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Lesson 69. My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

 

Lesson 69. My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

(1) No one can look upon what your grievances conceal. Because your grievances
are hiding the light of the world in you, everyone stands in darkness, and you
beside him. But as the veil of your grievances is lifted, you are released with
him. Share your salvation now with him who stood beside you when you were in
hell. He is your brother in the light of the world that saves you both.

(2) Today let us make another real attempt to reach the light in you. Before we
undertake this in our more extended practice period, let us devote several
minutes to thinking about what we are trying to do. We are literally attempting
to get in touch with the salvation of the world. We are trying to see past the
veil of darkness that keeps it concealed. We are trying to let the veil be
lifted, and to see the tears of God's Son disappear in the sunlight.

(3) Let us begin our longer practice period today with the full realization that
this is so, and with real determination to reach what is dearer to us than all
else. Salvation is our only need. There is no other purpose here, and no other
function to fulfill. Learning salvation is our only goal. Let us end the ancient
search today by finding the light in us, and holding it up for everyone who
searches with us to look upon and rejoice.

(4) Very quietly now, with your eyes closed, try to let go of all the content
that generally occupies your consciousness. Think of your mind as a vast circle,
surrounded by a layer of heavy, dark clouds. You can see only the clouds because
you seem to be standing outside the circle and quite apart from it.

(5) From where you stand, you can see no reason to believe there is a brilliant
light hidden by the clouds. The clouds seem to be the only reality. They seem to
be all there is to see. Therefore, you do not attempt to go through them and
past them, which is the only way in which you would be really convinced of their
lack of substance. We will make this attempt today.

(6) After you have thought about the importance of what you are trying to do for
yourself and the world, try to settle down in perfect stillness, remembering
only how much you want to reach the light in you today,--now! Determine to go
past the clouds. Reach out and touch them in your mind. Brush them aside with
your hand; feel them resting on your cheeks and forehead and eyelids as you go
through them. Go on; clouds cannot stop you.

(7) If you are doing the exercises properly, you will begin to feel a sense of
being lifted up and carried ahead. Your little effort and small determination
call on the power of the universe to help you, and God Himself will raise you
from darkness into light. You are in accord with His Will. You cannot fail
because your will is His.

(8) Have confidence in your Father today, and be certain that He has heard you
and answered you. You may not recognize His answer yet, but you can indeed be
sure that it is given you and you will yet receive it. Try, as you attempt to go
through the clouds to the light, to hold this confidence in your mind. Try to
remember that you are at last joining your will to God's. Try to keep the
thought clearly in mind that what you undertake with God must succeed. Then let
the power of God work in you and through you, that His Will and yours be done.

(9) In the shorter practice periods, which you will want to do as often as
possible in view of the importance of today's idea to you and your happiness,
remind yourself that your grievances are hiding the light of the world from your
awareness. Remind yourself also that you are not searching for it alone, and
that you do know where to look for it. Say, then:

My grievances hide the light of the world in me.
I cannot see what I have hidden.
Yet I want to let it be revealed to me,
for my salvation and the salvation of the world.<

Also, be sure to tell yourself:

If I hold this grievance the light of the world will be hidden from me,<
if you are tempted to hold anything against anyone today.


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

The commentary on this lesson (below) is from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume
series of books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles,"
which can be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street

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

Lesson 69. My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

(1:1) "No one can look upon what your grievances conceal."

*That is the main idea. The "light of the world" is the Holy Spirit in our
minds, the memory of God's Love we have sought so strenuously to forget. In
Lesson 136, Jesus talks about the double shield of oblivion. The subject there
is sickness, but we could also speak of attack since it shares the same dynamic.
We are shielding the light of the world -- the memory of our Identity as Christ
-- which awaits our choosing to remember it. The first shield is guilt, our
self-hatred. The second shield arises when we project our mind's guilt and
attack bodies. Attacking ourselves constitutes sickness; attacking others is
anger. Thus the purpose of holding grievances is to allow us to say: "The guilt
is not in me, but in you." This second shield protects us from guilt, which in
turn protects us from love.*

(1:2) "Because your grievances are hiding the light of the world in you,
everyone stands in darkness, and you beside him."

*The Sonship is one. If I take Jesus' hand and stand in his light, the whole
Sonship stands with me. If I drop his hand, my mind again fills with the
darkness of my sin and guilt. The Sonship is there with me as well, at least in
my deluded mind.*

(1:3-5) "But as the veil of your grievances is lifted, you are released with
him. Share your salvation now with him who stood beside you when you were in
hell. He is your brother in the light of the world that saves you both."

