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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 12 "THE PROBLEM OF GUILT"
VII. ATTAINMENT OF THE REAL WORLD
72 Whenever you are tempted to undertake a foolish journey that would lead
away from light, remember what you really want and say,
73
The Holy Spirit leads me unto Christ,
and where else would I go?
What need have I but to awake in Him?
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L e s s o n 139
I will accept Atonement for myself.
*
IAMBIC PENTAMETER BEGINS*
<
AUDIO>
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
Here is the end of choice. For here we come
to a decision to accept ourselves
as God created us. And what is choice
except uncertainty of what we are?
There is no doubt that is not rooted here.
There is no question but reflects this one.
There is no conflict that does not entail
the single simple question, "What am I?"|
Yet who could ask this question except one
who has refused to recognize himself?
Only refusal to accept yourself
could make the question seem to be sincere.
The only thing that can be surely known
by any living thing is what it is.
From this one point of certainty it looks
on other things as certain as itself.|
Uncertainty about what you must be
is self-deception on a scale so vast
its magnitude can hardly be conceived.
To be alive and not to know yourself
is to believe that you are really dead.
For what is life except to be yourself?
And what but you can be alive instead?
Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts?
Whom does he question? Who can answer him?|
He merely states that he is not himself
and therefore, being something else, becomes
a questioner of what that something is.
Yet he could never be alive at all
unless he knew the answer. If he asks
as if he did not know, it merely shows
he does not want to be the thing he is.
He has accepted it because he lives;
has judged against it and denied its worth;
and has decided that he does not know
the only certainty by which he lives.|
Thus he becomes uncertain of his life,
for what it is has been denied by him.
It is for this denial that you need
Atonement. Your denial made no change
in what you are. But you have split your mind
into what knows and does not know the truth.
You are yourself. There is no doubt of this,
and yet you doubt it. But you do not ask
what part of you can really doubt yourself.
It cannot really be a part of you
that asks this question, for it asks of one
who knows the answer. Were it part of you,
uncertainty would be impossible.|
Atonement remedies the strange idea
that it is possible to doubt yourself
and be unsure of what you really are.
This is the depth of madness. Yet it is
the universal question of the world.
What does this prove except the world is mad?
Why share its madness in the sad belief
that what is universal here is true?|
Nothing the world believes is true. It is
a place whose purpose is to be a home
where those who claim they do not know themselves
can come to question what it is they are.
And they will come again until the time
Atonement is accepted, and they learn
it is impossible to doubt yourself
and not to be aware of what you are.|
Only acceptance can be asked of you,
for what you are is certain. It is set
forever in the holy Mind of God
and in your own. It is so far beyond
all doubt and question that to ask what it
must be is all the proof you need to show
that you believe the contradiction that
you know not what you cannot fail to know.
Is this a question or a statement which
denies itself in statement? Let us not
allow our holy minds to occupy
themselves with senseless musings such as this.|
We have a mission here. We did not come
to re-inforce the madness which we once
believed in. Let us not forget the goal
which we accepted. It is more than just
our happiness alone we came to gain.
What we accept as what we are proclaims
what everyone must be along with you.
Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself.
Look lovingly on them that they may know
that they are part of you and you of them.|
This does Atonement teach, and demonstrates
the oneness of God's Son is unassailed
by his belief he knows not what he is.
Today accept Atonement, not to change
reality, but merely to accept
the truth about yourself, and go your way
rejoicing in the endless Love of God.
It is but this that we are asked to do.
It is but this that we will do today.|
Five minutes in the morning and at night
we will devote to dedicate our minds
to our assignment for today. We start
with this review of what our mission is:
"I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me
."
We have not lost the knowledge that God gave
to us when He created us like Him.
We can remember it for everyone,
for in creation are all minds as one,
and in our memory is the recall
how dear our brothers are to us in truth,
how much a part of us is every mind,
how faithful they have really been to us,
and how our Father's Love contains us all.|
In thanks for all creation, in the Name
of its Creator and His Oneness with
all aspects of creation, we repeat
our dedication to our cause today
each hour, as we lay aside all thoughts
which would distract us from our holy goal.
