[acimlessons_list] Lesson 311 - November 7

Sat Nov 6 09:23:46 EST 2004

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+ COMMENTARIES ON LESSONS FROM THE WORKBOOK OF A COURSE IN MIRACLES
+ by Allen Watson, with Practice Summaries by Robert Perry, 
+ of The Circle of Atonement
+ Visit our website at <http://www.circleofa.com <http://www.circleofa.com/>
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LESSON 311 - November 7

"I judge all things as I would have them be."

PRACTICE SUMMARYPRACTICE SUMMARY - Part II

(See also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

The basic lesson of the Course about judgment is that we can't really do it.
We simply don't have the equipment. We don't know enough; as this lesson
says, our judgment "cannot see totality and therefore judges falsely" (1:4).
What our judgment does, then, is to make things into what we want them to
be, rather than what they really are. Unfortunately, it does so based upon
"the agony of all the judgments we have made against ourselves" (1:6). We
project our self-condemnation onto the world, and what we see, as it said
back in Lesson 304, is "my state of mind, reflected outward."

Instead of attempting to judge anything, we are asked to take judgment and
"make a gift of it to Him Who has a different use for it" (1:5). In other
words, we let the Holy Spirit judge for us. He always judges according to
the truth, the reality of God's creation. "We let Your Love decide what he
whom You created as Your Son must be" (2:3). He gives us "God's judgment of
His Son" (1:6).

Another way of looking at it is that we allow the Holy Spirit to tell us
what we truly want: to see the perfection of God's creation everywhere and
in everyone. And then, because that is what we want to see, we "judge all
things as [we] would have them be," but now we judge differently because we
want something different. Given to the ego, our minds always want to find
fault because we are trying to deny and project what we think are our own
faults; given to the Holy Spirit, our minds always find love or a call for
love.

Today, then, Father, I would see Your Son as You created him. I would judge
him truly. I would suspend my warped judgment and accept Yours in every way.
Today I want to see the truth in everyone. Teach me to relinquish judgment
on my own, and to accept the eternal judgment You have made: "You are still
My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever loved, as
limitless as your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure."
(W-pII.10.5:1)

What is the Last Judgment? (Part 1)

W-pII.10.1:1-2

"Christ's Second Coming gives the Son of God this gift: To hear the Voice
for God proclaim that what is false is false, and what is true has never
changed" (1:1).

This is one of the great statements of the ultimate message of A Course in
Miracles : "what is false is false, and what is true has never changed." Put
into these deceptively simple words, the message almost seems to be trite or
tautological, like "Red is red." Of course "what is false is false, and what
is true is true." It's obvious.

What gives the statement its profundity is the fact that we do not believe
it . As we are told in the Text:

"This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel you need a course
which, in the end, teaches that only reality is true. But do you believe it?
When you perceive the real world, you will recognize that you did not
believe it" (T-11.VIII.1:1-4).

All our problems can be summed up in this: We have taught ourselves to
believe that what is false is true, and what is true is false. We believe
that the body, sin, guilt, fear, suffering and death are all real. And we do
not believe (or at least strongly doubt) that spirit, holiness, innocence,
love and eternal life are real. The perception of the real world shows us
that the latter list--what is real--is really real, and the former
list--what is false--is really false. And that is the Last Judgment.

All the learning process we appear to be going through is really teaching us
nothing except that one lesson, over and over, in one example after another.
Something we thought of as real--our own sin, or sin in a brother, or death,
or attack, or separation--is shown to be false, and the love we thought was
absent is seen to be present. Where we thought we saw sin we now see
innocence. Where we thought we saw an attacker we now see our savior
(T-22.VI.8:1). "...then will he see each situation that he thought before
was means to justify his anger turned to an event which justifies his love.
He will hear plainly that the calls to war he heard before are really calls
to peace" (T-25.III.6:5-6).

Try to imagine what it would be like to have some situation which, right
now, seems to justify your anger turned into something that, instead,
justifies your love. That is what the miracle does. That is what, "what is
false is false, and what is true has never changed" really means. The real
world is a kind of perception in which everything you see justifies your
love, because nothing exists which does not justify love. That is what is
"real" about the real world. What is false is that anger is ever justified:
"Anger is never justified" (T-30.VI.1:1). What is true is that love is
always justified. God's Love for you, for instance, is always justified.
God's Love for your brother is always justified. And therefore, your love
for your brother is also always justified.

"This the judgment is in which perception ends" (1:2). When we have achieved
this final judgment about everything, the purpose of perception is over.
There is nothing more to perceive, because all reason for separation is
gone, and oneness is once again knowable and known. We no longer perceive
one another, which requires separation, subject and object; instead, we know
each other as parts of ourselves, wholly loveable and wholly loving. 

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+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
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