[acimlessons_list] Lesson 245 - September 2

[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 245 - September 2

"Your peace is with me, Father. I am safe."

PRACTICE SUMMARY 

(See Part II Practice Summary, and also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

God's peace is <always> with me, and I am always safe. It isn't a sometime
thing. God's peace is with me <now> and always. Unrest is always something I
am superimposing on the underlying peace, which never leaves me. Unrest is a
false perception; peace is reality. If I am willing to stop, to say, "Peace!
Be still!" to the storm in my mind, God's peace is always there, waiting to
be discovered.

I am surrounded by God's peace (1:1). It goes with me wherever I go (1:2). I
bring it with me, and I can "shed its light on everyone I meet" (1:3). I can
be, as St. Francis prayed, an instrument of His peace, bringing it "to the
desolate and lonely and afraid" (1:4). Oh, I want that to be what I am
today! I want to be willing to pray, "Send them to me, my Father" (1:6). Let
me hear the lesson of the Holy Spirit (T-6.V(B)), "To have peace, teach
peace to learn it." As I bring peace to those "bereft of hope and happiness"
I will find it in myself (2:2-3). I will recognize my Self. I will hear the
Voice for God. I will recognize Your Love.

Today, if I do not feel Your peace within me, let me bring it to someone
else who needs it. In so doing, I will recognize its presence in myself.

WHAT IS THE WORLD? (Part 5)

"The mechanisms of illusion have been born instead" (3:1), instead of
certainty (2:7). The mechanisms of illusion include not only our eyes and
ears, our physical perceptive organs, but also the mechanisms of the mind
that interpret and adjust what is perceived to fit the patterns being looked
for. We see what we expect to see, what we want to see. I was discussing,
just last night, the very strange "blind spot" in our eyes. All of us have
it. There is a place on the retina (I believe where some nerve or muscle
attaches to it) that does not pick up the light shining through the lens.
The very strange thing is this: the mind "fills in" the blind spot with what
"ought" to be there. None of us see a blank spot at the side of our vision,
but it is there; the mind simply makes up what it thinks should be there!
This is a "mechanism of illusion" indeed! And our mind "makes up" what
"ought" to be there far more often then we realize.

The whole process of perception is a process of illusion. Our mind sends out
its information gatherers "to find what has been given them to seek" (3:2).
The mind tells them, "Find evidence of guilt," and Lo! They find it. "Find
evidence of attack." They bring it back. "Find evidence of separation." They
produce it. The ego sees only what it wants to see. And the ego's purpose in
perception is to witness and make real the absence of love, to demonstrate
that God is not here, and that we <are> here, apart from Him.
 
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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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