The tape is looping through the reel, over and over again, finished. No more rewinding. No more poring over movies that ended long ago. The past, which never happened, is over! When guilt is unwound, Innocence remains: Pure, Untouched, because formlessness has no tactile experience. Duality is unspliced. The two eyes return to One. Sight becomes Vision. The dream was a delusion …
LESSON 289
The past is over. It can touch me not.
Unless the past is over in my mind, the real world must escape my sight. For I am really looking nowhere; seeing but what is not there. How can I then perceive the world forgiveness offers? This the past was made to hide, for this the world that can be looked on only now. It has no past. For what can be forgiven but the past, and if it is forgiven it is gone.
Father, let me not look upon a past that is not there. For You have offered me Your Own replacement, in a present world the past has left untouched and free of sin. Here is the end of guilt. And here am I made ready for Your final step. Shall I demand that You wait longer for Your Son to find the loveliness You planned to be the end of all his dreams and all his pain?
Let’s practice together! Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.
Jesus asks us to forgive him in this lesson. He means, admit that you have projected your guilt onto me even as you claim to love me. He means, see me as I am, not as the bible has depicted me. He means, know me as the Light, not as the man. He means, see every person in your life as Living Loving Light, as the spiritual essence they really are, as God’s Sun … and you will see yourself as Living Loving Light, as Spirit, as God’s Sun. Forget the past and fully arrive in the present the holy instant offers. Know thyself, know thy brother, know thy Self.
LESSON 288
Let me forget my brother’s past today.
This is the thought that leads the way to You, and brings me to my goal. I cannot come to You without my brother. And to know my Source, I first must recognize what You created one with me. My brother’s is the hand that leads me on the way to You. His sins are in the past along with mine, and I am saved because the past is gone. Let me not cherish it within my heart, or I will lose the way to walk to You. My brother is my savior. Let me not attack the savior You have given me. But let me honor him who bears Your Name, and so remember that It is my own.
Forgive me, then, today. And you will know you have forgiven me if you behold your brother in the light of holiness. He cannot be less holy than can I, and you can not be holier than he.
Let’s practice together! Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.
As a romantic, I enjoy the permission to love one and only one, exclusively, continuously, madly in love with this One! And I enjoy the paradox that my exclusivity is Inclusive, and my lover is my Father. How deliciously outside the law and Perfectly Mysterious is my only Goal.
LESSON 287
You are my goal, my Father. Only You.
Where would I go but Heaven? What could be a substitute for happiness? What gift could I prefer before the peace of God? What treasure would I seek and find and keep that can compare with my Identity? And would I rather live with fear than love?
You are my goal, my Father. What but You could I desire to have? What way but that which leads to You could I desire to walk? And what except the memory of You could signify to me the end of dreams and futile substitutions for the truth? You are my only goal. Your Son would be as You created him. What way but this could I expect to recognize my Self, and be at one with my Identity?
Let’s practice together! Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.
On a day filled with preparation, scurrying and busyness, this lesson settles around my heart and smooths my ruffled feathers. There is a delay before I can even get to the lesson, and glitches with the computer … but I am easy with myself (and the computer, lol!) and gently walk away, briefly rest, then return and try again. Each time I read the lesson. Read. Distracted. Read, re-read … then, pressure releases, furrows in the brow unfurrow, breath deepens and starts to come easily … the hush of Heaven takes over, as I am willing, willing, willing.
LESSON 286
The hush of Heaven holds my heart today.
Father, how still today! How quietly do all things fall in place! This is the day that has been chosen as the time in which I come to understand the lesson that there is no need that I do anything. In You is every choice already made. In You has every conflict been resolved. In You is everything I hope to find already given me. Your peace is mine. My heart is quiet, and my mind at rest. Your Love is Heaven, and Your Love is mine.
The stillness of today will give us hope that we have found the way, and travelled far along it to a wholly certain goal. Today we will not doubt the end which God Himself has promised us. We trust in Him, and in our Self, Who still is one with Him.
Let’s practice together! Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.
RSVP to God: Thank you very much, I whole-heartedly accept your invitation to Holy Happiness today!
LESSON 285
My holiness shines bright and clear today.
Today I wake with joy, expecting but the happy things of God to come to me. I ask but them to come, and realize my invitation will be answered by the thoughts to which it has been sent by me. And I will ask for only joyous things the instant I accept my holiness. For what would be the use of pain to me, what purpose would my suffering fulfill, and how would grief and loss avail me if insanity departs from me today, and I accept my holiness instead?
Father, my holiness is Yours. Let me rejoice in it, and through forgiveness be stored to sanity. Your Son is still as you created him. My holiness is part of me, and also part of You. And what can alter Holiness Itself?
Let’s practice together! Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.
Nothing need be experienced as painful. Nothing need be experienced as loss. At first that seems callous but it is not. It is not callous to view a mirage and then see it is nothing. Any images that floated in that mirage, temporarily and erroneously, are automatically dismissed as it evaporates into nothing.
LESSON 284
I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.
Loss is not loss when properly perceived. Pain is impossible. There is no grief with any cause at all. And suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream. This is the truth, at first to be but said and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many reservations. Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally accepted as the truth. I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt. And I would go beyond these words today, and past all reservations, and arrive at full acceptance of the truth in them.
Father, what You have given cannot hurt, so grief and pain must be impossible. Let me not fail to trust in You today, accepting but the joyous as Your gifts; accepting but the joyous as the truth.
Let’s practice together! Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.
