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Lesson 102. I share God's Will for happiness for me.

 

Lesson 102. I share God's Will for happiness for me.

(1) You do not want to suffer. You may think it buys you something, and may
still believe a little that it buys you what you want. Yet this belief is surely
shaken now, at least enough to let you question it, and to suspect it really
makes no sense. It has not gone as yet, but lacks the roots that once secured it
tightly to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind.

(2) Today we try to loose its weakened hold still further, and to realize that
pain is purposeless, without a cause and with no power to accomplish anything.
It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And
everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence, like itself. You
have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will of God.

(3) For several days we will continue to devote our periods of practicing to
exercises planned to help you reach the happiness God's Will has placed in you.
Here is your home, and here your safety is. Here is your peace, and here there
is no fear. Here is salvation. Here is rest at last.

(4) Begin your practice periods today with this acceptance of God's Will for
you:

I share God's Will for happiness for me,
and I accept it as my function now.<

Then seek this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but
your choice. You cannot fail to find it when you learn it is your choice,
and that you share God's Will.

(5) Be happy, for your only function here is happiness. You have no need to be
less loving to God's Son than He Whose Love created him as loving as Himself.
Besides these hourly five-minute rests, pause frequently today, to tell yourself
that you have now accepted happiness as your one function. And be sure that you
are joining with God's Will in doing this.

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

The commentary on this lesson is an excerpt 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 102. "I share God's Will for happiness for me."

*Continuing from the previous lesson, Jesus specifically addresses the idea of
suffering.*

(1:1) "You do not want to suffer."

*This is obviously not the case, because from beginning to end, our lives are
filled with suffering. If it is our dream, whom can we blame but ourselves, the
dreamer of suffering? Therefore, a statement like this is Jesus' appeal to
change our minds. As always, the <you> he addresses is the decision maker, and
he is really saying to us: "Yes, you do want to suffer, but you can learn it
does not pay you. I therefore remind you to let go of your guilt and belief in
sin." As he says later: "Come with wholly empty hands unto your God."
(W.PI.189.7.5). In that sense, then, we will not suffer, for without guilt there
can be no suffering.*

(1:2) "You may think it buys you something, and may still believe a little that
it buys you what you want."

*Suffering unfortunately buys us a great deal, which we can see three ways:

1) Suffering repays God so He will not kill us, seeing us already indulging in a
little form of death (T-27.I.4:8). In other words, we tell God He need not
concern Himself with our punishment, for we are taking care of the matter
ourselves. Thus we hope successfully to bargain with our Judge, escaping with an
easier sentence: ...

"Illness is a form of magic. It might be better to say that it is a form of
magical solution. The ego believes that by punishing itself it will mitigate the
punishment of God." (T.5.V.5.4-6).

2) Suffering proves that others have done this to us; we are the victims and
they are the victimizers. This holds whether we are speaking of a person we
accuse of hurting us, or microorganism that makes us sick. Regardless of the
form, the enemy is external to our minds, deserving of punishment and defeat:

"But 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."
(T.27.I.2.2-5).

3) Suffering proves we are bodies, and if so, we are right, and God and Jesus
are wrong. Indeed, if we are right, God does not exist at all:

"Sickness is an election; a decision. ... a method, conceived in madness,
for placing God's Son on his Father's throne. God is seen as outside, fierce and
powerful, eager to keep all power for Himself. Only by His death can He be
conquered by His Son." (M.5.I.1.4;7-9).

"Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It demonstrates God is
denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself. If
God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God. For vengeance
is not part of love. And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is
dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God,
corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain."(W.PI.190.3.1).

As long as we believe sickness and suffering bring us the innocence and life we
want, we will have no motivation to let them go.*

(1:3) "Yet this belief is surely shaken now, at least enough to let you question
it, and to suspect it really makes no sense."

*Jesus is not asking us to let go of our thought system, but only to begin the
process of questioning it. Is it really better for me to hold on to these
"secret sins and hidden hates" (T.31.VIII.9.2) to maintain these grievances? to
insist that the fulfillment of my specialness needs -- whether with a person,
object, or substance -- will get me what I want? After a while, none of the
things of the world gives us what we want, or truly make us happy. We think they
bring relief from pain of our guilt, but all they lead to is guilt's increase,
thus revealing the ego's purpose from the beginning.*

(1:4) "It has not gone as yet, but lacks the roots that once secured it tightly
to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind."

