|
|
| Graphic by ©Deposit Photos |
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 22 SALVATION AND THE HOLY RELATIONSHIP
III. YOUR BROTHER'S SINLESSNESS
28 All you need do to dwell in quiet here with Christ is share His vision. Quickly and gladly is His vision given to anyone who is but willing to see his brother sinless. And no one can remain beyond this willingness if you would be released entirely from all effects of sin. Would you have partial forgiveness for yourself? Can you reach Heaven while a single sin still tempts you to remain in misery? Heaven is the home of perfect purity, and God created it for you. Look on your holy brother, sinless as yourself, and let him lead you there.
|
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
WORKBOOK for STUDENTS
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
The world is false perception. It is born
of error, and it has not left its source.
It will remain no longer than the thought
that gave it birth is cherished. When the thought
of separation has been changed to one
of true forgiveness, will the world be seen
in quite another light; and one that leads
to truth, where all the world must disappear,
and all its errors vanish. Now its source
has gone, and its effects are gone as well.
The world was made as an attack on God.
It symbolizes fear. And what is fear
except love's absence? Thus the world was meant
to be a place where God could enter not,
and where His Son could be apart from Him.
Here was perception born, for knowledge could
not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive,
and ears hear falsely. Now mistakes become
quite possible, for certainty has gone.
The mechanisms of illusion have
been born instead. And now they go to find
what has been given them to seek. Their aim
is to fulfill the purpose which the world
was made to witness and make real. They see
in its illusions but a solid base
where truth exists, upheld apart from lies.
Yet everything which they report is but
illusion which is kept apart from truth.
As sight was made to lead away from truth,
it can be redirected. Sounds become
the call of God. And all perception can
be given a new purpose, by the One
Whom God appointed Saviour to the world.
Follow His light, and see the world as He
beholds it. Hear His Voice alone in all
that speaks to you. And let Him give you peace
and certainty, which you have thrown away,
but Heaven has preserved for you in Him.
Let us not rest content until the world
has joined our changed perception. Let us not
be satisfied until forgiveness has
been made complete. And let us not attempt
to change our function. We must save the world.
For we who made it must behold it through
the eyes of Christ, that what was made to die
can be restored to everlasting life.
|
L e s s o n 245
Your peace is with me, Father.
I am safe.
<AUDIO><VIDEO>
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
Your peace surrounds me, Father. Where I go,
Your peace goes there with me. It sheds its light
on everyone I meet. I bring it to
the desolate and lonely and afraid.
I give Your peace to those who suffer pain,
or grieve for loss, or think they are bereft
of hope and happiness. Send me to them,
my Father. Let me bring Your peace with me,
for I would save Your Son, as is Your Will,
that I may come to recognize my Self.
And so we go in peace. To all the world
we give the message that we have received.
And thus we come to hear the Voice of God,
Who speaks to us as we relate His Word;
Whose Love we recognize because we share
the Word that He has given unto us.
~ Original Handscript of ACIM
|
|
ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
LESSON 245
Your peace is with me, Father. I am safe.
Sarah's Commentary:
How would you feel if you really knew God's peace was with you? Let yourself feel that now. Your peace surrounds me, Father. Feel it surrounding you, hovering over you, holding you up. "Where I go, Your peace goes there with me. It sheds its light on everyone I meet." (W.245.1.2) The truth is, the peace in our right minds is always there, and when it is no longer blocked, it shines on everyone who we think about or who crosses our path. Clearly, this is not something we do, but it is something done through us. We surrender our way, including our expectations, demands, and requirements. The radiance comes through us when we bring awareness to the debris of the ego mind and are willing to release it. The light of our Being extends to our brothers in just the form that is most helpful. When judgment arises in my mind, I look at it and recognize I have thought wrongly about a situation or a brother, and I can choose again.
