Lesson 353.
My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today
Have but one purpose; to be given Christ
To use to bless the world with miracles.
Father, I give all that is mine today to Christ, to use in any way that best
will serve the purpose that I share with Him. Nothing is mine alone, for He and
I have joined in purpose. Thus has learning come almost to its appointed end. A
while I work with Him to serve His purpose. Then I lose myself in my Identity,
and recognize that Christ is but my Self.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on this lesson is by Kenneth Wapnick, from his book set: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," and may be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 353.
"My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today
Have but one purpose; to be given Christ
To use to bless the world with miracles."
*Lessons 353 and 354 also share a common theme -- helping us recognize the
difference between Christ and the ego. We awaken each morning, still in the
body, but now with a different purpose: to have our daily experiences be the
classroom in which the Holy Spirit -- here the Teacher is Christ -- can teach
us. In conjunction with this thought, both lessons remind us that we need to
recognize how much we cherish what we believe is ours. We do not want to lose
our individual identity -- our self, body, and personal interests -- which we
believe to be sacred. To the ego, of course, it <is> sacred, for this special
self preserves the religion of individuality.*
(1:1-2) "Father, I give all that is mine today to Christ, to use in any way that
best will serve the purpose that I share with Him. Nothing is mine alone, for He
and I have joined in purpose."
*Anything you believe is yours alone is of the ego, and therefore illusory -- a
dream without reality. The only thing within the dream that reflects reality is
the recognition of common purpose. Therefore, once caught in defining yourself
and your world -- name, body, desk, clothing, car, home, religion, or country --
you are in the world of illusion, which can only bring you pain. From the moment
you open your eyes in the morning, therefore, dedicate your day to learning that
to cherish anything as your own results in pain, and only when you relinquish
investment in yourself and in what is yours alone, will you realize what is
truly yours -- the purpose and identity that can be shared with everyone else.
Everything else is of the ego and so belongs to no one, for the ego is nothing.
Recall this passage from the manual about the right-minded use of the body:
"Yet what makes God's teachers is their recognition of the proper purpose
of the body. As they advance in their profession, they become more and more
certain that the body's function is but to let God's Voice speak through it to
human ears. And these ears will carry to the mind of the hearer messages that
are not of this world, and the mind will understand because of their Source.
From this understanding will come the recognition, in this new teacher of God,
of what the body's purpose really is; the only use there really is for it. This
lesson is enough to let the thought of unity come in, and what is one is
recognized as one. (M-12.4:1-5) *
(1:3-4) "Thus has learning come almost to its appointed end. A while I work with
Him to serve His purpose."
*Jesus is not saying we are now going to disappear into the Heart of God. This
is our ultimate goal, but he is telling us here that we still have work to do in
the classroom of our lives, in which his love will teach us to forgive.*
(1:5) "Then I lose myself in my Identity, and recognize that Christ is but my
Self."
*This is the ego's fear, and ours who identify with its thought system of
separation and specialness. We do not want to lose our identity as individuals,
and that is why we are so tempted to bring Jesus and the Holy Spirit into the
dream to interact with us. By making Them dream figures along with us, we keep
our identity as individual selves intact, reinforced by our continual judgment
of others.*
