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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 8 "THE JOURNEY BACK
III. THE RATIONALE FOR CHOICE
The Holy Spirit's teaching takes only
one direction and has only
one goal. His direction is freedom, and His goal is God. Yet He cannot conceive of God without
you because it is not God's Will to
be without you. When you have learned that your will
is God's, you could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without
you. This
is freedom and this
is joy. Deny yourself this and you
are denying God His Kingdom because He created you
for this. When we said, "All power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His," this is what we meant.
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
WORKBOOK Part I ~ REVIEW II
INTRODUCTION
<AUDIO><VIDEO>
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
1 We are now ready for another review. We will begin where our last review left off and cover two ideas each day. The earlier part of each day will be devoted to one of these ideas, and the latter part of the day to the other. We will have one longer exercise period and frequent shorter ones in which we practice each of them.
2 The longer practice periods will follow this general form: take about 15 minutes for each of them, and begin by thinking about the idea and the comments which are included in the assignments. Devote about three or four minutes to reading them over slowly, several times if you wish, and then close your eyes and listen. Repeat the first phase if you find your mind wandering, but try to spend the major part of the practice period listening quietly but attentively.
3 There is a message waiting for you. Be confident that you will receive it. Remember that it belongs to you and that you want it. Do not allow your intent to waver in the face of distracting thoughts. Realize that, whatever form they take, they have no meaning and no power. Replace them with your determination to succeed. Do not forget that your will has power over all fantasies and dreams. Trust it to see you through and carry you beyond them all.
4 Regard these practice periods as dedications to the way, the truth, and the life. Refuse to be side-tracked into detours, illusions, and thoughts of death. You are dedicated to salvation. Be determined each day not to leave your function unfulfilled.
5 Reaffirm your determination in the shorter practice periods as well, using the original form of the idea for general application and a more specific form when needed. Some specific forms will be included in the comments. These, however, are merely suggestions. It is not the particular words you use that matter.
~ Original Hand Script of ACIM
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DAILY LESSON
L e s s o n 88 ~ Review II
[Review Lesson 75 and Lesson 76]
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
1 Today we will review these ideas:
[75] The light has come.
2 In choosing salvation rather than attack, I merely choose to recognize what is already here. Salvation is a decision made already. Attack and grievances are not there to choose. That is why I always choose between truth and illusion, between what is there and what is not. The light has come. I can but choose the light, for it has no alternative. It has replaced the darkness, and the dark is gone.
3 These would prove useful forms for specific applications of this idea:
4
This cannot show me darkness, for the light has come.
The light in you is all that I would see, [name].
I would see in this only what is there.
[76] I am under no laws but God's.
5 Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God's. I am constantly tempted to make up other laws and give them power over me. I suffer only because of my belief in them. They have no real effect on me at all. I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's. And His are the laws of freedom.
6 For specific forms in applying this idea, these would be useful:
7
My perception of this shows me I believe in laws which do not exist.
I see only the laws of God at work in this.
Let me allow God's laws to work in this and not my own.
~ Original Hand Script of ACIM
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 88
Review II ~ Lessons 75 and 76
Sarah's Commentary:
The common thread in these two Lessons is the only reality is God. We recognize the light when we choose "salvation (healing, forgiveness) rather than attack." (W.88.1.2) The light is always within us, but when we block it with our thoughts, we are not aware of its presence in our minds. We block that light from our awareness when we choose the ego's darkness. When the blocks to love (our judgments and grievances) are gone, we see what is already there and has always been there (the light in our right minds). That is all that is real. It is our divine Self. In choosing to forgive, we indicate our willingness and desire to see what has always been in our minds. The pristine truth about ourselves is revealed to us through our decision to choose forgiveness rather than attack. Illusion is darkness and has no power in reality.
When we choose illusions we are choosing nothing. While we are free to choose illusions, they have no real effect. The only meaningful choice we can make in the dream is for the miracle. There is nothing in opposition to God, therefore there is no real effect on reality from choosing things we think we want in the dream. Nothing here has any power except for the power we give it through our belief. There is no real alternative to the light. When we choose the light, darkness simply has to go because it is nothing.
