DAILY LESSON

 

 L e s s o n 3 

 <AUDIO><VIDEO> 

¹Apply this idea in the same way as the previous ones, without making distinctions of any kind. Whatever you see becomes a proper subject for applying the idea. Be sure that you do not question the suitability of anything for the application of the idea. These are not exercises in judgment. Anything is suitable if you see it. Some of the things you see may have emotionally-charged meaning for you. Try to lay such feelings aside, and merely use these things exactly as you would anything else.

ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections 

 LESSON 3

These lessons should be looked at in the context of what Jesus tells us in the Introduction to the Workbook. It is important that we look carefully at what is being said in the Introduction as we need to understand some of the key elements here in order to make the lessons more meaningful to us. To start, Jesus is saying that we need the theoretical understanding that the text offers if we are to get real meaning from the lessons. When I started with the lessons, I had not yet read the Text and therefore did not have the theoretical framework for these lessons.  Nevertheless I still did find the workbook ideas valuable and in applying them found that my life was changing in spite of the fact that my understanding was very limited. So I am not saying that undertaking the lessons without having read the text, does not have value. But to really get the deeper meaning we do need the framework that the text provides. This is the only way that we will get the full benefit of the intent behind these lessons. Now when I write about the lessons I often refer back to passages from the text in order to amplify the meaning.

While the lessons are based on one year of mind training, clearly this is not a one year course. The workbook is simply a starting point in disciplining and training the mind. "An untrained mind can accomplish nothing." (W.PI.IN.1.3) When we will come to the end of the workbook, Jesus says in the Epilogue "this course is a beginning not an end."       (W.PII.EP.1.1)  "It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth." (W.PI.IN.1.4)) This mind training, thus, goes on for years, whether you are actively doing the workbook or not. The process is not complete until our minds are healed through complete forgiveness.  

Complete forgiveness means that no one is exempt from our forgiveness. That is the other point that is being made in the introduction to the workbook. "One exception held apart from true perception makes its accomplishments anywhere impossible."  (W.PI.IN.5.3)    That is what makes this course so very challenging. It means that if we see some more deserving of our love and some less, or some more deserving of attack than others,  then we are making exceptions.  Everything in the illusion is the same in that it is all illusion. There are no differences. That is why Jesus tells us that our minds are being trained in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world. "The exercises are planned to help you generalize the lessons so that you will understand that each of them is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see."   (W.PI.IN.4.2)

So while we practice with specificity in each lesson, the idea is that the lesson must be generalized to everything and everyone. What we are learning is that every problem and every difficulty is the same. There is no order of difficulty in the illusion. But having said that, it is not something that we currently believe. We don't, for example, believe that the pen we are holding is no less important than our arm. And we don't believe that one situation is no more difficult than another.  And we still believe that some are more deserving of our love than others. We still believe that some are more guilty than others. So we have a lot to overcome in seeing that there is no order of difficulty in miracles and no differentiation in the illusion. As long as we see these differences we have work to do. But the work is with specifics until they can be generalized. As we look around us and say that nothing I see in this room means anything, we are looking at specifics but eventually we will have the experience of understanding that there is nothing in this world that means anything. This is the generalization that will eventually be made.   Oneness has been fragmented into all of the forms of this world as a result of our choice for the ego which came at the time of separation from God's Love.  With it came a belief in time and space and all aspects of the linear world of form. So the lessons are about undoing what we now hold to be true. All of our thoughts and beliefs are a defense against God's Love which is what we fear. We will come to understand that more as we proceed.

Finally it is important that we recognize that that it does not matter if we find some of these thoughts and ideas hard to believe, or even startling, only that we apply them and use them rather than judge them. "It is their use that will give them meaning to you and will show you that they are true."  (W.PI.IN.8.6) We are simply asked to apply these lessons and watch the resistance and the struggle that goes on in our minds. We don't need to understand or engage in a struggle to understand, but simply to do the lessons as instructed and not worry about our reactions to them.

We are told that we don't need to believe the ideas, we don't need to accept them or even welcome them.   Some of them we will actively resist. For example we don't believe that our bodies have no meaning. Thus there may be a temptation to exempt this practice to only those things that we believe have no meaning. All we are asked to do is notice what is going on as we do the lessons, and to be gentle and patient with ourselves. The process of undoing the way we think now is considerable. Fortunately we have a lot of help in that the healing is not done by us but by the Holy Spirit. We just need to do our part which is to watch our thoughts. This takes a lot of practice but most important, a willingness to do what we are asked.

So today we apply the lesson that asks us to see that "I do not understand anything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place]."   What is it like to be in a world where we don't understand anything we see? It seems like we do understand. But it is this very understanding that we place on everything that keeps us from opening our minds to another way of seeing. So just consider the possibility that you don't understand anything. Consider the possibility that everything you have learned so far in your life simply upholds the illusion of what is real. As Jesus tells us in the summary to this course, "Nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."  So what we have made real in the world and given meaning to, is all illusory. It is, in fact, not real at all.

If I think I know and understand everything I see, then there is no room in my mind for new learning, new understandings, new perspective.  I have always taken pride in my ability to figure things out in the world and become very "worldly" in my understanding of how things work, what they are for, how people tick, how to manage my life. Fortunately for me, this course has been a step by step process to help me in starting the undoing of these beliefs, concepts and values that I have come to believe have protected me in this world. We have come to believe that our protection is in fear. Yet our only real protection is Love.  All of our survival strategies have actually kept us from trusting in the guidance of the Holy Spirit because in our minds we always know better! We think we know our own best interests but we are wrong.

