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Lesson 75. The light has come.

 

Lesson 75. The light has come.

(1) The light has come. You are healed and you can heal. The light has come. You
are saved and you can save. You are at peace, and you bring peace with you
wherever you go. Darkness and turmoil and death have disappeared. The light has
come.

(2) Today we celebrate the happy ending to your long dream of disaster. There
are no dark dreams now. The light has come. Today the time of light begins for
you and everyone. It is a new era, in which a new world is born. The old one has
left no trace upon it in its passing. Today we see a different world, because
the light has come.

(3) Our exercises for today will be happy ones, in which we offer thanks for the
passing of the old and the beginning of the new. No shadows from the past remain
to darken our sight and hide the world forgiveness offers us. Today we will
accept the new world as what we want to see. We will be given what we desire. We
will to see the light; the light has come.

(4) Our longer practice periods will be devoted to looking at the world that our
forgiveness shows us. This is what we want to see, and only this. Our single
purpose makes our goal inevitable. Today the real world rises before us in
gladness, to be seen at last. Sight is given us, now that the light has come.

(5) We do not want to see the ego's shadow on the world today. We see the light,
and in it we see Heaven's reflection lie across the world. Begin the longer
practice periods by telling yourself the glad tidings of your release:

The light has come. I have forgiven the world.<
(6) Dwell not upon the past today. Keep a completely open mind, washed of all
past ideas and clean of every concept you have made. You have forgiven the world
today. You can look upon it now as if you never saw it before. You do not know
yet what it looks like. You merely wait to have it shown to you. While you wait,
repeat several times, slowly and in complete patience:

The light has come. I have forgiven the world.<
(7) Realize that your forgiveness entitles you to vision. Understand that the
Holy Spirit never fails to give the gift of sight to the forgiving. Believe He
will not fail you now. You have forgiven the world. He will be with you as you
watch and wait. He will show you what true vision sees. It is His Will, and you
have joined with Him. Wait patiently for Him. He will be there. The light has
come. You have forgiven the world.

(8) Tell Him you know you cannot fail because you trust in Him. And tell
yourself you wait in certainty to look upon the world He promised you. From this
time forth you will see differently. Today the light has come. And you will see
the world that has been promised you since time began, and in which is the end
of time ensured.

(9) The shorter practice periods, too, will be joyful reminders of your release.
Remind yourself every quarter of an hour or so that today is a time for special
celebration. Give thanks for mercy and the Love of God. Rejoice in the power of
forgiveness to heal your sight completely. Be confident that on this day there
is a new beginning. Without the darkness of the past upon your eyes, you cannot
fail to see today. And what you see will be so welcome that you will gladly
extend today forever.

(10) Say, then:

The light has come. I have forgiven the world.
Should you be tempted, say to anyone who seems to pull you back into
darkness:
The light has come. I have forgiven you.<

(11) We dedicate this day to the serenity in which God would have you be. Keep
it in your awareness of yourself and see it everywhere today, as we celebrate
the beginning of your vision and the sight of the real world, which has come to
replace the unforgiven world you thought was real.



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

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 75. "The light has come."

*In this lesson Jesus speaks of the real world, and as is true of other lessons,
he gives us a pep talk. Despite what he says overtly, Jesus obviously does not
expect his students to identify with the light on this particular day. If he
did, this message would not be in other lessons. These are words of
encouragement that let us know that beyond the clouds of illusion -- the
complexity of our anger, judgments, suffering and anxiety -- there is really a
light. It is the light of the real world, the truth that shines outside the
ego's darkened dreams of separation and madness.

Let me also comment on the theme running through the lesson as a musical
<leitmotif>, which not so much tells us that the light <comes>, but that <we
have come to the light>. Our experience is that the light has come to us, but in
truth it never left, for it is always present in our minds. Since, then, we are
the ones who left the light, we must be the ones who return. If the workbook
statement were accepted literally, it would seem that we had nothing to do with
the light's coming. It simply came on its own, implying that at some other point
it had left.

