[acimlessons_list] Lesson 301 - October 27

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 301 - OCTOBER 28

"And God Himself shall wipe away all tears."

Practice instructions 

See complete 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: To make this lesson more personally meaningful, I have
used it in a more specific form. First, pick someone whom you are judging.
Then repeat:
     
     And God Himself shall wipe away all tears
     By giving me His world,
     Which I will see when I cease to judge [name].

Commentary

The title of this lesson is a quote from the Book of Revelation in the
Bible, verses 7:17 and 21:4. We've all shed tears in our lives, some more
than others. Back in the days when I believed in hell I used to wonder how
God could wipe away my tears when people I knew and loved were in eternal
torment. I used to wonder how God could be happy if most of His creatures
got snatched by the devil. I guess wondering about that is part of why I
don't believe in that stuff any more.

But how <can> God wipe away all our tears? When we look around with our
"normal" (i.e., distorted by the ego) perception, it seems impossible not to
shed at least some tears over the suffering and unfairness of life and
death. The Course's answer is that we will not be looking around with that
kind of perception at all; we will be looking with a new kind of vision.

"Unless I judge I cannot weep" (1:1). How will He wipe away our tears? By
removing all judgment from our minds.

We look on the world and we judge it. We judge it to be unfair, unjust, and
unfriendly. We judge some to be victimizers and others the victims. Most of
all, we judge it all to be <real>. If sin and suffering are real in the
final analysis, then tears are inevitable. "But we have learned the world we
saw was false" (2:4). Not real, but false. It is an illusion I have
projected; it exists only in my mind. I cannot blame my suffering on it
because the only one who has attacked myself is me. The only one who has
been unjust is me. I am seeing in the world a reflection of what I believe I
have done in relation to God and my brothers, and nothing more than that.
When I learn to forgive the world, and to accept Atonement for myself, I
will no longer see the world this way.

Jesus is speaking, it seems to me, from a high place, and he is including me
in that place. I'm not aware of having learned the unreality of the world
yet; the world still seems pretty real to me, and I still weep. The Course
assures us that a part of our mind-the only part that has reality in
truth-is already awake, and already wholly knows that the world we see is
false. Jesus symbolizes that part of our minds that is awake.

This, however, I do know, based on the promises of the Course: I will see
the world this way. There will come a time when 

     I cannot weep. Nor can I suffer pain, or feel I am abandoned and
unneeded in the world.	(1:1-2) 

I can see it that way at any time I choose, in the holy instant, and I am
learning to allow my perception to be transformed in accord with that
vision, more and more each day.

If it seems hypocritical to repeat the prayer in today's lesson, saying, "We
have learned the world we saw was false" (2:4), reconsider that opinion. You
may say, "But I don't believe it, I haven't really learned that; how can I
say it?" <Of course> you don't believe it! That is exactly why you are doing
the lesson. If you believed it you wouldn't need the lesson. Just for an
instant, suspend your disbelief. Let yourself imagine how it would feel to
know that all the ugliness of the world simply isn't real, that it was
nothing but a bad dream, an ugly acid trip, and that nothing really
happened, nothing really was lost, and nobody was really hurt. Only the
projected images died; the reality of life was totally unaffected by the
dream. Let yourself slip, just for a moment, into that state of mind. Those
little instants will be enough to take you all the way home.

WHAT IS THE SECOND COMING?

Part 1: W-pII.9.1:1-2

The Course's understanding of the Second Coming differs drastically from the
teaching of most orthodox Christian churches. Typically, the term refers to
a second physical appearance by Jesus, returning (usually in a supernatural
way, "in clouds of glory") to be judge and ruler of the world. This section
of the Workbook redefines the term completely. (The Course is notable for
the way it redefines and gives new content to nearly every major Christian
term it uses.) Here, the Second Coming is:

1. The correction of mistakes (1:1)

Instead of being a cataclysmic event that overthrows the devil in the battle
of Armageddon, the Second Coming is a gentle correction of our mistaken
beliefs in the reality of sin and separation. The old view of the Second
Coming saw evil as a real force with a terrible energy of its own, a will in
opposition to God, a will which had to be combated and overcome. The Course,
in seeing the Second Coming as the correction of mistakes, does not see evil
as a real force. Darkness is not a <thing>, a substance, it is merely the
absence of light. So evil, in the thought of the Course, is not an opposite
to God, but merely a mistake, merely the incorrect idea that an opposite to
God could exist. The Second Coming, then, is simply the correction of that
mistaken idea. Nothing needs to be overcome or overthrown. The Second Coming
simply "restores the never lost, and re-establishes what is forever and
forever true" (1:2).

2. The return of sanity (1:1)

All minds that have harbored the insane notion of separation from God will
be healed of their delusions. The Second Coming, in the terminology of the
Course, is a corporate event at the end of time. It is the moment when each
aspect of the mind of God's Son, which has, in insanity, believed itself to
be a separate being, is fully restored to its awareness of oneness with all
the other aspects of the one mind. This corporate aspect is shown by phrases
later in this section: "the time in which <all> minds are given to the hands
of Christ" (3:2); "the Sons of God acknowledge that they all are one" (4:3;
my emphasis in both quotes). As long as any part of the one mind is not
healed, Christ's wholeness is not manifest. The "return to sanity" speaks of
the entire Sonship being restored to the awareness of its oneness.

This "wholeness" aspect of the message of the Course is the motivation for
each of us to reach out in healing to the world. Without our brothers we
cannot fully know our Identity, for they all are part of It. My brother's
healing is my own. No one can be excluded from the circle of Atonement. No
one is excluded.

     You are God's Son, one Self, with one Creator and one goal; 
     to bring awareness of this oneness to all minds, 
     that true creation may extend the Allness and the Unity of God.
(W-pI.95.12:2)