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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 7 "THE CONSISTENCY OF THE KINGDOM"
V. THE RECOGNITION OF TRUTH
You who
are the Kingdom are not concerned with seeming. Reality is yours because you
are reality. This is how having and being are ultimately reconciled, not in the Kingdom, but
in your minds. The altar there is the
only reality. The altar is perfectly clear in thought because it is a reflection of
perfect Thought. It sees only brothers because it sees
only in its own light.
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DAILY LESSON
L e s s o n 78
Let miracles replace all grievances.
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
1 Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal. And as you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead.
2 Today we go beyond the grievances to look upon the miracle instead. We will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees. We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence to behold the Son of God.
3 He waits for you behind your grievances, and as you lay them down he will appear in shining light where each one stood before. For every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts, you see the Son of God where he has always been. He stands in light, but you were in the dark. Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see.
4 Today we will attempt to see God's Son. We will not let ourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our grievances. So is the seeing of the world reversed, as we look out toward truth, away from fear.
5 We will select one person you have used as target for your grievances and lay the grievances aside and look at him. Someone perhaps you fear and even hate; someone you think you love who angers you; someone you call a friend, but whom you see as difficult at times or hard to please-demanding, irritating, or untrue to the ideal he should accept as his according to the role you set for him.
6 You know the one to choose; his name has crossed your mind already. He will be the one of whom we ask God's Son be shown to us. Through seeing him behind the grievances that we have held against him, you will learn that what lay hidden while you saw him not is there in everyone and can be seen. He who was enemy is more than friend when he is freed to take the holy role the Holy Spirit has assigned to him. Let him be savior unto you today. Such is his role in God your Father's plan.
7 Our longer practice periods today will see him in this role. We will attempt to hold him in our mind, first as you now consider him. We will review his faults, the difficulties you have had with him, the pain he caused you, his neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts he gave. We will regard his body with its flaws and better points as well, and we will think of his mistakes and even of his "sins."
8 Then let us ask of Him Who knows this Son of God in his reality and truth that we may look on him a different way and see our savior shining in the light of true forgiveness given unto us. We ask Him in the Holy Name of God and of His Son, as holy as Himself:
9
Let me behold my savior in this one
You have appointed as the one for me
To ask to lead me to the holy light
In which he stands, that I may join with him.
10 The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances. What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free and make his freedom yours. The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him will free you both.
11 Be very quiet now and look upon your shining savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of him. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him that you might be saved. God thanks you for these quiet times today in which you laid your images aside and looked upon the miracle of love the Holy Spirit showed you in their place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for not one Thought of God but must rejoice as you are saved and all the world with you.
12 We will remember this throughout the day and take the role assigned to us as part of God's salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we allow each one we meet to save us and refuse to hide his light behind our grievances. To everyone you meet and to the ones you think of or remember from the past, allow the role of savior to be given that you may share it with them. For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:
13
Let miracles replace all grievances.
~ Original Hand Script of ACIM
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 78
Let miracles replace all grievances.
Sarah's Commentary:
This is another amazing Lesson and a classic forgiveness exercise, where we see that grievances are the problem and miracles are the solution. There is much power and much promise in this Lesson and it is eminently practical. The entire Lesson is written in the prose of iambic pentameter. All Lessons from Lesson 98 on are written in this kind of blank verse, which reverberates like the beat of a heart with its rhythm of ten syllables per line and the accent on the second syllable. Thus, reading it resonates in our minds in ways that bypasses our conscious awareness, somewhat perhaps like listening to a symphony.
This Lesson provides us the key to our release from the hell and darkness we put ourselves in as a result of our decision to hold grievances. Our grievances may not even be all that apparent to us. We have become so accustomed to judging we easily dismiss the little annoyances, small irritations and frustrations that cause us to lose our peace, then wonder why we are feeling so distressed or depressed.
Interestingly enough, the Course considers any grievance, no matter how small, no different than murderous rage. However big or small annoyances seem to us, they obscure our peace. When we are not at peace, we are not able to experience the miracle. We need to stay very aware of our thoughts and stay very vigilant as to whether we are making a choice for the ego or the Holy Spirit. When we become aware that we have chosen the ego, that is the time to ask for help of the Holy Spirit, so we may choose to see differently. We turn our interpretation of what we see over to Him for His interpretation. "We will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees." (W.78.2.2) We need the help of the Holy Spirit because it is such a reversal of our conditioned way of seeing. When we turn to Him, we learn we can be helped to see past "the shield of hate," (W.78.2.3) which hides the miracle.
