Lesson 139. I will accept Atonement for myself.
(1) Here is the end of choice. For here we come to a decision to accept
ourselves as God created us. And what is choice except uncertainty of what we
are? There is no doubt that is not rooted here. There is no question but
reflects this one. There is no conflict that does not entail the single, simple
question, "What am I?"
(2) Yet who could ask this question except one who has refused to recognize
himself? Only refusal to accept yourself could make the question seem to be
sincere. The only thing that can be surely known by any living thing is what it
is. From this one point of certainty, it looks on other things as certain as
itself.
(3) Uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast, its
magnitude can hardly be conceived. To be alive and not to know yourself is to
believe that you are really dead. For what is life except to be yourself, and
what but you can be alive instead? Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts?
Whom does he question? Who can answer him?
(4) He merely states that he is not himself, and therefore, being something
else, becomes a questioner of what that something is. Yet he could never be
alive at all unless he knew the answer. If he asks as if he does not know, it
merely shows he does not want to be the thing he is. He has accepted it because
he lives; has judged against it and denied its worth, and has decided that he
does not know the only certainty by which he lives.
(5) Thus he becomes uncertain of his life, for what it is has been denied by
him. It is for this denial that you need Atonement. Your denial made no change
in what you are. But you have split your mind into what knows and does not know
the truth. You are yourself. There is no doubt of this. And yet you doubt it.
But you do not ask what part of you can really doubt yourself. It cannot really
be a part of you that asks this question. For it asks of one who knows the
answer. Were it part of you, then certainty would be impossible.
(6) Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself,
and be unsure of what you really are. This is the depth of madness. Yet it is
the universal question of the world. What does this mean except the world is
mad? Why share its madness in the sad belief that what is universal here is
true?
(7) Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a
home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what
it is they are. And they will come again until the time Atonement is accepted,
and they learn it is impossible to doubt yourself, and not to be aware of what
you are.
(8) Only acceptance can be asked of you, for what you are is certain. It is set
forever in the holy Mind of God, and in your own. It is so far beyond all doubt
and question that to ask what it must be is all the proof you need to show that
you believe the contradiction that you know not what you cannot fail to know. Is
this a question, or a statement which denies itself in statement? Let us not
allow our holy minds to occupy themselves with senseless musings such as this.
(9) We have a mission here. We did not come to reinforce the madness that we
once believed in. Let us not forget the goal that we accepted. It is more than
just our happiness alone we came to gain. What we accept as what we are
proclaims what everyone must be, along with us. Fail not your brothers, or you
fail yourself. Look lovingly on them, that they may know that they are part of
you, and you of them.
(10) This does Atonement teach, and demonstrates the Oneness of God's Son is
unassailed by his belief he knows not what he is. Today accept Atonement, not to
change reality, but merely to accept the truth about yourself, and go your way
rejoicing in the endless Love of God. It is but this that we are asked to do. It
is but this that we will do today.
(11) Five minutes in the morning and at night we will devote to dedicate our
minds to our assignment for today. We start with this review of what our mission
is:
I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me.
We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us like Him.
We can remember it for everyone, for in creation are all minds as one. And in
our memory is the recall how dear our brothers are to us in truth, how much a
part of us is every mind, how faithful they have really been to us, and how our
Father's Love contains them all.
(12) In thanks for all creation, in the Name of its Creator and His Oneness with
all aspects of creation, we repeat our dedication to our cause today each hour,
as we lay aside all thoughts that would distract us from our holy aim. For
several minutes let your mind be cleared of all the foolish cobwebs which the
world would weave around the holy Son of God. And learn the fragile nature of
the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apart from your
awareness, as you say:
I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
Below, is from Kenneth Wapnick's commentaries on this lesson, from his book set
called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can be
purchased at the following site:?. M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
Lesson 139. "I will accept Atonement for myself."
