Commentary on ACIM Lesson 107
©2010 Rev. David Seacord


Truth will correct all errors in my mind.
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If I believe I am real, I will believe the world is real. If I can recognize the world is a dream, I can also discover 'I' am a dream also.

I awoke this morning into a deep peace. I have accepted and released 'the dreams of the world'. But I have gained the truth. I have stepped up to a new view again. I am clean. I am not hiding.

This is what it means to be a light. And this is what it means to be holy. It is not some idea of idealized perfection. It is simply being utterly authentic within the dream. Being authentic within the dream wakes me up from it. It bursts the bubble of 'my personal reality'. Being authentic within the dream makes me real, not to the world, but within and to my Self.

No dream can be the authentic truth. Being transitory, its very nature is ephemeral. It is based on the illusion of the insane idea of an 'I' that could be separate from Life, from God, from any 'other'. This illusion is not true Reality. Reality is the Truth of God, which we are all 'within', and At-One-With, dreaming, sleeping, or awake.

It is a free choice each of us have, to choose when and how we awaken to this recognition. This is also part of the dream. I have said I am writing for my Self, and this is more true now than ever. I write that I stay awake by sharing truth. And I can see this journey which I share with you will continue as long as I have breath within me.... and perhaps, even longer. We shall see....

Here and Now, there is no need or power commanding that I ever go to sleep again, although there is the temptation always. This beautiful world is the temptation. But if I do not believe 'I' am real, I will not dream the world is Real either. This is my freedom.... to choose to love my Self whatever the changing dreams of the world. To choose to know I am spirit. And, that I am whole. In this is my oneness with God. In this is my oneness with you.

Namaste,

David

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First Person Edited Version
Lesson 107

Truth will correct all errors in my mind.

What can correct illusions but the truth? And what are errors but illusions that remain unrecognized for what they are? Where truth has entered errors disappear. They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. They are gone because, without belief, they have no life. And so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains.

Can I imagine what a state of mind without illusions is? How it would feel? Yes....because I can remember when there was a time,–perhaps a minute, maybe even less–when nothing came to interrupt my peace; when I was certain I was loved and safe. Now, let me picture what it would be like to have that moment be extended to the end of time and to eternity. Then, let the sense of quiet that I feel (so extended) be multiplied a hundred times, and then be multiplied another hundred more.

My Voice for God speaks I then have a hint (not more than just the faintest intimation though) of the state my mind will rest in when the truth has come. Without illusions there can be no fear, no doubt and no attack. When truth has come all pain is over, for there is no room for transitory thoughts and dead ideas to linger in my mind. Truth then occupies my mind completely, liberating me from all beliefs in the ephemeral, the changing. These have no place because the truth has come, and they are now not here. They can not be found, for truth is everywhere forever, now.

When truth has come it does not stay a while, to disappear or change to something else. It does not shift and alter in its form, nor come and go and go and come again. It stays exactly as it IS and always IS, to be depended on in every need, and trusted with a perfect trust in all the seeming difficulties and the doubts that the appearances the world presents engender. These doubts and difficulties will merely blow away, when truth corrects the errors in my mind.

When truth has come it harbors in its wings the gift of perfect constancy, and love which does not falter in the face of pain, but looks beyond it, steadily and sure. Here is the gift of healing, for the truth needs no defense, and therefore no attack is possible. Illusions can be brought to truth to be corrected. But the truth stands far beyond illusions, and can not be brought to them to turn them into truth.

Truth does not come and go nor shift nor change, in this appearance now and then in that, evading capture and escaping grasp. It does not hide. It stands in open light, in obvious accessibility. It is impossible that anyone could seek it truly, and would not succeed. Today belongs to truth. I will give truth its due, and I know it will give me mine. I was not meant to suffer and to die. My Father wills those dreams be gone. I will let truth correct them all.

I shall not ask for what I do not have in truth. I merely ask for what belongs to me, that I may recognize it as my own. Today I practice on the happy note of certainty that has been born of truth. The shaky and unsteady footsteps of illusion shall not be my approach today. I shall be as certain of success as I are sure I live and love and breathe and think. I do not doubt I walk with truth today, and I count on it to enter into all the exercises that I do this day.

I will begin by asking Him Who goes with me upon this undertaking that He be in my awareness as I go with Him. For I am not made of flesh and blood and bone, but am created by the selfsame Thought which gave the gift of life to Him as well. He is my Brother, and so like to me my Father knows that we are both the same. It is my Self, my Christ-Self, I ask to go with me, and how could He be absent wherever I am?

Truth will correct all errors in my mind which tell me I could be apart from Him. I speak to Him today, and make my pledge to let His function be fulfilled through me. To share His function is to share His joy. His confidence is with me, as I say:

Truth will correct all errors in my mind,
And I will rest in Him Who is my Self.

Then will I let Him lead me gently to the truth, which will envelop me and give me peace so deep and tranquil that I will return to the familiar world reluctantly.

And yet I will be glad to look again upon this world. For I will bring with me the promise of the transformation which the truth that goes with me will carry to the world. They will increase with every gift I give of five small minutes, and the errors that surround the world will be corrected as I let them be corrected in my mind.

