My thoughts* on ACIM Urtext Lesson 24, for January 24, 2024. I do not perceive my own best interests.

I do not perceive my own best interests.

* NOW, SLOW DOWN A MINUTE.

* You WILL perceive what is in your own best interest ONCE you are “seeing” and “hearing” with the Vision of the Holy Spirit.

* OKAY, LET’S JUST BE CLEAR ABOUT THAT.

* These lessons are to take you to the place where that is where you LIVE.

1. In no situation that arises do you realize the outcome that would make you happy.

* NOPE. Not until you release EVERYONE and EVERYTHING and EVER IDEOLOGY and EVERY MISTAKE that has ever been made or ever will be made throughout TIME from punishment for the FICTIONAL and Temporary DELUSIONAL belief in separation from God.

²Therefore, you have no guide to appropriate action, and no way of judging the result.

* That you can see in ANY HISTORY that you want to look at.

³What you do is determined by your perception of the situation, and that perception is wrong.

* WRONG, because you and society (which is where cults come from and where we have all lived) have believed yourself separated from God.

⁴It is inevitable, then, that you will not serve your own best interests.

⁵Yet they are your only goal in any situation which is correctly perceived.

⁶Otherwise, you will not recognize what they are.

2. If you realized that you do not perceive your own best interests, you could be taught what they are. ²But in the presence of your conviction that you do know what they are, you cannot learn.

* CHA-CHING!!!

* You will not be willing to learn what you think you already know.

* THIS is why an attitude of “I don’t know anything” is SO IMPORTANT, Always ~ Continually ~, except for what you “know” by the Spirit and believe me you will come to know the difference.

³The idea for today is a step toward opening your mind so that learning can begin.

3. The exercises for today require much more honesty than you are accustomed to using. ²A few subjects, honestly and carefully considered in each of the five practice periods which should be undertaken today, will be more helpful than a more cursory examination of a large number. ³Two minutes are suggested for each of the mind-searching periods which the exercises involve.

4. The practice periods should begin with repeating today’s idea, followed by searching the mind, with closed eyes, for unresolved situations about which you are currently concerned.

²The emphasis should be on uncovering the outcome you want.

* “²The emphasis should be on uncovering the outcome you want.”

³You will quickly realize that you have a number of goals in mind as part of the desired outcome, and also that these goals are on different levels and often conflict.

5. In applying the idea for today, name each situation that occurs to you, and then enumerate carefully as many goals as possible that you would like to be met in its resolution.

²The form of each application should be roughly as follows:

³In the situation involving _________, I would like _________ to happen, and _________ to happen,

and so on.

⁴Try to cover as many different kinds of outcomes as may honestly occur to you, even if some of them do not appear to be directly related to the situation, or even to be inherent in it at all.

6. If these exercises are done properly, you will quickly recognize that you are making a large number of demands of the situation which have nothing to do with it. ²You will also recognize that many of your goals are contradictory, that you have no unified outcome in mind, and that you must experience disappointment in connection with some of your goals, however the situation turns out.

7. After covering the list of as many hoped-for goals as possible, for each unresolved situation that crosses your mind say to yourself:

²I do not perceive my own best interests in this situation,

and go on to the next one.

* I suggest this could be a good exercise ANYTIME one thinks that they are making goals on their own or with only “mortal intelligence and ingenuity” on hand. Hmm.

(ACIM, W-24.1:1–7:2)

* Free stock photo: I am not knocking any skill or task here. I am attempting to depict that we may not have all the skills that we think we do.

Till next time, God bless, debi.