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49 The Holy Spirit
needs your special function that His may be fulfilled. Think not you lack a special value here. You wanted it, and it
is given you. All that you made can serve salvation easily and well. The Son of God can make no choice the Holy Spirit cannot employ on his behalf and
not against himself. Only in darkness does your specialness appear to be attack. In light, you see it as your
special function in the plan to save the Son of God from
all attack and let him understand that he is safe, as he has always been and will remain in time and in eternity alike. This is the function given each of you for one another. Take it gently then from one another's hand, and let salvation be perfectly fulfilled in both of you. Do this
one thing, that everything be given you.
CHAPTER 25: THE REMEDY
VII.
THE SPECIAL FUNCTION
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Workbook for Students
Part II
What is the Christ?
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1 Christ is God's Son as He created Him. He is the Self we share, uniting us with one another and with God as well. He is the Thought Which still abides within the Mind That is His Source. He has not left His holy home nor lost the innocence in which He was created. He abides unchanged forever in the Mind of God.
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Workbook for Students
Lesson 272
How can illusions
satisfy God's Son?
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1
Father, the truth belongs to me. My home is set in Heaven by Your Will and mine. Can dreams content me? Can illusions bring me happiness? What but Your memory can satisfy Your Son? I will accept no less than You have given me. I am surrounded by Your Love, forever still, forever gentle, and forever safe. God's Son must be as You created him.
2 Today we pass illusions by. And if we hear temptation call to us to stay and linger in a dream, we turn aside and ask ourselves if we, the Sons of God, could be content with dreams when Heaven can be chosen just as easily as hell and love will happily replace all fear.
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Lesson ARCHIVE
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Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
Chapter 25
The Remedy
VI. The State of Sinlessness
par 37-42
[TEXT READING PAUSED FOR WEEKEND]
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37 The state of sinlessness is merely this: the whole desire to attack is gone, and so there is no reason to perceive the Son of God as other than he is. The need for guilt is gone because it has no purpose and is meaningless without the goal of sin. Attack and sin are bound as one illusion, each the cause and aim and justifier of the other. Each is meaningless alone, but seems to draw a meaning from the other. Each depends upon the other for whatever sense it seems to have. And no one could believe in one unless the other were the truth, for each attests the other
must be true.
38 Attack makes Christ your enemy and God along with Him. Must you not be afraid with "enemies" like these? And must you not be fearful of
yourself? For you have hurt yourself and made your Self your "enemy." And now you must believe you are not you but something alien to yourself and "something else," a "something" to be feared instead of loved. Who would attack whatever he perceives as wholly innocent? And who,
because he wishes to attack, can fail to think it must be guilty to deserve the wish and leave him innocent? And who would see the Son of God as innocent and wish him dead? Christ stands before you both each time you look on one another. He has not gone because your eyes are closed. But what is there to see by searching for your savior, seeing Him through sightless eyes?
39 It is not Christ you see by looking thus. It is the "enemy" confused with Christ you look upon. And hate because there is no sin in him for you to see. Nor do you hear his plaintive call, unchanged in content in whatever form the call is made, that you unite with him and join with him in innocence and peace. And yet beneath the ego's senseless shrieks, such
is the call that God has given him that you might hear in him His Call to you and answer by returning unto God what is His own.
40 The Son of God asks only this of you—that you return to him what is his due that you may
share in it with him. Alone does neither have it. So must it remain useless to both. Together, it will give to each an equal strength to save the other and save himself along with him. Forgiven by you, your savior offers you salvation. Condemned by you, he offers death to you. In everyone you see but the reflection of what you chose to have him be to you. If you decide against his proper function, the only one he has in truth, you are depriving him of all the joy he would have found if he fulfilled the role God gave to him. But think not Heaven is lost to him alone. Nor can it be regained unless the way is shown to him through you that you may find it, walking by his side.
41 It is no sacrifice that he be saved, for by his freedom will you gain your own. To let his function be fulfilled is but the means to let yours be. And so you walk toward Heaven or toward hell, but not alone. How beautiful his sinlessness will be when you perceive it! And how great will be your joy, when he is free to offer you the gift of sight God gave to him for you! He has no need but this—that you allow him freedom to complete the task God gave to him. Remembering but this—that what he does you do along with him. And as you see him, so do you define the function he will have for you until you see him differently and
let him be what God appointed that he be to you.
