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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 10 "GOD AND THE EGO"
VII. EXPERIENCE AND PERCEPTION
Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with Him involves no strain at all.
His perceptions are your
natural awareness, and it is only distortions which
you introduce that tire you. Let the Christ in you interpret
for you, and do not try to limit what you see by narrow little beliefs which are unworthy of God's Son. For until Christ comes into His own, the Son of God
will see himself as fatherless.
ACIM.OE.TX.CH 10.VII.61
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
WORKBOOK Part I ~ REVIEW III
INTRODUCTION
<AUDIO>
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
Our third review begins today. We will
review two of the last twenty ideas
each day, until we have reviewed them all.
We will observe a special format for
these practice periods, which you are urged
to follow just as closely as you can.
We understand, of course, that it may be
impossible for you to undertake
what is suggested here as optimal
each day and every hour of the day.
Learning will not be hampered when you miss
a practice period because it is
impossible at the appointed time.
Nor is it necessary that you make
excessive efforts to be sure that you
catch up in terms of numbers. Rituals
are not our aim, and would defeat our goal.
But learning will be hampered when you skip
a practice period because you are
unwilling to devote the time to it
which you are asked to give. Do not deceive
yourself in this. Unwillingness can be
most carefully concealed behind a cloak
of situations you cannot control.
Learn to distinguish situations which
are poorly suited to your practicing
from those which you establish to uphold
the camouflage for your unwillingness.
Those practice periods which you have lost
because you did not want to do them for
whatever reason should be done as soon
as you have changed your mind about your goal.
You are unwilling to cooperate
in practicing salvation only if
it interferes with goals you hold more dear.
When you withdraw the value given them,
allow your practice periods to be
replacements for your litanies to them.
They gave you nothing. But your practicing
can offer everything to you. And so
accept their offering, and be at peace.
The format you should use for these reviews
is this: Devote five minutes twice a day,
or longer if you would prefer, to
considering the thoughts that are assigned.
Read over the ideas and comments which
are written first in each day's exercise.
And then begin to think about them while
letting your mind relate them to your needs,
your seeming problems and all your concerns.
Place the ideas within your mind, and let
it use them as it chooses. Give it faith
that it will use them wisely, being helped
in its decisions by the One Who gave
the thoughts to you. What can you trust but what
is in your mind? Have faith, in these reviews,
the means the Holy Spirit uses will
not fail. The wisdom of your mind will come
to your assistance. Give direction at
the start, and then lean back in quiet faith,
and let the mind employ the thoughts you gave
as they were given you for it to use.
You have been given them in perfect trust;
in perfect confidence that you would use
them well; in perfect faith that you would see
their messages, and use them for yourself.
Offer them to your mind in that same trust
and confidence and faith. It will not fail.
It is the Holy Spirit's chosen means
for your salvation. Since it has His trust,
His means must surely merit yours as well.
We emphasize the benefits to you
if you devote the first five minutes of
the day to your review and also give
the last five minutes of your waking day
to it. If this cannot be done, at least
try to divide them so you undertake
one in the morning, and the other in
the hour just before you go to sleep.
The exercises to be done throughout
the day are equally important, and
perhaps of even greater value. You
have been inclined to practice only at
appointed times and then go on your way
to other things, without applying what
you learned to them. As a result, you have
gained little reinforcement, and have not
given it the opportunity to prove
how great are its potential gifts to you.
Here is another chance to use it well.
In these reviews we stress the need to let
your learning not lie idly by between
your longer practice periods. Attempt
to give your daily two ideas a brief
but serious review each hour. Use
one on the hour, and the other one
a half an hour later. You need not
give more than just a moment to each one.
Repeat it, then allow your mind to rest
a little time in silence and in peace.
Then turn to other things, but try to keep
the thought with you, and let it serve to help
you keep your peace throughout the day as well.
If you are shaken, think of it again.
These practice periods are planned to help
you form the habit of applying what
you learn each day to everything you do.
Do not repeat it and then lay it down.
Its usefulness is limitless to you.
And it is meant to serve you in all ways,
all times and places, and whenever you
need help of any kind. Try, then, to take
it with you in the business of the day,
and make it holy, worthy of God's Son,
acceptable to God and to your Self.
Each day's review assignment will conclude
with a restatement of the thought to use
each hour, and the one to be applied
on each half hour as well. Forget them not.
This second chance with each of these ideas
will bring such large advances that we come
from these reviews with learning gains so great
that we begin again on solid ground
with firmer footsteps and with stronger faith.
Do not forget how little you have learned.
Do not forget how much you can learn now.
Do not forget your Father's need of you,
as you review these thoughts He gave to you.
