Re: Lesson 1. Nothing I see in this room means anything.
When I find myself in opposition to any concept in ACIM, I have the opportunity to notice it. One may look forward to those opportunities or may have the opportunity to simply to observe thoughts of judgements. When willing the lessons and Ken's comments support us in noticing ego thoughts in action. One may notice having many, "Oops I did it again..." moments. Resistance may be strong though also keep in mind, all is well. No need to woulda. shouda, coulda the thoughts. You are simply in observation mode. Though you may think along those lines and yet, all is still well in the observations.
J always offers his hand ;-) whenever I think I have fallen and can't get up.
With Appreciation,
Marcy
"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. No belief is neutral. Every one has the power to dictate each decision that you make. For a decision is a conclusion based on everything you believe. It is the outcome of belief, and follows it as surely as does suffering follow guilt "
This very first lesson, which seems so simple, if not simple-minded if you do not really understand it, contains the complete thought system of A Course in Miracles. There is no difference among any of the things in this world.....
(3:2-4) "That is the purpose of the exercise. [to have us realize that there are no differences]....? As you practice the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately."
*It would be very easy to go around to everything in the room and look at different parts of your body and say: "This does not mean anything." But then you are just doing it as a ritual. Basically, a ritual leaves you mindless, which is why people like them.?
It is easy to miss here how Jesus is being "sneaky." He seems to be telling us that this idea is only for this lesson. What he is <not> telling us is that A Course in Miracles itself rests on this principle.*
*As you do these lesson you should sense Jesus telling you: "These should be done gently. Do not crucify yourself with them. Do not try to get them perfect. Do not feel guilty when you <believe> you fail. Do not make your practice into an obsessive ritual. You should feel comfortable with these exercises." His gentleness becomes one of the significant principles of the workbook, and integrating this gentle kindness into our lives is one of the most important lessons we would ever wish to learn. Jesus supplies us with a wonderful model.*
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Lesson 1. Nothing I see in this room means anything.
Lesson 1. Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.
Now look slowly around you, and practice applying this idea very specifically to whatever you see:
This table does not mean anything.
This chair does not mean anything.
This hand does not mean anything.
This foot does not mean anything.
This pen does not mean anything.
Then look farther away from your immediate area, and apply the idea to a wider range:
That door does not mean anything.
That body does not mean anything.
That lamp does not mean anything.
That sign does not mean anything.
That shadow does not mean anything.
Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied. That is the purpose of the exercise. The statement should merely be applied to anything you see. As you practice the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately. Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic. Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded. One thing is like another as far as the application of the idea is concerned.
Each of the first three lessons should not be done more than twice a day each, preferably morning and evening. Nor should they be attempted for more than a minute or so, unless that entails a sense of hurry. A comfortable sense of leisure is essential.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Below, is from Kenneth Wapnick's commentaries on this lesson, from "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything."
*This idea is to look around -- without judgment -- at these very prosaic objects in our world: a table, chair, hand, foot, pen, door, body, lamp, sign, shadow. Notice how Jesus sneaks the body in; the point is to realize that you normally would think that your hand is more important than a pen, or your body is more important than a lamp. There isn't anyone who does not believe that. Therefore, you need realize how you are coming to A Course in Miracles with a set of premises that you are not even aware of, a hierarchy of values that you hold about the world. That is why Jesus instructs us 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. No belief is neutral. Every one has the power to dictate each decision that you make. For a decision is a conclusion based on everything you believe. It is the outcome of belief, and follows it as surely as does suffering follow guilt and freedom sinlessness." (T.24.in.2:1-6)
This very first lesson, which seems so simple, if not simple-minded if you do not really understand it, contains the complete thought system of A Course in Miracles. There is no difference among any of the things in this world. They are all equally the same because they are part of the illusion, reflecting the same thought system of separation, which itself is unreal. As you know from your study of the text, the first law of chaos, the foundation of the thought system of the ego and the world, is that there is a hierarchy of illusions (T-23.II.2:3). If I believe that my body or hand is more important than a lamp, I am clearly saying there is a hierarchy of illusions. Again, it would be hard, if possible at all, to find someone in this world who does not share the belief in that hierarchy, or who even thinks about that as an issue. Thus, if you give some serious thought to this, it will become clear to you that your whole life is based on a lie -- the first law of chaos that says there is a hierarchy of illusions. ... Skip to paragraph 3:*
(3.1-2) "Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied. That is the purpose of the exercise."
*This is not to say that you should give up your investment in your body or in your hand. Rather, the purpose of these reflections is to help you become aware of how, even on this very basic level, you are reflecting the ego's thought system. These lessons are humbling if you think deeply about them, because they help you to realize how much your life goes against everything that A Course in Miracles is teaching. This means there is a part of you that does not want to learn this course, because there is a part of you that does not want to give up your life. You do not want to walk around actually believing your hand is as meaningless as a pen, because you believe that there is a body that is real, and that you are truly here in the world. If you believe this, as we all do, you cannot believe in the reality of God. In other words, the first part of the workbook has as its purpose, as we were just told, to undo the way that we perceive and we think. This sets the tone for what will follow.*
(3:2-4) "That is the purpose of the exercise. [to have us realize that there are no differences]. The statement should merely be applied to anything you see. As you practice the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately."
*That is what <generalizing> means. Obviously Jesus does not expect us to practice this exercise with total indiscriminateness; if we could, we would not need these lessons. The idea is to be aware of how we <do not> practice it in our lives, even when we are specifically trying to. When you do this lesson, therefore, you should actually think about whether you are truly ready to say that "this hand is as meaningless as a pen." And if you believe that you think they are the same, take a pen and break it, and then your hand and break that. You will suddenly realize that you believe there is a real difference. This is certainly not meant to make you feel guilty, but to help you realize your investment in identifying with the thought system of separation.*
(3:5-7) "Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic. Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded. One thing is like another as far as the application of the idea is concerned."
*It would be very easy to go around to everything in the room and look at different parts of your body and say: "This does not mean anything." But then you are just doing it as a ritual. Basically, a ritual leaves you mindless, which is why people like them. A friend once again said that she liked to say the rosary because she did not have to think. You just do it. Jesus is telling you <not> to do that with this workbook. Do not make it into a ritual. Rituals are designed to keep you <mindless>. This is a course whose purpose is to make you <mindful>. We shall repeatedly return to this theme of the potential danger of rituals.
It is easy to miss here how Jesus is being "sneaky." He seems to be telling us that this idea is only for this lesson. What he is <not> telling us is that A Course in Miracles itself rests on this principle.*
(4) "Each of the first three lessons should not be done more than twice a day each, preferably morning and evening. Nor should they be attempted for more than a minute or so, unless that entails a sense of hurry. A comfortable sense of leisure is essential."
*As you do these lesson you should sense Jesus telling you: "These should be done gently. Do not crucify yourself with them. Do not try to get them perfect. Do not feel guilty when you <believe> you fail. Do not make your practice into an obsessive ritual. You should feel comfortable with these exercises." His gentleness becomes one of the significant principles of the workbook, and integrating this gentle kindness into our lives is one of the most important lessons we would ever wish to learn. Jesus supplies us with a wonderful model.*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
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Workbook for Students Introduction
Workbook for StudentsIntroduction1.?A theoretical foundation such as the text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises in this workbook meaningful.??Yet it is doing the exercises that will make the goal of the course possible.??An untrained mind can accomplish nothing.??It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth. 2.?The exercises are very simple.??They do not require a great deal of time, and it does not matter where you do them.??They need no preparation.??The training period is one year.??The exercises are numbered from 1 to 365.??Do not undertake to do more than one set of exercises a day. 3.?The workbook is divided into two main sections, the first dealing with the undoing of the way you see now, and the second with the acquisition of true perception.??With the exception of the review periods, each day’s exercises are planned around one central idea, which is stated first.??This is followed by a description of the specific procedures by which the idea for the day is to be applied. 4.?The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world.??The exercises are planned to help you generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see. 5.?Transfer of training in true perception does not proceed as does transfer of the training of the world.??If true perception has been achieved in connection with any person, situation or event, total transfer to everyone and everything is certain.??On the other hand, one exception held apart from true perception makes its accomplishments anywhere impossible. 6.?The only general rules to be observed throughout, then, are: First, that the exercises be practiced with great specificity, as will be indicated.??This will help you to generalize the ideas involved to every situation in which you find yourself, and to everyone and everything in it.??Second, be sure that you do not decide for yourself that there are some people, situations or things to which the ideas are inapplicable.??This will interfere with transfer of training.??The very nature of true perception is that it has no limits.??It is the opposite of the way you see now. 7.?The overall aim of the exercises is to increase your ability to extend the ideas you will be practicing to include everything.??This will require no effort on your part.??The exercises themselves meet the conditions necessary for this kind of transfer. 8.?Some of the ideas the workbook presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling.??This does not matter.??You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do.??You are not asked to judge them at all.??You are asked only to use them.??It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true. 9.?Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them.??Some of them you may actively resist.??None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy.??But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them.??Nothing more than that is required.
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
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Ken Wapnick's Introduction to Journey Through the Workbook
For those interested in going over the lessons and Ken's commentaries again starting in the New Year, this is his opening "Preface" to his book set entitled "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," and will be followed in the next couple of days with his "Prelude" to the actual Introduction and then the lessons themselves, to be started on January 1.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Preface" by Kenneth Wapnick.
*My purpose in this book -- as it was in the classes that inspired it -- is to help students of A Course in Miracles better understand the meaning of the lessons and their place in the overall curriculum of the Course. Most of all, the purpose is to help students see the importance of applying the daily lessons to their everyday lives. Without such application, the words in A Course in Miracles is wasted, and they become simply a sterile system of intellectual teachings. Indeed, the stated purpose of the workbook is to help students apply the teachings of the text's theoretical framework:
"A theoretical foundation such as the text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises in this workbook meaningful. Yet it is doing the exercises that will make the goal of the course possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth." (W-in.1).
As any teacher knows, students learn by constant practice and repetition. While our memories may not extend that far back, that was how we all learned to read, write, and do arithmetic. Similarly, anyone who has learned to play a musical instrument remembers the daily practice and repetition of scales and exercises. So, too, with the text's principles of forgiveness. These must be practiced day in and day out, moment by moment if necessary. Jesus reminds us in the text that every encounter is holy one (T-8.III.4:1), because each experience, regardless of its magnitude, provides an opportunity for the reversal of projection that allows us to examine the contents of our unconscious minds. Without such awareness we can never truly choose again, the Course's ultimate goal. Moreover, when we learned our basic skills in elementary school, we did not learn each and every possible combination of words and numbers, but only the principles in specific examples, which we then generalized to all instances. Thus does our new Teacher -- Jesus or the Holy Spirit -- instruct us to forgive certain of our special relationships, helping us then to generalize the principle to all relationships:
"The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world. The exercises are planned to help you generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see." (W-in.4).