Our salvation is already accomplished. We are only reviewing what has already gone by. We are with God now, having never left except in dreams. It is a dream where we believe we are exiled from God so we feel like He has abandoned us. In fact, we have chosen to abandon our true Home. We are dreaming this whole journey of life in this world. There is nowhere for us to arrive. The only thing needed is the recognition that we already are at the place where we have never left. We are already home. The light has come, but until we are aware this is so, we will believe in the reality of the dream we are dreaming. We will only know it is a dream when we wake up. We awaken when we recognize the only meaningful choice available to us is the choice for salvation. Happiness is a choice. When we choose grievances, we are choosing against our happiness, but the choice we make for illusions is the choice for nothing at all.
We will be motivated to forgive when we see no benefit in attack. As we see how attack brings us more guilt and suffering, which blocks the light, we become increasingly willing to let it go. When we truly see we are only hurting ourselves, we recognize the insanity of our choice to attack. We are always choosing in each moment "between truth and illusion; between what is there and what is not." (W.88.1.5) The ego, with all its dark motives and emotions, is not a real option. In other words, while we may think we are attacking and our attacks have a real effect, the reality is nothing is really happening. The end of this dream is certain and inevitable because it has already happened.
Today, we practice forgiveness by bringing our attack thoughts of guilt, judgments, hate and fear back to our awareness. We can't heal what we don't acknowledge in ourselves. When we are committed to heal these thoughts, we place them on the altar of truth where the Holy Spirit resides in our minds. As our dark thoughts are brought to the light, space is made in our minds for the truth so we can see who our brother is. He is innocent, and as we see this in him, we accept that same innocence within ourselves. We see we are the same Self. "The light in you is all that I would see, [name]," (W.88.2.3) because in reality that is the only thing there is, but we won't see it without releasing all that blocks it. We won't see it until the judgments we put on others are released.
For our afternoon practice, we recognize that the laws of the world only have effect because we believe we are bodies living in the world. In truth, "I am under no laws but God's," (W.88.3.1) because there is only God's will and no other. Having made this choice for separation, the laws of the ego seem to have an effect on us because of our belief in our reality as a body, but outside the illusion, the laws have no effect. These laws have control over us while we seem to be in this world. They are the rules and laws by which we live and expect others to live as well. We place our belief in these laws. We also believe investing in these laws is where our salvation lies. We think if we are exposed to germs, we will get sick. We think if we don't eat the right foods and don't take certain vitamins, we will not be healthy. We think if another body leaves us, we will be lonely. All our laws are focused on the body and personality and our well-being and safety, but the laws of this world are not all immutable. When we question their hold on us, we can loosen our investment in them.
These laws include literally everything we do in the world. What we eat, how much sleep we say we need, what our rules are for relationships, what we demand and require of family members and friends, how holidays should be celebrated, how the dishes should be washed, which way the toilet paper should hang, simply a myriad of laws that rule our lives. Are they bad? No. They are simply laws we live by. What is important is not the laws, but our investment in them for our happiness and safety. Jesus is not saying we should feel guilty because we choose to eat foods we consider not good for our health. He is only saying that when we don't feel well, we must recognize the source of our suffering is not the food we have or have not eaten, but all the suffering originates in our minds.
Think about what happens to your peace of mind when someone is in the express line at the grocery store with a full basket. "They aren't following the rules," the ego screams. Crucify! We have just given ourselves a reason for anger and attack, yet we are reminded in the Course that anger is never justified. It is not that we will not get angry, but the story we tell ourselves about why we are angry is not the truth. We attack because we want to maintain our individuality and our differences. We want to make others responsible for our lack of peace. In other words, the reason we attack is because we want to. We actually want others to betray us, but while we justify our anger, Jesus does not want us to see our experience of anger as a reason for guilt. He is only saying there is never a reason for us to be angry. It is always a choice made by me in the wrong mind to see the cause for my anger as outside of myself because I want to see it that way.
If our laws are broken, we believe that happiness is sacrificed. We get upset when our laws are not "revered," or at least respected and maintained. The ego is summarized in these two thoughts: "I am me and you are not" (my needs are important) and "I am end and you are means" (your function is the means for fulfillment of my needs, or my laws).
