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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 2 "THE ILLUSION OF SEPARATION"
V. THE CORRECTION FOR LACK OF LOVE continued
99 Two concepts which
cannot coexist are "nothing" and "everything." To whatever extent one is believed in, the other
has been denied. In the conflict fear is really nothing, and love is everything. This is because whenever light enters darkness, the darkness
is abolished. What man believes
is true for him. In this sense the separation
has occurred, and to deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of defenses. The true corrective procedure is to recognize error temporarily but
only as an indication that
immediate correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted
without delay.
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
WORKBOOK
INTRODUCTION
<AUDIO><VIDEO>
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
1
A theoretical foundation such as the text is necessary as a background to make these exercises meaningful. Yet it is the exercises which will make the goal possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of these exercises to train the mind to think along the lines which the course sets forth.
2
The exercises are very simple. They do not require more than a few minutes, and it does not matter where or when you do them. They need no preparation. They are numbered, running from 1 to 365. The training period is one year. Do not undertake more than one exercise a day.
3
The purpose of these exercises is to train the mind to a different perception of everything in the world. The workbook is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the undoing of what you see now and the second with the restoration of sight. It is recommended that each exercise be repeated several times a day, preferably in a different place each time and, if possible, in every situation in which you spend any long period of time. The purpose is to train the mind to generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is as applicable to one situation as it is to another.
4
Unless specified to the contrary, the exercise should be practiced with the eyes open, since the aim is to learn how to see. The only rule that should be followed throughout is to practice the exercises with great specificity. Each one applies to every situation in which you find yourself and to everything you see in it. Each day's exercises are planned around one central idea, the exercises themselves consisting of applying that idea to as many specifics as possible. Be sure that you do not decide that there are some things you see to which the idea for the day is inapplicable. The aim of the exercises will always be to increase the application of the idea to everything. This will not require effort. Only be sure that you make no exceptions in applying the idea.
5
Some of the ideas you will find hard to believe, and others will seem quite startling. It does not matter. You are merely asked to apply them to what you see. You are not asked to judge them, nor even to believe them. You are asked only to use them. It is their use which will give them meaning to you, and show you they are true. Remember only this-you need not believe them, you need not accept them, and you need not welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter nor decrease their efficacy. But allow yourself to make no exceptions in applying the ideas the exercises contain. Whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than this is required.
~ Original Hand Script of ACIM
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DAILY LESSON
L e s s o n 25
I do not know what anything is for.
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
1 Purpose is meaning. Today's idea explains why nothing you see means anything. You do not know what it is for. Therefore it is meaningless to you. Everything is for your own best interests. That is what it is for; that is its purpose; that is what it means. It is in recognizing this that your goals become unified. It is in recognizing this that what you see is given meaning.
2 You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. These goals have nothing to do with your own best interests because the ego is not you. This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for. As a result, you are bound to misuse it. When you believe this, you will try to withdraw the goals you have assigned to the world instead of attempting to reinforce them.
3 Another way of describing the goals you now perceive as valuable is to say that they are all concerned with "personal" interests. Since you have no personal interests, your goals are really concerned with nothing. In cherishing them, therefore, you have no goals at all. And thus you do not know what anything is for.
4 Before you can make any sense out of the exercises for today, one more thought is necessary. At the most superficial levels, you do recognize purpose. Yet purpose cannot be understood at these levels. For example, you do understand that a telephone is for the purpose of talking to someone who is not physically in your immediate vicinity. What you do not understand is what you want to reach him for. And it is this that makes your contact with him meaningful or not.
5 It is crucial to your learning to be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything. The recognition that they are meaningless, rather than "good" or "bad," is the only way to accomplish this. The idea for today is a step in this direction.
6 Six practice periods, each of two minutes duration, are required. Each practice period should begin with a slow repetition of the idea for today followed by looking about you and letting your glance rest on whatever happens to catch your eye, near or far, "important" or "unimportant," "human" or "unhuman." With your eyes resting on each subject you so select, say, for example:
7
I do not know what this chair is for.