What is the shield of hate? It is when we don't see our brother or ourselves as the Son of God, but instead accept their reality to be a body and personality, separate and different from everyone. The shield of hate is a projection of our own guilt onto our brothers, and now we see our unhealed perceptions projected onto them. Instead of seeing their divinity, we see instead the difficulties we experience with them, the pain we believe they have caused us, their neglect of us, all the little hurts we have felt in their presence, any bodily flaws, and their mistakes, or even sins, as we perceive them. All these things for which we condemn anyone constitute this shield of hate. It keeps us from seeing the Christ in them. It keeps us from seeing their innocence and thus from knowing our own innocence. It keeps us from seeing how we all share the same nature, both that of the ego and of our spirit. There are no victims nor perpetrators. When we side with the 'victim,' we are refusing to see the sameness of us all as the Christ Self. We are choosing to judge, instead of hearing the call for love in our brothers and recognizing it as our own call to open up to the love we are.
"Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle."
(W.78.1.1) Each and every decision we make reflects the ego mind or our right mind, where the miracle shines forth in love and forgiveness. When I watch my mind, it is apparent I make constant judgments, hold expectations, make demands, and assign roles and ideals I think others should accept. When they don't live up to them, I get upset. Yes, bodies do things that seem to justify our anger, but the truth of them is not what the body does. When we only see what bodies do or say, we only see that which is described as the shield of hate. This shield hides the light and keeps us from seeing who our brother really is. It also keeps us in the dark. "Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see." (W.78.3.4)
Our task, on behalf of our own healing and happiness, is to allow the shield to be lowered, so we can see what has always been there: our brother's true nature, the Son of God shining in the light where he has always been. "We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence to behold the Son of God." (W.78.2.3) I am the one holding the unforgiving perception of this brother. Now it is up to me to lower this shield of hate by looking at my unforgiving thoughts and having the willingness to choose the miracle instead. That is why healing any relationship does not take two of us. It only takes healing my own unhealed perceptions by letting go of the ego's interpretations. "Let miracles replace all grievances." (W.78) As long as I hold grievances in my mind, which I project onto my brother, I will never see who my brother really is. The concept of myself, based on my choice for the ego, is "a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight." (T.31.VII.7.1)(ACIM OE T.31.VII.74)
"We will not let ourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our grievances."
(W.78.4.2) We stay blind to the Christ that vision shows us in our brother, and thus ourselves, when all we see is our grievances. True vision is hidden by grievances, and thus when we hold grievances, we stay blind to the truth. Jesus tells us, in lowering our shield of hate and seeing who our brother is, we reverse the seeing of the world. (W.78.4.3). In the seeing of the world, we always see only our own grievances. We think they offer us insights into how people really are and what their motivations are. We give our insights great credibility. We trust our way of seeing, which Jesus says is always wrong!
Now we are called to release our misperceptions to the Holy Spirit, Who will reveal to us who our brother really is. We are totally blinded by our own assessment of people. We may have thought of someone as kind and now we "see them for who they really are," as if we were led astray by our earlier perceptions, but none of our perceptions are the truth. We are always just projecting our own misperceptions onto others, believing if we make them the guilty ones, somehow we can be free of our guilt.
When they seem to upset us, our responsibility is to look at the roles and expectations we have assigned to them. "Then let ask of Him Who knows this Son of God in his reality and truth, that we may look on him a different way, and see our savior shining in the light of true forgiveness, given unto us." (W.78.7.1) Ask with deep sincerity to see the truth. In some situations, it may seem like it takes a lot of time to really give up our carefully cherished grievances, but Jesus reminds us it does not matter because that is what time is for. As long as you are using time for this purpose, do not get discouraged if the process seems to go on for months or even years. It need not take that long, but some long-held grievances may indeed be stubbornly held and nurtured, in spite of what seem to be our best efforts to forgive. When we truly ask the Holy Spirit to help us see the truth of each brother, the miracle comes to the extent of our willingness. It may seem like we take some backward steps in this process, but our motivation increases with each miracle, as more and more peace is brought to the mind.
