[acimlessons_list] Lesson 239 - August 27

[Susan Carrier]

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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 <http://www.circleofa.com/>
>
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 Lesson 239 - August 27

"The glory of my Father is my own."

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

"Let not the truth about ourselves today be hidden by a false humility"
(1:1)

One thing I am aware of as I have not been before while doing the workbook
is that when it uses the words "we," "us," and "ourselves" it is not
referring to just we students of the Course. The "we" includes Jesus. After
all, it is Jesus who is speaking throughout the book. This is no ordinary,
generic "we" that any author might use. Jesus is identifying himself with
us, and us with him, each time a third-person pronoun is used.

The "truth about ourselves" is the truth about you, me and Jesus. In
recognizing that I get a sense of his joining with me that I've never quite
had before. And I see in his use of the terms a purpose, to focus my
attention on the sameness of himself, myself and my brothers.

When I see traces of sin and guilt "in those with whom He shares His glory"
(1:3) I am seeing them in myself. That is a false humility! When I see my
brother as guilty or sinful it is because I am putting myself in that same
class, and thus hiding the truth about myself. Guilt can take a seemingly
saintly form: "We are all just poor students of the Course, weak and frail
and constantly failing." And that guilt, that false humility, obscures your
glory and my own.

It is true that we are all just students, that we are on the lower rung of
the ladder and just beginning to be aware of all we really are. It is false
spirituality to pretend to what we do not experience. But it is false
humility to constantly emphasize our weakness by judging or focusing on
failures. We all share the same ego, but we also all share the same glorious
Sonship. We need to spend time, from time to time, thanking God for "the
light that shines forever in us...We are one, united in this light and one
with You, at peace with all creation and ourselves" (2:1, 3).

What I see and dwell on in my brothers is what I am seeing and dwelling on
in myself. How I view my brothers only reflects my view of myself.

"Perception seems to teach you what you see. Yet it but witnesses to what
you taught. It is an outward picture of a wish; an image that you wanted to
be true" (T-24.VII.8:8-10).

"How can you manifest the Christ in you except to look on holiness and see
Him there?" (T-25.I.2:1) In other words, you can only manifest the Christ in
you by looking on your brother and seeing the Christ in him.

"Perception tells you <you> are manifest in what you see" (T-25.I.2:2).

"Perception is a choice of what you want yourself to be; the world you want
to live in, and the state in which you think your mind will be content and
satisfied." "It reveals yourself to you as you would have you be"
(T-25.I.3:1, 3).

If I would not hide the truth of my own glory, I cannot hide that of my
brother. "What is the same can have no different function" (T-23.IV.3:4). If
I deny the truth in my brother, I am denying it to myself. In fact I am
denying it in him because I am denying it about myself. When I mentally
separate myself from someone, and make him or her different from myself,
less than myself, by judging him, let me recognize that what I see is
revealing what my mind is doing to myself. I am hiding my own glory, and
therefore judging another, projecting the guilt outside. My judgement of
another can then become a mirror to show me that I have forgotten who I
really am. It can remind me, cause me to remember, and to choose again, to
remember my status as Son of God, "at peace with all creation and [myself]"
(2:3).

WHAT IS SALVATION? (Part 9)

We turn from the world to the holy place within; we enter the holy instant,
where our illusions fall because we no longer support them, and we begin to
see with the vision of Christ, seeing the real world. And <then we return to
the world>. "From here we give salvation to the world, for it is here
salvation was received" (5:1). This movement is repeated again and again in
both Workbook and Text: Away from the world of dreams--into the holy
instant--returning to give salvation to the world. The Course does not plan
for us to retreat from the world, but to save it. It does not urge us into a
withdrawn, contemplative life, but urges us <from within the state of mind
we find in contemplation> to offer what we have found to the world.

"The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is
returned" (5:2). Our inner healing bubbles over in a "song of rejoicing,"
and that song, that ebullient joy, becomes the very thing that calls the
world back to its freedom. Nothing is so healing as a person whose face is
radiant with joy. It is not so much that we come to the world preaching a
new religion (W-pI.37.3:1,2), but that we transform it by our joy. We
represent a new state of mind. As the Manual puts it, we "stand for the
Alternative" (M-5.III.2:6). We save the world by being saved.
 
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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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