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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 10 "GOD AND THE EGO"
VIII. THE PROBLEM AND THE ANSWER
77 No one can withhold truth except from himself. Yet God will not refuse the answer He
gave you. Ask, then, for what is yours but which you did not make, and do not defend yourself
against truth.
You made the problem which God has answered. Ask yourselves, therefore, but one simple question-
78 Do I want the problem, or do I want the answer?
79 Decide for the answer and you will have it, for you will see it as it is, and it is yours already.
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
WORKBOOK Part I ~ REVIEW III
INTRODUCTION
<AUDIO>
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
*
IAMBIC PENTAMETER BEGINS*
Our third review begins today. We will
review two of the last twenty ideas
each day, until we have reviewed them all.
We will observe a special format for
these practice periods, which you are urged
to follow just as closely as you can.
We understand, of course, that it may be
impossible for you to undertake
what is suggested here as optimal
each day and every hour of the day.
Learning will not be hampered when you miss
a practice period because it is
impossible at the appointed time.
Nor is it necessary that you make
excessive efforts to be sure that you
catch up in terms of numbers. Rituals
are not our aim, and would defeat our goal.
But learning will be hampered when you skip
a practice period because you are
unwilling to devote the time to it
which you are asked to give. Do not deceive
yourself in this. Unwillingness can be
most carefully concealed behind a cloak
of situations you cannot control.
Learn to distinguish situations which
are poorly suited to your practicing
from those which you establish to uphold
the camouflage for your unwillingness.
Those practice periods which you have lost
because you did not want to do them for
whatever reason should be done as soon
as you have changed your mind about your goal.
You are unwilling to cooperate
in practicing salvation only if
it interferes with goals you hold more dear.
When you withdraw the value given them,
allow your practice periods to be
replacements for your litanies to them.
They gave you nothing. But your practicing
can offer everything to you. And so
accept their offering, and be at peace.
The format you should use for these reviews
is this: Devote five minutes twice a day,
or longer if you would prefer, to
considering the thoughts that are assigned.
Read over the ideas and comments which
are written first in each day's exercise.
And then begin to think about them while
letting your mind relate them to your needs,
your seeming problems and all your concerns.
Place the ideas within your mind, and let
it use them as it chooses. Give it faith
that it will use them wisely, being helped
in its decisions by the One Who gave
the thoughts to you. What can you trust but what
is in your mind? Have faith, in these reviews,
the means the Holy Spirit uses will
not fail. The wisdom of your mind will come
to your assistance. Give direction at
the start, and then lean back in quiet faith,
and let the mind employ the thoughts you gave
as they were given you for it to use.
You have been given them in perfect trust;
in perfect confidence that you would use
them well; in perfect faith that you would see
their messages, and use them for yourself.
Offer them to your mind in that same trust
and confidence and faith. It will not fail.
It is the Holy Spirit's chosen means
for your salvation. Since it has His trust,
His means must surely merit yours as well.
We emphasize the benefits to you
if you devote the first five minutes of
the day to your review and also give
the last five minutes of your waking day
to it. If this cannot be done, at least
try to divide them so you undertake
one in the morning, and the other in
the hour just before you go to sleep.
The exercises to be done throughout
the day are equally important, and
perhaps of even greater value. You
have been inclined to practice only at
appointed times and then go on your way
to other things, without applying what
you learned to them. As a result, you have
gained little reinforcement, and have not
given it the opportunity to prove
how great are its potential gifts to you.
Here is another chance to use it well.
In these reviews we stress the need to let
your learning not lie idly by between
your longer practice periods. Attempt
to give your daily two ideas a brief
but serious review each hour. Use
one on the hour, and the other one
a half an hour later. You need not
give more than just a moment to each one.
Repeat it, then allow your mind to rest
a little time in silence and in peace.
Then turn to other things, but try to keep
the thought with you, and let it serve to help
you keep your peace throughout the day as well.
If you are shaken, think of it again.
These practice periods are planned to help
you form the habit of applying what
you learn each day to everything you do.
Do not repeat it and then lay it down.
Its usefulness is limitless to you.
And it is meant to serve you in all ways,
all times and places, and whenever you
need help of any kind. Try, then, to take
it with you in the business of the day,
and make it holy, worthy of God's Son,
acceptable to God and to your Self.
Each day's review assignment will conclude
with a restatement of the thought to use
each hour, and the one to be applied
on each half hour as well. Forget them not.
This second chance with each of these ideas
will bring such large advances that we come
from these reviews with learning gains so great
that we begin again on solid ground
with firmer footsteps and with stronger faith.
Do not forget how little you have learned.
Do not forget how much you can learn now.
