Today I’d like to discuss the triangle as a metaphor for the split mind as it would be applied specifically to the teachings of A Course in Miracles. In A Course in Miracles, the origin of the seeming separation from God and the making of a world of images is given in the following quote: “Into Eternity where all was one there crept a tiny mad idea at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh.” This tiny mad idea could generally be defined as the idea of separation. Now, I say the seeming separation from God and the making of a world of images because whilst we may start on our path of awakening feeling separate from our Creator and we may believe in the reality of a world of images, the ultimate message of A Course in Miracles is that “the separation never happened,”and, that “there is no world!” But Because we start out believing we are separate human beings existing in a real universe of matter, A Course in Miracles offers us a way out of this delusion through the practice of forgiveness, and the classroom or arena where this practice takes place is in the split mind.
Let’s start with some quotations from the Clarification of Terms in A Course in Miracles:
“In this illusory state, the concept of an "individual mind" seems to be meaningful. It is therefore described in the course as if it has two parts; spirit and ego.”
“Spirit is the part that is still in contact with God through the Holy Spirit, Who abides in this part but sees the other part as well.” “The other part of the mind is entirely illusory and makes only illusions.”
“The mind can be right or wrong, depending on the voice to which it listens.
Right-mindedness listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ\"s vision sees the real world in its place. This is the final vision, the last perception, the condition in which God takes the final step Himself. Here time and illusions end together.”
“Wrong-mindedness listens to the ego and makes illusions; perceiving sin and justifying anger, and seeing guilt, disease and death as real. Both this world and the real world are illusions because right-mindedness merely overlooks, or forgives, what never happened. Therefore it is not the One-mindedness of the Christ Mind, Whose Will is one with God\"s.”
“In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; always between two choices or two voices.”
So in the mind that is dreaming of separation, generally the practice is to choose the top-of-the-triangle perspective and it’s concomitant thought system, and to release the false perception typified by the bottom of the triangle, as well as the entire thought system that stems from it.
The practice of forgiveness, or the practice of choosing to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, or the practice of unifying perception, all entail a rising in consciousness or mind from the false thought system of illusion and linear time into the consciousness of unified perception, seeing the entire ego thought system and the world of images as false, and understanding that mind is the dreamer of the world of images. This is symbolized by the vertical axis in the diagram above. The practice of forgiveness, also called the miracle or a shift in perception, takes the mind off of the horizontal timeline where it is identified as a human being moving through time and space, and elevates it to the consciousness of Truth. A partial quote from ACIM Chapter 1 The Meaning of Miracles demonstrates this principle: “...the miracle entails a sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception.”
In order to practice the shift in perception called the miracle, or to practice forgiveness as taught in A Course in Miracles, you must begin with accepting yourself as mind and not as a body. To repeat, you must think of yourself as mind. So your area of focus and practice is the split mind, symbolized by the triangle above. This could also be described as working at the level of cause, as mind is causative, and the world of images is effect.
Mind, represented by the triangle, is the agency through which we return to God or to Reality, which according to ACIM, transcends the split mind and the dualistic world of images. Please note that I use the terms God and Reality with a capital “R” interchangeably as they are used interchangeably in A Course in Miracles. Truly, there is no actual return to Reality because we never left, but while the mind is asleep and dreaming of a world of images, it is with the split mind that we must work.
The Holy Spirit is described in a Course in Miracles as the memory of God in our mind, and as the bridge to restoring our awareness of Reality.
The Condition of the mind required for return to God is peace, is unified perception, is healing the split mind, is the real world perspective. Repeating an earlier quote from A Course in Miracles: “This is the final vision, the last perception, the condition in which God takes the final step Himself. Here time and illusions end together.” The goal of the practice of forgiveness is to bring our minds to that condition.
Now I’d like to talk a bit about one of the major foundational errors in thinking that must be corrected in order to bring the mind to the condition of peace and to a unified perception of the world of images.
At the level of effect, or what appears to be form, when we are identified as a body or a person, it seems that we are in a dualistic, subject-object relationship with everything. If I’m identified as a body existing in a material universe, then I am the subject and everything else in the universe, including other people, are the objects. But this perception is an error. Truly there is no subject-object split at the apparent form level. In actuality, it is more akin to what we experience in a nighttime dream. When we are dreaming at night, it seems as if our dream character is the subject and all the other people and things in the dream are objects, when in actuality it’s one seamless, unified dream, occurring in the mind. The daytime experience is the same; it is one unified dream occurring only in the mind of the dreamer. Identifying ourselves as that dreamer is the goal of the forgiveness process of A Course in Miracles.
Not only is there no subject-object split at the apparent form level as mentioned, but there is truly no subject-object split at the mind level either. Let’s look further into what this means. In some spiritualities we hear about our identity as consciousness or awareness and about the appearances of the world as the objects of consciousness. Even in A Course in Miracles, we hear about cause and effect, with mind being cause and the world of images being effect, or we hear about the mind projecting the world. However, in actuality cause and effect are together. There is no inner and outer. In other words, there is no mind as inner and world as outer. Another way of saying this is offered by ACourse in Miracles in the following quote: “Ideas leave not their source,” meaning that the world of ideas is still in the mind of the thinker. The world is not actually projected but it’s all mind and only mind. This understanding is a top-of-the-triangle perspective. It’s the dreamer of the dream perspective. “You are the dreamer of the world of dreams.” Jesus said. The “you” he is referring to is not the body or personality, it is the mind. The one mind dreaming of a world. The dreamer and the dream are unified. You, as mind, are the dreamer and the dream.
Ultimately, this dreaming mind is illusion as well, but coming to this unified perception, this dreamer of the dream perspective, is as far as we can go, so to speak, while the dream is still in awareness. God takes the last step in our return to Him. Our concern is coming into the unified perception of the dreamer of the dream perspective, which is symbolized by the top of the triangle. Also, this perspective has dropped all thoughts, beliefs, and concepts associated with the erroneous beliefs in a human identity and a world of matter.
A Course in Miracles states that “the sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself.” Atonement in A Course in Miracles is the concept that the separation from God never happened and that an unreal world of images has no true existence. So the aim of mystical practice is to accept that the perceived separation from God never happened, and that I am still as God created me as Christ, despite any seeming five sense evidence to the contrary. Metaphorically, acceptance of the Atonement could be described as mind dwelling at the apex of the triangle, where True Freedom abides; it is a state of mind that is still, expansive, and peaceful.
I hope the content here has been in some way helpful. Thank you.
The audio presentation of this blog post, including images and diagrams, can be found below and on the Practical Mysticism YouTube channel:
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