however, that God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus ask us to sacrifice all that we hold dear, especially the things of the body. This notion severely impedes the spiritual journey, for it makes the goal seem fearful. 3. It is the ego, not God, that demands sacrifice. None of its pleasures come without the price of pain. It asks us to sacrifice totality to keep a little treasure for ourselves (see T-26.I). Yet this "treasure" is only loss, loneliness and fear. Thus, the ego asks total, not partial, sacrifice. The real meaning of sacrifice, then, is "the cost of believing in illusions" (M-13.5:2). 4. Sacrifice is the basis of the special relationship (see also giving/receiving), where we believe that true love demands, as well as gives, sacrifice. This belief makes God's Love seem like the ultimate demand. Sacrificing for another only induces guilt, which is meant to obligate the other to sacrifice in return (see T-15.VII.6-9). 5. Sacrifice is an idea of our making. Only we ask sacrifice of ourselves. Yet we project this onto God and the world, thinking that their demands are the cause of our deprivation. 6. The Holy Spirit asks only the sacrifice of pain. We must give Him not sacrifice, but the whole idea of sacrifice.
salvation
Root meaning: Being saved from all that would hurt and limit us. Christian: Being saved from the power and effects of sin by the atoning death of Jesus on the cross. ACIM: Being saved from the experience of separation from God, from guilt, and from all the human ills that come from separation and guilt. Comes through the Holy Spirit's healing of our minds. Our spirit was never lost and so need not be saved. Forgiveness affirms this; it makes way for salvation by recognizing that who we are was never lost and that all that impedes salvation is unreal. Salvation is thus an illusion, but one that brings the end of illusions. The ego's plan for salvation is attack, which it promises will make us safe and obtain for us idols and special relationships. Yet this really brings guilt and self-punishment. The ego ascribes this punishment to God, saying that this is how He saves and that His salvation should thus be feared. In this way the ego seeks to save itself from God. See Atonement, plan for salvation. See W-pII.2.
savior
One who saves us with his holiness, who gives us salvation. 1. A minor usage is the Christ, the Holy Spirit and Jesus. 2. The major usage is the people in our lives, especially our holy relationship partner(s). We think that our salvation comes through attacking them. Yet they are our saviors. We allow them to save us through saving them, through seeing their holiness with Christ's vision. The mere sight of their holiness saves us, and this sight will also release them to consciously and actively save us (see T-29.III, W-pI.78.7-8). Note: Other people are our saviors because of their holiness, not because they flush our egos to the surface (though there is one reference to this; see W-pI.192.9). 3. Our function, then, is to be a savior to others, which we do by seeing salvation in them, by seeing them as our saviors. 4. The ego sees death, fear, specialness and the body as our saviors. See witness. See T-20.II.9-11.
Second Coming
Christian: The bodily return of Jesus on the last day to judge the world. ACIM: The collective return of our awareness of the Christ, our true Identity. A time in which all minds are freed of the ego's rule. The First Coming of Christ was God's creation of our true Self; the Second Coming is the return of our awareness of our true Self. It ends the Holy Spirit's lessons and allows all minds to hear the Holy Spirit's judgment, which is the basis for what comes after it: the Lst Judgment (see W-pII.10.1:1-2). Though it is not the return of Jesus, he is in charge of it. See T-4.IV.10, T-9.IV.9, W-pII.9.
self
1. When capitalized refers to the Christ, the true Identity of ourselves and all living things (see W-pII.6). 2. In lower case, generally refers to the ego, the self we think we are, the false self we invented. This self was made, not created, is enormously variable and unstable, and is in total opposition to God.
separation, the
The event in which we apparently separated from God, which gave birth to the entire phenomenal universe, including form, time, space and perception, and which the mind re-enacts in nearly every instant. The apparent split with God for which the Atonement is the reconciliation or remedy. The "detour into fear" (T-2.I.2:1); the "descent from magnitude into littleness" (T-10.IV.8:5); "the denial of union" (T-12.I.10:6). The separation began with the idea that we could make ourselves into separate beings who were both special in the eyes of their Creator (see T-13.III.10:2) and were self-created (see T-10.V.4:3, T-21.II.10). This produced what seemed to be a real event in which we tore ourselves out of God's Mind (see T-5.V.3), shattered Heaven into countless separate bodies and intervals of time (see T-28.III.7:4), became isolated entities, and then made a world of separate individuals, forms and moments. Yet the separation was merely a psychological event, in which, through denial and dissociation, we fell asleep to reality and dreamt of separation (see sleep). In our dream, this experience has lasted billions of years, but in reality it lasted only an instant, for God's Answer ended it immediately. And even this instant never occurred (see M-2.2:8). The core message of the Course is that "the separation never occurred" (T-6.II.10:7).
