In this episode of the ForgiveNest Podcast, Alison Anton delves into the challenging concept of the ego from A Course in Miracles (ACIM). She explains why the ego tries to keep us unaware that we are the creators of our dream, projecting guilt and fear onto external circumstances. The podcast outlines the process of misidentifying with the ego, the role of the 'dreaming self,' and the importance of recognizing our own involvement in this dream. It highlights the steps necessary to reclaim our power, face our mistaken identity, and awaken to our true selves. The episode concludes with a powerful passage from ACIM that encourages forgiveness and a return to our true identity in God.

Read the full transcript here: https://AlisonAnton.substack.com

Podcast Category: Spirituality and Religion

Episode Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction to Miracles and the Dreamer

00:40 Understanding the Ego's Role

03:42 The Dreaming Self and Mistaken Identity

04:36 The Ego as a Programmed Thought System

06:57 The Projection of Guilt and Fear

11:34 Recognizing the Dreamer and the Dream

12:56 Steps to Correcting the Error

13:31 Final Reflections and Closing

ACIM Quotes and Prayers:

Note: Alison Anton uses the Complete and Annotated Edition (CE) of A Course in Miracles. This edition is based on the original handwritten notes of Helen Schucman, scribe of A Course in Miracles. Publisher: Circle of Atonement. 

[Miracles] are the dream’s alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. …the mind acknowledges, “This is not done to me, but I am doing this.” ⁶And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead. [ACIM CE T-28.II.12:1-6]

A dream is like a memory, in that it pictures what you wanted shown to you. [ACIM CE T-28.II.4:5]

The separation started with the dream the Father was deprived of His effects, (God’s effects are us, as His creation) and powerless to keep them since He was no longer their Creator. [ACIM CE T-28.II.8:4-5]

In the dream, the dreamer made himself, but what he made had turned against him, taking on the role of its creator as the dreamer had. [ACIM CE T-28.II.8:5]

And as he hated his Creator, so the figures in the dream have hated him. ⁷His body is their slave, which they abuse because the motives he has given it have they adopted as their own, and hate it for the vengeance it would offer them. [ACIM CE T-28.II.8:6-7]

This is how all illusions come about. ⁵The one who makes them does not see himself as making them, and their reality does not depend on him. ⁶Whatever cause they have is something quite apart from him, and what he sees is separate from his mind. ⁷He cannot doubt his dreams’ reality because he does not see the part he plays in making them, and making them seem real. [ACIM CE T-27.IX.1:4-7]

It is their vengeance on the body which appears to prove the dreamer could not be the maker of the dream. [ACIM CE T-28.II.9:1]

It is not difficult to shift a dream when once the dreamer has been recognized. [ACIM CE T-27.IX.7:2]

There is no road that leads away from God. ²A journey from yourself does not exist. ³How foolish and insane it is to think that there could be a road with such an aim. ⁴Where could it go? ⁵And how could you be made to travel on it, walking there without your own reality at one with you? ⁶Forgive yourself your madness, and forget all senseless journeys and all goalless aims. ⁷They have no meaning. ⁸You cannot escape from what you are, for God is merciful, and did not let His Son abandon Him. ⁹For what He is be thankful, for in that is your escape from madness and from death. ¹⁰Nowhere but where He is can you be found. ¹¹There is no path that does not lead to Him. [ACIM CE T-31.IV.10]

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