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52 Forget not that the healing of God's Son is all the world is
for. That is the only purpose the Holy Spirit sees in it and thus the only one it has. Until you see the healing of the Son as all you wish to be accomplished by the world, by time, and all appearances, you will not know the Father nor yourself. For you will use the world for what is not its purpose and will not escape its laws of violence and death. Yet it is given you to be beyond its laws in
all respects, in
every way, and
every circumstance, in
all temptation to perceive what is not there and
all belief God's Son can suffer pain because he sees himself as he is not.
CHAPTER 24: SPECIALNESS
AND SEPARATION
VII. SALVATION FROM FEAR
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Workbook for Students
Part II
What is the Body?
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1 The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built to separate parts of his Self from other parts. It is within this fence, he thinks he lives, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love. Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is. How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love outside?
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Workbook for Students
Lesson 265
Creation's gentleness
is all I see.
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1 I have indeed misunderstood the world because I laid my "sins" on it and saw them looking back at me. How fierce they seemed! And how deceived was I to think that what I feared was in the world instead of in my mind alone. Today I see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines. There is no fear in it. Let no appearance of my "sins" obscure the light of Heaven, shining on the world. What is reflected here is in God's Mind. The images I see reflect my thoughts. Yet is my mind at one with God's. And so I can perceive creation's gentleness.
2
In quiet would I look upon the world, which but reflects Your Thoughts and mine as well. Let me remember that they are the same, and I will see creation's gentleness.
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Course in Miracles
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Text
Chapter 24
Specialness and Separation
VII. Salvation from Fear
par 49-61
[TEXT READING PAUSED FOR WEEKEND]
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49 Before your brother's holiness the world is still and peace descends on it in gentleness and blessing so complete that not one trace of conflict still remains to haunt you in the darkness of the night. He is your savior from the dreams of fear. He is the healing of your sense of sacrifice and fear that what you have will scatter with the wind and turn to dust. In him is your assurance God is here and with you
now. While he is what he is, you can be sure that God is knowable and
will be known to you. For He could never leave His own creation. And the sign that this is so lies in your brother, offered you that all your doubts about yourself may disappear before his holiness. See in him God's creation. For in him, his Father waits for your acknowledgment that He created you as part of Him.
50 Without you there would be a lack in God, a Heaven incomplete, a Son without a Father. There could be no universe and no reality. For what God wills is whole and part of Him because His Will is One. Nothing alive that is not part of Him, and nothing
is but is alive in Him. Your brother's holiness shows you that God is one with him and you—that what he has is yours
because you are not separate from him nor from his Father.
51 Nothing is lost to you in all the universe. Nothing that God created has He failed to lay before you lovingly as yours forever. And no thought within His Mind is absent from your own. It is His Will you share His love for you and look upon yourself as lovingly as He conceived of you before the world began and as He knows you still. God changes not His Mind about His Son with passing circumstance, which has no meaning in eternity where He abides and you with Him. Your brother
is as He created him. And it is this that saves you from a world that He created not.
52 Forget not that the healing of God's Son is all the world is
for. That is the only purpose the Holy Spirit sees in it and thus the only one it has. Until you see the healing of the Son as all you wish to be accomplished by the world, by time, and all appearances, you will not know the Father nor yourself. For you will use the world for what is not its purpose and will not escape its laws of violence and death. Yet it is given you to be beyond its laws in
all respects, in
every way, and
every circumstance, in
all temptation to perceive what is not there and
all belief God's Son can suffer pain because he sees himself as he is not.
53 Look on your brother and behold in him the whole reversal of the laws that seem to rule this world. See in his freedom
yours, for such it is. Let not his specialness obscure the truth in him, for not one law of death you bind him to will
you escape. And not one sin you see in him but keeps you
both in hell. Yet will his perfect sinlessness
release you both, for holiness is quite impartial, with one judgment made for all it looks upon. And that is made, not of itself, but through the Voice that speaks for God in everything that lives and shares His Being.