I had an instance recently of being very angry with a brother and the justification for this anger seemed very strong, but I was willing to take responsibility for it and accept that it was my mind, projecting my own guilt onto someone who seemed "deserving" of it. Can we not always find the perfect targets for our own guilt? It is why the world and specifics were made. I asked for help to see my brother as he really is. I asked for help to loosen my mind and give up my own judgments so I could know peace. I used this experience as an opportunity to inquire more deeply as to what was really upsetting me about the situation. I allowed the mind to rest and I breathed in slowly and softened into the question without attacking myself. When I looked more deeply at the belief that I was betrayed, I found a place in me where I had left my center and felt abandoned. Out of this feeling came expectations of what I wanted to be different than it was. Such inquiry assists us in putting these painful beliefs that we uncover through this kind of inquiry onto the inner altar. It is not up to us to fix ourselves. Putting our fears, our guilt, and our beliefs onto the inner altar allows the Holy Spirit to do His part.
I have been extremely overwhelmed lately with all the requirements I put on myself to meet expectations. When I don't get everything done, I feel guilty. I looked at what this guilt was about and noticed it was all about deciding what is good. When I judge I have not been good, I feel guilty, but my determination of what is good and bad is all a concept I hold of myself. Jesus reminds us we are good in our very nature, and our goodness has nothing to do with what we do or don't accomplish. When we measure what is good about ourselves by our accomplishments, we judge ourselves whenever we do not meet our own expectations. These judgments keep us locked in the trap of the ego. It keeps its focus outside of ourselves to assess how we are doing. The only way out of this trap is to release ourselves from our self-judgments and to recognize our inherent nature is goodness. There is no opposite to love. We need to release our self-concepts by recognizing they do not serve us. It takes a willingness to let go of what no longer serves us.
Everyone who shows up in our lives, even those who cross our minds, offer us another opportunity to wake up from this dream. "Send them to me, my Father. Let me bring Your peace with me." (W.245.1.6-7) Our brothers are our saviors. Think of the benefits to you of the role each brother has in your life as your savior. They are our saviors because they help us to see the guilt we are projecting onto them from our own wrong minds. Those brothers who are part of our movie script are precisely the ones we need in order to help us wake up from this dream. By forgiving ourselves for how we see them, and for what we perceive they have done or not done, we learn of our own innocence. Through our relationships, we come to recognize we are all innocent. Our brothers are there to reflect perfectly what is in our own minds. Whatever we have come to believe about ourselves, the truth is we have not done anything to deserve God's wrath, and thus there is nothing we need to atone for.
Peace is an attribute in us. It is always there, but it is not consistently our experience. Peace seems to be dependent on how things are going in the world for us. We are peaceful when things go our way and not peaceful when they don't. Thus, it seems our peace is determined by outside circumstances, but this is not true peace. Peace is an attribute in us and it is changeless. It is not dependent on what is going on around us. Peace seems to be gone when we choose to listen to the ego, but it is only gone in our awareness. When I am not at peace, it is because I have turned to the ego as my guide.
Today, I started my day in peace only to have a conversation that resulted in conflict. My peace vanished in that instant. Peace is an attribute in me, so if I do not have peace, it is only because I chose to throw it away. I gave power to this situation to take my peace from me. How often do we throw our peace away for the most trivial of reasons? Someone cuts us off in traffic and our peace is gone. When we are not at peace, further opportunities to stay distressed seem to show up. Have you noticed how this happens in your day? It is because when we attack anyone, we experience guilt; and in our minds, we believe guilt requires punishment. When we betray anyone, we expect betrayal. It is not a conscious process, yet we can bring it to consciousness and choose again by giving over our interpretation of the situation to the Holy Spirit. When we turn to the Holy Spirit for His interpretation in place of our own, He reminds us that our attacks have no effect, and we simply have failed to learn, which is a mistake that can be corrected. The only requirement is for us to change our minds.