*This lesson extends the previous lesson's theme of decision. The context of the
teaching here is quite familiar to us by now: We were confronted by a decision
between the ego and the Holy Spirit, and chose to identify with the concept of a
separated self over the memory of our Identity as Christ. When we chose the
ego's individuality over the Holy Spirit's Atonement Principle that the
separation never happened, we identified with a false self, establishing the
need for the Atonement, or correction for our mistaken choice. In accepting the
Atonement for ourselves, the ultimate goal of A Course in Miracles, we remember
our Self. Another major theme in our symphonic workbook, therefore, is our
Identity as God's unseparated Son.*
(1:1) "Here is the end of choice."
*When we accept the Atonement for ourselves, realizing that the Holy Spirit
speaks truth and the ego lies, we have reached the end of choice. We have
regained the power of our minds, knowing clearly that this decision-making
ability has nothing to do with the body's brain. By irrevocably choosing the
truth, the need for choice is over because the mistake has been undone. The
miracle's purpose is thus fulfilled as we return to the decision-making part of
our minds, the origin of the dream that we now undo:
"The miracle does not awaken you, but merely shows you who the dreamer is.
It teaches you there is a choice of dreams while you are still asleep, depending
on the purpose of your dreaming. Do you wish for dreams of healing, or for
dreams of death? ... "
"The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not
true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No one is afraid of them
when he perceives he made them up. The fear was held in place because he did not
see that he was author of the dream, and not a figure in the dream."
(T-28.II.4:2-4;7:1-4).
Once the choice between dreams of healing and dreams of death is clear, our
dreaming ends.*
(1:2-6) "For here we come to a decision to accept ourselves as God created us.
And what is choice except uncertainty of what we are? There is no doubt that is
not rooted here. There is no question but reflects this one. There is no
conflict that does not entail the single, simple question, "What am I?"
*Near the end of the workbook is Jesus' beautiful answer to the question, "What
am I? (W-pII.14). The ego's answer is its response to the tiny, mad idea: I am a
separated son, self-created rather than God-created. The Holy Spirit's reply is
the Atonement: our Self remains unchanged as Christ. The close of "The Christ in
You" summarizes the shift from doubt to certainty, from the ego to Christ:
"There must be doubt before there can be conflict. And every doubt must be
about yourself. Christ has no doubt, and from His certainty His quiet comes. He
will exchange His certainty for all your doubts, if you agree that He is one
with you, and that this oneness is endless, timeless, and within your grasp
because your hands are His. ... His quietness becomes your certainty. And where
is doubt when certainty has come?" (T.24.V.9.1-4, 6.)*
(2:1) "Yet who could ask this question except one who has refused to recognize
himself?"
*This question can arise only within the split mind, a major theme of this part
of the lesson. Once we choose the ego instead of the Holy Spirit, we make the
split mind real, having brought uncertainty to replace the Certainty of God.
Thus our daily process vacillates between the doubt of uncertainty and certainty
of Self.*
(2:2-4) "Only refusal to accept yourself could make the question seem to be
sincere. The only thing that can be surely known by any living thing is what it
is. From this one point of certainty, it looks on other things as certain as
itself."
*This is a commentary on the principle: <projection makes perception>. We first
look within our minds and choose the ego or the Holy Spirit. What we choose we
make real, and what we make real in our minds is projected or extended. If it is
the ego's thought system of the false self, we project its thought system of sin
and specialness and see it all around us, defining ourselves as bodies that are
the shadows of of the mind's original thought of separation. If, on the other
hand, we choose the Holy Spirit and accept His Atonement, the love inherent in
that thought becomes our reality, and we look out on the ego's world and realize
everything is a defense against that love, which is now freed in our healed
minds to extend throughout the Sonship.
Since all people know within Who they are, when they doubt their Identity they
must already have chosen the ego instead of the Holy Spirit, because, as we will
see presently, choosing the Holy Spirit leaves no doubt, but only certainty.
Thus if I raise a question, it is but a statement masquerading as a question. As
all questions come from self-doubt, they implicitly mean I do not know, for I
decided against knowledge. In other words, my underlying question -- "What am
I?" -- to which I seek an answer, is in fact a statement reflecting my
wrong-minded decision. My right mind, again -- the Holy Spirit's dwelling place
-- knows who I am. Thus my "question" is an invitation to someone to explain who
I am and how I got here. Thus is my questioning born of self-doubt, as we see in
this penetrating passage from "The Quiet Answer" that explains how all questions
come from the need to affirm the ego -- "a form of propaganda for itself":
"All questions asked within this world are but a way of looking, not a
question asked ... Whatever form the question takes, its purpose is the same. It
asks but to establish sin is real, and answers in the form of preference. ... A
pseudo-question has no answer. It dictates the answer even as it asks. Thus is
all questioning within the world a form of propaganda for itself."
