Movie: A grieving man receives the help he needs to heal "The Shack"
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 7 "THE CONSISTENCY OF THE KINGDOM"
VI. HEALING AND THE CHANGELESSNESS OF MIND
45 Love is incapable of any exceptions. Only if there is fear does the idea of exceptions seem to be meaningful. Exceptions are fearful because they are made by fear. The "fearful healer" is a contradiction in terms and is therefore a concept which only a conflicted mind could possibly perceive as meaningful. Fear does not gladden. Healing does. Fear always makes exceptions. Healing never does. Fear produces dissociation because it induces separation. Healing always produces harmony because it proceeds from integration.
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
DAILY LESSONS
L e s s o n 78
Let miracles replace all grievances.
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AUDIO
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Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
1 Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal. And as you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead.
2 Today we go beyond the grievances to look upon the miracle instead. We will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees. We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence to behold the Son of God.
3 He waits for you behind your grievances, and as you lay them down he will appear in shining light where each one stood before. For every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts, you see the Son of God where he has always been. He stands in light, but you were in the dark. Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see.
4 Today we will attempt to see God's Son. We will not let ourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our grievances. So is the seeing of the world reversed, as we look out toward truth, away from fear.
5 We will select one person you have used as target for your grievances and lay the grievances aside and look at him. Someone perhaps you fear and even hate; someone you think you love who angers you; someone you call a friend, but whom you see as difficult at times or hard to please-demanding, irritating, or untrue to the ideal he should accept as his according to the role you set for him.
6 You know the one to choose; his name has crossed your mind already. He will be the one of whom we ask God's Son be shown to us. Through seeing him behind the grievances that we have held against him, you will learn that what lay hidden while you saw him not is there in everyone and can be seen. He who was enemy is more than friend when he is freed to take the holy role the Holy Spirit has assigned to him. Let him be savior unto you today. Such is his role in God your Father's plan.
7 Our longer practice periods today will see him in this role. We will attempt to hold him in our mind, first as you now consider him. We will review his faults, the difficulties you have had with him, the pain he caused you, his neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts he gave. We will regard his body with its flaws and better points as well, and we will think of his mistakes and even of his "sins."
8 Then let us ask of Him Who knows this Son of God in his reality and truth that we may look on him a different way and see our savior shining in the light of true forgiveness given unto us. We ask Him in the Holy Name of God and of His Son, as holy as Himself:
9
Let me behold my savior in this one
You have appointed as the one for me
To ask to lead me to the holy light
In which he stands, that I may join with him.
10 The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances. What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free and make his freedom yours. The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him will free you both.
11 Be very quiet now and look upon your shining savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of him. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him that you might be saved. God thanks you for these quiet times today in which you laid your images aside and looked upon the miracle of love the Holy Spirit showed you in their place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for not one Thought of God but must rejoice as you are saved and all the world with you.
12 We will remember this throughout the day and take the role assigned to us as part of God's salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we allow each one we meet to save us and refuse to hide his light behind our grievances. To everyone you meet and to the ones you think of or remember from the past, allow the role of savior to be given that you may share it with them. For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:
13
Let miracles replace all grievances.
~ Original Hand Script of ACIM
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
LESSON 78
Let miracles replace all grievances.
Sarah's Commentary:
This is another amazing Lesson and a classic forgiveness exercise, where we see that grievances are the problem and miracles are the solution. There is so much power and so much promise in this Lesson, and it is also eminently practical. The entire Lesson is written in the prose of iambic pentameter. All Lessons from Lesson 98 on are written in this kind of blank verse, which reverberates like the beat of a heart by its rhythm of ten syllables per line with the accent on the second syllable. Thus, reading it resonates in a poetic and symphonic way in our minds. I think it is meant to bypass our conscious awareness, like listening to beautiful music. For me, it also illustrates how this dictation must have come from a mind far beyond this world.
This Lesson provides us with the key to our release from the hell and darkness we find ourselves in when we hold grievances. Our grievances may not even be all that apparent to us. We have become so accustomed to judging that we easily dismiss the little annoyances, small irritations, and frustrations that cause us to lose our peace. Then we wonder why we are feeling so distressed or depressed when all around us we see guilt and experience fear.
