Lesson 263
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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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CHAPTER 25 I-II, 1-11
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
DAILY LESSON
WHAT IS THE BODY?
What is the Body
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*IAMBIC PENTAMETER

  
   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.
  
    ~ Original Hand Script  
 
 
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
DAILY LESSON
SonShip Workbook
L e s s o n 263
My holy vision sees all things as pure.
 
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    Father, Your Mind created all that is,
    Your Spirit entered into it; Your Love
    gave life to it. And would I look upon
    what You created as if it could be
    made sinful? I would not perceive such dark
    and fearful images. A madman's dream
    is hardly fit to be my choice, instead
    of all the loveliness with which You blessed
    creation; all its purity, its joy,
    and its eternal, quiet home in You.
 
   And while we still remain outside the gate
   of Heaven, let us look on all we see
   through holy vision and the eyes of Christ.
   Let all appearances seem pure to us,
   that we may pass them by in innocence,
   and walk together to our Father's house
   as brothers and the holy Sons of God.
 
     ~ Original Handscript of ACIM  
 
   
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections ACIM Edmonton, CA
LESSON 263
My holy vision sees all things as pure.

  
Sarah's Commentary:  
 
This Lesson is about seeing everyone through holy vision instead of looking for guilt, faults, warts, and differences. In other words, it is to see the innocence in everyone so we can know it in ourselves. We see differences in bodies, personalities, and what bodies do. The Lesson is not about denying the differences that we see, but not using what we see with our eyes to judge others. We are called to "look on all we see through holy vision with the eyes of Christ." (W.263.2.1) Whatever we look upon and however things appear to the body's eyes, let us pray "that we may pass them by in innocence, and walk together to our Father's house as brothers and the holy Sons of God." (W.263.2.2)
 
To see with vision is to recognize that we are all the same beyond what the body's eyes show us. With the "evidence" brought to us by our body's eyes at our request, we see people as sinful, evil, unkind, demanding, and guilty, and we judge them as different than ourselves. We do so because we want to see guilt in them, rather than in ourselves. This maintains the separation and makes others responsible for it! It is how we have chosen to maintain our innocence at their expense. It is why we choose suffering for ourselves because then we can blame someone else for it. And yet, when we see with vision, which is to see beyond appearances, we see that no matter what the perceived differences are, we are all purely divine, perfect, and holy. In other words, we are One Self. We share the same attributes of God given us in our creation. When we see anyone less than that, it provides us with another opportunity for healing. We do the healing when we are willing to look within at our self-condemnation that we project onto others. Thus, they become a mirror of the unhealed guilt within our own minds. We can't heal ourselves, but when we are willing to take responsibility for our projections and truly and sincerely surrender them to the Holy Spirit, He will do the rest.
 
I have always had difficulty with people who whine and complain about life. I have always valued a "can do" attitude. I started out years ago as a social worker, and now I can recognize that my need to rescue was all part of my own unhealed needs. I now see how the role of social worker that I chose kept me safe from my own vulnerability by seeking to rescue others instead. I was mostly able to keep my own sense of weakness and unworthiness out of my awareness. I did this by compensating for it with a show of strength and competency by saving "others". While I was seemingly helping others, I identified with their pain or, alternatively, judged their inadequacies. Healing came when I looked at these aspects of myself.
 
We can only heal what we acknowledge. Until we take responsibility for what we project onto others, we keep our own guilt hidden from ourselves. By withdrawing the projection, we reclaim it as something we need to look at within. Does that mean that everything we judge in others is an unhealed place in ourselves? Absolutely!
 
It is not a projection of our guilt when we observe behavior without judgment. Nevertheless, if we are comparing ourselves as better than anyone, holding a superior or even inferior position to them, we are assuming differences. Jesus invites us to recognize that we share the same need and the same purpose as our brother. He invites us to know the One Self, which we do by first recognizing our sameness. When we see others as guilty, we are saying that Jesus is wrong about who they are as pure and holy and that what we are seeing is right. We justify our anger and attack when we use what our senses show us as evidence of the sinful state of others. Our part is to take our judgments back to our own minds. This is the only place that real change can happen. Trying to change our brothers is just another form of attack.
 
When we judge the behavior of others, it always refers to something we are rejecting about ourselves. We can't heal anything that we deny in ourselves. "The search for truth is but the honest searching out of everything that interferes with truth." (T.14.VII.2.1) (ACIM OE T.14.IV.25) The truth is already in us. There is nowhere we have to go to find it. All we need to do is bring everything that interferes with it to the Holy Spirit. Jesus does not ask us to do this on his behalf, but on behalf of our own happiness. It is the only way out of suffering. The trick is not to judge or crucify ourselves when we see our judgments. All we need to do is acknowledge them. To look at our mistaken perceptions without judgment is to look at them from outside of the dream with the "eyes" of love. From this vantage point, there is nothing we take seriously about what we do or what anyone else does. It is actually all quite a silly dream.
 
Everything about this course is for application in our own lives. We can talk about the ideas in the Course for hours, but how will that help us transform our lives? The important thing is to recognize that if I am feeling anything but the peace of God, I am experiencing the ego. If I make anything important other than the peace of God, it will hurt me. "Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so." (T.26.VI.1.1) (ACIM OE T.26.VII.44)
 
It is so interesting for me to see what shows up in my experience since it has become more and more apparent to me that what I hold in my mind appears as a reflection in the world. It is always an outside picture of my inward condition. Everything truly is a projection of our minds. We are not victims of the world. We actually draw the experiences to us that help us to look at the unhealed places in our minds. If we are experiencing issues of unworthiness, deceit, or dysfunction, we will draw witnesses to these aspects of ourselves. If we have issues of lack, greed, or neediness, these too will show up in our experience. There are no accidents. Yes, we can get very angry about the apparent injustices and what seems to be happening to us, but it is all about our own projections coming from within the mind. This is a powerful thought if we are willing to accept it as fact.
 
