[acimlessons_list] Lesson 193 - July 12

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 193 - July 12

All things are lessons God would have me learn

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS

PURPOSE: To learn the lesson that God would have you learn in every
situation: forgiveness. To <overcome a thousand seeming obstacles to peace
in just one day> (10:1) by applying forgiveness to every painful, worrisome
situation.

MORNING/EVENING QUIET TIME: At least five minutes; ideally, thirty or more.

Repeat the idea. Then search your mind for all the things you kept to solve
by yourself, instead of giving them to the Holy Spirit. With each one you
uncover, turn it over to Him by repeating, <I will forgive, and this will
disappear> (or by saying to yourself, <Forgive, and you will see this
differently>). Realize that any pain in the situation that seems real comes
from your own unforgiveness, not from the situation itself, and that as you
forgive, the pain will disappear. This is how you learn the lessons
contained in each situation.

REMARKS: Give as much time to your morning and evening practice as you can,
and then <give a little more> (11:1). <Do not let the time be less than
meets your deepest need> (10:6), for you can free yourself from a thousand
obstacles to peace today and go in haste to your Father's house. This is
time's true purpose.

HOURLY REMEMBRANCE: One or two minutes as the hour strikes (reduce if
circumstances do not permit).

 We begin a new form of hourly practice today. Search your mind for any
happenings of the previous hour that have any negative feeling attached to
them. Apply the lesson to each one, saying either <I will forgive, and this
will disappear> or <Forgive, and you will see this differently.> By doing
this, you enter each new hour free of the old one. <Thus will you remain
unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time> (12:5). Response to
temptation: Whenever pain seems real, whenever you feel apprehension, care,
terror, or distress.

Remember that <there is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you
another step to Him, and to salvation of the world> (13:1). Then repeat, <I
will forgive, and this will disappear> or <Forgive, and you will see this
differently.> These words <give you power over all events that seem to have
been given power over you> (6:3). They <release all minds from bondage>
(6:2). They are the key to Heaven's gate.

COMMENTARY

The central thought of this lesson sounds similar to things said in many
spiritual teachings: There is a lesson in everything, if we are open to see
it and to learn. But the meaning here is quite different. Many people
believe that every event, even every adversity, carries some meaning for us.
<What is the lesson in this for me?> is the natural question when something
seems to go wrong. If we follow this line of thinking, we can spend a great
deal of our time trying to figure out the answer to that question, over and
over, and we can become quite puzzled at times when we cannot seem to find
what <the lesson> is.

But this Workbook lesson is quite forthright in telling us, flat out, that
the lesson is always the same in content, no matter what the form. We do not
need to waste our efforts trying to figure out what the lesson is. There is
only one lesson. It is always the same:    Each lesson has a central
thought, the same in all of them. The form     alone is changed, with
different circumstances and events; with     different characters and
different themes, apparent but not real. They     are the same in
fundamental content. It is this: 
    <Forgive, and you will see this differently.>    (3:3 7)

Lest we miss the point, it is stated again in slightly different words
towards the end of the lesson:

   This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look
    on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him, and to
    salvation of the world. To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:

     <I will forgive, and this will disappear.>  (13:1 3)

Forgiveness is the central theme of the Course. It entails, as we saw
yesterday, a radical shift in our perception, one that allows the light of
Heaven to shine upon everything we see. Forgiveness is the one lesson that
everything, literally everything, is teaching us. Everything can teach us
this lesson because, in our madness, we have a grievance against the
universe. What the Course is teaching us is a different way of looking on
everything, a way that allows us to see it not as a threat, not as some kind
of loss, not as an attack that deprives us of our happiness, but as a step
to God, and to the salvation of the world.

When the Course tells us, as it did in earlier lessons, that forgiveness
offers everything we want, that forgiveness is the key to happiness, we
cannot at first understand. We are confused by the message because we do not
see unforgiveness as a major problem in our lives. The lesson recognizes
this:  
    Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but
    unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form.     (4:1 2)

The consistent direction of the Course's instruction is towards helping us
to recognize, in all the wide variety of forms of distress in our lives,
this same underlying content. Gradually, as we study the Course and apply it
to our daily lives, we begin to recognize the one, unique problem that
besets us, whatever form it may appear to take: unforgiveness. Forgiveness
is the answer to every problem, the <hidden> lesson in every distressing
event of our lives.

I am not saying that you had a flat tire because you got angry at the
grocery clerk, nor that you suffer lack of success in your relationships
because you haven't forgiven your mother or father. Although sometimes such
things may be true, the lesson God is trying to teach us is more
far-reaching than that. What ultimately must be corrected is our
unforgiveness of everything and everyone in the world, everything that
appears to be outside of our own minds. Our general attitude towards the
world is at issue here.

When I first read this lesson, I thought it was saying that whenever
something went wrong in my life I had to start searching my heart for what
or whom I had not forgiven. Often that search was just as frustrating as
trying to figure out <What is the lesson in this?> I went through a period
in which, one by one, I dug up every imaginable grievance I had against
anyone, and tried to let it go. That can be a useful exercise, but it is
only scratching the surface of what real forgiveness means. Forgiveness is
aimed at transforming my perception of everything I see. What does the
Course mean by unforgiveness, or misperception? Hear this very clear
definition, and let it sink into your awareness:

    How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is
    failing to perceive the lesson he should learn? Does pain seem
    real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not
    learned. And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind
    that sees the pain through eyes the mind directs.     (7:1 4)

<Does pain seem real in the perception?> That is the sure indicator of
unforgiveness, as the Course understands it. Remember that difficult
Workbook lesson about choosing the joy of God instead of pain (Lesson 190)?
Forgiveness is the answer. What is forgiven no longer hurts. In response to
the question <How can you tell when you have really forgiven someone?>
someone once said, <You know you have forgiven someone when you feel
comfortable in their presence.> That is saying the same thing; when you have
forgiven, there is no more pain. Another way of picturing it is that you are
free to laugh with the person. God's Will is that laughter should replace
all tears (9:4 5).

Forgiveness is what time was made for (10:4). This is where our attention is
best focused. This is what speeds us on the way to Heaven. In our quiet
practice times, we can <think about all things we saved to settle by
ourselves, and kept apart from healing> (11:4). We do not know how to look
on them so that they disappear, but the Holy Spirit knows; give them to Him.
We are even advised to stop every hour, review the hour that has passed, and
bring each little grievance to Him for healing, so that it does not carry
over into the hour that follows. <Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one
that follows> (12:4). This is the way we learn to <remain unbound, in peace
eternal in the world of time> (12:5).