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“Dream softly of your sinless brother…” – T-27.VII.15.1

“If our body/brain is a figure in the dream and is therefore powerless, where is the power? It is in the mind.“

In ACIM the pronoun “you” whom this course is addressing appears 17701 times … virtually on every page.  What readers of the Course often fail to realize is that the “you” being addressed is not the you thought of by yourself as you. Jesus is not talking to you, the person brushing your teeth in the mirror each morning…the body/personality with your personal history. If this misunderstanding is not recognized, then what the Course is teaching will inevitably be misunderstood and mislearning will result.

Jesus would be insane in his course to address a body – having expressly stated: “The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world.” If the body is a figure in the dream and the dream is an illusion, then the body being dreamt is obviously an illusion as well. As an illusion, the body with its illusory brain is powerless to affect any real change. Jesus would be silly to instruct an illusion (the body/brain) to do anything. 

So if the “self” we made up is not being addressed, who is the “you?” “Who is the ‘you’ who are living in this world?” (T-4.II.11:8)  The correct answer is the mind! However, it is imperative that we as students of this course understand that this mind is outside of time and space, dreaming time and space and the world of separation. “You (the mind dreaming) are the dreamer of the world of dreams (our world of physicality that we experience as real.) No other cause it has, or ever will.” (T-27.VII.13:1-2)

If our body/brain is a figure in the dream and is therefore powerless, where is the power? It is in the mind. Succinctly, the power is in the mind’s ability to choose. Since we (the mind) made the decision to sleep and dream, then obviously we can make the decision to “dream softly of our sinless brother” (T-27.VII.15.1). This is what happens when we forgive, and the practice of forgiveness allows us to awaken gently.

“Nothing at all has happened but that you have put yourself to sleep, and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself, and but a part of someone else’s dream. The miracle does not awaken you, but merely shows you who the dreamer is. It teaches you there is a choice of dreams while you are still asleep, depending on the purpose of your dreaming. Do you wish for dreams of healing, or for dreams of death? A dream is like a memory in that it pictures what you wanted shown to you.” (T-28.II.4)

“You” then, are the mind with the power to choose (decide) which of the two thought systems you brought with you into the dream to consult for instruction. “You” make the decision for the right mind, the teacher of love, or the wrong mind, the teacher of hate. For simplicity’s sake, we say you are the decision-maker. You make the decision to listen to the Holy Spirit or the ego, and that decision’s effect is happiness or unhappiness respectively.