[acimlessons_list] LESSON 131 - MAY 11

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 131 - MAY 11

"No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS

Purpose: God made an ancient promise to you, and you did to Him, that you
would one day go beyond the door in your mind and find the real world. Today
that promise will be fulfilled.

Longer: Three times, for ten minutes.

The instructions in paragraphs 11-13 are so clear that I have merely laid
the sentences out on separate lines:

Begin with this:

I ask to see a different world, and think 
 a different kind of thought from those I made. 
The world I seek I did not make alone, 
 the thoughts I want to think are not my own.
For several minutes watch your mind and see, 
 although your eyes are closed, the senseless 
 world you think is real. 
Review the thoughts as well which are compatible 
 with such a world,  and which you think are true.
Then let them go, and sink below them to the
 holy place where they can enter not. 
There is a door beneath them in your mind, which you 
 could not completely lock to hide what lies beyond.
Seek for that door and find it.
But before you try to open it, remind yourself 
 no one can fail who seeks to reach the truth. 
And it is this request you make today. 
Nothing but this has any meaning now; 
 no other goal is valued now nor sought, 
 nothing before this door you really want, 
 and only what lies past it do you seek.
Put out your hand, and see how easily the 
 door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. 
Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes, 
 and you are standing in a light so bright and clear
 that you can understand all things you see. 
A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause 
 before you realize the world you see before you in the
 light reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite 
 forget in wandering away in dreams. 	(W-pI.131.11:2-13:3)
Shorter: Often.

Repeat the idea, while keeping in mind that today you will go beyond the
door and find the truth, and that today is therefore a day of grace, a time
for gladness and celebration. I highly recommend really reminding yourself
of this latter fact. It will change your mood during the day if you
remember.

Response to temptation: If you forget what a special day it is and fall into
depression or complaining.
Remind yourself of the true nature of this day by repeating, "Today I seek
and find all that I want. My single purpose offers it to me. No one can fail
who seeks to reach the truth." How can you feel dismal when you realize that
you are finding all you ever wanted? I recommend either writing down those
lines on a card and keeping them handy or, better yet, memorizing them.

COMMENTARY

At times it seems to nearly everyone that the search for truth is one that
will never succeed. It seems that we seek, and seek, and seek some more, and
never arrive at certainty. Today's lesson comes as a welcome reassurance
that the search for truth is the only search that will inevitably succeed.

"Searching is inevitable here" (3:1). It's the nature of the world, the
nature of the predicament we've put ourselves into. 
Searching is why we came here, and so "you will surely do the thing you came
for" (3:2). If we're going to search, then, we may as well search for
something worth finding: "a goal that lies beyond the world and every
worldly thought.an echo of a heritage forgot" (3:4). What we are searching
for is Heaven, "a heritage forgot." What we are searching for is the home we
left behind and almost put out of our minds, although to do so entirely is
impossible. That's why we are driven to search. "Behind the search for every
idol lies the yearning for completion" (T-30.III.3:1).
What we are seeking for is what we are; that is why finding it is
inevitable. "No one can fail to want this goal and reach it in the end"
(4:3).

Sometimes it may seem as though truth has deserted you. I think some
experience of that is almost inescapable for all of us, a last-ditch effort
of the ego to dissuade us from the search when we are getting too close. I
know it has happened to me, and all I can tell you is, "Hang in there." Your
search cannot fail, even though you may think it has already failed. I know
I came through that dark period of my life. I don't know how I did because I
didn't seem to have anything to do with it, which is part of what convinces
me that my "coming out of it" is real and lasting. I still dip into despair
from time to time, but I will never again live there. "No one can fail who
seeks to reach the truth."

What we are looking for, and perhaps can find today, is something that is
beneath all the thoughts in our minds that are compatible with this
senseless world-"a door beneath them in your mind" (11:8). A door in our
minds! Past that door is "a light so bright and clear that you can
understand all things you see" (13:2). Today's exercise is wonderful for
visualization, actually picturing that door, seeing ourselves standing
before it, and with one intent, pushing it open to pass through, out of this
world and into another, like the wardrobe doorway into Narnia in C. S.
Lewis's fantasy books. 

These exercises are like rehearsals, and as we repeat them, they grow more
and more real to us, engaging our minds and training them in a pattern that
leads to real discovery of the real door, within our minds, to Heaven.