Commentary on ACIM Lesson 144

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

Reviewing:

 

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(127) There is no love but God's. 
(128) The world I see holds nothing that I want.

 

As I return to Yuma in a few days, I 'did history' today in Santa Fe, attending a local Sunday worship gathering that I had been once very active in, going to a Holistic Fair full of ultra-woo-woo offerings (one of which I bought), and then spending two hours dancing ecstatically to exhaustion amidst the yummy-yummy community of hip and groovy beautiful people who have made Santa Fe their place in the New Mexico mystical sunshine.

 

So, the day was full of opportunities to be 'newly present and conscious' with individuals and friends that I have 'a history' with, and who I might think I 'know', or who might think they 'know' me (even though it had been several years since I have lived in Santa Fe, and I am not now the 'he that I was then' and they could not be unchanged either....). 

 

Paralleling todays lesson, 'not knowing who the 'other' was, and not wanting' anything from anybody was 'the practice'.  Also, not pushing away, and not pulling toward.  Not advising, not fixing, not being anybody special. (The last item is there because I have caught myself 'being somebody special' a few times recently.  It stunk odiferously.)

 

And after all the socializing, my return to my 'monks cell on wheels' (RV) to be in solitude with myself and the inner presence of God.  

 

At 'The Celebration', the spiritual reading was about 'spiritual solitude' and it's counterfeit, 'personal loneliness'.  If you have been a reader for a while, you know I have been working through that one (and if you 'gotta remember' you can visit the Commentary archives atwww.acimcommentaries-blogspot.com).  The main point of the reading was that 'solitude' is a function of wholeness, 'loneliness' is a function of separation.  

 

Spiritually, the reason that 'the world holds nothing that I want' is that I AM the whole world already.  (This may take some time to get if you are a new student. Not to worry.) I therefore know I 'have everything' already.  This is 'completeness'. Therefore there is nothing to 'want'.  Like loneliness, 'wanting the world' is therefore a function of separation.  But, (according to the Course) separation from God is actually impossible.  Therefore, while it is possible and 'normal in this world' to experience the effects of thoughts of separation, God's love erases those effects as soon as we realize our mistake.  Our mistake is that in our 'thinking' we have relied upon 'self', not God-Self. (See how easily I shift to 'impersonal abstraction'....).  More rigorously said....My mistake is always that I have relied upon 'myself', not my 'God-Self'.  And how do I know when this is 'happening'?  It is easy (if I am being awake).  I will 'want something' (of the other, or the situation).  

 

'Wanting' is the illusion that something outside my God-Self will make me 'whole' (despite my knowledge that I AM whole).  To expose these illusions, let us just go 'into solitude' and see what arises.  If it be 'unwhole demons of self-hate' (at any level), let us give them to God. Actually, let us take them to God, and let us go with them in person. That will 'handle all issues of imagined separation'.  

 

There is no better way to get that 'God is only Love' than to take a personal demon into His Presence.  Because, in the Presence of Truth, all that is untrue is perfectly revealed. This is the whole essence of the spiritual journey.... to be willing to have nothing hidden.  When nothing is hidden (from God and each other), our natural state of communion, our 'oneness', IS.  To this completeness, 'only nothing' can be added.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

Lesson 144

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(127) There is no love but God's. 
(128) The world I see holds nothing that I want.