This is where the practice of our Lessons assists us to return to peace by choosing forgiveness. I am not always successful in making this choice instantly. It helps to remind myself I am not guilty of my lack of peace, but I have only made a mistake. When I simply look and do not judge myself for it, I recognize I need not make myself feel guilty. Mistakes can be corrected when they are seen for what they are. This is how we learn. The Holy Spirit teaches us through contrasts. I feel I am making progress when the upsets are no longer there for very long. What might have kept me out of peace for days is now shortened considerably. It may now take a few hours, although more often it is minutes or even seconds. We are just a thought away from the miracle. When we stubbornly resist and refuse to release the thought, we keep ourselves in hell. How long we stubbornly hold onto our position is up to us. If we tell ourselves it is hard, and we will never make it, this becomes the truth for us. It means we are listening to the ego. When we withdraw our interest in what the ego has to say, it no longer has any power over us. This is what we are called to do as our part of the forgiveness process. The Holy Spirit waits patiently for our decision. He cannot heal what we hold back from Him.
With each difficulty we experience with a brother, another opportunity is being offered us to see the innocence in him. Salvation is in my own mind. It is my choice. Any irritation or frustration can quickly be identified and turned over to the Holy Spirit. My gratitude for this teaching increases with each moment of recognition of the power in it. Where would we be without awareness of this power within us, except lost in the world of the ego where there is no hope?
It is therefore not for us to try to superimpose peace on any situation. That is not our job. It is what the ego tells us to do, but the ego does not have a clue. Our only responsibility is to be like the inventory manager who watches the mind and brings to the attention of the Holy Spirit all judgments, frustrations, and thoughts that disrupt our peace, our need for specialness, and our desire to win at someone else's expense. Take responsibility willingly for these thoughts, and lay them at the feet of the Holy Spirit, Who waits to offer you the miracle of grace instead.
We cannot be the ones to fix ourselves. The ego will never undo itself. The problem is that we have spent our lives trying to make a nicer, kinder, and sweeter ego, but it is only a concept of who we think we are. It is the face of innocence. We need to look under the face and uncover our real motivation, which is to benefit at someone's expense and to get for ourselves what we believe is lacking in us. It is why we need the Holy Spirit. When we go within, we learn that we still remain as God created us. Nothing we have done can change what we are. I'm sure you have noticed how much resistance comes up and how much self-honesty is called for. Our part is simply to bring awareness to our egoic thoughts and be willing to have our minds healed by not interfering with His function.
What gets in the way for us is our pride, our defenses, our specialness, and our belief in a role and a unique self with special characteristics that we try to maintain. We now need to do the work of deconstructing this self-made identity and be willing to look beneath the surface. We need to be willing to give up our spiritual pride and allow the light of the Holy Spirit to shine away the dark places in our minds. We must be willing to go into these dark places with courage and honesty to uncover all the aspects of the self we have kept from our awareness. We need not go alone. Jesus invites us to take him with us.
The ego thought system is the program that continually runs under the surface of our minds. It is the basis of all our judgments, our plans, our wishes, our comparisons, and our categorizations. As a result, we react or feel a certain way, which seems "natural" to us. We have become habituated to a way of being that creates a lot of pain for us, but we are so habituated that we do not even recognize how much pain there really is. The immense pain of separation may be triggered by someone leaving us. The pain was already there, but it came into our awareness only when there was an experience of separation in our lives.
How do we recognize the thoughts that keep us out of peace? We simply need to look with willingness, vigilance, and total responsibility. We are not used to looking at our thoughts, but by looking without judging them, we can become very practiced at acknowledging them and turning them over. We can learn to question every thought that shows up and choose not to invest it with truth. The ego lies. The people and situations in our lives will give us lots of opportunities to bring forward our unhealed thoughts. Everything and everyone becomes a symbol for our minds, allowing us to look at the thoughts we hold.
In a storm, there is a quiet place in the center where all is still. That is the place in our minds where peace resides. It is always there despite what is going on around us. It is always available. We know what we need to do to bring the blocks to light, yet sometimes we obsessively cling to being right about the way we see things, rather than giving it up and choosing peace instead. This kind of stubborn resistance is the purview of the ego. Yet today we are reminded we are continually surrounded by God's peace. It goes with us wherever we go. "It shed its light on everyone I meet." (W.245.1.3) Every meeting is truly a holy encounter.