(T-27.IV.4:1,4-5,8-9;5:1-3).*
(3:1) "Uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast,
its magnitude can hardly be conceived."
*This thought is present in other places in A Course in Miracles, where Jesus
says, in effect, that we have no idea of the magnitude of our one error. For
example:
"You may be surprised to hear how very different is reality from what you
see. You do not realize the magnitude of that one error. It was so vast and so
completely incredible that from it a world of total unreality had to emerge."
(T.18.I.5.1-3)
When we are not sure of who we are, we have already deceived ourselves. Choosing
the ego makes us uncertain, thus any uncertainty reveals we have chosen against
the truth.*
(3:2) "To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really
dead."
*To be alive is to be with the Holy Spirit, for choosing Him is to choose the
memory of life itself. When we choose the ego, however, we have chosen death and
thus believe we are sinful for having rejected life. In our ignorance we think
we exist, yet the truth is that we never left God's Love and remain at one with
Him. In the madness of our dreams, however, we believe we are alive as bodies,
but this is truly death, even as they successfully masquerade as life.*
(3:3) "For what is life except to be yourself, and what but you can be alive
instead?"
*This is the real <you> of which Jesus speaks, and <life> applies only when I
know who I am, the Self of which my Teacher reminds me. Therefore the decision
against the Holy Spirit, once again, is the decision to be someone I am not, at
which point I no longer have <being> and must be dead. The reader may recall the
following from "The Laws of Chaos," which clarifies, beyond any doubt, the true
meaning of life:
"There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life
must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like
life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in
their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what
is not in Heaven is not anywhere." (T-23.II.19:1-6)
Nothing the ego can do can ever change truth to illusion, or bring life to
death. We remain as God created us -- the Son of Life -- our sleep of death
notwithstanding:
"Your will is His life, which He has given to you. Even in time you cannot
live apart from Him. Sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but cannot
die. Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for himself. God's
Son cannot will death for himself because His Father is Life, and His Son is
like Him. Creation is your will because it is His." (T-11.I.9:5-11).*
(3:4-7) "Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts? Whom does he question? Who
can answer him?"
*<Who is the doubter?> The one who has chosen to be in the wrong mind. <What is
it he doubts?> Who he is. <Whom does he question?> The other part of his mind.
<Who can answer him?> The only real answer comes from himself, except he has
denied who he is. Therefore he can never hear the answer, for it will be his own
voice -- the wrong-minded ego -- to which he listens. This line of thought is
elaborated as we continue:*
(4:1) "He merely states that he is not himself, and therefore, being something
else, becomes a questioner of what that something is."
*The ones who doubt think they are this something else -- the body, home of the
thought system of separation. Now they wonder "what that something is." Our
greatest brains have addressed this and similar questions: Who am I? How did I
get here? What is the purpose of existence? How did the world originate? Whether
the question is asked from the point of view of theology, philosophy,
psychology, biology, chemistry, or astrophysics is irrelevant, because it is a
false question. When you choose to be with the Holy Spirit, you no longer
question -- you know. Your question, again, is really the ego saying I am not
who I am, and seek instead to understand the false self I have become.*
(4:2-3) "Yet he could never be alive at all unless he knew the answer. If he
asks as if he does not know, it merely shows he does not want to be the thing he
is."
*This describes the split mind, for there remains a part of us that knows the
answer. As Jesus explains in many places, you cannot deny something unless you
first know it:
"You denied Him because you loved Him, knowing that if you recognized your
love for Him, you could not deny Him. Your denial of Him therefore means that
you love Him, and that you know He loves you. Remember that what you deny you
must have once known." (T-10.V.6:3-5)
My choice for the ego is against the Holy Spirit, for there is a part of me that
knows what He teaches. Yet I choose the ego because I prefer individuality to my
natural state of oneness, the Son as God created him. It is thus never a
question of an inability to know, but simply a refusal.*
(4:4) "He has accepted it because he lives; has judged against it and denied its
worth, and has decided that he does not know the only certainty by which he
lives."
