A Course in Miracles Workbook Daily Lesson 316, Year 2022

ACIM Daily Lesson 316 All gifts I give my brothers are my own. 1. As every gift my brothers give is mine, so every gift I give belongs to me.

Lesson 316

All gifts I give my brothers are my own.

1. As every gift my brothers give is mine, so every gift I give belongs to me. ²Each one allows a past mistake to go, and leave no shadow on the holy mind my Father loves. ³His grace is given me in every gift a brother has received throughout all time, and past all time as well. ⁴My treasure house is full, and angels watch its open doors that not one gift is lost, and only more are added. ⁵Let me come to where my treasures are, and enter in where I am truly welcome and at home, among the gifts that God has given me.

2. Father, I would accept Your gifts today. ²I do not recognize them. ³Yet I trust that You Who gave them will provide the means by which I can behold them, see their worth, and cherish only them as what I want.

Ah! Jesus is turning yesterday’s lesson around. Yesterday, we contemplated all the ways we receive God’s gifts and the gifts from our brothers. Today, we will look at the fact that all we give is given to ourselves. In actuality, it is not so much that what we give returns, it is that giving is receiving. Consequently, knowing that what is given is received has made me even more vigilant for my thoughts. I am careful to give to the mind we all share what I want to receive. I am careful to say what I want to hear, and to do what I want to be done to me. The Golden Rule starts to make a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

If I give the gifts I receive, all is forgiven, and all that is ego is undone.

Let’s say that someone gossips about me, and I hear about it. If I am angry or hurt, I will defend myself and probably return what seems to be an attack. I give darkness into the mind, and there is more darkness projected onto the world. If, on the other hand, I recognize that this person acted out of her own fear and confusion, I will respond differently.

I know what it is like to be afraid, to react to the darkness in the mind. Therefore, I will choose to give the gifts of God instead. And so, I will recognize that darkness is sickness, and so healing is needed. If I go to the doctor with a contagious disease, I would not expect him to be angry with me for exposing him to it. I would expect him to meet sickness with healing.

In the same way, when someone attacks me, I understand the mind is sick and needs healing. Therefore, healing is what I offer. I heal through forgiving the belief that is causing the mind to be sick. It doesn’t matter where in the mind I see the problem or where in the mind it is healed. We all benefit. I heal the mind by giving God’s gift of Love wherever it is needed. In this way, I leave no shadow on the holy mind my Father loves.

Angels watch its open doors.

I have a treasure house filled with God’s gifts, and unlike the treasure of the world, I do not need to guard it. The doors are open wide to give all that God gives me. I give understanding and compassion. Where forgiveness and healing are needed, I give that as well. I give love and kindness to those who feel alone and beleaguered. The angels watch its open doors so that not one gift is lost and only more are added. These are gifts that never diminish, no matter how often they are dispersed where needed. They are replenished as they are given and only grow stronger in sharing. Over time, I have come to trust and appreciate the gifts of God and to recognize that these are the only gifts I need.

There are two interesting ideas in this lesson.

First, he says that every gift my brother gives is mine. I notice that he doesn’t say every gift my brother gives me is mine, but it seems to imply that every gift given to anyone is mine. This idea is repeated when he says in sentence three that His grace is given me in every gift a brother has received throughout all time, and past all time as well. Here he is talking about the holy mind our Father loves, so he is talking about all of us as one mind. Though we experience ourselves as separate beings, in truth, we have never been separate, and so, what one of us receives, all of us receive.

Then in the second paragraph, we are told that we do not recognize our Father’s gifts but would accept them trusting that we will come to know and cherish them. More than that, we will cherish only them. We are familiar with the ego’s “gifts,” and in our ignorance, we have cherished its gifts instead. Until we learn better, we tend to cherish winning and special relationships and being right, among other ego gifts.

What I have come to cherish instead is freedom from judgment and the peace of mind that comes from relinquishing judgment. I cherish the love that has taken the place of fear and the innocence that replaced guilt. I hope that I am done with the ego’s gifts, but I continue to watch my thoughts for signs that I am again attracted to any of them so that I can quickly change my mind.

Regina’s Tips

For the lesson, Regina says this. “The gifts that we give our brothers are letting go of ego and turning our attention inward to embrace truth as it is, without asking it to be different. That is the highest gift that can be given.” I ask myself how it is that I ask the truth to be different. When I want the world and my story in it to be true, I want the truth to be different. When I play with the story, trying to make it suit my personal desires, this is how I desire it to be different. But when I simply observe the story, notice what is triggered in me by the story, and choose to be healed of the beliefs that are shown to me, this is how I embrace the truth.

Regina also talked about the last judgment. She said this:

We have seen very clearly that the last judgment is awakening beyond perception and the world entirely. It is awakening into Nirvana. It is something we cannot imagine.

Also, it may be difficult for us to desire this final awakening since we cannot imagine it, and we are told that everything we know disappears with this awakening. If we think about Nirvana for long, we may find that we fear the final awakening. That’s because we are thinking about it with the ego mind. We are considering awakening through the lens of ego consciousness.

It’s really important to look at awakening with the reasoning of the right-mind.

Then she reminded us of the pendulum that she talked about yesterday and added a story from Matthew 19 in the New Testament in which Jesus admonished his disciples to let the little children come to him because the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. He also talked about how hard it is for us to give up the things of the world but how necessary it is that we do so. She asked us to contemplate this.

What I got from the readings is that even after my mind is purified and even after I experience the real world, there is more to come, but that it is impossible for me to understand what this would be like because everything I know will fall away. No bodies, no world, no separate self. Because it is so unknown, this can feel frightening and probably does. I think this is the real meaning of the story in Matthew 19. I think that asking the rich man to give away his possessions and follow Jesus was a parable that represented giving up the world in order to return to our natural state as one with God. The unknown is always frightening, but God is the real gift that is ours as we let go of the ego.

2015

As I read this, I had a very emotional reaction. And I had a conversation going on in my head. If I were to put it in to words, it would sound like this.

Me: Oh my God, I don’t see a picture my eyes could see, but I feel my Father’s gifts to me. (I had to stop and cry at this point)

Ego: No! To accept this gift, you would have to give up all of this. (This thought dissipated the feeling, and I stopped crying.)

Me: Spirit, please heal my mind.

Me: There is nothing here worth keeping. There is nothing here of any value.

Ego: You are being asked to give up your life to experience this Heavenly Vision, something you are just imagining anyway. That would be such a selfish act on your part. What about your children and those who would mourn your loss?

Holy Spirit: 

You are asked only to die to the ego, to die to that separate self that believes it is you. You cannot imagine your Father gifting you while you are clinging to the body, because you believe that this body makes you guilty. Your Father loves you wherever you imagine yourself to be. And His gifts are not conditional. They are not withheld because you think you are guilty. They are yours even now.

You are not asked to die to the body, simply to transcend the belief that you are it. Your belief that you are guilty and hidden from God by the body are the thoughts that make you think you must sacrifice to receive of God. You are never asked to sacrifice for God. Would He demand the sacrifice be made by your loved ones on your behalf? That is the way the ego thinks, but hardly the way God thinks.

Me: The feeling of love and joy are filling me up right now. No words.

Contemplation 2025

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 316 click here.

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