There are no accidents in salvation. Every encounter can be given over to the Holy Spirit. There is a reason behind every encounter and the potential in every one of them for our healing. "There is no one from whom a teacher of God cannot learn, so there is no one whom he cannot teach. However, from a practical point of view he cannot meet everyone, nor can everyone find him. Therefore, the plan includes very specific contacts to be made for each teacher of God. There are no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. They are ready for each other." (Manual 3.1.3-7)
Mostly, we leave this potential unfulfilled because we think we know what the relationship is for, or we have our own objectives interposed on it, rather than asking the Holy Spirit what it is for. As Jesus said, "No one is sent by accident to anyone. Relationships are always purposeful. Whatever their purpose may have been before the Holy Spirit entered them, they are always His potential temple; the resting place of Christ and home of God Himself. Whoever comes has been sent." (Psychotherapy.3.III.6.2-5)
Today, we pray "Send them to me, my Father," (W.245.1.6) or the prayer of St. Francis, "Let me be an instrument of thy peace." Jesus reminds us in Chapter 6, "V. The Lessons of the Holy Spirit," "B. To have peace, teach peace to learn it," (T.6.V.B) (ACIM OE T.6.V.b) that every encounter today can offer an opportunity to teach peace to learn it, thus we can know we have it in us. We will know it is in us when it is extended through us. In giving, we receive; and in this place of peace, we know our safety.
Love and Blessings, Sarah
|
III. Your Brother's Sinlessness
16 The opposite of illusions is not disillusionment, but truth. Only to the ego, to which truth is meaningless, do they appear to be the only alternatives and different from each other. In truth they are the same. Both bring the same amount of misery, though each one seems to be the way to lose the misery the other brings. Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness. Yet in these dark and heavy garments are those who seek illusions covered and hidden from the joy of truth.
17 Truth is the opposite of illusions because it offers joy. What else but joy could be the opposite of misery? To leave one kind of misery and seek another is hardly an escape. To change illusions is to make no change. The search for joy in misery is senseless, for how could joy be found in misery? All that is possible in the dark world of misery is to select some aspects out of it, see them as different, and define the difference as joy. Yet to perceive a difference where none exists will surely fail to
make a difference.
18 Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death to their believers. The form in which they are accepted is irrelevant. No form of misery in reason's eyes can be confused with joy. Joy is eternal. You can be sure indeed that any seeming happiness that does not last is really fear. Joy does not turn to sorrow, for the eternal cannot change. But sorrow
can be turned to joy, for time gives way to the eternal. Only the timeless must remain unchanged, but everything in time can change with time. Yet if the change be real and not imagined, illusions must give way to truth and not to other dreams that are but equally unreal. This is no difference.
19 Reason will tell you that the only way to escape from misery is to recognize it
and go the other way. Truth is the same and misery the same, but they
are different from each other in every way, in every instance, and without exception. To believe that one exception can exist is to confuse what is the same with what is different.
One illusion cherished and defended against the truth makes
all truth meaningless and
all illusions real. Such is the power of belief. It cannot compromise. And faith in innocence is faith in sin if the belief excludes one living thing and holds it out apart from its forgiveness.
20 Both reason and the ego will tell you this, but what they
make of it is not the same. The ego will assure you now that it is impossible for you to see no guilt in anyone. And if this vision is the
only means by which escape from guilt can be attained, then the belief in sin must be eternal. Yet reason looks on this another way, for reason sees the
source of an idea as what will make it true or false. This must be so if the idea is
like its source. Therefore, says reason, if escape from guilt was given to the Holy Spirit as His purpose, and by One to Whom nothing He wills
can be impossible, the means for its attainment are
more than possible. They
must be there, and you must
have them.
