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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 20 THE PROMISE OF THE RESURRECTION
III. THORNS AND LILIES
7 Each gift is an evaluation of the receiver and the
giver. No one but sees in his chosen home an altar to himself. No one but seeks to draw to it the worshipers of what he placed upon it, making it worthy of their devotion. And each has set a light upon his altar, that they may see what he has placed upon it and take it for their own. Here is the value that you lay upon your brother and on yourself. Here is your gift to both; your judgment on the Son of God for what he is. Forget not that it is your savior to whom the gift is offered. Offer him thorns and
you are crucified. Offer him lilies and it is yourself you free.
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
WORKBOOK for STUDENTS
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
Forgiveness recognizes what you thought
your brother did to you has not occurred.
It does not pardon sins, and make them real.
It sees there was no sin. And in this view
are all your sins forgiven. What is sin
except a false idea of God's Son?
Forgiveness merely sees its falsity,
and therefore lets it go. What then is free
to take its place is now the Will of God.
An unforgiving thought is one which makes
a judgment that it will not raise to doubt,
although it is untrue. The mind is closed,
and will not be released. The thought protects
projection, tightening its chains, so that
distortions are more veiled and more obscure;
less easily accessible to doubt,
and further kept from reason. What can come
between a fixed projection and the aim
that it has chosen as its needed goal?
An unforgiving thought does many things.
In frantic action it pursues its goal,
twisting and overturning what it sees
as interfering with its chosen path.
Distortion is its purpose, and the means
by which it would accomplish it as well.
It sets about its furious attempts
to smash reality without concern
for anything that would appear to pose
a contradiction to its point of view.
Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still
and quietly does nothing. It offends
no aspect of reality, nor seeks
to twist it to appearance that it likes.
It merely looks and waits and judges not.
He who would not forgive must judge, for he
must justify his failure to forgive.
But he who would forgive himself must learn
to welcome truth exactly as it is.
Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show
you what to do through Him Who is your Guide,
your Saviour and Defender, strong in hope
and certain of your ultimate success.
He has forgiven you already, for
such is His function, given Him by God.
Now must you share His function, and forgive
whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees,
and whom He honors as the Son of God. "
~ Original Hand Script September 21, 1970
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L e s s o n 223
God is my life.
I have no life but His.
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
I was mistaken when I thought I lived
apart from God, a separate entity
which moved in isolation, unattached,
and housed within a body. Now I know
my life is God's, I have no other home,
and I do not exist apart from Him.
He has no Thoughts that are not part of me,
and I have none but Those which are of Him.
Our Father, let us see the face of Christ
instead of our mistakes. For we who are
Your holy Son are sinless. We would look
upon our sinlessness, for guilt proclaims
that we are not Your Son. And we would not
forget You longer. We are lonely here,
and long for Heaven, where we are at home.
Today we would return. Our name is Yours,
and we acknowledge that we are Your Son.
~ Original Handscript of ACIM September 23, 1970
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
LESSON 223
God is my life. I have no life but His.
Sarah's Commentary:
We are mistaken when we think this experience we seem to be having in the body is life. We cannot live apart from God, yet it appears it is exactly what we believe we are doing. I do think I am a separate entity, moving in isolation, unattached, and housed in a body, yet this Lesson says this is not the case at all. This is not our existence.
"I do not exist apart from Him." (W.223 1.2) Today, we let the idea sink in that we have no life apart from God. I function as if I were a body, separate from others, trying to find my way in the world, to be a success, to be happy, to be as good as I know how to be to people around me, and to try to find my way back to God. Yet I have never left Him! We are still with God, dreaming of exile, dreaming this so-called "life."
This is a beautiful prayer, asking our Father that we might see and know the truth about ourselves rather than focus on our problems and our mistakes. It is our own deep desire of the heart being reflected in this prayer. We are innocent, but we don't know it and so we long for our innocence. In fact, all of our tears, no matter what we think they are about, are only because we believe we have lost our innocence. The truth is we have not lost our innocence. We only believe we have because our innocence is not in our awareness while we hold thoughts obscuring it.
