SATURDAY APRIL 23, 2016
What Message to We Give
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 9 "THE CORRECTION OF ERROR"
XI. THE DENIAL OF GOD   

You may believe that you judge your brothers by the messages they give you, but you have judged them by the message you give to them. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them that could bring joy to you. It is the denial of the spark that brings depression, and whenever you see your brothers without it, you are denying God.    
  ACIM.OE.TX.CH 9.XI.94
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
WORKBOOK Part I ~ REVIEW III
INTRODUCTION
Review III
<AUDIO> 
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
  
*IAMBIC PENTAMETER*
WHAT IS IAMBIC PENTAMETER?
 
   Our third review begins today. We will  
   review two of the last twenty ideas  
   each day, until we have reviewed them all.  
   We will observe a special format for  
   these practice periods, which you are urged  
   to follow just as closely as you can. 
   We understand, of course, that it may be  
   impossible for you to undertake  
   what is suggested here as optimal  
   each day and every hour of the day. 
    
   Learning will not be hampered when you miss
   a practice period because it is
   impossible at the appointed time.
   Nor is it necessary that you make
   excessive efforts to be sure that you
   catch up in terms of numbers. Rituals
   are not our aim, and would defeat our goal.  
   
         But learning will be hampered when you skip
   a practice period because you are
   unwilling to devote the time to it
   which you are asked to give. Do not deceive
   yourself in this. Unwillingness can be
   most carefully concealed behind a cloak
   of situations you cannot control.
   Learn to distinguish situations which
   are poorly suited to your practicing
   from those which you establish to uphold
   the camouflage for your unwillingness. 
    
   Those practice periods which you have lost
   because you did not want to do them for
   whatever reason should be done as soon
   as you have changed your mind about your goal.
   You are unwilling to cooperate
   in practicing salvation only if
   it interferes with goals you hold more dear.
   When you withdraw the value given them,
   allow your practice periods to be
   replacements for your litanies to them.
   They gave you nothing. But your practicing
   can offer everything to you. And so
   accept their offering, and be at peace. 
    
   The format you should use for these reviews
   is this: Devote five minutes twice a day,
   or longer if you would prefer, to
   considering the thoughts that are assigned.
   Read over the ideas and comments which
   are written first in each day's exercise.
   And then begin to think about them while
   letting your mind relate them to your needs,
   your seeming problems and all your concerns. 
    
   Place the ideas within your mind, and let
   it use them as it chooses. Give it faith
   that it will use them wisely, being helped
   in its decisions by the One Who gave
   the thoughts to you. What can you trust but what
   is in your mind? Have faith, in these reviews,
   the means the Holy Spirit uses will
   not fail. The wisdom of your mind will come
   to your assistance. Give direction at
   the start, and then lean back in quiet faith,
   and let the mind employ the thoughts you gave
   as they were given you for it to use. 
    
   You have been given them in perfect trust;
   in perfect confidence that you would use
   them well; in perfect faith that you would see
   their messages, and use them for yourself.
   Offer them to your mind in that same trust
   and confidence and faith. It will not fail.
   It is the Holy Spirit's chosen means
   for your salvation. Since it has His trust,
   His means must surely merit yours as well. 
    
   We emphasize the benefits to you
   if you devote the first five minutes of
   the day to your review and also give
   the last five minutes of your waking day
   to it. If this cannot be done, at least
   try to divide them so you undertake
   one in the morning, and the other in
   the hour just before you go to sleep. 
    
   The exercises to be done throughout
   the day are equally important, and
   perhaps of even greater value. You
   have been inclined to practice only at
   appointed times and then go on your way
   to other things, without applying what
   you learned to them. As a result, you have
   gained little reinforcement, and have not
   given it the opportunity to prove
   how great are its potential gifts to you. 
     
   Here is another chance to use it well.
   In these reviews we stress the need to let
   your learning not lie idly by between
   your longer practice periods. Attempt
   to give your daily two ideas a brief
   but serious review each hour. Use
   one on the hour, and the other one
   a half an hour later. You need not
   give more than just a moment to each one. 
     
