ARCIM

Daily Lesson 78 ~
March 19

Let miracles replace all resentment, grievances, grudges and feelings of being offended.

Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision you make in connection with your sisters and brothers is a choice between allowing miracles to be performed through you and holding resentment, grievances, grudges and feelings of being offended. All resentment, grievances, grudges and feelings of being offended stand like dark shields of separation before the miracles they would conceal. And as you place these dark shields before your eyes, you will not see the miracles beyond. Yet all the while the miracles wait for you in Light, though you have been looking upon the darkness instead.

Today we see beyond all resentment, grievances, grudges and feelings of being offended to behold miracles instead. We will reverse the way you perceive by not allowing perception to stop before it sees. We will not wait before the shields of separation, but lay them down and gently lift our eyes in silence to behold the Children of the Divine. They wait for you behind your resentment, grievances, grudges and feelings of being offended, and as you lay these down they will appear in shining Light where your dark shields stood before. For all resentment and every offense taken and grievance and grudge held is a block to sight, and as this block lifts, you see the Children of the Divine where they have always been. They stand in Light, but you were in the dark. Your dark shields made the darkness deeper, and you could not see.

Today we will attempt to see the Children of the Divine. We will not let ourselves be blind to them. We will not look upon our dark shields. So is the perceiving of the world reversed, as we direct our vision toward Truth, away from fear.

We will select one person you have used as target for your grudges, grievances, resentment, or feelings of being offended, and lay these aside, and behold the brother or sister they hid. Someone, perhaps, you fear or hate. Someone you call a friend but see as difficult at times or hard to please—demanding, irritating, or untrue to the ideal they should accept as theirs according to the role you set for them. Someone you think you love who sometimes angers you. You know the one to choose. Their name has crossed your mind already. They will be the one of whom we ask that the Child of the Divine be shown to you. Through seeing them behind the resentment, grievances, grudges and feelings of being offended that you have held against them, you will learn that what lay hidden while you perceived them darkly is there in everyone, and can be seen.

The person who has been looked upon by you as irritant or opponent or enemy is more than friend when they are freed to take the holy Role the Holy Spirit has assigned to them. Let them be awakener unto you today. Such is their role in the Divine’s Plan of Awakening.

Our two longer practice periods today will see them in this role. You will attempt to hold them in your mind, first as you have been conceiving and perceiving them. You will review their faults, the difficulties you have had with them, the pain they’ve caused you and others, their neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts they’ve given. You will regard their body with its flaws and “better” points as well, and you will think of their mistakes, the wrongs they have done, and even of their “sins” and the evil they have perpetrated if their transgressions in your eyes have been so extreme.

Then let us ask of Spirit, Who knows this Child of the Divine in Reality and Truth, that we may perceive them in a new and different way, and see our awakener shining in the Light of true forgiveness, given unto us. We ask Spirit in the Holy Name of the Divine and of Its Children, as holy as Itself:

“Let me behold my awakener in this one whom you have appointed as the one for me

to ask to lead me to the holy Light in which they stand, that I may join with them.”

The body’s eyes are closed, and as you think of the person who aggrieved you, let your mind be shown the Light in them beyond your resentment, grievances, grudges and feelings of being hurt or offended.

What you have asked for must be granted. Your awakener has been waiting long for this. They would be free, and make their freedom yours. The Holy Spirit leans from them to you, seeing no separation in the Children of the Divine. And what you see through Spirit will free you both. Be very quiet now, and behold your shining awakener. No dark shields obscure their sight from you. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through them the role the Creator gave them for you, that you and they might be awakened from the dream of separation.

The Divine thanks you for these quiet times today, in which you laid your images aside and beheld the miracle of Love the Holy Spirit showed you in their place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for every Divine Thought must rejoice as you are awakened, and all the world with you.

We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us as part of the Divine’s Plan of Awakening, and not our own. Temptation to stay asleep in the dream falls away when we allow each one we meet to remind us, and refuse to hide their Light behind our dark shields. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of, or remember from the past, allow the role of awakener to be given, that you may share it with them. For you and all our sisters and brothers we request:

“Let miracles replace all resentment, grievances, grudges and feelings of being offended.”

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 4: Discerning the Ego’s Terrain

 

9. The Communication of Creation

It should be clear that while the content of any particular ego-illusion does not matter, it is usually more helpful to correct illusions in a specific context. It is important not to be abstract in the wrong way in this matter. Ego-illusions are quite specific, although they frequently change. And although the mind is naturally abstract or universal, it became concrete voluntarily as soon as it split. However, only part of the mind split, so only part of it became concrete. The concrete part is the same part that believes in the ego, because the ego depends on the specific. It is the same part of the split mind that believes that existence means you are separate. It is therefore the same part that believes it is the ego, or that the ego is it.

