ACIM Workbook Lesson 52 – for Monday, February 21, 2011
Affirmation: “I am upset because I see what is not there.”
Selected Passage:
“Reality is never frightening. It is impossible that it could upset me. Reality brings only perfect peace. When I am upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I made up. (WB84)”
Reflections:
This passage is memorable, one of the favorites of ACIM students/teachers. If we study the words, if we take them to heart, we will realize that we are lost in illusions (i.e., “dreams,” ACIM calls them elsewhere). We can have happy dreams also, but the lesson today refers to the bad waking dreams that come upon us without being sought. May we experience the peace of reality today.
Affirmation: “I see only the past.”
Selected Passage:
“When I have forgiven myself and remembered Who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. There will be no past, and therefore no enemies. And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before. (WB84)”
Reflections:
May we have no enemies. If we feel that we do, may we pray the animosity out of our system. We can try to make amends, and this may succeed. But even if it doesn’t, we can have a little talk with the Holy Spirit, and we can clear our own minds and hearts of animosity. Let us do so today. There are few of us who are right with all of our brothers and sisters.
Affirmation: “My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”
Selected Passage:
“Let me learn to give the past away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing.”
Reflections:
Let us not try to live in the past. The present is our point of power. Let us live in the present, with our aims toward the future (but not living there yet).
Affirmation: “I see nothing as it is now.”
Selected Passage:
“The choice is not whether to see the past or the present; the choice is merely whether to see or not. (WB85)”
Reflections:
We need to “see.” This means to have vision, in the terms of ACIM. We will have vision, we will see, when we let go all that is standing in the way. When we let fear recede into the shadows, when we disown the ego, we will know peace. And we will see.
Affirmation: “My thoughts do not mean anything.”
Selected Passage:
“Would I not rather join the thinking of the universe than to obscure all that is really mind with my pitiful and meaningless ‘private’ thoughts? (WB85)”
Reflections:
It is part of the metaphysics of A Course in Miracles that there are no private thoughts. We learn this from the Text. But many of us might feel invaded by this statement. We want to keep private our innermost thoughts. Yet we cannot, because this is not a separated world. All of our brothers and sisters, on some level, intuitively recognize what we are thinking.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
We are seeing illusions when we get upset. This is very clear. What is not so clear is what “reality” really is, even after much study of ACIM. Certainly love, peace, joy–all components of the good life–are reality. Perhaps reality is not so much a part of this world, in its concrete details, as in its intangibles.
May You join with me today as I seek only reality. May my attack and anger thoughts disappear into the mists of yesterday. May I find only peace and joy and calm and quiet today.
Amen.
