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Lesson 101. God's Will for me is perfect happiness.

Lesson 101. God's Will for me is perfect happiness.

(1) Today we will continue with the theme of happiness. This is a key idea in
understanding what salvation means. You still believe it asks for suffering as
penance for your "sins." This is not so. Yet you must think it so while you
believe that sin is real, and that God's Son can sin.

(2) If sin is real, then punishment is just and cannot be escaped. Salvation
thus cannot be purchased but through suffering. If sin is real, then happiness
must be illusion, for they cannot both be true. The sinful warrant only death
and pain, and it is this they ask for. For they know it waits for them, and it
will seek them out and find them somewhere, sometime, in some form that evens
the account they owe to God. They would escape Him in their fear. And yet He
will pursue, and they can not escape.

(3) If sin is real, salvation must be pain. Pain is the cost of sin, and
suffering can never be escaped, if sin is real. Salvation must be feared, for it
will kill, but slowly, taking everything away before it grants the welcome boon
of death to victims who are little more than bones before salvation is appeased.
Its wrath is boundless, merciless, but wholly just.

(4) Who would seek out such savage punishment? Who would not flee salvation, and
attempt in every way he can to drown the Voice which offers it to him? Why would
he try to listen and accept Its offering? If sin is real, its offering is death,
and meted out in cruel form to match the vicious wishes in which sin is born. If
sin is real, salvation has become your bitter enemy, the curse of God upon you
who have crucified His Son.

(5) You need the practice periods today. The exercises teach sin is not real,
and all that you believe must come from sin will never happen, for it has no
cause. Accept Atonement with an open mind, which cherishes no lingering belief
that you have made a devil of God's Son. There is no sin. We practice with this
thought as often as we can today, because it is the basis for today's idea.

(6) God's Will for you is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and
suffering is causeless. Joy is just, and pain is but the sign you have
misunderstood yourself. Fear not the Will of God. But turn to it in confidence
that it will set you free from all the consequences sin has wrought in feverish
imagination. Say:

<God's Will for me is perfect happiness.
There is no sin; it has no consequence.>

So should you start your practice periods, and then attempt again to find the
joy these thoughts will introduce into your mind.

(7) Give these five minutes gladly, to remove the heavy load you lay upon
yourself with the insane belief that sin is real. Today escape from madness. You
are set on freedom's road, and now today's idea brings wings to speed you on,
and hope to go still faster to the waiting goal of peace. There is no sin.
Remember this today, and tell yourself as often as you can:

God's Will for me is perfect happiness.

This is the truth, because there is no sin.<

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 101. "God's Will for me is perfect happiness."

*As I commented before, Lesson 100 began a six-lesson series that discusses some
aspect of God's Will for us, in which Jesus talks about the undoing of the ego's
mistakes, <the> central theme of A Course in Miracles. The ego's undoing is the
way in which we fulfill our function of forgiveness, thereby remembering Who we
are. The particular aspects of the ego's thought system addressed by Jesus in
this series are sin, suffering, fear, the ego's version of giving -- i.e.,
special relationships -- and the thought system of separation itself.

Before we start, let me return to my earlier remarks about A Course in Miracles'
use of language.This is especially important when one considers the workbook,
and even more so when one thinks that studying the Course means practicing the
lessons without paying much attention to the text. Jesus' use of language for
the most part has to be understood as metaphorical, especially here. We have
already noted that when he speaks of God as lonely or incomplete, he is not
speaking literally. In saying that God's Will for us is perfect happiness, Jesus
speaks the way a parent would to a child: all I want is that you be happy. The
context is that God is a loving Father, which corrects the ego thought that He
is punitive and wants only that we sacrifice and suffer as payment for our sins.
Moreover, God does not have a plan, even though the workbook speaks a great deal
of this. A loving parent, teacher, or friend has plans for us; doctors and
therapists plan for our health, while financial advisers plan for our
wealth.These are common symbols in our world, but in truth God has no plan. If
He did, He would be recognizing a need or problem that does not exist, the exact
opposite of the Atonement principle.

Thus, when you read these words, keep in mind that Jesus is our older brother
speaking to younger siblings who can understand his message of love only in this
metaphoric context: <God's plan or Will for us> therefore merely points to His
abstract and non-specific Love.*

(1:1-2) "Today we will continue with the theme of happiness. This is a key idea
in understanding what salvation means."

*We shall see presently how Jesus elaborates on his teaching that salvation
means happiness, telling us about the ego's version of salvation -- suffering
and sacrifice. Again, it is the undoing of the ego's thought system that allows
us to accept the truth of the Atonement that is already present in our minds,
though covered by these ego thoughts.*

(2:1-2) "If sin is real, then punishment is just and cannot be escaped.
Salvation thus cannot be purchased but through suffering."

*The phrase, "If sin is real," is a recurring motif throughout this lesson, and
you will notice that this passage reflects the ego's second and third laws of
chaos (T-23.II.4-8). Atonement now comes through satisfying the vengeance of
God, which, needless to say, is the ego's projection. Wherever there exists a
situation where one wins and another loses, you know the ego's hand is in it,
expressing its thought system of pain, suffering, and loss.*

(3:1) "If sin is real, salvation must be pain."

*This is the essence of the third law of chaos:

"There can be no release and no escape. Atonement thus becomes a myth, and
vengeance, not forgiveness, is the Will of God." (T-23.II.8:1-2).

In the ego's insanity, God's Will is that we suffer pain, satisfying the demand
of His vengeful wrath. When this insatiable need for punishment has been
appeased, pain becomes, in His "mercy," the means of our salvation. The next
lines continue this theme:*

(4:1-2) "Who would seek out such savage punishment? Who would not flee
salvation, and attempt in every way he can to drown the Voice which offers it to
him?"

*Once we believe salvation is death, why would we not want to run away from God
and Jesus? That is why, if we logically extend these words, no Christian could
ever truly love its savior, because he demands suffering and sacrifice, judgment
and punishment. In fact, Jesus was the ultimate suffering and sacrificial
victim, in fulfillment of God's punitive notion of justice. Who could love
someone who, representing God, wills our death? Moreover, this death, if it is
truly redemptive, must be painful. Yet the situation gets worse: As we cannot
tolerate the guilt over our sin of not loving Jesus, we repress it, inevitably
leading to its projection. Thus is guilt the name of the ego's game. The
guiltier we feel, the more secretive we are, and the greater our need to deny
our sin and blame others, up to and including God and Jesus. These insane
dynamics become the means to drown God's Voice. No wonder, then, there is no
hope in this world.*

(5:1-2) "You need the practice periods today. The exercises teach sin is not
real, and all that you believe must come from sin will never happen, for it has
no cause."

*We see another articulation of the principle of <cause and effect>. The
physical world, with its pains and suffering, joys and happiness, is the product
of sin. If we learn sin is not real -- because we never separated from the Love
of God -- we shall have undone the cause; and without a cause there can be no
effect. Yet if we cherish the effects (guilt, fear, and pain), we affirm the
cause (sin), which we want because it guarantees our existence.*

(6:1) "God's Will for you is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and
suffering is causeless."

*Again, if we are in pain, it is because we want its cause. We do not care about
the suffering as such, but the purpose it serves. The source of pain has nothing
to do with the causes we identify, but with the belief in our existence, defined
by the ego as sin. Reinforcing this belief is the ego's purpose, for this denies
God's Will for us is perfect happiness.*

(7) "Give these five minutes gladly, to remove the heavy load you lay upon
yourself with the insane belief that sin is real. Today escape from madness. You
are set on freedom's road, and now today's idea brings wings to speed you on,
and hope to go still faster to the waiting goal of peace. There is no sin.
Remember this today, and tell yourself as often as you can:

<God's Will for me is perfect happiness.
This is the truth, because there is no sin.>"

*If there is no sin, no one is guilty and everyone is mistaken. Remember that
what is true for one must be true for all. This is Jesus' lesson: God's Son is
one, and differences do not exist except in the insane mind that needs to have
someone win and another lose. If "God's Will for me is perfect happiness," it
must be so for everyone. This alone is the truth, and this alone is the pathway
that leads from imprisonment to freedom, conflict to peace, hate to love. Thus
we happily learn that God's Will is our own as well.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 100. My part is essential to God's plan for salvation.

#93100

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?*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 99. Salvation is my only function here.

#93099

Lesson 99. Salvation is my only function here.

(1) Salvation and forgiveness are the same. They both imply that something has
gone wrong; something to be saved from, forgiven for; something amiss that needs
corrective change; something apart or different from the Will of God. Thus do
both terms imply a thing impossible but yet which has occurred, resulting in a
state of conflict seen between what is and what could never be.

(2) Truth and illusions both are equal now, for both have happened. The
impossible becomes the thing you need forgiveness for, salvation from. Salvation
now becomes the borderland between the truth and the illusion. It reflects the
truth because it is the means by which you can escape illusions. Yet it is not
yet the truth because it undoes what was never done.

(3) How could there be a meeting place at all where earth and Heaven can be
reconciled within a mind where both of them exist? The mind that sees illusions
thinks them real. They have existence in that they are thoughts. And yet they
are not real, because the mind that thinks these thoughts is separate from God.

(4) What joins the separated mind and thoughts with Mind and Thought which are
forever One? What plan could hold the truth inviolate, yet recognize the need
illusions bring, and offer means by which they are undone without attack and
with no touch of pain? What but a Thought of God could be this plan, by which
the never done is overlooked, and sins forgotten which were never real?

(5) The Holy Spirit holds this plan of God exactly as it was received of Him
within the Mind of God and in your own. It is apart from time in that its Source
is timeless. Yet it operates in time, because of your belief that time is real.
Unshaken does the Holy Spirit look on what you see; on sin and pain and death,
on grief and separation and on loss. Yet does He know one thing must still be
true; God is still Love, and this is not His Will.

(6) This is the Thought that brings illusions to the truth, and sees them as
appearances behind which is the changeless and the sure. This is the Thought
that saves and that forgives, because it lays no faith in what is not created by
the only Source it knows. This is the Thought whose function is to save by
giving you its function as your own. Salvation is your function, with the One to
Whom the plan was given. Now are you entrusted with this plan, along with Him.He
has one answer to appearances; regardless of their form, their size, their depth
or any attribute they seem to have:

<Salvation is my only function here.
God still is Love, and this is not His Will.>

(7) You who will yet work miracles, be sure you practice well the idea for
today. Try to perceive the strength in what you say, for these are words in
which your freedom lies. Your Father loves you. All the world of pain is not His
Will. Forgive yourself the thought He wanted this for you. Then let the Thought
with which He has replaced all your mistakes enter the darkened places of your
mind that thought the thoughts that never were His Will.

(8) This part belongs to God, as does the rest. It does not think its solitary
thoughts, and make them real by hiding them from Him. Let in the light, and you
will look upon no obstacle to what He wills for you. Open your secrets to His
kindly light, and see how bright this light still shines in you.

(9) Practice His Thought today, and let His light seek out and lighten up all
darkened spots, and shine through them to join them to the rest. It is God's
Will your mind be one with His. It is God's Will that He has but one Son. It is
God's Will that His one Son is you. Think of these things in practicing today,
and start the lesson that we learn today with this instruction in the way of
truth:

<Salvation is my only function here.
Salvation and forgiveness are the same.>

Then turn to Him Who shares your function here, and let Him teach you what you
need to learn to lay all fear aside, and know your Self as Love which has no
opposite in you.

(10) Forgive all thoughts which would oppose the truth of your completion, unity
and peace. You cannot lose the gifts your Father gave. You do not want to be
another self. You have no function that is not of God. Forgive yourself the one
you think you made. Forgiveness and salvation are the same. Forgive what you
have made and you are saved.

(11) There is a special message for today which has the power to remove all
forms of doubt and fear forever from your mind. If you are tempted to believe
them true, remember that appearances can not withstand the truth these mighty
words contain:

<Salvation is my only function here.
God still is Love, and this is not His Will.>

(12) Your only function tells you, you are one. Remind yourself of this between
the times you give five minutes to be shared with Him Who shares God's plan with
you. Remind yourself:

<Salvation is my only function here.>

Thus do you lay forgiveness on your mind and let all fear be gently laid aside,
that love may find its rightful place in you and show you that you are the Son
of God.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 99. "Salvation is my only function here."

*This lesson continues discussion of our function, with Jesus speaking
specifically about salvation bridging the seeming gap between illusion and
truth. Before we begin, however, let me mention -- for Helen would never forgive
me if I did not -- that beginning with this lesson the rest of the workbook,
including instructions, is in blank verse.*

(1:1) "Salvation and forgiveness are the same."

*This is another theme in Jesus' symphonic structure. <Salvation, miracle, holy
instant, holy relationship, forgiveness,> and <vision> are terms describing the
process of undoing the thought system of separation and guilt, which we have
made to be reality. Yet both salvation and forgiveness are illusions, because as
Jesus will explain, they undo what never happened.*

(2:1) "Truth and illusions both are equal now, for both have happened."

*The ego would have us believe there <was> truth, but also illusion; there <was>
God, but also separation from Him. Both coexist. In almost all formal religions,
truth and illusion, spirit and matter, are equal states; the world and the body,
a God Who is spirit -- share reality. In this apparent coexistence, God is
perceived as operative in this world. Indeed, in many religions, God is not only
involved in the world, but is its Creator. Consequently, truth and illusion live
side by side, equal in their reality.*

(3:1) "How could there be a meeting place at all where earth and Heaven can be
reconciled within a mind where both of them exist?"

*This tells us such a meeting place of truth and illusion is impossible, because
they are mutually exclusive states. At the same time Jesus teaches that the
meaning of salvation is to forgive and achieve Christ's vision, he reminds us
that the process itself is illusory. On earth this is not understandable, since
we still believe we exist here. However, we can be taught to understand the
importance of forgiving, and thus are led through illusion to the single truth
of our Self.*

(4:1-2) "What joins the separated mind and thoughts with Mind and Thought which
are forever One? What plan could hold the truth inviolate, yet recognize the
need illusions bring, and offer means by which they are undone without attack
and with no touch of pain?"

*This is a plan of the Atonement: undoing the illusions without attack and pain
by looking at them with Jesus by our side. If we had to <do> something with the
illusion, we are saying it is real, which only brings more pain. The way to undo
the illusions of specialness is to see the suffering that is its goal when we
call on it to provide happiness or surcease from pain, to offer more than the
Love of God. Looking at illusions with Jesus means recognizing the cost of
holding on to them; realizing its pain enables us to let specialness go without
attack. The eyes of gentleness look gently, and where is pain or attack when
gentleness is present? Thus are we blessed with the gift of healing, as
described in this lovely passage on the gentle grace of Heaven:

"The grace of God rests gently on forgiving eyes, and everything they look on
speaks of Him to the beholder. He can see no evil; nothing in the world to fear,
and no one who is different from himself. And as he loves them, so he looks upon
himself with love and gentleness. He would no more condemn himself for his
mistakes than damn another. He is not an arbiter of vengeance, nor a punisher of
sin. The kindness of his sight rests on himself with all the tenderness it
offers others. For he would only heal and only bless. And being in accord with
what God wills, he has the power to heal and bless all those he looks on with
the grace of God upon his sight." (T-25.VI.1).*

(5:1) "The Holy Spirit holds this plan of God exactly as it was received of Him
within the Mind of God and in your own."

*Our own mind here means our right mind, and within its forgiving thoughts it
holds God's plan of the Atonement, for it <is> God's plan of the Atonement.*

(6:1) "This is the Thought that brings illusions to the truth, and sees them as
appearances behind which is the changeless and the sure."

*This tells us again that to overlook is to look through. The ego teaches that
the reality of sin is like a solid wall of granite. If so, it would be
impossible to the truth beyond it. When we look with Jesus on what we thought
was sin -- our own or another's -- we realize it has had no effect on his love
nor our unity with him. It can therefore have no effect on our unity with
everyone else. At this point the seemingly solid and sinful wall of granite
becomes a flimsy veil that cannot conceal the light shining beyond it. Looking
with Jesus enables us to share his vision of sinlessness and see the changeless
and the sure behind appearances.*

(7:1-2) "You who will yet work miracles, be sure you practice well the idea for
today. Try to perceive the strength in what you say, for these are words in
which your freedom lies."

*Remember that despite the connotation of the words, Jesus is not referring to
behavior, but the healing of our minds through his miracle of correction,
realizing we are the dreamer of a dream that is not true. His love then is freed
to work through us as our bodies do what everyone else's does, but differently,
because our purpose has changed from dreaming to awakening, the weakness of the
ego's imprisonment to the strength of the Holy Spirit's freedom, the separate
interests of specialness to the shared interests of forgiveness.*

(8:1-2) "This part belongs to God, as does the rest. It does not think its
solitary thoughts, and make them real by hiding them from Him."

*Our right mind holds the correction thought; our wrong mind holds all our
thoughts. It is these thoughts -- of specialness and hate -- we have to bring to
the Holy Spirit, the reflection of our Creator's Love.*

(8:3--9:1) "Let in the light, and you will look upon no obstacle to what He
wills for you. Open your secrets to His kindly light, and see how bright this
light still shines in you."

"Practice His Thought today, and let His light seek out and lighten up all
darkened spots, and shine through them to join them to the rest."

*This is another statement of the forgiveness process, echoing the above
passages from the text. With openness and honesty we look with Jesus at our ego
thoughts, without shame or guilt, thus non-judgmentally bringing the darkness of
our specialness to the light of his gentle undoing. We have repeatedly seen that
Jesus cannot shine away our illusions unless we ask his help. And we certainly
cannot shine them away without him. Thus is forgiveness a collaborative venture;
not an occurrence between two special partners, but between us and Jesus. We
recall again his words that echo our mutual dependence:

"I need you as much as you need me." (T-8.V.6:10).*

(10:1-3) "Forgive all thoughts which would oppose the truth of your completion,
unity and peace. You cannot lose the gifts your Father gave. You do not want to
be another self."

*It is important to acknowledge that there is a part of us that wants to be this
other self. We need to let this go if we are to remember we are one with God.
Without looking at this resistance to the truth, there is no hope of minimizing
it sufficiently to enable truth's reflection to occupy more and more of our
minds, allowing the darkness of our separation to be replaced by the light of
unity. Thus we learn that the gift we thought we had lost was held for us in
safe-keeping through its Memory; thus we learn we are forgiven for the sin of
stealing that we never committed.*

(11) "There is a special message for today which has the power to remove all
forms of doubt and fear forever from your mind. If you are tempted to believe
them true, remember that appearances can not withstand the truth these mighty
words contain:
<Salvation is my only function here.
God still is Love, and this is not His Will.>

*Jesus is again asking us to use these thoughts whenever we are tempted to
believe they are not true. The light cannot shine away our ego's darkness unless
we bring the darkness to it. The vigilance asked by these exercises facilitates
the process of healing -- our only function here.*

(12)"Your only function tells you, you are one. Remind yourself of this between
the times you give five minutes to be shared with Him Who shares God's plan with
you. Remind yourself:

<Salvation is my only function here.>

Thus do you lay forgiveness on your mind and let all fear be gently laid aside,
that love may find its rightful place in you and show you that you are the Son
of God."

*This final paragraph summarizes the lesson's <form> and <content>. Diligence in
applying the lesson's special message to all distressing situations in our day
-- the <form> -- reflects the mind's decision to "let all fear be gently laid
aside" -- the <content> -- as forgiveness replaces it with the love that gently
brings us Home to our Self: God's one Son.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 98. I will accept my part in God's plan for salvation.

#93098

Lesson 98. I will accept my part in God's plan for salvation.

(1) Today is a day of special dedication. We take a stand on but one side today.
We side with truth and let illusions go. We will not vacillate between the two,
but take a firm position with the One. We dedicate ourselves to truth today, and
to salvation as God planned it be. We will not argue it is something else. We
will not seek for it where it is not. In gladness we accept it as it is, and
take the part assigned to us by God.

(2) How happy to be certain! All our doubts we lay aside today, and take our
stand with certainty of purpose, and with thanks that doubt is gone and surety
has come. We have a mighty purpose to fulfill, and have been given everything we
need with which to reach the goal. Not one mistake stands in our way. For we
have been absolved from errors. All our sins are washed away by realizing they
were but mistakes.

(3) The guiltless have no fear, for they are safe and recognize their safety.
They do not appeal to magic, nor invent escapes from fancied threats without
reality. They rest in quiet certainty that they will do what it is given them to
do. They do not doubt their own ability because they know their function will be
filled completely in the perfect time and place. They took the stand which we
will take today, that we may share their certainty and thus increase it by
accepting it ourselves.

(4) They will be with us; all who took the stand we take today will gladly offer
us all that they learned and every gain they made. Those still uncertain, too,
will join with us, and, borrowing our certainty, will make it stronger still.
While those as yet unborn will hear the call we heard, and answer it when they
have come to make their choice again. We do not choose but for ourselves today.

(5) Is it not worth five minutes of your time each hour to be able to accept the
happiness that God has given you? Is it not worth five minutes hourly to
recognize your special function here? Is not five minutes but a small request to
make in terms of gaining a reward so great it has no measure? You have made a
thousand losing bargains at the least.

(6) Here is an offer guaranteeing you your full release from pain of every kind,
and joy the world does not contain. You can exchange a little of your time for
peace of mind and certainty of purpose, with the promise of complete success.
And since time has no meaning, you are being asked for nothing in return for
everything. Here is a bargain that you cannot lose. And what you gain is
limitless indeed!

(7) Each hour today give Him your tiny gift of but five minutes. He will give
the words you use in practicing today's idea the deep conviction and the
certainty you lack. His words will join with yours, and make each repetition of
today's idea a total dedication, made in faith as perfect and as sure as His in
you. His confidence in you will bring the light to all the words you say, and
you will go beyond their sound to what they really mean.

Today you practice with Him, as you say:

I will accept my part in God's plan for salvation.

(8) In each five minutes that you spend with Him, He will accept your words and
give them back to you all bright with faith and confidence so strong and steady
they will light the world with hope and gladness. Do not lose one chance to be
the glad receiver of His gifts, that you may give them to the world today.

(9) Give Him the words, and He will do the rest. He will enable you to
understand your special function. He will open up the way to happiness, and
peace and trust will be His gifts; His answer to your words. He will respond
with all His faith and joy and certainty that what you say is true. And you will
have conviction then of Him Who knows the function that you have on earth as
well as Heaven. He will be with you each practice period you share with Him,
exchanging every instant of the time you offer Him for timelessness and peace.

