[acimlessons_list] Lesson 257 - September 14

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 257 - September 14

"LET ME REMEMBER WHAT MY PURPOSE IS."

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: As you begin your day, I suggest spending a moment
going through the day you normally have, trying to see how you are usually
serving contradictory goals. See yourself reaching after the goals of the
world, and then at other times reaching after the goal of God. Try to get in
touch with how divided this makes you feel, how it makes you unsure of who
you are, and how it makes you feel that you will never reach either set of
goals--the earthly or the heavenly--simply because you are giving each set
only half of your energy.

Then spend another moment imagining what your day would be like if you only
pursued the goal of God today, if you unified your thoughts and actions
behind that single goal, and therefore achieved only what God would have you
do today. Ask yourself how that day would feel. And then dedicate today to
being <that> day.

COMMENTARY

The purpose this lesson is alluding to is forgiveness (2:1). Over and over,
the Course tells us that forgiveness is our function, our purpose, our
reason for being here. And it is our <only> function:

<I am the light of the world. That is my only function. That is why I am
here>. (W-pI.61.5:3-5)

Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world. (W-pI.62.Heading)

What if, today, I remembered that forgiveness is my only purpose? What if I
realized that, whatever else happens, if I forgive everything and everyone I
see today, I have fulfilled my function? What if I realized that all the
things I think are important are nothing compared to this purpose? When I am
behind that slow driver while trying to get someplace on time, forgiving is
my purpose, not getting there on time. In any situation of conflict,
forgiveness is my goal, not winning. When the person from whom I am seeking
signs of love fails to respond, forgiveness is my goal, not getting the
response I seek. And so on. What kind of difference would it make if I
really made forgiveness my primary goal, my only goal?

If I forget the goal, I will always end up being conflicted, trying to serve
contradictory goals (1:1-2). The inevitable result of conflicting goals is
"deep distress and great depression" (1:3). Sound familiar? As we begin the
spiritual path we are almost always conflicted, because we have adopted a
new, higher goal without really letting go of the older ones. We're trying
to serve two masters, which reminds me of the time I had a job where I was
taking orders from two bosses! What a time of distress and depression that
was! The only way to peace of mind in our lives is to firmly settle on a
single purpose or goal (2:3), and to continually put that above everything
else. We need to "unify our thoughts and actions meaningfully," by
recognizing that God's Will for us is forgiveness, and seeking to do only
that (1:4; 2:2).

WHAT IS SIN?

PART 7: W-PII.4.4:1-3

The lesson compares our belief in sin, and the projected illusions we have
made to support that belief, to "a madman's dreams" (4:1). The dreams of a
madman can be truly terrifying; likewise, our outpicturing of sin in this
world can also be very frightening. "Sin appears indeed to terrify" (4:1).
Sickness, death, and loss of every kind cannot but result in terror in us.
The illusion is not gentle.

"Yet what sin perceives is but a childish game" (4:2). None of it really has
any lasting consequence. In the light of eternity, our wars and plagues are
no more real and no more frightening than a child's imaginary war between
superhero action figures. There is no question that this is very hard to
accept, particularly when you are in the middle of it all, believing it to
be real. Yet it is what the Course is saying. If the body does not really
live, it does not really die. "The Son of God may play he has become a body,
prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death" (4:3).
But that is not really the case. It is just a game we are playing. None of
it really means what we think it means.

When we go to a movie, we may weep when a character we have identified with
suffers loss or dies. Yet a deeper part of our mind knows we are watching a
story; the actor did not really die. And at some level, the Course is asking
us to respond to what we call "life" in the same way, with a deeper level of
knowledge that knows that any life God created cannot ever die. The
character in the movie may die, we may weep, and yet underneath all that, we
know it is only an imaginary game, and not the final reality.