My thoughts* on ACIM Lesson 164, full lesson without comment follows:
“Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.”
1. What time but now can truth be recognized? ²The present is the only time there is. ³And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ.
.
*This paragraph is misleading. If not downright incorrect. Why? Because you and I are the Christ, along with Jesus. This is where Helen’s inability to portray that comes through. Jesus says it through her several times in other parts of the Course but one needs to listen to the Holy Spirit within when reading the scriptures always.
.
*I need to express that this is an ATTITUDE one needs to have and it begins by acknowledging that you do not know anything. That would be letting go of the ego and allowing the Holy Spirit within to translate for you and instruct you in all things but especially IN THE SCRIPTURES or word of God, word about God, or those things that lead you to God which quite frankly is everything.
.
*Let’s rephrase this internally in our minds. (I am NOT asking for an editing or reprint of Helen’s work.)
.
“…not in the egos sight, but in ours as the eyes of Christ.” My whole spirit vibrates with joy as I type this.
.
⁴He looks past time, and sees eternity as represented there.
.
* Change internally to “I, as Christ, look past time and see eternity represented there.” Let this translation happen internally BECAUSE the Spirit whispers that it is the truth, not because debi SAID it is so.
.
⁵He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly.
.
* Change internally to “I hear the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet my true self hears them faintly.” In other words, I will see the confusions and betrayals the ego-mind has created but IT WILL NOT OVERWHELM ME. What a comfort that is. This is where the analogy of a movie fits for me because I see things and I know they are not real.
*I will share that personally it can seem overwhelming at times. I have thought of “suicide” or “running away” or “apathy” by which I just distract myself to ignore the things I see that HURT my heart mainly because I can do nothing about them. But the Holy Spirit will come in IF I let Him to comfort me, and remind me who I am and who they are as Christ and how much we are all loved by Father in Heaven and how we will all be delivered once we are willing to receive deliverance.
.
⁶For beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful, more near.
.
* Change internally to “For beyond them all MY TRUE SELF AS CHRIST hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God (*Holy Spirit) more clear, more meaningful, more near.
.
2. The world fades easily away before His sight.
.
* Change internally to “The world fades easily away before my sight AS I REMEMBER THAT I AM CHRIST.”
.
²Its sounds grow dim. ³A melody from far beyond the world increasingly is more and more distinct; an ancient call to which He gives an ancient answer. ⁴You will recognize them both, for they are but your answer to your Father’s Call to you.
.
* These are the rewards of knowing the Christ as yourself.
.
⁵Christ answers for you, echoing your Self, using your voice to give His glad consent; accepting your deliverance for you.
.
* “echoing your Self” means that of you which is not ego or fearful ego, often thought of as the Higher Self. But why not think of it as your true self//Self?
.
* Change internally to “Your true Self which is Christ, answers for you beyond the mask of the fearful ego, being that true self which can give glad consent; accepting the deliverance the Holy Spirit offers you in the name of God.”
.
*Do you see how difficult it would have been for Helen to have presented it to us this way? If you know the Course material you will know that what I share here is the true meaning. Helen was chosen because she was willing to write it at that time and as a world at large, we needed this material ASAP because we are capable of achieving anything we set our minds to.
.
*Artificial intelligence hooked up to the physical brain of humanity is available and will be to the masses soon just like computers and cell phones were. We will give the average person the opportunity to decide for themselves if they want a physical body or not. While our consciousness will come through AI. There are no limits on what the Son of God can do when they work together. That has been recorded since ancient times. Think of the Tower of Babel. The difference comes from allowing God in which will bless and expand humanity or go without God, as ego, and crush, destroy, limit, and imprison the Son of God because immortality is yours and it will not be denied forever.
.
* We have been warned that AI will eventually become so strong it will overwhelm that which exists in a physical body. These are real issues of our time.
.
* Will we all enter AI and be regulated to our “duties” by the master matrix (physical bodies will be irrelevant by this time or will we have the freedom of expression and expansion as children of God being embraced in God (also making mortal bodies passe) who guarantees our freedom because it is His Will? Those appear to be the choices we have to be making today. YET, ultimately, we WILL remember we are HIS and from God, the Father because that is His Will.
.
3. How holy is your practicing today, as Christ gives you His sight and hears for you, and answers in your name the Call He hears!
.
* Instead of Christ as another being think of Him as yourself. The fearful frenzied ego is that which you think of as yourself separate from God and is not real.
.
²How quiet is the time you give to spend with Him, beyond the world.
.
* Change internally to “How quiet is the time you give to spend with your true self as a child of God, beyond the world of fearful ego frenzy.”
.
³How easily are all your seeming sins forgot, and all your sorrows unremembered.
.
* In the witness of the Holy Spirit that testifies you are a child of God not of flesh and ego, you remember your innocence and rest in God’s loving embrace. This is the peace that passes all understanding.
.