(10) Throughout the hour, let your time be spent in happy preparation for the
next five minutes you will spend again with Him. Repeat today's idea while you
wait for the glad time to come to you again. Repeat it often, and do not forget
each time you do so, you have let your mind be readied for the happy time to
come.

(11) And when the hour goes and He is there once more to spend a little time
with you, be thankful and lay down all earthly tasks, all little thoughts and
limited ideas, and spend a happy time again with Him. Tell Him once more that
you accept the part that He would have you take and help you fill, and He will
make you sure you want this choice, which He has made with you and you with Him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 98. "I will accept my part in God's plan for salvation."

*In my introductory comments to Lesson 91, I said that the next twenty lessons
directly or indirectly contrasted Self with self. The past seven have emphasized
this distinction, and urged us to choose spirit as our identity instead of the
body. These next two lessons introduce a subsidiary theme -- our special
function of forgiveness. This is the bridge enabling us to shift from our
identity as an ego self to the glorious Self of Christ.*

(1:1) "Today is a day of special dedication."

*As students work with A Course in Miracles, it is important they understand
Jesus does not always reserve the word <special> for the ego. Students sometimes
avoid the word as they would the plague, because of its connotations of
scarcity, guilt, and murder. However, there are many places where Jesus uses
<special> in a positive way, by way of telling us that it is not the word itself
that is terrible, but its underlying thought system; the <content>, not the
<form>. Thus today is special because of its place in the curriculum that will
help us undo our belief in specialness and remember Who we are as God's Son.*

(2:1) "How happy to be certain!"

*In order for us to be happy we must realize what we thought we were certain
about was wrong: "Do you prefer that you be right or happy?" (T.29.VII.1.9) To
be happy means to be truly certain, identifying with the certainty of the Holy
Spirit, not the ego's arrogance in believing it is right.*

(3:1) "The guiltless have no fear, for they are safe and recognize their
safety."

*The reason the guilty fear is that guilt demands punishment, and therefore we
will always fear the punishment we believe is forthcoming. However, if there is
no guilt there can be no projection, which means we will no longer believe the
sinner is outside, poised to attack us. Therefore, there is no fear and we are
free to recognize our safety.*

(4) "They will be with us; all who took the stand we take today will gladly
offer us all that they learned and every gain they made. Those still uncertain,
too, will join with us, and, borrowing our certainty, will make it stronger
still. While those as yet unborn will hear the call we heard, and answer it when
they have come to make their choice again. We do not choose but for ourselves
today."

*This reflects the important theme of the Sonship's unity, found not only in
Heaven, as Christ, but in the fragmented world of billions and billions of
separate parts. This crucial idea can never be understood from our point of view
-- individuality, separation, and differences. From this perspective, my being
saved does not mean you are saved, or your being damned that I am damned. The
truth, however, is that as one Son, we are saved and damned
<together>.Therefore, what I see in you can only be what I see in myself. If I
seek to crucify you to escape my guilt, I am crucified as well. "It can be but
myself I crucify," a later lesson tells us (W-pI.196). On the other hand, if I
see you as absolved from sin because you are not responsible for my loss of
peace, I am absolving myself as well. Keep in mind that this unity transcends
the seeming limitations of time and space. Thus this oneness extends throughout
what we consider to be the history of the cosmos -- a history that spans many
billions of years, and an almost infinite number of miles.*

(5) "Is it not worth five minutes of your time each hour to be able to accept
the happiness that God has given you? Is it not worth five minutes hourly to
recognize your special function here? Is not five minutes but a small request to
make in terms of gaining a reward so great it has no measure? You have made a
thousand losing bargains at the least."

*This is what Jesus asks us on almost every page of A Course in Miracles (see,
e.g.,T-20.VII.I:7-8): "I am asking you to give up so little, and exchange I am
offering you so much. Why don't you do it?" It is not because we are stupid;
insane perhaps, but not stupid. We realize that if we give Jesus five minutes
out of the hour, next time he is going to want ten, and then fifteen; and before
you know it, he is going to demand the hour's full sixty minutes. We then
protest: "What about <me>? Don't <I> count for anything? And Jesus gently shakes
his head and says: "No, you do not, because your individuality is an illusion."
He does not demand we give it up, however, but he does ask us to look at the
fact that the reason we cherish our individual identity so much is so we will
not even give him five minutes an hour. This is not meant to be guilt inducing,
to be sure, but a simple acknowledgement of our fear of love and truth, holding
on to specialness instead. Learning about this fear is useful information as we
seek to fulfill our special function. Incidentally, this term reflects the
important section "The Special Function" (T-25.VI), which describes our function
not in terms of form or behavior, but the change of mind brought about by our
decision to forgive.*

(6:1) "Here is an offer guaranteeing you your full release from pain of every
kind, and joy the world does not contain."

*The problem is that we all respond: Who would I be without my pain, without the
joys of specialness that is directed at an object, substance, or person? Where
would I be if I did not have my daily fix, whatever its form? The problem is
that we would gladly hold on to these forms because, as Jesus tells us in the
text, we do not know the difference between pain and joy (T-7.X). We think the
world gives us joy -- accepting the Atonement -- the ego tells us is painful.*

(7:1) "Each hour today give Him your tiny gift of but five minutes."

*That is all Jesus asks. He is not asking for the full hour. Indeed, if all you
gave him were three minutes, it would be enough. Try to be aware of resisting
the thought of him every hour, and do not buy a wrist alarm watch to remind you.
Such good intentions miss the point. Jesus wants you to <want> to think of him,
and to forgive yourself for not doing so. If you have such a watch, for example,
you are merely exchanging <form> for <content>, and will never learn the lesson
of forgiveness. The idea is not that you spend five minutes each hour thinking
of God, as if there were some magical or salvific value in these thoughts.
Rather, it is that you learn to forgive yourself for <not> wanting to think of
him. Recall our discussion of this idea from Lesson 95.*

(8) "In each five minutes that you spend with Him, He will accept your words and
give them back to you all bright with faith and confidence so strong and steady
they will light the world with hope and gladness. Do not lose one chance to be
the glad receiver of His gifts, that you may give them to the world today."

*This is similar to what we saw at the end of Lesson 97. When we choose to
accept Jesus' words and release our egos, we receive greater gifts than we would
have thought possible. They are gifts that are not for us alone, but for the
entire Sonship, without exception. Because of the rich treasures such gifts
offer, we are urged by our teacher to practice as faithfully as we can.*

(9:1) "Give Him the words, and He will do the rest."

*In the text, Jesus tells us our responsibility is to choose the miracle, and
not be concerned with any of its effects. To revisit that important passage:

"Concern yourself not with the extension of holiness, for the nature of miracles
you do not understand. Nor do you do them. It is their extension, far beyond the
limits you perceive, that demonstrates you do not do them. Why should you worry
how the miracle extends to all the Sonship when you do not understand the
miracle itself?" (T.16.II.1.3).

Our responsibility is to let go of the barriers to our forgiveness, not to
extend it. If we believe our function is to extend forgiveness, we allow the ego
to get in the way again and guide us to believe it is our function in the sense
of behavior or form, we are adopting the ego's point of view.

The right-minded function of the split mind is to let go of the ego, <and that
is all>. By identifying with the love of Jesus in our minds we have fulfilled
our one responsibility. This allows his love to extend throughout the Sonship
because that love is already in the Sonship. In fact, that love <is> the
Sonship. Hence, all we need to do is release the problem of our believing we are
separated from love. That is salvation's simplicity (T-31.1).*

(10) "Throughout the hour, let your time be spent in happy preparation for the
next five minutes you will spend again with Him. Repeat today's idea while you
wait for the glad time to come to you again. Repeat it often, and do not forget
each time you do so, you have let your mind be readied for the happy time to
come."

*Jesus does not want us to underestimate the effect of even one five-minute
period we give to him. Like money in the bank, it will grow, with each period
building a strong foundation on which the next five minutes rest, and the ones
to follow resting on what preceded them. This is similar to the passage in the
text where Jesus describes the process of Atonement as a strong chain that is
welded (T-1.III.9:2). In this case the welded chain is our personal journey that
is strengthened with each and every practice period.*

(11:1) "And when the hour goes and He is there once more to spend a little time
with you, be thankful and lay down all earthly tasks, all little thoughts and
limited ideas, and spend a happy time again with Him."

*Jesus speaks here in the context of the workbook, which provides structured
exercises that help us take a little time throughout the day in which we divert
our attention from the world -- our earthly tasks and limited thoughts and ideas
-- and think only of God. Needless to say, exclusive attention to the mundane
reflects our decision maker's choice to identify with the ego's limited
littleness, instead of the Holy Spirit. Yet these exercises will eventually lead
to our going through the day paying attention to earthly tasks, at the same time
remembering there is a love beyond the dream. Thus we are able to retain contact
with that love at the same time our bodies go about their busy activities. The
ultimate goal of our study and practice is that these teachings and lessons
become so integrated that our day expresses <our> being the bridge between earth
and Heaven. Such is vision -- retaining that quiet center within, all the while
being active in the everyday world -- that closes "I Need Do Nothing":

"Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. And you
will be more aware of this quiet centre of the storm than all its raging
activity. This quiet centre, in which you do nothing, will remain with you,
giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. For from
this centre will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly." (T.18.VII.8.1).

Until we are able to identify with that quiet center of love, however, it is
important we take specific time out each hour -- or whatever the lesson asks of
us -- to think of the Holy Spirit. We need to be aware of our mind's
wrong-minded, right-minded split, not just the ego portion of the mind. There is
a part of us that indeed gets caught up with specialness, but there is also a
part that can be quiet and still.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 97. I am spirit.

#93097

Lesson 97. I am spirit.

(1) Today's idea identifies you with your one Self. It accepts no split
identity, nor tries to weave opposing factors into unity. It simply
states the truth. Practice this truth today as often as you can, for it
will bring your mind from conflict to the quiet fields of peace. No
chill of fear can enter, for your mind has been absolved from madness,
letting go illusions of a split identity.

(2) We state again the truth about your Self, the holy Son of God Who
rests in you; whose mind has been restored to sanity. You are the spirit
lovingly endowed with all your Father's Love and peace and joy. You are
the spirit which completes Himself, and shares His function as Creator.
He is with you always, as you are with Him.

(3) Today we try to bring reality still closer to your mind. Each time
you practice, awareness is brought a little nearer at least; sometimes a
thousand years or more are saved. The minutes which you give are
multiplied over and over, for the miracle makes use of time, but is not
ruled by it. Salvation is a miracle, the first and last; the first that
is the last, for it is one.

(4) You are the spirit in whose mind abides the miracle in which all
time stands still; the miracle in which a minute spent in using these
ideas becomes a time that has no limit and that has no end. Give, then,
these minutes willingly, and count on Him Who promised to lay
timelessness beside them. He will offer all His strength to every little
effort that you make. Give Him the minutes which He needs today, to help
you understand with Him you are the spirit that abides in Him, and that
calls through His Voice to every living thing; offers His sight to
everyone who asks; replaces error with the simple truth.

(5) The Holy Spirit will be glad to take five minutes of each hour from
your hands, and carry them around this aching world where pain and
misery appear to rule. He will not overlook one open mind that will
accept the healing gifts they bring, and He will lay them everywhere He
knows they will be welcome. And they will increase in healing power each
time someone accepts them as his thoughts, and uses them to heal.

(6) Thus will each gift to Him be multiplied a thousandfold and tens of
thousands more. And when it is returned to you, it will surpass in might
the
little gift you gave as much as does the radiance of the sun outshine
the tiny gleam a firefly makes an uncertain moment and goes out. The
steady brilliance of this light remains and leads you out of darkness,
nor will you be able to forget the way again.

(7) Begin these happy exercises with the words the Holy Spirit speaks to
you, and let them echo round the world through Him:

Spirit am I, a holy Son of God, free of all limits, safe and healed and
whole, free to forgive, and free to save the world.

Expressed through you, the Holy Spirit will accept this gift that you
received of Him, increase its power and give it back to you."

(8) Offer each practice period today gladly to Him. And He will speak to
you, reminding you that you are spirit, one with Him and God, your
brothers and your Self. Listen for His assurance every time you speak
the words He offers you today, and let Him tell your mind that they are
true. Use them against temptation, and escape its sorry consequences if
you yield to the belief that you are something else. The Holy Spirit
gives you peace today. Receive His words, and offer them to Him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 97. I am spirit.

*This lesson continues the theme of our true Self or Identity, which we
explored in earlier lessons. Here, our true Self is specifically
identified with spirit.*

(1:1-2) "Today's idea identifies you with your one Self. It accepts no
split identity, nor tries to weave opposing factors into unity."

*I spoke earlier about the trend, especially in holistic medicine, to
unify spirit, mind, and body. This lesson again makes it clear that it
is impossible to weave into a unity two states that are mutually
irreconcilable: spirit and the split mind; spirit and body. Thus we are
asked to choose between truth and illusion. This important theme will
also be expressed as the lesson continues.*

(2) "We state again the truth about your Self, the holy Son of God Who
rests in you; whose mind has been restored to sanity. You are the spirit
lovingly endowed with all your Father's Love and peace and joy. You are
the spirit which completes Himself, and shares His function as Creator.
He is with you always, as you are with Him."

*Asking the Holy Spirit to teach us to forgive restores us to the sanity
that corrects the ego's illusions. Fear has been brought to love, which
gently dissolves it in the truth. As we fulfill our function of
forgiveness here, our function of creation in Heaven returns to our
awareness as spirit, and we remember the Oneness that created us as one
with It.*

(3) "Today we try to bring reality still closer to your mind. Each time
you practice, awareness is brought a little nearer at least; sometimes a
thousand years or more are saved. The minutes which you give are
multiplied over and over, for the miracle makes use of time, but is not
ruled by it. Salvation is a miracle, the first and last; the first that
is the last, for it is one."

*This passage makes the same point seen in the early pages of the text
where Jesus discusses the miracle's role in our salvation. Its purpose
is to collapse time, saving us even a thousand years. Without going in
depth into A Course in Miracles' metaphysics of time, we can simply say
that since time is not linear, all of it occurred in one instant, Jesus
teaches that when we choose a miracle, we choose to undo huge sections
of our thought system that we believe exist in time. Thus he says:

"The miracle minimizes the need for time.... [ It ] has the unique
property of abolishing time to the extent that it renders the interval
of time it spans unnecessary. There is no relationship between the time
a miracle takes and the time it covers. The miracle substitutes for
learning that might have taken thousands of years.... [ It ] shortens
time by collapsing it, thus eliminating certain intervals within it. It
does this, however, within the larger temporal sequence."
(T-1.II.6:1,5-7,9-10).

As an example, consider yourself as one who has experienced much
abandonment in you life. This script, of course, covers the entire
hologram of time and space, and therefore this theme has no doubt been
relived again and again over many lifetimes. For the sake of this
discussion, let us just think of ten lifetimes, each spanning a hundred
years. When you forgive the abandoning figures in your current life, the
result is like a domino effect, erasing the remaining nine non-linear
lifetimes along with the current one. In that sense, then, you have
saved "a thousand years." To shift metaphors, think of a computer in
which you have a file called <Abandonment> containing the many times you
have been abandoned. Incidentally, understanding the dynamic of
projection helps us understand that behind our accusations is the
self-accusation of having abandoned love first. When the holy instant
comes in which we forgive, the entire file of <Abandonment> --
grievances held against others, guilt held against ourselves -- is
deleted.

It should also be obvious that Jesus does not literally mean a thousand,
because there is no time. The content behind the numeric symbol is
Jesus' teaching that A Course in Miracles, will save you time. When you
forgive one of your special partners, behind that one stands thousands
of other objects of your projected hate:

"Your brother first among them will be seen, but thousands stand behind
him, and beyond each one of them there are a thousand more."
(T-27.V.10:4).

This, then, is what Jesus means by the miracle. Mistakenly, we believe
each time we think of God throughout the day we are thinking of God just
for a single moment. In truth, however, we <un>doing a long series of
mistakes in which we have forgotten God and chosen the ego instead.
Through this undoing we are saved from our mad illusions of separation,
guilt, and specialness. The same are one, since there is but one
mistake. Thus the miracle undoes them all, since there is only one
problem from which we need to be saved.*

(4) "You are the spirit in whose mind abides the miracle in which all
time stands still; the miracle in which a minute spent in using these
ideas becomes a time that has no limit and that has no end. Give, then,
these minutes willingly, and count on Him Who promised to lay
timelessness beside them. He will offer all His strength to every little
effort that you make. Give Him the minutes which He needs today, to help
you understand with Him you are the spirit that abides in Him, and that
calls through His Voice to every living thing; offers His sight to
everyone who asks; replaces error with the simple truth."

*The miracle is outside of time, and so "all time stands still" within
it. It represents our right minds, to which we go when we want to
recognize we have been wrong and the Holy Spirit correct. Choosing the
miracle thus means letting the ego's hand go and taking the Holy
Spirit's in its stead. The decision making part of our minds is outside
of time and space, and in that sense is timeless. We experience the
effect of this change within the world of time, which is why Jesus
speaks of time -- thousands of years. In reality, however, we have
simply returned to our timeless minds and chosen again.

The underlying theme here is that the Holy Spirit cannot help us unless
we allow Him to. In other words, our part is to give "these minutes ...
[and] every little effort" to the Holy Spirit. Rather than expend them
on denying truth, we are asked to apply that same effort to correct our
mistake. This reflects the central theme of a little willingness:

"Your part is only to offer Him a little willingness to let Him remove
all fear and hatred, and then to be forgiven." (T-18.V.2:5).

Note as well the theme of all-inclusiveness, an integral part of the
fabric of Jesus' teaching. Our true Self -- spirit -- calls to everyone,
without exception. God's Son is one, and to offer vision's correction to
some and not all ensures the correction will never be. This idea is
found throughout A Course in Miracles, and the following passage is
representative:

"To everyone has God entrusted all, because a partial savior would be
one who is but partly saved. The holy ones whom God has given you to
save are but everyone you meet or look upon, not knowing who they are;
all those you saw an instant and forgot, and those you knew a long while
since, and those you will yet meet; the unremembered and the not yet
born. For God has given you His Son to save from every concept that he
ever held." (T-31.VII.10:4-6).

By learning to forgive <all> the Sonship, we come to know that inner
Voice we have followed is truly God's.*

(5:1)"The Holy Spirit will be glad to take five minutes of each hour
from your hands, and carry them around this aching world where pain and
misery appear to rule."

*Note that Jesus does not say the Holy Spirit will carry them around
this happy and joyful world. He wants us to understand this is a world
of pain, misery, and suffering. You may recall a similar sentiment
expressed in the manual for teachers:

"Yet it is time alone that winds on wearily, and the world is very tired
now. It is old and worn and without hope." (M-1.4:4-5).

If we fail to understand the world's pain, there would be no motivation
to choose a different thought, and without such choice a different
thought, and without such choice our misery cannot be undone.

The manual closes with a lovely prose poem, expressing Heaven's
gratitude for our decision to accept and extend the message of hope the
tired world yearns to hear. It begins:

"And now in all your doings be you blessed. God turns to you for help to
save the world. Teacher of God, His thanks He offers you,
And all the world stands silent in the grace You bring from Him."
(M-29.8:1-3). *

(6:1) "Thus will each gift to Him be multiplied a thousandfold and tens
of thousands more."

*This is so because in the holy instant, again, the Sonship is healed,
not just my mind alone. There can be no thought of fragmentation when
the mind is healed. The importance of this theme of total inclusion is
apparent by its recurrence throughout the Course. It forms the basis of
forgiveness and the undoing of the ego's thought system of separation.*

(7) "Begin these happy exercises with the words the Holy Spirit speaks
to you, and let them echo round the world through Him:

Spirit am I, a holy Son of God, free of all limits, safe and healed and

whole, free to forgive, and free to save the world.<

Expressed through you, the Holy Spirit will accept this gift that you
received of Him, increase its power and give it back to you."

*These exercises are happy because their goal is to make us happy. We
have already commented on the section "The Happy Learner" (T-14.II),
which reflects this happy thought. Accepting the truth about ourselves
undoes all pain and suffering, releasing the mind to the happiness the
Holy Spirit holds for us and the Sonship, joined <with> us and <as> us.*

(8:1-2) "Offer each practice period today gladly to Him. And He will
speak to you, reminding you that you are spirit, one with Him and God,
your brothers and your Self."

*This lesson also enunciates the theme of oneness: We are one with God,
the Holy Spirit, and the Sonship. The word "reminding" is important
because it is a crucial description of the Holy Spirit's function. He
does not do things on our behalf, nor tell us things. His Presence is
the simple reminder of the truth. Recall this already familiar passage:

"The Voice of the Holy Spirit does not command, because it is incapable
of arrogance. It does not demand, because It does not seek control. It
does not overcome, because It does not attack. It merely reminds. It is
compelling only because of what it reminds you of. It brings to your
mind the other way, remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you
may make." (T.5.II.7.1)

It remains for us to accept His remembrance. Such is the purpose of
these lessons, to speed along acceptance of "the other way." *

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 96 "Salvation comes from my one Self."

#93096

Lesson 96 "Salvation comes from my one Self."

1. "Although you are one Self, you experience yourself as two; as both good and
evil, loving and hating, mind and body. This sense of being split into opposites
induces feelings of acute and constant conflict, and leads to frantic attempts
to reconcile the contradictory aspects of this self-perception. You have sought
many such solutions, and none of them has worked. The opposites you see in you
will never be compatible. But one exists."

2. "The fact that truth and illusion cannot be reconciled, no matter how you
try, what means you use and where you see the problem, must be accepted if you
would be saved. Until you have accepted this, you will attempt an endless list
of goals you cannot reach; a senseless series of expenditures of time and
effort, hopefulness and doubt, each one as futile as the one before, and failing
as the next one surely will."

3. "Problems that have no meaning cannot be resolved within the framework they
are set. Two selves in conflict could not be resolved, and good and evil have no
meeting place. The self you made can never be your Self, nor can your Self be
split in two, and still be what It is and must forever be. A mind and body
cannot both exist. Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies the
other can be real. If you are physical, your mind is gone from your
self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you. If
you are spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality."

