Commentary on ACIM Lesson 135

© 2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

If I defend myself I am attacked.

 

Today's lesson is extraordinary, even inside of that the whole course is extraordinary.  

 

Today I have written no commentary, nor created a 'first person' version of the lesson.  Today I simply study (drink in) the lesson, which has great meaning and profoundness to me.  I am sending two lesson copies however, so that I may underline passages within the first one that I suggest might receive extra-thoughtful attention. 

Namaste, 

David 

PS.  This is 'late' because I 'overslept' also.... :-) 

 

________________________________

 

'un-edited, except with underlining', (which could have easily been 'all of it')

 

Lesson 135

If I defend myself I am attacked.

Who would defend himself unless he thought he were attacked, that the attack were real, and that his own defense could save himself? And herein lies the folly of defense; it gives illusions full reality, and then attempts to handle them as real. It adds illusions to illusions, thus making correction doubly difficult. And it is this you do when you attempt to plan the future, activate the past, or organize the present as you wish.

You operate from the belief you must protect yourself from what is happening because it must contain what threatens you. A sense of threat is an acknowledgment of an inherent weakness; a belief that there is danger which has power to call on you to make appropriate defense. The world is based on this insane belief. And all its structures, all its thoughts and doubts, its penalties and heavy armaments, its legal definitions and its codes, its ethics and its leaders and its gods, all serve but to preserve its sense of threat. For no one walks the world in armature but must have terror striking at his heart.

Defense is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made. You think it offers safety. Yet it speaks of fear made real and terror justified. Is it not strange you do not pause to ask, as you elaborate your plans and make your armor thicker and your locks more tight, what you defend, and how, and against what?

Let us consider first what you defend. It must be something that is very weak and easily assaulted. It must be something made easy prey, unable to protect itself and needing your defense. What but the body has such frailty that constant care and watchful, deep concern are needful to protect its little life? What but the body falters and must fail to serve the Son of God as worthy host?

Yet it is not the body that can fear, nor be a thing of fear. It has no needs but those which you assign to it. It needs no complicated structures of defense, no health-inducing medicine, no care and no concern at all.Defend its life, or give it gifts to make it beautiful or walls to make it safe, and you but say your home is open to the thief of time, corruptible and crumbling, so unsafe it must be guarded with your very life.

Is not this picture fearful? Can you be at peace with such a concept of your home? Yet what endowed the body with the right to serve you thus except your own belief? It is your mind which gave the body all the functions that you see in it, and set its value far beyond a little pile of dust and water. Who would make defense of something that he recognized as this?

The body is in need of no defense. This cannot be too often emphasized.It will be strong and healthy if the mind does not abuse it by assigning it to roles it cannot fill, to purposes beyond its scope, and to exalted aims which it cannot accomplish. Such attempts, ridiculous yet deeply cherished, are the sources for the many mad attacks you make upon it. For it seems to fail your hopes, your needs, your values and your dreams.

The "self" that needs protection is not real. The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?

Defend the body and you have attacked your mind. For you have seen in it the faults, the weaknesses, the limits and the lacks from which you think the body must be saved. You will not see the mind as separate from bodily conditions. And you will impose upon the body all the pain that comes from the conception of the mind as limited and fragile, and apart from other minds and separate from its Source.

These are the thoughts in need of healing, and the body will respond with health when they have been corrected and replaced with truth. This is the body's only real defense. Yet is this where you look for its defense? You offer it protection of a kind from which it gains no benefit at all, but merely adds to your distress of mind. You do not heal, but merely take away the hope of healing, for you fail to see where hope must lie if it be meaningful.

A healed mind does not plan. It carries out the plans that it receives through listening to wisdom that is not its own. It waits until it has been taught what should be done, and then proceeds to do it. It does not depend upon itself for anything except its adequacy to fulfill the plans assigned to it. It is secure in certainty that obstacles can not impede its progress to accomplishment of any goal that serves the greater plan established for the good of everyone.

A healed mind is relieved of the belief that it must plan, although it cannot know the outcome which is best, the means by which it is achieved, nor how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve. It must misuse the body in its plans until it recognizes this is so. But when it has accepted this as true, then is it healed, and lets the body go.

Enslavement of the body to the plans the unhealed mind sets up to save itself must make the body sick. It is not free to be the means of helping in a plan which far exceeds its own protection, and which needs its service for a little while. In this capacity is health assured. For everything the mind employs for this will function flawlessly, and with the strength that has been given it and cannot fail.

It is, perhaps, not easy to perceive that self-initiated plans are but defenses, with the purpose all of them were made to realize. They are the means by which a frightened mind would undertake its own protection, at the cost of truth. This is not difficult to realize in some forms which these self-deceptions take, where the denial of reality is very obvious. Yet planning is not often recognized as a defense.

The mind engaged in planning for itself is occupied in setting up control of future happenings. It does not think that it will be provided for, unless it makes its own provisions. Time becomes a future emphasis, to be controlled by learning and experience obtained from past events and previous beliefs. It overlooks the present, for it rests on the idea the past has taught enough to let the mind direct its future course.

The mind that plans is thus refusing to allow for change. What it has learned before becomes the basis for its future goals. Its past experience directs its choice of what will happen. And it does not see that here and now is everything it needs to guarantee a future quite unlike the past, without a continuity of any old ideas and sick beliefs. Anticipation plays no part at all, for present confidence directs the way.

