Where do you get
the Atonement is already complete? You are confusing the apparent
separation from God, which didn’t happen, couldn’t happen, and is not
now happening in Eternity with the Course based means for awakening from
the dream of death/separation.
In short the Atonement is both
a plan and a principle. And also a process.
As a plan –the author tells us the Atonement had to be devised and
integrated into the fabric of linear space/time, such that Atonement plan
could only be helpful and never be misused, or turned against itself.
Though it can certainly NOT be used.
This plan was necessary
because of what I call the “God problem,” or the misuse of
God-given creative ability such that the Son of God can create a thought
prison with his mind from which he can never escape. This is what is meant
by the “split mind.” This is what is meant by
“dreaming.” The Son of God creates a world, incarnates or
projects himself into the world as a creature, then forgets he did so.
In and of itself –there is no way out, because there are so
many levels of redundancy of the initial error, and in the process, we
have made ourselves so dumb, irrational and uncertain, ie separated
from knowledge, that by our own effort we cannot un-scramble the
egg.
As such, the apparent separation, is an effective
separation, but not an actual separation from Source, ie God the Father.
Effective in the sense, that this misuse of creative powers have
effectively blocked all natural communication channels with Source,
brothers, and our own true creations. “Blocked communication,”
not “distance,” is the Course definition of
separation.
In the above sense, the creation of the
Holy Spirit by the Father as an answer to the separation or blocked
communication channels makes sense. The Holy Spirit is the always open
communication channel between you and God, and you and your
unsplit mind still in knowledge.
By establishing a permanent
communication channel through the HS, the separation is rendered void, or
not absolute, but clearly you can still refuse to use this
communication channel, and choose to maintain the apparent separation, or
in other words, continue dreaming.
As such, the principle
of Atonement addresses the continued desire of the mind to dream.
The principle of Atonement is: errors are addressed, healed, and
corrected at the mental level. What this means is that in the
human condition, in the perceptual world, all apparent problems and
defects, without exception, are problems of erroneous thinking, and are
correct and healed by right thinking.
As such, there is no
“spiritual problems,” or “physical problems,” no
“health problems,” or “mental health problems,” which
somehow have to be addressed specifically at “different levels.”
Instead, all problems are healed at the mental level by healing or
correcting erroneous thinking based on fear, lack, and a thought system of
sin, guilt, punishment, attack and death. The correction/healing of
erroneous thought at the mental level (not correction of perception,) is
the Atonement principle. By accepting corrected thought or “right
minded” thinking we awaken from the dream and lose the desire to
maintain “The Dream.” And clearly by correcting thinking we
begin to open dormant communication channels between Source, Holy Spirit
and our brothers.
As such, “accepting the Atonement”
as our only responsibility means accepting the responsibility of
correcting our own errors of thinking. That’s our part in the Atonement,
and to the extent that we continue to hold erroneous thoughts, the
Atonement as a plan is far from complete.
Nevertheless, and
paradoxically, correcting our erroneous thoughts by our own efforts and
own methods is an impossible task. The mind in the total grip of errors
cannot correct itself, without agency and reference outside its erroneous
thought system. That’s where the Holy Spirit and miracles come in –by
willingness we can allow our erroneous thoughts to be corrected for us,
but not by our own efforts. The correction of fear thought at the causal
level by the miracle with the agency of the Holy Spirit results in
incrementally healed thinking and an incrementally healed or
“miraculous” perception. That’s why the Course is called “A
Course in Miracles,” not “A Course in Forgiveness.”
Forgiveness, or the realization the world is a dream and never
happened and there is nothing to forgive, and as such, what we experience
in the dream, we are only doing to ourselves by our own hidden desires, is
the result or consequence of healed thinking, not the “means” to
heal erroneous thought by our own efforts.
Instead the means
is the Holy Spirit and miracles in the “undoing,” or Atonement
process.” This process in described in detail in the first
five chapters of the blue book and especially in chapters 4 and 5. This
undoing process is simple, works, works all the time and if done as
explained cannot NOT work. This undoing process is the essential Course in
Miracles. Once learned, understood and experienced, everything else in
ACIM is commentary designed to expedite this essential
process.´