There are people in our lives whom we are asked to select for this exercise. It may be someone we fear, hate, think we love who has angered us, a friend who is difficult to please, or someone who doesn't meet our expectations and the role we have assigned to them. Our hurt, disappointment, and anger point to the places in us where we are projecting guilt onto our brother. The first step in this process is to take responsibility for the guilt we project and recognize it as our own. By asking for help of the Holy Spirit and doing our part in taking responsibility for our upsets, judgments and grievances, the miracle will shift our wrong-minded perceptions.
As we pick a person to focus on, we recognize some form of the darkness we see in them is in ourselves. Thus, we put only our own guilt onto convenient targets. As we consider the target of our projected grievances, we then ask the Holy Spirit to help us see this person as our savior. Isn't that an amazing thought? These very people, whom we sometimes can't stand, have been called into our lives precisely to be our saviors! Jesus reminds us of their importance in our lives, in that they actually hold the key to our salvation so we can be healed of our guilt.
That is not such a stretch when you think about it. How would we ever access our anger if they were not in our lives, pushing our buttons? The anger is already in our own wrong minds. We are helped to see this is the case through our special love--hate relationships. As our darkness is brought to the light, it will dissolve when given over to Holy Spirit. As our minds are healed, we will see this light in our brothers. Again, the practice is with specific people, but ultimately it is generalized to everyone. We will come to see all of our brothers as either giving love or calling for love, because the love we see in ourselves we now see all around us. Behaviors of others may not change, but the interpretations we give their behaviors will change.
We may experience reluctance to take certain people off the cross to which we have nailed them with our judgments and grievances. The ego claims we are justified in our anger against them. However, we read in Chapter 30 VI (ACIM OE CH 30 VII), "The Justification for Forgiveness", anger is never justified because "Attack has no foundation." (T.30.VI.1.2)(ACIM OE T.30.VII.70) The source of attack is always the ego thought system, but the ego is nothing, so it has no foundation. Yet we try to justify attack with our stories of why we need to defend ourselves, but they have no foundation. Pardon, however, is always justified because it does have a sure foundation. There is no real attack and because nothing real has occurred, it is a dream of separation. "But you are merely asked to see forgiveness as the natural reaction to distress that rests on error, and thus calls for help. Forgiveness is the only sane response." (T.30.VI.2.7-8)(ACIM OE T.30.VII.71)
If we hold onto our grievances, we miss the opportunity constantly available to us to see this person as "more than a friend" (W.78.5.4) and actually as our savior. In fact, this Lesson says that is his role in God's plan. It does not mean God has planned any of this, but it is part of the plan we have set up as the script for our own healing. We have cast the characters who appear in our dream just for this purpose. Our script facilitates our awakening if we decide to use every difficult situation for healing. Yes, we can resist and continue to hold onto our grievances, but in our resistance we chain ourselves to those against whom we hold grievances. Yet as we forgive, we free them and make their freedom our own. (W.78.8.3) Why would we want to keep ourselves chained? "His innocence will light your way, offering you its guiding light and sure protection, and shining from the holy altar within him where you laid the lilies of forgiveness." (T.20.II.9.2)(ACIM OE T.20.III.13)
Only with the help of the Holy Spirit is our release possible. Jesus tells us, "What you have asked for cannot be denied." (W.78.8.1) "And let the darkness be dispelled by Him Who knows the light, and lays it gently in each quiet smile of faith and confidence with which you bless your brother." (T.22.VI.9.11)(ACIM OE T.22.VII.59) All of Heaven rejoices and God thanks us! What a thought. Basically, it is our own thanks we receive, but it is a beautiful metaphor nevertheless. Why would we not go there? How stubborn do we want to be? The ego urges us to keep our grievances, but the ego does not love us. The ego's existence depends on us holding grievances and seeing others as responsible for our pain. The ego's plan is for us to see ourselves as victims of others and at the mercy of outside conditions.
My experience with this Lesson is that it is a process and not an event. With practice and true willingness, we can release our thoughts of anger and attack to the Holy Spirit for healing. I have had experiences of working on this practice over several years with some people. One of them recently sent me an email asking ME for MY forgiveness! I had not heard from him for five years and when I finally did, I found there was nothing to forgive. It was a beautiful demonstration of not getting attached to any outcomes or expectations in our forgiveness work. This process is only for our own healing, and does not depend on anyone doing anything.
