Commentary on ACIM Lesson 218

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

Only my condemnation injures me.

While this (the statement above) is the truth, it is important to remember that 'injury' is a relative experience---in actuality being only possible to a being who believes he/she IS a body, and who is living in that illusion as if it were not an illusion. That is why for many people pain is a perfect wake up call, for it is a demonstration to them of who is believing what reality. ( I am not saying that if you know you are not this body, your body will never feel pain. I am simply saying the body's pains will not then be an 'injury' to you [the real you]).

Beyond that, condemnation always needs to be seen as self-condemnation, no matter who or what it is aimed at. For condemnation is nothing but self-hatred projected outward, which is our response to finding ourselves being in a world where we know in our core that we are the Sons (ok, 'offspring') of the Creator, but for 'some reason' we are blind to (called our own arrogance) we are unable to be in control of anything. Isn't that a neat twist... we are implanted with the memory of Knowledge, yet as long as we believe we are bodies, we have no real access to it.

Hence the proverbial gate called 'the eye of the needle' that Jesus spoke of in the parable... that it is harder for a 'rich man' (i.e., a being attached to many possessions... i.e., thinking one is a body...) to get 'into heaven' (the state of being fully present to the always/always perfection) than for a camel to get through 'the eye of the needle', an historic gate in the wall of the ancient city of Jerusalem. (When the camel caravans arrived at this particular gate of Jerusalem in Jesus' time, I am told they had to be unloaded outside the gate, because the gate was too low and narrow for a loaded camel to pass through..., some say that the camels actually had to go through the gate on their knees...). So what I am speaking to is humbleness, which is a fundamental basic of all true spiritual curriculums.

As the Course teaches, true arrogance is not accepting that we are, and always have been, exactly as God created us. True arrogance is this dream we call 'reality'. True humbleness is knowing we are One.

Namaste,

David

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Lesson 218

I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.

(198) Only my condemnation injures me.

My condemnation keeps my vision dark, and through my
sightless eyes I cannot see the vision of my glory.
Yet today I can behold this glory and be glad.

I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.