Graphic by ©Deposit Photos
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 24 "SPECIALNESS AND SEPARATION"
VI. THE RESOLUTION OF THE DREAM
45 The Christ in you is very still. He knows where you are going, and He leads you there in gentleness and blessing all the way. His love for God replaces all the fear you thought you saw within yourself. His holiness shows you Himself in him whose hand you hold and whom you lead to Him. And what you see is like yourself. For what but Christ is there to see and hear and love and follow home? He looked upon you first but recognized that you were not complete. And so He sought for your completion in each living thing that He beholds and loves. And seeks it still, that each might offer you the love of God.
46 Yet is He quiet, for He knows that love is in you now and safely held in you by that same hand that holds your brother's in your own. Christ's hand holds all His brothers in Himself. He gives them vision for their sightless eyes and sings to them of Heaven that their ears may hear no more the sound of battle and of death. He reaches through them, holding out His hand that everyone may bless all living things and see their holiness. And He rejoices that these sights are yours to look upon with Him and share His joy. His perfect lack of specialness He offers you that you may save all living things from death, receiving from each one the gift of life that your forgiveness offers to your Self. The sight of Christ is all there is to see. The song of Christ is all there is to hear. The hand of Christ is all there is to hold. There
is no journey but to walk with Him.
CHAPTER 24 V-VI, 34-48
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
|
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
DAILY LESSON
WHAT IS SIN?
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
Sin is insanity. It is the means
by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks
to let illusions take the place of truth.
And being mad, it sees illusions where
the truth should be, and where it really is.
Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there
the sinless would behold? What need have they
of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear
or reach to touch? What would they sense at all?
To sense is not to know. And truth can be
but filled with knowledge, and with nothing else.
The body is the instrument the mind
made in its striving to deceive itself.
Its purpose is to strive. Yet can the goal
of striving change. And now the body serves
a different aim for striving. What it seeks
for now is chosen by the aim the mind
has taken as replacement for the goal
of self-deception. Truth can be its aim
as well as lies. The senses then will seek
instead the witnesses to what is true.
Sin is the home of all illusions, which
but stand for things imagined, issuing
from thoughts which are untrue. They are the "proof"
that what has no reality is real.
Sin "proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness
must have an end; Eternal Life must die.
And God Himself has lost the Son He loves,
with but corruption to complete Himself,
His Will forever overcome by death,
love slain by hate, and peace to be no more.
A madman's dreams are frightening, and sin
appears indeed to terrify. And yet
what sin perceives is but a childish game.
The Son of God may play he has become
a body, prey to evil and to guilt,
with but a little life that ends in death.
But all the while his Father shines on him,
and loves him with an Everlasting Love
which his pretenses cannot change at all.
How long, oh Son of God, would you maintain
the game of sin? Shall we not put away
these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will you
be ready to come home? Perhaps today?
There is no sin. Creation is unchanged.
Would you still hold return to Heaven back?
How long, oh holy Son of God, how long?
|
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
DAILY LESSON
L e s s o n 260
Let me remember God created me.
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
<VIDEO>
Father, I did not make myself, although
in my insanity I thought I did.
Yet as Your Thought, I have not left my Source,
remaining part of What created me.
Your Son, my Father, calls on You today.
Let me remember You created me.
Let me remember my identity.
And let my sinlessness arise again
before Christ's vision, through which I would look
upon my brothers and myself today.
Now is our Source remembered, and Therein
we find our true Identity at last.
Holy indeed are we, because our Source
can know no sin. And we who are His Sons
are like each other and alike to Him.
~ Original Handscript of ACIM
|
ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
LESSON 260
Let me remember God created me.
Sarah's Commentary:
Today, we are reminded again that there is no need to look for answers to the question of "Who am I?" We keep wondering about our identities because we have made up a self that is not who we are. We are convinced that we are bodies. Our false self-concepts, beliefs, values, and perceived needs uphold this false identity. The beliefs that we hold are both personal and cultural and are deeply ingrained in us. In fact, Jesus tells us that they have been overlearned, which is why it takes a lot of discipline, constant mind training, and a lot of practice to undo what we have accepted as true about who we are. "Now does your ancient overlearning stand implacable before the Voice of truth, and teach you that Its lessons are not true; too hard to learn, too difficult to see, and too opposed to what is really true." (T.31.I.5.4) (ACIM OE T.31.I.5) Jesus tells us, "You have exerted great effort to preserve what you made because it was not true." (T.6.V.C.10.5) (ACIM OE T.6. V.c.95) Now we defend our image, our body, and our belief system, always staying vigilant in its protection.
