COURSE IN MIRACLES SOCIETY
(non-profit)
Please Support this Mailing with a
|
|
The link to this exact MAILING
|
|
Graphic by ©Deposit Photos
|
|
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.
CHAPTER 25: THE REMEDY
VI.
THE STATE OF SINLESSNESS
|
|
Workbook for Students
Part II
What is the Christ?
|
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.
2 Christ is the link that keeps you one with God and guarantees that separation is no more than an illusion of despair. For hope forever will abide in Him. Your mind is part of His and His of yours. He is the part in which God's Answer lies, where all decisions are already made and dreams are over. He remains untouched by anything the body's eyes perceive. For though in Him His Father placed the means for your salvation, yet does He remain the Self Who, like His Father, knows no sin.
3 Home of the Holy Spirit and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams. Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ to fade before His glory and reveal your holy Self, the Christ, to you at last.
4 The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams and bids them come to Him to be translated into truth. He will exchange them for the final dream which God appointed as the end of dreams. For when forgiveness rests upon the world and peace has come to every Son of God, what could remain to keep things separate, for what remains to see except Christ's face?
5 And how long will this holy face be seen, when it is but the symbol that the time for learning now is over and the goal of the Atonement has been reached at last? So therefore let us seek to find Christ's face and look on nothing else. As we behold His glory will we know we have no need of learning or perception or of time, or anything except the holy Self, the Christ Whom God created as His Son.
Audio, Music, and Video
by CIMS SonShip Radio
|
|
Workbook for Students
Lesson 271
Christ's is the vision
I will use today.
|
1 Each day, each hour, every instant, I am choosing what I want to look upon, the sounds I want to hear, the witnesses to what I want to be the truth for me. Today I choose to look upon what Christ would have me see, to listen to God's Voice, and seek the witnesses to what is true in God's creation. In Christ's sight, the world and God's creation meet, and as they come together, all perception disappears. His kindly sight redeems the world from death. For nothing that He looks on but must live, remembering the Father and the Son; Creator and Creation unified.
2
Father, Christ's vision is the way to You. What He beholds invites Your memory to be restored to me. And this I choose to be what I would look upon today.
|
Audio, Music, and Video
by CIMS SonShip Radio
Lesson ARCHIVE
|
|
Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
Chapter 25
The Remedy
VI. The State of Sinlessness
par 37-42
[TEXT READING PAUSED FOR WEEKEND]
|
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.
|
Audio, Music, and Video
by CIMS SonShip Radio
|
|
Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
Chapter 25
The Remedy
VII. The Special Function
par 43-49
[TEXT READING PAUSED FOR WEEKEND]
|
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.
|
Audio, Music, and Video
by CIMS SonShip Radio
ONLINE
SEARCHABLE Original Edition
Current Schedule of
|
|
ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 271
Christ's is the vision
I will use today.
|
Sarah's Commentary:
Now we have a new question,
"What is the Christ?"
We will be reading this Section for the next ten days in conjunction with each Lesson. Quite simply, as the first line says,
"Christ is God's Son as He created Him."
(W.PII.Q6.What is the Christ?1.1) As such, Christ is the Self we share, uniting us in Oneness. It is what we are. It is the part of the mind that is pure awareness and the part that has never fallen asleep. It is the awake mind that we share and that unites us with each other and with God. We are still a Thought in the Mind of God, having never left our Source, forever innocent, and forever unchanged.
Christ is spoken of in two ways here. While Jesus talks of Christ as pure Spirit in Heaven with no awareness of this world, he also talks of Christ in another way:
"Christ is the link that keeps you one with God, and guarantees that separation is no more than an illusion of despair, for hope forever will abide in Him."
(W.PII.Q6.2.1) In that sense, Christ is pure Spirit in Heaven as well as the right mind and described in the same way as is the Holy Spirit. Like all terms in the Course, we must remember that what is important is the content of the symbol, which points us to the truth, rather than the form that can be, and often is, debated. What is important is the assurance that Jesus gives us that the separation from God never happened. This is the Atonement Principle, which says there is nothing we can do or have done to change the truth about ourselves.
"He remains untouched by anything the body's eyes perceive."
