"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
Herein Lies the peace of God."
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A
Course in Miracles
TEXT
CHAPTER 8
The Journey Back
V. The Light of the World
25
If God's Will for you is complete peace and joy, unless you experience
only
this you must be refusing to
acknowledge
His Will. His Will does not vacillate, being changeless forever. When you are not at peace, it can only be because you do not believe you
are
in Him. Yet He is all in all. His peace is complete, and you
must
be included in it. His laws govern you, because they govern
everything
. You cannot exempt yourself from His laws, although you can disobey them. Yet if you do, and
only
if you do, you
will
feel lonely and helpless, because you are denying yourself everything.
26
I am come as a light into a world that
does
deny itself everything. It does this simply by dissociating itself
from
everything. It is therefore an illusion of isolation, maintained by fear of the same loneliness which
is
its illusion. I have told you that I am with you always, even to the end of the world. That is
why
I am the light of the world. If I am with you in the loneliness of the world,
the loneliness is gone
. You
cannot
maintain the illusion of loneliness if you are
not
alone. My purpose, then,
is
to overcome the world. I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it because of what it
is
.
27
Light does not attack darkness, but it
does
shine it away. If my light goes with you everywhere,
you
shine it away
with
me. The light becomes
ours
, and you cannot abide in darkness any more than darkness can abide wherever you go. The remembrance of me
is
the remembrance of yourself and of Him Who sent me to you. You were in darkness until God's Will was done completely by
any
part of the Sonship. When this was done, it was perfectly accomplished by
all
. How else could it
be
perfectly accomplished? My mission was simply to unite the will of the Sonship with the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father's Will myself. This is the awareness I came to give
you
, and your problem in accepting it
is
the problem of this world. Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I
am
the salvation of the world.
28
The world must despise and reject me, because the world
is
the belief that love is impossible.
Your
reactions to me are the reactions of the world to God. If you will accept the fact that I am with you, you are
denying
the world and
accepting
God. My will is His, and
your
will to hear me is the decision to hear His Voice and abide in His Will. As God sent me to you, so will I send you to others, and I will go to them
with
you so we can teach them peace and union.
29
Do you not think the world
needs
peace as much as you do? Do you not want to
give
it to the world as much as you want to
receive
it? For unless you do, you will
no
t receive it. If you will to have it of me, you
must
give it. Rehabilitation does not come from anyone else. You can have guidance from without, but you must
accept
it from within. The guidance must be what
you
want, or it will be meaningless to you. That is why rehabilitation is a collaborative venture.
30
I can tell you what to do, but this will not help you unless you collaborate by believing that I
know
what to do. Only then will your mind choose to follow me. Without
your
will, you cannot
be
rehabilitated.
Motivation
to be healed is the crucial factor in rehabilitation. Without this you are deciding
against
healing, and your veto of my will for you
makes healing impossible
. If healing
is
our joint will, unless our wills
are
joined you
cannot
be healed. This is obvious when you consider what healing is
for
. Healing is the way in which the separation is overcome. Separation is overcome by
union
. It cannot be overcome by separating.
31
The
will
to unite must be unequivocal, or the will
itself
is divided or not whole. Your will is the means by which you determine your own condition, because will is the
mechanism
of decision. It is the power by which you separate or join and experience pain or joy accordingly. My will cannot
overcome
yours, because yours is as powerful as mine. If it were not so, the Sons of God would be unequal. All things are possible through our
joint
will, but my will alone cannot help you. Your will is as free as mine, and God Himself would not go against it.
I
cannot will what God does
no
t will. I can offer you my will to make
yours
invincible by this sharing, but I cannot
oppose
yours
without
competing with it and thereby violating God's Will for you.
32
Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His. God
gave
your will its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of
His
. If you want to be like me, I will help you, knowing that we
are
alike. If you want to be different, I will wait until you change your mind. I can
teach
you, but only you can choose to
listen
to my teaching. How else can it be, if God's Kingdom
is
freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of any kind, and the perfect equality of
all
God's Sons cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another. God's Sons are equal in will, all being the Will of their Father. This is the
only
lesson I came to teach, knowing that it is true.
33
When your will is
not
mine, it is not our Father's. This means that you have imprisoned
yours
and have not
let
it be free. Of yourselves you can do nothing, because of yourselves you
are
nothing. I am nothing without the Father, and
you
are nothing without
me
, because by denying the Father you deny
yourself
. I will
always
remember you, and in
my
remembrance of you lies your remembrance of
yourself
. In our remembrance of
each
other lies our remembrance of God, and in this remembrance lies your freedom because your freedom
is
in Him. Join then with me in praise of Him
and
you whom He created. This is our gift of gratitude to Him, which He will share with
all
His creations to whom He gives equally whatever is acceptable to Him.
