ACIM Lesson 351 My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold.
Who is my brother but Your holy Son? ²And if I see him sinful I proclaim myself a sinner, not a Son of God; alone and friendless in a fearful world.
My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold.
1. Who is my brother but Your holy Son? ²And if I see him sinful I proclaim myself a sinner, not a Son of God; alone and friendless in a fearful world. ³Yet this perception is a choice I make, and can relinquish. ⁴I can also see my brother sinless, as Your holy Son. ⁵And with this choice I see my sinlessness, my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way secure and clear. ⁶Choose, then, for me, my Father, through Your Voice. ⁷For He alone gives judgment in Your Name.
How I See My Brother Is up to Me
The title of this lesson says it all. If I see my brother as sinless, I will be at peace. When I see him as sinful, I will see myself the same. Which I choose is up to me. It is easy to see innocence rather than sin. I just ask the Holy Spirit to judge for me and He sees that we are all as God created us. We can be nothing else. So if I see someone as sinful, it is because I want to see them in that way. I can also change my mind and when I do, the Holy Spirit will correct my thinking.
My Brother Is Innocent
It is never, ever about the other person. No matter what direction the story takes, no matter how obvious it seems the other person is guilty and the cause of my suffering, it is always about me. My purpose is to awaken from this dream of separation and I cannot do this if I single out my brother and decide he is guilty. There simply is not a single case that this is true. In his ego story, he may be playing the part of the victimizer, but he is not his story and he is innocent.
I can perceive him as if he is to blame and if I do I will suffer, or I can accept responsibility for my life events and allow my mind to be healed of the beliefs that make up the images I call my life. Then my suffering ends. It is up to me. But I know for certain that no one makes me suffer. I choose love or I choose to suffer and the story does not determine that choice.
Undoing My Error
I have two favorite ways of getting to the cause of my suffering. In one, I ask myself why this situation upsets me and I continue to ask that of each answer until I get to the root cause, then I ask for healing of that belief. The other process is to realize that the only problem is that I asked the ego what the situation means. I change my mind and ask the Holy Spirit what it means and choose to allow Him to show me a different way to see things. In both processes, I am being directed away from the story and into my own confused mind so that the problem can be solved at the level it is occurring. Both processes lead me to forgiveness and to peace.
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