ARCIM

Daily Lesson 104 ~
April 14

I seek only what belongs to me in Truth.

Today’s idea continues with the Thought that Joy and Peace are not idle dreams. They are your Inheritance because of what you are. They come to you from the Divine, Who cannot fail to give you what It wills. Yet must there be a place made ready to receive Its Gifts. They are not welcomed gladly by a mind that has instead received the gifts it made itself where the Divine’s Gifts belong, as substitutes for Them.

Today we would remove all meaningless and self-made gifts that we have placed upon the holy Altar where the Divine’s Gifts belong. The Divine’s are the Gifts that are our own in Truth. These are the Gifts that we inherited before time was, and that will still be ours when time has passed into Eternity. These are the Gifts that are within us now, for They are timeless. And we need not wait to have Them. They belong to us today. Therefore we will to receive Them now, and know that in choosing Them in place of what we made we simply unite our will with what the Divine wills, and recognize that what is the same is One.

Our longer practice periods today, the hourly five minutes given to the Truth for your awakening, should begin with this:

“I seek only what belongs to me in Truth, and Joy and Peace are my Inheritance.”

Then lay aside the conflicts of the world that offer other gifts and other goals made of illusions, witnessed to by them, and sought for only in a world of dreams. All this we lay aside, and seek instead that which is truly ours, as we ask to recognize what the Divine has given us. We clear a holy place within our minds before Its Altar, where Its Gifts of Peace and Joy are welcome, and to which we come to find what has been given us by the Divine. We come in confidence today, aware that what belongs to us in Truth is what It gives. And we would wish for nothing else, for nothing else belongs to us in Truth.

So do we clear the way for the Divine today by simply recognizing that Its Will is done already, and that Joy and Peace belong to us as Its eternal Gifts.

We will not let ourselves lose sight of these Gifts between the times we come to seek for Them where the Divine has laid Them. This reminder will we bring to mind as often as we can:

“I seek only what belongs to me in Truth.

The Divine’s Gifts of Joy and Peace are all I want.”

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 7: Healing and the Realm of Heaven Within

 

6. The Blessed Response to Dark Dreams

Whenever you deny a blessing to a brother or sister, you will feel deprived. This is because denial is as total as Love. It is as impossible to deny Part of the Divine Family as it is to love It in part. Nor is it possible to love It totally at times. You cannot be totally committed sometimes. Remember an early thought in this Course: “Never underestimate the power of denial.” Denial has no power in itself, but you can give it the Power of your mind, whose Power is without limit of any kind.

If you use the Power of your mind to deny Reality, Reality is gone for you. Reality cannot be partly appreciated. That is why denying any part of Reality means you have lost awareness of all of It. That is the negative side of the law of denial as it operates in this world. Denial is a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as it is of being used destructively. Used negatively, as in denying a blessing to a brother or sister, denial will be destructive because it will be used for attack. But in the Service of the Holy Spirit the law becomes as beneficent as all of the Laws of the Divine. Stated positively, the law requires you only to recognize part of Reality to appreciate all of It. Mind is too powerful to be subject to exclusion, and so you will never be able to exclude yourself from what you project (or mis-project).

When a brother or sister acts insanely, they are offering you an opportunity to bless them. Their need is yours. You need the blessing you can offer them. There is no way for you to have it except by giving it. This is the core Law of the Divine, and it has no exceptions. What you deny you lack, not because it is lacking but because you have denied it in another, and therefore are not aware of it in yourself.

Every response you make is determined by what you think you are. And what you want to be is what you think you are. Therefore, what you want to be determines every response you make.

You do not need the Divine’s Blessing, because That you have forever. But you do need your blessing, because that you have withheld. The image you have made of yourself and your sisters and brothers is deprived, unloving, and very vulnerable. You cannot love this. But you can very easily escape from it, or better, leave it behind. You are not there, and that is not you. Do not perceive this image in anyone or you will have accepted it as yourself. All illusions about the Divine Family are dispelled together, as they were made together.

Teach no one that they are what you do not want to be. Your sisters and brothers are the mirror in which you will perceive the image of yourself, as long as perception lasts. And perception will last until the Divine Family knows Itself as Whole, and One.