This points again to the importance of understanding that the words in A Course
in Miracles are simply symbols. The true dynamic at work here is that we were
the ones who left the light by clinging to the ego's illusion of separation and
individuality. Therefore, we are the ones who must realize our wrong choice --
the darkness of our illusions does to not make us happy. That realization leads
us finally to say there must be another way, and then we do seek the light we
had left. In fact, it is more than that we just left it. The ego tells us we
were abandoned, and destroyed its love. We therefore accuse ourselves of this
sin, from which, as we have seen many times, comes the experience of guilt and
horror that impels us to get rid of the guilt through projection, thereby making
a God in our own image and likeness, and a world that also mirrors our
self-concept of separation, guilt, and attack.

If we were to realize we simply made a mistake, taking the wrong turn because we
listened to the wrong guide, we would remember the Guide Whom we could truly ask
for help. His Love would teach that our "sin" was a mistake that has already
been corrected. Thus there can be no sin, guilt, denial, or projection, and no
world. It is at that point we come to the inner light A Course in Miracles
refers to as the real world.*

(1:1-2) "The light has come. You are healed and you can heal."

*If I am healed, it means the thought of separation in my mind has been undone,
along with pain and suffering, leaving only God's Son as He created him. This is
how I become a healer: accepting the Atonement's healing light instead of the
ego's darkness. Since the Sonship is one with me, it is healed, too. This again
is what is meant by Lesson 137: "When I am healed I am not healed alone." *

(1:3-4) "The light has come. You are saved and you can save."

*This of course parallels "You are healed and you can heal." You are saved from
the prison of your own mistaken choice, the pain and suffering of your mind's
guilt. In the holy instant you become God's one Son, symbolizing, as does Jesus,
the right-minded choice for light instead of darkness.*

(1:5) "You are at peace, and you bring peace with you wherever you go."

*This is because <ideas leave not their source>. Throughout the day -- wherever
we go, whatever we do -- our right minds are filled with the light that is
always there. It is not anything we literally bring with us, but something that
automatically happens, as natural to the mind as breathing is to the body.
<Ideas leave not their source>: The body and its misuses of attack and judgment
have never left its source -- the thought of guilt in the wrong mind; the body
as an instrument of Jesus' love has never left its source -- the thought of
light in the right mind. This light of peace automatically extends through the
mind of God's Son, the meaning, again, of "you bring peace with you wherever you
go." *

(1:6-7) "Darkness and turmoil and death have disappeared. The light has come."

*Remember, it is <one or the other>. The ego uses this principle as a way of
justifying attack: if I do not kill you, you will kill me. The same principle
operates with Jesus as well, but with different content. If I join with the
light there cannot be darkness, not because I attacked it, but because the
darkness disappears in the presence of light. To Jesus, then, <one or the other>
is a non-dualistic principle. If there is light and oneness, there cannot be
darkness and separation; since my mind and will are one with God's, and there is
no Mind and Will but His, how could separation exist? The principle of <one or
the other> is thus valid for both teachers: to the ego it means attack and
murder; to Jesus it reflects the comforting fact of the Atonement -- the
separation from God never happened.*

(2:1) "Today we celebrate the happy ending to your long dream of disaster."

*Regard this as another of Jesus' pep talks. If you feel distress or unhappiness
today, do not use this statement as a way of judging yourself as a failure. The
fact that there is the rest of the workbook -- and Jesus' concludes the
workbook by saying this course is a beginning and not an end -- is letting you
know that he does not expect you to end the ego's dream here and now. However,
he does want to remind you of the Atonement principle: The light has come
because it never left.

This is another way of telling us -- as Jesus does throughout the workbook --
that there is another thought system in our minds that is totally separate from
the ego. We believe there is nothing <but> the ego, and our interpretations of
God, Jesus, and salvation are based on our specialness, in which we magically
hope that someone or something outside us will be our savior. We do not know
another teacher, a Jesus who is outside the dream and not the more familiar
figure who is very much part of the ego's dreams -- "a dream that comes in
mockery" (The Gifts of God, p.121). Lessons like this one, therefore, are Jesus'
way of telling us there is another teacher in our minds; his way of
communicating to us -- just beginning to learn his lessons of forgiveness -- our
ultimate goal: the light at the end of the ego's tunnel that happily shines away
our dreams of disaster and death. This outcome of light is indeed as certain as
its Source.*

(2:2) "There are no dark dreams now."