42 Against the hatred that the Son of God may cherish toward himself is God believed to be without the power to save what He created from the pain of hell. But in the love he shows himself is God made free to
let His Will be done. In each of you, you see the picture of your own belief in what the Will of God must be for you. In your forgiveness will you understand His love for you; through your attack believe He hates you, thinking Heaven must be hell. Look once again upon your brother, not without the understanding that he is the way to Heaven or to hell as you perceive him. But forget not this—the role you give to him is given
you, and you
will walk the way you pointed out to him because it is your judgment on yourself.
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Course in Miracles
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Text
Chapter 25
The Remedy
VII. The Special Function
par 43-49
[TEXT READING PAUSED FOR WEEKEND]
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43 The grace of God rests gently on forgiving eyes, and everything they look on speaks of Him to the beholder. He can see no evil, nothing in the world to fear, and no one who is different from himself. And as he loves them, so he looks upon himself with love and gentleness. He would no more condemn himself for his mistakes than damn another. He is not an arbiter of vengeance nor a punisher of sin. The kindness of his sight rests on himself with all the tenderness it offers others. For he would only heal and only bless. And being in accord with what God wills, he has the power to heal and bless all those he looks on with the grace of God upon his sight.
44 Eyes become used to darkness, and the light of brilliant day seems painful to the eyes grown long accustomed to the dim effects perceived at twilight. And they turn away from sunlight and the clarity it brings to what they look upon. Dimness seems better—easier to see and better recognized. Somehow, the vague and more obscure seems easier to look upon; less painful to the eyes than what is wholly clear and unambiguous. Yet this is not what eyes are
for. And who can say that he prefers the darkness and maintain he
wants to see? The
wish to see calls down the grace of God upon your eyes and brings the gift of light that makes sight possible.
45 Will you behold your brother? God is glad to have you look on him. He does not will your savior be unrecognized by you. Nor does He will that he remain without the function that He gave to him. Let him no more be lonely, for the lonely ones are those who see no function in the world for them to fill, no place where they are needed, and no aim which only they can perfectly fulfill.
46 Such is the Holy Spirit's kind perception of specialness—His use of what you made, to heal instead of harm. To each He gives a special function in salvation he alone can fill—a part for only him. Nor is the plan complete until he finds his special function and fulfills the part assigned to him to make himself complete within a world where incompletion rules.
47 Here, where the laws of God do not prevail in perfect form, can he yet do
one perfect thing and make
one perfect choice. And by this act of special faithfulness to one perceived as other than himself, he learns the gift was given to himself, and so they
must be one. Forgiveness is the only function meaningful in time. It is the means the Holy Spirit uses to translate specialness from sin into salvation. Forgiveness is for all. But when it rests on all, it is complete and every function of this world completed with it. Then is time no more.
48 Yet while in time, there is still much to do. And each must do what is allotted him, for on his part does
all the plan depend. He
has a special part in time, for so he chose, and choosing it, he made it for himself. His wish was not denied but changed in form to let it serve his brother
and himself and thus become a means to save instead of lose. Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is not your home; its laws are not imposed on you; its values are not yours. [And nothing that you
think you see in it is
really there at all.] And this is seen and understood as each one takes his part in its undoing, as he did in making it. He has the means for either, as he always did. The specialness he chose to hurt himself did God appoint to be the means for his salvation from the very instant that the choice was made. His special sin was made his special grace. His special hate became his special love.
49 The Holy Spirit
needs your special function that His may be fulfilled. Think not you lack a special value here. You wanted it, and it
is given you. All that you made can serve salvation easily and well. The Son of God can make no choice the Holy Spirit cannot employ on his behalf and
not against himself. Only in darkness does your specialness appear to be attack. In light, you see it as your
special function in the plan to save the Son of God from
all attack and let him understand that he is safe, as he has always been and will remain in time and in eternity alike. This is the function given each of you for one another. Take it gently then from one another's hand, and let salvation be perfectly fulfilled in both of you. Do this
one thing, that everything be given you.
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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 272
How can illusions
satisfy God's Son.
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Sarah's Commentary:
What keeps us invested in the illusion, believing dreams can content us? It seems that while our continuing problems, challenges, and difficulties tire us, there are things in our lives that we consider the happier aspects of the dream, and thus they tempt us to keep looking for happiness where it cannot be found.
"What is a temptation but a wish to make illusions real? It does not seem to be the wish that no reality be so. Yet it is an assertion that some forms of idols have a powerful appeal that makes them harder to resist than those you would not want to have reality. Temptation, then, is nothing more than this; a prayer the miracle touch not some dreams, but keep their unreality obscure and give to them reality instead."
