COURSE IN MIRACLES SOCIETY
(non-profit)
Please Support this Mailing with a
|
|
Graphic by ©Deposit Photos
|
|
Truth comes of itself. If you experience peace, it is because the truth has come to you, and you will see the outcome truly, for deception cannot prevail against you. And you will recognize the outcome
because you are at peace. Here again, you see the opposite of the ego's way of looking, for the ego believes the situation brings the experience. The Holy Spirit knows that the situation is as the goal determines it and is experienced according to the goal.
"Practical Forgiveness"
|
|
Workbook for Students
Part I
Introduction to Lessons 181-200
|
1 Our next few lessons make a special point of firming up your willingness to make your weak commitment strong, your scattered goals blend into one intent. You are not asked for total dedication all the time, as yet. But you are asked to practice now in order to attain the sense of peace such unified commitment will bestow, if only intermittently. It is experiencing this which makes it sure that you will give your total willingness to following the way the course sets forth.
Continue to Read Online
here
Audio, Music, and Video
by CIMS SonShip Radio
|
|
Workbook for Students
Lesson 195
Love is the way
I walk in gratitude.
|
1 Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. The most that they can do is see themselves as better off than others. And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they. How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause, and who could suffer less because he sees another suffer more? Your gratitude is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world.
2 It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering. But it is equally insane to fail in gratitude to One Who offers you the certain means whereby all pain is healed and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness. Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs and follow in the way He sets before them to escape a prison that they thought contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive.
3 Your brother is your "enemy" because you see in him the rival for your peace, a plunderer who takes his joy from you and leaves you nothing but a black despair so bitter and relentless that there is no hope remaining. Now is vengeance all there is to wish for. Now can you but try to bring him down to lie in death with you, as useless as yourself, as little left within his grasping fingers as in yours.
4 You do not offer God your gratitude because your brother is more slave than you, nor could you sanely be enraged if he seems freer. Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it is joined to love. We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound, for who can bargain in the name of love?
5 Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity. And let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you—the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. All these go with you. Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off in our awareness from the unity we share with them, as they must share with us.
6 We thank our Father for one thing alone—that we are separate from no living thing and therefore one with Him. And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness nor impair or change our function to complete the One Who is Himself completion. We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us.
7 Then let our brothers lean their tired heads against our shoulders as they rest a while. We offer thanks for them. For if we can direct them to the peace that we would find, the way is opening at last to us. An ancient door is swinging free again; a long forgotten Word re-echoes in our memory and gathers clarity as we are willing once again to hear.
8 Walk then in gratitude, the way of love. For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside. What more remains as obstacles to peace? The fear of God is now undone at last, and we forgive without comparing. Thus we cannot choose to overlook some things and yet retain some other things still locked away as sins. When your forgiveness is complete, you will have total gratitude, for you will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as your Self.
9 Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice, and revenge. We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness and to a self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit where we are badgered ceaselessly and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us and calls us Son. Can there be more than this?
10 Our gratitude will pave the way to Him and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of. Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is, the other must be found. For gratitude is but an aspect of the love which is the Source of all creation. God gives thanks to you, His Son, for being what you are—His own completion and the source of love, along with Him. Your gratitude to Him is one with His to you. For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God.
Audio, Music, and Video
by CIMS SonShip Radio
Lesson ARCHIVE
|
|
Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
Chapter 17
Forgiveness and Healing
VII. Practical Forgiveness
par 57-64
[PAUSED FOR WEEKEND]
|
57 The practical application of the Holy Spirit's purpose is extremely simple, but it is unequivocal. In fact in order to be simple, it
must be unequivocal. The simple is merely what is easily understood, and for this it is apparent that it must be clear. The setting of the Holy Spirit's goal is general. Now He will work with you to make it specific [for application
is specific]. There are certain very specific guidelines He provides for any situation, but remember that you do not yet realize their universal application. Therefore it is essential at this point to use them in each situation separately, until you can more safely look beyond each situation in an understanding far broader than you now possess.
58 In any situation in which you are uncertain, the first thing to consider, very simply, is, "What do I want to come of this? What is it
for?" The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning, for it is this which will determine the outcome. In the ego's procedure, this is reversed. The situation becomes the determiner of the outcome, which can be anything. The reason for this disorganized approach is evident. The ego does not know what it wants to come of it. It is aware of what it does not want, but only that. It has no positive goal at all.
