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"You
cannot learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in
total disagreement about everything. Their joint curriculum presents an impossible learning task. They are teaching you
entirely different things in
entirely different ways, which might be possible except for the crucial fact that both are
teaching you about yourself. Your reality is unaffected by both, but if you
listen to both, your mind will be split about what your reality
is.
"
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Workbook for Students
Review II
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1 We are now ready for another review. We will begin where our last review left off and cover two ideas each day. The earlier part of each day will be devoted to one of these ideas, and the latter part of the day to the other. We will have one longer exercise period and frequent shorter ones in which we practice each of them.
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Workbook for Students
Lesson 90
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1 For this review we will use these ideas:
[79]
Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.
2 Let me realize today that the problem is always some form of grievance which I would cherish. Let me also understand that the solution is always a miracle with which I let the grievance be replaced. Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution. The problem is a grievance; the solution is a miracle. And I invite the solution to come to me through my forgiveness of the grievance and my welcome of the miracle which takes its place.
3 Specific applications of this idea might be in these forms:
4
This presents a problem to me which I would have resolved. The miracle behind this grievance will resolve it for me. The answer to this problem is the miracle which it conceals.
[80]
Let me recognize my problems have been solved.
5 I seem to have problems only because I am misusing time. I believe that the problem comes first, and time must elapse before it can be worked out. I do not see the problem and the answer as simultaneous in their occurrence. That is because I do not yet realize that God has placed the answer together with the problem, so that they cannot be separated by time. The Holy Spirit will teach me this if I will let Him. And I will understand it is impossible that I could have a problem which has not been solved already.
6 These forms of the idea will be useful for specific applications:
7
I need not wait for this to be resolved. The answer to this problem is already given me if I will accept it. Time cannot separate this problem from its solution.
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Lesson ARCHIVE
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Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
PAUSED FOR WEEKEND
Chapter 8
The Journey Back
I. Introduction
par 1-3
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1 You are hampered in your progress by your demands to know what you do
not know. This is actually a way of holding on to deprivation. You cannot reasonably object to following instructions in a course
for knowing on the grounds that you do
not know. The need for the course is implicit in your objection. Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course.
Peace is. As the prerequisite for knowledge, peace
must be learned. This is only because those who are in conflict are
not peaceful, and peace is the
condition of knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom.
2 Knowledge will be restored when you meet its conditions. This is not a bargain made by God, Who makes
no bargains. It is merely the result of your misuse of His laws on behalf of a will that is not His. Knowledge
is His Will. If you are
opposing His Will, how can you have knowledge? I have told you what knowledge offers you, but it is clear that you do not regard this as wholly desirable. If you did, you would hardly be willing to throw it away so readily when the ego asks for your allegiance. The distraction of the ego seems to interfere with your learning, but the ego
has no power to distract you unless you
give it the power.
3 The ego's voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect it to say, "I am not real." Hallucinations
are inaccurate perceptions of reality. Yet you are not asked to dispel them alone. You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results to
you. If you do not want them on the basis of loss of peace, they will be removed from your mind
for you. Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war
does deprive you of peace. Yet in this war there is no opponent.
This is the reinterpretation of reality which you must make to secure peace, and the only one you need
ever make.
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Course in Miracles
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Text
PAUSED FOR WEEKEND
Chapter 8
The Journey Back
II. The Direction of the Curriculum
par 4-7
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4 Those whom you perceive as opponents are
part of your peace, which
you are giving up by attacking them. How can you
have what you give up? You
share to have, but you do not give it up yourself. When you give up peace, you are
excluding yourself from it. This is a condition which is so alien to the Kingdom that you cannot understand the state which prevails within it. Your past learning must have taught you the wrong things simply because it has not made you happy. On this basis alone, its value should be questioned.
5 If learning aims at change, and that is
always its purpose, are you satisfied with the changes
your learning has brought you? Dissatisfaction with learning outcomes must be a sign of learning failure, since it means that you did not get what you
want. The curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum you have established for yourselves,
but so is its outcome. If the outcome of yours has made you unhappy and if you
want a different one, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary.
6 The first change that must be introduced is a change in
direction. A meaningful curriculum
cannot be inconsistent. If it is planned by two teachers, each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it cannot
be integrated. If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously, each one merely
interferes with the other. This leads to fluctuation, but
not to change. The volatile
have no direction. They cannot choose one because they cannot relinquish the other, even if the other does not exist. Their conflicted curriculum teaches them
all directions exist and gives them no rationale for choice.
