[acimlessons_list] Lesson 225--August 13

Fri Aug 12 05:55:11 EDT 2005

Lesson 225 * August 13

"GOD IS MY FATHER, AND HIS SON LOVES HIM."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS

See complete instructions in separate document. A short summary:

* READ the commentary paragraph slowly and personally.

* PRAY the prayer, perhaps several times.

* MORNING AND EVENING: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open
Mind Meditation.

* HOURLY REMEMBRANCE: Repeat the idea and then spend a quiet moment
in meditation.

* FREQUENT REMINDERS: Repeat the idea often within each hour.

* RESPONSE TO TEMPTATION: Repeat the idea whenever upset, to restore
peace.

* READ THE "WHAT IS" SECTION slowly and thoughtfully once during the
day.

Practice suggestions: Here are some suggestions for praying this
lesson's lovely prayer:

*< blazing in my mind:> Just imagine God's Love for you blazing in
your mind.

*< and keeping it [my mind] within its [God's Love's] kindly light:>
Imagine your mind kept, held, embraced within the kindly light of
God's Love.

*< inviolate:> Held in this kindly light, your mind would be totally
<inviolate>--free from violation, injury, and desecration, its
sanctity untouched.

*< beloved:> Is there a better feeling in the world than to feel
truly, totally beloved?

*< with fear behind:> Imagine feeling so loved that you felt like
literally all fear was behind you.

*< and only peace ahead:> Imagine feeling so loved that all you could
see ahead of you was <peace>.

* <How still the way Your loving Son is led along to You!> This final
sentence speaks of how we will journey home when we love God (when we
are His "loving Son") and so receive His Love for us. We will be led
home in stillness, with all fear behind us and only peace ahead. Try
to imagine this--journeying through life with your heart full of love
for God and your mind shining with His Love for you, walking toward
Him in pure stillness and peace. This is the end result of loving
God--a life at peace because it is infused with the "full awareness"
of His Love for you.

COMMENTARY

Love is reciprocal. We receive God's Love for us by returning it to
Him; there is no other way to receive it, for "giving and receiving
are the same" (1:1). This <exact> phrase occurs six times in the
Course, and there are many others very much like it. We may think we
understand what it means, but the Course assures us that no concept
it teaches is more difficult for us to truly learn.

The way to know God's Love blazing in our minds is to return It to
Him. If in our times of quiet yesterday we focused on feeling His
Love of us, let us today focus on our awareness of our love for Him.
Donna Cary has a beautiful song I was listening to on tape just a day
or two ago, which says, "I'll be forever in love with You." I wish I
could send you all this song; it expresses so beautifully what I feel
this lesson is saying. "I'll dance in the light of Your Love, forever
in love with You."

What would it be like to have the Love of God "mine in full
awareness, blazing in my mind and keeping it within its kindly light"
(1:2)? Is this not what, in our heart of hearts, we all want? Let us
cultivate this sense of love in our hearts today. Let simply this be
our focus. Nothing complex, nothing even conceptual, just letting our
hearts sing with love for God, basking in His Love for us. As the Song
of Solomon in the Old Testament put it, "I am my Beloved's, and He is
mine" (Song 6:3). To know God as the Beloved is one of the highest of
spiritual expressions.

Have you ever sat in stillness with one you deeply love, simply
gazing into his or her eyes, without words? That stillness of love is
what this lesson is leading us to, a silent communion of love given
and received, acknowledged and returned, flowing in an endless
current that energizes and transforms our minds and hearts.

WHAT IS FORGIVENESS?

PART 5: W-PII.1.3:1-2

In contrast to the stillness today's lesson speaks of, an unforgiving
thought is frantically active. It has to be. It must be frantic
because it flies in the face of truth, and attempts to make real an
illusion. Frenetic activity is often the sign of unrecognized
unforgiveness. Things that seem to oppose what we want to be the
truth keep popping up, like gophers in the silly kids' game of "bang
the gopher," and we have to keep bashing them down to maintain our
version of reality.

Stilling our mind and becoming quiet, in and of itself, is often
enough to begin dissolving our unforgiveness. Unforgiveness cannot
exist in quiet. You cannot be peaceful and unforgiving at the same
time. "Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still"
(W-pII.221.Heading). One thing that can foster this peace and
stillness is focusing on the very exchange of love that is the center
of today's lesson. The power of our affection for God, and His for us,
can quell the stormy thoughts and bring, even if only briefly, a
moment of quiet peace, in which unforgiveness simply dissipates.

    COMMENTARIES ON LESSONS FROM THE WORKBOOK OF A COURSE IN MIRACLES
    by Allen Watson, with Practice Summaries by Robert Perry
    The Circle of Atonement--Visit our website at <http://www.circleofa.com>

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Portions from Clarification of Terms (c) Copyright 1975, Psychotherapy:
Purpose, Process and Practice, (c) 1976, The Song of Prayer, (c) 1978, are
used by permission of the copyright holder, The Foundation for "A Course in
Miracles," 41397 Buecking Drive, Temecula, CA 92590.

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