59 Without a clear cut positive goal, set at the outset, the situation just seems to happen and makes no sense until it has already happened. Then you look back at it and try to piece together what it must have meant. And you will be wrong. Not only is your judgment in the past, but you have no idea what should happen. No goal was set with which to bring the means in line. And now the only judgment left to make is whether or not the ego likes it—is it acceptable, or does it call for vengeance? The absence of a criterion for outcome set in advance makes understanding doubtful and evaluation impossible.
60 The value of deciding in advance what you want to happen is simply that you will perceive the situation as a means to
make it happen. You will therefore make every effort to overlook what interferes with the accomplishment of your objective and concentrate on everything which helps you meet it. It is quite noticeable that this approach has brought you closer to the Holy Spirit's sorting out of truth and falsity. The true becomes what can be used to meet the goal. The false becomes the useless from this point of view. The situation now has meaning, but only because the
goal has made it meaningful.
61 The goal of truth has further practical advantages. If the situation is used for truth and sanity, its outcome must be peace. And this is quite apart from what the outcome
is. If peace is the condition of truth and sanity and cannot be without them, where peace is they must be. Truth comes of itself. If you experience peace, it is because the truth has come to you, and you will see the outcome truly, for deception cannot prevail against you. And you will recognize the outcome
because you are at peace. Here again, you see the opposite of the ego's way of looking, for the ego believes the situation brings the experience. The Holy Spirit knows that the situation is as the goal determines it and is experienced according to the goal.
62 The goal of truth requires faith. Faith is implicit in the acceptance of the Holy Spirit's purpose, and this faith is all-inclusive. Where the goal of truth is set, there faith must be. The Holy Spirit sees the situation as a
whole. The goal establishes the fact that everyone involved in it will play his part in its accomplishment. This is inevitable. No one will fail in anything. This seems to ask for faith beyond you and beyond what you can give. Yet this is so only from the viewpoint of the ego, for the ego believes in "solving" conflict through fragmentation and does not perceive the situation as a whole. Therefore, it seeks to split off segments of the situation and deal with them separately, for it has faith in separation and not in wholeness.
63 Confronted with any aspect of the situation which seems to be difficult, the ego will attempt to take this aspect elsewhere and resolve it there. And it will seem to be successful, except that this attempt conflicts with unity and must obscure the goal of truth. And peace will not be experienced except in fantasy. Truth has not come because faith has been denied, being withheld from where it rightfully belonged. Thus do you lose the understanding of the situation the goal of truth would bring. For fantasy solutions bring but the illusion of experience, and the illusion of peace is not the condition in which the truth can enter.
64 The substitutes for aspects of the situation are the witnesses to your lack of faith. They demonstrate that you did not believe that the situation and the problem were in the same place. The problem was the lack of faith, and it is this you demonstrate when you remove it from its source and place it elsewhere. As a result, you do not see the problem. Had you not lacked the faith it could be solved, the problem would be gone. And the situation would have been meaningful to you because the interference in the way of understanding would have been removed. To remove the problem elsewhere is to
keep it. For you remove yourself from it and make it unsolvable.
|
Audio, Music, and Video
by CIMS SonShip Radio
ONLINE
SEARCHABLE Original Edition
Current Schedule of
|
|
ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 195
Love is the way
I walk in gratitude.
|
Sarah's Commentary:
Think of the ways in which you are grateful. What are you grateful for today? Are you grateful that you have a place to live, unlike those who find themselves homeless? Are you grateful that you have a job while others don't? Are you grateful that you are healthy, unlike someone who is sick and suffering? Are you grateful that you have a partner, unlike someone who is alone? Or you may feel, "There but for the grace of God go I. At least I am better off than that person."
We may be grateful that God saved us from a car accident, even if others had to lose their lives. We may be grateful when our team wins, although the other team lost. We may be grateful that we beat someone to the front of the line in the grocery store or we beat them to the parking place. In these examples, aren't we basically being grateful that we have gained at someone else's loss? This kind of gratitude depends on seeing ourselves winning when someone is losing. In other words, this kind of gratitude is all about comparison and differences. Jesus says,
"It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering,"
(W.195.2.1) but that is the ego's notion of gratitude, which is based on differences. It is based on the principle of "one or the other."
Specialness always makes comparisons. On our spiritual path, we even compare ourselves to those who are more or less enlightened than we are. We go through our lives with the mantras of "better than" or "worse than" everywhere we look.
"The ego literally lives by comparisons."
(T.4.II.7.1) (ACIM OE T.4.III.32) We feel superior when we feel better than someone else and angry, diminished, or jealous when we feel worse than someone else. It is truly the disease of the ego, and it is the dark side of the ego's version of gratitude. It is important to bring these dark thoughts to awareness, rather than to deny the thoughts and feelings that arise in us. The reality is that we do make these kinds of judgments. It is an aspect of the separation. Jesus understands that this is our condition when he says,
"But what is different calls for judgment, and this must come from someone 'better,' someone incapable of being like what he condemns, 'above' it, sinless by comparison with it."