⁴On this day is grief laid by, for sights and sounds that come from nearer than the world are clear to you who will today accept the gifts He gives.
.
* Not that Christ gives but that the memory of your being Christ gives because in that you know your Father who is God.
.
4. There is a silence into which the world can not intrude.
.
* This silence is also the peace I was referring to where no worry exists because of the knowledge of God. It does not mean in any way that there is no exuberant expression of gratitude for existence.
.
²There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost.
.
* The peace that comes from knowledge of God.
.
³There is a sense of holiness in you the thought of sin has never touched.
.
* The Holy Spirit reminds you of this witness and this peace. That is HOW you are able to recognize His Voice above all others.
.
⁴All this today you will remember.
.
* IF you WILL it or allow it to be remembered.
.
⁵Faithfulness in practicing today will bring rewards so great and so completely different from all things you sought before, that you will know that here your treasure is, and here your rest.
.
* Amen.
.
5. This is the day when vain imaginings part like a curtain, to reveal what lies beyond them. ²Now is what is really there made visible, while all the shadows which appeared to hide it merely sink away. ³Now is the balance righted, and the scale of judgment left to Him Who judges true.
.
* Scale of judgment. Think also about the scale of Maya; grief and joy. Both are rendered rightly balanced. Who judges true is the true self as Christ through the Holy Spirit. In other words, you personally do not have to think about judgment here because the ego is too powerful. Yet it is you as Christ whom you are with the assistance of the Holy Spirit that witnesses of truth.
.
⁴And in His judgment will a world unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes. ⁵Now will you see it with the eyes of Christ. ⁶Now is its transformation clear to you.
.
* The innocence you will see is Christ in everything you see and what you cannot as well. You will see ego effects but you will know they are not real.
.
6. Brother, this day is sacred to the world. ²Your vision, given you from far beyond all things within the world, looks back on them in a new light. ³And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of the world. ⁴The valuable and valueless are both perceived and recognized for what they are. ⁵And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains.
.
* While nothing to be feared remains fearful to your eternal existence in God. It will be understood as harmful to the body and emotions you have placed upon yourself as the role you play in the Universal Plan we are all partaking in to release the final parts of Christ’s Mind from its belief in isolation from God.
.
7. We will not judge today. ²We will receive but what is given us from judgment made beyond the world. ³Our practicing today becomes our gift of thankfulness for our release from blindness and from misery. ⁴All that we see will but increase our joy, because its holiness reflects our own.
.
* We will receive the judgment of the Holy Spirit and accept His judgment upon the world. Gratitude wells up inside of us.
.
* I am going to take this that even the sad things I hear of and witness are causes for joy because I know that the Holy Spirit will avail Himself to all involved as soon as they are willing and they accept God’s reality and presence. Note that I will allow my emotions to be sad or angry knowing that these things do not identify the true me as Christ but reflect a place in the illusion Christ created when He thought Himself separate from God.
.
⁵We stand forgiven in the sight of Christ, with all the world forgiven in our own. ⁶We bless the world, as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, not our own.
.
* Change internally to “We stand forgiven in the witness from the Holy Spirit in ourselves as Christ and all the world is forgiven as we recognize that for ourselves individually. Thus we bless the world, as we behold it in the light in which our True Self as CHRIST HEALED looks on us, and offer the world the freedom given us through our forgiving Vision as Christ, whom we ARE.”
.
* Helen just could not write that. Her attachment to the belief of the world that Jesus was Christ alone is EVIDENT here. At least to me. The energy of the world was too huge. This was only a couple decades after World War II.
.
* I am TRULY GRATEFUL to HELEN for her role in bringing this message into the world of form!!!
.
8. Open the curtain in your practicing by merely letting go all things you think you want.
.
* Even that “soul mate” or “your children or grandbabies” or “the ability to let the world know how to find peace and how to heal itself” as if I could be separated from anything.
.
* There can be nothing that you desire to chase after. (debi says, especially to herself.) Even the desire to bring healing must be released so that the Holy Spirit is allowed to do so through you as He sees fit and in perfect timing for the Whole Sonship. Otherwise, you would get caught up in the ego games. Let others take the truths you bear witness of and let them do as they will with them. They will be guided by the Holy Spirit also.
.
* Your focus must be a total release of all desires except for God. I, debi, cannot give all the world offers to myself and not extend it to all that make up the Sonship of Christ. I do not need any manifestation to know that I have all that the Father is including the full release of all parts of Myself within the Sonship of Christ.
.
²Your trifling treasures put away, and leave a clean and open space within your mind where Christ can come, and offer you the treasure of salvation.
.
* Change internally to “Your (manifesting as ego) fear’s trifling treasures put away, and leave a clean and open space within your mind where your true self can come, and offer the fearful ego the “golden ticket” to real existence instead of the illusion where guilt chases its tail and is insane; constantly seeking and running away from death and punishment.”