Interestingly enough, the Course considers any grievance, no matter how small, as no different than murderous rage. However big or small annoyances seem to be, they nevertheless obscure our peace. When we are not at peace, we are not able to experience the miracle. We need to stay very aware of our thoughts and stay very vigilant as to whether we are choosing the ego or the Holy Spirit. When we become aware that we have chosen the ego, we need to bring our misguided perceptions to the Holy Spirit, for His interpretation. "Today we go beyond the grievances, to look upon the miracle instead. We will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees." (W.78.2.1-2) We need the help of the Holy Spirit to bring about a reversal of our conditioned way of seeing. When we turn to Him, we learn that we can be helped to see past "the shield of hate," (W.78.2.3) which keeps us from seeing our brother as the Son of God.
The shield of hate constitutes our projections of guilt onto our brothers. Instead of seeing their divinity, we see the difficulties we experience with them, the pain we believe they have caused us, their neglect of us, all the little hurts we have felt in their presence, any bodily flaws, and their mistakes or even sins, as we perceive them. All these things for which we condemn anyone constitute this shield of hate. It keeps us from seeing the Christ in them. It keeps us from seeing their innocence and thus from knowing our own innocence. It keeps us from seeing how we all share the same nature, both that of the ego and of our divine Self. There are no victims nor perpetrators. When we side with the "victim,"we are refusing to see the sameness of us all as the Christ Self. We are choosing to judge instead of hearing the call for love in our brothers and recognizing it as our own call to open up to the love we are.
"Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle."
(W.78.1.1) Each and every decision we make reflects the ego mind or our right mind where the miracle shines forth in love and forgiveness. When I watch my mind, it is apparent I make constant judgments, hold expectations, make demands, and assign roles and ideals I think others should accept. When they don't live up to them, I get upset. Yes, bodies do things that seem to justify our anger, but the truth of them is not what the body does. When we only see what bodies do or say, we only see that which is described as the shield of hate. This shield hides the light and keeps us from seeing who our brother really is. It also keeps us in the dark. "Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see." (W.78.3.4)
Our task, on behalf of our own healing and happiness, is to allow the shield to be dissolved so we can see what has always been there---our brother's true nature, the Son of God shining in the light where he has always been. "We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence to behold the Son of God." (W.78.2.3) I am the one holding the unforgiving perception of this brother. Now it is up to me to lower this shield of hate by looking at my unforgiving thoughts and having the willingness to choose the miracle instead. That is why healing any relationship does not take two of us. It only takes healing my own unhealed perceptions by letting go of the ego's interpretations. "Let miracles replace all grievances." (W.78) As long as I hold grievances in my mind, which I project onto my brother, I will never see who my brother really is or know my Self. Based on the choice for the ego, "The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight." (T.31.VII.7.1) (ACIM OE T.31.VII.74)
"We will not let ourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our grievances."
(W.78.4.2) When all we see are our grievances, we stay blind to the Christ that vision shows us in our brother and thus in ourselves. True vision is hidden by grievances, and when we hold grievances, we stay blind to the truth. Jesus tells us that in lowering our shield of hate and seeing who our brother is, we reverse the seeing of the world "as we look out toward the truth, away from fear. " (W.78.4.3). All we see reflected back at us are our own projections of guilt, and now we fear retaliation. We think that by focusing on the guilt in others we are able to see their motivations and understand who they are. We give our insights into people great credibility and trust our perceptions but Jesus says they are always wrong!
Now we are called to release our misperceptions to the Holy Spirit, Who will reveal to us who our brother really is. We are totally blinded by our own assessment of people. We may have thought of someone as kind, and now we see them for who they really are, as if we had been led astray by our earlier perceptions. Yet none of our perceptions are the truth. We are always just projecting our own misperceptions onto others, believing if we make them the guilty ones, somehow, we can be free of our own guilt.
When they seem to upset us, our responsibility is to look at the roles and expectations we have assigned to them. "Then let us ask of Him Who knows this Son of God in his reality and truth, that we may look on him a different way, and see our savior shining in the light of true forgiveness, given unto us." (W.78.7.1) Ask with deep sincerity to see the truth. In some situations, it may seem like it takes a lot of time to really give up our carefully cherished grievances, but Jesus reminds us that it does not matter because that is what time is for. As long as you are using time for this purpose, do not get discouraged if the process seems to go on for a seemingly long time. It need not take long at all, but some long-held grievances may indeed be stubbornly held and nurtured, in spite of what seem to be our best efforts to forgive. When we truly ask the Holy Spirit to help us take our projections off our brother and take responsibility for them as coming from our own minds, with willingness and readiness on our part, the miracle comes and shifts our perception; so where once we held judgments, we now experience peace. Our motivation to "Let miracles replace all grievances" (W.78) increases with each miracle, as more and more peace is experienced.
