[acimlessons_list] Lesson 328 - November 24

Tue Nov 23 05:20:29 EST 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 <http://www.circleofa.com/>
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 Lesson 328 - November 24

"I choose the second place to gain the first."

PRACTICE SUMMARY 

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 also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

The lesson is saying that when we consider choosing to join our will to
God's Will (1:5), it seems like some kind of loss, a submission to something
outside of ourselves. It seems like taking "second place." It seems
subserviant, or submissive. And in our mistaken identity as egos, we feel
that the only way to have autonomy is to make ourselves independent from God
and from the rest of His creation.

We are seeing things upside down (1:1). All that we find by asserting our
independence is "sickness, suffering and loss and death" (1:3). We are like
a branch trying to become independent of the vine. If we are cut off from
the vine, we die. Our identity is not lost by joining with the vine; it is
found, because we are not something separate. We are part of God and part of
His creation, and only in joining with that willingly can we discover our
true identity. "Our will is His."

We choose to "submit" to God's Will (which seems like taking second place)
because, in joining with Him, we arrive in first place: one with the Will of
the Creator of all things.

WHAT IS CREATION? (Part 8)

W-pII.4:4-6

Love created us like Itself. As parts, each of which contains the Whole, we
are Thoughts of Love. And "Love remains with all Its Thoughts, Its sureness
being theirs" (4:4). The certainty of God is our certainty. It was given us
in creation and is still there within us; it has never left us, although we
have obscured it. God's memory is in our minds (4:5). Although we seem to be
separate parts we are not; we are parts, but not separate, like droplets of
water in the ocean. So we still contain all that was in the original
creation. What belongs to the ocean belongs to each drop. Each of us still
retains our oneness and our unity with our Creator (4:5).

"Let our function be only to let this memory return, only to let God's Will
be done on earth, only to be restored to sanity, and to be but as God
created us" (4:6). Our whole purpose in life is to be nothing but this,
nothing but the restoration to our awareness of our Wholeness, and our
partness-in-Wholeness. This is why we are here. This is the purpose behind
every direction taken by the Holy Spirit's guidance in our lives. We are not
here to bolster our partness, to meet goals belonging only to the part. We
are here to let the memory of God return to our conscious minds, and to
fulfill our purpose as the extensions of the Will of Love.

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