Lesson 73. I will there be light.

Lesson 73. I will there be light.

(1) Today we are considering the will you share with God. This is not the same
as the ego's idle wishes, out of which darkness and nothingness arise. The will
you share with God has all the power of creation in it. The ego's idle wishes
are unshared, and therefore have no power at all. Its wishes are not idle in the
sense that they can make a world of illusions in which your belief can be very
strong. But they are idle indeed in terms of creation. They make nothing that is
real.

(2) Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world
you see. The wishes of the ego gave rise to it, and the ego's need for
grievances, which are necessary to maintain it, peoples it with figures that
seem to attack you and call for "righteous" judgment. These figures become the
middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances. They stand between your
awareness and your brothers' reality. Beholding them, you do not know your
brothers or your Self.

(3) Your will is lost to you in this strange bartering, in which guilt is traded
back and forth, and grievances increase with each exchange. Can such a world
have been created by the Will the Son of God shares with his Father? Did God
create disaster for His Son? Creation is the Will of Both together. Would God
create a world that kills Himself?

(4) Today we will try once more to reach the world that is in accordance with
your will. The light is in it because it does not oppose the Will of God. It is
not Heaven, but the light of Heaven shines on it. Darkness has vanished. The
ego's idle wishes have been withdrawn. Yet the light that shines upon this world
reflects your will, and so it must be in you that we will look for it.

(5) Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. The source of
neither light nor darkness can be found without. Grievances darken your mind,
and you look out on a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts
your will, and lets you look upon a world of light. We have repeatedly
emphasized that the barrier of grievances is easily passed, and cannot stand
between you and your salvation. The reason is very simple. Do you really want to
be in hell? Do you really want to weep and suffer and die?

(6) Forget the ego's arguments which seek to prove all this is really Heaven.
You know it is not so. You cannot want this for yourself. There is a point
beyond which illusions cannot go. Suffering is not happiness, and it is
happiness you really want. Such is your will in truth. And so salvation is your
will as well. You want to succeed in what we are trying to do today. We
undertake it with your blessing and your glad accord.

(7) We will succeed today if you remember that you want salvation for yourself.
You want to accept God's plan because you share in it. You have no will that can
really oppose it, and you do not want to do so. Salvation is for you. Above all
else, you want the freedom to remember Who you really are. Today it is the ego
that stands powerless before your will. Your will is free, and nothing can
prevail against it.

(8) Therefore, we undertake the exercises for today in happy confidence, certain
that we will find what it is your will to find, and remember what it is your
will to remember. No idle wishes can detain us, nor deceive us with an illusion
of strength. Today let your will be done, and end forever the insane belief that
it is hell in place of Heaven that you choose.

(9) We will begin our longer practice periods with the recognition that God's
plan for salvation, and only His, is wholly in accord with your will. It is not
the purpose of an alien power, thrust upon you unwillingly. It is the one
purpose here on which you and your Father are in perfect accord. You will
succeed today, the time appointed for the release of the Son of God from hell
and from all idle wishes. His will is now restored to his awareness. He is
willing this very day to look upon the light in him and be saved.

(10) After reminding yourself of this, and determining to keep your will clearly
in mind, tell yourself with gentle firmness and quiet certainty:

I will there be light. Let me behold the light. Let me behold the light

that reflects God's Will and mine.<

Then let your will assert itself, joined with the power of God and united with
your Self. Put the rest of the practice period under Their guidance. Join with
Them as They lead the way.

(11) In the shorter practice periods, again make a declaration of what you
really want. Say:

I will there be light. Darkness is not my will.<

This should be repeated several times an hour. It is most important, however, to
apply today's idea in this form immediately you are tempted to hold a grievance
of any kind. This will help you let your grievances go, instead of cherishing
them and hiding them in darkness.

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

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 73. I will there be light.

*In this lesson Jesus continues to talk about grievances. He begins, however, by
contrasting <will> with <wish>, a distinction that is explained more fully in
the text (see, e.g., T-7.X.4-7) the ego wishes; spirit wills.*

(1:1-2) "Today we are considering the will you share with God. This is not the
same as the ego's idle wishes, out of which darkness and nothingness arise."