There are people in our lives whom we are asked to select for this exercise. It may be someone we fear, hate, or think we love who has angered us, a friend who is difficult to please, or someone who doesn't meet our expectations and the role we have assigned to them. Our hurt, disappointment, and anger point to the places in us where we are projecting guilt onto a brother. The first step in this process is to take responsibility for the guilt we project and recognize it as our own. By asking for the help of the Holy Spirit and doing our part in taking responsibility for our upsets, judgments, and grievances, the miracle will shift our wrong-minded perceptions.
As we pick a person to focus on, we recognize some form of the darkness we see in them is in ourselves. Thus, we see how we have picked convenient targets onto whom we project our guilt. As we consider the target of our projected grievances, we then ask the Holy Spirit to help us see this person as our savior. Isn't that an amazing thought? These very people that we believe we can't stand have been called into our lives precisely to be our saviors! Jesus reminds us of their importance in our lives, in that they actually hold the key to our salvation so we can be healed of our guilt.
That may seem like quite a stretch when we think about it; but how would we ever access our anger if they were not in our lives and pushing our buttons? The anger is already in our own minds. We are helped to see this is the case through our special love and special hate relationships. As our darkness is brought to the light, it will dissolve when given over to Holy Spirit. As our minds are healed, we will see this light in our brothers. Again, the practice is with specific people, but ultimately, it is generalized to everyone. We will come to see all our brothers as either giving love or calling for love, because the love we will come to see in ourselves is the love we will now see all around us. The behaviors of others may not change, but the interpretations we give their behaviors will change.
We may be reluctant to take certain people off the cross to which we have nailed them with our judgments and grievances. The ego claims we are justified in our anger against them. However, we read in Chapter 30 VI (ACIM OE CH 30 VII), "The Justification for Forgiveness", anger is never justified because "Attack has no foundation." (T.30.VI.1.2) (ACIM OE T.30.VII.70) The source of attack is always the ego thought system, but the ego is nothing, so it has no foundation. Yet we try to justify attack with our stories of why we need to attack in order to defend ourselves. Jesus tells us there is no foundation to attack. However, pardon is always justified because it does have a sure foundation. There can be no real attack because nothing real has occurred. It is a dream of separation where what we think has happened has no reality. "But you are merely asked to see forgiveness as the natural reaction to distress that rests on error, and thus calls for help. Forgiveness is the only sane response." (T.30.VI.2.7-8) (ACIM OE T.30.VII.71)
If we hold onto our grievances, we miss the opportunity constantly available to us to see this person as "more than a friend" (W.78.5.4) and actually as our savior. In fact, this Lesson says----that is his role in God's plan. It does not mean God has planned any of this, but it is part of the plan we have set up as the script for our own healing. We have cast the characters who appear in our dream exactly for this purpose, and they play out the role we have assigned to them. Our script facilitates our awakening when we decide to use every difficult situation for healing. Yes, we can resist and continue to hold onto our grievances, but in our resistance, we chain ourselves to those against whom we hold grievances. As we forgive, we free them and make their freedom our own. (W.78.8.3) Why would we want to keep ourselves chained? "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." (T.20.II.9.2) (ACIM OE T.20.III.13)
Only with the help of the Holy Spirit is our release possible. Jesus tells us, "What you have asked for cannot be denied." (W.78.8.1) "And let the darkness be dispelled by Him Who knows the light, and lays it gently in each quiet smile of faith and confidence with which you bless your brother." (T.22.VI.9.11) (ACIM OE T.22.VII.59) All of Heaven rejoices and God thanks us! What a thought. Basically, it is our own thanks we receive, but it is a beautiful metaphor nevertheless. Why would we not go there? How stubborn do we want to be? The ego urges us to keep our grievances, but the ego does not love us. The ego's existence depends on our holding grievances and seeing others as responsible for our pain. The ego's plan is for us to see ourselves as victims of others and at the mercy of outside conditions.
With practice and true willingness, we can release our thoughts of anger and attack to the Holy Spirit for healing. I have had experiences of working on this practice over several years with some people. One of them recently sent me an email asking me for my forgiveness! I had not heard from him for five years and when I finally did, I found there was nothing to forgive. I had released any grievances I held against him a long time ago, prior to hearing from him. Ultimately, we are not forgiving anyone out there, as it is only our interpretation of what we believe about anyone that is being released. Hearing from him was a beautiful demonstration of not getting attached to any outcomes or expectations in our forgiveness work. This process is only for our own healing and does not depend on anyone doing anything.
