Lesson 276: Pure and Holy

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I see today’s ACIM lesson, #276, The Word of God is given me to speak a little differently than I did a year ago when I wrote this post. Today, my translation of what that means is that I am here to teach only love. My daily intention is to have all of my words come from a place of acceptance, nonjudgment, love, peace, harmony – the place where I see my brother as myself: connected to Source Energy; the Holy Son of God Himself. It is about knowing that everything I say and do reflects who I think I am. When I know my own magnificence, then I automatically know the magnificence of everyone. I see past “bad” behavior. I see that everything that is not love is a call for love. We are each pure and holy. At our cores, we are love. Today’s lesson:

Pure and Holy

When the Course asks me to speak the Word of God, it rankles a little. My initial reaction is to feel like someone is trying to draft me into Hare Krishna-hood or perhaps seduce me into becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. In any case, I balk at the thought of proselytizing. But this isn’t that. “What is the Word of God?” the Course asks. “’My Son is pure and holy as Myself.’” This lesson is yet another reminder of who and what we are. (“I am as God created me.”)

Of course, ego has what the Course refers to as “an authority problem.” (“When you have an authority problem, it is always because you believe you are the author of yourself and project your delusion onto others. “) Ego wants to be its own father, which is not an upgrade considering that ego is the bringer of conflict, fear, death and destruction. Its foundation is guilt and shame and it definitely doesn’t recognize the Self as “pure and holy.”

This is an invitation back to the remembrance of innocence. It is the place of relief, where we (I) can let go of thinking there is something wrong with us (me).

The lesson:

Lesson 276

The Word of God is given me to speak.

What is the Word of God? “My Son is pure and holy as Myself.” And thus did God become the Father of the Son He loves, for thus was he created. This the Word His Son did not create with Him, because in this His Son was born. Let us accept His Fatherhood, and all is given us. Deny we were created in His Love and we deny our Self, to be unsure of Who we are, of Who our Father is, and for what purpose we have come. And yet, we need but to acknowledge Him Who gave His Word to us in our creation, to remember Him and so recall our Self.

Father, Your Word is mine. And it is this that I would speak to all my brothers, who are given me to cherish as my own, as I am loved and blessed and saved by You.

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God’s Son is pure and holy. The point is to know this about myself and to know it about everyone else as well. The “Word of God” that I am given to speak is instruction to think as God thinks and to allow Him to lead me. I am letting go of ideas of judgment and teaching only love. “Judgment always involves rejection. It never emphasizes only the positive aspects of what is judged, whether in you or in others. What has been perceived and rejected, or judged and found wanting, remains in your mind because it has been perceived. One of the illusions from which you suffer is the belief that what you judged against has no effect. This cannot be true unless you also believe that what you judged against does not exist. You evidently do not believe this, or you would not have judged against it. In the end it does not matter whether your judgment is right or wrong. Either way you are placing your belief in the unreal. This cannot be avoided in any type of judgment, because it implies the belief that reality is yours to select from.”

I believe that reality is mine to select from. But it’s not. I can’t “make reality.” I can only perceive it or fail to perceive it (usually the latter) and live in duality or know unity and wholeness.

I can’t do that if I am projecting guilt. I can’t do that if I don’t know who I am (the “holy Son of God Himself”).

To know myself as pure and holy, I must give up judgment, which is really just giving up the belief in illusions, giving up the idea of thinking there is a choice, which is really giving up the belief in separation.

Whew!

It is letting go of duality and it’s not for sissies.

So we practice. I practice. I notice how difficult I make it to even remember all this stuff, much less practice it. This is why this is a Course in mind training, because even though I am improving (how ego loves to compare!) I still forget daily, hourly even.

“ No real relationship can rest on guilt, or even hold one spot of it to mar its purity. For all relationships that guilt has touched are used but to avoid the person and the guilt.”

The “pure and holy” are not guilty. Guilt is a problem. It pops up and slimes perception so that no love can be felt. Sometimes it’s the challenge of letting go of old stories around what we think someone did to us. (Even though “it never happened!”) Sometimes it’s the inability to claim our own goodness – the old “not good enough” identity. None of it can contain the awareness of God’s Son as pure and holy.

“⁴ When you maintain that you are guilty but the source of your guilt lies in the past, you are not looking inward. The past is not in you. Your weird associations to it have no meaning in the present. Yet you let them stand between you and your brothers, with whom you find no real relationships at all. Can you expect to use your brothers as a means to “solve” the past, and still to see them as they really are? Salvation is not found by those who use their brothers to resolve problems that are not there. You wanted not salvation in the past. Would you impose your idle wishes on the present, and hope to find salvation now?”

“The Word of God is given me to speak,” is the claiming of our true identity. Not the small self (idol) we have made, but the Self with a capital “S.”

God’s Son is pure and holy, and we are Him, my friend, we are Him.

Namaste, my friends, Namaste.