PART II. SECTION 4: WHAT IS SIN
- Sin is insanity. It is the means by which the mind is driven mad and seeks to let illusions take the place of truth. And being mad, it sees illusions where the truth should be, and where it really is. Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach or grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know. And truth can be but filled with knowledge, and with nothing else.
- The body is the instrument the mind made in its efforts to deceive itself. Its purpose is to strive. Yet can the goal of striving change. And now the body serves a different aim for striving. What is seeks for now is chosen by the aim the mind has taken as replacement for the goal of self-deception. Truth can be its aim as well as lies. The senses then will seek instead for witnesses to what is true.
- Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts that are untrue. They are the “proof” that what has no reality is real. Sin “proves” God’s Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; eternal life must die. And God Himself has lost the Son He loves, with but corruption to complete Himself, His Will forever overcome by death, love slain by hate, and peace to be no more.
- A madman’s dreams are frightening, and sin appears indeed to terrify. And yet what sin perceives is but a childish game. The Son of God may play he has become a body, prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death. But all the while his Father shines on him and loves him with an everlasting Love which his pretenses cannot change at all.
- How long, O Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin? Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children’s toys? How soon will you be ready to come home? Perhaps today? There is no sin. Creation is unchanged. Would you still hold return to Heaven back? How long, O holy Son of God, how long?[1]
Notes and Personal Meditation How does God get his point across to the common Joe who is willing to remain in sin, cherishes his body as his reality, and has no thought for the holy consciousness of God? He simply allows time to tell the story, to get the point across, to bring His prodigal home to His everlasting love and life, joy and peace. Sooner or later, it makes little difference to God, Joe comes home. Tired of the exhausting, futile game of separation, bodies, faulty perceptions, lying tongues, and dashed hopes, Joe lays down separation, thoughts of sin, and fear of God, and returns to the holy Mind of God.
There must be a better way, Helen Schucman exclaimed back in the 1960s, and Jesus came and showed her the better way. That’s not how it is, we said as little ones, hearing the perverted gospel of sin and shame and sorrow, the angry vengeful God, the tiptoeing around His bad temper and unholy rages, the condemnation and curse. We remembered Him then as our Father, loving and kind, and now we return to Him. Our mistakes corrected, our minds turned from wrong, our hearts full of gratitude and devotion – we put down our thoughts of sin and disgrace and come to Him, our minds renewed in Christ, made one again. His Son.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Part Two Section Four. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com
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