"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
Herein Lies the peace of God."
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A
Course in Miracles
TEXT
CHAPTER 5
Healing and Wholeness
VI. Therapy and Teaching
Continued
51
You have become willing to receive my messages as I give them without interference by the ego, so we can clarify an earlier point. We said that you will one day teach as much as you learn and that will keep you in balance. The time is now because you have
let
it be now. You cannot learn
except
by teaching.
52
I heard one voice because I had learned that learning is attained
by
teaching. I understood that
I could not atone for myself alone.
Listening to one voice means the will to
share
the voice in order to hear it yourself. The mind that was in me is still irresistibly drawn to every mind created by God because God's Wholeness
is
the wholeness of His Son.
53
Turning the other cheek does
not
mean that you should submit to violence without protest. It means that you cannot
be
hurt and do not want to show your brother anything
except
your wholeness. Show him that he
cannot
hurt you and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself. Teaching is done in many ways: by formal means, by guidance, and above all
by example
. Teaching is therapy because it means the
sharing
of ideas and the awareness that to share them is to
strengthen
them. The union of the Sonship
is
its protection. The ego cannot prevail against the Kingdom
because
it is united, and the ego fades away and is undone in the presence of the attraction of the parts of the Sonship, which hear the call of the Holy Spirit to be as One.
54
I cannot forget my need to teach what I have learned, which arose in me
because
I learned it. I call upon you to teach what you have learned because by so doing
you
can depend on it. Make it dependable in my name because my name is the Name of God's Son. What I learned I give you freely, and the mind which was in me rejoices as
you
choose to hear it. The Holy Spirit atones in all of us by
undoing
and thus lifts the burden you have placed in your mind. By following Him, He leads you back to God where you belong, and how can you find this way except by taking your brother with you?
55
My part in the Atonement is not complete until
you
join it and give it away. As you teach, so shall you learn. I will never leave you or forsake you because to forsake you would be to forsake myself and God who created me. You will forsake yourselves and God if you forsake
any
of your brothers. You are more than your brother's keeper. In fact, you do not
want
to keep him. You must learn to see him as he is and
know
that he belongs to God as you do. How could you treat your brother better than by rendering unto God the things which are God's?
56
Ideas do not
leave
the mind which thought them to have a separate being, nor do separate thoughts conflict with one another in space because they do not occupy space at all. However, human ideas
can
conflict in content because they occur at different levels and include opposite thoughts at the
same
level.
It is impossible to share opposing thoughts
. The Holy Spirit does not
let
you forsake your brothers. Therefore, you can really share
only
the parts of your thoughts which are of Him and which He also keeps for
you
. And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. All the rest remains with you until He has reinterpreted them in the light of the Kingdom, making them, too, worthy of being shared. When they have been sufficiently purified, He lets you give them away. The will to share them
is
their purification
.
57
The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the power to create is of God. Therefore, those who have been forgiven must devote themselves first to healing because having
received
the idea of healing, they must
give
it to
hold
it. The full power of creation cannot be expressed as long as
any
of God's ideas withhold it from the Kingdom. The joint will of
all
the Sonship is the only creator that can create like the Father because only the complete can think completely, and the thinking of God lacks nothing. Everything you think that is not through the Holy Spirit
is
lacking.
58
How can you who are so holy suffer? All your past except its beauty is gone, and nothing is left except a blessing. You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I loved myself. You go
with
my blessing and
for
my blessing. Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. The heart is pure to hold it and the hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgment is as strong as the wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. His quiet Children are His blessed Sons. The Thoughts of God are with you.
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A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK
Part I
Review I
1
Beginning with today, we will have a series of review periods. Each of them will cover five of the ideas already presented, starting with the first and ending with the fiftieth. There will be a few short comments after each of the ideas which you should consider in your review. In the practice periods, the exercises should be done as follows:
2
Begin the day by reading the five ideas, with the comments included. Thereafter, it is not necessary to follow any particular order in considering them, though each one should be practiced at least once. Devote two minutes or more to each practice period, thinking about the idea and the related comments. Do this as often as possible during the day. If any one of the five ideas appeals to you more than the others, concentrate on that one. At the end of the day, however, be sure to review all of them once more.
3
It is not necessary to cover the comments that follow each idea literally or thoroughly in the practice periods. Rather, try merely to emphasize the central point and think about it as part of your review of the idea to which it relates.