Defenses are the plans you undertake to make against the truth. Their aim is to select what you approve, and disregard what you consider incompatible with your beliefs of your reality. Yet what remains is meaningless indeed. For it is your reality that is the "threat" which your defenses would attack, obscure, and take apart and crucify.

What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to eternal life.

Your present trust in Him is the defense that promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, and with joy that constantly increases, as this life becomes a holy instant, set in time, but heeding only immortality. Let no defenses but your present trust direct the future, and this life becomes a meaningful encounter with the truth that only your defenses would conceal.

Without defenses, you become a light which Heaven gratefully acknowledges to be its own. And it will lead you on in ways appointed for your happiness according to the ancient plan, begun when time was born. Your followers will join their light with yours, and it will be increased until the world is lighted up with joy. And gladly will our brothers lay aside their cumbersome defenses, which availed them nothing and could only terrify.

We will anticipate that time today with present confidence, for this is part of what was planned for us. We will be sure that everything we need is given us for our accomplishment of this today. We make no plans for how it will be done, but realize that our defenselessness is all that is required for the truth to dawn upon our minds with certainty.

For fifteen minutes twice today we rest from senseless planning, and from every thought that blocks the truth from entering our minds. Today we will receive instead of plan, that we may give instead of organize. And we are given truly, as we say:

If I defend myself I am attacked. 
But in defenselessness I will be strong, 
and I will learn what my defenses hide.

Nothing but that. If there are plans to make, you will be told of them.They may not be the plans you thought were needed, nor indeed the answers to the problems which you thought confronted you. But they are answers to another kind of question, which remains unanswered yet in need of answering until the Answer comes to you at last.

All your defenses have been aimed at not receiving what you will receive today. And in the light and joy of simple trust, you will but wonder why you ever thought that you must be defended from release. Heaven asks nothing. It is hell that makes extravagant demands for sacrifice. You give up nothing in these times today when, undefended, you present yourself to your Creator as you really are.

He has remembered you. Today we will remember Him. For this is Eastertime in your salvation. And you rise again from what was seeming death and hopelessness. Now is the light of hope reborn in you, for now you come without defense, to learn the part for you within the plan of God. What little plans or magical beliefs can still have value, when you have received your function from the Voice for God Himself?

Try not to shape this day as you believe would benefit you most. For you can not conceive of all the happiness that comes to you without your planning. Learn today. And all the world will take this giant stride, and celebrate your Eastertime with you. Throughout the day, as foolish little things appear to raise defensiveness in you and tempt you to engage in weaving plans, remind yourself this is a special day for learning, and acknowledge it with this:

This is my Eastertime. And I would keep it holy. 
I will not defend myself, because the Son of God 
needs no defense against the truth of his reality.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 134

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

 

 

As I mentioned a few days ago, I 'associate widely'.  I also 'listen widely'.  (Maybe it's my Gemini ascendent, if a reason must be found.)  

 

Anyway, the other day while driving (which I normally do in silence so I can listen to my mind more easily...) I turned on the world (the radio) and (after 'surfing a bit') found myself listening to some Christian music praising God's glory in a very majestic and beautifully uplifting way, even though 'the vintage of the thinking' it expressed was not 'my cup of tea'.  But the JOY was....   I noticed I was moved by it, the same as I have often been moved by Hindu or Tibetan Buddhist chanting.  Or by singing the Zikr (a Sufi practice).  All joyous praises to the Infinite are welcome in my heart...

 

The radio music ended, and 'a preaching' began.  It was a fundamentalist sermon about prophesy and the Book of Revelation.  I listened closely, for as I have mentioned in these writings, among my siblings (there's 8 of us) I have a very fundamentalist sister (and also, a brother who is an ordained Christian minister with a Ph.d in the Bible to boot [so he's a Rev. Dr. etc, like MLK was]) and they both 'have their opinions' which they challenge me with regularly.  This presents me with 'family motive' to listen for the reality behind the words that Christian scriptures are speaking of.  

 

Back to the radio, the preacher is quoting a bunch of verses that are describing 'heaven', and he is clear he's talking about a 'real place'.  He describes John's vision as though it is 'factual evidence'. (Cause, well, it's in the Bible, so to him, it is.)  Then he says the statement that I had been listening for....  "Ladies and Gentlemen,  Heaven is going to be such a large city that it will have over 100,000 million inhabitants!  That is more people than has ever been alive in all of time....!!"  

 

I thought about that for a second.  Then I smiled.  Although maybe it was not what he intended to do, he had just let me know that there was going to be plenty of room FOR ALL OF US.  EVERYBODY GETS A PLACE IN HEAVEN TO CALL HOME....   Sweet.  Love has it all covered.  Thanks, Rev....   (and so now you know... :-)

 

Namaste, 

 

David

_______________________

Edited 'First Person' version

Lesson 134

Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

Today let me review the meaning of "forgive," for it is apt to be distorted and to be perceived as something that entails A. an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, B. a gift unjustified and undeserved, and/or C.  a complete denial of the truth. In such views, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appear to rest salvation on a whim.