*From a different perspective we can view this lesson as Jesus providing the
ideal, even as he knows we have miles to go before we wake, to paraphrase Robert
Frost, and identify with the light. At least we now know there is a goal; and he
teaches us how to attain it. Another way of understanding the lesson is to
regard it as Jesus' way of telling us: "If you follow me, do these lessons
faithfully, read my text carefully, you will be at peace and your dark dreams
will be over. If you persist in thinking you know better than I, however, your
dreams of separation, specialness, and individuality will unhappily continue.
Are they really worth the pain?" *

(2:3-4) "The light has come. Today the time of light begins for you and
everyone."

*It can never be said enough that if the light of Christ shines for me it must
shine for everyone, since Christ is one. Therefore, it is not only that the
light has come, in the sense that I have chosen to accept it in place of the
ego's dark dreams of separate interests, but that light has come for the entire
Sonship, since the Holy Spirit's happy dreams see everyone's interests as the
same.*

(2:5-7) "It is a new era, in which a new world is born. The old one has left no
trace upon it in its passing. Today we see a different world, because the light
has come."

*When Jesus says the old world "has left no trace upon it in its passing," he
echoes the lovely words I never tire of quoting: "Not one note in Heaven's song
was missed" (T-26.V.5:4) -- past sins have had no effect on the present; not the
ego's guilty present, but the present of the holy instant. Once we are in the
new world -- the real world -- and accept forgiveness as our reigning principle
instead of attack, the ego thought system is gone. When students sometimes ask
if they will remember their world when they awaken from the dream, the answer is
"no" -- <there is nothing to remember>. The old world has left no trace upon the
new one in its passing. What is gone is gone, because it never was.*

(3:1) "Our exercises for today will be happy ones, in which we offer thanks for
the passing of the old and the beginning of the new."

*"The passing of the old" is not something Jesus of A Course in Miracles does,
but it is our accomplishment when we exercise the mind's power to choose. Jesus
offers us a glimpse of how wonderful it will be when we release our illusions of
individuality, specialness, and judgment, as he tells us early in the text, and
we repeat again and again:

"You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from
meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgment." (T-3.VI.3:1).*

(3:2) "No shadows from the past remain to darken our sight and hide the world
forgiveness offers us."

*This is an explicit statement that the shadows of our past -- some expression
of sin -- "hide the world forgiveness offers us." In other words, our thoughts
of attack and judgment are purposive and do not just happen. We choose them to
hide the world of light forgiveness offers us. Being the key, forgiveness opens
our mind's locked door, behind which stands the loving presence of Jesus. The
door opens when we look at our defenses: the shadows of guilt we projected onto
our brothers. The very close of the text restates this now familiar thought in
beautiful fashion:

"Not one illusion is accorded faith, and not one spot of darkness still
remains to hide the face of Christ from anyone." (T-31.VIII.12:5).*

(3:3-5) "Today we will accept the new world as what we want to see. We will be
given what we desire. We will to see the light; the light has come."

*Jesus appeals to our motivation to be happy, for happiness is what we truly
want. Without this desire, however, we will never find it. We are thus being
taught, as was emphasized in the text, to associate the light of forgiveness
with happiness and peace, and the darkness of guilt with misery and pain. In the
following passage from the text, Jesus elaborates on his philosophy of teaching.
Like any good reinforcement theorist, he knows that: "learning through rewards
is more effective than learning through pain" (T-4.VI.3:4). Thus he is teaching
us to associate joy with valuing his teaching, and misery with ignoring it. In
this way we come to desire his teaching of light because of the joy it would
bring us:

"How can you teach someone the value of something he has deliberately
thrown away? He must have thrown it away because he did not value it. You can
only show him how miserable he is without it, and slowly bring it nearer so he
can learn how his misery lessens as he approaches it. This teaches him to
associate his misery with its absence, and the opposite of misery with its
presence. It gradually becomes desirable as he changes his mind about its worth.
I am teaching you to associate misery with the ego and joy with the spirit. You
have taught yourself the opposite. You are still free to choose, but can you
really want the rewards of the ego in the presence of the rewards of God?"
(T-4.VI.5).*

(4:1--5:1) "Our longer practice periods will be devoted to looking at the world
that our forgiveness shows us. This is what we want to see, and only this. Our
single purpose makes our goal inevitable. Today the real world rises before us
in gladness, to be seen at last. Sight is given us, now that the light has
come."
"We do not want to see the ego's shadow on the world today."