21 This is a crucial period in this course, for here the separation of you and the ego must be made complete. For if you
have the means to let the Holy Spirit's purpose be accomplished, they can be
used. And
through their use will you gain faith in them. Yet to the ego this must be impossible, and no one undertakes to do what holds no hope of ever being done.
You know what your Creator wills is possible, but what you made believes it is not so. Now must you choose between yourself and an
illusion of yourself.
Not both, but
one. There is no point in trying to avoid this one decision. It
must be made. Faith and belief can fall to either side, but reason tells you that misery lies only on one side and joy upon the other.
22 Forsake not now each other. For you who are the same will not decide alone nor differently. Either you give each other life or death; either you are each other's savior or his judge, offering him sanctuary or condemnation. This course will be believed entirely or not at all. For it is wholly true or wholly false and cannot be but partially believed. And you will either escape from misery entirely or not at all. Reason will tell you that there is no middle ground where you can pause uncertainly, waiting to choose between the joy of Heaven and the misery of hell. Until you choose Heaven, you
are in hell and misery.
23 There is no part of Heaven you can take and weave into illusions. Nor is there one illusion you can enter Heaven with. A savior cannot be a judge, nor mercy condemnation. And vision cannot damn, but only bless. Whose function is to save will save.
How he will do it is beyond your understanding, but
when must be your choice. For time you made, and time you
can command. You are no more a slave to time than to the world you made.
24 Let us look closer at the whole illusion that what you made has power to enslave its maker. This is the same belief that caused the separation. It is the meaningless idea that thoughts can leave the thinker's mind, be different from it, and
in opposition to it. If this were true, thoughts would not be the mind's extensions but its enemies. And here we see again another form of the same fundamental illusion we have seen many times before. Only if it were possible the Son of God could leave his Father's Mind, make himself different, and oppose His Will, would it be possible that the self he made and all it made should be his master.
25 Behold the great projection, but look on it with the decision that it must be healed and not with fear. Nothing you made has any power over you unless you still would be apart from your Creator and with a will opposed to His. For only if you would believe His Son could be His enemy does it seem possible that what
you made is yours. You would condemn His joy to misery and make Him different. And all the misery
you made has been your own. Are you not
glad to learn it is not true? Is it not welcome news to hear not one of the illusions that you made replaced the truth?
26 Only
your thoughts have been impossible. Salvation
cannot be. It
is impossible to look upon your savior as your enemy and recognize him. Yet it
is possible to recognize him for what he is if God would have it so. What God has given to your holy relationship is
there. For what He gave the Holy Spirit to give to you,
He gave. Would you not look upon the savior that has been given you? And would you not exchange in gratitude the function of an executioner you gave him for the one he has in truth? Receive of him what God has given him for you, not what you tried to give yourself.
27 Beyond the bodies that you interposed between you and shining in the golden light which reaches it from the bright endless circle that extends forever is your holy relationship, beloved of God Himself. How still it rests, in time and yet beyond, immortal yet on earth. How great the power that lies in it. Time waits upon its will, and earth will be as it would have it be. Here is no separate will nor the desire that
anything be separate. Its will has no exceptions, and what it wills is true. Every illusion brought to its forgiveness is gently overlooked and disappears. For at its center Christ has been reborn to light His home with vision that overlooks the world. Would you not have this holy home be yours as well? No misery is here, but only joy.
28 All you need do to dwell in quiet here with Christ is share His vision. Quickly and gladly is His vision given to anyone who is but willing to see his brother sinless. And no one can remain beyond this willingness if you would be released entirely from all effects of sin. Would you have partial forgiveness for yourself? Can you reach Heaven while a single sin still tempts you to remain in misery? Heaven is the home of perfect purity, and God created it for
you. Look on your holy brother, sinless as yourself, and let him lead you there.
ON LINE SEARCHABLE Original Edition
|
|
To UNSUBSCRIBE, Open email sent to you and scroll to bottom. Click where it says:
[Message clipped]
View entire message
Scroll to the bottom and click the "UnSubscribe Button"
|
|
|