In case we missed it the first time, Jesus repeats his point two paragraphs later:
"The only general rules to be observed throughout, then, are: First, that the exercises be practiced with great specificity, as will be indicated. This will help you to generalize the ideas involved to every situation in which you find yourself, and to everyone and everything in it ... The overall aim of the exercises is to increase your ability to extend the ideas you will be practicing to include everything." (W-in.6:1-2;7:1).
We shall return to this essential point when we begin our journey through the workbook.
These volumes can be read in at least three ways: 1) straight through, as one would do with the text of A Course in Miracles; 2) different lessons at different times; or 3) one lesson at a time, as a companion to each lesson. I would urge students, however, if they are doing the workbook for the first time, to read the lessons as they are, without my commentary. In other words, as will all my other work on A Course in Miracles, this eight-volume book is meant to supplement a student's experience of the workbook, not to substitute for the workbook as it was given to us.
A word now about the use of language in A Course in Miracles. As I discussed in great detail in Few Choose to Listen, Volume Two of The Messages of A Course in Miracles, the Course in written in dualistic (or metaphorical) language. That is the meaning of Jesus' statement in the Introduction to the clarification of terms:
"This course remains within the ego framework, where it is needed. It is not concerned with what is beyond all error because it is planned only to set the direction towards it. Therefore it uses words, which are symbolic, and cannot express what lies beyond symbols ... The course is simple. It has one function and one goal. Only in that does it remain wholly consistent because only that can be consistent." (C-in.3:1-3,8-10).
Underscoring the symbolic, and therefore inherently illusory nature of words, Jesus makes these comments in the manual for teachers:
"God does not understand words, for they were made by separated minds to keep them in the illusion of separation. Words can be helpful, particularly for the beginner, in helping concentration and facilitating the exclusion, or at least the control, of extraneous thoughts. Let us not forget, however, that words are but symbols of symbols. They are thus twice removed from reality." (M-21.1:7-10).
Therefore, because of our limited capacity to understand -- identifying with the brain instead of the mind -- Jesus' abstract or non-specific love needs to be expressed in a form we can understand and eventually accept. Thus he says in the text, concerning the Holy Spirit's teaching us how to experience the oneness of truth through forgiveness:
"All this takes note of time and place as if they were discrete, for while you think that part of you is separate, the concept of a oneness joined as one is meaningless. It is apparent that a mind so split could never be the teacher of a Oneness Which unites all things within Itself. And so What is within this mind, and does unite all things together, must be its Teacher. <Yet must It use the language that this mind can understand, in the condition in which it thinks it is.> And It must use all learning to transfer illusions to the truth, taking all false ideas of what you are, and leading you beyond them to the truth that is beyond them." (T-25.I.7:1-5; italics mine in sentence 4).
Thus God and the Holy Spirit (and Jesus) are spoken of as if they were persons, members of the species homo sapiens. They have a gender, and speak, act, think, make plans, have reactions and feelings, and even body parts -- voices, arms, hands, and tear ducts. Yet how can a non-dualistic God be or do any of these things? Lesson 169 states that "God is," and nothing more can be said that is truly meaningful. It is essential, however, for a student of A Course in Miracles to understand that all such references for God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus are not meant literally. On the level of symbol and metaphor, they simply meet us <in the condition in which we think we are>. Much of the workbook is written on this level, and I shall usually point out the <seeming> inconsistency between form and content, word and meaning, sometimes referring back to the passages I have just cited. When the use of symbol is properly understood, the problem of consistency will disappear. That is why Jesus cautions us in the text not to confuse symbol with source (T-19.IV-C.11:2).
In addition, there are notable inconsistencies in the use of words. For example, as mentioned above, the word <God> is used when it is obvious <the Holy Spirit> is the proper subject. One example comes in Lesson 193, "All things are lessons God would have me learn." The lesson itself makes clear that "God does not know of learning," while throughout all three books the Holy Spirit is referred to as our Teacher. In Lesson 29 we are told that "God is in everything I see," yet the lesson and the one following make it clear that it is the <purpose> of God that is meant, and we know from our study of A Course in Miracles that it is the Holy Spirit's function to hold that purpose of forgiveness in our minds. Other examples abound, and I shall for the most part point them out as they occur.
It is also important to point out the references to traditional Christian terms, such as <Atonement> the <Second Coming>, and <Last Judgment>, not to mention lessons such as "I am the light of the world." This follows the same lines of reasoning I just discussed -- Jesus' use of our Western and dualistic language as the <form>, within which he teaches us a different <content>. Therefore, it is extremely important to understand in the Course that most of the time Jesus uses language of symbols with which we all have grown up. Both in Judaism and Christianity, God is seen as having plans and doing things for us, such as sending various kinds of help: natural phenomena, angels, His Son, even having the last named killed on our behalf. A significant part of His plan includes includes special people with special parts in the special plan. Such obvious anthromopomorphisms, when the symbols are taken literally, are red flags pointing to the voice of specialness and not the Voice of truth. Jesus does not speak directly of specialness in the workbook, but he does describe its dynamics. In an important line from the text, he says that we cannot even think of God without a body, or in some form we think we recognize (T-18.VIII.1:7). That is his way of explaining that because we believe we are bodies that are separate, he must talk to us about a God who also seems to be separate -- not that He is in truth, but that He <seems> to be. Again, this does not literally mean that God has put the remedy or the Holy Spirit in our minds, or that He even has a plan. When we fell asleep and began this insane dream, we took with us into the dream a memory -- the Holy Spirit -- from where we came. <We> did that -- not God. The Holy Spirit is the memory and Presence of Love, and the reminder of who we are as Its children. We shall return to this below.
As one begins this journey through the workbook, some additional comments may be helpful. A student would have to be either heavily into denial or so highly advanced as not to recognize the concept, if resistance to the lessons is not experienced somewhere along the way. The workbook's stated purpose, reflecting that of A Course in Miracles itself, is to undo the ego's thought system of guilt -- the foundation for our very existence as separated and individualized selves. One does not let such a foundation go easily or lightly. To do so would mean the end of existence as we know it. And so our selves -- ruled by the ego -- resist any incursion into the ego's bastion of defenses. Thus we speak of the process of learning and living the Course as a journey we take with the Holy Spirit as our Teacher. It is a journey through the far country of resistance -- fear, guilt and projection -- with the light of forgiveness our guide, and the light of Heaven our goal, That is why we speak of the structure of A Course in Miracles as symphonic, wherein certain core themes are repeated, varied, set aside, and restated, until the stirring coda of redemption heralds the journey's end.
One of the many forms of resistance takes, in addition to the more obvious ones such as forgetting the lesson title or the lesson itself, is using the titles or statements as affirmations. That is not their purpose, and their misuse reflects the ego's process of bringing the light to the darkness; this not only covers the darkness, <but the light as well>. Rather, the statements in question are meant as symbols of the light, to which we bring the darkness of our ego's guilt and judgment that are gently shined away.*
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The eight volume book set, "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," can be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
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Epilogue1.?This course is a beginning, not an end.??Your Friend goes with you.??You are not alone.??No one who calls on Him can call in vain.??Whatever troubles you, be certain that He has the answer, and will gladly give it to you, if you simply turn to Him and ask it of Him.??He will not withhold all answers that you need for anything that seems to trouble you.??He knows the way to solve all problems, and resolve all doubts.??His certainty is yours.??You need but ask it of Him, and it will be given you. 2.?You are as certain of arriving home as is the pathway of the sun laid down before it rises, after it has set, and in the half-lit hours in between.??Indeed, your pathway is more certain still.??For it can not be possible to change the course of those whom God has called to Him.??Therefore obey your will, and follow Him Whom you accepted as your voice, to speak of what you really want and really need.??His is the Voice for God and also yours.??And thus He speaks of freedom and of truth. 3.?No more specific lessons are assigned, for there is no more need of them.??Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God and for your Self when you retire from the world, to seek reality instead.??He will direct your efforts, telling you exactly what to do, how to direct your mind, and when to come to Him in silence, asking for His sure direction and His certain Word.??His is the Word that God has given you.??His is the Word you chose to be your own. 4.?And now I place you in His hands, to be His faithful follower, with Him as Guide through every difficulty and all pain that you may think is real.??Nor will He give you pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the eternal and the good.??Let Him prepare you further.??He has earned your trust by speaking daily to you of your Father and your brother and your Self.??He will continue.??Now you walk with Him, as certain as is He of where you go; as sure as He of how you should proceed; as confident as He is of the goal, and of your safe arrival in the end. 5.?The end is certain, and the means as well.??To this we say “Amen.”??You will be told exactly what God wills for you each time there is a choice to make.??And He will speak for God and for your Self, thus making sure that hell will claim you not, and that each choice you make brings Heaven nearer to your reach.??And so we walk with Him from this time on, and turn to Him for guidance and for peace and sure direction.??Joy attends our way.??For we go homeward to an open door which God has held unclosed to welcome us. 6.?We trust our ways to Him and say “Amen.”??In peace we will continue in His way, and trust all things to Him.??In confidence we wait His answers, as we ask His Will in everything we do.??He loves God’s Son as we would love him.??And He teaches us how to behold him through His eyes, and love him as He does.??You do not walk alone.??God’s angels hover near and all about.??His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure; that I will never leave you comfortless.
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
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Lessons 361 to 365
This holy instant would I give to You.
Be You in charge. For I would follow You,
Certain that Your direction gives me peace.
And if I need a word to help me, He will give it to me. If I need a thought,
that will He also give. And if I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind,
these are the gifts I will receive of Him. He is in charge by my request. And He
will hear and answer me, because He speaks for God my Father and His holy Son.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on these lessons are by Kenneth Wapnick, from his books: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles." Book set may be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lessons 361 to 365
"This holy instant would I give to You.
Be You in charge. For I would follow You,
Certain that Your direction gives me peace."
*Again, Lessons 361 to 365 are one, and focus on the Holy Spirit. They reflect
our having achieved the workbook's goal, which was to learn we have a split
mind: we were mistaken in choosing the ego, and we correct that mistake by
choosing the Holy Spirit. Indeed, this is how the lesson begins.
