Lesson 92. Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.
(1) The idea for today is an extension of the previous one. You do not think of
light in terms of strength, and darkness in terms of weakness. That is because
your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain.
Thus you believe that you can change what you see by putting little bits of
glass before your eyes. This is among the many magical beliefs that come from
the conviction you are a body, and the body's eyes can see.
(2) You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the
nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you
thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or
that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go.
Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain
can think.
(3) It is God's strength in you that is the light in which you see, as it is His
Mind with which you think. His strength denies your weakness. It is our weakness
that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the
likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in
need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless.
These are seen through eyes that cannot see and cannot bless.
(4) Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps its
steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites with light, of which
it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the light in which your Self appears. In
darkness you perceive a self that is not there. Strength is the truth about you;
weakness is an idol falsely worshipped and adored that strength may be
dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointed that there should be light.
(5) Strength comes from truth, and shines with light its Source has given it;
weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. It is sick and looks on sickness,
which is like itself. Truth is a savior and can only will for happiness and
peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless
supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all. And so it gives its
light that all may see and benefit as one. Its strength is shared, that it may
bring to all the miracle in which they will unite in purpose and forgiveness and
in love.
(6) Weakness, which looks in darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and
in love. It sees all others different from itself, and nothing in the world that
it would share. It judges and condemns, but does not love. In darkness it
remains to hide itself, and dreams that it is strong and conquering, a victor
over limitations that but grow in darkness to enormous size.
(7) It fears and it attacks and hates itself, and darkness covers everything it
sees, leaving its dreams as fearful as itself. No miracles are here, but only
hate. It separates itself from what it sees, while light and strength perceive
themselves as one. The light of strength is not the light you see. It does not
change and flicker and go out. It does not shift from night to day, and back to
darkness till the morning comes again.
(8) The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself
away, because it cannot give but to itself. No one can ask in vain to
share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle
before his eyes, and strength and light abiding in his heart.
(9) The strength in you will offer you the light, and guide your seeing so you
do not dwell on idle shadows that the body's eyes provide for self-deception.
Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet, your Self stands ready to
embrace you as Its Own. Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest
in, for the peace of God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet
Itself again, and be as One.
(10) Let us give twenty minutes twice today to join this meeting. Let yourself
be brought unto your Self. Its strength will be the light in which the gift of
sight is given you. Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will
practice seeing in the light, closing the body's eyes and asking truth to show
us how to find the meeting place of self and Self, where light and strength are
one.
(11) Morning and evening we will practice thus. After the morning meeting, we
will use the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again in
trust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that
we are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where
only miracles can be perceived.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The commentary on this lesson 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 92. "Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one."
(1:1-2) "The idea for today is an extension of the previous one. You do not
think of light in terms of strength, and darkness in terms of weakness."
*That is because we think the darkness of our ego system is our strength. To the
extent we think of ourselves as special, our strength lies in the darkness of
separation. Indeed, our separate self is sustained by specialness, an intrinsic
part of the ego's darkened world. Thus we do not think of light as strength,
because light -- the Atonement principle -- marks the end of our separate
identity. Therefore, from our point of view as egos, light renders us weak, for
it undoes the thought system of darkness. Our confusion about what constitutes
strength and weakness is the same as the confusion between joy and pain, freedom
and imprisonment (T-7.X;T-8.II).*
(2) "You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the
nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you
thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or
that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go.
Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain
can think."
*There is no way anyone who reads A Course in Miracles and is identified with
the body can have any understanding of this paragraph. Jesus is saying the body
does not think and does not see, which is another way of saying the body does
not exist. The problem is that we read this as a body: seeing what we are
reading, even though what we are reading tells us we cannot see; thinking about
what we are reading, even though what we are reading tells us we cannot think.
There is a built-in paradox here, which would terrify most students to consider,
for its impact is devastating. Your eyes and brains are negated by the very
words you are reading and thinking about. Where does that leave you. This is a
question that harks back to a question in the previous lesson: "If you are not a
body, what are you?" If it is not your brain that can think, who then is
thinking? Taking it one step further, who then is even reading this course and
doing this lesson? If you think seriously about what Jesus is saying, you must
inevitably move beyond your brain and body. That is when the anxiety begins to
rise.
