CLICK HERE: View as Webpage

Workbook for Students

¹ Beginning with today, we will have a series of review periods. Each of them will cover five of the ideas already presented, starting with the first and ending with the fiftieth. There will be a few short comments after each of the ideas which you should consider in your review. In the practice periods, the exercises should be done as follows:

² Begin the day by reading the five ideas, with the comments included. Thereafter, it is not necessary to follow any particular order in considering them, though each one should be practiced at least once. Devote two minutes or more to each practice period, thinking about the idea and the related comments. Do this as often as possible during the day. If any one of the five ideas appeals to you more than the others, concentrate on that one. At the end of the day, however, be sure to review all of them once more.

³ It is not necessary to cover the comments that follow each idea literally or thoroughly in the practice periods. Rather, try merely to emphasize the central point and think about it as part of your review of the idea to which it relates.

⁴ The review exercises should be done with your eyes closed and when you are alone in a quiet place if possible. This is emphasized particularly for reviews at your stage of learning. It will be necessary, however, that you learn to require no special settings in which to apply what you have learned. You will need it most in situations which appear to be upsetting, rather than in those which already seem to be calm and quiet.

⁵ The purpose of your learning is to enable you to bring the quiet with you and to heal distress and turmoil. This is not done by avoiding them and seeking a haven of isolation for yourself. You will yet learn that peace is part of you and requires only that you be there to embrace any situation in which you are. And finally you will learn that there is no limit to where you are, so that your peace is everywhere, as you are.

⁶ You will note that for review purposes the ideas are not always given in quite their original form of statement. Use them as they are given here. It is not necessary to return to the original statements nor to apply the ideas as was suggested then. We are now emphasizing the relationships among the first fifty of the ideas we have covered and the cohesiveness of the thought system to which they are leading you.

Read Online here

AUDIO: Workbook Rev I-MP3

VIDEO: Workbook Rev I-Video

PART 1 ~ PART 2

¹ The review for today covers the following ideas:

² The reason this is so is that I see nothing, and nothing has no meaning. It is necessary that I recognize this, that I may learn to see. What I think I see now is taking the place of vision. I must let it go by realizing that it has no meaning so that vision may take its place.

³ I have judged everything I look upon. And it is this and only this that I see. This is not vision. It is merely an illusion of reality, because my judgments have been made quite apart from reality. I am willing to recognize the lack of validity in my judgments because I want to see. My judgments have hurt me, and I do not want to see according to them.

⁴ How could I understand what I see when I have judged it amiss? What I see is the projection of my own errors of thought. I do not understand what I see because it is not understandable. There is no sense in trying to understand it. But there is every reason to let it go and make room for what can be seen and understood and loved. I can exchange what I see now for this merely by being willing to do so. Is not this a better choice than the one I made before?

⁵ The thoughts of which I am aware do not mean anything because I am trying to think without God. What I call "my" thoughts are not my real thoughts. My real thoughts are the thoughts I think with God. I am not aware of them because I have made "my" thoughts to take their place. I am willing to recognize that "my" thoughts do not mean anything and to let them go. I choose to have them be replaced by what they were intended to replace. "My" thoughts are meaningless, but all creation lies in the thoughts I think with God.

⁶ I am never upset for the reason I think because I am constantly trying to justify "my" thoughts. I am constantly trying to make them true. I make all things my "enemies" so that my anger is justified and my attacks are warranted. I have not realized how much I have misused everything I see by assigning this role to it. I have done this to defend a thought system which has hurt me and which I no longer want. I am willing to let it go.

Read Online here

AUDIO: Lesson 51-mp3

VIDEO: Lesson 51-Video

AUDIO: Workbook Rev I-MP3

VIDEO: Workbook Rev I-Video

PART 1 ~ PART 2

I. Introduction

par 1-4

¹ To heal is to make happy. I have told you before to think how many opportunities you have to gladden yourselves and how many you have refused. This is exactly the same as telling you that you have refused to heal yourselves. The light that belongs to you is the light of joy. Radiance is not associated with sorrow. Depression is often contagious but, although it may affect those who come in contact with it, they do not yield to the influence whole-heartedly. But joy calls forth an integrated willingness to share in it and thus promotes the mind's natural impulse to respond as one.