I will not forget my function for today. Each time I tell myself with confidence, "Truth will correct all errors in my mind," I speak for all the world and Him Who would release the world, as He would set me free.

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To rest in truth is to rest in peace. No other comments arise.... Namaste, David



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Commentary on ACIM Lesson 106

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

Let me be still and listen to the truth.

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I am just waking up, coming back to physical reality from sleep with 'a new possibility', and I am compelled to write it this morning (Thursday A.M.). It is the possibility of being whole, which now means simply, 'not needing'.  I know, I have said the words before.  Yet I have just been seeing (being shown in my sleeping state) how subtly I have been being completely inauthentic, that I have not really embraced my aloneness at all, and have, in fact, been unconsciously using my 'spirituality' to try to attract a new/better/different mate/companion into my life as my path to escaping that aloneness.  This is not just now.  This is the background of my life that I have been not awake to.  It's been running my life for years. (And of course, because it has be an 'avoidance' instead of an 'embracing', it has not worked.)  

 

When I got confronted ([last night before I'd finished writing C-105,] by my excellent friend and coach, Sarah [who knows me very well because she was my mate for 7 years]) with her point of view that it was ethically off to be 'being a holy man to attract a lover' I was able to hear her (by grace) because I have just fallen down flat on my face attempting to do just that (again), and I am still feeling my heart's sadness about that mistake.  But, as I am (hallelujah!) 'catching myself in the act' (because of my commitment to be willing to spiritually grow), I am briefly without the habitual ego defenses I usually 'have up'.  That is my amazing good luck, as I am seeing it now.  That's why it is important to write NOW, before I become 'egoically reassembled'.  (This being my 'opportunity to reassemble differently'.)

 

As I contemplate this new possibility, I see that it has me reaching to stand taller than I have ever been able to stand before.  I am wondering if I 'have it in me', for the vision of the new me is one that has me giving up needing anyone (outside my Self) in order to be whole.  Of course I have been able to say these words before, but each time I really deal with myself, I see I have more ego tap root to pull out of me that I have been 'being blind to'.  (Sometimes it seems endless, but I choose to believe it is not.) 

 

I laid in bed wondering (before I understood fully the 'end of the dream' was 'what was up') 'Well, who would be my dating pool if everyone I enter a holy relationship with is off limits?'  At first I thought about 'the raw food community', and since that is part of my core lifestyle, that that might be ok.  But my past experience is that rawfooders are just people with egos like everybody else, and pretty soon my spiritual ego would show up and do its dance to see if 'you're the one' and then of course, I'd invite them to join the Commentaries, and presto, now they are 'off limits' too (if I am rigorous about my integrity, which it looks like 'this new possibility' requires).  

 

And, it does.  What I get is required to 'leave the dream' and be a completely whole and authentically free being is an amazingly simple thing....  absolutely not grasping for, absolutely 'not needing' ANYTHING that is not 'God-given'.  Absolutely not going there.  I know it sounds impossible, because everything in the world works to get us (me) to grasp for it, to want it, to desire it, to keep dreaming.  But as Buddha said, thisis suffering.  In so doing, we (I) give it (the desire, the want) our (my) power (and our/my life).  And, at the same time, we (I) cut ourselves off from God's infinite power and supply by believing in (valuing) an illusion that is only a dream.  

 

It is this 'being cut off from God's power and supply' (which I first created by valuing an illusion, say like, desiring somebody's sexiness) that created my 'aloneness' in the first place. So not only am I doing it to myself, but my 'aloneness' is also an illusion that I am also creating.  Because, it is impossible to feel 'alone' (not enough) when actually connected to God, His Power, His Supply.  God help me!  (Which of course, IS happening every instant..) 

 

Man, when do I get to stop exposing myself!? Answer:  When no self remains.  To quote an old friend (songwriter Steven Walters) God's curriculum is 'Nothing less than everything'.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

PS....  During the day, I received much love in different forms.  One form arrived by email from a friend... some worthy and on-point quotes for contemplation.  Enjoy.

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The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do. Change is not something you do, it's something you allow.

 

Will Garcia

 

The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mode of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change; happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.

Charles L. Morgan

 

Let's honor our mistakes by allowing them to teach us. Let's consider our failings to be gifts, and share them humbly with others. Let the cracks in our perfect facades let in light and air so that new life can grow through them.

Molly Gordon

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First person edited version

 

Lesson 106

Let me be still and listen to the truth.

If I will lay aside the ego's voice, however loudly it may seem to call; if I will not accept its petty gifts that give me nothing that I would really chose; if I will listen with an open mind (that has not told me what salvation is); then I will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages.

If I will listen and hear, my Father will speak to me through His appointed Voice (which silences the thunder of the meaningless, and shows the way to peace if ever I cannot see). I will be still today and listen to the truth. I will not be deceived by voices of the dead, which tell me they have found the source of life and offer it to me for my belief. I will attend them not. I will listen to the truth.

