Lesson 354

We stand together, Christ and I, in peace
And certainty of purpose. And in Him
Is His Creator, as He is in me.

 

We don't know ourselves as the Christ that stands in certainty and purpose "beyond the reach of time, and wholly free of every law but Yours," (W.354.1.1) with "no self except the Christ in me." (W.354.1.2) No laws of this world bind us, nor rules we have made about what is right and what is wrong. We are held back by nothing except our own thinking mind that keeps us invested in issues, worries and concerns of this world. Why don't we know this yet? Why after doing all of these Lessons can we still feel so caught up in the judgments and attacks and feel so bound by our circumstances? It all seems so real. Yet each time we let go of a thought, an opinion, or a need to be right, and each time we step back from our insanity and just laugh at it, we loosen our grip on reality as we think it to be.

We need to recognize we will not be hurled into Heaven. As long as we are still attached to our individual self, our specialness, and this world, it is a process of undoing. We have the power to choose, and that choice will depend on our willingness to let go of our suffering, but we must first recognize that our attachments are continuing to bring pain. Until we do, we will hold onto this world.

It is all about a choice. We made the initial choice to separate and to run away from Love. We chose instead to make our own identity, seemingly separate from God. Now this image has replaced the Christ Self, but only in our awareness. In truth nothing has changed and nothing we can do can change who we are. Since the choice was made for separate identities, we now see ourselves as bodies with unique personalities living in a world Jesus tells us does not exist except in our imaginations. Jesus wants us to see how unhappy we are with the adjustments we have made to this world. He says we have overlearned the lessons of the ego, which is why our reactions to everything in this world seem so instant. It seems as if they come as automatic responses to any situation or event that shows up in our lives. Yet even those events are not random. They are orchestrated in our script perfectly for the undoing of the self we think we are.

"No one who understands what you have learned, how carefully you learned it, and the pains to which you went to practice and repeat the lessons endlessly, in every form you could conceive of them, could ever doubt the power of your learning skill. There is no greater power in the world. The world was made by it, and even now depends on nothing else. The lessons you have taught yourself have been so overlearned and fixed they rise like heavy curtains to obscure the simple and the obvious. Say not you cannot learn them. For your power to learn is strong enough to teach you that your will is not your own, your thoughts do not belong to you, and even you are someone else." (T.31.I.3.1-6)(ACIM OE T.31.I.3)
 
Our overlearning has been so effective that now the simple Lessons of what Jesus is teaching us in the Course seem very difficult for us. What are these simple Lessons? "How hard is it to see that what is false can not be true, and what is true can not be false?" (T.31.I.1.7)(ACIM OE T.31.I.1) Jesus asks us why this should be so hard. It is because we have overlearned the complexities of living in this world with all of the separate names and all of the rules for living. Our minds have been conditioned so thoroughly that it takes a lot of learning to really get the simplicity of his Lessons. While his Lessons truly are simple, they do not seem that way to us and certainly they do not seem to be easy. We struggle with them because we are so identified with this unique self and with this world, and we still cling to it and our perceptions and thoughts about everything. Our resistance to the Course is in our attachments to what we have made. Until we see that our attachments will not bring us happiness and peace, we will continue to resist his simple message to us.
 
The seeming realities of this world are very convincing to us. Why? Because the eyes, ears and all of our senses were made by the ego to do a good job of convincing us of the solidity of this world and the reality of bodies and what they seem to do to each other. However, the way we have defined ourselves and our lives is not the truth. According to the Course, I am just a dream figure in a dream I am dreaming. When I step out of this dream, I can smile in quiet amusement that I ever thought this was all real. Slowly we are starting to realize we are just dreaming it all, and the story we tell ourselves about our lives was already over long ago. We are looking back on a dream that is already over. In fact, it never was. Right now I can't conceive this to be so. I am waking slowly from the darkness of my wrong-minded thinking and a past where I felt totally at the mercy of the world and events that were happening to me.

Now I see that "Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you." (T.31.VIII.3.1)(ACIM OE T.31.VIII.87) How beautiful is that? Everything that shows up provides another opportunity to experience the holy instant instead of the seeming ravages of time, and in that choice we can save thousands of years. There is an unseen force that works through us all so when we choose peace where before we chose judgment, we are lifted out of time and space. How do I know this? Because every time I change my mind about the way the ego wants me to go and instead I choose the Holy Spirit's response of forgiveness and release, miracles spring forth and show me what I thought was reality is not. Instead of anguish there is now a sweet release.
 