4. "Spirit makes use of mind as means to find its Self expression. And the mind
which serves the spirit is at peace and filled with joy. Its power comes from
spirit, and it is fulfilling happily its function here. Yet mind can also see
itself divorced from spirit, and perceive itself within a body it confuses with
itself. Without its function then it has no peace, and happiness is alien to its
thoughts."

5. "Yet mind apart from spirit cannot think. It has denied its Source of
strength, and sees itself as helpless, limited and weak. Dissociated from its
function now, it thinks it is alone and separate, attacked by armies massed
against itself and hiding in the body's frail support. Now must it reconcile
unlike with like, for this is what it thinks that it is for."

6. "Waste no more time on this. Who can resolve the senseless conflicts which a
dream presents? What could the resolution mean in truth? What purpose could it
serve? What is it for? Salvation cannot make illusions real, nor solve a problem
that does not exist. Perhaps you hope it can. Yet would you have God's plan for
the release of His dear Son bring pain to him, and fail to set him free?"

7. "Your Self retains Its Thoughts, and they remain within your mind and in the
Mind of God. The Holy Spirit holds salvation in your mind, and offers it the way
to peace. Salvation is a thought you share with God, because His Voice accepted
it for you and answered in your name that it was done. Thus is salvation kept
among the Thoughts your Self holds dear and cherishes for you."

8. "We will attempt today to find this thought, whose presence in your mind is
guaranteed by Him Who speaks to you from your one Self. Our hourly five-minute
practicing will be a search for Him within your mind. Salvation comes from this
one Self through Him Who is the Bridge between your mind and It. Wait patiently,
and let Him speak to you about your Self, and what your mind can do, restored to
It and free to serve Its Will."

9. "Begin with saying this:"

<"Salvation comes from my one Self. Its Thoughts are mine
to use.">

"Then seek Its Thoughts, and claim them as your own. These are your own real
thoughts you have denied, and let your mind go wandering in a world of dreams,
to find illusions in their place. Here are your thoughts, the only ones you
have. Salvation is among them; find it there."

10. "If you succeed, the thoughts that come to you will tell you you are saved,
and that your mind has found the function that it sought to lose. Your Self will
welcome it and give it peace. Restored in strength, it will again flow out from
spirit to the spirit in all things created by the Spirit as Itself. Your mind
will bless all things. Confusion done, you are restored, for you have found your
Self."

11. "Your Self knows that you cannot fail today. Perhaps your mind remains
uncertain yet a little while. Be not dismayed by this. The joy your Self
experiences It will save for you, and it will yet be yours in full awareness.
Every time you spend five minutes of the hour seeking Him Who joins your mind
and Self, you offer Him another treasure to be kept for you."

12. "Each time today you tell your frantic mind salvation comes from your one
Self, you lay another treasure in your growing store. And all of it is given
everyone who asks for it, and will accept the gift. Think, then, how much is
given unto you to give this day, that it be given you!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 96. Salvation comes from my one Self. Commentary by Kenneth
Wapnick.

**This is a potentially confusing lesson because of the conflicting ways
Jesus uses the term <mind>. Addressing this confusion will make going
through this lesson easier. <Mind> is used here in two ways, similar to
what is found in the section "Mind - Spirit" in the clarification of
terms. (C-1). It is equated both with spirit and the split mind. The
confusion enters because the specific referent is not always specified.
I shall clarify this as we go through the lesson.

When used as the equivalent of spirit, <mind> refers to spirit's
"activating agent" (C-1,1:1) The word <spirit>, referring to our true
nature as Christ, is not capitalized in A Course in Miracles, except
when it is used, rarely, as a synonym for God or the Holy Spirit. <Mind>
is not capitalized unless it specifically refers to the Mind of God and
the Mind of Christ.

This lesson is essentially a discussion of the relationship among
spirit, mind, and body. This trinity is embraced by most new age
thinkers and many followers of alternative medicine, but the view of A
Course in Miracles is quite different, as we shall see.**

(1:1) "Although you are one Self, you experience yourself as two; as
both good and evil, loving and hating, mind and body."

**Here <mind> refers to <spirit>, parallel to the words <good> and
<loving>. We believe that we are split, and that it is possible for the
Son of God to be separated from the Mind of God and Christ. This is the
exact opposite of the Atonement principle, which teaches that the
separation did not occur: the perfect Self of Oneness can never be
separated <from>; otherwise it could not have been perfect and perfectly
one.**

(1:2-5) "This sense of being split into opposites induces feelings of
acute and constant conflict, and leads to frantic attempts to reconcile
the contradictory aspects of this self-perception. You have sought many
such solutions, and none of them has worked. The opposites you see in
you will never be compatible. But one exists."

**We have set up a war in our minds, having been convinced by the ego
that we are at war with God. The ego's understanding, of course, has
nothing to do with the true God, Who does not know about the separation
or the split mind. The ego's God most definitely does. When we pushed
away our Source, and then His memory -- the Holy Spirit -- we set up a
conflict in our minds. The ego fabricated the cause of the problem by
telling us that the Holy Spirit was going to push back, and drag us to
God Who would destroy our sin. Believing the reality of the conflict, we
split it off and projected it from our minds so that our sinful self was
perceived to be outside and at war with us. This culminates in our
experience that we are the innocent victims, and this newly made sinful
self is the victimizer.

Our special relationships -- our "frantic attempts to reconcile" --
represent the ego's plan to resolve the conflict. In the special hate
form I believe the enemy is outside, and by destroying it my innocence
will prevail. In the special love form, my inner conflict is concealed
by the love I experience when I am with this person. I do not have to
feel the pain and terror lurking in my mind, because in the presence of
this special person I feel comfortable and secure. This person's
attention, devotion and approval leave me feeling good about myself, and
I never have to look at the fact that I believed that <I> am "the home
of evil, darkness and sin." **

(3:1) "Problems that have no meaning cannot be resolved within the
framework they are set."

**All problems are experienced within the framework of the body and the
world, but they cannot be resolved here because they do not exist here.
They are within our minds, coming from the choice to believe in the ego.
This one problem is repressed because the guilt is overwhelming and,
having projected it, we now see problems all around us, but never within
us. Once the ego's strategy is accomplished, we continually seek to
solve the pseudo-problems, investing vast expenditures of time and
effort in doing so. Yet our problem solving efforts will never work
because they <can> never work. Indeed, nothing works in this world, and
thus no one is ever truly happy here. To be sure, our specialness needs
may be met at any given moment, but that moment is short-lived, for
guilt demands we never be truly happy. Thus we would never be able to
accept the happiness that specialness affords us. Our egos would
question, for example: How could someone love us, let alone stay with
us?; or; let me wait for the other shoe to drop. These doubts arise only
because of the underlying problem of guilt is never examined.

Thus forgiveness, proceeds to go the other way, reversing projection. We
are taught by our new Teacher to bring the problem to the answer, the
ego's illusion to His truth. Once the problem of guilt is brought into
its correct framework -- the mind's decision to be guilty -- it can
easily be resolved.**

(5:1)"Yet mind apart from spirit cannot think."

**This refers to the wrong mind: and, as we know, the ego cannot think.
True Thought is reflected in our right minds as the Atonement principle,
which reminds us of our Identity as a Thought of God. When we separate
from that Thought, we think we are thinking, but that is not thinking at
all, just as we do not truly see though our eyes, nor hear through our
ears.**

(6:1-2)"Waste no more time on this. Who can resolve the senseless
conflicts which a dream presents?"

**In other words, Jesus is telling us to stop wasting our time trying to
solve problems in the world. This is the meaning of "I Need Do Nothing"
(T-19.VII). We think we need do something, because there is a perceived
problem that demands our attention and action. Yet we need do nothing
because what we think to be the problem -- something external to our
minds -- is not the problem at all. However, this does not mean that on
the level of the dream we should not resolve problems here or take care
of our own or other people's bodies. Jesus means not to proceed on your
own. We need to realize, he tells us, that the real problem of our
discontent or disease is our separation from him. By not separating from
him and his love by asking him to help us, the real problem of
separation from love will be undone. This had led to our anxiety, fear,
depression, and a sense of failure. Once those thoughts are out of the
way and Jesus' love has become reality, together, joined in that love,
we can address what needs to be addressed, and there will be no tension,
anxiety, or fatigue. The problem will be resolved smoothly, for we shall
have been freed from the inner conflict that would have impeded the
effective solution of any perceived problem in the world.

To repeat this crucial thought: Jesus is not saying to ignore problems
here. He is instructing us to address our concerns with him by our side,
that his vision becomes our own, and we may grow to understand the true
nature of the problem and its solution.**

(6:3-5) "What could the resolution mean in truth? What purpose could it
serve? What is it for?"

**We have seen this idea -- purpose is everything -- many times before.
The purpose of the world's problems is to root us in the dream and keep
our ego identity sacrosanct. The decision maker, the dreamer of the
dream, makes up smoke screens to distract and upset <us here> (in the
body), so that nothing will change <there> (in the mind). Once again,
the nature of the real problem is that we pushed Jesus away. If we
invite him back and join him in our minds, the problem of separation is
undone. Our concerns with external problems are thus alleviated,
allowing us to devote unconflicted attention to them and to their
resolution.**

(7:1)"Your Self retains Its Thoughts, and they remain within your mind
and in the Mind of God."

**This is the right mind again, and its thoughts are expressions of the
Atonement principle, such as forgiveness or healing. These reflect the
unified Thoughts of Love, which is in the Mind of God and has never
lefts its Source.**

(7:2) "The Holy Spirit holds salvation in your mind, and offers it the
way to peace."

**The way to peace is to turn from the ego to the Holy Spirit, the
thought of Atonement that saves us from our belief in the reality of the
separation.**

(8:1-2)"We will attempt today to find this thought, whose presence in
your mind is guaranteed by Him Who speaks to you from your one Self. Our
hourly five-minute practicing will be a search for Him within your
mind."

**As we have already seen, the way we search for the Holy Spirit within
our right minds, which is the meaning of <mind> here, is to turn away
from our wrong minds. This means turning from our investment in being
right about our autonomous individuality. Our recognition that such
self-reliance has not brought us the happiness and peace we sought is
what will motivate us to remember each hourly practice. It is our fear
of such recognition that causes us to forget.**

(8:3--9:3) "Salvation comes from this one Self through Him Who is the
Bridge between your mind and It. Wait patiently, and let Him speak to
you about your Self, and what your mind can do, restored to It and free
to serve Its Will.
Begin with saying this:
Salvation comes from my one Self. Its Thoughts are mine to use."

**Remembering that we can only find happiness through changing teachers,
we devote our day to re-enforcing what we wish to learn. Thus we turn
from the false self of specialness by choosing the thoughts that reflect
the Thought of Who we truly are, as we listen to the Voice reminding us
of our Self; thus we turn to the Holy Spirit, the Voice that bridges the
gap between illusion and truth, and gently teaches us to forgive what
never happened.**

(12:1-2) "Each time today you tell your frantic mind salvation comes
from your one Self, you lay another treasure in your growing store. And
all of it is given everyone who asks for it, and will accept the gift."

**Our celestial "pep talk" continues. Jesus wants us to have faith in
our practicing and not to lose heart when we forget a time period, or
are tempted to believe what we are doing has no effect. Needless to say,
the <you> mentioned here is the decision maker, which tells the frantic
wrong mind it was mistaken in its original choice. It is our self
telling our self that our identity as a wrong minded individual is
untrue. Thus we come to understand we chose that identity because we
were afraid of the glorious truth of our one Self, a mistake we can now
forgive as we joyfully accept the Holy Spirit's gift of salvation.

Moreover, the gift is given everyone because minds are joined, even
though each separated Son must accept it for himself. That is the key.
Sometimes people wonder why they are here if Jesus has already accepted
the Atonement. From his point of view, of course, we are not here. The
problem is that we have refused to accept his Atonement and love, and
therefore remain asleep in our world of dreams, still dreaming. Again,
our gift of remembering is given everyone, but we must want it for
ourselves." **

(12:3) "Think, then, how much is given unto you to give this day, that
it be given you!"

**What is given us to give is the memory of Who we are as God's one Son,
the Christ that God created one with Him. Once we choose that for
ourselves, we know God has only one Son, our Self. We then become the
symbol of salvation for the world. This acceptance of or true Identity
-- the acceptance of the Atonement for ourselves -- becomes an important
theme in the lessons that follow.**

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 95 "I am one Self, united with my Creator."

#93095

Lesson 95 "I am one Self, united with my Creator."

1. "Today's idea accurately describes you as God created you. You are one
within yourself, and one with Him. Yours is the unity of all creation. Your
perfect unity makes change in you impossible. You do not accept this, and you
fail to realize it must be so, only because you believe that you have changed
yourself already."

2. "You see yourself as a ridiculous parody on God's creation; weak, vicious,
ugly and sinful, miserable and beset with pain. Such is your version of
yourself; a self divided into many warring parts, separate from God, and
tenuously held together by its erratic and capricious maker, to which you pray.
It does not hear your prayers, for it is deaf. It does not see the oneness in
you, for it is blind. It does not understand you are the Son of God, for it is
senseless and understands nothing."

3. "We will attempt today to be aware only of what can hear and see, and what
makes perfect sense. We will again direct our exercises towards reaching your
one Self, which is united with Its Creator. In patience and in hope we try again
today."

4. "The use of the first five minutes of every waking hour for practicing the
idea for the day has special advantages at the stage of learning in which you
are at present. It is difficult at this point not to allow your mind to wander,
if it undertakes extended practice. You have surely realized this by now. You
have seen the extent of your lack of mental discipline, and of your need for
mind training. It is necessary that you be aware of this, for it is indeed a
hindrance to your advance."

5. "Frequent but shorter practice periods have other advantages for you at this
time. In addition to recognizing your difficulties with sustained attention, you
must also have noticed that, unless you are reminded of your purpose frequently,
you tend to forget about it for long periods of time. You often fail to remember
the short applications of the idea for the day, and you have not yet formed the
habit of using the idea as an automatic response to temptation."

6. "Structure, then, is necessary for you at this time, planned to include
frequent reminders of your goal and regular attempts to reach it. Regularity in
terms of time is not the ideal requirement for the most beneficial form of
practice in salvation. It is advantageous, however, for those whose motivation
is inconsistent, and who remain heavily defended against learning."

7. "We will, therefore, keep to the five-minutes-an-hour practice periods for a
while, and urge you to omit as few as possible. Using the first five minutes of
the hour will be particularly helpful, since it imposes firmer structure. Do
not, however, use your lapses from this schedule as an excuse not to return to
it again as soon as you can. There may well be a temptation to regard the day as
lost because you have already failed to do what is required. This should,
however, merely be recognized as what it is; a refusal to let your mistake be
corrected, and an unwillingness to try again."

8. "The Holy Spirit is not delayed in His teaching by your mistakes. He can be
held back only by your unwillingness to let them go. Let us therefore be
determined, particularly for the next week or so, to be willing to forgive
ourselves for our lapses in diligence, and our failures to follow the
instructions for practicing the day's idea. This tolerance for weakness will
enable us to overlook it, rather than give it power to delay our learning. If we
give it power to do this, we are regarding it as strength, and are confusing
strength with weakness."

9. "When you fail to comply with the requirements of this course, you have
merely made a mistake. This calls for correction, and for nothing else. To allow
a mistake to continue is to make additional mistakes, based on the first and
reinforcing it. It is this process that must be laid aside, for it is but
another way in which you would defend illusions against the truth."

10. "Let all these errors go by recognizing them for what they are. They are
attempts to keep you unaware you are one Self, united with your Creator, at one
with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace. This is the
truth, and nothing else is true. Today we will affirm this truth again, and try
to reach the place in you in which there is no doubt that only this is true."

11. "Begin the practice periods today with this assurance, offered to your mind
with all the certainty that you can give:"

<"I am one Self, united with my Creator,
at one with every aspect of creation,
and limitless in power and in peace.">

"Then close your eyes and tell yourself again, slowly and thoughtfully,
attempting to allow the meaning of the words to sink into your mind, replacing
false ideas:"

<"I am one Self.">

"Repeat this several times, and then attempt to feel the meaning that the
words convey."

12. "You are one Self, united and secure in light and joy and peace. You are
God's Son, one Self, with one Creator and one goal; to bring awareness of this
oneness to all minds, that true creation may extend the allness and the unity of
God. You are one Self, complete and healed and whole, with power to lift the
veil of darkness from the world, and let the light in you come through to teach
the world the truth about yourself."

13. "You are one Self, in perfect harmony with all there is, and all that there
will be. You are one Self, the holy Son of God, united with your brothers in
that Self; united with your Father in His Will. Feel this one Self in you, and
let It shine away all your illusions and your doubts. This is your Self, the Son
of God Himself, sinless as Its Creator, with His strength within you and His
Love forever yours. You are one Self, and it is given you to feel this Self
within you, and to cast all your illusions out of the one Mind that is this
Self, the holy truth in you."

14. You are one Self, the holy Son of God, united with your brothers in that
Self; united with your Father in His Will. Feel this one Self in you, and let It
shine away all your illusions and your doubts. This is your Self, the Son of God
Himself, sinless as Its Creator, with His strength within you and His Love
forever yours. You are one Self, and it is given you to feel this Self within
you, and to cast all your illusions out of the one Mind that is this Self, the
holy truth in you.

15. "Your own acknowledgment you are one Self, united with your Father, is a
call to all the world to be at one with you. To everyone you meet today, be sure
to give the promise of today's idea and tell him this:"

<"You are one Self with me, united with our Creator in this Self."
I honor you because of What I am, and What He is,
Who loves us both as one.">

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 95. I am one Self, united with my Creator.

**This is a unique lesson, being the only one where, midway through, Jesus drops
his discussion of the thought for the day and addresses us specifically about
what to do when we do not do what is asked: i.e., forget to do the day's
exercises. It is a remarkable discussion, and we will spend considerable time on
it. The first three paragraphs deal with the lesson's theme, a continuation of
the discussion of our true Self. As I mentioned earlier, this series of twenty
lessons -- 91 through 110 -- contrasts our true Self as Christ with the
separated self of the ego. We are reminded again, in this lesson, of the essence
of our true Identity: <oneness>. The Son of God is not divided into
multitudinous fragments, but is one, and His Oneness is at one with His
Source.**

(7:1-2)"We will, therefore, keep to the five-minutes-an-hour practice periods
for a while, and urge you to omit as few as possible. Using the first five
minutes of the hour will be particularly helpful, since it imposes firmer
structure."

**We can again observe Jesus telling us that despite being aware of our lack of
discipline, he is proceeding with "firmer structure," since that is our need if
we are to be disciplined. ... We now come to the heart of the discussion:**

(7:3-5) "Do not, however, use your lapses from this schedule as an excuse not to
return to it again as soon as you can. There may well be a temptation to regard
the day as lost because you have already failed to do what is required. This
should, however, merely be recognized as what it is; a refusal to let your
mistake be corrected, and an unwillingness to try again."

**Jesus does not use the word <guilt> here, but that is his subject. Guilt
prevents the Holy Spirit from correcting our mistakes, by screaming: "I have
committed sins that are beyond correction and forgiveness, I am thus a terrible
person and a failure as a student of A Course in Miracles." The text's
discussion on sin versus error is relevant here, for it points to guilt's
critical role in the ego's defensive thought system of protecting its separate
existence:

"It is essential that error be not confused with sin, and it is this distinction
that makes salvation possible. ... Sin calls for punishment as error for
correction, and the belief that punishment is correction is clearly insane."

"Sin is not an error, for sin entails an arrogance which the idea of error
lacks. To sin would be to violate reality, and to succeed. Sin is the
proclamation that attack is real and guilt is justified. It assumes the Son of
God is guilty, and has thus succeeded in losing his innocence and making himself
what God created not. ... the ego brings sin to fear, demanding punishment. Yet
punishment is but another form of guilt's protection, for what is deserving
punishment must have been really done. Punishment is always the great preserver
of sin, treating it with respect and honoring its enormity. What must be
punished, must be true." (T.19.T.19.II.1.1,6;2.1-4.T.19.III.2.2-5).

Thus do we see that our individuality is preserved once it is called <sin>,
protected by the experience of <guilt>, which demands the punishment that we
<fear>. Moreover, the instant we feel guilt it will be driven underground, or
repressed in our minds, because the feeling is intolerable. Projection is
inevitable, and our experience of sin and guilt metamorphoses into: It is
someone else's fault. The mind's guilt is now safely buried, with no hope of it
ever being undone, for the belief in another's sin covers the cherished belief
it is ours.**

(8:1) "The Holy Spirit is not delayed in His teaching by your mistakes."

**In other words, it does not matter how often you forget Who you are; the
timeless truth of your Self is unaffected. Needless to say, this goes beyond the
daily workbook lesson. Whenever you are tempted to see yourself unfairly treated
or not given the love and attention you specialness demands, go as quickly as
possible within to say to Jesus: "I must be wrong, please help me." His role in
helping us forgive ourselves, learning not to take the tiny, mad idea seriously,
constitutes the essence of our relationship with him. Again, Jesus is not
delayed by our mistakes, but the experience of our happiness most definitely
is.**

(8:2) "He can be held back only by your unwillingness to let them go."

**That is guilt's purpose: to express our unwillingness to let mistakes go by
labeling them as sins that demand punishment. Fear of this punishment is so
overwhelming we have to project the sin and believe we are not the guilty,
sinful ones. That makes us paranoid, because we now look around with our beady,
little eyes, seeking sin others and terrified they will attack us. Yet all we
see are our own attack thoughts projected outward. The problem, however, does
not lie in this, but in feeling guilty about it.

Jesus, therefore, urges us to come to him as soon as we remember what we have
done or failed to remember. Again, even though <guilt> does not appear here, it
underlies everything that is being said. It is the unwillingness to let sin go,
for it is the irrevocable truth that deserves punishment.**

(8:3-4) "Let us therefore be determined, particularly for the next week or so,
to be willing to forgive ourselves for our lapses in diligence, and our failures
to follow the instructions for practicing the day's idea. This tolerance for
weakness will enable us to overlook it, rather than give it power to delay our
learning."

**If we find our weakness intolerable, we are giving it -- now called sin
--tremendous power, not only to delay our learning, but to destroy it and make
forgiveness impossible. To repeat, the problem is never our failure to remember,
nor our specialness or anger. It is our holding on to the perceived failure
through guilt.

