Lesson 71. Only God's plan for salvation will work.

Lesson 71. Only God's plan for salvation will work.

(1) You may not realize that the ego has set up a plan for salvation in
opposition to God's. It is this plan in which you believe. Since it is the
opposite of God's, you also believe that to accept God's plan in place of the
ego's is to be damned. This sounds preposterous, of course. Yet after we have
considered just what the ego's plan is, perhaps you will realize that, however
preposterous it may be, you do believe in it.

(2) The ego's plan for salvation centers around holding grievances. It maintains
that, if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some external circumstance
or event were changed, you would be saved. Thus, the source of salvation is
constantly perceived as outside yourself. Each grievance you hold is a
declaration, and an assertion in which you believe, that says, "If this were
different, I would be saved." The change of mind necessary for salvation is thus
demanded of everyone and everything except yourself.

(3) The role assigned to your own mind in this plan, then, is simply to
determine what, other than itself, must change if you are to be saved. According
to this insane plan, any perceived source of salvation is acceptable provided
that it will not work. This ensures that the fruitless search will continue, for
the illusion persists that, although this hope has always failed, there is still
grounds for hope in other places and in other things. Another person will yet
serve better; another situation will yet offer success.

(4) Such is the ego's plan for your salvation. Surely you can see how it is in
strict accord with the ego's basic doctrine, "Seek but do not find." For what
could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to channelize
all your efforts in searching for it where it is not?

(5) God's plan for salvation works simply because, by following His direction,
you seek for salvation where it is. But if you are to succeed, as God promises
you will, you must be willing to seek there only. Otherwise, your purpose is
divided and you will attempt to follow two plans for salvation that are
diametrically opposed in all ways. The result can only bring confusion, misery
and a deep sense of failure and despair.

(6) How can you escape all this? Very simply. The idea for today is the answer.
Only God's plan for salvation will work. There can be no real conflict about
this, because there is no possible alternative to God's plan that will save you.
His is the only plan that is certain in its outcome. His is the only plan that
must succeed.

(7) Let us practice recognizing this certainty today. And let us rejoice that
there is an answer to what seems to be a conflict with no resolution possible.
All things are possible to God. Salvation must be yours because of His plan,
which cannot fail.

(8) Begin the two longer practice periods for today by thinking about today's
idea, and realizing that it contains two parts, each making equal contribution
to the whole. God's plan for your salvation will work, and other plans will not.
Do not allow yourself to become depressed or angry at the second part; it is
inherent in the first. And in the first is your full release from all your own
insane attempts and mad proposals to free yourself. They have led to depression
and anger; but God's plan will succeed. It will lead to release and joy.

(9) Remembering this, let us devote the remainder of the extended practice
periods to asking God to reveal His plan to us. Ask Him very specifically:

What would You have me do?

Where would You have me go?
What would You have me say, and to whom?<

Give Him full charge of the rest of the practice period, and let Him tell you
what needs to be done by you in His plan for your salvation. He will answer in
proportion to your willingness to hear His Voice. Refuse not to hear. The very
fact that you are doing the exercises proves that you have some willingness to
listen. This is enough to establish your claim to God's answer.

(10) In the shorter practice periods, tell yourself often that God's plan for
salvation, and only His, will work. Be alert to all temptation to hold
grievances today, and respond to them with this form of today's idea:

Holding grievances is the opposite

of God's plan for salvation.
And only His plan will work.<

Try to remember today's idea some six or seven times an hour. There could be no
better way to spend a half minute or less than to remember the Source of your
salvation, and to see It where It is.

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

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

*This is not a very happy thought for the ego, because we still think <our> for
salvation will work. To say it again, God does not have a plan. Terms like these
are used because they are familiar and easily understood. We must always keep in
mind, however, that they are Jesus' symbols of forgiveness to correct the ego's
symbols of sin and punishment. In the Bible, and in the religions that have
sprung from the Bible, God certainly does have a plan. The plan Jesus speaks of
here is much different, as we have already seen, and will see again in this
lesson.*

(1:1-2) "You may not realize that the ego has set up a plan for salvation in
opposition to God's. It is this plan in which you believe."

