[acimlessons_list] Lesson 18 - January 18

[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 18 - January 18 

"I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

Purpose: To continue to teach you that your thoughts are not without effect.
The preceding lessons have emphasized that they always affect your mind.
This lesson emphasizes that they always affect all minds.

Exercise: 3 of 4 times, for 1 minute or so (perhaps less)
	*	Look around you, randomly selecting subjects and resting
your glance on each one long enough to say, "I am not alone in experiencing
the effects of how I see______."
	*	Conclude by repeating the idea.

COMMENTARY

The concept that "minds are joined" is easy to grasp, but literally
far-reaching in its implications. How I see things affects other minds, not
just my own. The Course teaches us not simply that mind-to-mind
communication is possible; it says that minds <are> in communication,
constantly, whether or not we know it:

"The minds <are> joined, but you do not identify with them. You see yourself
locked in a separate prison, removed and unreachable, incapable of reaching
out as being reached" (T-18.VI.7:4-5).

"The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication that is an
eternal property of mind. But the communication is internal. Mind reaches to
itself. It is <not> made up of different parts, which reach each other"
(T-18.VI.8:3-6).

So communication is "an eternal property of mind." It is always going on. We
only have the illusion of separate minds because any separation is an
illusion. Therefore, what "I" think <does> affect, not only you, but every
single living thing.

The miracles that the Course can bring into our lives will prove this to us
time and time again. A shift in the way <I> see things can bring about
miraculous effects in people around me. This is why, in giving healing to
another, it is <not> necessary that the other person be in her or his right
mind, only that <I> be there, however briefly (see T-2.V.3:3-5). The shift
in my mind has direct effect on the <seemingly> separate minds of those
around me.

"A miracle is never lost. It may touch many people you have not even met,
and produce undreamed of changes in situations of which you are not even
aware" (T-1.I.45, Miracle Principle 45).

The fact that how I see things affects more than just myself makes the
thoughts that give rise to my seeing even more important. How I think and
perceive things affects, quite literally, the entire world. By opening my
mind to love I can be a conduit of love for the world. 
 
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+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
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