[acimlessons_list] Lesson 334 - November 30

Mon Nov 29 06:19:32 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 334 - November 30

"Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

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

COMMENTARY

"I seek but the eternal" (2:1). This lesson is about deciding not to waste
any more time going after the supposed gifts of the ego. "I will not wait
another day to find the treasures that my Father offers me" (1:1). The
primary use we are making of our free will, from what the Course seems to be
saying, is to delay our acceptance of our divine inheritance. We are holding
on like crazy to our illusion of independence, and denying ourselves the
only thing that will ever content us (2:2), like a homeless person stupidly
clinging to his rags while being offered brand new clothing.

Let me keep in mind today that nothing in this world is of lasting value.
"Illusions are all vain, and dreams are gone even while they are woven out
of thoughts that rest on false perceptions" (1:2). This reminds me of the
verse in Ecclesiastes, which says that all our seeking is like trying to
hold on to the wind. The illusions of the ego are so evanescent; they can
never satisfy a Son of God. Only that which is eternal can satisfy me. A
Christian hero of mine, Jim Elliot, once said, "He is no fool who gives what
he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

Let me remember that what I truly want is God and His peace in my heart.
When I think I want something else, Holy Spirit, please help me to translate
that desire into what it truly is, a symbol of my longing for the Father and
for Home. God's Voice is offering peace; let that be my only aim, and let
everything else fall by the wayside.

"...the gifts forgiveness gives" (Lesson title). What has all this got to do
with forgiveness? Simply this: every goal other than peace generates
unforgiveness, putting me in competition with someone or something for that
thing, whatever it is. Peace comes through forgiveness. If peace is my only
goal, I will not judge my brothers because a mind in judgment is not a mind
at peace. Only a mind free of lesser goals, free of desire for ephemeral
things, can see his brothers as sinless.

Every encounter today offers me a chance at Heaven. There does not need to
be any great crisis. All the world is my classroom, and every instant is a
moment of choice. Today, let me choose peace.

WHAT IS THE EGO? (Part 4)

W-pII.12.2:4-5

"And in its [the ego's] terrible autonomy it 'sees' the Will of God has been
destroyed" (2:4). This illusion of separation we call the ego, this
"terrible autonomy," seems to show us that we have triumphed over God's Will
for union. What a terrible thing it would be if this were reality! The ego's
very being, if it were real, would be evidence of the most awful guilt
imaginable. If I am the ego, then what I am, my very being, is an accusation
of murder most foul, for I have wrested my very existence from the
destruction of God's Will. And this is just what we believe in identifying
with the ego. This is the primal guilt beneath all our vague, uneasy
feelings, all our sense of unworthiness.

"It dreams of punishment, and trembles at the figures in its dreams; its
enemies, who seek to murder it before it can ensure its safety by attacking
them" (2:4). In the "terrible autonomy" of our identification with the ego,
we have placed ourselves at odds with God and the universe. Everyone and
everything else is a threat to our autonomy. Our dreams are filled with
nightmarish punishment for our "crime." The ego state is one of acute
paranoia; we are afraid of everything. We expect the executioner's axe to
fall at any moment. No one can be trusted. Every figure in our dream is an
enemy, and the only option for survival is to kill them before they kill us.
The only safety is in attack.

This paranoid frame of mind is inevitable, given the ego's premise of
autonomy. We all experience it to greater or lesser degree; some of us
merely hide it better than others. When we get down to it, each of us feels
unbearably alone, an outsider, crouched in the shadows of the woods while
the rest of the world holds hands and sings around the campfire. That is the
inescapable result of the premise of ego autonomy. It is the outcome of what
we mistakenly presume ourselves to be.

The good news is that this is not what we are; the aloneness is an illusion,
an outrageous impossiblility. The ego is forever unbelievable. We are no
more apart from God and His creation than a cell in my body is apart from
the body itself. We live in God; we move and have our being in God. We are,
all of us, making this incredible transition from ego autonomy to a
transpersonal unity, the recognition of a higher Whole to which we all
belong, intrinsically, a Whole which exists in every part--in you, in me.
Nothing can stop this transition, because it is simply the recognition of
what has always been so.

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+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
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