We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Salvation of the world depends on me.  Sounds so arrogant but ACIM claims this is the one statement that will take arrogance away from every mind because…

Here is the thought of true humility, which holds no function as your own but that which has been given you. It offers your acceptance of a part assigned to you, without insisting on another role. It does not judge your proper role. It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven’s plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven’s peace…

Arrogance makes an image of yourself that is not real. It is this image which quails and retreats in terror, as the Voice for God assures you that you have the strength, the wisdom and the holiness to go beyond all images. You are not weak, as is the image of yourself. You are not ignorant and helpless. Sin can not tarnish the truth in you, and misery can come not near the holy home of God.

When we accept the function God has given us, we find our peace.  That function is nothing less than the salvation of the world. :)  Humbling, isn’t it?

Do as God’s Voice directs. And if It asks a thing of you which seems impossible, remember Who it is that asks, and who would make denial. Then consider this; which is more likely to be right? The Voice that speaks for the Creator of all things, Who knows all things exactly as they are, or a distorted image of yourself, confused, bewildered, inconsistent and unsure of everything? Let not its voice direct you. Hear instead a certain Voice, which tells you of a function given you by your Creator Who remembers you, and urges that you now remember Him.

This fully resonates somewhere within my being.  I vaguely remember what it means.  I remember periods of time when I was able to accept whatever it was the day gave me and made my way through it gracefully, not trying to second guess all the consequences of every action.  Or, even more silly perhaps, playing tennis and feeling like I was playing on air because I made so few mistakes.  And even more silly (because I was so terrible at it), playing golf and chanting to myself just before I swung, “The peace of God is in me.”  If I could relax enough, I was fairly accurate.   It’s a trust.  A knowing.  It’s not a belief is different.  To say, “I believe in myself” means I hope I’ll live up to the expectations I’ve set for myself.  That’s really all belief is - the fulfillment of expectations.  Trust is something altogether different.

His gentle Voice is calling from the known to the unknowing. He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. He would make a restitution, though He is complete; a gift to you, although He knows that you have everything already. He has Thoughts which answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. For Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form.

The Voice isn’t an external voice.  It’s no an internal one, either.  It’s something altogether different.  We don’t hear it in the same sense that we hear.  We don’t understand it in the rational sense.  It’s the willingness, on our part, to walk into that cloud of unknowing and take comfort in the unknowing rather than trying to create meaning where none exists.   “His Name” is not God - what is given in the name of a label cannot be love because labels are nothing more than our attempt to impose collective meaning.   Labels are not based on trust.

“His Name” IS trust.  I can even thump the Bible and prove it.  OK - The proof part is a joke!   But one of my favorite passages in the Bible is from Jeremiah and it speaks to this:

Thus says the LORD: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the LORD. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse–who can understand it? I the LORD test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.

Forgiveness begets trust and trust begets forgiveness.  God has no need of forgiveness because he IS trust.  Our trust is God because God is a verb!

These are the forms which never can deceive, because they come from Formlessness Itself. Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still. Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. Such is your function here.

To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is everything. If you could but mean them for just an instant, there would be no further sorrow possible for you in any form; in any place or time. Heaven would be completely given back to full awareness, memory of God entirely restored, the resurrection of all creation fully recognized.

I remember a Methodist Minister who was also likely a mystic claiming that if we truly believed in Jesus’ “good news”, we could change the world.  The problem is, most Christians don’t truly believe in the peace Jesus offers.   Instead, Jesus ends up getting used for various political agendas and fearful beliefs rather than an extenuation of God’s peace.

I guess part of the problem is that we don’t really know what peace means.  Typically, when we think of peace, we think of a lack of conflict.  But that’s not necessarily peace.  Every now and then, I’ve experienced a profound sense of peace and it has nothing to do with the absence of anything.  It’s a fullness.  But how do you describe that logically?

…Minds cannot unite in dreams. They merely bargain. And what bargain can give them the peace of God? Illusions come to take His place. And what He means is lost to sleeping minds intent on compromise, each to his gain and to another’s loss.

This is the problem with peace as it was pushed by previous generations, especially the baby boomer generation.   It was based on a utopianistic dream which was more about fear than a true desire for peace.  We wanted the absence of conflict.  We wanted security.  We wanted a blissful, happy world where all is well and everyone is fed and no one fights with each other.  Even though we think this is about everyone, it’s really nothing more than another selfish dream based on what “I want”.   It’s an egoic illusion.