Because we carry this dual thought system, it is natural that conflict will happen, especially since everyone carries the same thought system of 'one or the other'. We are always vying for ways to have our needs met at someone else's expense, and this is the reason spouses, nations, religions, etc. don't get along. What is the answer? We need to give up this entire thought system. We need to bring our awareness to all the laws we hold sacred, and recognize they are there to serve the body, but we are not our bodies. The basis for our real pain is the choice for our ego, individuality and specialness, which will always have us looking outside ourselves for happiness.
"Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God's."
(W.88.3.2) I commit today to join with God's will so it may prevail in every situation, rather than my own. I can give up my belief in laws I have made. I do not have to give them power over me. "I suffer only because of my belief in them." (W.88.3.5) Our true source of pain has nothing to do with the world and its laws. Our true pain comes from separation and the guilt now in our minds. The only happiness we will experience is through healing the guilt in our minds.
Imagine making up our own laws and submitting to the power they exert on us! Then we suffer as a result of our belief in them. Does this sound like insanity? Our belief in these Laws of Chaos, (T.23.II)(ACIM OE T.23.III) based on guilt, fear, punishment, and separation, can all be healed by bringing our grievances to the truth. Healing is inevitable because God's laws assure our freedom, and freedom assures our oneness.
What are God's laws? They are love, extension, sharing, giving, and joining, while the ego's laws are about taking, bargaining, attacking, defending, and separation. In fact, the belief in separation leads to all the laws of the ego, which are based on differences, and thus place us in competition with each other.
The healing of every relationship is inevitable because God assures us of that happy fact, and what God assures us of is inevitable because we have the same will. It is just a matter of time before we agree to choose for God and give up our suffering. The end is certain. "Salvation is a decision made already." (W.88.1.3) It was made the moment the choice for separation was made. That is what the Atonement Principle assures us of. Today, "The light in you is all that I would see, [name]" (W.88.2.3) and "Let me allow God's laws to work in this, and not my own." (W.88.4.4)
Love and blessings, Sarah
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1 You are hampered in your progress by your demands to know what you do
not know. This is actually a way of holding on to deprivation. You cannot reasonably object to following instructions in a course
for knowing on the grounds that you do
not know. The need for the course is implicit in your objection. Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course.
Peace is. As the prerequisite for knowledge, peace
must be learned. This is only because those who are in conflict are
not peaceful, and peace is the
condition of knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom.
2 Knowledge will be restored when you meet its conditions. This is not a bargain made by God, Who makes
no bargains. It is merely the result of your misuse of His laws on behalf of a will that is not His. Knowledge
is His Will. If you are
opposing His Will, how can you have knowledge? I have told you what knowledge offers you, but it is clear that you do not regard this as wholly desirable. If you did, you would hardly be willing to throw it away so readily when the ego asks for your allegiance. The distraction of the ego seems to interfere with your learning, but the ego
has no power to distract you unless you
give it the power.
3 The ego's voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect it to say, "I am not real." Hallucinations
are inaccurate perceptions of reality. Yet you are not asked to dispel them alone. You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results to
you. If you do not want them on the basis of loss of peace, they will be removed from your mind
for you. Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war
does deprive you of peace. Yet in this war there is no opponent.
This is the reinterpretation of reality which you must make to secure peace, and the only one you need
ever make.
II. The Direction of the Curriculum
4 Those whom you perceive as opponents are
part of your peace, which
you are giving up by attacking them. How can you
have what you give up? You
share to have, but you do not give it up yourself. When you give up peace, you are
excluding yourself from it. This is a condition which is so alien to the Kingdom that you cannot understand the state which prevails within it. Your past learning must have taught you the wrong things simply because it has not made you happy. On this basis alone, its value should be questioned.
5 If learning aims at change, and that is
always its purpose, are you satisfied with the changes
your learning has brought you? Dissatisfaction with learning outcomes must be a sign of learning failure, since it means that you did not get what you
want. The curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum you have established for yourselves,
but so is its outcome. If the outcome of yours has made you unhappy and if you
want a different one, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary.
