ACIM Workbook Daily Lesson 76, Year 2022

ACIM Daily Lesson 76 I am under no laws but God’s.

I am under no laws but God’s.

ACIM Lesson 76

Lesson 76

I am under no laws but God’s.

1. We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation. ²Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. ³You are not bound by them. ⁴Yet to understand that this is so, you must first realize salvation lies not there. ⁵While you would seek for it in things that have no meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no sense. ⁶Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it is not.

2. Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. ²For if you could, you would forever seek salvation where it is not, and never find it. ³The idea for today tells you once again how simple is salvation. ⁴Look for it where it waits for you, and there it will be found. ⁵Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere else.

Jesus is telling us that as long as we look for salvation in the world (including the body) we will never find it. Our problem is in our mind. Salvation is in our mind. We must look at our thoughts and beliefs and allow correction in order to be saved from the world’s senseless laws. Jesus tells us that the world doesn’t exist and neither do these bodies and yet, we keep looking to them for solutions to our suffering. I might express this as save the planet or save the body and I will be saved and this will never work. Instead, let me undo all grievances in my mind and undo the belief in guilt and I will be truly saved.

The Problem Is in the Mind Not the Body

3. Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you. ²You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. ³You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death. ⁴You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.

I used to think that this made me guilty for being sick or for taking medicine. I felt the same way about needing money. Loneliness seemed like a sin. It all seemed very confusing. I couldn’t do without any of these things, so maybe he meant I needed to do them differently. I understand now that he is saying that healing the body and taking care of it is not going to heal my mind. Since the mind is where the problem lies, I need to focus my attention there. This, of course, doesn’t mean I stop taking care of the body. That would be foolish.

This Is Insanity

4. It is insanity that thinks these things. ²You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. ³You think you must obey the “laws” of medicine, of economics and of health. ⁴Protect the body, and you will be saved.

5. These are not laws, but madness. ²The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. ³The body suffers just in order that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. ⁴The body’s suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. ⁵It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. ⁶It is from this your “laws” would save the body. ⁷It is for this you think you are a body.

In these paragraphs, Jesus is even clearer about what this lesson is for. Our error is in thinking that the body is the problem and if we protect it, we will be saved. This is so insane that it is hard for me to remember what it was like to fully buy into the ego’s plan to save itself. It is like a magician that uses distraction to fool us into believing in its tricks. It works in our mind and at the same time, it draws our attention to the body so we won’t see what is actually happening.

Guilt Is the Cause

Right now, I have a couple of physical problems and I am seeing doctors to find relief. That is their job and I am grateful to them for what they do. My job, however, is to continue to watch my thoughts for guilt. This is because guilt is the actual cause of the problems in the body. The tricky ego keeps trying to convince me that I am guilty of having guilt in the mind. Additionally, it believes the pain in my body is deserved since I am guilty. I fell for that for a while until I realized what was happening. Once the magician’s tricks are seen, they no longer work.

The Magicians Slight of Hand

6. There are no laws except the laws of God. ²This needs repeating, over and over, until you realize it applies to everything that you have made in opposition to God’s Will. ³Your magic has no meaning. ⁴What it is meant to save does not exist. ⁵Only what it is meant to hide will save you.

What have we made in opposition to God’s Will? Only an entire world peopled with bodies that are supposed to contain us. Only the belief that this world and its bodies separate us from our Creator and makes us independent of Him. This cannot be reality and our magic cannot make it so. As Jesus says, what it was meant to save does not exist. Bodies were made to hide our minds from our awareness so that we would not save ourselves as we can so easily do. The magicians slight of hand at work.

It Is Only the MInd that Is Sick

7. The laws of God can never be replaced. ²We will devote today to rejoicing that this is so. ³It is no longer a truth that we would hide. ⁴We realize instead it is a truth that keeps us free forever. ⁵Magic imprisons, but the laws of God make free. ⁶The light has come because there are no laws but His.

8. We will begin the longer practice periods today with a short review of the different kinds of “laws” we have believed we must obey. ²These would include, for example, the “laws” of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the body’s protection in innumerable ways. ³Think further; you believe in the “laws” of friendship, of “good” relationships and reciprocity. ⁴Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is God’s and what is yours. ⁵Many “religions” have been based on this. ⁶They would not save but damn in Heaven’s name. ⁷Yet they are no more strange than other “laws” you hold must be obeyed to make you safe.

Let us not be confused by this. Even though it is the truth that we don’t have a body and therefore cannot be in one, we believe we do and are. So, we cannot act as if the body doesn’t need care. The magical body needs magical care. What we need to remember is that the body is not our problem. Therefore, we cannot find salvation there. Take care of the body in whatever way you believe will help it. Just don’t think the body made anything happen. It didn’t make itself sick and a sick body is not what imprisons you. It is only the mind that exists and it is the mind that is sick and needs our attention.

The Love Your Father Has for You

9. There are no laws but God’s. ²Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today, and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice that speaks the truth to you. ³You will be listening to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of God. ⁴Payment is neither given nor received. ⁵Exchange cannot be made; there are no substitutes; and nothing is replaced by something else. ⁶God’s laws forever give and never take.

10. Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the “laws” you thought upheld the world you thought you saw. ²Then listen further. ³He will tell you more. ⁴About the Love your Father has for you. ⁵About the endless joy He offers you. ⁶About His yearning for His only Son, created as His channel for creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell.

Here is our salvation. I use the world and the body to point to the errors in my mind so that I can be truly healed. I know that the body is not real and is not me. But I still take care of both and I still use them in ways that help me to heal my mind. If I am using people instead of loving them, I notice this and allow my mind to be healed. If I am substituting one body for another I prefer, I allow my mind to be healed. Perhaps I think that I need to be more attractive to be happy. I allow my mind to be healed. See how handy this illusory body can be to help me seek salvation where it can be found?

There Is No Loss Under the Laws of God

As the mind is healed, we begin to see how foolish our attempts to save ourselves through illusions really is. What is ours in truth is waiting for us to wake up. There is no loss under the laws of God. He never takes but only gives. God loves us and wants only happiness for us. Creation will bring us endless joy when we awaken. God created us to create and this is what we are meant for but cannot do while we sleep. Illusions cannot offer this.

Our Statement of Freedom

11. Let us today open God’s channels to Him, and let His Will extend through us to Him. ²Thus is creation endlessly increased. ³His Voice will speak of this to us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever. ⁴We will repeat today’s idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws but God’s. ⁵Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice period concludes:

⁶I am under no laws but God’s.

12. We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today; at least four or five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to experience ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. ²It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. ³It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved.

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 76 click here.

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