Remember, we are asked to apply this Lesson to everyone we meet. Every encounter is a holy encounter. As I see my brother, I will see myself. As I treat him, I treat myself. Jesus reminds us, "Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself." (T.8.III.4.5) (ACIM OE T.8.IV.19) Anyone we meet gives us another chance at salvation. There are no accidents in salvation. Those we are meant to meet, we have met and will meet. We can apply this practice to ones we remember from the past, those currently in our lives, and anyone we think about.
"The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him will free you both."
(W.78.8.4-5) He sees no separation because there is none. We see differences with the body's eyes, but the Son of God is one Self, and we are joined in Oneness with all that is. We seem to be fragmented into many forms, but that is not the way the Holy Spirit sees us. He sees no separation.
"Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of him. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him that you might be saved."
(W.78.8.6-8) Our grievances can become very loud in our minds. The ego harangues us with its raucous shrieks, demanding that we condemn someone for what he has done to us. Yet with forgiveness comes the peace, the joining, and the love that embraces the truth of who we are as One Son. Thus, the very person I chose to exclude from my love becomes my savior, showing me back to the Self I am. I can be grateful that the images hiding the truth from my mind have been laid aside, and in their place, is the miracle. (W.78.9.1)
"We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us as part of God's salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we allow each one we meet to save us, and refuse to hide his light behind our grievances. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of or remember from the past, allow the role of savior to be given, that you may share it with him. For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:
"Let miracles replace all grievances." (W.78.10.1-5)
Love and blessings, Sarah
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PAUSED FOR WEEKEND
A Course in Miracles
TEXT
Chapter Seven
The Consistency of the Kingdom
<TEXT AUDIO>
Voice and Music by Martin Weber, CIMS SonShip Radio
VI. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind
39 The body is nothing more than a framework for developing abilities. It is therefore a means for developing
potentials, which is quite apart from what the potential is used
for.
That is a
decision. The effects of the ego's decision in this matter are so apparent that they need no elaboration here, but the Holy Spirit's decision to use the body
only for communication has such a direct connection with healing that it
does need clarification. The unhealed healer
obviously does not understand his own vocation.
40
Only minds communicate. Since the ego
cannot obliterate the impulse to communicate because it is also the impulse to create, the ego can only teach you that the
body can both communicate
and create and therefore does not
need the mind. The ego thus tries to teach you that the body can
act like the mind and is therefore self-sufficient. Yet we have learned that behavior is
not the level for either teaching
or learning. This must be so, since you
can act in accordance with what you do
not believe. To do this, however, will weaken you as teachers
and learners because, as has been repeatedly emphasized, you teach what you
do believe. An inconsistent lesson will be poorly taught
and poorly learned. If you teach both sickness
and healing, you are both a poor teacher
and a poor learner.
41 Healing is the one ability which everyone can develop and
must develop if he is to be healed. Healing is the Holy Spirit's form of communication and the
only one He knows. He recognizes no other, because He does not accept the ego's confusion of mind and body. Minds can communicate, but they
cannot hurt. The body in the service of the ego can hurt other
bodies, but this cannot occur unless the body has
already been confused with the mind. This fact, too, can be used either for healing or for magic, but you must remember that magic is
always the belief that healing is
harmful. This is its totally insane premise, and so it proceeds accordingly.
42 Healing only
strengthens. Magic
always tries to weaken. Healing perceives
nothing in the healer that everyone else does not
share with him. Magic
always sees something "special" in the healer which he believes he can offer as a gift to someone who does
not have it. He may believe that the gift comes
from God to Him, but it is quite evident that he does not understand God if he thinks he has something that others
lack. You might well ask, then, why some healing
can result from this kind of thinking, and there is a reason for this.
43 However misguided the "magical healer" may be, he is
also trying to help. He is conflicted and unstable, but
at times he is offering something to the Sonship, and the only thing the Sonship can
accept is healing. When the so-called "healing" works, then, the impulse to help and to
be helped have coincided. This is coincidental because the healer may
not be experiencing himself as truly helpful at the time, but the belief that he
is, in the mind of another, helps
him.
