“Leave the ‘sins’ of the ego to me [Jesus]. That is what Atonement is for. But until you change your mind about those whom your ego has hurt, the Atonement cannot release you. While you feel guilty your ego is in command, because only the ego can experience guilt. This need not be. (T-4.IV.5)”
Atonement is to leave the “sins,” or mistakes, of the ego behind. Jesus says to leave this to him, a welcome prospect because we get so very tangled up in dealing with the ego at any time. When we don’t “change our minds” about others whom we have hurt (largely through anger and its result, attack), even Jesus cannot help us. This is because we are feeling guilty about the anger and attack, and guilt is hell (said elsewhere in A Course in Miracles).
The main thrust of ACIM is to dislodge the ego, freeing the mind to return to God and ourselves to be healed from the illusions. Atonement is the means, and this “undoing” (a definition of Atonement) was done by Jesus, he says, in the resurrection (not the crucifixion, as traditional Christianity says). When we are free of the ego, we are really home free. We have made it back to God, and we no longer harbor dreams. We are safe in an unsafe world. Our perceptions have been cleansed. We no longer project destruction, seeing this world as an illusion that is unreal.
We need to leave the guilt behind, and to do so, we need to cease attacking our brother. Attack will disturb the “undoing” every time, for we will feel guilty, and when we feel guilt, we are once again mired in the ego.
Let’s leave these concepts behind today—the ego, guilty, the attack. Let us accept the Atonement has a fait accompli and walk into this world holding Jesus’s hand.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 