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64 Your identification with the Kingdom is totally beyond question, except by you when you are thinking insanely. What you are is not established by your perception and is not influenced
by it at all.
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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 82
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1 We will review these ideas today:
[63]
The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.
2 My forgiveness is the means by which the light of the world finds expression through me. My forgiveness is the means by which I become aware of the light of the world in me. My forgiveness is the means by which the world is healed, together with myself. Let me, then, forgive the world that it may be healed along with me.
3 Suggestions for specific forms for applying this idea are:
4
Let peace extend from my mind to yours, [name]. I share the light of the world with you, [name]. Through my forgiveness I can see this as it is.
[64] Let me not forget my function.
5 I would not forget my function because I would remember my Self. I cannot fulfill my function by forgetting. And unless I fulfill my function, I will not experience the joy that God intends for me.
6 Suitable specific forms of this idea include:
7
Let me not use this to hide my function from me. I would use this as an opportunity to fulfill my function. This may threaten my ego but cannot change my function in any way.
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Lesson ARCHIVE
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Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
PAUSED FOR THE WEEKEND
Chapter 7
The Consistency of the Kingdom
VII. From Vigilance to Peace
par 54-69
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54 Although you can
love the Sonship only as one, you can
perceive it as fragmented. It is impossible, however, for you to see something in
part of it that you will not attribute to
all of it. That is why attack is
never discrete and why attack must be relinquished
entirely. If it is
not relinquished entirely, it is not relinquished at all. Fear and love are equally reciprocal. They make or create, depending on whether the ego or the Holy Spirit begets or inspires them, but they
will return to the mind of the thinker, and they
will affect his total perception. That includes his perception of God, of His creations, and of his own. He will not appreciate
any of them if he regards them fearfully. He will appreciate
all of them if he regards them with love.
55 The mind that accepts attack
cannot love. That is because it believes that it can
destroy love and therefore does not understand what love
is. If it does not understand what love
is, it
cannot perceive itself as loving. This loses the awareness of being, induces feelings of unreality, and results in utter confusion. Your own thinking has done this because of its power, but your own thinking can also save you
from this because its power is
not of your making. Your ability to
direct your thinking as you will is
part of its power. If you do not believe you can do this, you have
denied the power of your thought and thus rendered it powerless in your
belief.
56 The ingeniousness of the ego to preserve itself is enormous, but it stems from the power of the mind, which the ego
denies. This means that the ego
attacks what is
preserving it, and this
must be a source of extreme anxiety. That is why the ego
never knows what it is doing. It is perfectly logical but clearly insane. The ego draws upon the one source which is totally inimical to its existence
for its existence. Fearful of perceiving the
power of this source, it is forced to depreciate it. This threatens its
own existence, a state which it finds intolerable.
57 Remaining logical but still insane, the ego resolves this completely insane dilemma in a completely insane way. It does not perceive
its existence as threatened by projecting the threat onto
you and perceiving your
being as nonexistent. This ensures
its continuance if you side with it by guaranteeing that you will not know your
own safety. The ego cannot afford to know
anything. Knowledge is total, and the ego does not
believe in totality. This unbelief is its origin and, while the ego does not love
you, it
is faithful to its own antecedents, begetting as it was begotten.
58 Mind
always reproduces as it was produced. Produced by fear, the ego reproduces fear. This is its allegiance, and this allegiance makes it treacherous to love,
because you are love. Love is your power, which the ego must deny. It must also deny everything which this power gives you because it gives you
everything. No one who has everything
wants the ego. Its own maker, then, does not want it. Rejection is therefore the only decision which the ego could possibly encounter, if the mind which made it knew
itself. And if it recognized
any part of the Sonship, it
would know itself.
59 The ego therefore opposes
all appreciation,
all recognition,
all sane perception, and
all knowledge. It perceives their threat as total because it senses the fact that
all commitments the mind makes
are total. Forced, therefore, to detach itself from you who
are mind, it is willing to attach itself to
anything else. But there
is nothing else. It does not follow that the mind cannot make illusions, but it
does follow that if it makes illusions it will believe in them, because that is
how it made them.
60 The Holy Spirit undoes illusions without attacking them merely because He cannot perceive them at all. They therefore do not exist for Him. He resolves the
apparent conflict which they engender by perceiving
conflict as meaningless. We said before that the Holy Spirit perceives the conflict exactly as it is, and it
is meaningless. The Holy Spirit does not want you to
understand conflict; He wants you to realize that,
because conflict is meaningless, it cannot
be understood. We have already said that understanding brings appreciation, and appreciation brings love. Nothing else
can
be understood because nothing else is
real, and therefore nothing else
has meaning.