54 It is
His sinlessness that eyes which see can look upon. It is
His loveliness they see in everything. And it is
He they look for everywhere and find no sight nor place nor time where He is not. Within your brother's holiness, the perfect frame for your salvation and the world's, is set the shining memory of Him in Whom your brother lives and you along with him. Let not your eyes be blinded by the veil of specialness that hides the face of Christ from him, and you as well. And let the fear of God no longer hold the vision you were meant to see from you. Your brother's body shows not Christ to you. He
is set forth within his holiness.
55 Choose, then, his body or his holiness as what you
want to see, and which you choose is yours to look upon. Yet will you choose in countless situations and through time which seems to have no end until the truth be your decision. For eternity is not regained by still one more denial of Christ in him. And where is your salvation if he is but a body? Where is your peace but in his holiness? And where is God Himself but in that part of Him He set forever in your brother's holiness that you might see the truth about yourself set forth at last in terms you recognized and understood?
56 Your brother's holiness is sacrament and benediction unto you. His errors cannot withhold God's blessing from himself nor you who see him truly. His mistakes can cause delay, which it is given you to take from him that both may end a journey that has never been begun and needs no end. What never was is not a part of you. Yet you will
think it is until you realize that it is not a part of him who stands beside you. He is the mirror of yourself wherein you see the judgment you have laid on both of you. The Christ in you beholds his holiness. Your specialness looks on his body and beholds him not.
57 See him as what he
is that your deliverance may not be long. A senseless wandering, without a purpose and without accomplishment of any kind, is all the other choice can offer you. Futility of function not fulfilled will haunt you while your brother lies asleep, till what has been assigned to you is done and he is risen from the past. He who condemned himself, and you as well, is given you to save from condemnation along with you. And
both shall see God's glory in His Son, whom you mistook as flesh and bound to laws that have no power over him at all.
58 Would you not gladly realize these laws are not for you? Then see him not as prisoner to them. It cannot be what governs part of God holds not for all the rest. You place yourself under the laws you see as ruling him. Think, then, how great the love of God for you must be that He has given you a part of Him to save from pain and give you happiness. And never doubt but that your specialness will disappear before the Will of God, Who loves each part of Him with equal love [and care]. The Christ in you
can see your brother truly. Would
you decide against the holiness He sees?
59 Specialness is the function which you gave yourself. It stands for you alone, as self-created, self-maintained, in need of nothing, and unjoined with anything beyond the body. In its eyes, you are a separate universe with all the power to hold itself complete within itself, with every entry shut against intrusion and every window barred against the light. Always attacked and always furious, with anger always fully justified, you have pursued this goal with vigilance you never thought to yield and effort that you never thought to cease. And all this grim determination was for this—you wanted specialness to be the
truth.
60 Now you are merely asked that you pursue another goal with far less vigilance—with little effort and with little time and with the power of God maintaining it and promising success. Yet of the two, it is
this one you find more difficult. The "sacrifice" of self you understand, nor do you deem this cost too heavy. But a tiny willingness, a nod to God, a greeting to the Christ in you, you find a burden wearisome and tedious, too heavy to be borne. Yet to the dedication to the truth as God established it no sacrifice is asked, no strain called forth, and all the power of Heaven and the might of truth itself is given to provide the means and
guarantee the goal's accomplishment.
61 You who believe it easier to see your brother's body than his holiness, be sure you understand what made this judgment. Here is the voice of specialness heard clearly, judging against the Christ and setting forth for you the purpose that you can attain and what you cannot do. Forget not that this judgment must apply to what you do with
it as your ally. For what you do through Christ it does not know. To Him this judgment makes no sense at all, for only what His Father wills is possible, and there is no alternative for Him to see. Out of His lack of conflict comes your peace. And from His purpose comes the means for effortless accomplishment and rest.
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Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 265
Creation's gentleness
is all I see.
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Sarah's Commentary:
When gentleness is all I see, I recognize gentleness is all I am. This is a new kind of projection or, more appropriately, an extension of the gentleness in the mind. Everything we see in the world is simply a reflection of our own minds. This is why the Course constantly reminds us,
"projection makes perception."