I do not know what this pencil is for.
I do not know what this hand is for.
8 Say this quite slowly, without shifting your eyes until you have completed the statement. Then move on to the next subject, and apply today's idea as before.
~ Original Hand Script of ACIM
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 25
I do not know what anything is for.
Sarah's Commentary:
Following on the Lesson yesterday, we are opening our minds to be taught. If there is to be room for learning, then we have to come to a place of humility and admit that we really don't know. The "I don't know" mind can learn, but the "I know everything" mind has a lot of resistance to admitting that maybe it has been wrong about everything. It feels personally insulting to us to be told that what we have taught ourselves is all wrong. It is disconcerting and even disorienting to "not know," but the Course is clear that what we have taught ourselves is totally opposite to what we are learning here.
"You have very little trust in me as yet, but it will increase as you turn more and more often to me instead of to your ego for guidance. The results will convince you increasingly that this choice is the only sane one you can make. No one who learns from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs additional convincing."
(T.4.VI.3.1-3)(ACIM OE T.4.VII.86)
"I am teaching you to associate misery with the ego and joy with the spirit. You have taught yourself the opposite. You are still free to choose, but can you really want the rewards of the ego in the presence of the rewards of God?"
(T.4.VI.5.6-8)(ACIM OE T.4.VII.93)
"My trust in you is greater than yours in me at the moment, but it will not always be that way."
(T.4.VI.6.1)(ACIM OE T.4.VII.89)
Jesus goes on to talk about his trust in us, which is more than our trust in ourselves at the moment. He says that it is he who has chosen us for this learning and that he does not choose God's channels wrongly. It is such a beautiful and powerful endorsement of how, if we stay with this teaching, there are great rewards, which we don't experience currently because of our investment in the ego. We are learning to walk in faith and trust by taking these Lessons and applying them day by day. Doing so will bring us the rewards on behalf of our own happiness that he promises.
Today we learn that we do not know what anything is for. It is all about purpose. He says,
"Purpose is meaning."
(W.25.1.1) We give everything meaning in terms of ego goals.
"You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals."
(W.25.2.1) Ego goals serve our own interests as we perceive them. Yet we learned that we don't know our own best interests. Everything in our day, and in our lives, is about how to use this world for our own purposes, and those purposes are always about how to preserve ourselves as separate individuals. Our goals for ourselves are to avoid as much pain and achieve as much pleasure as we can. As such, it is all about what we believe will make us feel good, but what if we don't know what that is? What if we are totally on the wrong track and what we think will make us feel good is just taking us deeper and deeper into the illusion?
Jesus is telling us,
"the ego is not you."
(W.25.2.2) We have identified with a self that Jesus says is not who we are. This self is our bodily identity. Jesus says that who we are is not the "you" that seems to be living in this world, but a grand and magnificent eternal Self that is far beyond the body and the personality that we identify with. That is why the goals we set for ourselves as a separate self
"have nothing to do with your own best interests."
(W.25.2.2) The ego is all about self-preservation, which means that our goals are all about taking care of our own interests at the expense of everyone else. This continues to bring more guilt into our minds and thus more and more suffering. How could that possibly serve our interests? Now, with the Help that we have within us, we are in the process of undoing all that does not serve us. We are rewarded with more joy and peace in joining with Him Who does have our best interests at the forefront.
The ego is false perception based on a mistaken interpretation of who we are. It does not serve us and in fact does not love us. We have made something of ourselves that we are not and now we are serving exactly who we are not. This has absolutely nothing to do with our own best interests, because the ego has no idea of what they are. While our spirit languishes, the ego gets what it thinks it wants. We are feeding it instead of the Self that we are, and goals that serve the ego will never bring happiness. When we see the truth of this, then we will be ready to ask the Holy Spirit for His guidance of where we are to be, what we are to do and say,
"I am here only to be truly helpful. I am here to represent Him Who sent me. I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me. I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me. I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal."
