My thoughts* on ACIM Urtext Lesson 12, for January 12, 2024. I see a meaningless world because I see a world that believes itself to be separate from God.
I am upset because I see a meaningless world.
* Right. I see a meaningless world because I see a world that believes itself to be separate from God.
* I wish I could share what is being revealed to me at this time. God is God because He is all that is or ever could be. Yet, He gave Himself FULLY to His Son that His Son might experience JOY and they could experience it together.
* God KNOWS, unlike our frightened feeling separated selves, that giving loses NOTHING. It only extends. And that, ETERNALLY. This is what God has given us as His Sonship. HIS ETERNAL EXTENSION of diversity in JOY celebrated in form and through the spiritual eyes and ears of His Son Who is ABLE to SEE the Father and not ONLY the work of his (the son’s) own hands. Could this not be what the story of Cain and Able was meant to share in its original expression in antiquity?
* We return to the understanding that we ARE His Son’s as we allow ourselves to become “the Observer” of the expression of God’s Love in our expression of existence one with another.
1. The importance of this idea lies in the fact that it contains a correction for a major perceptual distortion. ²You think that what upsets you is a frightening world, or a sad world, or a violent world, or an insane world. ³All these attributes are given it by you. ⁴The world is meaningless in itself.
* The world is meaningless BECAUSE God is NOT ALLOWED to be seen there by His Son (you and me).
* What has saved my “ass” in sharing what I do and not thinking that I know anything is that I know that it is God Who has existence here. I do not ~ ~ AND yet, BECAUSE I acknowledge God I have experience, and am able to declare that He EXISTS, is REAL, and IS TO BE WORSHIPPED because without God’s existence “I” would have NOTHING to see as stated in this lesson.
* THIS gives me the PEACE, JOY, and Happiness that I have regardless of what “the world” appears to be doing.
* THIS makes me His Son, or at least part of the Sonship that is Christ, and is quite different from the esoteric ideas that have been placed onto the Course material as if they were “the Golden Finger of God, Himself.” Think not that this misinterpretation has done a lot to give us the world that we see before us today. We have within our power the ability to SEE GOD and thereby KNOW that we exist WITH HIS PERMISSION AND DELIGHT to celebrate existence with Him and one another JOYOUSLY and ETERNALLY in the Holy Instant of NOW that knows God IS.
2. These exercises are done with eyes open. ²Look around you, this time quite slowly. ³Try to pace yourself so that the slow shifting of your glance from one thing to another involves a fairly constant time interval. ⁴Do not allow the time of the shift to become markedly longer or shorter, but try, instead, to keep a measured, even tempo throughout. ⁵What you see does not matter. ⁶You teach yourself this as you give whatever your glance rests on equal attention and equal time. ⁷This is a beginning step in learning to give them all equal value.
3. As you look about you, say to yourself:
²I think I see a fearful world, a dangerous world, a hostile world, a sad world, a wicked world, a crazy world,
and so on, using whatever descriptive terms happen to occur to you. ³If terms which seem positive rather than negative occur to you, include them. ⁴For example, you might think of “a good world,” or “a satisfying world.” ⁵If such terms occur to you, use them along with the rest. ⁶You may not yet understand why these “nice” adjectives belong in these exercises but remember that a “good world” implies a “bad” one, and a “satisfying world” implies an “unsatisfying” one. ⁷All terms which cross your mind are suitable subjects for today’s exercises. ⁸Their seeming quality does not matter.
4. Be sure that you do not alter the time intervals between applying today’s idea to what you think is pleasant and what you think is unpleasant. ²For the purposes of these exercises, there is no difference between them. ³At the end of the practice period, add:
⁴But I am upset because I see a meaningless world.
5. What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. ²Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? ³If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. ⁴But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. ⁵It is this you see in it. ⁶It is this that is meaningless in truth. ⁷Beneath your words is written the Word of God. ⁸The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His. ⁹That is the ultimate purpose of these exercises.
* “³If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy.”
* The Course has been taught to eliminate you and God from existing at all. Do NOT buy into that. You have existence as does everything else because God IS. It is releasing ALL that you interpret about the world today that will allow you to listen to the (Wholly) Holy Spirit Who is the Voice of All That Is, including God, the Father.
* “⁷Beneath your words is written the Word of God.” Beneath your understanding is written the TRUTH that is YOU as the Son of God.
6. Three or four times is enough for practicing the idea for today. ²Nor should the practice periods exceed a minute. ³You may find even this too long. ⁴Terminate the exercises whenever you experience a sense of strain.
* Remember, if you walk in the Spirit letting go of the idea that you “know what is going on” you do not need to actually do the exercises beyond listening to what the Holy Spirit would help you understand about it today.
(ACIM, W-12.1:1–6:4)
Till next time, God bless, debi