*Most of us do not think when living our special love and hate relationships
that we are actively choosing against God. That is why Jesus asks in the text
that if we knew our special relationships were a triumph over God, would we want
them? (T-16.V.10:1) He is helping us understand that not only do we have a plan
to save ourselves from pain, but this plan directly opposes God. It is helpful
to think about this <one or the other> aspect of our lives, for perceiving the
situation as it is will enable us to change our minds and make the correct
choice.*

(1:3) "Since it is the opposite of God's, you also believe that to accept God's
plan in place of the ego's is to be damned."

*That <is> what we believe: If we accept God's plan and forgive, our
individuality is over and we are damned to eternal oblivion. This is reminiscent
of the crucial discussion in the text where Jesus explains the ego's upside-down
thinking: good is bad, and bad is good; forgiveness is to be shunned, and guilt
embraced:

"Much of the ego's strange behavior is directly attributable to its
definition of guilt. To the ego, the guiltless are guilty. Those who do not
attack are its "enemies" because, by not valuing its interpretation of
salvation, they are in an excellent position to let it go... When it [the ego]
was confronted with the real guiltlessness of God's Son [i.e.,Jesus] it did
attempt to kill him, and the reason it gave was that guiltlessness is
blasphemous to God. To the ego, the ego is God, and guiltlessness must be
interpreted as the final guilt that fully justifies murder."
(T-13.II.4:1-3;6:2-3).*

(1:4-5) "This sounds preposterous, of course. Yet after we have considered just
what the ego's plan is, perhaps you will realize that, however preposterous it
may be, you do believe in it."

*You may recall that in "The Laws of Chaos" Jesus says the very same thing. He
describes the insanity of the ego's five laws, and then states:

"You would maintain, and think it true, that you do not believe these
senseless laws, nor act upon them. And when you look at what they say, they
cannot be believed. Brother, you do believe them." (T-23.II.18:1-3).

Jesus knows we believe in the ego's plan because we believe we are here. This
means we believe projection is salvation, for it protects us from the mind's
Atonement principle, the home of the memory of God's Love.*

(2:1) "The ego's plan for salvation centers around holding grievances."

*You wouldn't ask for a simpler statement, and one more directly reflective of
the ego's use of projection. This leads to a cogent description of specialness:*

(2:2-5) "It maintains that, if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some
external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved. Thus, the
source of salvation is constantly perceived as outside yourself. Each grievance
you hold is a declaration, and an assertion in which you believe, that says, "If
this were different, I would be saved." The change of mind necessary for
salvation is thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself."

*There is not a person in this world who does identify with this thought system,
for it is what made and sustains the world. In <The Interpretation of Dream>
Freud set forth his theory that all dreams are fulfillments of wishes. Jesus
would take this same principle and expand it to <all> dreams: sleeping and
waking. The physical universe as macrocosm, and our individual world is a
microcosm, were specifically made to fulfill the ego's secret wish of
maintaining the separation, but shifting responsibility for it to others. Thus
we all have our ego's cake of separation, and eat and enjoy it because someone
else will pay the price for it. "The Picture of Crucifixion" offers a trenchant
expression of this dynamic of selfishness and hate, wherein we preserve our
innocence at the expense of someone else's guilt, for which the other will be
punished instead of ourselves:

"Every pain you suffer do you see as proof that he is guilty of attack.
Thus would you make yourself to be the sign that he has lost his innocence, and
need but look on you to realize that he has been condemned. And what to you has
been unfair will come to him in righteousness. The unjust vengeance that you
suffer now belongs to him, and when it rests on him are you set free...

"Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated or in
need of anything, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God's Son. You hold
a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ
in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate and
damning him to hell." (T-27.1.2:2-5;3:1-2).