This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected, when I can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. Pardonmust be limited to what is false. It is irrelevant to everything except illusions. Truth is God's creation, and to pardon that is meaningless. All truth belongs to Him, reflects His laws and radiates His Love. Does this need pardon? What possible need have I to forgive the sinless and eternally benign?

The only major difficulty that I can find in me as a barrier to genuine forgiveness on my part is that I still might believe I must forgive the truth, and not illusions. I might conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to overlook the truth, in an unfounded effort to deceive myself by making an illusion true. This twisted viewpoint simply reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet upon my mind, as I regard myself.

Because I can still think my sins are real, I can still look on pardon as a deception. For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness is a lie. Thus is forgiveness really also a sin, like all the rest. It says the truth is false, and it smiles on the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as white as snow. It is delusional in what it thinks it can accomplish. It would see as right the plainly wrong; the loathsome as the good.

Pardon is no escape (in such views). It merely is a further sign that sin is unforgivable, at best to be concealed, denied or called another name, for pardon is a treachery to truth. Guilt cannot be forgiven. If I sin, my guilt is everlasting. Those who are forgiven (from the view their sins are real) are pitifully mocked and twice condemned; first, by themselves for what they think they did, and once again by those who pardon them.

It is sin's unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. It does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and gently lays them at the feet of truth. And there they disappear entirely.

Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth within the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks straight through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies, but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth."

The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth. It is because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies; the great restorer of the simple truth. By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth, which has been blocked by dreams of guilt. Now am I free to follow in 'the way' my true forgiveness opens up to me. For if one brother has received this gift of me, the door IS OPEN to myself.

There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and perceive it open wide in welcome. Whenever/If-ever I feel that I am tempted to accuse someone of 'sin' (in any form),  I do not allow my mind to dwell on what I think he did, for that is self-deception. I ask instead, "Would I accuse myself of doing this?"

Thus will I see alternatives for choice in terms that render choosing meaningful, and keep my mind as free of guilt and pain as God Himself intended it to be, and as it is in truth. It is but lies that would condemn. In truth is innocence the only thing there is.Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth; between the world I see and that which lies beyond; between the hell of guilt and Heaven's gate.

Across this bridge, as powerful as the holy love which laid its blessing on it, are all dreams of evil and of hatred and attack brought silently to truth. Such dreams are not kept to swell and bluster, and to terrify the foolish dreamers who believe in them. And I have been gently wakened from my dream by understanding what I thought I saw was never there. And now I cannot feel that all escape has been denied to me, for I can see beyond these dreams.

Now I do not have to fight to save myself. I do not have to kill the dragons which I thought pursued me. Nor need I erect the heavy walls of stone and iron doors I thought would make me safe. I can remove the ponderous and useless armor made to chain my mind to fear and misery. My step is light, and as I lift my foot to stride ahead, a star is left behind, to point the way to those who follow me.

Such forgiveness must be practiced, for the world cannot perceive its meaning, nor provide a guide to teach me its beneficence. There is no thought in all the world that leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought that it reflects. It is as alien to the world as is my own reality. And yet forgiveness joins my mind with the reality in me.

Today I practice true forgiveness, that 'the time of joining' be no more delayed. For I would meet with my reality in freedom and in peace. My practicing thus becomes the footsteps lighting up the way for all my brothers, who will follow me to the reality I share with them. That this may be accomplished, let me give a quarter of an hour twice today, and spend it with the Guide Who understands the meaning of forgiveness, and was sent to me to teach it to me. Let me ask of Him:

Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

Then I shall choose one brother as He will direct, and catalogue his "sins," as one by one they cross my mind. I will not to dwell on any particular one of them, but realize that I am using his "offenses" only to save the world from all ideas of sin. I will briefly consider all the evil things I thought of him, and each time ask myself, "Would I condemn myself for doing this?"

By doing this, I will let him be freed from all the thoughts I had of sin in him. And now I am prepared for freedom. If I have been practicing thus far in willingness and honesty, I will begin to sense a lifting up, a lightening of weight across my chest, a deep and certain feeling of relief. The time remaining should be given to experiencing the escape from all the heavy chains I sought to lay upon my brother, but were laid by my mind upon myself instead.

I see my forgiveness also being practiced through the day, for there may still be many times when I forget its meaning and attack myself. Whenever this may occur, I will allow my mind to see through this illusion as I tell myself:

Let me perceive forgiveness as it is. 
Would I accuse myself of doing this? 
I will not lay this chain upon myself.

And in everything I do I will remember this:

No one is crucified alone, and yet no one 
can enter Heaven by himself.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 133

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

I will not value what is valueless.

 

 

 

 

There's a 'dollar movie house' here in Albuquerque where I caught Avatar as a late afternoon matinee for the fourth time 'on the cheap' today.  Knowing the story and plot, I found I was paying attention to other things that I had missed before.  It was a lot like being awake in a dream that I knew I was awake in.  

 

Mastery in life is a lot like that.  Movies are designed with a intended fast pace built in, a device used to get us to 'suspend disbelief' and go with the plot, even if in our normal mentality we'd reject the plot's presumptions.  Often, the worse the movie, the faster the pace.  But if going to movies was a spiritual practice (which it often is, for this culture) there would be the need for depth of meaning and purpose in  them, so that the viewer could return to the screen many times and still find freshness and newness in the now familiar story.  

