We live with two basic guidelines for spiritual community; “no private thoughts” and “no people-pleasing.” These two guidelines have proven to be a speed-up to undoing the self (small ‘s’), which we have created as a block to the awareness of our True Self.

No Private Thoughts

In truth, all minds are joined. In truth there is one Mind. Thoughts are from the Spirit, and are of God, or they are about nothing; they are of fear. When the mind releases the ego, all thoughts will be as One; all understanding will radiate and flow throughout the mind. All thoughts will be loving. The mind asleep, believing itself to be separate individual minds thinking their own thoughts, seems to be thinking apart from God.

In ACIM, Jesus says about private thoughts: “The holy instant is a time in which you receive and give perfect communication. … It is the recognition that all minds are in communication. It therefore seeks to change nothing, but merely to accept everything. How can you do this when you would prefer to have private thoughts and keep them?” ACIM T.15.IV

When you believe yourself to be a private mind you believe everyone thinks differently. This is what is projected and this is what is perceived. The original and only private thought is the thought of separation.

Jesus goes on to say “The necessary condition for the holy instant does not require that you have no thoughts that are not pure. But it does require that you have none that you would keep. In your practice, then, try only to be vigilant against deception, and seek not to protect the thoughts you would keep to yourself. Let the Holy Spirit’s purity shine them away, and bring all your awareness to the readiness for purity He offers you. Thus will He make you ready to acknowledge that you are host to God, and hostage to no one and to nothing.” ACIM T15.IV

Here at the ACIM Devotional Center we use the Clarity Process daily as a shared prayer to have the Holy Spirit replace our misperception with his vision. This is where we get to practically experience that the thoughts of the ego are in fact powerless, not ‘personal’ and are not our real thoughts.  Thus, we come to experience our innocence and forgive our misperceptions. It is truly an alchemy of the Spirit that occurs as we have the trust to take the lid off thoughts and beliefs that we’ve held onto for a long time and begin to feel ourselves as loved and whole.

No People-Pleasing

“No people-pleasing” is a guideline that we use in community as a training ground for undoing the sense of a personal ‘i’. There is only one guidance from the Holy Spirit and we practice following only that Voice. This leads to an undoing of special relationship and ego mechanisms such as reciprocity which keep the mind locked up in guilt.

Watch this video which goes further in depth with the guidelines of “no private thoughts” and “no people-pleasing.”