*Jesus is telling us: "I am not expecting you to be free from suffering. Indeed,
I know it has not gone yet. However I am asking you to be open, allowing me at
least to help you question the validity of your way of life."

The word <secret> here connotes guilt, which screams: "Keep your sin a secret,
and do not look." The secret places of our minds are where we hold our guilt in
shrouded vaults that bar the light of God from ever entering:

"And in these shrouded vaults are all his sins and yours preserved and kept
in darkness, where they cannot be perceived as errors, which the light would
surely show." (T.31.V.6.6).

The prose poem Helen took down, "The Gifts of God," closes with a stirring call
from God Himself to open these vaults, behind which His Love was kept secret:

"Open the door before the hidden place, and let Me blaze upon a world made
glad in sudden ecstasy." (The Gifts of God, p.128).

At the same place Jesus tells us he knows we are holding on to suffering, he
says: "By virtue of the fact you have come this far with me, we have already
taken a large step towards questioning your thought system. Therefore, do not
say you cannot let it go, because you are already well along in the process."
Yet when we hit up against the stone wall of sin and guilt, we say A Course in
Miracles is impossible to learn and we cannot do it. This, then, becomes our
justification for returning to our old "friends," special relationships.
However, Jesus does not buy it, and reiterates his message to us: "You already
know more than you think, for you realize that specialness does not work. You
still may hold on to the need to suffer, but another part of you has grown
sufficiently strong that it can at least step back and question with me what you
are doing." *

(2:1) "Today we try to loose its weakened hold still further, and to realize
that pain is purposeless, without a cause and with no power to accomplish
anything."

*We return to the <cause-and-effect> principle. "Pain is purposeless" because we
now realize our purpose -- to keep separated from God -- makes no sense. Once
the purpose is gone, it can have no effects. Thus is pain weakened, and
eventually negated.*

(2:2) "It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not
exist."

*The ego tells us our pain purchases a great deal -- atonement and salvation --
and Jesus is hoping we recognize that pain and suffering purchase nothing. They
only make us upset and more filled with pain. Clearly, the more we suffer, the
more our need for salvation. The problem is that we often end up looking in the
wrong place: in expiation, punishment, and pain.*

(2:3-6) "And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence, like
itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will
of God."

*The problem with accepting this statement is that if pain does not exist,
neither does my body that suffers it, nor the thought of individuality my body
represents. The fear of losing this self perpetuates our clinging to very
maladaptive defenses, such as pain and suffering.

There is the truth nothing holds us back from joining "the happy Will of God,"
symbolized for us by Jesus. We have been "slave to nothing," meaning we have
been enslaved by our wrong decision, which had no effects. Without effects,
there can be no cause; and without a cause, pain does not exist.*

(3:1) "For several days we will continue to devote our periods of practicing to
exercises planned to help you reach the happiness God's Will has placed in you."

*These exercises help us reach the goal of happiness by helping undo the
interferences -- pain, guilt, and specialness -- we placed between ourselves and
the goal's attainment. *

(3:2-5) "Here is your home, and here your safety is. Here is your peace, and
here there is no fear. Here is salvation. Here is rest at last."

*<Here> represents the right mind where we join with Jesus, and happily look
with him at the ego thought system and question it. We look without judgment and
without guilt; <but we look>. In other words, we undo the veils that hold our
guilt in secret. Remember, secrecy and guilt are the same, for guilt cannot
abide in the light of our awareness. When brought to the guiltlessness held for
us by the Holy Spirit, the guilt can no longer be protected by the dark
sentinels of defense. And so it disappears:

"The quiet light in which the Holy Spirit dwells within you is merely
perfect openness, in which nothing is hidden and therefore nothing is fearful
... There is no darkness that the light of love will not dispel, unless it is
concealed from love's beneficence. What is kept apart from love cannot share its
healing power, because it has been separated off and kept in darkness. The
sentinels of darkness watch over it carefully, and you who made these guardians
of illusion out of nothing are now afraid of them ... But let them go, and what
was fearful will be so no longer. Without protection of obscurity only the light
of love remains, for only this has meaning and can live in light. Everything
else must disappear."
(T-14.VI.2:1,3-5;3:6-8).

With the illusions of defense gone, happiness comes at last to replace our
pain.*

(4) "Begin your practice periods today with this acceptance of God's Will for
you:
I share God's Will for happiness for me,
and I accept it as my function now.<
Then seek this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but
your choice. You cannot fail to find it when you learn it is your choice,
and that you share God's Will."