Today, I shall not be afraid to circumvent the voices of the world. I will walk lightly past their meaningless persuasions. I shall hear them not. Today, I shall be still, and listen to the truth. I shall go past all things which do not speak of Him Who holds my happiness within His Hand, held out to me in welcome and in love. Hearing only Him today, I shall not wait to reach Him longer. I will hear His One Voice today.

Today the promise of God's Word is kept. I hear and be silent. He speaks to me. He comes with miracles a thousand times as happy and as wonderful as those I ever dreamed or wished for in my dreams. His miracles are true. They will not fade when dreaming ends. They end the dream instead; and last forever, for they come from God to His dear Son, whose other name is me. I Prepare myself for His miracles today. Today I allow my Father's ancient pledge (to me and all my brothers) to be kept.

I Hear Him today, and listen to the Word which lifts the veil that lies upon the earth, and wakes all those who sleep and cannot see. God calls to them through me. He uses my voice to speak to them, for who could reach God's Son except his Father, calling through my Self? I Hear Him today, and offer Him my voice to speak to all the multitude who wait to hear the Word that He will speak today.

I AM ready for salvation. It is here, and will today be given unto me. And I will learn my function from the One Who chose it in my Father's Name for me. I Listen today, and I will hear a Voice which will resound throughout the world through me. The bringer of all miracles has necessity that I receive them first, and thus I become the joyous giver of what I have received.

Thus does salvation start and thus it ends; when everything is mine and everything is given away, it will remain with me forever. And then, the lesson has been learned. Today I practice giving, not the way I have understood it up to now, but as it is. Each hour's exercises I will begin with this request for my enlightenment:

I will be still and listen to the truth.
What does it mean to give and to receive?

As I Ask I will expect an answer. My request is one whose answer has been waiting long to be received by me. It will begin the ministry for which I came, and which will free the world from thinking giving is a way to lose. And so does the world becomes ready to understand and to receive.

I will Be Still and Listen to the truth today. For each five minutes spent in listening, a thousand minds will be opened to the truth and they will hear the holy Word I hear. And when the hour is past, I will again release a thousand more who pause to ask that truth be given them, along with me.

Today the holy Word of God is kept through my receiving it to give it away, so I can teach the world what giving means... by listening and learning it of Him. I shall not forget today to reinforce my choice to hear and to receive the Word of God by this reminder, given to myself as often as is possible today:

Let me now be still and listen to the truth.
I am the messenger of God today,
My voice is His, to give what I receive.

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Note: I love this lesson.  It reads so beautifully, and it only takes about 5 minutes to read this aloud.  I am going to attempt to read this aloud to myself 'several' times today.  Please join me in this as you are inspired.....

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 105

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

God's peace and joy are mine.

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I have been thinking about several things... I'll start with my thoughts about the 'First Person revisions', which I got some feedback on today.  

 

To me, for my 'Christ Self' to manifest through this body/mind/spirit matrix, 'I' must learn to think 'like a Christ'.  That is the stated purpose of the Course, to retrain the way we think. So the intention behind translating Jesus' words from third to first person is simply for me to step into my personal Christ consciousness and then speak what is so from there.  When I looked at the feedback that the first person version was 'losing Jesus' voice', I realized that part of the problem might be simply that italicizing all of my text changes (so it would be easy to see where the changes were) ALSO gave a sense of unintended emphasis to those words.  I realized I really have no idea if other people are concerned about the changes being italicized or not.  Anyway, today as an experiment, I'm not going to italicize.   Please let me know if it is an easier read that way, and if that makes your read of the original lesson deeper.

 

2.  I've recognized a Commentary 'five part structure' is evolving....which I have listed below. This is being stated simply because it is possible some readers may not be scrolling down far enough to discover everything.  So now they know what is in these emails.... 

 

Art Image

Personal Share

Revised Lesson

Notes/Commentary on Revised Lesson 

Text of Original Lesson

 

3. As we're in the Personal Share part right now, it is appropriate to share a bit of my growing insight in the 'relationship domain' so that you are not left 'wondering'.  Basically, I am being shown the causal roots of my relationship history, which is a history of serial monogamy followed by periods of being single.  Both being in and being out of 'relationship' have their gifts, when embraced.  If I am happily 'in a committed relationship', Great.  If I am happy 'being a single', Great too.  But if I am one, and wish to be 'the other', I can get into trouble spiritually, because I am then resisting, and not choosing/not embracing, what is.  

 

Further, I share my process of spiritual discovery in this area in order to be of value as a human 'on the path', but not as a 'call for love'.  My coaches are very clear about this, for my ability to fulfill on my true mission as a teacher of God requires I recognize and maintain appropriate personal ethical boundaries.  It's an area I am now seeing I have not been so clear about or impeccable in, and while I believe I have been under Grace and have not caused unintentional or unrepairable damage, I do see I have projected inappropriately at least twice during this authorship, and been several other times 'on the edge'.   Please forgive me.  I apologize for those projections.  (And, they are in the process of being privately cleaned up.) 