4
The review exercises should be done with your eyes closed and when you are alone in a quiet place if possible. This is emphasized particularly for reviews at your stage of learning. It will be necessary, however, that you learn to require no special settings in which to apply what you have learned. You will need it most in situations which appear to be upsetting, rather than in those which already seem to be calm and quiet.
5
The purpose of your learning is to enable you to bring the quiet with you and to heal distress and turmoil. This is not done by avoiding them and seeking a haven of isolation for yourself. You will yet learn that peace is part of you and requires only that you be there to embrace any situation in which you are. And finally you will learn that there is no limit to where you are, so that your peace is everywhere, as you are.
6
You will note that for review purposes the ideas are not always given in quite their original form of statement. Use them as they are given here. It is not necessary to return to the original statements nor to apply the ideas as was suggested then. We are now emphasizing the relationships among the first fifty of the ideas we have covered and the cohesiveness of the thought system to which they are leading you.
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A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK
Lesson 58
[Review of Lessons 36-40]
1
These ideas are for review today:
[36] My holiness envelops everything I see.
2
From my holiness does the perception of the real world come. Having forgiven, I no longer see myself as guilty. I can accept the innocence that is the truth about me. Seen through understanding eyes, the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself.
[37] My holiness blesses the world.
3
The perception of my holiness does not bless me alone. Everyone and everything I see in its light shares in the joy it brings to me. There is nothing that is apart from this joy because there is nothing that does not share my holiness. As I recognize my holiness, so does the holiness of the world shine forth for everyone to see.
[38] There is nothing my holiness cannot do.
4
My holiness is unlimited in its power to heal because it is unlimited in its power to save. What is there to be saved from except illusions? And what are all illusions except false ideas about myself? My holiness undoes them all by asserting the truth about me. In the presence of my holiness, which I share with God Himself, all idols vanish.
[39] My holiness is my salvation.
5
Since my holiness saves me from all guilt, recognizing my holiness is recognizing my salvation. It is also recognizing the salvation of the world. Once I have accepted my holiness, nothing can make me afraid. And because I am unafraid, everyone must share in my understanding, which is the gift of God to me and to the world.
[40] I am blessed as a Son of God.
6
Herein lies my claim to all good and only good. I am blessed as a Son of God. All good things are mine because God intended them for me. I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son.
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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 58
[Review of Lessons 36-40]
What are you blaming yourself for today? Are you feeling guilty about something you have said, not said, done, left undone? Are you judging yourself?
"What can it be but arrogance to think your little errors cannot be undone by Heaven's justice?"
(T.25.IX 1.1) (ACIM OE T.25.X.28) We all yearn to be innocent. That is one of the reasons we project blame and responsibility for our unhappiness onto others and make them guilty in our minds. If I see them as the cause of my problems and not myself, I am trying to purchase my innocence at someone else’s expense. Of course, as I have said often before, this is not true innocence. In fact, when we project the guilt in our minds onto others, it is how we keep it. The ego never lets us see this, which is why Jesus goes to great lengths to explain to us how the ego set all this up. The ego is clearly insane; it has set up a brilliant program that looks foolproof when we look at it from within its system, but Jesus assures us it is not God proof.
We don't want to feel responsible for everything that seems to happen to us. We want to make others responsible so we can feel innocent, even if it means we have to forsake our own power. The truth is we are never victims but actually choose to be betrayed so we can pretend we have no responsibility for what seems to happen. It is about pretending to be innocent so others can carry the guilt of separation rather than ourselves. Now we cry for our lost innocence, which, in fact, can't be lost and has not been lost. We think we cry for all kinds of reasons, but there is only one‑‑‑our sadness because we believe we have actually done something to corrupt ourselves and have lost our innocence.
That is why the Lesson today is all about trying to get us to appreciate the fact that we are holy. Our holiness is what is kept hidden by our ego thought system. Yes, we make mistakes and suffer from ignorance, but we are not guilty. Mistakes can be corrected and be undone as long as we don’t see them as sins. Jesus asks,
"And what could this mean except that they are sins and not mistakes, forever
uncorrectable, and to be met with vengeance, not with justice?"
(T.25.IX.1.2) (ACIM OE T.25.X.78) Sin requires punishment. For those of us who have had religious training, while there were messages of a loving God, we were also reminded of our guilt and how bad we should feel because Jesus had to be crucified for our sins. This is an example of how the ego has projected its own image onto God, who now becomes a more powerful ego and an administrator of punishment.
Jesus says that belief in sin is arrogant. It is actually our belief that we are stuck with the ego and that it is our immutable nature. It makes God powerless by saying our errors are beyond
"Heaven’s justice."
