[acimlessons_list] Lesson 93 - April 3

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 93 - April 3

"Light and joy and peace abide in me."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

Purpose: To go past your belief that you are sinful and evil, and to
experience the sinless Self that God created as you.

Longer: every hour on the hour, for 5 minutes

* Repeat, "Light and joy and peace abide in me. My sinlessness is guaranteed
by God." I find it helpful to pause briefly after each quality ("Light...and
joy...and peace...") so that I can appreciate each one separately.
* The remainder is a brief meditation, in which you try to reach past the
false self that you made, which includes your whole sense of self and all
your self-images. Reach deep within to the Self that God created as you,
which is filled with light and joy and peace. Try to experience Its unity,
and to appreciate Its holiness and Love. "Let It come into Its Own" (9:6).
Remember to hold an attitude of confidence, desire, and determination, and
to dispel distracting thoughts by repeating the idea.

Alternate: on the hour, for at least 1 minute
Try to do the hourly five minutes whenever you can. When you are unable or
unwilling, at least do the alternate:

* Say, "Light and joy and peace abide in me. My sinlessness is guaranteed by
God."
* Close your eyes and try to realize this is the truth about you.

Response to temptation: whenever a situation or person tempts you to be
upset
  1.  If a situation disturbs you, quickly say: 
      "Light and joy and peace abide in me. 
      My sinlessness is guaranteed by God."
  2.  If a person seems to anger you, tell him silently, 
      "Light and joy and peace abide in you. 
      Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God."

Encouragement to practice: Today is the beginning of a bank of lessons in
which you are asked to practice five minutes every waking hour. To help you
rise to this challenge, these lessons contain a huge amount of encouragement
to practice. You can see that encouragement in the final sentences of this
lesson, which tell you that by doing today's practice you can aid the
world's salvation, bring closer your own part in that salvation, and gain
conviction that light and joy and peace really do abide in you.

COMMENTARY

The lead thought is very positive, reflecting the truth about me; but the
first paragraph of the body of the lesson is quite dark, reflecting what the
ego has taught me about myself, and taught very well. I think I am "the home
of evil, darkness and sin" (1:1). To be sure, not many of us <consciously>
think this about ourselves, and when such thoughts occur we quickly banish
them. But the way I respond to myself betrays that this is, indeed, how I
think about myself. Why else am I so protective of my "private thoughts,"
for instance? Why am I apprehensive about self-examination and about looking
at my inner motivations? Why am I afraid to leave the body and appear before
God, when that possibility crosses my mind? I have deep-seated doubts about
my own goodness and worth.

Suppose I were to meet someone who could read my mind and know my every
thought. Would I feel comfortable around such a person? Suppose everyone I
meet could read my every thought. Imagine I had to wear a helmet with a
video screen above my forehead that pictured my every thought for anyone to
look at. How would I feel? I have no doubt that I would feel very, very
uncomfortable and perhaps terrified, because there are many thoughts that
cross my mind all the time that I would not care to have written on the wall
for everyone to see.

Even when I am reasonably confident of the harmlessness of my intentions,
there are always sub-currents to my motivation that even I despise. My most
benevolent acts are sometimes laced with a certain resentfulness or sense of
sacrifice, and mixed with ulterior motives. Sometimes I am quite conscious
of not trusting myself in certain situations. Every one of us, in the
picture the Course paints, has this basic self-doubt. We secretly suspect,
or even consciously believe, that we are not wholly trustworthy and not
wholly good and loving. And as the lesson says, it is "difficult" (2:1) to
dislodge these beliefs about ourselves, yet that is what the Course is all
about--removing those blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is
our natural inheritance (T-Int.1:7)

The truth is that, in my innermost Self, I <am> wholly loving and wholly
loveable (T-1.III.2:3,4). Light and joy and peace abide in me; I am their
home, and they remain with me forever as a creation of God. To begin to
question my entrenched negative beliefs about myself (which is one way of
defining what the Course calls "guilt"), and to begin to see myself as God
created me, I need "a very different reference point" (3:1). I need to
attain to a different state of mind. That is what the Holy Spirit does for
me; that is what happens in the holy instant.

The truth about me is "that all the evil that you think you did was never
done, that all your sins are nothing, that you are as pure and holy as you
were created, and that light and joy and peace abide in you" (4:1). We
resist this message tenaciously, although it is wholly illogical to do so;
Spock we're not. Our minds automatically raise up counter-arguments to
disprove our own innocence. Or we simply dismiss it as absurd, as
"pollyanna," without even seriously considering it. Why? Because we think
that to admit the truth of our innocence is death. We are so identified with
this guilty self-image that to threaten it is to threaten our very
existence, or so it seems. "But it is life" (4:3), not death. When the
Spirit presents us with a picture of our innocence it terrifies us because
it turns our whole world upside down and uproots our every frame of
reference, all based on judgments we have made. It is frightening to think
that we have been so totally mistaken about ourselves, even when the mistake
has been to condemn ourselves and the unfamiliar truth is our own
guiltlessness.

One method this lesson uses, very evidently, to help uproot the old, guilty
self-image is just to repeat, over and over and over, "Your sinlessness is
guaranteed by God." It repeats this seven times in the lesson. Frequent
repetition is an excellent way to reprogram the mind, so we are asked to
spend five minutes every hour, if we can, repeating these ideas and thinking
about them, realizing that they are the truth about ourselves. "Light and
joy and peace abide in me. My sinlessness is guaranteed by God."


When it says this, the lesson does not mean that God guarantees to take us
as poor, sinful creatures and <make> us sinless. That isn't necessary
because we were <created> sinless to begin with and retain that quality. I
have never sinned; that is what the lesson is telling me. Oh, I <think> I
have (and so do people who know me!), I believe I have, I am utterly
convinced that I have, but I have never sinned. Mistakes, yes, but not sins,
because there is no such thing. "To sin would be to violate reality, and to
succeed" (T-19.II.2:2), and that simply is not possible.

"The Son of God can be mistaken; he can deceive himself; he can even turn
the power of his mind against himself. But he <cannot> sin. There is nothing
he can do that would really change his reality in any way, nor make him
really guilty" (T-19.II.3:1-3).

My sinlessness is guaranteed because I cannot sin; that's simple logic. If
something is impossible for me to do, it is a pretty sure bet that I won't
do it and never have done it.

The exercises today are attempts to experience this One Self, this reality
as God created it. It takes letting the other "self" go. Opening to the
immensity of love that is within us, floating in It, being surrounded by It,
embraced by It. And then the most amazing thought: "Here you are; This is
You" (9:7). <THIS> is You! This Love, this vastness, this infinite
compassion--This is You! If you can, think of the most direct and dramatic
experience you have ever had of God's presence, or of the presence of love,
and tell yourself, "That which I experienced in that moment, That is Me.
That is what I am."