7 The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully recognized before a real change in direction becomes possible. You
cannot learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in
total disagreement about everything. Their joint curriculum presents an impossible learning task. They are teaching you
entirely different things in
entirely different ways, which might be possible except for the crucial fact that both are
teaching you about yourself. Your reality is unaffected by both, but if you
listen to both, your mind will be split about what your reality
is.
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Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
PAUSED FOR WEEKEND
Chapter 8
The Journey Back
III. The Rationale for Choice
par 8-15
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8 There
is a rationale for choice. Only one Teacher
knows what your reality is. If learning that is the
purpose of the curriculum, you must learn it of Him. The ego does not
know what it is trying to teach. It is trying to teach you what you are
without knowing it. The ego is expert only in confusion. It does not understand anything else. As a teacher, then, it is totally confused and
totally confusing. Even if you could disregard the Holy Spirit entirely, which is quite impossible, you could learn nothing from the ego because the ego
knows nothing.
9 Is there
any possible reason for choosing a teacher such as this? Does the total disregard of anything it teaches make anything
but sense? Is
this the teacher to whom a Son of God should turn to find
himself? The ego has never given you a sensible answer to
anything. Simply on the grounds of your own experience with the ego's teaching, should not this alone disqualify it as your future teacher? Yet the ego has done more harm to your learning than this alone. Learning is joyful if it leads you along your natural path and facilitates the development of what you
have. When you are taught
against your nature, however, you will
lose by your learning because your learning will imprison you. Your will is
in your nature and therefore
cannot go against it.
10 The ego cannot teach you anything as long as your will is free because you will not
listen to it. It is
not your will to be imprisoned
because your will is free. That is why the ego is the
denial of free will. It is
never God who coerces you because He
shares His Will with you. His Voice teaches
only His Will, but that is not the Holy Spirit's lesson because that is what you
are. The
lesson is that your will and God's cannot be out of accord
because they are one. This is the undoing of
everything the ego tries to teach. It is not, then, only the direction of the curriculum which must be unconflicted, but also the
content.
11 The ego wants to teach you that you want to
oppose God's Will. This
unnatural lesson cannot
be learned, but the
attempt to learn it is a violation of your own freedom and makes you afraid of your will
because it is free. The Holy Spirit opposes
any imprisoning of the will of a Son of God,
knowing that the will of the Son
is the Father's. The Holy Spirit leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard or look beyond
everything that would hold you back.
12 We said before that the Holy Spirit teaches you the difference between pain and joy. That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom.
You cannot make this distinction
without Him. That is because you have taught yourself that imprisonment
is freedom. Believing them to be the same, how
can you tell them apart? Can you ask the part of your mind that taught you to believe they
are the same to teach you the
difference between them?
13 The Holy Spirit's teaching takes only
one direction and has only
one goal. His direction is freedom, and His goal is God. Yet He cannot conceive of God without
you because it is not God's Will to
be without you. When you have learned that your will
is God's, you could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without
you. This
is freedom and this
is joy. Deny yourself this and you
are denying God His Kingdom because He created you
for this. When we said, "All power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His," this is what we meant.
14 The Will of God is without limit, and all power and glory lie within it. It is boundless in strength and in love and in peace. It has no boundaries because its extension is unlimited, and it encompasses all things because it created all things. By creating all things, it made them part of itself.
You are the Will of God because this is how you were created. Because your Creator creates
only like Himself, you
are like Him. You are part of Him Who
is all power and glory and are therefore as unlimited as He is.
15 To what else
except all power and glory can the Holy Spirit appeal to restore God's Kingdom? His appeal, then, is merely to what the Kingdom
is and for its own acknowledgment of what it is. When you acknowledge this, you bring the acknowledgment automatically to everyone because you
have acknowledged everyone. By
your recognition you awaken
theirs, and through theirs
yours is extended. Awakening runs easily and gladly through the Kingdom in answer to the Call of God. This is the natural response of every Son of God to the Voice of his Creator because it is the Voice for
his creations and for
his own extension.
