[acimlessons_list] REVIEW IV, LESSON 150 - MAY 30

[Sue Roth]

REVIEW IV, LESSON 150 - MAY 30

"MY MIND HOLDS ONLY WHAT I THINK WITH GOD."

(139) "I WILL ACCEPT ATONEMENT FOR MYSELF."

(140) "ONLY SALVATION CAN BE SAID TO CURE."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS

See Review IV practice instructions.

COMMENTARY

Accepting Atonement for myself means, to me, allowing God to release me from
all kinds of guilt. Letting go of all my judgments against myself, all my
diminishing self-evaluations. It means accepting that I am not my thoughts
and, above all, I am not my ego. I am not what I have thought I am. I am not
what I am afraid I am. Accepting the Atonement for myself means that I can
look upon my own ego without condemnation, recognizing it as no more than a
foolish mistake about myself that can be corrected.

When I accept Atonement for myself, I stop measuring myself against
arbitrary standards and accept myself just as I am. I am able to look upon
myself with love, to view myself with merciful acceptance. In the holy
instant, I accept the Atonement, and to enter such a moment it is not
necessary that I have no thoughts that are not pure, only that I have no
thoughts that I want to keep (see T-15.IV.9:1-2). I recognize that I have
made mistakes, but I am willing for every mistake to be corrected, and I
accept no guilt concerning those mistakes. I do not allow my mistakes to
keep me from the holy instant, because the holy instant is the place those
mistakes can be corrected, and their consequences undone.

This is salvation. This is the undoing of errors, the correction of
mistakes.

Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support
the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting
them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust. (W-pII.2.3:1-3)

This is the only thing that can be said to truly cure. Anything less than
this is mere alleviation of symptoms, mere shifting of form without any
change in content. The root cause of guilt must be undone. "The Holy Spirit
knows that all salvation is escape from guilt" (T-14.III.13:4).

To know that my mind holds only what I think with God is to escape from
guilt. To know that my mind holds only what I think with God is salvation,
and truly cures my ills. Atonement is God's answer to everything within my
mind that appears to be other than God. It erases every thought opposed to
truth and leaves me with the clean, crisp truth of my own innocence. I can
bring every impure thought, every unworthy thought, every guilty thought,
every thought of isolation and separateness, every thought of pain and
vengeance and despair to this miraculous place of Atonement, lay it there on
the altar, and watch it disappear:

This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is
seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. For there the altar to
the Son is set, and there his Father is remembered. Here are all illusions
brought to truth and laid upon the altar. What is seen outside must lie
beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while
sin is seen as outside? What remedy can guilt expect? But seen within your
mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon
one altar. There at last are sickness and its single remedy joined in one
healing brightness. God has come to claim His Own. Forgiveness is complete.
(C-4.6:1-10)