*The ego's idle wish is to be separate from the Will of God, an individual self
apart from His living Oneness. Out of that illusory wish arise nothingness and
darkness: first the ego thought system of sin, guilt, and fear, and then the
world.*

(1:3-7) "The will you share with God has all the power of creation in it. The
ego's idle wishes are unshared, and therefore have no power at all. Its wishes
are not idle in the sense that they can make a world of illusions in which your
belief can be very strong. But they are idle indeed in terms of creation. They
make nothing that is real."

*The ego's idle wishes have no power in reality, but they certainly do within
the dream. On the level of truth, the ego is absolutely nothing, but within its
own thought system it is very powerful. After all, it believes it destroyed
Heaven. Yet because the ego is on its own, it lacks the power of Heaven's
Oneness, which is the power of creation. The ego's "power" of miscreation can
only make illusions; hence, it is idle. I mentioned above that in the text Jesus
makes the same distinction. Here is an excerpt from his comments:

"God wills. He does not wish. Your will is as powerful as His because it is
His. The ego's wishes do not mean anything, because the ego wishes for the
impossible. You can wish for the impossible, but you can will only with God.
This is the ego's weakness and your strength." (T.7.X.4.6-11).*

(2) "Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world
you see. The wishes of the ego gave rise to it, and the ego's need for
grievances, which are necessary to maintain it, peoples it with figures that
seem to attack you and call for "righteous" judgment. These figures become the
middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances. They stand between your
awareness and your brothers' reality. Beholding them, you do not know your
brothers or your Self."

*When Jesus talks about "picturing the world [we] see," he does not mean there
is a world out there that we simply misperceive. He is speaking of the <world of
perception> that we see. It is not just that we see by means our misthoughts.
The fact that we see in the first place is the object of Jesus' correction. The
perceptual world -- "the delusional system of those made mad by guilt."
(T.13.IN.2.2) -- was made by the wish to protect our mind's decision to be
separate, and the dynamic of projection, which accomplished this, is also
utilized to protect the original (or primary) projection. Our grievances against
others -- the secondary projections if you will -- perpetuate the delusional
system of separation by keeping them separate from us, at the same time holding
them up as sinners deserving punishment. All this -- the special love and hate
relationships are the ego's bread and butter -- continually attack our and our
brother's reality as Christ: God's one Son, undifferentiated and undivided. Our
specialness clothes them in the darkness of our needs and demands, hiding the
light that unites us all as one Self.*

(3) "Your will is lost to you in this strange bartering, in which guilt is
traded back and forth, and grievances increase with each exchange. Can such a
world have been created by the Will the Son of God shares with his Father? Did
God create disaster for His Son? Creation is the Will of Both together. Would
God create a world that kills Himself?"

*Once again, Jesus is not speaking of a world in which there is physical death,
plane crashes, or other disastrous occurrences; he is speaking of a physical
world, <period>. The world of perception is the world of duality; the world of
special relationships in which each partner bargains with the other for some
scraps of specialness. Each seeks to give as little and receive as much as
possible in return. This strange and unnatural way of relating -- one ego self
trying to negotiate with another ego self for what is ultimately worthless -- is
depicted quite explicitly in this passage form "The Choice for Completion":

"Most curious of all is the concept of the self which the ego fosters in
the special relationship. This "self" seeks the relationship to make itself
complete. Yet when it finds the special relationship in which it thinks it can
accomplish this it gives itself away, and tries to "trade" itself for the self
of another. This is not union, for there is no increase and no extension. Each
partner tries to sacrifice the self he does not want for one he thinks he would
prefer. And he feels guilty for the "sin" of taking, and of giving nothing of
value in return. How much value can he place upon a self that he would give away
to get a "better" one?" (T-16.V.7)

In reading the Bible, a student of A Course in Miracles can see how the biblical
deity is directly involved with such a strange bartering, continually trading
grievances with his children. This reinforcement of the ego's principles of
specialness explains the great attraction the Bible has had for its readers and
adherents, and one can justifiably ask whether the God of Love and Oneness could
possibly be involved with such insanity?*

(4) "Today we will try once more to reach the world that is in accordance with
your will. The light is in it because it does not oppose the Will of God. It is
not Heaven, but the light of Heaven shines on it. Darkness has vanished. The
ego's idle wishes have been withdrawn. Yet the light that shines upon this world
reflects your will, and so it must be in you that we will look for it."

