[acimlessons_list] Lesson 283 - October 10

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 283 - OCTOBER 10

"My true Identity abides in You."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS 

See complete Part II practice 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

"Abides" means "lives or dwells," but it also means "remains unchanged." I
think that is the sense it has in this lesson: "My true Identity remains
unchanged in You." (At least that is how I'm hearing it today.) "I made an
image of myself" (1:1). I made a false picture of what I am, an idol, and I
have imagined that this image is what I am: "it is this I call the Son of
God" (1:1). This is the Course's understanding of what has, traditionally,
been called "the Fall." In traditional Judeo-Christian understanding, man
was created innocent and sinless, but he fell into sin, and thus corrupted
his nature forever ("original sin"). In the Course's understanding, all that
really happened is that we imagined we had changed; we made a false picture
of ourselves and thought, "This is me." But what we really are never changed
at all! Our true Identity remains unchanged, despite our making of idols.
Creation is still, now, as it always was, because God's creation cannot be
changed (1:2).

There is a vast difference between having actually corrupted our nature and
only <thinking> that we did. In the old view, we had a real problem,
resolvable only by the supernatural intervention of God. Real sin had been
done, and had to be met with real punishment. Sin against an infinite God
required a payment equally infinite, and so God's infinite Son had to die in
our place, and then a "new nature" had to be created by God and somehow
injected into humanity (being "born again"). Those who did not receive this
new life were doomed to hell.

In the view presented by the Course, no real sin has been done, and the
original perfection of God's creation remains unchanged. All that is
necessary is for us to recognize our mistaken self-identification and to
change our minds about it. When we let go of the idols or false images ("Let
me not worship idols" [1:3]), the nature of Christ within us is uncovered
and revealed as untouched by our insanity.

I am still the one my Father loves; that has not changed (1:4). My holiness
still "remains the light of Heaven and the Love of God" (1:5). How could
what God created as the light of Heaven be destroyed and become darkness?
(1:6-7). If God created everything that is, how could I possibly be
something else? (1:8). There is nothing else for me to be.

Each time today I find myself judging something about myself, disliking
myself, berating myself, or feeling guilty about what and who I am, let me
remind myself that none of what I am seeing is my true Identity. My true
Identity remains in God and part of Him. The seeming other identity is an
idol; let me not worship it, bow down to it and attribute some great power
to it or fear it. This is not who I am. Let me be still an instant and go
home.

As I recognize this true Identity, I must realize that by the nature of what
It is, It must be shared with all creation. Everything is part of me, and I
of it, all coming from the same Source (2:1). When I recognize everything as
part of this shared Identity, other aspects of my one Self, I will naturally
"offer blessing to all things, uniting lovingly with all the world" (2:2).

WHAT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT?

Part 3: W-pII.7.2:1-2

The ending of our dreams is the goal of the Holy Spirit's teaching (2:1).
The dreams (our current perception), as we have seen, are brought to an end
by translating our false perception of fear into the perception of love. The
learning process we are engaged in here, and the subject of the Course's
curriculum, is this very transformation of perception that will lead, in its
final outcome, to the end of all perception-the end of dreams. Sometimes we
get over-anxious, and we want the dream to end now. We want a direct
infusion of knowledge. But that is not possible; we can't skip the process
of transforming our perceptions.

We have been emphasizing perception, and have said very little about
knowledge as yet. This is because perception must be straightened out before
you can know anything.	(T-3.III.1.1-2)

Before we can "know" anything, our perceptions must be transformed by our
interaction with the Holy Spirit, by our bringing our darkness to Him so
that He can dispel it with the light. "For sights and sounds [perception]
must be translated from the witnesses of fear to those of love" (2:2). There
are so many things in our lives that seem to be witnesses to fear. They
"testify" to the reality of fear; they seem to justify fear and even to
demand fear. The translation that the Holy Spirit is seeking to effect
within our minds is to so change our perception of things that everything
(literally everything) that now seems to justify and demand fear becomes
instead, in our transformed perception, something that justifies and demands
love.

That is what "forgiveness" means in the Course; it is far more than merely
seeing someone's actions differently. It means seeing everything
differently. It means looking at every horror in this world, every atrocity,
every betrayal, every bit of sickness and death, and somehow seeing all of
it as something that justifies love and demands love. Something that,
instead of proving the reality of fear, proves the reality of love. And
that, folks, takes a miracle! But this is "a course in miracles." That is
exactly what it is all about.

How can our perception of things be changed so radically? We do not know. We
do not <need> to know. That is the job of the Holy Spirit within our minds.
He knows how to do it. All we need to do is bring our fearful perceptions to
Him with willingness to have them replaced by His perception. If we will
bring them, and if we are thus willing to have them taken from us and
replaced, He knows exactly how to do that, and He will do it. He <already>
sees everything we see as a justification for love. He already sees
everything in you and me as justifying His love. He sees it that way <for>
us until we learn to share His perception with Him. "He was created to see
this for you, until you learned to see it for yourself" (T-17.II.1:8). This
is what the Holy Spirit is; this is what He does.