² Those who attempt to heal without being wholly joyous themselves call forth different kinds of responses at the same time and thus deprive others of the joy of responding whole-heartedly. To be whole-hearted, you must be happy. If fear and love cannot coexist and if it is impossible to be wholly fearful and remain alive, then the only possible whole state is that of love. There is no difference between love and joy. Therefore, the only possible whole state is the wholly joyous. To heal or to make joyous is therefore the same as to integrate and to make one. That is why it makes no difference to what part or by what part of the Sonship the healing is done. Every part benefits and benefits equally.

³ You are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers anywhere. You should want to bless them in return out of gratitude. You do not have to know them individually or they you. The light of joy is so strong that it radiates throughout the Sonship and returns thanks to the Father for radiating His joy upon it. Only God's holy Children are worthy to be channels of His beautiful joy because only they are beautiful enough to hold it by sharing it. It is impossible for a Child of God to love his neighbor except as himself. That is why the healer's prayer is:

⁴ Let me know this brother as I know myself.

Read Online here

AUDIO: Text Ch 5 I, 1-4.mp3

ONLINE SEARCHABLE Original Edition

Alternate SEARCH ONLINE

II. Healing As Joining

par 5-11

⁵ Healing is an act of thought by which two minds perceive their oneness and become glad. This gladness calls to every part of the Sonship to rejoice with them and lets God Himself go out into them and through them. Only the healed mind can experience revelation with lasting effect because revelation is an experience of pure joy. If you do not choose to be wholly joyous, your mind cannot have what it does not choose to be. Remember that the Soul knows no difference between "being" and "having." The higher mind thinks according to the laws which the Soul obeys and therefore honors only the laws of God. To Him, getting is meaningless and giving is all. Having everything, the Soul holds everything by giving it and thus creates as the Father created.

⁶ If you think about it, you will see that, while this kind of thinking is totally alien to having things, even to the lower mind it is quite comprehensible in connection with ideas. If you share a physical possession, you do divide its ownership. If you share an idea, however, you do not lessen it. All of it is still yours, although all of it has been given away. Further, if the person to whom you give it accepts it as his, he reinforces it in your mind, and thus increases it. If you can accept the concept that the world is one of ideas, the whole belief in the false association which the ego makes between giving and losing is gone.

⁷ Let us start our process of reawakening with just a few simple concepts:

⁸ Thoughts increase by being given away.

⁹ This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I told you that I could reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you, but I can bring Him to you only at your own invitation. The Holy Spirit is nothing more than your own right mind. He was also mine. The Bible says, "May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus," and uses this as a blessing. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as I thought, joining with me in Christ-thinking.

¹⁰ The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity which is symbolic. He is referred to in the Bible as the Healer, the Comforter, and the Guide. He is also described as something "separate," apart from the Father and from the Son. I myself said, "If I go I will send you another comforter, and He will abide with you." The Holy Spirit is a difficult concept to grasp precisely because it is symbolic and therefore open to many different interpretations. As a man and as one of God's creations, my right thinking, which came from the Universal Inspiration which is the Holy Spirit, taught me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for all. I could not have It myself without knowing this.

¹¹ The word "know" is proper in this context because the Holy Inspiration is so close to knowledge that it calls it forth; or better, allows it to come. We have spoken before of the higher or the "true" perception, which is so close to truth that God Himself can flow across the little gap. Knowledge is always ready to flow everywhere, but it cannot oppose. Therefore, you can obstruct it, although you can never lose it. The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind, which senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception. It came into being with the separation as a protection, inspiring the beginning of the Atonement at the same time. Before that, there was no need for healing and no one was comfortless.

Read Online here

AUDIO: Text Ch 5 II, 5-11.mp3

AUDIO: Text Ch 5 I-II.mp3

ONLINE SEARCHABLE Original Edition

Alternate SEARCH ONLINE

¡Nuevo! Los audios de Sarah's Reflections están en YOUTUBE

Allen Watson joined Robert Perry to form 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: “A Workbook Companion: Vol I and II.”

Please send gifts of gratitude

via PayPal to watsona@innocent.com.