Village Square III
In our AcimVillage, we have the plane tree that stands in the central village square. Its enormous branches spread out to cover an area wide enough to provide shade on a warm day for many a traveller or tradesman. Water bubbles and trickles from a stone fountain on the eastern side. It is under the plane tree and by the fountain that wandering sages have traditionally lead conversation with the local people, before setting off again on their way; it is here that the townspeople come to exchange views and thoughts on their beloved spiritual philosophy, learning from each other in kindness and wisdom.
Rules to ponder…
Study of A Course In Miracles benefits greatly from sharing our experiences in its practice. Here you can talk about what works, or doesn’t, for you, taking obvious care not to be ‘preachy’, please. We all learn best when someone talks from their own experience, rather than tries to tell us what we should be doing differently. Let’s take the position that none of us are teachers, we are all at the same point returning on the path Homeward. All of us will still be making mistakes for a while yet, so let’s be particularly humble and caring in how we deal with each other. Please keep in mind that this is a site dedicated to the approach Kenneth Wapnick takes to teaching ACIM. I shall certainly do my best to bring everyone back to the core principles as taught by him.
I would also like to point out that AcimVillage is the place to come to explore our judgments, but not to express them as judgments. If you feel you need to gripe, criticize and vent, even subtly, then contact me privately (at bernard@pauloandthemagician.com) where I will receive you with kindness and understanding. Please do not do so in the forums where I will inevitably moderate out this kind of post. Remember, you will feel better only when you are able to move past the investment in your judgments, not simply by unloading them for everyone to see. This means taking responsibility for your perceptions and acknowledging that ultimately no one has prevented you from feeling completely peaceful and safe, despite what might appear to be the unfortunate conditions of your life at this time. (I know, this is hard. Contact me if you’re struggling.)
So, two basic rules here. One, we avoid mention of other approaches to the study of ACIM (non-Wapnickian) as well as to other philosophies we might be studying. This is purely to achieve a stable, comfortable learning forum where we are all aiming at the same goal, using the same symbols and language to get there. This is not to cast any judgment on any other approaches or philosophies. ACIM is a sufficiently difficult path to undertake without bringing more confusion into our study than our minds already contain! If you have benefited from other paths and would like to share your thoughts, by all means do so. Just please do this in the privacy of your personal emails. It’s also my personal opinion (take it or leave it) that at some point a student of ACIM is much better off sticking with one set of symbols and one teacher, and working with these thoroughly, instead of getting too dispersed. Rule two, we try not to play ‘teacher’ with each other here, reminding ourselves to be humble and always equal with our brother.
Enjoy the discussion!
Lesson 296
The Holy Spirit speaks through me today
I would be savior to the world I made. For having damned it, I would set it free, that I may find escape….
Lesson 297
Forgiveness is the only gift I give
Forgiveness is the only gift I give, because it is the only gift I want. And everything I give I give myself.
——–
including those attack thoughts I think I am sending out to anyone else, they are just me to mg myself attack.
Attack thoughts to others, me ? No way ! I”m a good guy I am (:
And all those lovely people out there who are always so well spoken ? What of them ? Do they have no attack thoughts ? Or are they just enlightened ? (:
I haven’t a clue, but I do know I can, And I should work on my enlightenment.
lesson 297 carries on to say…
$This is salvations simple formula. ( I.e and everything I give, I give myself )$
And this is the part that really sank in a bit deeper for me today….
and I who would be saved, would make it mine, to be the way I live within a world that needs salvation, and that will be saved as I accept Atonement for myself.
Lesson 298
I love You, Father, and I love Your Son
And I draw near the end of senseless journeys, mad careers and artificial values.
————————
Wow, that one sentence in the body of the Lesson sure does stand out for me !
Peace.
Anil, when I awake and see you have posted the lesson I feel like someone has prepped up breakfast, planned the day, and is confidently showing me the light while I rub the sleep from my eyes. It is so nice to know this lesson is all warm and working. You are just perfect!
Lesson 299
Eternal holiness abides in me
… (my holiness) is not mine to be destroyed by sin. It is not mine to suffer from attack. Illusions can obscure it, but cannot put out its radiance, nor dim its light.