For several minutes let your mind be cleared
of all the foolish cobwebs which the world
would weave around the holy Son of God.
And learn the fragile nature of the chains
which seem to keep the knowledge of yourself
apart from your awareness, as you say:
"I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me
."
~
Original Hand Script Notes
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
LESSON 139
I will accept Atonement for myself.
Sarah's Commentary:
The Lesson yesterday spoke of the thousand choices we seem to have in the world of illusion, with many conflicting goals in front of us. Yet Jesus also reminded us that there really is only one choice to make and even that choice is already made. We are learning that the many forms we seem to choose among conceal the fact that there is only one choice---the choice for Heaven and truth. When we made the choice for the ego, we also made a choice for the false self, which is why the Atonement is needed. The Atonement is a correction that we can apply every time we choose wrongly. This does not make us wrong, but we have simply made a mistake that can be corrected when we turn to the Holy Spirit.
Time has been given us to use for the purpose of correcting our mistaken choice for the separation and our individuality. When we use time for learning, it is because we really do want to know again our Eternal One Self. When time is used for healing, it is being well used to accept the Atonement for ourselves. We are not responsible for the error, but we are responsible for accepting the Correction. As long as the illusion seems to offer us what we deem as satisfaction, we will continue to choose its offerings until we recognize it offers us nothing but pain and suffering. Today's Lesson says that when we decide to accept the Atonement, it marks the end of choice and the acceptance of ourselves as God created us. Until we come to total acceptance of our reality, we keep questioning, seeking, doubting, denying, and keeping ourselves small. We keep wondering: "What am I?" "Why am I here?" "What is the purpose and meaning of my life?"
Why would we ask these questions if God has already answered them? Why do we stay in this confusion about our identity? He says, "Uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast, its magnitude can hardly be conceived." (W.139.3.1) We are living in denial of the truth about ourselves that we must learn to stop. "The task of the miracle worker thus becomes to deny the denial of truth." (T.12.II.1.5) (ACIM OE T.11.III.14) Our minds are split into a part that knows the truth about ourselves (the right mind) and another part that does not know; and we hold beliefs and concepts about ourselves that are not true.
Our journey of awakening is not supported by the world. It can't be otherwise because "It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are." (W.139.7.2) It is an insane world based on an insane thought system. "The ego made the world as it perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the reinterpreter of what the ego made, sees the world as a teaching device for bringing you home." (T.5.III.11.1) (ACIM OE T.5.V.42) All our past learning, when used for the purpose of awakening, can now become a classroom for its undoing with the help of our inner Teacher.
Apparently, we will keep coming here until we give up all these questions and all our doubt thoughts and accept the truth about ourselves. This is what acceptance of the Atonement is all about. It is the correction of our mistaken perceptions. It is a correction of our wrong-minded beliefs. To accept the Atonement is to come to accept that we are not bodies, living in this world. To accept the Atonement is to heal the mind of all its misconceptions, all its self-concepts, and all the values and beliefs it holds. It is a process of undoing everything that we have come to accept as true about ourselves and the world until we come to the place where we no longer question who we are. We are no longer deceived about our true Identity as the Christ.
We come to the place where we know ourselves as eternal, rather than bodies living a life that ends in death. "To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead." (W.139.3.2) The truth is that we have never left God and are still one with Him. It is only in the insanity of the illusion that we believe life consists of our experience in the body and the world. Life can only be truly known when we know what we are as the Christ. We did not destroy this life when we remembered not to laugh at the tiny mad idea that we could actually separate from God and the Love we are. Not one note in Heaven's song was missed. We are still One with our Father.
"Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts? Whom does he question? Who can answer him?"
(W.139.3.4-7) I love these questions that show the part of the mind that asks and the part that does not know. When I say, "I ask myself," who is the "I" that asks the "self?" This internal dialogue goes on between what seem to be the different parts of the mind. The questioner is the part that has chosen the ego. What he doubts is what he is. Whom he questions is himself. Who can answer him is only the Holy Spirit in the right mind. "For it asks of one who knows the answer." (W.139.5.10) We won't hear the answer as long as we listen to the ego. The Self is in the right mind, but it seems to be a separate part of what we are. The one who is questioning is not what we are. "Were it part of you, then certainty would be impossible." (W.139.5.11) We are not two parts in conflict. There is only One Self. The doubter is the one who has chosen to identify with the wrong mind. Again, it is the choice made for our individuality that brought about all our doubt thoughts. We now doubt what we are as the One Self at One with God. Yet the answer is within, in the right mind. If we do not hear, it is because we are listening to the part that does not know.