~ Original Handscript of ACIM
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DAILY LESSON
L e s s o n 119 ~ REVIEW III
[Review Lesson 107 and Lesson 108]
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
*IAMBIC PENTAMETER*
1 For morning and evening review:
[107] Truth will correct all errors in my mind.
2
I am mistaken when I think I can
Be hurt in any way. I am God's Son,
Whose Self rests safely in the Mind of God.
[108] To give and to receive are one in truth.
3
I will forgive all things today, that I
May learn how to accept the truth in me,
And come to recognize my sinlessness.
4
On the hour:
5
Truth will correct all errors in my mind
.
6
On the half hour:
7
To give and to receive are one in truth
.
~ Original Handscript of ACIM
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
LESSON 119
Review III ~ Lesson 107 and Lesson 108
Sarah's Commentary:
Today, the Lesson reminds us we are mistaken if we think we can be hurt in any way. We all believe we can be hurt. Our feelings can get hurt, our bodies can be hurt, we believe we can die, and we can lose loved ones. We grieve, we suffer, and yet here we are invited to consider the truth of this statement, which is we can't be hurt. The error in my mind is that my reality is a body, and thus I can be hurt. This is because I have forgotten the truth of who I am as God's Son. I think I am this body and this vulnerable self, which is living in the world. The ego has made it all seem very convincing. The illusion seems very real to us. The body and the world seem very real to us.
Who is the me that can't be hurt? It is certainly not the me I identify with as Sarah, the body, the personality. The Course says the 'me' that can't be hurt is who I really am in Truth. In other words, this body I think I am, this personality I think defines me, this image I have made of myself is not me at all! When I identify with the body, personality and image, I feel I am lacking, limited and vulnerable. In truth, I am Spirit, part of the One mind we all are. Our individual selves are the dream figures in the dream of separation we are dreaming. We are now awakening to the truth through the process of undoing the misperceptions in the mind. The conditioned, deceived mind has misled us into thinking we are these dream figures.
It is not a simple matter of reminding ourselves we are not this body, and we are indeed free of all our self-imposed limitations. The undoing process requires us to look honestly at the way we defend against the truth. Our defenses attack our reality. We continually work to protect our definition of ourselves because we believe suffering, sin, sickness and death are real. We defend against "an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps, which seem wholly irreconcilable." (W.170.3.2) While we think we are protecting ourselves from external threats, we are actually protecting ourselves from love.
To us, love is treacherous because, at the unconscious level of the mind, we see it associated with sacrifice and loss. This is why we need to turn to the Holy Spirit for His interpretation of our wrong-minded perspective. We made fear and now we think it is real and inescapable because we are constantly defending against it. When we are willing to bring awareness to our defenses and bring them to the light, we can know the invulnerability of the Self we are. We say we believe God's love for us is there, yet we also believe in pain, loss, sickness, suffering and death. The message of the Course is totally uncompromising. It can only be one or the other. These are mutually exclusive states of mind. We either choose Heaven hell in or each moment.
As the introduction to the Course says, "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God." (T.IN.2.2-3)(ACIM OE T.IN.4-5) Anything not eternal is not real, and this includes our bodies. This is what the crucifixion was meant to teach us-truth cannot be destroyed. Although Jesus was crucified as the world saw it, he was awakened, and as such knew himself as Spirit. He no longer identified with the body. As such, he could experience no pain as pain is of the mind. When the body feels pain, it is only because we have projected our belief in guilt onto the body. Through his resurrection, he demonstrated this. He demonstrated he knew who he was, and who we all are in truth. We are eternal beings, already home in Heaven having this dream of exile. We are not these vulnerable beings we have come to identify with. We are eternally safe. This journey is about awakening to acceptance of that truth.
To us, the illusion seems so very real and solid. How do we withdraw our investment in it? It is a process we undertake through the daily discipline of watching our thoughts, contemplating the truth, and doing the forgiveness practice as described in the Course. We to take responsibility for our projections and recognize the world is nothing but a reflection of our thoughts. They are thoughts we don't want to acknowledge in ourselves, so we would rather see them in others, and thus we see our guilt in them. Healing requires we take responsibility for these thoughts without judging ourselves for them. Thus, our lives and the world are the perfect classroom for undoing our misperceptions. It does take willingness because it seems to go against everything we have been taught and we have taught ourselves.
Pain, suffering, sickness, aging and death are part of the so-called reality of this worldly experience. While we hold these beliefs, it is not helpful to deny them. To know the truth of who we are as eternal beings is not an intellectual exercise. We must apply the Lessons to our daily upsets. The teaching comes alive for us only with our willingness to apply these Lessons daily to whatever shows up. As we learn to walk in trust more and more, relying on the Holy Spirit as our Guide and Jesus as our mentor, we increasingly learn we are perfectly safe and constantly in the arms of love. When we lack trust, we live in fear and worry and try to control things. When we tap into the trust, no matter the outcome, we live in a state of acceptance of whatever comes along in our lives, and we know that ultimately all things work together for good.
