Lesson 105. God's peace and joy are mine.
(1) God's peace and joy are yours. Today we will accept them, knowing
they belong to us. And we will try to understand these gifts increase as
we receive them. They are not like to the gifts the world can give, in
which the giver loses as he gives the gift; the taker is the richer by
his loss. Such are not gifts, but bargains made with guilt. The truly
given gift entails no loss. It is impossible that one can gain because
another loses. This implies a limit and an insufficiency.
(2) No gift is given thus. Such "gifts" are but a bid for a more
valuable return; a loan with interest to be paid in full; a temporary
lending, meant to be a pledge of debt to be repaid with more than was
received by him who took the gift. This strange distortion of what
giving means pervades all levels of the world you see. It strips all
meaning from the gifts you give, and leaves you nothing in the ones you
take.
(3) A major learning goal this course has set is to reverse your view of
giving, so you can receive. For giving has become a source of fear, and
so you would avoid the only means by which you can receive. Accept God's
peace and joy, and you will learn a different way of looking at a gift.
God's gifts will never lessen when they are given away. They but
increase thereby.
(4) As Heaven's peace and joy intensify when you accept them as God's
gift to you, so does the joy of your Creator grow when you accept His
joy and peace as yours. True giving is creation. It extends the
limitless to the unlimited, eternity to timelessness, and love unto
itself. It adds to all that is complete already, not in simple terms of
adding more, for that implies that it was less before. It adds by
letting what cannot contain itself fulfill its aim of giving everything
it has away, securing it forever for itself.
(5) Today accept God's peace and joy as yours. Let Him complete Himself
as He defines completion. You will understand that what completes Him
must complete His Son as well. He cannot give through loss. No more can
you. Receive His gift of joy and peace today, and He will thank you for
your gift to Him.
(6) Today our practice periods will start a little differently. Begin
today by thinking of those brothers who have been denied by you the
peace and joy that are their right under the equal laws of God. Here you
denied them to yourself. And here you must return to claim them as your
own."
(7) Think of your "enemies" a little while, and tell each one, as he
occurs to you:
<My brother, peace and joy I offer you,
That I may have God's peace and joy as mine.>
Thus you prepare yourself to recognize God's gifts to you, and let your
mind be free of all that would prevent success today. Now are you ready
to accept the gift of peace and joy that God has given you. Now are you
ready to experience the joy and peace you have denied yourself. Now you
can say, "God's peace and joy are mine," for you have given what you
would receive.
(8) You must succeed today, if you prepare your mind as we suggest. For
you have let all bars to peace and joy be lifted up, and what is yours
can come to you at last. So tell yourself, "God's peace and joy are
mine," and close your eyes a while, and let His Voice assure you that
the words you speak are true.
(9) Spend your five minutes thus with Him each time you can today, but
do not think that less is worthless when you cannot give Him more. At
least remember hourly to say the words which call to Him to give you
what He wills to give, and wills you to receive. Determine not to
interfere today with what He wills. And if a brother seems to tempt you
to deny God's gift to him, see it as but another chance to let yourself
receive the gifts of God as yours. Then bless your brother thankfully,
and say:
<My brother, peace and joy I offer you,
That I may have God's peace and joy as mine.>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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 105. "God's peace and joy are mine."
*In the context of "undoing," Jesus teaches us here about the ego's
strange notion of giving. Even though he does not use the word
<specialness>, that is his point of reference -- the <giving-to-get>
bargain: I give something to you, so I get something back in return. If
I give you more than I really want to give, then I lose. The oft-cited
fourth and fifth laws of chaos (T-23.II.9-13) are among the clearest
expression of this ego dynamic of scarcity and hate.*
(1:1-2) "God's peace and joy are yours. Today we will accept them,
knowing they belong to us."
*The way we accept them is by no longer accepting the ego's substitutes.
Letting go of the blocks of specialness is how we remember that God's
peace and joy are ours.*
(2) "No gift is given thus. Such "gifts" are but a bid for a more
valuable return; a loan with interest to be paid in full; a temporary
lending, meant to be a pledge of debt to be repaid with more than was
received by him who took the gift. This strange distortion of what
giving means pervades all levels of the world you see. It strips all
meaning from the gifts you give, and leaves you nothing in the ones you
take."
