Lesson 100. My part is essential to God's plan for salvation.
(1) Just as God's Son completes his Father, so your part in it completes
your Father's plan. Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate
thoughts and separate bodies, which lead separate lives and go their
separate ways. One function shared by separate minds unites them in one
purpose, for each one of them is equally essential to them all.
(2) God's Will for you is perfect happiness. Why should you choose to go
against His Will? The part that He has saved for you to take in working
out His plan is given you that you might be restored to what He wills.
This part is as essential to His plan as to your happiness. Your joy
must be complete to let His plan be understood by those to whom He sends
you. They will see their function in your shining face, and hear God
calling to them in your happy laugh.
(3) You are indeed essential to God's plan. Without your joy, His joy is
incomplete. Without your smile, the world cannot be saved. While you are
sad, the light that God Himself appointed as the means to save the world
is dim and lusterless, and no one laughs because all laughter can but
echo yours.
(4) You are indeed essential to God's plan. Just as your light increases
every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls to all
minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in God's
plan. God's messengers are joyous, and their joy heals sorrow and
despair. They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who
will accept their Father's gifts as theirs.
(5) We will not let ourselves be sad today. For if we do, we fail to
take the part that is essential to God's plan, as well as to our vision.
Sadness is the sign that you would play another part, instead of what
has been assigned to you by God. Thus do you fail to show the world how
great the happiness He wills for you. And so you do not recognize that
it is yours.
(6) Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. If you
are sad, your part is unfulfilled, and all the world is thus deprived of
joy, along with you. God asks you to be happy, so the world can see how
much He loves His Son, and wills no sorrow rises to abate his joy; no
fear besets him to disturb his peace. You are God's messenger today. You
bring His happiness to all you look upon; His peace to everyone who
looks on you and sees His message in your happy face.
(7) We will prepare ourselves for this today, in our five-minute
practice periods, by feeling happiness arise in us according to our
Father's Will and ours. Begin the exercises with the thought today's
idea contains. Then realize your part is to be happy. Only this is asked
of you or anyone who wants to take his place among God's messengers.
Think what this means. You have indeed been wrong in your belief that
sacrifice is asked. You but receive according to God's plan, and never
lose or sacrifice or die.
(8) Now let us try to find that joy that proves to us and all the world
God's Will for us. It is your function that you find it here, and that
you find it now. For this you came. Let this one be the day that you
succeed! Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and
foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you.
(9) He will be there. And you can reach Him now. What could you rather
look upon in place of Him Who waits that you may look on Him? What
little thought has power to hold you back? What foolish goal can keep
you from success when He Who calls to you is God Himself?
(10) He will be there. You are essential to His plan. You are His
messenger today. And you must find what He would have you give. Do not
forget the idea for today between your hourly practice periods. It is
your Self Who calls to you today. And it is Him you answer, every time
you tell yourself you are essential to God's plan for the salvation of
the world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The commentary on this lesson is an excerpt from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume
series of
books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can
be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 100. "My part is essential to God's plan for salvation."
*These next six lessons, 100 thru 105, teach that God's Will for us is
happiness, peace, and joy, not suffering. This is the obvious correction
for the commonly held belief, not just in religious circles, that the
Will of God (or of nature) is that we suffer and sacrifice, and
happiness cannot be found without it.*
(1:1) "Just as God's Son completes his Father, so your part in it
completes your Father's plan."
*This does not mean that until I forgive, everyone suffers. It means
that the instant I let my mind be healed of the belief in separation --
the acceptance of the Atonement for myself ("your Father's plan") -- the
Sonship as a whole is healed, since it is one.*
(2:1-4) "God's Will for you is perfect happiness. Why should you choose
to go against His Will? The part that He has saved for you to take in
working out His plan is given you that you might be restored to what He
wills. This part is as essential to His plan as to your happiness."
*We all know the answer to the question in the second sentence. If we
are to be truly happy, we will have no problems -- no past, specialness,
or grievances. Without them we will not know who we are. As a result, we
gladly sacrifice our true happiness so we can keep our little self
intact. That explains why, as we go through each day, we are not always
happy. Unhappiness is a decision that says we prefer to be unhappy and
remain here, rather than happy and disappear into the Heart of God. We
thus steadfastly resist fulfilling our part of forgiving our special
relationships. The ego tells us if we retain our grievances we shall
retain our separate identity, thus fulfilling its will instead of God's.
We therefore remain right, but certainly not happy!*
(3:1-2) "You are indeed essential to God's plan. Without your joy, His
joy is incomplete."
*It is impossible that God's joy be incomplete. We are again in the land
of metaphor, symbolizing the love and joy of Heaven, conveyed in forms
we can accept and understand. Do not let the language of duality
compromise the non-duality of God's perfect truth. The Oneness and
Wholeness of God can never be rendered separated and incomplete.*
(4) "You are indeed essential to God's plan. Just as your light
increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls
to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in
God's plan. God's messengers are joyous, and their joy heals sorrow and
despair. They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who
will accept their Father's gifts as theirs."