 

As I said a few days ago, this issue is my personal Achilles Heel, or 'my weakest area' (that I know about).  I have to be upfront and expose this, or I run the risk of going unconscious about it again.   That I did not receive (or rejected) parental modeling of 'good boundaries' is clear to me, but that is not a justification for any perpetuation.  Now is the only time re-learning healthy (wholeness based) relating patterns is possible.  I choose to learn this lesson now.  

 

And that's enough, 'for now'. 

 

Namaste, 

 

David  

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First Person edited version. 

 

  

Lesson 105

God's peace and joy are mine.

God's peace and joy are mine. Today I will accept them, knowing they belong to me. And I will also understand these gifts increase as I receive them. Peace and Joy are not like to the gifts the world can give (in which the giver loses as he gives the gift and the taker is the richer by the givers loss). Such exchanges are not gifts, but bargains made with guilt. The truly given gift entails no loss. It is impossible that one can gain because another loses. This implies a limit and an insufficiency.

No gift is given thus. Such "gifts" are but a bid for a more valuable return; a loan with interest to be paid in full; a temporary lending, meant to be a pledge of debt to be repaid with more than was received by him who took the gift. This strange distortion of what giving means pervades all levels of the world I see. It strips all meaning from the gifts I give, and leaves me nothing (in the ones I could take).

A major learning goal this course has set is to reverse my view of giving,so that I can receive. For giving has become a source of fear, and so I would avoid the only means by which I can receive. Accept God's peace and joy, and I will learn a different way of looking at a gift. God's gifts will never lessen when they are given away. They only increase thereby.

As Heaven's peace and joy intensify when I accept them as God's gift to me, so does the joy of my Creator grow when I accept His joy and peace as mine. True giving is creation. It extends the limitless to the unlimited, eternity to timelessness, and love unto itself. It adds to all that is complete already, not in simple terms of adding more, for that implies that it was less before. It adds by letting what cannot contain itself fulfill its aim of giving everything it has away, and thereby, securing it forever for itself.

Today I will accept God's peace and joy as mine. I will let Him complete Himself as He defines completion. I will understand that what completes Him must complete His Son as well. He cannot give through loss. No more can I. I will receive His gift of joy and peace today, and I know He will thank me for my gift to Him.

Today my practice periods will start a little differently. I will begin today by thinking of those brothers who have been denied by me the peace and joy that are their right under the equal laws of God. Here I have denied them to myself. And here I must return to claim them as my own.

I will think of my "enemies" a little while, and tell each one, as they occur to me:

My brother, peace and joy I offer you,
That I may have God's peace and joy as mine.

Thus I will recognize God's gifts are to all, and let my mind be free of anything that would prevent success today. Now am I ready to accept the gift of peace and joy that God has given me. Now am I ready to experience the joy and peace I have denied myself. Now I can say, "God's peace and joy are mine," for I have given what I would receive.

I will succeed today, if I prepare my mind as my Holy Spirit now suggests. For I will let all bars to peace and joy be lifted up, and what is mine can come to me at last. I will tell myself, "God's peace and joy are mine," and close my eyes a while, and let His Voice assure me that the words I speak are true.

Thus I will spend my five minutes with Him each time I can today (but I will not think that less is worthless when I cannot give Him more). I will at least remember hourly to say the words which call to Him to give me what He wills to give me, and wills that I receive. I will determine not to interfere today with what He wills. And if a brother seems to tempt me to deny God's gift to him, I will see it as but another chance to let myself receive the gifts of God as mine. Then I will bless my brother thankfully, and say:

My brother, peace and joy I offer you,
That I may have God's peace and joy as mine.

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Notes:  Today, no notes.  Just read the lesson (either version) several times.  I have been.  It is healing me to do so.  

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Commentary on ACIM Lesson 104

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

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I seek but what belongs to me in truth.

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What am I teaching?  When I asked myself the question in the shower this morning, I was surprised to hear back an answer I'd forgotten....  That I was teaching that being vulnerable is what makes me invulnerable.  It's a fundamental principle of the Course.  And, there is a direct relationship between vulnerableness, intimacy, and happiness, right?  

 

Some of the feedback I've gotten on these Commentaries lately has  been that what makes them powerful (for those readers) is the way I share how I deal with myself.  It wasn't my intention when I started writing three plus months ago to be providing my internet course group readers a soap-opera confessional, but I can get that I can't teach what I haven't learned, and the best way to learn it is to teach it.  And that the most valuable authenticity is honesty.  Werner Erhard gave me the maxim that "The beginning of mastery is always the telling of the truth".  It's a good thing to know.  Anyway, it is up to you to make use of my shares, which I am clear you are doing.  My job is to be responsible for being straight with myself as I do my spiritual growth work, and then language my 'report on my learning' as well as I am able.  

 

Continuing with being straight with myself, today (as I went about having a pleasant, fully functional, and NOT LONELY :-) day repairing and repainting props for my upcoming art show at Earthday in San Diego this Sunday) was the arrival of the realization that underneath all the addictive relationship dramas of my life was my mother.  The actual thought that arose was a very young memory file that just suddenly opened:  'I want my mama'.  And I saw that then, when I got her, I was OK.  Next, I saw more clearly than ever before that somewhere in early adolescence I had 'lost her' and that that loss I had never recognized or acknowledged.  And I realized that 'the loss' had felt like a betrayal, and that the sense of the most important female person in my life betraying me has been reoccurring ever since.  I am very freed by these insights..... 

