Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
Lesson 63 The Light of the World Brings Peace to Every Mind Through My Forgiveness.
- How holy are you who have the power to bring peace to every mind! How blessed are you who can learn to recognize the means for letting this be done through you! What purpose could you have that would bring you greater happiness?
- You are indeed the light of the world with such a function. The Son of God looks to you for His redemption. It is yours to give Him, for it belongs to you. Accept no trivial purpose or meaningless in its place, or you will forget your function and leave the Son of God in hell. This is no idle request that is being asked of you. You are being asked to accept Salvation that it may be yours to give.
- Recognizing the importance of this function, we will be happy to remember it very often today. We will begin the day by acknowledging it and close the day with the thought of it in our awareness. And throughout the day, we will repeat this as often as we can: “The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness. I am the means God has appointed for the Salvation of the world.”
- If you close your eyes, you will probably find it easier to let the related thoughts come to you in the minute or two that you should devote to considering this. Do not, however, wait for such an opportunity. No chance should be lost for reinforcing today’s idea. Remember that God’s Son looks to you for his Salvation. And who but your Self must be His son?[1]
Notes and Personal Application (2019): This morning, I repeated the meditation for several minutes until I could say it by memory: “The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness. I am the means God has appointed for the Salvation of the world.”
Throughout the day, while I was drinking my breakfast smoothie, while we were at Lowe’s picking up a part for the water softener, while Zachary and I sat watching the Seussical Musical, I repeated the idea, changing the words to help me to better assimilate the concept. “As light of the world, I bring peace to all minds because of my forgiveness. I overlook the works of the ego and realize them as nothing. I am the means God has appointed for saving the world.” I thought that this idea had the potential to make me feel arrogant and chosen, one of the few. However, the idea humbles me, and I realize how arrogant, self-centered, and selfish it would be to deny God His means to save the world. It in no way lifts me above others but instead lifts all. My mind is elevated to see differences between what the ego would have us believe about each other and what God has created us to be.
In the evening I went over the lesson again and studied Chapter Seven, section three – The Reality of the Kingdom. In this lesson, it was stressed again that replication and sharing whole is the reality of the Kingdom. Sharing in part, with one having more knowledge and withholding it from another, is the way of the ego. Jesus tells us that we threw the truth away and chose this way over the Kingdom and that is why we must learn now, because in the Kingdom there is no need to learn, because we have all knowledge at our disposal, we are created whole and do not develop in stages.
The text also discussed the equality of the Kingdom. There we see each other as equals. When we do not see our brothers as equals, we see them as competitors, as rivals, and there is no rivalry in the Kingdom. In the holy mind there are no thoughts of competing or being better or having more than our brothers. This is something in which to be especially vigilant against in our Mind. I thought immediately of how I compared myself to Sandra when I saw her today at the musical. A year or so older than me, she has always struck me as being cute with an endearing, inquisitive bunny face and posture. Born into inherited wealth and property, she never stood in line to get those hard blocks of free cheese from the government or collected welfare or faced single parenthood. She was smart. She did not drop out of high school. She went to college. She married a nice guy the first time around! She looked so happy and satisfied with life as she sat there with her grown daughter. There is no cause for me to do anything but admire Sandra. Still, my ego began to make up stories about her, ascertaining if she had grounds to dare think she was better than me! This is how it went: WELL, SHE MAY BE RICHER THAN ME AND HAVE HIGHER SOCIAL STATUS, BUT SHE’S NOT ALL THAT. AND ANYWAY, BECKIE TOLD ME, (A MOST RELIABLE SOURCE OF DISTORTED INFORMATION) THAT HER MOTHER HAS MENTAL PROBLEMS. SO WE BOTH HAVE TROUBLED MOTHERS. AND AT LEAST MY DAD WAS NICE AND NOT BLOATED ON HIS OWN SENSE OF WORTH. DON’T BE TAKEN IN BY HER SWEET FACE – SHE IS ONE OF THEM. DON’T FORGET HOW SNOTTY SHE WAS WHEN YOU DECIDED NOT TO WORK FOR HER BACK IN THE DAY…I shut it down because this is what the Course is saying to be vigilant against. Jesus teaches us to choose thoughts about how equal we are, how much the same, and to look upon Sandra as a brother, not as someone to compete with, in my mind. Even if it wasn’t all about pleasing God and Salvation from the hellish realm, how much better it would be to choose thoughts of love and kindness: OH, THERE IS SANDRA. SHE LOOKS SO NICE. TALK ABOUT AGING WELL! SHE IS MORE ATTRACTIVE NOW THAN SHE HAS EVER BEEN. SHE HAS A LOVELY OUTFIT ON – LOOKS SO WELL PUT TOGETHER. I APPRECIATE PEOPLE WHO PUT EFFORT INTO THEIR APPEARANCE. AND HER DAUGHTER IS JUST BEAUTIFUL. HOW BLESSED SHE IS TO HAVE HER. Smiling at her instead of pretending I don’t see her, wishing her well, extending loving and gracious thoughts transforms an otherwise drab, meaningless encounter into something that reflects the love of Christ. Seeing Sandra as a brother takes my mind past the gender-based thought system of the world, seeing her as part of the Sonship of which we both belong, makes us equals.