*My right mind has accepted who I am because life is there. Remember, if the
Holy Spirit is the memory of God, He is also the memory of Life. If that memory
is in my mind there must be a part of me that shares that thought. When Jesus
says "He has accepted it because he lives," he speaks of the right mind. There
is also the wrong mind that has judged against life, accepting the ego's
judgment for who we are. We see thus again a description of the split mind: the
wrong and right minds, and, by implication, the decision-maker who chooses
between them.*
(5:1) "Thus he becomes uncertain of his life, for what it is has been denied by
him."
*Life, my true Identity, is present in my mind. Even though I have turned away
and forgotten it, my Self remains. In my amnesia, however, uncertainty and doubt
arise, for which I accept no responsibility.*
(5:2) "It is for this denial that you need Atonement."
*This is another central statement. Atonement undoes the denial that is the ego.
In the text Jesus tells us our task is to <"deny the denial of truth">
(T-12.II.1:5); the Atonement is the first "deny," which erases the ego's "denial
of truth." Because we chose wrongly and denied who we are, we need the
Atonement's correction to undo the mistaken choice. As Jesus teaches:
"Atoning" means "undoing". The undoing of fear is an essential part of the
atonement value of miracles." (T-1.1.26:2-3).
And from the manual for teachers:
"Atonement means correction, or the undoing of errors." (M-18.4:6).
We have denied our inherent oneness as God's Son and the unity of His Kingdom.
By affirming the separation never happened and Heaven remains perfectly united,
the Atonement undoes the ego and its thought system:
"The Atonement is the guarantee of the safety of the Kingdom, and the union
of the Sonship is its protection. The ego cannot prevail against the Kingdom
because the Sonship is united. In the presence of those who hear the Holy
Spirit's call to be as one, the ego fades away and is undone." (T-5.IV.1:9-11).*
(5:3-7) "Your denial made no change in what you are. But you have split your
mind into what knows and does not know the truth. You are yourself. There is no
doubt of this. And yet you doubt it."
*The truth is we are as God created us. Even though we attempted to deny the
truth, nothing happened: "not one note in Heaven's song was missed"
(T-26.V.5:4). The Holy Spirit's presence in our minds assures us of that fact.
Moreover, if the Atonement is in our mind's, there is a part of us that has
already identified with it. Since we denied what we established as truth, our
minds are split. That is why there is a perennial conflict in our minds, and
perennial conflict in the world. We are continually at war with ourselves, a
conflict designed by the ego to protect itself against our choosing the quiet
memory of God's Love, the enemy of individuality:
"The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It cannot come where there is
conflict, for a mind at war against itself remembers not eternal gentleness. The
means of war are not the means of peace, and what the warlike would remember is
not love. War is impossible unless belief in victory is cherished. Conflict
within you must imply that you believe the ego has the power to be victorious.
Why else would you identify with it?" (T-23.I.1:1-6).
How could we not doubt ourselves -- a Self of peace -- when we are in a
continual state of war?*
(5:8) "But you do not ask what part of you can really doubt yourself."
*What doubts myself is the wrong mind, the part that does not know the truth, as
described in the previous sentence. I do not question my wrong mind, because
that implicitly means I have a right mind. I question none of this, but accept
that I do not know who I am, and thus seek for answers external to myself. This
validates my existence as a separated person, which is why, again, Jesus calls
the ego's questions "propaganda for itself." *
(5:9) "It cannot really be a part of you that asks this question."
*The real part of me -- the <you> -- knows, so that part never asks the
question. In other words, it can only be the false self that asks. When you
experience Jesus' love and peace, you have no questions. Indeed at that point
you <become> the answer, as he is. Your asking a question, then, means you do
not believe you are who you really are.*
(5:10) "For it asks of one who knows the answer."