*This lifting of the veil -- the essence of forgiveness or the miracle -- has
nothing to do with what the other person does or does not accept, believe, or
perceive. It has to do only with what is in our minds, the dream's sphere of
action. There is nothing within us but the thoughts of Heaven or hell, the <us>
that is God's one Son.*

(2) "Today let us make another real attempt to reach the light in you. Before we
undertake this in our more extended practice period, let us devote several
minutes to thinking about what we are trying to do. We are literally attempting
to get in touch with the salvation of the world. We are trying to see past the
veil of darkness that keeps it concealed. We are trying to let the veil be
lifted, and to see the tears of God's Son disappear in the sunlight."

*First and foremost, we need keep in mind how much we do <not> want to do this.
In the presence of the light of Christ, our individuality is gone. It is this,
we fear, the birthplace of our resistance to A Course in Miracles and, more
specifically, to this type of lesson.

The chart below (it is a chart shown in Kenneth's book, but only roughly
described here) parallels Jesus' discussion in this and the following lesson.
The circle in the center represents the circle of light to which he will refer
presently.*

**
The chart, is somewhat shaped like a doughnut. With a smaller circle inside a
larger circle. In the center of the inner circle are the words <mind>, <light>,
<reflection of Self>. In the bulk of the other circle are the words <clouds> and
<body>. And near the outer edge is a dot, with the words "you" and "decision
maker" beside it.

**

*For purposes of these lessons, this will be the locus of the right mind. As
Jesus will explain, this contains the reflection of our real Self. The true
Self, of course, is not in the illusion. We cover truth's reflection with a
circle of clouds, which relates to our physical experience. We believe -- the
<you> to whom Jesus speaks -- we are a body in the clouds. The "you" is placed
in quotation marks because it is not the real you -- for the same reason
"decision maker" is in quotation marks -- which is in the mind.

We believe we are in the clouds, and therefore do not see anything else. If you
are in the midst of a cloud bank you do not see the sun. If flying on a cloudy
day, you do not see sunlight until the plane goes through the clouds. We have
already seen portions of a passage in which Jesus uses the image of clouds
hiding our guilt. Here is more of that passage, beginning with the perceptual
illusions found in observing a bank of clouds:

"Yet in this cloud bank it is easy to see a whole world rising. A solid
mountain range, a lake, a city, all rise in your imagination, and from the
clouds the messengers of your perception return to you, assuring you that it is
there. Figures stand out and move about, actions seem real, and forms appear and
shift from loveliness to the grotesque. And back and forth they go, as long as
you would play the game of children's make-believe. Yet however long you play
it, and regardless of how much imagination you bring to it, you do not confuse
it with the world below, nor seek to make it real."

"So should it be with the dark clouds of guilt, no more impenetrable and no
more substantial. You will not bruise yourself against them in traveling
through. Let your Guide teach you their insubstantial nature as He leads you
past them, for beneath them is a world of light whereon they cast no shadows.
Their shadows lie upon the world beyond them, still further from the light. Yet
from them to the light their shadows cannot fall." (T.18.IX.7.1-2)

Once you pass through the clouds, you see the sun and its light. They had not
disappeared, even though the clouds adversely affected our sight. The obvious
point is that our belief in sin and guilt has not affected the love that is our
Self. Once again, that lovely line: "Not one note in Heaven's song was missed."
(T.26.V.5.4).*

(3) "Let us begin our longer practice period today with the full realization
that this is so, and with real determination to reach what is dearer to us than
all else. Salvation is our only need. There is no other purpose here, and no
other function to fulfill. Learning salvation is our only goal. Let us end the
ancient search today by finding the light in us, and holding it up for everyone
who searches with us to look upon and rejoice."

*More words of encouragement from Jesus, urging us to remember <why> we are
here, as we set aside our "ancient [and futile] search" that led nowhere. Now,
having chosen the light instead of the darkness, we become reminders for others
to make the same choice we have made.*

(4) "Very quietly now, with your eyes closed, try to let go of all the content
that generally occupies your consciousness. Think of your mind as a vast circle,
surrounded by a layer of heavy, dark clouds. You can see only the clouds because
you seem to be standing outside the circle and quite apart from it."