Remember, the ego always wants to prove that our individuality is true, which is
accomplished by the belief in sin, which in turn is established by guilt. The
ego, thus, wastes no time in trying to prove, over and over, how guilty we are.
When you make a mistake, therefore, realize it came from fear, not from some
inherent evil, wickedness, or sinfulness in you. Then say to Jesus: "I was
afraid of your love, for I was afraid of losing my individuality and
specialness. Thus I had to protect myself by pushing you away, and that is why I
forgot." If you have such a conversation with Jesus there will be no guilt, and
without guilt there will be no problem. Feeling guilty, however, ensures the
forgetting will recur. That is why Jesus underscores the meaning of our daily
practice of the workbook exercises.

To make this point one more time: the way we overlook something is not by <not>
seeing it, but by actually looking at it. When we do, with Jesus' love beside
us, we look through it. Thus, as we have seen, overlooking really means looking
beyond.**

(8:5) "If we give it power to do this, we are regarding it as strength, and are
confusing strength with weakness."

**If we allow ourselves to feel guilty over the "weakness" of forgetting the
lesson, we reflect the underlying thought that the ego has destroyed God, rather
than seeing the ego's inherent weakness because it can do nothing. To quote the
text:

"It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means
there is no time." (T.27.VIII.6.5)

This means there is no ego as well. The Atonement principle alone is strength.**

(9:1-2) "When you fail to comply with the requirements of this course, you have
merely made a mistake. This calls for correction, and for nothing else."

**In other words, "failure" is not a sin, for Jesus gives us permission to "fail
to comply with the requirements." He is not expecting us to be model students in
terms of form. As I have stated, the best way to do the workbook and learn from
it is to do it imperfectly, <and then forgive yourself.> Thus you learn to
forgive yourself for forgetting God in the beginning. Learning to forgive your
mistake is what turns you into a true model student.**

(9:3-4) "To allow a mistake to continue is to make additional mistakes, based on
the first and reinforcing it. It is this process that must be laid aside, for it
is but another way in which you would defend illusions against the truth."

**This is telling us again that the way we stop making mistakes is by not
feeling guilty. We avoid guilt by inviting Jesus in so he can look with us at
our mistakes. He will then explain how we made them out of fear, not sin; and
without sin, the guilt disappears. If, however, guilt remains, it is certain we
will repeat the error. With guilt in our minds, repression must occur, leading
to projection in the form of the mistake of attack and sickness. Thus, when the
belief is undone, healing is accomplished for projection is impossible.

Jesus now bridges the gap between his discussion of the individual workbook
lesson and the real lesson:**

10:1-2) "Let all these errors go by recognizing them for what they are. They are
attempts to keep you unaware you are one Self, united with your Creator, at one
with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace."

**My awareness that I am one Self undoes my belief that I am separated. My
errors -- such as forgetting to do the workbook lesson every hour, or forgetting
to ask Jesus for help when I am upset -- is nothing more than the defense
against losing my individual self, which I certainly do if I remembered the
day's lesson.

Jesus continues by returning to the theme of the lesson, after having discussed
how we will defend against it. "I am one Self, united with my Creator" means
that everything I ever thought about myself is wrong, without exception.
Forgetting the lesson, therefore, is my ego's way of protecting itself from
remembering the truth, which would lead me to forget the illusion I am a special
self, separate from all others, and certainly separate from my Creator and
Source:**

(10:3-4) "This is the truth, and nothing else is true. Today we will affirm this
truth again, and try to reach the place in you in which there is no doubt that
only this is true."

**We are returned to our task -- remembering the truth -- by bringing to it the
illusions of our self. Thus our minds are cleansed of the ego's silliness, and
we have reached the inner place of truth.

In the remaining five paragraphs of the lesson Jesus affirms this truth -- we
are one Self, at one with God and everyone else -- and does so over and over and
over again:**

(13)"You are one Self, in perfect harmony with all there is, and all that there
will be. You are one Self, the holy Son of God, united with your brothers in
that Self; united with your Father in His Will. Feel this one Self in you, and
let It shine away all your illusions and your doubts. This is your Self, the Son
of God Himself, sinless as Its Creator, with His strength within you and His
Love forever yours. You are one Self, and it is given you to feel this Self
within you, and to cast all your illusions out of the one Mind that is this
Self, the holy truth in you."

**Our only function within the dream of separation is to undo the illusions of
separate interests that hide the memory of our true Self. Jesus thus sets the
stage for later lessons that will focus more specifically on forgiveness: the
means taught by A Course in Miracles to remember our Identity and the Creator's
Love.**

(15)"Your own acknowledgment you are one Self, united with your Father, is a
call to all the world to be at one with you. To everyone you meet today, be sure
to give the promise of today's idea and tell him this:

You are one Self with me,
united with our Creator in this Self.
I honor you because of What I am,
and What He is, Who loves us both as one."

**It must be so, since, "everyone you meet" is your self. Thus as the text has
reminded us:

"When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will
see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you
will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or
lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are given another chance at
salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it
yourself. For I am always there with you, in remembrance of you."
(T.8.III.4.1-7)

Thus we end this important lesson by remembering to see each situation as
another opportunity to correct the ego's misperceptions of separation and
specialness. We pledge ourselves, as we begin the day, to bring Jesus with us so
we can remember we are one in the ego and one in spirit. Thus this day, and all
that follow, will be joyously filled with the promise of forgiveness as we
return home together to the Oneness we never truly left, and which never left
us.**

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 94. I am as God created me.

#93094

Lesson 94. I am as God created me.

(1) Today we continue with the one idea which brings complete salvation; the one
statement which makes all forms of temptation powerless; the one thought which
renders the ego silent and entirely undone. You are as God created you. The
sounds of this world are still, the sights of this world disappear, and all the
thoughts that this world ever held are wiped away forever by this one idea. Here
is salvation accomplished. Here is sanity restored.

(2) True light is strength, and strength is sinlessness. If you remain as God
created you, you must be strong and light must be in you. He Who ensured your
sinlessness must be the guarantee of strength and light as well. You are as God
created you. Darkness cannot obscure the glory of God's Son. You stand in light,
strong in the sinlessness in which you were created, and in which you will
remain throughout eternity.

(3) Today we will again devote the first five minutes of each waking hour to the
attempt to feel the truth in you. Begin these times of searching with these
words:

I am as God created me.
I am His Son eternally.

Now try to reach the Son of God in you. This is the Self that never sinned, nor
made an image to replace reality. This is the Self that never left Its home in
God to walk the world uncertainly. This is the Self that knows no fear, nor
could conceive of loss or suffering or death.

(4) Nothing is required of you to reach this goal except to lay all idols and
self-images aside; go past the list of attributes, both good and bad, you have
ascribed to yourself; and wait in silent expectancy for the truth. God has
Himself promised that it will be revealed to all who ask for it. You are asking
now. You cannot fail because He cannot fail.

(5) If you do not meet the requirement of practicing for the first five minutes
of every hour, at least remind yourself hourly:

I am as God created me.
I am His Son eternally.

Tell yourself frequently today that you are as God created you. And be sure to
respond to anyone who seems to irritate you with these words:

You are as God created you.
You are His Son eternally.

Make every effort to do the hourly exercises today. Each one you do will be a
giant stride toward your release, and a milestone in learning the thought system
which this course sets forth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 94. I am as God created me.

*This is the only lesson repeated in the workbook. It appears again in Lesson
110, and still again in Lesson 162. It is also the central theme of Review VI
and an important part of the last section in the text (T-31.VIII.) This crucial
theme is the basis of the Atonement principle that corrects the ego thought
system, which says: I am <not> as God created me, but a separated mind that now
makes its home in the body.*

(2) "True light is strength, and strength is sinlessness. If you remain as God
created you, you must be strong and light must be in you. He Who ensured your
sinlessness must be the guarantee of strength and light as well. You are as God
created you. Darkness cannot obscure the glory of God's Son. You stand in light,
strong in the sinlessness in which you were created, and in which you will
remain throughout eternity."

*Jesus elaborates on the meaning of the day's idea. "I am as God created me"
means that nothing the ego's thought system of darkness ever conceived has
effected the light of Heaven. Since we, as Christ, are part of that light --
referred to in the text as the Great Rays (see, e.g., T-18.III.8:7) -- we have
been unaffected as well. Sinlessness is our strength, for it reflects the
Atonements truth: the separation from light never happened. The darkness of
guilt can cover this light in our nightmares, but in reality there remains only
light.*

(3) "Today we will again devote the first five minutes of each waking hour to
the attempt to feel the truth in you. Begin these times of searching with these
words:

I am as God created me.
I am His Son eternally.

Now try to reach the Son of God in you. This is the Self that never sinned, nor
made an image to replace reality. This is the Self that never left Its home in
God to walk the world uncertainly. This is the Self that knows no fear, nor
could conceive of loss or suffering or death."

*We are now asked to think of the day's thought every hour. We begin with a
clear statement of the truth of our Identity, a truth that invalidates the ego's
illusions of sin, and fear, alienation and suffering. that have no home in our
Self. Recall the text's reference to the first commandment:

"Thou shalt have no other gods before Him because there are none." (T.4.III.6.6)

In the next paragraph Jesus describes how we reach the true Son of God, moving
beyond our illusory self, rooted in the belief that separation is sin, to the
glorious truth of Christ:*

(4:1) "Nothing is required of you to reach this goal except to lay all idols and
self-images aside; go past the list of attributes, both good and bad, you have
ascribed to yourself; and wait in silent expectancy for the truth."

*This succinctly describes the process of forgiveness: in order to remember God
we have to let go of the ego. Our task, therefore, is not to affirm the truth we
are as God created us, but to deny the ego's denial. We have already seen this
summarizing statement:

"The task of the miracle worker thus becomes to deny the denial of truth."
(T.12.II.1.5)

In order to reach this goal of remembering our Self, we "have to lay all idols
and self images aside." The key obstacle is the belief we <are> our self image,
the core of which is our specialness. We seek to protect this image by denying
responsibility and making a world in which the sin of existence is seen in
everyone except ourselves. Thus our self-image is not only that of a special
individual, but a special, <innocent> individual. This means someone else is
guilty.

The ego's defensive system makes forgiveness virtually impossible. In order for
us to reach God and remember Who we are as Christ, we have to let go of <all>
images. As Jesus reminds us, these images include not only the bad, but the
good. We have already seen that if we talk about a positive self-image, we imply
there is negative one, too. This results in a dualistic world of opposites, a
state impossible in Heaven. In the end, therefore, we to transcend even the
wrong-mind right-mind duality. However, we first must bring our illusions of
hate to the correction of forgiveness, the darkness of separation to the light
of Atonement. Only then can we complete the journey and find our One-minded
Self.*

(5:1-4) "If you do not meet the requirement of practicing for the first five
minutes of every hour, at least remind yourself hourly:
I am as God created me.
I am His Son eternally.
Tell yourself frequently today that you are as God created you."

*The test of our resolve to remember our Self is the commitment to remembering
the day's lesson. As we shall see in Lesson 95, the true value of the workbook
lies in showing us how much we do not wish to remember the exercises, which,
again, reflects our not wishing to remember we are as God created us.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 93. Light and joy and peace abide in me.

#93093

Lesson 93. Light and joy and peace abide in me.

(1) You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin. You think if anyone
could see the truth about you he would be repelled, recoiling from you as if
from a poisonous snake. You think if what is true about you were revealed to
you, you would be struck with horror so intense that you would rush to death by
your own hand, living on after seeing this being impossible.

(2) These are beliefs so firmly fixed that it is difficult to help you see that
they are based on nothing. That you have made mistakes is obvious. That you have
sought salvation in strange ways; have been deceived, deceiving and afraid of
foolish fantasies and savage dreams; and have bowed down to idols made of
dust,--all this is true by what you now believe.

(3) Today we question this, not from the point of view of what you think, but
from a very different reference point, from which such idle thoughts are
meaningless. These thoughts are not according to God's Will. These weird beliefs
He does not share with you. This is enough to prove that they are wrong, but you
do not perceive that this is so.

(4) Why would you not be overjoyed to be assured that all the evil that you
think you did was never done, that all your sins are nothing, that you are as
pure and holy as you were created, and that light and joy and peace abide in
you? Your image of yourself cannot withstand the Will of God. You think that
this is death, but it is life. You think you are destroyed, but you are saved.

(5) The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore, this self does not exist
at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad
nor good. It is unreal, and nothing more than that. It does not battle with the
Son of God. It does not hurt him, nor attack his peace. It has not changed
creation, nor reduced eternal sinlessness to sin, and love to hate. What power
can this self you made possess, when it would contradict the Will of God?

(6) Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Over and over this must be repeated,
until it is accepted. It is true. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Nothing
can touch it, or change what God created as eternal. The self you made, evil and
full of sin, is meaningless. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light
and joy and peace abide in you.

(7) Salvation requires the acceptance of but one thought;--you are as God
created you, not what you made of yourself. Whatever evil you may think you did,
you are as God created you. Whatever mistakes you made, the truth about you is
unchanged. Creation is eternal and unalterable. Your sinlessness is guaranteed
by God. You are and will forever be exactly as you were created. Light and joy
and peace abide in you because God put them there.

(8) In our longer exercise periods today, which would be most profitable if done
for the first five minutes of every waking hour, begin by stating the truth
about your creation:

Light and joy and peace abide in me.
My sinlessness is guaranteed by God.

Then put away your foolish self-images, and spend the rest of the practice
period in trying to experience what God has given you, in place of what you have
decreed for yourself.

(9) You are what God created or what you made. One Self is true; the other is
not there. Try to experience the unity of your one Self. Try to appreciate Its
Holiness and the love from which It was created. Try not to interfere with the
Self which God created as you, by hiding Its majesty behind the tiny idols of
evil and sinfulness you have made to replace It. Let It come into Its Own. Here
you are; This is You. And light and joy and peace abide in you because this is
so.

(10) You may not be willing or even able to use the first five minutes of each
hour for these exercises. Try, however, to do so when you can. At least remember
to repeat these thoughts each hour:

Light and joy and peace abide in me.
My sinlessness is guaranteed by God.

Then try to devote at least a minute or so to closing your eyes and realizing
that this is a statement of the truth about you.

(11) If a situation arises that seems to be disturbing, quickly dispel the
illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts again. Should you be tempted to
become angry with someone, tell him silently:

Light and joy and peace abide in you.
Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.

You can do much for the world's salvation today. You can do much today to bring
you closer to the part in salvation that God has assigned to you. And you can do
much today to bring the conviction to your mind that the idea for the day is
true indeed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson is an exerpt 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 93. "Light and joy and peace abide in me."

*This lesson is among the more important ones in the workbook, for it provides
clear descriptions of both selves. The lesson ends with "Light and joy and peace
abide in me," our true Self, but before we can reach that glorious truth, we
first have to work through the ego's opposition.*

(1:1) "You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin."

*This is another expression of the ego's unholy trinity of sin, guilt, and fear.
Why is this my home? Because I murdered God to get here. In order for me to
exist as an individual, God had to be destroyed and the world of good, light,
and innocence along with Him.*

(1:2) "You think if anyone could see the truth about you he would be repelled,
recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake."

*A wonderful and graphic description of guilt! Yet because I do not want to
experience my serpentine sin, I project it and see it in you instead. Now <you>
are the poisonous snake and I am "safely" off the hook.*

(1:3) "You think if what is true about you were revealed to you, you would be
struck with horror so intense that you would rush to death by your own hand,
living on after seeing this being impossible."

*In other words, if our defenses were shattered and we realized the perceived
truth about ourselves, we would "be struck with horror so intense" suicide would
be an irresistible temptation and hell the inevitable consequence. Our horror,
therefore, in looking at our sin impels us to project, making a world of
specific bodies that will be punished instead of us. The guilt over that
projection is even more enormous, because we know we attack others falsely: our
egos want God to confine others to hell so we can go to Heaven. Yet it whispers
that we are the true guilty ones, and God will pursue us beyond the grave to
everlasting hell.

This is the vicious guilt-attack cycle I discussed in the Prelude and elsewhere.
The guiltier I feel, the greater my need to project and attack others so they
would be punished instead of me. However, my guilt is reinforced by these false
accusations, and I go around and around and around the ego's circle:
guilt-attack-guilt-attack-guilt-attack.*

(2:1) "These are beliefs so firmly fixed that it is difficult to help you see
that they are based on nothing."

*This sentence is important in counteracting Course "blissninnies." Our teacher
is telling us it is difficult to help us realize that everything we believe
about ourselves is "based on nothing." Once again, this is a process, conducted
by Jesus in a gentle, patient way. Our fear -- first of confronting the ego's
truth of sin and guilt, and then the deeper fear of the real truth -- is what
makes approaching the Love of God so difficult.*

(2:2-3) "That you have made mistakes is obvious. That you have sought salvation
in strange ways; have been deceived, deceiving and afraid of foolish fantasies
and savage dreams; and have bowed down to idols made of dust, -- all this is
true by what you now believe."

*Jesus speaks to us once again about our need for honesty, and his good news:
"You no longer have to pretend that light and joy and peace abide in you. I know
that deep down you know, so you will now know that I know that you know that you
nonetheless think you are the home of evil, darkness, and sin. Let us begin with
your 'facts,' and then move beyond them to the truth." In other words, there is
no need to pretend we are not creatures of specialness, dedicated to preserving
our special selves by feeding off other special selves. Without the need to
pretend to pretend there be no guilt, for we shall have brought our specialness
to Jesus' love, thereby letting it go.

Thus he continues:*

(3:1) "Today we question this, not from the point of view of what you think, but
from a very different reference point, from which such idle thoughts are
meaningless."

*In effect, Jesus tells us: "Do not drag me down to where you are, but come to
where I am. From your reference point -- the battleground -- you will understand
nothing. In order to join me, you must have the humility that says: "Thank God I
am wrong, and with this recognition I choose you as my teacher because I know
you are wiser than I."

If we are truly honest, we will see the difficulty in saying and meaning these
words. As Jesus says later, in the context of wanting peace: "To say these words
is nothing. But to mean these words is everything" (W-pi.185.1:1-2). To be wrong
about everything means we are looking from our reference point outside our
thought system. At the end of chapter 23 in the text, Jesus call this reference
point "above the battleground," the place to which we go with him to look
differently at our special relationships, and in which we choose forgiveness
instead of attack, miracles instead of murder:

"The overlooking of the battleground is now your purpose."
"Be lifted up, and from a higher place look down upon it. From there will your
perspective be quite different. ...Here murder is your choice. Yet from above,
the choice is miracles instead of murder. And the perspective coming from this
choice shows you the battle is not real, and easily escaped. ... When the
temptation to attack rises to make your mind darkened and murderous, remember
you can see the battle from above. ... See no one from the battleground, for
there you look on him from nowhere. You have no reference point from where to
look, where meaning can be given what you see."
(T-23.IV.4:7-5:2,5-7;6:1;7:1-2).*

(3:2-4) "These thoughts are not according to God's Will. These weird beliefs He
does not share with you. This is enough to prove that they are wrong, but you do
not perceive that this is so."

*Jesus is letting you know, again, that he knows you still think you are right
and he is wrong. This is an extraordinarily important idea, because studying,
learning, and practicing A Course in Miracles -- not to mention living it --
rest on the assumption you have accepted that you understand nothing, beginning
with the words of this course. Remember, you think you understand because your
brain interprets its words for you, based on your past experience and learning.
Yet if your brain does not think, everything you think A Course in Miracles says
must be wrong. The words do not mean what you think they mean, because their
meaning comes your interpretation. You understand them through the filtering
lens of duality, not through the unclouded lens of non-dualistic truth. Thus you
will misinterpret everything you read here. As Jesus succinctly states regarding
the ego's perennial calls to war, a sentence we have quoted often before; "And
God thinks otherwise." (T-23.1.2:7).*

(4:1) "Why would you not be overjoyed to be assured that all the evil that you
think you did was never done, that all your sins are nothing, that you are as
pure and holy as you were created, and that light and joy and peace abide in
you?"

*The answer is obvious, because to accept this means we are not who we think we
are, and thus our specialness would be gone. The truth is that we should be
overjoyed to know our evil, darkness, and sin are not true. Yet this would mean
the ego self preceding these beliefs is not true either. We must see our ego's
fear of A Course in Miracles and its teachings, for only then can we move beyond
this resistance to learning and accepting its happy truths.*

(4:2-4) "Your image of yourself cannot withstand the Will of God. You think that
this is death, but it is life. You think you are destroyed, but you are saved."

*The <you> that thinks it is destroyed is the decision maker that has identified
with the ego. The <you> that thinks that truth, the Will of God, and this course
are death, is the <you> that has identified with its special existence. Jesus is
saying that, yes, your individuality will ultimately disappear into its
nothingness; but the glorious truth about you will be returned to your
awareness. We are thus saved from the terrible image we made of ourselves. As we
have repeatedly seen, the process of salvation is just that: <a process>. Once
again:

"Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality."
(T-16.VI.8:1).*

(5:1) "The self you made is not the Son of God."

*As you read these lines, think about what you think you are, using whatever
words or concepts come to you. Then realize that none of them is the Son of God,
for they define the son of the ego. As Jesus observes in the text:

"The son of man [ the ego ] is not the risen Christ." (T.25.IN.2.6).*

(5:2) "Therefore, this self does not exist at all."

*Many have gone through the workbook and most likely read these lines very
quickly, paying no attention. If they had, they probably would have closed the
book, seeing it was not what they thought it was and certainly not what they
wanted. "The self you made is not the Son of God"! When they look in the mirror,
whom do they see but the self they made? Not only is that not the Son of God;
that self does not exist. What self-respecting ego would not be afraid? Once
again, that is why to study A Course in Miracles you need to be serious and
committed. This does not mean you commit to letting go of your ego, but simply
to look at what the ego is. Jesus only asks that you look. Do not seek to
change, correct, or let it go. Just look, a process that will gradually end your
ego identification, for the self that looks is not the self that is looked at.
Thus is your identity returned to the decision-making part of your mind and away
from the ego.*

(5:3) "And anything it seems to do and think means nothing."

*This statement merely invalidates our lives, let alone the civilization of
which we think we are the glorious product.*

(5:4) "It is neither bad nor good."

*It would be great if the self <were> good and bad. Religions, for one, always
tell us that. The problem is that the self is nothing, to which the "good" and
"bad" have no meaning.*

(5:5-9) "It is unreal, and nothing more than that. It does not battle with the
Son of God. It does not hurt him, nor attack his peace. It has not changed
creation, nor reduced eternal sinlessness to sin, and love to hate. What power
can this self you made possess, when it would contradict the Will of God?"

