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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 25 THE REMEDY
II. THE APPOINTED TASK
8 Since you
believe that you are separate, Heaven presents itself to you as separate too. Not that it is in truth, but that the link that has been given you to join the truth may reach to you through what you understand. Father and Son and Holy Spirit are as One, as all your brothers join as one in truth. Christ and His Father never have been separate, and Christ abides within your understanding in the part of you that shares His Father's Will. The Holy Spirit links the other part, the tiny mad desire to be separate, different, and special, to the Christ, to make the oneness clear to what is
really one. In this world, this is not understood but
can be taught.
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
WORKBOOK for STUDENTS
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
The body is a fence the Son of God
imagines he has built to separate
parts of his Self from other parts. It is
within this fence he thinks he lives, to die
as it decays and crumbles. For within
this fence he thinks that he is safe from love.
Identifying with <its safety>, he
regards himself as <what his safety is>.
How else could he be certain he remains
within the body, keeping love outside?
The body will not stay. Yet this he sees
as double safety. For the Son of God's
impermanence is "proof" his fences work,
and do the task his mind [assigned] to them.
For if his oneness still remained untouched,
who could attack and who could be attacked?
Who could be victor? Who could be his prey?
Who could be victim? Who the murderer?
And if he did not die, what proof is there
that God's eternal Son [has] been destroyed?
The body is a dream. Like other dreams,
it sometimes seems to picture happiness,
but can quite suddenly revert to fear,
where every dream is born. For only love
creates in truth, and truth can never fear.
Made to be fearful, must the body serve
the purpose given it. But we can change
the purpose [which] the body will obey
by changing what we think that it is for.
The body is the means by which God's Son
returns to sanity. Though it was made
to fence him into hell without escape,
yet has the goal of Heaven been exchanged
for the pursuit of hell. The Son of God
extends his hand to reach his brother, and
to help him walk along the road with him.
Now is the body holy. Now it serves
to heal the mind that it was made to kill.
You will identify with what you think
will make you safe. Whatever it may be,
you will believe that it is one with you.
Your safety lies in truth and not in lies.
Love is your safety. Fear does not exist.
Identify with love, and you are safe.
Identify with love, and you are home.
Identify with love, and find your Self.
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L e s s o n 265
Creation's gentleness is all I see.
<AUDIO><VIDEO>
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
I have indeed misunderstood the world,
because I laid my "sins" on it, and saw
them looking back at me. How fierce they seemed!
And how deceived was I to think that what
I feared was in the world, instead of in
my mind alone. Today I see the world
in the celestial gentleness with which
creation shines. There is no fear in it.
Let no appearance of my "sins" obscure
the light of Heaven, shining on the world.
What is reflected [here] is in God's Mind.
The images I see reflect my thoughts.
Yet is my mind at one with God's. And so
I can perceive creation's gentleness.
In quiet would I look upon the world,
which but reflects Your Thoughts and mine as well.
Let me remember that they are the same,
and I will see creation's gentleness.
~ Original Handscript of ACIM
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
LESSON 265
Creation's gentleness is all I see.
Sarah's Commentary:
When gentleness is all I see, I will recognize gentleness is all I am. This is a new kind of projection or, more appropriately, an extension of the gentleness in the mind. Everything we see in the world is simply a reflection of our own minds. This is why the Course constantly reminds us, "projection makes perception." (T.13.V.3.5) (ACIM OE T.12.V.35) In other words, all we look at in the world is what is in our own minds. Either guilt or our innocence is reflected back at us. In the Introduction to Chapter 21, Jesus quite clearly says the world we see is ". . . the outside picture of an inward condition." (T.21.IN.1.5) (ACIM OE T.21.I.1) We only see our own sins in another and fool ourselves into thinking they are not in our own minds but are, in fact, in others. We think we need to forgive someone else, when in fact, forgiveness is about releasing our judgments we have laid on the world and ". . . saw them looking back at us." (W.265.1.1) It puts all of the responsibility for healing onto ourselves where all the power is.
