Commentary on ACIM Lesson 108

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

To give and receive are one in truth.

 

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I awaken this Saturday morning into the realization that everything in this world is 'projected'.  I have been dealing with projections that 'attract',  but the converse (the unattractive), that is a projection too.  Both are simply not seeing.   This is why the Zen wisdom teaches 'To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind'.  

 

For most people, this is a life-long disease, an addiction to an illusion so deep that it is incomprehensible to even question it.  Yet the numbers of 'questioners' is steadily increasing, and many are walking in truth now deeply enough to be 'finders' on a daily basis.  

 

Several of my health teachers have believed that until the body is rebuilt with more than 50% unaddictive healthy nutrition, that the body will crave what it is currently made of (meaning mostly addictive junk food).  I mention that not as a point of view about physical health, but because the concept is useful spiritually too.  I am understanding that it is the often incremental daily ingestion of a spiritual 'menu' over the course of our lives that builds our spiritual awareness and gives us the opportunities to master (often by failing to master again and again) the PRACTICE of being present egolessly.  This daily practice is our work.  For me, I am completely normal in that I have been (in the past) a bit lazy when it comes to the actual disciplines.  I have found it much easier to do when in groups, or on retreats, than to maintain impeccable discipline by myself and on my own.  In a very real way, the discipline of writing these Commentaries is being given me as a gift of your readership.  If you were not reading, I would stop writing (perhaps)(probably not, but certainly not every day).  So you are my 'group', even though it's in cyberspace.  In any case, the point is that we all start out seeing how little we can give for how much we can get, and I suspect we all discover at some point that it is going to take everything we have.  And it is then that we really begin to grow, if we accept that and begin giving everything (or at least, more) to it.  

 

It does get easier.  I just noticed I have a pattern of 'falling in love' in the spring.  I was comparing how it went (to fail in that fantasy) this year than last.  I gave myself better marks by far this year.  Last year I'd chosen such a perfect idealization (that I was totally incompatible with, by the way) that it had to be ripped out of me by daily painful doses for several weeks.  This time I crashed in a couple of days (and chose a much more compatible person that I continue to be friends with), when through a couple more days of integrating the lesson, and now feel freed up to live more 'fantasy free'.... as long as I remember 'not to touch', that is.  So that is my discipline... to not touch the world (and I am getting that means "just watch it pass by without attachment").  In particular, the world that I have addictive responses to.  When I 'turn and walk away' from a strong temptation, I discover I have the power to be free and be loving at the same time.   Once the big temptations are mastered, then comes the smaller ones.  Smile.  Just being candid. 

 

If the picture I paint seems hard, well, it is and it isn't, at the same time.  It is for any ego (which wants everything it wants) but it is not for the Self (which has no wants).  So really, all spiritual practice comes down to this moment, choosing who I am (who you are).  Until enough experience of God's Truth being always present now is gained to end doubt, there will be vacillations.  Eventually, that will end, I am told, and so I tell you.  And in yesterdays lesson 106 was a wonderful thought:  "He comes with miracles a thousand times as happy and as wonderful as those I ever dreamed or wished for in my dreams". That is the answer to why do this.  Because no matter how much I win in the world, it never has made me truly happy.  But receiving the gifts of God does.  Go figure that one out.  :-)

 

Namaste, 

 

David