Lesson 330. I will not hurt myself again today.
Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function. Why should we attack
our minds, and give them images of pain? Why should we teach them they are
powerless, when God holds out His power and His Love, and bids them take what is
already theirs? The mind that is made willing to accept God's gifts has been
restored to spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God
united with its own. The Self which God created cannot sin, and therefore cannot
suffer. Let us choose today that He be our Identity, and thus escape forever
from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us.
Father, Your Son can not be hurt. And if we think we suffer, we but fail to know
our one Identity we share with You. We would return to It today, to be made free
forever from all our mistakes, and to be saved from what we thought we were.
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Below, is from Kenneth Wapnick's commentaries on this lesson, from "Journey
Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can be purchased at the
following site: ~ M. Street.
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Lesson 330. "I will not hurt myself again today.
*This is another significant lesson that reminds us of our need to recognize how
we continually hurt ourselves by holding on to thoughts of specialness.
Persistently engaging in thoughts and behavior we know will hurt us -- despite
the ego's lies that they will give us pleasure -- it is a way of saying: "I want
to hurt myself, because that establishes my existence without being responsible
for it." We thus need to do to be aware how we are the cause of our own
suffering.*
(1:1-3) "Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function. Why should we
attack our minds, and give them images of pain? Why should we teach them they
are powerless, when God holds out His power and His Love, and bids them take
what is already theirs?"
*The images of pain are what we experience as bodies, but they are only shadows
of the pain of the mind's guilt. Jesus asks us to question our having made the
mind powerless, which we do whenever we identify with the body's suffering. If
the body suffers and we blame it on another, we deny the mind's power to choose
pain. We thus make the dream figure real, for we wish to conceal the mind's role
as dreamer. Recognizing our mistake, we no longer want to teach our
powerlessness, but rather that our suffering comes from the mind's choice -- the
world can never hurt us, but we hurt ourselves by our mistaken decisions.*
(1:4) "The mind that is made willing to accept God's gifts has been restored to
spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with
its own."
*Jesus helps us bring the image of pain, which is experienced in the world and
body, back to the mind that is the seat of all power. Thus we can choose again
to accept God's gifts instead of the ego's -- freedom and joy instead of
imprisonment and pain.*
(1:5-6) "The Self which God created cannot sin, and therefore cannot suffer. Let
us choose today that He be our Identity, and thus escape forever from all things
the dream of fear appears to offer us."
*Recall this lovely line depicting the turning from fear to God's Love, which is
our Self:
"Do not think that anything the gifts of fear hold out is worth an instant's
hesitation, when the gate of Heaven stands before you and the Christ of God is
waiting your return." (The Gifts of God, pp.121-22).*
(2) "Father, Your Son can not be hurt. And if we think we suffer, we but fail to
know our one Identity we share with You. We would return to It today, to be made
free forever from all our mistakes, and to be saved from what we thought we
were."
*Implicit in this statement is the purpose of all suffering -- perceived in
ourselves and others -- preventing us from knowing our Identity. When we
remember who we are as God's one Son, we are no longer the ego -- a special,
unique, and individual self. Therefore, to ensure that we do not remember, we
need only suffer, and then blame it on someone or something else. Thus our focus
should be on learning the purpose inherent in pain. What makes A Course in
Miracles unique among spiritual systems is that Jesus helps us understand <why>
we choose to suffer, and <why> we choose to remain here in such a painful state.
There is thus a method in the ego's madness -- to keep the memory of God forever
buried in the mind, beyond our ability as mindless bodies to accept it.*
