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A COURSE IN MIRACLES CH 8 "THE JOURNEY BACK X. THE ACCEPTANCE OF REALITY
105 Remember, then, that God's Will is
already possible and nothing else will
ever be. This is the simple acceptance of reality because only this
is real. You cannot
distort reality and
know what it is. And if you
do distort reality, you will experience anxiety, depression, and ultimately panic, because you are trying to
make yourself unreal. When you feel these things, do not try to look
beyond yourself for truth, for truth can only be
within you. Say, therefore,
106
Christ is in me and where He is God must be,
for Christ is part of Him.
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DAILY LESSON
L e s s o n 97
I am Spirit.
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
1 Today's idea identifies you with your One Self. It accepts no split identity, nor tries to weave opposing factors into unity. It simply states the truth. Practice this truth today as often as you can, for it will bring your mind from conflict to the quiet fields of peace. No chill of fear can enter, for your mind has been absolved from madness, letting go illusions of a split identity.
2 We state again the truth about your Self, the holy Son of God who rests in you, whose mind has been restored to sanity. You are the Spirit lovingly endowed with all your Father's love and peace and joy. You are the Spirit which completes Himself and shares His function as Creator. He is with you always, as you are with Him.
3 Today we try to bring reality still closer to your mind. Each time you practice, awareness is brought a little nearer at least; sometimes a thousand years or more are saved. The minutes which you give are multiplied over and over, for the miracle makes use of time but is not ruled by it. Salvation is a miracle, the first and last; the first that is the last, for it is one.
4 You are the Spirit in whose mind abides the miracle in which all time stands still; the miracle in which a minute spent in using these ideas becomes a time which has no length and which has no end. Give, then, these minutes willingly, and count on Him Who promised to lay timelessness beside them. He will offer all His strength to every little effort which you make.
5 Give Him the minutes which He needs today to help you understand with Him you are the Spirit that abides in Him, and Which calls through His Voice to every living thing; offers His sight to everyone who asks; replaces error with the simple truth.
6 The Holy Spirit will be glad to take five minutes of each hour from your hands and carry them around this aching world, where pain and misery appear to rule. He will not overlook one open mind that will accept the healing gift they bring, and He will lay them everywhere He knows they will be welcome. And they will increase in healing power each time someone accepts them as his thoughts and uses them to heal.
7 Thus will your gift to Him be multiplied a thousand-fold and tens of thousands more. And when it is returned to you, it will surpass in might the little gift you gave as much as does the radiance of the sun outshine the tiny gleam a firefly makes an uncertain moment, and goes out. Yet will the steady brilliance of this light remain and lead you out of darkness, nor will you be able to forget the way again.
8 Begin these happy exercises with the words the Holy Spirit speaks to you, and let them echo round the world through Him:
9
Spirit am I, a holy Son of God,
free of all limits, safe and healed and whole,
free to forgive, and free to save the world.
10 Expressed through you, the Holy Spirit will accept this gift which you received of Him, increase its power, and give it back to you.
11 Offer each practice period today gladly to Him. And He will speak to you, reminding you that you are Spirit, one with Him and God, your brothers and your Self. Listen for His assurance every time you speak the words He offers you today, and let Him tell your mind that they are true.
12 Use them against temptation, and escape its sorry consequences if you yield to the belief that you are something else. The Holy Spirit gives you peace today. Receive His words, and offer them to Him.
~ Original Hand Script of ACIM
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 97
I am Spirit.
Sarah's Commentary:
"I am Spirit."
This statement is totally uncompromising. It flatly states the truth of who we are, not a body, not a personality, none of the self-concepts we hold, only Spirit. That is what I am. That is the truth about me. When this Lesson says, just practicing this truth will bring my mind "from conflict to the quiet fields of peace," (W.97.1.4) it becomes very compelling. Who of us is not motivated to find such quiet fields of peace? Who of us is not motivated to release the constant conflict of competing ego goals and the pain and uncertainty of our lives? We are only Spirit. We are not a body/mind, so often heard in the world today in new age circles. We can't be both because these two different orders of reality are completely irreconcilable.