(W.PII.Q6.2.4)
In spite of the fact that we think we have changed ourselves, Jesus reminds us that our reality remains untouched. Jesus is aware that we see ourselves as bodies, yet he assures us that our Father placed the means for our salvation within us. We think that we have changed ourselves and have corrupted our innocence. Isn't it a relief to know this is impossible? When we awaken from this dream, we will know that the Self we are is still the same as it has always been. It is the
I Am Self
‑‑‑perfect, divine, constant, holy, and unchangeable.
Once, we were at a party where everyone was dressed up in masks and costumes of various kinds, yet we knew the mask did not define who was wearing it. In the same way, we have laid an image over God's masterpiece, the Christ, and now believe we have remade ourselves into something we are not. We have come to identify with the image we have carefully constructed. It is a self-concept made up of beliefs, values, opinions, and thoughts. We have come to believe that it is the what we are. But we are not the characters we pretend to be, nor the part we have chosen to play in this dream. The truth is that we cannot remake what God created, no matter how much we try and what masks we seem to wear. The only thing we can do is to hold the belief that what we think about ourselves is true.
We thought we could separate from God and become our own gods and authors of our own lives. We thought the body and the world were safe places to hide from what we perceived as God's wrath, but what safety can there be in a body that is vulnerable, and will decay and die? The ego has sold us a lie, and we have chosen to buy into the lie. We see the body as a place to keep ourselves separate from God, but we know it is anything but a safe place to hide. Yet we don't challenge the ego on its story. Instead, we accept death as a certainty, which is how we try to demonstrate to God that He must be wrong about us. He says we are eternal, but death shows us that we are not eternal after all. Now we must choose whether we accept death as reality or indeed come to see that there is only life.
The ego does not want us to question any of this because its intent is to kill us-—its host. Yet its plan is to survive the death of the body. Jesus invites us to look at the source of all this and apply reason to see how none of it makes any sense. He invites us to question the ego’s story. We become motivated to do this when we get disillusioned and weary of this game that we call the cycle of birth and death. Course-based forgiveness is the means that we are given to awaken from this dream that we are dreaming. We keep ourselves asleep by still believing that there is something worthwhile to be found in this playground. What we don’t want to see is that this world is actually more like a death camp than a playground. We want to play just a little while longer, while faintly recalling somewhere in the mind that there is a more beautiful state awaiting us.
"Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams. Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ, to fade before His glory and reveal your holy Self, the Christ, to you at last."
(W.PII.Q6.3.1-4) Thus, it is up to us to bring our dreams (illusions) to the truth and our darkness to the light, so every hindrance can be removed from the mind that believes it has changed itself. When our forgiveness work is done, we reach the real world, which is the final dream where there is no more choice to be made.
"The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth. He will exchange them for the final dream which God appointed as the end of dreams."
(W.PII.Q6.4.1-2)
What would the world look like if we just looked at it with Christ's vision? In this Lesson, we are reminded that what we see is what we choose to see.
"Each day, each hour, every instant, I am choosing what I want to look upon, the sounds I want to hear, the witnesses to what I want to be the truth for me."
(W.271.1.1) If we see a world of pain, misery, suffering, cruelty, and injustice, and we are outraged by all the sin "out there," then we are actually calling forth the witnesses to sin, guilt, and fear. Jesus is saying that if we see the world in this way, we actually want this to be the truth for us! How can this be? Do we really want to see the world as victimizing us and putting us at its mercy? That does not seem possible. At a conscious level, we resist the idea. However, we want the payoff that there is in victimhood, which is why we don't want to take total responsibility for everything that seems to happen to us. Our attraction to being a victim of a cruel world is that we do not have to take responsibility for our own existence and for the separation from God. We can make someone else responsible for our condition. Now they can be seen as the guilty ones.