*The "ego's shadow on the world" is our thoughts of pain and attack, arising
from our mind's guilt. We know how the ego makes up an illusory thought of
individuality. It does not let this world of thought go, but buries it within
our minds before projecting it. It is this thought system of guilt that casts a
long and despairing shadow on what we think of as the world. Guilt's final
destination is thus the body, the perceived source of all pain and distress, up
to and including death. Yet this is nothing more than a flimsy veil used by the
ego to conceal the truth we do not want to see because it is the truth
(T-21.VII.5:14) Recognizing our mistake, we choose again, forgiveness instead of
judgment, the world of light instead of the ego's shadows of guilt.*

(5:2) "We see the light, and in it we see Heaven's reflection lie across the
world."

*We do not see Heaven in the world; we see its reflection, known as the real
world. We have first looked within, and then seen the ego's projected shadow's
of guilt all around us: loss, abandonment, sacrifice, and death. When we change
our minds and ask Jesus for help, we let the shadows go, allowing his inner
light to be all that we see reflected in the world.*

(5:3-5) "Begin the longer practice periods by telling yourself the glad tidings
of your release:

The light has come. I have forgiven the world."

*"Glad tidings," of course, is a biblical phrase that referred to Jesus coming
as the light of the world. He thus uses a phrase that has had one series of
connotations, and gives it a totally different meaning. Here, the good news --
"the glad tidings" -- is not that the light of Jesus came into the world, but
that the light of Jesus in our minds has never gone away, despite our belief
that we had destroyed it. The Holy Spirit's principle of the Atonement was true
after all. What gladder tidings could there be than that?

We can forgive the world only because we forgive ourselves for destroying the
light of the world, the inner world of love that our deranged minds convinced us
was actually gone. Thus we realize -- through accepting Jesus' love for us here
-- that we have not separated from love, which means we have not crucified it
nor destroyed its Source. That, again, is the truly good news. We happily
realize that our attempts to shroud this light has not left. Once we accept this
joyous fact the shrouds disappear, the veils of darkness part, the shadows
evanesce, and only the light remains. This happens only by forgiving ourselves
for having made a mistake -- glad tidings indeed!*

(6:1) "Dwell not upon the past today."

*The past expresses sin, <literally>; the belief we sinned against God. We catch
ourselves dwelling on the past each and every time we hold a grievance, for each
one is a shadowy fragment that reminds us of our original grievance: <against
ourselves>. We thus come to recognize that withholding forgiveness reflects our
desire to keep the sinful past alive, reinforcing the separate identity that is
protected by our projections onto others.*

(6:2) "Keep a completely open mind, washed of all past ideas and clean of every
concept you have made."

*Lesson 189 contains a prayer that nicely expresses this idea. It is important
enough to quote it here, even though we shall be returning to it later:

"Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and
what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold
about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false,
or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it
is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has
taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world,
forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God."
(W-pI.189.7).

This implies we have to know we are truly happy that we are wrong and Jesus is
right. We are wrong because we believe there is a world of attack and pain here,
and he is right because he tells us all this is made up. Only when we allow
ourselves to be taught that our reward of peace is far greater than the
punishment of pain, can we allow our minds to be cleansed.*

(6:3-9) "You have forgiven the world today. You can look upon it now as if you
never saw it before. You do not know yet what it looks like. You merely wait to
have it shown to you. While you wait, repeat several times, slowly and in
complete patience:

The light has come. I have forgiven the world."