We shall return to this essential component of the ego's plan for salvation.*

(3:1-2) "The role assigned to your own mind in this plan, then, is simply to
determine what, other than itself, must change if you are to be saved. According
to this insane plan, any perceived source of salvation is acceptable provided
that it will not work."

*In the next paragraph Jesus describes this as the ego's maxim -- "Seek and do
not find" -- what everyone does. It is so clearly expressed her that there is no
need to belabor it. It is the essence of projection, the heart of the ego's
thought system, and its insurance that nothing will ever change in the mind of
God's Son.*

(3:3-4) "This ensures that the fruitless search will continue, for the illusion
persists that, although this hope has always failed, there is still grounds for
hope in other places and in other things. Another person will yet serve better;
another situation will yet offer success."

*Later in the workbook Jesus says "another can be found" (W-p1.170.8:7). If we
are truly honest with ourselves, we will realize we are doing precisely what has
been described. Therefore, the last thing we want to do is embrace this course
totally, both intellectually and in practice. Instead, we want to compromise its
teachings so that it would fail to help us -- exactly what we just read, which
is the essence of the ego's specialness.*

(4) "Such is the ego's plan for your salvation. Surely you can see how it is in
strict accord with the ego's basic doctrine, "Seek but do not find." For what
could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to channelize
all your efforts in searching for it where it is not?"

*Remember, what the ego does not want us to find is that we have a mind, for
then we would realize we could choose differently, marking the end of the ego
and our special self. Therefore, we direct our efforts towards searching for
salvation where it is <not>. We can see how Jesus has gradually been bringing us
to this realization, on both the intellectual and experiential levels. He wants
us to know how we use the world to distract us from <finding> the peace we truly
<seek>, convincing us it will yet be <found> in the world outside, as we read in
this passage from the text:

"No one who comes here but must still have hope, some lingering illusion,
or some dream that there is something outside of himself that will bring
happiness and peace to him. If everything is in him this cannot be so. And
therefore by his coming, he denies the truth about himself, and seeks for
something more than everything, as if a part of it were separated off and found
where all the rest of it is not."

"The lingering illusion will impel him to seek out a thousand idols, and to
seek beyond them for a thousand more." (T-29.VII.2:1,5-3:1).

Needless to say, all idols will fail: the ego's hidden agenda.*

(5:1-2) "God's plan for salvation works simply because, by following His
direction, you seek for salvation where it is. But if you are to succeed, as God
promises you will, you must be willing to seek there only."

*That is the catch. Everyone who studies A Course in Miracles will say: "Of
course I want to follow the Holy Spirit ( the meaning of "God" here ); of course
I want to forgive -- but I do not want to do <only> that. I want my specialness,
too, to luxuriate in its pleasures every once in while. I will read the text and
do the workbook lessons faithfully ... <but>, I will do my specialness thing as
well, making the body real and ignoring the mind ("where [salvation] is").
"Unfortunately for the ego, salvation is without such a compromise. This passage
from "Salvation without Compromise" states this explicitly, in the context of
the ego's attempt to attack and love together:

"Salvation is no compromise of any kind. To compromise is to accept but part
of what you want; to take a little and give up the rest.... Let the idea of
compromise but enter, and the awareness of salvation's purpose is lost because
it is not recognized. It is denied where compromise has been accepted, for
compromise is the belief salvation is impossible. It would maintain you can
attack a little, love a little, and know the difference. ..."

"This course is easy just because it makes no compromise. ... Forgiveness
cannot be withheld a little. Nor is it possible to attack for this and love for
that and understand forgiveness." (T-23.III.3:1-2,5-7;4:1,5-6).

It is this uncompromising nature of A Course in Miracles that is its greatest
strength and greatest trial for the ego, hell-bent on maintaining the
specialness of the body.*

(5:3-4) "Otherwise, your purpose is divided and you will attempt to follow two
plans for salvation that are diametrically opposed in all ways. The result can
only bring confusion, misery and a deep sense of failure and despair."

