[acimlessons_list] LESSON 295 - October 22

Thu Oct 21 06:35:41 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 295 - October 22

"The Holy Spirit looks through me today."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

(See also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

My eyes are Christ's. "Christ asks that He may use my eyes today" (1:1). And
in the prayer at the end, Christ's eyes are mine. "Help me to use the eyes
of Christ today" (2:2). Two ways of saying the same thing: that Christ look
through my eyes, or that I see through His, is to ask that His vision, His
eyes, replace my own limited vision.

Christ asks for my eyes in order to "offer peace of mind to me, and take
away all terror and all pain" (1:2). He is not asking me for sacrifice, but
asking so that He can give a gift to me. He offers to take my perception
from me because my perception shows me terror and pain; He offers to replace
it with His own vision, showing me peace, joy and love.

As we give our lives to God we begin to experience that rather than living
we are being "lived." The Holy Spirit is looking through our eyes. He is
speaking through our lips. He is thinking with our minds. It is an
experience of being taken up and carried through life by a limitless energy
of Love that is far greater than we can contain because it includes
everything.

Sometimes I seem so far from that, and yet I know that it is as near to me
as breathing. Nearer. This morning I ask, Father, for grace to surrender to
that flow of Love, to surrender to the Holy Spirit, now, in this moment, and
over and over through the day, that I may share His vision of the world.

In a way this lesson is the entire Course: to let the Holy Spirit look
through me, to bathe the world with eyes of love. To walk through the day
with no purpose in its outward things, yet to live with a hidden agenda, a
secret mission: I will be love in this situation. That is all it is about,
and nothing else matters, nothing else is real. I am the light of the world.
I am here to "allow the Holy Spirit's Love to bless all things which I may
look upon, that His forgiving Love may rest on me" (2:2). That is what my
life is about, that is all it is about. I am here only to be what I am, to
be my Self, which is Love.

What is the Real World? (Part 5)

W-pII.8.3:1-3

"What need has such a mind for thoughts of death, attack and murder?" (3:1)

"...such a mind..." as what? "A mind at peace" (2:2). A "mind that has
forgiven itself" (2:6). "A mind at peace within itself" (3:4). Can I imagine
what it would be like for my mind to be at peace within itself? Can I
imagine what it would feel like to have completely forgiven myself, to have
no lingering regrets over the past, no fear of future, no hidden guilt, and
not one shred of a sense of failure? To be at peace, and to have totally
forgiven myself, are the same thing. They must be. How could I be at peace
if I have not forgiven myself for something? How can I forgive myself for
something if I am not at peace about it?

Let me look at myself and be willing to face the self-condemnation that is
hidden in the dark closets of my mind. I know it is there. It is the source
of the constant vague uneasiness that haunts me, the tendancy to look over
my shoulder, the seemingly slight anxiety that comes with an unexpected
letter or telephone call. Something in me is expecting to be "found out."
But this self-judgment is the source of more than just my personal feelings
of uneasiness. It is also the source of all of my thoughts of "death, attack
and murder" (3:1). My fear of death comes from my buried guilt. My
instinctive attacks on those around me are a defense mechanism I have
developed to fend off expected judgment for my "sins." My desires to take
life from others for myself (in the extreme, murder) come from the sense
that something is lacking in myself.

And all of these contribute to my perception of the world; they are the
reason why I see "sights of fear and sounds of battle" everywhere. If my
mind were at peace, if I had forgiven myself, I would see the world
differently. I would see without these filters that distort my vision. I
would see the real world. All "such a mind" would see is "safety, love and
joy" (3:2).

Without guilt in my mind, "What is there it would choose to be condemned,
and what is there that it would judge against?" (3:3). Guilt in my mind has
driven me insane, and the insane world I see is the result of that guilt.
That is why the Holy Spirit "knows that all salvation is escape from guilt"
(T-14.III.13:4). If my mind had no guilt, it would see no guilt in the
world, because all the guilt I see is nothing but the projection of my own.
When I see someone as guilty today, when I would judge, let me remind
myself: "You never hate your brother for his sins, but only for your own"
(T-31.III.1:5). The problem I am seeing is not out there, in the world, but
within my own mind. Let me then turn to the Holy Spirit and ask His help in
removing guilt from my mind, that it may no longer block my perception of
the real world. Let my goal, today and every day, be to have "a mind at
peace within itself." From such a mind, free of guilt, the sight of the real
world will arise quite naturally, with no effort at all, for I will be
seeing clearly for the first time. 

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+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
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