[acimlessons_list] Lesson 280 - October 7

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 280 - October 7

"WHAT LIMITS CAN I LAY UPON GOD'S SON?"

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: Think of someone in your life, and apply these lines to
that person:

<Being a Thought of God, [name] has not left his Father's Mind.

Being a Thought of God, [name] is not limited at all.

Being a Thought of God, [name] is forever pure.

Being God's Son, what limits can I lay upon him>?

COMMENTARY

The Course is calling on me to not deny to anyone--my brothers or
myself--the limitless freedom in which God created us. I find in myself what
seems like a natural tendency to compare myself to others, and to find
myself, in some way, superior to them. I am more intelligent. My opinions
are more correct. Or my relationships are superior. Or I am more ethical,
more compassionate, more understanding, more honest with myself. I have
greater integrity. All of these are ways in which I have, at times, felt
superior to others. Others have other standards of comparison. But in
general, I think, we all have this tendency to feel somehow superior to most
of the rest of the human race.

This is what the Course calls specialness. It is a way of seeing others with
limits that, we believe, do not exist for ourselves. The Course's call to
see our brothers as equally free as ourselves contradicts this pattern of
thinking we have taught ourselves. The lesson says, "I can invent
imprisonment for him [he whom God created free], but only in illusions, not
in truth" (1:2). We are all equal Thoughts of God; none of us has left the
Father's Mind; none of us is limited at all--except in illusions.

As students of <A Course in Miracles> we are called to "give honor" (2:1) to
the Son of God wherever we meet Him. We are called to recognize the Christ
in every one who is sent to meet us. Let me recognize today that the limits
I see are my own illusions; they are, in fact, my own belief in my own
limits, dressed up, disguised, perhaps, in another form, and projected onto
my brother. I find my own freedom by honoring it in others. Let me remind
myself today, "This is the holy Son of God, my brother, a part of my Self."
Only in so doing will I find my Self, and recognize the Christ as God
created Him.

At one point the Course makes a very strong statement. It says that if I
really recognized who my brother or sister is, I could "scarce refrain from
kneeling at his feet" (W-pI.161.9:3). Yet, it goes on to say that I will
take his hand instead, because in the kind of sight that sees my brother or
sister in this way, I am equally glorious. We are the Christ. Who we are is
magnificent, so far beyond our normal conception of ourselves that on seeing
it our inclination would be to worship, except that in that same instant we
recognize that same magnificence in ourselves. May God grant us all such
vision!

WHAT IS THE CHRIST?

PART 10: W-PII.6.5:3

This sentence speaks of the vision of God's Son, the awareness of the
"glory" of what we truly are. In seeking and seeing Christ's face in one
another, we find that same glory in ourselves. In the recognition of our
true nature as God's creation, all need of "learning or perception or of
time" ceases. The removal of the veils of guilt, accomplished by
forgiveness, reveals the Christ to us, and there is no longer need of
anything "except the holy Self, the Christ Who God created as His Son."

We already are what we are looking for. Only our dreams of guilt have hidden
it from our sight. What is the Christ? You are. I am. Learning to undo the
blocks to this sight is our only purpose in time. When that has been
accomplished, there is nothing left to do except to <be> what we always have
been.