Lesson 39: My holiness is my salvation.

Feb 9 in Feed

🧩 GETTING OR MISSING THE OBVIOUS

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📘 "If guilt is hell, what is its opposite?" (ACIM, W-39.1:1)

🔎 “There are two ways of answering this question. On one level, and the most obvious, the answer is the lesson title: the opposite of guilt is holiness, and the opposite of hell is salvation. As we shall see in the second paragraph, however, another opposite of 'guilt is hell' is that 'guilt is heaven'.” Excerpt from Journey through the Workbook of "A Course in Miracles", Kenneth Wapnick, Vol. 1, p. 122.

💡 I just wanna say that, if like me, you've answered "Uh... Love? Forgiveness? Innocence? 🤔", it's okay! We're doing great! We're doing our very best. Let's just continue. Lol. 🙈😅

📘 "Like the text for which this workbook was written, the ideas used for the exercises are very simple, very clear and totally unambiguous." (ACIM, W-39.1:2)

💡 At least we have Kenneth's sympathy after that one... Here's what he says about it:

🔎 “This is not what most students of A Course in Miracles believe about the text. (...) What makes it difficult to understand is not the language, the blank verse, or any other aspect of its form, but your unwillingness to understand it. (...) You cannot understand A Course in Miracles without first letting it inside. Once you do, however, you find that when you read something that a week, month or a year ago made no sense, the words suddenly leap off the page and are “totally unambiguous.” Thus, when Jesus says here—as he says in many other places—that his course is simple and clear, he is not being facetious, nor mocking you. He is simply saying that if it is not clear to you it is because you are defending against it” Excerpt from Journey through the Workbook of "A Course in Miracles", Kenneth Wapnick, Vol. 1, p. 122.

💡 (To be fair, many things in The Course don't yet make sense to me, at this stage. But I do relate to the feeling of understanding bits of it that used to elude me previously. So I guess it's progress.)

📘 "We are not concerned with intellectual feats nor logical toys. ⁴We are dealing only in the very obvious, which has been overlooked in the clouds of complexity in which you think you think." (ACIM, W-39.1:3-4)

💡 I have to say, I love it when Jesus takes that tone: "the clouds of complexity in which you think you think"... The ego feels so smart. This is priceless if we can laugh at our silliness. We spend so much energy obscuring the truth so that we don't have to accept it.

📘 "If guilt is hell, what is its opposite? ²This is not difficult, surely. ³The hesitation you may feel in answering is not due to the ambiguity of the question. ⁴But do you believe that guilt is hell?" (ACIM, W-39.2:1-4)

💡 Clearly, we don't...

🔎 “That is the problem. We believe guilt is heaven, but are not aware that we do. There is a subsection of “The Obstacles to Peace” called “The Attraction of Guilt” (T-19.IV-A.i) in which Jesus specifically talks about our attraction to seeing guilt in other people.” Excerpt from Journey through the Workbook of "A Course in Miracles", Kenneth Wapnick, Vol. 1, p. 123.

💡 I can not speak for all of you of course, but many of us, if we look within with honesty, will find these sad stories about ourselves that we cling to. These narratives, shared with anyone who will listen, tell the tale of how we've been wronged and hurt by someone else. And we're so attached to them. That is why TV programs and series about crimes have so much success in our society. There is a macabre fascination with other people's guilt and sinful nature, usually coupled with a vindictive righteousness to see their crimes condemned and punished. Let us look at someone else's guilt, says the ego, so that we don't have to look at the guilt we feel inside ourselves.

📘 "If you did, you would see at once how direct and simple the text is, and you would not need a workbook at all. ⁶No one needs practice to gain what is already his." (ACIM, W-39.2:5-6)

💡 Which is okay. All of us here already recognize this or we wouldn't have undertaken this course.

🧩 THE UNHEALED HEALER

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📘 "We have already said that your holiness is the salvation of the world. ²What about your own salvation? ³You cannot give what you do not have. ⁴A savior must be saved. ⁵How else can he teach salvation?" (ACIM, W-39.3:1-5)

💡 This is a healthy reminder to all of us. How and what can we give from a place of lack? The "Unhealed Healer" (ACIM, T-9.V) doesn't understand that giving and receiving are the same. Jesus also invites us to level up from the idea of sacrifice—as seen in Lesson 37—that leaves the giver depleted and the receiver in debt. This imbalance is detrimental to any relationship and finds its source in our minds. Only by restoring our oneness, only by accepting the atonement for ourselves can we truly be of help:

🔎 “Forgiveness must begin and end where it is needed—in our minds, where the original choice for guilt was made. We have already seen that as we accept salvation for ourselves, it automatically extends through us to embrace the Sonship as one. ” Excerpt from Journey through the Workbook of "A Course in Miracles", Kenneth Wapnick, Vol. 1, p. 123.

🧩 COMING BACK TO HEAVEN

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📘 "Your holiness is the answer to every question that was ever asked, is being asked now, or will be asked in the future. ²Your holiness means the end of guilt, and therefore the end of hell. ³Your holiness is the salvation of the world, and your own. ⁴How could you to whom your holiness belongs be excluded from it? ⁵God does not know unholiness. ⁶Can it be He does not know His Son?" (ACIM, W-39.4:1-6)

💡 It always comes back to restoring our identity with God. At our level, it looks like a remembering process that is constantly challenged by the many triggers our lives supply in abundance. We forget who we are. We lose our peace of mind. And Jesus is training us to remember and correct ourselves, one thought at a time, more and more swiftly, at each forgiveness opportunity: "You don't feel good, beloved? What were you thinking? Come back."

💡 The remaining paragraphs offer a wealth of detailed instructions to help us apply today's idea, among which we can note this very impactful statement:

📘 "My unloving thoughts about _________ are keeping me in hell. ⁴My holiness is my salvation." (ACIM, W-39.8:3-4)

💙🪄 With Love and Light 🪄💙

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* My comment on this lesson follows my studying of the in-depth comment of the same lesson by Kenneth Wapnick in his published work, Journey through the Workbook of "A Course in Miracles". While it may sometimes contain my thoughts on it, it is essentially my humble take and summary of the masterful work of Kenneth. I share them here in the hope that someone might find them helpful.

** I also share, in these ACIM posts, the wallpaper images that I use on my phone and change every day to help me commit to my lesson, in the hope that some might enjoy them as well. Here is the link to a Dropbox folder where you can download the lessons's wallpaper for mobile I have uploaded so far.

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