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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."
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Workbook for Students
Lesson 92
Miracles are seen in light,
and light and strength are one.
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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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Lesson ARCHIVE
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Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
Chapter 8
The Journey Back
V. The Light of the World
par 25-41
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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 [union and peace].
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
not 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 [become] 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
not 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, [and] 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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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 92
Miracles are seen in light,
and light and strength are one.
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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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