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Lesson 139

for myself.

¹ Here is the end of choice. For here we come to a decision to accept ourselves as God created us. And what is choice except uncertainty of what we are? There is no doubt that is not rooted here. There is no question but reflects this one. There is no conflict that does not entail the single simple question, "What am I?"

² Yet who could ask this question except one who has refused to recognize himself? Only refusal to accept yourself could make the question seem to be sincere. The only thing that can be surely known by any living thing is what it is. From this one point of certainty it looks on other things as certain as itself. Uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast its magnitude can hardly be conceived.

³ To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead. For what is life except to be yourself, and what but you can be alive instead? Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts? Whom does he question? Who can answer him? He merely states that he is not himself and therefore, being something else, becomes a questioner of what that something is.

⁴ Yet he could never be alive at all unless he knew the answer. If he asks as if he did not know, it merely shows he does not want to be the thing he is. He has accepted it because he lives, has judged against it and denied its worth, and has decided that he does not know the only certainty by which he lives. Thus he becomes uncertain of his life, for what it is has been denied by him.

⁵ It is for this denial that you need Atonement. Your denial made no change in what you are. But you have split your mind into what knows and does not know the truth. You are yourself. There is no doubt of this, and yet you doubt it. But you do not ask what part of you can really doubt yourself. It cannot really be a part of you that asks this question, for it asks of one who knows the answer. Were it part of you, uncertainty would be impossible.

⁶Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself and be unsure of what you really are. This is the depth of madness. Yet it is the universal question of the world. What does this prove except the world is mad? Why share its madness in the sad belief that what is universal here is true? Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are.

⁷ And they will come again until the time Atonement is accepted, and they learn it is impossible to doubt yourself and not to be aware of what you are. Only acceptance can be asked of you, for what you are is certain. It is set forever in the holy Mind of God and in your own. It is so far beyond all doubt and question that to ask what it must be is all the proof you need to show that you believe the contradiction that you know not what you cannot fail to know.

⁸ Is this a question or a statement which denies itself in statement? Let us not allow our holy minds to occupy themselves with senseless musings such as this. We have a mission here. We did not come to reinforce the madness which we once believed in. Let us not forget the goal that we accepted. It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain. What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be along with us.

⁹ Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them that they may know that they are part of you and you of them. This does Atonement teach and demonstrates the oneness of God's Son is unassailed by his belief he knows not what he is. Today accept Atonement, not to change reality, but merely to accept the truth about yourself and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God. It is but this that we are asked to do. It is but this that we will do today.

¹⁰ Five minutes in the morning and at night we will devote to dedicate our minds to our assignment for today. We start with this review of what our mission is:

¹¹ I will accept Atonement for myself, for I remain as God created me.

¹² We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us like Him. We can remember it for everyone, for in creation are all minds as one and in our memory is the recall how dear our brothers are to us in truth, how much a part of us is every mind, how faithful they have really been to us, and how our Father's Love contains us all.

¹³In thanks for all creation, in the name of its Creator and His oneness with all aspects of creation, we repeat our dedication to our cause today each hour, as we lay aside all thoughts that would distract us from our holy aim. For several minutes let your mind be cleared of all the foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around the holy Son of God. And learn the fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apart from your awareness, as you say:

¹⁴ I will accept Atonement for myself, for I remain as God created me.

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PART 1 ~ PART 2

V. The Two Emotions

par 33-44

³³ We have said that you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered by the eternal to the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it increases as it is given. The other has many forms, for the content of individual illusions differs greatly. Yet they have one thing in common—they are all insane. They are made of sights which are not seen and sounds which are not heard. They make up a private world which cannot be shared. For they are meaningful only to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only he perceives them.

³⁴ Each one peoples his world with figures from his individual past, and it is because of this that private worlds do differ. Yet the figures that he sees were never real, for they are made up only of his reactions to his brothers and do not include their reactions to him. Therefore he does not see that he made them and that they are not whole. For these figures have no witnesses, being perceived in one separate mind only.

³⁵ It is through these strange and shadowy figures that the insane relate to their insane world. For they see only those who remind them of these images, and it is to them that they relate. Thus do they communicate with those who are not there, and it is they who answer them, and no one hears their answer save him who called upon them, and he alone believes they answered him. Projection makes perception, and you cannot see beyond it. Again and again have men attacked each other because they saw in them a shadow figure in their own private world. And thus it is that you must attack yourself first, for what you attack is not in others. Its only reality is in your own mind, and by attacking others, you are literally attacking what is not there.