*We pledge ourselves to remember as often as we can that our function of
forgiveness awaits our decision, for only there can we find the happiness we
deserve as God's Son. Suffering is not God's Will, but its distortion. However,
coming simply from our mistaken choice, the pain is easily corrected.*

(5) "Be happy, for your only function here is happiness. You have no need to be
less loving to God's Son than He Whose Love created him as loving as Himself.
Besides these hourly five-minute rests, pause frequently today, to tell yourself
that you have now accepted happiness as your one function. And be sure that you
are joining with God's Will in doing this."

*We do deserve to be happy, and that is what we need to remember throughout the
day. We also need not to forget that happiness must be shared with everyone,
otherwise it cannot express the Oneness of God's Son is one, so must his
happiness be one as well.*

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


Lesson 102. "I share God's Will for happiness for me."

*Continuing from the previous lesson, Jesus specifically addresses the idea of
suffering.*

(1:1) "You do not want to suffer."

*This is obviously not the case, because from beginning to end, our lives are
filled with suffering. If it is our dream, whom can we blame but ourselves, the
dreamer of suffering? Therefore, a statement like this is Jesus' appeal to
change our minds. As always, the <you> he addresses is the decision maker, and
he is really saying to us: "Yes, you do want to suffer, but you can learn it
does not pay you. I therefore remind you to let go of your guilt and belief in
sin." As he says later: "Come with wholly empty hands unto your God."
(W.PI.189.7.5). In that sense, then, we will not suffer, for without guilt there
can be no suffering.*

(1:2) "You may think it buys you something, and may still believe a little that
it buys you what you want."

*Suffering unfortunately buys us a great deal, which we can see three ways:

1) Suffering repays God so He will not kill us, seeing us already indulging in a
little form of death (T-27.I.4:8). In other words, we tell God He need not
concern Himself with our punishment, for we are taking care of the matter
ourselves. Thus we hope successfully to bargain with our Judge, escaping with an
easier sentence: ...

"Illness is a form of magic. It might be better to say that it is a form of
magical solution. The ego believes that by punishing itself it will mitigate the
punishment of God." (T.5.V.5.4-6).

2) Suffering proves that others have done this to us; we are the victims and
they are the victimizers. This holds whether we are speaking of a person we
accuse of hurting us, or microorganism that makes us sick. Regardless of the
form, the enemy is external to our minds, deserving of punishment and defeat:

"But 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."
(T.27.I.2.2-5).

3) Suffering proves we are bodies, and if so, we are right, and God and Jesus
are wrong. Indeed, if we are right, God does not exist at all:

"Sickness is an election; a decision. ... a method, conceived in madness,
for placing God's Son on his Father's throne. God is seen as outside, fierce and
powerful, eager to keep all power for Himself. Only by His death can He be
conquered by His Son." (M.5.I.1.4;7-9).

"Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It demonstrates God is
denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself. If
God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God. For vengeance
is not part of love. And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is
dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God,
corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain."(W.PI.190.3.1).

As long as we believe sickness and suffering bring us the innocence and life we
want, we will have no motivation to let them go.*

(1:3) "Yet this belief is surely shaken now, at least enough to let you question
it, and to suspect it really makes no sense."

*Jesus is not asking us to let go of our thought system, but only to begin the
process of questioning it. Is it really better for me to hold on to these
"secret sins and hidden hates" (T.31.VIII.9.2) to maintain these grievances? to
insist that the fulfillment of my specialness needs -- whether with a person,
object, or substance -- will get me what I want? After a while, none of the
things of the world gives us what we want, or truly make us happy. We think they
bring relief from pain of our guilt, but all they lead to is guilt's increase,
thus revealing the ego's purpose from the beginning.*

(1:4) "It has not gone as yet, but lacks the roots that once secured it tightly
to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind."

*Jesus is telling us: "I am not expecting you to be free from suffering. Indeed,
I know it has not gone yet. However I am asking you to be open, allowing me at
least to help you question the validity of your way of life."

The word <secret> here connotes guilt, which screams: "Keep your sin a secret,
and do not look." The secret places of our minds are where we hold our guilt in
shrouded vaults that bar the light of God from ever entering:

"And in these shrouded vaults are all his sins and yours preserved and kept
in darkness, where they cannot be perceived as errors, which the light would
surely show." (T.31.V.6.6).

The prose poem Helen took down, "The Gifts of God," closes with a stirring call
from God Himself to open these vaults, behind which His Love was kept secret:

"Open the door before the hidden place, and let Me blaze upon a world made
glad in sudden ecstasy." (The Gifts of God, p.128).

