Commentary on ACIM Lesson 101

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

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God's Will for me is perfect happiness.

 

 

True Happiness is not 'circumstantially derived'.  It is not 'object based'.  It is self-arising, from our essential emptiness/fullness connection with the Universe, to 'All that IS'.  Any 'happiness' that requires anything of 'another' is a false (temporary) happiness.  This is why nothing in the world can ever actually 'make' us happy.  

 

Yet, we can easily simply 'be' happy.  Until conditioned out of it, all children are naturally happy.  They live in wonderment, awe, and especially, 'not knowing'.  It is a magical state, and Jesus taught that if we would again know true happiness, we must relearn these childlike states.  Intellectually we get it, but in practice, we usually defer to self-survival choices.  This leaves us generally at least a bit suppressed, and only occasionally experiencing the space to be 'really happy', let alone 'ecstatic'.  

 

God awaking in us changes all that.  When we get that all God intended for us was that we Be Happy, and that we are in this world for the purpose of simply Being that Happiness, the grip of ego survival needs dramatically lessens.  Until we get that, life is 'all lessons' to get that.  

 

Basically, the way the lesson goes is this:  Want something?  Reach for it, maybe have it, then lose it.  Need something?  Reach for it, maybe have it, then lose it.  What does 'wanting', or 'needing' (something 'to be or not be') do?  It sets up us as Not Complete, Not Whole (Not Happy without whatever it is).  

 

Besides being insane, this Not Wholeness is addictive, psychologically.  We emote, we yearn, we dream of, we effort, we manipulate, we scheme, we make deals, we avoid, we punish, we ignore, we suppress all true Self-Knowledge in order to keep getting our fix of duality drama.  Oneness ends all that, either instantly or a little at a time, as we choose to let it enter us.  

 

How does it enter us?  We surrender to every lesson, until God has completely taken over our life.  It's a paradox.  Want to be happy?  Give up wanting.  Be Happy.

 

This I humbly teach today, that I may also so learn.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

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First Person Edited Version 

 

Lesson 101

God's Will for me is perfect happiness.

Today I will continue contemplating the theme of perfect happiness, for this is a key idea in understanding what salvation actually means. I will contemplate the possibility that I may still believe salvation asks for suffering as penance for my "sins." While intellectually I understand this is not so, Imust think it so somewhere in me if I believe that 'sin is real, and that God's Son can sin'.

If my sins are real, then God's punishment is just and I cannot  escape it. My salvation thus cannot be purchased except through my suffering. If my sinsare real, then my happiness must be an illusion, for sin and happiness cannot both be the truth.  If my 'Knowing' is that the sinful warrant only death and pain, it is this I unconsciously ask for and attract. I will know it waits for me, and that it will seek me out and find me somewhere, sometime, in some form that 'evens the account' I owe to God. I would therefore escape Him inmy fear. And yet I would know He will pursue, and that I can not escape.

Also, if my sin is real, my salvation must be pain. My pain is the cost of mysin, and my suffering it can never be escaped, if my sin is real. My salvation must be feared, for it will kill me, albeit slowly, taking everything away from me before it grants the welcome boon of death to me and other victims whowill be little more than bones before 'salvation is appeased'. For I would see that salvation's wrath is boundless, merciless, but wholly 'just'.

Today let me ask myself why I would seek out such a savage punishment?Why would I not flee salvation, and attempt in every way I can to drown the Voice which offers it to me? Why would I try to listen and accept Its offering? If my sin is real, its offering is death, and meted out in a cruel form (to match the vicious wishes in which my sin is born). If my sin is real, mysalvation has become my bitter enemy, and the curse of God is upon me, forI am the one who has crucified His Son.

I choose these practice periods today gladly. For these exercises teach me mysin 'is not real', and all that I believe must come from 'my sin' will never happen, for it has no cause. I will accept God's Atonement with an open mind, for Atonement cherishes no lingering belief that I have made a devil of God's Son. I would know that there is no sin. I will therefore practice (with this thought) as often as I can accomplish intentionally remembering to do so today, because it is the basis for today's idea.

God's Will for me is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless. God's Joy 'just IS', and pain is but the sign I have misunderstood myself. Today I will not fear the Will of God. I will turn to it in confidence that it will set me free from all the consequences 'my sin' has wrought in my feverish 'worldliness-conditioned' imagination. I will say:

God's Will for me is perfect happiness.
There is no (actual) sin; it has no (actual) consequence.

So will I start my practice periods today, and then I will again find the joy(My Joy) that these thoughts will introduce (bring) into my mind.

I will give God's Holy Spirit (My own holy spirit) these regular and frequentfive minutes gladly, to remove (from my mind) the heavy load I have lainupon myself with this insane belief that 'my sin' is real. Today I will chooseescape from 'my' madness. I Affirm I AM NOW set on freedom's road, andeven now today's idea brings welcome wings to speed me onward, and I intend today to 'go within and be still'  (but faster and more truly)  to the waiting 'goal', to the Reality of Perfect Peace. There is no sin (and there are no mistakes.  Same/same.) I will remember this today, and tell myself veryoften (as I absolutely can and will do):

God's Will for me is perfect happiness.
This is the truth, because there is no sin.

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