(T.30.VIII.3.1-4) (ACIM OE T.30.IX.91)
We still have some niggling hope that there is something here that will satisfy us. The ego continues to entice us with substitutes for Heaven. These substitutes are called idols and are based on our belief that something lacking in us can be filled with these substitutes for God. We pursue the idols because we think they fulfill the cravings, needs, and lacks that we experience. The substitutes are also referred to as
"distorted perceptions."
(T.1.VII.1.1) (ACIM OE T.1.II.102) Distorted miracle impulses may be for food, money, sex, closeness, attention, and power. This is the miracle impulse, which has been distorted by our belief that we are bodies. So, the miracle impulse, which comes from the love we are, is unconsciously distorted into physical needs, all based on lack. In other words, there is a miracle under all our cravings, but it has been distorted by our perceived needs.
Our attraction to guilt, pain, and death is dressed up by the ego to make us think it is pleasure that we are attracted to. If we really saw that our substitutes for the miracle were made to keep us in duality and that what we are choosing is pain, it would not be hard to release these substitutes. Pain and pleasure don't seem the same in this world because the ego has made guilt look attractive to us. We are being asked to work with our attachments, preferences, and investments so they can be loosened. The ego would have us keep from awareness our investment in the separated self and the world so the miracle cannot shine through. When we realize that this is the way the ego keeps us in the game of suffering, we increasingly bring awareness to our attachments and give it over to Holy Spirit, asking that He reinterpret them. What is it that is deeply satisfying to me? What does food, sex, money, power, and affiliation offer me? Jim Carey said that getting it all is helpful, as we can then realize that none of these things that we pursue bring us happiness.
Sex is one of those distorted miracles impulses where there is an attraction to joining and a belief that it can be accomplished through bodies. This is not to say there is anything wrong with sex, but to realize what is behind the sexual drive is what we truly want---true joining and reconnection to Oneness. In fact, in the Urtext (which is the original of the material taken down by Helen Schucman before the edited material of the Course), Jesus says,
"Sex was intended as an instrument for physical creation
[for producing new bodies]
to enable Souls to embark on new chapters in their experience, and thus improve their record.
The pencil was
NOT an end in itself (See earlier section)."
(URText T.1.B.40d) The pencil is equivalent to the body in that they are both forms of no consequence, but can be used for a holy purpose. Although sex was made for ego purposes, like everything of the ego, it can be used by the Holy Spirit for a holy purpose. Thus, it is all about purpose. We do not understand what love is, since we often confuse and equate romance, specialness, and sexual attraction with love. The best reflection of God's love in this world is forgiveness. This is how we make space in our minds for the miracle to shine forth. As Leonard Cohen says, "There is a crack in everything. That is how the light gets in."
In a workshop by Ken Wapnick* held at Temecula, California, he said, "There is nothing in this world that is true. Forgiveness is not true. This ‘holy’ Course in Miracles is not true. Nothing is true in this world. Truth is only of God. We can, however, have the reflection of truth in this world. The Course, therefore, is the reflection of truth. Other spiritualities are reflections of truth. Forgiveness is a reflection of truth. It is not truth, but rather the reflection of truth. That is why Jesus says that love is not possible in this world, but it is possible to be the reflection of holiness." So, whatever it is that helps us awaken from the dream is to be welcomed. We can give the world a purpose that supports our awakening.
Jesus teaches that no substitute will ever satisfy the Son of God. All illusions will never be enough: not our illusions of security achieved through family, home, and financial stability; not our illusions of love achieved through special relationships; not our illusions of safety achieved by taking vitamins, locking doors, and buying insurance; and not our illusions of specialness achieved by seeking recognition, attention, and glory. It is why we are never satisfied.
"Yet you do not recognize them because you have raised their substitutes to such predominance that, when truth calls to you, as it does constantly, you answer with a substitute."
(T.17.IV.3.2) (ACIM OE T.17.V.29) We keep on seeking and seeking, wondering why we don't ever feel the deep peace and joy that only forgiveness can offer. We don't recognize that all of these substitutes are forms of fear.
Jesus asks us to consider how any of these things can satisfy God's Son. Why would we ever want less than everything? Today, we are asked to take a moment and ask ourselves if we really want this illusion and all of its temptations that bring nothing of value,
"when Heaven can be chosen just as easily as hell, and love will happily replace all fear."