*We can see how the early workbook book lessons were leading to statements like
these two sentences. The lessons helped us understand there is no outer world,
and what we see outside is a projection of what is inside. In fact, Lesson 22
told how it is our attack thoughts that make up the world. Jesus has thus been
training our minds to understand that the problem is within, not in our bodies
or brains. This lesson provides an explicit statement that he could not have
made without first having taught all he had done previously. The symphonic
development of these ideas is indeed masterful to behold.

It is also interesting to behold the parallels between the text and the
workbook. Although the development in each book is quite different, the core
ideas are present in each. For example, Jesus' point here about the difficulty
in following diametrically opposed plans for salvation parallels the following
passage in the text, even in the use of language:

"The curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum you have
established for yourself, but so is its outcome. If the outcome of yours has
made you unhappy, and if you want a different one, a change in the curriculum is
obviously necessary. The first change to be introduced is a change in direction.
A meaningful curriculum cannot be inconsistent. If it is planned by two
teachers, each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it cannot be
integrated. If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously, each one
merely interferes with the other. ..."

"The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully recognized
before a real change in direction becomes possible. You cannot learn
simultaneously from two teachers who are in total disagreement about everything.
Their joint curriculum presents an impossible learning task. They are teaching
you entirely different things in entirely different ways, which might be
possible except that both are teaching you about yourself. Your reality is
unaffected by both, but if you listen to both, your mind will be split about
what your reality is." (T-8.1.5:1-6;6).

Within this context we can understand Jesus' purpose in A Course in Miracles as
presenting us with two "diametrically opposed" teachers, asking us to make the
only meaningful choice open to us: Heaven or hell, God or the ego, happiness or
misery.*

(6) "How can you escape all this? Very simply. The idea for today is the answer.
Only God's plan for salvation will work. There can be no real conflict about
this, because there is no possible alternative to God's plan that will save you.
His is the only plan that is certain in its outcome. His is the only plan that
must succeed."

*The choice is a no-brainer, to use the popular expression. Only one plan will
bring the end of misery and pain. However, this makes no sense unless it is
recognized that the problem resides in the mind, the source of all suffering.
That is why the workbook has been so emphatic on the mind's role in salvation.*

(7) "Let us practice recognizing this certainty today. And let us rejoice that
there is an answer to what seems to be a conflict with no resolution possible.
All things are possible to God. Salvation must be yours because of His plan,
which cannot fail."

*The joy of making the right choice is our ultimate motivation in making it. The
end of conflict is the end of pain and misery, and the beginning of joy and
happiness. Jesus never tires of reminding us of the joyous result of choosing
the Answer.*

(8:1-2) "Begin the two longer practice periods for today by thinking about
today's idea, and realizing that it contains two parts, each making equal
contribution to the whole. God's plan for your salvation will work, and other
plans will not."

*It is the second clause that is the killer. We would willing to accept the
first if we did not also have to accept the second. Unfortunately for our egos,
salvation makes no compromise. We have discussed before that in A Course in
Miracles "yes" means "not no." To say "yes" to God's plan means saying "no" to
the ego's, rejecting the thought system that is the basis of our resistance to
accepting Jesus' teachings. These lines, therefore, reflect the uncompromising
nature of the Course's thought system: truth is true, and nothing else is;
Christ is our true Identity, the ego's is the illusion. We shall happily return
to this principle throughout the rest of the workbook.*

(8:3-6) "Do not allow yourself to become depressed or angry at the second part;
it is inherent in the first. And in the first is your full release from all your
own insane attempts and mad proposals to free yourself. They have led to
depression and anger; but God's plan will succeed. It will lead to release and
joy."

