[acimlessons_list] Lesson 262 - September 19

[Sue Carrier Roth]

Lesson 262 * September 19

"LET ME PERCEIVE NO DIFFERENCES 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: Throughout the day, when you have a spare moment, pick
someone and silently say to him or her:

<You are not that one form. You are the Mind behind all forms.

Your name is not [name], for you are not separate. Your name is "Father,"
for you are part of Him.

You are not a stranger to your Father. You are His beloved Son.

You are not a stranger to me. You are my ancient friend>.

COMMENTARY

In order to move toward perceiving no differences, I must begin to let go of
identification with the body, both in identifying myself with a body, and in
identifying my brothers and sisters as bodies. The body, says the reading
for the week, is a fence (W-pII.5.1:1). It establishes difference; it fairly
screams, "I am different." Why is it that every body has different
fingerprints, different retinal prints, different DNA patterns? How can it
be that in all the billions of bodies, no fingerprint is ever duplicated?
Our bodies are saying, "I am different. I am unique. I am completely unlike
all of you."

Love sings softly, "We are the same. We are one. We share one life, and that
with God." It is the one Son that we would look upon today (1:1-2). The
"thousand forms" (1:4) are different; the life we share is one. We need not
denigrate the body to do this. The body can become a means to heal the
separation of our minds. We use the body to express our unity. We touch, we
embrace, we care for one another, we assist one another. We <use> the
illusion to transcend the illusion.

In each body that comes before us, we see the one Son. "Let me not see him
as a stranger to his Father, nor as stranger to myself" (1:7). Each one I
see today is part of me, and I of him, and together we are part of God our
Source (1:8). Seeing this is what seeing no differences means. Of course, I
will still see male and female, tall and short, fat and thin, poor and rich,
black and white and brown and yellow and red. But I choose to look beyond
these differences today, and to see the sameness, the one Son in whom we are
the same, not different.

Separation means differences, and differences breed judgment and attack. The
vision of our sameness and our unity brings peace, "and nowhere else can
peace be sought and found" (2:3). We choose not to let our sight stop at the
differences, but to go beyond them to the oneness. We look and we say, "This
is my brother (sister) whom I love, part of me, loved by God and part of God
with me. Together we are the holy Son of God."

What Is the Body?

PART 2: W-PII.5.1:4-5

When we see our safety in the body, we identify with it. We see ourselves as
bodies (1:4). It is this that promotes and supports the ego's ideal of
separation, judgment, and attack. To the ego, this is the purpose of bodies,
although it tells us that the purpose is our own safety. It seems to me that
it is beneficial, then, to recognize the frailty of our bodies, their
temporary and ephemeral nature. The sickness and death of the body, then,
instead of being a fearful thing, can become a gentle reminder that this is
not what we are. Why would we want to identify with such a vulnerable thing?
Recognizing the body's impermanence and the brevity of its existence can
impel us to seek a more permanent identity elsewhere. Becoming aware of the
lunacy of seeking our safety in the body, we can understand that our strong
attachment to the body must come from some hitherto unsuspected motive: the
ego's desire for separateness.

How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love
outside? (1:5)

If we did not have this strong attachment to and identification with the
body, if we realized that what we are transcends the body and dwarfs its
significance, we could not keep love away from us. This is the ego's purpose
in promoting our bodily identity: to keep love out. This is where our
seemingly instinctive need to regard ourselves as bodies comes from. It is a
deception and trap of our egos, and when we see this clearly, we realize
that it is not something we want at all.

The seemingly good reasons for identifying with our bodies, in the Course's
eyes, simply do not hold water. Bodies are unsafe vehicles; there is no
security in them. Behind the seemingly benign reasons our egos set forth
there is a much darker hidden motivation: the ego's blind belief in the
value of separateness and difference. The Course is asking us to acknowledge
this dark motive within ourselves, and to disavow it, turning instead to the
eternal safety of Love Itself, which is our true nature as God's creation.