ACIM Workbook
Healing Perspectives

Lesson 81

Review II: “I am the light of the world.” and
“Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.”

The truth is I am still as God created me. Nothing has changed. God’s Light is One. It includes all that Is. This is reality. This is the one Life that is real. Anything outside of the one Life we all live in the Mind of God are just hallucinations that are trying to replace God. These hallucinations come from a conflicted mind, so conflict shows up in the false stories of individual bodies. These individual bodies are perpetually in conflict. These stories make up one problem after another in order to keep the mind preoccupied with the stories of bodies.

Forgiveness means letting go of the false stories of conflict and bodies. Forgiveness means seeing the false stories for what they are. They are ultimately grievances against God, Who created all as one Light, one extension of Love.

Today I am willing to practice seeing past the stories to the Light, seeing past the stories to the peace of God. Today I am willing to practice listening to the Holy Spirit, Who shows me a new perception, one that leads me Home. Today I am willing to practice opening to the quiet mind and, recognizing the truth, extend peace to all my brothers.

Forgiveness is letting go of identification with and belief in separation. It is letting go of the refusal to accept my Self as God created me. It is letting go of insisting on having a special, unique identity that is different from all others.

The desire for specialness casts a shadow over the light of the world and makes it appear to be dark and menacing. Conflict is innate in specialness. It requires a constant ‘battle’ to maintain the illusion of differences, an attempt to make my identity more special by making another identity less. This is the story of the world. We see it played out in disagreements among friends or spouses and we see it played out between nations. All the conflict simply comes from the desire for specialness. It is all grasping at illusions, trying to make them real.

In our Creation, God gave us all His Love equally. Being one, and always the same, He could not give Love partially to one and more to another. Thus, specialness is illusion. All the conflicts in the world we perceive are conflicts between illusions.

The ego loves to focus on conflicts ‘out there’ and ignore the conflicts in our minds. Peace does not come by looking outside. Peace comes through forgiveness within through letting go of identification with separation. That is our function here, now.

No matter where we see conflict, our function is to see our Self in all our brothers and thereby recognize it in ourselves. Here we see the sameness we share, the one Identity in Love.

As I can let go of the conflict in my mind, as I can let go of the determination to maintain a separate identity and accept myself as God created me, I bring peace to the world. This is how I am the savior of the world. Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.

The form I like to use for the first part of this lesson is, "This shadow will vanish before the light." It is easy for me to visualize this happening and when I can visualize something. It helps me to accept it in my mind. I have already had occasion to try this and I like how it feels.

It is amazing to me how addicted to conflict my ego is and even more amazing that I never noticed before. It takes constant vigilance not to fall back into that way of living and thinking.

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