Commentary on ACIM Lesson 284

© 2010 Rev. David Seacord

I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.

This, I am getting, can be our/my truth. I admit I had forgotten Prasad's teaching that to be free is like being in a cage with a tiger about to pounce. That it takes a fully committed mindfulness, a willingness to not have anything be more important than staying awake. Pir Vilayat, my Sufi initiator and 'Rev' ordainer, spoke often about the 'gravity pull of the world'... not in the since I have often made it up---as 'wrong'--- but in the simple sense, like in the Course, of being 'false', and NOT REAL. I am seeing that is where the freedom lies. For the only way that any of my personal triggers can grab me is if I allow them to be 'real'. Minus that, they are empty of power over me.

There is a tie-in to the body that we need to stay aware of though. If the body is threatened, beat upon, etc, it is admittedly difficult to keep a perspective that this is not 'real'. Because within the illusion, it is. That is the fundamental essence of this false reality....remember... that we are a 'body'. As yet, I have no magic answer for that dilemma, save to say that it has been clearly modeled that it is possible, even under cruxifixction, to remember we are spirit, not body.

I have heard that in these times, such trials are no longer our karma. I think that is inaccurate. It is just subtler. It is more an inner thing than an outer thing. But because there are no steps of the curriculum deleted, we still must learn our lessons somehow, somewhere. The great thing the Course is revealing is that the power of working miracles is fundamentally a collapse of time. If it was normal to learn something in a hundred lifetimes, the miracle can deliver the same learning in a few moments. That is amazing grace.

And that grace is received because of our sincerity. Remember the Course saying many times in the early lessons when there was much repetition instructed: Even to repeat the idea only ONE TIME with Complete Sincerity would be enough to instantly know our oneness with God. That is the tiger pouncing awakefullness.

Namaste,

David

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Lesson 284

I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.

Loss is not loss when properly perceived. Pain is impossible. There is no grief with any cause at all. And suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream. This is the truth, at first to be but said and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many reservations. Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally accepted as the truth. I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt. And I would go beyond these words today, and past all reservations, and arrive at full acceptance of the truth in them.

Father, what You have given cannot hurt, so grief and pain must be impossible. Let me not fail to trust in You today, accepting but the joyous as Your gifts; accepting but the joyous as the truth.