ACIM Daily Lesson 218 Only my condemnation injures me.
Only my condemnation injures me.
LESSON 218
I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.
1. (198) Only my condemnation injures me.
²My condemnation keeps my vision dark, and through my sightless eyes I cannot see the vision of my glory. ³Yet today I can behold this glory and be glad.
⁴I am not a body. ⁵I am free.
⁶For I am still as God created me.
I absolutely must let go of the desire to condemn. It doesn’t matter who I condemn, myself or another. It is all the same. Condemnation keeps us separate and, in our separation, we cannot know our Self which is One. I see this as uncompromising. I cannot condemn even one person or the whole is no longer whole. I cannot condemn in part, mostly loving someone but judging some aspect of him or her. The decision to love in part is not love; it will keep me blind to who they are and so keep me blind to who I am since we are the same.
Love All
I’ve learned to love everything. I love that there were hurricanes, and I love that I left so that I didn’t have to experience it. I love that there was damage to my house, and I love that it has been repaired. I love it all. Everything is either supporting me, or it is offering me opportunities for healing. Both are welcome. I love everyone in my life, whether they agree with me or disagree with me.
When I have a moment of insanity and believe that something shouldn’t be happening or that someone is not loveable, I have another golden opportunity to look with the Holy Spirit at my mistaken beliefs so they can be corrected. I am learning to laugh at my errors. To take them seriously is to make them feel real in my mind. I can close my eyes to my glory but I cannot diminish it. I am still as God created me.
A Memory to Forgive
This morning while taking my shower, my mind was wandering, and I suddenly realized that I was condemning someone for past behavior. This behavior was not important to me, wasn’t affecting me in any way at this time, and barely did when it happened. It was just a memory coming forward for me to look at once again.
As soon as I became aware of it, I examined it with the Holy Spirit and realized right away that it is just the ego wanting to revisit one of its stories. I am not interested. I let it go. Shortly afterward, the ego tried again with another story. This is what the ego does, but I don’t have to give it my attention, so I released it and reminded myself that this kind of thinking has no value.
Remembering the Past Does not Protect Me
I remembered that the peace of God is my goal, and condemnation is not going to bring me peace. It never has. The ego argues that remembering these past grievances and holding onto them protects me. It keeps me from being a victim again, the ego says. But I never was a victim to anything except my desires and choice to use the ego to interpret circumstances. And I don’t need the ego’s protection.
I don’t need the thinking mind to help me in any way. That was the big ego lie. I have another way of living now. I am learning to surrender decision-making to my holy Self rather than to the ego. I ask what it is I am to do now, how I am to understand the present experience or even the memory of a past experience. I ask what I am to say and to whom. Life is easy and peaceful, and I am happy. This remains true until I slip back into deciding for myself, that is, with the ego, and this is happening much less often.
Condemnation Takes Away My Peace
I know now that any desire to condemn takes me right out of peace. It shrouds my real Self in darkness so that I don’t experience myself as I am. It moves me further from my own true nature and keeps me from experiencing the love of my Creator. How is that protecting me? Clearly, it is not protection but injury. This is why I quickly and easily move out of those memories. I’m just not interested. Nor do I regard any of the ego’s attempts to interest me in its kind of “help” with current problems.
Regina’s Tips
If we decide that certain circumstances are justification for our judgment and condemnation, we have decided those same circumstances are a good reason to suffer. By making this choice, we have also decided we prefer to focus on illusion than realize truth.
The ego, which is the wish to be focused on illusion instead of realizing truth, will come up with certain circumstances that seem to absolutely justify our judgment. But that is just the ego preferring attention on illusion instead of truth realization.
Do not be fooled by the ego’s tricks. Whenever you are tempted to condemn, ask yourself this clear-minded question: Do I want freedom and truth? If the answer is yes, then shift to a spiritual practice that will help free you from the current temptation to judge and condemn.
My Thoughts
One of the ways the ego tries to tempt me into condemning myself is to question my spiritual path and to question my ability to walk it. Each time I slip into old wrong-minded thinking, even if it is only for a few minutes, the ego-mind wants to think about how I am not doing this right and that I never will. It insists that I am just kidding myself when I think I am doing well, or in its more vicious moments, it thinks that I am an outright fraud. At the least, it wants to think about how I have it all wrong or that I can’t tell the difference between following ego and following Spirit.
I can still sometimes feel fear pass through me when this happens. But I also know now that this is the usual ego thinking and doesn’t mean anything, so I turn from it toward the light. It is in light that we see clearly, not in darkness. I know too much now to fumble around in the dark when light is readily available to me. I am no longer willing to suffer as I used to now that I know I don’t have to. There is an ego thought system in my mind, but there is also the Holy Spirit, and it is my choice the one I turn to.
To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 218 click here.
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