[acimlessons_list] Lesson 234 - August 22

[Sue Carrier Roth]

Lesson 234 - August 22

"FATHER, TODAY I AM YOUR SON AGAIN."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS

See complete Part II practice instructions.
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: I see today's lesson as a kind of holy escapism,
in which we anticipate that glorious day when we at last awaken to
Heaven. So, as you repeat today's idea, imagine that this is the day
when you awaken from time and space once and for all and open your
eyes in Heaven again. You may want to try repeating it once in this
spirit now and see how it feels.

COMMENTARY

This lesson is about anticipating Heaven.

"Today we will anticipate the time when dreams of sin and guilt are
gone, and we have reached the holy peace we never left" (1:1).

That is what we do each day as we draw near to God in these times of
quiet and stillness. We are giving ourselves a foretaste of Heaven.
Just in this moment, just for now, imagine that all your dreams of sin
and guilt are gone. Imagine that all fear has ended--all fear! Imagine
that every thought of conflict is past. Imagine that there is nothing
and can be nothing ever again that will disturb your perfect rest.

What you are imagining is real--the true state of things.

"Nothing has ever happened to disturb the peace of God the Father and
the Son" (1:4).

The dreams of sin and guilt, the dream of fear, the dream of conflict,
the dream of any disturbance at all is just that. Nothing more than a
dream. Let it go, let it float away, meaningless and without
significance. Just a bubble in the stream.

Merely a tiny instant has elapsed between eternity and timelessness.
So brief the interval there was no lapse in continuity, nor break in
thoughts which are forever unified as one. Nothing has ever happened
to disturb the peace of God the Father and the Son. This we accept as
wholly true today. (1:2-5)

In these moments of remembrance, these holy instants we set aside each
day, we are anticipating the time when our bad dreams are wholly
absent. No, I am not there yet, nor are you, not in our
experience--although in reality, as the lesson states so clearly, we
never left. There has never been a "lapse in continuity," and not one
note in Heaven's song was missed. We, however, are still living most
of the time in the dream. But we can experience moments of
anticipation, direct experiences of the truth. It is that we seek
right now. A moment of anticipation. A sense in the core of our
beings, something we identify with the word "peace," something that
words cannot capture.

These are practice times in which we deliberately stretch ourselves
above the level of our normal, mundane experience. We choose to
"accept as wholly true" the fact that the peace of God, Father and
Son, has <never> been disturbed. Just for the moment, just for now, we
allow ourselves to experience believing that. We don't worry that in
fifteen minutes we may not believe it. We don't worry about what will
happen to our lives if we believe it. We don't consider all the
evidence to the contrary our senses have brought us in the past. We
just let all that go, and breathe deeply of the rarified atmosphere of
Heaven. This is my Home. This is what I really am. This is what is
really true. This is all that I want.

If thoughts of sin, or of guilt, or of fear do arise in our minds, we
gently dismiss them. "This is not what I want to experience right now.
Right now, I want the peace of God. Right now, I have the peace of
God."

Jesus, our elder brother, joins us and leads us in prayer, praying with us:

<We thank you, Father, that we cannot lose the memory of You and of
Your Love. We recognize our safety, and give thanks for all the gifts
You have bestowed on us, for all the loving help we have received, for
Your eternal patience, and the Word which You have given us that we
are saved>. (2:1-2)

WHAT IS SALVATION?

PART 4: W-PII.2.2:4-5

To our mind, the separation is real. "The separation is a system of
thought real enough in time, though not in eternity" (T-3.VII.3:2).
"The mind can make the belief in separation very real" (T-3.VII.5:1).
The mind experiences itself as split, separated from God, and with one
fragment of mind separated from other fragments. This is our
experience in time, and it is "real enough" in time, although it is
not real in eternity. In truth, the mind is not actually split; it is
simply failing to recognize its oneness (2:4). But within that one
mind, the experience of separation <seems> real.

Think of nearly any dream you have had in which you are interacting
with other people. You are yourself in the dream, and there are other
characters. Perhaps someone is making love to you. Perhaps you are
arguing with someone, or being chased by a monster. Within the dream,
every character is distinct and separate. The other people in the
dream may say or do things that surprise you, or that you do not
understand. And yet, in fact, every one of those "other characters"
exists only in your one mind! Your mind is making them up. In the
dream there is separation between the characters. In reality, there is
only one mind, and different aspects of that mind are interacting with
one another as if they were separate entities.

This, according to the Course, is exactly the case with this entire
world. It is one mind, experiencing different aspects of itself as if
they were separate beings. Within that dream the separation between
the different characters seems to be clear and distinct, unbridgeable.
And yet the mind is still one. The one mind does not know itself; it
believes that "its own Identity was lost" (2:5). But the Identity was
not lost in fact, only in a dream.

And so, within each fragment of the mind that is failing to recognize
its oneness, God implanted the Thought of peace, "the Thought that has
the power to heal the split" (2:4). This "part of every fragment"
(2:4) remembers the Identity of mind. It is a part that is shared by
every fragment. Like a golden thread running through a piece of
fabric, it binds us all together, and draws the seemingly separated
fragments constantly toward their true oneness. This Thought within us
knows that "nothing has ever happened to disturb the peace of God the
Father and the Son" (W-pII.234.1:4).

This Thought, implanted within us by God, is what we seek when we
become still within the holy instant. By quieting all the separated
thoughts, we listen for this Voice within us, speaking of our oneness,
our wholeness, our eternal peace. This Thought has power to heal the
split, to dissipate the seeming solidity of our illusions of
separation, and to restore to the Sonship the awareness of its unity.
"[Salvation] restores to your awareness the wholeness of the fragments
you perceive as broken off and separate" (M-19.4:2).