As long as the mind is deceived about its identity, it’s in a very confused state; you can’t even judge your advances from your retreats. The mind taking on A Course in Miracles has to first admit that it hasn’t a clue about anything. That would be the most honest thing that it could admit.
You have to come to such a pristine state of mind that you actually question all beliefs that there’s causation in the world. Jesus says in ACIM that God did not make linear time. We’re dealing with a sticky, messy, linear situation of the ego’s making and the only way we let it go, the only way we heal, is to see the absolute impossibility of it.