[acimlessons_list] LESSON 275 - OCTOBER 2

[Sue Carrier Roth]

LESSON 275 - OCTOBER 2

God's healing Voice protects all things today.

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.

Commentary

Jesus tells us in this lesson that we need to join him in hearing the Voice
for God (1:3). <For the Voice for God tells us of things we cannot
understand alone, nor learn apart> (1:4). Notice that the joining Jesus
urges on us here is not primarily with one another, with other people,
although that is certainly implied; it is joining with him that is called
for.
If the problem is a belief in the reality of separation, that problem cannot
be healed alone and apart. Being alone and apart is the problem! Any
healing, any salvation, any enlightenment that the Voice for God brings to
us will be something that is shared.
I can join with Jesus in hearing the Voice for God; that is something I can
do now, in the privacy of my home, with no other people around. What I
hear-which is always some form of the message <God's Son is innocent>-is
something that applies to Jesus as well as to me, and to me as well as to
Jesus. I share it with him. Peace, safety, and protection come in letting go
of any mental defenses I have against Jesus and allowing his presence to be
with me. I own and acknowledge that Jesus and I share a common goal and
common interests. I see that he has no attack in his heart toward me, and I
have none toward him. <It is in this [joining] that all things are
protected> (1:5).

As I move out into the world, to meet with other people, I can extend what I
have found in Jesus' presence to everyone I meet. What he and I have heard
together is shared, not only between the two of us, but also with the Son of
God in everyone. I hear the Father's healing Voice, and it protects all
things, so that <I need be anxious over nothing> (2:2). All beings share
this common interest and common goal. We are all in the world for this one
purpose. Any perception of competition or attack on my part, or on the part
of another, is merely a mistake in perception, and is not anything to be
afraid of.
<The safety that I bring is given me> (2:4). I bring safety from my
companionship with Jesus to the world, and as I give it, it is given to me.
<Everyone I meet is safe with me today,> I can say. <And I am safe with
everyone I meet.> Each encounter is holy because I am holy. When the purpose
of the day is thus set as it begins, I can be sure of full direction. We
will be given very specific directions for our activity here within this
world, even if the world is only an illusion: <For Your Voice will tell me
what to do and where to go; to whom to speak and what to say to him, what
thoughts to think, what words to give the world> (2:3).

It is a healing Voice I hear, a healing that consists in sharing, in
joining, in having no separate interests. The joining is the healing. <The
healing of God's Son is what the world is for> (T-24.VI.4:1), and the
healing of God's Son in myself and everyone I meet is what this day is for.
Nothing else. Let today be a day when I especially listen for the Voice. Let
me <seek and hear and learn and understand> (1:2).

Alan Watts wrote a book called The Wisdom of Insecurity.1 As I remember, it
speaks about how seeking security is unwise because security for the ego and
the body simply is not possible. If you are constantly seeking security you
will drive yourself nuts. It is much better and wiser to accept the fact of
insecurity and to simply go with the flow of the universe.

When this lesson speaks of how listening to the Voice protects all things,
it is really saying the same thing. We recognize that we don't know the
answers, we can't figure everything out. We don't know <what to do and where
to go; to whom to speak and what to say to him, what thoughts to think, what
words to give the world,> but He does. Instead of constantly trying to
acquire the answers for ourselves, we stay in relationship with the Answer
Himself, the One who does know. Instead of having millions of our own in the
bank, we trust that what we need will be given as we need it, and don't
worry about it. 

We leave the running of the universe in God's Hands.

Our safety and protection is not something that resides in us, alone and
apart. It comes only from listening to the Voice moment to moment. We don't
know the road to heaven, but we walk with One who does.
WHAT IS THE CHRIST?

Part 5: W-pII.6.3:1-3

Christ, our Self, is <Home of the Holy Spirit> (3:1). The Course often
refers to the Holy Spirit as <the Voice for God>; this Voice emanates from
our Self, the Christ. This is His Home, where the Holy Spirit <resides,> so
to speak. When we sense an inner prodding in a certain direction, or, as was
the case with Helen Schucman (who wrote down the Course), we seem to hear
actual words spoken within our minds, it is the presence within us of this
<part> of our mind that makes this possible. Christ is <the link that keeps
you one with God> (2:1). If the Christ did not exist within us, we would not
be hearing these messages, because the link with God would be nonexistent.
(To go a bit further, if there were no link with God we would not exist at
all!) Therefore, the fact that we do sense these inner messages moving us in
the direction of God and of love proves that a link to God must still exist
within us. That, in turn, validates what the Course is saying: we are not
separated from God.

Secondly, Christ is <at home in God alone> (3:1). Again this is borne out in
our experience. The feeling of not being at home in this world is almost
universally acknowledged; at one time or another, it seems that everyone has
felt this way, some more strongly than others, perhaps, though we have all
felt this to some degree. Where does that feeling come from? Is it not
possible that we are not at home in this world? Given the widespread nature
of this experience, is it not likely that there is some part of us, at
least, which actually is not at home here at all, but only in God? The
Course advises us to listen to this inner voice that seems to be calling us
to come home to a home we cannot clearly remember, but which, somehow, we
know to be real (see especially <The Forgotten Song> in the Text [T-21.I],
or <I will be still an instant and go home> [Lesson 182]).

Christ remains <at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind> (3:1), as we
have already discussed in the last day or two. Whatever may be happening
externally, the Christ part of our minds stays eternally peaceful.

This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams.
(3:2-3)

This is really a key statement. For most of us, this eternally peaceful part
of our minds seems very distant and hidden, something which, perhaps, we
connect with in times of deep meditation. The <real> part of our
consciousness seems to be the agitated and confused part. The Christ within
we may acknowledge to be real, but it seems to be only a small part of what
we are. In reality, this lesson says, that deeply tranquil and holy <part>
is the only real thing about what we think we are; the rest is only dreams.
I think this is often the source of fear for many of us. The idea that most
of what we think of as ourselves is not real at all, but only a dream, is
rather terrifying. We have so identified with these aspects of ourselves,
and have become so convinced of their reality, that the idea that they might
dissolve and disappear if we really got in touch with the Christ within
ourselves is frightening. It seems like some kind of death, or personal
annihilation, as if the bulk of our person were simply going to be erased in
some kind of cosmic lobotomy. The Text speaks often, and strongly, about our
fear of finding our Self (see, for instance, T-13.II-III). One such
statement is:

You have built your whole insane belief system because you think you would
be helpless in God's Presence, and you would save yourself from His Love
because you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid it
would sweep you away from yourself and make you little, because you believe
that magnitude lies in defiance, and that attack is grandeur.
(T-13.III.4:1-2)

Consider this from the other side of the question for a moment. What if the
bulk of what we believe ourselves to be is only a dream? What would we lose
if we lost it? Nothing. Nothing but dreams of pain and suffering, nothing
but our profound sense of loneliness.
Enlightenment does not destroy individual personality. It does not destroy
anything at all; it only removes dreams and illusions. It takes away what is
not and never has been true in the first place. The Christ is the only
<part> of ourselves that has any reality at all, and the only loss we will
ever experience is the loss of things that have never been.