To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams. For no one means these words who wants illusions, and who therefore seeks the means which bring illusions. He has looked on them, and found them wanting. Now he seeks to go beyond them, recognizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others. Dreams are one to him. And he has learned their only difference is one of form, for one will bring the same despair and misery as do the rest.

Look what that utopianistic dream has brought us - especially politically and religiously.  If people just do things the way we say they should be done, we can create peace.  Create the right religion.  Create the right political structure.   Then, get the rest of the world to dream our dream.  And so we have a lot of Americums around the world, as Friedman puts it.  The American dream is becoming a global environmental nightmare.

The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with other minds, for that is how peace is obtained. And when the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given, in a form each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand. Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for him in such a way that he can not mistake it, if his asking is sincere. But if he asks without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will meet with acceptance and be truly learned.

So the question is - do we want our dreams more than we want God’s peace?  And how do we tell the difference?   This is one of those paradoxes - even though all minds are joined, knowing the level of our sincerity can only be understand individually.

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these lessons!  It’s so much easier to do them daily than to try and pick them up again after not having done them for a while.  The language is so, I don’t know, off-putting!   “The name of God is my inheritance” would make so much more sense had I just completed lesson 183 yesterday rather than two weeks ago!

OK - God’s name is not “God”.  :)  I remember that much.

You live by symbols. You have made up names for everything you see. Each one becomes a separate entity, identified by its own name. By this you carve it out of unity. By this you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it. This space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings in terms of place and time; all bodies which are greeted by a name.

This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world’s perception is achieved. You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will.

Very Buddhist - everything is nothing because nothing is every thing.

Reality is made by partial vision through the names we give to everything, including the names we have given the nameless.  What is named is given meaning and therefore seen as meaningful, when in fact, it’s individual existence is meaningless.  Very existential.   We give everything all the meaning that it has for us.

This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth. Its enemy is wholeness. It conceives of little things and looks upon them. And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision that sees differently, become the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny.

Reality threatens our version of reality.  We think learning is about learning the 10,000 names - this is the teaching of the world.  But we all must unlearn the teachings of the world eventually.   We have not made the world.  We have made illusions and call them real.

Think not you made the world. Illusions, yes! But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming. When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. His true Identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is. His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own. And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his.

We need to use the symbols of the world, but we need not be deceived by them.   It’s exactly what the existentialists have realized - our symbols don’t mean anything.  Like Roquentin in Sartre’s Nausea, it can make us sick to our stomachs to realize this.  It’s a harsh realization, but a necessary one if we are to continue to grow.  And that’s why meditation is so important - it provides a much gentler transition into this realization than what Roquentin went through.

God has no name. And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson does all learning end. All names are unified; all space is filled with truth’s reflection. Every gap is closed, and separation healed. The Name of God is the inheritance He gave to those who chose the teaching of the world to take the place of Heaven. In our practicing, our purpose is to let our minds accept what God has given as the answer to the pitiful inheritance you made as fitting tribute to the Son He loves.

There is no God, but we have yet to realize it because we still believe our individuality is meaningful!  :)  That makes me smile because it seems opposite of what Nietzsche meant when he said “God is dead”.  But it’s not at all.  The meaning we had assigned to God is dead because we had moved beyond that meaning.   The symbol ceased to be useful.  At some point we have to allow ourselves to be the lion and slay the dragons of our perception so that we can realize the truth of our being.

God’s Name is holy, but no holier than yours. To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. A father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him. His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity. Your Father’s Name reminds you who you are, even within a world that does not know; even though you have not remembered it.

So what is this Name?  Clearly, the Name isn’t “God”. 

Repeat the Name of God, and little names have lost their meaning. No temptation but becomes a nameless and unwanted thing before God’s Name. Repeat His Name, and see how easily you will forget the names of all the gods you valued. They have lost the name of god you gave them. They become anonymous and valueless to you, although before you let the Name of God replace their little names, you stood before them worshipfully, naming them as gods.

We name our ideas “God”; profess belief in them and show our reverence to those ideas through worship.  It’s truly insane.  But still - what is this Name of God???   Is it Taoism or Buddhism, I forget, that talks about the pathless path and the nameless name?

Repeat the Name of God, and call upon your Self, Whose Name is His. Repeat His Name, and all the tiny, nameless things on earth slip into right perspective. Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Son of God. And should you join a brother as you sit with him in silence, and repeat God’s Name along with him within your quiet mind, you have established there an altar which reaches to God Himself and to His Son.

We call upon the name in silence, within our quiet mind.  The Ancient Hebrews said that God’s name was unutterable.  The moment the Name is spoken, it ceases to be God’s Name.  To think we can speak the name of God is to confuse God’s reality with our idea of God.

