Love this lesson, I really do, and just listening to its being read as today is not my turn to read was lovely. Just listening to Mari read it ever so slowly and thoughtfully, in such a blessed manner! Thanks to Mari, as always!
Thoughts from Ken:
“Since perfect love casts our fear, when we choose to remember love no chill of fear can enter our minds. This is the miracle’s role, as this early syllogism in the text points out (he is writing in response to 1:5):
In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along this lines:
Perfect love casts out fear.
If fear exists,
Then there is not perfect love.
But:
Only perfect love exists.
If there is fear,
It produces a state that does not exist.
(T-1.VI.5:3-8).”
Love this syllogism. Will write it down as I go about my day so I remember when fearful and anxious, that only perfect love exists.
In response to paragraph three, WOW, BTW, saving sometimes a thousand years or more, Ken writes (PAY ATTENTION, his perspective was/is most helpful to me, it may be to you too):
“This passage makes the same point seen in the early pages of the text where Jesus discusses the miracle’s role in our salvation. Its purpose is to collapse time, saving us even a thousand years. Without going in depth into ACIM’s metaphysics of time, we can simply say that since time is not linear, all of it having occurred in one instant, Jesus teaches that when we choose a miracle, we choose to undo huge sections of our thought system that we believe exist in time. (Please see T-1.II.6:1, 5-7, 9-10 if interested in a passage from the text he quotes).
As an example consider yourself as one who has experienced much abandonment in your life. This script, of course, covers the entire hologram of time and space, and therefore this theme has no doubt been relived again and again over many lifetimes. For the sake of this discussion, let us just think of ten lifetimes, each spanning a hundred years. When you forgive the abandoning figures in your current life, the result is like a domino effect, erasing the remaining nine non-linear lifetimes along with the current one. In that sense, then, you have saved “a thousand years.” To shift metaphors, think of a computer in which you have a file called Abandonment containing the many times you have been abandoned. Incidentally, understanding the dynamic of projection helps us understand that behind our accusations is the self-accusation of having abandoned love first. When the holy instant comes in which we forgive, the entire file of Abandonment – grievances held against others, guilt held against ourselves – is deleted.
It should be obvious that Jesus does not literally mean a thousand, because there is no time. The content behind the numeric symbol is Jesus’ teaching that ACIM will save you time. When you forgive one of your special partners, behind that one stands thousands of other objects of your hate.”
This, then, is what Jesus means by the miracle. Mistakenly, we believe each time we think of God throughout the day we are thinking of God just for that single moment, In truth, however, we are undoing a long series of mistakes in which we have forgotten God and chosen the ego instead. Through this undoing we are saved from our made illusions of separation, guilt and specialness. The same are one, since there is but one mistake. Thus the miracle undoes them all, since there is only one problem from which we need to be saved.”
I won’t quote any more from Ken for now as the above are extremely powerful, at least, for me.
Why wouldn’t I be willing, even if it is a small willingness to let a miracle replace a grievance, whatever it may be, why wouldn’t I be willing to forgive?
My issue may not be abandonment although I can relate to it, it may be perfectionism to the point where I freeze in conflict as I become indecisive and terrified I will make the wrong decision. As a result, I often either make no decision at all and stay stuck or I make the wrong one because I am allowing the ego to convince me that I must move forward in some manner or perish. I know, it sounds dramatic, but when I think about my need/compulsion/proclivity/addiction for and to perfectionism, I believe it locks me into a prison of my own making.
I intend to work on this dynamic. I intend to become increasingly aware of my fear of spontaneity, my fear of being wrong, my fear of vulnerability. Yes, I will become more aware of how insidious and vicious the ego can be to preserve itself and its goal and I will remember, yes, I will remember that I am entitled to miracles, they can replace all grievances and by doing this, I will enjoy and experience joy in feeling at the very deepest level, the peace of God.
Have a lovely day!
Oh, what is your issue you’d like to work on, is it abandonment, betrayal, perfectionism? Whatever, reading what Ken has to say is very elucidating and enlightening, again, at least it is for me.
Love,
Gayle
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