LESSON 239
August 27
"The glory of my Father is my own."
PRACTICE SUMMARY
(See Part II Practice Summary, and also Part II Introduction)
COMMENTARY
"Let not the truth about ourselves today be hidden by a false humility" (1:1)
One thing I am aware of as I have not been before while doing the workbook is that when it uses the words "we," "us," and "ourselves" it is not referring to just we students of the Course. The "we" includes Jesus. After all, it is Jesus who is speaking throughout the book. This is no ordinary, generic "we" that any author might use. Jesus is identifying himself with us, and us with him, each time a third-person pronoun is used.
The "truth about ourselves" is the truth about you, me and Jesus. In recognizing that I get a sense of his joining with me that I've never quite had before. And I see in his use of the terms a purpose, to focus my attention on the sameness of himself, myself and my brothers.
When I see traces of sin and guilt "in those with whom He shares His glory" (1:3) I am seeing them in myself. That is a false humility! When I see my brother as guilty or sinful it is because I am putting myself in that same class, and thus hiding the truth about myself. Guilt can take a seemingly saintly form: "We are all just poor students of the Course, weak and frail and constantly failing." And that guilt, that false humility, obscures your glory and my own.
It is true that we are all just students, that we are on the lower rung of the ladder and just beginning to be aware of all we really are. It is false spirituality to pretend to what we do not experience. But it is false humility to constantly emphasize our weakness by judging or focusing on failures. We all share the same ego, but we also all share the same glorious Sonship. We need to spend time, from time to time, thanking God for "the light that shines forever in us...We are one, united in this light and one with You, at peace with all creation and ourselves" (2:1, 3).
What I see and dwell on in my brothers is what I am seeing and dwelling on in myself. How I view my brothers only reflects my view of myself.
"Perception seems to teach you what you see. Yet it but witnesses to what you taught. It is an outward picture of a wish; an image that you wanted to be true" (T-24.VII.8:8-10).
"How can you manifest the Christ in you except to look on holiness and see Him there?" (T-25.I.2:1) In other words, you can only manifest the Christ in you by looking on your brother and seeing the Christ in him.
"Perception tells you you are manifest in what you see" (T-25.I.2:2).
"Perception is a choice of what you want yourself to be; the world you want to live in, and the state in which you think your mind will be content and satisfied." "It reveals yourself to you as you would have you be" (T-25.I.3:1, 3).
If I would not hide the truth of my own glory, I cannot hide that of my brother. "What is the same can have no different function" (T-23.IV.3:4). If I deny the truth in my brother, I am denying it to myself. In fact I am denying it in him because I am denying it about myself. When I mentally separate myself from someone, and make him or her different from myself, less than myself, by judging him, let me recognize that what I see is revealing what my mind is doing to myself. I am hiding my own glory, and therefore judging another, projecting the guilt outside. My judgement of another can then become a mirror to show me that I have forgotten who I really am. It can remind me, cause me to remember, and to choose again, to remember my status as Son of God, "at peace with all creation and [myself]" (2:3).
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