—————-
This Lesson flowed much more easily for me than the previous one, which was fraught with the most subtle but persistent resistant. Of course. (:
My ego would love to believe that eternal holiness abides in me, but not in the guilty ones out there ! (:
Peace. (:
And did I forget Love ? (:
Ps. Thanks for putting up with my poor humor (;
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not necessary to seek for what is true, but it is necessary to seek for what is false (T-16.IV.6:1-2).
Always the internal housekeeping, every hour, every minute, every second.
Unlike in this world where keeping my house clean involves elbow grease…my internal housekeeping asks nothing but to be still and look upon the dust and the Holy Spirit will do the rest.
I can’t deny I am fascinated at my level of resistance and in this lesson is Ken’s favorite quote – well I’m not sure if it was his favorite, but I have heard him bring it up often enough…
You are still convinced that your understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing. Salvation is easy just because it asks nothing you cannot give right now (T-18.IV,7:5-7)
Lesson 300
Only an instant does this world endure
We seek Your holy world today. For we, Your loving Sons, have lost our way a while………..and we give thanks today the world endures but for an instant. We would go beyond that tiny instant to eternity
Lesson 300
Only an instant does the world endure.
(2:1-3) We seek Your holy world today. For we, Your loving Sons, have lost our way a while. But we have listened to Your Voice, and learned exactly what to do to be restored to Heaven and our true Identity.
This is an admission of our mistake. The premise of every lesson in Part II – implicit or explicit is the need to recognize our error, that we lost the way because we followed our way instead of the path of forgiveness Jesus holds out to us, and which leads ultimately to the real world.
Being raised Catholic ~ brings to mind the Confessions of Sin (mia culpa)
I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.[2][not in citation given]
For today’s version of the mia culpa we have “my bad”.
“My bad” is an American idiom that was made popular by basketball players in playground games in the 1970s and 1980s. It usually means “my fault”, “my mistake”, “I apologize”[1] or “mea culpa”. It gained popularity with urban players of streetball and then spread into mainstream popularity. (Wikipedia)
And I love the last paragraph from the Journey Thru the Workbook…
“Gratitude is the bottom line in our process, and in the end we are grateful for having been wrong. Thus do the separation and all its consequences disappear into the holy instant, and are gone forever.”
Ha ha…
Lesson 301
And God Himself shall wipe away all tears.
“Since God does not see tears, let alone wipe them away, the meaning here is that His Love, present in our minds through the Holy Spirit, undoes the tears that are the inherent effects of the ego’s thought system JTTWB
(: Anil
sometimes we need to read the lesson twice…feel free to post again
Lesson 302
Where darkness was I look upon the light
Dear God, our eyes are opening at last.
halleljuah ! (:
…..
Annie, didn’t take you up on your offer to post up L 301 again. The last time around it happened by coincidence. We must have both been logged onto the Village at the Same time.
Why is that still so special to me ? Because I believe in magic. Even now. Even after all these years. Would that I could be enlightened and go proof in a flash.
The chains of the ego habit are deep indeed. Loosening, I can feel them loosening their hold. But it will still take a while.
In th meantime, I will continue to enjoy the magic as long as it lasts. (:
Maybe I don’t even want enlightenment after all, especially if Ai can get all my wishes fulfilled in the material plane (;
That’s exactly what Big J’s been trying to tell us…we have to want it (decide for enlightenment).
That was so insulting to me- The idea that I am not choosing the “light”.
… After all my years of searching and sending my poor parents hearts into the pits of fear because their daughter left the Catholic Church and I see, I have only just found the ladder…the undoing hasn’t even begun!
However, a Hallelujah is in order!!!
Finding the ladder is a HUGE accomplishment. Finding the path that without a doubt will bring me home has been the work of this lifetime. That I can say without a doubt.
(1:3-6)We thought we suffered. but we had forgot the Son whom You created. Now we see that darkness is our own imagining, and light is there for us to look upon. Christ’s vision changes darkness into light, for fear must disappear when love has come.
The irony is that the Catholic Church did give me the inner structure I needed to recognize a Truth when I saw it. All roads lead to Rome …to Love (:
Magic is like a wink of recognition that we be having a little fun along the way…and that’s OK!