Remember, we are asked to apply this Lesson to everyone we meet. Every encounter is a holy encounter. As I see my brother, I will see myself. As I treat him, I treat myself. Jesus reminds us, "Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself." (T.8.III.4.5)(ACIM OE T.8.IV.19) Anyone we meet gives us another chance at salvation. There are no accidents in salvation. Those we are meant to meet we have met and will meet. We can apply this practice to ones we remember from the past, those currently in our lives, and anyone we think about.
"The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him will free you both."
(W.78.8.4-5) He sees no separation because there is none. We see differences with the body's eyes, but the Son of God is one Self and we are joined in Oneness with all that is. We seem to be fragmented into many forms, but that is not the way the Holy Spirit sees us. He sees no separation.
"Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of him. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him that you might be saved."
(W.78.8.6-8) Our grievances are very loud. They harangue us with their raucous shrieks of what someone has done to us. Yet with forgiveness comes the peace, the joining, and the love that embraces the truth of who we are as One Son. Thus, the very person I chose to exclude from my love becomes my savior, showing me back to the Self I am. I can be grateful that the images hiding the truth from my mind have been laid aside, and in their place is the miracle. (W.78.9.1)
"We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us as part of God's salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we allow each one we meet to save us, and refuse to hide his light behind our grievances. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of or remember from the past, allow the role of savior to be given, that you may share it with him. For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:
"Let miracles replace all grievances." (W.78.10.1-5)
Love and blessings, Sarah
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PAUSED FOR WEEKEND
V. The Recognition of Truth
26 God's meaning waits in the Kingdom because that is where He placed it. It does not wait in time. It merely
rests in the Kingdom because it
belongs there, as you do. How can you, who
are God's meaning, perceive yourselves as absent
from it? You can see yourselves as separated from your meaning only
by experiencing yourself as unreal. This is why the ego is insane; it teaches that you are
not what you
are. This is so contradictory that it is clearly impossible. It is therefore a lesson which you
cannot really learn, and therefore
cannot really teach. Yet you are always teaching. You
must therefore be teaching something
else as well, even though the ego
does not know what it is.
27 The ego, then,
is always being undone and
does suspect your motives. Your mind
cannot be unified in allegiance to the ego because the mind does
not belong to it. Yet what is "treacherous" to the ego
is faithful to peace. The ego's "enemy" is therefore
your friend. We said before that the ego's friend is not part of you, since the ego perceives itself as at war and therefore in need of allies.
You who are
not at war must look for brothers and
recognize all whom you see
as brothers, because
only equals are at peace.
28 Because God's equal Sons have everything, they
cannot compete. Yet if they perceive
any of their brothers as anything other than their perfect equals, the idea of competition
has entered their minds. Do not underestimate your need to be vigilant
against this idea, because
all your conflicts come from it. It is the belief that conflicting interests are possible, and therefore you have accepted the impossible as
true. How is that different from saying that you are perceiving
yourself as unreal?
29 To be
in the Kingdom is merely to focus your full attention
on it. As long as you believe that you can attend to what is not true, you are accepting conflict as your
choice. Is it
really a choice? It
seems to be, but seeming and reality are hardly the same. You who
are the Kingdom are not concerned with seeming. Reality is yours because you
are reality. This is how having and being are ultimately reconciled, not in the Kingdom, but
in your minds. The altar there is the
only reality. The altar is perfectly clear in thought because it is a reflection of
perfect Thought. It sees only brothers because it sees
only in its own light.
30 God has lit your minds Himself and keeps your minds lit by His light because His light is what your minds
are. This is
totally beyond question, and when you questioned it you
were answered. The answer merely
undoes the question by establishing the fact that to question reality is to question meaninglessly. That is why the Holy Spirit
never questions. His sole function is to
undo the questionable and thus lead to
certainty. The certain are perfectly calm because they are not in doubt. They do not raise questions because nothing questionable
enters their minds. This holds them in perfect serenity because this is what they share,
knowing what they are.