6 The first change that must be introduced is a change in
direction. A meaningful curriculum
cannot be inconsistent. If it is planned by two teachers, each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it cannot
be integrated. If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously, each one merely
interferes with the other. This leads to fluctuation, but
not to change. The volatile
have no direction. They cannot choose one because they cannot relinquish the other, even if the other does not exist. Their conflicted curriculum teaches them
all directions exist and gives them no rationale for choice.
7 The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully recognized before a real change in direction becomes possible. You
cannot learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in
total disagreement about everything. Their joint curriculum presents an impossible learning task. They are teaching you
entirely different things in
entirely different ways, which might be possible except for the crucial fact that both are
teaching you about yourself. Your reality is unaffected by both, but if you
listen to both your mind will be split about what your reality
is.
III. The Rationale for Choice
8 There
is a rationale for choice. Only one Teacher
knows what your reality is. If learning that is the
purpose of the curriculum, you must learn it of Him. The ego does not
know what it is trying to teach. It is trying to teach you what you are
without knowing it. The ego is expert only in confusion. It does not understand anything else. As a teacher, then, it is totally confused and
totally confusing. Even if you could disregard the Holy Spirit entirely, which is quite impossible, you could learn nothing from the ego because the ego
knows nothing.
9 Is there
any possible reason for choosing a teacher such as this? Does the total disregard of anything it teaches make anything
but sense? Is
this the teacher to whom a Son of God should turn to find
himself? The ego has never given you a sensible answer to
anything. Simply on the grounds of your own experience with the ego's teaching, should not this alone disqualify it as your future teacher? Yet the ego has done more harm to your learning than this alone. Learning is joyful if it leads you along your natural path and facilitates the development of what you
have. When you are taught
against your nature, however, you will
lose by your learning because your learning will imprison you. Your will is
in your nature and therefore
cannot go against it.
10 The ego cannot teach you anything as long as your will is free because you will not
listen to it. It is
not your will to be imprisoned
because your will is free. That is why the ego is the
denial of free will. It is
never God who coerces you because He
shares His Will with you. His Voice teaches
only His Will, but that is not the Holy Spirit's lesson because that is what you
are. The
lesson is that your will and God's cannot be out of accord
because they are one. This is the undoing of
everything the ego tries to teach. It is not, then, only the direction of the curriculum which must be unconflicted, but also the
content.
11 The ego wants to teach you that you want to
oppose God's Will. This
unnatural lesson cannot
be learned, but the
attempt to learn it is a violation of your own freedom and makes you afraid of your will
because it is free. The Holy Spirit opposes
any imprisoning of the will of a Son of God,
knowing that the will of the Son
is the Father's. The Holy Spirit leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard or look beyond
everything that would hold you back.
12 We said before that the Holy Spirit teaches you the difference between pain and joy. That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom.
You cannot make this distinction
without Him. That is because you have taught yourself that imprisonment
is freedom. Believing them to be the same, how
can you tell them apart? Can you ask the part of your mind that taught you to believe they
are the same to teach you the
difference between them?
13 The Holy Spirit's teaching takes only
one direction and has only
one goal. His direction is freedom, and His goal is God. Yet He cannot conceive of God without
you because it is not God's Will to
be without you. When you have learned that your will
is God's, you could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without
you. This
is freedom and this
is joy. Deny yourself this and you
are denying God His Kingdom because He created you
for this. When we said, "All power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His," this is what we meant.
14 The Will of God is without limit, and all power and glory lie within it. It is boundless in strength and in love and in peace. It has no boundaries because its extension is unlimited, and it encompasses all things because it created all things. By creating all things, it made them part of itself.
You are the Will of God because this is how you were created. Because your Creator creates
only like Himself, you
are like Him. You are part of Him Who
is all power and glory and are therefore as unlimited as He is.
15 To what else
except all power and glory can the Holy Spirit appeal to restore God's Kingdom? His appeal, then, is merely to what the Kingdom
is and for its own acknowledgment of what it is. When you acknowledge this you bring the acknowledgment automatically to everyone because you
have acknowledged everyone. By
your recognition you awaken
theirs, and through theirs
yours is extended. Awakening runs easily and gladly through the Kingdom in answer to the Call of God. This is the natural response of every Son of God to the Voice of his Creator because it is the Voice for
his creations and for
his own extension.
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PDF 2016 Schedule of Lessons & Text Readings
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