This Lesson helps us to see how we can end the uncertainty of this constant questioning of ourselves. Sanity is in our minds at this very moment. It is the Answer within us to every question about ourselves. "We have not lost the knowledge that God gave us when He created us like Him." (W.139.11.4) If we don't hear the answer, it is because we don't want to be what we are. We are actively resisting the truth, believing there will be a high cost to us in the acceptance of the truth within. The Holy Spirit is the symbol of the memory of everlasting life. He is our assurance that we cannot die. Yet because we have ". . . judged against it [the truth of our being] and denied its worth," (W.139.4.4) we think we don't know what we are; and this is the source of all our uncertainty. Just because we have denied the truth of our reality does not change what we are. "Your denial made no change in what you are." (W.139.5.3) Part of us knows the truth about ourselves, and the other part keeps denying this truth. This is the split mind.
The ego is nothing but a doubt thought we hold about ourselves. It is madness. It has occupied the mind which now doubts itself and has become unsure of what it is. "Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself, and be unsure of what you really are." (W.139.6.1) Thus, Atonement is the acceptance of the truth about ourselves. It releases the question from our minds of what we are. It is the acceptance of the Answer. It is the recognition, "I will accept Atonement for myself, for I remain as God created me." (W.139.11.3) The truth is already in our minds. (W.139.8.2) It is not something we have to seek. We can choose to "not allow our holy minds to occupy themselves with senseless musings." (W.139.8.5) "We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us like Him." (W.139.11.4) That knowledge is still in our minds to be accessed there.
What is stopping us? The only thing stopping us is our own fear and our distractions from our holy aim. All the things of this world that distract us are the ". . . foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around the Holy Son of God." (W.139.12.2) They have no substance but only appear to be a complex web that cannot hold us back. "And learn the fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apart from your awareness. . ." (W.139.12.3) They cannot hold back the awareness of the truth about ourselves if we don't let them. When we let them hold us back, they do indeed feel powerful and strong to us. In this dream, they seem to have a very strong hold only because we give them power.
We have an important assignment given to us by Jesus today. The assignment is to remind ourselves hourly that we remain as God created us. It will never be affirmed by what the world values and what we value in the world. Whenever we experience doubt, confusion, or distress of any kind, we can look at our thoughts with the Holy Spirit and without judgment. We need to tell ourselves the truth often---we were created perfect, whole, and totally innocent. Everything we think we have done to destroy the truth about ourselves is simply a dream. While we may acknowledge that this is the case, the only way we can experience it is to be vigilant of our thoughts. Our thoughts are blocking the truth. These are the thoughts of anger, despair, worry, fears, demands, expectations, specialness, judgment, arrogance, and more. Jesus can't change our thoughts for us. We must do the work ourselves because we are the ones who gave power to these senseless thoughts. He tells us that since we made them, we must be the ones to bring them to the light.
When we release the blocks to love by accepting the Atonement for ourselves, we do it for the whole Sonship, as there is only One Mind. Every brother is a part of the One Mind. We will know our magnificence when we see it everywhere and in everyone. In this endless love, available to us in every moment, we will rejoice as we join with our brothers and sisters in Oneness. So let us look with kindness on everyone, extend blessings to those who cross our path today, and refrain from analyzing the motives of others or correcting our brothers. Our acceptance of our own joy and peace is the gift we give and thus receive for ourselves, as we do this in gratitude and joy.
He asks us to lay aside all thoughts that would distract us from our holy aim. Today, anytime you witness your unhappiness, pain, distress, or even happiness as coming from something outside you, realize that you deny the truth of who you are and thus deny the healing. By taking responsibility for our judgments and our attacks perceived to be coming from within ourselves or from the world, we take the first step in healing. We need to spend the day being vigilant with regard to mind watching. All our doubts, confusion, and uncertainties are opportunities to question their validity. They are not the truth.