Because
it is acceptable to Him, it is the gift of freedom, which
is
His Will for all His Sons. By
offering
freedom,
you
will be free.
34
Freedom is the only gift you can offer to God's Sons, being an
acknowledgment
of what
they
are and what
He
is. Freedom is creation because it is love. What you seek to imprison you do
not
love. Therefore, when you seek to imprison anyone, including
yourself,
you do
not
love him, and you cannot identify
with
him. When you imprison
yourself
, you are losing sight of your true identification
with
me and with the Father. Your identification
is
with the Father and with the Son. It
cannot
be with one and not the other. If you are part of one, you must be part of the other because they
are
one.
35
The Holy Trinity is holy
because
it is one. If you exclude
yourself
from this union, you are perceiving the Holy Trinity as separated. You must be included
in
It because It
is
everything. Unless you take your place in It and fulfill your function as
part
of It, It is as bereft as
you
are. No part of It can be imprisoned if Its truth is to be known. Can you be separated from your identification and be at peace? Dissociation is not a solution; it is a
delusion
. The delusional believe that truth will assail them, and so they do not
see
it because they
prefer
the delusion. Judging truth as something they do
not
want, they perceive deception and block knowledge.
36
Help them by offering them
your
unified will on their behalf, as I am offering you mine on
yours
. Alone we can do nothing, but
together
our wills fuse into something whose power is far beyond the power of its separate parts. By
not being separate
, the Will of God is established
in
ours and
as
ours. This Will is invincible
because
it is undivided. The undivided will of the Sonship is the perfect creator, being wholly in the likeness of God, Whose Will it
is
.
You
cannot be exempt from it if you are to understand what
it
is and what
you
are. By separating your will
from
mine, you are exempting yourself from the Will of God, which
is
yourself.
37
Yet to heal is still to make whole. Therefore, to heal is to
unite
with those who are like you, because perceiving this likeness
is
to recognize the Father. If
your
perfection is in Him and
only
in Him, how can you
know
it without recognizing Him? The recognition of God
is
the recognition of yourself. There
is
no separation of God and His creation. You will learn this as you learn that there is no separation of
your
will and
mine
. Let the love of God shine upon you by your acceptance of me.
My
reality is yours
and
His. By joining your will with mine, you are signifying your awareness that the Will of God is one.
38
God's Oneness and ours are not separate, because His Oneness
encompasses
ours. To join with me is to restore His power to you,
because
we are sharing it. I offer you only the
recognition
of His power in you, but in that lies
all
truth. As
we
unite, we unite with Him. Glory be to the union of God and His holy Sons! All glory lies in them
because
they are united. The miracles we do bear witness to the Will of the Father for His Son and to our joy in uniting
with
His Will for us.
39
When you unite with me, you are uniting
without
the ego, because I have renounced the ego in myself and therefore
cannot
unite with yours.
Our
union is therefore the way to renounce the ego in
yourself
. The truth in both of us is
beyond
the ego. By willing that, you
have
gone beyond it toward truth. Our success in transcending the ego is guaranteed by God, and I can share [my perfect confidence in His promise because I know He gave me] this confidence for both of us and
all
of us. I bring God's peace back to all His Children because I received it of Him for us all. Nothing can prevail against our united wills because nothing can prevail against God's. Would you know the Will of God for
you
? Ask it of me who knows it
for
you, and you will find it. I will deny you nothing, as God denies
me
nothing.
40
Ours is simply the journey back to God, Who is our home. Whenever fear intrudes anywhere along the road to peace, it is
always
because the ego has attempted to join the journey with us
and cannot do so
. Sensing defeat and angered by it, the ego regards itself as rejected and becomes retaliative. You are invulnerable to its retaliation
because
I am with you. On this journey, you have chosen me as your companion
instead
of the ego. Do not try to hold on to both, or you will try to go in different directions and will lose the way.
41
The ego's way is not mine, but it is also
not
yours. The Holy Spirit has
one
direction for
all
minds, and the one He taught me is
yours
. Let us not lose sight of His direction through illusions, for only illusions of another direction can obscure the one for which God's Voice speaks in all of us. Never accord the ego the power to interfere with the journey because it
has
none, since the journey is the way to what is true. Leave
all
deception behind and reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back. I go before you because I
am
beyond the ego. Reach therefore for my hand because you
want
to transcend the ego. My will will
never
be wanting, and if you
want
to share it you
will
. I give it willingly and gladly because I need you as much as you need me.