In the Introduction to the sixth review, Jesus told us he is placing us in the
Holy Spirit's charge. Now <we> place ourselves in the Holy Spirit's charge. The
clear implication is that we have learned Jesus' lesson and realized our
mistake, knowing there is a principle of correction in our minds to which we can
go, and which will bring us peace. We therefore undo the original error when we
chose against the Holy Spirit and in that original unholy instant asked the ego
to be in charge. The world, then, is nothing but a projection of that original
unholy instant. Now we happily change our minds, glad to have been wrong and
grateful to be living in the Holy Spirit's holy instant of forgiveness.*
(1:1-4) "And if I need a word to help me, He will give it to me. If I need a
thought, that will He also give. And if I need but stillness and a tranquil,
open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Him. He is in charge by my
request."
*"He is in charge by my request" -- this is most important. It is not that Jesus
gives the Holy Spirit to us; we actively choose Him. To make that choice is thus
our goal throughout the day.*
(1:5) "And He will hear and answer me, because He speaks for God my Father and
His holy Son."
*We will see this same thought expressed in the Epilogue. As long as we believe
we are bodies living in the world, we will experience the abstract presence of
the Holy Spirit's Love as meeting us where we believe we are. We will think He
is helping us in all the specific ways in which we experience our need, as we
read in the clarification of terms:
"The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ
Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are one. He speaks for God
and also for you, being joined with both. And therefore it is He Who proves them
one. He seems to be a Voice, for in that form He speaks God's Word to you. He
seems to be a Guide through a far country, for you need that form of help. He
seems to be whatever meets the needs you think you have. But He is not deceived
when you perceive your self entrapped in needs you do not have. It is from these
He would deliver you. It is from these that He would make you safe." (C-6.4).
However, as we continue our journey home, after completing the journey through
the workbook, we realize that help is not specific at all, for the only reality
is the abstract Love of God. It is to this Love we make our certain way with our
Guide, Teacher, and Comforter, Whose Love leads us to the peace of God and
everlasting life.*
Lessons 361 to 365
This holy instant would I give to You.
Be You in charge. For I would follow You,
Certain that Your direction gives me peace.
And if I need a word to help me, He will give it to me. If I need a thought,
that will He also give. And if I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind,
these are the gifts I will receive of Him. He is in charge by my request. And He
will hear and answer me, because He speaks for God my Father and His holy Son.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on these lessons are by Kenneth Wapnick, from his books: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles." Book set may be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lessons 361 to 365
"This holy instant would I give to You.
Be You in charge. For I would follow You,
Certain that Your direction gives me peace."
*Again, Lessons 361 to 365 are one, and focus on the Holy Spirit. They reflect
our having achieved the workbook's goal, which was to learn we have a split
mind: we were mistaken in choosing the ego, and we correct that mistake by
choosing the Holy Spirit. Indeed, this is how the lesson begins.
In the Introduction to the sixth review, Jesus told us he is placing us in the
Holy Spirit's charge. Now <we> place ourselves in the Holy Spirit's charge. The
clear implication is that we have learned Jesus' lesson and realized our
mistake, knowing there is a principle of correction in our minds to which we can
go, and which will bring us peace. We therefore undo the original error when we
chose against the Holy Spirit and in that original unholy instant asked the ego
to be in charge. The world, then, is nothing but a projection of that original
unholy instant. Now we happily change our minds, glad to have been wrong and
grateful to be living in the Holy Spirit's holy instant of forgiveness.*
(1:1-4) "And if I need a word to help me, He will give it to me. If I need a
thought, that will He also give. And if I need but stillness and a tranquil,
open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Him. He is in charge by my
request."
*"He is in charge by my request" -- this is most important. It is not that Jesus
gives the Holy Spirit to us; we actively choose Him. To make that choice is thus
our goal throughout the day.*
(1:5) "And He will hear and answer me, because He speaks for God my Father and
His holy Son."
*We will see this same thought expressed in the Epilogue. As long as we believe
we are bodies living in the world, we will experience the abstract presence of
the Holy Spirit's Love as meeting us where we believe we are. We will think He
is helping us in all the specific ways in which we experience our need, as we
read in the clarification of terms:
"The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ
Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are one. He speaks for God
and also for you, being joined with both. And therefore it is He Who proves them
one. He seems to be a Voice, for in that form He speaks God's Word to you. He
seems to be a Guide through a far country, for you need that form of help. He
seems to be whatever meets the needs you think you have. But He is not deceived
when you perceive your self entrapped in needs you do not have. It is from these
He would deliver you. It is from these that He would make you safe." (C-6.4).
However, as we continue our journey home, after completing the journey through
the workbook, we realize that help is not specific at all, for the only reality
is the abstract Love of God. It is to this Love we make our certain way with our
Guide, Teacher, and Comforter, Whose Love leads us to the peace of God and
everlasting life.*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Final Lessons. Introduction:
Final Lessons. Introduction: Our final lessons will be left as free of words as possible. We use them but at
the beginning of our practicing, and only to remind us that we seek to go beyond
them. Let us turn to Him Who leads the way and makes our footsteps sure. To Him
we leave these lessons, as to Him we give our lives henceforth. For we would not
return again to the belief in sin that made the world seem ugly and unsafe,
attacking and destroying, dangerous in all its ways, and treacherous beyond the
hope of trust and the escape from pain.
His is the only way to find the peace that God has given us. It is His way that
everyone must travel in the end, because it is this ending God Himself
appointed. In the dream of time it seems to be far off. And yet, in truth, it is
already here; already serving us as gracious guidance in the way to go. Let us
together follow in the way that truth points out to us. And let us be the
leaders of our many brothers who are seeking for the way, but find it not.
And to this purpose let us dedicate our minds, directing all our thoughts to
serve the function of salvation. Unto us the aim is given to forgive the world.
It is the goal that God has given us. It is His ending to the dream we seek, and
not our own. For all that we forgive we will not fail to recognize as part of
God Himself. And thus His memory is given back, completely and complete.
It is our function to remember Him on earth, as it is given us to be His Own
completion in reality. So let us not forget our goal is shared, for it is that
remembrance which contains the memory of God, and points the way to Him and to
the Heaven of His peace. And shall we not forgive our brother, who can offer
this to us? He is the way, the truth and life that shows the way to us. In him
resides salvation, offered us through our forgiveness, given unto him.
We will not end this year without the gift our Father promised to His holy Son.
We are forgiven now. And we are saved from all the wrath we thought belonged to
God, and found it was a dream. We are restored to sanity, in which we understand
that anger is insane, attack is mad, and vengeance merely foolish fantasy. We
have been saved from wrath because we learned we were mistaken. Nothing more
than that. And is a father angry at his son because he failed to understand the
truth?
We come in honesty to God and say we did not understand, and ask Him to help us
to learn His lessons, through the Voice of His Own Teacher. Would He hurt His
Son? Or would He rush to answer him, and say, "This is My Son, and all I have is
his"? Be certain He will answer thus, for these are His Own words to you. And
more than that can no one ever have, for in these words is all there is, and all
that there will be throughout all time and in eternity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This 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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Final Lessons. Introduction:
*We come now to the Final Lessons. Lesson 361 to 335 are combined in one, the
theme of which, appropriately, is the Holy Spirit. He is also the theme of this
lovely introduction. At the workbook's conclusion, Jesus leaves us in the Holy
Spirit's charge to continue the journey, as he has throughout. In addition,
embedded in this final theme is the reminder that our purpose in the world is
forgiveness, through which the memory of God returns to our minds.*
(1:1-2) "Our final lessons will be left as free of words as possible. We use
them but at the beginning of our practicing, and only to remind us that we seek
to go beyond them."
*Jesus is continually reminding us of our purpose, which is reflected here in
not making words into reality. Thus the words of A Course in Miracles are not
sacred, but their source -- the love that inspired them -- most certainly is.
That love is in all of us, and so we need to be reminded again and again as we
go through our day that our purpose is to learn forgiveness -- the means of
undoing guilt and returning with our brothers to the home that lies beyond all
words and symbols.*
(1:3-4) "Let us turn to Him Who leads the way and makes our footsteps sure. To
Him we leave these lessons, as to Him we give our lives henceforth."
*The purpose of this one year of practice has been learning to be secure in the
awareness that the Holy Spirit is the only true Teacher. Thus it is His lessons,
guidance, and Love we would follow. When we are tempted to be upset, sick,
angry, or otherwise preoccupied with our specialness, it is because we first
pushed Him away and chose the ego instead. That is why our vigilance needs to be
focused on the ego's lies as the means of remembering the Holy Spirit's truth.
It is our minds that need vigilance, to choose against believing in the ego and
choosing for God and His Kingdom -- the third of the Holy Spirit's three
lessons. Thus does our corrected belief undo the ego's doubt, allowing us to
move beyond the belief to the certainty of God:
"The third step is thus one of protection for your mind, allowing you to
identify only with the centre, where God placed the altar to Himself. Altars are
beliefs, but God and His creations are beyond belief because they are beyond
question. The Voice for God speaks only for belief beyond question, which is the
preparation for being without question. As long as belief in God and His Kingdom
is assailed by any doubts in your mind, His perfect accomplishment is not
apparent to you. This is why you must be vigilant on God's behalf. The ego
speaks against His creation, and therefore engenders doubt. You cannot go beyond
belief until you believe fully." (T-6.V-C.7).*
(1:5) "For we would not return again to the belief in sin that made the world
seem ugly and unsafe, attacking and destroying, dangerous in all its ways, and
treacherous beyond the hope of trust and the escape from pain."
*We once made the mistake of believing the ego's lies of sin, and Jesus
encourages us never to make it again. From that one mistake the world of
treachery, danger, and pain arose, and who in his right mind would ever choose
its cause, when forgiveness gently beckons us to a world of peace and safety.*
(2:1-2) "His is the only way to find the peace that God has given us. It is His
way that everyone must travel in the end, because it is this ending God Himself
appointed."
*A Course in Miracles is only one spiritual path; but whatever path we choose --
regardless of its symbols -- the only way to reach home is to relinquish belief
in the self that believes in separation, anger, pain, and death. Through joining
with the Holy Spirit in our right minds, we undo the faulty belief system we
have accepted. Forgiving ourselves for our mistakes -- born of fear, not sin --
opens the certain way home, regardless of form, as we read again:
"Forgive yourself your madness, and forget all senseless journeys and all
goal-less aims. They have no meaning. You can not escape from what you are. For
God is merciful, and did not let His Son abandon Him. For what He is be
thankful, for in that is your escape from madness and from death. Nowhere but
where He is can you be found. There is no path that does not lead to Him."