Any worry, annoyance, expectation, or anxiety we have is a temptation to believe we are other than Spirit. Each such thought and feeling provides us an opportunity to ask for help and receive the miracle. The miracle is outside of time and space and reflects the love in our right minds. To receive it, we must be willing to see we have been wrong about ourselves. Let us be willing today to surrender our mistaken perceptions to the truth so the Holy Spirit can reinterpret them for us.
This process requires our agreement to reach out for His help. His help will not be imposed on us. The love of our elder brother Jesus waits patiently for our decision to bring our darkness to the light. He loves us too much to impose himself on us. He reminds us, we made the fear and it is up to us, when we will be ready and willing to bring it to the light. Our will is as strong as his. It is up to us, when we will choose to give up our own way and ask for his help. Only then can the miracle show up. Only when we make space for it can grace be brought to every problem we think we have. The light has come, but we will stay in darkness until we accept responsibility for our part and ask for help to release the blocks we hold up before the light. These blocks are all our misperceptions of ourselves for which we blame others.
There is no conflict in Spirit. There are not two selves in conflict. Spirit is One. The memory in the mind comes forth through forgiveness. The miracle shows up when our dark thoughts are brought to awareness. We have resistance to this healing because we still defend our point of view. It takes discipline and willingness to admit we are wrong about everything. We resist this idea because we still value our specialness and individuality.
Why do I experience myself as a body, a personality and a self with needs, lacks, and problems if this is all a dream and not who I am? It is part of this split mind. We see ourselves as an ego when we identify with the part of the mind that seemed to separate from God. Jesus reminds us, there can be no split from our Father. "We state again the truth about your Self, the holy Son of God Who rests in you, whose mind has been restored to sanity. You are the Spirit lovingly endowed with all your Father's Love and peace and joy." (W.97.2.1-2) If we have not split off from our true reality as Spirit, we must have left the part of the mind that knows itself. We wandered off into this far country where we feel lost, alone and separate, but this is no more real than if I am having a dream I have turned myself into someone I am not. In this dream, I seem to have taken on this character and now it seems to be who I think I am. Yes, it all seems very real, but it is just my thoughts I have come to believe as the truth. What if all my beliefs about myself were just made up? What if I gave up all those beliefs and was willing to see everything from a different perspective, from the perspective of the Holy Spirit?
I can only do that if I stop expending my energy on denying the truth. I deny the truth each time I see anyone responsible for taking from me my joy and peace. No one can take our peace away from us unless we willingly give them that power. In other words, it has been my choice to throw away my peace. The ego wants to blame because that way someone is guilty for our pain and that allows us to wear the face of innocence and not be responsible for our own guilt. We thus buy this false innocence at their expense. It is a projection of our own guilt onto others. We prefer to see it in them rather than in ourselves, but what the ego has not told us is, this is precisely how we keep the cycle of guilt going, and thus we keep ourselves bound to the prison of our condition.
The Lesson makes very clear that this is a world of misery and suffering, and surely we can attest to that from our own experience. We live in a state of panic, underlying anxiety, and lack, almost all the time. Yes, it seems there are periods of respite, when we can distract ourselves and find our friends, allies and special love partners to guard us against this, but the panic and anxiety quickly return in our nightmares, sadness, sickness and aloneness. We have been given an answer that heals this state of mind. The miracle is available to us when we are ready to do the work. However, we are very stubborn and resistant. We expend a lot of energy in denying the truth. Why? We deny truth because our existence as a separate individual self depends on it.
We are not both Spirit and body, nor are we love and hate. These can't be woven together into a semblance of unity. When we remind ourselves of this truth and willingly bring our judgments to the light as often and as sincerely as we can, we will experience the love, joy and peace that is our inheritance. There is a place in all of us where the Holy Son of God rests, (W.97.2.1) and where we are restored to sanity. Our reality is only Spirit. We are lovingly endowed with all of our Father's Love and peace and joy. It feels so absolutely delicious today to really take this in. We can step aside from whatever storms are brewing in our lives and, just for a moment, take in the joy of our Being. It is truly a beautiful and uplifting thought for today. I love it. I feel the gratitude that comes from these moments of respite from the world. Yes, we do have things to attend to in the world, but we can address them with the peace and trust that come with the miracle, rather than relying on our puny, limited resources. When fear has been brought to love, it is dissolved and truth can reign. Our only function here is to bring awareness to our dark thoughts, and to willingly let them go.
