Read on the ACIM CE App: https://acimce.app/:W-296
Lesson 296
The Holy Spirit speaks through me today.
Practice Instructions
See complete instructions in a separate document. A short summary:
- Read the commentary paragraph slowly and personally.
- Pray the prayer, perhaps several times.
- Morning and evening: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind Meditation.
- Hourly remembrance: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind Meditation.
- Frequent reminders: Repeat the idea and then spend a quiet moment in meditation.
- Response to temptation: Repeat the idea whenever upset, to restore peace.
- Read the “What Is” section slowly and thoughtfully once during the day.
Practice suggestion: You may want to think of the people you expect to interact with today, and with each one ask the Holy Spirit the following questions:
What would You say through me to [name]?
How would You have me tell [name] that he/she is pure and holy as God Himself?”
Quiet your mind. Try to clear it of any preconceptions. Listen deeply. Repeat your questions if nothing comes at first. You may want to have pen and paper in hand, and write down anything that comes to mind.
Commentary
When I allow the Holy Spirit to look through me (yesterday’s lesson), sharing His perception, then He also speaks through me.
Not that I become God’s gift to the world in the egoic sense, the oracle who has the answer for all mankind. No, not that. But He does speak through me. He speaks the word of welcome, of acknowledgment, of appreciation, and of gratitude. Through me, the Holy Spirit communicates to my sisters and brothers, “You are safe. You are whole. You are loved.”
Having damned the world, now I would set it free. Having plastered everyone with guilt, layering it on with a heavy hand, now I would lift that guilt from everyone. Why grant this escape to all and sundry? Because I want it for myself, and this is the only way to get it. If my brother dies guilty, I die with him. What a tremendous privilege I have, to lift the guilt from those around me, to let them know they are free!
Through me (and you) the Holy Spirit persuades the world to seek and find the path to God. I am His representative on earth, an ambassador for the Kingdom of God. To those who have not learned as yet to listen to His Voice on their own, I represent Him, speaking His words, portraying His attitude and His Love to every person I encounter. That is my function. That is my only purpose. That is my life.
I would be savior to the world I made. For having damned it, I would set it free. (1:3-4)
Am I willing to become savior to my world? Some of the time I find myself wanting to escape it, to just let it fall into ruins and be done with it. The Course is clear on this point: I cannot fly off to Heaven myself and leave the world behind. I cannot reach heaven without my brothers.
The weary feeling toward the world, the sense that “I am so bone-tired of all of this mess,” hides my own judgment on myself. Deeply guilty of my own continued separation from the Father, I want to lay the blame on the world. I want to be able to feel, “It is this tiresome place that keeps me from my peace.” Peace is here; peace is now. Peace, and Heaven itself, are in me, with me wherever I go. I do not need to fly off, and nothing needs to change.
“The Holy Spirit needs my voice today” (1:1). We live in a conspiracy of silence. There are many, far more than we know, who have caught sight of Heaven. We are among them. Yet we fear to speak because we fear people will mock us, people will think we are crazy.
How often have we hungered, craved with a deep yearning, for someone who would dare to say, in the midst of fear, suffering, loss, and terror, “I am at peace. The peace of God is very real to me.” Today, be the one to answer another’s yearning. “We teach…what we would learn” (2:1).