(T.13.V.3.5) (ACIM OE T.12.V.35) In other words, all we look at in the world is what is in our own minds. Either guilt or our innocence is reflected back at us. In the Introduction to Chapter 21, Jesus quite clearly says that the world we see is
"the outside picture of an inward condition."
(T.21.IN.1.5) (ACIM OE T.21.I.1) We only see our own sins in another and fool ourselves into thinking they are not in our own minds but are, in fact, in others. We think we need to forgive someone else, when in fact, forgiveness is about releasing our own sins.
"I have indeed misunderstood the world, because I laid my sins on it and
saw them looking back at me."
(W.265.1.1) It puts all of the responsibility for healing onto ourselves where all the power is.
In the Song of Prayer, Jesus tells us,
"It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your own sins you see in him. You want to see them there, and not in you. That is why the forgiveness of another is an illusion. Yet it is the only happy dream in all the world; the only one that does not lead to death. Only in someone else can you forgive yourself, for you have called him guilty of your sins, and in him must your innocence now be found. Who but the sinful need to be forgiven? And do not ever think you can see sin in anyone except yourself."
(S.2.B.4)
When we are seeing sin in our brothers, we need to bring it back to our own minds and release the judgments we are holding there. Our brothers are just a reflection of our own minds. When we take responsibility for our projections, we are given an opportunity to see our self-attacking thoughts. Our thoughts create the battleground where we find ourselves when we are not at peace. To come to peace is to step out of this battleground by looking at the thoughts that keep us invested in the world.
Forgiveness requires that we look at our thoughts without judgment. It is to recognize that nothing outside of the mind can take away our peace. We need to uncover the beliefs that we are holding so we can release them and experience the truth. We hold onto our beliefs and opinions because we think that they keep us safe and secure. The truth of our magnificent Self is always available, but covered over and protected by our defenses. We can be grateful to have everything exposed, as this is where our healing lies. Yes, it can get pretty rough as we go through the darkness, but we don’t go alone. We hold the hand of Jesus, who willingly goes there with us.
All meaning we give any situation comes from our own minds. So when a brother seems to attack us or creates situations or events that seem difficult for us to overlook, he is offering us an opportunity to look within at what we are holding in the mind that does not serve us. When we determine he is unworthy of love and deserving of punishment and we blame him for what we are feeling, we are missing the opportunity to heal what is being revealed to us in this encounter. Everyone is a mirror in which we see our own unhealed minds.
We are called to see that we are all the same. We all make mistakes. Yet we are all still the innocent Son of God, worthy of love. When we don't want to take responsibility for the guilt in our minds, we project it onto someone we think is more deserving of it. Thus, we believe we have gotten rid of it. Now we see them as guilty, and we believe we are off the hook. What this attempts to do is to buy our innocence at the expense of our brothers, the guilty ones. We hope God is watching and will see their guilt and punish them rather than us; but of course, this does not work. True innocence is not bought at the expense of our brothers.
We prefer to see the guilt outside ourselves because then we don't have to take responsibility for it as coming from our own minds. Yet what the ego has kept from our awareness is that by seeing the guilt in others, we keep it. By holding attack thoughts, we expect to be attacked back. We expect punishment as the cycle of sin, guilt, and fear continues, but we can choose to stop it, look at it, and release it to the Holy Spirit. As we do this practice, we come to remember who we are and who our brothers are in truth. The beauty of this shift in the mind is such a gift! We are all worth this effort.
The many opportunities we have to watch our own minds and take responsibility for our projections can all be welcomed because now we can see that everything "out there" is only a reflection of our own thoughts. (W.265.1.8) So much of our own guilt is buried, which is why we need this outward picture of our inward condition in order to uncover the guilt from which we have become disassociated. Every upsetting situation is just a misperception on our part. We need to look at why we are calling this witness to our guilt and fear. If we want to know our own divinity, we need to look at it all and ask to see how every situation has the potential in it to support our awakening if we choose to use it for that purpose. So when we start to embrace it all, we become happy learners and the world provides us with a perfect classroom and many opportunities for forgiveness. It is an inner journey.