We could choose instead to be vigilant on behalf of truth so we could remember the truth of who we really are. "Your vigilance is the sign that you want Him to guide you. Vigilance does require effort, but only until you learn that effort itself is unnecessary." (T.6.V.C.10.3-4) (ACIM OE T.6. V.c.95) "Only this can cancel out the need for effort, and call upon the being which you both have and are." (T.6.V.C.10.7) (ACIM OE T.6.V.c.95)
When we recognize that we have been mistaken, and we are still as God created us, there is no more effort to be made. Until then, we have to remind ourselves that we are like the sunbeam to the sun. The sun has determined the nature of the sunbeam, just as God has determined our nature as pure and sinless. It cannot be otherwise. We are still part of our Source. (W.260.1.2) In our insanity, we thought we made ourselves. The important thing is to ask for the help of the Holy Spirit Who will undo all that stands in the way of our true identity as long as we are willing. "Let me remember my Identity." (W.260.1.5) There is nothing to pay for or atone for. The door to Heaven is open. We have never left our Source. "Ideas leave not their source." (W.132.5.3) We are an idea in the Mind of God.
The way I remember who I am as God's Son is through forgiveness. One brother is all brothers. We are all the same---all from the same Source. We all share the same interests and same nature as the One Self. If I attack you, I am only attacking myself. God's love blesses all equally. If I hate my brothers or judge them, I am declaring my will as different from God's. I ask for help because I want to see who my brother really is and to know my own identity.
Healing the separation comes through healing our relationships. "Peace to your holy relationship, which has the power to hold the unity of the Son of God together." (T.20.V.2.5) (ACIM OE T.20.VI.38) Jesus goes on to say our healing lies only in recognizing our joint will. When we recognize our one need, which is to awaken from this dream, we recognize our sameness. Our differences only appear to conceal the goal we all share. It is in forgiving our brothers that we find our true identity. "Now our Source is remembered, and Therein we find our true Identity at last." (W.260.2.1)
In every situation that seems to bring distress, pain, difficulty, conflict, or confusion, there is a gift of grace and liberation. In bringing the problem to the solution, God's grace comes to our awareness. Thus, every problem can bring us a gift when we refrain from trying to solve it independent of the help of the Holy Spirit. When we look at every issue that comes up in our lives without judgment, it means that we are looking with Jesus instead of with the ego. When we are willing to be defenseless in investigating our fears and allowing the Holy Spirit to reinterpret them for us, grace will shine through. We are worth the effort to give the time and the discipline it takes to unlock our defenses so that Love can enter. When we set up defenses against feeling our pain and discomfort, we are defending against God's Love.
"
Father, I did not make myself, although in my insanity I thought I did. Yet as Your Thought, I have not left my Source, remaining part of Who created me."
(W.260.1.1-2) We are not our past, our mistakes, our upbringing, or the stories we tell about our lives. We are awesome and glorious beings created by Love, and through forgiveness, we will see everyone else in the same way so we can know our brothers as our Self. "And we who are His Sons are like each other, and alike to Him. " (W.260.2.3)
Today, I heard of a man who was climbing in Jasper and felt he just could not go on. He had been hurt, seemed to be out of his range, and not sure of his whereabouts. In the midst of his fear and pain, he kept reminding himself that he was invulnerable, created by God, not his body, but safe and protected. It gave him strength, courage, and hope. If we could bring our fears to the truth in every circumstance, our minds could be returned to peace, which is our natural state. In releasing our fears and reminding ourselves of the truth, we can find peace in the midst of turmoil, whether climbing a mountain in dangerous circumstances or in the midst of conflict with our partner. Remembering the truth will take us out of the rant, out of our tantrums, and out of our need to be right. Is it easy? No indeed. And this is only because we make it difficult; but when we surrender and commit to peace, the way through any circumstance is always available to us.