*Anger and depression arise at this stage because we still want to do things our
way. When we feel anxious or depressed, rather than go within and ask Jesus for
help to undo the thoughts that led to the unpleasant feelings, we choose to
cover them by indulging in a special relationship. This is the origin of all
addictions -- with people or substances. The pain is too great, and instead of
resolving it in the mind -- the source of the distress -- we use the body to
dull the pain. To truly practice A Course in Miracles we must realize the ego's
plan does not work. Insisting that it will bring us happiness and relief ensures
that the pain will always be there, albeit appearing in different forms.

The next paragraph has us literally ask God what we should do. Here again, you
must understand that Jesus does not literally expect God to answer us. In fact,
he tells us later in the workbook that God does not even understand words nor
does He answer prayers (see Lesson 184). Yet His words meet us where we are, and
so we are supposed to ask God:*

(9:1-5) "Remembering this, let us devote the remainder of the extended practice
periods to asking God to reveal His plan to us. Ask Him very specifically:"

What would You have me do?

Where would You have me go?
What would You have me say, and to whom?<"

*In other places in A Course in Miracles, Jesus explains that imploring God with
words has no effect. For example, in the manual for teachers he discusses "the
role of words in healing," and says:

"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).

Moreover, Jesus makes it clear in the opening pages of The Song of Prayer that
asking for specifics is tantamount to -- in my words, paraphrasing the ego
principle of forgiveness-to-destroy -- "asking-to-destroy." As is explained in
the following passages, when we ask for specifics we are reinforcing the ego's
belief in the scarcity principle ( A Course in Miracles, Preface, p.xi )
"feelings of weakness and inadequacy" -- and thus asking God to join us there.
The central teaching of A Course in Miracles, however, is that we bring our
beliefs in scarcity and lack to Him, and in His Love all such illusions are
dispelled and problems answered:

"The secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need. To
ask for the specific is much the same as to look on sin and then forgive it.
Also in the same way, in prayer you overlook your specific needs as you see
them, and let them go into God's Hands. There they become your gifts to Him, for
they tell Him that you would have no gods before Him; no Love but His. What
could His answer be but your remembrance of Him? Can this be traded for a bit of
trifling advice about a problem of an instant's duration? God answers only for
eternity. But still all little answers are contained in this." (S.1.I.4.)

Yet because we are still "uncertain of [our] Identity." Jesus is telling us in
this lesson that we should in fact ask God for specifics, because he is
responding to us at a different stages of our growth -- different rungs of the
ladder of prayer, the pamphlet's term for the process of forgiveness:

"Prayer has no beginning and no end. But it does change in form, and grow
with learning until it reaches its formless state, and fuses into total
communication with God. In its asking form it need not, and often does not, make
appeal to God, or even involve belief in Him. At these levels prayer is merely
wanting, out of a sense of scarcity and lack."

"These forms of prayer, or asking-out-of-need, [i.e., asking for specifics:
<asking-to-destroy>], always involve feelings of weakness and inadequacy, and
could never be made by a Son of God who knows Who he is. No one, then, who is
sure of his Identity could pray in these forms. Yet it is also true that no one
who is uncertain of his Identity can avoid praying in this way."
(S.1.II.1.1:1-2-3).

Students must be wary, however, that they not take statements like this out of
their overall context in A Course in Miracles. Otherwise, they would be
wrenching its <form> from the fabric of the Course's content, thereby altering
its meaning by having A Course in Miracles teach the exact opposite of what it
truly means. This is a course in undoing the <cause> -- the mind's decision for
separation -- and not modifying the <effect> -- the specifics of our daily
lives.

