[acimlessons_list] Lesson 326 - November 22

[Susan Carrier]

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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
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Lesson 326 - November 22


"I am forever an effect of God."

PRACTICE SUMMARY 
(See Part II Practice Summary, and also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

Any effect is made what it is by its cause. The cause <determines> what the
effect is.  If I strike a billiard ball with my cue stick, the ball has no
say in where it goes. The effect of the ball's motion is entirely determined
by the stroke of the cue (plus other causational things like the state of
the table surface, etc). So if I am "an effect of God" I don't really have
any say in determining what I am; that is determined by my Cause, God. This
is why it must be true that, "As You created me I have remained" (1:3). I
cannot change what I am; God "forever and forever [is] my Cause" (1:2). Does
this seem to preclude free will? Yes, it does, in so far as actually
determining what my nature is. And <thank God> it does! Otherwise, we would
have irretrievably damaged ourselves and made sin and hell into realities.
Free will, as the Course says in its Introduction, does not grant us the
right to "determine the curriculum," that is, to decide <what> we must
learn; it only grants us the freedom to choose <when> we learn it. And what
we are learning is what we are, as God created us. That cannot change.

God's Will is "to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are
indistinguishable" (1:5). What an amazing statement! Indistinguishable from
God! Wow! That borders on heresy or incredible hubris, doesn't it? And yet
that is what the Course is telling us about ourselves; that what we are is
the same stuff of which God is made. If God is Love, so is His Son. "God is
but Love, and therefore, so am I" (Lessons 171 to 180).


WHAT IS CREATION? (Part 6)

W-pII.11.3:3

"Its [Creation's] oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate; forever held
within His holy Will, beyond all possibility of harm, of separation,
imperfection and of any spot upon its sinlessness."

To put this in a short, simple sentence: Separation is impossible. What God
created One cannot ever become separate parts; only in mad illusions can
this seem to occur. The Wholeness or Oneness is the expression of God's
Will, and that cannot be opposed because there is nothing to oppose it.
Everything that exists is part of this Oneness, part of this single
expression of God's Will. There is no other, no opponent, no enemy, no
contrary will. God would not and did not create something opposite to
Himself. How could God will something opposite to His own will? All that is
truly real, therefore, must be an expression of His Will.

The Wholeness is "beyond all possibility of harm" because nothing outside it
exists to oppose it. This is one of the characteristics of what is referred
to as "non-dual" cosmology. "Non-dual" means, simply, not two; only one.
There is no opposite to God, and no opposite to God's one creation.

The Course often says that if an opposite to God exists, if sin (opposing
God's Will) is truly possible, then God must have created His own opposite,
which makes Him insane. If we think that, we must be insane. Either God is
insane, or we are. And of the two, which is more likely? 
 
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+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
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