[acimlessons_list] LESSON 282 - OCTOBER 9

[Sue Carrier Roth]

LESSON 282 * OCTOBER 9

"I will not be afraid of love today."

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 suggestion: Lesson 282 says, in essence, that our true Name is
love, as is God's. We have given ourselves the name of fear, but this is
simply a mistake-we have not become fear. We are still love.

           First, sign your name as you usually do, on the line below 
           (or grab an extra piece of paper for this), and date it:
           Signed, _____________________________
           (Dated: _____________)

Look at your signature, and try to get in touch with your sense of whose
name that is. What concept of that person are you holding as you sign the
signature? Is it not a separate person? A person with a particular history?
And a special station or place in the world? With special attributes? 

Isn't this self trying to make its way through a perilous world? Isn't that
why you sign your name to things? To protect yourself from something? Or to
procure some needed thing for this endangered self? If, for instance, you
sign a legal document, are you not often afraid of what it may bring into
your life, even while you are hoping it will protect you in other ways? In
short, isn't the identity signified by your name filled with fear? What else
would a separate self trying to make its way through a perilous world be
filled with?

           Therefore, sign your name again, and this time sign it simply as
"Fear."
           Signed, _____________________________
           (Dated: _____________)

Once you sign it, try to see this signature and the first one as the same.
Look back and forth between the first and second signatures and try to let
them blend into one. Try to realize that when you sign your name in everyday
life, you are signing "Fear." You are saying, "This self who is separate,
vulnerable, and beset by the dangers of a perilous world." Regardless of the
specific words you write, the content of what you are writing is fear.

           Now sign your name one more time. This time sign it as "Love."
           Signed, ____________________________
           (Dated: ______________)

As you sign it, try to really mean it. Don't think of it as a given name
like "Joy," which doesn't mean much. Think of it as a statement that you
really are love. Love is your nature. You are not a being who can love, who
can love at times and hate at other times, whose love is partial, selective,
and intermittent. You are love. Love is your nature. You are a segment of
Love Itself. In your true nature, you are incapable of any anger, any
hatred, even any neutrality. Being love, all you can do is love. 

Realize that this is not an aspiration of what you want to be. This is who
you are now, beneath all appearances. You are love, a segment of God's Love,
merely dreaming that you are a separate being filled with fear. You are love
masquerading as something else.

Look at this final signature and try to identify with it. Think to yourself,
"That's me. That's who I am." Does that make you see yourself differently?
What feelings does it evoke?

COMMENTARY

Here is another of the dozens of statements which the Course says, if
accepted without reservation, can constitute the entirety of salvation. "If
I could realize but this today, salvation would be reached for all the
world" (1:1). A few of the others that fall into this category are "I am as
God created me" (W-pI.94.1), "Ideas leave not their source"
(W-pI.167.3:6-11), "There is no world" (W-pI.132.6:2-3), "Nothing real can
be threatened. Nothing unreal exists" (T-In.2:2-3), and "Forgive the world,
and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end,
and nothing He did not create is real" (M-20.5:7-10).

How often do I realize that I am afraid of love? We are afraid of love far
more frequently than we realize. Ken Wapnick has used a variation of this
thought as a suggested mental response whenever we notice our egos acting
up: "I must be afraid of love again." There is a sense in which we could say
that the ego is the fear of love. It is a mental stance that rejects Love as
our Source, that rejects Love as our Self, and that refuses to recognize
Love in everyone and everything around us. When we look at it in this way,
it begins to be more understandable that if we could simply realize this one
thing-not to be afraid of love-the salvation of the world would be
accomplished.

Fear of love is insane on the face of it. Of all the things we might be
reasonably afraid of, love is not one of them. A famous old-time Christian
evangelist, Charles Grandison Finney (famous in the 1800s), once wrote that
"Love is the eternal will to all goodness." To be afraid of that which
eternally wills only our good is truly insane. So to accept today's idea is
"the decision not to be insane" (1:2).

Fear of love is a fear of our own Self, which is Love. Therefore, to realize
today's idea is "to accept myself as God Himself, my Father and my Source,
created me" (1:2). We are indeed afraid to recognize ourselves as Love; it
seems a very dangerous thing to do, to our egos.

Fear of love is to fall asleep and dream of death, because in rejecting love
we are rejecting that which guards us, protects us, and brings us joy. In
fearing love we are imagining ourselves to be something other than loving,
or in other words, evil and sinful. In such a picture of ourselves we
imagine we deserve death. To forget what we are and to believe we are
something else, the mind must fall asleep. Therefore, to realize today's
idea is a determination not to be asleep in dreams of death (1:3).

To will not to be afraid of love is a choice to recognize my Self because my
Self is Love.

No matter what names we may have called ourselves in our madness, names
cannot change what we are in truth (2:1-3). To choose not to fear love is to
remember this. What we have done in calling ourselves unloving is not a sin:


           The name of fear is simply a mistake. 
           Let me not be afraid of truth today.	(2:4-5)

WHAT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT?

Part 2: W-pII.7.1:3-5

The Holy Spirit is the Mediator or bridge between illusion and truth, dreams
and reality, perception and knowledge. He becomes the means by which we can
carry all of our dreams to the truth "to be dispelled before the light of
knowledge" (1:3). His purpose within our minds is to effect this
transformation of our mistaken perception into true perception. Our only
task is to bring Him everything we do not want, so that He can dispel it.
The Course refers to its curriculum as an organized, well-structured and
carefully planned program aimed at learning how to offer the Holy Spirit
everything you do not want. He knows what to do with it. You do not
understand how to use what He knows. Whatever is given Him that is not of
God is gone.	(T-12:II.10:1-4)

Across the bridge, in the light of knowledge, "sights and sounds" are
"forever laid aside" (1:4). "Sights and sounds" represent the whole realm of
perception. We bring our perceptions to the Holy Spirit to be "cleansed and
purified, and finally removed forever" (T-18.IX.14:2). The Holy Spirit's
purpose is to perform this task; He is the Mediator between perception and
knowledge (see W-pI.43.1:3):

           Without this link with God, perception would have
           replaced knowledge forever in your mind. With this 
           link with God, perception will become so changed 
           and purified that it will lead to knowledge.	(W-pI.43.1:4-5)

This transformation of perception is identical to forgiveness; it is
forgiveness that "has made possible perception's tranquil end" (1:5).
"Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one" (C 4.3:6).
Perception as managed by the ego always sees sin, and manifests in judgment
and attack. Perception as managed by the Holy Spirit always sees the face of
Christ, and manifests in love and joining. The ego's perception sees
differences; the Holy Spirit's perception sees sameness and identity. 

          This is the shift that true perception brings: 
        What was projected out is seen within, and
        there forgiveness lets it disappear.	(C-4.6:1)

The Holy Spirit is, therefore, central to the process of forgiveness. He is
the means by which the transformation of perception from false to true is
possible, and without Him, we would forever be lost in our dream of
judgment. With Him, we can learn to forgive.