61 If you will keep in mind what the Holy Spirit offers you, you cannot be vigilant for anything
but God and His Kingdom. The only reason you find this difficult is because you think there
is something else. Belief does not require vigilance
unless it is conflicted. If it is, there
are conflicting components within it which have engendered a state of war, and vigilance therefore has become essential. Vigilance has no place at all in peace. It is necessary against beliefs which are
not true and would never have been called upon by the Holy Spirit if you had
not believed the untrue. You cannot deny that, when you believe something, you have
made it true for
you.
62 When you believe what God does not
know, your thought seems to
contradict His, and this makes it appear
as if you are attacking Him. We have repeatedly emphasized that the ego
does believe it can attack God and tries to persuade you that
you have done this. If the mind
cannot attack, the ego proceeds perfectly logically to the position that you cannot
be mind. By not seeing you as you
are, it can see
itself as it
wants to be. Aware of its weakness, the ego wants your allegiance, but not as you really are. The ego therefore wants to engage your mind in its
own delusional system, because otherwise the light of
your understanding would dispel it.
63 The ego wants no part of truth because the truth is that the
ego is not true.
If truth is total, the untrue
cannot exist. Commitment to either must be
total, since they cannot coexist in your minds
without splitting them. If they cannot coexist in peace and if you
want peace, you must give up the idea of conflict
entirely and for
all
time. [This requires vigilance
only as long as
you do not recognize what is true.] While you believe that two totally contradictory thought systems
share truth, your need for vigilance is apparent. Your minds
are dividing their allegiance between two kingdoms, and you are totally committed to neither.
64 Your identification with the Kingdom is totally beyond question, except by you when you are thinking insanely. What you are is not established by your perception and is not influenced
by it at all. All perceived problems in identification at any level are
not problems of fact. They are problems of
understanding, since they
mean that you believe what you can understand
is up to you to decide. The ego believes this totally, being
fully committed to it. It is not true. The ego therefore is totally committed to untruth, perceiving in total contradiction to the Holy Spirit and to the knowledge of God.
65 You can be perceived with meaning
only by the Holy Spirit because your being
is the knowledge of God. Any belief that you accept which is apart from this will obscure God's Voice in you and will therefore obscure God
to you. Unless you perceive His creation truly, you cannot know the Creator, since God and His creation are not separate. The Oneness of the Creator and the creation is your wholeness, your sanity, and your limitless power. This limitless power is God's gift to you, because it is what you
are. If you dissociate your mind from it, you are perceiving the most powerful force in the universe [of thought] as if it were weak because you do not believe
you are part of it.
66 Perceived
without your part in it, God's creation
is perceived as weak, and those who see themselves as weakened
do attack. The attack must be blind, however, because there is nothing
to attack. Therefore, they make up images, perceive them as unworthy, and attack them for their unworthiness. That is all the world of the ego is—
nothing. It has no meaning. It does not exist. Do not try to understand it, because if you do you are believing that it can
be understood and is therefore capable of being appreciated and loved. That would justify it, and it cannot
be justified. You cannot make the meaningless meaningful. This can
only be an insane attempt.
67 Allowing insanity to enter your minds means that you have not judged sanity as
wholly desirable. If you
want something else, you will
make something else, but because it
is something else, it will attack your thought system and divide your allegiance. You cannot create in this divided state, and you must be vigilant
against this divided state, because only peace can
be extended. Your divided minds are blocking the extension of the Kingdom, and its extension
is your joy. If you do not extend the Kingdom, you are not thinking with your Creator and creating as He created.
68 In this depressing state, the Holy Spirit reminds you gently that you are sad because you are not fulfilling your function as co-creators with God and are therefore depriving yourselves of joy. This is not God's Will but
yours. If your will is out of accord with God's, you are willing without meaning. Yet because God's Will is unchangeable, no
real conflict of will is possible. This is the Holy Spirit's perfectly consistent teaching.
69 Creation,
not separation, is your will
because it is God's, and nothing that opposes this means anything at all. Being a perfect accomplishment, the Sonship can only accomplish perfectly, extending the joy in which it was created and identifying itself with both its Creator and its creations,
knowing they are one.
