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Lesson 94
Sarah's Reflections
TEXT CH 8, 80-89
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Bible is About Love
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
TEXT CHAPTER 8: THE JOURNEY BACK 
IX. Healing As Corrected Perception

86 You have surely begun to realize that this is a very practical course which means exactly what it says. So does the Bible, if it is properly understood. There has been a marked tendency on the part of many of the Bible's followers and also its translators to be entirely literal about fear and its effects but not about love and its results. Thus, "hellfire" means "burning," but raising the dead becomes allegorical. Actually, it is particularly the references to the outcomes of love which should be taken literally because the Bible is about love, being about God. 

  

DAILY LESSON

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L e s s o n  94

I am as God created me.


<AUDIO><VIDEO>

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GUIDANCE from ELDER BROTHER>

 

1Today we continue with the one idea which brings complete salvation; the one statement which makes all forms of temptation powerless; the one thought which renders the ego silent and entirely undone. You are as God created you. The sounds of this world are still, the sights of this world disappear, and all the thoughts that this world ever held are wiped away forever by this one idea. Here is salvation accomplished. Here is sanity restored. 

 

2True light is strength, and strength is sinlessness. If you remain as God created you, you must be strong and light must be in you. He Who ensured your sinlessness must be the guarantee of strength and light as well. You are as God created you. Darkness cannot obscure the glory of the Son of God. You stand in light, strong in the sinlessness in which you were created and in which you will remain throughout eternity. 

 

3Today we will again devote the first five minutes of each waking hour to the attempt to feel the truth in you. Begin these times of searching with these words: 

 

4I am as God created me.

I am His Son eternally.

 

5Now try to reach the Son of God in you. This is the Self that never sinned nor made an image to replace reality. This is the Self which never left its home in God to walk the world uncertainly. This is the Self which knows no fear nor could conceive of loss or suffering or death. 

 

6Nothing is required of you to reach this goal except to lay all idols and self-images aside, go past the long list of attributes, both "good" and "bad," you have ascribed to yourself and wait in silent expectancy for the truth. God has Himself promised that it will be revealed to all who ask for it. You are asking now. You cannot fail because He cannot fail. 

 

7If you do not meet the requirement of practicing for the first five minutes of every hour, at least remind yourself hourly: 

 

8I am as God created me.

I am His Son eternally.

 

9Tell yourself frequently today that you are as God created you. And be sure to respond to anyone who seems to irritate you with these words: 

 

10You are as God created you.

 You are His Son eternally.

 

11Make every effort to do the hourly exercises today. Each one you do will be a giant stride toward your release and a milestone in learning the thought system which this course sets forth.    

 

 

Circle Of Atonement ~ COMMENTARY on LESSON 94                                                    

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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections 

ACIM Edmonton, CA

LESSON 94
I am as God created me.
 
This is an important idea in the workbook and is repeated many times. "I am as God created me."   What that really means is that the image that I have made of myself and the way that I have defined myself, both good and bad, cannot be the truth. It seems to me that the behaviors that I exhibit define me. It seems to me that when I get angry, say nasty things, gossip, do things that I know are not well intentioned, that I build a record for myself that is less than honorable. As I look at this record, I judge myself as guilty and sinful, which is not the truth. The truth is that I have not changed myself from God's creation. But what I have done is made my judgments about myself real in my mind. And now I think this self is what I am and judge myself as guilty and deserving of punishment. In fact, the truth is that I have simply made a mistake because I am mistaken in who I think I am. In my choice for the ego thought system, I have chosen to believe that I have separated myself from love. And as such I value my individual self, which is made of the very idea of attack. Oh yes, there are behaviors that I see as good, loving and even spiritual as well, but when I look more deeply they too are based on false perception of who I am as special and unique. Who I am in truth, is still untouched by all of the thoughts that I hold connected to the body and personality.

"Littleness is the offering you give yourself. You offer this in place of magnitude and you accept it."  (T.15.III.1.3-4) In other words, let us not be content with the self that we have made but instead allow the Holy Spirit to reinterpret our misperceptions of ourselves and others.  