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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 90 ~ Review II
[Review Lessons 79-80]
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We think the world gives us all kinds of problems. People attack us for things we don't deserve. Things break down. Germs seem to invade our bodies. The boss does not understand us. We don't like our work. A colleague turns on us. A relationship falls apart. We are behind in our rent. A friend betrays us. We lose our money. There are myriad seeming problems that cause us grief.
The source of all these problems seems to originate outside of us. We don't see ourselves as the cause of them all. Things just seem to happen to us, and we don't see ourselves as having anything to do with these happenings. Jesus tells us,
"A child is frightened when a wooden head springs up as a closed box is opened suddenly, or when a soft and silent wooly bear begins to squeak as he takes hold of it. The rules he made for boxes and for bears have failed him, and have broken his 'control' of what surrounds him."
(T.30.IV.2.2-3) (ACIM OE T.30.V.50) He says that we are like those children, startled by unexpected events in the world that we seemingly have no control over. Things just seem to happen out of the blue.
The way we see our problems is much the same as children playing with toys that frighten them. What we call problems, he equates with toys, as they have no importance in reality. What we take seriously and what seems to create misery for us, can't threaten who we are. Nothing matters when looked at from the point of view of eternity. However, while we still identify with the body and the world, problems can have serious consequences for us. Our problems certainly seem very real, and we are often frightened by them, as they make us feel very vulnerable. We think they give us reason to attack and to set up defenses. To us, the world becomes a place where there is no safety because the rules we made and the expectations we have of how things should be are not being met
What Jesus is helping us to understand is that, regardless of how it looks to us, all problems can be traced back to the grievances we hold. We believe that our happiness depends on how things go for us in the world. When events, people, and circumstances don't go our way, we hold grievances. We hold others responsible and blame them for how we feel. We have given the situation the power to disturb us. Events have no meaning except the meaning we give them. In other words, what upsets us are not the events themselves, but the interpretation we give them. Our problems are illusory, as are the solutions. While a perceived problem may be addressed in form, it is never fully resolved. It will simply reoccur in another form until we recognize the source of all problems is the guilt in the mind.
When we have a problem, there is always a grievance lurking behind it. If I have a problem, I need to take the time to look at the grievance I am holding. What is the judgment behind it? Am I willing to let it go and accept the miracle instead of trying to control what happens? Can I just accept that perfect safety, perfect happiness, and perfect peace are available to me regardless of what is swirling around me? Can I remember that there is always an inner tranquility that nothing can disturb? When I uncover the cause of my upsets,
"And I invite the solution to come to me through my forgiveness of the grievance and my welcome of the miracle that takes its place,"
(W.90.1.6) the truth within is revealed. It is always there, and now we recognize that we don’t need anything to go our way in order to be tranquil.
When the separation was healed, all problems were solved for all time. If that is the case, the part of my mind that chooses with the Holy Spirit can experience a miracle instead. I can choose peace, regardless of what seems to be happening, if I am willing to take responsibility for my grievances instead of seeing the cause outside of my own mind. When I resist giving over my judgments of how I see the situation, I can ask for help so I might become willing. Regardless of the decision I make, I am nevertheless not guilty. I am simply not ready at the moment to let my grievances go and need to take time to come to readiness. Meanwhile, I can choose to rest with the disturbance, accept my current situation, and trust I will find my way through when I am ready. When we turn to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to show us the situation as He sees it, we are shown another way of looking at every problem as an opportunity for forgiveness and healing.
Problems are how we maintain our investment in the world. We are convinced that we are the victims of an unfair world, which keeps us constantly occupied as we try to address one problem after another. Thus, we see the world as the cause and we are the effect. If this truly is the case, we would have reason for our grievances, but Jesus tells us it is the other way around. The mind is cause and the world is the effect. When we see the world as the cause, there is no way out, as the power is then outside us. If we believe problems are coming at us from outside of ourselves, we would continue to be hapless victims, and there would be no resolution possible and no reason for hope.
What God did not create cannot be true, and God did not create the world. The world is a projection of the thought system of separation. Thus, all our problems are illusory. They are all a projection of the guilt in our own minds, and guilt demands punishment. The situation we experience as a problem simply can't be real because perfect love would not have created it, and what is not real has no power over us. We think that if this situation were different, we would be happy, yet happiness is only a choice made in the mind. When the grievance is released, so is the problem. Every problem is some sort of grievance. When we hold grievances, we experience ourselves as alone and separate. A grievance separates me from whomever I hold a grievance against. The only way I can be happy is to let the grievance go so I can know that separation is not real.