"For several minutes let your mind be cleared of all the foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around the holy Son of God. And learn the fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apart from your awareness, as you say:
"I will accept Atonement for myself, for I remain as God created me.
"
(W.139.12.2-3)
These fragile chains are the ego's thought system of sin, guilt, fear, suffering, and death. To us, they do not seem fragile at all when we give them power. Today, I set my kitchen on fire and was giving power to my thoughts that I was guilty and had sinned. These are the fragile chains that can readily be brought to the truth so that regardless of what is happening in our lives, we can choose peace instead. Yes, feelings arise and must be acknowledged, felt, and released, but that comes more and more easily as we do the work and remind ourselves of the only thing that is true in this world---I am still as God created me.
We can only recognize the nothingness of these illusions when we question them and bring them to the light of truth. It is the process of forgiveness as described in the Course. It is a process of looking without judgment at the ego thought system, which can only be done when we look with the Holy Spirit.
Bring forth the memory of how dear your brothers are in truth and how much a part of you is every mind, how faithful they have been to you, and how your Father's love contains them all. Bring them all into the circle of light and love, leaving no one outside of your loving embrace. Notice whenever you try to separate from your brothers with your judgments or by seeing differences and making comparisons. Any thoughts we hold that separate us from any of our brothers is how we deny our Identity. We make judgments all the time, so do not judge yourself for making them. Just be willing to release them once they are seen. "The necessary condition of the holy instant does not require that you have no thoughts that are not pure. But it does require that you have none that you would keep." (T.15.IV.9.1) (ACIM OE T.15.V.43)
Love and blessings, Sarah
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Chapter Twelve
The Problem of Guilt
Voice and Music by Martin Weber, CIMS SonShip Radio
VII. Attainment of the Real World
58 Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself,
59
The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and
there are no streets where people walk alone and separate.
There are no stores where people buy an endless list of
things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light,
and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens
and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines,
and shines forever.
60 The world
you see must be
denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision.
You cannot see both worlds, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible
because you have denied the other. Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is
not the same because their real attraction to you is unequal.
61 You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired and ready to return to dust even as you made it. This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in
it the road that leads away from it into another world.
62 Yet the real world has the power to touch you even here
because you love it. And what you call with love
will come to you. Love
always answers, being unable to deny a call for help or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it from every part of this strange world you made but do not want. The only effort you need make to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did not make is willingness to learn
the one you made is false.
63 You
have been wrong about the world because you have misjudged
yourself. From such a twisted reference point what
could you see? All vision starts
with the perceiver who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false
he does not see. You who would judge reality
cannot see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight because what is denied is there but is not
recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does not depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present and waits for you to leave the past behind and enter into the world He holds out to you in love.
64 No one in this distracted world but has seen some glimpses of the other world about him. Yet while he still lays value on his own, he will
deny the vision of the other world, maintaining that he loves what he loves not and following not the road that love points out. Love leads so gladly! And as you follow Him, you will rejoice that you have found His company and learned of Him the joyful journey home. You wait but for
yourself. To give this sad world over and exchange your errors for the peace of God is but
your will. And Christ will
always offer you the Will of God in recognition that you share it with Him.
65 It is God's Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself, and nothing else comes nigh unto him. He is as safe from pain as God Himself, Who watches over him in everything. The world about him shines with love because God placed him in Himself where pain is not and love surrounds him without end or flaw. Disturbance of his peace can never be. In perfect sanity he looks on love, for it is all about him and within him. He
must deny the world of pain the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. And from this point of safety, he looks quietly about him and recognizes that the world is one with him.
66 The peace of God passeth your understanding
only in the past. Yet here it
is, and you can understand it
now. God loves His Son forever, and His Son
returns his Father's love forever. The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true and wholly
yours. For all else you have lent yourself in time, and it will fade. But this one thing is
always yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your
one reality was given you, and by it God created you as one with Him.
