[acimlessons_list] LESSON 319 - NOVEMBER 15

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 319 - NOVEMBER 15

"I came for the salvation of the world."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS 

See complete 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.

COMMENTARY

The Course is quite clear that our purpose here, every one of us, is the
salvation of the world. This is quite different from the purpose for which
the ego came to the world, which was to find a place where God could not
enter; to hide from God, so to speak, and eventually, to die. But the Holy
Spirit has a different purpose for everything the ego made for its nefarious
purposes. Our purpose here is to bring the world back to light by allowing
ourselves to be transformed, becoming God's extensions in the dream to
awaken all our brothers along with ourselves.

To say, "I am here to save the world," which is just a slight paraphrase of
the lesson title, sounds very arrogant to us. But "here is a thought from
which all arrogance has been removed" (1:1). It is not arrogant because it
is the truth; this is what God created us for, and the function He has
assigned to us. To say otherwise is arrogance because it opposes the truth
and tries to make for ourselves a role we do not have.

When our arrogance is removed, "truth will come immediately" (1:3) to fill
up the empty spot left by it. Our self-appointed roles are blocking and
interfering with the function given to us by God. The reason thinking that
we are here to save the world is not arrogant is that "what one gains is
given unto all" (1:6). So accepting our function as saviors means that we
accept it for all; our brothers become our saviors just as we become theirs.
If the Will of God is total (2:1), then the goal of God must be total; it
must be the salvation of the entire world (2:3), not just of me and you and
our sister Sue.

To bring the world home to oneness is God's Will, and therefore it is "the
Will my Self has shared with" Him (2:4). It is my will as well. We are here
for the healing of all minds. Our will is that everyone awaken to love, and
that is our only purpose in being here.

"I came for the salvation of the world." Repeating this to myself, reminding
myself of this, is an interesting exercise. Another way of saying it is, "I
am here only to be truly helpful" (T-2.V(A).18:2). Let me remind myself of
this today. I am not here to make a name for myself, to make money, or to
achieve the temporal and temporary things I think of as my goals. I am here
to help. I am here to heal. I am here to bless. I am here to save the world.

WHAT IS THE LAST JUDGMENT?

Part 9: W-pII.10.5:1

     This is God's Final Judgment: "You are still My holy Son, forever 
     innocent, forever loving and forever loved, as limitless as your
Creator,
     and completely changeless and forever pure."

I find myself reading this sentence over and over; I feel that I need to
hear it often, because I am aware of the part of my mind that does not
believe it.

I am forever innocent. And yet I still feel guilty at times. I have done
things, in my life, that I am certainly not proud of. I have let others
down. I've failed to be there for them when they expected me to be there.
I've given up on love. I have said things calculated to hurt. I have been
deceitful. Like everyone, I carry a certain amount of regret for some things
in my past. But God sees me as forever innocent. To me, one of the most
poignant lines in the Course is, "You have not lost your innocence"
(W-pI.182.12:1). Sometimes I think that the best definition of "miracle" is
the shift in perception that allows us to see ourselves as completely
innocent. It is extremely difficult for us to see this about ourselves; to
me, that is one of the prime values of a holy relationship. The Course tells
us we cannot, alone, see ourselves as totally innocent; we need another with
whom we can learn this together.

I am forever loving. Again, there seems to be evidence in my past to
contradict this. The Course would say the evidence is false, that we are not
seeing the whole picture, and that what appeared to be unloving was really
our own fear and call for love. We are in pain over what we think we have
done, but the Final Judgment will free us of that pain forever, and we will
be able to see that we have always been loving, and are forever. Nothing we
have done has changed this.

I am forever loved. Ah! This one is often hard to believe, and for all the
same reasons; we do not feel loveable, and we sometimes do not love
ourselves. I recall taking part in a guided meditation in which I was
directed to extend love, blessing, and compassionate understanding to
everyone else in the room, and then to the neighborhood, and finally to the
world. And then, imagining myself looking down on the world from above, to
see myself, sitting there, and to extend that same love, blessing, and
compassionate understanding to myself. I felt a deep melting inside of me,
the hardness of self-judgment giving way to compassion, and I wept. How hard
we are on ourselves! And how seldom we realize just how tightly we hold
ourselves in the vise of judgment.

I am as limitless as my Creator. That stretches my credibility and my
comprehension. The place to which the Course is taking us, where this is
understood and known as true, is far beyond what we even imagine.

I am completely changeless. The experience of constant change, of mood
swings, of up and down, of high and low, is not who I really am. The Course
tells me, "It is not <you> who is so vulnerable and open to attack that just
a word, a little whisper that you do not like, a circumstance that suits you
not, or an event that you did not anticipate upsets your world, and hurls it
into chaos" (T-24.III.3:1). That may be who I <think> I am, but that is not
me, not my Self.

I am forever pure. Pure means unmixed, unadulterated. I often experience
myself as an unwholesome mixture of good, bad, and indifferent. That is not
who I am. I am pure; without mixture.

And in God's Final Judgment, I will know all of this. I can know it now. I
can hear His Word to me today, in the holy instant. This message is what is
communicated to me, wordlessly, each time I enter His Presence. This message
is what is given to me, and to you, to share with the world.