Social media is like anything in this world, i.e., projected thoughts with the content of the ego wrong mind. Online attacks in the community for A Course in Miracles (ACIM) are via the many comments, quotes and other postings wherein we respond to our interpretation which then becomes the justification for our response (T-12.I.1) or our reason for posting, etc. acim centre All students have a basic confusion between form and content as well as what it means to join so let’s not sugar coat it: Social media is forms (projected content of the ego wrong mind) from joining with the wrong mind. Therefore, from the outset it is a series of attacks until we forgive and start identifying (joining) with the right mind.

Even in the Course, we all sit around online with some sort of an electronic device mindlessly doing our ego thing. Okay, some might be standing, leaning or lounging:

Sitting around and talking about the Course is not the same thing as doing the hard work of studying the text and putting the principles into practice to find out what the Course means (Kenneth Wapnick, Rules for Decision).

In the same Rules, Wapnick also says, “What gives the ego its power is your having joined with it, your identification with it.” Forms are projected as a defense against the opposite and are only with the ego wrong mind and thus they do not matter.

Since social media is all about forms which are fragmented projections of the ego, we are then perceiving the Sonship as fragmented which makes the error real. Specialness is valued as an idol placed before the Love of God and those perceived differences maintain the separation in the mind. Absolutely any fragmented attribute we judge in another online (or anywhere) must be seen in all of the Sonship since we’re really One in reality. That is why attack isn’t discrete and must be relinquished (T-7.VI.1).

Discrete means, “Individually separate and distinct.” All attack in any form is the same and is meant to divide the entirety of the Sonship because it attacks (fragments) the Sonship via differences instead of sameness. Hence, we can see why Wapnick would say that it is silly to use the Course as a weapon when it’s clearly a Course based in unity.

Finally, let’s add two other word symbol definitions since these are both used throughout the Course:

Demonstrate: Clearly show the existence or truth of something by giving proof or evidence.
Reminder: A thing that causes someone to remember something.

Unloving Reminders

In the Course, “To teach is to demonstrate (M-in.2) and we are always teaching, or demonstrating the ego or God every moment, i.e., the content mind with which we have chosen to join or identify. For contrast, the content of the ego is many projected and different forms; and the content of the right mind is unity, sameness, i.e., Love (no projections). There are no exceptions. It’s one or the other.

Our brothers are a part of us. They are the ones who teach us who we are for our learning is a result of what we have taught them (T-9.VI.3) – the ego or God – always. As the dreamer of the dream (T-27.VII.), our dream figures (those online with us and our brothers) are doing what we are dreaming they are doing based on what we’ve taught (demonstrated). Therefore, they are innocent since it is our dream. We taught separation or a murderous attack thought against God and so we all demonstrate said attack in many fragmented forms. Yet if we forgive ourselves for what we have taught (chosen) instead of attacking, we find who we are through our brothers who are the same.

When we are posting quotes, comments or use Course language “at” another we are really attacking (unloving reminders). If we think about how “at” feels we know we believe in separation and differences. The commands or demands of the ego must be answered “at” a separated fragment (brother) so we continue to demonstrate our original attack thought and repress our guilt. Course students then go and get online with these many ideas of specialness and their unloving reminders which fragments the mind and maintains the separation (the opposite of unity) which is the problem.

From the social media platform to personal pages, online friends and groups, forms are the focus on social media. Forms do not matter. When we say they do, we will automatically demonstrate the ego and be unloving and unkind, i.e., we harm others.

Surely there are times when a reminder can be loving and helpful, but very often it is not. Again, you should always use being normal as a criterion. Normal people in the presence of someone who is sick (and any mind that believes it is separate is sick), especially a friend or family member, are kind. You do not have to be a spiritual giant or understand stand the difference between non-duality and duality to know that if someone is sick and in pain, kindness should be offered to that person. As I have been stressing, when you do not look at fear or guilt, they will automatically be pushed down in your unconscious, and just as automatically will be project out – always. Inevitably, then you end up judging and attacking other people (Kenneth Wapnick, The Healing Power of Kindness: Vol. 1, Kindle location 149, underline and parenthesis addition mine).