 

When I was young I was the second child to come out of my mom's womb (of an eventual eight).  During my early years, my mom was my best friend, and I shared everything with her.  We were intimate. And she was almost always thrilled at who I was.  Then somewhere getting close to puberty, I must has shared feeling or actions (that were probably 'sexual') and she stopped being so thrilled.  Suddenly she was not my Safety, my Go To, my Refuge.... she became the one who was saying 'NO', instead of YES.  That's where I felt betrayed, because of that reversal, that loss of her Safety.  

 

Mom was then and is now a simple (meaning completely without worldly sophistication of any kind), good hearted, very religious, intuitively intelligent woman, and her morality back then in my childhood was quite puritanical and religiously judgmental.  I definitely got the message that sex before marriage was completely unacceptable to the morality beliefs of my parents.  When I did violate their morality standards and have experimental sex as a teenager, I knew I could not confide that to my mother.  So I confided in my younger sister (because they were hitting us at public indoctrination (school) with a lot of VD scare stuff, and I was a little worried about with whom I had done what I had done).  Wrong thing to do, as she told my mom.  The ensuing uproar ended my intimacy with my mom.  From then on, I withheld, and from then on, wherever I had a date as a teen living at home, she gave me her warning look of 'you watch it, young man'.  By the way, she was 107 lbs. and 5' 2" when she married my dad (a young seminary student), she had a great figure, sang church hymns beautifully all the time while doing housework, and had the most amazing healing touch.  You can guess what I looked for physically in women as a young man, right?  And, today when my insights opened up, I got that all I have been really looking for in a woman emotionally was the safety (intimacy) that I'd had with my mom, before I lost it.  In other words, profound deep harmonious'best' friendship.   Somehow I know this is very important for me to see, as I have a pattern of hasty hook-ups based on sexuality rather than compatible friendships.  Well, as I am still alive, the games are still on.  We'll see how I do from here.  And you'll probably hear about it.  If I don't just stay a celibate monk/artist/Rev. etc....  ha ha ha.... :-).  

 

By the way, it's not lost on me that here I am with my Mom and Dad, taking care of them.  Perfect timing, right?  Right-- no accidents....  Right now though, lets look at the Course work for today....

 

Namaste, 

 

David

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First Person Revised Version  (and, I have added some 'notes' below it that may be useful too.)

 

Lesson 104

I claim but what belongs to me in truth.

Today's idea continues with the thought that joy and peace are not everidle dreams. They are my right, because of what I am. They come to mefrom God, Who cannot fail to give me what He wills. Yet, there must be a place made ready to receive His gifts, as they are not welcomed gladly by a mind that has, instead, received the gifts it made itself (where His belong), as substitutes for God's gifts.

Today I would remove all meaningless and self-made gifts which I have placed upon the holy altar where God's gifts belong. His are the gifts that are my own in truth. His are the gifts that I inherited before time was, and that will still be mine when time has passed into eternity. His are the gifts that are within me now, for they are timeless. And I need not wait to have them. They belong to me today.

Therefore, I choose to have them now, and know, in choosing them in place of what I made, I but unite my will with what God wills, and recognize the same as being one. My longer practice periods today, the hourly five minutes given truth for my salvation, will begin with this:

I claim what belongs to me in truth, 
And joy and peace are my inheritance.

Then, I will lay aside the conflicts of the world that offer other gifts and other goals (which are made of illusions, witnessed to by them, and sought for only in a world of dreams).

All this I lay aside, and claim instead that which is truly mine, as I chooseto recognize what God has given me. I clear a holy place within my mind before His altar, where His gifts of peace and joy are welcome, and to which I come to find what has been given me by Him. I come in confidence today, aware that what belongs to me in truth is what He gives. And I would desire nothing else, for nothing else belongs to me in truth.

So do I clear the way for Him today by simply recognizing that His Will is done already, and that joy and peace belong to me as His eternal gifts. Iwill not let myself lose sight of His gifts between the times I come to seek for them where He has laid them. This reminder will I bring to mindfrequently and often today:

I claim what IS mine in truth.
God's gifts of joy and peace are mine.

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Notes on Lesson 104 (First Person Edited Version)

 

The principles I am basing the revision on I learned as part the CONSCIOUS LANGUAGE teaching of Robert Tennyson Stephens (who currently travels the USA leading powerful transformation seminars).  His website is www.masterysystems.com.  (This is called honoring [crediting] your source.)

 

Basically, I am converting the lesson to an affirmation (or, if you will, a degree).  This adds (activates) the power of my will and intention, and as I said, my own experience has been that that deepens the 'installing of the lesson' in my being.  

 

I very much like the idea of an internal 'alter' 'to which I come'.  I think it is very helpful. It's kind of like formatting a computer drive, where different files are assigned places.  An alter is a symbol of a sacred place.  Since it is mental, it can be anywhen and anywhere imaginable.  But is is a place you go to drink in your soul, find your peace, come into the presence of holiness.  

