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ACIM Manual For Teachers

What Is The Real Meaning of Sacrifice?

1

Although in truth the term sacrifice is altogether meaningless, it does have meaning in the world.

Like all things in the world its meaning is temporary, and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came when there is no more use for it.

Now its real meaning is a lesson.

Like all lessons it is an illusion, for in reality there is nothing to learn.

Yet this illusion must be replaced by a corrective device; another illusion that replaces the first, so both can finally disappear.

The first illusion, which must be displaced before another thought system (about what we are) can take hold, is that...

it is a sacrifice to give up the things of this world.

What could this be but an illusion, since this world itself is nothing more than that?

2

It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give.

What can the sacrifice of nothing mean?

It cannot mean that you have less because of it.

There is no sacrifice in the world's terms that does not involve the body.

Think a while about what the world calls sacrifice...

    • power,
    • fame,
    • money,
    • physical pleasure.

Who is the hero to whom all these things belong?

Could they mean anything except to a body?

Yet a body cannot evaluate.

By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its Identity and losing sight of what it really is.

 

Time is as neutral as the body is, except in terms of what you see it for. Chap 26 Immediacy of Salvation

 

All idols of this world were made to keep the truth within from being known to you;
and to maintain allegiance to the
dream that you must find what is outside yourself to be complete and happy. Chap 29 The Lingering Illusion

Like every lesson which the Holy Spirit requests you learn, the miracle is clear... In His forgiving dreams are... hated enemies perceived as friends, with merciful intent...Now are you freed from this much of the dream;
the world is neutral, and the bodies which still seem to move about as separate things need not be feared. Chap 28 Reversing Effect and Cause

 

To see a sinless body is impossible, for holiness is positive, and the body is merely neutral. It is not sinful, but neither is it sinless. As nothing, which it is, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ or of the ego. Chap 20 Consistency of Means and End

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