Do not forget your Father's need of you,
as you review these thoughts He gave to you.
~ Original Handscript of ACIM
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
DAILY LESSON
L e s s o n 119 ~ REVIEW III
[Review Lesson 107 and Lesson 108]
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
*
IAMBIC PENTAMETER BEGINS*
1 For morning and evening review:
[107] Truth will correct all errors in my mind.
2
I am mistaken when I think I can
Be hurt in any way. I am God's Son,
Whose Self rests safely in the Mind of God.
[108] To give and to receive are one in truth.
3
I will forgive all things today, that I
May learn how to accept the truth in me,
And come to recognize my sinlessness.
4
On the hour:
5
Truth will correct all errors in my mind
.
6
On the half hour:
7
To give and to receive are one in truth
.
~ Original Handscript of ACIM
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
LESSON 119
Review III ~ Lesson 107 and Lesson 108
Sarah's Commentary:
Today, the Lesson reminds us that we are mistaken if we think we can be hurt in any way. We all believe we can be hurt. Our feelings can get hurt, our bodies can be hurt, and we believe we can die and we can lose loved ones. We grieve, we suffer, and yet here we are invited to consider the truth of this statement, which is that we can't be hurt. The error in my mind is that my reality is a body, and thus, I can be hurt. This is because I have forgotten the truth of who I am as God's Son. I think I am this body and this vulnerable self, which is living in the world. The ego has given us our senses to make it all seem very convincing. The body and the world seem very real to us.
Who is the me that can't be hurt? It is certainly not the me who I identify with as Sarah, the body, and the personality. The Course says the "me" that can't be hurt is who I really am in truth. In other words, this body I think I am, this personality I think defines me, and this image I have made of myself is not me at all! When I identify with the body, personality, and image, I feel I am lacking, limited, and vulnerable. In truth, I am Spirit, part of the One mind we all are. Our individual selves are the dream figures in the dream of separation we are dreaming. We are now awakening to the truth through the process of undoing the misperceptions in the mind. The conditioned, deceived mind has misled us into thinking that we are these dream figures.
It is not a simple matter of reminding ourselves we are not this body, and we are indeed free of all our self-imposed limitations. The undoing process requires us to look honestly at the way we defend against the truth. Our defenses attack our reality. We continually work to protect our definition of ourselves because we believe suffering, sin, sickness, and death are real. "Yet your defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps, which seem wholly irreconcilable." (W.170.3.2) While we think we are protecting ourselves from external threats, we are actually protecting ourselves from love.
To us, love is treacherous because, at the unconscious level of the mind, we see it associated with sacrifice and loss. This is why we need to turn to the Holy Spirit for His interpretation of our wrong-minded perspective. We made fear, and now we think it is real and inescapable because we are constantly defending against it. When we are willing to bring awareness to our defenses and bring them to the light, we can know the invulnerability of the Self we are. We say we believe God's love for us is there, yet we also believe in pain, loss, sickness, suffering, and death. The message of the Course is totally uncompromising. It can only be one or the other. These are mutually exclusive states of mind. We either choose Heaven or hell in each moment.
As the introduction to the Course says, "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God." (T.IN.2.2-3) (ACIM OE T.IN.4-5) Anything not eternal is not real, and this includes our bodies. This is what the crucifixion was meant to teach us-truth cannot be destroyed. Although Jesus was crucified as the world saw it, he was awakened, and as such, he knew himself as Spirit. He no longer identified with the body. As such, he could experience no pain, as pain is of the mind. When the body feels pain, it is only because we have projected our belief in guilt onto the body. Through his resurrection, he demonstrated this. He demonstrated that he knew who he was and who we all are in truth. We are eternal beings, already home in Heaven, having a dream of exile. We are not these vulnerable beings whom we have come to identify with. We are eternally safe. This journey is about awakening to the acceptance of that truth.
To us, the illusion seems so very real and solid. How do we withdraw our investment in it? It is a process that we undertake through the daily discipline of watching our thoughts, contemplating the truth, and doing the forgiveness practice as described in the Course. We take responsibility for our projections and recognize that the world is nothing but a reflection of our thoughts. They are thoughts we don't want to acknowledge in ourselves. We would rather see these thoughts in others, and thus, we see our guilt in them. Healing requires that we take responsibility for these thoughts without judging ourselves for them. Thus, our lives and the world are perfect classrooms for undoing our misperceptions. It does take willingness because it seems to go against everything we have been taught and also what we have taught ourselves.