 

Our lives are similar, I think.  If we are on a shallow footing with ourselves, we will wake up bored and in resistance to our conditions.  This boredom is a sign we are not giving due attention to the miracles we are surrounded by.... that we are sleepwalking through life and taking the gifts of God for granted.  A breakthough  then would be to 're-see' again, from the point of view of 'no accidents' AND 'everything we are experiencing is our own creation'.  That (as I understand it) is the master's practice.....

 

The Master Jesus said "I will make all things new".  I am clear that means 'regardless of condition'....  'All things new' is the same as 'fully present and in the Now' (regardless of condition or content too).  It's a sign of being 'on target' (in terms of conscious awareness) when the running dialogue of the i-self is at a low enough level to allow the presence of the 'Unified Self' to exist (no matter the condition) as master of our 'puppet persons'.  Hazarat Inayat Khan, the great Sufi master, is quoted as saying "The purpose of life is to perfect the divine personality".  I have often contemplated this over the years.... and have come to see that 'training the i-self of my puppet person' (that which the world sees and relates to as the 'real me' but which of course is not, being only the shell) to be willing to stay quiet (non-reactive) and surrendered to the 'Great Unified God-Self's' use of 'my puppet' is the actual fulfillment of my heart desire.  Said another way, to let my Holiness be visible.  

 

And where does 'my holiness' then lead me?  Almost always directly to forgiving my judgements that I have habitually created and laid upon the world.  So that the conversation that I am completely bored with suddenly becomes amazingly interesting, or the work being done as drudgery becomes deeply pleasurable... so that (as Byron Katie teaches) everything 'reverses' and simply becomes 'more-perfect-Now'.   This reversal of the world is God's kiss upon our lives.  It is the blessing of a whole new future, one lived only in this moment.  It is like the last scene of Avatar.... we choose the kiss of goodbye to the old 'i', and awaken in a new life, at one with 'the people of the Way' (nothing/no one excluded, all beings seen equally).

 

Namaste, 

 

David

_____________________________

 

First Person version.  

Lesson 133

I will not value what is valueless.

Sometimes in 'learning/teaching' there is a benefit (particularly after having gone through what seems like a lot of the 'theoretical' and gone far beyond what I have already personally learned) to come back to 'practical concerns'. This I will do today. I will not speak of lofty, world-encompassing ideas, but dwell instead on how these lessons can be beneficial to me, and to you.

I do not ask too much of life, I ask far too little. Whenever I let my mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things I buy, to eminence as valued by the world, I ask for sorrow, not for happiness. This course does not attempt to take from me the little that I have. It does not try to substitute utopian ideas for the satisfactions which the world contains. For there are no satisfactions 'in the world'.

Today I will list the real criteria by which I may test all things I think I desire. Unless they meet these sound requirements, they are not worth desiring at all, for they cannot ever replace 'what offers more'. The laws that govern choice I cannot make, no more than I can make alternatives from which to choose. The choosing I can do; indeed, I must. But it is wise if I will learn the laws I set in motion when I choose, and what alternatives I choose between.

It has already been stressed (in this Course) that there are really only two choices, however many there appear to be. This range is set, and this no one can change. It would be most ungenerous to me to let the alternatives be limitless, and thus delay my final choice until I have 'considered all of them' in time... (and therefore to not have been brought so clearly to the place where there is but one choice that must be made).

Another kindly and related law is that there is no compromise in what my choice must bring. It cannot give me just a little, forthere is no in between. Each choice I make brings everything to me, or nothing. Therefore, if I learn the tests by which I can distinguish everything from nothing, I will make the better choice.

First (on the list), if I choose a thing that will not last forever, what I chose is valueless. A temporary value is without any value. Time can never take away a value that is real. What fades and dies was never there (as a true reality), and it makes 'no offering' to me if I choose it. I am deceived by nothing in a form I think I like.

Next, if I choose to take a thing away from someone else, I will have nothing left. This is because, when I deny another's 'right to everything', I have denied my own also. I therefore will not recognize the things I really have, even denying they are there. Whoever seeks to take away something from another has been deceived by the illusion that 'loss can offer gain'. Yet loss will (and must) offer only loss, and nothing more.

My next consideration is the one on which the others rest. Why is the choice I make of value to me? What attracts my mind to it? What purpose does it serve? Here it is easiest of all for me to be deceived. For what my ego wants, it fails to recognize. It does not even tell the truth as it perceives it, for it needs to keep the halo which it uses to protect its goals from tarnish and from rust, that I may see how "innocent" it is.

Yet is the ego's camouflage a thin veneer, which could deceive only those who are content to be deceived. Its true goals are obvious to anyone who cares to look for them. Here is deception doubled, for the one who is deceived will not perceive that he has merely failed to gain. He will also believe that he has served the ego's hidden goals.

Yet though he tries to keep its halo clear within his vision, still must he perceive its tarnished edges and its rusted core. His ineffectual mistakes appear as sins to him, because he looks upon the tarnish as his own; the rust a sign of deep unworthiness within himself. He who would still preserve the ego's goals and serve them as his own makes no mistakes, according to the dictates of his guide. This erroneous 'guidance' teaches 'it is error to believe that sins are but mistakes', for who would suffer for his sins if this were so?