I wouldn’t have believed such people even existed within the so-called A Course in Miracles community. Having been initiated into this community, I quickly started to think of it as a family that needed to practice the very Course it claimed to believe in (Gary Renard, Your Immortal Reality, Kindle Location 466).

To say this in another way, social media is part of the dream of devastation, a murderous thought against God. It is the seeking without (in forms) to avoid looking within which is the very heart of social media:

The search implies you are not whole within and fear to look upon your devastation, but prefer to seek outside yourself for what you are (T-29.VII.4). What if you looked within and saw no sin? This “fearful” question is one the ego never asks (T-23.IV.3).

Loving Reminders

A loving reminder has absolutely nothing to do with forms as it is exemplary kindness of mind which vision is of sameness and unity – One. If nothing is different, there is nothing to attack for One is at home with God while in this world and sees only Christ in brothers. One would demonstrate something quite unique:

(2:1) To them [those who are sick] God’s teachers come, to represent another choice which they had forgotten. Your only function is to be a reminder to others that they can make the same choice you did – not necessarily through words, but through the love and peace you demonstrate to them. (2:2-3) The simple presence of a teacher of God is a reminder. His thoughts ask for the right to question what the patient has accepted as true. The patient – really all of us – has accepted the ego’s thought system as true.

To repeat this important caution, most of the time you would never say the words, “The same choice I make you can make, because our minds are one.” Love’s presence which is outside the ego’s thought system is what teaches, not by your words, but by the teacher you have chosen in your mind, the presence within you. You could be teaching ACIM and get every theological point correct, but if there is no love in your heart, you are not teaching ACIM (Ibid Kindness, Vol.1, Kindle Locations 396-399, underline mine).

A teacher of God is anyone who has accepted his or her function, which is to teach and learn forgiveness… We teach what we are learning and, as we teach it, we learn it (What It Means To Be A Teacher Of God, Part 1, FACIM, Kenneth Wapnick).

God’s peace is recognized at first by just one thing: In every way it is totally unlike all previous experiences. It calls to mind nothing that went before. It brings with it no past associations. It is a new thing entirely (M-20.2).

The ego commands action (like posting comments, quotes and using language “at” others). The Holy Spirit does not command. It merely reminds (T-5.II.7). Remember, it’s one or the other, i.e., an unloving or loving reminder. – always.

Do Not Harm

In the Appendix of, “The Healing Power of Kindness: Vol. 1,” Wapnick reprinted, “Do No Harm to Anyone.” It is a short essay on implementing the Hippocratic oath into the practice of ACIM, i.e., a simple reminder for all students of A Course in Miracles who seek to apply its principles to living in the world (Kindle location 678). He explores how we must undertake a close and honest examination of how we having been using others in our lives to fulfill our desires and needs, and how it is harmful because we have no regard for the welfare of others. Using people for our needs is an attack on them which engenders guilt in us (Kindle location 699). A “eureka” moment occurs – I finally realize I have used the written word for attack (Kindle location 709, underlining mine).

Harm is the outcome of judgment. It is the dishonest act that follows a dishonest thought. It is a verdict of guilt upon a brother, and therefore on oneself. It is the end of peace and the denial of learning (M-4.IV.1)… (being an unloving reminder of the attack thought to others and thus ourselves)… Thus, Jesus is explaining to us how our judgments of others are preceded by our judgment of ourselves (M-4.IV.1, and Ibid, Kindle location 729). It states unequivocally – fairly early in his training – that a student of A Course in Miracles must learn that harmfulness must be totally undone or he would never learn the Holy Spirit’s lessons (M-4.IV.1:8-11, Ibid, Kindle location 739, parenthesis addition mine)

If we are not being kind (no harming and no attacking) we cannot learn nor understand the kind principles of the Course because we are not putting them into practice. We’re justing sitting around talking online with the ego via unloving reminders as attacks which are all forms of the same murderous thought because we refuse to look within and actually do the forgiveness work.