The words of the Course are not intended to make us feel warm and fuzzy while we are reading them, and then set them aside. Nor are they intended to make us into meta-physicians where we can speak with eloquence about the Course. No, this will not help us. What helps is when we apply the daily Lesson to the activities of the day that tempt us to get upset and take us out of our peace. When events show up in our day and we see them as issues, it is because our guilt has invited the betrayal and attack. This may seem preposterous to you, yet even the smallest things reflect the truth of this when we choose to see it. Events of the day simply go wrong when our minds are focusing on self-attacking thoughts. We don't want to take responsibility for those thoughts coming from our own mind. We want to see others as guilty, so we can identify ourselves as victims of a cruel world where we are constantly under attack.
Why would we want this? It is just another way we defend ourselves against the unconscious belief we hold in the mind that God will punish us for our sins. To protect ourselves from this imagined punishment, we believe we need to project our self-attack onto others and blame them for how we feel, so we can escape God's punishment. This is the god the ego has convinced us is waiting for us at the end of our lives here. This is the god we are afraid to awaken to. Thus, we continue the game of projecting our guilt onto the body and the world, hoping punishment will be delivered to the guilty and we will be saved. This is the myth Jesus is exposing to us and asking us to look at in our own experience.
To accept the truth about ourselves, we have to be willing to see past the errors of others. Regardless of what things look like and how we justify our anger, we share the same eternal Self. It requires we bring all our false perceptions to the Holy Spirit. Thus, vision is restored where we see beyond what seems to be apparent to our eyes, and we see our brothers the same as ourselves. The spark of divinity is in everyone, no matter how dark it may look to us. As we accept the truth of this more and more, we remember who we are.
Jesus tells us, "The 'reasoning' by which the world is made, on which it rests, by which it is maintained, is simply this: 'You are the cause of what I do. Your presence justifies my wrath, and you exist and think apart from me. While you attack I must be innocent. And what I suffer from is your attack.'" (T. 27.VII.3.1-4) (ACIM OE T.27.VIII.64) This is the thought system we believe and defend ourselves against. It does look as if the world is hurting us. If indeed what we see out there is just a projection of the errors in our own minds, what we suffer from is our own self-attack. If our minds are indeed the cause of everything we see, by inviting correction of the errors in our minds, he tells us we can instead, "Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence." (T.27.VII.15.1)(ACIM OE T.27.VIII.75) This Course is all about healing through our relationships. That is what makes the Course unique.
Instead of seeing the beam in our brother's eye, we remove our own. In other words, our job is to "mind our own mind." The ego thrives on judgment. We interpret what we see and label the behavior as a "sin." If we convince ourselves our interpretations are fact, we will act accordingly. Or, as Jesus says, "To perceive errors in anyone, and to react to them as if they were real, is to make them real to you." (T.9.III.6.7)(ACIM OE T.9.II.6) Isn't this the reason for all our distress in the world? We look at everyone through the lens of our own past issues, heartbreaks and shadow figures. Now forgiveness is impossible because we are convinced of their sins. We can't forgive what we have made real. Jesus reminds us that once we have made error real forgiveness is impossible. "The ego's plan is to have you see error clearly first, and then overlook it. Yet how can you overlook what you have made real?" (T.9.IV.4) (ACIM OE T.9.III.12)
What this Lesson is helping us to do is to change our perception so it is possible to overlook the error. We are becoming more and more aware there is another way of seeing anyone who appears to be causing us pain. We need a miracle for us to experience such drastic changes in perception, and indeed this is what the Holy Spirit offers us when we take our misperceptions to Him. We won't experience the shift in perception by ourselves alone. We need the Correction from outside of the matrix. The ego won't undo itself.
We can't pretend we don't feel hurt, angry or distressed. Trying to change our perception or trying to figure out the situation by analyzing it won't work, and feeling guilty for our interpretations will just make us feel worse. The miracle is the correction in our minds, which shows us any attack is just a call for love and that it is actually our own call. We do need the Holy Spirit. Turning to Him for His interpretation of every situation brings healing to our minds. Let's today ask the Holy Spirit for His help to undo our misguided perceptions of our brothers. Let us be determined to remember the hatred we see "out there" is in our own minds and it is just another block to love that we are holding, to keep the love we are out of our own awareness. It is our stubborn resistance to the truth and our need to be right about the way we see things.