 

Also, to desire nothing but what God gives is simply the path of sainthood.  It is a very pure path, and is based on absolute trust that you/I can rely on God as our sustainer.  If we look, it is clear we already do, as we receive each next breath of life (that we didn't create).  In this example, because it is 'so close' we simply don't normally pay it a lot of attention.   However, there is a direct relationship between Attention (and our development of our capacity to give it) and Awareness (and our development of our capacity to Be).  And a lot of spiritual traditions offer very deep breath work practices (all based on Attention) which I encourage you to explore.  Or simply 'sing a whole lot'.  (But not using 'garbage lyrics', as that is 'installing unconsciousness'. [in my opinion])

 

One thing I have noticed for myself is that if I read the revised version first, and then read the original, the original is much more 'in focus' and in a subtle way, enhanced.  Perhaps that will be your experience also.  I think this is because the more ways something is said, the more clearly we/I can grasp it.  

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 103

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

God, Being Love, is also happiness.

 

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I have spent the day (Monday) being with the impact of my personal Achilles Heel, which is the fact that I am 'alone' (not in a 'happy intimate personal relationship'), and that ego-I is 'not so happy' about that.  I also know I have already answered myself (in this area) in the last few Commentaries, and I am confronted with the challenge of actually living those answers.  

 

My self-investigation was triggered because of the acknowledgement I wrote in yesterdays Commentary (that ego-I 'still has issues', and the one that I mentioned was 'dealing with loneliness' occasionally).  Also, the fact that the Course is focusing on happiness right now is present in the background, as I am seeing that a big stop (hurdle) for me to being completely happy is my personal desire to be in a truly happy intimate relationship.  My 'problem' reduces down to my ego-I's judgmental requirements about what I demand such an intimacy should/must look like.  And I am realizing it is not just my problem, but it is a very common problem for a lot of people. In other words, it's a cultural problem that I personally have alive in myself.    

 

One of my favorite lectures on relationships is on an old tape I ran across years ago by a man named Terry Gorski.  The framework he presented included the stats that about 80 percent of us come from pretty dysfunctional families (he described what that looked like) and if that's you (like it is me), we do relationship much more from an addictive model than a naturally healthy model. We didn't have a healthy model modeled for us (neither did our parents).  And so we get addictive model 'crashing' results at times.  For me the 'area of intimate relationship' has been a 'spiritual sore spot'---a part of life that I have never fully been happy in, and never had the 'dream come true' experience (more than briefly) in any of the many relationships I have attempted with the best of intentions.  I keep believing that will transform.  Unfortunately, I have often walked the road to 'relationship hell' in the name of the search for Love (but actually, I am now seeing, in the search for 'the perfect sexuallove').  I am 'not proud' of my relationship 'failures' because they all could have worked if I had not been addicted to my version of what a perfect (sexual) relationship for me would have looked like.  Now alone for over a year, and in a new town in order to help out my aged parents (who must now deal with 'the end approaching' without having many functional relationship tools themselves) part of me 'looks in the mirror' and has given up on intimate relationship (I'll just accept I'm a celibate monk etc), part of me still goes unconscious and bites 'when triggered' by 'somebody maybe matching' my addictive hoping.  Neither one of those positions is the 'happiness of God' that the Course is working (training) me and you to have become real.  I am clear the Course writer knows our humanity, and knows well what the barriers are to each of us being willing to let go of our imagined needs enough to receive God's fully alive ecstatic happiness.  

 

Obviously, those barriers (which are all 'wants' that ego-I has said I 'must have') have to be let go of for real happiness to be my experience.  It's a pretty clear insanity....  the 'wants' that I must have so that I can be happy are the very reasons I cannot 'be happy'.  I mean, both personal intimate love and God's Impersonal Love are available, but I keep saying 'no thanks, I'm looking for something different' (meaning but not saying, 'the Perfect One' [which nobody ever IS]),  and then of course, I am alone, and unhappy about that, and am left 'waiting, yearning, all that'.  Covered that 'brilliantly' a couple days ago, right?  (And still working on getting it...)  

 

There is much I have not gotten into words yet, and I don't know how to 'sew this up' right now.  It's time to get this Commentary sent off, time for me to 'do the Course' too.  I'm sure there is more coming, as this spiritual surgery is clearly absolutely necessary for me to allow to happen.  Being God's Love in the world is why I am here, I know that.  Continuing to 'harbor without exposing' an addictive substitute for authentic Self-Love will sabotage (and already has 'in the past') my ability to be that Love.  There is a much larger possibility waiting on the other side of this for myself, and for any other who recognizes themselves here.  To get 'there', I know I must 'be here', in this soup, in this impact, in this surgery.  

 

And, that it's a good idea to keep 'doing the Course'.  More later.  

 

Namaste,

 

David

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 102

© 2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

I share God's Will for happiness for me.

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Sometimes I am truly amazed at how I can be so 'brilliant' and yet so 'blind' at the same time.

