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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.
CHAPTER 25: THE REMEDY
II.
THE APPOINTED TASK
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Workbook for Students
Part II
What is the Body?
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1 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 his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is. How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love outside?
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Workbook for Students
Lesson 267
My heart is beating
in the peace of God.
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1 Surrounding me is all the life that God created in His Love. It calls to me in every heartbeat and in every breath, in every action and in every thought. Peace fills my heart and floods my body with the purpose of forgiveness. Now my mind is healed, and all I need to save the world is given me. Each heartbeat brings me peace; each breath infuses me with strength. I am a messenger of God, directed by His Voice, sustained by Him in love, and held forever quiet and at peace within His loving arms. Each heartbeat calls His Name, and every one is answered by His Voice, assuring me I am at home in Him.
2
Let me attend Your Answer, not my own. Father, my heart is beating in the peace the Heart of Love created. It is there and only there that I can be at home.
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Lesson ARCHIVE
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Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
Chapter 25
The Remedy
I. Introduction
par 1-3
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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.
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Course in Miracles
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Text
Chapter 25
The Remedy
II. The Appointed Task
par 4-11
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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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Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 267
My heart is beating
in the peace of God.
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Sarah's Commentary:
All ten Lessons that we are doing now follow the Section,
"What is the Body?"
(W.II.Q5) It is recommended that this section be read daily together with the Lesson. The body is described as impermanent and "proof" that God's eternal Son can be destroyed and made to be fearful within a dream of fear. Yet, despite this, Jesus says,
"The body is the means by which God's Son returns to sanity."
(W.PII.Q5.What is the Body?4.1) This means that the body can be turned to a new purpose, no longer taking its orders from the wrong mind. When we are no longer using it on behalf of the ego, it becomes our way back to the mind.
"Though it was made to fence him into hell without escape, yet has the goal of Heaven been exchanged for the pursuit of hell."
(W.PII.Q5.What is the Body?4.2)
What, we may wonder, is the pursuit of hell? It is to use the body lovelessly. To use it lovelessly is to use it for attack and accumulate more guilt. We send it on various missions to bring us what we believe will serve us, yet what we get is more pain and suffering. When we turn to the Holy Spirit and listen to His Voice to guide our actions, the body becomes an instrument for expressing and extending love in the world.
"Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly."
(T.8.VIII.9.9) (ACIM OE T.8.VIII.79) To use it in service to the Holy Spirit is to use it for the purpose of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a reflection of God's Love in this world and is the closest that we come to knowing the nature of love. Only in complete forgiveness do we feel our hearts beating in the peace of God. We can never feel deep peace while we are sending the body on quests that serve the ego.
"I am a messenger of God, directed by His Voice, sustained by Him in love, and held forever quiet and at peace within His loving Arms."
(W.267.1.6) This raises the question about behavior. The Course does not give any guidelines for behavior on the level of form. Rather, it is teaching us to expose our thoughts of attack and judgment so the mind can be healed. Only then will the characteristics of a teacher of God, described in the Manual, flow naturally from the healed mind. These characteristics are not meant to be "exercised" or "practiced" while there are underlying beliefs in opposition to them. In other words, the Course is only about the healing of false concepts and beliefs held in the mind. It is about giving up the false self. When the mind is healed, behavior follows naturally. As Jesus tells us,
"You cannot behave appropriately unless you perceive correctly."
(T.1.III.6.5) (ACIM OE T.1.I.64)
Further, he says,
"I have said that you cannot change your mind by changing your behavior, but I have also said, and many times, that you
can
change your mind."
(T.4.IV.2.1) (ACIM OE T.4.V.57)
"I have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same Mind to do this. This Mind is the Holy Spirit, Whose Will is for God always. He teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and to behave like me as a result."
(T.5.II.12.1-3) (ACIM OE T.5.IV.30)
"Yet we have learned that behavior is not the level for either teaching or learning, since you
can
act in accordance with what you do
not
believe."
(T.7.V.2.4) (ACIM OE T.7.VI.40)
And later in the text,
"Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world."
