May 30
"My
mind holds only what I think with God."
"I
will accept Atonement for myself."
"Only
salvation can be said to cure."
PRACTICE
SUMMARY
Review IVPurpose: To prepare for part II of the Workbook, by concentrating on readiness for it and by reviewing the last 20 lessons in a way that will facilitate that readiness.
Longer: 2--beginning and ending of the day for 5 minutes or more.
* Open your mind, clear it of all distracting thoughts. For five minutes let this thought alone occupy it, displacing all others: "My mind holds only what I think with God."
* Read the day's two ideas. Close eyes and repeat ideas slowly, without hurry, for this is what time was made for. Let each word shine with the meaning God gave it. Receive from each idea the gift God placed in it.
Remarks: Phase 1 will be enough to set your day along the lines God planned, making it a special time of blessing for you and for the world. It will be enough to place Him in charge of all your thoughts. Your thoughts will come from more than you. They will also come from Him and tell you of His Love. Thus will you, His completion, join with Him. And He, your completion, will join with you. He thanks you for your practicing. And as your day ends, His gratitude will surround you.
Shorter: hourly, for a quiet moment
* Say: "My mind holds only what I think with God." Spend a quiet moment with it.
* Then repeat the day's two ideas, slowly enough to see their gifts and receive their gifts.
COMMENTARY
Accepting Atonement for myself means, to me, allowing God to release me from all kinds of guilt. Letting go of all my judgments against myself, all my diminishing self-evaluations. It means accepting that I am not my thoughts and, above all, I am not my ego. I am not what I have thought I am. I am not what I am afraid I am. Accepting the Atonement for myself means that I can look upon my own ego without condemnation, recognizing it as no more than a foolish mistake about myself that can be corrected.
When I accept Atonement for myself, I stop measuring myself against arbitrary standards and accept myself just as I am. I am able to look upon myself with love, to view myself with merciful acceptance. In the holy instant, I accept the Atonement, and to enter such a moment it is not necessary that I have no thoughts that are not pure, only that I have no thoughts that I want to keep (T-15.IV.9:1,2). I recognize that I have made mistakes, but I am willing for every mistake to be corrected, and I accept no guilt concerning those mistakes. I do not allow my mistakes to keep me from the holy instant, because the holy instant is the place those mistakes can be corrected, and their consequences undone.
This is salvation. This is the undoing of errors, the correction of mistakes.
"Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust" (W-pII.2.3:1-3).
This is the only thing that can be said to truly cure. Anything less than this is mere alleviation of symptoms, mere shifting of form without any change in content. The root cause of guilt must be undone. "The Holy Spirit knows that all salvation is escape from guilt" (T-14.III.13:4).
To know that my mind holds only what I think with God is to escape from guilt. To know that my mind holds only what I think with God is salvation, and truly cures my ills. Atonement is God's answer to everything within my mind that appears to be other than God. It erases every thought opposed to truth and leaves me with the clean, crisp truth of my own innocence. I can bring every impure thought, every unworthy thought, every guilty thought, every thought of isolation and separateness, every thought of pain and vengeance and despair to this miraculous place of Atonement, lay it there on the altar, and watch it disappear.
"This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. For there the altar to the Son is set, and there his Father is remembered. Here are all illusions brought to truth and laid upon the altar. What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside? What remedy can guilt expect? But seen within your mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon one altar. There at last are sickness and its single remedy joined in one healing brightness. God has come to claim His Own. Forgiveness is complete." (C-4.6:1-10)
Copyright © 1996, The Circle of Atonement, Sedona,
Arizona, USA.
All rights reserved.