That’s perfectly true, Annie !
Nothing to say that we can’t have fun along the way. I guess my spirituality is still dealing with brooding remnants of thinking that one has to be serious about ones spirituality. (Although as many will likely attest, I’m perilously close to being a bliss-ninny (;
It’s funny how it takes only one comment to wake something up within oneself…until you wrote your farewell line in the post above, I didn’t even realize I was brooding and judging myself for having fun.
As if I had to wear my pain on my sleeve to let others(S?) know that I can empathize with their pain,
Now, all of that is a bit of slippery slope in trying to express that finely balanced point where one is aware of all the pain of the human condition, (well, maybe not *all* the pain, but certainly speaking from personal experience, a whole lot more pain that I thought possible in days gone by ! (:), And yet there is the Thought of limitless joy and freedom for me(all), and that is Gods Will.
My reading of the Text has taken on new dimensions, and I can swim about in its waters,( though I am not a swimmer by nature), and phrases from it bubble up at the most unpredictable times, lifting me out of my self-appointed gloomy lows, into a different graceful state of being, all without my having to do it.
It’s quite a ride these days (:
Lesson 303
The holy Christ is born in me today
Watch with me, angels, watch with me today. Let all God’s holy Thoughts surround me, ……
Watch with me, Angels. And help me know I am watching the romp in the hologram and not really wound up in it.
Sharing todays blogpost – seems to fit right in with lesson 330, Anil 🙂
*
Today, beloved Kit and I discovered that all that murderous rage needs – in order to be healed, is someOne who rests in a sweet smile, knowing What is Truth and eternal
The watchdog of our mind is very tired – it now trusts that there is something else who takes over and knows how to deal with it.
The last week I have experienced that whatever dark energy comes up to be released – or related to – also comes within the sweetest embrace of Christ – the Self. So when it comes, I quickly put my attention inside the sweetness. Not “healing” anything – not “saving” anything or anybody – not “sending love” to anything – just resting inside that Sweetness. And what happens then, is that I become aware that I Am That.
The sweetness of not “oughting to DO something” is indescribable.
*
We have to open the door, letting the fresh wind in
and it is not offended –
it just blows
things fall on the floor, are blown around
stuff goes out the window
there is laughter
there goes the costly Ming
PLING
oh, the doilies –
what foilies
what is left?
just a smile
Lesson 304
Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ.
I can obscure my holy sight, if I intrude my world upon it.
That is exactly what i habitually do. Intrude, intrude, intrude. Making a swirl of misperception around me that i can possess as Mine and tripping all over it. Such a silly scene just for personal power.
And my favorite lines from L304…
Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.
What an insight. Jesus is just brilliant ! Even if I thought for a million years, I doubt I would have had that keen insight. And to say it so succinctly. Just brilliant!
Thank you, bro ! You saved me a million years…
Lesson 305
There is a peace that Christ bestows on us.
“Once we experience the peace of Christ, we realize it has no parallel in the world.”
These are Ken’s words from The Journey Through the Workbook.
And just yesterday I read the interview Susan Dugan had with Rosemarie LoSasso; where Rosemarie recalls :
“Ken was just talking to a few of us one day informally, as he often did, this time about the period in his life when he wanted to be a monk. And that’s when he said he just wanted to bury himself alive in God. I was very attracted to that but I saw almost immediately the other side. What happens to me if I’m buried alive in God’s love? That was a big part of what I had to work out with the Course, this whole clash between specialness and the desire to disappear into the presence of God.”
All I can say is that I’m looking up …and the rungs on the ladder appear endless to these earthly eyes.
And Ken ends the lesson with…”And now the last lesson of this trilogy on vision.”
Christ Vision.
Lesson 306
The gift of Christ is all I seek today
And so, our Father, we return to You, remembering we never went away;
remembering Your holy gifts to us.
In gratitude and thankfulness we come,
with empty hands and open hearts and minds, asking but what You give.
Lesson 307
Conflicting wishes cannot be my will.
Blessed are you who learn that to hear the Will of your Father is to know your own. For it is your will to be like Him, Whose Will it is that it be so. God’s Will is that His Son be One, and united with Him in His Oneness. that is why healing is the beginning of the recognition that your will is His (T-11.I.11:6-9).