*This is a lovely statement of the Atonement principle. The separation never
happened and thus had no effect. Thus we see the ego's purpose lurking behind
our individual and collective lives, which fulfill the ego's goal of proving it
exists and God does not. Our only hope is to raise ourselves above the
battleground and shift our reference point, that we finally see beyond the ego
to the Holy Spirit's teaching purpose for the world: our learning to forgive.*

(6:1-2) "Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Over and over this must be
repeated, until it is accepted."

*Once again Jesus tells us we are not going to accept this truth. However, he
does not mean we should repeat this phrase as an affirmation to shout down the
ego's thought system. We are simply asked to bring our illusory thought system
to the truth, <and> look at it.*

(6:3-5) "It is true. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Nothing can touch
it, or change what God created as eternal."

*Jesus knows his audience, and so he needs to assure us: "It is true." We are
indeed sinless, the separation never happened and the Holy Spirit has spoken the
truth from the beginning. We merely made a mistake, which is now corrected.*

(6:6-7) "The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless. Your
sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you."

*The way that we reach the light is through looking at the self we made, which
we believe is the home of evil, darkness, and sin. Our deeply rooted belief in
this self prevents the experience of our sinless. To make this essential point
once again, the ego self will not just disappear by our repeating lovely
phrases. Its undoing requires hard work and commitment, for the resistance to
looking at this evil self is enormous. That is why Jesus makes important
statements like the following, as we have already seen:

"You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and realize
its full extent. You may also think that it would be easy enough for the Holy
Spirit to show it to you, and to dispel it without the need for you to raise it
to awareness yourself." (T-13.III.1:1-2).*

(7) "Salvation requires the acceptance of but one thought;--you are as God
created you, not what you made of yourself. Whatever evil you may think you did,
you are as God created you. Whatever mistakes you made, the truth about you is
unchanged. Creation is eternal and unalterable. Your sinlessness is guaranteed
by God. You are and will forever be exactly as you were created. Light and joy
and peace abide in you because God put them there."

*This anticipates the next lesson, and along with its variants, is the most
widely quoted statement in the workbook> "You are as God created you." Remember,
the Atonement principle always hold. No matter what we think we did, the
separation had no effect: God's creation is unaffected by our mad and feverish
dreams, evil has no power over Good, and we remain as God created us -- the home
of light and joy and peace.*

(8:1-3) "In our longer exercise periods today, which would be most profitable if
done for the first five minutes of every waking hour, begin by stating the truth
about your creation:
Light and joy and peace abide in me.
My sinlessness is guaranteed by God."

*The hard work begins, Jesus asks us to remember the lesson every hour for five
minutes, and to do the following:*

(8:4) "Then put away your foolish self-images, and spend the rest of the
practice period in trying to experience what God has given you, in place of what
you have decreed for yourself."

*How can you "put away your foolish self-images" if you do not know you have
them? It is to make you aware of your ego that Jesus teaches as he does. If you
are to move beyond these images -- the home of evil, darkness, and sin -- you
must recognize they come from your belief, otherwise there would be no
motivation to set them aside in order to know that light and joy and peace abide
in you. The way to know the truth about yourself is to be honest about the
illusions of self in which in which you first believed. At that point you can
bring their darkness to the light of truth, of which this lesson so happily
reminds you.*

(9:1-2) "You are what God created or what you made. One Self is true; the other
is not there."

*Again, we are not asked to trade the little self we made for the glorious Self
that God created. This would be too threatening. We are simply asked to
understand that in the light of our Self's truth, the self we made makes no
sense. Jesus wants us to begin the process of questioning the validity of
everything we believe we are. Thus, the kindly reflection of the <one or the
other> principle -- God or the ego -- is the choice between separating attacks
of the ego and the healing forgiveness of the Holy Spirit. With either choice
our self remains; until the end, when even the right-minded self gently
disappears into the Heart of God. That is the culmination of the process. We are
asked only to begin it.*

(9:3-8) "Try to experience the unity of your one Self. Try to appreciate Its
Holiness and the love from which It was created. Try not to interfere with the
Self which God created as you, by hiding Its majesty behind the tiny idols of
evil and sinfulness you have made to replace It. Let It come into Its Own. Here
you are; This is You. And light and joy and peace abide in you because this is
so."

*Jesus is pointing out our concealment, and asks us to look at how we have used
the ego and its false images to hide the truth. The "tiny idols of evil and
sinfulness" symbolize our self-concepts and the special images we made of our
relationships. We give them up to the extent we recognize we no longer wish the
purpose of guilt that they served. Forgiveness alone will bring us the happiness
we seek and open the gates to Heaven, which allows the memory of our Self to
return to our awareness. With the obstacles of the ego's tiny idols gone, the
Love of Christ flows unhindered and unabated through our minds, and we are
home.*

(10:1-2) "You may not be willing or even able to use the first five minutes of
each hour for these exercises. Try, however, to do so when you can."

*Jesus tells us: "I know you are not going to do this, for it is difficult. But
make the attempt." As we shall see presently, Jesus helps us understand that his
purpose for these exercises is not so much that we do them, but that we forgive
ourselves when we do not. He expects us to be frightened and forget. Yet he also
expects us to learn honesty, and see how resistant we are to understanding his
teachings.*

(10:3-6) "At least remember to repeat these thoughts each hour:
Light and joy and peace abide in me.
My sinlessness is guaranteed by God.

Then try to devote at least a minute or so to closing your eyes and realizing
that this is a statement of the truth about you."

*Jesus' instructions are always gentle. If we cannot manage five minutes an
hour, we should try at least to remember the ideas for the day. Even this small
effort will help break our identification with the ego's thought system of evil,
darkness, and sin.*

(11:1) "If a situation arises that seems to be disturbing, quickly dispel the
illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts again."

*It is important to note that the purpose of these exercises is to apply the
ideas every time we are upset. Honesty here means realizing we are upset almost
all of the time, whether it involves something we deem major or judge is
trivial. Early in the workbook Jesus explained that even "a slight twinge of
annoyance" is the same as "intense fury" (W-pI.21.2:5) He asks us to monitor our
minds so that we find ourselves disturbed, we can say: "This comes from an image
of myself, which I have used to protect my separate existence. Yet this has not
made me happy, and so I no longer want it." *

(11:2-4) "Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently:
Light and joy and peace abide in you.
Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.

*Similarly and more specifically, when we find ourselves ready to attack,
criticize, or find fault, we should try as best we can to remember that such
thoughts hide the light and joy and peace from us. Since we and our brothers are
the same, our accusations come back to hurt us. However, by giving others the
message of light, we remind ourselves that the same light is in us, too. Thus do
we all return home together.*

(11:5-7) "You can do much for the world's salvation today. You can do much today
to bring you closer to the part in salvation that God has assigned to you. And
you can do much today to bring the conviction to your mind that the idea for the
day is true indeed."

*The reason we can do much for the salvation of the world is that God's Son is
one. This theme will return shortly. If my Self is one, an indivisible part of
perfect Oneness, the whole Sonship is contained in me. Yet this is not the <me>
that is the home of evil, darkness, and sin. Therefore, what enables me to save
the world is to save my mind, accomplished by the diligent practice of the
lesson for the day. I accept that what Jesus teaches is true indeed, as I accept
my resistance to this truth. In that honesty my resistance will gently dissolve,
leaving only the light and joy and peace that abides in me, God's Son.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 92. Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.

#93092

Lesson 92. Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.

(1) The idea for today is an extension of the previous one. You do not think of
light in terms of strength, and darkness in terms of weakness. That is because
your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain.
Thus you believe that you can change what you see by putting little bits of
glass before your eyes. This is among the many magical beliefs that come from
the conviction you are a body, and the body's eyes can see.

(2) You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the
nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you
thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or
that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go.
Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain
can think.

(3) It is God's strength in you that is the light in which you see, as it is His
Mind with which you think. His strength denies your weakness. It is our weakness
that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the
likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in
need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless.
These are seen through eyes that cannot see and cannot bless.

(4) Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps its
steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites with light, of which
it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the light in which your Self appears. In
darkness you perceive a self that is not there. Strength is the truth about you;
weakness is an idol falsely worshipped and adored that strength may be
dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointed that there should be light.

(5) Strength comes from truth, and shines with light its Source has given it;
weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. It is sick and looks on sickness,
which is like itself. Truth is a savior and can only will for happiness and
peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless
supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all. And so it gives its
light that all may see and benefit as one. Its strength is shared, that it may
bring to all the miracle in which they will unite in purpose and forgiveness and
in love.

(6) Weakness, which looks in darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and
in love. It sees all others different from itself, and nothing in the world that
it would share. It judges and condemns, but does not love. In darkness it
remains to hide itself, and dreams that it is strong and conquering, a victor
over limitations that but grow in darkness to enormous size.

(7) It fears and it attacks and hates itself, and darkness covers everything it
sees, leaving its dreams as fearful as itself. No miracles are here, but only
hate. It separates itself from what it sees, while light and strength perceive
themselves as one. The light of strength is not the light you see. It does not
change and flicker and go out. It does not shift from night to day, and back to
darkness till the morning comes again.

(8) The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself
away, because it cannot give but to itself. No one can ask in vain to
share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle
before his eyes, and strength and light abiding in his heart.

(9) The strength in you will offer you the light, and guide your seeing so you
do not dwell on idle shadows that the body's eyes provide for self-deception.
Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet, your Self stands ready to
embrace you as Its Own. Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest
in, for the peace of God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet
Itself again, and be as One.

(10) Let us give twenty minutes twice today to join this meeting. Let yourself
be brought unto your Self. Its strength will be the light in which the gift of
sight is given you. Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will
practice seeing in the light, closing the body's eyes and asking truth to show
us how to find the meeting place of self and Self, where light and strength are
one.

(11) Morning and evening we will practice thus. After the morning meeting, we
will use the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again in
trust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that
we are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where
only miracles can be perceived.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson is 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 92. "Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one."

(1:1-2) "The idea for today is an extension of the previous one. You do not
think of light in terms of strength, and darkness in terms of weakness."

*That is because we think the darkness of our ego system is our strength. To the
extent we think of ourselves as special, our strength lies in the darkness of
separation. Indeed, our separate self is sustained by specialness, an intrinsic
part of the ego's darkened world. Thus we do not think of light as strength,
because light -- the Atonement principle -- marks the end of our separate
identity. Therefore, from our point of view as egos, light renders us weak, for
it undoes the thought system of darkness. Our confusion about what constitutes
strength and weakness is the same as the confusion between joy and pain, freedom
and imprisonment (T-7.X;T-8.II).*

(2) "You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the
nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you
thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or
that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go.
Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain
can think."

*There is no way anyone who reads A Course in Miracles and is identified with
the body can have any understanding of this paragraph. Jesus is saying the body
does not think and does not see, which is another way of saying the body does
not exist. The problem is that we read this as a body: seeing what we are
reading, even though what we are reading tells us we cannot see; thinking about
what we are reading, even though what we are reading tells us we cannot think.
There is a built-in paradox here, which would terrify most students to consider,
for its impact is devastating. Your eyes and brains are negated by the very
words you are reading and thinking about. Where does that leave you. This is a
question that harks back to a question in the previous lesson: "If you are not a
body, what are you?" If it is not your brain that can think, who then is
thinking? Taking it one step further, who then is even reading this course and
doing this lesson? If you think seriously about what Jesus is saying, you must
inevitably move beyond your brain and body. That is when the anxiety begins to
rise.

It is important as you work with A Course in Miracles to pay careful attention
to its words. Jesus' purpose is to break our strong identification with the
body. Unfortunately, most people studying this course do not realize their very
study is a paradox -- or, better, an oxymoron. They study with organs that do
not see or think. Again, if you pay attention to what this is saying about you,
anxiety is inevitable. However, the purpose is not to have you walk around in a
state of perpetual tension, but with a big question mark in your mind. As Jesus
states in the text:

"To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you
hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your
learning." (T-24.in.2:1-2).

If you realize that Jesus is not asking you to give up your bodily
identification, but merely to question it, there will be no anxiety. Anxiety
arises because you believe he is taking your special relationship with your body
away from you. Yet he asks only that you look at your faith in it as a source of
pleasure and happiness. The discomfort will disappear to the extent you can go
to Jesus and say: "I understand what you are saying, and it terrifies me." Such
honesty will help alleviate the anxiety, which means that if A Course in
Miracles makes you nervous, it is because you are not really looking with Jesus.
However, if you are reading this course and have no adverse reaction, it is most
likely because you are not paying attention to what it is saying. In other
words, before you go to Jesus for help, you first have to feel uncomfortable. We
find this idea expressed at the beginning of "The Happy Learner," in lines we
have already considered:

"You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are
miserable and not happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast, for
you believe that misery is happiness." (T-14.II.1:2-3).

We need the experience of misery and anxiety, for that is what motivates us to
go to Jesus for help. Once we do, he can teach us the contrast between the
happiness and peace he offers us, and our misery and anxiety. The anxiety will
come, I assure you, if you read this lesson carefully and think about it. Read
paragraph 2 again, and think about the <you> that you think you are who are
reading this.

The idea that we are bodies is not only insane, but arrogant. Our bodily
identification directly reflects the thought that our inherent weakness has
toppled the mighty strength of God. It is the same arrogance Jesus describes in
the text: the sunbeam thinking it is the sun, the ripple thinking it is the
ocean:

"This fragment of your mind is such a tiny part of it that, could you but
appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest
sunbeam to the sun, or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean. In
its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam has decided it is the sun; this almost
imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean." (T-18.VIII.3:3-4).

To the ego, therefore, the idea that we cannot see or think is preposterous, but
to our right minds, it contains this world's only truth, and the way out of
hell.*

(3) "It is God's strength in you that is the light in which you see, as it is
His Mind with which you think. His strength denies your weakness. It is your
weakness that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold
the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in
need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless.
These are seen through eyes that cannot see and cannot bless."

*True seeing, however, or vision, is the result of returning our "sight" to its
rightful place in the mind. By turning to the Holy Spirit for guidance, we shift
our identification from the sightless to what alone can see. The ego would have
us see through "eyes that cannot bless, " and thus we "see" the shadowy
fragments of the ego's weakness: a world in which "everyone ... wanders ...
uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear" (T-31.VIII.7:1). Yet we "see" in
darkness, for we have first looked within and seen the ego's weakness, itself
cowering in fear in the darkness of its separated mind. This is the darkness we
projected and believe we now see. However, it is the darkness of nothingness,
for the ego is nothing and makes nothing, and what we see must therefore also
must be nothing: <nothing> making <nothing>, being seen by <nothing>. Certainly
then, these eyes cannot bless, because they were made to damn. After all, the
ego came into existence by damning God, thereby killing His Son, in the
anguished words of Job's wife: "Curse God, and die" (Job 2:9).

Another theme implicit in this passage is the contrast of Christ's strength with
the ego's weakness, similar to the statement we have seen before: "You always
choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you."
(T.31.VIII.2.3).*

(4:1-2) "Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps
its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them."

*Here, too, is a statement that can be very easily misunderstood. Jesus is not
saying we do not see the illusion. By <overlook> -- a word he uses frequently in
A Course in Miracles -- he does not mean we overlook the ego in the sense of not
seeing something that is present, which is the usual meaning of the word, as
when you overlook some papers you are looking for on your desk and know are
there. In A Course in Miracles, we overlook the ego by looking through it. We
first look at the appearance, which seems to be as solid as a wall of granite.
Yet its inherent emptiness cannot block our vision, as the following passage on
sin describes:

"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the
road to peace. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be
madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily, because it is
an error. The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes."
(T.22.III.3.2-6)

With the love of Jesus beside us -- as he says in the text: "together we have
the lamp that will dispel it, [the ego's thought system] (T.11.V.1.3) -- we look
at the ego's darkness with his light, shining through what appeared as an
impenetrable wall. Now it is nothing more than a flimsy veil, powerless to
conceal the truth beyond it. When Jesus talks about looking past appearances or
overlooking the ego, he, once again, does not mean <not> to see it. He is
teaching us to look at it with him, for only then do we realize there is nothing
to see. What seemed to have been a solid wall of defense simply disappears, and
the light of truth is seen shining beyond it. To cite those important lines
again:

"No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is
the way they are protected. ... we must look first at this to see beyond it,
since you have made it real. We will undo this error quietly together, and then
look beyond it to truth. ... What is healing but the removal of all that stands
in the way of knowledge? And how else can one dispel illusions except by looking
at them directly, without protecting them? ... Clarity undoes confusion by
definition, and to look upon darkness through light must dispel it."
(T.11.V.1:1,5-6; 2:1-2,9).

This point is important, because it can be tempting for students of A Course in
Miracles to think that Jesus is asking them to deny their eyes' perception. This
previously discussed statement made in the context of healing, makes clear what
he means:

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let
itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem
to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed
appearances as before. But the healed mind will put them all in one category;
they are unreal." (M.8.6.1-4).

Our goal is to see through Christ's vision, which enables us to reinterpret the
perceptual world of the ego told us was true. The <form>, now seen differently,
reveals the <content> of reality's reflection that the ego tried to conceal from
our awareness. The clarity of this new perception looks beyond the seeming
differences among illusions to the one truth that categorizes them all: <they
are unreal.> *

(5:1) "Strength comes from truth, and shines with light its Source has given it;
weakness reflects the darkness of its maker."

*The maker is the ego, but it can do nothing without the decision maker's
joining with it. Therein lies the ego's "strength," built upon an illusion that
the Son of God has a real choice about his Identity. Only in the light of the
correct choice -- for the Atonement -- can the Son regain the awareness of his
true strength.*

(6:1-2) "Weakness, which looks in darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness
and in love. It sees all others different from itself, and nothing in the world
that it would share."

*The theme of weakness and strength continues, in this form: The ego thought
system is kept intact by the concept of differences, wherein everyone is
perceived as different from everyone else. Ultimately, this difference is your
sin and my sinlessness, having its source in the original perception of
difference: I am the creator and God is not -- the principle of <either-or>,
<one or the other>, <kill or be killed>. We are established strong in the ego's
thought system of darkness by our weakness, born of the fragmented Sonship. This
weakness thus reflects the separation of God's Son, for we are all made
different, protected by our grievances and threatened by forgiveness.*

(7:1-3) "It fears and it attacks and hates itself, and darkness covers
everything it sees, leaving its dreams as fearful as itself. No miracles are
here, but only hate. It separates itself from what it sees, while light and
strength perceive themselves as one."

*That is why we fear the light, the strength of which comes from perfect unity,
what the ego judges as weakness. Our individuality grows weak in the presence of
thoughts of oneness, and strong in perceptions of differences . Yet we cannot
distinguish between weakness and strength. Thus we need A Course in Miracles in
general, and the workbook specifically.*

(7:4-6) "The light of strength is not the light you see. It does not change and
flicker and go out. It does not shift from night to day, and back to darkness
till the morning comes again."

*Jesus is referring to the different kinds of light in this world: artificial
light -- electricity -- and natural light -- the sun. Yet nothing here lasts,
and everything changes. The light of truth, on the other hand, is constant and
eternal, and its reflected perception of the world is always the same: it is an
illusion and is not here. Recall the first test Jesus cites as helping us to
"distinguish everything from nothing" (W-pI.133.5:4).

"First, if you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is
valueless. A temporary value is without all value. Time can never take away a
value that is real. What fades and dies was never there, and makes no offering
to him who chooses it. He is deceived by nothing in a form he thinks he likes."
(W-pI.133.5:6).

Thus is our impermanent world inherently valueless.

Moreover, everyone here shares the sameness of believing in illusion. It is
helpful to observe that the word <same> does not appear in the ego's dictionary,
for it only understands the concept of difference. Analogously, the word
<different> does not appear in the Holy Spirit's dictionary, because everything
to Him is the same: We are the same, as one illusion and as one Christ.*

(8) "The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give
itself away, because it cannot give but to itself. No one can ask in vain to
share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle
before his eyes, and strength and light abiding in his heart."

*This statement is true because everything is one, reflecting the important
principle we shall see later: giving and receiving are the same (e.g.,
W-pI126,158). If we are one, I cannot give to another nor receive from another,
but only to and from myself. Such insight belongs to our right-minded self that
has learned the value of sharing, not the ego's wrong-minded self that sees only
separate interests. The former leads to the strength of Christ's light; the
later to the weakness of the ego's darkness.*

(9) "The strength in you will offer you the light, and guide your seeing so you
do not dwell on idle shadows that the body's eyes provide for self-deception.
Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet, your Self stands ready to
embrace you as Its Own. Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest
in, for the peace of God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet
Itself again, and be as One."

*As our choices become increasingly right-minded -- the strong light of
forgiveness over the weak darkness of attack; the reflection of spirit's oneness
over the body's separation -- we stand on the edge of the real world, beyond
which is the Oneness we never truly left.

As we shall now see, Jesus is up from ten to twenty minutes in the quiet periods
he asks us to give him in these exercises. As we realize the benefits to us of
these lessons, the quiet times spent with the idea for the day will become
increasingly joyful, as will be the specific opportunities for application the
day provides:*

(10:1-2) "Let us give twenty minutes twice today to join this meeting. Let
yourself be brought unto your Self."

*Who brings us to our Self? -- the decision maker, joined with Jesus. He cannot
carry us until we first jump into his arms. This is extremely important. We must
first go to him and say: "Please carry me." Jesus cannot bring us home without
our help, and, needless to say, we cannot return without him. That is why he
reminds us:*

(10:3-4) "Its strength will be the light in which the gift of sight is given
you. Leave, then, the dark a little while today ... "

*Jesus is not saying we should leave the dark permanently. It is extremely
important to understand this so we do not panic at the thought of being in the
light. He is simply asks us to practice for "a little while": "Join with me and
let me look at your silly thought with you," he says to us. We need only realize
our silliness in having placed faith in the body, not withdraw it. There are
many passages throughout A Course in Miracles that explain how the body
constantly fails us, and so deserves but a knowing smile for our seriousness in
having trusting it. One of my (and Helen's) favorites comes early in the text,
where Jesus presents an imaginary conversation between the mind's decision-maker
and the ego, it having previously followed the ego's counsel to choose the body
for its safety, only to discover that the body is hardly a safe refuge at all:

"The body is the ego's home by its own election. It is the only identification
with which the ego feels safe, ... Here is where the mind [i.e.the decision
maker] becomes actually dazed. Being told by the ego that it is really part of
the body and that the body is its protector, the mind is also told that the body
cannot protect it. Therefore, the mind asks, "Where can I go for protection?" to
which the ego replies, "Turn to me". The mind, and not without cause, reminds
the ego that it has itself insisted that it is identified with the body, so
there is no point in turning to it for protection. The ego has no real answer to
this because there is none, but it does have a typical solution. It obliterates
the question from the mind's awareness. Once out of awareness the question can
and does produce uneasiness, but it cannot be answered because it cannot be
asked." (T.4.V.4.1).