(T.24.I.4.2) (ACIM OE T.24.II.6)
When you see your brother as better than you, then
"Your brother is your "enemy" because you see in him the rival for your peace; a plunderer who takes his joy from you,"
(W.195.3.1) This goes back to the discussion of special love and special hate relationships in which Jesus says that if we see our brother as having something we don't have, we believe he has something that was actually taken from us. If he is the one winning in this competition between us,
"Now is vengeance all there is to wish for."
(W.195.3.2) Now, all we want in this rivalry is to see him diminished because he has what we believe we rightly deserve. We may, for example, experience this when those, who seem to have it all, take a fall. We enjoy these moments because we no longer see ourselves as "less than" someone who previously seemed superior. We now see ourselves as taking back what we think we rightly deserve. It is a situation of gaining our happiness at someone else's expense. Of course, we assume the same program is running in their minds too. In the same way, we are upset and angry if someone has more than we do. This is the nature of the ego thought system---it is always "one or the other."
Comparisons are everywhere in this world of separation and competition. Clearly, we see ourselves as better than those who murder and hurt others, but Jesus says,
"Love makes no comparisons."
(W.195.4.2)
"Against the littleness you see in him you stand as tall and stately, clean and honest, pure and unsullied, by comparison with what you see."
(T.24.II.1.6) (ACIM OE T.24.III.12) Our specialness depends on seeing the lack in others while purporting the innocence in ourselves. We want to see them as the guilty ones so we can see ourselves in a better light. Yet if we are willing to look at our own minds with great honesty, we will see our own hateful, murderous thoughts and realize that the content of the ego mind is always the same.
Jesus says that the thoughts we have as a result of comparison with others are
"pitiful and depreciating."
(W.195.1.4) The comparisons we make create a tremendous burden for us. They are a significant obstacle to our peace. Any comparisons made are unloving because the comparison is a way of setting things apart. They are another way to keep the separation going and to see our brothers as different from ourselves.
"Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us."
(W.195.5.4) Comparison is a way that we avoid our reality of Oneness with all of our brothers.
We can indeed be grateful that we are given the means to turn these dark thoughts over for healing. We are given the means to escape this prison-house we made. There is
"One Who offers you the certain means whereby all pain is healed, and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness."
(W.195.2.2) Pain and suffering are always the result of our investment in specialness, but true gratitude, based on love, can show us the way. When gratitude is joined with love, we recognize our sameness. We share the same thought system that brought us into the experience of this world of duality, but we also share the same One Self. Our sameness reflects the Oneness of our reality. We can be truly grateful that, instead of the bargaining and the reciprocity that are part of the special relationship in which we always try to benefit at the expense of our brother, our freedom can be found in the recognition of the sameness we share. This sameness is a reflection of the Oneness of Heaven. It is recognizing that as we are released, our brothers are as well. While we imprison them with our judgments, we imprison ourselves.
We all share the same purpose. We all want to escape from this prison-house, but we can't do it when we hold thoughts of specialness. These are thoughts of comparison and differences. In fact, Jesus asks us to question why we would want to hold onto this kind of insanity and turn away from him and the peace and joy that he is offering us.
"Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs, and follow in the way He sets before them, to escape a prison that they thought contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive."
(W.195.2.3) It requires for us to ask ourselves how we could possibly trust what we think and feel. To refuse to question our perceptions is to continue in our insanity, relying on our false ideas of who our brothers are.
The ideas presented in this Lesson are that gratitude is not about raising ourselves above anyone but recognizing the unity we share with everyone. Thus, true gratitude is to the Holy Spirit, Who has given us the means to recognize our Oneness.
"Faith and belief and vision are the means by which the goal of holiness is reached."
(T.21.III.4.1) (ACIM OE T.21.IV.32) Gratitude makes room for
"the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death."
(W.195.5.2) In other words, to raise ourselves above anyone at all is to keep ourselves separate and alone.
When we are tempted to look at anyone and be grateful that we are not like them, we exclude ourselves from love. We all share the same unity. (W.195.5.3) Only when we experience the inclusiveness of all our brothers is gratitude sincere. Otherwise, we are thankful for nothing but the suffering of others. However, if we extend gratitude to everyone, the way opens up for us to know our Self and be grateful for it. It comes from a recognition that we are not lacking. We already have been given everything. No one can take peace from us. It is in us.
"Our gratitude will pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of."