It is important as you work with A Course in Miracles to pay careful attention
to its words. Jesus' purpose is to break our strong identification with the
body. Unfortunately, most people studying this course do not realize their very
study is a paradox -- or, better, an oxymoron. They study with organs that do
not see or think. Again, if you pay attention to what this is saying about you,
anxiety is inevitable. However, the purpose is not to have you walk around in a
state of perpetual tension, but with a big question mark in your mind. As Jesus
states in the text:
"To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you
hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your
learning." (T-24.in.2:1-2).
If you realize that Jesus is not asking you to give up your bodily
identification, but merely to question it, there will be no anxiety. Anxiety
arises because you believe he is taking your special relationship with your body
away from you. Yet he asks only that you look at your faith in it as a source of
pleasure and happiness. The discomfort will disappear to the extent you can go
to Jesus and say: "I understand what you are saying, and it terrifies me." Such
honesty will help alleviate the anxiety, which means that if A Course in
Miracles makes you nervous, it is because you are not really looking with Jesus.
However, if you are reading this course and have no adverse reaction, it is most
likely because you are not paying attention to what it is saying. In other
words, before you go to Jesus for help, you first have to feel uncomfortable. We
find this idea expressed at the beginning of "The Happy Learner," in lines we
have already considered:
"You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are
miserable and not happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast, for
you believe that misery is happiness." (T-14.II.1:2-3).
We need the experience of misery and anxiety, for that is what motivates us to
go to Jesus for help. Once we do, he can teach us the contrast between the
happiness and peace he offers us, and our misery and anxiety. The anxiety will
come, I assure you, if you read this lesson carefully and think about it. Read
paragraph 2 again, and think about the <you> that you think you are who are
reading this.
The idea that we are bodies is not only insane, but arrogant. Our bodily
identification directly reflects the thought that our inherent weakness has
toppled the mighty strength of God. It is the same arrogance Jesus describes in
the text: the sunbeam thinking it is the sun, the ripple thinking it is the
ocean:
"This fragment of your mind is such a tiny part of it that, could you but
appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest
sunbeam to the sun, or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean. In
its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam has decided it is the sun; this almost
imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean." (T-18.VIII.3:3-4).
To the ego, therefore, the idea that we cannot see or think is preposterous, but
to our right minds, it contains this world's only truth, and the way out of
hell.*
(3) "It is God's strength in you that is the light in which you see, as it is
His Mind with which you think. His strength denies your weakness. It is your
weakness that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold
the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in
need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless.
These are seen through eyes that cannot see and cannot bless."
*True seeing, however, or vision, is the result of returning our "sight" to its
rightful place in the mind. By turning to the Holy Spirit for guidance, we shift
our identification from the sightless to what alone can see. The ego would have
us see through "eyes that cannot bless, " and thus we "see" the shadowy
fragments of the ego's weakness: a world in which "everyone ... wanders ...
uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear" (T-31.VIII.7:1). Yet we "see" in
darkness, for we have first looked within and seen the ego's weakness, itself
cowering in fear in the darkness of its separated mind. This is the darkness we
projected and believe we now see. However, it is the darkness of nothingness,
for the ego is nothing and makes nothing, and what we see must therefore also
must be nothing: <nothing> making <nothing>, being seen by <nothing>. Certainly
then, these eyes cannot bless, because they were made to damn. After all, the
ego came into existence by damning God, thereby killing His Son, in the
anguished words of Job's wife: "Curse God, and die" (Job 2:9).
Another theme implicit in this passage is the contrast of Christ's strength with
the ego's weakness, similar to the statement we have seen before: "You always
choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you."
(T.31.VIII.2.3).*
(4:1-2) "Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps
its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them."
*Here, too, is a statement that can be very easily misunderstood. Jesus is not
saying we do not see the illusion. By <overlook> -- a word he uses frequently in
A Course in Miracles -- he does not mean we overlook the ego in the sense of not
seeing something that is present, which is the usual meaning of the word, as
when you overlook some papers you are looking for on your desk and know are
there. In A Course in Miracles, we overlook the ego by looking through it. We
first look at the appearance, which seems to be as solid as a wall of granite.
Yet its inherent emptiness cannot block our vision, as the following passage on
sin describes:
"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the
road to peace. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be
madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily, because it is
an error. The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes."