This world is not our reality. It is just a temporary experience, which can be used by the Holy Spirit for our healing if we allow Him to work with us and teach us how to forgive. Imagine how the world would look to us if we recognized we were here only to bring love and blessings to it in every moment? Imagine how it would look if everyone we encounter today were recognized to be there for us to be reminded of our holiness and theirs. Even those who irritate and upset us are helping us to bring to the forefront of our awareness our unhealed minds. We are only here to bless. In releasing grievances, we know nothing has happened because we truly can't suffer any loss or pain. It is impossible if our reality is only Spirit.
We have been lost in this dream for a long, long time, but now we are listening to the Holy Spirit and allowing His loving presence to use everything we have made for our awakening. We work with Him today by being reminded of the truth that we are nothing but Spirit. When we are tempted to get upset, we ask for help to look at every situation from above the battleground, outside time and space, where we step aside from the ego. We ask for help to see, we have been wrong about the identity we have made. Each time we do the practice, "awareness is brought a little nearer at least; sometimes a thousand years or more are saved." (W.97.3.2)
What this suggests to me is, we apparently have been at this for a long, long time. This need not be a discouraging thought because we can also wake up at any moment. It is a matter of our own willingness. Jesus continually tells us we should be completely unconcerned about time. After all, time is just an illusion as well, but time is to be used for our benefit. That is its purpose when given to the Holy Spirit for our awakening. If there truly is no chronological time, we can look at our practice periods as simply speeding up our awakening.
This Lesson says even the few minutes we give to this practice are multiplied over and over. We have no idea of the miracles that spring forth from our minds to bring salvation to the world as we do this practice. "He will offer all His strength to every little effort that you make." (W.97.4.3) It seems so little is being asked of us for so much, yet this is for our own healing and awakening. We give this gift to ourselves and to the world. What seems to us as a tiny expression of forgiveness in our practice period has a very big impact. The reason being, there is just one mind, and as our mind is brought to peace, so is the One Mind of the SonShip.
"You are the Spirit in whose mind abides the miracle in which all time stands still; the miracle in which a minute spent in using these ideas becomes a time that has no limit and has no end." (W.97.4.1) When we bring our judgments and grievances to awareness and ask the Holy Spirit for help in letting them go, we choose the miracle, and this choice is made outside the dream. It is a moment of timelessness felt in time.
Can you imagine the power there is in our practice? He will carry our healed thoughts "around this aching world where pain and misery appear to rule." (W.97.5.1) Just think of the contribution we can make to the Sonship by giving five minutes to Him from every hour, using this time to release the blocks by asking for help of the Holy Spirit. So many people look for ways they can contribute to the world, yet they feel hopeless in their efforts to make a difference. Here we are told our practice can be offered as healing to every "open mind that will accept the healing gifts." (W.97.5.2) Our contribution is simply to do our own healing work, and when these gifts are accepted by anyone anywhere, they are increased in their healing power.
What an amazing thought! A moment doing our practice can stop a murder, an assault on someone, or a theft from happening. It seems inconceivable to me that my small contribution, through my commitment to my own awakening, can bring such power to the healing of the world. When I find more important things to do than to give my five minutes each hour, what am I saying? Am I saying that I don't believe this? Am I saying that my specialness and individuality take priority? Am I saying that I am fearful and resistant to the truth? However, becoming aware of our resistance, our priorities in this world, and our idols, can all be helpful in our forgiveness practice. Everything we have made can be used to give over to truth. Each practice of this Lesson is like the firefly who offers a tiny gleam. Through the Holy Spirit, this gleam is given the radiance of the sun, with its steady brilliance, and leads us out of darkness. "Nor will you be able to forget the way again," (W.97.6.3) once you have experienced this radiant light.
