A Course In Miracles from My Perspective

July 4th 2015  Review I 

Lesson 57
Review of Lessons 31 - 35 

• Intention:  Begin the day by reading the five ideas, with the comments included.  Thereafter, it is not necessary to follow any particular order in considering them, though each one should be practiced at least once.  Devote two minutes or more to each practice period, thinking about the idea and the related comments after reading them over.  Do this as often as possible during the day.  If any one of the five ideas appeals to you more than the other, concentrate on that one.  At the end of the day, however, be sure to review all of them once more.

• Practice:  It is not necessary to cover the comments that follow each idea either literally or thoroughly in the practice periods.  Try, rather, to emphasize the central point of each comment and how it relates to its associated idea.  After reading each idea and its related comments, the exercise should be done with your eyes closed and if possible, when you are alone in a quiet place. 
    
•  Application:  The purpose of your learning is to enable you to bring the quiet with you, and to heal distress and turmoil.  This is not done by avoiding them and seeking a haven of isolation for yourself.  You will yet learn that peace is part of you, and requires only that you be there to embrace any situation in which you are.  And finally you will learn that there is no limit to where you are, so that your peace is everywhere, as you are.
    
  You will note that, for review purposes, some of the ideas are not given in quite their original form.  Use them as they are given here.  It is not necessary to return to the original statements, nor to apply the ideas as was suggested then.  We are now emphasizing the relationships among the first fifty of the ideas we have covered, and the cohesiveness of the thought system to which they are leading you.

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(31)  I am not the victim of the world I see.
How can I be the victim of the world that can be completely undone if I so choose?  My chains are loosened.  I can drop them off merely by desiring to do so.  The prison door is open.  I can leave simply by walking out.  Nothing holds me in this world.  Only my wish to stay keeps me a prisoner.  I would give up my insane wishes and walk into the sunlight at last.
  

(32)  I have invented the world I see.
I made up the prison in which I see myself.  All I need do is recognize this and I am free.  I have deluded myself into believing it is possible to imprison the Son of God.  I was bitterly mistaken in this belief, which I no longer want.  The Son of God must be forever free.  He is as God created him, and not what I would make of him. He is where God would have him be, and not where I thought to hold him prisoner.
     

(33)  There is another way of looking at the world.
Since the purpose of the world is not the one I ascribed to it, there must be another way of looking at it.  i see everything upside down, and my thoughts are the opposite of truth.  I see the world as a prison for God's Son.  It must be, then, that the world is really a place where he can be set free.  I would look upon this world as it is, and see it as a place where the son of God finds his freedom.  
  
(34)  I could see peace instead of this.
When I see the world as a place of freedom, I realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules I made up for it to obey.  I will understand that peace, not war, abides in it.  And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me.
     
(35)  My mind is part of God's.  I am very holy.
As I share the peace of the world with my brothers, I begin to understand that this peace comes from deep within myself.  The world I look upon has taken on the light of my forgiveness, and shines forgiveness back at me.  In this light I begin to see what my illusions about myself kept hidden.  I begin to understand the holiness of all living things, including myself, and their oneness with me.
     

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Insights/comments:

• Who are we if we deny our lineage as the holy children of God?  Are we not then subject to believing that we are any kind of illusion we can imagine?  Our illusion of ourselves as less than the holy children of God does not change the reality of our lineage.  We are the holy children of God regardless of what dream fantasy we imagine ourselves to be.  Remembering this is the key to our freedom, for whatever situation we find ourselves in, who we truly are is our inherent means to freedom.  It is only the forgetting of our identity and the accepting of what our senses tell us is apparently true that keeps us in any unwanted situation.  I say again, we are the holy children of God, at one with our Creator who is perfect, Spirit, and free, and therefore, so are we.

I and my Creator are One.