Commentary on ACIM Lesson 139

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

'Love' is a personal discipline.....  

 

My friend in NYC shared with me recently 'from a Landmark personal development seminar she is in there' that:  "To get anything worth while done requires being able to get past the conversation 'I don't want to'".  I am very appreciative of this wisdom right now, as that 'I don't want to' voice has spoken to me 'a few times lately' when I am arising from my too-brief sleep in the middle of the night to create this Commentary.  Of course, a higher wisdom is speaking (and choosing) too.  That is "I am my word".  

 

It's not that I think this is so important 'to you'.  I know you'd get by without this.  And it's not that what I am saying has never been said before either.  But sometimes, it's never been said by me.  And I need to hear my whole Self 'under all conditions and circumstances', and be willing to demand that my body honor the voice of (and for) truth in me (as distinct from the voice of my 'desires').  This is the training program (or at least a part of it).  That in this illusion, the body serves, it does not rule.  (And I do sleep more, later.)

 

OK, that completes that.

 

What I was 'planning' to write about was something a bit different.  So now for the 'original commentary idea'... now that I am awake..... :-) 

 

I've been 'being primed' for this one.  I can see that as I look back on the insights that have made it to these pages in the last few days.  But it still occurred as a 'sacrilege' when the thought arose....  

 

I was in the home of a devoted woman of a conservative church today and noticed that on the wall above her piano was a religious painting of her faith.  It showed a future vision of Christ returning.  On one side of the painting were all the 'saved' people that He was 'welcoming into heaven'.  On the other side were all the ones who were 'going to hell'.  The sacrilege thought I heard in my head was:  "It's a lie."  

 

What? 'I' thought back. "It's not the truth."  Oh.  "Nobody is going to be lost."  Oh.  "Remember yesterday (in the Lesson) we covered that Truth cannot be brought 'to the illusion'?"  Yes.  "This is the illusion."  Right.  "This is where 'religion' has failed to grasp the total unity of Reality".  I Get it. (I was pretty much 'passed through' the sacrilege reaction by now...it was really just an old program from my own childhood religious indoctrination...) "So the Good News (which is what 'the Gospel' means) IS:  Everybody has a ticket to Heaven.  It's the only ticket they have because it's the only ticket there is.  And everybody is using that ticket RIGHT NOW (in order to simply be alive..).  That is what you will see when you have fully released ALL JUDGEMENT OF YOUR BROTHER.  AND OF YOURSELF.   And also, BTW, that is what you are here to 'teach' (by Being).  That only Love is Real....  

 

Epilogue....  What I see is more layers 'of the onionskin' are being peeled off me.  That's what my 'discipline' is for.  To keep hopping onto the divine kitchen chopping block and discovering 'I isn't that too', until who I isn't isn't anymore and who I is is what is left.  Said another way....  to walk the path of purification.  These days, seems like God is pretty much using every opportunity I give Him....  

 

I do recognize that this is more easily done the less attached I am to who I think I am....  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

____________________________

 

'Today's First Person version....'

 

Lesson 139

I will accept Atonement for myself.

Here in this moment is 'the end of indecision'. For here in this moment I come to 'a decision' to accept myself as God created me. And what isindecision except uncertainty of what I am? There is no doubt that is not rooted in this uncertainty. There is no question but that it reflects this one. There is no conflict that does not entail the single, simple question, "What/Who am I?"

Yet who could even ask this question except a 'me' who has refused to recognize my true Self? Only my refusal to accept my Self's wholenesscould make the question even 'seem' to be sincere. The only thing that can be surely known by any living thing is what it is. From this one point of certainty, it looks on other things as certain as itself.

Uncertainty about what I am and must be is self-deception on a scale so vast, its magnitude can hardly be conceived. To be alive and not to 'know myself' is to believe that I am really dead. For what is life except to be myself, and what but myself can be alive instead? Who is this doubter in me? What is it I doubt? Whom do I question? Who can answer me?

This doubter merely states that he is 'not himself', and therefore, being something else, becomes a questioner of what that something is. Yet he could never be alive at all unless he knew the answer. If he asks as if he does not know, it merely shows he does not want to be the thing he is. He has accepted it because he lives; BUT he has judged against it and denied its worth, and has decided that he does not know the only certainty there is, and 'by which he lives'.

Thus, he becomes uncertain of his life, for what life is has been denied by him. It is for the healing of this denial that I need Atonement. My denial of life has made no change in what I am. But I have split my mind into what knows and does not know the truth. Yet, I am myself. There is no doubt of this. And yet, 'I' doubt it. But.... I do not ask 'what part of me can really doubt myself'. (It cannot really be a part of me that asks this question.... For it asks of one who knows the answer. Were it actually part of 'me', then Certainty would be impossible.)

Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself, and be unsure of what you really are. This is the depth of madness. Yet it is the universal question of the world. What does this mean except the world is mad? Why share its madness in the sad belief that what is universal 'here' is true?

Nothing the world believes is true. 'The world' is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are. And they will come again (and again, and again) until the time their Atonement 'is accepted', and that they learn it is impossible to A. doubt your (true) Self, and B. not to be aware of 'what you are'.

Only acceptance of this is be asked of me, for what I am is certain. It is set forever in the holy Mind of God, and in my own (which is His also). It is so far beyond all doubt and question that to ask what it must be is all the proof I need to show that I believe the contradiction that I know not what I cannot fail to know. Is this a question, or a statement which denies itself in statement? Let me not allow my holy mind to occupy myself with senseless musings such as this.

I have a mission here. I did not come to reinforce the madness that I once believed in. Let me not forget the goal that I have accepted. It is more than just my happiness alone I came to gain. What I accept as what I am proclaims what everyone must be, along with me. Fail not my brothers, or I fail myself. Look lovingly on them, that they may know that they are part of me, and I of them.

This does Atonement teach me, and demonstrates the Oneness of God's Son is unassailed by my belief I knows not what I am. Today I accept God's Atonement, not to change reality, but merely to accept the truth about myself, and go my way rejoicing in the endless Love of God. It is but this that I am asked to do. It is but this that I will do today.

Five minutes in the morning and at night I will devote to dedicate my mind to my assignment for today. I start with this review of what my mission is:

I will accept Atonement for myself, 
For I remain as God created me.

I have not lost the knowledge that God gave to me when He created me like Him. I can remember it for everyone, for 'in creation are all minds as one'. 

And in my memory is the recall of how dear my brothers are to me in truth, how much a part of me is every mind, how faithful they have really been to me, and how my Father's Love contains them all.

In thanks for all creation, in the Name of its Creator and His Oneness with all aspects of creation, I repeat my dedication to 'God's cause' today each hour, as I lay aside all thoughts that would distract me from my holy aim. For several minutes I will let my mind be cleared of all the foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around my true being, the holy Son of God. And I will learn the fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of myself apart from my awareness, as I say:

I will accept Atonement for myself, 
For I remain as God created me.