[acimlessons_list] LESSON 334 - NOVEMBER 30

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 334 - NOVEMBER 30

"Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives."

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

"I seek but the eternal" (2:1). This lesson is about deciding not to waste
any more time going after the supposed gifts of the ego. "I will not wait
another day to find the treasures that my Father offers me" (1:1). The
primary use we are making of our free will is to delay our acceptance of our
divine inheritance. We are holding on like crazy to our illusion of
independence, and denying ourselves the only thing that will ever content us
(2:2), like a homeless person stupidly clinging to his rags while being
offered brand new clothing.

Let me keep in mind today that nothing in this world is of lasting value.
"Illusions are all vain, and dreams are gone even while they are woven out
of thoughts that rest on false perceptions" (1:2). This reminds me of the
verse in Ecclesiastes that says all our seeking is like trying to hold on to
the wind. The illusions of the ego are so evanescent; they can never satisfy
a Son of God. Only that which is eternal can satisfy me. A Christian hero of
mine, Jim Elliot, once said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to
gain what he cannot lose."

Let me remember that what I truly want is God and His peace in my heart.
When I think I want something else, Holy Spirit, please help me to translate
that desire into what it truly is, a symbol of my longing for the Father and
for Home. God's Voice is offering peace; let that be my only aim, and let
everything else fall by the wayside.

"The gifts forgiveness gives": What has all this got to do with forgiveness?
Simply this: Every goal other than peace generates unforgiveness, putting me
in competition with someone or something for that thing, whatever it is.
Peace comes through forgiveness. If peace is my only goal, I will not judge
my brothers because a mind in judgment is not a mind at peace. Only a mind
free of lesser goals, free of desire for ephemeral things, can see his
brothers as sinless.

Every encounter today offers me a chance at Heaven. There does not need to
be any great crisis. All the world is my classroom, and every instant is a
moment of choice. Today, let me choose peace.

WHAT IS THE EGO? (PART 4)

Part 4: W-pII.12.2:4-5

	And in its [the ego's] terrible autonomy it "sees"
	the Will of God has been destroyed.	(2:5) 

This illusion of separation we call the ego, this "terrible autonomy," seems
to show us that we have triumphed over God's Will for union. What a terrible
thing it would be if this were reality! The ego's very being, if it were
real, would be evidence of the most awful guilt imaginable. If I am the ego,
then what I am, my very being, is an accusation of murder most foul, for I
have wrested my very existence from the destruction of God's Will. And this
is just what we believe in identifying with the ego. This is the primal
guilt beneath all our vague, uneasy feelings, all our sense of unworthiness.

	It dreams of punishment, and trembles at the figures
	in its dreams; its enemies, who seek to murder it before
	it can ensure its safety by attacking them.	(2:4)

In the "terrible autonomy" of our identification with the ego, we have
placed ourselves at odds with God and the universe. Everyone and everything
else is a threat to our autonomy. Our dreams are filled with nightmarish
punishment for our "crime." The ego state is one of acute paranoia; we are
afraid of everything. We expect the executioner's axe to fall at any moment.
No one can be trusted. Every figure in our dream is an enemy, and the only
option for survival is to kill them before they kill us. The only safety is
in attack.

This paranoid frame of mind is inevitable, given the ego's premise of
autonomy. We all experience it to greater or lesser degree; some of us
merely hide it better than others. When we get down to it, each of us feels
unbearably alone, an outsider, crouched in the shadows of the woods while
the rest of the world holds hands and sings around the campfire. That is the
inescapable result of the premise of ego autonomy. It is the outcome of what
we mistakenly presume ourselves to be.

The good news is that this is not what we are; the aloneness is an illusion,
an outrageous impossibility. The ego is forever unbelievable. We are no more
apart from God and His creation than a cell in my body is apart from the
body itself. We live in God; we move and have our being in God. We are, all
of us, making this incredible transition from ego autonomy to a
transpersonal unity, the recognition of a higher Whole to which we all
belong, intrinsically, a Whole which exists in every part-in you, in me.
Nothing can stop this transition, because it is simply the recognition of
what has always been so.