   Repeat it, then allow your mind to rest
   a little time in silence and in peace.
   Then turn to other things, but try to keep
   the thought with you, and let it serve to help
   you keep your peace throughout the day as well.
   If you are shaken, think of it again.
   These practice periods are planned to help
   you form the habit of applying what
   you learn each day to everything you do. 
     
   Do not repeat it and then lay it down.
   Its usefulness is limitless to you.
   And it is meant to serve you in all ways,
   all times and places, and whenever you
   need help of any kind. Try, then, to take
   it with you in the business of the day,
   and make it holy, worthy of God's Son,
   acceptable to God and to your Self. 
     
   Each day's review assignment will conclude
   with a restatement of the thought to use
   each hour, and the one to be applied
   on each half hour as well. Forget them not.
   This second chance with each of these ideas
   will bring such large advances that we come
   from these reviews with learning gains so great
   that we begin again on solid ground
   with firmer footsteps and with stronger faith. 
     
   Do not forget how little you have learned.
   Do not forget how much you can learn now.
   Do not forget your Father's need of you,
   as you review these thoughts He gave to you.
 
   ~ Original Handscript of ACIM
  
 ACIM OE WORKBOOK LESSON REVIEW III

CIRCLE OF ATONEMENT ~ COMMENTARY
          
LESSON AUDIO RECORDINGS
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DAILY LESSON
SonShip Workbook 
 L e s s o n 113 ~ REVIEW III
[Review Lesson 95 and Lesson 96]
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio

*IAMBIC PENTAMETER*
 
1 For morning and evening review:

[95] I am One Self, united with my Creator.
               2 Serenity and perfect peace are mine   
       Because I am One Self, completely whole,
       At one with all creation and with God.
[96] Salvation comes from my One Self.
3 From my One Self, Whose knowledge still remains   
  Within my mind, I see God's perfect plan
  For my salvation perfectly fulfilled.
4 On the hour:  
               5 I am One Self, united with my Creator.
 
6 On the half hour:  
              7 Salvation comes from my One Self.

     ~ Original Handscript of ACIM
  
 
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections 
ACIM Edmonton, CA
LESSON 113
Review III ~ Lesson 95 and Lesson 96.

Sarah's Commentary:

There are times I feel I am at the mercy of my ego raging against me. This is what is described in Chapter 23 as "The War Against Yourself," where Jesus says these are thoughts of our littleness that lead us into temptation, but this need not be. If we allow our littleness, or that of our brother, to lead us into the temptation to attack, we will "walk trembling in a fearful world," (T.23.IN.5.7)(ACIM OE T.23.I.5) and not realize all this time Heaven's glory shines on us, though we remain unaware. Part of our mind wants to choose peace and happiness. It is in conflict with the part that still wants to listen to the dictates of the ego, telling us our anger is justified, we have reason to be afraid, we have been wronged, and there is something still of value to pursue in the world. This conflict can become unbearable when we have one foot in the ego camp listening to the voice of the false self and the other in Spirit. The answer to this conflict is to step out of the ego and devote our lives more and more to accepting the truth about ourselves. We do this by denying the power of the ego to rule our lives. This is the only appropriate use of denial and very helpful to our journey.

This Lesson affirms we are one Self, and if we are one Self, how can we be in conflict? How can there be repressed parts showing up in our dreams? How can there be parts we are ashamed of, dark places we want no one to see or know about? Though we can give these parts power, none of them have any truth. They only seem to be the truth about us because we have invested belief in the ego thought system. We truly believe we are something other than what God created. How is this possible when there is only one true power, which is love? How is it that the ego seems to have power? Our minds are powerful because they receive their power from God, but a small part of the mind has invited the ego to rule it. We identify with that part when we identify with the ego, but our reality is beyond the ego identity. It is the decision making part of the mind that can choose against the ego, and this is where our true power is. It is not with the ego, as we can decide against it whenever we choose.
 