*Jesus is telling us we do not bring the real world to us, since we are the ones
who must choose it. Moreover, our patience does not include waiting for Jesus
because there is a long waiting list; we wait but for ourselves, for we are
still too afraid to accept the light, in the presence of which the darkness of
our individual self is gone. We once again see how Jesus is letting us know that
<he> knows we are not yet at the point when we can look upon the forgiven world.
That is why there is no need to pretend we are further along than we really are.
Such arrogance hardly befits a Son of God; moreover; such arrogance ensures we
shall never remember that we <are> the Son of God.

It is evident in Jesus' approach throughout A Course in Miracles that while he
is unequivocally consistent in presenting the truth, he is always gentle,
patient, and understanding of our not yet being ready to accept it. It is
extremely important to experience his patience, so we can demonstrate it to
everyone else. When we find ourselves becoming upset with others and impatient
with their mistakes, it is only because we do not want to accept Jesus' patience
with <our> mistakes. This is because we want to see them as sins, and rather
than accept responsibility for these mistaken thoughts, we project them out and
find ourselves seemingly justified in being impatient with everyone else.
Statements like these make clear how lovingly patient Jesus is with us, a model
for us all.*

(7:1) "Realize that your forgiveness entitles you to vision."

*The theme of vision returns, this time in the context of our acceptance of the
real world through forgiveness. In other words, when we are unforgiving we
cannot see, and what we think we see is simply a distortion. When we forgive, on
the other hand, our eyes are washed clean of guilt's shadows, and then vision
comes.*

(7:2) "Understand that the Holy Spirit never fails to give the gift of sight to
the forgiving."

*This does not mean that the Holy Spirit withholds the gift from us when we
judge others or ourselves, but rather that we reject the gift when we are filled
with judgments. Indeed, that is why we judge in the first place, to keep the
gift away. As with God's grace, the Holy Spirit's vision is for all, and
embraces all. It merely awaits our forgiveness for the acceptance of His gift.*

(7:3-11) "Believe He will not fail you now. You have forgiven the world. He will
be with you as you watch and wait. He will show you what true vision sees. It is
His Will, and you have joined with Him. Wait patiently for Him. He will be
there. The light has come. You have forgiven the world."

*Once again, if we take these words literally it sounds as if we have to wait
for the Holy Spirit to come. Obviously that makes no sense, just as it makes no
sense that for over two thousand years Christians have waited for Jesus to come:
the so-called Second Coming. At issue is not <his> Second Coming but <ours>, as
the term is re-defined in A Course in Miracles (T-4.IV.10:2-3). Thus when Jesus
says "wait patiently for Him," he really means wait patiently to let go of our
fear sufficiently so we could accept the Holy Spirit. Thus we watch and wait
with patience, reflective of his infinite patience:

"Your patience with your brother is your patience with yourself. Is not a
child of God worth patience? I have shown you infinite patience because my will
is that of our Father, from Whom I learned of infinite patience. His Voice was
in me as It is in you, speaking for patience towards the Sonship in the Name of
Its Creator." (T-5.VI.11:4-7).*

(8:1-3) "Tell Him you know you cannot fail because you trust in Him. And tell
yourself you wait in certainty to look upon the world He promised you. From this
time forth you will see differently."

*To make the point about the metaphor once again, we are not really telling the
Holy Spirit, Who hardly has to be told anything from us. The meaning of this
first sentence is simply that we have to reinforce <our> decision to trust Him.
We learn to recognize the causal connection between abandoning our belief that
we are better off on our own, and the wonderful effects that vision brings:
seeing a gentle world of shared interests, quite different from the ego's
hateful world of separate interests.*

(8:4-5) "Today the light has come. And you will see the world that has been
promised you since time began, and in which is the end of time ensured."

