Commentary on ACIM Lesson 193

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

All things are lessons God would have me learn.

Today I have for you an update to my thinking of yesterday... which I see now was 'incomplete'.

There is one fundamental desire that keeps tripping me up, which I have just been led to see today, by grace, via a comment that the local minister made in her prayer at church today. I don't remember the comment. I just heard it, it connected to my knowing of truth, and I went directly into my own internal realizations...

Want to know what I saw? The one fundamental desire that keeps tripping me up time and again is the desire 'to make exceptions'. As the Course says, there are none. The price I pay for this desire is to forget who I am.

There is a line in the 3rd Zen Ancestor writings that was instrumental in my 'getting' this. (And, as an aside, this is why I love studying all kinds of scriptures, because many times the gems of wisdom from one religion shed light on the dilemmas of another. Kind of like 'proofing' something....). Anyway, the quote is: The Great Way is not difficult for he who has no preferences. Make the smallest distinction however, and Heaven and Earth are set infinitely apart....

Please note it doesn't say 'make a distinction bigger than X and you're in trouble'.... it says 'Make the smallest distinction'.... What I get is that means ANY distinction.

So what is a 'distinction', as it is used here? I'd say, exactly what the Course means when it says (in the early lessons.... which is humbling because the whole purpose of the Course is to train the (my) mind with a 'discipline of recognition' between what is real and what is unreal...) whatever you do, apply the lesson idea equally to everythingand/or be alert that you do not specifically EXCLUDE anything. So 'no distinctions' means make nothing better or worse, less or more.... see everything equally. Like God does.

The shift of reality that the Course aims at is absolutely total. We don't 'survive' it. Because only what God created is Real. He's the only thing that is really happening. And in the world, everything that is happening is also happening as part of our 'awakening curriculum'. If the Gulf disaster is seen some way 'other than as God sees it', if the economy is seen some way 'other than as God sees it', if a relationship drama enters the mind as 'something other than God at work with a gift for us',..... any of that or anything like that.... then GOD DISAPPEARS AS A 'LIVED WITHIN REALITY' AND BECOMES 'SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN' ONLY. That 'belief' can't carry much weigh in the kind of world that surrounds us today, and sooner or later, like a trap door that just got sprung, you or me or us or we, we all get dumped into the soup, screaming in pain (of one kind or another).

So there is an 'ONLY WAY' that works. That Way is that there is nothing Real (ever, ever, ever) but God. No Exceptions. Not even one. Especially, do not believe the primary illusion... that I am this body. Make one illusion of this world 'real' and the whole world is likewise. There is no way to 'resolving' the insanity of the world..... except to realize it is not real. It is simply more phenomena. Transitory, illusionary, unreal temporary phenomena. Every time I have been in states of enlightenment, it was this that I have realized.

That I have been dumped into the soup more than a few times during this go-round of the Course simply means I have forgotten who I am, and have been sloppy about doing the Course (again).

God knows I don't really desire 'more suffering', but ego/I just doesn't want to let go of believing I am the cool-groovy ego/me that took several decades of 'healing and therapy' to put together. But yep, it's gotta go.... if'n I'm gonna hitch up the wagons and get with the 'Son of God' party as a Reality.... definitely, more than a little more has got to go... And some of you might do me the favor of reminding me of this down the road if/when I might could use some reminding, OK? Then, I would know to call you 'my friend', for reminding a brother who he is IS friendship. Anyway, that's my take on it all.

Namaste, for today,

David

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Lesson 193

All things are lessons God would have me learn.

God does not know of learning. Yet His Will extends to what He does not understand, in that He wills the happiness His Son inherited of Him be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in Him. That is His Will. And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done.

God sees no contradictions. Yet His Son believes he sees them. Thus he has a need for One Who can correct his erring sight, and give him vision that will lead him back to where perception ceases. God does not perceive at all. Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe.

These are the lessons God would have you learn. His Will reflects them all, and they reflect His loving kindness to the Son He loves. Each lesson has a central thought, the same in all of them. The form alone is changed, with different circumstances and events; with different characters and different themes, apparent but not real. They are the same in fundamental content. It is this:

Forgive, and you will see this differently.

Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form. It is this sameness which makes learning sure, because the lesson is so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end. No one can hide forever from a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is recognized as easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple lesson there.

Forgive, and you will see this differently.

These are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all your pain, all suffering regardless of its form. These are the words with which temptation ends, and guilt, abandoned, is revered no more. These are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of fear. These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world.

Shall we not learn to say these words when we are tempted to believe that pain is real, and death becomes our choice instead of life? Shall we not learn to say these words when we have understood their power to release all minds from bondage? These are words which give you power over all events that seem to have been given power over you. You see them rightly when you hold these words in full awareness, and do not forget these words apply to everything you see or any brother looks upon amiss.

How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn? Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind that sees the pain through eyes the mind directs.

God would not have you suffer thus. He would help you forgive yourself. His Son does not remember who he is. And God would have him not forget His Love, and all the gifts His Love brings with it. Would you now renounce your own salvation? Would you fail to learn the simple lessons Heaven's Teacher sets before you, that all pain may disappear and God may be remembered by His Son?

All things are lessons God would have you learn. He would not leave an unforgiving thought without correction, nor one thorn or nail to hurt His holy Son in any way. He would ensure his holy rest remain untroubled and serene, without a care, in an eternal home which cares for him. And He would have all tears be wiped away, with none remaining yet unshed, and none but waiting their appointed time to fall. For God has willed that laughter should replace each one, and that His Son be free again.

We will attempt today to overcome a thousand seeming obstacles to peace in just one day. Let mercy come to you more quickly. Do not try to hold it off another day, another minute or another instant. Time was made for this. Use it today for what its purpose is. Morning and night, devote what time you can to serve its proper aim, and do not let the time be less than meets your deepest need.

Give all you can, and give a little more. For now we would arise in haste and go unto our Father's house. We have been gone too long, and we would linger here no more. And as we practice, let us think about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and kept apart from healing. Let us give them all to Him Who knows the way to look upon them so that they will disappear. Truth is His message; truth His teaching is. His are the lessons God would have us learn.

Each hour, spend a little time today, and in the days to come, in practicing the lesson in forgiveness in the form established for the day. And try to give it application to the happenings the hour brought, so that the next one is free of the one before. The chains of time are easily unloosened in this way. Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one that follows, and when that one goes, let everything that happened in its course go with it. Thus will you remain unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time.

This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him, and to salvation of the world. To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:

I will forgive, and this will disappear.

To every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering, repeat these selfsame words. And then you hold the key that opens Heaven's gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself. Do not deny the little steps He asks you take to Him.

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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

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