[acimlessons_list] Lesson 338 - December 4

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 338 - DECEMBER 4

"I am affected only by my thoughts."

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.

COMMENTARY

This is a key Course concept, repeated many times in different words:

	I <am> responsible for what I see. I choose the feelings I
	experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve.
	 (T-21.II.2:3-4)

	I am never upset for the reason I think.
   	 (W-pI.5.Heading)

	It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events
	outside of him. It is impossible that happenings that come
	to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the
	determiner of every situation in which he seems to find 
	himself by chance or accident.	(T-21.II.3:1-3)

	Nothing beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving,
	because nothing <is> beyond you.	(T-10.In.1:1)

	It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external
	to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause
	beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one
	but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world that has
	the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you
	who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely
recognizing
	what you are.	(W-190.5:1-6)

The Course says that accepting this is foundational to our release from our
suffering. As long as we think something outside of us is affecting us and
causing our pain, we will not look within for the thoughts that are truly at
the root of the pain. We will believe ourselves to be innocent victims of
forces beyond our control. There are no forces beyond our control; that is
the whole point.

	It needs but this to let salvation come to all the world.
	For in this single thought is everyone released at last from fear.
	 (1:1-2)

The realization that there is nothing outside me threatening me in any way
is sure to release us from fear. At first it may seem to induce
guilt-because if no one else is doing it to me, I must be doing it, and that
seems to be a horrendously difficult admission to make. In fact, however,
the realization that I am affected only by my own thoughts brings an
expansive freedom from fear.

	Now has he learned that no one frightens him, and nothing
	can endanger him. He has no enemies, and he is safe from
	all external things.	(1:3-4)

Let me remind myself of this today. Nothing can endanger me. I have no
enemies, and nothing external can threaten me. I do not need to live in
anxiety and defensiveness; I am safe.

Yet what about the fact that my own thoughts can hurt me? Isn't that
something to be afraid of? It seems especially frightening that I can be
affected by thoughts I have but of which I am not conscious. The eerie
message of psychology that I am driven by subconscious motives that never
surface in my conscious mind has always been frightening, and the Course is
very much in line with those psychological theories. It is constantly
telling us that we do believe certain things we are not aware of believing,
and that we are driven by a subterranean guilt about separation so deeply
buried that we perhaps will never, in this world, become aware of it. How
can we be free from fear when these hidden enemies lurk beneath the surface
of our minds, ready to explode like land mines when we unsuspectingly step
on them?

	His thoughts can frighten him, but since these thoughts
	belong to him alone, he has the power to change them and
	exchange each fear thought for a happy thought of love. 
	He crucified himself. Yet God has planned that His beloved
	Son will be redeemed.	(1:5-7)

The good news is that since our thoughts are our thoughts, we can change
them. Even the subconscious ones. That is what the Course is all about. Yes,
we have crucified ourselves, but God has planned a way out for us. He has
planned that we be redeemed: that is, liberated or released from our
self-imposed prison. It is a way of changing our minds, and nothing more
than that is needed.

	All other plans will fail.	(2:2)

They will fail because they are based on an untruth, namely, that the
problem is something external, something other than my thoughts. I can try
to solve my problems with more money, with medicines or drugs, or by
surrounding myself by people who seem to supply what I seem to lack. Being
external solutions they will all fail, because the real problem is my own
thoughts. No matter how ingenious they are, my plans will fail, because I am
solving the wrong problems.

	And I will have thoughts that will frighten me,	until I 
	learn that You have given me the only Thought that leads 
	me to salvation. Mine alone will fail, and lead me nowhere. 
	But the Thought You gave me promises to lead me home, because 
	it holds Your promise to Your Son.	(2:3-5)

Even though I know the truth of this lesson, I will still have frightening
thoughts, thoughts that seem to hurt me. That is not anything to be
concerned about. When such thoughts surface I can learn to shrug and tell
myself, "So I still have an ego. What else is new?" I can bring thoughts
that frighten into the presence of the Thought given by God, the Holy
Spirit. He is the "Thought that leads me to salvation," the Thought of
forgiveness and love. He is a Thought full of promise and certainty, a
Thought that tells me I am God's beloved Son, with nothing to fear (as we
saw in yesterday's lesson, "My sinlessness protects me from all harm").