The truth is we have not turned the beautiful eternal being we are into a sinful self. We have only lost awareness of this Self to a greater or lesser extent. All we have done is just closed our eyes to the truth and are choosing instead to listen to the lies of the ego. The truth is we are perfectly innocent. We can know this when we refuse to listen to the voice of the ego. "Walk you in glory, with your head held high, and fear no evil." (T.23.IN.3)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.3) "What can you value more than this? For here is your salvation and your freedom. And it must be complete if you would recognize it." (T.23.IN.6.6-8)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.6) In other words, we need to move to one side of the conflict in which we abide by recognizing anything not love is not true.
 
Our true nature is innocence, peace and pure joy. There are many temptations during the day of situations and people we use to justify why we are upset. These situations need not be significant. It may be a comment from someone, a critical look, a bill we weren't expecting, an accident, or any situation we don't like where we choose to throw our peace away and insist it was taken from us, and therefore we are justified in feeling as we do. Today, we recognize our mind as cause and the world as effect. This may be hard to grasp, but everything starts with the self-attack in our own minds projected out. When someone says something we find hurtful, it is only because we already hold the self-attacking thought in our mind. If we did not, what is said would have no effect on us. Anything we see outside ourselves is a reflection of the choice we have first made within. Today, we dedicate ourselves to the truth of who we are, so when the temptation arises to be pulled back into our littleness, we remember who we are. If this seems too difficult in the moment, we can take the time to simply rest with the feelings that emerge, use self-talk to keep reminding us of who we really are, allow the feelings to arise without trying to distract from them, and accept that everything is playing out perfectly for our highest good. We can trust in the perfection of the orchestration of everything that comes up in this classroom.
 
Truth walks with us and nothing can hurt us. We are perfectly safe! As Jesus says, "Would you, for all these meaningless distractions, lay Heaven aside?" (T.23.IN.4.5)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.4) We lay Heaven aside for the most trivial reasons, don't we? Look at what we sacrifice when we get upset---our peace and our joy! "Your destiny and purpose are far beyond them [the meaningless temptations of this world], in the clean place where littleness does not exist." (T.23.IN.4.6)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.4) The discipline we apply to these Lessons is what brings us back to ourselves.
 
When we identify with the ego, we see attack and defense as our way out. When we choose our innocence, our one Self, our purpose for being here, then we see everything as a reflection of our minds and a part of our one Self. When upsets, judgment, unworthiness, and blame arise today, we turn them all over to the Holy Spirit. We look at our judgments and self-attacks with the Holy Spirit from above the battleground and see them for what they are. They are just reactions of the character in the dream and not the truth of the 'I AM' Being we are.
 
We are One. Anything standing in the way of oneness we can choose to release. We can see it is just a wrong-minded thought we are holding and cherishing. If we have difficulty letting it go, remember we have Mighty Help to call on. Spirit reminds us we are not our thoughts. It is all about our choice and our willingness to let go of our way, our beliefs, and our perspective and lean on His direction. We will then see with a broader perspective, as we look through the eyes of Jesus who is a symbol of the love within and recognize we all share the same Self. "How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it!" (T.23.IN.6.5)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.6) There is nothing more important, "For here is your salvation and your freedom."(T.23.IN.6.5)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.6)
 
You may want to read more in Chapter 23, where Jesus goes on to talk about the laws that appear to rule the world we made, which are "The Laws of Chaos." (T.23.II)(ACIM OE T.23.III) These laws define separation, saying 1) we each have our own truth and it is different for everyone, 2) each one of us must sin and therefore deserves attack, 3) we have made a God in our own image and told Him what He must believe about Himself, but we ultimately hate and fear the God we made as he seems to just be a more powerful ego, and finally 4) we have what we take from others so we can gain when another loses. If you reflect on these laws, you will see they are laws we live by when we choose to live in competition with others rather than accept the truth of our reality as the same One Self.
 