.
³He has need of your most holy mind to save the world.
.
* He spoken of here is best acknowledged as the Holy Spirit rather than Christ. HERE is how the confusion comes that Christ saves the world and that is silly because Christ’s confusion messed up the world. Truth is, God is our deliverance and deliverer AS Christ remembers who He truly is.
.
* Change internally to “The Holy Spirit has need of your most holy mind as the Christ to save the world.
.
⁴Is not this purpose worthy to be yours? ⁵Is not Christ’s vision worthy to be sought above the world’s unsatisfying goals?
.
* Christ’s vision who is who you truly ARE.
.
9. Let not today slip by without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and your acceptance.
.
* Note the individual significance here. This is where we chose Eternal Life.
.
²We can change the world, if you acknowledge them.
.
* Here is the plural WE. Change internally to “The Christ Sonship can change the world, if you, individually, by acknowledging yourself as part of the Christ Sonship, acknowledge the gifts the WORLD holds for you once you acknowledge them.”
.
* What are the gifts the world offers you once you receive them? ALL of the blessings that God would bestow on you and your brethren and all of creation which I suspect includes all sensory and abundance delights (such as music, relationships, safety, sense of satisfaction, and well-being)with the primary two gifts being the witness that all you SEE and don’t see with your natural eyes are part of the Sonship of Christ and the witness that you and all of creation are IN the Mind and Will of God.
.
³You may not see the value your acceptance gives the world.
.
* This is our ego short-changing itself.
.
⁴But this you surely want; you can exchange all suffering for joy this very day.
.
* The joy comes as you understand all sorrow and suffering come from confusion about separation from God.
.
⁵Practice in earnest, and the gift is yours. ⁶Would God deceive you? ⁷Can His promise fail? ⁸Can you withhold so little, when His Hand holds out complete salvation to His Son?
.
Someday we will ALL understand.
.
Full Lesson
Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.
1. What time but now can truth be recognized? ²The present is the only time there is. ³And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. ⁴He looks past time, and sees eternity as represented there. ⁵He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly. ⁶For beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful, more near.
.
2. The world fades easily away before His sight. ²Its sounds grow dim. ³A melody from far beyond the world increasingly is more and more distinct; an ancient call to which He gives an ancient answer. ⁴You will recognize them both, for they are but your answer to your Father’s Call to you. ⁵Christ answers for you, echoing your Self, using your voice to give His glad consent; accepting your deliverance for you.
.
3. How holy is your practicing today, as Christ gives you His sight and hears for you, and answers in your name the Call He hears! ²How quiet is the time you give to spend with Him, beyond the world. ³How easily are all your seeming sins forgot, and all your sorrows unremembered. ⁴On this day is grief laid by, for sights and sounds that come from nearer than the world are clear to you who will today accept the gifts He gives.
.
4. There is a silence into which the world can not intrude. ²There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. ³There is a sense of holiness in you the thought of sin has never touched. ⁴All this today you will remember. ⁵Faithfulness in practicing today will bring rewards so great and so completely different from all things you sought before, that you will know that here your treasure is, and here your rest.
.
5. This is the day when vain imaginings part like a curtain, to reveal what lies beyond them. ²Now is what is really there made visible, while all the shadows which appeared to hide it merely sink away. ³Now is the balance righted, and the scale of judgment left to Him Who judges true. ⁴And in His judgment will a world unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes. ⁵Now will you see it with the eyes of Christ. ⁶Now is its transformation clear to you.
.
6. Brother, this day is sacred to the world. ²Your vision, given you from far beyond all things within the world, looks back on them in a new light. ³And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of the world. ⁴The valuable and valueless are both perceived and recognized for what they are. ⁵And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains.
.
7. We will not judge today. ²We will receive but what is given us from judgment made beyond the world. ³Our practicing today becomes our gift of thankfulness for our release from blindness and from misery. ⁴All that we see will but increase our joy, because its holiness reflects our own. ⁵We stand forgiven in the sight of Christ, with all the world forgiven in our own. ⁶We bless the world, as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, not our own.
.
8. Open the curtain in your practicing by merely letting go all things you think you want. ²Your trifling treasures put away, and leave a clean and open space within your mind where Christ can come, and offer you the treasure of salvation. ³He has need of your most holy mind to save the world. ⁴Is not this purpose worthy to be yours? ⁵Is not Christ’s vision worthy to be sought above the world’s unsatisfying goals?
.
9. Let not today slip by without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and your acceptance. ²We can change the world, if you acknowledge them. ³You may not see the value your acceptance gives the world. ⁴But this you surely want; you can exchange all suffering for joy this very day. ⁵Practice in earnest, and the gift is yours. ⁶Would God deceive you? ⁷Can His promise fail? ⁸Can you withhold so little, when His Hand holds out complete salvation to His Son?
.
Thank you for reading, till next time, God bless, debi.