If we did not accept our littleness and instead connected with the magnificence of our true Self, as created by God, we would know the truth about ourselves. It is through striving in this world for those things that we believe will bring us joy, satisfaction and peace that "you are belittling yourself and blinding yourself to glory." (T.15.III.1.6) We always choose one at the expense of the other. We always have this choice of littleness or glory. "There is no form  of littleness that can ever content you. You are free to try as many as you wish, but all you will be doing is to delay your homecoming. For you will be content only in magnitude, which is your home."  (T.15.III.2.5)

Thus, the temptation we are confronted with is to define ourselves based on attributes we see in ourselves. And of course our identity as a separate, individual self living in a body has a very strong hold on us. "Temptation has one lesson it would teach in all its forms, wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel." (T. 31.VIII.1.1-2) But if the separation never happened then everything that the ego tells us that we are must be false. If I truly am as God created me then everything I have made of myself is not true. None of my actions have altered who I really am. This brings fear because we identify ourselves with what we have made of ourselves and thus it leaves us not knowing the thing that we are.

Ram Das said that from the moment we were born into these bodies, everybody treated us as a body and a personality and it becomes all we know of ourselves. It would be nice if we were treated as a soul, he went on to say, because that is what we are. We get into routines in our lives and the routines are the melodramas that captivate our consciousness. But we can free ourselves from the box of our personality and our physical self that we identify with. This is what the practice is about. We are so much more aware of this limited self so our focus now is to try to get in touch with the Christ Self. What this requires is that we bring our thoughts to light. We must learn to listen to the dirge we sing to ourselves "and question its validity". Until we hear it we "cannot understand that it is (we) who sing it to (ourselves)." (P.VI.1.5-6) This dirge is based on the guilt we hold but Jesus goes onto say that we hang onto this guilt and hug it close, sheltering it and turning to it for its loving protection. That is quite a statement about our investment in guilt and the thoughts that we hold close and even defend about ourselves.  We do so because we are invested in the body and who we think we are. Jesus tells us that the ugliness of our thoughts so deceive us that we have covered them over with sounds that seem beautiful to us. (P.VI.2) This is how we defend against the love that we are. Now we must "lay all idols and self-images aside;" and  "go past the list of attributes, both good and bad, you have of yourself" ( 4.1)

We have not screwed up the Self created by God. We can't corrupt ourselves. It is arrogance to think that we can do anything to change this Self that we are,  created by God. Whatever we have done in this world, in this illusion, has no effect on who we really are. We can forgive it all by no longer protecting this image and defending against the truth. We "stand in light, strong in the sinlessness in which we were created." (2.6)  When we see the sin in others, and see ourselves as innocent, we deny our responsibility for making this body and this world our reality and separating from God.

Connecting with the truth of our Identity invalidates everything that we think we are.  It is the Self, that is the Son of God that has never left its home in God. "This is the Self that never sinned, nor made an image to replace reality." (3.6) So while we think that we are in this world, walking around uncertainly, our true reality, who we really are, has never left our home in God, knows no fear, and can't even conceive of loss, suffering or death. And every time we connect with the truth that "I am as God created me," we are accepting the Atonement for ourselves. In other words we accept the healing or correction for ourselves. The Atonement makes it impossible to be anything but what God created even though we can stay unaware of this truth. But we can choose to refuse the thought system of the ego when we remember who we are.

How can we know that any of this is true? We can only know it when we "lay all idols and self images aside; go past the list of attributes, both good and ,you have ascribed to yourself; and wait in silent expectancy for the truth." (4.1) Without the experience of corrected perception of ourselves, we have no reason to believe what Jesus is telling us. That is why we are urged to enter the place where we can have some experience of the truth. What is required for this to happen? All we need to do is recognize how we worship the idol of the self that we think we are and bring these thoughts of specialness to the Holy Spirit, Who will reinterpret them for us. Don't we take great pride in our thoughts, our ideas, our opinions, our independence, our beliefs about ourselves, whether good or bad? We hold them in place saying, "that is just the way I am."  And we think that is what we have made of ourselves as the author of who we think we are or what others have made of us through their actions and inactions.

