L e s s o n  322

I can give up but what was never real. 
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IAMBIC PENTAMETER 
format from URTEXT by Lee Flynn

   I sacrifice illusions; nothing more.

   And as illusions go I find the gifts

   illusions tried to hide, awaiting me

   in shining welcome, and in readiness

   to give God's ancient messages to me.

   His memory abides in every gift

   that I receive of Him. And every dream

   serves only to conceal the Self Which is

   God's only Son, the likeness of Himself,

   the Holy One Who still abides in Him

   forever, as He still abides in me.

   "Father, to You all sacrifice remains

    forever inconceivable. And so

    I cannot sacrifice except in dreams.

    As You created me, I can give up

    nothing You gave me. What You did not give

    has no reality. What loss can I

    anticipate except the loss of fear,

    and the return of Love into my mind?"

         ~ Original Handscript of ACIM 

   Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts,

   in number infinite, and everywhere

   without all limit. Only Love creates,

   and only like Itself. There was no time

   when all that It created was not there.

   Nor will there be a time when anything

   that It created suffers any change.

   Forever and forever are God's Thoughts

   exactly as They were and as They are,

   unchanged through time and after time is done.

   God's Thoughts are given all the power that

   Their own Creator has. For He would add

   to Love by Its extension. Thus His Son

   shares in creation, and must therefore share

   in power to create. What God has willed

   to be forever one will still be one

   when time is over; and will not be changed

   throughout the course of time, remaining as

   it was before the thought of time began.

   Creation is the opposite of all

   illusions, for Creation is the truth.

   Creation is the holy Son of God,

   for in Creation is His Will complete

   in every aspect, making every part

   container of the whole. Its oneness is

   forever guaranteed inviolate;

   forever held within His holy Will

   beyond all possibility of harm,

   of separation, imperfection and

   of any spot upon its sinlessness.

   We are creation; we the Sons of God.

   We seem to be discrete and unaware

   of our eternal unity with Him.

   Yet back of all our doubts, past all our fears,

   there still is certainty. For Love remains

   with all Its Thoughts, Its sureness being Theirs.

   God's memory is in our holy minds,

   which know their oneness, and their unity

   with their Creator. Let our function be

   only to let this memory return,

   only to let God's Will be done on earth,

   only to be restored to sanity,

   and to be but as God created us.

   Our Father calls to us. We hear His Voice,

   and we forgive creation in the Name

   of its Creator, Holiness Itself,

   Whose holiness His own creation shares;

   Whose holiness is still a part of us.

   ~ Original Handscript of ACIM  January 12, 1971

This lesson today, our lesson yesterday, as well as the one tomorrow helps us with the belief that when we seek out the experience of God that we are actually sacrificing the 'pleasures' of the world. So today, I will write a little more about the whole idea of sacrifice as discussed in the Course with reference to the lesson today as well as lesson 323 which says "I will gladly make the 'sacrifice' of fear".

Sacrifice is the theme of lessons 322 and 323 and is a core aspect of the ego thought system which is based on the notion that for me to get what I want, someone or something must be sacrificed. This started with the thought that if I am to have my individual self then God must be sacrificed because individuality and Oneness can't both exist. Now this thought system is played out in the world of form when for me to get what I want, someone has to lose. Thus a world of competition was set up and all of the attack that goes with it. And in this world, the idea that we must sacrifice for God demanding of us what we took from Him, is also part of this thought system. This is the God that the ego made according to the Laws of Chaos....made in the image of the ego.

In Christianity we see that Jesus was sacrificed to die for our sins. And now we must make up what was sacrificed for us and give back to God what we stole from Him. This is not apparent as part of our thinking but Jesus tells us that this is how we think so we can recognize how the ego thought system was set up. And we all hold this thought. Now we think we have to give God what we see as real, which is our pleasure, our body, our money, our comforts, however we define them. Yet all we really need to give up is our thought system which is the source of our pain. It is the belief that we have been cast out of Heaven and left on our own, separate from everyone else and in competition with them.

So basically our fear in, following this path, is related to the idea of renunciation which is a big concept in religious traditions. It is the idea that we must give up the things that we think we like in the world. The idea, that has surfaced on occasion in our study group, is that peace, in comparison to the activities of this world sounds kind of boring! I remember asking my boss, a minister in the government, what he liked about his job. He said that it was the adrenalin high that he got from it. So the world's 'pleasures' are like that. They give us a thrill...another conquest, another momentary gain, another accomplishment, an adrenalin rush....but how long does it last and how deeply satisfying is it really? That is what we are asked to look at when we look at the idea of sacrifice.

Traditional religion is all about sacrifice. We know of stories of great spiritual beings who have sacrificed for a reward in heaven. From a worldly perspective they have paid a high price for giving over their lives completely to serve God. People like Mother Teresa have written about these sacrifices that she has made willingly but at a cost to herself. The idea is that something of value has been given up. In other words the value is still held in the mind.

We are not asked to give up our 'goodies' in the world. We will eventually let them go when we realize that there is no satisfaction to be had in them and in fact they actually deliver pain. When we go about our day today, we can look at what we are holding onto as important and question it. Does it really bring me the freedom I am looking for? Is it deeply satisfying? Is going out to shop for another piece of clothing bringing me a deep sense of peace and joy? Is that vacation in the sun, really the answer to my deep need for peace? Are we called to give it up for God? No, that would feel like sacrifice if our belief is that it is of value. What the lesson is bringing us to see is that the real value is what this illusion is trying to hide. It is a dream that "serves only to conceal the Self Which is God's only Son, the likeness of Himself, the Holy One Who still abides in Him forever, as He still abides in me" (1.4) He is telling us that in sacrificing illusion we are sacrificing nothing but fear. What kind of sacrifice is that?

