Let go of everything you ever learned

ACIM says that "I do do not know what anything including this means". It also says that if you let go of everything you ever learned, then you become open to actually learning. In effect, it boils down to that we need to let go of the accumulation of "answers" that we've taught ourselves, becoming ready and willing to be open to something that we "may not know".

Only by being willing to, in effect, be a "beginner", or a "student", are we really receptive. You'll notice that people who are beginners to ACIM are in fact quite open minded, and that in fact many who have been trying to do the course for decades can become very closed-minded and rigid.

This is because we think that we've found all the answers or learned everything there is to learn. But Jesus is really saying that your mind needs to approach an innocent and "new" kind of state, where you are trusting and open to guidance, where you can be told what to do, where you are willing to serve God's will, and where you are not filled with "plans" and "wishes" and "control" and "being right" and the whole accumulation of ego nonsense. To be as if you are only just starting out, all the time.

This takes for you to let go and purge out of yourself all of the past and all of your false beliefs and all of the trying to do everything on your own. To let go of all the sense of gaining and getting and taking and accumulating. To get past the whole intellectual pursuit of amassing more and more concepts and theories. And just get down to being primitive, in a sense, original and innocent and pure.

That's why it's all about purification. Throw that shit out. We're actually in a process of retracing our steps and going BACK to where we came from. That's why atonement is about UNDOING. It's radical, the teaching, that to gain heaven, you need to let go of everything you think you know and give up everything you ever learned. Only be returning to a fresh clean slate can you be ready to accept what is already true. "In gratitude and thankfulness we come, with empty hands and open hearts and minds, asking but what You give."

"Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false or good or bad; of every thought it judges worthy and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God."

"Heaven Itself is reached by empty hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything and claim it as their own."

"You would make no ATTEMPT to judge, because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not know WHAT ANYTHING MEANS. You are afraid of this, because you believe that, WITHOUT THE EGO, all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that, without the ego, ALL WOULD BE LOVE."

"What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy."

"Do not be concerned how you can learn a lesson so COMPLETELY different from everything you have taught yourselves. How would you know? Your part is very simple. You need only recognize that everything YOU learned you DO NOT WANT. Ask to BE taught, and do NOT use your experiences to confirm what YOU have learned. When your peace is threatened, or disturbed in ANY way, say to yourself, "I do not know what anything, INCLUDING THIS, means. And so I do NOT know HOW TO RESPOND TO IT. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now." By this refusal to attempt to teach yourself what you do not know, the Guide Whom God has given you, will speak to you. HE will take His rightful place in your awareness, the instant YOU abandon it, and offer it to Him."