[acimlessons_list] LESSON 304 - OCTOBER 31

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 304 - OCTOBER 31

"Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS 

See complete instructions in a 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

"My world" is, of course, the world I made to support my ego; the illusory
world of attack and separation. The sight of Christ, or the vision of Christ
as it is mostly called in the Text, is a faculty that is native to all of
us, part of our created Being. Christ's vision shows us reality and oneness,
not the fragmented chaos we usually see with our eyes. This sight is always
available to us, but the world we made "can obscure [our] holy sight" (1:1).
So today's thought is a prayer, or a resolution, not to allow that to
happen, not to let what our eyes show us prevent our seeing what the vision
of Christ can show us all the time and any time-namely, the real world.

     Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of
mind, 
     reflected outward.	(1:3-4) 

The same thought is repeated throughout the Course:

     Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see. 
     Remember this.	(M-19.5:2-3)

     The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that..It is
the witness 
     to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition.
(T-21.In.1:2, 5)

The world, then, is only showing us our own minds. Nothing more nor less
than our own projections obscure the sight of Christ. Christ is the only
reality, the creation of God, and without our superimposed projections this
reality is all we would see. But we cannot use our perception to see it;
instead, we must use the vision of Christ, a wholly separate faculty or
sense (1:2). We need to let the sight of the world fade from our minds; this
is why closing our eyes can be helpful at first, when what our eyes show us
seems so solid and real.

What we see is determined by what we want to see. Therefore, we are given
these words to say: "I would [i.e., I will to] bless the world by looking on
it through the eyes of Christ" (1:5). Our perception can become true
perception, which sees the world as a reflection of the truth instead of
being a mirror of our projections, if truth is what we want to see. "When
you want only love you will see nothing else" (T-12.VII.8:1).

Today I want to tune in to my natural, God-given desire to bless the world.
I want to draw upon that will to bless, which is always in me, and use it to
transform my perception of the world around me. I want to see the world as a
mirror reflecting the fact that "all my sins have been forgiven me" (1:6). I
will see that when I see all the world as forgiven. "Let me forgive, and
thus receive salvation for the world" (2:2). This is a gift given me by God
that I can offer to His holy Son, of which every person I meet or even think
of today is a part. As I forgive those around me, which is my mission today,
they will be helped to once again find the memory of God, and of the Christ
as their own Self (2:3).

WHAT IS THE SECOND COMING?

Part 4: W-pII.9.2:3-4

We are continuing from Part 2 the list of descriptions of the Second Coming:

5. The recognition of perfect oneness

The Second Coming is the recognition of our perfect oneness: 

     Forgiveness lights the Second Coming's way, because it shines on
everything as one. 
     And thus is oneness recognized at last.	(2:3-4) 

With perfect forgiveness all barriers, all apparent reasons for separation,
vanish, and our oneness can be "recognized at last."

Every unforgiveness is a reason for separation, a justification for holding
ourselves apart. Conversely, every reason for holding ourselves apart is an
unforgiveness, a judgment against another. In order to prepare the way for
the Second Coming of Christ, which is the recognition of oneness,
forgiveness must first become complete. Many of us may remember the song
from the musical <Godspell>, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord," if we don't
remember it from the Bible as the message of John the Baptist prior to the
commencement of Jesus' ministry. Well, forgiveness is how we prepare the way
of the Lord, in regard to the Second Coming of Christ. Forgiveness "lights
the Second Coming's way." It removes the barriers to our awareness of
oneness.