Lesson 56. Our review for today covers the following:
1. My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.
How can I know who I am when I see myself as under constant attack? Pain,
illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and
plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect
security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my
inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my
inheritance safe for me. My own real thoughts will teach me what it is.
2. Above all else I want to see.
Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am, I realize that vision is
my greatest need. The world I see attests to the fearful nature of the
self-image I have made. If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let
this image of myself go. As it is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given
me. And with this vision, I will look upon the world and on myself with charity
and love.
3. Above all else I want to see differently.
The world I see holds my fearful self-image in place, and guarantees its
continuance. While I see the world as I see it now, truth cannot enter my
awareness. I would let the door behind this world be opened for me, that I may
look past it to the world that reflects the Love of God.
4. God is in everything I see.
Behind every image I have made, the truth remains unchanged. Behind every veil I
have drawn across the face of love, its light remains undimmed. Beyond all my
insane wishes is my will, united with the Will of my Father. God is still
everywhere and in everything forever. And we who are part of Him will yet look
past all appearances, and recognize the truth beyond them all.
5. God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.
In my own mind, behind all my insane thoughts of separation and attack, is the
knowledge that all is one forever. I have not lost the knowledge of Who I am
because I have forgotten it. It has been kept for me in the Mind of God, Who has
not left His Thoughts. And I, who am among them, am one with them and one with
Him.
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The commentary on this lesson (below) is from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume
series of books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles,"
which can be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1:1)(26) "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."
(1:2) "How can I know who I am when I see myself as under constant attack?"
*I have to see myself as under constant attack because I am attacking everyone
else. That is why the lesson is entitled "My attack thoughts are attacking my
invulnerability." I am truly invulnerable as God's Son, but in identifying with
the ego I see myself as vulnerable, because guilt demands punishment and I feel
victimized by God's counterattack. If I believe everyone else is going to attack
me, I cannot be as God created me -- innocent and invulnerable. Thus, the ego
reasons to me, if it can prove that God's Son <is> truly vulnerable -- the
purpose of the body -- then how could I be God's Son? This reasoning is clearly
presented in the following passage from "What is the Body?" to which we shall
return much, much later in this series:
"For the Son of God's impermanence is "proof" his fences [bodies] work, and
do the task his mind assigns to them. For if his oneness still remained
untouched, who could attack and who could be attacked? Who could be victor? Who
could be his prey? Who could be victim? Who the murderer? And if he did not die,
what "proof" is there that God's eternal Son can be destroyed?"
(W-pII.5.2:3-9).*
(1:3) "Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me."
*Again, it is essential to realize we are living in a world of pain, illness,
loss, age, and death; a world deliberately chosen by our egos to prove that its
thought system of separation is right and the Holy Spirit's Atonement is wrong.*
(1:4-5) "All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world
I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my
inheritance."
*Jesus once again is showing us we have a split mind, and that we can choose
whether we will see ourselves as living in a state of constant terror, fear, and
vulnerability, or in a state of constant safety. It is not true that we are,
again, "at the mercy of things beyond [us], forces [we] cannot control"
(T-19.IV-D.7:4), for the truth is that our "Self is ruler of the universe"
(W-pII.253).*
(1:6-8) "I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I
see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me. My own real thoughts will
teach me what it is."
*It cannot be said often enough that in order for us to access our real
thoughts, we first have to let go of our unreal ones, which we cannot do without
knowing they are there. We learn this happy fact by understanding that the world
we perceive is the one we made, and is therefore unreal: a projection of our
unreal thoughts of separation and guilt. Our true inheritance is as a beloved
and treasured Child of God, not the ego's child of guilt and fear. As Jesus
concludes "The Treasure of God":
"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." (T-8.VI.10.:1-4).*
(2:1) (27) "Above all else I want to see."
(2:2-6) " Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am, I realize that
vision is my greatest need. The world I see attests to the fearful nature of the
self-image I have made. If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let
this image of myself go. As it is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given
me. And with this vision, I will look upon the world and on myself with charity
and love."
*Jesus always comes back to the same central idea: Our perceptions reflect our
self-image -- child of God or child of the ego -- and vision corrects the
vicious and fearful misperceptions of the ego, reflecting our Identity as
spirit. Vision thus <undoes> the ego's thought system. As we are taught in the
text: The ego always speaks first (T-5.VI.3:5), and the Holy Spirit is the
Answer.
"The ego speaks in judgment, and the Holy Spirit reverses its decision,
much as a higher court has the power to reverse a lower court's decisions in
this world. The ego's decisions are always wrong, because they are based on the
error they were made to uphold." (T-5.VI.4:1-2).
With vision replacing judgment, we look out on a unified world of peace and love
regardless of what our physical eyes behold.*
(3:1) (28) "Above all else I want to see differently."