Pain, suffering, sickness, aging, and death are part of the so-called reality of this worldly experience. While we hold these beliefs, it is not helpful to deny them. To know the truth of who we are as Eternal Beings is not an intellectual exercise. We must apply the Lessons to our daily upsets. The teaching comes alive for us only with our willingness to apply these Lessons daily to whatever shows up. As we learn to walk in trust more and more, relying on the Holy Spirit as our Guide and Jesus as our mentor, we increasingly learn that we are perfectly safe and constantly being supported. When we lack trust, we live in fear and worry and try to control things. When we tap into trust, no matter the outcome, we live in a state of acceptance of whatever comes along in our lives, and we know that, ultimately, all things work together for good.
The words of the Course are not intended to make us feel warm and fuzzy while we are reading them and then set them aside. Nor are they intended to make us into metaphysicians so we can speak with eloquence about the Course. No; none of this will help us. What helps is when we apply the daily Lesson to the activities of the day that tempt us to get upset and take us out of our peace. When events show up in our day and we see them as issues, it is because our guilt has invited betrayal, punishment, and attack. This may seem preposterous to you, yet even the smallest things reflect the truth of this when we choose to see it. Events of the day simply go wrong when our minds are focusing on self-attacking thoughts. We don't want to take responsibility for those thoughts that come from our own minds. We want to see others as guilty, so we can identify ourselves as victims of a cruel world where we are constantly under attack.
Why would we want this? It is just another way we defend ourselves against the unconscious belief we hold in the mind that God will punish us for our sins. To protect ourselves from this imagined punishment from God, we believe we need to project our self-attack onto others and blame them for how we feel. This is the god the ego has convinced us is waiting for us at the end of our lives. This is the god we are afraid to awaken to. Thus, we continue the game of projecting our guilt onto the body and the world, hoping punishment will be delivered to the guilty, and we will be saved. This is the myth that Jesus is exposing and asking us to look at in our own experience.
To accept the truth about ourselves, we must be willing to see past the errors of others. Regardless of what things look like and how we justify our anger, we share the same Eternal Self. It requires that we bring all our false perceptions to the Holy Spirit. Thus, vision is restored, as we see beyond what seems apparent to our eyes and see our brothers the same as ourselves. The spark of divinity is in everyone, no matter how dark they may look to us. As we accept the truth of this more and more, we remember who we are.
Jesus tells us, "The 'reasoning' by which the world is made, on which it rests, by which it is maintained, is simply this: 'You are the cause of what I do. Your presence justifies my wrath, and you exist and think apart from me. While you attack I must be innocent. And what I suffer from is your attack.'" (T.27.VII.3.1-4) (ACIM OE T.27.VIII.64) This is the thought system we believe and defend ourselves against. It does look as if the world is hurting us. If indeed what we see out there is just a projection of the errors in our own minds, then what we suffer from is our own self-attack. He tells us that if our minds are indeed the cause of everything we see, then by inviting correction of the errors in our minds, we can instead, "Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence." (T.27.VII.15.1) (ACIM OE T.27.VIII.75) This Course is all about healing through our relationships. That is what makes the Course unique.
Instead of seeing the mote in our brother's eye, we remove the beam in our own. In other words, our job is to "mind our own mind." The ego thrives on judgment. We interpret what we see and label the behavior as a "sin." If we convince ourselves that our interpretations are fact, we will act accordingly. Or, as Jesus says, "To perceive errors in anyone, and to react to them as if they were real, is to make them real to you." (T.9.III.6.7) (ACIM OE T.9.II.6) Isn't this the reason for all our distress? We look at everyone through the lens of our own past issues, heartbreaks, and shadow figures. Now forgiveness is impossible because we are convinced of their sins. We can't forgive what we have made real. Jesus reminds us that once we have made error real, forgiveness is impossible. "The ego's plan is to have you see error clearly first, and then overlook it. Yet how can you overlook what you have made real?" (T.9.IV.4.4) (ACIM OE T.9.III.12)
What this Lesson is helping us to do is to change our perception so it is possible to overlook the error. We are becoming more and more aware that there is another way of seeing anyone who appears to be causing us pain. We need a miracle for us to experience such drastic changes in perception, and indeed this is what the Holy Spirit offers us when we take our misperceptions to Him. We won't experience the shift in perception by ourselves alone. We need the correction from outside of the matrix. The ego won't undo itself.
We can't pretend that we don't feel hurt, angry, or distressed. Trying to change our perception or trying to figure out the situation by analyzing it won't work, and feeling guilty for our interpretations will just make us feel worse. The miracle is the correction in our minds, which shows us that any attack is just a call for love and that it is actually our own call. We do need the Holy Spirit. Turning to Him for His interpretation of every situation brings healing to our minds. Let us today ask the Holy Spirit for His help to undo our misguided perceptions of our brothers. Be willing to surrender and be humble in giving over your way. We must be willing to see that the hatred we see "out there" is in our own minds, and it is just another block to love we are holding to keep the love we are out of our own awareness. Let us see this as our stubborn resistance to the truth and our need to be right about the way we see things.
