Susan Dugan and Bruce Rawles read aloud and talk about Workbook Lesson 197: It can be but my gratitude I earn (ACIM, W-197) from A Course In Miracles – in this YouTube video.
We briefly discuss the emphasis on ego’s “comparative gratitude” in Lesson 195 (Love is the way I walk in gratitude. ACIM, W-195 – a lesson explored in several prior ACIMblog posts) and how Lesson 197 exposes another variation of ego’s “gratitude-to-destroy” strategy of requiring external validation in countless ways. We deny our intrinsic strength (available through our Inner Kindness Teacher all the time) whenever we think we need something “outside us” to confirm our worthiness, innocence, and validity. Of course, our ego’s relentless pursuit – albeit mostly unconscious – precludes our ever recognizing the peaceful strength within because there is no strength, worth, innocence, or validity to a completely bogus, fabricated, and non-existent separate identity. We simply need to gently, patiently, and persistently question that made-up identity that moves the complete acceptance of our real (eternally shared) Self even closer – our happily inevitable return to full sanity. We also notice that when we include everyone in our well-wishes for acceptance by validating others, we automatically remove ourselves from harm’s way in our minds.
Here are the first three paragraphs from Lesson 197:
“Here is the second step we take to free your mind from the belief in outside force pitted against your own. ²You make attempts at kindness and forgiveness. ³Yet you turn them to attack again, unless you find external gratitude and lavish thanks. ⁴Your gifts must be received with honor, lest they be withdrawn. ⁵And so you think God’s gifts are loans at best; at worst, deceptions which would cheat you of defenses, to ensure that when He strikes He will not fail to kill.
2. How easily are God and guilt confused by those who know not what their thoughts can do. ²Deny your strength, and weakness must become salvation to you. ³See yourself as bound, and bars become your home. ⁴Nor will you leave the prison house, or claim your strength, until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed, and found and fully recognized.
3. The world must thank you when you offer it release from your illusions. ²Yet your thanks belong to you as well, for its release can only mirror yours. ³Your gratitude is all your gifts require, that they be a lasting offering of a thankful heart, released from hell forever. ⁴Is it this you would undo by taking back your gifts, because they were not honored? ⁵It is you who honor them and give them fitting thanks, for it is you who have received the gifts.” (ACIM, W-197.1:1–3:5)
(This video was recorded on November 24, 2021.)
If you have questions or comments about this video, prior videos in this ACIM-related video series, or other Course-related topics, please email them via the ACIMblog.com contact form. Susan and Bruce will review and try to respond to questions and suggestions for future conversations. We look forward to extending the conversation with you!
Here are some prior ACIM-related conversations with Susan Dugan and Bruce Rawles.