ACIM Workbook Daily Lesson 246, Year 2022

ACIM Lesson 246 To love my Father is to love His Son.

Lesson 246

To love my Father is to love His Son.

1. Let me not think that I can find the way to God, if I have hatred in my heart. ²Let me not try to hurt God’s Son, and think that I can know his Father or my Self. ³Let me not fail to recognize myself, and still believe that my awareness can contain my Father, or my mind conceive of all the love my Father has for me, and all the love which I return to Him.

2. I will accept the way You choose for me to come to You, my Father. ²For in that will I succeed, because it is Your Will. ³And I would recognize that what You will is what I will as well, and only that. ⁴And so I choose to love Your Son. ⁵Amen.

1. Let me not think that I can find the way to God, if I have hatred in my heart.

This lesson contains three uncompromising statements, and I like that. I like knowing exactly what works and what does not. I take these very seriously. This first one seems self-evident, but there was a time I didn’t realize it was true. Even after I began the study of the Course, I made exceptions for those who I thought were too bad to forgive, such as people who abused children.

I even made exceptions for people who treated me badly. I remember thinking at one time that I forgave so many people, this one shouldn’t matter. All of that kind of thinking was in error. If I hate anyone, I cannot find my way to God. I finally started thinking of it this way; if God is Love, then I cannot bring hate into Him without changing Him because then He would be both Love and hate. And, of course, that is not possible.

That logic helped me to realize that all must be forgiven and seen as the Love they are. Later, I began to understand forgiveness and realized that I had been forgiving to destroy in believing that someone was guilty and then trying to forgive the guilt. I learned that I forgave because there was nothing to forgive. I forgave the thoughts in my mind about the other, and the healing of my mind allowed me to see them with Christ’s Vision. Now, I hate no one because to do so would be to keep me in hell and all of us in hell.

²Let me not try to hurt God’s Son, and think that I can know his Father or my Self.

This is similar to the first. I used to think that if someone hurt me then I was justified in hurting them. Then I learned through ACIM that this is not so, that attack is never justified. At first, this idea felt like a sacrifice and made me think I was a victim to them. As I continued studying and practicing the course, I realized I was wrong about that. As I forgave and released my beliefs, I became happier and more peaceful. I realized that I valued peace and happiness a lot more than being right and feeling justified. Then it became easy and natural to choose love rather than defense.

The next step in this was to realize how often I hurt others in more subtle or even casual ways. That took a strong desire never to cause harm so that I would be willing to become aware of those thoughts and desires. Sometimes it never reached the level of saying or doing anything but was more of an attitude or even just thoughts in my mind.

For instance, there was someone I didn’t enjoy being around.

When I came into contact with her, I always wished I hadn’t. No doubt, she could feel a lack of welcome from me even when I didn’t express it. When I worked in sales, there was a competitor that I judged as unscrupulous and a customer I thought of as two-faced, and I felt justified in ‘warning’ other people about them.

This is causing harm, and I eventually learned that the cost of doing this was too high. And as I continued to do the healing work in my own mind, I reached a level of real love. Then it wasn’t just about not hurting someone, it was about loving them. This is when I realized that we can know our Self even while still in the illusionary story.

³Let me not fail to recognize myself, and still believe that my awareness can contain my Father, or my mind conceive of all the love my Father has for me, and all the love which I return to Him.

This is the goal, the reason we are studying and practicing the Course. When I first began this study, I thought it was so that I could have a happier dream, and this does happen, no doubt. But now I understand that my true purpose is to wake up from the dream and to realize Who I am. It is to know my Father and to know the love He has for me. As Jesus says, my awareness cannot contain this knowing unless I first recognize myself.

I know now what I am not. I am not this body, nor am I in this body. I never have been. There is nothing outside God, and I am in God. So, I am not actually living this story. I know this. But I am still learning to let go of the idea of a personal self. I still reference the world to a personal self, so there is much left to undo. This is very exciting to think of and also a little unnerving.

It has been a long time since I knew myself as I am, and I have believed many untrue things. I have become comfortable in the limited awareness of myself as a human being, even though that awareness involves a lot of suffering and death. I have to wonder what it is I think about being a divine and eternal Being that there is to avoid or even to fear. But each day, I accept more healing, and my mind opens a bit more to the certainty that this is what I want and what I will have.

2. I will accept the way You choose for me to come to You, my Father. ²For in that will I succeed, because it is Your Will. ³And I would recognize that what You will is what I will as well, and only that. ⁴And so I choose to love Your Son. ⁵Amen.

There is only one way to God, and that is through love. I accept this, and I strive to release any thought that is not love. I long for God, so I must long for Oneness with All God created. The way to do this is to be vigilant for anything that does not reflect God’s Love and release it quickly and gladly. This appears as fear and guilt, and it doesn’t matter where I see it, within or without, since without is simply a reflection of what is within.

And so, I will accept the Will of God and know that is my will as well. I will accept that I am God the Son and will do my part to restore the Sonship to Its Oneness. I do this by choosing to love God’s Son. All of it, without exception.

Regina’s Tips on “What is the World?”

The world’s purpose for you is the one that you give it. If you give the world the purpose of healing the mind and awakening to truth, that is the purpose of everything you perceive. However, if you do not consciously and steadfastly choose this purpose, the world, by default, will continue to be a place of deception with the purpose of feeding the thought of separation.

What purpose do you choose?

Is there anything (anyone, any circumstance, any desire) that you exclude from the purpose of healing or awakening?

