My thoughts* on ACIM Urtext Lesson 184, for July 2, 2024. You live by symbols.
The Name of God is my inheritance.
1. You live by symbols.
* You still do even once you have accepted the Atonement and will through this lifetime. I think of it as “signs” also from the Spirit that tell me that I am going in the right direction.
²You have made up names for everything you see.
* I do love having the concept that everything is Christ and God! It rearranging things for me.
³Each one becomes a separate entity, identified by its own name.
⁴By this you carve it out of unity.
* From WITHIN the understanding of the Atonement the Holy Spirit is helping me sift through what has appeared separated before and giving me a new or different experience and perception. This one is helping restore that sense of unity.
⁵By this you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it.
⁶This space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings in terms of place and time; all bodies which are greeted by a name.
* From within the Atonement I do not see ‘space’ or at least the concept is altering for me.
* I see only God, the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit EVERYWHERE.
* “Space” for me is more boundaries that allow each of us as a component of the Body of Christ to have its own identity. If I need to allow other’s ‘space’ I think of it as giving them fully into God’s Care and not wrapping them up in my expectations and personal wants or issues. Otherwise, I acknowledge NO SEPARATION.
2. This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world’s perception is achieved.
²You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you.
* It is in the depths of this discussion that I suspect that the confusion about duality or non-duality comes in for many Course students.
³Thus do you think that you have given life in separation.
* We, as a society/planet/cosmos had not seen ourselves as ONE, thankfully, this is changing.
⁴By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will.
* This is curious! “AN” independent will suggests that the Whole of Christ is functioning as the one ego and not multitudes. From my years of studying the Course, I would suggest that it covers both forms. First, a will separate from God and then a will to each part that is the Body of Christ.
* Mind you it is the “will” part that is in question here, NOT the fact there is a mind that sees its will as that of the Father. In desiring a Son God established a relationship of recognition between the two and continues that into all that is.
* To be in union with the Father’s Will is our Truth and Reality and why we can Trust Him to give us what is best for us to guide us in all that we do and say.
3. What are these names by which the world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept apart and holding bits of mind as separate awarenesses?
²You gave these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have perception be.
³The nameless things were given names, and thus reality was given them as well.
⁴For what is named is given meaning and will then be seen as meaningful; a cause of true effect, with consequence inherent in itself.
* Recognition of an Original Universal God gives fluency and freedom to all that exists.
4. This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth.
* This is the way that we created an illusion or Matrix to live within.
²Its enemy is wholeness.
³It conceives of little things and looks upon them.
⁴And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision that sees differently, become the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny.
* From within the Atonement we understand that conflict is not real, all blessings are truly ours, and everything works in our favor because God IS and we are all safely within Him.
5. Yet does this other vision still remain a natural direction for the mind to channel its perception.
²It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names, and thousands more.
³Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved, and concepts can be meaningfully shared.
* This is from an era that we no longer exist in. Today we are more willing to use feeling and intuition. But we cannot deny the Father as the Whole Creator or we still fall short. He is speaking to them 50 years ago.
6. This is the sum of the inheritance the world bestows.
²And everyone who learns to think that it is so accepts the signs and symbols that assert the world is real.
* It is not so much changing the world that we want to do as how we look at it. The rest will follow.
³It is for this they stand.
⁴They leave no doubt that what is named is there.
⁵It can be seen, as is anticipated.
⁶What denies that it is true is but illusion, for it is the ultimate reality.
* People coming into the world on the autism spectrum are not “able or willing” to accept those definitions we have given the world we think of as real, and they are doing a great service in loosening the consciousness from the idea that xyz is how things are.
⁷To question it is madness; to accept its presence is the proof of sanity.
* If anyone or anything questions the status quo it is seen as wrong, false, or insane.
7. Such is the teaching of the world.
²It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through.
³But the sooner he perceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises, how doubtful its results, the sooner does he question its effects.
⁴Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning.
* Can you imagine how irksome that might have felt to these individuals who were very much living off the bounty of higher education on these very terms!
* Jesus was saying that their educations lacked meaning.
* And they may have been well aware of Man’s Search for Meaning as a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose to each person’s life through one of three ways: the completion of tasks, caring for another person, or finding meaning by facing suffering with dignity.
* I suspect that this would have been a significant statement for them. I know that it is for me.
⁵In its proper place, it serves but as a starting point from which another kind of learning can begin, a new perception can be gained, and all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn as they are raised to doubt.
* “In its proper place, it serves” so let’s not bash or demean education as we recognize it today.
