[acimlessons_list] Lesson 228 - August 16

Susan Carrier suelegal at theteks.com
Sun Aug 15 09:04:54 EDT 2004 


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+ 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>
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Lesson 228 - August 16

"God has condemned me not. No more do I."

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

It takes great courage to let go of our self-condemnation. We are so afraid
that if we stop condemning ourselves we will go berserk, the evil in us will
be unchecked and will break out in some terrible disaster. But what if there
is no evil in us? What if God is right? Is it so very likely that He is
wrong and we are right? What God knows, the lesson says, makes sin in us
impossible; "Shall I deny His knowledge?" (1:2)

The lesson is asking us, quite simply, to "take His Word for what I am"
(1:4). Who knows what something or someone is better than its Creator? And
what does God know about me? "My Father knows my holiness" (1:1). Every time
I read such statements I watch my mind struggle to oppose the idea, cringing
in a pseudo-humility that cries out, "Oh, no, I can't accept that about
myself." If I dare to ask myself, "Why not?", my mind immediately comes up
with a whole list of reasons. My flaws, my lack of total dedication to the
truth, my addiction to this or that pleasure of the world. Yet every one of
those things, brought into the light of the Holy Spirit, can be seen as
nothing more than a misdirected prayer, a cry for help, a veiled longing for
God and for Home.

"I was mistaken in myself" (2:1). That is all that has happened. I forgot my
Source, and what I must be, coming from that Source. My Source is God, and
not my dark illusions. My mistake about myself is not a sin to be judged but
a mistake to be corrected; it needs not condemnation, but the healing of
love. "My mistakes about myself are dreams" (2:4), that is all, and I can
let these dreams go. I am not the dream; I am the dreamer, still holy, still
a part of God.

Today, as I still my mind in God's Presence, I open myself to receive His
Word concerning what I am. I brush aside the dreams, I recognize them for
what they are, and let them go. I open my heart to Love.

WHAT IS FORGIVENESS? (Part 8)

In the last two sentences of this paragraph (4), notice that a contrast is
made between judging and welcoming the truth exactly as it is. The opposite
of judgment is the truth. Judgment, then, must always be a distortion of the
truth. This section has already pointed out that unforgiveness has
distortion as its purpose. If I do not want to forgive, I must distort the
truth; I must judge. Judgment here clearly carries the meaning of
condemnation, of seeing sin, of making something wrong. Forgiveness does not
do that; forgiveness makes right instead of wrong, because "right" is the
truth about all of us.

None of us are guilty. That is the truth. God does not condemn us. If I do
so, I am distorting the truth. Judgment is always a distortion of the truth
of our innocence before God. When I judge another, I do so because I am
trying to justify my unwillingness to forgive. I have gotten very good at
it. I always seem to find some reason that justifies my unforgiveness. But
what I do not realize is that every such judgment twists the truth, hides
it, obscures it. It "makes real" something that is not real.

Furthermore, in obscuring the truth about my brother or sister, I am hiding
the truth about myself. I am substantiating the basis of my own
self-condemnation. That is why the last sentence of the paragraph switches
from my unforgiveness of another to the forgiveness of myself: "he who would
forgive himself" (4:5). If I want to learn to forgive myself, I must abandon
my judging of others. If their sin is real, so is mine. Instead I must learn
to "welcome truth exactly as it is" (4:5). Only if I welcome the truth about
my brother or sister can I see it for myself. We stand or fall together. "In
him you will find yourself or lose yourself" (T-8.III.4:5).

To a mind habituated to seeing itself as a separate ego, abandoning all
judgment is frightening. It feels like the rug is being swept out from under
our feet; we don't know where to stand. How can we live in the world without
it? We literally do not know how. Judgment is how we have ordered our lives;
without it, we fear chaos. The Course assures us this will not happen: "You
are afraid of this because you believe that without the ego, all would be
chaos. Yet I assure you that without the ego, all would be love"
(T-15.V.1:6,7).

When we let go of judgment, when we are willing to welcome the truth exactly
as it is, love rushes in to fill the vacuum left by the absence of judgment.
It has been there all along, but we have blocked it. We don't know how this
happens, but it happens because love is the reality, love is the truth we
are welcoming. Love will show us exactly what to do when our judgment is
gone.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ 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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