If there is anything that you exclude from the purpose of healing or awakening, that remains an area of deception for you. That is where your ego feeds itself.

My Thoughts

I use everything in my life for the purpose of awakening. There are still things that I see as important of themselves, for instance, special relationships. But as this shows up in some way, I turn it around as quickly as I can. For a long time, a past behavior would haunt my memory, and I felt guilty. But I saw this as another opportunity to heal the mind, and I released that guilt as quickly as possible. I absolutely believe that my life is not about my life, that I came here with a higher purpose, and I am determined to accomplish that purpose.

Regina’s Tips on the lesson

There are some teachings we need to accept if healing the mind or awakening to truth are important to us.

1. The ego (I-thought) will not lead us to awakening. Its purpose is the opposite of truth.
2. The ego is the cause of all suffering. As long as we continue to accept the I-thought’s thinking as our thinking, we will continue to suffer (be unhappy, worry, have grievances, etc.). Likewise, as long as we continue to accept the I-thought’s thinking as our thinking, we will continue to contribute to the world’s suffering (in all of its forms).
3. The only way to be in the world without following the I-thought’s thinking is to surrender to wisdom that is not part of the I-thought’s thinking. That is the purpose of surrender.

You can know the I-thought’s thinking by its will. Outward seeking is the will of the I-thought.

Judgment is a mechanism of the ego’s outward seeking loop. It judges to determine good and bad, right and wrong, desired and undesired, etcetera. And then it seeks to obtain or achieve what it determines is good for it and to avoid or destroy what it determines is bad for it.

Please take a few minutes to contemplate some things or circumstances that your mind judges as good or desired. Notice the thinking that spins in your mind about obtaining or achieving those things or circumstances.

Next, take a few minutes to contemplate some things or circumstances that your mind judges as bad or undesirable. Notice the thinking that spins in your mind about avoiding or ending those things or circumstances.

You have just observed judgment and outward seeking in the I-thought’s thought system.

Love is the nature of the true Self. Love is open allowance and acceptance of all things as they are. Love does not seek outwardly for happiness or safety. Love is fulfilled within itself. Love is eternal and invulnerable. It is not threatened by the temporary circumstances that come and go in perception.

My Thoughts

This morning as I read Regina’s thoughts on the lesson, I thought that I don’t do a lot of outward seeking, and I don’t have a lot of I-thoughts. Then I stopped writing about this for a few minutes as I got some breakfast. Suddenly, I noticed my thoughts. I was thinking about what I like to eat and what I need to happen next. I saw that I was not happy with a specific situation and spent some time thinking about what I thought should happen.

Ha ha. My mind was full of I-thoughts and they were all directed outward. I see that I need to be more vigilant for this kind of thinking. What I did this morning was to realize that I don’t know what should be happening. I don’t intend to spend any more of this life trying to manipulate outer circumstances to my liking. Instead, I let all that go and when I did, my mind was peaceful.

It also reminded me of a novel I am reading by Tony Hillerman. In it, the main character, Joe Leaphorn, was commenting on a ceremony being performed by a neighboring tribe to bring rain to the reservation. He said that the Navaho people don’t understand the idea of bringing nature in line with their needs. Instead, they seek to come into harmony with nature. (Not his exact words) Instead of trying to manipulate the world, I change my mind to be peaceful in the world.

When I was still working, I needed to heal some relationships in which there was hatred.

Oh my! I cannot find my way to God if I have hatred in my heart. Jesus said it in another way in the Text. He said that I cannot approach God if I attack His Son. I know this, and I live by it… most of the time. I mentioned that for a few days now I have had some distress dealing with work issues. I have had the opportunity to see that there are still ego separation thoughts in my mind that attract me.

There are two people at work that I hate. Gosh, I don’t like saying that, and I want to soften the blow, telling you that they get on my nerves, that they are difficult, that I love them, but they trigger me. But if what I feel is not love, then it must be hate. And if it is not love, it must be fear. So, I see that I hate them and I understand that my hate is an outward expression of fear. I have been talking to Jesus about this for these several days, and he has helped me a good deal.

He has shown me the fear, and he has helped me to see the beliefs behind the thoughts. He helped me go through the situation using Lesson 325, so I could see why I wanted this situation in my life. He helped me to see that it is spilling over into other parts of my life. I cannot hate in a box. If I hate, it affects everything. He showed me that hate is a filter, and if I look through that filter to see the world, then the world will look hateful.

Yesterday, I had a hateful thought about them, and I stopped myself immediately.

I realized I was feeling attacked and wanted to defend myself by returning the attack. I was having one of those silly inner arguments with one of the people involved. First, I stopped the ego chatter and sat in stillness for a moment.

Then, I looked at what I was doing. I realized that when I asked the ego to fix this problem (the inner argument I was winning), the Holy Spirit had to step back because I was no longer asking for His help. Now, without His Light, I was in the dark with the ego and hated how that felt. So, I invited the Holy Spirit back and asked Him to enlighten the situation for me.

I was reminded that it is in my defenselessness my safety lies. Of course! Well, the ego was not sitting still for that, and insisted that I really needed to do something about the situation and flooded my mind with ideas of how to do that. I stopped the chatter again, and I turned back to Holy Spirit.

The thought came to me that Jesus says my safety lies in defenselessness. This doesn’t make sense to the ego, but seriously, who am I going to believe? Jesus or the ego? I felt all the animosity and all the fear melt away. Good job, Holy Spirit!

Contemplation 2025

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 246 click here.

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