*The <you>, once again, is the <you> I have put in quotation marks on the chart.
The content Jesus asks us to let go of involves grievances of the past, thoughts
of present specialness, and fears of the future -- all having to do with bodies.
We see only the clouds because we are in the clouds. We stand outside the circle
of light, and therefore believe we are "quite apart from it." Guilt is the great
blinder of the universe. Once having identified with it, we cannot but "see"
through its eyes. But such eyes were made not to see, as we have already
discussed. Thus we cannot see the circle of light, even though it is all around
us, indeed, even though it <is> us.*

(5:1) "From where you stand, you can see no reason to believe there is a
brilliant light hidden by the clouds."

*In other words, to continue the point just made above, all we know is our
individuality and specialness -- what we have believed is real. Because we
perceive a world of bodies, an insanity shared by billions of others, we believe
this to be reality, and we are not aware of the truth underneath. Again, guilt's
darkness blinds us to the light. Recall that important statement:

"Nothing so blinding as perception of from." (T-22.III.6:7).*

(5:2-5) "The clouds seem to be the only reality. They seem to be all there is to
see. Therefore, you do not attempt to go through them and past them, which is
the only way in which you would be really convinced of their lack of substance.
We will make this attempt today."

*We do not attempt to go through and past the clouds because we do not see any
reason to do so. Like Plato's chained prisoners who saw only the back of the
cave, oblivious to the source of the shadows cast upon the wall, we know of
nothing else. We thus have no recourse but to rearrange the clouds in order to
feel better. For example, we make artificial light so we may see: literally the
artificial light of electricity, the metaphysical artificial light of the sun,
and, perhaps most importantly, the artificial light of specialness. Not knowing
the true light, we do the best we can. We think our problems are in the cloud
banks of the world, just as we believe our solutions are found there as well.
The ego's strategy of establishing mindlessness as reality has been remarkably
successful.*

(6:1) "After you have thought about the importance of what you are trying to do
for yourself and the world...."

*Realize again that Jesus is not talking about saving an external world -- There
is no external world! He is talking about the world we believe in, projected
from our minds. We believe in a world of separation from God, the home of sin,
guilt, fear, attack, and death. We project this thought system, and now believe
a world exists outside us and needs to be saved. Again, when Jesus speaks of our
being the saving light of the world, he is clearly not talking about anything
external, which would be the exact opposite of his message. We save the world
because we save ourselves; we save ourselves because we save the world --our
self and the world are one and the same: <ideas leave not their source>. The
following succinctly summarizes Jesus' teachings on the mind-world relationship,
and the nature of salvation:

"For it [the world] is made out of what you do not want, projected from your
mind because you are afraid of it. Yet this world is only in the mind of its
maker, along with his real salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself,
for only by recognizing where it is will you gain control over it. For you do
have control over your mind, since the mind is the mechanism of decision."
(T-12.III.9:7-10).*

(6:1-3) "... try to settle down in perfect stillness, remembering only how much
you want to reach the light in you today,--now! Determine to go past the clouds.
Reach out and touch them in your mind."

*By saying "touch them in your mind," Jesus emphasizes that the clouds are
external. They are the mind's attack thoughts, projected as bodily experience.
This emphasis, needless to say, reflects the undoing of the ego's strategy of
mindlessness by having us recall that we have a mind. It also reflects Jesus'
encouraging us to choose happiness, which can only be attained through choosing
to be led through the clouds of guilt to the light of truth.*

(6:4-5) "Brush them aside with your hand; feel them resting on your cheeks and
forehead and eyelids as you go through them. Go on; clouds cannot stop you."

*This is another way of saying illusions have no power unless we choose to give
it to them. What motivates us to learn this lesson is recognizing that our
specialness does not work for us. The cessation of our pain thus becomes our
motivation:

"Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually
everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way."
(T-2.III.3:5-6).

Our pain causes us to admit we were wrong. Holding judgments, grievances,
specialness in any form does not work. Nothing works, <except letting them all
go>. At some point we will come to accept this truth for ourselves. Until then,
the lesson is merely something we do on the level of behavior. The clouds of
guilt cannot stop us unless our minds give them the power to do so.*

(7) "If you are doing the exercises properly, you will begin to feel a sense of
being lifted up and carried ahead. Your little effort and small determination
call on the power of the universe to help you, and God Himself will raise you
from darkness into light. You are in accord with His Will. You cannot fail
because your will is His."