*My wrong mind asks of the right mind, which means my wrong mind believes it is
separate from it. If I ask a question, I do not experience you as one with me,
but as someone separate who is perhaps wiser than I, and therefore has the
answer I lack. The fact that part of me asks the other part who I am says that
the wrong mind is separate from the right mind. Therefore if the right mind is
who I am, the wrong mind cannot be my self. These cleverly argued passages are
designed to help break our identification with the ego, enabling us to choose
the right-minded self as our identity.*
(5:11) "Were it part of you, then certainty would be impossible."
*If the wrong mind -- the part that does not know the truth -- were who I am,
how could I ever be certain of anything? The wrong mind is uncertainty. The
right mind, as the reflection of oneness, teaches us there could be nothing real
outside itself. Thus, if the wrong mind has become part of who I really am, the
uncertain wrong mind means <I> am uncertain, not to mention illusory. Again,
Jesus uses this ingeniously reasoned argument to help us realize that the person
we think we are is not who we truly are. As long as we doubt, are uncertain, and
have questions about anything, we are affirming that we are not who we are.
This also means, in the long run, that when we continually ask Jesus for help
and answers to questions, we affirm our separation from him. We all indeed begin
as little children seeking help from our elder brother, yet as long as we wish
this inequality to last, we will never realize we are like him. Near the end of
the journey -- when we have reached spiritual maturity we understand there is no
one to ask, because, like Jesus, we <are> the answer. Needless to say, this <we>
is not the personal or specific self with which we identify, but the <we> that
is one with all.
To review, asking a question implicitly reinforces your split mind, and
therefore reflects a self you are not. This does not mean you should feel guilty
about asking questions, but only that you need to recognize these are
steppingstones toward the ultimate goal of realizing the Son of God is one. In
that experience of oneness there is no question, because you have become the
answer. This is what Jesus means in discussing the experience that answers all
questions:
"A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only
possible but necessary. It is this experience toward which the course is
directed. ... It is merely the ego that questions because it is only the ego
that doubts. The course merely gives another answer, once a question has been
raised. ... "
"The ego will demand many answers that this course does not give. It does
not recognize as questions the mere form of a question to which an answer is
impossible. ... Yet there is no answer; only an experience. Seek only this, and
do not let theology delay you." (C-in.2:5-6;3:4-5;4:1-2,4-5).*
(6:1) "Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt
yourself, and be unsure of what you really are."
*The ego tells us that doubt and uncertainty are the reality here, and as school
children we are indeed encouraged to ask questions. In fact, throughout A Course
in Miracles Jesus speaks to us as little children, encouraging us to ask
questions. Yet the truth remains that being uncertain or in a questioning state
denies our true Self. The Atonement undoes denial, as we have seen, removing the
veil that hid the truth of the perfect certainty of our Identity as Christ.*
(6:2-4) "This is the depth of madness. Yet it is the universal question of the
world. What does this mean except the world is mad?"
*Believing that reality is uncertainty and confusion, giving rise to a perennial
state of questioning, is truly the depth of madness. Asking questions reflects a
dualistic orientation, while non-dualistic oneness is our reality, and Jesus is
again letting us know the extent of the dualistic world's insanity. This leads
to the insane conviction we cannot know our self without asking another for the
answer to "the universal question of the world": What am I?*
(6:5) "Why share its madness in the sad belief that what is universal here is
true?"
*While Helen was taking down A Course in Miracles, Jesus said to her: "Tell Bill
that fifty million Frenchmen can be wrong." The fact fifty million or six
billion people believe something does not make it true. One thought of madness
is the same as a billion thoughts of madness, for madness remains mad. This
uncompromising non-dualism is what makes A Course in Miracles so radical, for it
establishes that all perception is a lie, since its innate dualism belies the
truth of the oneness of knowledge:
"God's laws do not obtain directly to a world perception rules, for such a
world could not have been created by the Mind to which perception has no
meaning. ... Perception rests on choosing; knowledge does not. Knowledge has but
one law because it has but one Creator." (T-25.III.2:1;3:1-2).*
(7:1-2) "Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to
be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question
what it is they are."
