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Judgment you taught yourself; vision is learned from Him Who would undo your teaching. His vision cannot see the body because it cannot look on sin. And thus it leads you to reality.

VIII. THE CONSISTENCY
OF MEANS AND END
Workbook for Students
Part II
What is Salvation?
1Salvation is a promise made by God that you would find your way to Him at last. It cannot not be kept. It guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born in time will end as well. God's Word is given every mind which thinks that it has separate thoughts and will replace these thoughts of conflict with the Thought of peace.

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Workbook for Students
Lesson 232
Be in my mind, my Father,
through the day.
1 Be in my mind, my Father, when I wake and shine on me throughout the day today. Let every minute be a time in which I dwell with You. And let me not forget my hourly thanksgiving that You have remained with me and always will be there to hear my call to You and answer me. As evening comes, let all my thoughts be still of You and of Your Love, and let me sleep sure of my safety, certain of Your care, and happily aware I am Your Son.

2 This is as every day should be. Today practice the end of fear. Have faith in Him Who is your Father. Trust all things to Him. Let Him reveal all things to you, and be you undismayed because you are His Son.
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Lesson ARCHIVE
Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
Chapter 20
 The Promise of the Resurrection

VIII. The Consistency
of Means and End
par 58-66
58 We have said much about discrepancies of means and end and how these must be brought in line before your holy relationship can bring you only joy. But we have also said the means to meet the Holy Spirit's goal will come from the same Source as does His purpose. Being so simple and direct, this course has nothing in it that is not consistent. The seeming inconsistencies or parts you find more difficult than others are merely indications of areas where means and end are still discrepant. And this produces great discomfort. This need not be. This course requires almost nothing of you. It is impossible to imagine one that asks so little or could offer more.

59 The period of discomfort that follows the sudden change in a relationship from sin to holiness should now be almost over. To the extent you still experience it, you are refusing to leave the means to Him Who changed the purpose. You recognize you want the goal. Are you not also willing to accept the means? If you are not, let us admit that you are inconsistent. A purpose is attained by means, and if you want a purpose, you must be willing to want the means as well. How can one be sincere and say, "I want this above all else, and yet I do not want to learn the means to get it"?

60 To obtain the goal, the Holy Spirit indeed asked little. He asks no more to give the means as well. The means are second to the goal. And when you hesitate, it is because the purpose frightens you, and not the means. Remember this, for otherwise you will make the error of believing the means are difficult. Yet how can they be difficult if they are merely given you? They guarantee the goal, and they are perfectly in line with it. Before we look at them a little closer, remember that if you think they are impossible, your wanting of the purpose has been shaken. For if a goal is possible to reach, the means to do so must be possible as well.

61 It is impossible to see your brother as sinless and yet to look upon him as a body. Is this not perfectly consistent with the goal of holiness? For holiness is merely the result of letting the effects of sin be lifted so what was always true is recognized. To see a sinless body is impossible, for holiness is positive, and the body is merely neutral. It is not sinful, but neither is it sinless. As nothing, which it is, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ or of the ego. Either must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot be. And both must be undone for purposes of truth.

62 The body is the means by which the ego tries to make the unholy relationship seem real. The unholy instant is the time of bodies. But the purpose here is sin. It cannot be attained but in illusion, and so the illusion of a brother as a body is quite in keeping with the purpose of unholiness. Because of this consistency, the means remain unquestioned while the end is cherished. Vision adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment and not vision. For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either see or not.

63 Who sees a brother's body has laid a judgment on him and sees him not. He does not really see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the darkness of sin, he is invisible. He can but be imagined in the darkness, and it is here that the illusions you hold about him are not held up to his reality. Here are illusions and reality kept separated. Here are illusions never brought to truth and always hidden from it. And here in darkness is your brother's reality imagined as a body, in unholy relationships with other bodies, serving the cause of sin an instant before he dies.

64 There is indeed a difference between this vain imagining and vision. The difference lies not in them, but in their purpose. Both are but means, each one appropriate to the end for which it is employed. Neither can serve the purpose of the other, for each one is a choice of purpose, employed on its behalf. Either is meaningless without the end for which it was intended, nor is it valued as a separate thing apart from the intention. The means seem real because the goal is valued. And judgment has no value unless the goal is sin.

65 The body cannot be looked upon except through judgment. To see the body is the sign that you lack vision and have denied the means the Holy Spirit offers you to serve His purpose. How can a holy relationship achieve its purpose through the means of sin? Judgment you taught yourself; vision is learned from Him Who would undo your teaching. His vision cannot see the body because it cannot look on sin. And thus it leads you to reality. Your holy brother, sight of whom is your release, is no illusion. Attempt to see him not in darkness, for your imaginings about him will seem real there. You closed your eyes to shut him out. Such was your purpose, and while this purpose seems to have any meaning, the means for its attainment will be evaluated as worth the seeing, and so you will not see.

66 Your question should not be, "How can I see my brother without the body?" Ask only, "Do I really wish to see him sinless?" And as you ask, forget not that his sinlessness is your escape from fear. Salvation is the Holy Spirit's goal. The means is vision. For what the seeing look upon is sinless. No one who loves can judge, and what he sees is free of condemnation. And what he sees he did not make, for it was given him to see, as was the vision which made his seeing possible.

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Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 232
Be in my mind, my Father,
through the day.
Sarah's Commentary:
 
When I was living in Sedona, Arizona and taking a year of study of the Course with the Circle of Atonement, I memorized this Lesson. Our group started the morning in the red rocks with a sunrise meditation and concluded the day with a sunset meditation while we devoted the rest of the day to rock climbing and stopping every half hour for meditation during the day. In revisiting this Lesson today, it brings back many fond reflections of a very memorable year devoted to the study and practice of the Course.
 
