[acimlessons_list] Lesson 226 - August 14

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 226 - August 14

"MY HOME AWAITS ME. I WILL HASTEN THERE."

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 comments: In the prayer, notice the image of God as parent waiting
for us to return home. Like a mother at dinnertime, His Voice is calling us
home. Like a parent who hasn't seen us for a long time, His Arms are open,
waiting to embrace us in joyous welcome. As you pray the prayer, you may
want to visualize all this. It is true that God has no arms and no audible
voice, but such earthly symbols can help carry our minds toward that which
cannot be symbolized.

COMMENTARY

<Home>. What an evocative word that is! "I'm going home." Sometimes just
thinking about going home, even in an abstract sense, can cause deep
emotions to rise up in us--happy ones, I hope, although for some an unhappy
home life has tainted the word. Even then, when our "real" home was unhappy,
most of us are still filled with a deep longing for home <as it ought to
be>. Our real home is in God. Our longings for home find their roots in our
longing for this spiritual home in God.

How can I "go home"? There are songs that convey the common idea that we go
home to Heaven when we die: spirituals such as "Goin' Home." But the Course
here is extremely clear. It speaks of departing this world, and says, "It is
not death which makes this possible, but it is a change of mind about the
purpose of the world" (1:2).

As long as we think that the purpose of the world lies within itself, that
somehow happiness, freedom, and contentment are to be found here, in the
world, we will never leave it. Not even when we "die." The chains that bind
us to the world are mental, not physical. Our valuing of the world is what
holds us to it. If I value the world "as I see it now" (1:3), it will hold
on to me even when my body crumbles. But if I no longer see anything in this
world "as I behold it" (1:4) that I want to keep or search for, I am free.

There is a world of meaning--literally!--in those phrases "as I see it now"
and "as I behold it." In the ego's perception this world is a place of
punishment and imprisonment, and simultaneously a place where I come to seek
for what seems to be "lacking" in myself. As long as I somehow value that
punishment and imprisonment, perhaps not for myself but almost always for
others upon whom I have projected my guilt, I will be bound to the world,
and I will not go home. As long as I think there is a lack in myself and
continue to search for it outside myself, valuing the world for what I think
it can give to me, I will always be bound to the world, and I will not go
home.

"My home <awaits> me." Our home is not under construction. It is ready and
waiting, the red carpet rolled out, everything is ready, and God's Arms are
open and we hear His Voice (2:2). Home is available right now, if I only
choose it. Let me be willing to look at what keeps me from choosing it,
because those are the hindrances that keep me from finding it. Do I still
wistfully long for my prince to come (or my princess)? Do I still have
things I want to do before I am ready to go? Do I still find secret pleasure
when the "wicked" (in my sight) suffer? If this world could vanish an hour
from now, what would I regret? Would I be ready to leave? If a shimmering
curtain were to appear in the doorway and a Voice proclaim, "Pass this
portal and you will be in Heaven," would I go through? Why not?

This is not a fantasy. The Voice <is> calling us, and Heaven is here and
now. We can pass the portal any time we choose to. If we are not
experiencing Heaven, we <must> be choosing not to do so, and finding out
what holds us back is the work we are assigned to in this classroom. This is
what the world is for--to teach us to let it go.

"What need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of shattered
dreams, when Heaven can so easily be mine?" (2:3).

WHAT IS FORGIVENESS?

PART 6: W-PII.1.3:3-4

We do not realize how much our unforgiving thoughts distort the truth (3:3).
Unforgiving thoughts twist our perception of things which are not in accord
with how unforgiveness wants to see things. They overlook any evidence for
love, and find evidence of guilt. In the Text section "The Obstacles to
Peace," in the subsection on "The Attraction of Guilt" (T-19.IV(A).i), our
unforgiving thoughts are compared to scavenging messengers "harshly ordered
to seek out guilt, and cherish every scrap of evil and of sin that they can
find, losing none of them on pain of death, and laying them respectfully
before their lord and master" (T-19.IV(A).11:2). That is, we find what we
are looking for, and the ego is looking for guilt.

But distortion is not only the <method> used by the ego; distortion is also
the ego's <purpose>. Thus, the purpose of unforgiveness is to distort
reality. Unforgiveness furiously aims "to smash reality, without concern for
anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view"
(3:4). Reality is the hated enemy, the intolerable presence, because our
reality is still the Son of God, never in the slightest separated from Him.
Reality exposes the ego as a lie, and cannot be tolerated. So the way our
minds work, when dominated by unforgiving thoughts, is designed from the
beginning to distort reality beyond all recognition.

In contrast to this, the Course asks us to dream of our brother's kindnesses
instead of his mistakes, and to not brush aside his many gifts just because
he isn't perfect (see T-27.VII.15). It asks us to look for love instead of
looking for guilt, and rather than finding fault, to try finding love
instead. To begin with, we can simply start to question the way we see
things, in awareness that our thought processes and our methods of making
judgment have been severely impaired and simply are not reliable. It isn't
that we <should not> judge, it's that we <cannot> judge (see M-10.2:1). We
are operating at diminished capacity; we need a healthy mind to judge on our
behalf. And that mind is the Holy Spirit.