By Anonymous
What am I to do? Someone I have never met before is attacking me and I don’t know why. No one seems to be willing to rescue me. I’m terrified and then I remember something important that I learned in an ACIM study group: ask the Holy Spirit to help me to see this situation differently. “I am never upset for the reason I think.” (Workbook Lesson 5)
The upsetting situation happened at a support meeting where people I might not know would attend. I had arrived early. I was feeling fine and was enjoying chatting with others. Shortly after the chairperson opened the meeting, a man I did not know walked in. I felt this very strange and scary feeling the second he walked in. I kept seeing an image of a volcano about to erupt. At some point this man started speaking and the rage that was coming forth was very intense, like a spewing volcano. He was speaking of his hatred for someone who he thought had wronged him savagely. I remember thinking something like Wow, this man is very angry. God bless him! I, too, spoke at some point during the meeting. I don’t remember what the topic was or what I shared.
There was a closing prayer to end the meeting and I was standing behind the chair in which I had been sitting. The man who had spewed anger started making his way toward me. I could tell he was still quite enraged. He was staring at me with such a hateful look in his eyes and I was hoping he wasn’t coming to speak to me. Well, he did keep coming closer and he got so close as to almost press his body against mine at which time I started backing up. He was screaming at me as if I were the person that he hated. I kept backing up and ended up with my back against a wall near a corner of the room. His body was almost touching mine and I felt terrified that he may hit me. I looked around the room and no one was coming to my rescue. So I dropped to the floor, crawled quickly away from the man and then got up and ran out of the building to my car. When I got in the car I locked the doors. I was shaking and sobbing. I was terrified and then I was enraged. I started screaming out loud. My words were (and I leave out all the cussing) “What in the world!!?? How DARE he attack me like that!! How DARE the others not get him off me!!”
And then I remembered the ACIM teaching about asking the Holy Spirit to help me to see this situation differently. Within a few seconds of fervent prayer, suddenly I simply wasn’t there in the car anymore. I didn’t seem to be anywhere physical at all, and nowhere non-physical either. This is the hard part to describe. I instantly felt a deep and perfect peace. I knew that this man and I were one. And not only that, I knew that All is One, that there was only one thing—pure and brilliant Love Light. I can’t even say that it was Love AND Light. It was pure Love Light. I had no thoughts. I had no sense of time nor space. I can’t even say that I just existed in this Love Light. I actually WAS this Love Light. It was so very lovely. This existence, if I can call it that, vanished in an instant just like it had come and I was back in the car. I still felt this deep peace. And I had an overwhelming desire to look for that man so that I could pour love upon him. He was nowhere in sight. I remember thinking that I couldn’t wait to share about all this with fellow ACIM students.
The after-effects of this experience lingered for a while. I started referring to God as Love Light. I felt like I had had a real experience of God. I could also start to grasp the concept that there are no victims, there are no perpetrators. It isn’t that I was changed forever in a dramatic way really. The experience convinced me that ACIM was real and that the Holy Spirit could indeed provide correction. I didn’t stick with ACIM consistently over the next two decades. I fought against some of the teachings, especially those on special relationships. Today I have finally surrendered to a commitment of ACIM study. I’m all in now!
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Only the healed mind can experience revelation with lasting effect, because revelation is an experience of pure joy. [CE T-5.I.6:1]
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