Lesson 59. The following ideas are for review today:
1. God goes with me wherever I go.
How can I be alone when God always goes with me? How can I be doubtful and
unsure of myself when perfect certainty abides in Him? How can I be disturbed by
anything when He rests in me in absolute peace? How can I suffer when love and
joy surround me through Him? Let me not cherish illusions about myself. I am
perfect because God goes with me wherever I go.
2. God is my strength. Vision is His gift.
Let me not look to my own eyes to see today. Let me be willing to exchange my
pitiful illusion of seeing for the vision that is given by God. Christ's vision
is His gift, and He has given it to me. Let me call upon this gift today, so
that this day may help me to understand eternity.
3. God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him.
I can see what God wants me to see. I cannot see anything else. Beyond His Will
lie only illusions. It is these I choose when I think I can see apart from Him.
It is these I choose when I try to see through the body's eyes. Yet the vision
of Christ has been given me to replace them. It is through this vision that I
choose to see.
4. God is the light in which I see.
I cannot see in darkness. God is the only light. Therefore, if I am to see, it
must be through Him. I have tried to define what seeing is, and I have been
wrong. Now it is given me to understand that God is the light in which I see.
Let me welcome vision and the happy world it will show me.
5. God is the Mind with which I think.
I have no thoughts I do not share with God. I have no thoughts apart from Him,
because I have no mind apart from His. As part of His Mind, my thoughts are His
and His Thoughts are mine.
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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
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*In Lesson 59 we again find the theme of who we are as God's Son, and the
wonderful and wondrous effects of coming to understand and accept its truth.*
(1:1) (41) "God goes with me wherever I go."
(1:2-7) "How can I be alone when God always goes with me? How can I be doubtful
and unsure of myself when perfect certainty abides in Him? How can I be
disturbed by anything when He rests in me in absolute peace? How can I suffer
when love and joy surround me through Him? Let me not cherish illusions about
myself. I am perfect because God goes with me wherever I go."
*It is not that God literally walks with us. Rather, Jesus teaches that God is
with us because His Love is in our minds, which is where we are. It is this Love
-- our Self -- that is the basis for undoing the thought of separation: the home
of all illusions of suffering and pain.
All that is needed for this Love to return to awareness is calling upon the
power of our minds to choose, one of A Course in Miracles' most important
themes, to which we now return: *
(2:1-2) (42) "God is my strength. Vision is His gift."
(2:3-6) "Let me not look to my own eyes to see today. Let me be willing to
exchange my pitiful illusion of seeing for the vision that is given by God.
Christ's vision is His gift, and He has given it to me. Let me call upon this
gift today, so that this day may help me to understand eternity."
*We always have a choice about the thought system with which we identify, made
possible once we remember that our feelings of dis-ease and disturbance emanate
from the mind's mistaken choice, and from nowhere else. Thus do we exchange the
ego's misperceptions for the vision of Christ, exclusion for unity, separation
for forgiveness, and time for eternity.*
(3:1-2) (43) "God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him."
(3:3-7)" I can see what God wants me to see. I cannot see anything else. Beyond
His Will lie only illusions. It is these I choose when I think I can see apart
from Him. It is these I choose when I try to see through the body's eyes."
*Again, all misperceptions stem from the illusory belief we can be apart from
God; the Idea of God's Son, which we are, can leave its Source. Thus does our
thought of separation give rise to a world of separation, which we believe is
there because we believe we see it. The body's eyes have now replaced vision, a
substitution that remains in place until we change our minds.*
(3:8-9) "Yet the vision of Christ has been given me to replace them. It is
through this vision that I choose to see. It is through this vision that I
choose to see."
*A Course in Miracles has as its purpose the change in mind that allows <vision>
to replace the ego's seeing. This vision cannot come unless we make a choice
that says: I have been thinking and perceiving wrongly. I know there is another
way, because there has to be another way of feeling. I am not happy, and want to
be at peace. I therefore let go of my investment in being right. Thus does our
desire for true peace and happiness become the motivation for choosing vision to
replace illusions.*
(4:1) (44) "God is the light in which I see."
(4:2-4) "I cannot see in darkness. God is the only light. Therefore, if I am to
see, it must be through Him."
*As the text reminds us: "Vision [or light] or judgment [darkness] is your
choice, but never both of these." (T-20.V.4:7). We choose one or the other, and
in our right-minded choice is all the world made free.*
(4:5-7)"I have tried to define what seeing is, and I have been wrong. Now it is
given me to understand that God is the light in which I see. Let me welcome
vision and the happy world it will show me."
*I have to realize I have been wrong about everything I see, and everything I
think I understand. How often does Jesus remind us of this happy fact; happy
indeed when we are not identified with the ego's stubborn insistence that it is
right and God is wrong. This happy acceptance of the truth is the birthplace of
our humility, leading to Christ's vision that blesses the world along with me.*
(5:1) (45) "God is the Mind with which I think."
(5:2-4) "I have no thoughts I do not share with God. I have no thoughts apart
from Him, because I have no mind apart from His. As part of His Mind, my
thoughts are His and His Thoughts are mine."
*Remember, the ego system is born of the idea that our thoughts are our own,
God's thoughts, are His, and never the twain shall meet. Not only that, we tell
God what His thoughts are. This insane arrogance forms the basis of the second
law of chaos (T-23.II.4-6), wherein God becomes as insane as we:
"The arrogance on which the laws of chaos stand could not be more apparent
than emerges here. Here is a principle that would define what the Creator of
reality must be; what He must think and what He must believe; and how He must
respond, believing it. It is not seen as even necessary that He be asked about
the truth of what has been established for His belief. His Son can tell Him
this, and He has but the choice whether to take his word for it or be mistaken."
(T.23.II.6.1-4).
The insanity of such a belief is easily corrected once we recognize its sheer
madness. The clouds of separation quickly disperse in this return to sanity, and
we rejoice in the Oneness of Love that has never changed, and which remains as
the Thought of our Self, at one with the Sonship and the Mind of God.*