According to the ego, the body will keep us safe and secure, and so we cling to
our bodily identification because we believe it protects us. Yet as we look at
our lives and the lives of everyone else, it is all too clear that the body does
a terrible job of protection. That is why Jesus does not ask us to give up this
identity, but to step back with him "a little while" and question it. When we
look at the body from his point of view, we join his gentle laughter in response
to the silliness of our own and everyone else's life, simply because the body
does not work. Unaware of our choice to identify with the body, however, we are
condemned to a life of weakness in which we do not really see. Thus the purpose
of these lessons is to help us learn we do have a choice: light or darkness,
strength or weakness, God or the ego.*

(11) "Morning and evening we will practice thus. After the morning meeting, we
will use the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again in
trust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that
we are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where
only miracles can be perceived."

*Our two longer practice periods thus become the two ends of the day's rainbow,
under which kind and gentle arch we draw meaning from the day's events. We rest
comfortably in this meaning, as we gratefully welcome each opportunity to choose
the miracles that leads us from darkness to the light.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 91. Miracles are seen in light.

#93091

Lesson 91. Miracles are seen in light.

(1) It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go
together. This needs repeating, and frequent repeating. It is a central idea in
your new thought system, and the perception that it produces. The miracle is
always there. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the
result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is
affected. You will see them in the light; you will not see them in the dark.

(2) To you, then, light is crucial. While you remain in darkness, the miracle
remains unseen. Thus you are convinced it is not there. This follows from the
premises from which the darkness comes. Denial of light leads to failure to
perceive it. Failure to perceive light is to perceive darkness. The light is
useless to you then, even though it is there. You cannot use it because its
presence is unknown to you. And the seeming reality of the darkness makes the
idea of light meaningless.

(3) To be told that what you do not see is there sounds like insanity. It is
very difficult to become convinced that it is insanity not to see what is there,
and to see what is not there instead. You do not doubt that the body's eyes can
see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in
the darkness, not the light. How can this be reversed? For you it is impossible,
but you are not alone in this.

(4) Your efforts, however little they may be, have strong support. Did you but
realize how great this strength, your doubts would vanish. Today we will devote
ourselves to the attempt to let you feel this strength. When you have felt the
strength in you, which makes all miracles within your easy reach, you will not
doubt. The miracles your sense of weakness hides will leap into awareness as you
feel the strength in you.

(5) Three times today, set aside about ten minutes for a quiet time in which you
try to leave your weakness behind. This is accomplished very simply, as you
instruct yourself that you are not a body. Faith goes to what you want, and you
instruct your mind accordingly. Your will remains your teacher, and your will
has all the strength to do what it desires. You can escape the body if you
choose. You can experience the strength in you.

(6) Begin the longer practice periods with this statement of true cause and
effect relationships:

Miracles are seen in light.
The body's eyes do not perceive the light.
But I am not a body. What am I?

The question with which this statement ends is needed for our exercises today.
What you think you are is a belief to be undone. But what you really are must be
revealed to you. The belief you are a body calls for correction, being a
mistake. The truth of what you are calls on the strength in you to bring to your
awareness what the mistake conceals.

(7) If you are not a body, what are you? You need to be aware of what the Holy
Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind. You need to feel
something to put your faith in, as you lift it from the body. You need a real
experience of something else, something more solid and more sure; more worthy of
your faith, and really there.

(8) If you are not a body, what are you? Ask this in honesty, and then devote
several minutes to allowing your mistaken thoughts about your attributes to be
corrected, and their opposites to take their place. Say, for example:

I am not weak, but strong.
I am not helpless, but all powerful.
I am not limited, but unlimited.
I am not doubtful, but certain.
I am not an illusion, but a reality.
I cannot see in darkness, but in light.

(9) In the second phase of the exercise period, try to experience these truths
about yourself. Concentrate particularly on the experience of strength. Remember
that all sense of weakness is associated with the belief you are a body, a
belief that is mistaken and deserves no faith. Try to remove your faith from it,
if only for a moment. You will be accustomed to keeping faith with the more
worthy in you as we go along.

(10) Relax for the rest of the practice period, confident that your efforts,
however meager, are fully supported by the strength of God and all His Thoughts.
It is from Them that your strength will come. It is through Their strong support
that you will feel the strength in you. They are united with you in this
practice period, in which you share a purpose like Their Own. Theirs is the
light in which you will see miracles, because Their strength is yours. Their
strength becomes your eyes, that you may see.

(11) Five or six times an hour, at reasonably regular intervals, remind yourself
that miracles are seen in light. Also, be sure to meet temptation with today's
idea. This form would be helpful for this special purpose:

Miracles are seen in light. Let me not close my eyes because of this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson is 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 91. "Miracles are seen in light."

*The twenty lessons comprising this next series share the same theme, though
expressed in different ways, reflecting the musical form of <theme and
variations>. The theme is the contrast between the ego self and true Self, and
Lesson 91 focuses on the power of our minds to choose between the ego's
interpretation of our identity -- a sinful, guilty, and fearful self -- and the
Holy Spirit's reminder of Who we are as Christ. Another aspect of this theme is
that since our ego is directly manifest in the body, we ultimately shift this
identification to the spirit that is our Self.

The title of the first lesson in this series expresses its theme of the miracle,
the choosing of which is the <cause> that leads to vision, the <effect>. We are
reminded that vision has nothing to do with the body's eyes, but with a state of
mind that is achieved by choosing Jesus as our teacher. Thus we perceive the
world through the lens of forgiveness, rather than the ego's judgment.*

(1:1) "It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go
together."

*I pointed out earlier that miracle in A Course in Miracles can best be defined
as a correction of false perception, having nothing to do with anything
external. It shifts our way of seeing the world -- separation, differences,
attack, and bodies -- to Jesus' vision of the world as a classroom offering us
opportunities to learn forgiveness. Therefore, the immediate effect of choosing
the miracle is this new way of seeing -- the meaning of vision.*

(2:1) "To you, then, light is crucial."

*To repeat this important thought, light has nothing to do with the physical,
including auras or any other psychic expression. In A Course in Miracles light
is equated with the Holy Spirit's correction -- the Atonement, forgiveness, the
miracle. That is why it is so crucial to us. It is the way out of the ego's
darkened hell of guilt.*

(3:1-2) "To be told that what you do not see is there sounds like insanity. It
is very difficult to become convinced that it is insanity not to see what is
there, and to see what is not there instead."

*Over and over we see Jesus using this classic definition of psychosis. Among
the tell-tale clinical signs of mental illness are visual and auditory
hallucinations. This is yet another instance of Jesus gently telling us we are
insane. Once again we see the purposive nature of the world and body, and its
strategic importance in the ego's plan to keep us in the seeming reality of
"what is not there," while "what is there" cannot be seen. This is the meaning
of the following passage from the text:

"When you made visible what is not true, what is true became invisible to you.
Yet it cannot be invisible in itself, for the Holy Spirit sees it with perfect
clarity. It is invisible to you because you are looking at something else."
(T-12.III.3:1-3).

It is the body that enables us to look at the "something else" and believe it is
there.*

(4:1) "Your efforts, however little they may be, have strong support."

*This is an echo of the familiar theme of a <little willingness> that is so
important in the text:

"The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy.... You prepare
your mind for it only to the extent of recognizing that you want it above all
else. It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is necessary that you
realize that you cannot do more. Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what He
does not ask, or you will add the ego to Him and confuse the two. He asks but
little. It is He Who adds the greatness and the might.... The holy instant ...
is always the result of your small willingness combined with the unlimited power
of God's Will." (T-18.IV.1:1,4-8;4:1-2).

We are not asked to do a great deal, like teach the Holy Spirit's lessons, but
only to choose Him as our Teacher as an expression of our little willingness. We
are not even asked to learn His lessons, for that will come later. Jesus asks us
but to recognize we have been wrong in our choice of teacher, and to understand
there is another One in our minds to Whom we can go.

As our fear diminishes and we choose the correct Teacher, we learn His lessons.
At first the little willingness expresses the happy thought we are wrong. We are
even more grateful there is Someone within us Who is right. This is the first
step and perhaps the most important step, because it moves us to the right
ladder. How long it takes to climb to the top is of no real concern, for what
alone is important is that Jesus helps us find our way home. Finding it, again,
means happily realizing we are wrong about where we thought it was.*

(5:1) "Three times today, set aside about ten minutes for a quiet time in which
you try to leave your weakness behind."

*As the lessons progress, we see how Jesus increases the time we spend with him
each day. At the beginning of the workbook he asked for only a couple of
minutes, if we could manage even that. Now he is up to ten minutes, three times
a day, and the time will continue to increase. *

(6:1-5) "Begin the longer practice periods with this statement of true cause and
effect relationships:

"Miracles are seen in light.
The body's eyes do not perceive the light.
But I am not a body. What am I?"

*That question is the problem. Remember, we made the world and body in the first
place -- as one collective Son -- to escape from the vengeful wrath of God told
us is the mind's reality. The ego told us our independence from God was bought
at the cost of sin. We destroyed God, and now He is going to rise up and return
the favor. That is the terror the ego placed in everyone's mind, and which drove
us out of our minds -- figuratively and literally -- making up the physical
world: the Course's version of the Big Bang.

The question Jesus raises is: If you are not a body, what are you? Reading
carefully should strike terror in your heart, because you would suddenly have to
address his question. Who are you if not your problems, list of grievances,
personality, skin color, sex, height, weight, age, nationality, etc.? We are
thus returned to the bottom line of A Course in Miracles: our ability to
understand that everything we made is false. Our goal is to say that we are glad
-- truly glad -- that we are wrong. The miracle is the means whereby we come to
recognize our mistaken choice, made not in the body but the mind, and so
corrected there.*

(6:6) "The question with which this statement ends is needed for our exercises
today."

*As we go through the workbook, we notice that the stakes are getting higher.
The previous ninety lessons have gently led us to this point. We have been
presented with several key ideas, among which are that our thoughts give meaning
to everything, they make the world, and ultimately there is no world outside us.
These ideas have been presented in such a way that most of the time we do not
seriously think about their implication: If there is no world outside our minds,
there can be no body outside our minds either. This means confronting the
question: Who am I? Jesus has taken us to the point in our training where he
asks us to do just that.*

(6:7) "What you think you are is a belief to be undone."

*We think we are bodies, underlying which is the belief we are "the home of
evil, darkness and sin" (W-pI.93.1:1). This is what needs to be undone. Note the
word <belief>. Our bodies are not facts, but beliefs. You cannot change a fact,
which of course is the point of the ego's thought system. Our separation,
embodied in our bodies, is taken as fact, part of the so-called natural order.
Its immutability seems to have a cast us permanently out of Heaven, never to
return. That is why Jesus has placed so much emphasis on our understanding the
power of thought -- in the mind, not the brain. The separation, and the body
that resulted from it, is a belief, and thus can be changed by exercising the
mind's power to choose a different thought, learning to place its faith in the
Holy Spirit's Atonement and withdrawing it from the ego's separation.*

(6:8) "But what you really are must be revealed to you."

*What we really are is one Self, revealed to us not by Jesus telling us, but by
our lifting the veil that kept the memory of this Self away. The culmination of
the ego's strategy to keep truth hidden is the body, with which we identify.
Forgiveness -- the process of withdrawing our projected guilt -- removes the
veils that had kept us unaware of love's presence (T-in.1:7): what we really
are:

(6:9-10) "The belief you are a body calls for correction, being a mistake. The
truth of what you are calls on the strength in you to bring to your awareness
what the mistake conceals."

*Here we see enunciated the mistake that conceals the truth. In this lesson
Jesus focuses on the mistake of identifying with the body. As I have said, Jesus
does not mean for us to give up the body. Rather, we are asked only to think
about its nature. This is only Lesson 91, and when we reach the end of the
workbook Jesus tells us we are only at the beginning (W-ep.1:1). Again, he is
not expecting his students to let the body go, but to step back and seriously
think about its role in the ego's thought system of specialness. Such an
exercise reflects the gentle steps that help us shift identification from the
ego's thought system of weakness to the decision-making part of our minds that
would now be free to choose the strength of Christ as is reality.*

(7:1) "If you are not a body, what are you?"

*Now comes the real terror, reflecting the thought that comes at the conclusion
of "Self-Concept Versus Self":

"There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:
I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I
am, or how to look upon the world or on myself." (T-31.V.17:6-7).

This is the statement the ego has sought mightily to keep us from uttering. It
marks the end of its carefully contrived thought system of concealment. Our
raising this concern to awareness allows us to look at the seeming certainty of
our identity as a guilty, bodily self, thus opening the possibility, at last, of
questioning the fundamental premise of the ego itself: the belief that the
separation from God actually occurred. Questioning that premise allows us to
question the premise that we -- physical and psychological selves -- have
actually occurred as well.*

(7:2-4) "You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image
of a body in your mind. You need to feel something to put your faith in, as you
lift it from the body. You need a real experience of something else, something
more solid and more sure; more worthy of your faith, and really there."

*This gives us an incisive glimpse into Jesus' methodology. Throughout A Course
in Miracles he presents us with both sides of the split mind. He is explicit
about the need -- if not the urgency -- that we look at the ego and understand
its thought system. At the same time he helps us realize how it attempts to
cloak the truth. While our terror is that we will give up the ego and have
nothing, we have these words and lessons to help us learn that giving up the ego
is the means of discovering the glorious truth about ourselves -- the Everything
of God.

Therefore Jesus is not just saying we are not bodies. He is also saying there is
something palpably real inside us that will take the place of our bodily
identification. That is why this is a long-term process: Part of us understands
that to begin to release our ego identity, with its specialness and judgments,
means our individuality is not far behind. That is what frightens us. Nowhere is
this strange is this strange situation -- our fear of the truth -- more directly
expressed than in "The Fear of Redemption." The following paragraph is a
representative excerpt from this important section, which describes the fear of
awakening to the truth of our Identity as children of Love:

"You have built your whole insane belief system because you think you would be
helpless in God's Presence, and you would save yourself from His Love because
you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid it would sweep you
away from yourself and make you little, because you believe that magnitude lies
in defiance, and that attack is grandeur. You think you have made a world God
would destroy; and by loving Him, which you do, you would throw this world away,
which you would. Therefore, you have used the world to cover your love, and the
deeper you go into the blackness of the ego's foundation, the closer you come to
the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you.
(T-13.III.4).

(8:1-2) "If you are not a body, what are you? Ask this in honesty, and then
devote several minutes to allowing your mistaken thoughts about your attributes
to be corrected, and their opposites to take their place."

*This is an example of what we have been discussing. Jesus is letting us know
that <he> knows we are not going to let go of the body all that quickly, and
that we still have a great many mistaken thoughts. He is therefore not going to
exchange our illusions for the truth, but will exchange our hateful, malevolent
illusions for kinder, more gentle ones. That is the meaning of the following
statements. They are not to be taken as affirmations, as I have said before, but
as reminders of where Jesus is leading us. He thus has us say:*

(8:4-9) "I am not weak, but strong.
I am not helpless, but all powerful.
I am not limited, but unlimited.
I am not doubtful, but certain.
I am not an illusion, but a reality.
I cannot see in darkness, but in light."

*Jesus is telling us to bring the illusions of our mistaken thoughts to the
truth of our Identity.Thus we begin to substitute happy images of ourselves for
the unhappy ones. In the end, all images will disappear. However, he is not
asking us to have that be our experience now. His teaching is always gentle and
patient.

As we practice a lesson like this, we need to be aware of our thoughts about
ourselves, so we can learn they are mistakes. Indeed, there is a correction for
each mistaken thought in our minds, and we need to learn to bring Jesus along
with us so we can look together at these thoughts of inadequacy, failure, and
self-hatred. Such non-judgmental looking enacts the correction, enabling us to
see through the illusions to the light of the truth.*

(9:1-3) "In the second phase of the exercise period, try to experience these
truths about yourself. Concentrate particularly on the experience of strength.
Remember that all sense of weakness is associated with the belief you are a
body, a belief that is mistaken and deserves no faith."

*All experiences of weakness comes from identifying with the body. As always,
the references are not just to the physical, but to the psychological self as
well. Again, our sense of pain, suffering, and failure comes from putting faith
in our bodies. Yet the body is not the issue. As Jesus told us earlier in the
workbook, it is the embodiment of the ego's thought system (W-p1.72.2:1-3), and
so the real problem is merely our identification with the ego's use of the body.
Once more, we are not asked to deny our bodies, but simply to correct the
purpose we had given them.*

(11) "Five or six times an hour, at reasonably regular intervals, remind
yourself that miracles are seen in light. Also, be sure to meet temptation with
today's idea. This form would be helpful for this special purpose:

Miracles are seen in light. Let me not close my eyes because of this."

*In the past review, Jesus continually used the word "this," referring to
whatever tempts us throughout the day to be upset. The purpose of the workbook
is to provide us with ideas we would then apply to our everyday situations.
These ideas make no sense, however, if we simply think about them without
practicing, for we need especially to practice when we are tempted to see
ourselves as inadequate, or to project our weakness and see someone else that
way. In other words, whenever we are tempted to make judgments about ourselves
or others is when we need to think about the day's lesson. The decision to
practice is the decision to see: vision instead of judgment. As the text reminds
us:

"Vision or judgment is your choice, but never both of these." (T.20.V.4.7).*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 90. For this review we will use these ideas:

#93090

Lesson 90. For this review we will use these ideas:

1.(79) Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.

Let me realize today that the problem is always some form of grievance that I
would cherish. Let me also understand that the solution is always a miracle with
which I let the grievance be replaced. Today I would remember the simplicity of
salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution.
The problem is a grievance; the solution is a miracle. And I invite the solution
to come to me through my forgiveness of the grievance, and my welcome of the
miracle that takes its place.

Specific applications of this idea might be in these forms:

This presents a problem to me which I would have resolved.
The miracle behind this grievance will resolve it for me.
The answer to this problem is the miracle that it conceals.

3.(80) Let me recognize my problems have been solved.

I seem to have problems only because I am misusing time. I believe that the
problem comes first, and time must elapse before it can be worked out. I do not
see the problem and the answer as simultaneous in their occurrence. That is
because I do not yet realize that God has placed the answer together with the
problem, so that they cannot be separated by time. The Holy Spirit will teach me
this, if I will let Him. And I will understand it is impossible that I could
have a problem which has not been solved already.

These forms of the idea will be useful for specific applications:

I need not wait for this to be resolved.
The answer to this problem is already given me, if I will accept it.
Time cannot separate this problem from its solution.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson is 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 90. For this review we will use these ideas:

*This lesson also deals with two parallel lessons: one problem, one solution.*

(1:1) (79) "Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved."

*The problem is defined as a grievance, and the solution as the miracle that
undoes the problem. Could anything be simpler? Jesus would ask.*

(1:2-3) "Let me realize today that the problem is always some form of grievance
that I would cherish. Let me also understand that the solution is always a
miracle with which I let the grievance be replaced."

*We find reflected here the undoing of the ego's first law of chaos -- "There is
a hierarchy of illusions" (T-1.1.1:1) Despite appearances, our problems can be
traced back to a grievance, such as: "If only you had been different, I would be
happy." The solution is the miracle of forgiveness, for the problem was the
projection of guilt, which I now happily reclaim so that it can be released.*

(1:4-6) "Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the
lesson that there is one problem and one solution. The problem is a grievance;
the solution is a miracle. And I invite the solution to come to me through my
forgiveness of the grievance, and my welcome of the miracle that takes its
place."

*These two lessons form the capstone of the review period, because they clearly
articulate that every problem we experience during the day is a form of attack
or grievance -- whether we are conscious of it or not -- and the only way we can
be happy and remember our function is to let the attack go. We release the
grievance by asking Jesus to help us realize we are wrong because we are
perceiving the situation wrongly. Thus, once again, borrowing the title of the
final chapter of the text, we see and accept the simplicity of salvation: one
problem one solution; one grievance, one miracle.*

(2:2) "This presents a problem to me which I would have resolved."

*The problem we perceive and the remedy we seek are equally illusory. The
"solution" may resolve its specific expression, but not the ultimate problem --
the grievance we hold against ourselves and God. If we truly want to be at
peace, therefore, we need to ask Jesus to help us perceive the situation
differently. We ask him to show us that what we are seeing in this person or
circumstance is a reflection of the mind's decision to exclude love. While the
<forms> vary in our specific applications, the <content> remains the same.
Choosing to separate from the Love of God is the problem; choosing to rejoin
what we never truly left is the solution. Thus today we choose the miracle:*

(2:3-4) "The miracle behind this grievance will resolve it for me."
"The answer to this problem is the miracle that it conceals."

*The inability to make this choice -- to look beyond the problem to the solution
-- reflects our refusal to do so, born of the resistance to "losing" the problem
and thus "losing" our identity. Only by recognizing we are clinging to an
illusion, an illusion that is the source of our unhappiness, will we be
motivated to choose the miracle.*

(3:1)(80) "Let me recognize my problems have been solved."

(3:2-3) "I seem to have problems only because I am misusing time. I believe that
the problem comes first, and time must elapse before it can be worked out."

*This is certainly true from the ego's point of view. Jesus importantly -- is
not saying we should not try to solve problems in the world. However, if the
true problem is a grievance, which hides our guilt, then the solution -- guilt's
undoing -- is instantaneous.*

"The one remaining problem that you have is that you see an interval between
the time when you forgive, and will receive the benefits of trusting in your
brother." (T.26.VIII.1.1)

Jesus is not talking about working out a worldly problem or performing a task,
which very often does take time. After all, it took Helen seven years to take
down A Course in Miracles. He is referring to the correction of the mind's
problem: forgiveness removing our guilt; miracles undoing our grievances.

