[acimlessons_list] Lesson 91 - April 1

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 91 - April 1

"Miracles are seen in light."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

Purpose: to briefly leave your weak, body-based image of yourself behind and
have an experience of your real strength. In its light you will perceive the
miracles that have always been there, waiting for you to see.

Longer: 3 times, for 10 minutes

*	Begin by repeating: "Miracles are seen in light. The body's eyes do
not perceive the light. But I am not a body. What am I?" Ask this final
question in real honesty. With this question, you are calling on the
strength in you to give you an experience of your reality, beyond the body.
So ask with that intention.

*	Then spend several minutes listing your attributes as you see them,
and allowing them to be replaced by their opposite. Say, for example, "I am
not weak, but strong. I am not helpless, but powerful. I am not doubtful,
but certain," and so on. Focus specifically on attributes that involve
weakness.

*	Then try to experience these truths about you, especially the
experience of strength. Try to lift your faith in your body as central to
your reality, for that is what makes you feel weak. Instruct your mind to
instead go to the place of strength in you (this exercise appears to be a
kind of meditation). Remember that your will has the power to do this. "You
can escape the body if you choose. You can experience the strength in you"
(5:5-6). You might want to use the beginning question "What am I?" as a kind
of mantra to take you to this place in you.

*	For the remainder, relax in the confidence that your weak efforts
are fully supplemented by God's strength, which joins you in your practice.
His strength will carry you to the deep place in you where your strength and
His light abide.

Frequent reminders: 5 or 6 per hour, at fairly regular intervals (every 10
to 15 minutes)
Repeat the idea, which means that the miracle is always there if you will
just open your eyes. This is a central idea in the thought system you are
learning. That is why it needs such frequent repeating today.

Response to temptation: whenever you are tempted to be upset
Repeat, "Miracles are seen in light. Let me not close my eyes because of
this."

COMMENTARY

As the Workbook lessons get longer it won't be practical to try to comment
on everything in each lesson. That could be more than a person could write
in a day; in fact, I have written a 48-page booklet on Lesson 135, for
instance ("A Healed Mind Does Not Plan" is the booklet title). So I will be
picking some aspect of the lesson that particularly speaks to me, and
writing about that.

The first idea, central to the lesson, is that "miracles and vision
necessarily go together" (1:1). We are told this bears frequent repetition,
and that it is central to our new thought system. The whole nature of what
the Course means by a miracle is touched on here. A miracle is not really a
change in anything outside of our mind; it is a change in perception, a
"shift to vision."

"As the ego would limit your perception of your brothers to the body, so
would the Holy Spirit release your vision and let you see the Great Rays
shining from them, so unlimited that they reach to God. It is this shift to
vision that is accomplished in the holy instant." (T-15.IX.1:1-2)

"The miracle is always there" (1:4). What changes is our acceptance or
rejection of vision; we either see it or we don't. It is always present.
What changes is our awareness. So to experience the miracle, we must have
vision. We must let go of darkness in order to see the light. As the section
titled "What is a Miracle?" puts it (Workbook page 463/473):

"A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It
merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is
false."

The devastation is what we see with our eyes. The Course is very
plain-spoken about physical sight: "The body's eyes do not perceive the
light" (6:3). "You do not doubt that the body's eyes can see. You do not
doubt the images they show you are reality" (3:3,4). And yet the lesson is
clearly asking us to do just that, to doubt that our eyes really see, and to
doubt that what they see is real. We have to let go of the darkness to see
the light, and what they body's eyes show us is not light; therefore it must
be darkness. We need a shift to a new kind of vision.

This need to undo our faith in our eyes and what they see is part of the
reason this lesson turns to a second idea: "I am not a body" (6:4ff). We are
told to <instruct> our minds that we are not bodies. We are to <will>
ourselves to realize that we are something else, something that does not see
with the eyes, but in a different way.

The exercises today are designed to help us realize that we are something
other than a body; we are looking for a very concrete experience. In
paragraph 7 we are told: "You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses
to replace the image of a body" (7:2); "You need to feel something to put
your faith in" (7:3); "You need a real experience of something else" (7:4).
An awareness, a feeling, an experience. There is something within us, a
certain strength, "which makes all miracles within your easy reach" (4:4).
We don't realize how strong we are! And more than that: "Your efforts,
however meager, are fully supported by the strength of God and all His
thoughts" (10:1). I always think of this by an analogy, something akin to
sound waves or radio waves. When my little willingness strikes the right
wavelength, I suddenly find myself joined by the harmony of the universe, a
powerful beam of divine energy that resonates with me. If we can strike the
right frequency of thought today, we will find that awareness, sense that
feeling, and have that experience that takes us beyond the body, and into
vision.

Isn't this worth ten minutes of effort, three times today? I know I think it
is.

Don't be discouraged if you don't feel anything, however. You will find
vision. Your efforts today are not wasted, and do not think that if nothing
seems to happen that you have "failed." I remember learning to roller skate.
I started out by falling down a lot. If I had stopped then, thinking I'd
failed, I would never have learned to skate. But I didn't. I kept on falling
down, and falling down again, until one day I didn't fall down. With
spiritual vision, I'm still pretty much in the falling down stage myself.
I've had some incredible experiences, holy instants, just as in the early
days of skating there were times I went for blocks (skating on the sidewalk,
jumping over the cracks) without falling, before I suddenly fell again.
Consistent spiritual vision I don't have as yet. But the miracle is always
there, whether or not I see it! And my vision is improving each time I
practice.