Commentary on ACIM Lesson 181

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

I trust my brothers, who are one with me.

My miracle today was a simple 'yes, that would be no problem'... in answer to a question I had been avoiding asking....

I love to build compost piles and make soil for gardening from all the remains of my vegetable/fruit based raw diet. Of course, every time I dump a bucket of compost on the pile, I also have to cover it with organic matter (like leaves or straw) and then water it so that it will biodegrade.

I'd just used up all my 'cover material stockpile', and I knew the closest place for me to salvage more old broken bales of straw (which here in the desert are often used to stop wind-blown sand) would be from a pile I'd seen out behind the nearby Methodist church that my parents belong to, and which I am known at ----but which I don't attend---- feeling more at home spiritually at a local 'new age/new thought' group. I'd been invited, of course, to step into my Dad's shoes when I arrived (what with my Dad being a retired Methodist preacher himself), and I had 'explained' that I was ordained in a different faith to a few of my family's friends, and the pastor... They didn't say much after that....

Because of these 'complications' I felt 'a little funny' about asking a church that I didn't attend for permission to salvage hay bales from their 'bonfire pile', and I had continued scouting and had found a couple other similar piles out in the desert (probably made by handymen or landscapers etc. dumping clandestinely to avoid paying landfill fees). I left the house this afternoon with my pitchfork and tarp, planning on heading into the desert and returning with a full load from such a pile. God told me to drive such and such a way, which I did without resistance. Then, once on the way, He says "Go to the Methodist Church".

"Come on, God, I'm totally grubby, they already think I'm strange, and they're going to think I am really weird, asking for their old straw...". "Go to the Methodist Church," God repeated. I pout a little inside, but it is true that I am going to drive by it in a couple of minutes.... Then I think, maybe God knows that nobody's there.... Then I wouldn't have to talk to anybody... I could just 'borrow' a bit more (like I must admit I had done once quite a while back, my Dad saying to me he was sure it was OK). I could see it in my minds eye... no cars in the lot, the pile of broken straw bales out back that they are going to burn anyway someday... yeah, it would only take a couple of minutes.... is that the deal, God? HIs answer, as I was slowing down to turn into the lot, was.... to have the pastor I was avoiding arrive from the other direction and turn into the lot ahead of me.

It was a clear enough message.... Jig's up. Talk to the man. OK, OK. I will.

So as Pastor Neil emerges from his air conditioned car into the 107 degree heat, I drive up beside him, windows wide open, in my sweaty tank top and and shorts. He looks at me and smiles, and I smile back, realizing I like the guy, his shaved head reminding me of a Zen monk more than a Methodist preacher....

How are you? he asks... Very well, how are you? Good, Good. Just got back from Annual Conference.... he looks at me on pause for a second. I look back. "Say, could I salvage some of those broken bales off your bonfire pile? I could use them in my compost pile..."

He thinks for a nano second...."Yes, absolutely. That would be no problem." "I thank you so very much". "You're very welcome." I see he's getting hot. I nod, meaning 'you'd better get inside'. He nods back, meaning 'go get what you need'.... which I do. But now, with permission, which means 'I belong'.

And with a newly present connection to a brother I had judged, because, I had thought he had judged me.

So what's the lesson? Maybe, just to recognize that God owns both of us.

Namaste,

David

PS. A Special Announcement.... I received an email today from Neelam, a beloved teacher of the Advaita lineage (which is, like the Course, a pure non-dual teaching). I am guided to pass on the you that she will be offering a free 90 minute introductory satsang BY PHONE tonight (June 30th) from 6 to 7:30 pm Mountain time. Simply dial 218- 844-0850 and enter access code 222907#. If you wish to 'check her out online', her URL is www.neelam.org... I do absolutely recommend her, if you are at all interested.

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Now, our Lesson for today....

Lesson 181

Introduction to Lessons 181-200

Our next few lessons make a special point of firming up your willingness to make your weak commitment strong; your scattered goals blend into one intent. You are not asked for total dedication all the time as yet. But you are asked to practice now in order to attain the sense of peace such unified commitment will bestow, if only intermittently. It is experiencing this that makes it sure that you will give your total willingness to following the way the course sets forth.

Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizons, and direct approaches to the special blocks that keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal. We are attempting now to lift these blocks, however briefly. Words alone can not convey the sense of liberation which their lifting brings. But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself. Your motivation will be so intensified that words become of little consequence. You will be sure of what you want, and what is valueless.

And so we start our journey beyond words by concentrating first on what impedes your progress still. Experience of what exists beyond defensiveness remains beyond achievement while it is denied. It may be there, but you cannot accept its presence. So we now attempt to go past all defenses for a little while each day. No more than this is asked, because no more than this is needed. It will be enough to guarantee the rest will come.

Lesson 181

I trust my brothers, who are one with me.

Trusting your brothers is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself. When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him. You do not look beyond his errors. Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self that lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours.

Perception has a focus. It is this that gives consistency to what you see. Change but this focus, and what you behold will change accordingly. Your vision now will shift, to give support to the intent which has replaced the one you held before. Remove your focus on your brother's sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness. This faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their sins. For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you. And you will not transcend their sight and see the sinlessness that lies beyond.

Therefore, in practicing today, we first let all such little focuses give way to our great need to let our sinlessness become apparent. We instruct our minds that it is this we seek, and only this, for just a little while. We do not care about our future goals. And what we saw an instant previous has no concern for us within this interval of time wherein we practice changing our intent. We seek for innocence and nothing else. We seek for it with no concern but now.

A major hazard to success has been involvement with your past and future goals. You have been quite preoccupied with how extremely different the goals this course is advocating are from those you held before. And you have also been dismayed by the depressing and restricting thought that, even if you should succeed, you will inevitably lose your way again.

How could this matter? For the past is gone; the future but imagined. These concerns are but defenses against present change of focus in perception. Nothing more. We lay these pointless limitations by a little while. We do not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now. We enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within.

We recognize that we have lost this goal if anger blocks our way in any form. And if a brother's sins occur to us, our narrowed focus will restrict our sight, and turn our eyes upon our own mistakes, which we will magnify and call our "sins." So, for a little while, without regard to past or future, should such blocks arise we will transcend them with instructions to our minds to change their focus, as we say:

It is not this that I would look upon.
I trust my brothers, who are one with me.

And we will also use this thought to keep us safe throughout the day. We do not seek for long-range goals. As each obstruction seems to block the vision of our sinlessness, we seek but for surcease an instant from the misery the focus upon sin will bring, and uncorrected will remain.

Nor do we ask for fantasies. For what we seek to look upon is really there. And as our focus goes beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world. When seeing this is all we want to see, when this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours. And the Love He feels for us becomes our own as well. This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves.

The world which once proclaimed our sins becomes the proof that we are sinless. And our love for everyone we look upon attests to our remembrance of the holy Self which knows no sin, and never could conceive of anything without Its sinlessness. We seek for this remembrance as we turn our minds to practicing today. We look neither ahead nor backwards. We look straight into the present. And we give our trust to the experience we ask for now. Our sinlessness is but the Will of God. This instant is our willing one with His.

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My partnership request.... Please consider yourself an important gateway this message is passing through on it's way to others. Please do 'send it on'. Thank you.

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Rev. David Seacord

Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag

david@davidseacord.com

www.davidseacord.com

www.davidseacord-everymansjournal.blogspot.com

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