The dog and the Light

• Your starting point is truth, and you must return to your Beginning.
• As you approach the Beginning, you feel the fear of the destruction of your thought system upon you as if it were the fear of death.

A mainstay of my ego's thought system is the belief that I am a pile of crap. Listening to this message has made my life unhappy. Uncovering this message took quite a number of years. Even uncovered, not believing it is still difficult. It affects my behavior towards others. It has developed into an angry rabid inner dog. Whenever I deny that this message is true, no matter what seems to have happened in the ego world, then I am defending Atonement.

ACIM Atonement says that the bad dream never happened; whatever tiny mad idea that thought I had left God was immediately undone. None of us ever sinned. This ego world is an illusion, a bad dream; including our physical bodies. No one is a sinner. We are just stuck in this bad dream.

The Atonement is a difficult concept. I have not explained it here (go read the ACIM Text if you want to know). I only bring it up because it is my way out of the hateful ego world. I am either doomed to a consciousness that thinks it is a pile of crap; or using my mind to defend the fact that this never happened. I am really not a body but a Thought in the Mind of God.

I look at it like this. In my consciousness there is a vast expanse of light. There is also a small area which thinks and acts like a rabid dog. Unfortunately, I spend almost all my time being the rabid dog. I keep myself wrapped in chains and behind bars so I don't hurt anyone. But, most of the time, I think I am the growling dog, snapping at the bars of my cage and dripping froth from my mouth. I want to attack everyone. I hate everyone. The dog hates God for making it thus. I hate the dog and feel guilty and feel like the pile of crap. This is my tiny mad idea. But this is just a tiny portion of my being. The rest, the vast expanse of light is available to me. When I am alone, I return to the light as who I truely am. ACIM is a mind training course. I am training my mind to know itself as light, not as the rabid dog.

I can return to my Beginning if I am willing to give up my dog habit. Being the dog is just a habit. No matter what the dog does, it is a dream. This mindset is defending the Atonement. The Atonement is truth. Accepting Atonement returns me to light. My Beginning is light. If I defend it instead of believing I really am the dog, I am free. I wake up.