(T-31.IV.11).*
(2:3-4) "In the dream of time it seems to be far off. And yet, in truth, it is
already here ..."
*It is a fact that the peace of God is already here -- in the presence of the
right-minded truth of Atonement. Moreover, in the holy instant we are outside of
time and space, so there is no longer a journey to the peace that is ours. We
find a similar expression in the manual for teachers, where Jesus speaks of the
world's end: "When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over"
(M-14.2:10). He continues:
"Certainly this seems to be a long, long while away. "When not one thought
of sin remains" appears to be a long-range goal indeed. But time stands still,
and waits on the goal of God's teachers. Not one thought of sin will remain the
instant any one of them accepts Atonement for himself." (M-14.3:1-4).
Since the Atonement is fully present within us -- its very presence reflects it
acceptance -- the separation has already been undone. Recall these lines from
the opening to Chapter 28:
"This world was over long ago. The thoughts that made it are no longer in
the mind that thought of them and loved them for a little while."
(T-28.1.1:6-7).
Thus Jesus reminds us that his peace is here, merely awaiting our choosing it --
<again>.*
(2:4-5) "And yet, in truth, it is already here; already serving us as gracious
guidance in the way to go. Let us together follow in the way that truth points
out to us."
*<Truth> is used as a synonym for the Holy Spirit, in Whose Love and Presence
there is no time or space. Joined with Him in the holy instant, we no longer
worry about how far we have to go, nor how long the journey's duration. Concerns
about the ego being so strong that we can never get free of it are thoughts that
occur only within the dream of linear time: past sins, present guilt, and future
fear of punishment. When we are outside the dream with Jesus, we realize these
thoughts, too, are just a defense against the truth that has guided us so
graciously to itself.*
(2:6) "And let us be the leaders of our many brothers who are seeking for the
way, but find it not."
*Jesus does not mean we are to be leaders in any external or behavioral way. We
lead simply by having chosen the Holy Spirit's Love. When that is ours choice,
we become the hand that reaches out, just as Jesus was the hand that reached for
ours. We now can say to our brothers that the same choice we have made they can
make, too, the journey we have embarked on welcomes them as well. Recall that in
Psychotherapy, Jesus comments on the need for the therapist to be his patient's
leader, even as he is being led by his Therapist:
"The psychotherapist is a leader in the sense that he walks slightly ahead
of the patient, and helps him to avoid a few of the pitfalls along the road by
seeing them first. Ideally, he is also a follower, for One should walk ahead of
him to give him light to see." (P-2.III.1:1-2). *
(3:1-4) "And to this purpose let us dedicate our minds, directing all our
thoughts to serve the function of salvation. Unto us the aim is given to forgive
the world. It is the goal that God has given us. It is His ending to the dream
we seek, and not our own."
*Our purpose is to learn the lessons of forgiveness so that we can help
ourselves and others. God's ending is that we awaken <from> the dream, whereas
ours is to become happier and pain-free figures <in> the dream. Thus we make the
decision to accept God's function of forgiveness rather than our own; the Holy
Spirit's rather than the ego's:
"Ask not to be forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask,
rather, to learn how to forgive, and to restore what always was to your
unforgiving mind. ... On earth this is your only function, and you must learn
that it is all you want to learn. ... Before you make any decisions for
yourself, remember that you have decided against your function in Heaven, and
then consider carefully whether you want to make decisions here. Your function
here is only to decide against deciding what you want, in recognition that you
do not know. How, then, can you decide what you should do? Leave all decisions
to the One Who speaks for God, and for your function as He knows it."
(T-14.IV.3:4-5,7,5:1-4).*
(3:5) "For all that we forgive we will not fail to recognize as part of God
Himself."
*When I forgive, I realize you and I are one; in illusion and in truth --
despite what the ego's dreams have told us. Thus do we lift the veil of the
ego's principle of <one or the other>, and happily see the sinlessness of God's
one Son in all we meet or even think about:
"A dream has veiled the face of Christ from you. Now can you look upon His
sinlessness. High has the ladder risen. ...Now can you say to everyone who comes
to join in prayer with you:
"I cannot go without you, for you are a part of me."
"And so he is in truth. ... For you have understood he never left, and you, who
seemed alone, are one with him." (S-1.V.3:3-5, 8-10,12).*
(3:6) "And thus His memory is given back, completely and complete."
*We forgive by seeing the face of Christ in our brothers, and then we remember
God. Recall these words that nicely summarize A Course in Miracles'
quintessential formula for healing:
"When brothers join in purpose in the world of fear, they stand already at the
edge of the real world. ... For when they joined their hands it was Christ's
hand they took, and they will look on Him Whose hand they hold. The face of
Christ is looked upon before the Father is remembered. For He must be
unremembered till His Son has reached beyond forgiveness to the Love of God. Yet
is the Love of Christ accepted first. And then will come the knowledge They are
one." (T-30.V-7:1,4-8).*
(4:1) "It is our function to remember Him on earth, as it is given us to be His
Own completion in reality."
*This refers to our dual function: in Heaven it is to create, which means we are
the completion of God; on earth it is to forgive, that we would come to remember
our true function and Who we are as Christ. Thus Jesus helps us undo the ego's
function of blocking God's, by teaching us to fulfill our function of
forgiveness. Removing this block restores to our awareness the joy of creation
-- extending the Love of God from His Self to ours, knowing they are One. The
following passage from the text summarizes the two functions -- forgiveness
removes the barriers of separation among the Sons of God, restoring to our
awareness the completion of God's one Son as spirit and its extended fullness as
Christ:
"The extension of God's Being is spirit's only function. Its fullness
cannot be contained, any more than can the fullness of its Creator. Fullness is
extension. The ego's whole thought system blocks extension, and thus blocks your
only function. ... The Kingdom is forever extending because it is in the Mind of
God. You do not know your joy because you do not know your own Self-fullness.
Exclude any part of the Kingdom from yourself and you are not whole. A split
mind cannot perceive its fullness, and needs the miracle of its wholeness to
dawn upon it and heal it. This reawakens the wholeness in it, and restores it to
the Kingdom because of its acceptance of wholeness. The full appreciation of the
mind's Self-fullness makes selfishness impossible and extension inevitable. That
is why there is perfect peace in the Kingdom. Spirit is fulfilling its function,
and only complete fulfillment is peace." (T-7.IX.3:1-3:4).*
(4:2) "So let us not forget our goal is shared, for it is that remembrance which
contains the memory of God, and points the way to Him and to the Heaven of His
peace."
*In this world goals are not shared, because it is a world ruled by the
principle of <one or the other>. Thus, I will get to Heaven -- <my> Heaven --
standing on your shoulders, pushing you down: as you descend, I ascend. The
essence of forgiveness is realizing we -- reflecting Heaven's Oneness -- share
the same purpose, goal and need. That is why remembering our shared goal
contains the memory of God. Recall this important passage on remembering God
through perceiving the common mind uniting the Sonship, despite the ego's fog of
guilt that would keep us divided:
"The light in them [ our sick brothers ] shines as brightly regardless of
the density of the fog that obscures it. If you give no power to the fog to
obscure the light, it has none. For it has power only if the Son of God gives
power to it. He must himself withdraw that power, remembering that all power is
of God. You can remember this for all the Sonship. Do not allow your brother not
to remember, for his forgetfulness is yours. But your remembering is his, for
God cannot be remembered alone. This is what you have forgotten. To perceive the
healing of your brother as the healing of yourself is thus the way to remember
God. For you forgot your brothers with Him, and God's Answer to your forgetting
is but the way to remember." ((T-12.II.2).*
(4:3-5) "And shall we not forgive our brother, who can offer this to us? He is
the way, the truth and life that shows the way to us. In him resides salvation,
offered us through our forgiveness, given unto him."
*John's gospel has Jesus say: "I am the way, the truth and life" (Jn.14:6). Yet
here Jesus says: Yes, I am the way, the truth, and the life, but so are you as
part of God's one Son. Learning to forgive someone you perceive outside you --
realizing he is the Son of God along with you -- is the way your return to the
truth and the life.
"The Holy Spirit teaches one lesson, and applies it to all individuals in
all situations.... When I said "I am with you always", I meant it literally. I
am not absent to anyone in any situation. Because I am always with you, you are
the way, the truth and the life. You did not make this power, any more than I
did. It was created to be shared, and therefore cannot be meaningfully perceived
as belonging to anyone at the expense of another." (T-7.III.1:1,7-11).*
(5:1) "We will not end this year without the gift our Father promised to His
holy Son. We are forgiven now."
*God's gift to us is forgiveness, which, as we now see, bring with it the happy
realization we were mistaken -- about ourselves, our brothers, and our Source.*
(5:2-7) "And we are saved from all the wrath we thought belonged to God, and
found it was a dream. We are restored to sanity, in which we understand that
anger is insane, attack is mad, and vengeance merely foolish fantasy. We have
been saved from wrath because we learned we were mistaken. Nothing more than
that. And is a father angry at his son because he failed to understand the
truth?"
*Jesus is reminding us again of the importance of humility, of being able to say
with sincerity and gratitude that we have been wrong. We need be humble enough
to acknowledge that the insanity he just described is present in practically
every thought, behavior, and goal we have during the day. Yet we need also
accept that God is not angry because we believe we attacked Him -- our Father
never even saw the "attack." Jesus uses the symbol of a father because it is
such an important one for us. Thus the symbol of the angry father the ego has
made is corrected to the Father Who never ceases to love His Son. Recall the
discussion in "Atonement without Sacrifice" (T-3.1.1-2), in which Jesus says the
following of God, in the context of the traditional Christian belief that he
suffered and died for our sins:
"If the crucifixion is seen from an upside-down point of view, it does
appear as if God permitted and even encouraged one of His Sons to suffer because
he was good. This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which arose out of
projection, has led many people to be bitterly afraid of God. Such
anti-religious concepts enter into many religions. ... In milder forms a parent
says, "This hurts me more than it hurts you", and feels exonerated in beating a
child. Can you believe our Father really thinks this way?" (T-3:1.1:5-7;2:7-8).
In truth, of course, there is no Father and Son. There is no separation at all,
and so the belief in sin, guilt, and fear -- the foundation for believing in the
wrath of God -- does not exist. The Father has never ceased to love His Son.*
(6:1) "We come in honesty to God and say we did not understand, and ask Him to
help us to learn His lessons, through the Voice of His Own Teacher."