*How can we lose? This, of course, is the whole point. Our egos want us to lose,
and we do not even know it! We cannot lose because "the outcome is as certain as
God" (T-4.II.5:8). We learn this is true when we accept the Atonement for
ourselves, meaning we accept the happy fact that the separation from God never
happened. All that is required for this acceptance is our "little effort and
small determination" -- our little willingness -- to allow this truth to be
restored to our awareness by the Holy Spirit, as Jesus assures us in the
following passages in the context of the holy instant:

"The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy. ...You
prepare your mind for it only to the extent of recognizing that you want it
above all else. It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is necessary
that you realize that you cannot do more. ... The holy instant does not come
from your little willingness alone. It is always the result of your small
willingness combined with the unlimited power of God's Will."
(T-18.IV.1:1,4-5;4:1-2)

"Your part is only to offer Him [ the Holy Spirit ] a little willingness to
let Him remove all fear and hatred, and to be forgiven. On your little faith,
joined with His understanding, He will build your part in the Atonement and make
sure that you fulfill it easily. And with Him, you will build a ladder planted
in the solid rock of faith, and rising even to Heaven." (T-18.V.2:5-7).*

(8:1-2) "Have confidence in your Father today, and be certain that He has heard
you and answered you. You may not recognize His answer yet, but you can indeed
be sure that it is given you and you will yet receive it."

*The passage is important because it reflects to us that Jesus knows this is a
process: "You may not recognize His answer yet." He is not expecting us
instantaneously to go through the clouds of illusion to his light. As in many,
many other places, Jesus reminds us of the goal, the strength of our desire to
achieve it, and how much practice we have ahead of us. Yet again, "the outcome
is as certain as God," and merely awaits the diminution of our fear that we may
accept God's answer.*

(8:3-5) "Try, as you attempt to go through the clouds to the light, to hold this
confidence in your mind. Try to remember that you are at last joining your will
to God's. Try to keep the thought clearly in mind that what you undertake with
God must succeed."

*This, then, becomes the prototype for living in the world. As we experience the
ego's clouds of guilt and fear, anxiety and depression, we try to remember Who
goes with us. It is only through this experience of trust in a power that is not
us -- the Love of God and not the ego -- that we are finally able to go through
clouds to the light. As Jesus explains, speaking of the circle of fear in words
we have already quoted:

"Yet God can bring you there, if you are willing to follow the Holy Spirit
through seeming terror, trusting Him not to abandon you and leave you there. For
it is not His purpose to frighten you, but only yours. You are severely tempted
to abandon Him at the outside ring of fear, but He would lead you safely through
and far beyond." (T-18.IX.3:7-9).

Because of our Companion we must succeed, for truth will always succeed over
illusion, since truth is all there is.*

(8:6) "Then let the power of God work in you and through you, that His Will and
yours be done."

*As we have just seen, we are not the ones who bring about this union, but the
power of God. This really means the Holy Spirit, Who restores to our awareness
the unity of wills that is our only reality.*

(9:1-2) "In the shorter practice periods, which you will want to do as often as
possible in view of the importance of today's idea to you and your happiness,
remind yourself that your grievances are hiding the light of the world from your
awareness. Remind yourself also that you are not searching for it alone, and
that you do know where to look for it."

*Jesus is not referring to himself or the Holy Spirit here. <They> do not
search. He means we are not searching for the light alone, because our brothers
are one with us in the Sonship of God. That understanding comes when we ask for
help of the Holy Spirit instead of the insane ego, whenever we are tempted to
hold on to a grievance.

Motivation for such a shift comes with the recognition that our happiness
depends on it:*

(9:3-6) "Say, then:

My grievances hide the light of the world in me.
I cannot see what I have hidden.
Yet I want to let it be revealed to me,
for my salvation and the salvation of the world.<"

*Not only <our> happiness depends on it, but our salvation from the hell of
guilt; not only <our> salvation, but that of all the Sonship since, once again,
our minds are one.*

(9:7-8) "Also, be sure to tell yourself:


If I hold this grievance the light of the world will be hidden from me,<
if you are tempted to hold anything against anyone today."

*In other words, Jesus tells us we should monitor our minds for all attack
thoughts -- "large" or "small," "justified" or "unjustified" -- and realize they
are hiding the light of the world from us. Set aside the fact that our
grievances are hiding the light from this other person; they are keeping <us> in
darkness. Our release is the motivation -- the only motivation that will truly
work -- for letting them go.*


Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson
719-369-1822

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