* I like this, “all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn as they are raised to doubt.” Arbitrary: adjective, based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
* Our vocabulary is always adjusting. This will continue with an increased ability to share concepts with little use of symbols or words.
* I can see how a mass acceptance of a Universal Supreme Creator of All That Is would help facilitate this adjustment in communications.
8. Think not you made the world.
²Illusions, yes!
³But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming.
* Earth and Heaven are One Singular Reality in God.
⁴When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal.
⁵His true Identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is.
⁶His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own.
⁷And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his.
* When, in fact, he is a part of what you are and what is All That Is.
9. It would indeed be strange if you were asked to go beyond all symbols of the world, forgetting them forever; yet were asked to take a teaching function.
²You have need to use the symbols of the world a while.
* So do not accept the idea that the world must be seen as totally NOT THERE AS HAS BEEN THE INTERPRETATION of the Course for 50 years. Utilize what is usable under the Guidance of the Holy Spirit and let Him do the work of clearing out what is not real.
³But be you not deceived by them as well.
* I am going to share a personal moment to share how I see this play out in my life.
⁴They do not stand for anything at all, and in your practicing it is this thought that will release you from them.
⁵They become but means by which you can communicate in ways the world can understand, but which you recognize is not the unity where true communication can be found.
10. Thus what you need are intervals each day in which the learning of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go into the sunlight and forget the darkness.
²Here you understand the Word, the Name which God has given you; the one Identity which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true.
* Oneness, Christ, and Love are three of the words that I have felt enter into this.
³And then step back to darkness, not because you think it real, but only to proclaim its unreality in terms which still have meaning in the world that darkness rules.
* This IS what I do today. Or at least attempt to do.
11. Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness.
* I use everything that happens to me as a reflection of how to express what I understand today.
* Delineate means to describe or portray (something) precisely: “the law should delineate and prohibit behavior that is socially abhorrent,” indicate the exact position of (a border or boundary).
* It is the attempt to unite what has been separated.
²Yet accept them not as your reality.
* The Atonement gives me this understanding and place of refuge when things get goofy. I know that forgiveness by remembering that God IS All That Could Be is where I am and that it is okay if I do not do it how I think I should or how someone else thinks I should. That does NOT mean that I do not try to do my best every step of the way.
³The Holy Spirit uses all of them, but He does not forget creation has one Name, one meaning, and a single Source which unifies all things within Itself.
⁴Use all the names the world bestows on them but for convenience, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with you.
12. God has no name.
²And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson does all learning end.
* This is a concept that can be seen as saying that once we believe that we have grasped the sense of Oneness we are done learning and the reality is that until we all do this we will continue to learn. If only new ways to listen to the Holy Spirit and to assist others in being able to find the light within themselves. In other words, the learning of truth may be done but the work is not until all have been restored to Heaven.
³All names are unified; all space is filled with truth’s reflection.
⁴Every gap is closed, and separation healed.
⁵The Name of God is the inheritance He gave to those who chose the teaching of the world to take the place of Heaven.
⁶In our practicing, our purpose is to let our minds accept what God has given as the answer to the pitiful inheritance you made as fitting tribute to the Son He loves.
13. No one can fail who seeks the meaning of the Name of God.
²Experience must come to supplement the Word.
³But first you must accept the Name for all reality, and realize the many names you gave its aspects have distorted what you see, but have not interfered with truth at all.
⁴One Name we bring into our practicing.
⁵One Name we use to unify our sight.
14. And though we use a different name for each awareness of an aspect of God’s Son, we understand that they have but one Name, which He has given them.
²It is this Name we use in practicing.
³And through Its use, all foolish separations disappear which kept us blind.
⁴And we are given strength to see beyond them.
⁵Now our sight is blessed with blessings we can give as we receive.
15. Father, our Name is Yours.
²In It we are united with all living things, and You Who are their one Creator.
³What we made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your Own reality.
⁴And we are glad and thankful we were wrong.
⁵All our mistakes we give to You, that we may be absolved from all effects our errors seemed to have.
⁶And we accept the truth You give, in place of every one of them.
⁷Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made.
⁸Your Name unites us in the oneness which is our inheritance and peace.
⁹Amen.
* I find this a bit frustrating over all. I sense that something has been left out to lend to the mystery that God is that some ‘individual’ will need to define for us.
* Christ, Love, Oneness, these are terms that represent the God that I understand and worship as the Father of All Creation and Source of my strength, consciousness, and those blessings of Peace, Happiness, and Joy.
(ACIM, W-184.1:1–15:9)
Till next time, God bless, debi.