And so I come to the criterion for choice that is the hardest to believe, because its obviousness is overlaid with many levels of obscurity. If I feel any guilt about my choice, I have allowed the ego's goals to come between the real alternatives. And thus, I do not realize there are still only two choices, and the alternative I think I chose seems fearful, (and too dangerous to be the nothingness it actually is).

All things are valuable or valueless, worthy or not of being sought at all, entirely desirable or not worth the slightest effort to obtain. Choosing is easy just because of this. Complexity is nothing but a screen of smoke, which hides the very simple fact that no decision can be difficult. What is the gain to me in learning this? It is far more than merely letting me make choices easily and without pain.

Heaven itself is reached with empty hands and open minds, which 'come with nothing to find everything' and claim it as their own. I will attempt to reach this state today, with self-deception laid aside, and with an honest willingness to value but the truly valuable and the real. My two extended practice periods of fifteen minutes will each begin with this thought:

I will not value what is valueless, 
and only what has value do I seek, 
for only that do I desire to find.

And then I will be open to receiving 'what waits for everyone' who reaches, unencumbered, to the gate of Heaven, which 'swing open as he comes'. Should I begin to let myself collect some needless burdens, or believe I see some difficult decisions facing me, let me be quick to answer with this simple thought:

I will not value what is valueless, 
for what is valuable (already) belongs to me.

Commentary on Lesson 132

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

I loose the world from all I thought it was.

 

 

 

Medical Intuitive Carolyn Myss speaks of 'making a difference in the world on the level of thought.  I have been noticing the synchronicity of what I think of as my own thinking, and what then comes up in the Course.  Today I was watching my mind be a bit angry about a business deal.  Suddenly I realized I could give that voice a name.  I decided to call it 'my voice for hell', to contrast it with 'my Voice for God'.  Then I had a dialogue occur between them that I witnessed, and asked questions of etc.  Stuff like 'where does my voice for hell come from?' and 'how do I stop listening to it', and 'is there a purpose behind it's existence?'  

 

But the main point is just that I entered a new level of awareness of my thinking, and then entered an internal inquiry about that.  And that is where the Course takes us today...  directly into the practical impact that mastering our minds does make in the world.  All from 'the level of thought' BECAUSE this entire world all arises from our thought also....  Therefore, as we learn today, it is impossible to not effect the world when we change our thoughts.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

____________________

 

Very first person version ;-)

 

Lesson 132

I loose the world from all I thought it was.

What keeps my world in chains but my beliefs? And what can save my world except my Self? Belief is powerful indeed. The thoughts I hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth. A madman thinks the world he sees is real, and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last.

Yet is salvation easily achieved, for I am (as anyone is) free to change my mind, and all my thoughts change with it. Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change my mind means I have changed the source of all ideas I think or ever thought or yet will think. I free the past from what I thought before. I free the future from all ancient thoughts of seeking what I do not really wish to find.

The 'present-now' remains 'the only time'. Here in the present-now is the world set free. For as I let the past be lifted and I release the future from my ancient fears, I find escape and I give it to the world. I have enslaved the world with all my fears, my doubts and miseries, my pain and tears; and all my sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to my beliefs. Death strikes it everywhere because I hold the bitter thoughts of death within my mind.

The world is nothing in itself. My mind must give it meaning. And what I behold upon it are my wishes, acted out so I can look on them and think them real. Perhaps I think I did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for my thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth I found exactly what I looked for when I came.

There is no world apart from what I wish, and herein lies my ultimate release. Change but my mind on what I chooose to see, and all the worldmust change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source. This central theme is often stated in the text, and must be borne in mind if I would understand the lesson for today. It is not pride which tells me that I made the world I see, and that it changes as I change my mind.

But it is pride that argues I have come into a world quite separate from myself, impervious to what I think, and quite apart from what I chance to think it is. There is no world! This is the central thought the course is here to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept this thought, and each one will go as far as he will let himself be led along the road to truth. Then, he will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again.

But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world.

And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that I do today. Today's idea is true because the world does not exist. And if it is indeed my own imagining, then I can loose it from all things I ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances. The sick are healed as I let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when I let thoughts of life replace all thoughts I ever held of death.

A lesson earlier repeated once is now stressed again, for it contains the firm foundation for today's idea. 

I am as God created me. There is no place where I can suffer, and no time that can bring change to my eternal state. How can a world of time and place exist, if I remain as God created me?

What is the lesson for today except another way of saying that to know my Self is the salvation of the world? To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change my mind about myself. There is no world apart from my ideas because ideas leave not their source, and I maintain the world within my mind in thought.

Yet if I am as God created me, I cannot think apart from Him, nor make anything that does not share His timelessness and Love. Are these inherent in the world you see? Does it create like Him? Unless it does, it is not real, and cannot be at all. If I am real the world I see is false, for God's creation is unlike the world in every way. And as it was His Thought by which I was created, so it is my thoughts which made it and must set it free, that I may know the Thoughts I share with God.

I Release the world! My real creations wait for this release to give me fatherhood, not of illusions, but as God in truth. God shares His Fatherhood with me who is His Son, for He makes no distinctions in what is Himself and what is still Himself. What He creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, and the Son begin as something separate from Him.

