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SearchIf the script is written, then does that mean that it is also scripted as to when I listen to the ego and judge versus when I listen to the Holy Spiri
Question:
I know ACIM says that the script is already written. Does that mean that all my thoughts are scripted as well? Like when I choose forgiveness as opposed to listening to my ego, is that something that is outside of my control as well? If I choose wrongly, I got distracted again and I get angry, and I forgive that and I release it, was that going to happen anyway?
Answer:
"The script is written,” a phrase Jesus said in the Workbook. The script is written. A lot of time teachers will get into saying, Well, it's the Holy Spirit's script, it's the ego's script, got to watch with the right one.” The script is written—basically the key word in that statement is the last word. Written. Past tense. The script is past. The script is over. It is kind of like watching the movie, "Gone with the Wind." It is NOT an interactive thing. You can tell Rhett not to say that line, but it keeps playing. It is in the script. But also I would say that the value of that is the Course is leading you to what Jesus calls a "purified form" or a "purified version" of the past, which is the forgiven world. This is when you take all the meaning that was given to the world and when you let go of all this meaning of that the ego has written upon the world. For a moment it is blank, and then the Holy Spirit comes in and goes,”Ahhhhh forgiveness. Here let's bless it. Now you are a Friend to the world." At one point in ACIM he says, "You are a friend to the world." So that must be a whole different way of looking at the world.
When you start to get into difficulty is when you try to analyze "The script is written". That can be a real mind bender. Think of it this way, time is simultaneous and it is not linear. The problem with getting into analyzing "The script is written" is that the script in a play or in a movie is a story. It is a very linear story. Every time I would have students come to me and get all wound up about "The script is written" and say, ”Can I rewrite the script? I saw the movie 'The Secret,' can I manifest? Do I have the power to change the script?" it would seem very confusing for them. The clarity is that you have to forgive the past. You have to let it go. What that means is that you have to realize that time is simultaneous when you forgive.
Time is not like a string of spaghetti. Past, present, future, it looks very linear. What happens if you turn the spaghetti on its end and look right down the edge of it? What does it turn into? A point! A point instead of a line! I would say, are you a point or are you a line? Let's use real simple terminology. Point is forgiveness, point is simultaneous. Some of you might have read the Seth material through Jane Roberts. Here is a metaphysical teacher that says the same thing: that time is simultaneous, it is not linear. That takes the "script" metaphor and explains it. In ACIM, Jesus at one point talks about time as a carpet that rolls up—you'll remember that from the Course. But that is just a linear metaphor, and again, this is just a rung on the ladder. You get to a point where you release trying to figure those out.
It would be like having a ladder reaching up to Heaven and you get on the seventh rung and say,”Let's hold a seminar." We'll pick the best scholars and we'll analyze rung number seven." And Jesus is at the top calling, ”Come on, keep climbing, push up, and don't stay there. Don't camp out on the rungs." You remember the little sign, ”No camping here?" Just remember to push off. Reach higher and higher. Because when you get to the top of the ladder, the ladder disappears.
It's not like when you get back to Heaven, you sit around like a 12-step program in your little group and tell your war stories. "Oh, remember those lifetimes three million years ago where you killed me and then I killed you back, and then next you killed me again." You don't have war stories in abstract love. It is just Divine Love; everything is love. The ladder is going to disappear. But you do have to follow the Course. You just have to allow yourself to keep opening, opening, and following those symbols that Jesus teaches you. And they will jump out of the page. You know how you look at the Course and you've been reading it for 10 years and you look at a sentence and it just goes "wham" and it leaps off the page because your mind is ready for that experience, that insight, at that moment. That is why Course students are funny because they read the paragraph and they get into these big intellectual debates and discussions about what the paragraph means, and finally after 20 minutes they read the next paragraph and say, ”Oh, the answer was there." But that is the human condition: We’ve always got to figure things out.
Love,
David