[acimlessons_list] Lesson 326 - November 22

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 326 - NOVEMBER 22

"I am forever an Effect of God."

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: Today's prayer is another favorite of mine. Do yourself
a favor and spend some time with it today.

COMMENTARY

Any effect is made what it is by its cause. The cause <determines> what the
effect is. If I strike a billiard ball with my cue stick, the ball has no
say in where it goes. The effect of the ball's motion is entirely determined
by the stroke of the cue (plus other causative things like the state of the
table surface, etc.). So if I am "an Effect of God" I don't really have any
say in determining what I am; that is determined by my Cause, God. This is
why it must be true that "as You created me I have remained" (1:3). I cannot
change what I am; God "forever and forever [is] my Cause" (1:2). Does this
seem to preclude free will? Yes, it does, insofar as actually determining
what my nature is. And <thank> God it does! Otherwise, we would have
irretrievably damaged ourselves and made sin and hell into realities. Free
will, as the Course says in its introduction, does not grant us the right to
"establish the curriculum" (T-In.1:4), that is, to decide <what> we must
learn; it only grants us the freedom to choose <when>we learn it. And what
we are learning is what we are, as God created us. That cannot change.

God's Will is "to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are
indistinguishable" (1:5). What an amazing statement! Indistinguishable from
God! Wow! That borders on heresy or incredible hubris, doesn't it? And yet
that is what the Course is telling us about ourselves; that what we are is
the same stuff of which God is made. If God is Love, so is His Son. "God is
but Love, and therefore, so am I" (Lessons 171 to 180).

WHAT IS CREATION?

Part 6: W-pII.11.3:3

	Its [creation's] oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate;
	forever held within His holy Will, beyond all possibility
	of harm, of separation, imperfection and of any spot upon
	its sinlessness.

To put this in a short, simple sentence: Separation is impossible. What God
created One cannot ever become separate parts; only in mad illusions can
this seem to occur. The Wholeness or Oneness is the expression of God's
Will, and that cannot be opposed because there is nothing to oppose it.
Everything that exists is part of this Oneness, part of this single
expression of God's Will. There is no other, no opponent, no enemy, no
contrary will. God would not and did not create something opposite to
Himself. How could God will something opposite to His own will? All that is
truly real, therefore, must be an expression of His Will.

The Wholeness is "beyond all possibility of harm" because nothing outside it
exists to oppose it. This is one of the characteristics of what is referred
to as "nondual" cosmology. "Nondual" means, simply, not two; only one. There
is no opposite to God, and no opposite to God's one creation.

The Course often says that if an opposite to God exists, if sin (opposing
God's Will) is truly possible, then God must have created His own opposite,
which makes Him insane. If we think that, we must be insane. Either God is
insane, or we are. And of the two, which is more likely?