[acimlessons_list] Lesson 274 - October 1

Thu Sep 30 06:34:47 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 274 - October 1

"Today belongs to Love. Let me not fear."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

(See also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

"Give this day to Him, and there will be no fear today, because the day is
given unto Love" (2:2). Fear is what happens when we shut off our awareness
to Love. It is nothing but the illusory absence of love--"illusory" because
Love is never absent. Nothing but Love exists. Like the physical sun, Love
is always shining. We say sometimes that "The sun isn't out today." In fact,
of course, the sun is out, but there is interference, clouds, something in
between which is blocking our awareness of the sun. We then experience
darkness, which is no more than the absence of light. Darkness is nothing in
itself. When the interference is removed, light is there, just as it always
was.

So too, when we remove the interference to our awareness of Love, Love is
there and fear is gone. If we give this day to Love, there will be no fear.

It is easy to see how we can understand any form of fear as no more than a
call for Love. "Fear is a symptom of your own deep sense of loss,"
(T-12.I.9:1). Fear is how we feel when Love appears to be absent; therefore,
it is simply an automatic cry for Love's presence. It is a call for Love,
and nothing more. Fear can take many forms--anger, worry, sadness, jealousy,
sickness, or an addictive desire for a thing or for a person--but all of
these are just forms of fear. When I am aware of them in myself, let me
bring them to the Holy Spirit so that He can reinterpret them.
(T-12.I.8:8-9). So that I can understand that all forms of fear are nothing
but an unconscious call for love (T-12.I.8:13), and therefore they are
nothing to be guilty about.

When I was a child I believed that sickness was caused by germs. I had a
pretty clear understanding that some kind of invader bugs got into my body
and messed things up; I could understand that (even if metaphysically it is
not a true picture, not even wholly true scientifically; it was what I
believed to be the truth). That was what real sickness was for me.

One day I was riding in the back seat of the car on a long drive, reading a
comic book. I started to feel sick. I guess I had never experienced motion
sickness before, so I must have been quite young. I thought I was "getting
sick," and told my parents to stop the car because I was going to be sick. I
went into a service station rest room. As I walked in I felt less sick. I
used the toilet, and after a few minutes, I felt fine. I was utterly
baffled; what had happened to the sickness?

When I returned to the car and told my parents, they said, "Oh! You must
have been feeling car sick." They explained to me that sometimes motion can
make you feel sick, but that it isn't the same as having the flu. I remember
clearly saying something like, "You mean I'm not really sick? I just feel
sick?" They more or less agreed with my interpretation. They told me it had
to do with the mind being confused because my eyes were looking at something
motionless while the rest of my body felt motion. In effect, they told me
the sickness was caused by false perception in my mind!

In my young mind, something clicked. I wanted to read that comic book! Even
though my parents advised against it, I went back to reading it. I started
to feel sick again. But I now knew the truth that I wasn't really sick! This
was a false sickness. There was no real reason (i.e. germs) to be sick. My
mind was doing it to me, so my mind could undo it. So, despite the nausea
and pain in my stomach, I went on reading. "I'm not really sick," I told
myself. And the nausea went away, and I was never motion sick again in my
life, except one time on an ocean liner in a very heavy storm, after all
eleven hundred people on the ship had thrown up except for me and another
dozen or so--I guess the 'evidence' was just too overwhelming.

Just as that day I convinced myself that my sickness was not real--a very
clear lesson in my life of the power of the mind--the Holy Spirit wants to
convince us that our fears are not real. As I realized that day that nothing
was truly wrong with my body, He wants us to know that when we are feeling
fear, nothing is really wrong with our minds. Despite what we perceive in
the world, the Holy Spirit wants us to know that the fear is being
manufactured by our own minds; it is not real, because Love is never absent
and therefore there is no real reason for fear. You may feel fear in one of
its many forms--He never asks us to deny that, instead He asks us to look at
it and recognize it very clearly--but He does ask us to realize that what we
are feeling is false. It has no cause. It is just something manufactured by
a mind that has blinded itself to the truth. We don't even need to cure our
fear, because the sickness isn't real!

We will either love our brothers or fear them; those are the only two
emotions in this world, according to the Course (T-12.I.9:5). To give the
day to Love means, then, that we will not react with fear to our brothers.
We will "let all things be as You created them" (1:1) and therefore we will
honor our brothers in their sinlessness. We will give each of them, as the
Son of God, "the love of brother to his brother and his Friend" (1:1).

The path of the Course lies here, in learning to let go of our fears and to
respond to one another with love instead, honoring what we all are in truth,
instead of fearing what our brothers or sisters appear to be. This is how we
are redeemed (1:2); this is how light replaces all the darkness in the world
(1:3).

"Today belongs to Love. Let me not fear."

What is the Christ? (Part 4)

W-pII.6.2:4,5

The Christ is the part of our minds in which God's Answer lies (2:3). This
part of our mind "remains untouched by anything the body's eyes perceive"
(2:4). Our mind, as we are aware of it, is more than merely touched by what
our eyes perceive; it is dominated by it, controlled by it, and tossed about
like a leaf in the wind (as advertisers well know!). But there is something
in us, somewhere in us, according to this statement, that is untouched and
unmoved by our physical perceptions. It remains perfectly calm no matter
what seems to be happening around us. It remains perfectly loving, no matter
what assault is made upon our love. This is the Christ, our true Self.

It is this part of ourselves we are practicing to become aware of. This is
the quiet center of our being that we are seeking to connect with in the
holy instants we spend, quietly listening. This is the Voice that we attempt
to hear, a Voice of majestic stillness and complete tranquillity. The Christ
is not some alien being, something apart from us that we must learn,
somehow, to emulate. He is our Self. He is like the eye of the hurricane.
When our minds are agitated and seemingly out of control, we can, if we are
willing to leave the objects of our turmoil behind, enter that eye of the
storm and find the peace within ourselves that is always, always there. The
moment we do, the change is so startling it is unmistakeable. The howling of
the wind ceases. The blast of the elements suddenly stops. There is nothing
but peace. In this still center of our being, all of the events of our lives
that have driven us to and fro, helpless in their grip, have absolutely no
effect whatsoever. And in that moment we know, "This is Who I am."

Because of our confusion of mind, because we have made a seeming problem
where there is none, the Father has placed in Christ the "means for your
salvation" (2:5), the Answer to our illusions. And yet this Christ remains
untouched by the "problems" themselves, pristinely pure; he "knows no sin"
(2:5). The Answer to sin is incorporated within him, and yet in him the
problem being Answered does not even exist. Christ's perfection has not been
sullied by our madness. He is still as perfect as the day he was created.
And he is me . "I am the holy Son of God Himself" (Lesson 191). Here, in the
stillness of Christ's being, I know that all my "sins" are nothing, and
without effect of any kind. Here I am more than guiltless; I am holy. All
things are holy. And nothing unreal exists.

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+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
+ Available in book format from The Circle
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