To summarize this important point: In A Course in Miracles Jesus is leading us
"up the ladder separation led [us] down." (T-28.III.1.2). We begin our ascent at
the bottom rung, which is reflected in our embrace of the ego's dualistic
thought system of sin, guilt, and fear, and the reality of the material world.
At this level God must inevitably be perceived as a body:

"Can you who see yourself within a body know yourself as an idea? Everything
you recognize you identify with externals, something outside itself. You cannot
even think of God without a body, or in some form you think you recognize."
(T.18.VIII.1.5-7)

This divine body, made in our image and likeness -- the symbol of our belief in
sin, guilt, and fear -- is perceived by our egos as a vengeful and punitive God,
obsessed with our destruction. Thus Jesus, our loving elder brother, gently
corrects this fearful myth by providing us with a kinder one, a forgiving
illusion in which God -- <still perceived as a body> -- is lovingly attentive to
our needs, rather than punishing us for them. Once we ascend the ladder of
prayer with the Holy Spirit as our Guide, we recognize the illusory nature of
these myths and move beyond them to the love that is "beyond the world of
symbols":

"A Power wholly limitless has come, not to destroy, but to receive Its Own.
... Give welcome to the Power beyond forgiveness, and beyond the world of
symbols and of limitations." (T.27.III.7.2,8) *

(9:6-7) "Give Him full charge of the rest of the practice period, and let Him
tell you what needs to be done by you in His plan for your salvation. He will
answer in proportion to your willingness to hear His Voice."

*This statement is very important. Lesson 49 told us that God's Voice speaks to
us throughout the day. In that lesson, as I pointed out, Jesus does not say we
<hear> God's Voice throughout the day, but only that the Holy Spirit's Love is
continually present to us. The problem is that we shut ourselves off from it.
Therefore, it is our willingness to hear His Voice that will allow us to hear
It. Needless to say, Jesus is not literally talking about an actual voice or
specific words, but an experience of God's Love that comes when we say, in
effect: "Only God's Love will bring me happiness; the ego's special love will
not." It is thus not the ego's separating fear we seek, but the Oneness of God's
Love, experienced as a Voice. This passage from the manual for teachers explains
it this way, in a continuation of the previous quoted passage about words being
"symbols of symbols":

"As symbols, words have quite specific references. Even when they seem most
abstract, the picture that comes to mind is apt to be very concrete. Unless a
specific referent does occur to the mind in conjunction with the word, the word
has little or no practical meaning, and thus cannot help the healing process.
The prayer of the heart does not really ask for concrete things. It always
requests some kind of experience, the specific things asked for being the
bringers of the desired experience in the opinion of the asker. The words, then,
are symbols for the things asked for, but the things themselves but stand for
the experiences that are hoped for." (M.21.2.)

Therefore, once we choose <against>the ego's fear and <for> the Holy Spirit's
Love, we shall experience the effect of that choice in a form we understand
which reflects that we, a separated body, are in need of another separated body
(even a discarnate one) to help us.*

(9:8-10) "Refuse not to hear. The very fact that you are doing the exercises
proves that you have some willingness to listen. This is enough to establish
your claim to God's answer."

*Jesus is once again letting us know this is a process. The fact that we have
come this far, are doing the workbook and reading his text, is saying there is a
part of us that wants this other way. In the end, "our [little] willingness to
listen" ensures the happy outcome we are promised. However, what will speed us
along in this process is realizing how much we do not want this other way, and
asking Jesus to help us forgive our fear.*

(10) "In the shorter practice periods, tell yourself often that God's plan for
salvation, and only His, will work. Be alert to all temptation to hold
grievances today, and respond to them with this form of today's idea:"

Holding grievances is the opposite

of God's plan for salvation.
And only His plan will work.<

Try to remember today's idea some six or seven times an hour. There could be no
better way to spend a half minute or less than to remember the Source of your
salvation, and to see It where It is."

*The lesson closes, as many of them do, with Jesus urging us to be as vigilant
as possible for our decision for separation, guilt, and attack as the defense
against returning Home to the heart of Love. Jesus is asking us continually --
even <more> than every ten minutes -- to compare his plan with the ego's;
forgiveness with holding grievances. Thus would we be reminding ourselves of
what we really want, and how choosing attack and blame merely interferes with
the desire to return to our Source.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

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Lesson 71. Only God's plan for salvation will work.