We can decide today to stop accepting our own interpretations as true, and instead, we ask the Holy Spirit to look on everything for us, recognizing that we just don't know anything. As little children, we are asking to be taught. We need to be willing to surrender our limited understanding and turn to the One who knows.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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PAUSED FOR WEEKEND
A Course in Miracles
TEXT
Chapter Ten
God and the Ego
Voice and Music by Martin Weber, CIMS SonShip Radio
VIII. The Problem and the Answer
69 The world as
you perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is
not as you see it. God created
only the eternal, and everything you see is perishable. Therefore, there must be another world which you do
not see. The Bible speaks of a
new Heaven and a
new earth, yet this cannot be literally true, for the eternal are not
re-created. To perceive
anew is merely to perceive
again, implying that before, or in the interval, you were not perceiving
at all. What, then, is the world that awaits your perception when you
see it?
70 Every loving thought that the Son of God ever had is eternal. Those which his mind perceived in this world are the world's
only reality. They are still perceptions because he still believes that he is separate. Yet they are eternal because they are loving. And being loving, they are like the Father and therefore cannot die. The real world can
actually be perceived. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing
else. For if you perceive both good
and evil, you are accepting both the false
and the true
and making no distinction between them.
71 The ego sees
some good but never
only good. That is why its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely, for that you could not accept, but it always adds something that is
not real to the real,
thus confusing illusion and reality. For perceptions cannot be partly true. If you believe in truth
and illusion, you cannot tell
which is true. To establish your
personal autonomy, you tried to create unlike your Father, believing what you made to be capable of
being unlike Him. Yet everything in what you have made that
is true
is like Him. Only this is the real world, and perceiving
only this will lead you to the real Heaven because it will make you capable of
understanding it.
72 The perception of goodness is not knowledge, but the denial of the
opposite of goodness enables you to perceive a condition in which opposites do not exist. And this
is the condition of knowledge.
Without this awareness, you have not met its conditions, and until you do you will not know that it is yours already. You have made many ideas which you have placed between yourselves and your Creator, and these beliefs are the world as you perceive it. Truth is not absent here, but it
is obscure. You do not know the difference between what you have made and what God created, and so you do not know the difference between what you have made and what
you have created.
73 To believe that you can perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself. You can know God because it is His Will to
be known. The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for you out of what you have made, and to perceive only this is salvation because it is the recognition that reality is
only what is true.
74 This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel that a course which, in the end, teaches nothing more than that only reality is true is necessary.
But do you believe it? When you have perceived the real world, you will recognize that you did
not believe it. Yet the swiftness with which your new and
only real perception will be translated into knowledge will leave you only an instant to realize that this judgment is true.
75 And then everything you made will be forgotten, the good and the bad, the false and the true. For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. The end of the world is not its destruction, but its
translation into Heaven. The re-interpretation of the world is the transfer of
all perception to knowledge. The Bible tells you to become as little children. Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they
ask what it means. Do not make the mistake of believing that
you understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you. Yet the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning
for you, and if you will
let Him interpret it for you, He will restore what you have thrown away. As long as you think
you know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of Him.
76 You do not know the meaning of
anything you perceive.
Not one thought you hold is wholly true. The recognition of this is your firm beginning. You are not misguided; you have accepted no guide at all. Instruction in perception is your great need, for you understand nothing. Recognize this but do not
accept it, for understanding is your inheritance. Perceptions are learned, and you are not without a Teacher. Yet your willingness to learn of Him depends on your willingness to question
everything you have learned of yourself, for you who have learned amiss should not be your own teachers.
77 No one can withhold truth except from himself. Yet God will not refuse the answer He
gave you. Ask, then, for what is yours but which you did not make, and do not defend yourself
against truth.
You made the problem which God has answered. Ask yourselves, therefore, but one simple question-
78 Do I want the problem, or do I want the answer?
79 Decide for the answer and you will have it, for you will see it as it is, and it is yours already.
80 You complain that this course is not sufficiently specific for you to understand it and
use it. Yet it has been
very specific, and you have
not done what it specifically advocates. This is not a course in the play of ideas, but in their
practical application. Nothing could be more specific than to be told very clearly that if you ask you
will receive. The Holy Spirit will answer
every specific problem as long as you believe that problems
are specific. His answer is both many and one, as long as you believe that the one
is many. Realize that you are
afraid of His specificity for fear of what you think it will
demand of you. Yet only by asking will you learn that nothing that is of God demands
anything of you. God
gives; He does
not take.