(T.2.V.A.18.2-6)(ACIM OE T.4.IX.106)
When I admit that my goals are really concerned with nothing (3.2) and stop cherishing my interests as I perceive them, then my mind can open up to be shown the way. When we wake up in the morning, we generally move into high gear and starts to plan, review, regurgitate events, worry, set our goals for the day. If we take a look at what we are thinking about, we can see that so much is just about serving the separate self. We constantly look at ways that will support our ego, and when our plans don't work, we get upset. Our expectations for how things should be are not being met. These are what Jesus calls our "personal interests," but we are reminded that there are no personal interests, so our goals serve nothing at all. We are simply serving a false identity. The goal we have established for everything is to preserve our individuality, our uniqueness and our separate self, but when we realize what we are doing, then we will have more willingness to change the goal from 'personal' interests to one of realizing that we all share the same Self and the same interest, which is to awaken from this dream and return home.
Jesus reminds us that we can't gain or lose separately from our brothers, and all of our personal ego goals are in competition with our brothers and are there only to serve this false identity, which can never bring true happiness.
"What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
(T.5.II.7.11)(ACIM OE T.5.IV.25)
"If you seek for satisfaction in gratifying your needs as you perceive them, you must believe that strength comes from another, and what you gain he loses."
(T.15.VI.3.3)(ACIM OE T.15.VII.58)
What truly is in our own best interests? It is to take everything that is made for the purpose of keeping us in this world, and use it for the purpose of waking up from this dream. In other words, every situation, event, circumstance, and person that is in our lives, when used by the ego for its purposes, keeps us rooted in the body and in the world. However, when these are turned over for the Holy Spirit to use for His purpose, they become a classroom for forgiveness. When we understand purpose, we will understand the ego's thought system. We will understand how, in shifting purpose to awakening, everything in the world including our bodies can be used for a holy purpose. When purpose is shifted, everything can be truly used for our best interests. For this to happen, we need to turn to Jesus as our teacher and ask him what we should do rather than turning to the ego. Now everything in the world is given meaning. Now we can look at everything in the world differently. Now everything becomes more simple when we recognize that there are only two purposes. One is for the purpose of the ego to keep us in the world and the other is for the purpose of the Holy Spirit to help us awaken to who we really are. In each moment, we are serving one purpose or the other. When we serve the ego's purpose then everything in our day is focused on satisfying our needs for specialness.
Jesus acknowledges that, at the superficial level, we do know the purpose. For example, I know the purpose for painting my hallway, because I want it to be prettier and look fresh and clean. I know the purpose for going shopping for groceries, which is to make meals for the family. I know that the purpose for going to the movies is to be entertained. I know that the purpose for doing my bills is to stay on top of my payments, but these superficial purposes do not help us with the understanding of what he is getting at here. He says there is a larger purpose for everything, which answers the question of what it is really for. When I go to the movies, the deeper purpose is to watch my projected thoughts and be willing to look at my judgments. When I shop for groceries, the deeper purpose is to see the cashier's interests as not separate from my own. She is not there just to take my money and for me to get upset if she does not accomplish her task to meet my needs. Perhaps I have been sent there for a holy encounter, to be truly helpful to her in some way or to look at my impatience when others are ahead of me in the line. When Helen was guided to go to a certain store to buy a coat, the purpose for being there was to help the man who needed her help. We don't always know why a situation is being presented in the way it is, but when our only purpose is to heal the mind, then everything that happens can serve that purpose. Whatever we are doing, and wherever we find ourselves, it is to use these events and situations as a backdrop for this healing. What is it for? Ask that in everything.
Why did I have this accident? Why did I run into this person? Why was I at this funeral? Why am I really sitting here doing this commentary? Why did this person come into my life? Why am I requesting this book? What is the purpose of going to this conference? Behind every event there is a deeper purpose that we will only get when we are
"willing to give up the goals you have established for everything."