 "And as illusions go I find the gifts illusions tried to hide, awaiting me in shining welcome and in readiness to give God's ancient messages to me". (1.2) Jesus is trying to help us see that the spiritual life is not about someone taking our toys away or requiring us to give up what we still find valuable and what we think is making us happy. He is instead trying to help us see that these things will never make us happy but actually only bring dissatisfaction because with our attachment to them, we are pursuing nothing but fear and keeping ourselves from the truth of who we are and all the gifts that come to us with that knowledge.

 We are being asked to look at our world honestly and to look at our experience in it and evaluate it truly. In Chapter 19.IV "The Obstacles to Peace" we are reminded that "it is impossible to seek pleasure through the body and not find pain". And in Chapter 27.VI "The Witnesses to Sin" pain and pleasure are shown to have only one purpose and that is to make the body real. So that even those things that we think give us pleasure in the world, just give us temporary relief...or a temporary 'high' which fades quickly and we soon start looking for the next 'fix'. We talk of these 'pleasurable' events as "good memories". Sometimes I revisit pictures of family gatherings, vacations I have taken, events I have enjoyed, situations I have excelled at, only to experience a momentary satisfaction but, with no staying power. In other words, these so-called pleasures quickly fade from our experience and when we really think about it, the pleasures are all tinged with pain. The ego continually seeks but never finds. It is like the thrill seeker who needs bigger and bigger thrills in order to get the 'kick' he is looking for.

Now Jesus contrasts these 'substitutes' for satisfactions in the world with the real thing...the experience of God's Love, the experience of His peace and joy. While we don't yet believe that it is, in fact, the ultimate in happiness, Jesus continues to assure us that when we look for pleasures in the world, we are actually only inviting more pain. We continue to live by the ego's mandate that we 'seek but do not find'. We continue to look for happiness in vain. We continue to condemn our lives to seeking pain, disguised as pleasure.

That is why Jesus tells us that we give up nothing when we give up our illusions. When we look very honestly at our lives, which is what he asks us to do, we will see as lesson 128 reminds us "each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the world, and it will serve no other end but this. For everything must serve the purpose you have given it, until you see a different purpose there. The only purpose worthy of your mind this world contains is that you pass it by, without delaying to perceive some hope where there is none." And in lesson 133 we are given a test to determine what is valuable (that which eternal) and what is valueless (that which will always bring pain and guilt).

The things of the world that we value are called idols in the Course. Even things that we don't think we value but are attached to, and believe in, such as sickness, are also referred to as idols. (See Chapter 10) He asks us in Chapter 30.V to "be speeded on your way by honesty, and let not your experiences here deceive in retrospect. They were not free from bitter cost and joyless consequence. Do not look back except in honesty. And when an idol tempts you, think of this:

"There never was a time an idol brought you anything except the 'gift' of guilt. Not one was bought except at cost of pain, nor was it every pain by you alone"

 So our challenge is to be really honest with ourselves. We are asked to really look at what all of the so-called pleasures really brought us. And we are asked not to let the past deceive us with nostalgia nor selective remembering with thoughts of the 'good old days'.

 It is not as if we are being asked to give up something that we still find value in. Nothing will be taken away from us. Nothing happens against our will. We are only invited to contrast what the eternal gifts are with those the world has to offer. There is nothing we need to give up. In fact we can give them over for a different purpose. So, for example, our home, which I once referred to as a gilded cage, is now being used by the Holy Spirit for His purposes. My computer, is being used to communicate His messages. My body, can be used by Him to give love, as can my car, my money etc. The question is always, what is it for? And increasingly I simply find things that I thought I really found pleasurable, of less interest. I no longer find shopping 'fun'; I don't have the interest I once had in traveling to exotic places; I have lost my interest in concerts and plays for the most part. I have given nothing up. It is simply falling away.

 There is a wonderful passage in the Manual, in Section 13 "What is the Real Meaning of Sacrifice?" In this section he does acknowledge that "it takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give". It also describes the world as a slaughterhouse. We are asked here "is it a sacrifice to give up pain?" "Does one who has already glimpsed the face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughterhouse?"  His language sometimes sounds very extreme doesn't it? Yet, it gets our attention to show us in very descriptive language that the world is simply a place of death. We all suffer in one way or another here and ultimately our bodies wither and die.

 We are assured that once we have experienced the peace and joy talked about by our teacher, we will truly want none of what we currently define as some of the pleasures of this world. In fact, we are told that the real meaning of sacrifice is the cost of believing in illusions. "It is the price that must be paid for the denial of truth". So every time we make a decision for anything in the world, we are sacrificing our real joy. That is why the lesson today says "and as illusions go I find the gifts illusions tried to hide, awaiting me in shining welcome..." Until we experience this, we will question the truth of it. But Jesus continually reminds us of how beautiful this experience of joy is and how he is leading us to "a new kind of experience that you will become less and less willing to deny". (T.11.VI).

When we step outside of the dream we will see that what we are holding onto is nothing but what is hurtful to us. We are holding onto a self that does not even exist. All that we give up are not the forms of this world but our thought system behind them based on the purpose they hold for us.

Love and blessings Sarah

Sarah's Home Page

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^{A Course in Miracles
 TEXT
 Chapter Thirty
The New Beginning}

IX. Changeless Reality