DAILY LESSON

 

L e s s o n  18

 <AUDIO><VIDEO> 

¹The idea for today is another step in learning that the thoughts which give rise to what you see are never neutral or unimportant. It also emphasizes the idea that minds are joined, which will be given increasing stress later. 

²Today's idea does not refer to what you see as much as to how you see it. Therefore, the exercises for today will emphasize this aspect of your perception. The three or four practice periods which are recommended should be done as follows: 

³Selecting subjects for the application of the idea randomly, look at each one long enough to say: 

⁴I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see ___. 

⁵Conclude the practice period by repeating the more general statement: 

⁶I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. 

⁷A minute or so or even less will be sufficient. 

ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections 

 LESSON 18  

This lesson continues with the idea that our thoughts are not neutral. They have an effect. They are the cause of what we experience. Not only that, but our thoughts affect all minds. "The idea for today is another step in learning that the thoughts which give rise to what you see are never neutral or unimportant.  It also emphasizes the idea that minds are joined, which will be given increasing stress later on." (1.1-2)A lot can be said about the fact that minds are joined but Jesus is just introducing the subject right now. Suffice it to say that we are not these separate, independent, private minds that we believe we are. There is just One Son that seemed to split into billions of pieces.  The memory of God's Love is still in each part of the separated Son as is the thought of sin and guilt that comes from the meaningless thought that we could be separate from His Love.  

I like how Ken Wapnick describes this. He says that right at the beginning we were like one huge pane of glass which seemed to shatter. But before it shattered, the memory of God's Love was already imprinted in the glass. When we seemed to fragment, the whole thing shattered into billions and billions of fragments--the entire physical universe. The memory of God's Love is still within each fragment, and that memory is totally unified. Despite the seeming fragmentation in this dream in which we are all seem to be separate, the reality is that we are all one. From the point of view of the fragmented pane of glass, we appear to be very different. But from the point of view of the Holy Spirit, a reminder of our Oneness, we are simply having a silly dream. Obviously to us it is not silly because we take it very seriously. And clearly in the illusion there can be tragic consequences for us.

The reflection of our Oneness is when we see that we are all the same. When we see ourselves and others as different and separate, we make comparisons, we judge, we see ourselves worse than or better than others. We vie for specialness at the expense of others.   "You who believe that God is fear made but one substitution.  It has taken many forms, because it was the substitution of illusion for truth; of fragmentation for wholeness.  It has become so splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one, and still is what it was.  That one error, which brought truth to illusion, infinity to time, and life to death, was all you ever made.  Your whole world rests upon it.  Everything you see reflects it, and every special relationship that you have ever made is part of it." (T.18.I.4)  Is it any wonder that our experience seems so complex, challenging and complicated here?

We have taken the simple truth and seemingly shattered into this complex array of problems. "This fragment of your mind is such a tiny part of it that, could you but appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest sunbeam to the sun, or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean." (T.18.VIII.3.3) But the problem for us is that we now in our "amazing arrogance this tiny sunbeam has decided it is the sun; this almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean." (T.18.VIII.3.4) And with this decision, God becomes our enemy and we fear Him.  The reality is that we are simply an aspect of the one picture that has never been broken and we can't be apart from God. "Without the sun the sunbeam would be gone; the ripple without the ocean is inconceivable." (T.18.VIII.4.6)

All of this is being played out in "the tiny tick of time in which the first mistake was made, and all of them within that one mistake, held also the Correction for that one, and all of them that came within the first. (T.26.V.3.5) "What is the world except a little gap perceived to tear eternity apart and break it into days and months and years? And what are you who live within the world except a picture of the Son of God in broken pieces, each concealed within a separate and uncertain bit of clay?" (T.28.III.7)

Again this lesson reinforces the fact that thinking is the cause and seeing is the effect but they appear simultaneous which is why it is difficult to see that thought is the cause of what we perceive. The ego tells us that it is the events, circumstances, people and situations in our lives that cause us to react or think in a certain way. That is how the ego tricks us. It reverses cause and effect which is easily achieved because of the simultaneous appearance of these events. This is why we believe that the world is acting on us rather than that our thoughts are impacting our world.

