[acimlessons_list] Lesson 322 - November 18

[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
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Lesson 322 - November 18


"I can give up but what was never real."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

(See also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

I cannot give up anything real: "As You created me, I can give up nothing
You gave me" (2:3). The whole idea of sacrifice is alien to God and to the
thought system of the Course. Oh, we are asked to give up things! The Course
even asks us to give up the entire world--but "not to sacrifice"
(T-30.V.9:4-5). The whole point of this lesson is quite simple. It is that
nothing that I can give up was ever real in the first place. "I sacrifice
illusions; nothing more" (1:1).

I remember once in a relationship in which I wanted marriage, and the lady
in question did not, that I felt as if I were losing and sacrificing
something by letting go of my dream. Then I realized that I was only giving
up something I never had in the first place. It brought home with vivid
force the familiar "wall plaque" saying that runs something like this: "If
you love something, let it go. If it returns to you then it was truly yours,
and if it does not, it was never yours at all." In that circumstance I was
able to give up the illusion, and in so doing, retain the reality of a
profoundly loving relationship that was not meant to end in marriage, a
relationship that lasted for years and brought me more true satisfaction
than any marriage relationship I ever saw among my friends.

The illusions we hold on to are hiding the true gifts of God. The idea that
we can find our happiness in a romantic relationship, for instance, is one
of the ego's substitutes for the reality of our relationship with God and
with all living things. A close, loving relationship is a wonderful thing,
but it can be an obstacle to our peace if we make an idol of it, expecting
it to give us everything, or insisting that we know the form it must take to
please us.

"And as illusions go I find the gifts illusions tried to hide, awaiting me
in shining welcome, and in readiness to give God's ancient messages to me"
(1:2). We not only lose nothing in giving up illusions; we actually gain the
reality of what the illusions were substituting for. This is a win-win
situation!

The fear of sacrifice and loss is one of the greatest obstacles to our
spiritual progress. And as long as we think we are losing something real, we
will drag our feet. "If this [relinquishment] is interpreted as giving up
the desirable, it will engender enormous conflict. Few teachers of God
escape this distress entirely" (M-4.I(A).5:2, 3). The idea of sacrifice
makes it impossible for us to make sensible judgments about what we do and
do not want. That is why it is so important for us to refer all our
decisions to the Holy Spirit. And when we do, often it will seem to us as if
we are being asked to sacrifice something we value. What we do not realize
is that the Holy Spirit is only teaching us that we do not really want what
we think we want; He is only clarifying the intentions of our own right
mind, which already knows there is no value in what we have been holding on
to.

"And every dream serves only to conceal the Self Which is God's only Son..."
(1:4). The gift behind every dream is the memory of Who I really am.
Attachment to the ego's "gifts" only serves to diminish my awareness of that
Self. I am asking, not for too much, but for far too little. These gifts are
not worthy of my Self. What God did not give has no reality (2:4). And so,
today, let us give up every thought that anticipates any kind of loss, and
recognize that, as God's Sons, we cannot lose.

"What loss can I anticipate except the loss of fear, and the return of love
into my mind?" (2:5)


WHAT IS CREATION? (Part 2)

W-pII.11.1:3-5

"There was no time when all that [Love] created was not there. Nor will
there be a time when anything that It created suffers any loss" (1:3,4). It
is very difficult, if not impossible, for our minds to comprehend something
that is <outside of time>. We can conceive of the idea, but to actually
conceptualize it or to feel it is beyond minds that think solely in terms of
time. The creations of Love are beyond time; they have always been, and they
always will be. There is no before or after with Love and Its creations; it
is an eternal <now>.

We think of creation as bringing into existence something that never was.
But the Course's conception of creation is something that is always
complete, and that always exists <now>. All of creation has always been
there, and always will be, and yet creation is continuous. Creation is a
constant upsurge of beingness, never less, never more, never old and always
fresh. "Forever and forever are God's Thoughts exactly as they were and as
they are, unchanged through time and after time is done" (1:5).

God's creations are unaffected by time. Time is part of our illusion, a way
of making lack seem real by having things be "in the future," and not now;
or to make loss real by seeing them as "past." When the lesson speaks of
"God's Thoughts" it is speaking of <us>. "We are creation; we the Sons of
God" (4:1). It is saying, in other words, "I am as God created me." You and
I are those creations, "unchanged through time and after time is done." We
are not beings under construction, with our reality still in the future, nor
are we beings of corruption, with our purity past and gone. What we are is
now, was before time, and will be when time is done. What changes is not me.
To see ourselves as God's creations is thus to free ourselves from the
tyranny of time.

"Father, I seek the peace You gave as mine in my creation. What was given
then must be here now, for my creation was apart from time, and still
remains beyond all change. The peace in which Your Son was born into Your
Mind is shining there unchanged. I am as You created me" (W-pII.230.2:1-4). 
 
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