67 You will first dream of peace and then awaken to it. Your first exchange of what you made for what you want is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of love. In these lie your true perceptions, for the Holy Spirit corrects the world of dreams, where
all perception is. Knowledge needs no correction. Yet the dreams of love lead
unto knowledge. In them you see nothing fearful, and because of this, they are the welcome that you
offer knowledge. Love waits on welcome,
not on time, and the real world is but your welcome of what always was. Therefore, the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening to what you have not lost. Praise, then, the Father for the perfect sanity of His most holy Son.
68 Your Father knoweth that you have need of nothing. In Heaven this is so, for what could you need in eternity? In
your world you
do need things because it is a world of scarcity in which you find yourself
because you are lacking. Yet
can you find yourself in such a world? Without the Holy Spirit, the answer would be no. Yet because of Him, the answer is a joyous
yes! As Mediator between the two worlds, He knows what you have need of and what will not hurt you. Ownership is a dangerous concept if it is left to you. The ego wants to
have things for salvation, for possession is its law. Possession for its
own sake is the ego's fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches that it builds unto itself. And at
its altar it demands you lay
all of the things it bids you get, leaving you no joy in them.
69 Everything that the ego tells you that you need will hurt you. For although the ego urges you again and again to
get, it leaves you nothing, for what you get, it will
demand of you. And even from the very hands that grasped it, it will be wrenched and hurled into the dust. For where the ego sees salvation, it sees
separation, and so you lose whatever you have gotten in its name. Therefore ask not of yourselves what you need, for
you do not know and your advice unto yourself
will hurt you. For what you think you need will merely serve to tighten up your world
against the light and render you unwilling to question the value that this world can really hold for you.
70 Only the Holy Spirit
knows what you need. For He will give you all things that do not block the way to light. And what else
could you need? In time He gives you all the things that you need have and will renew them as long as you have need of them. He will take nothing from you as long as you have
any need of it. And yet He knows that everything you need is temporary and will but last until you step aside from
all your needs and learn that all of them
have been fulfilled. Therefore He has no investment in the things that He supplies except to make certain that you will not use them on behalf of lingering in time. He knows that you are not at home there, and He wills no delay to wait upon your joyous homecoming.
71 Leave, then, your needs to Him. He will supply them with no emphasis at all upon them. What comes to you of Him comes safely, for He will ensure it never can become a dark spot, hidden in your mind and kept to hurt you. Under His guidance, you will travel light and journey lightly, for His sight is ever on the journey's end which is His goal. God's Son is not a traveler through
outer worlds. However holy his perception may become, no world outside himself holds his inheritance. Within himself he
has no needs, for light needs nothing but to shine in peace and from itself to let the rays extend in quiet to infinity.
72 Whenever you are tempted to undertake a foolish journey that would lead
away from light, remember what you really want and say,
73
The Holy Spirit leads me unto Christ,
and where else would I go?
What need have I but to awake in Him?
74 Then follow Him in joy, with faith that He will lead you safely through all dangers to your peace of mind that this world sets before you. Kneel not before the altars to sacrifice and seek not what you will surely lose. Content yourselves with what you will as surely
keep and be not restless, for you undertake a quiet journey to the peace of God, where He would have you be in quietness.
75 In me you have already overcome
every temptation that would hold you back. We walk together on the way to quietness that is the gift of God. Hold me dear, for what except your brothers
can you need? We will restore to you the peace of mind that we must find
together. The Holy Spirit will teach you to awaken unto us and to yourself. This is the only
real need to be fulfilled in time. Salvation
from the world lies only here. My peace I
give you.
Take it of me in glad exchange for all the world has offered but to take away. And we will spread it like a veil of light across the world's sad face, in which we hide our brothers
from the world, and it from them.
76 We cannot sing redemption's hymn alone. My task is not completed until I have lifted every voice with mine. And yet it is
not mine, for as it is my gift to you, so was it the Father's gift to me, given me through His Spirit. The sound of it will banish sorrow from the mind of God's most holy Son, where it cannot abide. Healing in time
is needed, for joy cannot establish its eternal reign where sorrow dwells. You dwell not here, but in eternity. You travel but in dreams while safe at home. Give thanks to every part of you that you have taught how to
remember you. Thus does the Son of God give thanks unto his Father for his purity.
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