(T.22.III.3.2-6)
With the love of Jesus beside us -- as he says in the text: "together we have
the lamp that will dispel it, [the ego's thought system] (T.11.V.1.3) -- we look
at the ego's darkness with his light, shining through what appeared as an
impenetrable wall. Now it is nothing more than a flimsy veil, powerless to
conceal the truth beyond it. When Jesus talks about looking past appearances or
overlooking the ego, he, once again, does not mean <not> to see it. He is
teaching us to look at it with him, for only then do we realize there is nothing
to see. What seemed to have been a solid wall of defense simply disappears, and
the light of truth is seen shining beyond it. To cite those important lines
again:
"No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is
the way they are protected. ... we must look first at this to see beyond it,
since you have made it real. We will undo this error quietly together, and then
look beyond it to truth. ... What is healing but the removal of all that stands
in the way of knowledge? And how else can one dispel illusions except by looking
at them directly, without protecting them? ... Clarity undoes confusion by
definition, and to look upon darkness through light must dispel it."
(T.11.V.1:1,5-6; 2:1-2,9).
This point is important, because it can be tempting for students of A Course in
Miracles to think that Jesus is asking them to deny their eyes' perception. This
previously discussed statement made in the context of healing, makes clear what
he means:
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let
itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem
to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed
appearances as before. But the healed mind will put them all in one category;
they are unreal." (M.8.6.1-4).
Our goal is to see through Christ's vision, which enables us to reinterpret the
perceptual world of the ego told us was true. The <form>, now seen differently,
reveals the <content> of reality's reflection that the ego tried to conceal from
our awareness. The clarity of this new perception looks beyond the seeming
differences among illusions to the one truth that categorizes them all: <they
are unreal.> *
(5:1) "Strength comes from truth, and shines with light its Source has given it;
weakness reflects the darkness of its maker."
*The maker is the ego, but it can do nothing without the decision maker's
joining with it. Therein lies the ego's "strength," built upon an illusion that
the Son of God has a real choice about his Identity. Only in the light of the
correct choice -- for the Atonement -- can the Son regain the awareness of his
true strength.*
(6:1-2) "Weakness, which looks in darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness
and in love. It sees all others different from itself, and nothing in the world
that it would share."
*The theme of weakness and strength continues, in this form: The ego thought
system is kept intact by the concept of differences, wherein everyone is
perceived as different from everyone else. Ultimately, this difference is your
sin and my sinlessness, having its source in the original perception of
difference: I am the creator and God is not -- the principle of <either-or>,
<one or the other>, <kill or be killed>. We are established strong in the ego's
thought system of darkness by our weakness, born of the fragmented Sonship. This
weakness thus reflects the separation of God's Son, for we are all made
different, protected by our grievances and threatened by forgiveness.*
(7:1-3) "It fears and it attacks and hates itself, and darkness covers
everything it sees, leaving its dreams as fearful as itself. No miracles are
here, but only hate. It separates itself from what it sees, while light and
strength perceive themselves as one."
*That is why we fear the light, the strength of which comes from perfect unity,
what the ego judges as weakness. Our individuality grows weak in the presence of
thoughts of oneness, and strong in perceptions of differences . Yet we cannot
distinguish between weakness and strength. Thus we need A Course in Miracles in
general, and the workbook specifically.*
(7:4-6) "The light of strength is not the light you see. It does not change and
flicker and go out. It does not shift from night to day, and back to darkness
till the morning comes again."
*Jesus is referring to the different kinds of light in this world: artificial
light -- electricity -- and natural light -- the sun. Yet nothing here lasts,
and everything changes. The light of truth, on the other hand, is constant and
eternal, and its reflected perception of the world is always the same: it is an
illusion and is not here. Recall the first test Jesus cites as helping us to
"distinguish everything from nothing" (W-pI.133.5:4).
"First, if you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is
valueless. A temporary value is without all value. Time can never take away a
value that is real. What fades and dies was never there, and makes no offering
to him who chooses it. He is deceived by nothing in a form he thinks he likes."
(W-pI.133.5:6).
Thus is our impermanent world inherently valueless.
Moreover, everyone here shares the sameness of believing in illusion. It is
helpful to observe that the word <same> does not appear in the ego's dictionary,
for it only understands the concept of difference. Analogously, the word
<different> does not appear in the Holy Spirit's dictionary, because everything
to Him is the same: We are the same, as one illusion and as one Christ.*
(8) "The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give
itself away, because it cannot give but to itself. No one can ask in vain to
share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle
before his eyes, and strength and light abiding in his heart."