We can decide today to stop accepting our own interpretations as true, and instead we ask the Holy Spirit to look on everything for us, recognizing we just don't know anything. As little children, we are asking to be taught. We need to be willing to surrender our understanding.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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VII. Experience and Perception
59 It is impossible not to believe what you see, but it is equally impossible to see what you do
not believe. Perceptions are built up on the basis of experience, and experience leads to beliefs. It is not until beliefs are fixed that perceptions stabilize. In effect, then, what you believe, you
do see. That is what I meant when I said, "Blessed are ye who have not seen and still believe," for those who believe in the resurrection
will see it. The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack but by transcendence. For Christ
does rise above the ego and all its works and ascends to the Father and
His Kingdom.
60 Would you join in the resurrection or the crucifixion? Would you condemn your brothers or free them? Would you transcend
your prison and ascend to the Father? For these questions are all the same and are answered together. There has been much confusion about what perception means because the same word is used both for awareness and for the
interpretation of awareness. Yet you cannot
be aware without interpretation, and what you perceive
is your interpretation. This course is perfectly clear. You do not see it clearly because you are interpreting
against it and therefore do not
believe it. And if belief determines perception, you do
not perceive what it means and therefore do not
accept it.
61 Yet different experiences lead to different beliefs, [and with them, different perceptions. For perceptions are learned with beliefs,] and experience teaches. I am leading you to a new kind of experience, which you will become less and less willing to deny. Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with Him involves no strain at all.
His perceptions are your
natural awareness, and it is only distortions which
you introduce that tire you. Let the Christ in you interpret
for you, and do not try to limit what you see by narrow little beliefs which are unworthy of God's Son. For until Christ comes into His own, the Son of God
will see himself as fatherless.
62 I am
your resurrection and
your life. You live in me because you live in God. And everyone lives in
you, as
you live in everyone. Can you, then, perceive unworthiness in a brother and
not perceive it in yourself? And can you perceive it in yourself and
not perceive it in God? Believe in the resurrection because it has
been accomplished, and it has been accomplished
in you. This is as true now as it will ever be, for the resurrection is the Will of God, which knows no time and no exceptions. But make no exceptions yourself, or you will not perceive what has been accomplished
for you. For we ascend unto the Father together, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, for such is the nature of God's Son as His Father created him.
63 Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of God's Son nor the power of the god he worships over him. For he places
himself at the altar of his god, whether it be the god he made or the God who created him. That is why his slavery is as complete as his freedom, for he will obey
only the god he accepts. The god of the crucifixion demands that he crucify and his worshipers obey. In his name they crucify
themselves, believing that the power of the Son of God is born of sacrifice and pain. The God of the resurrection demands
nothing, for He does not will to take away. He does not require obedience, for obedience implies submission. He would only have you learn your
own will and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom.
64 Resurrection must compel your allegiance gladly because it is the symbol of joy. Its whole compelling power lies in the fact that it represents what
you want to be. The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it
can be offered you through the grace of God. And you can
accept it by His grace, for God
is gracious to His Son, accepting him without question as His own. Who, then, is
your own? The Father has given you all that is His, and He Himself is yours
with them. Guard them in their resurrection, for otherwise you will not awake in God safely surrounded by what is yours forever.
65 You will not find peace until you have removed the nails from the hands of God's Son and taken the last thorn from his forehead. The love of God surrounds His Son, whom the god of the crucifixion condemns. Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did
not die by demonstrating that I live
in you. For the
undoing of the crucifixion of God's Son is the work of the redemption, in which everyone has a part of equal value. God does not judge His blameless Son. Having given
Himself to him, how could it be otherwise?
66 You have nailed
yourself to a cross and placed a crown of thorns upon your
own head. Yet you
cannot crucify God's Son, for the Will of God cannot die. His Son
has been redeemed from his own crucifixion, and you cannot assign to death whom God has given eternal life. The dream of crucifixion still lies heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. While you perceive the Son of God as crucified, you are asleep. And as long as you believe that
you can crucify him, you are only having nightmares. You who are beginning to wake are still aware of dreams and have not yet forgotten them. The forgetting of dreams and the awareness of Christ comes with the awakening of others to
share your redemption.
67 You will awaken to your
own call, for the Call to awake is
within you. If I live in you, you
are awake. Yet you must see the works I do through you, or you will not perceive that I have done them
unto you. Do not set limits on what you believe I can do through you, or you will not accept what I can do
for you. For it is done
already, and unless you give all that you have received, you will not know that your Redeemer liveth and that
you have awakened
with Him. Redemption is recognized
only by sharing it.
68 God's Son
is saved. Bring only
this awareness to the Sonship, and you will have a part in the redemption as valuable as mine. For your part must be
like mine if you learn it of me. If you believe that
yours is limited,
you are limiting
mine. There is no order of difficulty in miracles because all of God's Sons are of equal value, and their equality is their oneness. The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is either great or small. What does not exist has
no size and
no measure. To God
all things are possible. And to Christ it is given to be
like the Father.
ON LINE SEARCHABLE Original Edition
PDF 2016 Schedule of Lessons & Text Readings
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