April 09, 2018

Day 123 - A Course in Miracles

Day 123 - A Course in Miracles



Chapter Eleven: God's Plan For Salvation
IV. The Investment in Reality

24 I once asked if you were willing to sell all you have and give to the poor and follow me. This is what I meant: If you had no investment in anything in this world, you could teach the poor where their treasure is. The poor are merely those who have invested wrongly, and they are poor indeed! Because they are in need, it is given you to help them since you are among them. Consider how perfectly your lesson would be learned if you were unwilling to share their poverty. For poverty is lack, and there is but one lack since there is but one need.

25 Suppose a brother insists on having you do something you think you do not want to do. The very fact of his insistence should tell you that he believes salvation lies in it. If you insist on refusing and experience a quick response of opposition, you are believing that your salvation lies in not doing it. You, then, are making the same mistake that he is and are making his error real to both of you. Insistence means investment, and what you invest in is always related to your notion of salvation. The question is always two-fold—first, what is to be saved, and second, how can it be saved?

26 Whenever you become angry with a brother, for whatever reason, you are believing that the ego is to be saved and to be saved by attack. If he attacks, you are agreeing with this belief, and if you attack, you are reinforcing it. Remember that those who attack are poor. Their poverty asks for gifts, not for further impoverishment. You who could help them are surely acting destructively if you accept their poverty as yours. If you had not invested as theyhad, it would never occur to you to overlook their need.

27 Recognize what does not matter, and if your brothers ask you for something "outrageous," do it because it does not matter. Refuse and your opposition establishes that it does matter to you. It is only you, therefore, who have made the request outrageous, for nothing can be asked of you, and every request of a brother is for you. Why would you insist in denying him? For to do so is to deny yourself and impoverish both. He is asking for salvation, as you are. Poverty is of the ego and never of God. No "outrageous" request can be made of one who recognizes what is valuable and wants to accept nothing else.

28 Salvation is for the mind, and it is attained through peace. This is the only thing that can be saved and the onlyway to save it. Any response other than love arises from a confusion about the "what" and the "how" of salvation, and this is the only answer. Never lose sight of this, and never allow yourself to believe even for an instant that there is another answer. For you will surely place yourself among the poor, who do not understand that they dwell in abundance and that salvation is come.

29 To identify with the ego is to attack yourself and make yourself poor. That is why everyone who identifies with the ego feels deprived. What he experiences then is depression or anger, but what he did is to exchange his self-love for self-hate, making him afraid of himself. He does not realize this. Even if he is fully aware of anxiety, he does not perceive its source as his own ego identification, and he always tries to handle it by making some sort of insane "arrangement" with the world. He always perceives this world as outside himself, for this is crucial to his adjustment. He does not realize that he makes this world, for there is no world outside of him.

30 If only the loving thoughts of God's Son are the world's reality, the real world must be in his mind. His insane thoughts, too, must be in his mind, but an internal conflict of this magnitude he cannot tolerate. A split mind isendangered, and the recognition that it encompasses completely opposed thoughts within itself is intolerable. Therefore the mind projects the split, not the reality. Everything you perceive as the outside world is merely your attempt to maintain your ego identification, for everyone believes that identification is salvation. Yet consider what has happened, for thoughts do have consequences to the thinker.

31 You are at odds with the world as you perceive it because you think it is antagonistic to you. This is a necessary consequence of what you have done. You have projected outward what is antagonistic to what is inward, and therefore you would have to perceive it this way. That is why you must realize that your hatred is in your mind and not outside it before you can get rid of it and why you must get rid of it before you can perceive the world as it really is.

32 We once said that God so loved the world that He gave it to His only-begotten Son. God does love the real world, and those who perceive its reality cannot see the world of death. For death is not of the real world, in which everything is eternal. God gave you the real world in exchange for the one you made out of your split mind, and which is the symbol of death. For if you could really separate yourselves from the Mind of God, you would die, and the world you perceive is a world of separation.

33 You were willing to accept even death to deny your Father. Yet He would not have it so, and so it is not so. You still could not will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is not a world of will because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him, and this desire is not will. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of any kind. For it was made out of what you do not want, projected from your mind because you were afraid of it.

34 Yet this world is only in the mind of its maker along with his real salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing where it is will you gain control over it. For you do have control over your mind since the mind is the mechanism of decision. If you will recognize that all attack which you perceive is in your own mind and nowhere else, you will at last have placed its source, and where it began it must end. For in this same place also lies salvation. The altar of God where Christ abideth is there.

35 You have defiled the altar but not the world. Yet Christ has placed the Atonement on the altar for you. Bring your perceptions of the world to this altar, for it is the altar to truth. There you will see your vision changed, and there you will learn to see truly. From this place, where God and His Son dwell in peace and where you are welcome, you will look out in peace and behold the world truly. Yet to find the place, you must relinquish your investment in the world as you have projected it, allowing the Holy Spirit to project the real world to you from the altar of God.



Workbook - L e s s o n 123


I thank my Father for His gifts to me.

1 Today let us be thankful. We have come to gentler pathways and to smoother roads. There is no thought of turning back and no implacable resistance to the truth. A bit of wavering remains, some small objections, and a little hesitance, but we can well be grateful for our gains, which are far greater than we realize.

2 A day devoted now to gratitude will add the benefit of some insight into the real extent of all the gains which you have made; the gifts you have received. Be glad today in loving thankfulness your Father has not left you to yourself, nor let you wander in the dark alone. Be grateful He has saved you from the self you thought you made to take the place of Him and His creation. Give Him thanks today.

3 Give thanks that He has not abandoned you and that His Love forever will remain shining on you, forever without change. Give thanks as well that you are changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself. Be grateful you are saved. Be glad you have a function in salvation to fulfill. Be thankful that your value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom God established as His Son.

4 Today in gratitude we lift our hearts above despair and raise our thankful eyes, no longer looking downward to the dust. We sing the song of thankfulness today in honor of the Self Which God has willed to be our true identity in Him. Today we smile on everyone we see and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to do what is appointed us to do. We do not go alone. And we give thanks that in our solitude a Friend has come to speak the saving Word of God to us.

5 And thanks to you for listening to Him. His Word is soundless if it be not heard. In thanking Him the thanks are yours as well. An unheard message will not save the world, however mighty be the Voice that speaks, however loving may the message be. Thanks be to you who heard, for you become the messenger who brings His Voice with you and let it echo round and round the world.

6 Receive the thanks of God today, as you give thanks to Him. For He would offer you the thanks you give, since He receives your gifts in loving gratitude and gives them back a thousand and a hundred thousand more than they were given. He will bless your gifts by sharing them with you, and so they grow in power and in strength until they fill the world with gladness and with gratitude.

7 Receive His thanks and offer yours to Him for 15 minutes twice today. And you will realize to Whom you offer thanks, and Whom He thanks as you are thanking Him. This holy half an hour given Him will be returned to you in terms of years for every second, power to save the world eons more quickly for your thanks to Him.

8 Receive His thanks, and you will understand how lovingly He holds you in His Mind, how deep and limitless His care for you, how perfect is His gratitude to you. Remember hourly to think of Him and give Him thanks for everything He gave His Son that he might rise above the world remembering his Father and his Self.


I thank my Father for His gifts to me.



365 Days Through A Course in Miracles
            A Daily Miracle Lesson


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* simple TABLE of CONTENTS! ...  with published posts until this moment.

START DAY: You can begin any time with the Teachings! Read, meditate and make the daily exercises, one by one, every day ... for 365 days! Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, ... until the completion of the 365 lessons!
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