Gone is the sense of social inferiority that has darkened my mind. I know longer feel victimized by her apparent advantages over me. My light shines instead of being dulled by that petty vindictiveness of the ego’s blathering. Choosing loving and gracious thoughts puts me on sure footing with the Kingdom’s way of thinking. The Mind is where the altar is, where the Kingdom is, where the transformation and reunion with the Kingdom of God takes place. Within us, in our Mind, at that altar, is where we choose. There we must stand vigilant against the empty, foolish, hateful thoughts of the ego.
The thought of this had been at the forefront of my consciousness today. Holy Spirit was speaking to me throughout the day, stressing the equality of the Kingdom. I must understand this to get over this inferiority/superiority game of continually judging and comparing. Here on this level of existence in the body and bound by the ego, we experience inequality and we suffer through it, rich and poor, black and white, Greek and Jew. Nobody is exempt.
Yet here in this realm is where we prepare for our return to the Kingdom. We choose the mind of Christ and we share the mind of Christ with others. Practicing it here in the temporal realm is the way the world is saved. No social movement or political force will save the world. It is not going to happen through any other means. In my heart, I know this is true. It is a powerful idea, and yet I am still tormented about not being good enough, being an inadequate sample, and doubting my ability to dedicate myself entirely to God. Jesus tells me to rely on the Holy Spirit to take my little willingness and draw me into the truth of God’s love, and there, in that truth, is the certainty in which I have always yearned.
Notes and Personal Application (2020): This morning, I had a telephone conversation with our son, who told me about a World War II documentary that he had recently viewed. During the reign of Nazi terror, the culture of fear grew so insidious that there were some Jews who took measures to expose other Jews. They actually cozied up to the Nazis in efforts to both take vengeance upon those who may have disparaged them and in hopes of sparing themselves the same terrible fate. In the end, of course, they only put off their demise for an extra few weeks or months.
Here is the thing – the world of separation has already been exposed to us for what it is. We know how predatory and deceitful are the structures that seem to keep this world going around. The fraud has been exposed to us, and as much as we would like to point our fingers outward and say it is out there, we know that the ego has stolen our identity, projecting its dog-eat-dog perspective to the world, and calling itself the Son of God. We do not need any more examples of human atrocities to convince us. What we need is a new perspective. A new way of practicing our devotion to Jesus, promoting love and brotherhood, and ringing in God’s Will on earth as it is in heaven.
You are indeed the light of the world with such a function, Jesus says in today’s lesson. The Son of God looks to you for His redemption. It is yours to give Him, for it belongs to you. Jesus urges us to accept no trivial purpose or meaningless desire in place of the mind of Christ. Getting caught up in the cycle of condemnation, blame, guilt, and cunning will make us forget our function, and the world will remain in hell. We can look to Nazi Germany for a horrifying example of this. But Jesus says, don’t get caught up in trivia or empty desires either. His request pulls us up and out of the trivial pursuits and meaningless desires of the ego. We are called to stand with Him, accepting and giving Salvation for all. We are called to internalize this message, to make Christ who and what we are. We lay down the ego; we take up the Mind of Christ.
The ego will scream, pout, call names, snivel, and shriek. It won’t be pretty. But ask yourself this: Is this really who I am? Could this be all there is? Surely there must be more to life than this go-round of complicity to that which is not eternal and therefore cannot be love.
Jesus blesses us when we learn to recognize our holy calling, our true function, and accept our true identity in Him. We are the light of the world. We bring peace to every mind – and it comes through the forgiveness we offer through Christ. What purpose could we ever have that would bring us greater joy?
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 63 The light of the world…Circle of Atonement, Complete and Annotated Edition (2017). pp. 1047-1048.
the friar patch 