Notes on the Text of A Course in - Stephen Wingate

itself, the Son of God, can choose the Holy Spirit.
The power is in the Son as the decision maker.
•
It is crucial to understand the major themes of the
Atonement and the ego's fear of Atonement. It is
important to understand and appreciate how strong
the ego's desire to maintain its separate existence is.
We all will literally fight to the death to maintain our
special separate existence. Whether we identify with
a national, political, religious or racial group; or with
our individual identity as a body; we are terrified of
the non-specific, abstract nature of God's love and
will kill to maintain our separate existence. The main
reason people are unable to live this Course is that
they are terrified (consciously or unconsciously) of
the loss of their individual, special existence.
•
In truth, sin is a call for love. All behavior is either
an expression of love or a call for love. Sin is a lack
of love. The remedy for a lack of love is the
extension of love. To survive, the ego needs sin to be
real, not merely a lack of love. Therefore,
unconditional love evokes terror in the ego; as
unconditional love means the end of the ego's
specialness.
•
As long as we are identified with the body and forget
we have a mind, the ego has our total allegiance.
When we chose the ego we chose it totally. The ego's
fear is that we will change our mind. When you first
begin turning to the Holy Spirit rather than the ego,
the ego strikes back viciously because it perceives
you as a traitor. Anything less than full allegiance to
the ego is perceived as an attack.
•
The way the ego protects itself is by excluding the
decision making part of the mind from the
Atonement. It excludes the decision maker by
keeping the focus on the body and world, and away
from the mind.
•
One of the ego's chief weapons in its war against our
choosing God is guilt. The ego uses guilt as a way to
preserve the belief in sin. Guilt means we have
sinned, and because of our sin we deserve to be
punished which evokes fear.
•
Sin is the belief that we separated from God; guilt
arises because of our belief in separation from God,
and fear is of the punishment we will suffer for
separating from God.
<strong>Notes</strong> on the Text of A Course in Miracles
20
•
First we make up a wrathful, vengeful God, and then
out of fear of our made up God we decide to punish
ourselves so God does not have to punish us. We
believe we have sinned against God and so we
punish ourselves to mitigate our guilt.
•
In a sense the whole Course is about making a
decision. The ego is afraid of the Atonement
principle and does its best to drown out the Voice of
the Holy Spirit. Its strategy is to convince us that the
sin of separation is real, have us feel guilty over
separating from God, and fear God's wrath for
separating from Him. Then we make a body and
world onto which we can project our sin and guilt.
By keeping us focused on the world, we forget we
have a mind that made the original choice for the ego
and separation, and can choose again for the Holy
Spirit and oneness of God. This process is referred to
as the double shield of oblivion. Sin, guilt and fear in
the mind comprise the first shield against the Holy
Spirit's Voice. The projection of the world and
identification with the body form the second shield.
At some point we realize there must be another way
and we can make another choice.
•
The place we are called back to is the decision maker
or the Son of God — a place we never left. We all
have the same power to learn to choose the Holy
Spirit rather than the ego. It takes effort and great
willingness to learn because of our identification
with the ego, the body and world; and the ego's fear
of dissolution.
•
The Holy Spirit calls us to forget the ego and
remember our oneness with God. We are in a state of
opposition because we believe we are at war with
God for our own individual existence. Our conflicts
and wars in the world are a reflection of the original
war with God. We simply reenact the original war
over and over again in our lives. There are groups of
people in the U.S. who reenact the Civil War each
year as a memorial. In our daily lives we reenact the
original Civil War with God in each conflict we
fight.
•
Once we make a world of opposites, we can choose
between the voice for the ego or the Holy Spirit. Free
will only has meaning within the illusion. God's Will
in Heaven is absolutely free.