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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 82 ~ Review II
[Review Lessons 63-64]
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How can we know ourselves as the light of the world? The only way is through forgiveness. It is the means by which we can come to experience our true reality as a Son of God. By releasing our grievances, peace can extend from my mind to yours. That is how we know it is in us to give.
We can't know love in this world. The closest reflection we have of it is forgiveness. It is quite a revelation to know that what we call love in the world is not love at all. As Jesus says, quite clearly,
"You do not know the meaning of love, and that is your handicap. Do not attempt to teach yourself what you do not understand and do not try to set up curriculum goals where yours have clearly failed."
(T.12.V.6.1-2) (ACIM OE T.11.VI.48) While we tell ourselves we love, and we tell ourselves we are in love or that we are loving, it is pretty clear we don't have a clue what love is. The best we can do is to let forgiveness remove all of the obstacles to love that we hold in our minds, so the love that is always there in our right minds can flow through us. Thus, we need the Holy Spirit to help us with this, as the ego will never undo itself.
Let's face it. We are still attached to doing life our way, and we are invested in our own perspectives. As we do the work of this course, the ego is threatened, which explains our resistance. The closer we come to the truth, the more fear and resistance come up; but we have Mighty Help from outside of the closed system of the ego that keeps us fully invested in the illusion. The decision-making part of our minds, where we are still connected to the truth, has made the decision for healing. We have heard the Call within and responded with a willingness to awaken. We have chosen to use the means given us for undoing the blocks to love that keep us from awareness of our reality.
Forgiveness allows me to see that light is my reality. As I engage in healing my mind through forgiveness, I experience more and more peace. Any little irritation or discontent with anyone today is just another opportunity to let go of judgment and to forgive. We don't generally look at the perceived difficulties in our lives as opportunities, but that is exactly what they offer us---another chance to see differently, to look at everyone as our friend, and recognize that we are not different from each other. We share the same nature. We meet our Self wherever we go. There truly is no separation. We are all the same, with the same ego, and with the same Christ Self.
Letting go of the judgments and grievances we hold against anyone is so important to gaining peace. Forgiveness is the answer to all our misery and suffering. We need to make forgiveness the central focus of our lives on behalf of our own happiness. In fact, that is what time was made for. That is why we are here. This is the only way to our salvation and the salvation of the world.
It seems as if we will be sacrificing our rights and our boundaries when we forgive. Aren't we letting the other person off the hook? I felt this last night when Don brought home a large TV that did not fit into our armoire, so the doors had to be removed. I had specifically asked him to buy a TV that would fit, but his desire was for something much bigger! So he did what he wanted and had no intention of changing his mind about it. I expressed my feelings to him. I let him know I felt coerced, overpowered, unimportant, and ignored. He responded by saying that, if I were really a good student of the Course, I would let it go and forgive him. Needless to say, this did not go over well at the time! It seemed to me, I was in a losing position, and if I let it go, he would win. The battle could continue in this way if I chose to let it. The option was to try to manipulate and coerce him into compliance, but what would be won? No, it was not easy at the time to let go in this situation, but after quiet reflection, I chose to find peace. In the end, how the TV fit into the armoire did not feel as important as healing my perspective and my relationship. I tend to make things important that in the end have no importance.
In the world, it does seem like when one wins the other loses. In the illusion, there is an appearance of loss for me, as he has what he wants and won't budge, but what have I lost? In releasing the situation, which I was able to do when I went to the Holy Spirit and asked for help, I felt I had reconnected to the divine in me that became much more important than winning the argument. The ego has no interest in peace. It is invested in the battle. It just wants to be right. Was this difficult for me? Oh, yes! But not for long, because I was motivated, determined, and willing to find my way out of this hell. Other issues like this in my relationships, where I held grievances for a long time, kept me in hell together with my partner. It is never worthwhile when it costs me my joy. Yes, it seems worth it to the ego; so much so that some will give their lives to be right. Yet the sooner we can bring any problem to the answer, the sooner we can take ourselves out of hell.
To accept,
"
I share the light of the world with you, [name]
"
(W.82.2.3) is to be reminded of the truth of my reality. As we hold this thought in our minds, we bring a powerful healing, which is so profound, we have no idea of its ultimate impact. It is a benediction we give, not unlike that which Jesus gave to his disciples when he appeared to them after his resurrection and said, "Peace be with you."
Now we are given specific forms of that thought.
"Let peace extend from my mind to yours, [name]. I share the light of the world with you [name]
,"
and
"
Through my forgiveness I can see this as it is."
