DAILY LESSON

 

L e s s o n  25

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¹Purpose 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. 

²You 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. 

³Another 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. 

⁴Before 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. 

⁵It 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. 

⁶Six 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: 

I do not know what this hand is for.

⁸Say 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.  

ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections 

 LESSON 25  

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 "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 that which 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. "

 "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?"

 "My trust in you is greater than yours in me at the moment but it will not always be that way." (T.IV.6)

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 that purpose is meaning. (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." (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 as we and achieve as much pleasure as we can. As such, it is all about what we believe will make us feel good. But what about if we don't really know what that is? What about 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 that "the ego is not you." (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." (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. So now we are serving exactly who we are not. And 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. So 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 to 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)

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. And that 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)  "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)

So what is truly in our best interests? It is to use everything that is made for the purpose of keeping us in this world, and now use it all for the purpose of waking up from this dream. In other words, every situation, event, circumstance, person that is in our lives, when used by the ego for its purposes, keeps us rooted in the body and in the world. But when turned over for the Holy Spirit to use for His purpose, becomes a classroom for forgiveness. When we understand purpose, we will understand the ego's thought system and how, in shifting purpose to awakening, then 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 asking him what we should do rather than turning to the ego. Now everything in the word 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 the purpose for going to the movies to be entertained; I know 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 that he is getting at here. He says there is a larger purpose for everything which answers the question of what is it really for? So, when I go to the movies, the deeper purpose is to watch my projected thoughts and be willing to look at my judgments. And when I go to shop for groceries, the deeper purpose is to see the cashier's interests 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." (5.1) But remember that 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 back the guilt that we are projecting on 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 that 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, concealed by the darkness. It is not about changing behavior. Behavior will shift naturally.

So the practice today is of two minutes duration six times today, beginning with the slow repetition of the idea and then letting your glance rest on whatever happens to catch your eye, near or far, 'important' or 'unimportant', 'human' or 'nonhuman' and 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." (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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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

VI. The Meaning of the Last Judgment 

¹⁰⁵ The Last Judgment is one of the greatest threat concepts in man's perception. This is only because he does not understand it. Judgment is not an essential attribute of God. Man brought judgment into being only because of the separation. After the separation, however, there was a place for judgment as one of the many learning devices which had to be built into the overall plan. Just as the separation occurred over many millions of years, the Last Judgment will extend over a similarly long period and perhaps an even longer one. Its length depends, however, on the effectiveness of the present speed-up.

¹⁰⁶  We have frequently noted that the miracle is a device for shortening but not abolishing time. If a sufficient number of people become truly miracle-minded quickly, the shortening process can be almost immeasurable. It is essential, however, that these individuals free themselves from fear sooner than would ordinarily be the case because they must emerge from the conflict if they are to bring peace to other minds.

¹⁰⁷  The Last Judgment is generally thought of as a procedure undertaken by God. Actually it will be undertaken by man with my help. It is a final healing rather than a meting out of punishment, however much man may think that punishment is deserved. Punishment is a concept in total opposition to right-mindedness. The aim of the Last Judgment is to restore right-mindedness to man.

¹⁰⁸ The Last Judgment might be called a process of right evaluation. It simply means that finally all men will come to understand what is worthy and what is not. After this, their ability to choose can be directed reasonably. Until this distinction is made, however, the vacillations between free and imprisoned will cannot but continue. The first step toward freedom must entail a sorting out of the false from the true. This is a process of division only in the constructive sense and reflects the true meaning of the Apocalypse. Man will ultimately look upon his own creations and will to preserve only what is good, just as God Himself looked upon what He had created and knew that it was good.

¹⁰⁹ At this point, the will can begin to look with love on its own creations because of their great worthiness. The mind will inevitably disown its miscreations which, without the mind's belief, will no longer exist. The term "Last Judgment" is frightening not only because it has been falsely projected onto God, but also because of the association of "last" with death. This is an outstanding example of upside-down perception. Actually, if the meaning of the Last Judgment is objectively examined, it is quite apparent that it is really the doorway to life.

¹¹⁰ No one who lives in fear is really alive. His own last judgment cannot be directed toward himself because he is not his own creation. He can, however, apply it meaningfully and at any time to everything he has created and retain in his memory only what is good. This is what his right-mindedness cannot but dictate. The purpose of time is solely to "give him time" to achieve this judgment. It is his own perfect judgment of his own creations. When everything he retains is loveable, there is no reason for fear to remain with him. This is his part in the Atonement.   

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