What we need to understand is that we don't have to strive for our magnitude because we already have it. It is just that we don't know it. Striving is of the ego. It is thinking we can add something to God's creation. It is continuing to think that we can make ourselves better or more spiritual. Our part is only to bring our attributes to light, nothing else.

The lesson today is repeated seventeen more times in the course and said in many ways throughout the text.  Jesus keeps reminding us over and over of this truth about ourselves.  But again, it is something we need to "attempt to feel" (3.1) as the truth in us.  It is important to realize that there is nothing we need to strive for. Our reality belongs to us. But we can't do any of this without the Holy Spirit. Our part is to look at our illusions of ourselves, the thoughts we hold, and to bring them to the light of the Atonement. We must do our part. It will not be done for us. The truth can only be revealed through our willingness as we "wait in silent expectancy for the truth.  God has Himself promised that it will be revealed to all who ask for it.  You are asking now.   You cannot fail because He cannot fail". (4.1-4)

Clearly then if we want to know the truth about ourselves, we have to go through the darkness of the ego thought system. We can't just do a spiritual bypass by affirming truth. He makes it clear here that we must take responsibility for our thoughts, our attachments, all of our self concepts, our belief in the body and all of our attributes. All have to be laid aside. They have all been held in place by our decision to separate from the truth. This is the part that we must do if we want to experience the peace of God. It will never be imposed on us.

So today we meditate on this idea for the first five minutes of every hour. That is quite a commitment! Are we willing to make this commitment? He asks that we make every effort to do so and calls this a giant stride toward our release. How motivated are you to arrange your schedule today to attempt this holy mission?   I have never been totally diligent in following these requirements in the years that I have studied this course. But I am struck today by the impact of being told that this is another giant stride lesson following up on the two previous giant stride lessons-61 and 66 so it is compelling to give it my best today. We are simply asked to do our best and if we fail at any point, just to forgive ourselves and pick it up as soon as we realize our failure. Forgetting is another opportunity to look at our resistance without bringing more guilt into our minds.

We start the practice today by laying aside all idols and self images. We review how we think of ourselves in terms of our attributes, both good and bad, our roles, the images we hold of ourselves and then "wait in silent expectancy" (4.1) for our true Self to be revealed. Wait in confidence, stillness, watching your thoughts go by and letting the truth dawn upon your mind. And throughout the hour remind yourself, as frequently as possible, that you are as God created you.

Also remember that when someone irritates or upsets you that this is another opportunity for you to look at the upset in your own mind and bring it to the truth. You can make the choice not to throw your peace away by what others do. Apply the lesson very specifically if you feel discouraged, angry, distressed in any way. This upset may be a thought in your mind about someone, or it may be someone that you have in your life who irritates you. Do not succumb to the temptation to blame, or judge, but rather take responsibility for the thoughts in your mind and ask for help to release them. Remember that what you are seeing outside of yourself is just a split-off part of your own mind--an outside picture of your own inner condition. "And be sure to respond to anyone who seems to irritate you with these words: You are as God created you. You are His Son eternally." (5.1-3) It is about applying the lesson throughout the day whenever we see ourselves unfairly treated or victimized, recognizing that this is not the truth. We are one Self. Our interests are the same.

Love and blessings, Sarah 

huemmert@shaw.ca

 

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    

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A Course in Miracles   
TEXT
 

Chapter Eight

The Journey Back


IX. Healing as Corrected Perception

80 We once said that the Holy Spirit is the Answer. He is the Answer to everything because He knows what the answer to everything is. The ego does not know what a real question is, although it asks an endless number. Yet you can learn this as you learn to question the value of the ego and thus establish your ability to evaluate its questions. When the ego tempts you to sickness, do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body, for this would merely be to accept the ego's belief that the body is the proper aim for healing. Ask rather that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body, for perception alone can be distorted. Only perception can be sick because only perception can be wrong.