Lesson 308
This instant is the only time there is.
I have conceived of time in such a way that I defeat my aim. If I elect to reach past time to timelessness, I must change my perception of what time is for. Time’s purpose cannot be to keep the past and future one. The only interval in which I can be saved from time is now. For in this instant has forgiveness come to set me free. The birth of Christ is now, without a past or future. He has come to give His present blessing to the world, restoring it to timelessness and love. And love is ever-present, here and now.
Thanks for this instant, Father. It is now I am redeemed. This instant is the time You have appointed for Your Son’s release, and for salvation of the world in him.
********
Now, which instant nearly flew by unnoticed? Why, yes, THIS one!
Lesson 309
I will not fear to look within today
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a good one. A great ego defense. One that my ancestors in Kerala believed in wholeheartedly. My late maternal grandmother used to tell me this one when Z used to discuss philosophy with her, as recently as 2001.
The belief was(is) literally translated from the native Malayalam language as…
“Don’t look within, you might drive yourself insane….”
Perhaps that has already happened with me..,(;
At the edge of insanity (:
The late Robin Williams used to say…”we all have a bit of divine madness in us, and we should strive to preserve it”
Excuse all the inconsistent quotes and ramblings ! Part of a disordered mind coming apart (:
Dear Anil, the recollection of life’s deepest questions and desires shared with your maternal grandmother and the quote from Robin Williams truly reflects your personal experience of this so important lesson. I do not consider that a ramble, but a concise insight and I’m grateful you shared that.
I love how Jesus gives us the words to say that will awaken us, and help us undo the mind training that our beloved parents and grandparents carefully imparted to us.
The step I take today, my Father, is my sure release from idle dreams of sin. Your altar stands serene and undefiled. It is the holy altar to my Self, and there I find my true Identity.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10!!
Much love to all
Texy <3
Anil ~
Triple ditto Annie’s comment on your post today.
Love the koans, Anne!
Lesson 310
In fearlessness and love I spend today.
This day, my Father, would I spend with You, as You have chosen all my days should be. And what I will experience is not of time at all. The joy that comes to me is not of days nor hours, for it comes from Heaven to Your Son. This day will be Your sweet reminder to remember You, Your gracious calling to Your holy Son, the sign Your grace has come to me, and that it is Your Will I be set free today.
We spend this day together, you and I. And all the world joins with us in our song of thankfulness and joy to Him Who gave salvation to us, and Who set us free. We are restored to peace and holiness. There is no room in us for fear today, for we have welcomed love into our hearts.
Yes, I am trying to do that, Katrina ! (:
What a day…inexpressible (:
Like the beauty of the ocean stretching to the Horizen from my 13 th floor office window view, ships and trees and high rise buildings…
Michele and Annie, thanks for the comment on Lesson 309 thoughts…
Love,
A
AMEN
texy – translation, please 🙂
Lesson 311
I judge all things as I would have them be.
(JTTWB)
…is true from the ego’s point of view as well as the Holy Spirit’s. If I want to reinforce my belief in the reality of the separation, that is how I will perceive and judge the world. If on the other hand, I want to know I was mistaken-The separation from God never happened and therefore nothing here is real-I perceive and judge only the correction.”
Father, we wait with open mind today, to hear Your Judgment of the Son You love. We do not know him, and we cannot judge. And so we let Your Love decide what he whom You created as Your son must be.
That saying of ‘Let Go and Let God’ seems to sum up this basic concept.
Ahh, the undoing is so simple but not easy.
Let’s give it another shot today troopers (:
Yes, simple but not easy.
For me, I think that’s because I’m impatient. I want perfect peace right now. And I want it permanent. But it’s s.l.o.w going through even the 60 seconds in a minute.
Because I judge my experience of every second, and I want it different than what it actually is at that moment,
I am reminded of that great line….
Infinite patience produces immediate results.
Infinite patience.
That’s what I must cultivate in my mind….
🙂
I just agreed with the infinite patience. But my emoticon didn’t work. I shall patiently try again, no judgeyness.
#735The emoticon is smack dab in the middle of your face!
I’ve never seen that before (:
Looks like it was trying to put a smile on your face…no judgeyness…Love It!
