[acimlessons_list] LESSON 263 - SEPTEMBER 20

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 263 - SEPTEMBER 20

"My holy vision sees all things as pure."

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: Look randomly about you for a minute or two. In
relation to whatever your eyes alight on, say, <"My holy vision sees this
_________ as pure, that I may pass it by in innocence.">

Then close your eyes and think of various people you know. In relation to
each one, say, <"My holy vision sees [name] as pure, that we may walk
together to our Father's house.">

COMMENTARY

This lesson is about seeing all things as God created them: without sin,
innocent, and pure. His Mind created all that is, His Spirit entered into
it, and His Love gave life to it (1:1). To see things in this way, at first,
has to be a conscious choice, because we have trained our minds to see
otherwise. We have learned to judge. We will categorize, evaluate on a scale
of one to ten, and attempt to determine whether this is something or someone
we want to draw closer to us or to push away. We've trained our minds to do
so since birth, and probably in many previous lifetimes. Thus, there has to
be a conscious choice to say, "No. I choose to see this as pure." We
downgrade our reflexive evaluations and choose instead to accept the Holy
Spirit's judgment.

Eventually--a long eventually--our minds will become retrained. The choice
to see purity will become more and more automatic. The judgmental thoughts
will probably always be there, slowly receding into the background, until we
leave this world completely, but the choice to see purity will become less
and less a conscious choice, and more and more a habit of thought. Frequent
and persistent repetition will speed the process.

WHAT IS THE BODY?

PART 3: W-PII.5.2:1-4

The body, of course, is transient. It will not last (2:1). The biblical
psalmist compared man's life to grass, as brief as a flower in the field,
and quickly disappearing (Ps 103:15).

Our transient nature is near to the surface of every mind, as I was reminded
last night in a restaurant, when someone came in and greeted the host with,
"How's life?"

"Too short," he replied.

You might think that the shortness of physical life would instantly alert us
to the fallacy of the ego's attempt to have us find safety in the body, but
the ego quickly twists the very shortness into a proof of its case. The ego
wants to prove separation. And what is more separating than physical death?
So the short life of the body "proves" that the fence works; we really are
separate from one another and from God (2:3). We made the body to manifest
separation, and lo! it does. One body can attack another and kill it. If we
were really one, so the ego's logic goes, this would be impossible (2:4).
The ego is a master of sophistry.

There is a masterful counter-argument in Chapter 13 of the Text. There, it
says:

For you believe that attack is your reality, and that your destruction is
the final proof that you were right.

Under the circumstances, would it not be more desirable to have been wrong,
even apart from the fact that you were wrong? While it could perhaps be
argued that death suggests there <was> life, no one would claim that it
proves there <is> life. Even the past life that death might indicate, could
only have been futile if it must come to this, and needs this to prove that
it was at all. (T-13.IV.2:5-3:3)

If you have to die in order to prove you were right (separation does exist),
wouldn't you rather be wrong--and live? "Even though you know not Heaven,
might it not be more desirable than death?" (T-13.IV.3:6). Much of our fear
of letting go of our identification with the body lies right here; we're
afraid of being proven wrong. If we are wrong in this one thing, so much
else of our lives has been wasted effort. We've been pouring our very souls
into something that, in a very short time, will be only dust. The Course is
asking us to realize the futility of all this, and to look around us and
ask, "Is there perhaps something else more deserving of all this effort?"
And there is.