We are asked to approach this day and this practice with hopefulness and happiness, and to give our time gladly as we listen for His assurance that this is all true. We can only hear that assurance when we stop listening to the perspectives of the ego. It will keep talking but we don't have to give it any attention. We are Spirit. We need to tell ourselves this often today. Every time we feel any kind of pain, attack, distress, fatigue, anger, frustration, hunger, or need, we can choose against these thoughts. We do not choose through denial, but by being willing to release them and remind ourselves, our true reality is Spirit.
The song coming to my mind is, "I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky." Dance today. Sing today. Fly today. You are Spirit. I am Spirit. As One Spirit, joined with the Holy Spirit, all things are possible. Have a magnificent, grand and happy day, practicing the thought: "Spirit am I, a holy Son of God, free of all limits, safe and healed and whole, free to forgive, and free to save the world." (W.97.7.2) With each practice period, we bring this reality closer to our awareness. We bring the reinforcement to our minds that we can't be the split identity we currently think we are. He gives us lots of incentive in this Lesson to do the practice.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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X. The Acceptance of Reality
90 Fear of the Will of God is one of the strangest beliefs that the human mind has ever made. This could not possibly have occurred unless the mind were
already profoundly split, making it possible for the mind to be
afraid of what it really is. It is apparent that reality cannot "threaten" anything
except illusions, since reality can only uphold truth. The very fact that the Will of God, which is what you
are, is perceived as fearful to you demonstrates that you
are afraid of what you are. It is not, then, the Will of God of which you
are afraid, but
yours. Your will is
not the ego's, and that is why the ego is against you. What seems to be the fear of God is really only the fear of your own reality.
91 It is impossible to learn anything consistently in a state of panic. If the purpose of this course is to learn what you are and if you have already
decided that what you are is fearful, then it
must follow that you will
not learn this course. Yet you might remember that the reason
for the course is that you do
not know who you are. If you do not know your reality, how would you know whether it is fearful or not?
92 The association of truth and fear, which would be highly artificial at most, is particularly inappropriate in the minds of those who do not know what truth
is. All that this kind of association means is that you are arbitrarily endowing something quite beyond your awareness with something you
do not want. It is evident, then, that you are judging something of which you are totally
unaware. You have set this strange situation up so that it is completely impossible to escape from it
without a Guide who
does know what your reality is. The purpose of this Guide is merely to remind you of what you
want. He is not attempting to force an alien will
upon you. He is merely making every possible effort, within the limits you impose on Him, to
re-establish your own will in your consciousness.
93 You have
imprisoned your will in your
unconscious, where it remains available but cannot help you. When we said that the Holy Spirit's function is to sort out the true from the false in your unconscious, we meant that He has the power to look into what
you have hidden and perceive the Will of God there.
His perception of this Will can make it real to
you because He is in your mind and therefore He
is your reality. If, then, His perception of your mind brings its reality to
you, He
is teaching you what you are.
94 The only source of fear in this whole process can
only be what you think you
lose. Yet it is only what the Holy Spirit sees that you can possibly
have. We have emphasized many times that the Holy Spirit will never call upon you to sacrifice
anything. But if you ask the sacrifice of reality of
yourself, the Holy Spirit
must remind you that this is not God's Will
because it is not yours. There is
no difference between your will and God's. If you did not have split minds, you would recognize that willing is salvation
because it is communication. It is impossible to communicate in alien tongues. You and your Creator can communicate through creation because that, and
only that,
is your joint Will.
95 Divided wills do not communicate because they speak for different things
to the same mind. This loses the ability to communicate simply because confused communication does not mean
anything. A message cannot be said to be communicated
unless it makes sense. How sensible can your messages be when you ask for what you do
not want? Yet as long as you are
afraid of your will, this is precisely what you
will ask for. You may insist that the Holy Spirit does not answer you, but it might be wiser to consider the kind of
asker you are.
96 You do
not ask only for what you want. This is
solely because you are afraid you might
receive it,
and you would. That is really why you persist in asking the teacher who could not possibly
teach you your will. Of him you can
never learn it, and this gives you the illusion of safety. Yet you cannot be safe
from truth but only
in it. Reality is the
only safety. Your will is your salvation
because it is the same as God's. The separation is nothing more than the belief that it is
different.