This is a beautiful prayer and such a personal appeal to our Father to be in our minds. It is not really a request to our Father because He is already in our minds, although we are not aware of this. So the request is one we make to the decision-making mind. It is an appeal to strengthen our own decision to know the truth already in our right minds. There is nothing to seek, as the truth is already within. All we want is to strengthen our own willingness and desire. Willingness to know the truth about ourselves is important because there is no value in simply watching our minds if we continue to cling to the errors. If we sincerely want to release them, we need to do more than just notice the distressing thoughts. We actually need to want to have them healed. This is where willingness comes in to do the healing so we can come to recognize the vastness of our own holy minds beyond the ego.
 
In our morning time, spent with God, we affirm that our Father is with us in every moment, and thus we can greet the day with joy instead of dread, anxiety, or concern of any kind. Everything in our day is there to help us to awaken by showing us what is in our own minds. If we saw it this way, what is there we could judge as bad or wrong? If we truly devote our day to healing, we can be constantly grateful for everything that shows up in our day. The reality is that His Love shines on us in every moment, even when we are turning away from It. Thus, we can choose to experience His sure protection, regardless of what comes up in our day that we judge as a problem. These things have no reality except for how we experience them in the dream. Outside of the dream, we can see this is so. The only real thing is the constancy of His Love. Our experience in the illusion, which seems so real and solid to us, is not the truth. It is a dream we are dreaming.
 
We can be so thankful that He has never left us and remains with us. He will always hear our call, and will always answer. We are One with the Father, having never left Him. Now, as we watch the mind, we clearly discern the interference of the ego. When we bring our attention to our thoughts of distress about anything that comes up in our day and look at it through the eyes of the Holy Spirit, we can see it for what it is---nothing. To see in this way is to look without judgment and recognize that there is no need for guilt. Everything in our day is just another opportunity to remember the truth about ourselves.
 
Healing comes from looking at the thoughts that block the truth and placing them on the inner altar, giving them over to the light already in our right minds. When darkness meets the light, the darkness is dissolved in that instant. When we stubbornly hold onto our opinions, our judgments, our perspectives, and the things we think we want and need, we cannot experience peace. We believe that something is lacking in us or there is something that we need from others. Neediness and lack are not of God. Anytime I think I am lacking in anything, I am putting value where there is none. When we ask God, "How would you have me see this?", we acknowledge that perhaps there is another way of looking at this situation or person. Perhaps we have been mistaken. We will always know that we have chosen the ego when we are not at peace.
 
We increasingly come to the realization that all distress is simply holding onto our mistaken ideas. It is all about our interpretations of situations that are, in themselves, neutral, and thus they are never the truth. This requires admitting that our interpretations are always wrong. Our perceptions are never true. Yet we cling to them because we believe they define us. We value our thoughts and opinions. We defend them vigorously. Yet when we realize we are clinging to suffering, our hold on our thoughts is loosened. To know the truth is to let go of what we believe and value in the moment and surrender it all. It is to be willing to be taught by One Who does know. It is a moment-by-moment undertaking and requires constant mind-watching.
 
There is no greater gift than to know that no matter what is happening in our day, we can always depend on Him, and He will always hear our call and always answer. It is the call of our hearts to be home with Him, to know His love, and to be completely understood. We are never alone. We may not always feel, or believe, that He is always with us, and we may not always trust that He hears our call, yet Jesus continually assures us that God has never left us. The moment we had the thought of separation, the Thought of God (the Atonement) was placed in our minds.
 
We continue this prayer into the evening, as we still our thoughts and settle into sleep, sure of our safety. Jesus reminds us that this is how every day should be. We just need to focus on the truth each day, awakening every morning by connecting with God and setting our purpose for the day. Now our gratitude becomes a daily experience, not for having our needs met, but for the joy of knowing everything in our day is for our healing. When we see it this way, we are indeed a happy learner regardless of what is happening.
 
We continue with our daily reading of the section, "What is Salvation?" (W.PII.Q2) We focus today on God's Word, which we are told is in our mind. "God's Word is given every mind which thinks that it has separate thoughts, and will replace these thoughts of conflict with the Thought of peace." (W.PII.Q2.1.4) Thus, with every irritation, problem, and distress in our minds today, the Answer is always there. It is still and actually does nothing except to shine away the illusion. Behind every grievance is a miracle, waiting to be born. The truth lies right behind our self-deceptions, quietly waiting for our acceptance. We are saved from nothing else but our mistaken thoughts and our belief in sin and guilt. Thus, like the miracle and forgiveness, salvation actually does nothing but waits for our acceptance. It is the reminder in our right minds that we have been mistaken about who we are. When our mistaken thoughts are brought to the truth, the light of God shines them away. His light, like the sun behind the clouds, has always been there, waiting for our decision.
 
This is an encouraging thought for me today, as my mind has been so occupied with all kinds of unsettling thoughts. My feelings of impatience, anticipation, and seeming pressures of the day plague me even as I write this. I remind myself that peace is always available to me. As I give up each unsettling thought, peace is waiting to replace the thought I am holding onto. I only need to be willing to release them all. While they seem justified, I remind myself that anger is never justified. Thank you, God. The mind needs to be "re-minded" constantly. The Answer is always in my mind, always available, having been put there at the instant of separation. I have been given a remedy to every disturbing thought. I must choose it, which is what I have the power to do in each moment of distress. All that is required is my willingness to bring my troubling thoughts and lay them at the feet of my brother, Jesus.
 
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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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