[acimlessons_list] LESSON 278 - October 5

Mon Oct 4 06:18:54 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 <http://www.circleofa.com/>
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LESSON 278 - October 5

"If I am bound, my Father is not free."

PRACTICE SUMMARY - Part II

(See also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

The Course often sets forth a set of what, for us, seem to be rather
confusing interrelationships. It says that how I treat my brother is a
reflection of how I treat myself. It says how I treat myself is a reflection
of how I treat God. It says how I treat my brother is a reflection of how I
treat God. For all three you could substitute the phrase "how I see" for
"how I treat."

This set of connections seems confusing to us only because we persist in
conceiving of our Self, our brother and God as separate beings. We are not
separate. It is not simply that how I see myself reflects how I see God; it
is how I see God, because I am part of God, an extension of Him, an
extrusion of His nature. God is all that is. There is no other.

Therefore, "If I accept that I am prisoner within a body, in a world in
which all things that seem to live appear to die, then is my Father prisoner
with me. And this do I believe..." (1:1-2). The Course is constantly telling
me that I believe things I don't think I believe. In "The Fear of
Redemption" it says I believe I have crucified God's Son. And here it tells
me that I believe God is a prisoner.

I certainly don't go around saying that God is a prisoner. The idea that God
is a prisoner seems shocking to me; my mental concept of God is that He is
omnipotent. How can I believe something without being aware I believe it?
Actually it is quite easy; I do it all the time. And sometimes I've even
caught myself doing it.

For instance, sometimes I have noticed that when another person approaches
me in a very open and loving way, my first reaction is not welcome but
suspicion. I think that behind the appearance of love there is probably some
ulterior motive, something that I need to be on guard against. "What does
this person want from me?" might be my thought. Or perhaps I suspect them of
trying to manipulate me in some way. What that kind of response is
indicating is that I believe love Itself is suspect. I don't trust love. I
don't trust my own, I don't trust the love of others, and above all, I don't
trust God's Love.

Another way I see that same suspicion of love in myself is when I feel
loving feelings for another person. I suspect my own motives, particularly
if the person is an attractive female. Again, there is the underlying
belief, a belief I have not consciously admitted to myself, that Love cannot
be trusted.

What this lesson is saying is that when I accept myself as a prisoner, I am
betraying a hidden belief that God is a prisoner, too. This is so because
the facts of reality are that God and I are one, part of the same Being, or
rather, I am part of His Being. Since reality is One, what I believe about
any part I am believing about the Whole, whether or not I realize it. "If I
am bound in any way, I do not know my Father nor my Self. And I am lost to
all reality" (1:3-4).

We could easily use this line to condemn ourselves and get into a guilt
trip. There isn't one of us who doesn't seem himself or herself bound in
some way. We all feel we are limited by the laws of the world--laws of
nutrition, laws of finance, laws of health, laws of marriage. We all believe
that we will die. We all believe that certain of our weaknesses are real and
can't be overcome; if we did not believe that we would have already overcome
them! We all believe that we are limited by time and space; for instance,
that if a friend moves a thousand miles away we can no longer relate to them
as closely as we have before. So am I then "lost to reality?" Is my
situation hopeless?

No, it isn't hopeless. All we need to do is recognize these beliefs in
ourselves and admit that we do hold them. We need to see that every belief
in our own limits is a belief that God is limited; every belief that I am
imprisoned or trapped in some way is a belief that God is imprisoned and
trapped. Notice what we are doing. Acknowledge we are doing it. And simply
tell God, for instance, "I'm seeing You as limited and blocked, and You are
not limited and blocked. Help me to see that." And that is all.

"Father, I ask for nothing but the truth. I have had many foolish thoughts
about myself and my creation, and have brought a dream of fear into my mind.
Today, I would not dream. I choose the way to You instead of madness and
instead of fear. For truth is safe, and only love is sure" (2:1-4).

That is all. Acknowledge that you have had "foolish thoughts" (not "sinful
thoughts"), and ask for the truth. That's all.

What is the Christ? (Part 8)

W-pII.6.4:2-3

What does the Holy Spirit do with our dreams of sin and guilt when we bring
them to Him, and He translates them into truth? "He will exchange them for
the final dream which God appointed as the end of dreams" (4:2). This is
speaking of what the Course calls "the happy dream," otherwise known as "the
real world" or "true perception." He takes our nightmares from us and
translates them into the happy dream. In the happy dream, we are still
dreaming; we are still here in the world, still operating in the realm of
perception. But what we see is something completely different from the
nightmares of a mind made mad with guilt. "The real world is attained simply
by complete forgiveness of the old, the world you see without forgiveness"
(T-17.II.5:1).

This happy dream is appointed by God to be "the end of dreams." "Forgiveness
is illusion that is answer to the rest" (W-pI.198.2:10). The world ends, the
Course says, through the "illusion of forgiveness:" "The illusion of
forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness, will cover
it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever"
(M-14.1:4). Our dark, guilty thoughts, brought to the Holy Spirit, are met
and dispelled with forgiveness, and replaced with the vision of a world of
total innocence.

The "illusion of forgiveness" will end all dreams because it will end
separation; "For when forgiveness rests upon the world and peace has come to
every Son of God, what could there be to keep things separate, for what
remains to see except the face of Christ?" (4:3). The "face of Christ" does
not mean (of course) that we will see a bearded Semitic man everywhere we
look; the phrase is a symbol of the innocence of God's Son. If forgiveness
rests upon the entire world, and every mind has come to peace, free from
guilt, what is there to see except innocence? The Course has said that the
world is a symbol of guilt. When guilt is gone, its symbol will also vanish.
The dream, made by guilt, will end when its cause has disappeared.

Clearly this is speaking of a final end, "when peace has come to every Son
of God." It is the goal toward which the Holy Spirit is leading us, the
final consummation, when guilt has been removed from every mind. Each of us
plays our part in this, for as long as there is guilt within my mind, the
end of guilt has not occurred. The whole cannot be complete without all its
parts. We do not need to attain to being the Christ; we already are that.
But we do need to learn to remove all the blocks of guilt that are hiding
our true Self from us.

"The state of guiltlessness is only the condition in which what is not there
has been removed from the disordered mind that thought it was. This state,
and only this, must you attain, with God beside you" (T-14.IV.2:2,3).

Once we have removed "what is not there," and have attained the state of
guiltlessness, what we are--the Christ--will be revealed.

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+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
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