97 No mind can believe that its will is
stronger than God's. If, then, a mind believes that
its will is different from His, it can only decide either that there
is no God or that
God's Will is fearful. The former accounts for the atheist and the latter for the martyr. Martyrdom takes many forms, the category including
all doctrines which hold that God demands sacrifices of
any kind. Either basic type of insane decision will induce panic, because the atheist believes he is alone, and the martyr believes that God is crucifying him. Both really fear abandonment and retaliation, but the atheist is more reactive against abandonment and the martyr against retaliation.
98 The atheist maintains that God has left him, but he does not care. He will, however, become very fearful and hence very angry if anyone suggests that God has
not left him. The martyr, on the other hand, is more aware of guilt and, believing that punishment is inevitable, attempts to teach himself to
like it. The truth is, very simply, that no one wants
either abandonment
or retaliation. Many people
seek both, but it is still true that they do not
want them. Can you ask the Holy Spirit for "gifts" such as these and actually expect to
receive them? He cannot make you want something you do not want. When you ask the Universal Giver for what you do not want, you are asking for what cannot be given because it was never created. It was never created because it was never your will for
you.
99 Ultimately everyone must remember the Will of God because ultimately everyone must recognize
himself. This recognition is the recognition that his will and God's are one. In the presence of truth, there are
no unbelievers and
no sacrifices. In the security of reality, fear is totally meaningless. To deny what
is can only
seem to be fearful. Fear cannot be real without a cause, and God is the
only Cause. God is Love, and you
do want Him. This
is your will. Ask for this and you
will be answered because you will be asking only for what
belongs to you.
100 When you ask the Holy Spirit for what would hurt you, He cannot answer because
nothing can hurt you
and so you are asking for nothing.
Any desire which stems from the ego
is a desire for nothing and to ask for it is
not a request. It is merely a denial in the
form of a request. The Holy Spirit is not concerned with form at all, being aware only of
meaning. The ego cannot ask the Holy Spirit for
anything because there is
complete communication failure between them. Yet
you can ask for
everything of the Holy Spirit because
your requests are real, being of your will. Would the Holy Spirit deny the Will of God? And could He fail to recognize it in His Sons?
101 The energy which you withdraw from creation you expend on fear. This is not because your energy is limited but because
you have limited it. You do not recognize the enormous waste of energy which you expend in denying truth. What would you say of someone who persisted in attempting the impossible, believing that to
achieve it is
success? The belief that you
must have the impossible in order to be happy is totally at variance with the principle of creation. God
could not will that happiness
depended on what you could never
have.
102 The fact that God is love does not require belief, but it
does require acceptance. It is indeed possible for you to
deny facts, although it is impossible for you to
change them. If you hold your hands over your eyes, you will
not see, because you are interfering with the laws of seeing. If you deny love, you will
not know it, because your cooperation is
the law of its being. You cannot change laws you did not make, and the laws of happiness were created
for you, not
by you.
103 Attempts of any kind to deny what
is are fearful, and if they are strong, they
will induce panic. Willing
against reality, though impossible, can be
made into a very persistent goal,
even though you do not want it. But consider the result of this strange decision. You are
devoting your mind to what you do not want. How real can this devotion
be? If you do not want it, it was never created. If it was never created, it is nothing. Can you
really devote yourself to nothing?
104 God in His devotion to you created you devoted to
everything and
gave you what you are devoted to. Otherwise, you would not have been created perfect. Reality
is everything, and therefore you have everything
because you are real. You cannot make the unreal, because the
absence of reality is fearful, and fear cannot
be created. As long as you believe that fear is possible,
you will not create. Opposing orders of reality
make reality meaningless, and reality
is meaning.
105 Remember, then, that God's Will is
already possible and nothing else will
ever be. This is the simple acceptance of reality because only this
is real. You cannot
distort reality and
know what it is. And if you
do distort reality, you will experience anxiety, depression, and ultimately panic, because you are trying to
make yourself unreal. When you feel these things, do not try to look
beyond yourself for truth, for truth can only be
within you. Say, therefore,
106
Christ is in me and where He is God must be,
for Christ is part of Him.
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