Commentary on ACIM Lesson 258

© 2010 Rev. David Seacord

Let me remember that my goal is God.

I live that we are all pretty similar, whatever the appearances. So probably there is value in sharing in this Commentary (assuming the previous Commentaries as context) that my emotional discovery journey is continuing to open. I'm not non-functional or anything. I'm just recognizing things when they come up, and I then do the release breath-work. But what I am looking at, in receiving these messages from my body, is that I have been lying to myself, on a feeling level, for a very long time, and I have been very blind to it.

I think a whole lot of us do it too. I don't think our culture would look the way it does if this was not so. We just don't get how important it is to feel.... fully.... exactly whatever it is that we are feeling.... every single moment we are alive.

I've been thinking about what 'being present' really is, and my take is that it is a natural state when we are free enough of our cultural conditioning to feel 'our authentic individual truth'. The Course teaches that training the mind is effective as a way of clearing negative emotions, and I believe that that is true, or at least certainly always helpful. Maybe it's ultimately true for everyone also, but that would probably be 'when we are fully ripe' (within this contextual time/space matrix).

But being present is outside time/space in one way, and inside time/space in another, because it's an expression of individually accessing infinity (no limits). Being present is a state of no resistance, which is pretty much the Course's description of God, also. Fundamentally, being present is a state of miraculousness. And it is a state of complete honesty and total vulnerability at the same time too.

I see what I am really describing here is emotional openness, which is exactly what the world teaches is very unsafe and dangerous to be, in this world. (I find that to be a false teaching, similar to political ads about needing more Border Patrol to 'protect America'. I want to say to them: Please stop selling me more fear...) I find that if I don't show up too strange, but instead, act inside the context of (at least marginal) 'appropriateness', that people are incredibly drawn to beings who are emotionally open, who share themselves authentically. So that's been (I thought) my practice. Actually, it has been, except that all that has been kept on the superficial level. But what I am seeing now is that where I have been false to myself is about my true deep feelings. Feelings that I didn't even know I had. For instance, one example showed up tonight....

I was visiting Mom, and she is one by one in detail sharing with me each and every letter and card that she has received from 'old friends' expressing condolences about Dad's passing. Then, there is something from my sister Darla (my sweetheart sister). I don't remember what it was about... some family stuff in her life on the other side of the continent. But suddenly I found I was feeling a profound sadness that we have lived our entire adult lives separated by thousands of miles, and that to all 'her family', I hardly exist. How did this happen?... Why would I choose to live a life completely away from people who are core to our existence? What had me choose that? And how do so many of these kinds of things happen in all our lives.... when if we were able to be emotionally honest we would have seen that someday we might wish we'd made other choices.... Choices which expressed our true and deepest love.... Breathe... Feel... Release.... The past has happened. What we have is 'from here forward'...

Summation. There is a lot of supposedly non-tramatic emotional sadness, guilt, grief, shame etc, running amuck in our lives and in the world. We are told we have to be practical, strong, make choices based on economics, stuff like that. We are very seldom given permission to simply feel. I suggest we give ourselves that permission, and expect that miracles will result.

And as for me, I think learning to feel my real true core feelings is like being reborn. :-)

Namaste,

David

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Lesson 258

Let me remember that my goal is God.

All that is needful is to train our minds to overlook all little senseless aims, and to remember that our goal is God. His memory is hidden in our minds, obscured but by our pointless little goals which offer nothing, and do not exist. Shall we continue to allow God's grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead? God is our only goal, our only Love. We have no aim but to remember Him.

Our goal is but to follow in the way that leads to You. We have no goal but this. What could we want but to remember You? What could we seek but our Identity?