* "Nothing the world believes is true" because the world is based upon an
illusory, insane thought. This is another unequivocal statement to which you
should pay careful attention, and then observe how you want to compromise its
truth. All people question "what is it they are," yet the only way they could
know the answer is to release the thoughts that are part of this world:
separation, judgment, specialness, and sickness. What remains is the certainty
of the Atonement that reminds them of their Identity. Thus the world serves a
different purpose when they choose the holy instant's forgiveness, the means for
remembering their Self:
"There is another purpose in the world that error made, because it has
another Maker Who can reconcile its goal with His Creator's purpose. In His
perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight
of perfect sinlessness. Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete
forgiveness. Nothing remains an instant, to obscure the sinlessness that shines
unchanged, beyond the pitiful attempts of specialness to put it out of mind,
where it must be, and light the body up instead of it." (T.25.III.5.1-4)
Thus does the world become a classroom in which we undo what the ego taught,
choosing instead to learn from a different Teacher:
"The ego made the world as it perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the
re-interpreter of what the ego made, sees the world as a teaching device for
bringing you home." (T.5.III.11.1).*
(7:3) "And they will come again until the time Atonement is accepted, and they
learn it is impossible to doubt yourself, and not to be aware of what you are."
*This would be clearer if we added <impossible> to the final clause: "and they
learn it is impossible to doubt yourself, and <impossible> not to be aware of
what you are." In other words, the ego tells us it is not only possible, but is
a certainty we do not know who we are. The Atonement tells us simply it is
impossible <not> to know our Self, because that is reality. The memory of who we
are is within us; we have merely defended against it. Yet it patiently waits our
choosing, as we return again and again until we make the final choice:
"Here, with the journey's end before you, you see its purpose. And it is
here you choose whether to look upon it or wander on, only to return and make
the choice again." (T-19.IV-D.10:7-8).*
(8:1) "Only acceptance can be asked of you, for what you are is certain."
*We are not asked to become who we are: we are asked simply to accept it. There
is a significant difference between these two statements. When we let go of the
interferences, as we are continually asked to do, we shall inevitably remember
who we are. The text tells us:
"The ego analyzes; the Holy Spirit accepts." (T.11.V.13.1)
Thus Jesus asks us but to accept the truth about ourselves. Neither
understanding nor analysis is needed; merely our simple acceptance.*
(8:2-3) "It is set forever in the holy Mind of God, and in your own. It is so
far beyond all doubt and question that to ask what it must be is all the proof
you need to show that you believe the contradiction that you know not what you
cannot fail to know."
*When you doubt and question, you affirm your split mind. Indeed, you actually
affirm more than that, for you deny that you have a right mind, aware only of
the wrong-minded self that transmutes into a brain and body. Moreover, when we
question, we affirm that reality is not reality, for we believe that what we
have substituted for it -- our thought system and identity -- can be understood
and explained. Yet, again, since our Identity is set forever in the Mind of God,
which is our own, it need only be accepted through choosing against the false
identity we had heretofore made real for ourselves.*
(8:4) "Is this a question, or a statement which denies itself in statement?"
*This is the same point we discussed above. All questions are really statements
that say the separation is real, to which I now attest through my "question." *
(8:5) "Let us not allow our holy minds to occupy themselves with senseless
musings such as this."
*Jesus asks us not to try to make sense of a thought system that cannot be
understood, nor explain what is inconceivable. This also means we should not try
to understand truth, which is beyond our capacities as egos. This favorite theme
of A Course in Miracles recurs in all three books; for example, these passages
regarding the ego and knowledge respectively:
"That is all the world of the ego is. Nothing. It has no meaning. It does
not exist. Do not try to understand it because, if you do, you are believing
that it can be understood and is therefore capable of being appreciated and
loved. That would justify its existence, which cannot be justified. You cannot
make the meaningless meaningful. This can only be an insane attempt."
(T-7.VI.11:4-11).