(T.21.in.1.7) (ACIM OE T.21.I.1)
In perhaps the clearest discussion of this point in the Course, Jesus says,
"You would not excuse insane behavior on your part by saying you could not help it. Why should you condone insane thinking? There is a confusion here that you would do well to look at clearly. You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think."
(T.2.VI.2.2-5) (ACIM OE T.2.IV.73)
"It is pointless to believe that controlling the outcome of misthought can result in healing."
(T.2.VI.3.1) (ACIM OE T.2.IV.74)
"You must change your mind, not your behavior, and this is a matter of willingness. You do not need guidance except at the mind level. Correction belongs only at the level where change is possible. Change does not mean anything at the symptom
[behavioral]
level, where it cannot work."
(T.2.VI.3.4-7) (ACIM OE T.2.IV.74)
Everything in us yearns for God.
"Each heartbeat calls His Name,"
(W.267.1.7) and with each call, we are answered. We continually have His Answer, and if we don't hear it, we are listening to our own voice. We are surrounded by
"all the life that God created in His Love."
(W.267.1.1) Somewhere in us, we know that this is true. We know that any substitute we try to find in the world to make us happy, invariably, will not fill our longing for our home. We yearn for peace, and
"It is there and only there that I can be at home
,"
(W.267.2.3) in the
"Heart of Love."
(W.267.2.2)
Jesus reminds us that there is nothing that God can give us except the knowledge of Himself.
"What else is there to give? The belief that you could give and get something else, something outside yourself, has cost you the awareness of Heaven and of your Identity."
(T.18.VI.2.2-3) (ACIM OE T.18.VII.50) We have made the body.
"Would you not have the instruments of separation reinterpreted as means for salvation, and used for purposes of love?"
(T.18.VI.5.1) (ACIM OE T.18.VII.53)
With desire comes an expansion of awareness, which
"calls to you to be yourself, within its safe embrace."
(T.18. VI.14.3) (ACIM OE T.18.VII.62) This really resonates with me. Don't we all experience how exhausting it is to hold up the image and the self-concept we have made? Bringing shame and guilt to the surface and bringing our secret thoughts out of the darkness creates space for the light that we are to shine through. We don't easily do this because we judge some thoughts and some beliefs to have more value than others. We think a small irritation is more acceptable than murderous thoughts, but these thoughts are all the same. They all take away our peace. There is no order of magnitude in the illusion.
We are offered release through the holy instant when we experience perfect safety held in the Arms of Love. Of course, this is a metaphor, as God has no arms and is not outside of us. Yet we feel the comfort of His presence when all that interferes with peace is released through forgiveness. Peace is not found in our memories of the past, nor in some future goals. Jesus says,
"Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. The childhood of your body, and its place of shelter, are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened. Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father's house, and knows that He is alien here. This childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever."
(W.182.4.1-4)
"It is this Child in you your Father knows as His Own Son. It is this Child Who knows His Father. He desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. He does not ask for more than just a few instants of respite; just an interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that fills His Father's house."
(W.182.5.1-4)
Can you feel the deep yearning in your heart for the rest that can only to be found in the holy air of our Father’s house? Our deep yearning and deep desire keep us on this path. This yearning keeps us motivated to do our mind watching. Today, with every breath and with every heartbeat, let us remember why we are here and put our minds to this holy purpose of extending the love that we are to our brothers. We need not be in their presence nor "send" anyone love. What we are doing is connecting to the truth within ourselves. The body is made holy in how it is being used by the right mind, rather than how we treat it in trying to maintain its well-being. Our healed thoughts are expressed through the body and thus reinforce the sanity in the mind. Thus, behavior will follow naturally from our healed thoughts being guided by the Holy Spirit.
Let peace fill your heart and flood your body with the purpose of forgiveness today (W.267.1.3) so your healed mind can extend to all. Thus, our call to Him is answered and our own thoughts are cleared away so we can hear the still quiet Voice of Truth. Today, we choose God's Answer in everything, rather than our own.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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Allen Watson's
Workbook Commentaries
Allen joined Robert Perry in forming the Circle of Atonement in 1993 in Sedona, Arizona where Allen led retreats and workshops and authored many books based on “A Course in Miracles.” One of his most popular books is:
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