44 The Holy Spirit does
not work by chance, and healing that is of Him
always works. Unless the healer
always heals by Him, the results
will vary. Yet healing itself
is consistence since
only consistence is conflict-free, and only the conflict-free
are whole. By accepting exceptions and acknowledging that he can sometimes heal and sometimes not, the healer is
obviously accepting inconsistency. He is therefore
in conflict and
teaching conflict. Can anything of God
not be for all and for always?
45 Love is incapable of
any exceptions. Only if there is fear does the
idea of exceptions seem to be meaningful. Exceptions are fearful because they are made
by fear. The "fearful healer" is a contradiction in terms and is therefore a concept which
only a conflicted mind could possibly perceive as meaningful. Fear does
not gladden. Healing
does. Fear
always makes exceptions. Healing
never does. Fear produces dissociation because it induces
separation. Healing
always produces harmony because it proceeds from integration.
46 Healing is predictable because it can be counted on.
Everything that is of God can be counted on because everything of God is wholly
real. Healing can be counted on
because it is inspired by His Voice and is in accord with His laws. Yet if healing
is consistence, it cannot be inconsistently understood. Understanding
means consistence because God means consistence. Since that is
His meaning, it is also
yours. Your meaning cannot
be out of accord with His because your whole meaning, and your
only meaning, comes
from His and is
like His. God cannot be out of accord with
Himself, and
you cannot be out of accord with Him. You cannot separate your
self from your Creator, Who created you by sharing
His being
with
you.
47 The unhealed healer wants gratitude
from his brothers, but he is not grateful
to them. This is because he thinks he is
giving something
to them and is
not receiving something equally desirable in return. His
teaching is limited because he is
learning so little. His healing lesson is limited by his own ingratitude, which is a lesson in
sickness. Learning is constant and so vital in its power for change that a Son of God can recognize his power in one instant and change the world in the next. That is because by changing
his mind he has changed the most powerful device that was ever created
for change.
48 This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as
God created it, but you think that you
have changed it as long as you learn through the ego. This
does place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which seems contradictory-you must learn to change your mind
about your mind. Only by this can you learn that it
is changeless. When you heal that is exactly what you
are learning. You are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by realizing that he
could not have changed his mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is
only the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind. He himself must think he
can, or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does not know what his self
is.
49 If
you see only the changeless in him, you have not really changed him at all. By changing
your mind about his
for him, you help him
undo the change his ego thinks it has made in him. As you can hear two voices, so you can see in two ways. One way shows you an image, or better, an idol which you may worship out of fear but which you will never love. The other shows you only truth, which you will love because you will
understand it. Understanding is
appreciation because what you understand you can
identify with, and by making it part of
you, you have accepted it with love.
50 That is how God Himself created
you-in understanding, in appreciation, and in love. The ego is totally unable to understand this, because it does
not understand what it makes; it does
not appreciate it; and it does
not love it. It incorporates to
take away. It literally believes that every time it deprives someone of something,
it has increased. We have spoken often of the increase of the Kingdom by
your creations, which can only be created as
you were. The whole glory and perfect joy that
is the Kingdom lies in you to give. Do you not
want to give it?
51 You
cannot forget the Father because I am with you, and
I cannot forget Him. To forget
me is to forget yourself and Him Who created you. Our brothers
are forgetful. That is why they need your remembrance of me and Him who created me. Through this remembrance, you can change their minds about
themselves, as I can change
yours. Your minds are so powerful a light that you can look into theirs and enlighten them, as I can enlighten yours. I do not want to share my
body in communion, because that is to share nothing. [Would I try to share an illusion with the most holy children of a most holy Father?] Yet I do want to share my
mind with you because we
are of One Mind and that
Mind
is ours.
52 See
only this
Mind everywhere because only this
is everywhere and in everything. It
is everything because it encompasses all things within
itself. Blessed are you who perceive only this, because you perceive only what is true. Come therefore unto me and learn of the truth in
you. The Mind we share is shared by all our brothers, and as we see them truly, they
will be healed. Let
your mind shine with mine upon their minds, and by our gratitude to them make them aware of the light in
them.
53 This light will shine back upon
you and on the whole Sonship because this is your proper gift to God. He will accept it and give it to the Sonship because it is acceptable to Him and therefore to His Sons. This is the true communion of the Spirit, Who sees the altar of God in everyone and, by bringing it to
your appreciation, calls upon you to love God
and His creations. You can appreciate the Sonship
only as one. This is part of the Law of Creation and therefore governs
all thought.
~ Original Hand Script of ACIM
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