81 You are refusing to ask because you believe that asking is
taking, and you do
not perceive it as sharing. The Holy Spirit will give you only what is yours and will take
nothing in return. For what is yours
is everything, and you share it with God. This
is its reality. Would the Holy Spirit, Who wills only to
restore, be capable of misinterpreting the question you must ask to learn His answer?
82 You
have heard the answer, but you have misunderstood the
question. You have believed that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit is to ask for
deprivation. Little Children of God, you do not understand your Father. You believe in a world that takes, because you believe that you can
get by taking. And
by that perception, you have lost sight of the real world. You are afraid of the world as
you see it, but the real world is still yours for the asking. Do not deny it to yourself, for it can
only free you. Nothing of God will enslave His Son, whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by His Being.
83 Blessed are you who will ask the truth of God without fear, for only thus can you learn that His answer
is the release from fear. Beautiful Child of God, you are asking only for what I promised you. Do you believe I would deceive you? The Kingdom of Heaven
is within you. Believe that the truth is in me, for I
know that it is in
you. God's Sons have nothing which they do not share. Ask for truth of any Son of God, and you have asked it of me. No one of us but has the answer in him, to give to anyone who asks it of him. Ask anything of God's Son and His Father will answer you, for Christ is not deceived in His Father, and His Father is not deceived in Him.
84 Do not, then, be deceived in your brother and see only his loving thoughts as his reality, for by denying that
his mind is split, you will heal
yours. Accept him as his Father accepts him and heal him unto Christ, for Christ is his healing
and yours. Christ is the Son of God, who is in no way separate from His Father, whose
every thought is as loving as the Thought of His Father by which He was created. Be not deceived in God's Son, for thereby you
must be deceived in yourself. And being deceived in yourself, you
are deceived in your Father in Whom no deceit is possible.
85 In the real world there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division. Only loving thoughts are recognized, and because no one is
without your help, the Help of God goes with
you everywhere. As you become willing to
accept this Help by
asking for it, you will give it because you
want it. Nothing will be beyond your healing power because nothing will be denied your simple request. What problems will not disappear in the presence of God's answer? Ask, then, to learn of the reality of your brother because this is what you
will perceive in him, and you will see
your beauty reflected in him.
86 Do not accept your brother's variable perception of himself, for his split mind is yours, and you will not accept
your healing without his. For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing
is yours. To love yourself is to
heal yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your
own goal. Brother, we heal together as we live together and love together. Be not deceived in God's Son, for he is one with himself and one with his Father. Love him who is beloved of His Father, and you will learn of the Father's Love for
you.
87 If you perceive offense in a brother, pluck the offense from your mind, for you are offended by Christ and are deceived in Him.
Heal in Christ and be not offended by Him, for there
is no offense in Him. If what you perceive offends you, you are offended in
yourself and are condemning God's Son, whom God condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove
all offense of God's Son against himself and perceive no one but through His guidance, for He would save you from
all condemnation. Accept His healing power and use it for all He sends you, for He wills to heal the Son of God in whom He is not deceived.
88 Children perceive terrifying ghosts and monsters and dragons, and they are terrified. Yet if they ask someone they trust for the
real meaning of what they perceive and are willing to let their interpretations go in
favor of reality, their fear goes with them. When a child is helped to translate his "ghost" into a curtain, his "monster" into a shadow, and his "dragon" into a dream, he is no longer afraid and laughs happily at his own fear. You, my children, are afraid of your brothers and of your Father and of
yourselves. But you are merely
deceived in them.
89 Ask what they
are of the Teacher of Reality, and hearing His answer, you too will laugh at your fears and replace them with peace. For fear lies not in reality, but in the minds of children who do not understand reality. It is only their
lack of understanding which frightens them, and when they learn to perceive truly, they are not afraid. And because of this, they will ask for truth again when they are frightened. It is not the
reality of your brothers or your Father or yourself which frightens you. You do not know what they
are, and so you perceive them as ghosts and monsters and dragons.
Ask of their reality from the One who knows it, and He will
tell you what they are. For you do not understand them, and because you are deceived by what you see, you
need reality to dispel your fears.
90 Would you not exchange your fears for truth if the exchange is yours for the asking? For if God is not deceived in you, you can be deceived only in
yourself. Yet you can learn the truth of yourself of the Holy Spirit, who will teach you that, as part of God, deceit in
you is impossible. When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the false one you have made. And then your Father will lean down to you and take the last step for you by raising you unto Himself.
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