Let me today be willing to recognize my fear thoughts when they arise,
rather than denying I have them, so that with the help of the Holy Spirit I
can change them and exchange them for a happy thought of love.

WHAT IS THE EGO?

Part 8: W-pII.12.4:2

	In suffering, the price for faith in it [the ego] is so 
	immense that crucifixion of the Son of God is offered daily 
	at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the altar 
	where its sickly followers prepare to die.

This is one of the Course's darkest assessments of our ego. It evokes a
picture of a primitive, blood-sacrifice religion such as we read about
having existed in Central America, where human beings had their hearts
ripped from their bodies still beating, and altars had channels cut into
them to drain away the flowing blood. It says that our faith in the ego is
the cause of suffering as immense and terrifying as that.

For our faith in the ego's illusion of autonomy, of separated identity, we
pay an immense price in suffering. Each day we persist in this insane faith,
we crucify the Son of God. For the existence of a separated identity demands
the death of our unified Identity. As "sickly followers" of this religion
(for religion it is), we are all preparing to die as we watch the sacrifice
of the holy Son of God. (Of course, the Son of God cannot die; the sacrifice
is illusion. But to our minds it is terribly, terribly real.) Our own death
will vindicate our faith; it will prove our separation from God.

Although this suffering is not real in the final sense, it is real to us.
And one of the things the Course asks of us, in order to bring about our
deliverance from the ego, is that we honestly assess the cost of our belief
in it. What does it cost me to hold a grievance? What does it cost me to
hate? What does it cost me to insist on being right in an argument? What
does it cost me to hold on to my view of myself as a victim? What does it
cost me to hold on to my guilt? What does it cost me to hold on to my
perception of sin in my brothers and sisters?

We need to count the cost of our belief in the ego. The Course says:

	You will not accept the cost of fear if you recognize it.
	(T-11.V.10:3)

	The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world and 
	lose your own soul. The Holy Spirit teaches that you cannot lose
	your soul and there is no gain in the world, for of itself it
	profits nothing. To invest without profit is surely to impoverish
	yourself, and the overhead is high. Not only is	there no profit 
	in the investment, but the cost to you is enormous. For this
	investment costs you the world's reality by denying yours, and
	gives you nothing in return.	(T-12.VI.1:1-5)

	You must learn the cost of sleeping, and refuse to pay it.
	(T-12.VI.5:2)

	Belief in sin needs great defense, and at enormous cost. All that 
	the Holy Spirit offers must be defended against and sacrificed. 
	For sin is carved into a block out of your peace, and laid between
	you and its return.	(T-22.V.2:6-8)

We pay an immense price in suffering in order to hold on to our tattered,
treasured ego. We lose awareness of our real Identity to hold on to an
imagined one that we can never make real. Once we see this, once we
recognize the insanity of it, we will no longer be willing to accept it.
Once we see what the ego demands of us, we will refuse to pay the price,
because we will realize that the ego is not what we really want. But first,
very often, we must confront the horror of what we have done. We must look
at that altar dripping with blood and realize we have been choosing this.

	It is not difficult to relinquish judgment. But it is
	difficult indeed to try to keep it. The teacher of God
	lays it down happily the instant he recognizes its cost.
	All of the ugliness he sees about him is its outcome.
	All of the pain he looks upon is its result. All of the
	loneliness and sense of loss; of passing time and growing
	hopelessness; of sickening despair and fear of death;
	all these have come of it. And now he knows that these things
	need not be. Not one is true. For he has given up their cause,
	and they, which never were but the effects of his mistaken
	choice, have fallen from him. Teacher of God, this step
	will bring you peace. Can it be difficult to want but this?
	(M-10.6:1-11)