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SearchWhat does ACIM mean by the term "dissociating"?
Question:
I had an appointment with my psychiatrist today. Halfway through our visit he said, ”I want you to know that your improvement is remarkable. You are much more peaceful and at ease, much more confident and seem to be very much happier. So I just want you to know that whatever interaction you had with the visiting Teacher (you, David) is very obvious, very noticeable, and very beneficial."
Quick question:
The Text keeps using the word "dissociating"—what does that word mean, particularly in the Text's usage?
Answer:
Thanks for this shining witness to the Power of Love. As for your question, dissociation is the attempt to forget love. It is an attempt to keep love and fear apart, for if they are brought together only love remains. This world was the attempt to believe in BOTH love and fear by dissociating them and keeping them both. Healing is bringing darkness to Light or fear to Love, for they only seem to co-exist when they have been dissociated or kept apart.
Here's some quotes from ACIM that clarify this:
"Unless you first know something you cannot dissociate it. Knowledge must precede dissociation, so that dissociation is nothing more than a decision to forget. What has been forgotten then appears to be fearful, but only because the dissociation is an attack on truth. You are fearful you have forgotten. And you have replaced your knowledge by an awareness of dreams because you are afraid of your dissociation, not of what you have dissociated. When what you have dissociated is accepted, it ceases to be fearful.
Yet to give up the dissociation of reality brings more than merely lack of fear. In this decision lie joy and peace and the glory of creation. Offer the Holy Spirit only your willingness to remember, for He retains the knowledge of God and of yourself for you, waiting for your acceptance. Give up gladly everything that would stand in the way of your remembering, for God is in your memory. His Voice will tell you that you are part of Him when you are willing to remember Him and know your own reality again. Let nothing in this world delay your remembering of Him, for in this remembering is the knowledge of yourself.
To remember is merely to restore to your mind what is already there." (T-10.II.1-2)
"Our emphasis has been on bringing what is undesirable to the desirable; what you do not want to what you do. You will realize that salvation must come to you this way, if you consider what dissociation is. Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking whereby two systems of belief which cannot coexist are both maintained. If they are brought together, their joint acceptance becomes impossible. But if one is kept in darkness from the other, their separation seems to keep them both alive and equal in their reality. Their joining thus becomes the source of fear, for if they meet, acceptance must be withdrawn from one of them. You cannot have them both, for each denies the other. Apart, this fact is lost from sight, for each in a separate place can be endowed with firm belief. Bring them together, and the fact of their complete incompatibility is instantly apparent. One will go, because the other is seen in the same place." (T-14.VII.4)
Love & Blessings,
David