 

I have 'a great life', and know myself to be 'an amazing, very talented man'.  Yet I have not (in the past) been always 'happy' (yet).  The last few lessons have be speaking to this, and my personal life has been cooperating in providing plentiful growth material too.  Thus, I have been being 'helped', and am now able to see a few more of the blindness' (in terms of awareness) that I have been living in.  (Thank you God, Thank you 'everybody' else too.  Well done.) It has really made a difference to me to get that simply being happy is all that I am being asked to do.  Of course, to Ego-I it 'seems a big job to create' all the time, for 'I' still have 'issues' (like 'dealing with loneliness' occasionally) even if ego-I would have you believe I don't.  

 

I get 'having human issues' is not so big a problem, really.  Ego-I is, after all, a human being machine. But 'having others think' that I don't is.  Not because I am lying to my public or anything, but simply because if I am (consciously or unconsciously) wishing to keep them (my issues) out of sight, that in and of itself makes me blind to them too.  Then, like being in (or crossing) an explosive land mine field  while sleepwalking, 'accidents' can happen.  

 

Not real accidents, as there are none of those in this total non-accidental universe, but 'well-staged' accidents, the kind that in hind sight I can tell God's Helpers had been working overtime to get set up, so that I could 'get' the set-up.  When I do get it, I usually have a big laugh at myself.  When finally freed 'from the teapot', what else is there to do?  A big part of spiritual growth is equivalent to being willing to laugh at my own foolishness, and be grateful for the lesson.  More than grateful actually,  'Happy' for it is more accurate.  

 

Go figure it.  Try to look good. End up looking bad.  Give up hiding that.  Look good.  What a hoot.  Love is the biggest wild-card going.  It will get even old goats to glow.  Where to now, from here, God?  Ego-I is willing to 'just ride along' for a while.  Maybe it will even get used to me 'being happy'.  

 

Why not?  That has been it's biggest seduction card (that it's 'not happy' about this or that, etc).  Could it be this simple?  That being willing to be happy is the easiest way to accept (and Love) my own Brother Ego?  

 

Oh, I gotta drop in this poem.... although you will need to switch the pentameter, it will, I hope, 'deliver the point' nicely....

 

Lady Faith

 

Lady Faith, she’s a royal gambler --

(and her game is for Royal Hearts -- that finest of the golds).

 If she were a being within a body, she’d be ancient, timeless...

 yet, her thoughts... they'd reveal Knowledge Never Old.

 

I’m here to give her my truest of loves,

I’m here to care for her until I am freed,

for Lady Faith is my closest friend---

She is my gardener --  I am her seed.

 

Lady Faith stands always before me, saying:

“Come, let your vision unfold --

that you may fruit,  that you may flower,

that you may shower your wholeness, your power,  unto every other soul”.

 

She sings to me: “There is never a true reason

to hesitate this life's Love flow --

everything that is needed has already been provided --

every destiny was seeded an infinity ago.”

 

Lady Faith is Love’s Returning

to this planet I now call Home --

She knows no boundaries, no limitations,

 she knows no heart to be of stone.

 

She follows into my unkept mind-corners,

wherever my fearing dreams lie and hide,

and I, drawn to the Endless Pure Light within her,

 finally welcome my own surrender: the laying aside of ego pride.

 

No longer shall the dragons rip asunder

my soul, the Holiness of this Man,

for Lady Faith has come to free again that Love that IS within me --

She has deeply kissed my dragons hand.

 

© 1987, 2009  Rev David Seacord

 

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

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Edited First Person Version

Lesson 102

I share God's Will for happiness for me.

I do not desire to suffer. I may think suffering buys me something, and may even still believe (a little) that it buys me what I would have. Yet this belief is 'surely shaken' now, at least enough to let me question it, and to suspect it really makes no sense. It is not gone (as yet), but it lacks the roots that once secured it tightly to the dark and hidden secret places of my mind.

Today I work to loose its weakened hold still further, and to realize that all my pain is purposeless, without a cause and with no power to accomplish anything. My pain (any kind)cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not even actually 'exist'. And everything I think my pain offers me is lacking in existence too, just like it is. I have been aslave.... to nothing.  Today I am free to join the happy Will of God.

Structurally, for the next several days I will continue to devote my periods of practicing to exercises planned to help me reach the happiness God's Will has placed in me. Here is myhome, and here my safety is too. Here is my peace, and here there is no fear. Here is salvation. Here is my rest at last.

Today, I will begin my practice periods with this acceptance of God's Will for me:

I share God's Will for happiness for me, and 
I accept it as my function now.

Then I will quietly enter my own Holiness and find this function deep within my mind, for itis there, awaiting only my choice to recognize it. I cannot fail to find it when I learn it is mytrue highest choice, and that in choosing this, I share God's Will.

I will be happy, for my only function here is happiness. I have no need to be less loving to God's Son (meaning ANY of my brothers) than He Whose Love created me as loving as Himself. Besides these hourly five-minute rests, I will pause frequently today, to tell myselfthat I have now accepted happiness as my one function. And I will be sure that I amjoining with God's Will in doing this.

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Commentary on ACIM Lesson 101

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

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God's Will for me is perfect happiness.