To have this Lesson really come alive in our minds, we need to remember that we did not make ourselves, but we are a Thought in God's mind. Yet we feel like we have shaped our identity, and we believe that we can continue to shape it with our actions, values, and beliefs. We assess how the world responds to us, which also determines what we think about ourselves. We have an identity we think we have made, and now we compare ourselves to others to see if we are more or less special. Whether we attack or do good deeds, our identity seems to keep changing. Yet the truth is beyond all of our acts and deeds. We are not a blank slate at birth, shaped by events of our lives. We have made a choice to be here and to live out a script chosen by the mind, as are the characters that show up in our dream. The events that seem painful to the ego can be our most powerful motivators to look for another way and are thus joyous to the Spirit.
What I find helpful with this practice today is not only to try to get in touch with the truth of my Identity as a complete and perfect Thought in God's Mind but throughout the day, when painful feelings or self-attacking thoughts come up, to pray: "Let me remember You created me. Let me remember my Identity." (W.260.1.4-5) It is a good antidote to thoughts of guilt, despair, and depression. When I have done something that is attacking and I feel down about myself, I can look at those feelings and bring them to the Holy Spirit, remembering again the truth of what I am. We cannot change ourselves. We have not made ourselves. We are God's creation---a Thought in His Mind---totally pure and untouchable. Yes, in the illusion, there are things we have done where we feel shame, guilt, and unworthiness. It is all part of the illusory story of our lives and the secrets we hold in darkness that we need to bring to the light. We can then have an experience of the unlimited, whole, holy, beautiful, radiant, and pure creation of God that we are. This is the holy instant---a glimpse of our eternal nature.
Love and blessings, Sarah
|
PAUSED FOR WEEKEND
A Course in Miracles
TEXT
Chapter Twenty Four
Specialness and Separation
CHAPTER 25 V-VI, 34-48
Voice and Music by Martin Weber, CIMS SonShip Radio
V. Specialness and Salvation
34 Specialness is a lack of trust in anyone except yourself. Faith is invested in yourself alone. Everything else becomes your enemy---feared and attacked, deadly and dangerous, hated and worthy only of destruction. Whatever gentleness it offers is but deception, but its hate is real. In danger of destruction, it must kill, and you are drawn to it to kill it first. And such is guilt's attraction. Here is death enthroned as savior; crucifixion is now redemption, and salvation can only mean destruction of the world, except yourself.
35 What could the purpose of the body
be but specialness? And it is this that makes it frail and helpless in its own defense. It was conceived to make
you frail and helpless. The goal of separation is its curse. Yet bodies
have no goal. Purpose is of the
mind. And minds can change as they desire. What they are and all their attributes, they
cannot change. But what they hold as purpose
can be changed, and body states must shift accordingly. Of itself the body can do nothing. See it as means to hurt, and it is hurt. See it as means to heal, and it is healed.
36 You can but hurt
yourself. This has been oft repeated but is difficult to grasp as yet. To minds intent on specialness, it is impossible. Yet to those who wish to heal and not attack, it is quite obvious. The purpose of attack is in the
mind, and its effects are felt but where it
is. Nor is mind limited; so must it be that harmful purpose hurts the mind as one. Nothing could make
less sense to specialness. Nothing could make
more sense to miracles. For miracles are merely change of purpose from hurt to healing.
37 This shift in purpose
does "endanger" specialness but only in the sense that all illusions are "threatened" by the truth. They will
not stand before it. Yet what comfort has ever been in them that you would keep the gift your Father asks from Him and give it there instead? Given to
Him, the universe is yours. Offered to
them, no gifts can be returned. What you have given specialness has left you bankrupt and your treasure house barren and empty with an open door inviting everything that would disturb your peace to enter and destroy.
38 Long ago we said consider not the means by which salvation is attained nor how to reach it. But
do consider, and consider well, whether it is your wish that you might see your brother sinless. To specialness the answer must be "no." A sinless brother
is its enemy, while sin, if it were possible, would be its friend. Your brother's sins would justify itself and give it meaning that the truth denies. All that is real proclaims his sinlessness. All that is false proclaims his sins as real. If
he is sinful, then is
your reality not real but just a dream of specialness which lasts an instant, crumbling into dust.
39 Do not defend this senseless dream in which God is bereft of what He loves and you remain beyond salvation. Only this is certain in this shifting world which has no meaning in reality: when peace is not with you entirely and when you suffer pain of any kind, you have beheld some sin within your brother and have
rejoiced at what you thought was there. Your specialness seemed safe because of it. And thus you saved what
you appointed to be your savior and crucified the one whom God has given you instead. So are you bound with him, for you
are one. And so is specialness his "enemy" and
yours as well.
