In this video, we began with contemplation of the title of WorkBook Lesson 93: Light and joy and peace abide in me. (ACIM, W-93). (This conversation – kicked off with a vigorous discussion about cognitive dissonance – was a class facilitated by Bruce Rawles as part of the School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) curriculum hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise.) We covered significantly more that these samples of samples of indicate; to get the full import, the video will provide additional insights. Here is what we selected from: Lesson 93: paragraphs 1, 2, 4, 6, 11 Lesson 94: paragraphs 1, 4 Lesson 95: paragraphs 1, 2, 10, 14; comment on the middle section addressing resistance Lesson 96: paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 6 Lesson 97: paragraphs 1, 3, 6 Lesson 98: paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 6 Lesson 99: paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 Lesson 100: paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Lesson 101: paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4 Lesson 102: paragraphs 1, 2, 4 Lesson 103: paragraphs 1, 2 Lesson 104: paragraphs 1, 2, 5 Lesson 105: paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 7, 8 Lesson 106: paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
We then read and discussed the stark contrast between the glorious title (the “face of innocence” we present to the world to deflect any hint of guilt in our own minds) and what we as ego’s really believe about ourselves; the Picture of “Doriana” or “Dorian Gray” self-concept that sabotages our peace until – only with help from our Inner Kindness Teacher – we drag the hideous self-concept we harbor in the ego mind out into the light of forgiveness.
As one participant in this conversation reminded, we need practice and dedication to undoing the masochism that ego’s entire thought system represents. Like Jim Carrey lampooned in his humorous Golden Globe speech about our silly separate self “never being enough” – ego’s intrinsic instability – we need to look at ego’s insanity with patience, gentleness and forgiveness.
Here are the first 2 paragraphs of that lesson:
1. You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin. ²You think if anyone could see the truth about you he would be repelled, recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake. ³You think if what is true about you were revealed to you, you would be struck with horror so intense that you would rush to death by your own hand, living on after seeing this being impossible.
2. These are beliefs so firmly fixed that it is difficult to help you see that they are based on nothing. ²That you have made mistakes is obvious. ³That you have sought salvation in strange ways; have been deceived, deceiving and afraid of foolish fantasies and savage dreams; and have bowed down to idols made of dust,—all this is true by what you now believe. (ACIM, W-93.1:1–2:3)
Contrast this with the last paragraph which gives us Holy Spirit’s very pragmatic correction:
If a situation arises that seems to be disturbing, quickly dispel the illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts again. ²Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently:
³Light and joy and peace abide in you.
⁴Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.⁵You can do much for the world’s salvation today. ⁶You can do much today to bring you closer to the part in salvation that God has assigned to you. ⁷And you can do much today to bring the conviction to your mind that the idea for the day is true indeed.
After touching on Lesson 94, we read and conversed about Lesson 95; here are the first 2 paragraphs of this lesson:
1. Today’s idea accurately describes you as God created you. ²You are one within yourself, and one with Him. ³Yours is the unity of all creation. ⁴Your perfect unity makes change in you impossible. ⁵You do not accept this, and you fail to realize it must be so, only because you believe that you have changed yourself already.
2. You see yourself as a ridiculous parody on God’s creation; weak, vicious, ugly and sinful, miserable and beset with pain. ²Such is your version of yourself; a self divided into many warring parts, separate from God, and tenuously held together by its erratic and capricious maker, to which you pray. ³It does not hear your prayers, for it is deaf. ⁴It does not see the oneness in you, for it is blind. ⁵It does not understand you are the Son of God, for it is senseless and understands nothing.