(T.25.IX.1.1) (ACIM OE T.25.X.78) Yet all it takes is for us to be
". . . willing to be released from all effects of sin."
(T.25.IX.1.3) (ACIM OE T.25.X.78)
It seems like something we would really want until he lets us know the conditions of answering "yes."
"For if you answer 'yes' it means that you will forego all values of this world in favor of the peace of Heaven."
(T.25.IX.1.5) (ACIM OE T.25.X.78) We may think this is asking too much of us and we doubt that this is possible. But all this does is, it gives more power to the hold illusion has on us than to what is possible for God.
We get off course all the time, but like the pilot of a 747 who is constantly veering off course, the Holy Spirit is our GPS, constantly guiding us back on track. We are constantly getting off course still living on the fault line of both thought systems. The first Lesson of the Holy Spirit,
"To have, give all to all,"
(T.6.V.B.3.2) (ACIM OE T.6.b.72) makes it clear that having comes from giving. It is about undoing the concept that having comes from getting. What we have is our being, which, of course, can never be lost. But when we get on this path, we experience conflict as we feel a desire to get and also a pull towards knowing what we are. Spirit is about giving to all, while ego is about getting for oneself. It is a world of one or the other, where for me to win, you must lose. While we do want the peace of God, we still also want to hold onto illusions until truth has greater value for us. We want to forgive, but we also want to hold onto what we see as justified grievances. This is a conflicted state. Until we make a choice only for God, we will continue to experience conflict.
We came here to try to find happiness in the world, but now the world can serve a different purpose. It can be a classroom where we learn what we truly are. We will be motivated to do so when we recognize that the world is not a place where we will ever find our happiness. Happiness will only come when we remember our true reality. When we recognize the world is not the source of our happiness, we willingly turn to the Holy Spirit, Who will show us how the world and all of our relationships can be used to help us to return to the truth of our Self.
In Chapter 13, we see why Jesus says to us that it is important to see our brothers as innocent.
"See no one, then, as guilty, and you will affirm the truth of guiltlessness unto yourself. In every condemnation that you offer the Son of God lies the conviction of your own guilt. If you would have the Holy Spirit make you free of it, accept His offer of Atonement for all your brothers. For so you learn that it is true for you."
(T.13.IV.6.1‑4) (ACIM OE T.13.III.16) When we attack and condemn, we increase our own guilt and our own self-condemnation; but when we forgive, we give this gift to ourselves, as well as to the world.
"Guilt is always in your mind, which has condemned itself. Project it not, for while you do, it cannot be undone."
(T.13.IX.6.7-8) (ACIM OE T.13.III.16) We can only undo the guilt in our own minds if we take responsibility for it and not blame anyone else. When we are willing to see that whatever we condemn in our brothers we are reinforcing in ourselves and only hurting ourselves, we become more motivated to apply these lessons daily.
These Lessons remind us that forgiving the world and all our relationships is how we learn we are innocent. As long as we attack and hold grievances, we will not know our holiness. That is why forgiveness is at the heart of healing our minds. With recognition of our own holiness, it is extended to everyone in the world, and now we see a world of holiness where we see our healed thoughts extended. We see a world that is blessed. It is the real world, which is a state of mind where peace and joy reign.
Now the holiness of the world shines forth and
"Everyone and everything I see in its light shares in the joy it brings to me."
(W.58.2.3) The joy we experience is not for us alone. We all share in this holiness that is a gift to everyone. It is not for me alone. This is how joy is increased and how everyone receives the blessing.
"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."
(W.58.3.1) It has unlimited power to heal and to save. We are saved from all our false ideas about ourselves. We are saved from the image that we think is what we are as bodies, personalities, and concepts we hold about ourselves. It is a petty image that keeps us in the illusion and keeps us in fear. Yet
"Once I have accepted my holiness, nothing can make me afraid."
(W.58.4.4)
Today, remember to claim
"all good and only good"
(W.58.5.2) All good things are yours because of what you are. (W.58.5.4-5) You are supported, protected, and guided in all things. You are blessed. When we claim what is ours in our creation as God intended for us, we will know we cannot suffer loss, deprivation, or pain of any kind.
"My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son."
(W.58.5.6-8) He holds our inheritance for us until we are ready to claim it. His Love is lavished on us, and we will know it fully when we have forgiven the world. Then, we will have awakened from the ego's dream of suffering and know we are at home with God, a home we have never left except in dreams.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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