When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when the valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. ACIM-W-182:8:1
Back to ACIM, as promised. I will complete the lessons. Some may call it a quality, others a vice but I have this need to finish what I start. I started reviewing the lessons in the workbook for A Course in Miracles months ago...but so much learning from other avenues has come into my life since then...that my relaying my interpretation of the lessons has been sporadic.
If it seems like lessons are missing that is only because I did not cover the summaries. For example, Lessons 171-180 are the reviews for Lessons 151-170.
So let's get back to it:
Lesson 181
Perception has a focus. It is this that gives consistency to what you see. Change but this focus, and what you behold will change accordingly. ACIM-W-181:2:1-2
In this lesson we are asked to take on a new way of looking at our brother. ( Remember that "brother" ...includes all others regardless of sex or gender identity), especially those who we feel have "sinned" or who have wronged us in the past or who "seemingly" stand in our way of reaching future goals. It is not our brother that is "wrong" but our perception, our way of seeing each other and seeing time. We tend to look at the wrong doings of others as "sins" and we tend to focus on those wrong doings at the exclusion of anything else about that person.
When we seek innocence in our brother, regardless of what they have done, we will tap into the innocence within ourselves and we will experience peace. This peace in the present moment will help to dismantle our need for future goals. When we look with anger and blame on what we perceive to be "sins" in another our focus will narrow and we will see sin in others and in self. We need to change our focus...and not put that focus on future goals or fantasies but in the here and now. Our view of the world will change when we do this. We will learn to trust it.
It is not this that I would look upon. I trust my brothers, who are one with me. 181:6:4-5
Lesson 182
This lesson speaks to the real home that calls us in persistent feelings. We know that this physical world is not our home and we have within us a haunting memory of our true home. We often ignore that feeling and try to make our home in this world...seeking an end to the sadness, homesickness by seeking to gain, attain and maintain "things" this world offers us. We will ignore, stuff, deny or numb this feeling that calls us home. Yet no matter how much we do that we cannot remain content here. There is no substitute for Heaven. 182:3:6
The Child (Christ) seeks His Father's house and that Child is within us. It is us...it is our defenselessness and our strength and He will guide us home to rest in silence and peace and love. It just takes one moment of stillness to go Home. We are still innocent and we want nothing more than go home. We can.
Lesson 183
This lesson tells us, in a very poetic way, what evoking the name of God can do. It evokes the angels to surround us, sing for us and protect us. It makes the world put down all illusions leading to miracles whereas the blind can see, the deaf can hear, the sick are healed of sickly thoughts, sorrow is replaced with happiness. All other gods [material world aspirations] are forgotten. When we call upon His Name we call upon the Self Whose Name is His. We acknowledge Him as sole Creator of reality. His Thoughts become our own All the little things of earth will disappear or become silent.
Personal Note on 183
Now this lesson kind of tripped me up at first because I have been coming to the understanding that God is Nameless...like That which cannot be named...and as I learn about non duality it gets confusing. So I go back and read again:
God's Name is holy, but no holier than yours. To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. 183:1:1-2
Those who call upon the Name of God cannot mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the Holy Son of God...183:5:3
...and see God's Name replace the thousand little names you gave your thoughts, not realizing that there is one Name for all there is, and all there will be 183:8:5
In this eternal, still relationship, in which communication far transcends all words, and yet exceeds in depth and height whatever words could possibly convey, of peace eternal...183:11:6
This teaches that we use the Name beyond the concept, beyond the way we habitually limit things with names. If it becomes the only Name there is, it becomes all there is. Is this not non-duality?
I think of the Tao and I think of the AUM in yoga which is the One Sound of God that unifies all.
There is a connection here.
Lesson 184
Aha! This lesson takes the 10, 000 things Lao Tzu speaks of to a greater understanding.
God has no name. And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are One, and at this lesson does all learning end. 184:12:1-2
It takes us back to the realizing that words are just concepts...symbols used in this world that sees separation as a means to communicate. We can use them in our teaching as pointers, in fact we have to use them. Right now most of us believe that learning is all bout learning the names for a thousand different things. This creates the reality of separation we know. We can learn to look beyond the name to the only One reality. To transcend this limited reality of symbols and names we must first learn in this way and then we see that the names and symbols are not real. We can then see what is.
Father, our Name is Yours. In It we are united with all living things, and You Who are their Creator. What we made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your Own reality...Your Name unites us in the oneness which is our inheritance and peace. 184:15
Lesson 185
I want the peace of God.
When we say these words and mean them we would end sorrow and we would be healed. The world would be completely changed, should any two agree these words express the only thing they want. 185:2:9. There is no compromise...if we mean this we must put aside all dreams, all seeking for the things this material world offers in hope it will bring us peace. We also unite with all and want it for all. And if we can do this, ask this and really want it ...we cannot help but get it because we already have it.
These are complicated lessons and I learn something new each time I go through them. So I will only do five at a time. I can't stress enough...if you feel compelled towards the teachings ACIM offers, which is basically so much of the same teaching found in Buddhism, Taoism, Yoga, The Vedas, Contemporary Christianity...as well as much of psychology and philosophy ...read it and study it for yourself. This is my humble and often limited understanding only.
All is well.
ACIM (2007) A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume: Workbook. Foundations For Inner Peace
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