*Honesty says "I am mistaken." How frequently Jesus comes back to this pivotal
theme! Again, you want to practice this honesty in the very specific events of
your life. Try to catch yourself adamantly insisting you are right, which but
demonstrates you are wrong -- proclaiming your superiority in being right
implicitly makes someone else inferior. This means you are seeing differences
and separation, the hallmarks of the special relationship. Thus the need for
honesty in realizing you understand nothing about love -- between brothers, and
between God and His Son -- and that idols of specialness have brought you
nothing but misery and pain:
"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. ... Do not look back except in honesty. And when an idol tempts
you, think of this:
"There never was a time an idol brought you anything except the "gift" of
guilt. Not one was bought except at cost of pain, nor was it ever paid by you
alone."
"Be merciful unto your brother, then. And do not choose an idol
thoughtlessly, remembering that he will pay the cost as well as you."
(T-30.V.9:11-10:6).*
(6:2-3) "Would He hurt His Son? Or would He rush to answer him, and say, "This
is My Son, and all I have is his"?"
*This is an interesting passage, based on the gospel parable of the prodigal son
(Luke 15:11-32), wherein the errant son returns to the father who rushes gladly
to meet him. The eldest son, who remained faithfully at home with his father,
complains about his brother being given such a royal welcome, including a feast
to be held in his honor. The father essentially replies to him: "I love both of
you, and all I have is yours." In other words, neither brother loses anything by
the father's love: the father loving son A does not preclude his loving son B.
Comparisons are always of the ego, for love makes none (T-24.II.1:1) and we are
loved equally by our Father. In this one workbook sentence, therefore, Jesus
combines into one the response the father makes to the prodigal son who returns,
as well as to the son who remained. Needless to say, having split minds, we are
both sons.*
(6:4-5) "Be certain He will answer thus, for these are His Own words to you. And
more than that can no one ever have, for in these words is all there is, and all
that there will be throughout all time and in eternity."
*Throughout all time, when we choose Jesus as our teacher he will reflect to us
the Love of God and the abundance of His treasure, which we are -- there can be
no lack in God's Son. Throughout eternity, we remain a part of our Source --
there is nothing else. The practice of this glorious message in our daily lives
entails seeing how we manifest the scarcity principle that is opposite to
abundance: the belief in lack, wherein we feel there is something missing in us.
The ego takes this belief and teaches that what we lack someone has taken -- the
fourth law of chaos (T-23.II.9-10). Though not always in awareness, this <one or
the other> belief of winners and losers is present in our minds, and we need
realize that in thinking that God plays favorites we assert He is insane. Yet
this insanity in only in <our> minds, as is God's sane answer. His abundance is
the response to the ego's scarcity, for how can we lose not only the love we
<have>, but the love we <are>? Recall this passage from early in the text:
"In your own mind, though denied by the ego, is the declaration of your
release. God has given you everything. This one fact means the ego does not
exist, and this makes it profoundly afraid. In the ego's language, "to have" and
"to be" are different, but they are identical to the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit knows that you both have everything and are everything. Any distinction
in this respect is meaningful only when the idea of "getting", which implies a
lack, has already been accepted. That is why we make no distinction between
having the Kingdom of God and being the Kingdom of God." (T-4.III.9).
We are now ready for the final five days of lessons.*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Lesson 360 Peace be to me, the holy Son of God.
Lesson 360
Peace be to me, the holy Son of God.
Peace to my brother, who is one with me.
Let all the world be blessed with peace through us.
Father, it is Your peace that I would give, receiving it of You. I am Your Son,
forever just as You created me, for the Great Rays remain forever still and
undisturbed within me. I would reach to them in silence and in certainty, for
nowhere else can certainty be found. Peace be to me, and peace to all the world.
In holiness were we created, and in holiness do we remain. Your Son is like to
You in perfect sinlessness. And with this thought we gladly say "Amen."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on this lesson is by Kenneth Wapnick, from his books: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles." Book set may be purchased at the
following site:
~ M. Street.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 360
"Peace be to me, the holy Son of God.
Peace to my brother, who is one with me.
Let all the world be blessed with peace through us."
*This lesson is a lovely rendering of the oneness of God's Son.*
(1:1) "Father, it is Your peace that I would give, receiving it of You."
*If I am enamored of my personal self -- the self that is founded on conflict --
I will continually try to attack peace and withhold it from myself and everyone
else. Yet when the pain becomes too great, we gladly choose the Atonement that
alone washes away all pain and restores God's peace to our grateful awareness.*
(1:2) "I am Your Son, forever just as You created me, for the Great Rays remain
forever still and undisturbed within me."
*This is the only place in the workbook where Jesus uses the phrase <Great
Rays>. These are nothing visual or perceptual, nor are they associated in any
way with the rays of light of which other metaphysical systems speak. As used in
A Course in Miracles, the term is a symbol for the Light of Christ that is our
true Self. God, then, would be the "Sun" -- the Source -- and we the emanations
or extensions -- the Rays -- of that Light. In the text, Jesus speaks of the
little spark of the Great Ray that exists in all of us -- the memory of that
great Light, held for us in our right minds by the Holy Spirit, and found fully
present in all the seeming fragments of the Sonship:
"In many only the spark remains, for the Great Rays are obscured. Yet God
has kept the spark alive so that the Rays can never be completely forgotten. If
you but see the little spark you will learn of the greater light, for the Rays
are there unseen.... But the spark is still as pure as the great light, because
it is the remaining call of creation. Put all your faith in it, and God Himself
will answer you." (T.10.IV.8.1-3,6-7)*
(1:3) "I would reach to them in silence and in certainty, for nowhere else can
certainty be found."
*I reach for the spark of that Great Ray in everyone, in recognition of our
inherent oneness as God's Son. Jesus encourages us to ask for help to perceive
the Light of Christ -- instead of the darkness of the ego -- shining in
everyone. By "hearing" the ego's silence in our brothers, we hear the Holy
Spirit's Voice answering our prayers for peace with His certainty -- the reality
of God's one Son, in whom we put our faith:
"If you would know your prayers are answered, never doubt a Son of God. Do
not question him and do not confound him, for your faith in him is your faith in
yourself." (T-9.II.4:1-2)*
(1:4-7) "Peace be to me, and peace to all the world. In holiness were we
created, and in holiness do we remain. Your Son is like to You in perfect
sinlessness. And with this thought we gladly say "Amen."
*Again, we are all one, and if I wish to remember my Oneness as Christ, I cannot
exclude any of God's Sons from the vision of holiness -- nor would I want to,
knowing its tremendous cost to me of losing my Self.*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Lesson 359 God's answer is some form of peace.
Lesson 359
God's answer is some form of peace. All pain
Is healed; all misery replaced with joy.
All prison doors are opened. And all sin
Is understood as merely a mistake.
Father, today we will forgive Your world, and let creation be Your Own. We have
misunderstood all things. But we have not made sinners of the holy Sons of God.
What You created sinless so abides forever and forever. Such are we. And we
rejoice to learn that we have made mistakes which have no real effects on us.
Sin is impossible, and on this fact forgiveness rests upon a certain base more
solid than the shadow world we see. Help us forgive, for we would be redeemed.
Help us forgive, for we would be at peace.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on this lesson by Ken Wapnick, from his books: "Journey Through the
Workbook of A Course in Miracles." Book set may be purchased at the following
site:
M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 359.
"God's answer is some form of peace. All pain
Is healed; all misery replaced with joy.
All prison doors are opened. And all sin
Is understood as merely a mistake."
*This is the happy result when we realize we are the ones who were mistaken all
along, and the Holy Spirit was right.*
(1:1) "Father, today we will forgive Your world, and let creation be Your Own."
*God's world, as we have seen, is the real world. We forgive it in the sense
that we now accept it as what we want, with no further desire to attack it,
which we were compelled to do in self-defense when we chose to retain our
identity as an individual self, seemingly at home in the ego's world of
specialness and death.*
(1:2-3) "We have misunderstood all things. But we have not made sinners of the
holy Sons of God."
*In the insanity of the separation, we believed in the reality of our existence.
Yet this belief did not give us the power to make the Son of God a sinner.
<Ideas leave not their source>, and the truth is that we are a sinless Idea in
the sinless Mind of God, our Source.
"The Son of God can be mistaken; he can deceive himself; he can even turn
the power of his mind against himself. But he <cannot> sin. There is nothing he
can do that would really change his reality in any way, nor make him really
guilty." (T-19.II.3:1-3) *
(1:4-6) "What You created sinless so abides forever and forever. Such are we.
And we rejoice to learn that we have made mistakes which have no real effects on
us."
*We again see our joyous gratitude in being wrong, seeing that our delusional
mistakes of betraying love -- rejecting, attacking, and destroying it --
accomplished nothing. God loves us; Jesus loves us; nothing has changed, for
Christ in us remains sinless forever, with our mad dreams of sin having no
effects upon reality. See these two statements from the text:
"Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken."
(T-10.V.6:1)
"Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of your
mistakes will disappear." (T-21.II.2:7)*
(1:7-9) "Sin is impossible, and on this fact forgiveness rests upon a certain
base more solid than the shadow world we see. Help us forgive, for we would be
redeemed. Help us forgive, for we would be at peace."
*Forgiveness allows us to recognize the impossibility of sin. It rests on a
solid base -- the reflection of God's Love in our right minds -- while our
perceptions of bodily sin, attack, and pain rest on no base at all. They are all
illusory, their purpose being to defend against the mind's illusion of sin and
separation. Yet illusions bring us no peace, and so we happily choose the Holy
Spirit's forgiveness, the doorway to the real world of light, peace, and joy --
our home away from home.*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Lesson 358. No call to God can be unheard
Lesson 358.
No call to God can be unheard nor left
Unanswered. And of this I can be sure;
His answer is the one I really want.
You Who remember what I really am alone remember what I really want. You speak
for God, and so You speak for me. And what You give me comes from God Himself.
Your Voice, my Father, then is mine as well, and all I want is what You offer
me, in just the form You choose that it be mine. Let me remember all I do not
know, and let my voice be still, remembering. But let me not forget Your Love
and care, keeping Your promise to Your Son in my awareness always. Let me not
forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on this lesson is by Kenneth Wapnick, from his book set: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," and may be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 358.
"No call to God can be unheard nor left
Unanswered. And of this I can be sure;
His answer is the one I really want."