Jesus gives us a very simple way to assess whether we have chosen the wrong mind of the ego or the right mind of the Self we are. He says our feelings will inform us. Each time we are not experiencing peace and happiness, we have chosen the ego. Now we can make another choice. "Forgiveness cannot be withheld a little. Nor is it possible to attack for this and love for that and understand forgiveness." (T.23.III.4.5-6)(ACIM OE T.23.IV.44)
 
For those of us who struggle to understand this Course, which can seem difficult, this section reminds us it is in fact easy because it makes no compromise. "For truth is true and nothing else is true." (W.95.10.3) The truth about us is we are one Self and the knowledge of who we are is still in our minds. All we need to do is bring the blocks to the light. This is the challenging part for us. We can accept that truth is true, but it is much harder to accept that "nothing else is true." (W.95.10.3) Jesus says, "My roles is to separate the truth from the false, so truth can break through the barriers the ego has set up and can shine into your mind." (T.4.III.2.5)(ACIM OE T.4.IV.47) "Who but the insane would undertake to believe what is not true, and then protect this belief at the cost of truth?" (T.4.III.10.4)(ACIM OE T.4.IV.55)This is exactly what we do when we defend our perspectives and think we know anything of value. The world is an illusion. Nothing here is real. Everything here is what we have given meaning to, but it has no meaning except what we give it. Now we are called to withdraw our own meaning and let the truth be written in the space left open in our minds.
 
Today, we are called to "begin to think about them [the Review Lessons], while letting your mind relate them to your needs, your seeming problems and all your concerns." (W.RIII.IN.5.3) We are basically letting related thoughts come to address any need, problem or concern we bring to this practice. Let the thoughts come up without your effort, but simply allow them to emerge. They are providing you guidance for your problems in light of this Lesson. We already have the wisdom in our right minds. Do this practice with the faith your mind will use the ideas wisely, "being helped in its decisions by the One Who gave the thoughts to you." (W.RIII.IN.6.2) "The means the Holy Spirit uses [forgiveness] will not fail." (W.RIII.IN.6.4) The means provided us are to release all the thoughts that block our peace by taking responsibility for them. It is never about forgiving anyone, only about bringing the thoughts we project onto others back into our own minds and forgiving ourselves for using others to block our own peace and joy.
 
Remind yourself frequently throughout the day on the hour for the first idea and on the half hour for the second idea, giving the idea a brief but serious review. Most important, because we forget all the time, the introduction ends by saying, "Do not forget how little you have learned. Do not forget how much you can learn now. Do not forget your Father's need of you, as you review these thoughts He gave to you." (W.RIII.IN.13.1-3) We listen to the ego thoughts and allow them to dominate our minds, forgetting the way to peace. We forget we are not our ego thoughts, and they don't define us. To remain with the obsessive thoughts of the ego is to choose to remain in hell when Heaven is stretching its arms out to us. "Do not forget your Father's need of you, as you review these thoughts He gave to you." (W.PI.R3.IN.13.3)

Love and blessings, Sarah
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PAUSED FOR WEEKEND
XI. The Denial of God 
 
93 The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. Depression means that you have foresworn God. Men are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not know what it means. They do not realize that to deny God is to deny their own identity, and in this sense the wages of sin is death. The sense is very literal; denial of life perceives its opposite, as all forms of denial replace what is with what is not. No one can really do this, but that you can think you can and believe you have is beyond dispute.
 
94 Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others, and not yourself, have done this to you. You will receive the message you give because it is the message you want. You may believe that you judge your brothers by the messages they give you, but you have judged them by the message you give to them. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them that could bring joy to you. It is the denial of the spark that brings depression, and whenever you see your brothers without it, you are denying God.
 
95 Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to you. Unless you are sick, you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly want them. Blasphemy, then, is self-destructive, not God-destructive. It means that you are willing not to know yourself in order to be sick. This is the offering which your god demands because, having made him out of your insanity, he is an insane idea. He has many forms, but although he may seem like many different things, he is but one idea-the denial of God.
 