There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His Wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere? Deny illusions, but accept the truth. Deny you are a shadow briefly laid upon a dying world. Release your mind, and you will look upon a world released.

Today my purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts I ever held about it, and about all living things I see upon it. They can not be there. No more can I. For I am in the home my Father set for me, along with them. And I who am as He created me would loose the world this day from every one of my illusions, that I may be free, as well as my brothers.

I begin the fifteen-minute periods in which I practice twice today with this:

I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. For I am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality.

Then I shall merely rest, alert but with no strain, and let my mind in quietness be changed so that the world is freed, along with me.

I need not realize that healing comes to many brothers far across the world, as well as to the ones I see nearby, as I send out these thoughts to bless the world. But I will sense my own release, although I may not fully understand as yet that I can never be released alone.

Throughout the day, I will increase the freedom sent through my ideas to all the world, and say whenever I am tempted to deny the power of my simple change of mind:

I loose the world from all I thought it was, 
and choose my own reality instead.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 131

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

 

 

What is 'the straight and narrow' way?  It is the way of no (as in zero) self-deception.  For (paraphrasing Zen) a single such deception will set heaven and earth infinitely apart. 

 

It is a moment to moment thing, the true faith walk.  Everyone who walks it knows this.  There is no 'break room' to go to to get a breath of 'true illusions' from either, for all illusions remain illusions to anyone 'walking their talk'.

 

It is a very naked walk, and therefore requires becoming comfortable with 'nakedness'.  I recently had a conversation with a woman who had lived with her husband in a nudist colony for a time.  Her main point was that it was 'so wonderful to live without physical pretenses'.   
 

An 'enlightened man containing an unknown but visible amount of alcohol' asked me tonight 'Hey 'Rev. Dave', who do you see right now, when you look at me?'  I did not answer immediately.  So he gave me the correct one. 'The answer is 'myself', he said.  We laughed together, both knowing he was right.  Such is the way this universe nakedly loves me.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

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Edited First Person lesson

 

Lesson 131

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

Failure is 'all about me' while I seek for goals that cannot be achieved....., wherever I look for permanence in the impermanent, for love where there is none, for safety in the midst of danger, or for immortality within the darkness of the dream of death. How could I ever 'succeed', where contradiction is the setting of my searching, and the place to which I come to find 'stability'?

Goals that are meaningless are not attained. There is no way to reach them, for the means by which I strive for them are as meaningless as they are. Who can use such senseless means, and hope through them to gain in anything? Where can they lead? And what could they achieve that offers any hope of being real? Pursuit of the imagined leads to death because it is the search for nothingness, and while I am 'seeking for life' I am 'asking for death'. I look everywhere for safety and security, while in my heart I pray for danger and protection (for the little dream I made).

Yet searching is inevitable, here in this world. For this journey I came, and I will surely do the thing I came for. But the world can not dictate the goal for which I search, unless I give it power to do so. If I keep my own choice, I am still free to choose a goal that lies beyond the world and every worldly thought, and one that comes to me from an idea relinquished yet remembered, old yet new; an echo of a heritage forgot, yet holding everything I actually cherish.

Be me then glad that search I must. Be me then glad as well to learn I search for Heaven, and must inevitably find the goal I really cherish. No one can search for this goal and not reach it, in the end. God's Son can not 'seek vainly', although I may try to force delay, deceive myself and think that it is hell I seek. When I am wrong, I find correction. When I wander off, I am led back to my appointed task.

No one remains in hell, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. I will find Heaven. Everything I seekbut this will fall away. Yet not because it has been taken from me. It will go because I do not want it. I will reach the goal I really search for as certainly as God created me in sinlessness.

Why wait for Heaven? It is here today. Time is the great illusion it is past or in the future. Yet this cannot be, if it is where God wills His Son to be. How could the Will of God be in the past, or yet to happen? What He wills is now, without a past and wholly futureless. It is as far removed from time as is a tiny candle from a distant star, or what I 'settle for' is from what I truly treasure.

Heaven remains my one alternative to this strange world I made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made none of these contradictions. Whatever 'denies its own existence and attacks itself' is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way.

God does not suffer conflict. Nor is His creation split in two. How could it be that I His Son could be in hell, when God Himself established me in Heaven? How could I lose what the Eternal Will has given me to be my home forever? Let me not try longer to impose an alien will upon God's single purpose. He is here because He wills to be, and what He wills is present now, beyond the reach of time.

Today I will not choose a paradox in place of truth. How could the Son of God make time to take away the Will of God? I thus deny myself, and that contradicts what has no opposite. I end up thinking I have made a hell opposing Heaven, and believing that I abide in what does not really exist, while Heaven is the place I cannot find.

I will leave foolish thoughts like these behind today, and turn my mind to true ideas instead. No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth, and it is truth I seek to reach today. I will devote ten minutes to this goal three times today, and I will ask my Holiness to help me see the rising of the real world replace the foolish images that I have (in the past) held dear, with true ideas arising in the place of thoughts that have no meaning, no effect, and neither source nor substance in the truth.

This I will acknowledge as I start upon my practice periods, beginning with this:

Divine Godness that surrounds and sustains me, I ask your Grace to see a different world, and to think a different kind of thought from those I have made. The world I seek I did not make alone, and the thoughts I would choose to think are not my own.