The separated ones made perception, and it must last as long as you want it. Illusions are investments. They will last as long as you value them. Values are relative, but they are mental assessments and therefore powerful because they are of the mind. The only way to dispel illusions is to withdraw all investment from them, and then they will have no life for you because you will have put them out of your mind. While you include them in your mind, you are giving them life. Except that there is nothing there to receive your gift.

The Gift of Life is yours to give because It was given you. You are unaware of this Gift only when you do not give It, or give It where It cannot be used. You cannot make alive what is not there, because what is not there cannot be enlivened. As long as you try to do so, you have not extended the Gift you both have and are, and so you do not know your being. All confusion comes from not extending real Life, because it is the Will of the Creator that you do extend It. You can do nothing apart from your Creator, and you do do nothing apart from It. Keep Its Way to remember yourself, and teach Its Ways so that you don’t forget yourself. Give only honor to the Creations of the Divine, which alone have real Life, and count yourself among Them gladly.

Only honor is a fitting gift for those whom the Divine Itself created worthy of Honor, and whom It honors. Give them the appreciation that the Divine accords them always, because they are Its beloved Children in whom It is well pleased, even when they dream dark dreams in which they act insanely. You cannot be apart from your sisters and brothers because you are not apart from their Creator. Rest in Its Love, and protect your rest by loving. But love Everything It created, of which you are Part, or you cannot learn of the Divine’s Peace and Joy and accept Its Gifts for yourself, and as yourself.

You can only know your own Perfection when you have honored all those who were created perfect like you. One Child of the Divine is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach another. One Teacher is in all minds, and It teaches the same Lesson to all. It always teaches you the inestimable Worth of every Child of the Divine, including yourself, teaching it with infinite Patience born of the Love of the Divine for Whom It speaks. Every attack or expression of lack is a call for Its Patience, because only Its Patience can translate attack into blessing. Those who attack, even if they do so in “self-defense,” have forgotten and therefore do not know they are blessed. They attack because they believe they are deprived. Therefore in any situation of perceived scarcity or lack, give of your abundance, which is as boundless as the Realm of Heaven, and teach your sisters and brothers theirs. Do not share their delusions of scarcity or you will perceive yourself as lacking.

Attack could never prompt your counterattack unless you perceived the attack as a means of depriving you of something you value and want. But you cannot lose anything real unless you do not value it and therefore do not want it. Only this lack of appreciation makes you feel deprived of anything, and by projecting your rejection you believe that others are attempting to take something real from you. Appreciation makes loss impossible because it keeps safe your Oneness with the Divine in that which you appreciate. Only the Divine in each of Its Creations or Children can be truly appreciated.

It is fearful to believe that a brother or sister is attacking you to tear the Realm of Heaven from you. This belief is the ultimate basis for all of the ego’s mis-projections. Being the part of your mind that does not believe it is responsible for itself, and being without allegiance to the Divine, the ego is incapable of trust. Mis-projecting its insane belief that you have been treacherous to your Creator, it believes that your sisters and brothers, who are as incapable of this as you are, are out to take the Divine from you. Whenever a brother or sister, including yourself, attacks or counterattacks another, this is what they believe. Projection as well as mis-projection always perceives your will in others. If you will to separate yourself from the Divine, that is what you will think others are doing to you.

You are the Will of the Divine. Do not accept anything else as your will, or you will be denying what you are. Deny this and you will attack, because you will believe you have been attacked. But see the Love of the Divine in yourself, and you will see It everywhere because It is Everywhere. See Its Abundance in everyone, and you will know that you are in Love with them. They are part of you as you are Part of the Divine. You are as lonely without understanding this as the Divine Itself is lonely when Its Children do not know It. The Peace of the Divine is understanding this.

There is only one way out of the world’s thinking, just as there was only one way into it. Understand totally by understanding Totality. Perceive any part of the ego’s thought system as entirely insane, entirely delusional, and entirely undesirable, and you have correctly evaluated all of it. This Correction enables you to perceive any Part of Creation as wholly Real, wholly Perfect, and wholly Desirable. Wanting this only, you will have this only, and giving this only, you will be only this. The gifts you offer to the ego are always experienced as sacrifices. But the gifts you offer to the Realm of Heaven are gifts to yourself as well as to everyone. They will always be treasured by the Divine, because they belong to Its Beloved Children who belong to It. All Power and Glory are yours because the Realm is the Divine’s, and yours.