*This is the real world. While still an illusion, it yet reflects the reality of
Heaven as it does not oppose God's Will in any way. In this peaceful state we
stand outside the dream, seeing the physical world for what it is. We have
accepted the Atonement for ourselves by choosing, <once and for all>, against
the separation wishes of the ego. All that remains is the light of the
Atonement's truth within our minds, patiently awaiting our decision to look for
it.*

(5:1-4) "Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. The source of
neither light nor darkness can be found without. Grievances darken your mind,
and you look out on a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts
your will, and lets you look upon a world of light."

*Truth and illusions are both within our minds; not outside, as the ego would
have us believe. This idea is more than familiar to us by now: What we see
outside is a projection of what we have first seen inside: <projection makes
perception.> If we want to see light outside, we first must see it within, which
we cannot reach without going through the darkness. Forgiveness -- undoing the
mind's guilt -- is therefore the means of accomplishing this happy and
light-filled outcome.*

(5:5-8) "We have repeatedly emphasized that the barrier of grievances is easily
passed, and cannot stand between you and your salvation. The reason is very
simple. Do you really want to be in hell? Do you really want to weep and suffer
and die?"

*The barrier is easily passed because it consists of nothing but our decision to
be in the hell of separation and attack. Once taught by Jesus that all
suffering, even unto death, has come from this decision, the answer is very
simple: change our minds and forgive.*

(6:1-4) "Forget the ego's arguments which seek to prove all this is really
Heaven. You know it is not so. You cannot want this for yourself. There is a
point beyond which illusions cannot go."

*In other words, illusions will never make us happy. We have to accept that
statement as fact before we can be willing to ask Jesus' help. The illusions of
specialness can certainly bring us happiness and pleasure, but these can never
last because our special relationships were made <not> to last. This is "the
point beyond which illusions cannot go." Why would we want to seek for what will
inevitably fail us? Jesus repeatedly returns to this point, since its appeal is
what he hopes will eventually turn us away from hell.*

(6:5-6) "Suffering is not happiness, and it is happiness you really want. Such
is your will in truth."

*Once again, Jesus is pointing out our need to realize that what we do in this
world does not make us happy. Until we can accept that, and accept that none of
our specialness is going to end our pain or bring us joy, we are not going to
ask for his help, at least not sincerely. Intrinsic to this process is
acknowledging, as we have seen earlier, that only he can teach us the difference
between pain and joy, imprisonment and freedom, suffering and happiness.*

(6:7-9) "And so salvation is your will as well. You want to succeed in what we
are trying to do today. We undertake it with your blessing and your glad
accord."

*Jesus cannot help us unless we give such help our blessing. That is why he must
first convince us he is right and we are wrong, and that we truly prefer to be
happy and not right (T-29.VII.1:9). Without such conviction we would never
choose to follow him. That is why he needs us as much as we need him
(T-8.V.6:10). We need to want to be helped; only then can our salvation be
accomplished.*

(7) "We will succeed today if you remember that you want salvation for yourself.
You want to accept God's plan because you share in it. You have no will that can
really oppose it, and you do not want to do so. Salvation is for you. Above all
else, you want the freedom to remember Who you really are. Today it is the ego
that stands powerless before your will. Your will is free, and nothing can
prevail against it."

*Another pep talk from Jesus, reminding us to remember how much we want his
salvation instead of the ego's slavation; that our freedom lies in ourselves as
does our imprisonment. When we are tempted to forget, he reminds us that no
matter how powerful the ego appears to be -- external <and> internal -- it can
have no power over us unless we choose to let it. That is why nothing can
prevail against our will, as he tells us in the text:

"The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will
not prevail against it (T-4.III.1:12; italics omitted).