(W.82.2.2-4) Remember that these specific thoughts after each review Lesson are intended to be used when we have a problem or issue with anyone. We prepare our minds by using these specific forms, one in the morning and another in the afternoon, so we can remember that the purpose of each day is to bring our unforgiving thoughts to the truth presented here in each of these ideas.
For the latter part of the day, we are urged not to forget our function if we want to remember our true reality. Remembering my function is the only way I can
"experience the joy that God intends for me."
(W.82.3.4) If I let a grievance darken my mind today, I am using that situation to hide my function and my joy from me. We were made to extend love, and we do this through forgiveness by bringing our dark thoughts to the truth. Peace and joy are the truth about us. Anything else is simply unnatural.
There truly is a simplicity in what we are being told in this Course, no matter how much it appears to confound us. When we don't want the truth, we will find great resistance to understanding what Jesus is telling us. We will continue to hold our grievances, no matter what it costs us. Think of the simplicity of going through the day and remembering that the most important thing is to find our way to peace so that we can
"
Let peace extend from my mind to yours, [name]
"
(W.82.2.2) simply by not blocking it with our judgments and grievances. The interesting thing is that we will often forget. Forgetting is just another form of resistance, which we can bring to our awareness and realize the ego is threatened by the light. Remember, we are not responsible for the error but only for the correction.
The reason our resistance comes up is that we are actually choosing to forget what we came here to be and do. In other words, the whole world was made to escape from our own reality. We have run away to hide from God and have become convinced we are bodies, living in a world of time and space, and now this is the only reality. Our spiritual reality seems like an illusion, while this world seems real and tangible. As we apply the Lessons, Jesus shows us, increasingly, that what we have made---our bodies and the world of form---are the illusion. We see this when we experience the power there is in the miracle.
The reason we hold grievances is because they uphold our belief and investment in the illusion. We believe that the way we have set things up as a result of the separation is true. That is how we continue to choose to be right, rather than to be happy. We believe forgiveness lets people off the hook. We want to hold onto our way of seeing things. Yet think about what forgiveness offers. It opens us to the power of the miracle. It opens us to the immensity of love. It opens us to the truth of who we are. Such power is released through forgiveness! That is what we are reminded of. We are encouraged not to forget our function so we can know the gifts available to us through forgiveness.
Do I really want to continue to drink from this poisonous well of grievances, which will only hurt me? I only need to make the choice. I only need the willingness and the passion to do the healing of my mind. Then I will see every perceived problem, situation, and issue as simply grist for the mill for forgiveness and experience release from the prison of my wrong minded thought system.
I just finished reading the book by Brandon Bays called
The Journey
in which she learns to release her cancer, her home that burned down during the fires in Malibu, and her husband, who left her for another woman. In her healing, she accepted that it was she alone who had betrayed herself because she said she mistakenly "believed that fairy tales can come true." She hated the part that had made up the story in the first place, took up residence, and lived in the fairy tale. In that process, she was left in the "tender sweet wake of reality itself." The realization for her, in the end, was, "Nothing you can do can give you this love. No career can give it to you. No amount of service can make you know it. No love partner or family can make it happen. No house, car or material belongings can buy it for you. Nothing and no one can give it to you, for it is who you already are. You are the love that you have been seeking for." Sometimes, we seem to need to experience these grave difficulties in order to bring us back to our minds, which is where we can find our way back to the love we are. Not getting my way with the TV set was well worth exchanging it for the realization of the truth about myself. Yes, to the ego, it looks like capitulation, but to the Spirit, it is freedom.
Every experience, situation, and person we encounter offers us one more opportunity to release our attack thoughts and to remember that we are still in the presence of our Creator.
Let us choose our release in every moment today, asking for help to remember that whenever we make judgments or whenever we try to get something at anyone's expense, we are saying that we do not want peace and joy and are choosing our specialness instead of God's love. When we do this, we experience more guilt. Projecting that guilt onto others by blaming them for how we feel has a tremendous cost to us. It costs us our peace and joy. Let us not use anyone or any situation today to keep the joy of God away. That is how we remember our function today. We cannot fulfill our function if we go through the day forgetting that we are here only to forgive, so any situation that arises today can be used for forgiveness.
"
Let me not use this to hide my function from me.
I would use this as an opportunity to fulfill my function.
This may threaten my ego, but cannot change my function in any way
."
(W.82.4.2-4)
Love and blessings, Sarah
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