*This is another description of special relationships. I want something
from you, but you withhold it because you are fighting the same war I
am. It must be so, because you do not exist outside my specialness, I
must pay you for what I want, for we are both playing by the same rules:
I want to give up as little as I can, and get as much as possible from
my investment. That is the meaning of "a loan with interest to be paid
in full," a gift that is given in hopes of "a more valuable return."
These are not gifts at all, but the ego's insane bargains made with
guilt.
Through our suffering and misery, we hope to pay God sufficiently so He
will not be angry. In return we want His forgiveness to rest on us and
not others, that we may return to Heaven at the expense of another: the
unbeliever, the unchristian Christian, the bad student of A Course in
Miracles. This hateful application of <one or the other> has been at the
heart of the Christian message, a phenomenon rapidly spreading
throughout the Course's world as well. Needless to say, this is not
loving or giving, because such an attitude implies a belief in sacrifice
-- one winning, another losing; one saved, another damned. The bottom
line is our feeling unworthy of happiness or love, and grasping at the
ego's straws of specialness to hide the pain.*
(3:1) "A major learning goal this course has set is to reverse your view
of giving, so you can receive."
*We know this from the text; and there are many lessons in the workbook
that discuss undoing the ego's notion of <giving to get>. To the ego it
is always <one or the other>. Lesson 108 "To give and to receive are one
in truth," and Lesson 126 "All that I give is given to myself" provide
major emphasis to this theme (W-pI.108; W-pI126); and there are many
passages in the text as well. Among others, we can cite the following
incisive discussion from the text:
"Only those who have a real and lasting sense of abundance can be truly
charitable ... To the ego, to give anything implies that you will have
to do without it. When you associate giving with sacrifice, you give
only because you believe that you are somehow getting something better,
and can therefore do without the thing you give. "Giving to get" is an
inescapable law of the ego, which always evaluates itself in relation to
other egos. It is therefore continually preoccupied with the belief in
scarcity that gave rise to it. ... The ego never gives out of abundance,
because it was made as a substitute for it. That is why the concept of
"getting" arose in the ego's thought system." (T-4.II.6:1,3-6;7:3-4).
Unlearning a principle that is the foundation of our very existence
requires dedication and persistence, traits the workbook aims at
instilling in us by teaching how vital they are for achieving our
happiness.*
(4:1) "As Heaven's peace and joy intensify when you accept them as God's
gift to you, so does the joy of your Creator grow when you accept His
joy and peace as yours."
*Here we find another metaphor. God's joy does not grow. The world's
"joy" grows, in that the more we steal, the more joyful we become. These
lines that are part of Jesus' gentle fairy tale that lovingly reassures
us that "Daddy loves us, and His joy increases the closer we come to
Him." The truth behind the fairy tale is that God's infinite Love is
always; it cannot lessen, it cannot grow. It simply <is>. Our
experiences of His love "grows," however, as we choose to identify with
it more and the ego less. In this world, concepts such as <more> or
<less> have meaning, but only insofar as they reflect the mind's
decision for God or the ego, the gifts of love or fear.*
(5:1-2) "Today accept God's peace and joy as yours. Let Him complete
Himself as He defines completion."
*This implies God was incomplete, and therefore this statement, too,
must be understood metaphorically. Completion for God is the totality
and wholeness of His being. Therefore, what "completes God" is our
acceptance of His truth and denial of the ego's form of completion: our
lack is supplied by taking; which means stealing from the outside in
order to be complete.*
*Paragraphs 6 and 7 present an exercise that Jesus repeats throughout
the workbook, asking us to choose someone we think of as an enemy or
friend, realizing this person is one with us. Here the focus is on the
people we think of as enemies.*
(6) "Today our practice periods will start a little differently. Begin
today by thinking of those brothers who have been denied by you the
peace and joy that are their right under the equal laws of God. Here you
denied them to yourself. And here you must return to claim them as your
own."