Today, we turn to God in all sincerity, recognizing we are his beloved Son. We have never left our home in Heaven. We are only dreaming of exile. We are the prodigal son, afraid to go home, but our Father calls us incessantly to return. Of course, this is a metaphor because our Father knows we are already at home with Him. The Holy Spirit's Voice, the Voice for God, is the Call in the mind for us to wake up and realize we are with our Father and have never left Him. We have no life apart from Him. This life is our dream. It is illusory. It is a dream from which we are called to awaken, but these are only words until we have an experience where we feel the safety of God's loving embrace. We get closer to that experience every time we ask with sincerity, "Our Father, let us see the face of Christ instead of our mistakes." (W.223.2.1) When we see the innocence in our brothers, we can know our own. We project guilt onto our brothers as a way of buying our innocence at their expense. If we can blame others, we think we can remain innocent of the wrongdoings we ascribe to them, but this is just a way to keep the guilt in our own minds, hidden from our awareness.
We are reminded in Chapter 19, Sections II, and III, the world is constant proof that sin has overpowered God, we have stolen our identity from Him, and thus defeated Him, corrupted our nature, and are now guilty. We continue to be invested in the self and the world and thus resist God's Love, believing it will annihilate us. Thus, we have turned the power of our mind against ourselves, believing we have changed reality. Yet we are assured by Jesus that this is an arrogant thought because we cannot change reality and we cannot change the truth about ourselves. We can only think we have done it. The only thing that has happened is we have become unaware of who we are, and through forgiveness, the barriers to the truth are removed.
We need to stay vigilant in looking at our defenses that block God from our awareness. How do we defend against the truth? We do it through sickness, control, anger, intellect, victimhood, distraction, addiction, arrogance, and ultimately death. Defenses keep us from receiving the love of God. God is fully present all the time. We are the ones not present to Him. It is up to us to invite Him in. The ego mind has convinced us that we cannot trust Him. We fear His retribution for our assumed sins. We believe the foundation of our lives would collapse, but Jesus assures us that love can have no opposite. God is only Love. There is no time, no space, no sin, no guilt, no fear, and no death. We are eternal beings who have never left our home. We are just having a dream of living in exile.
Forgiveness undoes the false so what remains is true. Forgiveness requires we look at our false perceptions, our grievances, our specialness, and see them all as nothing. In the process, we may feel disoriented as the ego is being deconstructed. We need to recognize how much we want to protect our thought system and our certainty that we are right. We are choosing to be right rather than happy. Yet in questioning everything, we increasingly see the unreality of our unconscious beliefs. The whole point is to doubt the accuracy of how we perceive ourselves and others. We need to recognize the guilt we see in others is in our own minds. While we might feel there is someone outside of ourselves whom we need to forgive, the truth is we only need to forgive the guilt in our own minds that we have projected onto others. In reality, there is no one to forgive. We only forgive the thoughts in our own minds. It does not mean others have not made mistakes just as we have, but mistakes call for correction, not punishment.
We are set on preserving our individuality, which is to maintain ourselves as separated beings. Our attraction to guilt is all about our investment in what we have made. We are reluctant to give up our investment in our identity, but with forgiveness, we access the truth in our right minds, and then the love we are can be reflected through us. As it is shared with others, it is reinforced in us.
Today in our prayer we remind ourselves we have not sinned and therefore are not guilty. Yet because we believe we have committed a crime, we are called to recognize we have been mistaken about ourselves. Our mistaken perceptions can all be undone with willingness to look at our projections, take responsibility for them, and bring them to the Holy Spirit so they can be undone.