(3:2-3) "The world I see holds my fearful self-image in place, and guarantees
its continuance. While I see the world as I see it now, truth cannot enter my
awareness."
*The projected world's purpose is to keep my fearful self-image in place. This
foreshadows an important statement in Part II of the workbook, speaking of our
unforgiving thoughts:
"An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not
raise to doubt, although it is not true. The mind is closed, and will not be
released. The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that
distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily accessible to doubt,
and further kept from reason. What can come between a fixed projection and the
aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal?" (W-pII.1.2).
Thus do our projections enable the ego to protect its self-concept of separation
and hate, since that concept is now perceived to be external to the mind that is
its source. This is the self-concept that says I am an individual, which
individuality I purchased at the cost of sin. This sin must be punished, and
therefore I deserve to be afraid. Nothing really has changed except that now I
believe I am not the source of the fear, which has as its source in something
outside of me. Certain of what I see, I never question my perception. Without my
perception being questioned, my condition of fear and pain cannot be answered by
the Holy Spirit.*
(3:4) "I would let the door behind this world be opened for me, that I may look
past it to the world that reflects the Love of God."
*The one who opens the door for us is Jesus, but we must <let> him do it, by
asking his help to bring our illusions of attack to his truth of forgiveness.
This real world of complete forgiveness reflects God's Love, which waits just
beyond the door held open by Jesus:
"Christ is at God's altar, waiting to welcome His Son. ...The door is not
barred, and it is impossible that you cannot enter the place where God would
have you be. ... You can refuse to enter, but you cannot bar the door that
Christ holds open. Come unto me who holds it open for you, for while I live it
cannot be shut, and I live forever. God is my life and yours, and nothing is
denied by God to His Son." (T-11.IV.6:1,3,5-6).*
(4:1) (29) "God is in everything I see."
(4:2-4) "Behind every image I have made, the truth remains unchanged. Behind
every veil I have drawn across the face of love, its light remains undimmed.
Beyond all my insane wishes is my will, united with the Will of my Father."
*As in lessons one through fifty, Jesus emphasizes the nature of our
right-minds. The wrong-mind is filled with thoughts of attack: disease,
suffering, death, murder, and judgment. He helps us realize that these thoughts
are covering something else. However, the fact that he tells us this does not
mean we need not go through the work of choosing <something else>, but at least
now we are aware of what it is we choose between. It is not that I choose <kill
or be killed> -- do I kill you or do you kill me? -- I choose miracles or murder
(T-23.IV.9.8). This passage tells us there is another thought system in our
minds, awaiting our choice. It also implies there is a <purpose> inherent in our
having chosen attack over love: the wish to preserve our identity -- chosen in
separation and forged in hate -- by proving we are right and God is wrong. Thus
we chose to live in darkness, and believed it to be real <because we believed
it.>*
(4:5-6) "God is still everywhere and in everything forever. And we who are part
of Him will yet look past all appearances, and recognize the truth beyond them
all."
*Jesus reassures us that the "outcome is as certain as God" (T-2.III.3:10), for
we shall surely make the right choice -- as any good Platonist would -- between
appearance and reality. Our fervent attempts to the contrary, we remain as God
created us, powerless to change the resplendent truth about ourselves. Thus do
we see a world reflecting back to us the radiant reality of God's Love.*
(5:1) (30) "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind."
(5:2-5) "In my own mind, behind all my insane thoughts of separation and attack,
is the knowledge that all is one forever. I have not lost the knowledge of Who I
am because I have forgotten it. It has been kept for me in the Mind of God, Who
has not left His Thoughts. And I, who am among them, am one with them and one
with Him."
*Held for us by the Holy Spirit is the memory of the knowledge that we never
truly separated ourselves from God. Early in the text Jesus says that "to lose
something does not mean that it has gone. It merely means that you do not
remember where it is." (T.3.VI.9.3-4) The same is true here: Even though we have
lost the knowledge of who we are and have forgotten our Source, it does not mean
His Love is not fully present in our minds. Such reassurances are replete in A
Course in Miracles. Here are two of them:
"The Father keeps what He created safe. You cannot touch it with the false
ideas you made, because it was created not by you. Let not your foolish fancies
frighten you. What is immortal cannot be attacked; what is but temporal has no
effect." (T-24.VII.5:1-4).
"You can lose sight of oneness, but can not make sacrifice of its reality.
Nor can you lose what you would sacrifice, nor keep the Holy Spirit from His
task of showing you that it has not been lost." (T-26.I.6:1-2).
What remains is the acceptance of Jesus' certainty, which points to our mind and
the memory of the Oneness that created us one with Him.*
