In this video recording of a class given as part of the School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) curriculum led by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise, Bruce Rawles reads and discusses A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson 195: “Love is the way I walk in gratitude.” – W-pI.195. This lesson, similar to Workbook Lesson 93, starts with an inspiring title … and then immediately dives straight into what we need to undo – ego’s insane “gratitude to destroy” based on comparisons and differences of every imaginable variety – with help every step of the way from our Inner Kindness Teacher, in order to experience the true gratitude and love beyond the obstacles ego has dreamt up to resist that experience.
Our real gratitude (unlike ego’s fake version) is due to the awareness in our mind of the choice for the sane thought system of complete Inclusion given by Holy Spirit – the realm that forgiveness leads us to inexorably.
Here are the first three paragraphs from his lesson:
“Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. The most that they can do is see themselves as better off than others. And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they. How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause? And who could suffer less because he sees another suffer more? Your gratitude is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world.
It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering. But it is equally insane to fail in gratitude to One Who offers you the certain means whereby all pain is healed, and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness. Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs, and follow in the way He sets before them, to escape a prison that they thought contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive.
Your brother is your “enemy” because you see in him the rival for your peace; a plunderer who takes his joy from you, and leaves you nothing but a black despair so bitter and relentless that there is no hope remaining. Now is vengeance all there is to wish for. Now can you but try to bring him down to lie in death with you, as useless as yourself; as little left within his grasping fingers as in yours.” – W.pI.195.1-3
A related quote from the end of the Manual For Teachers summarizes how the whole purpose of the Course is to gradually trust Holy Spirit more and more implicitly to escape from ego’s slavery – to leave the hellish prison of the belief in separation and dualistic dreams where the best ego can muster is a meager reduction in misery, a “gratitude” compromised.
“There is another advantage,–and a very important one,–in referring decisions to the Holy Spirit with increasing frequency. Perhaps you have not thought of this aspect, but its centrality is obvious. To follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance is to let yourself be absolved of guilt. It is the essence of the Atonement. It is the core of the curriculum. The imagined usurping of functions not your own is the basis of fear. The whole world you see reflects the illusion that you have done so, making fear inevitable. To return the function to the One to Whom it belongs is thus the escape from fear. And it is this that lets the memory of love return to you. Do not, then, think that following the Holy Spirit’s guidance is necessary merely because of your own inadequacies. It is the way out of hell for you.” M-29.3
In ACIM, there are:
- 28 instances of “slave”
- 60 instances of “prison”
- 157 instances of “hell”
- 241 instances of “escape”
The content of Lesson 195 was interleaved with a generous amount of related commentary by Kenneth Wapnick from his brilliant work Journey Through The Workbook (Volume 6 on Lesson 195).
(This recording was made August 20, 2020.)