"This course will lead to knowledge, but knowledge itself is still beyond
the scope of our curriculum. Nor is there any need for us to try to speak of
what must forever lie beyond words. We need remember only that whoever attains
the real world, beyond which learning cannot go, will go beyond it, but in a
different way. Where learning ends there God begins, for learning ends before
Him Who is complete where He begins, and where there is no end. It is not for us
to dwell on what cannot be attained. There is too much to learn. The readiness
for knowledge still must be attained." (T-18.IX.11).
Thus Jesus encourages us to accept the truth, without attempting to understand
it.*
(9:1) "We have a mission here."
*Mission is not anything external. It is the acceptance of the Atonement, the
correction in our minds when we choose the right teacher. A major temptation for
students of A Course in Miracles is to translate its non-specific message of
forgiveness into specific and special missions. Therefore it is helpful to keep
this oft-quoted and important line in awareness:
"This is a course in cause and not effect." (T.21.VII.7.8).
<Cause> refers to the mind, the changing of which constitutes our mission of
forgiveness. <Effect> refers to the body or behavior, which is not our concern
at all. Remember, too, that we are asked only to choose the miracle, leaving its
extension through us to the Holy Spirit. (T-16.II.1:3-6).*
(9:2-3) "We did not come to reinforce the madness that we once believed in. Let
us not forget the goal that we accepted."
*Part of our minds accepted the goal of awakening from the dream, which we seek
to deny by making this world real and believing there is something special for
us here. Such specialness is one aspect of the madness to which Jesus refers.*
(9:4) "It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain."
*The theme of oneness makes its appearance again. As the earlier lesson says:
"When I am healed I am not healed alone" (W-pI.137). It cannot be just <my>
happiness I want to gain here. If I am to be truly happy, it is everyone's
happiness I must desire; if I am to remember my identity as God's holy Son, it
must include everyone's holiness:
"You may still think that holiness is impossible to understand, because you
cannot see how it can be extended to include everyone. And you have been told
that it must include everyone to be holy." (T-16:II.1:1-2).*
(9:5-7) "What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be, along
with us. Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them,
that they may know that they are part of you, and you of them."
*When I accept Atonement for myself, the love and peace in my mind automatically
extends to everyone's mind, because God's Son is one. I then become his
reminder, just as Jesus was mine, of the choice he asks all of us to make. This
love and peace says you can make the same choice I did, for I am not healed
alone -- my healing is the Sonship's. In this lovely Easter passage, Jesus
summarizes the wonderful gifts forgiveness offers us and our brothers in his
name:
"Easter is not the celebration of the cost of sin but of its end. If you
see glimpses of the face of Christ behind the veil, looking between the snow
white petals of the lilies you have received and given as your gift, you will
behold your brother's face and recognize it. I was a stranger and you took me
in, not knowing who I was. Yet for your gift of lilies you will know. In your
forgiveness of this stranger, alien to you and yet your ancient Friend, lies his
release and your redemption with him. The time of Easter is a time of joy, and
not of mourning. Look on your risen Friend, and celebrate his holiness along
with me. For Easter is the time of your salvation, along with mine."
(T-20.1.4).*
(10:1) "This does Atonement teach, and demonstrates the Oneness of God's Son is
unassailed by his belief he knows not what he is."
*The Atonement teaches that whatever we think has happened had no effect -- the
Oneness of God's Son was totally unaffected by our thoughts of judgment, attack,
and specialness. Acceptance of that happy fact is the only true meaning of joy
in this world.*
(10:2-11:3) "Today accept Atonement, not to change reality, but merely to accept
the truth about yourself, and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God.
It is but this that we are asked to do. It is but this that we will do today.
Five minutes in the morning and at night we will devote to dedicate our minds to
our assignment for today. We start with this review of what our mission is:
I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me."
*Once again, Jesus is not speaking about anything external. Nothing in A Course
in Miracles should be taken as a guide for what you should do behaviorally. It
is always and only a guide about what you should think, or even more to the
point, which teacher you choose. Since there is no body and no world, why would
Jesus give prescriptions for behavior? Our mission is simply to change our
minds, to accept the Atonement for ourselves. Thus do we accept the truth,
remembering that we remain as God created us.*
(11:4) "We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us
like Him."