For several minutes let me be alert, and watching my mind. I see, although my eyes are closed, the senseless world I think is real. Reviewing my thoughts as well, I can see which are compatible with such a world, and which I think are true. Let me then let them go, and let me sink below them to the holy place in me where they can enter not. There is a doorway within me beneath them in my mind (which I could not completely lock to hide what lies beyond).

I shall seek for that door and find it. But before I try to open it, I will remind myself this: that no one can fail who seeks to reach the truth. And it is this request I make today. Nothing but this has any meaning to me now; no other goal is being valued now nor sought, there is nothing before this door I really want, and only what lies past it do I seek.

Putting out my hand, I see how easily the door swings open with my one intent to go beyond it. Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes, and I am standing in a light so bright and clear that I can understand all things I see. A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make me pause before I realize the world I see before me in the light reflects the truth I have always known (and did not quite forget, even by wandering away into my dreams).

My Godness tells me I cannot fail today. There walks with me the Spirit that Heaven has sent to me, that I might approach this door some day, and through His aid slip effortlessly past it, to the light. Today that day has come. Today God keeps His ancient promise to His holy Son, as does His Son remember his to Him. This is a day of gladness, for I come to the appointed time and place where I will find the goal of all my searching here, and all the seeking of the world, which end together as I pass beyond the door.

I will remember this often, and today shall be a time of special gladness. I will refrain today from dismal thoughts and meaningless laments. Salvation's time has come. Today is set by Heaven itself to be a time of grace for me and for the world. If I should momentarily forget this happy fact, I will remind myself of the truth with this thought:

Today I seek and find all that I my heart has yearned for. My single purpose offers Heaven to me. No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth. This is the promise of  God.

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 130

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

It is impossible to see two worlds.

 

 

Today miracles happened, and I was 'present' to (at least) some of them.  That miracles happen every day is clear, yet (in the past, I affirm) it  has been the nature of my life that I was often blind to them, or took them for granted.  

 

Anyway, today was 'international language day' in a way.  The letter of apology that I labored on last night in lieu of writing this Commentary resolved itself as a language interpretation issue (This Commentaries distribution has found it's way to native speakers of other tongues, and that created non-similar English phrasing usage to my understanding.  In other words, there were two different languages still being spoken).  So I wrote a long response to a short note, sort of like not getting a joke.   All's well now.  

 

Then another language/cultural reality arose around 'the waterfall' (For non-subscribers, this is a reference the emailed version--- which contains art images).  It turns out that in Russia today it is a major national celebration, a 'Victory Day!'  (about the end of WW2, which cost the Russian nation over 27 million dead.)  This particular Russian reader is a very skilled artist also, and I think it would have suited him better if my art had been something different.  My apologies to him for my lack of planetary history.  I am still learning though, every day, more of what it will take to become a truly 'planetary citizen'.  (That however, is 'another conversation').   

 

In my own local universe, I found myself on the Santa Fe healing table of an amazing shamanic medical intuitive and conscious channeler who is currently visiting here from Hawaii.  Much emotional energy moved, much mental confusion was cleared, and physically I am carrying (enbodying) a new and much more whole vibration too.  She did not do this work alone, but with the unseen but feelable presence of the numerous angelic beings who I am working with this lifetime, and who welcomed the opportunity to speak to me through her (and answer my questions and give me messages).  My past was reviewed and contextualized (i.e., some of the issues in my life being carried over from past incarnations).   My body's condition was also evaluated and physical recommendations were made.  Some of the veil over my future work was lifted, certainly enough to end a few of the conversations of resistance about why things are the way they are for me right now, and to give me a deeper peace and faith about the direction I am being intuitively guided.  Gratefully, it was all taped.  (And yes, I am happy to share referral info to anyone interested, also.)

 

This has all been written before even seeing what the lesson for today is.... best look into that now.  I am sure it will be revelatory.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

__________________________________

This version contains my 'first person edits and other additions.

 

Lesson 130

It is impossible to see two worlds.

Perception is consistent. What I see reflects my thinking. And my thinking only reflects my choice of what I choose to see. My values are determiners of this, for what I value I must want to see, believing what I see is really there. No one can see a world his mind has not accorded value. And no one can fail to look upon what he believes he desires.

Yet who can really hate and love at once? Who can desire what he does not wish to have be a reality? And who can choose to see a world of which he is afraid? Fear must make blind, for this its weapon is: That which I fear to see I cannot see. Love and perception thus go hand in hand, but fear obscures in darkness what is there.

What, then, can fear project upon the world? What can be seen in darkness that is real? Truth is eclipsed by fear, and what remains is but imagined. Yet what can be real in blind imaginings of panic born? What would I choose to have this shown to me? What would I wish to keep, in such a dream?

Fear has made everything I think I see. All separation, all distinctions, and the multitude of differences I believe in that make up the world. They are not there. Love's enemy has made them up. Yet love can have no enemy, and so they have no cause, no being and no consequence. They can be valued, but remain unreal. They can be sought, but they can not be found. Today God, I will not seek for them, nor waste this day in seeking what can not be found.

It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. Only one then remains. They are the range of choice beyond which my decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there are to choose between, and nothing more or less than these.