Again, Jesus is not asking us to ignore the world. Rather, he teaches us that
our problem is not external, but the mind's decision to exclude him. We are
overwhelmed with guilt over this "sin" of betrayal, and that is the source of
our pain, which can be remedied in an instant. All we need do, he tells us, is:
"Bring me back, and speak honestly about what you have done. Let me tell you
that you have not committed a sin, but merely expressed your fear. Let my love
be a gentle reminder that you are better off with me alone." This, then, is the
sense in which healing is immediate, taking only an instant:

"The working out of all correction takes no time at all. Yet the acceptance
of the working out can seem to take forever." (T-26.VIII.6:1-2).

As Jesus tells us in Lesson 188, "Why wait for Heaven?" (W-pI.188.1:1).*

(3:4-5) "I do not see the problem and the answer as simultaneous in their
occurrence. That is because I do not yet realize that God has placed the answer
together with the problem, so that they cannot be separated by time."

*Recall that what we think of as time is nothing but the projection into form of
the ego's unholy trinity of sin, guilt, and fear, resulting in the perception of
linear time: past, present, and future. Both the problem of separation and the
answer of Atonement are located in the mind, beyond time and space. Thus there
is no time needed in the correction of our wrong-minded choice. Only when the
problem and answer are projected into a temporal and spatial world does it
appear that salvation takes time. Once again, we see how everything hinges upon
reversing our projections and regaining the power of our temporal minds to
choose.*

(3:6-7) "The Holy Spirit will teach me this, if I will let Him. And I will
understand it is impossible that I could have a problem which has not been
solved already."

*The problem is that <we do not want Him to teach us>, for we fear losing our
individual identity. Solving the problem of separation is suicide for the ego,
and as long as we identify with its thought system -- as we do when identifying
with our physical and psychological selves -- it becomes suicide for us as well.
Who, then, would willingly choose annihilation of one's self? That is why,
within the temporal illusion, it takes time to shift our identification from the
ego to the Holy Spirit. We begin with shifting our identity from a guilty, angry
self to a forgiving, peaceful self. From these happy dreams, born of miracles,
do we finally awaken -- gradually, gently, and patiently -- to the true Self of
God's living Oneness. Thus have we chosen at last to accept the solution to the
problem that has already been solved.

Finally, the three applications speed us along our journey:*

(4:2-4) "I need not wait for this to be resolved.
The answer to this problem is already given me, if I will accept
it.
Time cannot separate this problem from its solution."

*Perhaps it will take some time for the external problem to be resolved, but our
internal problem -- the <only> problem -- is resolved immediately, for peace
merely waits our acceptance. Salvation from all pain and suffering is in our
minds, where "God placed it." Withdrawing our attention from the world of bodies
to the locus of both the problem and its answer -- the mind -- is all Jesus
requires to teach us that the problem of guilt has already been replaced by
peace.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 89. These are our review ideas for today:

#93089

Lesson 89. These are our review ideas for today:

1. (77) I am entitled to miracles.

I am entitled to miracles because I am under no laws but God's. His laws release
me from all grievances, and replace them with miracles. And I would accept the
miracles in place of the grievances, which are but illusions that hide the
miracles beyond. Now I would accept only what the laws of God entitle me to
have, that I may use it on behalf of the function He has given me.

(2) You might use these suggestions for specific applications of this idea:

Behind this is a miracle to which I am entitled.
Let me not hold a grievance against you, [name], but
offer you the miracle that belongs to you instead.
Seen truly, this offers me a miracle.

3. (78) Let miracles replace all grievances.

By this idea do I unite my will with the Holy Spirit's, and perceive them as
one. By this idea do I accept my release from hell. By this idea do I express my
willingness to have all my illusions be replaced with truth, according to God's
plan for my salvation. I would make no exceptions and no substitutes. I want all
of Heaven and only Heaven, as God wills me to have.

(4) Useful specific forms for applying this idea would be:

I would not hold this grievance apart from my salvation.
Let our grievances be replaced by miracles, [name].
Beyond this is the miracle by which all my grievances are replaced.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson is 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 89. These are our review ideas for today:

*This review contains two lessons that deal specifically with miracles.*

1. (77) "I am entitled to miracles."

*This statement corrects the ego's assertion that we are entitled to punishment
because of our sin. Jesus teaches us we are entitled to the loving correction
the miracle bestows on our tortured and terrified minds.*

(1:2-3) "I am entitled to miracles because I am under no laws but God's. His
laws release me from all grievances, and replace them with miracles."

*God's laws are an expression in our dream of the Atonement principle. His law
in Heaven is the Oneness of His Love. As reflected here, it is the thought that
says the separation never happened, expressed in the recognition that the
grievances we hold against others -- our sins of which we accuse everyone else
-- have not happened either. Thus our brother's "sins" have had no effect on us.
Choosing Jesus as our teacher and the miracle as the correction helps us realize
that everything held against others is secretly held against ourselves. Yet this
has not changed our reality.*

(1:4-5) "And I would accept the miracles in place of the grievances, which are
but illusions that hide the miracles beyond. Now I would accept only what the
laws of God entitle me to have, that I may use it on behalf of the function He
has given me."

*The important point, emphasized again and again, is that we choose to hold
grievances because we are afraid of the love in our minds, because in its
presence our special existence is gone. Thus are our grievances purposive, and
until we change our purpose -- from remaining asleep to awakening -- the
grievances will persist, if not consciously, then remaining fiercely active in
the vaults of guilt well beyond our awareness. Our function of forgiveness
likewise will remain hidden from us as we continue to obey the ego's laws of
guilt and projection instead of God's law, reflected in the Holy Spirit's
miracle.*

(2:2-4) "Behind this is a miracle to which I am entitled.
Let me not hold a grievance against you, [name],
but offer you the miracle that belongs to you instead.
Seen truly, this offers me a miracle."

*Once again we observe the simplicity of Jesus' message: no complicated formulas
or exercises; no intricate metaphysics or theology. All we need do is observe,
with his gentle love gently beside us, how our judgments keep us from the peace
we so fervently desire. Each circumstance throughout the day offers us the
opportunity to forgive ourselves by choosing the miracle instead of a grievance.
Jesus' true perception -- the vision of Christ -- is now ours for the asking and
accepting. Perhaps today.*

(3:2-4) (78) "Let miracles replace all grievances."
"By this idea do I unite my will with the Holy Spirit's, and perceive them as
one."

*Remember, the separation began with the thought that our understanding of the
tiny, mad idea differed from the Holy Spirit's. In that instant we not only said
our will was separate from God's, but separate from the Holy Spirit's as well --
we know better than He. After all, our very existence is proof we pulled off the
impossible, and so He is wrong and we are right. Needless to say, we carried
this arrogant stance of "rightness" into the specific events of our specific
lives. At some time, however, we realize there must be another way, and that
being right has not brought us happiness. We realize we are happy because we are
wrong, as we return to the choice point in our minds and ask the Holy Spirit to
help us look at the situation differently: His way instead of ours. We come to
recognize that perceiving separate interests is the source of our pain, while
accepting the shared interests of God's Sons is how we find happiness and peace,
even midst a world of misery and death.*

(4:2-4) "I would not hold this grievance apart from my salvation.
Let our grievances be replaced by miracles, [name].
Beyond this is the miracle by which all my grievances are replaced."

*As we are tempted to be upset by something in this world -- which reflects a
grievance -- we are asked to understand that this does not make us happy. Thus
we choose the miracle of correction instead, to ensure that our tears of misery
will be replaced by tears of gratitude and hope. By letting miracles replace all
grievances, we let these tears of joy wash all suffering and pain. Who could
ever wish for anything else?*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 88. Today we will review these ideas:

#93088

Lesson 88. Today we will review these ideas:

1.(75) The light has come.

In choosing salvation rather than attack, I merely choose to recognize what is
already there. Salvation is a decision made already. Attack and grievances are
not there to choose. That is why I always choose between truth and illusion;
between what is there and what is not. The light has come. I can but choose the
light, for it has no alternative. It has replaced the darkness, and the darkness
has gone.

These would prove useful forms for specific applications of this idea:

This cannot show me darkness, for the light has come.
The light in you is all that I would see, [name].
I would see in this only what is there.

3.(76) I am under no laws but God's.

Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God's. I am
constantly tempted to make up other laws and give them power over me. I suffer
only because of my belief in them. They have no real effect on me at all. I am
perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's. And His are the laws of
freedom.

For specific forms in applying this idea, these would be useful:

My perception of this shows me I believe in laws that do not exist.
I see only the laws of God at work in this.
Let me allow God's laws to work in this, and not my own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson is 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 88. Today we will review these ideas:

(1:1)(75) "The light has come."

*The light has come because the light has always been in our minds. This is
reflected in the first sentence.*

(1:2) "In choosing salvation rather than attack, I merely choose to recognize
what is already there."

*That is why "the light has come." The light of the Atonement is in our minds,
but when we choose it we experience it as coming to us. In truth, however, we
have come to it. We left the light when we chose the ego's darkness, and now we
have returned. Coming to the light is salvation, just as leaving it constituted
the first attack, mirrored in the specific attacks within our lives that are
merely the shadowy fragments of the original thought.*

(2:2-4) "This cannot show me darkness, for the light has come."
"The light in you is all that I would see, [name]."
"I would see in this only what is there."

*Confronted by the ego's perceptions of specialness -- the darkened world of
guilt, judgment, hate, punishment, and fear -- we go quickly to Jesus that we
may see the situation differently. His vision -- <all> people calling for love
or expressing it; <all> people sharing in the ego's insanity of hate and the
Holy Spirit's sanity of forgiveness -- reflects Heaven's light. This light, born
of our inherent sameness as God's Son, we now wish to see in others, for it is
what we wish to see in ourselves.*

(4:2-4) "My perception of this shows me I believe in laws that do not exist."
"I see only the laws of God at work in this."
"Let me allow God's laws to work in this, and not my own."

*Whatever we perceive outside shows us that we believe in the ego's "laws that
do not exist." Our daily practice, therefore, consists of first looking at the
world through the ego's eyes of special and separate interests, the reflection
of its fundamental law of separation. Recognizing this false perception allows
me, next, to ask my new Teacher to teach me its correction. And so the Holy
Spirit gently instructs me in the practicing of forgiveness, the reflection on
earth of God's law of love. Regardless of the situation I am in, regardless of
the pain (or pleasure) afforded me in a relationship, I can see God's laws
reflected by seeing the opportunity to learn how separate interests lead to
hell, while shared purpose leads to the Heaven I never truly left -- the Home of
God's laws of love and life.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 87. Our review today will cover these ideas:

#93087

Lesson 87. Our review today will cover these ideas:

1.(73) I will there be light.

I will use the power of my will today. It is not my will to grope about in
darkness, fearful of shadows and afraid of things unseen and unreal. Light shall
be my guide today. I will follow it where it leads me, and I will look only on
what it shows me. This day I will experience the peace of true perception.

These forms of this idea would be helpful for specific applications:

This cannot hide the light I will to see.
You stand with me in light, [name].
In the light this will look different.

3.(74) There is no will but God's.

I am safe today because there is no will but God's. I can become afraid only
when I believe there is another will. I try to attack only when I am afraid, and
only when I try to attack can I believe that my eternal safety is threatened.
Today I will recognize that all this has not occurred. I am safe because there
is no will but God's.

These are some useful forms of this idea for specific applications:

Let me perceive this in accordance with the Will of God.
It is God's Will you are His Son, [name], and mine as well.
This is part of God's Will for me, however I may see it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson is 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 87. Our review today will cover these ideas:

(1:1) (73) "I will there be light."

*This is a direct appeal to the power of our minds to make another choice: the
light of forgiveness instead of the darkness of attack.*

(1:2-3) "I will use the power of my will today. It is not my will to grope about
in darkness, fearful of shadows and afraid of things unseen and unreal."

*This was my ego's wish in contrast to the Holy Spirit's Will, which I now
reflect in the right-minded use of my decision-making ability. Despite my wish
for shadows, my will remains one with God's, held in safekeeping by the Holy
Spirit. I had substituted what the ego would say is my will -- really the ego's
wishes -- to be an individual, a decision which inevitably led to the ego's
darkened thought system of separation and fear, culminating in the shadowy
physical world of separation and fear. This lesson, then, is a direct appeal to
look at things differently, to exercise the power of my mind ("the power of my
will") to make another choice.*

(1:4-6) "Light shall be my guide today. I will follow it where it leads me, and
I will look only on what it shows me. This day I will experience the peace of
true perception."

*Learning our lessons, we happily choose to let the light of Jesus' wisdom guide
us each day. We look on the world through his non-judgmental eyes of forgiveness
and peace. Our eyes "see" what they have always seen, but now we see
differently: calls for love or expressions of it, as opposed to the ego's "eyes"
that see only sin, guilt, and the need for punishment.*

(2:2) "This cannot hide the light I will to see."

*Looking at situations that heretofore had reflected the ego's darkened world of
guilt and judgment, I recognize they had no power to hide the light of
forgiveness from me. It was my mind that had the power, by choosing not to see
the light that was always there. In other words, nothing here has the power of
that light. But within the delusional dreams of shadows and death, we can choose
not to recognize it, even though it shines so brightly within, and its
reflections all around us. We choose now to recognize these witnesses to the
light and see them as our own. Thus we say to each special love and hate
partner.*

(2:3) "You stand with me in light, [name]."

*Those we had condemned to hell join as one Son, along with us, together
awakening from the dream of death. All that is necessary for this happy
recognition to occur is the willingness to look at the ego's lies for what they
are, choosing instead to believe the truth Jesus has always held out for us,
patiently our acceptance.*

(2:4) "In the light this will look different."

*In Lesson 193, Jesus says, "Forgive, and you [I] will see this differently"
(W-pI.193.3:7). When I let him be my eyes, the external situation does not
change, but the way I perceive it does. Rather than seeing the situation as a
way of proving I am right and Jesus is wrong, that differences are real and sin
rests in you and not in me, I realize that together we share the purpose of
awakening from the dream. Again, this shift has nothing to do with what is
external, but only with what is in our minds.*

(3:5-6) "Today I will recognize that all this has not occurred. I am safe
because there is no will but God's."

*Even though Jesus does not expect us to accept this totally, we can begin the
process of understand that there is a part of our minds that knows that none of
this occurred. We are fearful of that part because I signifies the end of our
special self.

On the practical level this means that what has not occurred is that you hurt
me, for the truth is <I> have hurt me. In the perceptual world, you may indeed
have said or done something unkind, but I am upset because I want you to hurt
me, accusing you of sin instead of me. In that sense, I forgive you for what you
have <not> done. Only as I progress up the ladder do I realize this is a dream
that is not actually occurring at all.

The three specific applications all reflect the Oneness of God.*

(4:2-4) "Let me perceive this in accordance with the Will of God."
"It is God's Will you are His Son, [name], and mine as well."
"This is part of God's Will for me, however I may see it."

*Everything in our personal world and collective worlds is a reflection of God's
Will -- forgiveness -- if we choose to see it through Jesus' eyes, the vision of
Christ that unifies perception. The <everything> includes the totality of the
Sonship, regardless of how the ego perceives a situation. Since there is no
hierarchy of illusions, all situations are the same, for they share the
wrong-minded purpose of separation as well as the right-minded one of
forgiveness. This unanimity of purpose unites us all: unseparated and undivided
-- one in illusion and one in truth.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 86. These ideas are for review today.

#93086

Lesson 86. These ideas are for review today.

1.(71) Only God's plan for salvation will work.

It is senseless for me to search wildly about for salvation. I have seen it in
many people and in many things, but when I reached for it, it was not there. I
was mistaken about where it is. I was mistaken about what it is. I will
undertake no more idle seeking. Only God's plan for salvation will work. And I
will rejoice because His plan can never fail.

These are some suggested forms for applying this idea specifically:

God's plan for salvation will save me from my perception of this.
This is no exception in God's plan for my salvation.
Let me perceive this only in the light of God's plan for salvation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3.(72) Holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation.

Holding grievances is an attempt to prove that God's plan for salvation will not
work. Yet only His plan will work. By holding grievances, I am
therefore excluding my only hope of salvation from my awareness. I would no
longer defeat my own best interests in this insane way. I would accept God's
plan for salvation, and be happy.

Specific applications for this idea might be in these forms:

I am choosing between misperception and salvation as I look on this.
If I see grounds for grievances in this, I will not see the grounds for my
salvation.
This calls for salvation, not attack.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson is 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 86. These ideas are for review today.

1.(71) "Only God's plan for salvation will work."

*It can only be God's plan for salvation that will work, because no other plan
can save us. All others are external and designed to fail, since each would
distract attention from our minds -- the source of our problem and the Source of
our salvation.*

(1:2-3) "It is senseless for me to search wildly about for salvation. I have
seen it in many people and in many things, but when I reached for it, it was not
there."

*We senselessly followed the ego's plan of <seek but do not find,> and wherever
we sought for salvation -- our special relationships -- will always fail, since
they were made for that purpose, being the substitutes for What alone can save
us. Even more to the point, idols were made to keep us in perpetual state of
mindlessness, ensuring we would never exercise the mind's power to choose --
salvation instead of slavation.*

(1:4-5) "I was mistaken about where it is. I was mistaken about what it is."

*The reference is to special relationships, and Jesus' purpose for us is to
forgive our special indulgences, to look with him and realize our insanity in
wildly looking around for things to make us happy. Thus would we recognize the
futility of specialness as a way of life: <It does not work>. Peace and love
will never come when we seek for them outside ourselves. Note this summarizing
statement from "Seek Not Outside Yourself" on the hopelessness of pursuing idols
of specialness, and the hope in seeking only God:

"An idol cannot take the place of God. Let Him remind you of His Love for
you, and do not seek to drown His Voice in chants of deep despair to idols of
yourself. Seek not outside your Father for your hope. For hope of happiness is
not despair." (T.29.VII.10.4-7).

Whenever we look without judgment at our mistaken search for idols, we are free
to make another choice -- salvation in place of specialness.*

(1:6-8) "I will undertake no more idle seeking. Only God's plan for salvation
will work. And I will rejoice because His plan can never fail."

*Coming to our sanity at last, we pledge no longer to waste time seeking for
what can never be found, choosing only to follow the path of forgiveness, which
alone will bring us home. In that choice is found our salvation; in that choice
is found our joy.

We look now at the first specific application:*

(2:2) "God's plan for salvation will save me from my perception of this."

*Notice that we are not going to be saved from "this," whatever the "this" is.
We do no have to be saved from a situation, but from our perception of it. The
language is quite specific and intentional: "God's plan for salvation will save
me from my perception of the this." When tempted to be upset by something, we
need only realize this is our perception of the problem. It is not what we
perceive to be the problem -- something outside; it is the way we see it, which
means the teacher with whom we are seeing: Jesus or the ego. If we are upset, we
know we have chosen the ego. God's plan for salvation calls for us to change our
minds, or more to the point, to change our teacher. Again, if we are not happy
with how something is going, we need simply realize it is because we chose the
wrong voice and its interpretation of the situation.

To restate this point: God's plan to save us is to have us choose a new teacher.
Looking at the situation through His eyes, we realize this is an opportunity to
look at what is going on within our minds. If we were not upset by what seems to
be external, would have no opportunity to bring it inside and realize it was a
projection. That is why our special relationships are our saviors. They offer us
the chance to reconsider our faulty perceptions. Once we realize the problem is
within, we are free to make another choice.*

(2:3) "This is no exception in God's plan for my salvation."

*The principle of forgiveness always works: "There is no order of difficulty in
miracles." There is no perception of difficulty, pain, or discomfort that will
not change when we choose to set aside our grievances and guilt, and accept the
Atonement for ourselves. God's plan for salvation is simple. That is why it
always works.*

3.(72) "Holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation."

*Jesus takes us a step further, by introducing the purposive element of anger:
it directly attacks the plan of the Atonement, which redirects our focus inward,
where the ego's thought system of guilt and attack is undone.*

(3:2-4) "Holding grievances is an attempt to prove that God's plan for salvation
will not work. Yet only His plan will work. By holding grievances, I am
therefore excluding my only hope of salvation from my awareness."

*The only hope of salvation, again, lies in my accepting full responsibility for
the misery I experience, which reflects my original choice to be a sinful and
guilty individual deserving of misery and punishment. Therefore, in an insane
attempt to be free of pain, I choose to project the guilt and attack you for it.
I can thus be saved only by returning to the decision-making part of the mind
and correcting this mistaken choice. By being angry, however, and justifying my
judgments, I assert the reality of the body and sin --- yours and mine.
Moreover, I consciously believe the sin is not in me and that there is no mind
-- everything happens only in a world of bodies where grievances are real and
not my responsibility.

By saying to Jesus there is something wrong because I am not at peace, I allow
him to teach me that what I am upset about in you is a split-off part of what I
am upset about in me: my guilt for separating from the Love of God. Jesus helps
me realize I am choosing between misperception and salvation as I look on this.
I come to understand that my perception is the effect of my choice: the ego's
grievances or the Holy Spirit's miracle. The former roots me still further in
the world of guilt and attack, while the latter leads me to my mind, the home of
salvation.*

(4:2-4) "I am choosing between misperception and salvation as I look on this."
"If I see grounds for grievances in this, I will not see the
grounds for my salvation."
"This calls for salvation, not attack."

*I am learning that all circumstances in my life -- past, present, or
anticipated -- offer me the opportunity of choosing to see differently. My
problems are <perceptual>, my perceptions come from <thinking>, and my thinking
originates in the mind's <decision> for the ego of the Holy Spirit. The
right-minded choice for forgiveness corrects the ego's thinking, which led to my
wrong-minded perceptions of grievances and attack. Because I now choose to be
happy, I see grounds for forgiveness and salvation in everything. Only by
wishing to remain in the pain of my guilt would I choose to see grounds for
grievances. Yet, as Jesus fortunately reminds us (e.g., T-16.VI.8.8), I am no
longer wholly insane and so I call for salvation and not attack.

One final point -- salvation does not mean I save you, the situation, or even
myself. I save the situation in my mind, by <changing my mind.> All situations
call for this inner shift. Remember , "Seek not to change the world, but choose
to change your mind about the world" (T-21.in.1:7).*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 85. Today's review will cover these ideas:

#93085

Lesson 85. Today's review will cover these ideas:

1.(69) My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

My grievances show me what is not there, and hide from me what I would see.
Recognizing this, what do I want my grievances for? They keep me in darkness and
hide the light. Grievances and light cannot go together, but light and vision
must be joined for me to see. To see, I must lay grievances aside. I want to
see, and this will be the means by which I will succeed.

