[acimlessons_list] Lesson 248 - September 5

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 248 - September 5

"WHATEVER SUFFERS IS NOT PART OF ME."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS

See complete Part II practice instructions. 

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: As a response to temptation, notice something that is
upsetting you, and repeat the idea, specifying the emotion you are feeling:
<"Whatever worries [or grieves, or is afraid, or is angry, etc.] is not part
of me.">

COMMENTARY

The title of this lesson is interesting to me because I have just finished
writing an article about our mistaken identity, and the need the Course
speaks of for us to <separate> from our egos. (No, the Course does not
always put a negative spin on the world "separation"; see, for instance,
T-22.II.6:1.) The lesson affirms that whatever suffers is not really a part
of me at all. This <must> be true if I am the Son of God, and the Son of God
"cannot suffer" (W-pII.244.1:3). What I really am cannot suffer; therefore,
"whatever suffers is not part of me."

Now, be honest. If we think for only a moment about the suffering, of
various kinds, that we have experienced in our lives, one thing is pretty
certain: We were quite sure <we> were suffering. Not some thing that isn't
even part of ourselves, but <us>. To take a mild example, when I get the
flu, <I> feel miserable. It isn't somebody else being miserable; it isn't
anything I can even conceive of separating from (although I certainly have
wished that I could!). That is how it seems. Is this proof that the Course
is wrong? Or is it evidence of how completely we are still identified with
our egos and our bodies?

The lesson is asking us to begin to learn to disengage ourselves from our
egos and our bodies. "I have disowned the truth. Now let me be as faithful
in disowning falsity" (1:1-2).

Then follows a series of statements in which we deliberately distinguish our
Self from that which experiences various things the Course sees as illusion:
suffering, grief, pain, and death. The statement about death is particularly
strong: "What dies was never living in reality, and did but mock the truth
about myself" (1:6).

It is especially difficult to practice this kind of lesson when we are "in
the frying pan." Yet if we are willing, it can be curiously comforting. For
instance, if I am going through grief, and I am able to say, "What grieves
is not myself" (1:4) it can be helpful. Notice: this is not denial in the
negative sense. I am not saying, "I do not really feel grief." I am saying,
"What grieves" (and there is the acknowledgement of the grief) "is not
myself." I am not denying the grief; I am denying that grief is me. I am
recognizing that the thing that is feeling grief is not really who I am; it
is a false image of myself, an illusion of myself I have identified with,
but it is not truly myself. When grief feels as if it would swallow me
whole, and engulf me so that I disappear into it, the realization that "what
grieves is not myself" can be reassuring. And certainly in facing physical
death, to know that what dies is not myself can be comforting.

This disowning of falsity, disowning "self-concepts and deceits and lies
about the holy Son of God" (1:7), prepares us to welcome back our true Self.
As I realize that none of these dark things affects Who I really am, "my
ancient love for [God] returns" (2:1). That love is blocked and suppressed
when I believe that what suffers <is> me; I blame God for my suffering,
consciously or unconsciously, and cannot find it in myself to truly love
Him. Down below the level of consciousness, every little bit of suffering,
grief, and pain we experience in this world is laid at God's feet, and we
point an accusing finger in His direction. We think He wanted this for us.
When we begin to disengage ourselves from our bodies and egos, when we begin
to realize that our Self is not suffering, we can remember God's Love, and
love Him in return. "I am as You created me" (2:2); nothing has been
damaged. Nothing has been lost. God has never been angry. And we can reunite
our love with God's, and understand that they are one (2:4).

What Is the World?

PART 8: W-PII.3.4:3-5

So, then, rather than following the evidence of our senses, the "proof" the
ego wants us to see that we are alone and separate, we can turn to "Follow
His Light, and see the world as He beholds it" (4:3). I find that this is
most often, especially at the beginning, a case of first seeing as the ego
sees, realizing it is an illusion, and then asking the Holy Spirit to help
me see differently. Some event occurs--for instance someone close to me
criticizes something I am doing--and at first I see it through the ego's
eyes. I see attack. I feel hurt. I feel angry. But God's Voice speaks to me,
and reminds me that "I am never upset for the reason I think"
(W-pI.5.Heading). And so I turn to Him and say, "Okay, Holy Spirit." And I
add:

<I do not know what anything, including this, means. And so I do not know
how to respond to it. And I will not use my own past learning as the light
to guide me now>. (T-14.XI.6:7-9)

I ask Him to show me how He sees it. And He always sees everything as either
an expression of love or a call for love, both of which can be answered only
with love. If I truly open my mind to Him, and <let go> of how I am seeing
the situation, His vision will replace my seeing.

"Hear His voice alone in all that speaks to you" (4:4). The Holy Spirit is
speaking to us all the time; He is speaking to us through our brothers and
sisters, and through the events of our lives. The call for help in our
brothers is the Voice of the Holy Spirit calling to us to be ourselves, to
be the love that we are. Behind every illusion is the Voice for God,
constantly calling us to reclaim our Identity and to respond as the saviors
of the world that we are.

He will give us peace and certainty (4:5). We threw them away, but He kept
them safe for us and will return them to us whenever we are willing to have
them again. Our peace and certainty will not come from the world; they never
have come from the world and never will. They will come from His vision of
the world, however. "When you want only love, you will see nothing else"
(T-12.VII.8:1). If we disregard all the ego's evidence, and let the Holy
Spirit interpret all we see, we will see an entirely different world than
the one we have been seeing. And this world, the real world, will fill us
with peace and certainty.