The light of Heaven is infinite … the light of Heaven is what we are … my Father loves me … my Father is Our Father and He loves Us. We are His Creation and Creation is Light, for Light is Love. Love extends infinitely and eternally, uniting lovingly with all the world … which is the happy dream just before we recognize our true Self.
LESSON 283
My true Identity abides in You.
Father, I made an image of myself, and it is this I call the Son of God. Yet is creation as it always was, for Your creation is unchangeable. Let me not worship idols. I am he my Father loves. My holiness remains the light of Heaven and the Love of God. Is not what is beloved of You secure? Is not the light of Heaven infinite? Is not Your Son my true Identity, when You created everything that is?
Now are we One in shared Identity, with God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us. And so we offer blessing to all things, uniting lovingly with all the world, which our forgiveness has made one with us.
Let’s practice together! Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.
The movie screen on which I am projecting my thoughts of this world is thinning … like a threadbare sock, I am seeing through the fabric of earthly life and what I see is Love. Love shines a kind Light through us All. We are the Sun of God and His Rays are our Source. When we shift our gaze from material illusions to the formless Truth all is seen as Unified Love. The ego likes to switch labels to confuse us. It calls what we value–special relationships and individual identities–love … and ego tells us to fear God’s Oneness in order to distract us from our true Identity. Love is equal, all-inclusive and fearless. I will not be afraid of love today, for Love is what I am.
LESSON 282
I will not be afraid of love today.
If I could realize but this today, salvation would be reached for all the world. This the decision not to be insane, and to accept myself as God Himself, my Father and my Source, created me. This the determination not to be asleep in dreams of death, while truth remains forever living in the joy of love. And this the choice to recognize the Self Whom God created as the Son He loves, and Who remains my one Identity.
Father, Your Name is Love and so is mine. Such is the truth. And can the truth be changed by merely giving it another name? The name of fear is simply a mistake. Let me not be afraid of truth today.
Let’s practice together! Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.
We start on the personal level, believing we are working with an individual mind–our “own.” Over time we realize that there is only one ego thought of separation which appears as many. I can begin by working with my “personal” thoughts, but eventually it all comes down to one thought: I believe I am an “I,” separate from God. The undoing process begins with many personal thoughts of hurt, pain, fear, guilt, hate … then we realize we must include what we consider happiness, success and love. Eventually we work with just one idea: I am as God created me … when I give Him every thought I thought I thought then I come undone and realize I am aligned with His Thought–I am as He created me.
LESSON 281
I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts.
Father, Your Son is perfect. When I think that I am hurt in any way, it is because I have forgotten who I am, and that I am as You created me. Your Thoughts can only bring me happiness. If ever I am sad or hurt or ill, I have forgotten what You think, and put my little meaningless ideas in place of where Your Thoughts belong, and where they are. I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts. The Thoughts I think with You can only bless. The Thoughts I think with You alone are true.
I will not hurt myself today. For I am far beyond all pain. My Father placed me safe in Heaven, watching over me. And I would not attack the Son He loves, for what He loves is also mine to love.
Let’s practice together! Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.
In Part II of the Workbook, every 10 lessons we are given an instruction. It comes in the form of a question. There are 14 of these questions all together, and each one of them corresponds to a set of 10 lessons, and is to be read every day for the next 10 days along with our lesson for the day. “What Is the Holy Spirit?” is the seventh instruction and goes with Lessons 281 – 290.
7. What Is the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit mediates between illusions and the truth. Since He must bridge the gap between reality and dreams, perception leads to knowledge through the grace that God has given Him, to be His gift to everyone who turns to Him for truth. Across the bridge that He provides are dreams all carried to the truth, to be dispelled before the light of knowledge. There are sights and sounds forever laid aside. And where they were perceived before, forgiveness has made possible perception’s tranquil end.
The goal the Holy Spirit’s teaching sets is just this end of dreams. For sights and sounds must be translated from the witnesses of fear to those of love. And when this is entirely accomplished, learning has achieved the only goal it has in truth. For learning, as the Holy Spirit guides it to the outcome He perceives for it, becomes the means to go beyond itself, to be replaced by the eternal truth.
If you but knew how much your Father yearns to have you recognize your sinlessness, you would not let His Voice appeal in vain, nor turn away from His replacement for the fearful images and dreams you made. The Holy Spirit understands the means you made, by which you would attain what is forever unattainable. And if you offer them to Him, He will employ the means you made for exile to restore your mind to where it truly is at home.
From knowledge, where He has been placed by God, the Holy Spirit calls to you, to let forgiveness rest upon your dreams, and be restored to sanity and peace of mind. Without forgiveness will your dreams remain to terrify you. And the memory of all your Father’s Love will not return to signify the end of dreams has come.
Accept your Father’s gift. It is a Call from Love to Love, that It be but Itself. The Holy Spirit is His gift, by which the quietness of Heaven is restored to God’s beloved Son. Would you refuse to take the function of completing God, when all He wills is that you be complete?
Remember, in Part II of the Workbook, every 10 lessons we are given an instruction. It comes in the form of a question. There are 14 of these questions all together, and each one of them corresponds to a set of 10 lessons, and is to be read every day for the next 10 days along with our lesson for the day. “What Is the Holy Spirit?” is the seventh instruction and goes with Lessons 281 – 290.
To see the entire Workbook for Students, get a copy of the book, A Course in Miracles, or visit the original publisher, Foundation for Inner Peace, online at http://acim.org/Lessons/index.html. To have the lesson delivered daily to your email box for free, sign up with http://www.acimdailylesson.com/category/daily-lessons-from-a-course-in-miracles. An excellent line-by-line analysis called Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles is offered by Kenneth Wapnick through the bookstore at http://www.facim.org.
