Lesson 341 • December 7

 

Read on the ACIM CE App: https://acimce.app/:W-341

Lesson 341

I can attack but my own sinlessness,
and it is only that which keeps me safe.

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: This is yet another favorite prayer of mine. I’ve laid it out on separate lines to aid in praying it, and added some extra thoughts to each line.

1. Father, Your Son is holy.

And Your Son is me.
You are my Father, Who loves me more than any earthly father could imagine.
Your Love created me holy, and that is how I remain, no matter what I think of myself.

2. I am he on whom You smile

Your Smile is everything to me.
It is my sun, my Source of life, in which I abide.
What could be more joyous than feeling Your Smile shining on me?

in love and tenderness so deep and dear and still

Let me know the love of Your Smile, the tenderness of it.
Let me feel how dear is Your Love, how deep, how still.

the universe smiles back on You and shares Your holiness.

Your Holiness lies in Your loving Smile.
In smiling back on you, we share Your Holiness.

3. How pure, how safe, how sacred, then, are we,

How pure are we. How safe are we. How holy are we.
Let me feel this purity, rest in this safety, shine in this holiness.

abiding in Your smile,

Basking in Your smile.
Living in Your smile like flowers live in the sunlight and turn their faces toward its warmth.

with all Your love bestowed upon us,

All of Your love. How could that be?
Let me know the joy of feeling all of Your love bestowed on me.

living one with You,

With no distance between Us, no space for hate or discord to arise.
Living inside the warmth of Your smile.

in brotherhood and fatherhood complete;

The experience of brotherhood I long for is there, in Your smile.
The perfect Father I long for is there, in Your smile.

in sinlessness so perfect that the Lord of sinlessness conceives us as His Son,

Only the perfectly sinless could be the Son of the Lord of sinlessness.
And in my perfect sinlessness, I am Your Son.

a universe of Thought completing Him.

I and my brothers are a universe of thought.
So pure, so sinless, so vast, that we actually complete You.
What more hallowed honor could there be?

Commentary

Whenever I attack anyone I attack myself. When I see sin in another, my own sinlessness is being attacked, and only that keeps me safe. God says I am sinless; who am I to disagree? And why would I do that?

I am he on whom You smile in love and tenderness so deep and dear and still the universe smiles back on You and shares Your holiness. (1:2)

How foolish, then, to attack at all, when any attack is an attack on what I am! How foolish to so attack the wonder of what I am in a vain quest for some other, lesser identity! Why would I jeopardize my experience of God’s deep tenderness?

…abiding in Your smile… (1:3)

What a wonderful thought! Sometimes I have met a person whose smile was so radiant I felt as if I could sunbathe in it. Imagine basking in God’s Smile! What a warmth of love beams from such a smile! Let me spend a little time now just luxuriating in its compassionate glow.

We live one with Him, “in brotherhood and fatherhood complete” (1:3). The oneness we enjoy is not just with the Father, but with all our brothers as well. This is the state we are meant to abide in forever. It is the state we are in forever, if we are only willing to enjoy it and set aside every thought of attack. “The Lord of sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of thought completing Him” (1:3). As such we can be only sinlessness itself. My attack threatens nothing but my awareness of this perfect sinlessness.

Let us not, then, attack our sinlessness. For it contains the Word of God to us, and in its kind reflection we are saved. (2:1-2)