[acimlessons_list] LESSON 284 - October 11

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 284 - OCTOBER 11

"I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS 

See complete Part II practice instructions in 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: When you repeat today's lesson, you may want to make it
more specific: "I can elect to change this thought about __________."

COMMENTARY

This is one of the very good capsule statements of the practical teaching of
the Course. What is seen as outside must be seen, first, as originating
inside, in my thoughts. Then this lesson applies. If the origin of the
problem is my thoughts, I can affect the problem. I can change all thoughts
that hurt. Nothing outside me can affect me. The cause of problems, and
therefore the solution to them, is entirely within my mind and entirely
within my control.

"Loss is not loss when properly perceived" (1:1). Wham! Zap! That really
hits a lot of buttons. Perhaps recently there was something I wanted to do,
or someplace I wanted to go, and I could not do it. I could perceive that as
a loss, and be upset. Yet, properly perceived, that loss can be seen as not
a loss at all. The perception of an event, any event, as a loss is purely
within my mind; the "hurt" comes not from the external event but from my
thoughts about it, and "I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt."

But we have a mental scale of lesser and greater losses, and as we go up our
scale this gets harder and harder to accept. Not getting to a meeting or a
concert is one thing. But a few years ago I lost my computer hard disk,
totally. I lost several years of personal journals and a mailing list with
hundreds of names on it, no backups, no way to retrieve them. Gone. It took
me a long time to work through to not seeing that as a loss. But the
principle is the same. The perception of loss was purely in my mind, and all
perception of loss and pain is always there and nowhere else. And it is
always possible for me to change those thoughts if I really want to.

Up the scale still further: What about when someone we love dies, especially
unexpectedly, "tragically," from sickness or violence or accident? How is it
possible to apply "Loss is not loss when properly perceived" to such an
event? It is evident the lesson means for us to do just that, because it
continues: 

         Pain is impossible. There is no grief with any cause at all. 
         And suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream.	(1:2-4)

The lesson is saying that, properly perceived, even death is not a cause for
grief. All of it is just a more extreme form of the same case; the cause for
our hurt, our pain, and our grief is not external to us. It is in the way we
are thinking about things. And we can change the way we think about them and
eliminate the pain. The major issue of life is not in the externals; it is
in our thinking.

You would not go up to someone who had just lost a loved one and say,
bluntly, "There is no cause for grief here." It very likely would be
perceived as cruel and cold, as if you were saying, "He's no loss. Look at
the bright side; now you won't have to put up with his/her faults any more,
and you can find another who will make you really happy." People who try to
tell a grieving person, "There is no cause for grief" are often choosing to
be "spiritually correct" at the expense of kindness.

I think, however, that the lesson is asking us to say something like
that-that there is no cause for grief-to <ourselves>, even in cases of what
seems like extreme loss. It is suggesting, in the lines that follow, a
process we can follow to change our thoughts even in such seemingly
impossible cases [see the essay after this commentary for more on the
process]. It is not an instant process, and it may take considerable time to
turn the tide of our thoughts. But it is possible, it is within our power to
change all thoughts that hurt. Our aim should be, eventually, to see that
"grief and pain must be impossible" (2:1). Why? Because our Father would not
give us anything that hurts us, and there is no other Source. He gives only
the joyous, so only the joyous is the truth (2:2).

WHAT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT?

Part 4: W-pII.7.2:3-4

The process of translating our perceptions being discussed here is exactly
the same as the process of changing our thoughts described in Lesson 284: "I
can elect to change all thoughts that hurt." "Sights and sounds must be
translated from the witnesses of fear to those of love" (2:2). This process
of "changing thoughts that hurt" is all that learning is for, and when it
has been accomplished, the game is over (2:3). This is the goal, the end of
all spiritual process.

Lesson 193 put it well:

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.	(W-pI.193.7:1-3)

A perception of pain is an unforgiveness. It indicates a need for a shift in
perception. It is not sinful or bad to feel pain or grief; it is simply a
mistaken perception that needs to be corrected. Nor is there shame if we
find it hard to make such a shift. This is what the Holy Spirit is for, to
help us through this process of translating our thoughts and changing our
perceptions. This is what life is all about; this is the only lesson in the
classroom. We do it through frequent repetition of the truth, and through
persistently bringing our perceptions of pain to Him for healing. The
complete absence of such perceptions comes only at the end of the entire
process. The Manual puts it well: "It is your function to escape from them
[perceptions of pain, for example], but not to be without them" (M-26.4:2).
It is our own personal experience with pain and grief, and our experience of
escape from them, that enables us to be of help to others who are caught in
their grasp.

Learning from the Holy Spirit, then, involves openly acknowledging our false
perceptions and not being guilty about them, but simply bringing them to Him
for healing. This kind of learning "becomes the means to go beyond itself,
to be replaced by the eternal truth" (2:4). If we gripe and complain about
the learning process we will only delay the desired outcome. We are not
expected to be without experiences of pain and grief, nor should we expect
to be without them. But we should engage ourselves in the work of escaping
from them when they occur, bringing them to the gentle kindness of the Holy
Spirit's presence, asking Him to translate our perceptions so that what we
see as witnesses to fear become, instead, witnesses to love.