[acimlessons_list] Lesson 226--August 14

Allen Watson allen at circleofa.org
Sat Aug 13 05:55:17 EDT 2005 

Lesson 226 * August 14

"MY HOME AWAITS ME. I WILL HASTEN THERE."

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 comments: In the prayer, notice the image of God as parent
waiting for us to return home. Like a mother at dinnertime, His Voice
is calling us home. Like a parent who hasn't seen us for a long time,
His Arms are open, waiting to embrace us in joyous welcome. As you
pray the prayer, you may want to visualize all this. It is true that
God has no arms and no audible voice, but such earthly symbols can
help carry our minds toward that which cannot be symbolized.

COMMENTARY

<Home>. What an evocative word that is! "I'm going home." Sometimes
just thinking about going home, even in an abstract sense, can cause
deep emotions to rise up in us--happy ones, I hope, although for some
an unhappy home life has tainted the word. Even then, when our "real"
home was unhappy, most of us are still filled with a deep longing for
home <as it ought to be>. Our real home is in God. Our longings for
home find their roots in our longing for this spiritual home in God.

How can I "go home"? There are songs that convey the common idea that
we go home to Heaven when we die: spirituals such as "Goin' Home." But
the Course here is extremely clear. It speaks of departing this world,
and says, "It is not death which makes this possible, but it is a
change of mind about the purpose of the world" (1:2).

As long as we think that the purpose of the world lies within itself,
that somehow happiness, freedom, and contentment are to be found here,
in the world, we will never leave it. Not even when we "die." The
chains that bind us to the world are mental, not physical. Our
valuing of the world is what holds us to it. If I value the world "as
I see it now" (1:3), it will hold on to me even when my body crumbles.
But if I no longer see anything in this world "as I behold it" (1:4)
that I want to keep or search for, I am free.

There is a world of meaning--literally!--in those phrases "as I see
it now" and "as I behold it." In the ego's perception this world is a
place of punishment and imprisonment, and simultaneously a place where
I come to seek for what seems to be "lacking" in myself. As long as I
somehow value that punishment and imprisonment, perhaps not for
myself but almost always for others upon whom I have projected my
guilt, I will be bound to the world, and I will not go home. As long
as I think there is a lack in myself and continue to search for it
outside myself, valuing the world for what I think it can give to me,
I will always be bound to the world, and I will not go home.

"My home <awaits> me." Our home is not under construction. It is
ready and waiting, the red carpet rolled out, everything is ready,
and God's Arms are open and we hear His Voice (2:2). Home is
available right now, if I only choose it. Let me be willing to look
at what keeps me from choosing it, because those are the hindrances
that keep me from finding it. Do I still wistfully long for my prince
to come (or my princess)? Do I still have things I want to do before I
am ready to go? Do I still find secret pleasure when the "wicked" (in
my sight) suffer? If this world could vanish an hour from now, what
would I regret? Would I be ready to leave? If a shimmering curtain
were to appear in the doorway and a Voice proclaim, "Pass this portal
and you will be in Heaven," would I go through? Why not?

This is not a fantasy. The Voice <is> calling us, and Heaven is here
and now. We can pass the portal any time we choose to. If we are not
experiencing Heaven, we <must> be choosing not to do so, and finding
out what holds us back is the work we are assigned to in this
classroom. This is what the world is for--to teach us to let it go.

"What need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of
shattered dreams, when Heaven can so easily be mine?" (2:3).

WHAT IS FORGIVENESS?

PART 6: W-PII.1.3:3-4

We do not realize how much our unforgiving thoughts distort the truth
(3:3). Unforgiving thoughts twist our perception of things which are
not in accord with how unforgiveness wants to see things. They
overlook any evidence for love, and find evidence of guilt. In the
Text section "The Obstacles to Peace," in the subsection on "The
Attraction of Guilt" (T-19.IV(A).i), our unforgiving thoughts are
compared to scavenging messengers "harshly ordered to seek out guilt,
and cherish every scrap of evil and of sin that they can find, losing
none of them on pain of death, and laying them respectfully before
their lord and master" (T-19.IV(A).11:2). That is, we find what we
are looking for, and the ego is looking for guilt.

But distortion is not only the <method> used by the ego; distortion
is also the ego's <purpose>. Thus, the purpose of unforgiveness is to
distort reality. Unforgiveness furiously aims "to smash reality,
without concern for anything that would appear to pose a
contradiction to its point of view" (3:4). Reality is the hated
enemy, the intolerable presence, because our reality is still the Son
of God, never in the slightest separated from Him. Reality exposes the
ego as a lie, and cannot be tolerated. So the way our minds work, when
dominated by unforgiving thoughts, is designed from the beginning to
distort reality beyond all recognition.

In contrast to this, the Course asks us to dream of our brother's
kindnesses instead of his mistakes, and to not brush aside his many
gifts just because he isn't perfect (see T-27.VII.15). It asks us to
look for love instead of looking for guilt, and rather than finding
fault, to try finding love instead. To begin with, we can simply
start to question the way we see things, in awareness that our
thought processes and our methods of making judgment have been
severely impaired and simply are not reliable. It isn't that we
<should not> judge, it's that we <cannot> judge (see M-10.2:1). We
are operating at diminished capacity; we need a healthy mind to judge
on our behalf. And that mind is the Holy Spirit.


    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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Purpose, Process and Practice, (c) 1976, The Song of Prayer, (c) 1978, are
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