We have so many thoughts running through our minds based on fear. They may be related to money, relationships, lack, expectations, demands, requirements, and uncertainties. We give value to what has no value and that is where suffering comes from. Thus, I choose to withdraw my beliefs from thoughts that have no power. The only power they have is the power I have given them. Today, let us be vigilant in mind-watching and release the thoughts that do not serve our peace and happiness. Peace and joy are our natural inheritance. The desire to awaken motivates us to let all interfering thoughts be seen as the nothingness they are. "What God did not give you has no power over you, and the attraction of love for love remains irresistible." (T.12.VIII.7.10) (ACIM OE T.11.IX.83)
Our days are perfectly orchestrated for our highest good when we choose to use everything that happens in the day for healing purposes. Everything that shows up is perfect for the undoing of our wrong-minded perceptions. Now, everything in the day becomes a joyous opportunity for undoing our wrong-minded perceptions and following the Holy Spirit. Today, we see the face of Christ in every brother instead of our mistakes projected onto them. "For we who are Your holy Son are sinless." (W.223.2.2)
Love and Blessings, Sarah
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1 This is Palm Sunday, the celebration of victory and the acceptance of the truth. Let us not spend this holy week brooding on the crucifixion of God's Son, but happily in the celebration of his release. For Easter is the sign of peace, not pain. A slain Christ has no meaning. But a
risen Christ becomes the symbol of the Son of God's forgiveness of himself; the sign he looks upon himself as healed and whole.
II. Holy Week
2 This week begins with palms and ends with lilies, the white and holy sign the Son of God is innocent. Let no dark sign of crucifixion intervene between the journey and its purpose; between the acceptance of the truth and its expression. This week we celebrate life, not death. And we honor the perfect purity of the Son of God and not his sins. Offer each other the gift of lilies, not the crown of thorns; the gift of love and not the "gift" of fear. You stand beside each other, thorns in one hand and lilies in the other, uncertain which to give. Join now with me and throw away the thorns, offering the lilies to replace them. This Easter, I would have the gift of your forgiveness offered by you to me and returned by me to you.
3 We
cannot be united in crucifixion and in death. Nor can the resurrection be complete till your forgiveness rests on Christ along with mine. A week is short, and yet this holy week is the symbol of the whole journey the Son of God has undertaken. He started with the sign of victory the promise of the resurrection already given him. Let him not wander into the temptation of crucifixion and delay him there. Help him to go in peace beyond it, with the light of his own innocence lighting his way to his redemption and release. Hold him not back with thorns and nails when his redemption is so near. But let the whiteness of your shining gift of lilies speed him on his way to resurrection.
4 [Easter is not the celebration of the
cost of sin but of its
end.] If you see glimpses of the face of Christ behind the veil looking between the snow white petals of the lilies you have received and given as your gift, you will behold each other's face and recognize it. I was a stranger and you took me in, not knowing who I was. Yet for your gift of lilies you will know. In your forgiveness of this stranger, alien to you and yet your ancient Friend, lie his release and your redemption with him. The time of Easter is a time of joy and not of mourning. Look on your risen Friend and celebrate his holiness along with me. For Easter is the time of your salvation, along with mine.
III. Thorns and Lilies
5 Look upon all the trinkets made to hang upon the body or to cover it or for its use. See all the useless things made for its eyes to see. Think on the many offerings made for its pleasure and remember all these were made to make seem lovely what you hate. Would you employ this hated thing to draw your brother to you and to attract his body's eyes? Learn you but offer him a crown of thorns, not recognizing it for what it is and trying to justify your own interpretation of its value by his acceptance. Yet still the gift proclaims his worthlessness to you, as his acceptance and delight acknowledges the lack of value he places on himself.
6 Gifts are not made through bodies if they be truly given and received. For bodies can neither offer nor accept; hold out nor take. Only the mind can value, and only the mind decides on what it would receive and give. And every gift it offers depends on what it wants. It will adorn its chosen home most carefully, making it ready to receive the gifts it wants by offering them to those who come unto its chosen home or those it would attract to it. And there they will exchange their gifts, offering and receiving what their minds judge to be worthy of them.
7 Each gift is an evaluation of the receiver and the
giver. No one but sees in his chosen home an altar to himself. No one but seeks to draw to it the worshipers of what he placed upon it, making it worthy of their devotion. And each has set a light upon his altar, that they may see what he has placed upon it and take it for their own. Here is the value that you lay upon your brother and on yourself. Here is your gift to both; your judgment on the Son of God for what he is. Forget not that it is your savior to whom the gift is offered. Offer him thorns and
you are crucified. Offer him lilies and it is yourself you free.