When we appeared to separate from God, He immediately provided us with the Answer. The Answer is the Holy Spirit---a symbol of God's love in our right minds. This love shines forth when we release our grievances. The only problem is choosing to separate from the Love of God, and the only solution is to bring our mistaken choice to the truth.
"The miracle behind this grievance will resolve it for me. The answer to this problem is the miracle that it conceals."
(W.90.2.3-4)
Nothing has to change outside. The only change possible is in our own minds. If we really believed that everything starts in our own minds and that the power rests with us to choose the miracle instead, the solution would be immediately available to every problem. Why do we experience such resistance to letting go of our worries, anger, depression, and frustrations? This is because, with the separation and all that has come with it (the body and the world), we now value our separate identity and don't want to let go of our unique and special self. This explains our investment in this world. However, while we are invested in the world, we don't want the responsibility for having created it. Instead, we want to see ourselves victimized and betrayed so others could be blamed for our condition and the condition of the world. This keeps us invested in the world and all the problems that arise as a result. Until we truly accept that clinging to our separate self is the source of all our unhappiness, all our suffering, and all our pain, we will not be willing to let it go.
Jesus goes on to explain the way we see it.
"I believe that the problem comes first, and time must elapse before it can be worked out
.
"
(W.90.3.3) That is the belief we hold and that is precisely how we misuse time. We don't see that the problem and answer are actually simultaneous so that at the moment of separation the Answer was given. Isn't that what an all‑powerful, loving Father would do? Why would he want us to suffer? When we think that we have problems and that God is not providing us with the answer, it is because
we
refuse to accept the miracle available right then. We are the ones holding back the healing and the help available to us. We do that by holding onto, and indeed cherishing, the grievance. This is something to really reflect on and ask for His help in releasing the grievance and accepting the miracle. He gives us specific practices for this purpose, asking us to recognize today that we need not wait for any problem to be resolved. The answer to the problem has already been given, and we simply need to accept it. Time cannot separate the problem from the solution unless we allow it.
Jesus is not asking us to ignore the problems that seem to show up in our lives. He is merely asking us to consider the real solution, which is to let go of the grievance. When we do, the answer is given immediately. In the world, whatever the problem, the resolution may indeed take some time, but our function is to recognize it is never our real problem. Our real problem is that we have excluded ourselves from love. We have forgotten who we are. When we let the Holy Spirit help us, truth will dawn on our minds. We will experience the peace and joy of our Self where our true freedom lies. Through forgiveness, we are released from the cycle of guilt and fear. Now we can see that problems in our lives provide opportunities for healing. They are part of the script we have called into our lives.
"Let me realize today that the problem is always some form of grievance that I would cherish."
(W.90.1.2) We can all relate to how we like to hang onto our grievances. This reminds me of the
Psychotherapy Pamphlet
, where Jesus says we don't shun guilt but embrace it, hug it close and shelter it, seeing it as protecting us and thus defending it, instead, against the love.
"'God may not enter here' the sick repeat, over and over, while they mourn their loss and yet rejoice in it."
(P.2.VI.1.4) Often, we find that we really don't want to let go of grievances. We still see
"order of difficulty in miracles."
(T.1.I.1.1) (ACIM OE T.1.1) To us, some problems seem bigger and more difficult; yet Jesus reminds us they are all the same because they are all illusory.
I don't know what the outcome of any perceived problem will actually be, but what I need to do is accept that the problem has already been solved. There is a miracle behind every perceived problem. Jesus makes it clear that the miracle will manifest in a way we can understand. It may be in form, and it may not. Today, we are asked to recognize the problem has already been solved, and we can be freed of the temptation to blame and see anyone as responsible for keeping us in fear. If I am in fear, it is my choice; and my responsibility is to do the healing work by giving over the fear to the Holy Spirit, Who will reinterpret the way I perceive it.
Today, I ask for the willingness to recognize my problems have been solved. I ask for help in having faith in those who seemingly cause me difficulties and in the Holy Spirit. Let me see every problematic situation through the eyes of Love. Let me know every grievance will be replaced with a miracle and everything has already been resolved.
"The working out of all correction takes no time at all. Yet the acceptance of the working out can seem to take forever."
(T.26.VIII.6.1-2) (ACIM OE T.26.IX.72,73)
Love and blessings, Sarah
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