[acimlessons_list] Lesson 241 - August 29

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 241 - August 29

"THIS HOLY INSTANT IS SALVATION COME."

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: The following visualization may help you more fully
experience the meaning of today's lesson:

Imagine a city or town, a place where there are large amounts of people,
just before sunrise.

The sun begins to peek over the horizon, but this is not the usual sun.

This is the sunrise of salvation. Now hear these lines:

"The day has come when sorrows pass away and pain is gone" (1:4).

Imagine that, wherever the rays of this sun touch, sorrows pass away.

Imagine them touching a hospital, and all pain within it is gone.

"The glory of salvation dawns today upon a world set free" (1:5).

What is dawning is not mere physical light. It is salvation.

Because of this dawning, the world will be set free today.

"This is the time of hope for countless millions" (1:6).

Imagine countless millions waking up to this sunrise.

Not as they normally do, numb with despair and dreading what the day may
bring, but filled with hope.

"Watch fear disappear from every face as hearts rise up and claim the light
as theirs" (W-pI.168.4:3).

"They will be united now" (1:7).

Picture people all over joining with one another. See them joining hands.

See them feeling at one.

See countless millions greeting this sunrise as one family.

Now realize that this sun is not just salvation. It is something far more
specific.

It is your forgiveness of the world.

Your forgiveness has this kind of power. It has the power to set the world
free.

It has the power, once unleashed, to give the world this kind of dawn.

So choose someone you have not forgiven and say to him or her,

<"This holy instant is salvation come, because I have forgiven you,
[name].">

Keep repeating it, realizing that each repetition invites this glorious dawn
to illumine the world.

COMMENTARY

When the lesson says that today "is a time of special celebration" (1:2), I
rather suspect it is using the word "special" in the same way it uses it in
one place in the Text, where Jesus says, "All my brothers are special"
(T-1.V.3:6). Today is special because, in the holy instant, salvation has
already come. And yet, "You can claim the holy instant any time and anywhere
you want it" (T-15.IV.4:4). Whenever you claim the holy instant, it is a
special time! A day of joy!

This is just like telling a child that they can have Christmas every day if
they want it. And indeed the Course tells us exactly that, in the section
titled "The Time of Rebirth," written at Christmas. It tells us that
Christmas is the time of Christ, and the time of Christ is the holy instant
(see T-15.X.2:1); then it tells us, "It is in your power to make the time of
Christ be now" (T-15.X.4:1).

And so, why not today? Why not every day? Why not now? Any time I want to, I
can make it a time "when sorrows pass away and pain is gone" (1:4). The
practice of the holy instant offers me this. Within my mind I can, at any
instant, open a window onto the real world, and breathe its fragrant
atmosphere. I can experience a united world, drawn together by my
forgiveness.

I do not yet find that I experience bliss the moment I close my eyes and
say, "This holy instant is salvation come." The reality I have experienced,
from time to time, is always here; I am certain of that. Yet my awareness of
it remains spotty. (<Very> spotty!) But once you have tasted it, and in that
instant <known> that what you are experiencing is eternal, you can never
fully doubt its eternal presence. There are still many barriers blocking my
awareness of it. I am still holding on to quite a few of those barriers. My
grievances are still, most of the time, hiding the light of the world from
me. But it is there. My forgiveness can release it (1:7-2:1).

Every time I pause to remember, every time I attempt to claim the holy
instant, another barrier falls, another drop of willingness is added to my
reservoir. What better way could I possibly spend my time? As Lesson 127
said: "There is no better use for time than this" (see paragraphs 7 and 8).

One aside: Notice that in 1:8, Jesus speaks of our forgiving <him>. Let me
examine myself today, to see if there is something I still hold against him;
something in him I mistrust; some way in which I still fear him, or blame
him, or resent him. Even if I respect him as my teacher, it is very easy to
feel resentful of one's teachers.

What Is the World?

PART 1: W-PII.3.1:1-4

The first sentence answers the question: "The world is false perception"
(1:1). The rest of the page is the explanation of this summary statement.
Some of us, on first reading the Course, think that perhaps the Course is
not saying that the world is unreal, but that our perception of it is false.
Yet here, quite clearly, Jesus is saying that the world and false perception
are the same thing. The world is a hallucination; we are perceiving
something that isn't there.

In my perception, "I" am inside my head, looking out at a world that is not
me. Separate. And that is simply not the truth. There is no world outside my
mind (see T-18.VI.1:1 and T-12.III.6:7). "What is projected out, and seems
to be external to the mind, is not outside at all" (T-26.VII.4:9).

The world was "born of error" and it has not left our minds which sourced it
(1:2). As the Course so often says, ideas leave not their source. The world
is the mistaken idea of separation in our minds (1:4), and it has never left
our minds. When our mind (the one mind we all share) no longer cherishes the
idea of separation, the world which represents that idea will simply
disappear.

Many who were raised in a religious tradition which taught that God created
the world have gone through a lot of distress and confusion, wondering how
God could ever have created such a mess! If He was responsible for this, we
weren't sure we wanted to know Him. What a relief it is to realize that He
did <not> create it; it was born of the error of our mind, from our
mistakenly entertaining the idea of separation. The misery of this world
only reflects the misery brought to our mind by the thought of separation.
It is as if we wondered, "What if we were separate?" and were instantly
given a virtual reality tour of what would result.

An early lesson said, "I can escape from this world by giving up attack
thoughts" (W-pI.55.3:1, reviewing Lesson 23). The thought is the same. Heal
the attack thoughts, the thoughts of separation which I still cherish, and I
can leave the world behind. The Course is helping us to do just that; to let
our attack thoughts go, and solve the problems of the world at their source.