8 I have great need for lilies, for the Son of God has not forgiven me. And can I offer him forgiveness when he offers thorns to me? For he who offers thorns to anyone is against me still, and who is whole without him? Be you his friend for me that I may be forgiven and you may look upon the Son of God as whole. But look you first upon the altar in your chosen home and see what you have laid upon it to offer me. If it be thorns whose points gleam sharply in a blood-red light, the body is your chosen home, and it is separation that you offer me. And yet the thorns are gone. Look you still closer at them now, and you will see your altar is no longer what it was.
9 You look still with the body's eyes, and they can see but thorns. Yet you have asked for and received another sight. Those who accept the Holy Spirit's purpose as their own share also His vision. And what enables Him to see His purpose shine forth from every altar now is yours as well as His. He sees no strangers, only dearly loved and loving friends. He sees no thorns, but only lilies, gleaming in the gentle glow of peace that shines on everything He looks upon and loves.
10 This Easter look with different eyes upon each other. You
have forgiven me. And yet I cannot use your gift of lilies while you see them not. Nor can you use what I have given unless you share it. The Holy Spirit's vision is no idle gift, no plaything to be tossed about a while and laid aside. Listen and hear this carefully, nor think it but a dream-a careless thought to play with or a toy you would pick up from time to time and then put by. For if you do, so will it be to you.
11 You have the vision now to look past
all illusions. It has been given you to see no thorns, no strangers, and no obstacles to peace. The fear of God is nothing to you now. Who is afraid to look upon illusions, knowing his savior stands beside him? With him, your vision has become the greatest power for the undoing of illusion that God Himself could give. For what God gave the Holy Spirit, you have received. The Son of God looks unto you for his release. For you have asked for and been given the strength to look upon this final obstacle and see no thorns nor nails to crucify the Son of God and crown him king of death. Your chosen home is on the other side, beyond the veil. It has been carefully prepared for you, and it is ready to receive you now. You will not see it with the body's eyes. Yet all you need you have.
12 Your home has called to you since time began, nor have you ever failed entirely to hear. You heard but knew not
how to look nor
where. And now you know. In you the knowledge lies, ready to be unveiled and freed from all the terror that kept it hidden. There
is no fear in love. The song of Easter is the glad refrain the Son of God was
never crucified. Let us lift up our eyes together, not in fear, but faith. And there will be no fear in us, for in our vision will be no illusions-only a pathway to the open door of Heaven, the home we share in quietness, and where we live in gentleness and peace as one together.
13 Would you not have your holy brother lead you there? His innocence will light your way, offering you its guiding light and sure protection, and shining from the holy altar within him where you laid the lilies of forgiveness. Let him be to you the savior from illusions, and look on him with the new vision that looks upon the lilies and brings you joy. We go beyond the veil of fear, lighting each other's way. The holiness that leads us is within us, as is our home. So will we find what we were meant to find by Him Who leads us.
14 This is the way to Heaven and to the peace of Easter, in which we join in glad awareness that the Son of God is risen from the past and has awakened to the present. Now is he free, unlimited in his communion with all that is within him. Now are the lilies of his innocence untouched by guilt and perfectly protected from the cold chill of fear and withering blight of sin alike. Your gift has saved him from the thorns and nails, and his strong arm is free to guide you safely through them and beyond. Walk with him now rejoicing, for the savior from illusions has come to greet you and lead you home with him.
15 Here is your savior and your friend, released from crucifixion through your vision and free to lead you now where he would be. He will not leave you nor forsake the savior from his pain. And gladly will you walk the way of innocence together, singing as you behold the open door of Heaven, and recognize the home that called to you. Give joyously to one another the freedom and the strength to lead you there. And come before each other's holy altar where the strength and freedom wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness that leads you home. The lamp is lit in both of you for one another. And by the hands that gave it to each other shall both of you be led past fear to love.
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