*This lesson presumes we have realized our mistaken choice and acknowledged
there must be another way. We thus know our call to God will be answered,
because the answer is already within us -- and now we choose it. Interestingly,
the beginning of the prayer is addressed to the Holy Spirit -- another
indication that Jesus is not rigid about form.*
(1:1-3) "You Who remember what I really am alone remember what I really want.
You speak for God, and so You speak for me. And what You give me comes from God
Himself."
*Here we address the Holy Spirit, Who speaks for God; His Voice we choose
instead of the ego's. In the next sentence, God returns as the object of our
prayer:*
(1:4) "Your Voice, my Father, then is mine as well, and all I want is what You
offer me, in just the form You choose that it be mine."
*Strictly speaking, we are the ones who choose the form. The ego speaks first
and writes its script of special relationships, which become the form in which
we practice the special function that is God's gift to us -- forgiveness of our
insane projections onto Him:
"Your special function is the special form in which the fact that God is
not insane appears most sensible and meaningful to you. The content is the same.
The form is suited to your special needs, and to the special time and place in
which you think you find yourself, and where you can be free of place and time,
and all that you believe must limit you." (T-25.VII.7:1-3)*
(1:5) "Let me remember all I do not know, and let my voice be still,
remembering."
*Once again we hear an echo of Psalm 46: "Be still and know that I am God." Thus
our prayer to ourselves to let the ego's voice be quiet. If we still its
discordant sounds, we will remember the love we denied because we were afraid of
its truth.*
(1:6) "But let me not forget Your Love and care, keeping Your promise to Your
Son in my awareness always."
*Thus I want to forget what my ego taught me, and choose to remember only what
the Holy Spirit has held out to me as the truth. Above all: *
(1:7) "Let me not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all."
*This wonderful line strikes terror in our hearts, for it tells us that we, who
think of ourselves as important and meaningful, are truly nothing. We actually
think, for example, that Jesus gave this course to us as individuals, each of us
with a name and personal identity. He has been teaching us, however, that we
must ultimately realize this separated self is an illusion. At present, our
bodily selves are the classrooms in which we learn the holy lesson that teaches
us their nothingness, but that our true Self as Christ is everything -- the
realization of which is the ultimate goal and purpose of our learning.*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Lesson 357. Truth answers every call we make to God,
Lesson 357.
Truth answers every call we make to God,
Responding first with miracles, and then
Returning unto us to be itself.
Forgiveness, truth's reflection, tells me how to offer miracles, and thus escape
the prison house in which I think I live. Your holy Son is pointed out to me,
first in my brother; then in me. Your Voice instructs me patiently to hear Your
Word, and give as I receive. And as I look upon Your Son today, I hear Your
Voice instructing me to find the way to You, as You appointed that the way shall
be: "Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on this lesson is by Kenneth Wapnick, from his book set: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," and may be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 357.
"Truth answers every call we make to God,
Responding first with miracles, and then
Returning unto us to be itself."
*To state this important point again, miracles are the correction. Therefore,
the first response to our call for help is some recognition of the need to undo
our misperceptions, for it is only when we have exposed these to the Holy Spirit
that the ego can be undone. In that way our minds are freed to remember our
Identity as Christ.*
(1:1) "Forgiveness, truth's reflection, tells me how to offer miracles, and thus
escape the prison house in which I think I live."
*We offer miracles by accessing the correction in our minds, reminding us of the
mind's innate power to choose. Therefore, since minds are joined -- in the holy
instant in which we have chosen to forgive -- we remind our brothers that they
have the same power as we to choose right-mindedly.*
(1:2) "Your holy Son is pointed out to me, first in my brother; then in me."
*That is why this is a course in miracles, which means it is a course in
shifting how we perceive. Jesus directs his teaching to the conditions with
which we identify -- our special relationships. I first learn to perceive you
differently, because I believe you are really there; and not only are you there,
but you are there to victimize, hurt, and persecute me. Therefore, by asking
Jesus' help to shift my perception of you, I learn that what I am seeing in you
is a projection of what I see in me. Realizing that you are part of God's one
Son, I realize that I am, too.*
(1:3-4) "Your Voice instructs me patiently to hear Your Word, and give as I
receive. And as I look upon Your Son today, I hear Your Voice instructing me to
find the way to You, as You appointed that the way shall be:"
*Once again we are reminded of the wonderful prayer at the end of Lesson 189 --
it is God Who knows the way to Himself; of ourselves we do not, and cannot.
Forgiveness -- the Holy Spirit's gift that leads us home -- is not Heaven's
truth, but is its kind and gentle reflection.
This final line is a lovely summary of the healing power of forgiveness: *
(1:5) "Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed."
*In this familiar passage from the text, Jesus tells us not to see our brother's
sinlessness, for that is beyond us. However, he does ask for our little
willingness to see him sinless:
"Your question should not be, "How can I see my brother without the body?"
Ask only, "Do I really wish to see him sinless?" And as you ask, forget not that
his sinlessness is your escape from fear." (T-20.VII.9:1-3)
This statement from the lesson is meant to convince us of the need to have this
willingness. Jesus wants us to return to the part of the mind that has chosen to
see sin in others as a way of protecting it in ourselves, and thus accepting no
responsibility for it. When he says "Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed,"
he speaks of the correction of the misperception of sin, and our desire to see
it anywhere but in ourselves. By choosing the miracle we make the choice to be
healed, and our brothers along with us.*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Lesson 356. Sickness is but another name for sin.
Lesson 356.
Sickness is but another name for sin.
Healing is but another name for God.
The miracle is thus a call to Him.
Father, You promised You would never fail to answer any call Your Son might make
to You. It does not matter where he is, what seems to be his problem, nor what
he believes he has become. He is Your Son, and You will answer him. The miracle
reflects Your Love, and thus it answers him. Your Name replaces every thought of
sin, and who is sinless cannot suffer pain. Your Name gives answer to Your Son,
because to call Your Name is but to call his own.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on this lesson is by Kenneth Wapnick, from his book set: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," and may be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 356.
"Sickness is but another name for sin.
Healing is but another name for God.
The miracle is thus a call to Him."
*The miracle, as we know, is nothing but a correction. We chose sin as our
identity, and from that insane base, sickness arose. When we choose the Holy
Spirit's miracle instead, the belief in separation is undone, which in turn
removes the foundation for all pain. This change in teachers is the heart of
healing, since in our dream of sin the Holy Spirit is another name for God, and
thus our choosing Him as our Teacher opens the gate for our return home.*
(1:1-3) "Father, You promised You would never fail to answer any call Your Son
might make to You. It does not matter where he is, what seems to be his problem,
nor what he believes he has become. He is Your Son, and You will answer him."
*In other words, nothing has changed God, nor His loving Answer. It does not
matter where we are in the dream -- a dream is a dream is a dream -- it has no
effect on our reality. That is why there can be no hierarchy in illusions and no
order of difficulty in miracles. All illusions are the same, for they are undone
with the one Answer, as Helen's poem "Before We Ask" points out to us:
Let us not question, but be still awhile.
There is an answer given us before
We ask the question; a solution to
All strife and pain and turbulence; a door
To silence and to absolution
................................................
God's Son is answered. Wearily at last,
He calls upon his Father's Name again.
(The Gifts of God, p.34)*
(1:4-6) "The miracle reflects Your Love, and thus it answers him. Your Name
replaces every thought of sin, and who is sinless cannot suffer pain. Your Name
gives answer to Your Son, because to call Your Name is but to call his own."
*Recall our earlier discussion about the <Name of God> (W-p1.183,184), where we
discussed how Jesus' use of that term symbolized the right-minded thought system
that we now choose instead of the little names the ego has made in its place:
sin, individuality, and specialness. The miracle replaces our desire to be
special and unique, and thus calling upon the Name of God is to call upon the
Name of our Self -- hearing God's answer of love when He created us one with Him
as His one Son:
"The miracle but calls your ancient name, which you will recognize because
the truth is in your memory. ... Your ancient name belongs to everyone, as
theirs to you. Call on your brother's name and God will answer, for on Him you
call. Could He refuse to answer when He has already answered all who call on
Him? A miracle ... make[s] no change at all. But it can make what always has
been true be recognized by those who know it not; and by this little gift of
truth but let to be itself, the Son of God allowed to be himself, and all
creation freed to call upon the Name of God as one." (T-26.VII.16:1,20)*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Lesson 355. There is no end to all the peace and joy,
Lesson 355.
There is no end to all the peace and joy,
And all the miracles that I will give,
When I accept God's Word. Why not today?
Why should I wait, my Father, for the joy You promised me? For You will keep
Your Word You gave Your Son in exile. I am sure my treasure waits for me, and I
need but reach out my hand to find it. Even now my fingers touch it. It is very
close. I need not wait an instant more to be at peace forever. It is You I
choose, and my Identity along with You. Your Son would be Himself, and know You
as his Father and Creator, and his Love.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on this lesson is by Kenneth Wapnick, from his book set: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," and may be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 355.
"There is no end to all the peace and joy,
And all the miracles that I will give,
When I accept God's Word. Why not today?"
*Remember the question Jesus posed earlier: "Why wait for Heaven? (W-pI.131.6:1;
W-pl.188.1:1). Here he implores us: "Why continue to be upset and in pain? All
you need do is listen to me, take my hand, and let me teach you how to look at
the world differently. You will then certainly experience my peace and joy." *
(1:1-2) "Why should I wait, my Father, for the joy You promised me? For You will
keep Your Word You gave Your Son in exile."
*His Word, again, is the Atonement. When we fell asleep and dreamt of exile, we
took with us into the dream the memory of our Identity as God's Son, Who never
left His Father. This memory is the Word that guarantees our eternal joy because
it undoes the belief in separation that is the cause of sorrow.*
(1:3-6) "Why should I wait, my Father, for the joy You promised me? For You will
keep Your Word You gave Your Son in exile. I am sure my treasure waits for me,
and I need but reach out my hand to find it. Even now my fingers touch it. It is
very close. I need not wait an instant more to be at peace forever."
*The memory of God's Love is already present in us. It is as close to us as
anything could be, because it is the thought of our Self -- the Idea of God's
Son that never left its Source. The holy instant restores the treasure of our
Identity to awareness, the right mind that has waited patiently for our return
to sanity:
"What God has willed for you is yours. He has given His Will to His
treasure, whose treasure it is. Your heart lies where your treasure is, as His
does. You who are beloved of God are wholly blessed. Learn this of me, and free
the holy will of all those who are as blessed as you are." (T-8.VI.10:1-4)*
(1:7) "It is You I choose, and my Identity along with You."
