[acimlessons_list] Lessson 315 - November 11

Wed Nov 10 06:44:22 EST 2004

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ 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 315 - November 11

"All gifts my brothers give belong to me."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

Purpose: To take the last few steps to God. To wait for Him to take the
final step.

Morning/Evening Quiet Time: as long as needed.

Read the written lesson.

Use idea and prayer to introduce time of quiet. Do not depend on the words.
Use them as a simple invitation to God to come to you.

Sit silently and wait for God. Wait in quiet expectancy for Him to reveal
Himself to you. Seek only direct, deep, wordless experience of Him. Be
certain of His coming, and unafraid. For He has promised that when you
invite Him, He will come. You ask only that He keep His ancient promise,
which He wills to keep. These times are your gift to Him.

Hourly Remembrance: Do not forget.

Give thanks to God that He has remained with you and will always be there to
answer your call to Him.

Frequent Reminder: As often as possible, even every minute.

Remember the idea. Dwell with God, let Him shine on you.

Response To Temptation: When you are tempted to forget your goal.

Use idea as a call to God and all temptation will disappear.

Reading: preceding one of the day's moments of practice.

Slowly read "What is...?" section.

Think about it a while.

Overall Remarks: Now, in this final part of the year that you and Jesus have
spent together, you begin to reach the goal of practicing and of the course.
Jesus is so close that you cannot fail. You have come far along the road. Do
not look back. Fix you eyes on the journey's end. You could not have come
this far without realizing that you want to know God. And this is all He
requires to come to you.

(See also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

In Lesson 97 we are told that the Holy Spirit will take the minutes we give
to Him in the holy instant, practicing with the idea for the day (I am
spirit) and bringing reality a little closer to our minds, "and carry them
around this aching world" (see W-pI.97.5-6). It says, "He will not overlook
one open mind that will accept the healing gifts they bring, and He will lay
them everywhere He knows they will be welcome." He talks about how "each
gift to Him [will] be multiplied a thousandfold and tens of thousands more."
Now, 1000 x 10000 = 10,000,000. So He will multiply our gifts at least ten
million times, except it says "tens of thousands," so that means as much as
90,000,000 times. Perhaps the numbers are simply symbolic of "an extremely
large number," but I'm sure Jesus means, quite literally, that an
unimaginably large number of minds will be affected by our choice. Every
mind that is open to receive will receive our gift; millions of minds.

Now in this lesson we see the opposite side of the coin. For all those
millions who are open, and who, like us, give the gift of their mind to God
for a moment, we, in turn, receive their gifts.Thus, every moment, thousands
of my brothers and sisters find the way to God for a moment and give a gift,
which I receive because all minds are joined:

"Each day a thousand treasures come to me with every passing moment. I am
blessed with gifts throughout the day, in value far beyond all things of
which I can conceive. A brother smiles upon another, and my heart is
gladdened. Someone speaks a word of gratitude or mercy, and my mind receives
this gift and takes it as its own. And everyone who finds the way to God
becomes my savior, pointing out the way to me, and giving me his certainty
that what he learned is surely mine as well" (W-pII.315.1).

All minds are joined. Every moment, a thousand gifts arrive at the portal of
my mind, given by other minds. If I am open, I can receive them all! In a
study group where this concept was discussed, a student remarked, "That
sounds like a full-time job!" Indeed. Sounds like my kind of job, too.

Ever wonder where some of those blessed thoughts come from? Ever wonder why
suddenly, in the midst of a rather blah day, something comes into your mind
and gladdens your heart? We usually think, if we think of it at all, that it
must be the Holy Spirit. But it could equally well have been your sister
whose mind found the way to God at just that moment and smiled at someone,
and in so doing sent her gift to you. The Holy Spirit was just the postman.
Someone you never knew, halfway around the world, just gave you a blessing!

This cosmic exchange of gifts within the greatest "Internet" in the universe
is going on all the time. Everyone is wired in; you just have to read your
mail.

So let us lift our hearts in gratitude and thanks to every Son of God. Let
us this morning or this evening spend some time in thanks to our brothers,
who are one with us, for all their multitude of gifts, most of which have
gone unacknowledged for most of our lives.

Let me say to all of you who read this: "Thank you for remembering, my
sister or my brother!" Thank you for loving instead of fearing. Thank you
for being aware, for being alive. Thank you for smiling, for letting joy
through. Thank you for showing mercy. Thank you for forgiving. Thank you for
joining with another. Let my meditation today be on all the ways I am
constantly being blessed by my brothers and sisters, and on the reality that
I gain from each and every one.

"I thank You, Father, for the many gifts that come to me today and every day
from every Son of God. My brothers are unlimited in all their gifts to me.
Now may I offer them my thankfulness, that gratitude to them may lead me on
to my Creator and His memory" (W-pII.315.2).

WHAT IS THE LAST JUDGMENT? (Part 5)

W-pII.10.3:1

"You who believed that God's Last Judgment would condemn the world to hell
along with you, accept this holy truth: God's Judgment is the gift of the
Correction He bestowed on all your errors, freeing you from them, and all
effects they ever seemed to have."

Most of us, at least in Western society, have grown up believing in some
kind of hell. We say, "God will get you for that." We curse one another with
the words, "Go to hell!" Intellectually we may have rejected the idea of a
literal hell, with flames and demons with pitchforks, but the notion is
woven into our thoughts nevertheless. There is a sort of visceral fear of
what may lie after death that gnaws at our guts, denied, repressed, but
still...there. If we do believe in God, as many do, the worry about how He
will judge us, how He will evaluate our lives in the end, eats at us
constantly.

To us, then, the Course appeals: "Accept this holy truth!" Judgment is not
condemnation but a gift, a gift of Correction. Not a punishment, but a cure.
Not "no exit," but a way out. The Last Judgment does not enumerate our every
fault and then lock us into their consequences for all eternity. No, it
corrects our errors and frees us from them, and not only from the errors
themselves but from "all effects they ever seemed to have."

Think about it. How would it feel to know beyond all shadow of doubt that
you were free from all your errors, and from all their effects? That would
be total jubilation! The "Hallelujah Chorus" in spades. But that, the Course
is telling us, is the <truth>, and it is this truth that "has never changed"
(1:1). We are free from our errors and their effects, we always have been,
and we always will be. That is what we will all, collectively, come to
accept in that moment of Last Judgment. And that is what we are now learning
to accept for ourselves, and to teach to all our brothers and sisters. We
release each other from our sins, that those we release may in turn release
us. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
+ Available in book format from The Circle
+ of Atonement (Vol. 1 reprint due by end of 2004, write us for info)
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