I recall hearing an interview with Christopher Plummer, who said the reason he and his current wife have lasted 42 years, after several previous short term relationships on his part, is because, when they have a serious, screaming fight, they both end up rolling on the floor in laughter. What they are seeing is the drama and how well they are playing their angry roles, and when they do, they can do nothing but laugh at their academy performances. When there is a problem we hold onto, it is because we forgot to laugh at the antics of the ego. We take it all so seriously. It is just a play and we play our part seriously until we are able to see the nonsense of it and recognize that what we have made is all false. What we fight about is to be right, but we are never right.

It does seem like there are others in our dream who are in their separate bodies and who make their own decisions, sometimes seemingly to our detriment. And yes, this brings forth grievances where we feel like we are their victims and at their mercy. I experience pain and I suffer when I believe this and then I have dreams of retaliation. When and if I act on those dreams, I bring forth more guilt into my mind and certainly more fear. But I can smile at the silliness of it all when I step out of the dream. Whenever I choose another way and release the dream of retaliation, I experience the peace behind every problem waiting for my acceptance. Thus, I recognize that Christ and I truly do stand together in certainty of purpose.

With each choice I make like this, I find the world does become a happier dream. We are too afraid to wake up to God in one big episode. His Love has given us the Holy Spirit, Who calls to us gently to wake up to this happier dream where our fear is reduced to the point where we are ready to take the next step. As we do, we move up this ladder where we have descended into the darkness of this world. We have not actually descended, because we absolutely can't change what God created as the Christ Self, but we believe we have. Until these beliefs are changed, we will fear God's retaliation. We are like the son who believes he has emptied his father's bank account and run away and squandered his father's money and is now afraid to return home. Believing this, of course, we are not only afraid of his punishment, but we feel deep feelings of guilt and unworthiness. We believe we have changed our pristine nature and can never experience the beautiful purity of our innocence again. Yet we long for this state. We think it comes through death, but nothing comes through death. It comes through forgiveness.

The story of our guilt is not something we experience at a conscious level. It is in our minds and explains our underlying feeling we have done something wrong and there is something wrong about us. No matter how much we try to find our place in this world, we can never get it right. We have made up stories about the origins of our discomfort, blaming parents, teachers, bosses, spouses, germs, politicians, etc. In fact, we have set them up as the enemy, because we need these outside receptacles for our guilt. If we didn't put it on them, we would have to take responsibility for our own original error of separation, and that just seems too big. We would then need to take responsibility for our guilt and recognize that we attack and hate simply because we want to. We could no longer hold anyone responsible for making us the way we are. Our healing is thus about reclaiming responsibility for everything that seems to happen to us. In doing so, we have a powerful healing opportunity, as now we can see we are no longer victims at the mercy of a powerful world. We are the ones that are powerful. The world is not.

Christ is the Self that shares Its purpose with Its Creator. It shares All That Is with All---a reflection of the first lesson of the Holy Spirit, "To Have, Give All to All" (T.6.V.A)(ACIM OE T.6.V.a). Thus, we see the Self we are in everyone we look upon. There is no separation. We are like broken parts of a complete picture, all seeming to be separate from each other, yet the whole picture is who we are. Each broken piece contains the whole, just like a holographic image. In fact, the whole world is this holographic image with nothing real here.
 
We are now taking small steps back up the ladder of separation to realize this, and we do it through forgiveness. It is the way out. True forgiveness requires us to understand that what our brother did has not really happened because there is no world. It is all a dream. We need to look at our dramas, our roles, and all of our grievances and judgments.  We need to constantly watch our minds for feelings of envy, comparisons with others, jealousies, worries, and attacks of any kind, and be willing to bring these dark spots of pain and anguish to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in our minds and quietly awaits our acceptance of the truth. He is the Truth. He is the Answer that was given to us the moment we made the choice for the ego.

"In every difficulty, all distress, and every perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, 'My brother, choose again.' He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created altar unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your mind from everything that hides His face from you. His holiness is yours because He is the only Power that is real in you. His strength is yours because He is the Self that God created as His only Son." (T.31.VIII.3.2-7)(ACIM OE T.31.VIII.87)

What is said here is that we can turn away from the truth of who we are as the Christ, and Christ will never turn away from us. We are one Self, united with our Creator, thinking we are something else that has been made by the influences of our lives.

Today, whenever we are tempted to throw away our peace by choosing judgment, anger, irritation, or frustration, we can stop and remember, what we are responding to is false. Everyone is simply offering us another opportunity to look at the unhealed places in our minds. We can therefore be thankful for those who bring us these lessons, since without them how would we learn where we have healing to do? How would we see the self-hatred we have sealed off from our awareness? We can't do this alone. We need our brothers and sisters so we will see where there are still pockets of self-hatred in us. They are beautiful, mighty companions in collaboration with us for our journey home together. Today I choose a day of joy, inspiration, and grace that I may be led from thoughts of death and destruction to thoughts of love.

A Course in Miracles

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