ARCIM

Daily Lesson 141 ~
May 21

Introduction to Review of Lessons 121-140

Review Lessons 121 and 122

Introduction to Review of Lessons 121-140

Now we review again, this time aware we are preparing for the second part of this Workbook, the second part of learning how the Truth can be applied. Today we will begin to concentrate on readiness for what will follow next. Such is our aim for this review and for the lessons following. Thus we review the recent lessons and their central Thoughts in such a way as will facilitate the readiness that we would now achieve.

There is a central theme that unifies each step in the review we undertake, which can be simply stated in these words:

 

“My mind holds only what I think with the Divine.”

 

This is a Fact. It represents the Truth of what you are and What your Creator is. It is this Thought by which the Creator gave Creation to Its Children, establishing the Divine Family as Cocreator with Itself. It is this Thought that fully guarantees awakening to Its Children, for in their one mind no thoughts can dwell but those their Creator shares. Lack of forgiveness blocks this Thought from their awareness. Yet It is forever true.

Let us begin our preparation for this review with some understanding of the many forms in which the lack of true forgiveness may be carefully concealed. Because these forms are illusions, they are not perceived as what they really are: defenses that protect your unforgiving thoughts from being perceived and recognized. Their purpose is to show you something else, and hold correction off through self-deceptions made to take the place of true forgiveness.

And yet your mind holds only what you think with the Divine. Your self-deceptions cannot take the place of Truth, any more than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides, the warming of the water by the Sun, the silver of the Moon on it at night.

So do we start each practice period in this review with this perfectly true Thought:

 

“My mind holds only what I think with the Divine.”

 

And with this Thought we ready our minds to understand the lessons that we read, and see the Meaning that they offer us.

Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in Freedom and in Peace. Open your mind and clear it of all thoughts that would obscure your true function here from your awareness, and let this Thought alone engage it fully and remove the rest:

 

“My mind holds only what I think with the Divine.”

 

Five minutes with this Thought will be enough to set the day along the lines that the Divine appointed, and to place Its Mind in charge of all the Thoughts you will receive that day. They will not come from you alone, for They will all be shared with the Divine. And so each one will bring the Message of Its Love to you, returning messages of yours to It. So will communion with the Creator and Its perfect Creation be yours, as It has willed it be. And as Its Own Completion joins with It, so will It join with you who are complete as you unite with It and It with you.

After this daily preparation, merely read each of the two ideas assigned to you to be reviewed that day. Then close your eyes and say them slowly to yourself. There is no hurry now, for you are using time for its intended Purpose. Let each word shine with the Meaning the Divine has given it as it was given to you through Its Voice. Let each idea that you review each day give you the Gift that Spirit has laid in it for you to have of It.

During the day we will use no format for our practicing but this: Each hour of the day bring to your mind the Thought with which the day began, and spend a quiet moment with It. Then repeat unhurriedly the two ideas you are practicing for the day, with time enough to see the Gifts that they contain for you, and let these Gifts be received where They were meant to be.

We add no other thoughts in this review, but let the two ideas for each day be the messages they are. We need no more than this to give us happiness and rest and endless quiet, perfect Certainty, and all that our Creator wills that we receive as the Inheritance we have of It.

We close each day of review as we began the day, repeating the Thought that made the day a special time of blessing and of happiness for us, and through our faithfulness restored the world from darkness to the Light, from grief to Joy, from pain to Peace, from guilt to Holiness:

 

“My mind holds only what I think with the Divine.”

 

The Divine offers thanks to you who practice thus the keeping of Its Word. And as you give your mind to the ideas for the day again before you sleep, Its Gratitude surrounds you in the Peace wherein It wills you be forever, and are learning now to receive again as your Inheritance.

 

Review Lessons 121 and 122

My mind holds only what I think with the Divine.

Lesson 121. Forgiveness is the key to Peace and Happiness.

Lesson 122. My forgiveness offers everything I want.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 12: The Holy Spirit’s Course of Instruction

 

1. The One Sensible Interpretation of All Motivation

This Course has asked you not to make error real in your own mind, and the way to do this is very simple. If you want to believe in error you first have to make it real to yourself, because error is not true. But Truth is real, and therefore to believe in Truth you do not have to do anything. Understand that you do not respond to stimuli themselves, but you do respond to stimuli as you frame and interpret them. Your interpretation thus becomes the justification for your response. That is why analyzing the motives of others is hazardous to you. If you decide that someone is really trying to attack you personally (rather than themself), or abandon you or imprison you, you will respond as if they had actually done so, because you will have made their error real to yourself. To interpret error instead of simply seeing beyond it to its Remedy is to give it power, and, having done this, you will overlook Truth.