*This theme of oneness returns, and never too often, for we need
constant reminders to help us unlearn our strongly held belief in the
reality of separation and separate interests. Acceptance of these
reminders is the source of joy: we were wrong and Jesus is right.
Moreover, our acceptance is everyone's, even if that choice remains
unconscious. Thus we become God's joyful messengers, calling all minds
to remember there is another choice. Our call is not by words, but the
peace, joy, and happiness that extends from our minds to all minds. Our
example teaches that the Atonement is true, and the ego's myth of sin,
guilt, and fear a lie: God is not angry; His Love remains unchanged
throughout eternity.*
(5:1-2) "We will not let ourselves be sad today. For if we do, we fail
to take the part that is essential to God's plan, as well as to our
vision."
*This does not mean you should not put on a happy face, nor that you
should stop yourself from feeling sad. However, when you do feel sad,
know it comes from your mind's thought of sadness, born of having chosen
the ego over God. Then ask Jesus for help to change your mind so that
you may take your part in God's plan to save His Son from suffering and
pain. His appeal to us is constant; recall this example from near the
end of the text:
"Choose once again if you would take your place among the saviors of the
world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there."
(T-31.VIII.1:5; italics omitted).
Our decision to be sad is a decision to hold ourselves and the Sonship
apart from salvation, and in hell. Thus we deny the vision that finds
joy in the gentle laughter, which softly smiles at the thought that
God's Son could ever be sad.
To emphasize this point, Jesus is not saying we should literally smile
all day. Rather, he is teaching us to be mindful of the sadness that
comes when we ask the Thought of happiness in our minds for help.*
(6:1-2) "Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here.
If you are sad, your part is unfulfilled, and all the world is thus
deprived of joy, along with you."
*If you identify your part with forgiveness, when you are sad you know
it is because you hold onto a grievance, believing it is salvation. Your
are thereby, again, telling Jesus that he is wrong and you are right. A
paraphrase of Lesson 5 applies here. I am never sad for the reason I
think. My sadness never comes from circumstances beyond me -- whether in
my body or another's -- but from my mind's decision to attack instead of
forgive, to follow the ego instead of the Holy Spirit. That is why
salvation is simple. As we have already seen: one problem, one
solution.*
(7) "We will prepare ourselves for this today, in our five-minute
practice periods, by feeling happiness arise in us according to our
Father's Will and ours. Begin the exercises with the thought today's
idea contains. Then realize your part is to be happy. Only this is asked
of you or anyone who wants to take his place among God's messengers.
Think what this means. You have indeed been wrong in your belief that
sacrifice is asked. You but receive according to God's plan, and never
lose or sacrifice or die."
*This theme will be reiterates in the lessons to come: The ego teaches
us that sacrifice is asked of us by God Who says we can be happy only
through striking a deal with Him that results in our pain, suffering,
and loss. In our everyday lives, this ontological bargain emerges in the
shadowy fragments that says I cannot be happy unless I give you
something that you want, because if I do not, you are not going to give
me what I want. For the ego, therefore, sacrifice is the means of
finding happiness through the special relationship's principle of
<giving to get>. Salvation, however, teaches that giving and receiving
are the same, the process of love in which no one loses and everyone
gains. We shall return to this happy theme in later lessons.*
(8:1-3) "Now let us try to find that joy that proves to us and all the
world God's Will for us. It is your function that you find it here, and
that you find it now. For this you came."
*The ego had us come into this world to prove we are right, and that we
are innocent victims of a sin that is not our own. Yet in asking Jesus
for help, we realize there is another purpose for being here: to learn
the lesson we are not victims, and neither is anyone else. Thus Jesus
would have us <seek> for what we truly wish to <find>: the joy that
comes from setting aside our belief in separate interests; the joy that
comes from forgiveness.*
(9:1-3) "He will be there. And you can reach Him now. What could you
rather look upon in place of Him Who waits that you may look on Him?"
*Jesus is asking us to weigh our substitutions of specialness against
the Love of Christ. He is not necessarily asking us to choose that Love,
but simply to compare the two gifts:
the ego's specialness that result in suffering, guilt, and pain; with
Jesus' love that results in happiness, peace, and joy. When seen this
clearly, the choice can hardly be difficult to make, which is why the
ego seeks to conceal the simplicity of choice behind it obscuring clouds
of complexity.*
(10) "He will be there. You are essential to His plan. You are His
messenger today. And you must find what He would have you give. Do not
forget the idea for today between your hourly practice periods. It is
your Self Who calls to you today. And it is Him you answer, every time
you tell yourself you are essential to God's plan for the salvation of
the world."
*God will be there because God has always been there: in Heaven, and as
a memory in our sleeping minds. We left Him in our dream, but now choose
to waken and return, no longer choosing to be an alien to our Self.
Forgiveness is the means appointed for this return, for it undoes the
mistake that was never made, returning us to the Self we never left. Why
would we not choose to remember our Self? Why would we not take our part
in God's plan for salvation?*