(W.25.5.1) Remember, he tells us that this is not about which of our goals are good and which of them are bad. They are simply meaningless when used by the ego. If we look at some goals as 'good,' we are more likely to think that they serve us in some way, while our 'bad' goals may attract us for their guilty pleasures. We just need to remind ourselves that we are pursuing something that is meaningless. Does that mean we have to give up our meaningless goals? No. We are only being asked to watch our thoughts as part of the forgiveness practice, which Jesus described in Lesson 23.5.
First we must bring the guilt that we are projecting onto the world back into our minds. In other words, we see that the problems we perceive are not in the world. We acknowledge that our upsets are not caused by what someone did or did not do, but that the cause of our upset is in our own minds. It is the interpretation that we are giving neutral events. Secondly we ask for help to look at our attack thoughts so we can bring them to the Holy Spirit. We look at these thoughts without judgment. We are asked not to judge our mistakes. In fact, it is more helpful to have gratitude for them. Each mistake is a gateway or opportunity to recognize our darkness. Be glad to notice how you act from guilt, unworthiness, fear and self-interest. Be willing to discover thoughts, beliefs and opinions you hold that are not true. We simply observe them and ask the Holy Spirit to interpret them for us. The Holy Spirit is the One who then shines them away so that the guilt is gone. The thoughts we held no longer have any power. Where the darkness was is now the love and light that is in us that was concealed by the darkness. It is not about changing behavior. Behavior will shift naturally.
The practice today is for two minutes, six times, beginning with the slow repetition of the idea and letting your glance rest on whatever happens to catch your eye, near or far, 'important' or 'unimportant,' 'human' or 'nonhuman'. As you look on it say, "I do not know what this chair, pencil, hand, etc. is for."
"Say this quite slowly, without shifting your eyes from the subject until you have completed the statement about it. Then move on to the next subject, and apply today's idea as before."
(W.25.6.7-8)
By admitting we don't know, we are making room for the Holy Spirit to bring His purpose forward, so that everything we have made can be used by Him for our awakening to the truth of who we are.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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V. The Correction for Lack of Love
continued
93 You who constantly complain about fear still persist in creating it. I told you before that you cannot ask
me to release you from fear because I
know it does not exist, but
you do not. If I merely intervened between your thoughts and their results, I would be tampering with a basic law of cause and effect, the most fundamental law there is in this world. I would hardly help if I depreciated the power of your own thinking. This would be in direct opposition to the purpose of this course. It is much more helpful to remind you that you do not guard your thoughts carefully except for a small part of the day and somewhat inconsistently even then. You may feel at this point that it would take a miracle to enable you to do this, which is perfectly true.
94 Men are not used to miraculous thinking, but they can be
trained to think that way. All miracle workers need that kind of training. I cannot let them leave their minds unguarded, or they will not be able to help me. Miracle working entails a full realization of the power of thought and real avoidance of miscreation. Otherwise, a miracle will be necessary to set the mind
itself straight, a circular process which would hardly foster the time collapse for which the miracle was intended. Nor would it induce the healthy respect for true cause and effect which every miracle worker must have.
95 Both miracles
and fear come from thoughts, and if you were not free to choose one, you would also not be free to choose the other. By choosing the miracle, you
have rejected fear. You have been afraid of God, of me, of yourselves, and of practically everyone you know at one time or another. This is because you have misperceived or miscreated us and believe in what you have made. You would never have done this if you were not afraid of your own thoughts. The vulnerable are essentially miscreators because they misperceive creation.
