Teachings of Christ Mind

^2.1 Acceptance of your Self is acceptance of me. Acceptance of your Self is acceptance of your inheritance. Now is the time to come into full acceptance of the human self as well as the Self of unity. It is time for the final merging of the two into One Self, the elevated Self of form.

^2.2 You have let go the ego, re-viewed your life, unlearned previous patterns, and now see the difference between the image you hold of yourself and your present Self. But still, in unguarded moments, in moments in which you would desire peace, memories of your life continue to play within your mind, often still bringing you sadness and regrets.

^2.3 All of these moments you review have brought you here. But I realize that you have not as yet developed the capacity to accept this fully. For most of you, much of what you have considered your mistakes and poor choices have been reconciled. You can see the pattern of your life as clearly now as if a masterful biography had been written of it. It is this clarity that has brought a new “haunting” to some of you. Your life is being seen more as a whole now. The parts are fitting together. You can see how you have moved from seeming purposelessness to purpose.

^2.4 You are like an inventor who wasted many years, much money, and endured many hardships over many projects that did not come to fruition, and now has succeeded in inventing just what was always envisioned. This is the moment of fulfillment and desire coming together, the time in which to realize “it was all worth it.”

^2.5 This is the time of revelation of meaning. You who have so long striven to give meaning to the purposeless, here see meaning revealed.

^2.6 And yet you cannot still some of your regrets. The feeling is not as strong as it once was, and you are very unlikely to still experience guilt or shame; but the hurts you have done others may weigh heavily on you now. It is as if, at this mountain peak, you have discovered a lightness of being, and yet within it is this stone of regret. You continue to have a nagging feeling that this stone of regret will always keep you anchored to the self you once were, that no matter how high you ascend, it will continue to drag you back.

^2.7 This is the feeling that will prevent you from receiving the secret of succession. It is like the force of gravity, a feeling that you will not be able to remain at this height long enough to benefit from what will be shared here.

^2.8 Part of this feeling arises from erroneous ideas that remain regarding your unworthiness. Part of this feeling arises from the erroneous idea that you can fail, even here. These are the temptations that confront those who have dared to ascend the mountain. It is not the height you have attained that causes your fear of falling. It is the depths to which you feel you once descended that calls forth your fear here.

^2.9 These are mainly, in truth, judgments, judgments that arise from your conscience, from that part of you that has compared your actions actions to the laws of man and God and found yourself guilty.

^2.10 Let me ask you now, are these feelings—feelings that are attached to your belief that you have harmed others—not feelings of sorrow? Are you not sorry for these actions? Have you not expressed your wish that you had acted differently? Can you see a way to change the past or to “make up for” what occurred in the past?

^2.11 Now is the time for acceptance, even of these actions that you would rather not accept. They happened. They were what they were. I ask you not to forget. If your home had been destroyed by a tornado or a flood rather than adultery and divorce, would you not see the benefit of accepting what had occurred and moving on? You might counter this by saying that if you had been the adulterer, the cause of the divorce, this was different than a tornado or a flood. Yes, this was different, but this difference does not place these actions beyond the idea of acceptance.

^2.12 Conversely, were you the innocent “victim” of an adulterous mate, a mate whose actions led to divorce and the destruction of your home, can you not accept that this is something that happened? We leave aside, for the moment, any considerations of other outcomes of such actions, whether they are negative or positive in your judgment. We look for a simple acceptance of the facts of your life.

^2.13 I could give thousands of examples here, but the point is that we are not looking for degrees of wrong-actions, or wrongdoing. You all have moments you wish you could re-enact, decisions you wish you could change. These actions are unchangeable. This is why simple acceptance is needed.

^2.14 We speak not of forgiveness or even atonement here, for these have been thoroughly discussed earlier. You have all been through the time of tenderness, the time that preceded your giving and receiving of forgiveness, your request for and granting of atonement, your re-viewing and unlearning of the perceived lessons of your life.

^2.15 But just as you are called here to accept me despite possible misgivings such as religious beliefs, you are called to accept yourself. This unconditional acceptance is necessary. I will give you one final example in order to make our discussion as clear as possible.

^2.16 This is an example from my own life, an example the idea of which still plagues many of you. This example is that of the crucifixion.

^2.17 For many of you the crucifixion is among the reasons you hesitate to fully accept me. It is hard for you to believe that my suffering was symbolic of the end of yours when so much suffering has continued. I will add here the example of my resurrection. It is hard for you to believe that my resurrection heralded eternal life when death has been a constant companion of all those who have lived since my time. It is difficult for you to believe that by following me you will not walk in my footsteps. Perhaps you will be granted eternal life, but not until you have suffered as I suffered. This idea would hardly be a joyful idea with which to begin our work together.

^2.18 As was said within this Course, my life is the example life. The way in which I have talked of it recently may have led some of you to consider it as a symbolic life rather than an actual life. All of our lives here are symbolic rather than actual. Just as the creation story is symbolic rather than actual. This does not mean that my life did not happen, that it did not occur in time and space, just as yours is occurring now in time and space. What this means is that what occurs in time and space is symbolic, that it is representative of something more.

^2.19 So let us consider my life again, just briefly, and let us consider the something more it may represent.

^2.20 My life consisted of the same major elements as yours: Birth through childhood, maturity, and with that maturity action in the world, suffering, death, and resurrection.

^2.21 You have accounts of my actions that begin with the appearance of my form in the world, but that mainly occur during my time of maturity. These accounts do not stress the time of childhood as it is a time commonly held to be one of innocence. The accounts of my maturity generally begin with the recognition of who I am. This is symbolic of the idea put forth here that until you are aware of who you are, your life has not literally or symbolically begun.

^2.22 It was in awareness of who I Am that my life took on meaning. It could be argued that this awareness existed at my birth, and this too would be accurate, since all births are meant to be eagerly looked forward to as beginnings of I Am. Since most births are seen in this way, and most mature lives are not, we concentrate here on mature lives.

^2.23 My mature life thus began with the recognition of who I Am, as does yours. This time was followed by my “example life,” a life that began with the forty days and forty nights spent upon the mountain, and continued with my joining with my brothers and sisters, with the bringing of light to darkness, power to the powerless, health to the sick, life to the dead. My life touched all those willing to be touched, changed all those willing to be changed. But great unwillingness remained. Willingness was not yet upon humankind. The choice was made collectively to remain in illusion. The choice for continued suffering was made. And so I responded to that choice. An example of response was needed. The example was that of a symbolic gesture. It, too, was a choice. A choice to take all that suffering upon myself and kill it. To say, here is what we will do with suffering. We will take it away once and for all. We will crucify it upon the cross of time and space, bury it, so that it need be no more, and demonstrate that new life follows the choice to end suffering. 2.24“I” did not suffer, for I knew who I was and chose no suffering. This is what is meant by the idea that has been repeated as “I died for your sins.” My death was meant to demonstrate that the end of suffering had come, and with it, eternal life.

^2.25 Here, then, is where you need to make the choice that those in my time could not make, the choice to end suffering. This is the choice I made “for all.” This is a choice you make for all as well.

^2.26 Willingness is now upon humankind. What my life demonstrated but needs to be demonstrated anew. But this will not happen if you cling to suffering. If you do not accept your Self, all of yourself, you cling to suffering.

^2.27 This is why you first needed to accept me. To accept me is to accept the end of suffering. To accept the end of suffering is to accept your true Self.