96 Sickness and death entered the mind of God's Son against His Will. The "attack on God" made His Son think he was fatherless, and out of his depression, he made the god of depression. This was his alternative to joy, because he would not accept the fact that, although he was a creator, he had been created. Yet the Son is helpless without the Father, Who alone is his help. We said before that of yourselves you can do nothing, but you are not of yourselves. If you were, what you have made would be true, and you could never escape.
 
97 It is because you did not make yourselves that you need be troubled by nothing. Your gods are nothing because your Father did not create them. You cannot make creators who are unlike your Creator any more than He could have created a Son who was unlike Him. If creation is sharing, it cannot create what is unlike itself. It can share only what it is. Depression is isolation, and so it could not have been created.
 
98 Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken. Yet this can be corrected, and God will help you, knowing that you could not sin against Him. You denied Him because you loved Him, knowing that if you recognized your love for Him, you could not deny Him. Your denial of Him therefore means that you love Him and that you know He loves you. Remember that what you deny, you must have known. And if you accept denial, you can accept its undoing.
 
99 Your Father has not denied you. He does not retaliate, but He does call to you to return. When you think He has not answered your call, you have not answered His. He calls to you from every part of the Sonship because of His love for His Son. If you hear His message, He has answered you, and you will learn of Him if you hear aright. The love of God is in everything He created, for His Son is everywhere. Look with peace upon your brothers, and God will come rushing into your heart in gratitude for your gift to Him.
 
100 Do not look to the god of sickness for healing but only to the God of love, for healing is the acknowledgment of Him. When you acknowledge Him, you will know that He has never ceased to acknowledge you and that in His acknowledgment of you lies your Being. You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do. Remember, though, that to do this is blasphemy, for it means that you are looking without love on God and His creation, from which He cannot be separated. Only the eternal can be loved, for love does not die. What is of God is His forever, and you are of God. Would He allow Himself to suffer? And would He offer His Son anything that is not acceptable to Him?
 
101 If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. Yet to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father is the acknowledgment of yourself as you are. Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your own mind because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also deny what it creates because it is free.
 
102 You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God in His love would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with you because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with you would be to attack Himself, and God is not insane. When you denied Him, you were insane. Would you have Him share your insanity? God will never cease to love His Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son's creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave Himself to you in your creation, and His gifts are eternal. Would you deny yourself to Him?
 
103 Out of your gifts to Him, the Kingdom will be restored to His Son. His Son removed himself from His gift by refusing to accept what had been created for him and what he himself had created in the Name of his Father. Heaven waits for his return, for it was created as the dwelling place of God's Son. You are not at home anywhere else or in any other condition. Do not deny yourself the joy which was created for you for the misery you have made for yourselves. God has given you the means for undoing what you have made. Listen and you will learn what you are.
 
104 If God knows His Children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to perceive them as guilty. If God knows His Children as wholly without pain, it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows His Children to be wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel depressed. All of these illusions and the many other forms which blasphemy may take are refusals to accept creation as it is. If God created His Son perfect, that is how you must learn to see him to learn of his reality. And as part of the Sonship, that is how you must see yourself to learn of yours.
 
105 Do not perceive anything God did not create, or you are denying Him. His is the only Fatherhood, and it is yours only because He has given it to you. Your gifts to yourself are meaningless, but your gifts to your creations are like His because they are given in His Name. That is why your creations are as real as His. Yet the real Fatherhood must be acknowledged if the real Son is to be known. You believe that the sick things which you have made are your real creations because you believe that the sick images you perceive are the Sons of God.
 
106 Only if you accept the Fatherhood of God will you have anything because His fatherhood gave you everything. That is why to deny Him is to deny yourself. Arrogance is the denial of love because love shares and arrogance withholds. As long as both appear to you to be desirable, the concept of choice, which is not of God, will remain with you. While this is not true in eternity, it is true in time, so that while time lasts in your minds, there will be choices. Time itself was your choice.
  
107 If you would remember eternity, you must learn to look only on the eternal. If you allow yourselves to become preoccupied with the temporal, you are living in time. As always, your choice is determined by what you value. Time and eternity cannot both be real because they contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you will begin to understand eternity and make it yours.

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 Lesson 108
  
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