In the Song of Prayer, Jesus tells us, "It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your own sins you see in him. You want to see them there, and not in you. That is why the forgiveness of another is an illusion. Yet it is the only happy dream in all the world; the only one that does not lead to death. Only in someone else can you forgive yourself, for you have called him guilty of your sins, and in him must your innocence now be found. Who but the sinful need to be forgiven? And do not ever think you can see sin in anyone except yourself." (S.2.B.4)
When we are seeing sin in our brothers, we need to bring it back to our own minds and release the judgments we are holding there. Our brothers are just a reflection of our own minds. When we take responsibility for our projections, we are given an opportunity to see our self-attacking thoughts. Our thoughts create the battleground where we find ourselves when we are not at peace. To come to peace is to step out of this battleground by looking at the thoughts that keep us invested in the world. Forgiveness requires we look at our thoughts without judgment. It is to recognize nothing outside of the mind can take away our peace. We need to uncover the beliefs we are holding so we can experience the truth. We hold onto our beliefs and opinions because we think they keep us safe and secure. The truth of our magnificent Self is always available but covered over and protected by our defenses. We can be grateful to have everything exposed as this is where our healing lies. Yes, it can get pretty rough as we go through the darkness, but we don't go alone. We hold the hand of Jesus, who willingly goes there with us.
All meaning we give any situation comes from our own minds. So when a brother seems to attack us or creates situations or events that seem difficult for us to overlook, he is offering us an opportunity to look within at what we are holding in the mind that does not serve us. When we determine he is unworthy of love and deserving of punishment and we blame him for what we are feeling, we are missing the opportunity to heal what is being revealed to us about ourselves. Everyone is a mirror in which we see our own self-attacking thoughts.
We are called to see that we are all the same. We all make mistakes. Yet we are all still the innocent Son of God, worthy of love. When we don't want to take responsibility for our own guilt, we project it onto someone we think is more deserving of it. Thus, we believe we have gotten rid of it. Now we see them as guilty, and we believe we are off the hook. What this attempts to do is to buy our own innocence at the expense of our brothers, the guilty ones. We hope God is watching and will see their guilt and punish them rather than us, but of course, this does not work. True innocence is not bought at the expense of our brothers.
We prefer to see the guilt outside ourselves because then we don't have to take responsibility for it as coming from our own minds. Yet what the ego has kept from our awareness is that by seeing our guilt in others we have another way of keeping it. By holding attack thoughts, we expect to be attacked back. We expect punishment as the cycle of sin, guilt, and fear continues, but we can choose to stop it, look at it, and release it to the Holy Spirit. As we do this practice, we come to remember who we are and who our brother is in truth. The beauty of the shift in the mind, as a result of forgiveness, is such a gift. We are all worth this effort.
The many opportunities we have to watch our own minds and take responsibility for our projections can all be welcomed because now we can see that everything "out there" is only a reflection of our own thoughts. (W.265.1.8) So much of our own guilt is buried, which is why we need this outward picture of our inward condition in order to uncover the guilt from which we have become disassociated. Every upsetting situation is just a misperception on our part. We need to look at why we are calling this witness to our guilt and fear. If we want to know our own divinity, we need to look at it all and ask to see how every situation has the potential in it to support our awakening if we choose to use it for that purpose. So when we start to embrace it all, we become a happy learner and the world provides us with perfect opportunities for our learning. It is an inner journey.
All the situations and people in our lives offer us opportunities for healing our minds. Through this healing, we can come to a place where only Creation's gentleness is seen everywhere. When we are seeing through true perception, no matter what the situation looks like, we can see beyond the appearances to the innocence behind everything our eyes report. We will then look on everyone with "holy eyes."
I love the word gentleness. It comes up very often in the Course with nearly 200 references. Most of the references are about the gentleness of the Holy Spirit working with us. We need the experience of His gentleness because of our terror of where He is leading us. Our fear is that He will take us to our own destruction, but Jesus teaches us otherwise. The truth is we will be taken to the truth of who we really are as immortal beings of love and light.
