[acimlessons_list] Lesson 233 - August 21

Fri Aug 20 06:49:43 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>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lesson 233 - August 21

"I give my life to God to guide today."

PRACTICE SUMMARY 

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.

(See Part II Practice Summary, and also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

One thing I find very interesting about the Course is that it is not
terribly picky about its theology. There are places in the Course that make
it quite clear that God does not even hear the words of our prayers, and
that, knowing only the Truth, He does not know of our errors. "Technically,"
then, prayers "ought" to be addressed to the Holy Spirit or to Jesus, who
are specifically spoken of as intermediaries between truth and illusion, or
a bridge between us and God. Yet here in the second half of the Workbook we
have 140 lessons, each of which contains a prayer addressed to "Father."

In today's lesson, the Father is asked to guide us. Yet elsewhere, being
Guide is defined as the function of the Holy Spirit. So I get the feeling
that Jesus (the author) isn't particularly concerned with strict theological
correctness. I think he is a good example for all of us to follow. Would he
be teaching us to pray to the Father if it were some sort of substandard
spiritual practice?

If we gleaned nothing more from the Course than the practice of daily giving
our lives over to God's guidance, we would be quickly taken home. We can ask
Him to replace our thoughts with His own, and to direct all our acts during
the day, all we do and think and say. To act or think on our own is,
literally, a waste of time. His wisdom is infinite, His Love and tenderness
are beyond comprehension. Could we ask for a more reliable Guide?

The first step in following God's guidance is a stepping <back>, releasing
our tight hold on our lives and deliberately placing them under His control.
The guidance will come. Sometimes, perhaps rarely, we will hear an inner
Voice. In my personal experience this is very rare. Other times, things will
happen around us that make our way plain. Or an inner conviction will build
for no apparent reason. We will "just happen to notice" something someone
says, or a song on the radio, or a line in a book. If we are <listening> for
it, we will hear it.

Another key is giving our day to Him "with no reserve at all," that is,
holding nothing back. Sometimes we are so fixated on what we think we want
or need that we are not willing to hear any guidance to the contrary. And if
we aren't willing to hear it, we won't. We're like a broken shopping cart
that always wants to steer left or right; we just don't respond well to
guidance. We have to be willing to let go of all our preferences, all our
investment in the outcome, and become completely malleable, completely open
to whatever direction He wants to give to us. An old Christian hymn says:

"Have Thine own way, Lord, Have Thine own way. Thou are the potter, I am the
clay. Mold me and make me, After Thy will, While I am waiting, Yielded and
still."

That is what stepping back means. That is how we give our lives to God to
guide. He guides. We follow, without questioning (1:7).

WHAT IS SALVATION? (Part 3)

The Thought of Peace that is our salvation "was given to God's Son the
instant that his mind had thought of war" (2:1). No time intervened at all
between the thought of war and the Thought of peace. Salvation was given
instantly when the need arose. In a beautiful image, the Text says that "not
one note in Heaven's song was missed" (T-26.V.5:4). The peace of Heaven was
completely undisturbed. And having been answered, the problem was resolved
for all of time and all eternity, in that microsecond.

Our discovery of salvation, however, takes time. Or at least seems to. A
poor analogy: Imagine that you are suddenly burdened with a $10,000 tax bill
for a hitherto unexpected reason, but at that very instant, someone deposits
one million dollars in your checking account. You could spend a lot of time
trying to raise the needed money if you didn't know about the deposit, but
actually all you need to do is nothing, because the problem is already
solved. Your only need, then, is to stop trying to solve the problem, and
learn that it has already been answered.

Before the thought of separation (or war) arose, there was no need for a
"Thought of peace." Peace simply <was>, without an opposite. So in a certain
sense we could say that the problem created its own answer. Before the
problem, there was no answer because there was no need of one. But when the
problem arose, the answer was already there. "When the mind is split there
is a need of healing" (2:3). It is the thought of separation that makes the
thought of healing needful, but when the healing is accepted, or when the
thought of separation is abandoned, healing is no longer needed. Healing is
a temporary (or temporal, related to time) measure. There is no need of it
in Heaven.

As the Course says of forgiveness, because there is an illusion of need,
there is need for an illusion of answer. But that "answer" is really simple
acceptance of what has always been true, and always will be. Peace simply
is, and salvation lies in our acceptance of that fact. Salvation, as the
Course sees it, is not an active divine response to a real need. It is,
instead, an apparent response to a need that, in truth, does not exist.

This is why the Course calls our spiritual path "a journey without distance"
(T-8.VI.9:7) and, indeed, "a journey that was not begun" (W-pII.225.2:5).
While we are in it, the journey seems very real, and often very long. When
it is over, we will know that we never left Heaven, never travelled
anywhere, and have always been exactly where we are: at home in God. The
journey itself is imaginary. It consists in learning, bit by bit, that the
distance we perceive between ourselves and God is simply not there.

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