Everything that the ego perceives is a separate unit, without the relationships that imply being. The ego is thus against communication, except in so far as it is utilized to establish separateness rather than to abolish it.

The communication system of the ego is based on the thought system of the split mind, as is everything else that this thought system dictates. The ego’s communication is controlled by its perceived need to protect itself, and it will disrupt communication when it experiences threat. While this is always so, individual egos perceive different kinds of threat, which are quite specific in their own judgment. For example, although all forms of perceived “demands” on the ego may be judged and classified by the ego as coercive communication that must be disrupted, the response of disrupting communication will nevertheless be with a specific person or persons. The specificity of the ego’s thinking, then, results in a spurious kind of generalization that is not universal at all. It will react in certain specific ways to all stimuli that it perceives as related.

In contrast, the spirit responds in the same way to everything it knows is true, and does not respond at all to anything else, because it knows only Truth, and nothing else exists for it. Nor does it make any attempt to establish what is true. It knows that what is true is Everything that the Divine created. It is in complete and direct Communication with every Aspect of Creation, because it is in complete and direct Communication with its Creator. This Communication is the Divine Will.

Creation and true Communication are synonymous. The Divine created every mind by communicating Its Mind to it, thus establishing each mind forever as a Channel for the Reception of Its Mind, Love, and Will, Which are One. Since only beings of a like order can truly communicate, the Divine’s Creations naturally communicate with It and like It. This Communication is perfectly abstract in that Its Quality is universal in application and not subject to any judgment, any exception, or any alteration. The Divine created you by this and for this.

The mind can distort its Functions but it cannot endow itself with those it was not given. That is why the mind cannot totally lose the ability to communicate, even though it may refuse to utilize it on behalf of Being.

Existence as well as Being rests on communication. Existence is specific in how, what, and with whom communication is worth undertaking. Being is completely without these distinctions. It is a State in which the mind is in Communication with Everything, including its holy Self. To whatever extent you permit this State to be curtailed, you are limiting your sense of your own reality, which is total only by recognizing all Reality in the glorious Context of Its real Relationship to you.

This is your reality. Do not fear it or demean it. It is your real Home, your real Altar and Temple, and your real Self. The Divine, Who encompasses all Being, nevertheless created individual beings who have Everything individually, but who want to share It to increase their Joy. Nothing that is real can be increased except by sharing it. That is why the Divine Itself created you. Divine Universality takes Joy in Extension, and that is what Creation means. How, what, and to whom are irrelevant, because real creation gives Everything since it can only create like itself. Remember that in Being there is no difference between having and being, as there is in existence. In the state of Being, the mind gives Everything always.

Sacred texts repeatedly state that it is good to praise the Creator. This hardly means that you should tell It how wonderful It is. It has no ego with which to accept that kind of praise, and no perceptions with which to judge your offerings. But until you accept again your Part in the Creation, the Creator’s Joy is not complete because yours is incomplete. And this the Creator knows. It knows it in Its Own Being and Its Experience of Its Children’s experience. The constant Extension of Divine Love is blocked when any of Its Channels are closed, and the Creator profoundly misses Its Children when any of the Minds It created do not communicate fully with It.

The Divine has kept your Realm for you, but It cannot share Its Joy with you until you know this with your whole mind. Even revelation is not enough, because it is communication from the Divine but, like everything real, cannot be complete until it is shared. The Divine does not need revelation returned to It, which would clearly be impossible, but It does want revelation brought to others. This cannot be done with the actual revelation, because revelation is intensely personal to the mind that receives it, and its content cannot be expressed. But it can still be extended by the mind that receives it through its attitudes to other minds which the knowing from the revelation brings.

The Divine is praised whenever any mind learns to be truly helpful. This is impossible without being wholly harmless, because the two beliefs cannot be separated. The truly helpful are invulnerable because they are not protecting their egos, so that nothing can hurt them. Their helpfulness is their praise of the Divine, and the Divine will return their praise of It, because they are like It and can rejoice together. The Divine goes out to them and through them, and there is great Joy throughout the Realm. Every truly transformed mind adds to this Joy with its own individual willingness to share in It.

The truly helpful are Atonement’s miracle workers, whom I direct until we are all united in the Joy of the Realm. I will direct you to wherever you can be truly helpful, and to whoever can receive my guidance through you.