31 As has so often been said, healing is both an art and a science. It is an art because it depends on inspiration in the sense that we have already used the term. Inspiration is the opposite of dispiriting and therefore means to make joyous. The dispirited are depressed because they believe that they are literally "without the Spirit," which is an illusion. You do not
put the Spirit in them by inspiring them because that would be magic and therefore would not be real healing. You
do, however, recognize the Spirit that is
already there and thereby
reawaken it. This is why the healer is part of the resurrection and the
life. The Spirit is not asleep in the minds of the sick, but the part of the mind that can perceive it and be glad
is.
32 Healing is also a science because it obeys the laws of God, Whose laws are true.
Because they are true, they are perfectly dependable and therefore universal in application. The
real aim of science is neither prediction nor control but
only understanding. This is because it does
not establish the laws it seeks,
cannot discover them through prediction, and has
no control over them at all. Science is nothing more than an approach to
what already is. Like inspiration it can be misunderstood as magic and
will be whenever it is undertaken as
separate from what already is and perceived as a means for
establishing it. To believe this is possible is to believe
you can do it. This can
only be the voice of the ego.
33 Truth can only be
recognized and
need only be recognized. Inspiration is of the Spirit and certainty is of God according to His laws. Both, therefore, come from the same Source, since inspiration comes from the Voice
for God and certainty comes from the laws
of God. Healing does not come
directly from God, Who knows His creations as perfectly whole. Yet healing is still
of God, because it proceeds from His Voice and from His laws. It is their result, in a state of mind which does
not know Him. The
state is unknown to Him and therefore does not exist, but those who sleep
are
stupefied, or better,
unaware.
Because they are unaware, they do
not know.
34 The Holy Spirit must work
through you to teach you He is
in you. This is an intermediary step toward the knowledge that you are in God because you are part of Him. The miracles which the Holy Spirit inspires can have no order of difficulty because every part of creation is of
one order. This is God's
Will and yours. The laws of God
establish this, and the Holy Spirit reminds you
of it. When you heal, you are
remembering the laws of God and forgetting the laws of the ego. We said before that forgetting is merely a way of remembering
better. It is therefore
not the opposite of remembering, when it is properly perceived. Perceived
improperly, it induces a perception of
conflict with something
else, as all incorrect perception does.
Properly perceived, it can be used as a way
out of conflict, as all proper perception can.
35
All abilities, then, should be given over to the Holy Spirit,
Who knows how to use them properly. He can use them
only for healing because He knows you
only as whole.
By healing you learn of wholeness, and by learning of wholeness you learn to remember God. You
have forgotten Him, but the Holy Spirit still knows that your forgetting must be translated into a way of
remembering and
not perceived as a separate ability which opposes an opposite. That is the way in which the ego tries to use
all abilities since its goal is always to make you believe that
you are in opposition.
36 The ego's goal is as unified as the Holy Spirit's, and it is because of this that their goals can
never be reconciled in
any way or to
any extent. The ego
always seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit
always seeks to unify and heal. As you heal you
are healed because the Holy Spirit sees no order of healing. Healing is the way to
undo the belief in differences, being the
only way of perceiving the Sonship without this belief. This perception is therefore
in accord with the laws of God, even in a state of mind which is
out of accord with His. The strength of right perception is so great that it brings the mind
into accord with His because it yields to His pull which is in all of you.
37 To
oppose the pull or the Will of God is not an ability but a real
delusion. The ego believes that it
has this ability and can offer it to you as a gift.
You do not want it. It is
not a gift. It is
nothing at all. God has given you a gift which you both have and are. When you do not use it, you do not know you
have it. By
not knowing this, you do not know what you are. Healing, then, is a way of
approaching knowledge by thinking
in accordance with the laws of God and recognizing their
universality. Without this recognition, you have made the laws themselves meaningless to you. Yet the
laws are not meaningless, since all meaning is contained
by them and
in them.
38 Seek ye
first the Kingdom of Heaven because that is where the laws of God operate truly, and they can operate
only truly since they are the laws of Truth. But seek this
only because you can
find nothing else. There
is nothing else. God is all in all in a very literal sense. All being is in Him who
is all Being.
You are therefore in Him since
your being
is His. Healing is a way of forgetting the sense of danger the ego has induced in
you by
not recognizing its existence in your brothers. This strengthens the Holy Spirit in
both of you, because it is a
refusal to acknowledge fear. Love needs only this invitation. It comes freely to
all the Sonship, being what the Sonship
is. By your awakening
to it, you are merely forgetting what you are
not. This enables you to remember what you
are.
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