This morning I went down for coffee, which Don usually has ready for me, but today there was no coffee, and he was focusing on his laptop while I sat down expecting some attention. When he did not even look up, I commented that he seemed very invested in what he was doing. Without even looking up, he told me he was trying to get the laptop connected to the internet. The thought in my mind was that I was being neglected and ignored. The next thought was to ask myself who was it that felt neglected? Of course, I saw that it was the false self. This self wanted to have Don engaged with me, but who I really am was just observing a neutral event and giving it my meaning. The source of my upset was the thoughts I chose to believe. I was fully in relationship with my own ego. Now I could choose to join with the Holy Spirit instead and be at peace. While we think we are in a relationship with another body, the fact is that we are constantly in a relationship with either the ego or with the Holy Spirit. It is a choice we make again and again. It is not a sin to be engaged with the ego, but it is a mistake that will never bring peace.
Jesus is constantly and consistently inviting us to call forth witnesses to our true innocence and not the false sense of innocence bought at our brother's expense when we decide our brother is guilty.
"Each day, each hour and every instant, even each second, you are deciding between the crucifixion and the resurrection; between the ego and the Holy Spirit
.
"
(T.14.III.4.1) (ACIM OE T.13.VIII.68) And only one choice will bring the experience of the Holy Spirit's joy, peace, and holiness for ourselves.
What we see is all a projection of our own thoughts. It is an outward picture of our inward condition. When we become outraged about anything we see in the world, the cause is never out there. Our outrage is within. We experience outrage as a result of the thoughts we hold about the situation in the world. When we take responsibility for our thoughts as the cause of our outrage, we can bring them to the Holy Spirit. This does not mean that all behaviors that we witness are good. It only means that we are called to see beyond the behaviors and to see the call for love and know the innocence that lies beyond the images. When we are able to see others in this way, we will know that this same love and purity is in us. This is seeing with Christ's vision and not with our own eyes.
I remember watching a TV show called
Joan of Arcadia
, which was about a young woman to whom God appeared in various disguises as ordinary people. Imagine going through our own lives and seeing everyone in disguise. Imagine seeing Jesus disguised as the beggar on the street, or as the guy filling our gas tank, or serving us breakfast, or sharing the bed with us. Seeing the Christ in everyone allows us to see the beauty of our own Self reflected back at us through each brother. Which would you choose?
"Today I choose to look upon what Christ would have me see, to listen to God's Voice, and seek the witnesses to what is true in God's creation."
(W.271.1.2)
Wayne Dyer used to say, "Believe it and you will see it." We need to first change our minds and then we will see witnesses to this new perception. Do you notice how the ego rags on you not to forgive, reminding you continuously that your anger is totally justified? And all the while, the Holy Spirit reminds us of the forgotten song, calling us home.
"Listen,---perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar, like a song whose name is long forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached not to a person or a place or anything particular. But you remember, from just this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you heard it, and how you loved those who were there and listened with you."
(T.21.I.6.1-3) (ACIM OE T.21.II.8)
This forgotten song in our right minds is calling us to remember who we are. We are afraid to remember, believing that if we did, we would lose what we value. What we value is our separate self. The result is that we feel lonely and disconnected from each other. We feel separate and different, and while we
"try to reach each other,"
(T.21.I.5.3) (ACIM OE T.21.II.7) we
"fail and fail again"
(T.21.I.5.3) (ACIM OE T.21.II.7) and then adjust to the loneliness. Jesus teaches us that this need not be, that we can see it another way, and that we can learn to see each other beyond the limitations of what the eyes show us.
I had an experience recently of releasing some judgments and grievances I was holding about my frail mother, who demands a lot of my time and attention. One night, I was tucking her into bed and looked deeply into her eyes and felt a shock of recognition as I literally experienced the eyes of Christ shining their radiance back at me. It was such a powerful moment of joining. I will never forget the impact of the light that shone through her.
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
(W.158.7)
We are told,
"When experience will come to end your doubting has been set."
(W.158.4.4) We can be assured that when we are ready for this experience, it will come to us, but we must do our part. Today, we are asked to choose the witnesses we will listen to.
"Father, Christ's vision is the way to You. What He beholds invites Your memory to be restored to me. And this I choose, to be what I would look upon today."
(W.271.2.1‑3)
If this is not what you experience today, it does not make you wrong. It is just a mistaken choice. We can now choose again and again in each situation, whether we look to the ego or the Holy Spirit to interpret what we see.
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 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!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