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A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK
Lesson 92
Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.
1
The idea for today is an extension of the previous one. You do not think of light in terms of strength and darkness in terms of weakness. That is because your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain. This is why you believe that you can change what you see by keeping little bits of glass or other clear material before your eyes held in a frame or placed against the eye.
2
These are among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body and the body's eyes can see. You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth or that you had the universe imprisoned in your hand, securely bound until you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see, the brain can think.
3
It is God's strength in you that is the light in which you see, as it is His Mind with which you think. His strength denies your weakness. It is your weakness that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself—the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving, and the joyless. These are seen through eyes which cannot see and cannot bless.
4
Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites with light, of which it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the light in which your Self appears. In darkness you perceive a self that is not there.
5
Strength is the truth about you; weakness is an idol falsely worshipped, and adored that strength may be dispelled and darkness rule where God appointed that there should be light. Strength comes from truth and shines with light its Source has given it; weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. It is sick and looks on sickness, which is like itself.
6
Truth is a savior and can only will for happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all, and so it gives its light that all may see and benefit as one. Its strength is shared that it may bring to all the miracle in which they will unite in purpose and forgiveness and in love.
7
Weakness, which looks in darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and in love. It sees all others different from itself and nothing in the world that it would share. It judges and condemns but does not love. In darkness it remains to hide itself and dreams that it is strong and conquering, a victor over limitations that but grow in darkness to enormous size. It fears and it attacks and hates itself, and darkness covers everything it sees, leaving its dreams as fearful as itself. No miracles are here, but only hate. It separates itself from what it sees, while light and strength perceive themselves as one.
8
The light of strength is not the light you see. It does not change and flicker and go out. It does not shift from night to day and back to darkness till the morning comes again. The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself away because it cannot give but to itself. No one can ask in vain to share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle before his eyes and strength and light abiding in his heart.
9
The strength in you will offer you the light and guide your seeing, so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the body's eyes provide for self-deception. Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet, your Self stands ready to embrace you as Its own. Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest in, for the peace of God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet itself again and be as one.
10
Let us give 20 minutes twice today to join this meeting. Let yourself be brought unto your Self. Its strength will be the light in which the gift of sight is given you. Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will practice seeing in the light, closing the body's eyes and asking truth to show us how to find the meeting place of self and Self, where light and strength are one.
11
After the morning meeting, we will use the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again in hope and trust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today and recognize that we are being introduced to sight and led away from darkness to the light, where only miracles can be perceived.
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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 92
Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.
The cost of our independence, which we call our free will, is that we have cut ourselves off from the source of real power and strength. We now feel small, weak, sickly, needy, helpless, afraid, sad, poor, joyless, ultimately lacking, vulnerable, and deprived. We see ourselves in a world of suffering that we made, ending in our death, which we see as our release. This is insanity according to Jesus. He says this insanity comes from our belief that we are bodies, different and separate from each other. Feeling our weakness, we puff ourselves up into a show of ego strength, but all the time it is just an attempt to hide our underlying weakness. When we feel weak, we are fearful, but we try to hide our fear and weakness. This makes us feel even more vulnerable and concerned that our weakness will be seen, so we create defenses and now fear attack. Attack comes out of weakness.
"Strength comes from truth, and shines with light its Source has given it; weakness reflects the darkness of its maker." (W.92.5.1) Strength sees no need to attack, for
"Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances." (W.92.4.1)
"His strength denies your weakness." (W.92.3.2) Jesus says,
"You always choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you." (T.31.VIII.2.3) (ACIM OE T.31.VIII.86) When we think we are a separate, individual self, what keeps us feeling strong is our specialness. If we were to let our specialness go and experience the light, it would render the ego identity weak. That is the reason for our fear of the light while we identify with the body and personality. When we rely on our eyes and our brains and focus on our uniqueness and individuality, we will be threatened by the light. Light is where our true strength is. The ego's strength is built only on the illusion of strength.
Jesus makes it clear that our version of seeing is tied in with the body's eyes, and our version of thinking is about the body's brain. Clearly, this is what we think, but Jesus makes it sound like such a ridiculous idea that we should simply laugh at it. This puts everything we think we know in question. Who is it that is thinking and reading the words on this page? We must join with Jesus so he can help us to awaken to the truth of our reality, which is why he came.
Only when we plug into the Source of our real strength, God, can we know the Christ Self. Strength looks past appearances. With strength, we think with God's mind and call upon His strength. When we do, we question the beliefs we hold, the thoughts we think with our brain, and the images we see with our eyes. This is terrifying if we really accept it since it means we don't know what and who we are.