We shy away from the idea of gentleness because it seems ineffectual in the face of attack. We may think of it as weakness. Yet we are told in the Manual for Teachers that true might lies in gentleness. In the Manual, gentleness is described as a characteristic of all the teachers of God. Harm is considered a weakness and keeps us in hell, whereas gentleness is called "limitless strength." (M.4.IV.2.7) It is where our might comes from because it comes from joining our will with our Source. It is the recognition, "Harm is impossible for God's teachers." (M.4.IV.1.1) It is a feeling of total safety. From this place of safety, there is nothing to defend. While gentleness may be seen as weakness in the world, true gentleness is total strength. The harmless are mighty not wimpy because they fear nothing. They know their reality is not the body but the eternal Self.
What makes the gentle so strong is the realization that attacking, harmful, intolerant, and hurtful thoughts do not come from our Source, from God, and therefore they have no power. Only by joining our thoughts with Him Who is our Source does our true will, which has always been one with God's, have unlimited power. Today, we have the opportunity to ". . . see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines." (W.265.1.4) To do so, we look past the forms and past the dream figures (other bodies) to see the truth of who our brother is. Yet this is not possible if we have blocked our awareness of the ". . . light of Heaven shining on the world." (W.265.1.6) Because our minds are one with God, (W.265.1.10) we have the capacity to see everyone as God does. "And so I can perceive creation's gentleness." (W.265.1.10) If I don't, it is only because I am holding thoughts of judgment and condemnation. Judging myself for those thoughts I hold is not helpful. We must feel everything we are feeling and allow the hatred in the mind to be exposed. We go through the darkness to the light.
Today, be willing to look at the judgments you are holding about anyone and be willing to recognize that you are only seeing your own sins projected outward. Be willing to be shown another way to see by questioning your judgments and releasing your stories about the situation. They are all false. Now the Holy Spirit can show you another way. All you have to do is willingly give over your thoughts to Him. Do not try to do what only He can do. In other words, this is not about trying to fix yourself or trying to undo your own perspectives. It is about realizing guilt is a mistake and you can smile at your misperceptions and ask to see truly. He will show you your brother's reality shining with celestial gentleness, and you will receive this truth about yourself as well.
In the context of our reading, "What is the Body?" (W.PII.Q5), we are urged to change the purpose we give to the body. While we are here, our purpose is not to love or hate the body but to use it for a gentle purpose, extending love and forgiveness, until we can transcend it by recognizing we are not the dream figure at all but the dreamer of this dream. Through forgiveness, we can have a happier dream; and it can be now, in this very moment. It requires discipline and determination to clear the mind of our projections with the help of the Holy Spirit. Thus, space is made for the miracle. Our part is simply to look at the ego and be willing to have our judgments released.
Today, I looked at the expectations I had on my partner, who has been very involved in activities where I felt ignored and neglected. As I reflected on what I was feeling and thus demanding, I saw how I was projecting guilt onto my brother and expecting love to come from outside my own mind. I forgot that I am the love, and if I am not feeling it, I am blocking it with my judgments and expectations. It is not his responsibility to meet my needs and expectations that I set up for how I should be treated in order to feel loved. Love cannot be extracted from outside of our own minds. Remembering we are love, and we are 100% responsible for our happiness, helps us look at our own blocks to remembering the truth. The truth is, we are not lacking in love. The truth is, we are the love we are seeking in the world.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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1 The Christ in you inhabits not a body. Yet He is in you. And thus it must be that
you are not within a body. What is within you cannot be outside. And it is certain that you cannot be apart from what is at the very center of your life. What gives you life cannot be housed in death. No more can you. Christ is within a frame of holiness whose only purpose is that He may be made manifest to those who know Him not, that He may call to them to come to Him and see Him where they thought their bodies were. Then will their bodies melt away that they may frame His holiness in them.
