ARCIM

Daily Lesson 50 ~
February 19

I am sustained by the Love of the Divine.

Here is the Answer to every problem that may confront you today, tomorrow, and throughout time. In this world, people believe they are sustained by everything but the Love of the Divine. Their faith is placed in the most trivial and nonsensical symbols, such as wealth, appearance, being liked, knowing the “right” people, savvy, success, and an endless list of forms of nothingness that they superstitiously endow with powers of magic or mere fantasy.

All these things are replacements for the Love of the Divine. All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification. They are songs of praise to the ego. Do not put your faith in the worthless. It will not sustain you.

Only the Love of the Divine will protect and sustain you in all circumstances. It will lift you out of every trial, and raise you high above all the perceived dangers of this world into a Realm of perfect Peace and Safety. It will transport you into a State of mind that nothing can threaten or disturb, and where nothing can intrude upon the eternal Calm of the Children of the Divine.

Put not your faith in illusions. They will fail you. Put all your faith in the Love of the Divine within you—eternal, changeless, and forever unfailing. This is the Answer to whatever confronts you today. Through the Love of the Divine in you, you can resolve all seeming difficulties without effort and with unassailable Confidence. Tell yourself this often today. It is a declaration of release from the belief in symbols and idols. It is your acknowledgment of the Truth about yourself.

Twice today, morning and evening, let the idea for today sink deep into your consciousness. Repeat it, think about it, let related thoughts come to help you recognize its Truth, and allow Peace to flow over you like a Mantle of Protection and Surety. Let no idle and foolish thoughts enter to disturb your holy mind. Such is the Realm of Heaven within you. Such is the Place of Rest and Peace where your Creator has placed you forever.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Principle of Miracles 50

The miracle brings human creative activity into the Realm of Divine Creation, accepting as true what is in accord with Divine Will and Its Creation, and returning what is discordant, or out of accord, as false and requiring refinement or correction where these would be meaningful.

Commentary

The process of Spirit helping every Child of the Divine to truly evaluate all their creative activity is part of the Universal Process of Validity, or Certainty of Truth. Because Validity is true it is useful in a world where the concept of usefulness is meaningful, that is, where some things are false and therefore useless. All aspects of fear are false and therefore invalid because they don’t exist at a true creative level, and therefore don’t exist at all. To whatever extent a person is willing to submit their beliefs to the Process of Validity, to that extent are their perceptions able to be corrected and healed.

In sorting out the false from the true as part of Spirit’s Evaluation, the miracle proceeds much along these lines:

 

Perfect Love casts out fear, so if fear is experienced, there isn’t perfect Love.

But only perfect Love really exists, therefore if fear is experienced, it indicates a state that doesn’t really exist.

 

Believe this and you will be free from fear. Only Spirit can establish this Freedom, for faith in the Certainty of Truth is Spirit’s Gift.

Each must do their part to establish their readiness for Validity, as in all other aspects of awakening. The readiness for faith, as for everything else that is true, entails the two steps necessary for the release from fear that were outlined previously: first, the recognition that darkness cannot hide anything from spiritual sight, and second, the recognition that there is nothing you would want to hide even if you could.

Once release from fear in any situation has been achieved through these two steps, this release can be maintained through the true use of denial, in the form of denying that fear has any actual power. It is much easier to be certain of this truth when you have released yourself and are free from fear, or in your right mind. And it is much easier to stay in your right mind, or maintain release from fear, when you remember this true use of denial.

The true use of denial applied to any form of error, including fear, is a strong defense because it addresses two levels of error. The first level of error is the belief that Validity or the Certainty of Truth (achieved in this world through Spirit’s Process of true Evaluation) can ever be denied. This error results from inconsistent miracle-mindedness.

The second level of error is the belief that anything can be effectively achieved through denying or ignoring Validity or Certainty. There is a Part of you that always knows, and this Part is denied or ignored in order to seek solutions that cannot work. This error results from the fear of Truth (i.e., the fear of Light discussed previously).

Consistent miracle-mindedness is the positive way to always affirm Validity, just as denying the reality of fear is the negative way. Recognizing fear when it arises and releasing yourself from it corrects the second, because in your right mind you know that only in alignment with Validity can anything worthwhile be accomplished.

Some people are more able to be consistently miracle-minded but less able to recognize fear when it comes up and release themselves from it. Others are less consistently miracle-minded but better able to recognize fear and release themselves from it when it comes up. However, these differences do not affect the Power of the miracle at all, since sorting out the false from the true through true Evaluation and correcting what isn’t aligned with Truth are its only concerns. When those with these different but complementary abilities join together as miracle workers, the conditions needed for consistent miracle-mindedness – the state in which fear has been abolished – can be particularly well worked out.

 

The principles of miracles we have now explored in some depth indicate the Real World that arises when the past is released and only the holy instant of Eternity that is now is your present experience. Here miracles are as natural as breathing. The Real World is simply what was the world of illusions when Atonement has been accepted into it.

You may wonder how you could ever free yourself from the past, given that the past seems to touch every experience you have ever had. And you would be right—you cannot free yourself, because your participation in illusion, active or passive, prevents you from remembering what Freedom means. But you have been freed from the past, and your Freedom awaits only your acceptance, not your effort. This Freedom is the Atonement.

Accept Atonement for yourself by remembering that you have been forgiven, and this means that all hurt and hate you have ever expressed or experienced have been canceled, or corrected and undone, permanently. Remember also that to truly accept Atonement for yourself means to extend It to all others, because that is who you are.

I need and invite all my sisters and brothers to join me now in the Great Awakening to our true Being as Children of Light. The purpose of this Course is integration. You cannot use it rightly until you have mastered it. As long as your sense of Self either vacillates or is weak, you won’t be able to accept the Gift that belongs to you contained in this Course. For some time you may still either vacillate between recognizing the Gift yet casting It away, or regarding yourself as too weak to accept It. This will change when you understand the Gift’s Meaning and healing value.