 

81 Wrong perception is distorted willing, which wants things to be as they are not. The reality of everything is totally harmless because total harmlessness is the condition of its reality. It is also the condition of your awareness of its reality. You do not have to seek reality. It will seek you and find you when you meet its conditions. Its conditions are part of what it is. And this part only is up to you. The rest is of itself. You need do so little because it is so powerful that your little part will bring the whole to you. Accept then your little part, and let the whole be yours.

 

82 Wholeness heals because it is of the mind. All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce unconsciousness out of fear of consciousness. This is a pathetic way of trying not to know by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual. "Rest in peace" is a blessing for the living, not the dead, because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping. Sleep is withdrawing; waking is joining. Dreams are illusions of joining, taking on the ego's distortions about what joining means if you are sleeping under its guidance. Yet the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep and can use dreams on behalf of waking if you will let Him.

 

83 How you wake is the sign of how you have used sleep. To whom did you give it? Under which teacher did you place it? Whenever you wake dispiritedly, it was not of the Holy Spirit. Only when you awaken joyously have you utilized sleep according to the Holy Spirit's purpose. You can indeed be "drugged by sleep," but this is always because you have misused it on behalf of sickness. Sleep is no more a form of death than death is a form of unconsciousness. Unconsciousness is impossible. You can rest in peace only because you are awake.

 

84 Healing is release from the fear of waking and the substitution of the will to wake. The will to wake is the will to love, since all healing involves replacing fear with love. The Holy Spirit cannot distinguish among degrees of error, for if He taught that one form of sickness is more serious than another, He would be teaching that one error can be more real than another. His function is to distinguish only between the false and the true, replacing the false with the true.

 

85 The ego, which always weakens the will, wants to separate the body from the mind. This is an attempt to destroy it, yet the ego actually believes that it is protecting it. This is because the ego believes that mind is dangerous and that to make mindless is to heal. But to make mindless is impossible, since it would mean to make nothing out of what God created. The ego despises weakness, even though it makes every effort to induce it. The ego wants only what it hates. To the ego this is perfectly sensible. Believing in the power of attack, the ego wants attack.

 

86 You have surely begun to realize that this is a very practical course which means exactly what it says. So does the Bible, if it is properly understood. There has been a marked tendency on the part of many of the Bible's followers and also its translators to be entirely literal about fear and its effects but not about love and its results. Thus, "hellfire" means "burning," but raising the dead becomes allegorical. Actually, it is particularly the references to the outcomes of love which should be taken literally because the Bible is about love, being about God.

 

87 The Bible enjoins you to be perfect, to heal all errors, to take no thought of the body as separate, and to accomplish all things in my name. This is not my name alone, for ours is a shared identification. The name of God's Son is one, and you are enjoined to do the works of love because we share this oneness. Our minds are whole because they are one. If you are sick you are withdrawing from me. Yet you cannot withdraw from me alone. You can only withdraw from yourself and me.

 

88 I would not ask you to do the things you cannot do, and it is impossible that I could do things you cannot do. Given this, and given this quite literally, there can be nothing which prevents you from doing exactly what I ask, and everything which argues for your doing it. I give you no limits because God lays none upon you. When you limit yourself, we are not of one mind and that is sickness. Yet sickness is not of the body, but of the mind. All forms of dysfunction are merely signs that the mind has split and does not accept a unified purpose.

 

89 The unification of purpose, then, is the Holy Spirit's only way of healing. This is because it is the only level at which healing means anything. The re-establishing of meaning in a chaotic thought system is the only way to heal it. We have said that your task is only to meet the conditions for meaning since meaning itself is of God. Yet your return to meaning is essential to His because your meaning is part of His. Your healing, then, is part of His health since it is part of His Wholeness. He cannot lose this, but you can not know it. Yet it is still His Will for you, and His Will must stand forever and in all things.

 

 

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