2 No one who carries Christ in him can fail to recognize Him everywhere.
Except in bodies. And as long as they believe
they are in bodies, where they think they are He cannot be. And so they carry Him unknowingly and do not make Him manifest. And thus they do not recognize Him where He is. The son of man is not the risen Christ. Yet does the Son of God abide exactly where he is and walks with him within his holiness, as plain to see as is his specialness set forth within his body.
3 The body
needs no healing. But the mind that thinks it
is a body is sick indeed! And it is here that Christ sets forth the remedy. His purpose folds the body in His light and fills it with the holiness that shines from Him. And nothing that the body says or does but makes Him manifest. To those who know Him not, it carries Him in gentleness and love to heal their minds. Such is the mission that your brother has for you. And such it must be that your mission is for him.
4 It cannot be that it is hard to do the task that Christ appointed you to do, since it is He Who does it. And in the doing of it will you learn the body merely seems to be the means to do it. For the Mind is His. And so it must be yours. His holiness directs the body through the mind at one with Him. And you are manifest unto your holy brother, as he to you. Here is the meeting of the holy Christ unto Himself; nor are any differences perceived to stand between the aspects of His holiness, which meet and join and raise Him to His Father, whole and pure and worthy of His everlasting Love.
5 How can you manifest the Christ in you except you look on holiness and see Him there? Perception tells you
you are manifest in what you see. Behold the body, and you will believe that you are there. And every body that you look upon reminds you of yourself---your sinfulness, your evil, and above all, your death. And would you not despise the one who tells you this and seek his death instead? The message and the messenger are one. And you
must see your brother as yourself. Framed in his body, you will see your sinfulness wherein you stand condemned. Set in his holiness, the Christ in him proclaims
himself as you.
6 Perception is a choice of what you want yourself to be---the world you want to live in and the state in which you think your mind will be content and satisfied. It chooses where you think your safety lies, at your decision. It reveals yourself to you as you would have you be. And always is it faithful to your purpose from which it never separates nor gives the slightest witness unto anything the purpose in your mind upholdeth not. Perception is a part of what it is your purpose to behold, for means and end are never separate. And thus you learn what seems to have a life apart has none.
7
You are the means for God---not separate nor with a life apart from His. His Life is manifest in you who are His Son. Each aspect of Himself is framed in holiness and perfect purity, in love celestial and so complete it wishes only that it may release all that it looks upon unto itself. Its radiance shines through each body that it looks upon and brushes all its darkness into light merely by looking past it
to the light. The veil is lifted through its gentleness, and nothing hides the face of Christ from its beholders. And both of you stand there, before Him now, to let Him draw aside the veil that seems to keep you separate and apart.
8 Since you
believe that you are separate, Heaven presents itself to you as separate too. Not that it is in truth, but that the link that has been given you to join the truth may reach to you through what you understand. Father and Son and Holy Spirit are as One, as all your brothers join as one in truth. Christ and His Father never have been separate, and Christ abides within your understanding in the part of you that shares His Father's Will. The Holy Spirit links the other part, the tiny mad desire to be separate, different, and special, to the Christ, to make the oneness clear to what is
really one. In this world, this is not understood but
can be taught.
9 The Holy Spirit serves Christ's purpose in your mind, so that the aim of specialness can be corrected where the error lies. Because His purpose still is one with both the Father and the Son, He knows the Will of God and what
you really will. But this is understood by mind perceived as one, aware that it is one and so
experienced. It is the Holy Spirit's function to teach you
how this oneness is experienced,
what you must do that it can be experienced, and
where you should go to do it.
10 All this takes note of time and place as if they were discrete, for while you think that part of you is separate, the concept of a oneness joined as one is meaningless. It is apparent that a mind so split could never be the teacher of a Oneness which unites all things within itself. And so What
is within this mind and
does unite all things together must be its Teacher. Yet must It use the language which this mind can understand in the condition in which it thinks it is. And It must use all learning to transfer illusions to the truth, taking all false ideas of what you are and leading you beyond them to the truth that
is beyond them. All this can very simply be reduced to this:
11 What is the same can
not be different,
And what is one can
not have separate parts.
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