*This can be our choice, as Jesus continually reminds us. Our making the right
choice is guaranteed when we realize that our choices, always based on what we
think we want, brought us nothing but unhappiness and pain. The choice for God,
however, ensures our peace and joy, the core of our Identity as His beloved
Son.*
(1:8) "Your Son would be Himself, and know You as his Father and Creator, and
his Love."
*By choosing against our self -- the ego's son -- we choose for our Self --
God's Son -- the blessed Christ of our loving Creator. This choice occurs as we
change our perceptions of our brothers, Sons of the same loving Father:
"Do not perceive anything God did not create or you are denying Him. His is
the only Fatherhood, and it is yours only because He has given it to you. ...
Yet the real Fatherhood must be acknowledged if the real Son is to be known. ...
Only if you accept the Fatherhood of God will you have anything, because His
Fatherhood gave you everything. That is why to deny Him is to deny yourself."
(T-10.V.13:1-2,5,7-8)*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Lesson 354. We stand together, Christ and I, in peace
Lesson 354.
We stand together, Christ and I, in peace
And certainty of purpose. And in Him
Is His Creator, as He is in me.
My oneness with the Christ establishes me as Your Son, beyond the reach of time,
and wholly free of every law but Yours. I have no self except the Christ in me.
I have no purpose but His Own. And He is like His Father. Thus must I be one
with You as well as Him. For who is Christ except Your Son as You created Him?
And what am I except the Christ in me?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on this lesson is by Kenneth Wapnick, from his book set: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," and may be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 354.
"We stand together, Christ and I, in peace
And certainty of purpose. And in Him
Is His Creator, as He is in me."
*What follows reiterates the point of the last lesson:*
(1:1) "My oneness with the Christ establishes me as Your Son, beyond the reach
of time, and wholly free of every law but Yours."
*We are not asked within our experience here to go beyond time, nor to identify
with God's law of love as it truly is, which only involves the unified spirit
that is totally beyond the world of separation. Rather, we are asked to identify
with a different use of time, reflecting God's law -- what I give to my brother
I give to myself, because we are one. We thus shift our purpose by joining with
the Holy Spirit's forgiveness, and then remember our Oneness in Heaven, which is
beyond all laws but Heaven's law of love.*
(1:2) "I have no self except the Christ in me."
*Spend some time reflecting on that thought. If you think about it, you may
indeed break into a cold sweat, accompanied by anxiety and palpitations. The
self reading these words is very real to you, and you do not want to let it go.
That is why you are tempted to bring the truth into your illusion, rather than
the illusion of your self to the truth of Christ that lies beyond all words.*
(1:3-5) "I have no purpose but His Own. And He is like His Father. Thus must I
be one with You as well as Him."
*We are Christ, united as God's Son, as Christ is united with God. When we truly
understand these words, we realize that these very terms -- God and Christ,
Father and Son -- have no real meaning. They are dualistic symbols that reflect
a state of unity far beyond our ability to understand. Recall these words from
the text on the true state of the Trinity:
"Father and Son and Holy Spirit are as One, as all your brothers join as one
in truth. Christ and His Father never have been separate, and Christ abides
within your understanding, in the part of you that shares His Father's Will. The
Holy Spirit links the other part -the tiny mad desire to be separate, different
and special- to the Christ, to make the oneness clear to what is really one. In
this world this is not understood, but can be taught." (T-25.I.5:3-6).
This oneness is taught through forgiveness -- the undoing of the barriers we
placed between ourselves and our brothers; shadows of the barrier we placed
between ourselves and God.*
(1:6-7) "For who is Christ except Your Son as You created Him? And what am I
except the Christ in me?"
*By choosing against the ego's false self, we make room for the memory of our
true Self to dawn upon our healed minds, as we read again in this important
statement near the end of the text:
"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. Yet in this learning is
salvation born. And What you are will tell you of Itself." (T-31.V.17.7-9)*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Lesson 353. My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today Have but one purpose; to be given Christ
Lesson 353.
My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today
Have but one purpose; to be given Christ
To use to bless the world with miracles.
Father, I give all that is mine today to Christ, to use in any way that best
will serve the purpose that I share with Him. Nothing is mine alone, for He and
I have joined in purpose. Thus has learning come almost to its appointed end. A
while I work with Him to serve His purpose. Then I lose myself in my Identity,
and recognize that Christ is but my Self.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on this lesson is by Kenneth Wapnick, from his book set: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," and may be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 353.
"My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today
Have but one purpose; to be given Christ
To use to bless the world with miracles."
*Lessons 353 and 354 also share a common theme -- helping us recognize the
difference between Christ and the ego. We awaken each morning, still in the
body, but now with a different purpose: to have our daily experiences be the
classroom in which the Holy Spirit -- here the Teacher is Christ -- can teach
us. In conjunction with this thought, both lessons remind us that we need to
recognize how much we cherish what we believe is ours. We do not want to lose
our individual identity -- our self, body, and personal interests -- which we
believe to be sacred. To the ego, of course, it <is> sacred, for this special
self preserves the religion of individuality.*
(1:1-2) "Father, I give all that is mine today to Christ, to use in any way that
best will serve the purpose that I share with Him. Nothing is mine alone, for He
and I have joined in purpose."
*Anything you believe is yours alone is of the ego, and therefore illusory -- a
dream without reality. The only thing within the dream that reflects reality is
the recognition of common purpose. Therefore, once caught in defining yourself
and your world -- name, body, desk, clothing, car, home, religion, or country --
you are in the world of illusion, which can only bring you pain. From the moment
you open your eyes in the morning, therefore, dedicate your day to learning that
to cherish anything as your own results in pain, and only when you relinquish
investment in yourself and in what is yours alone, will you realize what is
truly yours -- the purpose and identity that can be shared with everyone else.
Everything else is of the ego and so belongs to no one, for the ego is nothing.
Recall this passage from the manual about the right-minded use of the body:
"Yet what makes God's teachers is their recognition of the proper purpose
of the body. As they advance in their profession, they become more and more
certain that the body's function is but to let God's Voice speak through it to
human ears. And these ears will carry to the mind of the hearer messages that
are not of this world, and the mind will understand because of their Source.
From this understanding will come the recognition, in this new teacher of God,
of what the body's purpose really is; the only use there really is for it. This
lesson is enough to let the thought of unity come in, and what is one is
recognized as one. (M-12.4:1-5) *
(1:3-4) "Thus has learning come almost to its appointed end. A while I work with
Him to serve His purpose."
*Jesus is not saying we are now going to disappear into the Heart of God. This
is our ultimate goal, but he is telling us here that we still have work to do in
the classroom of our lives, in which his love will teach us to forgive.*
(1:5) "Then I lose myself in my Identity, and recognize that Christ is but my
Self."
*This is the ego's fear, and ours who identify with its thought system of
separation and specialness. We do not want to lose our identity as individuals,
and that is why we are so tempted to bring Jesus and the Holy Spirit into the
dream to interact with us. By making Them dream figures along with us, we keep
our identity as individual selves intact, reinforced by our continual judgment
of others.*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Great example of what we experience when we practice. I’m so grateful we can laugh. Thank you for sharing this. Undoing doesn’t have to be painful.?
Linda Campbell
405-308-8877
神是
|
Lesson 352. Judgment and love are opposites.
Lesson 352.
Judgment and love are opposites. From one
Come all the sorrows of the world. But from
The other comes the peace of God Himself.
Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. Through this I come to
You. Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in
forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again. I
am redeemed when I elect to follow in this way. You have not left me
comfortless. I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to
it. Father, I would hear Your Voice and find Your peace today. For I would love
my own Identity, and find in It the memory of You.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary on this lesson is by Kenneth Wapnick, from his book set called:
"Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which may be purchased
at the following site: ~ M. Street.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 352.
"Judgment and love are opposites. From one
Come all the sorrows of the world. But from
The other comes the peace of God Himself."
*As long as we are afraid of God's peace -- within which our individuality,
based on conflict and unhappiness, will disappear -- we will choose to defend
our self. Judgment -- perceiving someone else as sinful -- is the ego's perfect
way of carrying out this defense.*
(1:1) "Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not."
*We are asked first to recognize how we look on sinfulness in others and
ourselves, and then ask Jesus for help. He reinterprets our perceptions so that
we realize that acting sinfully comes from fear -- "frightened people can be
vicious" (T-3.I.4:2) -- behind which is the call for love we do not believe we
deserve. In that realization are sins forgiven, because they are looked at
differently. The key idea, as we have seen throughout our journey with the
workbook, is that when we look with Jesus at what goes on in the world and in
our relationships, we refrain from judging -- judgment is the problem;
forgiveness is the answer.*
(1:2) "Through this I come to You."
*It is through our forgiveness that we return to God. Remember that these
prayers are addressed to God as correction for our ego's prayers to its gods of
judgment and punishment.*
(1:3-4) "Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in
forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again."
*Again, the way to find God's peace, return home, and remember our Identity as
Christ is to forgive. When we hold on to grievances and withhold forgiveness, it
is because we do not want to awaken from the dream, losing our self to find our
Self.*
(1:5-6) "I am redeemed when I elect to follow in this way. You have not left me
comfortless."
*It is our decision alone to follow His way. In the very last words of the
workbook we will be reminded of this lovely thought -- we have not been left
comfortless.*
(1:7) "I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to it."
*As we have seen in other lessons, means and end are one. Thus I have within me
the end or goal, which is remembering Who I am as God's Son. I also have within
me, through the Holy Spirit, the means of remembering. Both means and end are
present in my mind, for the Idea of God's Son has never left Its Source.*
(1:8-9) "Father, I would hear Your Voice and find Your peace today. For I would
love my own Identity, and find in It the memory of You."
*This is the central idea. We do not love our own Identity as Christ because we
love our individual identity more. Crucial to our daily practicing, then, is
vigilance for how much we cherish this special and unique self. We would even go
so far as to kill in order to preserve it. Yet when we finally realize the loss
to <us>, we choose to listen to the Voice of sanity and return to our true love
-- our Self and our God.*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
14. What Am I ?
I am God's Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His
Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is
love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the
holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy
Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own.
Our use for words is almost over now. Yet in the final days of this one year we
gave to God together, you and I, we found a single purpose that we shared. And
thus you joined with me, so what I am are you as well. The truth of what we are
is not for words to speak of nor describe. Yet we can realize our function here,
and words can speak of this and teach it, too, if we exemplify the words in us.
We are the bringers of salvation. We accept our part as saviors of the world,
which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed. And this, our gift, is
therefore given us. We look on everyone as brother, and perceive all things as
kindly and as good. We do not seek a function that is past the gate of Heaven.