Today then God, I will attempt 'no compromise' where none is possible. The world I see is proof I have already made a choice as all-embracing as its opposite. What I would learn today is more than just the lesson that I cannot see two worlds. It also teaches that the one I see is quite consistent from the point of view from which I see it. It is all of one piece because it stems from one emotion, and reflects its source in everything I see.

OK, God, six times today, in thanks and gratitude, I will gladly give five minutes to the thought that ends all compromise and doubt, and go beyond them all as one. I will not make a thousand meaningless distinctions, nor attempt to bring with me a little part of unreality, as I devote my mind to finding only what is real.

I will begin my searching for the other world by asking for a strength beyond my own, and recognizing what it is I seek. I do not want illusions. And I have come to these five minutes emptying my hands of all the petty treasures of this world. I will wait for God to help me, as I say:

It is impossible to see two worlds. Let me accept the 
strength God offers me and see no value in this world, 
that I may find my freedom and deliverance.

God will be there. For I have called upon the great unfailing power which will take this giant step with me in gratitude. Nor will I fail to see His thanks expressed in tangible perception and in truth. I will not doubt what I will look upon, for though it is perception, it is not the kind of seeing that my eyes alone have ever seen before. And I will know God's strength upheld me as I made this choice.

I shall dismiss temptation easily today whenever it arises, merely by remembering the limits of my choice. The unreal or the real, the false or true is what I see and only what I see. Perception is consistent with my choice, and hell or Heaven comes to me as one.

If I accept even a little part of hell as real, I have damned my eyes and cursed my sight, and what I will behold is hell indeed. Yet the release of Heaven still remains within my range of choice, to take the place of everything that hell would show to me. All I need say to any part of hell, whatever form it takes, is simply this:

It is impossible to see two worlds. 
I seek my freedom and deliverance, 
and this is not a part of what I would have.

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 129

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

Beyond this world there is a world I want.

 

 

In response to an email I opened upon returning 'home' tonight,  instead of writing 'Commentary' this evening I have been guided to writing a private letter of apology to one of you in this circle whom I recently miscommunicated with.  It is an important letter, as my miscommunications created suffering for 'my brother', and I pray the letter heals these.  I am sharing this with you to ask that you bless the healing of this too, that God's love be fully present in this circle.  Also, to let you know why (other than this note, and the edited lesson) there is no personal commentary today.  Thank you for understanding that this was 'the lesson' for me tonight.  And thank you for your blessings always.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

_______________________

First Person Edited lesson.....

Lesson 129

Beyond this world there is a world I choose.

This is the thought that follows from the one  practiced yesterday. I cannot stop with the idea that 'the world is worthless', for unless I see that there is something else, I will only be depressed. The emphasis is not 'on giving up the world', but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying, filled with joy, and capable of offering me peace. Think I this world can offer that to me?

It might be worth a little time to think once more about the value of this world. Perhaps I will concede there is no loss in letting go all thought of value here. For the world I see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with me, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives only to rescind, and takes away all things that I have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end.

Is it a loss to find a world instead where losing is impossible; where love endures forever, hate cannot exist and vengeance has no meaning? Is it loss to find all the things I really desire, and know they have no ending and they will remain exactly as I would wish them throughout time? (Yet even they will be exchanged at last for what cannot be spoken of, for I go from there to where words fail entirely, into a silence where the language is unspoken and yet surely understood).

Communication, unambiguous and plain as day, remains unlimited for all eternity. And God Himself speaks to His Son, as His Son speaks to Him. Their language has no words, for what They say cannot be symbolized. Their knowledge is direct and wholly shared and wholly one. How far away from this am I, who stay bound to this world. And yet how near am I, when I exchange it for the world God gives me. 

Now is this last step certain; now I stand an instant's space away from timelessness. Here can I but look forward, never back to see again the world I only dream as real. Here is the world that comes from God to take its place, as I unbind my mind from little things the world sets forth to keep me prisoner. If I value them not, they will disappear. If I esteem them, they will 'seem real' to me.

Such is the choice. What loss can it be for me in choosing not to value nothingness? This world holds nothing that I really would choose, but what I choose instead I choose indeed! Letit be given me today. It waits but for my choosing it, to take the place of all the things I seek but do not find in this world.

Let me sincerely practice my willingness to make this choice ten minutes in the morning and at night, and once more in between. Let me begin with this:

Beyond this world there is a world I choose. 
I choose to see that world instead of this, 
for here is nothing that I would really choose.

Then let me close my eyes upon the world I see, and in the silent darkness watch the lights that are 'not of this world' light one by one, until where one begins and another ends loses all meaning as they blend into one.

Today the lights of Heaven bend to me, to shine upon my eyelids as I rest beyond the world of darkness. Here is light my eyes can not behold. And yet my mind can see it plainly, and can understand. A day of grace is being given me today, and I give thanks. This day I realize that what I feared to lose was 'only loss'.

Now do I understand there is no loss. For I have seen its opposite at last, and I am grateful that the choice is made. Let me remember my decision hourly, and take a moment to confirm my choice by laying by whatever thoughts I have, and dwelling briefly only upon this:

The world I see holds nothing that I choose. 
Beyond this world there is a world I choose.