We need to forgive ourselves for our seemingly incessant yet ultimately inconsequential (in terms of our true, eternally shared innocence) dissociation (into a largely ignored sane mind representing Holy Spirit’s forgiveness … and the predominant choice for the insanity that fights against it:
“Problems that have no meaning cannot be resolved within the framework they are set. ²Two selves in conflict could not be resolved, and good and evil have no meeting place. ³The self you made can never be your Self, nor can your Self be split in two, and still be what It is and must forever be. ⁴A mind and body cannot both exist. ⁵Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies the other can be real. ⁶If you are physical, your mind is gone from your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you. ⁷If you are spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality.” (ACIM, W-96.3:1-7)
Here’s another read paragraph from Lesson 97: I am spirit. (ACIM, W-97):
“Thus will each gift to Him be multiplied a thousandfold and tens of thousands more.²And when it is returned to you, it will surpass in might the little gift you gave as much as does the radiance of the sun outshine the tiny gleam a firefly makes an uncertain moment and goes out.³The steady brilliance of this light remains and leads you out of darkness, nor will you be able to forget the way again.” (ACIM, W-97.6:1-3)
Eventually, as we “unsubscribe” – more-and-more – to ego’s trivial “emails, text, etc. we lose interest in the unsteady, uncertain, disturbing and polarizing messages from our ego’s accusing blather, when the true value of certainty, calm, sameness and shared identity is revealed more-and-more, replacing
Another important reminder that this isn’t just a curriculum for “someone else” unless we deny our true, loving inheritance:
“Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies, which lead separate lives and go their separate ways. ³One function shared by separate minds unites them in one purpose, for each one of them is equally essential to them all.
2. God’s Will for you is perfect happiness. ²Why should you choose to go against His Will? ³The part that He has saved for you to take in working out His plan is given you that you might be restored to what He wills. ⁴This part is as essential to His plan as to your happiness. ⁵Your joy must be complete to let His plan be understood by those to whom He sends you. ⁶They will see their function in your shining face, and hear God calling to them in your happy laugh.” (ACIM, W-100.1:2–2:6)
Here’s a prime candidate for a “Vincent Price” voice to read the following nightmarish lampooning of the ego’s viciousness:
“If sin is real, then punishment is just and cannot be escaped. ²Salvation thus cannot be purchased but through suffering. ³If sin is real, then happiness must be illusion, for they cannot both be true. ⁴The sinful warrant only death and pain, and it is this they ask for. ⁵For they know it waits for them, and it will seek them out and find them somewhere, sometime, in some form that evens the account they owe to God. ⁶They would escape Him in their fear. ⁷And yet He will pursue, and they can not escape.
3. If sin is real, salvation must be pain. ²Pain is the cost of sin, and suffering can never be escaped, if sin is real. ³Salvation must be feared, for it will kill, but slowly, taking everything away before it grants the welcome boon of death to victims who are little more than bones before salvation is appeased. ⁴Its wrath is boundless, merciless, but wholly just.
4. Who would seek out such savage punishment?²Who would not flee salvation, and attempt in every way he can to drown the Voice which offers it to him?³Why would he try to listen and accept Its offering?⁴If sin is real, its offering is death, and meted out in cruel form to match the vicious wishes in which sin is born.⁵If sin is real, salvation has become your bitter enemy, the curse of God upon you who have crucified His Son.” (ACIM, W-101.2:1–4:5)
We really DO want to be happy, despite our apparent historical track record of (dreamscape) masochism:
“Begin your practice periods today with this acceptance of God’s Will for you:
²I share God’s Will for happiness for me, and I accept it as my function now.
³Then seek this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but your choice. ⁴You cannot fail to find it when you learn it is your choice, and that you share God’s Will.” (ACIM, W-102.4:1-4)
Our function is to accept the limitlessness of mind afforded by our Inner Kindness Teacher:
Happiness is an attribute of love. ²It cannot be apart from it. ³Nor can it be experienced where love is not. ⁴Love has no limits, being everywhere. ⁵And therefore joy is everywhere as well. ⁶Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy. ⁷This strange belief would limit happiness by redefining love as limited, and introducing opposition in what has no limit and no opposite. (ACIM, W-103.1:1-7)
Yet this doesn’t imply that our illusory script will suddenly become a Hallmark or Disney Movie brimming with rainbows and unicorns. We might not get the desired outcomes in the dream world of form that egos insist will make us happy, but every experience can and will eventually become our classroom of forgiveness, which leads us to consistent peace. The wretched self-concept self-image – like the portrait in Dorian Gray’s closet which became more hideous over time – will be seen as merely the shadow of our correctable choice for a silly parody of our real Identity. Complementing and reflecting true forgiveness, kindness requires awareness of our shared identity and undoes the belief in separation.
(This YouTube video recording was made on April 22, 2024.)