What is Atonement in A Course in Miracles?

Getting clear on the fundamentals . . .

This week I am sharing part of a long email dialogue that began when a friend asked, what is atonement in the context of A Course in Miracles? Their questions are abbreviated; my answers are a bit more polished than in the original. The dialogue is ongoing; this is a fragment. Perhaps it will be helpful? It's good to have a working knowledge of atonement informing our ACIM practice.

Atonement is the cumulative effect of miracles and is thus the answer to the problem of separation. Atonement undoes the separation by emphasizing our unity with Creation and, by extension, our Creator. Miracles are personal but Atonement is shared; it is a form of the fundamental relationship between Creator and Creation.

For example, imagine we are co-workers and I say something stupid to you. You are hurt and angry. But because you are a Course student, committed to being responsible for projection, you overlook my hurtful words and see instead the fear-filled mind that still believes it is alienated from Creator and thus doomed to eternal suffering. You recognize that mind is shared - it is our mind, not Sean's mind - and so, in a nontrivial way, the fear is yours. From that understanding, your response to me - or non-response, whatever form it takes - will reflect Love. We will both be healed.

In that example, the miracle is your willingness to be forgiving rather than surrendering to fear. Atonement is how we understand that we both share the miracle's effects.

Q: I'm confused about the "shared" part. What if you don't see or feel the Love? What if the forgiveness just blows right past you and you stay angry and hurt?

A: The Course's understanding of healing is not bound by time (e.g., T-13.VIII.8:2-3). In the world's understanding of time, and cause-and-effect, I might not "feel" the Love until years later. Or I might in the moment feel only one percent of it. But even if my hurt and anger stay level, that's better than being amped up. And healing later is okay too, because the goal is healing not healing in time but rather from time (T-13.VIII.1:1).

It's also helpful to remember that "healing" does not always translate to effects in the world that our traditional, egoic understanding would recognize as healing. We do not know the whole picture, only a part of it. Therefore, our judgment is always flawed (T-25.VIII.13:3). If our forgiveness is conditional on the other's acceptance or personal growth, then we are still confused. When we let go of outcomes - when we give them all over to God without exception - then it becomes clear that the other's response is superfluous. What matters is always internal. In other words, don't worry about what appears to be happening or not happening "outside." Focus on the willingness in your own mind as it reflects on - and reflects back to us - its perception of experience.

Historically, at least in the Christian religious context, atonement meant taking action to repent or undo a prior wrongdoing. Through sin, we become estranged from the grace of God and by atonement, we reclaim - are welcomed back into - that grace. When I was a practicing Catholic I would confess my sins, be assigned a penance - usually a combination of prayer and some more pragmatic amends, like service - and, once the penance was finished, the so-called sin was forgiven. I was united again with God. Lots of Christian traditions have similar practices based on similar understandings.

Of course, A Course in Miracles does not use the word "sin" that way; it uses "error" (T-19.II.1:1). What traditional Christians might call sin - emphasizing a behavioral action at odds with a collective ideal of right behavior (e.g., lying, cheating, stealing) - ACIM students call "error" (T-19.II.2:1). We are confused - are in error - about what we are in truth, and what our relationship is to our Creator and to Creation. To heal, or atone, is to correct that misunderstanding. The behavior is a symptom; the illness is the underlying spiritual identity crisis, which we also call separation. When that is healed, the various symptoms disappear.

In essence, when we atone, we recognize that we are not separate from our brothers and sisters – and all Creation, including blue whales, crickets, birch trees and neutrinos – but rather have a shared interest in remembering our fundamental unity in Creation through our Creator. The etymological root of atonement is literally to make one. It is not wrong to think of it as "at-one-ment." But it is important to realize that for Course students, the union - the "one" - is at the level of mind, not the level of bodies doing this or that in the world (T-4.IV.2:7).

Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal the Son of God. And he is healed because you offered faith to him, giving him to the Holy Spirit and releasing him from every demand your ego would make of him . . . It is this joining Him in a united purpose that makes this purpose real, because you make it whole. And this is healing. The body is healed because you came without it, and joined the Mind in which all healing rests (T-19.I.2:1-2, 5-7).

Q: This is still unclear for me - the level of the body and the world as something other than the mind.

A: The world and the body are specific. The ocean is not a desert; a five dollar bill is not a horse. Things are clear, defined, distinct. The horse doesn’t suddenly become an amethyst crystal. And it is at that level that we perceive behavior - I run, you laugh, she smiles, he sleeps, et cetera.

Mind is more abstract. It is interpretative. A horse is a horse but what is the horse’s function? What is it's purpose? To be ridden? To pull a wagon? To be beautiful standing in moonlight? To be part of therapy for humans? Mind interprets. Mind takes appearances and then tells a story - about the horse, about its behavior, about the behavior of the one riding it, et cetera. But mind is also that which analyzes the story - it's credible, not credible and so forth. And another level up, mind analyzes the analysis. It can edit the story, swap out for a new story, et cetera.

Bodies are bound by both time and matter, but mind is not. Its flow is different, less contained and so our experience of it is different. In Course terms, either the ego or the Holy Spirit can be in charge of mind's interpretative function. If ego is in charge, then it will choose stories and interpretations that reinforce separation and support its existence. If Holy Spirit is in charge, then it will choose a narrative that emphasizes shared interests and unity. So the Holy Spirit emphasizes atonement - the active remembrance of shared interests and the ego actively opposes atonement (T-5.III.8:8). It wants to keep our focus on the error, which it considers “sin.”

Atonement is abstract and thus generalizes easily. Miracles are specific and personal because that is how fear is experienced still. But atonement reflects the Law of Love, which is perfectly abstract, totally inclusive and neutral, and underlies everything.

Q: Is Love an experience?

A: At the level of the body and the world, Love is experienced through symptoms, just like fear is. Fear cashes out in behavior that is violent, disturbing and confusing. It cashes out in appearances that make attack and defense seem logical and inevitable. It gives rise to conflict - from arguments with friends to world war. But Love is experienced as coherence, as flow. It's when we get along with folks, when we let the little things go, and when we remember that there are only little things. Everything that appears becomes “an opportunity to heal the Son of God” (T--19.I.2:1). Everybody knows this! Everybody experiences this from time to time. But we tend to forget it because Holy Spirit does not promote itself, and ego does. We have to choose to listen to the Holy Spirit, to remember what it is and how it functions. We have to choose to cooperate with Jesus and the Holy Spirit in remembering Love and the Cause for Love.

So we can experience Love's effects but Love itself remains beyond the limited cognitive and perceptual abilities of the body; it cannot be contained or defined or explained on terms the world recognizes (e.g., S-2.III.1:8). We might occasionally enjoy revelations of Love (T-1.I.46:3), but when we do, we know that they cannot be put into words. Their effects are far beyond that. Really, as Course students, our focus is on the living we are doing, and whether we are living through the Holy Spirit or ego.

Q: So practicing atonement is choosing to listen to the Holy Spirit rather than ego?

I think that is a good way to put it. That is our work here - to listen to the Holy Spirit, to become responsible for projection, to see how we are doing this to our own self, and to surrender to God's Will. This will make us happy, our happiness will be infectious, and we will come together in peace and creativity.

Atonement heals the mind which believes it is split by responding to that split at the level at which the split appears real. So, again, we should not be surprised to experience atonement in a business meeting, at our kid's basketball game or in the bank or whatever. Atonement takes form in order to effectively undo our reliance on form. It always points to the mind's ability to choose how to see, which is to choose between the ego and the Holy Spirit, thus establishing mind as the cause of either suffering or joy.

By learning how to consistently choose peace, we become peaceful and can thus extend peace to all our brothers and sisters.When there is only peace - and no more perception of differences and thus no more conflict - then the Atonement will be completed.

Love,
Sean