(W.195.10.1) It goes hand in hand with love.
What is true gratitude? It is gratitude for our Oneness and for being given the means to go home together. We are grateful for all of our brothers with no exceptions! Am I to be grateful to those who push my buttons (which elicits my anger and rage), those who seem to abandon me, or those who hurt me? The answer here is a resounding
Yes
! Gratitude for all events, circumstances, and difficulties will move us forward immeasurably; and how could we ever access the guilt in the mind without the help of those who bring it to our awareness? Without them, we could have no way of experiencing it. That is why this supposed enemy is really our savior from hell. When we recognize this, we can actually turn our anger and revenge into a song of gratitude. While it may seem difficult, our part is actually simple. We acknowledge our thoughts and release them to the Holy Spirit. He will do the rest. We can be grateful that we have been given everything. We are not lacking. We have within us what we look for outside of ourselves.
Regine Akers recently wrote a piece that relates beautifully to the gifts our brothers can offer, in which she says: "It is easy to feel enlightened or transformed or spiritual when things seem to be going your way...when people agree with you, when they state how much they like you, when they do as you ask. But if there is a need for these things, the ego will rise again, because the ego is always there. When the ego rises with some type of upset or suffering, you can deny it or explain it away but if this is done, the gift is being missed. There is a great gift in ego appearing from hiding. The gift is finding the path to freedom again. One may need to admit I wasn't as far along as I thought. That is OK. You've found the path again. Yay! Now for those earlier practices of forgiveness, observation, and attachment. Rest, accept, trust. Watch your thoughts and feel your emotions but don't believe them or act on them. Wait and let the storm pass. Do nothing. Just watch. Above all else, blame no one or nothing. Even what seems to be your current pain, be grateful. Be vigilant and grateful. You never really wanted to fool yourself anyway. Thank God you are at home."
Honor is the natural greeting of the truly loved to others who are like them. Jesus says,
"Give only honor to the Sons of the living God, and count yourself among them gladly."
(T.7.VII.5.8) (ACIM OE T.7.VIII.75) Honor is due everyone because they are as God created them, one with me. Truly, I can be grateful for all of the blessings, as well as for the opportunities these brothers and sisters offer me for my forgiveness and healing. Wow, if only we could keep this at the top of our awareness all through the day today. Today, as I think of each of you, I am truly grateful that you take this journey with me. I am grateful that we all go together. I am grateful for this Course and for the opportunities to release comparisons, specialness, and all thoughts that keep us separate.
"Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge. We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us, and calls us Son. Can there be more than this?"
(W.195.9.1-6)
"Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge."
(W.195.9.1) In other words, we bring awareness to our ungrateful attitude in which we feel better than others. We uncover this attitude in our own minds so we are not simply doing a spiritual bypass, trying hard to see our brother beyond our own judgments. This will never work. We must face our own darkness and be willing to acknowledge our judgments. We must put them on the inner altar and be grateful for the gift this practice offers us. We need not be grateful for anyone’s behavior but only for the awareness that it brings to our own minds. We can be grateful that we can't change the truth of what we are. We are still One with God. Nothing else is real. Open today to the deep peace that comes from the recognition that no dream can change our reality. Love is the only reality!
Love and blessings, Sarah
|
|
Allen Watson's
Workbook Commentaries
Allen joined Robert Perry in forming the Circle of Atonement in 1993 in Sedona, Arizona where Allen led retreats and workshops and authored many books based on “A Course in Miracles.” One of his most popular books is:
|
|
Through
Tina Louise Spalding
|
|
LISTEN every day to Guidance on the ACIM Lessons from Jesus.
|
|
Join ACIM Students
on Free Conference Calls
|
|
Course in Miracles Society (@ACIM_Original) | Twitter
Follow us on TWITTER and join the ACIM community. Just use the hashtag #ACIM when you post! Students share Inspirational Quotes, Events, Personal Insights, ACIM News, and more.
Read more
twitter.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
COURSE IN MIRACLES SOCIETY
(non-profit)
Tax-Deductible Donation
|
Presently all CIMS projects are supported by free will gifts of time, talent, and money. If you would like to support any of the activities of the Society in any way, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Because of the international character of CIMS, the internet is our primary means of communicating and collaborating.
To make a Tax-Deductible Donation in support of the Daily Lessons just click
Here.
Also, by means of your will or other estate plan, you can name "
Course in Miracles Society" as the beneficiary of a portion of your estate, or of particular assets in your estate. In this way, you are honoring your loved ones while also providing critical support to the extension of LOVE.
|
|
SHARE THE BLESSING of ACIM!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
