[acimlessons_list] Lesson 226 - August 14

Fri Aug 13 06:36:27 EDT 2004

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ COMMENTARIES ON LESSONS FROM THE WORKBOOK OF A COURSE IN MIRACLES
+ by Allen Watson, with Practice Summaries by Robert Perry, of The Circle of
Atonement
+ Visit our website at <http://www.circleofa.com>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lesson 226 - August 14

"My home awaits me. I will hasten there."

PRACTICE SUMMARY (See Part II Practice Summary, and also Part II
Introduction)
Purpose: To take the last few steps to God. To wait for Him to take the
final step.

Morning/Evening Quiet Time: as long as needed.

Read the written lesson.

Use idea and prayer to introduce time of quiet. Do not depend on the words.
Use them as a simple invitation to God to come to you.

Sit silently and wait for God. Wait in quiet expectancy for Him to reveal
Himself to you. Seek only direct, deep, wordless experience of Him. Be
certain of His coming, and unafraid. For He has promised that when you
invite Him, He will come. You ask only that He keep His ancient promise,
which He wills to keep. These times are your gift to Him.

Hourly Remembrance: Do not forget.

Give thanks to God that He has remained with you and will always be there to
answer your call to Him.

Frequent Reminder: As often as possible, even every minute.

Remember the idea. Dwell with God, let Him shine on you.

Response To Temptation: When you are tempted to forget your goal.

Use idea as a call to God and all temptation will disappear.

Reading: preceding one of the day's moments of practice.

Slowly read "What is...?" section.

Think about it a while.

Overall Remarks: Now, in this final part of the year that you and Jesus have
spent together, you begin to reach the goal of practicing and of the course.
Jesus is so close that you cannot fail. You have come far along the road. Do
not look back. Fix you eyes on the journey's end. You could not have come
this far without realizing that you want to know God. And this is all He
requires to come to you.

COMMENTARY

<Home>. What an evocative word that is! "I'm going home." Sometimes just
thinking about going home, even in an abstract sense, can cause deep
emotions to rise up in us--happy ones, I hope, although for some the word
has been tainted by an unhappy home life. Even then, when our "real" home is
unhappy, most of us are still filled with a deep longing for home <as it
ought to be>. Our original home and our real home is in God. All our
longings for home find their roots in our longing for this spiritual home in
God.

How can I "go home?" There are many songs that say we go home to Heaven when
we die. I think of spirituals like "Goin' Home" and "Deep River," for
instance. It is a common idea. But the Course here is extremely clear. It
speaks of departing this world, and says, "It is not death which makes this
possible, but it is a change of mind about the purpose of the world" (1:2).

As long as we think that the purpose of the world lies within itself, that
somehow happiness, freedom and contentment are to be found here, in the
world, we will never leave it. Not even when we "die." The chains that bind
us to the world are mental, not physical. Our valuing of the world is what
holds us to it. If I value the world "as I see it now" (1:3, also 1:4), it
will hold on to me even when my body crumbles. But if I no longer see
anything in this world "as I behold it" that I want to keep or search for, I
am free.

There is a world of meaning--literally!--in those phrases "as I see it now"
and "as I behold it." In the ego's perception this world is a place of
punishment and imprisonment, and simultaneously a place where I come to seek
for what seems to be "lacking" in myself. As long as I somehow value that
punishment and imprisonment, perhaps not for myself but almost always for
others upon whom I have projected my guilt, I will be bound to the world,
and I will not go home. As long as I think there is a lack in myself and
continue to search for it outside myself, valuing the world for what I think
it can give to me, I will always be bound to the world, and I will not go
home.

"My home <awaits> me." Our home is not under construction. It is ready and
waiting, the red carpet rolled out, everything is ready, and God's "Arms are
open and I hear His Voice" (2:2). Home is available right now, if I only
choose it. Let me be willing to look at what keeps me from choosing it,
because those are the hindrances that keep me from finding it. Do I still
wistfully long for my prince to come (or my princess)? Do I still have
things I want to do before I am ready to go? Do I still find secret pleasure
when the "wicked" (in my sight) suffer? If this world could vanish an hour
from now, what would I regret? Would I be ready to leave? If a shimmering
curtain were to appear in the doorway and a Voice proclaim, "Pass this
portal and you will be in Heaven," would I go through? Why not?

This is not a fantasy. The Voice <is> calling us, and Heaven is here and
now. We can pass the portal any time we choose to. If we are not
experiencing Heaven, we <must> be choosing not to do so, and finding out
what holds us back is the work we are assigned to in this classroom. This is
what the world is for--to teach us to let it go.

"What need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of shattered
dreams, when Heaven can so easily be mine?" (2:3)

WHAT IS FORGIVENESS? (Part 6)

We do not realize the extent to which our unforgiving thoughts distort the
truth (W-pII.1.3:3). Unforgiving thoughts twist our perception of things
which are not in accord with how unforgiveness wants to see things. They
overlook any evidence for love, and find evidence of guilt. In "The
Obstacles to Peace" and in the subsection on "The Attraction of Guilt,"
(T-19.IV(A).i), our unforgiving thoughts are compared to scavanging
messengers "harshly ordered to seek out guilt, and cherish every scrap of
evil and of sin that they can find, losing none of them on pain of death,
and laying them respectfully before their lord and master." In a few words,
we find what we are looking for, and the ego is always looking for guilt.

But distortion is not only the <method> used by the ego; distortion is also
the ego's <purpose>. In other words, the purpose of unforgiveness is to
distort reality. Unforgiveness furiously aims "to smash reality, without
concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point
of view" (W-pII.1.3:4). Reality is the hated enemy, the intolerable
presence, because your reality, and mine, is still the Son of God, never in
the slightest separated from Him. Reality exposes the ego as a lie, and
cannot be tolerated. So the way our minds work, when dominated by
unforgiving thoughts, is designed from the outset to distort and twist
reality beyond all recognition.

In contrast to this, the Course asks us to dream of our brother's kindnesses
instead of his mistakes, and to not brush aside his many gifts just because
he isn't perfect (T-27.VII.15). It asks us to look for love instead of
looking for guilt, and rather than finding fault, to try finding love
instead. To begin with, we can simply start to question the way we see
things, in awareness that our thought processes and our methods of making
judgment have been severely impaired and simply are not reliable. It isn't
that we <should not> judge, it's that we <cannot> judge (M-10.2:1). We are
operating at diminished capacity; we need a healthy mind to judge on our
behalf. And that mind is the Holy Spirit.

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+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
+ Available in book format from The Circle
+ of Atonement (Vol. 1 reprint due by end of 2004, write us for info)
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