 

 

True Happiness is not 'circumstantially derived'.  It is not 'object based'.  It is self-arising, from our essential emptiness/fullness connection with the Universe, to 'All that IS'.  Any 'happiness' that requires anything of 'another' is a false (temporary) happiness.  This is why nothing in the world can ever actually 'make' us happy.  

 

Yet, we can easily simply 'be' happy.  Until conditioned out of it, all children are naturally happy.  They live in wonderment, awe, and especially, 'not knowing'.  It is a magical state, and Jesus taught that if we would again know true happiness, we must relearn these childlike states.  Intellectually we get it, but in practice, we usually defer to self-survival choices.  This leaves us generally at least a bit suppressed, and only occasionally experiencing the space to be 'really happy', let alone 'ecstatic'.  

 

God awaking in us changes all that.  When we get that all God intended for us was that we Be Happy, and that we are in this world for the purpose of simply Being that Happiness, the grip of ego survival needs dramatically lessens.  Until we get that, life is 'all lessons' to get that.  

 

Basically, the way the lesson goes is this:  Want something?  Reach for it, maybe have it, then lose it.  Need something?  Reach for it, maybe have it, then lose it.  What does 'wanting', or 'needing' (something 'to be or not be') do?  It sets up us as Not Complete, Not Whole (Not Happy without whatever it is).  

 

Besides being insane, this Not Wholeness is addictive, psychologically.  We emote, we yearn, we dream of, we effort, we manipulate, we scheme, we make deals, we avoid, we punish, we ignore, we suppress all true Self-Knowledge in order to keep getting our fix of duality drama.  Oneness ends all that, either instantly or a little at a time, as we choose to let it enter us.  

 

How does it enter us?  We surrender to every lesson, until God has completely taken over our life.  It's a paradox.  Want to be happy?  Give up wanting.  Be Happy.

 

This I humbly teach today, that I may also so learn.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

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First Person Edited Version 

 

Lesson 101

God's Will for me is perfect happiness.

Today I will continue contemplating the theme of perfect happiness, for this is a key idea in understanding what salvation actually means. I will contemplate the possibility that I may still believe salvation asks for suffering as penance for my "sins." While intellectually I understand this is not so, Imust think it so somewhere in me if I believe that 'sin is real, and that God's Son can sin'.

If my sins are real, then God's punishment is just and I cannot  escape it. My salvation thus cannot be purchased except through my suffering. If my sinsare real, then my happiness must be an illusion, for sin and happiness cannot both be the truth.  If my 'Knowing' is that the sinful warrant only death and pain, it is this I unconsciously ask for and attract. I will know it waits for me, and that it will seek me out and find me somewhere, sometime, in some form that 'evens the account' I owe to God. I would therefore escape Him inmy fear. And yet I would know He will pursue, and that I can not escape.

Also, if my sin is real, my salvation must be pain. My pain is the cost of mysin, and my suffering it can never be escaped, if my sin is real. My salvation must be feared, for it will kill me, albeit slowly, taking everything away from me before it grants the welcome boon of death to me and other victims whowill be little more than bones before 'salvation is appeased'. For I would see that salvation's wrath is boundless, merciless, but wholly 'just'.

Today let me ask myself why I would seek out such a savage punishment?Why would I not flee salvation, and attempt in every way I can to drown the Voice which offers it to me? Why would I try to listen and accept Its offering? If my sin is real, its offering is death, and meted out in a cruel form (to match the vicious wishes in which my sin is born). If my sin is real, mysalvation has become my bitter enemy, and the curse of God is upon me, forI am the one who has crucified His Son.

I choose these practice periods today gladly. For these exercises teach me mysin 'is not real', and all that I believe must come from 'my sin' will never happen, for it has no cause. I will accept God's Atonement with an open mind, for Atonement cherishes no lingering belief that I have made a devil of God's Son. I would know that there is no sin. I will therefore practice (with this thought) as often as I can accomplish intentionally remembering to do so today, because it is the basis for today's idea.

God's Will for me is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless. God's Joy 'just IS', and pain is but the sign I have misunderstood myself. Today I will not fear the Will of God. I will turn to it in confidence that it will set me free from all the consequences 'my sin' has wrought in my feverish 'worldliness-conditioned' imagination. I will say:

God's Will for me is perfect happiness.
There is no (actual) sin; it has no (actual) consequence.

So will I start my practice periods today, and then I will again find the joy(My Joy) that these thoughts will introduce (bring) into my mind.

I will give God's Holy Spirit (My own holy spirit) these regular and frequentfive minutes gladly, to remove (from my mind) the heavy load I have lainupon myself with this insane belief that 'my sin' is real. Today I will chooseescape from 'my' madness. I Affirm I AM NOW set on freedom's road, andeven now today's idea brings welcome wings to speed me onward, and I intend today to 'go within and be still'  (but faster and more truly)  to the waiting 'goal', to the Reality of Perfect Peace. There is no sin (and there are no mistakes.  Same/same.) I will remember this today, and tell myself veryoften (as I absolutely can and will do):

God's Will for me is perfect happiness.
This is the truth, because there is no sin.

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