"I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself." (T.31.V.17.7) (ACIM OE T.31.V.60) When we recognize and are willing to admit this, we become willing to be taught. When we think that we know and have everything figured out, our arrogance and our investment in our identity as separate individuals will not allow for this questioning.
Jesus even looks with amusement at our belief that wearing glasses helps us to see. We are learning that true vision is not of the eyes and only when we think with the Mind of God do we have true perception. With true perception, we see with vision, while with the ego, we see only the separate and the different. With separation comes judgment and attack.
"Truth is a savior and can only will for happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless supply." (W.92.5.3-4)
When we look,
"It is your weakness that sees through the body’s eyes, peering out in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless." (W.92.3.3) This is not seeing because these observations are what actually stop seeing. If we could see truly, we would see beyond these appearances. Real sight would keep
"its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them." (W.92.4.1) Instead of seeing differences among us, we would be joined in the one light where there are no differences. This does not mean we don't see what the body's eyes report, but we realize our perceptions need not block our vision. When we ask for help to see beyond appearances, we will be helped to release our judgments and interpretations and see the truth of our brothers’ reality. It is not about what our eyes show us in form (behavior) but about the content of love beyond the form that we all share.
The ego thought system is kept intact as a result of seeing differences. It judges others as guilty while seeing ourselves as special and better than those we see as sinners. When we look with vision on our brothers, we recognize the One Self we truly are. The ego identity is not the truth about us. It is just an
"idol falsely worshipped and adored that strength may be dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointed that there should be light." (W.92.4.7) Why would we want that? We want it because we are attached to our bodies and personalities. We accept weakness and darkness because we still value this separate self. We choose the separate self instead of vision as a way to keep our special identity. We value our specialness, separateness, and uniqueness and thus stay invested in this illusion. From this perspective, we can only judge and condemn, but we cannot truly love. Even under the guise of thinking that we are loving beings, there is the underlying judgment where we see others not as loving as ourselves.
Every day, as we focus on the Lessons, we change our thoughts bit by bit until we take in a whole new thought system. Increasingly, as we build this thought system, we connect with the truth of who we are. Today is a big step in undoing our belief in the self we have made. It is encouraging to know,
"Strength is the truth about you; weakness is an idol falsely worshipped and adored that strength may be dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointed there should be light." (W.92.4.7) We will experience anxiety at the thought of releasing our identity and our investment in the world, but we are not asked to give up anything. We are only asked to question who we think we are and join with the Holy Spirit with a willingness to look at what we have made of ourselves. When we take that step, we can't fail.
"No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth, and it is truth we seek to reach today." (W.131.10.2) Jesus won't do it for us. We must be in agreement with him and ask for his help. We must join with him so he can help us to awaken to the truth of our reality which is why he came. Why would we not want to avail ourselves of his help?
"The light of strength is not the light you see. It does not change and flicker and go out. It does not shift from night to day, and back to darkness till the morning comes again." (W.92.7.4-6) Jesus is challenging the way we see light, which is constantly changing and shifting, whether it be candlelight, incandescent bulbs, firelight, or sunlight.
"The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself away, because it cannot give but to itself." (W.92.8.1) This light is available to anyone who asks for it with sincerity. Once it is experienced, everything changes. It is the light of forgiveness, which brings the miracle and changes us. We now see the impermanent world of darkness as valueless.
Today, we spend a longer time in quiet meditation in the morning and evening. What we are doing is asking for help to bring our little self to the Self we are. We are bringing our darkness to the light. We are bringing our weakness to His strength. We are watching our thoughts and placing them on the altar within. We are bringing the match we think that lights the sun to the Sun. In this, we recognize our Source. We affirm our true power as a channel for miracles.
Without this sincere desire of the heart, we can't be helped. In the process, we leave the darkness for a while and question our investment in what our uniqueness and our specialness have brought us. We are not asked to go there permanently. Jesus is encouraging us to
"Leave then, the dark a little while today, and we will practice seeing in the light, closing the body’s eyes and asking truth to show us how to find the meeting place of self and Self, where light and strength are one." (W.92.10.4) As we do, we can see more clearly that the body will never protect us. Our only protection is in the truth of who we are.
"Morning and evening we will practice thus. After the morning meeting, we will use the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again in trust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that we are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where only miracles can be perceived." (W.92.11.1-3)
For the shorter practice periods throughout the day, repeat the idea for the day as often as you can with the reminder to yourself that you
"are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where only miracles can be perceived." (W.92.11.3) Thus, we welcome every opportunity throughout the day to choose the miracle that leads us from darkness to the light.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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