ACIM Notebook

by Hugh Prather
published in The Holy Encounter

It seems to me that from a spiritual standpoint, we don’t so much “communicate” as allow communication to be. Peace — not attempts to change, thwart, overcome, break through, or make a point — open the channels of understanding and acceptance.

Real communication is actually a stepping back from the effort to “get something across.” It’s a moment’s rest from needs. This gentle contentment permits an extension of our thoughts to others through a simultaneous welcoming of theirs.

Any self-image, held rigidly in mind, interferes with natural relating. A desire to manipulate contains the thought “This is the way you are and I want it to change.” We cannot orchestrate our performance and still see clearly to whom we are speaking.

Prideful announcements, calculated compliments, verbal talents used to set us apart, “kind” words motivated by guilt, attacks on third parties, controversial pronouncements, “constructive” criticisms, and questions meant to highlight another’s error are not real communication because they are not an expression of equality and therefore cannot be wholly shared.

Nor does the “I-have-something-I-need-tell-you” mindset accepted with complete happiness another person’s point of view.

As best we can, we must permit one softly-illuminated idea of equality to encompass both parties. We settle back into enjoyment and choose to be free. At the very least we recognize that the other person doesn’t owe us anything, not even understanding.

Wholeness makes no demands.

The ego’s answer to verbal conflict is quickly to provide us with grounds for being right. This may lend a temporary sense of power, but only on one side of the relationship. No sense of joining can accompany it, and the apparently larger “size” of our ego soon appears hopelessly small against the universe with which we are now at odds.

If you feel a stab of anxiety as you start to speak, you have probably defined another as disconnected from your self. We need to keep in mind that our body does not have to express inequality.

Nor is mere verbal agreement the answer, because it can be, and often is, only superficial. No two egos are ever in full agreement. The promise of an exchange is not fulfilled if we arbitrarily adopt a different stance. Yet if all life emanates from Love, is anything truly opposed to us?

Unquestionably there appear to be many blocks and impasses, and numerous are the ones who stand in the way of our safety and happiness. But what can stand in the way of light if All is Light? Both perceptions of reality cannot be accurate.

The understanding and acceptance of Love is in each of us. There is always a way of seeing that, a way to have faith that if we could view others through the eyes of the Divine, we would recognize ourselves in them. Oneness is discerning the familiar in another.

Our objective is a simple one: In conversation we seek an experience, not just an intellectual exchange. We want to extend and receive enjoyment. The verbal form this takes is actually irrelevant.

To attempt correction of others is to insist that, for the moment, their faults are all there are to them. In the ultimate sense, the Universe contains no mistakes, and our insistence that it does only depress us. Instead, we must focus on an exchange of love and drop the expectation that our gifts be treated with respect. And so we gently decline the offer to feel misunderstood or unfairly treated.

In practicing true communication, we silently join with the spirit of the one before us, which is a part of God and therefore of our Self. We wait for the eternal communication that is always occurring to dawn on our awareness, knowing it will become apparent once we have cleared a quiet spot within us where it can be heard.

A helpful approach to communication does not differ from a practical attitude toward most other situations and conditions: stillness works; attack does not.

If you were in prayer and an angry thought crossed your mind, you would not delay your communion with God by engaging in a private analysis of it or in a long refutation. You would simply open your mind to the light of day and quickly turn your attention back to God.

When we are with another, we are in a potential state of prayer with God.

That is why we cannot hide our thoughts from ourself and still fully connect with those around us. That doesn’t mean we are “honest” to our ego’s ever-changing stream of petty thoughts and attitudes. Rather we are honest to the relationship. Friends know what to say and not to say to each other.

When the mind is engaged in idle reviews of old conversations or rehearsals of possible upcoming ones, it is really exercising a particular set of beliefs. This becomes our silent affirmation of how we want our lives to be.

We may, for example, fantasize mock dialogues in order to produce the feeling that our positions are right. Being “right” is the reward offered us by our ego to turn from trust to distrust, from oneness to separation. But in this turning we also turn from God and from our Self.

One way to deal with this type of mental mis-activity is to ask, “What do I want to believe about my current relationships?” Because what we believe is what we experience. Do we want a life of confrontations? Do we want new opportunities for personal vindication? Our own selected replays of past incidents and our imagined future ones affirm that we do.

Recognizing that we have chosen mistakenly, we choose again. This time we release others from their role as victimizers and our role as victim. And we can make the same choice in the middle of a present confrontation.

We simply rest from defensiveness. We fail to characterize another’s motives and function. Instead, we allow a blessing to settle over all we see and every word we hear. And we wait in Love for a new appreciation of the conversation to be given us.

In my opinion, none of this is not “serious” work. Laughter is the happiest sound on earth. And so to be delighted, or silly, or amused, or fascinated, is just as spiritual as being kind or understanding.

The rule for successful communication is to attempt to share only ideas that can be peacefully received by the other person. You and I are not special because we know a few spiritual concepts.

If there is a place of stillness in us, the same is in everyone. Love recognizes its own.

Love sees a common set of interests because it looks through moods, beyond behavior, past personal history, and into the urges for goodness that unite us with others from within. I believe it is this seeing, and not the exchange of words, that is real communication. For there is really only one Friend in all our friends.