At the same place Jesus tells us he knows we are holding on to suffering, he
says: "By virtue of the fact you have come this far with me, we have already
taken a large step towards questioning your thought system. Therefore, do not
say you cannot let it go, because you are already well along in the process."
Yet when we hit up against the stone wall of sin and guilt, we say A Course in
Miracles is impossible to learn and we cannot do it. This, then, becomes our
justification for returning to our old "friends," special relationships.
However, Jesus does not buy it, and reiterates his message to us: "You already
know more than you think, for you realize that specialness does not work. You
still may hold on to the need to suffer, but another part of you has grown
sufficiently strong that it can at least step back and question with me what you
are doing." *

(2:1) "Today we try to loose its weakened hold still further, and to realize
that pain is purposeless, without a cause and with no power to accomplish
anything."

*We return to the <cause-and-effect> principle. "Pain is purposeless" because we
now realize our purpose -- to keep separated from God -- makes no sense. Once
the purpose is gone, it can have no effects. Thus is pain weakened, and
eventually negated.*

(2:2) "It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not
exist."

*The ego tells us our pain purchases a great deal -- atonement and salvation --
and Jesus is hoping we recognize that pain and suffering purchase nothing. They
only make us upset and more filled with pain. Clearly, the more we suffer, the
more our need for salvation. The problem is that we often end up looking in the
wrong place: in expiation, punishment, and pain.*

(2:3-6) "And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence, like
itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will
of God."

*The problem with accepting this statement is that if pain does not exist,
neither does my body that suffers it, nor the thought of individuality my body
represents. The fear of losing this self perpetuates our clinging to very
maladaptive defenses, such as pain and suffering.

There is the truth nothing holds us back from joining "the happy Will of God,"
symbolized for us by Jesus. We have been "slave to nothing," meaning we have
been enslaved by our wrong decision, which had no effects. Without effects,
there can be no cause; and without a cause, pain does not exist.*

(3:1) "For several days we will continue to devote our periods of practicing to
exercises planned to help you reach the happiness God's Will has placed in you."

*These exercises help us reach the goal of happiness by helping undo the
interferences -- pain, guilt, and specialness -- we placed between ourselves and
the goal's attainment. *

(3:2-5) "Here is your home, and here your safety is. Here is your peace, and
here there is no fear. Here is salvation. Here is rest at last."

*<Here> represents the right mind where we join with Jesus, and happily look
with him at the ego thought system and question it. We look without judgment and
without guilt; <but we look>. In other words, we undo the veils that hold our
guilt in secret. Remember, secrecy and guilt are the same, for guilt cannot
abide in the light of our awareness. When brought to the guiltlessness held for
us by the Holy Spirit, the guilt can no longer be protected by the dark
sentinels of defense. And so it disappears:

"The quiet light in which the Holy Spirit dwells within you is merely
perfect openness, in which nothing is hidden and therefore nothing is fearful
... There is no darkness that the light of love will not dispel, unless it is
concealed from love's beneficence. What is kept apart from love cannot share its
healing power, because it has been separated off and kept in darkness. The
sentinels of darkness watch over it carefully, and you who made these guardians
of illusion out of nothing are now afraid of them ... But let them go, and what
was fearful will be so no longer. Without protection of obscurity only the light
of love remains, for only this has meaning and can live in light. Everything
else must disappear."
(T-14.VI.2:1,3-5;3:6-8).

With the illusions of defense gone, happiness comes at last to replace our
pain.*

(4) "Begin your practice periods today with this acceptance of God's Will for
you:
I share God's Will for happiness for me,
and I accept it as my function now.<
Then seek this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but
your choice. You cannot fail to find it when you learn it is your choice,
and that you share God's Will."

*We pledge ourselves to remember as often as we can that our function of
forgiveness awaits our decision, for only there can we find the happiness we
deserve as God's Son. Suffering is not God's Will, but its distortion. However,
coming simply from our mistaken choice, the pain is easily corrected.*

(5) "Be happy, for your only function here is happiness. You have no need to be
less loving to God's Son than He Whose Love created him as loving as Himself.
Besides these hourly five-minute rests, pause frequently today, to tell yourself
that you have now accepted happiness as your one function. And be sure that you
are joining with God's Will in doing this."

*We do deserve to be happy, and that is what we need to remember throughout the
day. We also need not to forget that happiness must be shared with everyone,
otherwise it cannot express the Oneness of God's Son is one, so must his
happiness be one as well.*


Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson
719-369-1822

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