The analysis of ego motivation is very complicated, very obscuring, and never without the risk of your own ego involvement. The entire process represents a clear-cut attempt to demonstrate your own ability to understand what you perceive, without the Help of Spirit. This is demonstrated by the fact that you react to your interpretations as if they were correct, and attempt to control your reactions behaviorally, but not emotionally. This is quite evidently a mental split, in which you have attacked the integrity of your own mind, and pitted one level within it against another.

There is only one interpretation of all motivation that makes any true sense, and because it is the Holy Spirit’s Interpretation it requires no effort at all on your part:

 

Every loving thought is true. Everything else is an appeal for help and healing.

 

Errors, or lacks of Love, are appeals for Love, regardless of the forms they take. Can anyone be justified in responding to a plea for help with anger, rejection, or even fear? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give help to those appealing for it, regardless of the forms these appeals take, for this and only this is what they are really asking for. Offer them anything else and you are assuming the right to attack their experience, by interpreting and framing it as you deem fit.

Perhaps the danger to your own mind of rejecting another’s call for help because of the form it takes has not yet become fully apparent to you. But this by no means signifies that it is not perfectly clear and capable of being understood. If you maintain that an appeal for help is something else, you will react to something else, and your response will be inappropriate to Reality as It is, though not to your perception of It. This is poor reality-confirmation by definition. In truth there is nothing preventing you from recognizing all calls for help as exactly what they are, except your own perceived need to defend yourself, in whatever form this need assumes. It is only your own defenses – whether these are expressed as fear and dissociation or aggression and attack – that makes you willing to engage in endless “battles” with Reality, in which you deny the reality of the need for healing by making it unreal in your own mind. You would not do this except for your unwillingness to perceive Reality as it is, which causes you to withhold Reality from yourself.

It is surely good advice for a person not to judge what they do not understand. It is also generally accepted that those with personal investments in situations may not be reliable witnesses, for truth for them can easily become what they want it to be. If you are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help as what it is, it must be because you are unwilling to give help, and to receive it. The analysis by other egos of an ego’s “real” motivation in what it does through its host is the modern equivalent of an “inquisition.” For in both, a brother’s or sister’s errors are “uncovered” for them, and the person is then attacked “for their own good.” What can this be but mis-projection? For the misperceived motivation of their errors actually lies in the minds of their interpreters, for which those judged to be in violation of the expectations projected onto them are punished.

Whenever you fail to recognize a call for help as what it truly is, you are by this very act refusing help. Would you maintain that you do not need help? Yet this is what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize a brother’s or sister’s need and appeal for help. For only by responding to their appeal appropriately can you be helped in the healing of your own lacks of Love. Deny them your help, and you will not perceive the Divine’s Answer to you. The Holy Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation, but you do need Its.

Appreciation is always the only appropriate response to your sisters and brothers. Gratitude is due them both for their loving Thoughts and their appeals for help, for both are capable of bringing Love into your awareness, if you interpret and perceive them truly. And all your sense of strain comes from your attempts not to do just this.

How simple, then, is the Divine’s Plan of Awakening. There is only one appropriate response to Reality, for Reality evokes no conflict at all. There is only one Teacher of Reality, Who understands what Reality is. This Teacher does not change Its Mind about Reality, because Reality does not change. Although your interpretations of Reality are meaningless in your divided state, Spirit’s remain consistently true. It gives Its Interpretations to you because they are for you.

Do not attempt to “help” a brother or sister in your way, for you cannot even help yourself. Rather hear their call for the Help of the Divine, and you will recognize your own need for your Creator. Your interpretation of your sister’s and brother’s needs is your interpretation of your own. By giving help as you are guided to give it, you will be truly asking for it. And if you perceive only this one need in yourself, you will be healed. For you will recognize the Divine’s Answer as you want It to be, and if you want It truly, It will be truly yours. Every appeal for help from your sisters and brothers that you answer in the Name of Divine Essence brings the Remembrance of your Creator closer to your awareness. For the sake of your need, then, hear every call for help as what it is, so the Divine can answer you.