Commentary on ACIM Lesson 251

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

I am in need of nothing but the truth.

A couple of lines jumped out of the lesson at me. "To sense is not to know." And, "All that I sought before I needed not, and did not even want."

"To sense is not to know" presents a clarity that touches me like a long forgotten melody suddenly remembered. Direct knowledge is obviously not 'sensed', it is known by being the thing known. We all have this ability. It is called 'compassion', or 'empathy', or 'communion'. We find it by giving up trying to know something while at the same time remaining separate from it. That is impossible. Only the ego even tries it, as all true being already knows only union gives knowledge. All true being is automatically intimate.

"All that I sought before I needed not, and did not even want" speaks to just how completely God has got us 'covered'. Our Source knows us beyond 'well', and has given us a domain called time to discover the truth about ourselves in. Time seems to stretch on into Infinity, but it does not. Only God is truly Infinite. God is beyond time, or any limitedness. Yet does She enter our awareness through every portal imaginable. Everything the ego claims is it's possession, is not. All that IS belongs to God. That includes us too, obviously.

As we journey through the being of God called Life, it is impossible not to grow, and in the end, remember our Divine Nature. It is in remembering this Divinity that we are released from all desiring for anything other than 'what is'. This is "giving up seeking", and then entering, "the simplicity of being".

Namaste,

David

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Lesson 251

Section 4. What is Sin?

Sin is insanity. It is the means by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks to let illusions take the place of truth. And being mad, it sees illusions where the truth should be, and where it really is. Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach to grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know. And truth can be but filled with knowledge, and with nothing else.

The body is the instrument the mind made in its efforts to deceive itself. Its purpose is to strive. Yet can the goal of striving change. And now the body serves a different aim for striving. What it seeks for now is chosen by the aim the mind has taken as replacement for the goal of self-deception. Truth can be its aim as well as lies. The senses then will seek instead for witnesses to what is true.

Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts that are untrue. They are the "proof" that what has no reality is real. Sin "proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; eternal life must die. And God Himself has lost the Son He loves, with but corruption to complete Himself, His Will forever overcome by death, love slain by hate, and peace to be no more.

A madman's dreams are frightening, and sin appears indeed to terrify. And yet what sin perceives is but a childish game. The Son of God may play he has become a body, prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death. But all the while his Father shines on him, and loves him with an everlasting Love which his pretenses cannot change at all.

How long, O Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin? Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will you be ready to come home? Perhaps today? There is no sin. Creation is unchanged. Would you still hold return to Heaven back? How long, O holy Son of God, how long?

Lesson 251

I am in need of nothing but the truth.

I sought for many things, and found despair. Now do I seek but one, for in that one is all I need, and only what I need. All that I sought before I needed not, and did not even want. My only need I did not recognize. But now I see that I need only truth. In that all needs are satisfied, all cravings end, all hopes are finally fulfilled and dreams are gone. Now have I everything that I could need. Now have I everything that I could want. And now at last I find myself at peace.

And for that peace, our Father, we give thanks. What we denied ourselves You have restored, and only that is what we really want.