So now, we are in the process of undoing our belief  in this dream. It is the belief that we can be separate from each other and that there is a gap between us and our brothers. Each of us can now do our part in healing the guilt that has come as a result of our belief that we could separate from God. The guilt  arose as a result of our belief that we shattered Heaven and stole God's gifts taking His role onto ourselves.  To heal this guilt, requires that we look at it as we can't heal what we don't acknowledge in ourselves. When we see a brother as guilty, we now have an opportunity to see that it is our own guilt projected on our brothers. As we bring the guilt back into our own minds, it can now be put on the altar of light where it is healed.   

Because our reality is One Self,  our minds are in constant communication. How could it be otherwise when there really is only one Mind?   All of us have experiences of this at different times. For example, we may be thinking of someone and they call; or we release our condemnation of someone and they respond with kindness instead of counterattack. However, in spite of this kind of evidence to the contrary, we still do believe that we can have private thoughts and that our thoughts are contained in separated minds, locked in separated bodies.      Jesus says that " You see yourself locked in a separate prison, removed and unreachable, incapable of reaching out as being reached." (T.18.VI.7.5) and "The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication that is an eternal property of mind. But the communication is internal. Mind reaches to itself. It is not made up of different parts, which reach each other. It does not go out. Within itself it has no limits, and there is nothing outside it. It encompasses everything. It encompasses you entirely; you with it and it within you. There is nothing else, anywhere or ever." Then we read something that is even more startling to think about       where Jesus says that "The body is outside you and but seems to surround you shutting you off from others and keeping you apart from them and them from you. It is not there." (T-18.VI.8 ) Thus the body is a projection of the mind and while we identify with it, we think we are it.

Our belief that we are separate and different from each other is illusion. Our minds are always joined and always in communication. So what I am thinking affects not only you but everyone. That is why when I bring peace to my mind, I bring peace to all minds because there is only one mind. We see that with the shift that takes place in the mind as a result of the miracle.   This also explains the impact of prayer as well as of healing experiences as a result of the joining of minds in a single purpose. "A miracle is never lost. It may touch many people you have not even met, and produce undreamed of changes in situations of which you are not even aware."(T-1.I.45, Miracle Principle 45 ).

Can you imagine the impact we can each have on the world by healing our thoughts and opening to more and more of the love that is our natural inheritance? A healed mind can have such an awesome powerful healing influence on the world. We have many wonderful examples of this with symbols like Jesus and Buddha as well as many healed masters. They are the symbols for us of what a healed mind can reflect back to us in reminding us of the truth about ourselves.

So in this lesson we learn that thoughts do have an effect and they are not confined to ourselves but affect everyone. This can be very motivating in realizing the impact of our thoughts but also in bringing peace by healing our current way of seeing. It also means that no matter how nice we are to others, if we have negative, hateful thoughts in our minds, that is what we will be communicating. So it is not about changing our behavior for behavior will simply follow our thoughts. It is our thoughts that need to be healed. And the importance of healing these thoughts is that they affect everyone. So if I have hateful thoughts toward my partner, they affect you and everyone because there is just this one mind. My grievances have an effect on everyone including me!!

Finally Jesus says that "Today's idea does not refer to what you see as much as to how you see it. Therefore, the exercises for today emphasize this aspect of your perception."  (2.1-2) It starts with our interpretation which gives rise to how we see. It starts with the idea that we actually want to see a world that victimizes us. This means that I actually set it up so that others would hurt me, abandon me, victimize me so that my belief that I am an effect of what others do is reinforced. It comes from our wish not to take responsibility for the separation but rather to see God abandoning us, making Him responsible. The story of victimhood becomes our story and we look to others for support for it. But it never heals the pain in our minds when we keep the story going. Yet the ego has set it up that way so we will see the world as the cause of our pain.  Why would we want to see a world that causes us pain? Because then we don't have to see our own angry, vengeful, murderous thoughts. We would rather see that the world is the cause of our pain rather than our own thoughts. Thus we project responsibility for our situation on others and feel that we are not responsible. Now we can claim our own innocence, while seeing guilt in others. Thus our hope is that God will punish them for the 'crime' of separation and we will get off scot-free. But the cost to us is that we keep our guilt and pain. Now Jesus is showing us a way out.  But since we are so invested in our way of seeing, the reversal of our thought system will take great vigilance, time and practice. "Now you must learn that only infinite patience produces immediate effects." (T.5.VI.12.1)

For the practice we take one minute or less, three or four times today. We look around randomly selecting subjects, keeping our eyes on each one long enough to say "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see___________" 

Conclude each practice period by repeating the more general statement:  

" I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing." 