Lesson 312
I see all things as I would have them be
Lesson 313
Now let a new perception come to me.
Father, there is a vision which beholds all things as sinless, so that fear has gone, and where it was is love invited in. And love will come wherever it is asked. This vision is Your gift. The eyes of Christ look on a world forgiven. In His sight are all its sins forgiven, for He sees no sin in anything He looks upon. Now let His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of sin and look within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the altar to Your holy Son, the Self with which I would identify.
Let us today behold each other in the sight of Christ. How beautiful we are! How holy and how loving! Brother, come and join with me today. We save the world when we have joined. For in our vision it becomes as holy as the light in us.
Lesson 313
Now let a new perception come to me.
The world’s salvation occurs only when we are beyond the dream with Jesus, leaving our crucified self behind.
Should have refreshed the page before I posted (:
Nice sitting and doing the lesson together…I like to think that we truly joined in ♡
It is super wonderful to see we were doing our lesson together!
Whew! There’s one world saved…
I seek a future different from the past… yes! I really do!
Lesson 314
I seek a future different from the past
……Who can grieve or suffer when the present has been freed,…. ?
~~~~~~
I think of this Lesson in the middle of my tense moments. Like just now. And I find the computer cafe in the building I have a meeting in, and rush to acim.org to find the on-line lesson for the day, before I head to my meeting with Kim.
I read Lesson 314 again, my mind sucking in the words, and there it is…. the phrase that suddenly pops up, and provides the relief I was looking for.
That particular phrase seems hypnotic, even now, as I type it out…”who can grieve or suffer, when the present has been freed ?”
I am aware of my trembling heart as I read that, I am not grieving, (that is buried much deeper, and relates only to Shobha and Lucas these days), but I am suffering for sure.
The trembling fearful heart confirms its suffering.
And I look deeper into the present, have I really freed it ? or am I being pulled along to the image of a painful future, just minutes away, and which I have already pushed out an hour or two, with the discomfort of telling Kim on the 28th floor that we are still not ready to move the business discussion forward.
She has already been waiting patiently for over a month.
And suddenly the palpitations slow, there is a quiet pleasant space in the middle of the terror, and the suffering gradually declines in a few seconds – in a minute, it is gone.
Indeed, who can suffer or grieve when the present has been freed ? (:
I seek a future different from the past….
Amen.
Lesson 315
All gifts my brothers give belong to me.
(1:4-5)Someone speaks a word of gratitude or mercy, and my mind receives this gift and takes it as its own. And everyone who finds the way to God becomes my savior, pointing out the way to me, and giving me his certainty that what he learned is surely mine as well.
I feel for you Anil – your day job requires you to deliver news that isn’t always welcomed. Yes, you get the perk of delivering good news too ~ however, I can see that for every hopeful message you must deliver 10 that can feel crushing. I hope your encounter with Kim was not as painful as you had anticipated. The added burden that she waited over a month and then an additional 2 hours seems to have taken more of a toll on you.
I may be wrong- but I sense that you tend to punish yourself for not being able to save their world / their dreams.
Your last minute reach out to the lesson of the day allowed you the opportunity to create a future different than the past. May we all remember to stay in that present moment of choosing our right mind.
And I can see you entered that meeting ready to meet with God’s Son.
There is no gift the Father asks of you but that you see in all creation but the shining glory of His gift to you. Behold His Son, His perfect gift, in whom his Father shines forever, and to whom is all creation given as his own(T-29.V.5:1-2).
By golly these lessons have been like pillars of strength meeting us at every turn.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and I concur with Nina that your long prayer would be a welcomed read and inspiration.
New nephew being born right now. How’s that for a gift to share with the world!
This one’s for YOU, Tex!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TEXANNE!
Hope the Arctic Blast doesn’t reach your neck of the woods.
Wishing you a year of good health and of “course” a peace that passeth all understanding (:
Lesson 316
All gifts I give my brothers are my own.
To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten. forgiveness is a selective remembering, based not on your selection (T-17.III.1:1-3).
♛♡♥☀☽☮☼Happy Birthday Texanne♛♡♥☀☽☮☼
Wishing you a fabulous year ahead!! xoxo