Yet the essential thing is learning that you do not know. ²Knowledge is power, and all power is of God. ³You who have tried to keep power for yourself have “lost” it. ⁴You still have the power, but you have interposed so much between it and your awareness of it that you cannot use it. ⁵Everything you have taught yourself has made your power more and more obscure to you. …⁹Yet all that stands between you and the power of God in you is but your learning of the false, and of your attempts to undo the true.
⁵Learn of [God’s] happiness, which is yours. ⁶But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons must be brought willingly to truth, and joyously laid down by hands open to receive, not closed to take. ⁷Every dark lesson that you bring to Him Who teaches light He will accept from you, because you do not want it. ⁸And He will gladly exchange each one for the bright lesson He has learned for you. ⁹Never believe that any lesson you have learned apart from Him means anything.
You have one test, as sure as God, by which to recognize if what you learned is true. ²If you are wholly free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet or even think of you share in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned God’s lesson, and not your own. ³Unless all this is true, there are dark lessons in your mind that hurt and hinder you, and everyone around you. ⁴The absence of perfect peace means but one thing: You think you do not will for God’s Son what his Father wills for him. ⁵Every dark lesson teaches this, in one form or another. ⁶And each bright lesson with which the Holy Spirit will replace the dark ones you do not accept, teaches you that you will with the Father and His Son. (A Course in Miracles, T-14.XI.1:1-5,9;4:5–5:6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)
The ego is our answer to our wish for specialness. It provides a dream that blocks out awareness of the reality of God’s Love. In Its place, the ego offers a dream that seems to provide the specialness we seek. But only at the cost of Heaven. The condition of Heaven is the oneness of God’s Love. Separation and oneness are mutually exclusive; we cannot have both.
The ego’s offerings require constant defense because they oppose our true Will, which we share with God. The ego defends itself by offering myriad forms to convince us that its dream is real. These forms appeal to us because they seem to offer what we want. But they are meaningless illusions which offer only temporary satisfaction.
The Holy Spirit’s lessons start with showing us the price we pay for wanting specialness. The price is loss of peace and lasting happiness. As we learn the Holy Spirit’s lessons, the ego’s defenses of separation become less willingly accepted. Each Holy Spirit lesson, learned and accepted, brings increasing peace of mind and happiness. Our willingness to accept God’s Will as ours increases.
Let us dedicate today to welcoming Holy Spirit’s lessons in Love, for we would return to the peace and joy of Heaven.
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