The ego mind rejects this responsibility because we actually prefer to be the innocent victims of the seeming injustices of what others do to us. When our unhealed perspectives are kept hidden from awareness, no healing is possible. The only way out is to stay vigilant with what is going on around us, how we are perceiving these situations and events, and to be consistently willing to bring our false self-concepts to the Holy Spirit so space can be opened up for the miracle. How this happens is not up to us. We are only called to look openly at the hidden places in the mind with courage and honesty and bring them to the light. The truth of who we are lies behind these self-concepts and false beliefs. Holiness is our inheritance and waits on our readiness to shine forth.
 
Jesus asks us how we could possibly look on anything God created as if it could be made sinful. (W.263.1.2) Only in this dream, which is being dreamed by a madman, could anyone God created pure be seen as sinful. Remember that in our reading of "What is Sin?" (W.PII.Q4) Jesus spoke of the madman's dreams as being frightening and terrifying. That is our experience. How could what is joyful and eternal be turned to "dark and fearful images"? (W.263.1.3) It is what we have done in our choice for the ego as our "friend," and we continue to make this choice every time we judge a brother as guilty and unworthy of our love.
 
Last night, Don purchased a toilet for our basement that I felt was much too expensive. I proposed that he use it for our upstairs bathroom, where the toilet also needed replacing, and buy something cheaper for the basement. He refused to discuss this option and refused to consider my suggestion. It became a battle of wills---both of us digging in with our respective positions. I asked for help to address my anger and judgment about feeling discounted. I needed a "timeout," so I went to the computer to listen to some teaching and was given exactly what I needed to hear. A woman was speaking about this kind of conflict in her life. She said that whenever she and her husband saw things differently, they sat down together, held hands, indicated a willingness to let go of their ideas about any situation they encountered and simply sat quietly and listened to what Spirit had to say about what to do. It is the willingness to let a position go and to join and ask within. I am committed to focusing more on asking in everything, rather than using my own limited perspectives to make decisions. If we feel we need to decide something, it always means we are not clear on what to do. When we are clear, there is no need for a decision. It simply becomes obvious. And this can only be the case with the Holy Spirit, Who takes us beyond our own reasoning mind.
 
We are being asked today not only to see with Christ's vision but to pass by all appearances in innocence. (W.263.2.2) What does this mean? Apparently, in the Gospel of Thomas, which is discussed in Gary Renard's book "Disappearance of the Universe," there is a reference to becoming passersby, which apparently has the same meaning. It is basically not to get hooked in. This can be such a challenge. When we come across the dark and fearful images, which are things in this world that we give meaning to, the idea is to withdraw the meaning and the judgments that go with it and pass them by. It ties into the question of purpose because if we get drawn into the distractions of the world, we are not passing them by. When I find myself getting into an argument where I take the bait instead of remaining in a state of peace, or if I offer opinions where it would be more beneficial to my peace of mind simply to be still, then I am not passing them by. In these instances, I am actually choosing to throw away my peace and then blame someone else for taking it from me. This is how we give away our power when we could choose to pass it by. The only reason we engage in such debates is to keep the separation going.
 
We were at an event some time ago at the ballpark. In the lounge, a buffet was available. Whoever chose to pay for it received an armband to signify they had bought a ticket. I noticed a group at an adjoining table where one person had the armband signifying they had paid for the buffet, but they were feeding five friends who had not paid. My condemning mind was very willing to be disturbed by this event. In that moment, I was not willing to "look on all we see through holy vision and the eyes of Christ." (263.2.1) I could not "pass them by in innocence." (263.2.2) and had all kinds of judgments about the morality of this situation. My mind was being pulled like a magnet to a crash scene, taking it all in. On reflection afterward, I noticed how much my mind wanted to make them wrong and to see their guilt. Clearly, by the rules of this world, they were not acting in integrity, but for me, it was actually my attraction to guilt which pulled me in.
 
Today, we make a commitment to 1) see the inherent purity in all of our brothers and 2) pass by the forms of the world, rather than get hooked by our condemning thoughts. Our true identity is not these bodies. We are created in the image of God. We are being asked to consider deeply how we could possibly look at what God created as sinful. If we perceive anyone as sinful, dark, and fearful, it can only be because we are projecting our own guilt. God created all that is, and if it is not of love, it is not of Him. Thus, it can only come from a madman's dream, and we are the madman. Healing the dream allows us to see with holy vision.
 
"Could you but realize for a single instant the power of healing that the reflection of God, shining in you, can bring to all the world, you could not wait to make the mirror of your mind clean to receive the image of the holiness that heals the world." (T.14.IX.7.1) (ACIM OE T.14. V.44) In these instants, we experience our holiness. For the rest of the time, we keep using whatever shows up in our day for only one purpose---to heal our minds of our false perceptions of ourselves and everyone else.
 
Love and blessings, Sarah 
A Course in Miracles
TEXT
ACIM Original Edition
Chapter Twenty Five

The Remedy 
 
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CHAPTER 25 I-II, 1-11
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I. Introduction 
 
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.

 
II. The Appointed Task 
 
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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