[acimlessons_list] LESSON 262 - September 19

[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 262 - September 19

"Let me perceive no differences today."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

(See also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

In order to move toward perceiving no differences, we must begin to let go
of identification with the body, both in identifying myself with a body, and
in identifying my brothers and sisters as bodies. The body, says the reading
for the week, is a fence (W-pII.5.1:1). It establishes difference; it fairly
screams, "I am different." Why is it that every body has different
fingerprints, different retinal prints, different DNA patterns? How can it
be that in all the billions of bodies, no fingerprint is ever duplicated?
Our bodies are saying, "I am different. I am unique. I am completely unlike
all of you."

Love sings softly, "We are the same. We are one. We share one life, and that
with God." It is the one Son that we would look upon today (1:1). The
"thousand forms" are different; the life we share is one. We need not
denigrate the body to do this. The body can become a means to heal the
separation of our minds. We use the body to express our unity. We touch, we
embrace, we care for one another, we assist one another. We use the illusion
to transcend the illusion.

In each body that comes before us, we see the one Son. "Let me not see him
as a stranger to his Father, nor a stranger to myself" (1:7). Each one I see
today is part of me, and I of him, and together we are part of God our
Source (1:8). Seeing this is what seeing no differences means. Of course, I
will still see male and female, tall and short, fat and thin, poor and rich,
black and white and brown and yellow and red. But I choose to look beyond
these differences today, and to see the sameness, the one Son in whom we are
the same, not different.

Separation means differences, and differences breed judgment and attack. The
vision of our sameness and our unity brings peace, "and nowhere else can
peace be sought and found" (2:3). We choose not to let our sight stop at the
differences, but to go beyond them to the oneness. We look and we say, "This
is my brother (sister) whom I love, part of me, loved of God and part of God
with me. Together we are the holy Son of God."


What is the Body? (Part 2)


W-pII.5.1:4-5

When we see our safety in the body, we identify with it. We see ourselves as
bodies (1:4). It is this that promotes and supports the ego's ideal of
separation, judgment and attack. To the ego, this is the purpose of bodies,
although it tells us that the purpose is our own safety. It seems to me that
it is beneficial, then, to recognize the frailty of our bodies, their
temporary and ephemeral nature. The sickness and death of the body, then,
instead of being a fearful thing, can become a gentle reminder that this is
not what we are. Why would we want to identify with such a vulnerable thing?
Recognizing the body's impermanence and the brevity of its existence can
impel us to seek a more permanent identity elsewhere. Becoming aware of the
lunacy of seeking our safety in the body, we can understand that our strong
attachment to the body must come from some hitherto unsuspected motive: the
ego's desire for separateness.

"How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love
outside?" (1:5) If we did not have this strong attachment to and
identification with the body, if we realized that what we are transcends the
body and dwarfs its significance, we could not keep love away from us. This
is the ego's purpose in promoting our bodily identity: to keep love out.
This is where our seemingly instinctive need to regard ourselves as bodies
comes from. It is a deception and trap of our egos, and when we see this
clearly, we realize that it is not something we want at all.

The seemingly good reasons for identifying with our bodies, in the Course's
eyes, simply do not hold water. Bodies are unsafe vehicles; there is no
security in them. Behind the seemingly benign reasons our egos set forth
there is a much darker hidden motivation: the ego's blind belief in the
value of separateness and difference. The Course is asking us to acknowledge
this dark motive within ourselves, and to disavow it, turning instead to the
eternal safety of Love Itself, which is our true nature as God's creation.
 
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+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
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