³⁶ The delusional can be very destructive, for they do not recognize that they have condemned themselves. They do not wish to die, yet they will not let condemnation go. And so they separate into their private worlds, where everything is disordered and where what is within appears to be without. Yet what is within they do not see, for the reality of their brothers they cannot see.

³⁷ You have but two emotions, yet in your private world you react to each of them as though it were the other. For love cannot abide in a world apart, where when it comes it is not recognized. If you see your own hatred as your brother, you are not seeing him. Everyone draws nigh unto what he loves and recoils from what he fears. And you react with fear to love and draw away from it. Yet fear attracts you, and believing it is love, you call it to yourself. Your private world is filled with the figures of fear you have invited into it, and all the love your brothers offer you, you do not see. As you look with open eyes upon your world, it must occur to you that you have withdrawn into insanity.

³⁸ You see what is not there, and you hear what is soundless. Your behavioral manifestations of emotions are the opposite of what the emotions are. You communicate with no one, and you are as isolated from reality as if you were alone in all the universe. In your madness, you overlook reality completely, and you see only your own split mind everywhere you look. God calls you and you do not hear, for you are preoccupied with your own voice. And the vision of Christ is not in your sight, for you look upon yourself alone.

³⁹ Little children, would you offer this to your Father? For if you offer it to yourself, you are offering it to Him. And He will not return it, for it is unworthy of you because it is unworthy of Him. Yet He would release you from it and set you free. His sane answer tells you that what you have offered yourself is not true, but His offering to you has never changed. You who know not what you do can learn what insanity is and look beyond it. It is given you to learn how to deny insanity and come forth from your private world in peace.

⁴⁰ You will see all that you denied in your brothers because you denied it in yourself. For you will love them, and by drawing nigh unto them, you will draw them to yourself, perceiving them as witnesses to your reality, which you share with God. I am with them as I am with you, and we will draw them from their private worlds, for as we are united, so would we unite with them. The Father welcomes all of us in gladness, and gladness is what we should offer Him. For every Son of God is given you to whom God gave Himself. And it is God to Whom you must offer them to recognize His gift to you.

⁴¹ Vision depends on light, and you cannot see in darkness. Yet in the darkness in the private world of sleep, you see in dreams, although your eyes are closed. And it is here that what you see you made. But let the darkness go, and all you made you will no longer see, for sight of it depends upon denying vision. Yet from denying vision, it does not follow that you cannot see. But this is what denial does, for by it you accept insanity, believing you can make a private world and rule your own perceptions. Yet for this, light must be excluded. Dreams disappear when light has come and you can see.

⁴² Do not seek vision through your eyes, for you made your way of seeing that you might see in darkness, and in this you are deceived. Beyond this darkness and yet still within you is the vision of Christ, Who looks on all in light. Your vision comes from fear, as His from love. And He sees for you as your witness to the real world. He is the Holy Spirit's manifestation, looking always on the real world and calling forth its witnesses and drawing them unto you. For He loves what He sees within you, and He would extend it. And He will not return unto the Father until He has extended your perception even unto Him. And there perception is no more, for He has returned you to the Father with Him.

⁴³ You have but two emotions, and one you made and one was given you. Each is a way of seeing, and different worlds arise from their different visions. See through the vision that is given you, for through Christ's vision He beholds Himself. And seeing what He is, He knows His Father. Beyond your darkest dreams, He sees God's guiltless Son within you, shining in perfect radiance, which is undimmed by your dreams. And this you will see as you look with Him, for His vision is His gift of love to you, given Him of the Father for you.

⁴⁴ The Holy Spirit is the light in which Christ stands revealed. And all who would behold Him can see Him, for they have asked for light. Nor will they see Him alone, for He is no more alone than they are. Because they saw the Son, they have risen in Him to the Father. And all this will they understand because they looked within and saw beyond the darkness the Christ in them and recognized Him. In the sanity of His vision, they looked upon themselves with love, seeing themselves as the Holy Spirit sees them. And with this vision of the truth in them came all the beauty of the world to shine upon them.

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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.”

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