*This statement is true because everything is one, reflecting the important
principle we shall see later: giving and receiving are the same (e.g.,
W-pI126,158). If we are one, I cannot give to another nor receive from another,
but only to and from myself. Such insight belongs to our right-minded self that
has learned the value of sharing, not the ego's wrong-minded self that sees only
separate interests. The former leads to the strength of Christ's light; the
later to the weakness of the ego's darkness.*
(9) "The strength in you will offer you the light, and guide your seeing so you
do not dwell on idle shadows that the body's eyes provide for self-deception.
Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet, your Self stands ready to
embrace you as Its Own. Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest
in, for the peace of God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet
Itself again, and be as One."
*As our choices become increasingly right-minded -- the strong light of
forgiveness over the weak darkness of attack; the reflection of spirit's oneness
over the body's separation -- we stand on the edge of the real world, beyond
which is the Oneness we never truly left.
As we shall now see, Jesus is up from ten to twenty minutes in the quiet periods
he asks us to give him in these exercises. As we realize the benefits to us of
these lessons, the quiet times spent with the idea for the day will become
increasingly joyful, as will be the specific opportunities for application the
day provides:*
(10:1-2) "Let us give twenty minutes twice today to join this meeting. Let
yourself be brought unto your Self."
*Who brings us to our Self? -- the decision maker, joined with Jesus. He cannot
carry us until we first jump into his arms. This is extremely important. We must
first go to him and say: "Please carry me." Jesus cannot bring us home without
our help, and, needless to say, we cannot return without him. That is why he
reminds us:*
(10:3-4) "Its strength will be the light in which the gift of sight is given
you. Leave, then, the dark a little while today ... "
*Jesus is not saying we should leave the dark permanently. It is extremely
important to understand this so we do not panic at the thought of being in the
light. He is simply asks us to practice for "a little while": "Join with me and
let me look at your silly thought with you," he says to us. We need only realize
our silliness in having placed faith in the body, not withdraw it. There are
many passages throughout A Course in Miracles that explain how the body
constantly fails us, and so deserves but a knowing smile for our seriousness in
having trusting it. One of my (and Helen's) favorites comes early in the text,
where Jesus presents an imaginary conversation between the mind's decision-maker
and the ego, it having previously followed the ego's counsel to choose the body
for its safety, only to discover that the body is hardly a safe refuge at all:
"The body is the ego's home by its own election. It is the only identification
with which the ego feels safe, ... Here is where the mind [i.e.the decision
maker] becomes actually dazed. Being told by the ego that it is really part of
the body and that the body is its protector, the mind is also told that the body
cannot protect it. Therefore, the mind asks, "Where can I go for protection?" to
which the ego replies, "Turn to me". The mind, and not without cause, reminds
the ego that it has itself insisted that it is identified with the body, so
there is no point in turning to it for protection. The ego has no real answer to
this because there is none, but it does have a typical solution. It obliterates
the question from the mind's awareness. Once out of awareness the question can
and does produce uneasiness, but it cannot be answered because it cannot be
asked." (T.4.V.4.1).
According to the ego, the body will keep us safe and secure, and so we cling to
our bodily identification because we believe it protects us. Yet as we look at
our lives and the lives of everyone else, it is all too clear that the body does
a terrible job of protection. That is why Jesus does not ask us to give up this
identity, but to step back with him "a little while" and question it. When we
look at the body from his point of view, we join his gentle laughter in response
to the silliness of our own and everyone else's life, simply because the body
does not work. Unaware of our choice to identify with the body, however, we are
condemned to a life of weakness in which we do not really see. Thus the purpose
of these lessons is to help us learn we do have a choice: light or darkness,
strength or weakness, God or the ego.*
(11) "Morning and evening we will practice thus. After the morning meeting, we
will use the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again in
trust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that
we are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where
only miracles can be perceived."
*Our two longer practice periods thus become the two ends of the day's rainbow,
under which kind and gentle arch we draw meaning from the day's events. We rest
comfortably in this meaning, as we gratefully welcome each opportunity to choose
the miracles that leads us from darkness to the light.*
