24 Jul 2024 Comments Off on Level Confusion part 2
Level Confusion part 2
“You cannot behave effectively while you function on different levels.” ~T-1.VI.3:2~
Last class we started a conversation about the way A Course in Miracles uses the word “levels”. To recap, Level 1 is God Mind, Level 2 is ego mind, and there are only two levels.
One way of understanding levels in the Course is that there is Level 1: God Mind aka One Mind, Being, Presence, Awareness, the Absolute, the Kingdom of Heaven, Love, Life, Light, etc. And there is Level 2: ego mind aka wrong-mind, separation, darkness, fear, guilt, sin, hatred, self-hatred, I, me, etc.
Within Level 2, ego mind, God installs the Holy Spirit aka the memory of God, right-mind, the bridge, the comforter, the translator, etc., as a constant light at the end of the ego tunnel.
Ken Wapnick often spoke of level confusion to mitigate the ways in which Course students were misapplying ACIM concepts. For example, if you had a health emergency and went to the hospital, your ACIM friend might visit you and say, “Sickness is only in the mind so stop making yourself sick and let’s get out of here.” The visitor is projecting their fear onto the sick friend and trying to escape sickness themself by blaming the victim.
Note: Jesus tells us in ACIM, “Sickness is insanity because all illness is mental illness, and in it there are no degrees.” P-2.IV. The mental illness Jesus is referring to has nothing to do with human diagnoses. Jesus is talking about the Son of God’s split mind.
Last week’s question, “Do I have to give up the ‘me’ that I’ve worked so hard to love?” is another kind of level confusion. It assumes that giving up ‘me’ is a loss because the question is asked from the fearful Level 2 ego position. Technically, it is inevitable that ‘me’ is given up in the vertical sense of rising to Truth. But the process of developing healthy self-esteem and self-love is worthwhile on the human level because it increases our spiritual capacity to lose interest in ‘me’ and look beyond ‘me’ to We, the sameness in everyone.
When you apply the perfection of God Mind to the forgiveness practice, you are experiencing level confusion. If you were capable of living from Level 1 God Mind, you would not be a human in earth world. What you are actually doing is trying to pull God into the ego dream to improve your human story. In earth school that translates to old-fashioned perfectionism. Perfectionism is the ego’s distortion of God’s Perfection.
“The idea of orders of need, which follows from the original error that one can be separated from God, requires correction at its own level before the error of perceiving levels at all can be corrected. You cannot behave effectively while you function on different levels. However, while you do, correction must be introduced vertically from the bottom up. This is because you think you live in space, where concepts such as “up” and “down” are meaningful. Ultimately, space is as meaningless as time. Both are merely beliefs.” ~T-1.VI.3:1-6~
Level confusion is a juicy topic. Bring examples from your own life to ACIM with Amy class this week, and help us look together at how we make this mistake and how the Holy Spirit can correct it.
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