shadow figures
Dark mental images/memories of people from our past who did not fulfill the roles we assigned to them. We try to recreate our past with them in the present and this time turn the tables and take vengeance on them. We do this by forming special relationships with people who remind us of our shadow figures. We try to extract from these new people what the shadow figures did not give us, what we think they stole from us. In the present, then, we are really interacting with memories, not with our current partners. See T-13.IV.6, T-13.V.2-6, T-17.III.1-3, T-29.IV.5:6.
sickness
1. Sickness is of the mind. It is insanity, mental illness, wrong-mindedness, the condition of the mind that believes in separation. 2. Physical sickness is made by us, by projecting onto the body our mental sickness. This projection is for a purpose: It reinforces the supposed "reality" of the ego. The Course mentions many ways in which sickness serves this purpose: a) The mind punishes the body to mitigate expected punishment from God and so usurp His perceived function (see T-5.V.5:4-9); b) the mind makes the body sick to prove that it is stronger than God Who would heal (see M-5.I.1-2); c) the mind punishes the body as a way of blaming the body for the "sins" the mind had the body act out (see T-18.VI.6:1); d) the mind punishes the body as a way of punishing itself for its supposed sins; e) the mind made the body out of the sickness of separation and projects this sickness onto the body (see T-19.I.7:7); f) the mind uses sickness to demonstrate that the mind is separate from goodness, health and God (see T-28.V.1:1-5); g) the mind produces sickness to separate us from others (see W-pI.137.1-2); h) the mind makes the body sick to show how another has injured it (see T-27.I.3-4); i) the mind attacks the body because the body has failed to satisfy (see T-19.IV(B).11:6); j) the mind attacks the body to prove that the body is real (see T-29.II.8:1-3), that we are physical beings, not spiritual (see W-pI.136.7-8); k) the mind attacks the body because it suspects the body is not real enough to truly act out its fantasies (see T-18.VI.3:7). 3. The one true remedy for sickness is not physical medicine (though this can be appropriate to use; see magic), but the miracle, which heals all sickness regardless of form, thus proving that sickness is an illusion (see W-pI.140).
sin
The violation of the laws of God or goodness. A real attack that causes real damage, violation and injury, produces real moral and spiritual guilt and calls for punishment and death. "To sin would be to violate reality, and to succeed. Sin is the proclamation that attack is real and guilt is justified" (see T-19.II.2:2-3). Also, the state of separation and guilt that results from the act of sin (see T-30.III.3:7). 1. Sin is the ego's foundation and most holy idea (see T-19.II.5). The archetypal sin was the separation. The ego sees sin as a power beyond God's that attacked and overthrew His Will and wrenched His creation away from Him, shattering its oneness and corrupting its innocence (see T-19.III.8:1-3). The ego's goal is to make this a permanent, eternal reality. 2. Sin is the basis for the ego's perception of the world. It sees sin everywhere and in everyone. This perception is the source of anger and fear. 3. The Holy Spirit knows that sin is an illusion, a belief in something that can never occur. For God's laws cannot be violated, attack and injury are unreal, guilt and death are impossible, and the separation from God never occurred. What we call sin is merely an error, a mistake. This means it can be corrected and calls only for correction, not punishment (see call for love/help). This is the basis for forgiveness. See T-19.II,III, W-pII.4.
sleep
Conventional: A state of unawareness and forgetfulness in which the mind withdraws from "reality" into a private state and dreams of senseless things that are not real. ACIM: A state of unawareness and forgetfulness in which the mind elects to withdraw from true reality into a private state of insanity, where it dreams of being in another place (besides Heaven), another time (besides eternity) and even of being another person (besides the Son of God). This state is not truly real, however, for, "God creates only mind awake" (see W-pI.167.8:1).
something else
Refers to a false alternative we have invented in order to get away from the truth. Usually refers to something we have chosen in preference to reality or the Kingdom of God; especially the thing we wish to be (the ego) in place of our true Identity (see T-22.I.3:5-6,7:4,8:5,10:4). Also refers to the things we think are causing us pain (e.g. outer attacks), but which are displacements of the real problem--our own unforgiveness (see T-27.VII.1:4).
song of Heaven
The joyous hymn of love and gratitude that all creation sings in praise of God (see T-26.IV.3:5), and that God sings in praise of us (see T-24.II.4:4-5). The song of creating. This still, formless song is the condition of Heaven (see W-pI.183.11). Called "the song of prayer" in The Song of Prayer pamphlet. This song is reflected and anticipated in salvation's song, in which the Sonship joyously sings its thankfulness to Heaven for saving us from the ego. See T-21.I.6-7.