Remember that we are moving from the specific application but the lesson will be generalized.  We will learn that all of our perceptions are the same and all based on the same meaningless thought that I could be separate from all there is.

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 Two

The Illusion of Separation

III. Healing as Release from Fear   

⁵² The emphasis will now be on healing. The miracle is the means, the Atonement is the principle, and healing is the result. Those who speak of "a miracle of healing" are combining two orders of reality inappropriately. Healing is not a miracle. The Atonement or the final miracle is a remedy, while any type of healing is a result. The kind of error to which Atonement is applied is irrelevant. Essentially, all healing is the release from fear. To undertake this, you cannot be fearful yourself. You do not understand healing because of your own fear.

⁵³ A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at all levels. Illness, which is really "not-right-mindedness," is the result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the belief that what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another. We have constantly referred to miracles as the means of correcting level confusion, and all mistakes must be corrected at the level on which they occur. Only the mind is capable of error. The body can act erroneously, but this is only because it is responding to mis-thought. The body cannot create, and the belief that it can, a fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms.

⁵⁴ All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion which created magic rests on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control. This error can take two forms-it can be believed that the mind can miscreate in the body or that the body can miscreate in the mind. If it is understood that the mind, which is the only level of creation, cannot create beyond itself, neither type of confusion need occur.

⁵⁵  The reason only the mind can create is more obvious than may be immediately apparent. The Soul has been created. The body is a learning device for the mind. Learning devices are not lessons in themselves. Their purpose is merely to facilitate the thinking of the learner. The most that a faulty use of a learning device can do is to fail to facilitate learning. It has no power in itself to introduce actual learning errors.

⁵⁶ The body, if properly understood, shares the invulnerability of the Atonement to two-edged application. This is not because the body is a miracle but because it is not inherently open to misinterpretation. The body is merely a fact in human experience. Its abilities can be and frequently are over-evaluated. However, it is almost impossible to deny its existence. Those who do so are engaging in a particularly unworthy form of denial. The term "unworthy" here implies simply that it is not necessary to protect the mind by denying the unmindful. [There is little doubt that the mind can miscreate.] If one denies this unfortunate aspect of the mind's power, one is also denying the power itself.

⁵⁷ All material means which man accepts as remedies for bodily ills are merely restatements of magic principles. It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. It is a second misstep to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents. It does not follow, however, that the use of these very weak corrective devices is evil. Sometimes the illness has a sufficiently great hold over a mind to render a person inaccessible to Atonement. In this case it may be wise to utilize a compromise approach to mind and body, in which something from the outside is temporarily given healing belief.

⁵⁸ This is because the last thing that can help the non-right-minded, or the sick, is an increase in fear. They are already in a fear-weakened state. If they are inappropriately exposed to an "undiluted" miracle, they may be precipitated into panic. This is particularly likely to occur when upside-down perception has induced the belief that miracles are frightening.

⁵⁹ The value of the Atonement does not lie in the manner in which it is expressed. In fact, if it is truly used, it will inevitably be expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver. This means that a miracle, to attain its full efficacy, must be expressed in a language which the recipient can understand without fear. It does not follow by any means that this is the highest level of communication of which he is capable. It does mean, however, that it is the highest level of communication of which he is capable now. The whole aim of the miracle is to raise the level of communication, not to impose regression in the improper sense upon it.

⁶⁰ Before miracle workers are ready to undertake their function in this world, it is essential that they fully understand the fear of release. Otherwise, they may unwittingly foster the belief that release is imprisonment, a belief that is very prevalent. This misperception arose from the underlying misbelief that harm can be limited to the body. This was because of the much greater fear that the mind can hurt itself. Neither error is really meaningful because the miscreations of the mind do not really exist. This recognition is a far better protective device than any form of level confusion because it introduces correction at the level of the error.

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