Knowledge will return when we have done our part. We are concerned only with
giving welcome to the truth.
Ours are the eyes through which Christ's vision sees a world redeemed from every
thought of sin. Ours are the ears that hear the Voice for God proclaim the world
as sinless. Ours the minds that join together as we bless the world. And from
the oneness that we have attained we call to all our brothers, asking them to
share our peace and consummate our joy.
We are the holy messengers of God who speak for Him, and carrying His Word to
everyone whom He has sent to us, we learn that it is written on our hearts. And
thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came, and which we seek to
serve. We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered. Now is
he redeemed. And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he will
enter in and disappear into the Heart of God.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Below, is from Kenneth Wapnick's commentaries from his book set called: "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
14. What Am I ?
*We come to the final summary, "What Am I ?" Of the many jewels in the Course's
treasure chest, this is among the most treasured -- a beautiful description of
Who we are as God's Son. The answer that Jesus gives to this question has been
the underlying focus of A Course in Miracles, inasmuch as the problem at the
beginning when we chose the ego over the Holy Spirit was our making a self that
is decidedly not Who we are. Paralleling this is the only question asked of his
followers by the enlightened Indian teacher Ramana Maharshi: "Who am I?" If the
answer is the body and personality, we have answered incorrectly, and from that
belief comes our pain, misery, and unhappiness. The purpose of A Course in
Miracles, therefore, is to help us be open to ask the right question -- "What am
I?" -- that we may hear and accept this inspiring answer.*
(1) "I am God's Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of
His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is
love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the
holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy
Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own."
*This is our response to everything the ego ever taught is true about ourselves,
undoing all fear and guilt, all pain and suffering. What remains is the eternal
life given us in creation, unblemished by the ego's sullying thoughts of
miscreation and usurpation. Never real, these thoughts evanesce into the
nothingness of their own illusion. From the glorious end of the text, we read of
the ending of a journey that never really happened:
"Not one illusion is accorded faith, and not one spot of darkness still
remains to hide the face of Christ from anyone." (T-31.VIII.12:5)
This shining face lasts but an instant before its place is taken by the sinless
Self that God created, residing in God's holy home. Recall the lovely close to
the clarification of terms:
"The Son is still, and in the quiet God has given him enters his home and is
at peace at last." (C-ep.5:6)*
(2:1-2) "Our use for words is almost over now. Yet in the final days of this one
year we gave to God together, you and I, we found a single purpose that we
shared."
*Recall that A Course in Miracles is about purpose and our need to realize that
maintaining the ego's purpose of individuality has not made us happy or brought
us peace. Indeed, the single purpose mentioned above, shared by everyone, is the
need to forgive and recognize our simple mistake -- nothing more than a bad
dream that will last only as long as we choose to believe in the ego's purpose
of separation. This passage from the text nicely expresses our shared purpose,
which reveals to our awakened awareness the Oneness of God's holy Will:
"The Will of God forever lies in those whose hands are joined... when they
joined and shared a purpose, they were free to learn their will is one. And thus
the Will of God must reach to their awareness. Nor can they forget for long that
it is but their own." (T-30.V.11:3:5-13)*
(2:3) "And thus you joined with me, so what I am are you as well."
*This teaching is crucial for undoing Christianity's millennia-old tradition
that Jesus is ontologically different from us and thus we are <not> like him.
With such specialness as our foundation, we can only <hope> to join with him,
asking his help and suffering as he did, but never able to see that we are what
he is.*
(2:4-5) "The truth of what we are is not for words to speak of nor describe. Yet
we can realize our function here, and words can speak of this and teach it, too,
if we exemplify the words in us."
*Again, Who we are as Christ in the realm of knowledge is not what Jesus teaches
in his course, and is certainly not what we are capable of learning. However, he
can teach and we can learn how to undo the interferences to the remembrance of
our Self. Therefore the words can be of use as symbols that correct the ego's
symbols. The reader will no doubt recall this important discussion in the
clarification of terms, where Jesus explains how words -- i.e., symbols --
fulfill his purpose in A Course in Miracles:
"This course remains within the ego framework, where it is needed. It is not
concerned with what is beyond all error because it is planned only to set the
direction towards it. Therefore it uses words, which are symbolic, and cannot
express what lies beyond symbol." (C-in.3:1-3).
The ego speaks first, as the text says (T-5.VI.3:5), and is always wrong. The
Holy Spirit is the Answer, and is always right. The ego spoke first by producing
a thought system of separation and making the perceptual world to be its cover.
A Course in Miracles is one of the answers the Holy Spirit has given that uses
the ego's symbols within its framework -- the separated world -- but for a
totally different purpose. Our function, however, is not to teach the truth of A
Course in Miracles by preaching or explaining its theory, but by accepting its
principles and living them, accepting Jesus' forgiving love so that it extends
through us. That is what he teaches us, and asks us to teach through him. We
cannot quote often his exhortation to us, his disciples: "Teach not that I died
in vain. Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you."
(T-11.VI.7:3-4)*
(3:1) "We are the bringers of salvation."
*Once again, we bring salvation through exemplifying Jesus' teaching. A Course
in Miracles states that the best teaching is by example (T-5.IV.5:1). In fact we
could say that the only real teaching is by example, as this previously quoted
passage from the manual illustrates:
"To teach is to demonstrate. There are only two thought systems, and you
demonstrate that you believe one or the other is true all the time. From your
demonstration others learn, and so do you. The question is not whether you will
teach, for in that there is no choice. The purpose of the course might be said
to provide you with a means of choosing what you want to teach on the basis of
what you want to learn." (M-in.2.1-5).
Thus, our choice is whether we are to be bringers of salvation or damnation,
resurrection or crucifixion -- knowing that what we bring to others we have
first brought to ourselves.*
(3:2-4) "We accept our part as saviors of the world, which through our joint
forgiveness is redeemed. And this, our gift, is therefore given us. We look on
everyone as brother, and perceive all things as kindly and as good."
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
Lesson 351. My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain.
Lesson 351.
My sinless brother is my guide to peace.
My sinful brother is my guide to pain.
And which I choose to see I will behold.
Who is my brother but Your holy Son? And if I see him sinful I proclaim myself a
sinner, not a Son of God; alone and friendless in a fearful world. Yet this
perception is a choice I make, and can relinquish. I can also see my brother
sinless, as Your holy Son. And with this choice I see my sinlessness, my
everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way secure and clear. Choose,
then, for me, my Father, through Your Voice. For He alone gives judgment in Your
Name.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Below, is from Kenneth Wapnick's commentaries on this lesson, from his book set
called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can be
purchased at the following site: ~ M. Street.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 351.
"My sinless brother is my guide to peace.
My sinful brother is my guide to pain.
And which I choose to see I will behold."
*As we shall see, these final lessons are composed only of prayers to God. The
first two are similar in presenting the mind's opposite thought systems --
sinfulness and sinlessness (Lesson 351), and judgment and love (Lesson 352) --
and our ability to choose between them. We could say: I choose to see one or the
other -- sin or sinlessness -- and beholding my choice, I make it real in my
perception. Thus the way I perceive you will show me how I have perceived
myself.*
(1:1) "Who is my brother but Your holy Son?"
*Remember, the Son of God is one, and therefore the way I see you must be the
way I see me. To believe anything different from that principle denies the
Atonement and affirms the seeming reality of the separation.*
(1:2-3) "And if I see him sinful I proclaim myself a sinner, not a Son of God;
alone and friendless in a fearful world. Yet this perception is a choice I make,
and can relinquish."
*The only way we let this perception go is to realize it is a choice that brings
us pain -- the turning point on our journey. Jesus thus appeals to the selfish
need in all of us to feel better. The problem is, as we have already seen, that
we do not know what will make us feel better. We think that pleasure is pain and
pain is pleasure. Thus our need for a Teacher to instruct us in the difference,
helping us to understand that forgiveness alone brings pleasure, while a life of
attack and fear reinforces the pain of our separation and aloneness. Once this
understanding is made clear to us, the choice is not difficult to make.*
(1:4-7) "I can also see my brother sinless, as Your holy Son. And with this
choice I see my sinlessness, my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and
my way secure and clear. Choose, then, for me, my Father, through Your Voice.
For He alone gives judgment in Your Name."
*We have seen that God does not choose. These words but symbolize Jesus
reminding us that we are the ones who have to choose the Holy Spirit -- our
Comforter and Friend -- as correction for the original and ongoing choice for
the ego's thought system of separation, sin and hate. Thus does the Holy
Spirit's Love become the basis for our judgment of God's Son as sinless, the
certain means for our returning home along the path of forgiveness, and the way
we remember that God's Name is ours -- our inheritance as His beloved and
unified Son. Thus we say to our innocent brother, in the words of Helen's poem,
"God's Likeness":
"How holy are you, Son of God! How pure
Your thoughts; how innocent your mind. In you
I see the Host of God; His Love, His Joy,
His one creation, indivisible.
You are as like to God as I to you,
And being like to you, I am like Him."
(The Gifts of God, p.17).*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
14. What Am I?
W-pII.14.1. I am God's Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. 2 In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. 3 In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. 4 I am the holy home of God Himself. 5 I am the Heaven where His Love resides. 6 I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own .
W-pII.14.2. Our use for words is almost over now. 2 Yet in the final days of this one year we gave to God together, you and I, we found a single purpose that we shared. 3 And thus you joined with me, so what I am are you as well. 4 The truth of what we are is not for words to speak of nor describe. 5 Yet we can realize our function here, and words can speak of this and teach it, too, if we exemplify the words in us.
W-pII.14.3. We are the bringers of salvation. 2 We accept our part as saviors of the world, which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed. 3 And this, our gift, is therefore given us. 4 We look on everyone as brother, and perceive all things as kindly and as good. 5 We do not seek a function that is past the gate of Heaven. 6 Knowledge will return when we have done our part. 7 We are concerned only with giving welcome to the truth.
W-pII.14.4. Ours are the eyes through which Christ's vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of sin. 2 Ours are the ears that hear the Voice for God proclaim the world as sinless. 3 Ours the minds that join together as we bless the world. 4 And from the oneness that we have attained we call to all our brothers, asking them to share our peace and consummate our joy.
W-pII.14.5. We are the holy messengers of God who speak for Him, and carrying His Word to everyone whom He has sent to us, we learn that it is written on our hearts. 2 And thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came, and which we seek to serve. 3 We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered. 4 Now is he redeemed. 5 And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God. .
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
|