Son of God
Christian: Jesus, who, as God's Son, is seen to have a uniquely intimate relationship with God in which nothing of God's is held back from him. ACIM: The true Identity of every living thing; Who we really are. This term is meant as a correction of the traditional meaning of "Son of God" (thus replacing it with "Daughter of God" or "Child of God" would defeat its teaching purpose). The Course has transformed this from an exclusive term that refers only to Jesus, to an inclusive one that denotes a single universal Self Who encompasses all beings, male and female (see he, him), human and non-human, and Whose relationship with God is compared to the perfect father-son relationship. A son is an extension, a continuation, of his father, who completes his father and is his father's joy. Therefore he receives his father's name and all of his father's love, inherits all that his father has and is like his father in all ways. As God's extension, we complete Him and are His treasure, His joy. We receive all of His Love, all that He has, all of Himself. We receive His Name, His Identity, and are like Him in all ways. In return, He is our Father, our Source, our one devotion and only Love. The Son of God is a fairly elastic term and can be used in several different ways: 1. The Christ, the collective Self of all Sons of God (used with an upper case "He"). 2. An "individual" Son of God, either asleep and apparently separated or (more rarely) awake in Heaven (lower case "he"). There are an infinite number of these "individual" parts; hence, the frequent term, "Sons of God." 3. Occasionally refers to the collectivity of all the sleeping Sons (lower case "he"). See God, Sonship.
Sonship
The sum of all that God created; all the parts of the Son of God; the collectivity which includes the minds of all living things. The Sonship is a plural term, indicating some kind of plurality in Heaven, yet the Sonship is perfectly united in its one Self, the Christ.
soul
Conventional: A spiritual element in humans that is individual and is from God, yet which can fall from grace, become corrupted and ensnared in what is not of God, and finally either become lost or become purified, perfected, and return to God. ACIM: The term "soul" is found only rarely in the Course, apparently because it tends to spark controversy over questions of its precise theological meaning and validity (see the discussion of controversy around terms in C-IN.2), and perhaps because of its loaded connotations which have no counterpart in the Course's system. The Course has this to say: "The term 'soul' is not used except in direct biblical quotations because of its highly controversial nature. It would, however, be an equivalent of 'spirit,' with the understanding that, being of God, it is eternal and was never born" (C-1.3:2-3). See spirit.
spark
1. The little spark. A light, placed in us by God at our creation, which sparks the Great Rays, which lights the lamp from which they shine. In the separated condition, the Rays are obscure, but the spark has been kept alive by God (see T-10.IV.7:5-8:7). Seeing the spark in others is the way to heal them, and will reveal to us the Great Rays. The spark in our own minds is the means by which we see the ego as meaningless (see T-11.In.3:6). Welcoming the Holy Spirit into our minds will allow this spark to expand (into the Great Rays) and sweep us out of darkness and into God (see T-11.II.5-6). 2. The spark of beauty (closely related to the little spark). The small amount of love that went into the making of our relationships in this world; the loving thoughts from the past. Through focusing on these and forgiving the rest, we will see the spark and let it transform our relationships into beauty (see T-17.III.5-7).
special function
The special form given to each individual of the one function of extending forgiveness (see extension), of being a savior. The function we gave ourselves was specialness, which was achieved by attacking and diminishing our brother, and which we chose in order to hurt ourselves. The Holy Spirit, however, translated our desire for specialness into our special function, our special part in His plan for salvation. It reverses specialness. It is our special way of saving our brother from attack, which thus releases us from all hurt. The Holy Spirit gives us a special form of extending healing which is suited to our particular strengths (see W-pI.154.2:2). He also sends us particular people whom it is our function to save. This seems to begin with one person, our holy relationship see (partner T-20.IV.5:3). Then we and our partner are given a joint special function, which includes particular people to save. Ultimately, the ones we are appointed to save include everyone (see T-31.VII.10:5). The Holy Spirit also gives us guidance and supply for every aspect of this function as well as the strength to carry it out. This is our part in the fulfillment of the Holy Spirit's Own special function (see function, #3). See T-25.VI.
