ACIM and UU - Chapter four, "Wrong mindedness or right mindedness?

Chapter four

Wrong mindedness or right mindedness? The choice is always ours to make.

If we understand that it is the experience of Love that is more important to spiritual development than knowledge, we come to appreciate the benefit of being right minded rather than wrong minded. What makes the difference between the two is our decision. Human beings have free will and they can decide which thought system they prefer to operate with.
            Wrong mindedness is the based on the ego and right mindedness is based on the Holy Spirit or our Higher Power however we understand it.
            The ego is based on conditional love with the dynamics of “give to get” and “one or the other.” The wrong mindedness of the ego gets enacted in what A Course In Miracles calls “special relationships” and distinguished from “holy relationships.” Society promotes and socializes people into “special relationships” which involve guilt, fear, and grievance. Choosing “holy relationships” brings peace, joy, and bliss.
            Wrong mindedness is based on the erroneous belief that we are the author of our own lives and that we can manage them alone. In Twelve Step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step is that our lives have become unmanageable. The second step is coming to believe that there is a Power greater than ourselves which can restore us to sanity, and the third step is to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.
            Right mindedness is the choice to follow God’s will for us rather than our own will. This choice is the stumbling block for most people and yet can make all the difference in our spiritual growth.
            Universalists have faith in the Unconditional Love of God. It is this faith which supports the choice to turn one’s will over to God’s will. When we bring our will into alignment with God’s will we have a power and strength that is beyond our own understanding.
            The covenant to affirm and promote seven principles is the basis of the Unitarian Universalist faith. The third principle is the “acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.” This acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth goes, however, far beyond the boundaries of  our congregations and applies to all our brothers and sisters throughout the world.
            Jesus has told us that the way to the kingdom is “to love as I have loved.” The Universalists have taken Jesus’ suggestion seriously and say in their churches, “Love is the doctrine of this church. The quest for truth is its sacrament and service is its prayer.”
            At a metaphysical level, the key to spiritual growth lies in a simple choice: the live on the path of the ego or the path of the spirit; to operate from a thought system of wrong mindedness or right mindedness. The choice is always ours and if we choose wrongly at any given time and we do this on a regular basis we can always choose again.