Through healing, we can come to a place where only Creation's gentleness is seen everywhere. When we are seeing through true perception, no matter what the situation looks like, we can see beyond appearances to the innocence behind everything our eyes report. We then look on everyone with "holy eyes."
I love the word gentleness. It comes up very often in the Course with nearly 200 references. Most of the references are about the gentleness of the Holy Spirit working with us. We need the experience of His gentleness because of our terror of where He is leading us. Our fear is that He will take us to our own destruction, but Jesus assures us otherwise. We wake up to the reality that we are immortal beings of love and light.
We shy away from the idea of gentleness because it seems ineffectual in the face of attack. We may think of it as weakness. Yet we are told in the Manual for Teachers that true might lies in gentleness. In the Manual, gentleness is described as a characteristic of all the teachers of God. Harm is considered a weakness and keeps us in hell, whereas gentleness is called
"limitless strength."
(M.4.IV.2.7) It is where our might comes from because it comes from joining our will with our Source. It is the recognition,
"Harm is impossible for God's teachers."
(M.4.IV.1.1) It is a feeling of total safety. From this place of safety, there is nothing to defend. While gentleness may be seen as weakness in the world, true gentleness is total strength. The harmless are mighty, not wimpy because they fear nothing. They know their reality is not the body but the eternal Self.
What makes the gentle so strong is the realization that attacking, harmful, intolerant, and hurtful thoughts do not come from our Source--- God---and therefore they have no power. Only by joining our thoughts with Him, Who is our Source, does our true will, which has always been one with God's, have unlimited power. Today, we have the opportunity to
"see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines."
(W.265.1.4) To do so, we look past the forms and past the dream figures (other bodies) to see the truth of who our brother is. Yet this is not possible if we let our sins
"obscure the light of Heaven shining on the world."
(W.265.1.6) Because our minds are one with God, (W.265.1.10) we have the capacity to see everyone as God does.
"And so I can perceive creation's gentleness."
(W.265.1.10) If I don't, it is only because I am holding thoughts of judgment and condemnation. Judging myself for the thoughts I hold is not helpful. We must feel everything and allow the hatred in the mind to be exposed.
Today, be willing to look at the judgments you are holding about anyone and be willing to recognize that you are only seeing your own sins projected outward. Be willing to be shown another way by questioning your judgments and releasing your stories about the situation. They are all false. Now the Holy Spirit can show you another way. All you have to do is willingly give over your thoughts to Him. Do not try to do what only He can do. In other words, this is not about trying to fix yourself or trying to undo your own perspectives. It is about realizing guilt is a mistake and you can smile at your misperceptions and ask to see truly. He will show you your brother's reality shining with celestial gentleness, and you will know this about yourself as well.
In the context of our reading,
"What is the Body?"
(W.PII.Q5), we are urged to change the purpose that we give to the body. While we are here, our purpose is not to love or hate the body but to use it for a gentle purpose, extending love and forgiveness until we can transcend it by recognizing we are not the dream figure at all but the dreamer of this dream. Through forgiveness, we can have a happier dream; and it can be now, in this very moment. It requires discipline and determination to clear the mind of our projections with the help of the Holy Spirit. Thus, space is made for the miracle. Our part is simply to look at the ego and be willing to have our judgments released.
Today, I looked at the expectations I have of my partner, who has been very involved in activities where I felt ignored and neglected. As I reflected on what I was feeling and thus demanding, I saw how I was projecting guilt onto my brother and expecting love to come from outside my own mind. I forgot that I am the love, and if I am not feeling it, I am blocking it with my judgments and expectations. Whatever is lacking in any relationship is what we are not giving to it. It is not his responsibility to meet my needs and expectations that I set up for how I should be treated in order to feel loved. Love cannot be extracted from outside of our own minds. Remembering that we are love, and we are 100% responsible for our happiness, helps us look at our own blocks to remembering the truth. The truth is, we are not lacking in love. The truth is, we
are
the love we are seeking in the world.
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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