Read on the ACIM CE App: https://acimce.app/:W-218
Lesson 218
Review 6: I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
Review of:
(198) “Only my condemnation injures me.”
Practice Instructions
See Practice Instructions Review 6
Commentary
Condemnation does not injure the body. It reminds me of the old childhood chant, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me.” I am not a body; what I am cannot be hurt by “sticks and stones.” Only my own condemnation, my acceptance of those “names,” can hurt me.
Haven’t you called yourself names? I know I have. “You idiot!” “You are so stupid, Watson!” These self-mocking name-callings still, after all these years, pop into my head and out of my own mouth. They are only surface symptoms of a much deeper self-condemnation and mistrust of myself that is at the root of all my problems. Marianne Williamson hits the target when she says, “The ego is my self-loathing.”
And when I realize that every other form of outward-directed condemnation—anger, prejudice, hatred, resentment, common dislike, even simple discomfort with someone—are all, every one, projections of my own self-attack, then I begin to realize just how deep and how far-reaching this self-condemnation really is. This condemnation injures me. I hurl my spears of attack out at the world, and every one returns to stab me in the back. “It can be but myself I crucify” (W-216.1:1).
As long as I keep this war against myself going, my eyes are sightless to see my own glory. I cannot see the Christ in myself because of the dust storm of self-condemnation, whether it is directed inward or projected outward on illusions of myself I think are outside of me. It is the constant stream of judgment that blinds me.
Today, if I only choose to do so, I can see my own glory. All that I need is to accept Atonement for myself. Tune out the Judgment Channel. Tune in the Forgiveness Channel. Let me be quiet now, and sense the Love within: the Love of God for me, His child; my love for Him; my Self’s own love for me, and mine for my Self. And often, today, let me stop and remind myself that the only thing that can injure me is my own condemnation. And I am free to choose to let that go, assisted by the Holy Spirit, my inner Self, and all the angels of Heaven.
Whenever I feel a rush of judgment within, wherever it is directed, let me bring my case to Heaven’s Higher Court, and hear the Holy Spirit dismiss the case against me (see T-5.VIII.1-2,8-9).