*We are told our attacks on another constitute an attack on ourselves,
since God's Son is one. This idea of seeing that the enemy is "us," to
cite the famous line from Walt Kelly's Pogo, finds consummate expression
in the Song of Prayer, and the following passage about praying for
others is illustrative:
"Praying for others, if rightly understood, becomes a means for lifting
your projections of guilt from your brother, and enabling you to
recognize it is not he who is hurting you. The poisonous thought that he
<is> your enemy, your evil counterpart, your nemesis, must be
relinquished before <you> can be saved from guilt." (S-1.III.1:4-5).
These exercises help us reconsider our perceptions of others and
ourselves, correcting them from separate to shared interests.
The instructions for the exercises continue:*
(7:1-2) "Think of your "enemies" a little while, and tell each one, as
he occurs to you:
<My brother, peace and joy I offer you,
That I may have God's peace and joy as mine.>"
*This is the central focus of A Course in Miracles learning to accept
Jesus' gifts by correcting our misperception. In the end, we realize
there is no one to forgive, but until we understand we are really
forgiving ourselves, we need to practice on others. Through the
successful completion of the exercise we shall come to recognize there
is no enemy out there, which is why the word is in quotation marks. The
enemy was simply our faulty decision-making.
As an example, if I think of you as an enemy, at some point I realize
something is wrong because I see you as separate and different from me.
Jesus teaches that what I see as enmity between you and me is a
projection of the enmity I believe is between me and God. The special
relationship -- love or hate -- I experience between us (in the body) is
nothing but the projection of my special relationship with the ego (in
my mind). In asking Jesus to help me forgive you, I am really asking his
help to forgive myself. This occurs through realizing the relationship I
see outside mirrors the relationship I made real and sinful inside, so
much so, that cannot look at it. The problem that needs correcting,
therefore, is not external, but within me. As Jesus states in the text:
"The secret of salvation is but this: That you are doing this unto
yourself." (T.27.VIII.10.1).*
(8:1-2) "You must succeed today, if you prepare your mind as we
suggest."
*Once again we see the message of A Course in Miracles succinctly
expressed. If I want to know God's peace and joy, I need to lift up the
bars I placed between myself and them. They are the belief that peace
come at someone's else's expense. The bars strengthen the more I suffer
and the guiltier I can be, because my secret peace and joy is my
existence, for which God will not punish me. Thus I did it again, -- I
stole, and keep what I stole. My secret is hidden and no one will know,
and we laughingly think this is what will make us happy. The ego is
happy, to be sure, because we have solidified our individual self and
blamed someone else for the sin. Such projection perpetuates the ego's
peace and joy. Recognizing the sheer insanity of this position is what
allows its bars to be lifted up. Returning to The Song of Prayer, we
read:
"But once the need to hold the other as an enemy has been questioned,
and the reason for doing so has been recognized if only for an instant,
it becomes possible to join in prayer. Enemies do not share a goal. It
is in this their enmity is kept. Their separate wishes are their
arsenals; their fortresses in hate. The key to rising further still in
prayer lies in this simple thought; this change of mind:
We go together, you and I." (S-1.IV.1:3-8).
Realizing "the ark of peace is entered two by two" (T-20.IV.6:5) is the
way we and our brothers return Home -- <together>.*
(8:3 -- 9:2) "For you have let all bars to peace and joy be lifted up,
and what is yours can come to you at last. So tell yourself, "God's
peace and joy are mine," and close your eyes a while, and let His Voice
assure you that the words you speak are true."
"Spend your five minutes thus with Him each time you can today, but do
not think that less is worthless when you cannot give Him more. At least
remember hourly to say the words which call to Him to give you what He
wills to give, and wills you to receive."
*By silencing the ego's voice of specialness, we allow ourselves to hear
the Voice that speaks to us throughout the day (W-p1.49). Jesus comforts
us with the thought that we do not have to hear the Holy Spirit all the
time, and we should not minimize the effect of <any> time we give to
Him. This being said, however, Jesus does ask us to remember our Teacher
at least once an hour. He would not be making such a request if he did
not feel we were already far enough along in our training -- almost a
third of the way through -- that we would at the very least want to
think of the Holy Spirit and our salvation once an hour.*