Specific applications for this idea might be made in these forms:

Let me not use this as a block to sight.
The light of the world will shine all this away.
I have no need for this. I want to see.

3.(70) My salvation comes from me.

Today I will recognize where my salvation is. It is in me because its Source is
there. It has not left its Source, and so it cannot have left my mind. I will
not look for it outside myself. It is not found outside and then brought in. But
from within me it will reach beyond, and everything I see will but reflect the
light that shines in me and in itself.

These forms of the idea are suitable for more specific applications:

Let this not tempt me to look away from me for my salvation.
I will not let this interfere with my awareness of the Source of my salvation.
This has no power to remove salvation from me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson is 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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(1:5-6) "Grievances and light cannot go together, but light and vision must be
joined for me to see. To see, I must lay grievances aside."

*This is the bottom line: Do I want to see or not? If I do, Jesus must be my
eyes, which means I cannot judge. I will know which choice I made by its
outcome. Finding myself angry, depressed, guilty, fearful, or anxious is what
tells me I do not want to see. With the ego, my individuality and separation are
all I know and my self is safe, though miserable.*

(1:7) "I want to see, and this will be the means by which I will succeed."

*We are no longer willing to be safe <and> miserable. We want the vision that
embraces all Sons as the same, the precursor to remembering our Oneness as
Christ. In this vision -- born of letting go of grievances -- we find our true
happiness.*

(2:2-5) "Let me not use this as a block to sight."
"The light of the world will shine all this away."
" I have no need for this. I want to see."

*Diligently practicing these lessons helps us realize we have a split mind. The
part that does not want to return home is responsible for our being in the
world. The other part is a student of A Course in Miracles. We must be aware of
both so we can make a meaningful choice between them. We need to understand that
the ego's grievances hold the light of peace and joy from ourselves, leaving us
in the darkness of misery and pain. Only by realizing the connection between our
decision to attack and our suffering will we be motivated to say and mean: "I
have not need for this." In that recognition we shall see, and in that vision
all pain is shined away in the light of forgiveness.*

3.(70) "My salvation comes from me."

*Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not outside me, nor is salvation. Indeed, I am
not outside of me!*

(3:2-6) "Today I will recognize where my salvation is. It is in me because its
Source is there. It has not left its Source, and so it cannot have left my mind.
I will not look for it outside myself. It is not found outside and then brought
in."

*That is what people want to do with God, Jesus, and A Course in Miracles: see
them outside themselves. We must realize that salvation rests only within, in
the power of the mind to choose Jesus as our teacher and not the ego. It is not
found <in> Jesus, but in our mind's capacity to choose him. As we discussed
earlier, Jesus has always asked us to come to him <outside the dream>. Yet we
have continually striven to bring him <into the dream>, so that our ego identity
will remain secure and intact. We need to take Jesus' hand and walk through the
dream, that we may walk with him out of it.

The ego, on the other hand, attempts to keep the dream alive and well, and that
is Jesus' caution here. The memory of God is in our minds, where the dream has
its beginning and ending. Its undoing constitutes salvation, which rests in
choosing to remember our Source -- <in our minds.> As an idea in the Mind of God
we have never left Him, and He has never left us: <ideas leave not their
Source>. That is why we must seek salvation in our right minds, the home of
Jesus, where the memory of God awaits our acceptance as we awaken at last from
the dream of separation and death.*

(3:7) "But from within me it will reach beyond, and everything I see will but
reflect the light that shines in me and in itself."

* "Everything I see," as we now realize, does not refer to physical sight; we do
not really see physical light in people, nor light in objects. Since the light
is a right-minded thought, it is this light of forgiveness that is reflected in
what our eyes "see." Moreover, from the light's extension in the mind the Son is
healed, since the mind of God's Son is one.

Jesus makes his ongoing appeal to apply this idea throughout the day.*

(4:2-4) "Let this not tempt me to look away from me for my salvation."
"I will not let this interfere with my awareness of the Source of my salvation."
"This has no power to remove salvation from me."

*In other words, it is <our> choice whether the world will take our peace from
us, for in and of itself, being an illusion, it can do nothing. We alone have
power, which we then project onto the world. It is the mind that chooses against
Jesus' peace, and he asks us not to give in to this temptation because it will
not make us happy. He directs our sight inward and away from the world; the
shift in purpose -- from guilt to salvation -- reflects our decision to remember
our Source and our Self.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 84. These are the ideas for today's review:

#93084

Lesson 84. These are the ideas for today's review:

1.(67) Love created me like itself.

I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss
and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will
worship no idols, nor raise my own self-concept to replace my Self. I am in the
likeness of my Creator. Love created me like itself.

You might find these specific forms helpful in applying the idea:

Let me not see an illusion of myself in this.
As I look on this, let me remember my Creator.
My Creator did not create this as I see it.

3. (68). Love holds no grievances.

Grievances are completely alien to love. Grievances attack love and keep its
light obscure. If I hold grievances I am attacking love, and therefore attacking
my Self. My Self thus becomes alien to me. I am determined not to attack my Self
today, so that I can remember Who I am.

These specific forms for applying this idea would be helpful:

This is no justification for denying my Self.
I will not use this to attack love.
Let this not tempt me to attack myself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson is 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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(1:7-8) "I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like itself."

*Jesus returns to the lesson's theme, and asks us to return as well. We are
speeded along our journey by our willingness to set aside the ego's shabby
substitutes and accept the truth about ourselves. We are created in the image
and likeness of our Creator and Source -- Love Itself.

This is reiterated in the specific applications:*

(2:2-4) "Let me not see an illusion of myself in this."
"As I look on this, let me remember my Creator."
"My Creator did not create this as I see it."

*The "this" is any situation that causes us to believe we are vulnerable bodies,
reinforcing the belief we are not glorious Self of spirit that God created.
Jesus' point is that if we see ourselves as hurt or exhilarated by anything, it
is because we have chosen to see it that way. Nothing has the power to make us
feel good or bad but the mind's choice for the ego, made because we value it
over the non-dualistic Self created by God. Jesus asks us to want to choose
differently; to see each event of our day as an opportunity to remember our
Creator. This choice is reflected by our recognition that Perfect Love could not
have created the situation we experience, and so it cannot be real. And what is
not real can have no power over us.*

(3:1) (68). "Love holds no grievances."

*Jesus returns to the important theme of grievances and attack thoughts. Implied
here is that our grievances do not just come; we <actively choose them> because
we want to hold another responsible for the misery we feel from having separated
from love. Rather than accept responsibility for our "sin" and admit the fear
that caused us to separate, we deny the sin, split it off from the self and,
through projection, hold grievances against someone else -- <anyone> else --
accusing that person of what we secretly believe we have done. All this is
brought about to fulfill the ego's purpose of protecting its existence through
denying the mind and making us mindless, leaving us "at the mercy of things
beyond [us], forces [we] cannot control" (T-19.IV-D.7:4)*

(4:2-4) "These specific forms for applying this idea would be helpful:

"This is no justification for denying my Self."
" I will not use this to attack love."
"Let this not tempt me to attack myself."

*Jesus, as always, appeals to the power of our minds to make another choice. His
appeal takes the power of recognizing there is no justification for attack
thoughts of any kind. Recalling the shift in purpose, of which the Holy Spirit
is the reminder, allows us to release our grievances. Thus does the love
underneath ascend in our awareness and bring us peace, the steppingstone to
remembering the Self we had denied.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 83. Today let us review these ideas:

#93083

Lesson 83. Today let us review these ideas:

1. (65) My only function is the one God gave me.

I have no function but the one God gave me. This recognition releases me from
all conflict, because it means I cannot have conflicting goals. With one purpose
only, I am always certain what to do, what to say and what to think. All doubt
must disappear as I acknowledge that my only function is the one God gave me.

(2). More specific applications of this idea might take these forms:

My perception of this does not change my function.

This does not give me a function other than the one God gave me.
Let me not use this to justify a function God did not give me.<

3. (66) My happiness and my function are one.

All things that come from God are one. They come from Oneness, and must be
received as one. Fulfilling my function is my happiness because both come from
the same Source. And I must learn to recognize what makes me happy, if I would
find happiness.

(4). Some useful forms for specific applications of this idea are:

This cannot separate my happiness from my function.

The oneness of my happiness and my function remains wholly unaffected by
this.
Nothing, including this, can justify the illusion of happiness apart from my
function.<

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson (below) is 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 83. Today let us review these ideas:

1.(65) "My only function is the one God gave me."

*There <is> nothing else.*

(1:2-5) "I have no function but the one God gave me. This recognition releases
me from all conflict, because it means I cannot have conflicting goals. With one
purpose only, I am always certain what to do, what to say and what to think. All
doubt must disappear as I acknowledge that my only function is the one God gave
me."

*Our function is to forgive, the only right-minded reason for being in the
world. We are not here to save it, make a lot of money, raise a happy family,
have a healthy body, or live to be a hundred and fifty years. Remembering this
will remove conflict, because believing our function is external will inevitably
conflict with our internal function of realizing that nothing external is
important; only the change of thinking brought about by the change of teachers.

Conflict results as well from wanting to study this course and return home, at
the same time yearning to be its great teacher,or, seemingly more humbly, its
devoted student, while still desiring the gifts of specialness: money, fame,
power, and love. In these cases we regard an external goal as important -- if
not more so -- than the internal one, setting up conflict that was the ego's
goal from the beginning. Yet this course will end conflict, not exacerbate it,
and the only right-minded purpose of the external world, once we have made it,
is for it to be the mirror that shows us the choice we have made internally.
Only then can our minds -- the true source of conflict -- be healed, as the
following passage explains:

"Forget not that the healing of God's Son is all the world is for. That is
the only purpose the Holy Spirit sees in it, and thus the only one it has. Until
you see the healing of the Son as all you wish to be accomplished by the world,
by time and all appearances, you will not know the Father nor yourself. For you
will use the world for what is not its purpose, and will not escape its laws of
violence and death." (T.24.VI.4.1-4)

Healing is thus the world's only sane purpose. Once we made it as an expression
of our hatred of God and Christ, our new Teacher shifts the purpose. The world
becomes the vehicle for showing us, first, that we have a mind, and second, the
ego decision we made within it. Now the right decision is inevitable, and we are
certain of the purpose of forgiveness as doubt disappears.

We now seek to apply what we are learning:*

(2:2-3) "My perception of this does not change my function."
"This does not give me a function other than the one God gave me."

*Whatever situation I believe is disrupting my peace has no effect on my mind.
Stated another way, nothing I perceive as external has the power to change my
purpose of forgiveness. Regardless of the ego reactions to a situation, my
function remains within, gently and patiently held for me by Jesus. The reader
may recall our earlier citation of this lovely passage of the text -- Jesus
echoing his gentle and patient role as our teacher -- part of which we look at
again:

"I have saved all your kindnesses and every loving thought you ever had. I
have purified them of the errors that hid their light, and kept them for you in
their own perfect radiance." (T-5.IV.8:3-4).

Despite our ego's shenanigans, we cannot lose. Our insanity has no effect on the
sanity within, nor on our sane function of forgiveness.*

(2:4) "Let me not use this to justify a function God did not give me."

*Let me not use an external situation as a means of justifying the belief there
is some purpose in my life other than undoing the ego's thought system. The
world is only too happy to cooperate in the ego's plan -- after all, the ego
made the world to cooperate -- by providing us with one opportunity after
another to justify our judgments and grievances, our perception that we have
been unfairly treated; an unfairness that can be remedied only by our defensive
and, at times, aggressive response. However, we are twice told: Anger is never
justified (T-6.in.1:7; T-30.VI.1:1-2). Restoring the mind's peace is our only
responsibility, and recognition of this happy fact is the heart of our function
of forgiveness.*

(3:1)(66) "My happiness and my function are one."

*This is because our happiness does not result from anything in the world.
Remember the laws of specialness tell us our happiness comes from the body: our
own or another's, or anything external. This, again, must engender conflict,
because happiness comes only when we let go of guilt, the joyous effect of
forgiveness. However, if we think there is pleasure in the world, we will
inevitably be in conflict. This certainly does not mean we should feel guilty
because we still seek bodily pleasure, but only that we should be aware of what
we are doing. This is not a course in sacrifice or giving up what we feel is
important, but in our learning, as Jesus instructs us near the end of the text,
that giving up the world is giving up nothing, and therefore there is no
sacrifice involved. Thus at the same time he is asking us to give up nothing,
Jesus is helping us recognize that everything here is nothing. Only then can we
truly give up the world:

"Give up the world! But not to sacrifice. You never wanted it. What
happiness have you sought here that did not bring you pain? What moment of
content has not been bought at fearful price in coins of suffering? Joy has no
cost. It is your sacred right, and what you pay for is not happiness. Be speeded
on your way by honesty, and let not your experiences here deceive in retrospect.
They were not free from bitter cost and joyless consequence." (T.30.V.9.4-12)

This is a course in opening our eyes so that we understand how what we think,
feel, and do fits into God's plan of Atonement. Everything we desire outside can
serve a holy purpose, if we let the Holy Spirit teach us its true meaning. Thus,
to repeat this important point, realizing that our happiness does not come from
the external should not make us feel guilty. It is a statement that merely helps
us realize that our entire lives are based on conflict, and from that
realization comes the end of conflict and the dawning of true happiness.*

(3:2-4) "All things that come from God are one. They come from Oneness, and must
be received as one. Fulfilling my function is my happiness because both come
from the same Source."

*The ego tries to split us off from God and from our self -- <in the mind> --
and then have us believe that our happiness and function rest outside us -- <in
the body>. Once we understand the principle of oneness, however, everything is
clear. The contrast is striking between this principle and how we live our
lives, which are characterized by separation, differences, and discrete events:
We feel good some days and not others; good with the same people sometimes but
not other times, and on and on and on. Our experience is never unified, for
everything is governed by adherence to the ego's principle of <one or the other>
: My interests and yours are separate -- if I win you lose, if I lose you win.
Jesus helps us realize that the way back to God's living Oneness is through
reflecting Its Love, which we do by perceiving each other through the lens of
shared interests.*

(3:5) "And I must learn to recognize what makes me happy, if I would find
happiness."

*The purpose of these lessons is to teach what would make us happy. We have seen
repeatedly that happiness does not lie in the fulfillment of something external,
for that is merely transitory.

Jesus asks us to apply the idea of the lesson as follows:*

(4:2-3) "This cannot separate my happiness from my function."
"The oneness of my happiness and my function remains wholly unaffected by this."

*As in the previous lesson, we are asked to recognize that whatever form of
upset confronts us, it has no power to change the happiness that forgiveness
brings. Happiness comes from the mind's decision, and no power in the world can
take that from us. Only our decision can, and unfortunately has done so.

We can see again and again in these applications how Jesus asks us to take these
relatively abstract ideas and apply them in our diurnal situations. That is
mandatory if we are going to learn this course, which is not really an
intellectual process. While intellectually learning its message is important --
that is the purpose of the text, after all -- if we do not apply the teachings,
they mean nothing. Therefore, the emphasis of these lessons is to have us go
through our day as we normally would, but the moment something disturbs our
peace or makes us excited, to realize this can have no effect on our happiness
and function, which are within. We have merely covered them with illusions,
which have no effect on the truth.

The last statement repeats this thought:*

(4:4) "Nothing, including this, can justify the illusion of happiness apart from
my function."

*When something makes you happy and gives you pleasure, realize this experience
is separate from your function of forgiveness, and so it will not last. True
happiness in this world comes from letting go of guilt, the problem that caused
us to flee our minds, as we believed we fled from Heaven. Guilt's undoing, then,
is the source of pain, and returns us to the home we never left.

Our happiness during the day is equated with forgiveness, wherein we recognize
that nothing and no one has the power to take away the peace of God. It is ours,
awaiting our acceptance. Awareness of this fact, even if we are not yet ready to
choose peace, provides an intimation of joy and a sense of hope, which are
impossible as long as we think we need to manipulate, seduce, or change the
world. This may work some days, but never all the time. Indeed, this is the
criterion Jesus asks us to use in evaluating the worth of anything in the world,
as he says in Lesson 133. Previewing this incisive passage, we read:

"If you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is
valueless. A temporary value is without all value. Time can never take away a
value that is real. What fades and dies was never there, and makes no offering
to him who chooses it." (W-pI.133.6:1-4).

Simply realizing that we no longer have to "value what is valueless" (W-pI.133,
title), even if we are not yet ready to let it go, is a source of hope.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Lesson 82. We will review these ideas today:

#93082

Lesson 82. We will review these ideas today:

1.(63) The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.

My forgiveness is the means by which the light of the world finds expression
through me. My forgiveness is the means by which I become aware of the light of
the world in me. My forgiveness is the means by which the world is healed,
together with myself. Let me, then, forgive the world, that it may be healed
along with me.

2.Suggestions for specific forms for applying this idea are:

Let peace extend from my mind to yours, [name].
I share the light of the world with you, [name].
Through my forgiveness I can see this as it is.

3.(64) Let me not forget my function.

I would not forget my function, because I would remember my Self. I cannot
fulfill my function if I forget it. And unless I fulfill my function, I will not
experience the joy that God intends for me.

4. Suitable specific forms of this idea include:

Let me not use this to hide my function from me.
I would use this as an opportunity to fulfill my function.
This may threaten my ego, but cannot change my function in any way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson (below) is 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 82. We will review these ideas today:

1.(63) "The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my
forgiveness."

*This lesson extends the previous one.*

(1:2-5) "My forgiveness is the means by which the light of the world finds
expression through me. My forgiveness is the means by which I become aware of
the light of the world in me. My forgiveness is the means by which the world is
healed, together with myself. Let me, then, forgive the world, that it may be
healed along with me."

*We see the by-now familiar theme that the mind of God's Son is one, the basis
for the world's healing. If I forgive you, I must be forgiving me because we
come from the same self. When I accept Jesus' love as my identity instead of the
ego's special love, I realize there is no separation in the Sonship without
forgiving all of it. This is an essential part of Course's message. To say it
again, Jesus is not talking about healing an external world. <There is no
external world!> That is why he says in the text, "seek not to change the world,
but choose to change your mind about the world." (T-21.in.1.7) The world, being
an idea, has never left its source in the mind; therefore it still exists there.
Thus, when my mind is healed of thoughts of separation -- sin, guilt, and attack
-- the world must be healed accordingly.

Next we see these three statements, to be applied in our daily practicing: *

(2:2-4) "Let peace extend from my mind to yours, [name].
I share the light of the world with you, [name].
Through my forgiveness I can see this as it is."

*If there is peace in your mind, it must extend to everyone. One clear way of
discerning whether you have chosen God's peace or the ego's hatred is to pay
attention to your perceptions. If you perceive anything in the world disturbing
you, peace cannot be in your mind. This reflects the early lessons that taught
that everything we perceive outside comes from our thoughts. We will thus
realize that if we are not peaceful outside, our minds cannot be peaceful. This
helps us understand the ego choice we have made, which we can correct and undo.

While at this point in our practice of A Course in Miracles we are not directly
in touch with our minds, we can recognize them by understanding that what
perceive outside directly reflects what we have made real inside. To say it
again, if we want to know whether we have chosen Jesus or the ego as our
teacher, we need but pay attention to our reactions in the world. We need to
remember that whenever we find ourselves making judgments or getting upset, this
is a red flag that says: "I have chosen my ego again. Rather than assume
responsibility for this decision, I choose to project it, seeing it in everyone
else, but not in me." This insane thinking is easily undone through
forgiveness.*

(3:1)(64) "Let me not forget my function."

*We return to the theme of our real Self.*

(3:2) "I would not forget my function, because I would remember my Self."

*If I truly want to remember Who I am and return home, I must forgive. My
function of forgiveness, then, is the means whereby I achieve the end of
remembering my Identity.

If you find yourself making judgments -- special hate or special love -- that is
a sure sign you have chosen not to awaken from the dream and remember your Self.
You have chosen instead to remain a prisoner, yet blaming others for your
condition. When you discover what you have done, you should not judge yourself
nor feel guilty. You simply ask Jesus for help to remember you are not happy
here, and that no judgment you have made, or specialness you have sought, has
brought you anything but the illusion of happiness and peace. Ask Jesus to help
you look without judging yourself, which also means looking at others without
judgment.

To repeat, if you want to know what is going on in your mind, pay attention to
what you are thinking, perceiving, and feeling. If there is peace and a spirit
of joining with others in a common goal, you know you have chosen the Holy
Spirit as your Teacher. On the other hand, if you are feeling disquieted, that
it is the certain sign you have chosen the ego.*

(3:3) "I cannot fulfill my function if I forget it."

*Thus we need a Teacher Who reminds us of our function of forgiveness, which can
be defined as letting go of judgment. Therefore, if you find yourself judging,
you are choosing -- it does not happen automatically -- to forget your function
because you do not want to return home. Forgetting is purposive.*

(3:4) "And unless I fulfill my function, I will not experience the joy that God
intends for me."

*Whenever we feel special, make judgments, or are engaged in anything of the ego
thought system, we are saying we do not want the joy that God intends for us,
accepting the ego's substitute instead. In our guilt over pushing the joy of God
away, we project it out and find fault with everyone else. The idea, once again,
is not to judge ourselves for projecting, but to be aware that this is what we
have done, and the tremendous cost to us of having done so.

We are then asked to practice applying this idea, saying:*

(4:2) "Let me not use this to hide my function from me."

* "This" is anything we are experiencing during the day; e.g., being unhappy
with the change of weather or with what someone did or did not do. We should
then say: "I am choosing the situation as excuse to hide my function from me,
which I want to do to keep the joy of God away." *

(4:3) "I would use this as an opportunity to fulfill my function."

*Rather than use a situation as an opportunity to deny our function, we can let
Jesus redefine it as an opportunity to forgive. In other words, we could look at
everything as a classroom the Holy Spirit can use to teach us that our happiness
does not lie in anything external, nor in being a separated self, but in
choosing Jesus as the teacher who leads us beyond our specialness and takes us
home. This, again, applies to anything that happens during the day. *

(4:4) "This may threaten my ego, but cannot change my function in any way."

* In other words, if I perceive what someone says or does as threatening, this
does not mean my function is gone. It means only that I have chosen to be upset
because I want to obscure it. Yet it rests safely within me because its Teacher
does. Therefore, nothing has the power to remove the function of forgiveness
from me, <except my own decision>. *

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

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