specialness
The idea of being set apart from others and set above others. Having more or being more than others. Specialness is the great pay-off promised by the ego. Our attempt to gain special favor from God was the "tiny, mad desire" (T-25.I.5:5) that sparked the separation, that was the root of sin (see T-24.II.3:1-3) and that set us in opposition to the Will of God (for He knows no specialness). No price is too dear for us to pay for obtaining specialness. We seek it in our special relationships, where others give us special love and their special selves. In this way we try to symbolically extract from them the specialness that God denied us (see T-16.V). We seek it with our body, adorning our body in order to attract it. We also seek it by accumulating idols (see T-29.VIII.8). All ways of seeking it involve attack, for specialness requires that others must be beneath us. It causes us to look for and rejoice at any sin we see in others. It makes everyone our enemy and so makes us feel attacked from every quarter. Because specialness is a form of separateness, it makes us feel weak, frail, isolated and alone. And because it is a form of attack, it makes us feel guilty and afraid. See T-24.
special relationships
A relationship based on the pursuit of specialness, in which we try to a) have a special or exclusive interaction with b) a special person so that c) we can feel more special. Can exist between lovers, friends, or any non-enemies. The term, "special relationship" is a synonym for "special love relationship" (there is only one fleeting reference to "special hate relationship"--see T-16.IV.1:1--and the idea is not a part of the concept of special relationship). The ego's system naturally produces a hostile, painful relationship with the world, which deprives us of the love we want. To keep our allegiance, the ego must provide something that offers a semblance of the love we really want, yet still is of the ego. This is the special relationship, "the ego's most boasted gift" (T-16.V.3:1). It seems to be a Heaven on earth, a haven of love in a world of hate, our greatest hope of happiness in a world of pain (see T-16.IV.3). Yet it is an illusion of love, a love that is unlike God's, for He knows no special love. It is a disguise, a form (or an appearance) of love that covers a content of hate and attack (see T-17.IV.8-9), a content exactly like the rest of the ego's system, which results in the same separateness, guilt and fear. We can describe the relationship in stages: 1. First we search for a person different from the rest, one who is more special and has a special body with special parts (see T-15.V.2-3). Yet this process separates that person from her wholeness, for she is the whole. It reduces her from infinite magnitude down to a little pile of body parts (see T-15.V.7). 2. Then we offer her special behaviors and gifts that give her our specialness and, ultimately, give her our special self (see T-16.V.7-8). These "gifts," however, are attacks designed to make her guilty and so induce her to give her special self in return (see giving/receiving). 3. We (almost certainly) do not receive from her the specialness we think we paid for. So we resort increasingly to taking vengeance on her for not reciprocating (see T-16.V.1). Whether we break up or stick it out, we almost inevitably feel disillusioned (see T-16.IV.4). There is truth in this response, for the love was an illusion. 4. The Holy Spirit, however, would not deprive us of these relationships (see T-17.IV.2:3) or have us throw them away. He would transform them into holy relationships, through forgiveness and the holy instant. Yet most holy relationships are still special relationships (see T-18.V.5:2-3); they have accepted the goal of holiness but have not yet reached that goal. Also called the unholy relationship in chapters 17-22. See shadow figures. See T-15.V,VII, T-16.IV,V,VI,VII, T-17.III,IV.
split mind
A mind divided against itself, in which the more conscious half of the mind is walled off from its own true nature by denial, fear and dissociation. This split, which is apparent but not real, is then projected outward and symbolized by a split between the mind and other minds (see T-12.III.7). In this divided state, the mind cannot truly create or communicate, for what it produces is ambivalent and contradictory. 1. The primary split is between the separated mind and its real Identity, the Christ Mind. 2. The secondary split is within the separated mind, between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Guide out of the split, for He is a unified Presence in the mind (see T-25.I.7:2-3).
spirit
The substance of which God created His Son, of our true nature. Spirit is completely non-physical, formless, changeless, holy and perfect. It has only knowledge and no perception. It cannot descend into error and is unaware of the ego. It uses the mind to express itself in this world, so that the mind can be restored to spirit. See level confusion. See W-pI.97.
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