*This last is an intriguing sentence. When Jesus says "you will see the world
that has been promised you since time began," he is not talking about the <you>
you think you are.<You> have not existed since time began; <you> are not fifteen
billion years old. Hence he is referring to the decision maker in our minds,
which is part of the one Son who was promised at the beginning that "the light
has come" -- the principle of the Atonement. In that ontological moment when we
believed we separated from God, the promise was there, already fulfilled. We
just had not accepted it. Projecting the blame for the rejection, we believed
that the Holy Spirit did not keep His promise, nor did God, Jesus, and now A
Course in Miracles.This is the problem Jesus corrects. The Atonement was in our
minds from the first instant the thought of separation seemed to begin,
reflecting God's promise to us (and ours to Him), as we read in this inspiring
passage from the text. It comes in the context of our choosing sickness instead
of healing, having made a promise to the ego instead of God:

"God keeps His promises; His Son keeps his. In his creation did his Father
say, "You are beloved of Me and I of you forever. Be you perfect as Myself, for
you can never be apart from Me". His Son remembers not that he replied "I will",
though in that promise he was born. Yet God reminds him of it every time he does
not share a promise to be sick, but lets his mind be healed and unified. His
secret vows are powerless before the Will of God, Whose promises he shares. And
what he substitutes is not his will, who has made promise of himself to God."
(T-28.VI.6:3-9).

Once again, if you pay close attention to a statement like the above, it is
clear that Jesus is not talking about the <you> you think is reading, studying,
and practicing these words, but the one Son of God outside of time and space,
the decision-making self that believed in itself, rather than its Self. As a
later lesson succinctly puts it:

"Let me not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all."
(W-pII.358.1:7).*

(9:1-4) "The shorter practice periods, too, will be joyful reminders of your
release. Remind yourself every quarter of an hour or so that today is a time for
special celebration. Give thanks for mercy and the Love of God. Rejoice in the
power of forgiveness to heal your sight completely."

*As in many other lessons, Jesus wants us to experience the joy of learning his
message. The end of our misery lies in forgiving our brothers and ourselves --
truly one and the same. Who, knowing this fact, could not want to remember every
fifteen minutes that the light has come and is ours. Yet that light is what we
still need to accept as the truth about ourselves.*

(9:5-7) "Be confident that on this day there is a new beginning. Without the
darkness of the past upon your eyes, you cannot fail to see today. And what you
see will be so welcome that you will gladly extend today forever."

*Notice Jesus says "a new beginning," which, incidentally, is the title of
Chapter 30 in the text. He is not saying the journey is over, even though many
of the statements in the lesson would indicate that, for he is not coming from a
linear perspective. He is saying "the light has come" because the light is
already here within us. Yet we must undertake the process of accepting it, which
consists of releasing the darkness of our sinful past. Only then can we acquire
the joy of Christ's vision, welcomed once we no longer desire to make sin real,
and protect it by the guilt perceived in another. As this vision is welcomed,
<and nothing else beside it>, it extends into the forever of knowledge.*

(10) "Say, then:

The light has come. I have forgiven the world.

Should you be tempted, say to anyone who seems to pull you back into darkness:

The light has come. I have forgiven you."

*We practice so that this vision of light would come more quickly, along with
the joy of forgiveness. What speeds us along is our willingness to practice
vigilance against our grievances, that forgiveness would shine away the darkness
of guilt that had enshrouded us and the world in pain and misery.*

(11) "We dedicate this day to the serenity in which God would have you be. Keep
it in your awareness of yourself and see it everywhere today, as we celebrate
the beginning of your vision and the sight of the real world, which has come to
replace the unforgiven world you thought was real."

*Jesus continues to inspire with the happy outcome of peace he assures us is
ours. We need merely desire it as fully as we desire to leave the unforgiven
world, and walk into the light born of forgiving our partners in specialness.
This light is our reality and reward, as Jesus portrays so beautifully in this
passage from the text, a lovely way to end our discussion of this lesson:

"This loveliness is not a fantasy. It is the real world, bright and clean
and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here,
for everything has been forgiven and there are no fantasies to hide the truth.
... All this beauty will rise to bless your sight as you look upon the world
with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally transforms vision, and lets you
see the real world reaching quietly and gently across chaos, removing all
illusions that had twisted your perception and fixed it on the past. ... Go out
in gladness to meet with your Redeemer, and walk with Him in trust out of this
world, and into the real world of beauty and forgiveness."
(T-17.II.2:1-3;6:1-2;8:5).*


Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson
719-369-1822

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