(W.272.2.2) All illusion is fear. Everything we think we want in the illusion has a tinge of fear in it. If I have money, I fear losing it. If I have a special relationship, I have all kinds of fears about the person leaving, no longer loving me, hurting me, and betraying me. Fear is behind our focus on safety. The body is a fearful thing in itself---vulnerable and fragile. Having said this, it is important to remember that none of what we seek in this seeming reality is wrong. This is not a course in behavior. It is only about what is being held in the mind that we need to observe as we go about our day. We don’t try to change anything. We look at it all without judgment and with willingness. We put it on the inner altar and are willing to have it transformed.
Jesus is pointing us to the truth of our Being by inviting us to ask in everything, "What is it for?" In other words, what purpose is being served? What we do for our personal safety and for our bodily pleasure is not important. What is important is the choice we make in our minds for peace or war, for forgiveness or attack, and for Heaven or for hell. We might, for example, need to physically defend ourselves from attack in this world, but the mind training helps us to defend ourselves while still holding a defenseless thought. Or we might want to be helpful by visiting someone who is sick because we think it is the right or spiritual thing to do. But if we feel as if we are sacrificing and feel guilty, then this is the "gift" we give. When our minds are split
"This produces conflicted behavior, which is intolerable to you because the part of the mind that wants to do something else is outraged."
(T.2.VI.5.3) (ACIM OE T.2.IV.77)
Ultimately, we come to realize that there is no meaning and no real fulfillment in the things of this world no matter how much we try to find it there. We finally get disillusioned by it all, which is a good thing, otherwise, we would never seek the truth. We would never be motivated to see beyond the veil to the real world. While there are seeming temporary pleasures in the dream, none of them last and, ultimately, they can only bring pain and misery. Everything we seek in the world reflects the belief that we can exist outside the mind of God. Only the eternal can satisfy. Only the peace of God offers us real peace. Any temporary pleasures we seek are a choice for hell.
We think we are choosing something that will satisfy us and fulfill our dreams, but there can be no fulfillment here because we are asking for what is not real. No real satisfaction is possible here. What we are going for is always out of reach when we seek the things of this world. The toys and trinkets of the world just keep the gifts of God out of our awareness.
"Shall we continue to allow God's grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead?"
(W.258.1.3)
Seeking is what we came here to do, which does not make it wrong. What is important, again, is not what we are doing, but what is in our minds. It is all about purpose. The world can serve the purpose of the ego, which is to keep us rooted in this dream and seeking for what will never satisfy, or we can turn it to the purpose of waking up to what we really are. Thus, everything we have made can be used by the Holy Spirit for our awakening. All it takes is our decision to watch our minds and bring our misperceptions to Him.
The separation from God is only our dream. It never happened. We are still innocent. Nothing we think we have done to make ourselves guilty has happened.
"And if we hear temptation call to us to stay and linger in a dream, we turn aside and ask ourselves if we, the Sons of God, could be content with dreams, when Heaven can be chosen just as easily as hell, and love will happily replace all fear."
(W.272.2.2)
"I am surrounded by Your Love, forever still, forever gentle and forever safe."
(W.272.1.7) When we seek for substitutes, it is because we think they will deliver safety, love, and peace. Our disillusionment comes when we see that they never deliver what we had hoped. What is tempting you right now? Look at what you really want? Ask yourself if you think your list of wants will bring happiness and contentment to you. When we become aware that we are asking for guilt, suffering, and sorrow instead, would we still be tempted to pursue these things and further delay our journey to God? It is a journey to the peace and joy that is our inheritance.
Yesterday, I sent off a box full of clothes to charity. As I was packing them up, I was taken aback by how much I had invested in buying clothes that I did not need. Yet it offered me another opportunity to look at the perceived needs and lacks I was trying to fill. It is not helpful just to change the behavior while the desire is still there. It is helpful, however, to look at the deeper issues and feelings of lack and unworthiness. When these feelings are fully given over to the Holy Spirit, the behaviors just fall away. We are not called to sacrifice what we still value.
Jesus says that we will never be satisfied in this world because we will never find peace here. Yes, our illusions will seem to work some of the time, but the only thing that consistently brings joy is connecting with the Christ Mind. The realization that our way has not worked to bring true joy is the first step. Yes, the temptations are still there, but the realization that they will ultimately just bring more suffering, rather than the happiness, peace, and satisfaction we really want, will motivate us to look at our attachments and surrender them joyfully.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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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:
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