*As Jesus tells us in the text, losing something does not mean it is gone
forever; it simply means we forgot where to look:
"You have not usurped the power of God, but you have lost it. Fortunately,
to lose something does not mean that it has gone. It merely means that you do
not remember where it is. Its existence does not depend on your ability to
identify it, or even to place it. It is possible to look on reality without
judgment and merely know that it is there." T-3.VI:9.2-6).
Thus the memory of God may be lost, but it has remained in our minds, We merely
looked in the wrong place by searching outside ourselves -- the ego's maxim:
<seek but do not find>. This lesson, the workbook, A Course in Miracles itself
-- are all designed to train us to look within to find what the ego has hidden:
the memory of the Self that God created one with Him.*
(11:5--12:1) "We can remember it for everyone, for in creation are all minds as
one. And in our memory is the recall how dear our brothers are to us in truth,
how much a part of us is every mind, how faithful they have really been to us,
and how our Father's Love contains them all."
"In thanks for all creation, in the Name of its Creator and His Oneness with
all aspects of creation, we repeat our dedication to our cause today each hour,
as we lay aside all thoughts that would distract us from our holy aim."
*This cause is paramount in A Course in Miracles. If I am truly to remember who
I am, if I am sincere about taking Jesus' hand that I return home, I must lay
aside all ego thoughts that would deter me from believing this goal. Jesus
cannot do this for me, for I must set down these thoughts by choosing against my
original decision to oppose the Love of God. Thus, as we go through our day, the
focus should always be on the ways in which we try to distract ourselves, not to
mention attack these loving thoughts that are present in our minds. We need
realize we attack them because we fear their implication: in the presence of the
love of Jesus, our special self would be gone. Our judgments and attacks thus
protect us from losing this self with which we identify and to which we cling.
Note, too, another reiteration of the theme of oneness. Since all minds are one
in creation, so must that oneness exist in our right-minded forgiveness as well.
<All> our brothers are dear to us, for they are part of us in the universal
Oneness of God's Son.*
(12:2-3) "For several minutes let your mind be cleared of all the foolish
cobwebs which the world would weave around the holy Son of God. And learn the
fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apart
from your awareness, as you say:
*The "fragile nature of the chains" is the ego thought system. A thought system
of sin, hate, suffering, and death does not seem fragile, but powerful. Only
when we step back and look at it with the eyes of Jesus can we see it as it
truly is -- a flimsy and powerless veil. When we look through the ego's
judgmental eyes, the thought system of sin seems terrifyingly strong, but being
outside the dream with Jesus, looking back at it, we realize sin had no effect.
Within the dream it appears to be the opposite; yet outside it the dream's
nothingness is easily recognized. The following passage well illustrates the
crucial difference between the ego's and Jesus' perception of sin, between
illusion and truth:
"It can indeed be said the ego made its world on sin. Only in such a world
could everything be upside down. This is the strange illusion that makes the
clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. The solidness that this world's
foundation seems to have is found in this. For sin has changed creation from an
Idea of God to an ideal the ego wants; a world it rules, made up of bodies,
mindless and capable of complete corruption and decay. If this is a mistake, it
can be undone easily by truth. Any mistake can be corrected, if truth be left to
judge it." (T-19.II.6:7).
That is why having a relationship with the Holy Spirit or with Jesus is central
to the practice of A Course in Miracles. Without Them it would be impossible to
look without judgment at what the ego is doing.
We close the lesson by saying: *
(12:4) "I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me."
*It is helpful to keep in mind that if you are serious about learning this
course, you must realize that the creation of God is one. Therefore, any
thoughts that separate you from anyone else constitute a consciously chosen
attempt to deny your Identity. If you think your happiness or pain come from
outside, you are denying the principle of the Atonement, which means you do not
want to remember it. This is not a sin, but a correctable mistake once you know
you made it. Therefore, you need to become increasingly vigilant for when your
special thoughts and actions attack the Oneness of God's Son. The idea is not
that you feel guilty over your specialness, but that you become aware of it.
Jesus' purpose is to help us do just that, for it is in looking at the ego that
we learn to accept the Atonement for ourselves, remembering the glorious thought
that throughout the ego's insanity we have remained as God created us.*