That is the source of our hope and our joy.*

(8) "Therefore, we undertake the exercises for today in happy confidence,
certain that we will find what it is your will to find, and remember what it is
your will to remember. No idle wishes can detain us, nor deceive us with an
illusion of strength. Today let your will be done, and end forever the insane
belief that it is hell in place of Heaven that you choose."

*The pep talk continues, as Jesus wants us to understand the inherent weakness
of the ego's illusory wishes, which in no way can compare with the strength of
our will, always at one with the Will of our Creator and Source.*

(9) "We will begin our longer practice periods with the recognition that God's
plan for salvation, and only His, is wholly in accord with your will. It is not
the purpose of an alien power, thrust upon you unwillingly. It is the one
purpose here on which you and your Father are in perfect accord. You will
succeed today, the time appointed for the release of the Son of God from hell
and from all idle wishes. His will is now restored to his awareness. He is
willing this very day to look upon the light in him and be saved."

*We are asked by Jesus to put into practice what he has been teaching us; to
think seriously during the day's long practice periods about our mistake in
thinking we would want, even if we could, to oppose God's Will. He asks us to
see how unhappy such a mistake has made us, and how happy we could be simply
setting aside our ego's opposition to the truth. Thus do we welcome the Will of
God where it is already, as the awareness of Heaven is restored to our minds in
place of the hell we had made in its stead.

It is important to understand that we must truly accept this teaching;
otherwise, we might choose to practice these lessons <behaviorally>, without
really wanting to do so. Early in the text Jesus cautions us against this very
mistake of entering into the conflict of not wanting to do what we feel he is
asking us do, yet doing it anyway:

"You can behave as you think you should, but without entirely wanting to do
so. This produces consistent behavior, but entails great strain ... resulting in
a situation in which you are doing what you do not wholly want to do. This
arouses a sense of coercion that usually produces rage, and projection is likely
to follow. " (T-2:VI.5:4-7).

That is why Jesus is continually emphasizing the benefits to us of letting our
grievances go. He wants us to <want> to forgive. Only then will we truly and
joyfully choose to do so.*

(10) "After reminding yourself of this, and determining to keep your will
clearly in mind, tell yourself with gentle firmness and quiet certainty:

I will there be light. Let me behold the light that reflects God's Will and
mine.

Then let your will assert itself, joined with the power of God and united with
your Self. Put the rest of the practice period under Their guidance. Join with
Them as They lead the way."

*We do our part by joining God and Christ in our minds. This allows our joint
Will to shine through us, embracing the Sonship in the oneness of love. This
process of reflecting creation's will of light -- the essence of healing --
finds lovely expression in the final principle of miracle workers, known to many
students of A Course in Miracles as the "Prayer for Salvation":

I am here only to be truly helpful.
I am here to represent Him Who sent me.
I do not have to worry about what to say or
what to do, because He Who sent me will
direct me.
I am content to be wherever He wishes,
knowing He goes there with me.
I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.
(T-2.18:2-6)

Thus are we guided daily to heal as we are healed, forgive as we are forgiven,
and love as we are loved.*

(11:1-5)"In the shorter practice periods, again make a declaration of what you
really want. Say:

I will there be light. Darkness is not my will.

This should be repeated several times an hour."

*Our decision is reflected by the willingness to remember -- as often as we can
-- that our will and God's are one, the ego's delusions of grandeur
not-withstanding. We reinforce this willingness because of our recognition that
illusions breed darkness, while the truth sets us free by virtue of its light --
<our> light as God's Son, the Self He created as Himself.*

(11:6:7) "It is most important, however, to apply today's idea in this form
immediately you are tempted to hold a grievance of any kind. This will help you
let your grievances go, instead of cherishing them and hiding them in darkness."

*Jesus is always asking us to pay careful attention to our attack thoughts and
grievances. Thus we realize they will not make us happy, for they are an active
attack on God's plan for salvation. We have come to understand that we have
cherished our judgments because of their ability to keep our individuality safe
and the light of Christ in darkness, and the cost to us of cherishing such
defenses was too great. This recognition makes it easier and easier to let our
grievances go, and choose the Holy Spirit's light over the ego's darkness.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

Previous Topic Next Topic

开云体育

Lesson 73. I will there be light.