[acimlessons_list] Lesson 260 - September 17

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 260 - SEPTEMBER 17

"Let me remember God created me."

Practice instructions

See complete Part II practice instructions in a 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: Think of something you wish you hadn't done, or wish
you had done better. Try to get in touch with how doing that thing seemed to
make you into something undesirable. Perhaps it seemed to make you stupid,
or selfish, or inconsiderate, or petty. Then repeat these lines:
In my eyes, that action made me ___________.
Let me remember God created me.
I cannot make me [the attribute you used in first line], because God created
me [choose an attribute that contrasts with the one you assigned yourself].

Commentary

In the Course's reasoning there is an intimate, unbreakable connection
between acknowledging our true Source ("I am as God created me") and knowing
our true Identity. Once we acknowledge God and only God as our Source, all
questions about our identity disappear, because we are whatever God created
us to be. "Now is our Source remembered, and Therein we find our true
Identity at last" (2:1). If our goal is to remember who we truly are, the
only way to that goal involves accepting God as our Author. All our false
self-concepts derive from the idea that, somehow, we made ourselves, or at
least have played a prominent role in shaping ourselves.

In our "insanity," we thought we made ourselves (1:1). Perhaps we grudgingly
acknowledge God as the original creator, and yet we all believe that, since
that time, we have been the primary factor in shaping our own lives and
destiny. We must believe that, if we believe in sin. Would God create sin?
Yet if He did not, and sin exists-who made it? So whether or not we
consciously admit it, we do believe that we made ourselves, if we believe we
are anything other than totally innocent and perfect. In sum, we think that
"God created us; we screwed things up."

And yet, the Course would argue, we have not left our Source. God is all
there is, and everything that is, is in Him. We are still part of Him.
Therefore we cannot be what we think we are. We cannot separate ourselves
from Him as we think we have. Separation not only never happened; it cannot
happen.

If we simply remember God created us, we will simultaneously remember our
Identity (1:4-5). Just as the nature of a sunbeam is defined by the nature
of the sun, so we are defined by our Source. This is what Christ's vision
shows us as we look upon our brothers and ourselves. We are sinless and holy
"because our Source can know no sin" (2:2). We are, therefore, "like each
other, and alike to Him" (2:3).

Let me remember, today, that God created me. My Source defines what I am. I
am not defined by my past, by my upbringing, by my unkind words or deeds.
Nor are my brothers defined by theirs. We are, all of us, defined by God.
And what we are is His perfect Son.

WHAT IS SIN?

Part 10: W-pII.4.5:5-8

There is no sin. Creation is unchanged.	(5:5-6) 

This is what remembering our Source tells us. "Sin" is only a childish game
we have invented, and it has had no effect whatsoever on God's creation. It
is a game played only in our imagination; it has not changed reality one
iota. The "Fall" never happened. There is nothing to atone for, nothing to
pay for. The door to Heaven is wide open in welcome.

All that we need do, then, is to stop imagining this childish game. All that
we need do is to cease imagining that guilt-our own or that of another-has
any value at all, and to let it go. We hold on to guilt and sin only to
maintain our illusion of separateness. Is it worth the price we pay? When we
let go of sin, separateness is gone, and Heaven is restored to us. 

Would you still hold return to Heaven back? How long, O holy Son of God, how
long?	(5:7-8)