ACIM Workbook Lesson 216 – for Thursday, August 4, 2011
Affirmation: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“It can be but myself I crucify. (WB395)”
Reflections:
We do not affect others truly, though we need to be sure that we do not go out of our way to anger or attack them–or to hurt them. We are all One, and so when we hurt another, we have actually hurt ourselves. So it is “but myself I crucify.”
We do not often understand this truth from A Course in Miracles. We still, although we may be long-time students/teachers, think of ourselves as somehow different and separate from others. This is the illusion in which we are caught. It is not meaningful in itself, because we are not separate.
An additional truth is that what we do to others makes us feel guilty, and at one point, ACIM calls hell “guilt.” We are therefore, in that sense, crucifying ourselves when we hurt another–prompted by the guilt that we feel. This experience is particularly felt in those on a spiritual pathway, because we have sensitized ourselves. We have more “heart” in our day-to-day interactions, and this leads us to be more attune to the hurtfulness that we cause, whether deliberate or inadvertent.
May we not crucify ourselves today. There is no need. We do not have to follow Jesus’s pathway (a Text tenet) in the sense that we are crucified as was he. His was the example life (a tenet from A Course of Love), and we would do well to emulate his example, but not to duplicate it.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
I would not “crucify” myself today by agonizing when faith and love instead are indicated. We wear ourselves down when we agonize. Let us look to guidance, follow it precisely, and thereby walk the easy pathway back to You.
May I remember to be grateful for my many blessings. You have often given me great joy that I have attributed to my own thoughts or actions, my little self that seeks aggrandizement. I would not seek to support the ego’s way today. I would not be crucified anymore.
Amen.
