We explore Workbook Lesson 158: “Today I learn to give as I receive.” from A Course In Miracles (ACIM) in this video recording of a class given for the School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) curriculum hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise. (I highly recommend Lyn and Tim’s almost daily zoom classes!)
Ego – based on scarcity and lack – attempts to reverse giving by taking to deprive (and provoke an attack, reinforce differences, etc.)
“… fourth law of chaos … This seeming law is the belief you have what you have taken. (ACIM, T-23.II.9:2-3)
Not seeing clearly under ego’s miserly and tyrannical rule, we don’t realize that we can only take from ourselves. Here are some helpful insights about how our true nature – and the way to be sustainably happy – is to give (extend) the gift of innocence from our real Source because we all have and are everything … and nothing happened in Truth to diminish that innocence we all share!
“9. In your own mind, though denied by the ego, is the declaration of your release. ²God has given you everything. ³This one fact means the ego does not exist, and this makes it profoundly afraid. ⁴In the ego’s language, “to have” and “to be” are different, but they are identical to the Holy Spirit. ⁵The Holy Spirit knows that you both have everything and are everything. ⁶Any distinction in this respect is meaningful only when the idea of “getting,” which implies a lack, has already been accepted. ⁷That is why we make no distinction between having the Kingdom of God and being the Kingdom of God.
10. The calm being of God’s Kingdom, which in your sane mind is perfectly conscious, is ruthlessly banished from the part of the mind the ego rules. ²The ego is desperate because it opposes literally invincible odds, whether you are asleep or awake. ³Consider how much vigilance you have been willing to exert to protect your ego, and how little to protect your right mind. ⁴Who but the insane would undertake to believe what is not true, and then protect this belief at the cost of truth?” (ACIM, T-4.III.9:1–10:4)
We discussed the pervasive dream of time, and mentioned this related reference – one of many superb books by Ken Wapnick – is “A Vast Illusion: Time According to A Course in Miracles” and also the classic Flammarion woodcut/engraving, which is a fun visual metaphor for peering (with Holy Spirit’s help) beyond the veil of space, time and individuality. I used that as a starting point for the graphic for my personal blog.
We also related the middle two of the Four Stages of Competence to the first five stages in the Development of Trust as we go from conscious incompetence (realizing that we’re clueless without Holy Spirit’s help) to conscious competence with LOTS of practice choosing to forgive instead of condemning consistently. At some point, choosing the generous Teacher of Kindness becomes automatic instead of choosing the miserly teacher of Cruelty.
Using the Web Edition of A Course In Miracles to count the instances of related words in ACIM we get these totals: receive: 389; take: 502 (multiple meanings); give: 1223!
Joy is associated with giving – extending – sharing – what we are in Truth; that source is never denied to us except by our own denial – by insisting that we are limited to a silly seemingly separate self. We think that we are separated by time, by space, by our individuality, and above all (in ego’s covert pantheon of heinous “gods”) by guilt. The GIST (Guilt – Individuality – Space – Time) acronym makes a handy checklist to see if ego thoughts are sabotaging our peace. Time, space and our silly seemingly separate selves are the machinery the ego’s fragmented and fragmenting mind manipulates in order to keep us from experiencing the joy of giving from the inexhaustible supply that sustains our peace.
We concluded with Lesson 158; here are the first 3 paragraphs of that lesson:
“1. What has been given you? ²The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because you were created out of love. ³Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. ⁴This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. ⁵It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does it live.
2. You have received all this. ²No one who walks the world but has received it. ³It is not this knowledge which you give, for that is what creation gave. ⁴All this cannot be learned. ⁵What, then, are you to learn to give today? ⁶Our lesson yesterday evoked a theme found early in the text. ⁷Experience cannot be shared directly, in the way that vision can. ⁸The revelation that the Father and the Son are one will come in time to every mind. ⁹Yet is that time determined by the mind itself, not taught.
3. The time is set already. ²It appears to be quite arbitrary. ³Yet there is no step along the road that anyone takes but by chance. ⁴It has already been taken by him, although he has not yet embarked on it. ⁵For time but seems to go in one direction. ⁶We but undertake a journey that is over. ⁷Yet it seems to have a future still unknown to us.”
This video was recorded on August 8, 2021.