…Think not He hears the little prayers of those who call on Him with names of idols cherished by the world. They cannot reach Him thus. He cannot hear requests that He be not Himself, or that His Son receive another name than His.

The way I read this is that we remain in illusion when we call upon God to satisfy our desires.  I’m not sure that would be a popular interpretation among ACIM students, however.  Especially given the Unity Church’s propensity toward Master Mind and all of that crap that is really just a way to manipulate the universe to give you what you want.    Every Unity Church I have ever attended has been deeply involved in ACIM study and Master Mind prayer.  It is likely unfair to say this is true throughout all of Unity and I apologize if this offends anyone.  But I have to say, the  Master Mind prayer groups were especially disturbing to me because the focus was on “little prayers”.   Universe - please give me that red sports car I’ve been wanting.  OK, maybe not that bad, but close.  Sure, you can play withe the pychic plastic of the universe and manifest your desires.  What we think about expands.  But really, to place our focus upon our egoic desires is nothing more than means for the ego to distract us from the truth of who it is we truly are and who God is.

Turn to the Name of God for your release, and it is given you. No prayer but this is necessary, for it holds them all within it. Words are insignificant, and all requests unneeded when God’s Son calls on his Father’s Name. His Father’s Thoughts become his own. He makes his claim to all his Father gave, is giving still, and will forever give. He calls on Him to let all things he thought he made be nameless now, and in their place the holy Name of God becomes his judgment of their worthlessness.

Our release?  From our ego?  Illusion?  It’s about our release from fear!!

All little things are silent. Little sounds are soundless now. The little things of earth have disappeared. The universe consists of nothing but the Son of God, who calls upon his Father. And his Father’s Voice gives answer in his Father’s holy Name. In this eternal, still relationship, in which communication far transcends all words, and yet exceeds in depth and height whatever words could possibly convey, is peace eternal. In our Father’s Name, we would experience this peace today. And in His Name, it shall be given us.

The homes we build for ourselves are not our home.  We have a home to which the child within us wants to return, but…

This Child needs your protection. He is far from home. He is so little that He seems so easily shut out, His tiny voice so readily obscured, His call for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and harsh and rasping noises of the world. Yet does He know that in you still abides His sure protection. You will fail Him not. He will go home, and you along with Him.

This Child is your defenselessness; your strength. He trusts in you. He came because He knew you would not fail. He whispers of His home unceasingly to you. For He would bring you back with Him, that He Himself might stay, and not return again where He does not belong, and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts. His patience has no limits. He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you, calling you to let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at home and you with Him.

Strange way of describing it, but it works.  It is our defenses that make us feel we are not at home.  We will be at home when we become defenseless.

Trusting your brothers is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself. When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him. You do not look beyond his errors. Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self that lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours.

Once upon a time I used to be very trusting.  But really, it was only an idealistic trust - not genuine trust.   I didn’t realize how hurt I could be until a few years ago.  I was able to get over an abusive boyfriend who liede all the time, an ex-husband having an affair after putting him throuh college, people making promises to me that weren’t kept…  But I’ve had a much more difficult time with the ugliness in the media and especially how that plays out among the American people.   I don’t understand why people are so ugly to one another.   The split that happened after 9/11 was eye-opening for me because it hit at such personal level.

I’m fairly liberal, typically vote Democrat, but have always lived where the vast majority are conservative, Republicans.  That’s never really been a problem.   I was respectful of their views and they were respectful of mine.  Until 9/11.  Then everybody went crazy - on both sides.  A deep chasm of “us and them” was created and I fell into it.    People were afraid and so was I.  I was afraid that we were losing our freedoms by giving so much power to a crazy President and scary Vice President - one nation under surveillance.  But other people were afraid that we would all be killed by terrorists and were willing to give up their right to privacy in order to feel safe.   They were protecting a different sort of freedom.    Both sides were afraid because the respective definitions were completely at odds with one another.

But what neither side understood is that freedom isn’t something that can be given and taken away by governments or terrorists.  We are already free, no matter our circumstances.  That’s what Victor Frankl discovered when he was a prisoner in Auschwitz.  We are always free to exercise our humanity toward one another, and that is what comprises true freedom.   You can’t possibly recognize that sort of freedom if you continue to blame your brother for your circumstances.

Change your focus and what you see will change, too.

It is not this that I would look upon.
I trust my brothers, who are one with me.

It is not our differing opinions that should be the focus!

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

By grace I live. By grace I am released.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

There is one life, and that I share with God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

Your grace is given me. I claim it now.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

There is no death. The Son of God is free.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.