So in this first step in our mind reversal we are giving the Holy Spirit a little bit of room by acknowledging that we may not be as right about everything as we have come to believe we are.

We bring all of our past associations and our judgments to what we are seeing. Again, we don't have to believe the ideas given us here, only to use them. Just because we resist these ideas should not interfere with our practice of them. The ideas given us here are true, and somewhere in us, we already know that. Thus they will resonate with the part of the mind that knows that they are true even if we consciously have resistance to them. Our practice of the ideas eventually leads to acceptance of what we already know because the truth is already in us. When the blocks are removed, the truth can then shine forth.  So we are asked to try to not judge the ideas or to  debate them as that won't be helpful to your learning. Just do the practice.

Some people need to hit some kind of "emotional bottom" before they come to the realization that their way of managing in the world no longer works. For me, it has just been a general sense of dissatisfaction with my life. There was nothing seriously wrong only a feeling of "what is the point?"  This showed itself as an underlying restlessness and a vague sense that life could be happier, easier and more peaceful. For me the course has been the answer to that. And each step helps in this undoing process.

So moving to a place of more trust, freedom, joy and peace has come with this step of increasingly acknowledging that I don't know anything, I don't understand anything, I  continually need to ask for help so that I do not assign my own meaning and thus be more willing to open my mind to new learning. It is a radical, life changing process. It is one of being willing to be wrong about everything I think I know.

Having said that, I am aware of how I hold onto the "I know" mind. It can seem more than a little disorienting and even frightening to let go of what I think I know. But the process is a gentle one and we are the determiners of how quickly we go.  Simply start by doing the exercises as described. And when a difficult or unsettling situation comes up, it can be helpful to remember that our upset does not come from the situation but from the way we are interpreting it. Our interpretations all come from our beliefs that the way we see things is the way they are. But now we remind ourselves that "I do not understand anything I see."   This is a prerequisite to opening up to new learning. And, as I said previously, it is not really new because there is 'Something' in us that already understands. That 'Something' is what has brought us to this Course. It is that which recognizes the truth of this teaching.

In your practice today, apply the idea without making distinctions of any kind. Whatever you see becomes a proper subject for applying the idea. Be sure that you do not question the suitability of anything for application of the idea. He is asking us 1) not to make exceptions 2) not to judge what is suitable and what is not 3) lay our emotions aside regarding anything we look upon clearing our minds of all past associations 4) see things exactly as they appear as color, shape, size, nothing more. Basically we need to realize how we really don't understand what we are looking at because we have given our meaning to everything. If that is the case then we can't understand it because true understanding means that we would know its purpose. I think I understand what the telephone is for but what I don't understand is that my thoughts about it is what keeps me invested in the world of form.  As I occupy my mind with my thoughts about everything, I leave no room for the miracle.

Love and blessings, Sarah 

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Quotes in this article are from Foundation for Inner Peace edition; To locate the same quotes in the 'Original Edition', use this link:  http://www.jcim.net/acim_us/Acim.php    

A Course in Miracles   
TEXT 

Chapter One

Introduction to Miracles

I. Principles of Miracles continued 

15. ¹⁵ Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to enable man to learn to use it constructively. Time is thus a teaching device and a means to an end. It will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning.

16. ¹⁶ Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it is more blessed to give than to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver.

17. ¹⁷ Miracles are the transcendence of the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from a sense of lower-order reality. That is why they heal.

18. ¹⁸ A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service one individual can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable worth simultaneously.

19. ¹⁹ Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation because the Sonship is the sum of all the Souls God created. Miracles therefore rest on the laws of eternity, not of time.

20. ²⁰ Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle.

21. ²¹ Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles, man accepts God's forgiveness by extending it to others.

22. ²² Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacious belief that darkness can hide. Man believes that what he cannot see does not exist, and his physical eyes cannot see in the dark. This is a very primitive solution and has led to a denial of the Spiritual eye. * The escape from darkness involves two stages:

A. ²³ The recognition that darkness cannot hide. This step usually entails fear.

B. ²⁴ The recognition that there is nothing you want to hide, even if you could. This step brings escape from fear.

23. ²⁵ Miracles rearrange perception and place the levels of perception in true perspective. This heals at all levels because sickness comes from confusing the levels.

²⁶ When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be willing to enter into communion but will also understand peace and joy. Your commitment is not yet total, and that is why you still have more to learn than to teach. When your equilibrium stabilizes, you will be able to teach as much as you learn, which will give you the proper balance. Meanwhile, remember that no effort is wasted, for unless you remember this, you cannot avail yourselves of my efforts, which are limitless. Only eternity is real. Why not use the illusion of time constructively?

24. ²⁷ Miracles enable man to heal the sick and raise the dead because he made sickness and death himself and can abolish both. You are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator. Everything else is only your own nightmare and does not exist. Only the creations of light are real.

25. ²⁸ Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which, when completed, is the Atonement. This process works all the time and in all the dimensions of time.

²⁹ I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I undertook to begin. When you offer a miracle unto any of my brothers, you do it unto yourself and me. The reason you come before me is that I do not need miracles for my own Atonement, but I stand at the end in case you fail temporarily. The purpose of my part in the Atonement is the canceling out of all lacks of love which men could not otherwise correct. The word "sin" should be changed to "lack of love" because "sin" is a man-made word with threat connotations which he made up himself. No real threat is involved anywhere. Nothing is gained by frightening yourselves, and it is very destructive to do so.

^*The term "Spiritual eye" is later replaced by the Holy Spirit, and the "physical eye" becomes the ego. The emphasis on the two ways of seeing, however, remains throughout.

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