LESSON 38. There is nothing my holiness cannot do.

The workbook lesson, “There is nothing my holiness cannot do,” may give the impression that the mind can pick a problem or form of suffering and then decide to ‘heal’ it miraculously. This is not the best way to understand the lesson. There is too much ‘me’ and what ‘I perceive as wrong’ in that.

A better way to understand the lesson is along with the teachings from NTI Ephesians, Colossians and Luke 9: As we contemplate our truth, the clean energy of our truth goes into the world as grace. As grace, it will do what it does to correct misperceptions and miscreation. However, we are not to select the miracles or even look for their evidence. We simply continue our role of contemplating our truth, and we let grace take care of the miracles. 

LESSON 37. My holiness blesses the world.

Wow! This lesson clearly states our function within the world: “Your purpose is to see the world through your own holiness. Thus are you and the world blessed together. No one loses; nothing is taken away from anyone; everyone gains through your holy vision. It signifies the end of sacrifice because it offers everyone his full due. And he is entitled to everything because it is his birthright as a Son of God.”

To bless the world with my holiness is to see it through the eyes of wholeness rather than to see it from my partiality. The world is the belief in limitation and lack. The mind that clings to the belief in its own limitation sees itself as a part only, and, therefore, can only see from that perspective. If we give partially, we receive partially. If we receive partially, there is a sense of loss—a sense of sacrifice. There is always the choice between a lesser of two evils. There is a lack of wholeness, fullness, oneness.

What we are being taught to do is to begin to see from the perspective of the whole. In wholeness, there is no lack. To begin to recognize the truth of this statement, we must become determined to reject the idea of lack wherever we see it. When thoughts whisper the need for self-protection, we are to see them as an invitation to affirm the truth. We are only limited by our own beliefs–by those thoughts upon which we choose to cast attention. When we see thoughts of limitation and partialness, we are to give our willingness to loosen our grip on those beliefs.

Consistency is key. We cannot give willingness to loosen our grip only upon those thoughts, beliefs and ideas which seem to limit our freedom, but to welcome them when they seem to work in our favor. All gain or all lose. Yes, of course loss is impossible. But it is this impossibility which seems to continue to support the turning of the world. If all do not seem to gain by a contemplated teaching, action, thought, let that thought go. Release the idea of winners and losers, better than and less than.

It is only our commitment to see through the eyes of wholeness that releases the world. As the lesson tells us:

There is no other way in which the idea of sacrifice can be removed from the world’s thinking. Any other way of seeing will inevitably demand payment of someone or something. As a result, the perceiver will lose. Nor will he have any idea why he is losing. Yet is his wholeness restored to his awareness through your vision. Your holiness blesses him by asking nothing of him. Those who see themselves as whole make no demands. Your holiness is the salvation of the world. It lets you teach the world that it is one with you, not by preaching to it, not by telling it anything, but merely by your quiet recognition that in your holiness are all things blessed along with you.

Lesson 36. My holiness envelops everything I see.

Today’s lesson begins with “You are holy because your mind is part of God’s [therefore], your sight must be holy as well.”  This I can follow and grasp.  Jesus is saying my godliness envelops everything I see because the truth of me is my godliness and as Jacquelyn pointed out in yesterdays tip, “We are being invited to experience ourselves and our world in a way we have blocked our selves from experiencing it in the past.  We are being invited to take the person out of the experience.” And as NTI Colossians 1 says about this experience, “You are beyond concepts and differences and form, and within the Life Force that is all things.”

It is this next part of today’s lesson that Jesus wants us to examine that had me scratching my head.  Jesus seems to go on about something that initially appeared unrelated when he says: “’Sinless’ means without sin. You cannot be without sin a little. You are sinless or not. If your mind is part of God’s you must be sinless, or a part of His Mind would be sinful.” I got a better understanding of why he began talking about sin when I read ACIM’s section on Sin versus error:

It is essential that error be not confused with “sin,” and it is this distinction which makes salvation possible.  For error can be corrected, and the wrong made right.  But sin, were it possible, would be irreversible.  For by [sin], God Himself is changed and rendered incomplete.

Sin is the belief in the reality of separation.  Sin is the belief that things outside of you have the ability to affect you.

Let’s look at Brent Haskell’s book Journey Beyond Words.  In the chapter entitled “Holiness,” Jeshua says:

You will know, in your holiness,
That all of life is your own creation.
God is your source.
You are very holy.
In your holiness, you are the God of your own life.
And you experience that life in your oneness with God.
Apart from God, you cannot see.
Apart from Him, you but imagine your apartness.
Apart from your holiness,
You imagine that you are separate,
That beings are different from you.
You will imagine that they are not your own creations.
You will imagine that your pain is pain.
You will imagine that things can happen to you
From outside yourself, not by your own choice.