VI. The Resolution of the Dream
40 The Christ in you is very still. He looks on what He loves and knows it as Himself. And thus does He rejoice at what He sees because He knows that it is one with Him and with His Father. Specialness, too, takes joy in what it sees, although it is not true. Yet what you seek for
is a source of joy as you conceive it. What you wish is true for you. Nor is it possible that you can wish for something and lack faith that it is so. Wishing
makes real, as surely as does will create. The power of a wish upholds illusions as strongly as does love extend itself, except that one deludes; the other heals.
41 There is no dream of specialness---however hidden or disguised the form, however lovely it may seem to be, however much it delicately offers the hope of peace and the escape from pain---in which you suffer not your condemnation. In dreams, effect and cause are interchanged, for here the maker of the dream believes that what he made is happening to him. He does not realize he picked a thread from here, a scrap from there, and wove a picture out of nothing. For the parts do not belong together, and the whole contributes nothing to the parts to give them meaning.
42 Where could your peace arise
but from forgiveness? The Christ in you looks only on the truth and sees no condemnation that could
need forgiveness. He is at peace
because He sees no sin. Identify with Him, and what has He that you have not? He is your eyes, your ears, your hands, your feet. How gentle are the sights He sees, the sounds He hears. How beautiful His hand that holds His brother's, and how lovingly He walks beside him, showing him what can be seen and heard and where he will see nothing and there is no sound to hear.
43 Yet let your specialness direct his way, and
you will follow. And
both will walk in danger, each intent, in the dark forest of the sightless, unlit but by the shifting tiny gleams that spark an instant from the fireflies of sin and then go out, to lead the other to a nameless precipice and hurl him over it. For what can specialness delight in but to kill? What does it seek for but the sight of death? Where does it lead but to destruction? Yet think not that it looked upon your brother first, nor hated him before it hated you. The sin its eyes behold in him and love to look upon, it saw in
you and looks on still with joy. Yet
is it joy to look upon decay and madness and believe this crumbling thing, with flesh already loosened from the bone and sightless holes for eyes, is like yourself?
44 Rejoice you
have no eyes with which to see, no ears to listen, and no hands to hold nor feet to guide. Be glad that only Christ can lend you His while you have need of them. They are illusions too, as much as yours. And yet because they serve a different purpose, the strength their purpose holds is given them. And what they see and hear and hold and lead is given light that you may lead as you were led.
45 The Christ in you is very still. He knows where you are going, and He leads you there in gentleness and blessing all the way. His love for God replaces all the fear you thought you saw within yourself. His holiness shows you Himself in him whose hand you hold and whom you lead to Him. And what you see is like yourself. For what but Christ is there to see and hear and love and follow home? He looked upon you first but recognized that you were not complete. And so He sought for your completion in each living thing that He beholds and loves. And seeks it still, that each might offer you the love of God.
46 Yet is He quiet, for He knows that love is in you now and safely held in you by that same hand that holds your brother's in your own. Christ's hand holds all His brothers in Himself. He gives them vision for their sightless eyes and sings to them of Heaven that their ears may hear no more the sound of battle and of death. He reaches through them, holding out His hand that everyone may bless all living things and see their holiness. And He rejoices that these sights are yours to look upon with Him and share His joy. His perfect lack of specialness He offers you that you may save all living things from death, receiving from each one the gift of life that your forgiveness offers to your Self. The sight of Christ is all there is to see. The song of Christ is all there is to hear. The hand of Christ is all there is to hold. There
is no journey but to walk with Him.
47 You who would be content with specialness and seek salvation in a war with love, consider this: the holy Lord of Heaven has Himself come down to you to offer you your own completion. What is His is yours because in your completion is His Own. He Who willed not to be without His Son could never will that you be brotherless. And would He give a brother unto you except he be as perfect as yourself and just as like to Him in holiness as
you must be?
48 There must be doubt before there can be conflict. And every doubt must be about yourself. Christ has no doubt, and from His certainty His quiet comes. He will exchange His certainty for all your doubts if you agree that He is one with you and that this Oneness is endless, timeless, and within your grasp
because your hands are His. He is within you, yet He walks beside you and before, leading the way that He must go to find Himself complete. His quietness becomes your certainty. And where is doubt when certainty has come?
Hope you will click Heart to LIKE Us
Click this Heart and then click heart on SoundCloud page
to LIKE Us
|
|
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"
|
|
|