96 You persist in believing that when you do not consciously watch your mind, it is unmindful. It is time, however, to consider the whole world of the unconscious or "unwatched" mind. This may well frighten you because it is the
source of fear. The unwatched mind is responsible for the whole content of the unconscious which lies
above the miracle level. All psychoanalytic theorists have made some contribution in this connection, but none of them has seen it in its true entirety. They have all made one common error in that they attempted to uncover unconscious
content. You cannot understand unconscious activity in these terms because "content" is applicable
only to the more superficial unconscious levels, to which the individual himself contributes. This is the level at which he can readily introduce fear and usually does.
97 When man miscreates he is in pain. The cause and effect principle here is temporarily a real expediter. Actually, "Cause" is a term properly belonging to God, and "Effect," which should also be capitalized, is His Son. This entails a set of Cause and Effect relationships which are totally different from those which man introduced into his own miscreations. The fundamental opponents in the real basic conflict are creation and miscreation.
All fear is implicit in the second, just as all
love is inherent in the first. Because of this difference, the basic conflict
is one between love and fear.
98 It has already been said that man believes he
cannot control fear because he himself created it. His belief in it seems to render it out of his control by definition. Yet any attempt to resolve the basic conflict through the concept of
mastery of fear is meaningless. In fact it asserts the
power of fear by the simple assumption that it
need be mastered. The essential resolution rests entirely on the mastery of
love. In the interim, the
sense of conflict is inevitable since man has placed himself in a strangely illogical position. He believes in the power of what does not exist.
99 Two concepts which
cannot coexist are "nothing" and "everything." To whatever extent one is believed in, the other
has been denied. In the conflict fear is really nothing, and love is everything. This is because whenever light enters darkness, the darkness
is abolished. What man believes
is true for him. In this sense the separation
has occurred, and to deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of defenses. The true corrective procedure is to recognize error temporarily but
only as an indication that
immediate correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted
without delay.
100 It should be emphasized, however, that ultimately there
is no compromise possible between everything and nothing. Time is essentially a device by which all compromise in this respect can be given up. It seems to be abolished by degrees because time itself involves a concept of intervals which do not really exist. The faulty use of creation made this necessary as a corrective device. "And God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life" needs only one slight correction to be entirely meaningful in this context. It should read, "He gave it
to His only begotten Son."
101 It should especially be noted that God has only
one Son. If all the Souls God created
are His Sons, then every Soul
must be an integral part of the whole Sonship. You do not find the concept that the whole is greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should therefore not have too much trouble in understanding this.
102 The Sonship in its oneness
does transcend the sum of its parts. However, this is obscured as long as any of its parts are missing. That is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved until
all the parts of the Sonship have returned. Only then can the meaning of wholeness, in the true sense, be fully understood.
103 Any part of the Sonship can believe in error or incompleteness if he so elects. However, if he does so, he is believing in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the Atonement. We have already briefly spoken about readiness, but there are some additional points which might be helpful here. Readiness is nothing more than the
prerequisite for accomplishment. The two should not be confused. As soon as a state of readiness occurs, there is usually some will to accomplish, but this is by no means necessarily undivided. The state does not imply more than a
potential for a shift of will.
104 Confidence cannot develop fully until mastery has been accomplished. We have already attempted to correct the fundamental error that fear can be mastered and have emphasized that only
love can be mastered. You have attested only to your readiness. Mastery of love involves a much more complete confidence than either of you has attained. However, the readiness at least is an indication that you believe this is possible. That is only the beginning of confidence. In case this be misunderstood to imply that an enormous amount of time will be necessary between readiness and mastery, let me remind you that time and space are under my control.
105 One of the chief ways in which man can correct his magic-miracle confusion is to remember that he did not create himself. He is apt to forget this when he becomes egocentric, and this places him in a position where the belief in magic in some form is virtually inevitable. His will to create was given him by his own Creator, Who was expressing the same will in His creation. Since creative ability rests in the mind, everything that man creates is necessarily a matter of will. It also follows that whatever he creates is real in his own sight but not necessarily in the sight of God. This basic distinction leads us directly into the real meaning of the Last Judgment.
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