So, as you can see if sin were real, (w)holiness would not be.  You could and some might say you did imagine something less than wholeness, but it isn’t real.  Sin isn’t real and therefore I am free to experience my truth and the truth is that my holiness envelops everything I see.

Lesson 35. My mind is part of God’s. I am very holy.

The lesson for today begins with a description of its aim:

Today’s idea does not describe the way you see yourself now. It does, however, describe what vision will show you. It is difficult for anyone who thinks he is in this world to believe this of himself. Yet the reason he thinks he is in this world is because he does not believe it.

You will believe that you are part of where you think you are. That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want. And you want it to protect the image of yourself that you have made. The image is part of it. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. This is not vision. Images cannot see.

Today’s lesson encourages us to begin seeing from our truth rather than from the habit we have of looking “out” on the world from the perspective of the persons we have imagined ourselves to be. If we continue to look on the world from this perspective, we reinforce the image of ourselves we have created.

There are two ways of looking at this lesson (and other ACIM lessons) that allow the error in perception to persist. The first is that which we are likely to experience if we have done the ACIM lessons (in whole or in part) before: we practice by rote, use the idea of the day as a mantra, but don’t drop contemplatively behind the words themselves to allow them to resonate within the heart, where they are known. The second error we might make in doing the lesson is to assume we know what the words mean. In this lesson, for example, we might assume we know what is meant by God, by vision, by holy or even “my mind.” For example, we might have some intellectual concept of God as the source of the world that we learned in our religious traditions, and then proceed from there to impose this understanding on what we see in ourselves or in our field of vision. This is not what we are being asked to do. We are being invited to experience ourselves and our world in a way we have blocked our selves from experiencing it in the past. We are being invited to take the person out of the experience.

The person is the veil that blocks our vision. By looking without the concept of ourselves as person, we are free to simply experience. We are free to experience our inner self without labels, concepts, needs and other “baggage.” By looking without the concept of ourselves as person, we remove the boundary between what we “look from” and what we look upon. If we look from our holiness, and not from our person, we can begin to capture the essence of the source-ness of all that is without the need to distinguish it from what we are. While this lesson specifically asks us to look at our inner definitions of ourselves, it is a beginning step in seeing the sameness of all things, including what we have previously delineated as inner and outer.

A helpful exercise in this regard is to look at a picture in which many objects appear. Pick out the separate objects in the picture and focus on them one at a time (e.g., a barn, a cow, a dog). Now allow your focus to shift a bit. See that the objects in the picture all occur within the one picture—see the picture as a whole. Now, do the same thing with the objects in the room or on the street where you are. Pick out the individual objects, then shift your focus to see the whole picture. Then, if possible, include your hands, legs or whatever part of you is visible. See that the body is also part of the overall/whole picture. It is only your thoughts about your self as “a self” that block you from including yourself in the whole picture.

We will revisit these exercises as we go forward, but as we proceed, just remember to try not to bring with you any ideas about what anything means, including your previous formulations of yourself and spirituality. Be openly willing to experience what you cannot imagine, and you will come to experience the lessons in a way which might (and should!) surprise you.

Lesson 34. I could see peace instead of this.

In today’s lesson we learn, “It is from your peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises.” Our perception of the world arises from within and that is why Jesus instructs us to close our eyes to do today’s lesson. “It is your inner world [your perceptual world] to which the application of today’s idea should be made.” Why? Because less than peaceful situations like “fear thoughts, anxiety-provoking situations, ‘offending’ personalities or events, or anything else about which you are harboring unloving thoughts” are located there in your perceptions. Trying to pin the blame on the world has been likened to yelling at the movie screen when you want the movie chacters to act differently than they are in the movie.

NTI Colossians 2 says “do not look at the world letting it tell you what to think. To make this mistake is to participate in illusions, which are not the motive you seek to have served.”

In today’s lesson and yesterday’s lesson, as well as the day previous to that, Jesus tells us, should any distressful situation come up, then say to yourself “In this situation” I can apply the lesson (goal) of the day to it. ACIM Chapter 17, Setting The Goal states:

The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning, for it is this which will determine the outcome. In the ego’s procedure this is reversed. The situation becomes the determiner of the outcome, which can [Read more…]