Lesson 151
All things are echoes of the Voice for God.
Welcome back after Review IV! The central theme for our review was coming to each practice period with a clear mind. We maintain that focus as we continue in our Walk in Miracles.
As we begin, notice how the term “echo” is used in today’s statement. It is not all things are “screams, declarations, shouts, or a one time only yelp” of the Voice for God. No, all things are echoes, resounding vibrations, repeats, and reiterations of the Voice for God. God does not call us only once but continues Her soft echo in our hearts until we are ready to listen. God also does not have to shout or compete with other voices or the distractions of the world. She knows that Her Words of Love are laced through the tapestry of life and that eventually you will witness Her echo and follow It Home.
What is so great about A Course in Miracles is that the proof is in the pudding. We are never left to just take the Course for its word. For example, today we tackle judgment. In our human conditioning we are told not to judge someone because it is considered “bad.” Or we so often heard, “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” No matter the reason or timeless antidote, fear lies beyond our reason not to judge. We have become accustomed to not judging in fear of what would happen if we did judge. We step into duality with judging being wrong and the opposite being right. Nothing about that is loving. Not judging because it is “wrong” is still aligning with fear.
Yet in today’s lesson we go beyond the right and wrong of judgment and to the heart of it. Can we truly judge? If “Nothing [we] see…means anything” (ACIM Lesson 1) and if “[We] Do not know what anything is for” (ACIM Lesson 25), then how can we correctly perceive anything? If our senses have been conditioned to this world, which we know to be misleading, how can we trust our judgment? Is judgment even possible?
“You place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report. You think your fingers touch reality, and close upon the truth. This is awareness that you understand, and think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice for God Himself” (ACIM Lesson 151 3:5-7).
Judgment is an option on the buffet to play with in the world. We know this because we have played with exercising what we know to be right and wrong. We have often played knowing what is right and wrong for others, albeit based solely on our own experience. But if you truly look at the words in today’s lesson, in conjunction with our experience up until this point, you will see that judgment is just a past conditioning, a habit, and is truly futile. In our judging, we have only been listening to the voice for ego rather than the Voice for God. We have not truly judged another, we have just tuned into the ego’s frequency rather than the heavenly channel that is just a breath away.
“You cannot judge. You merely can believe the ego’s judgments, all of which are false. It guides your senses carefully, to prove how weak you are; how helpless and afraid, how apprehensive of just punishment, how black with sin, how wretched in your guilt” (ACIM Lesson 151 4:3-5).
Today’s lesson comes at a perfect time. We have already become more aware of our bodies, our thoughts, and incorporating the Voice for God. Our spiritual senses have been heightened to the point that potentially you have already made the connection that as a being of Love, you do not want to judge anyone because it makes you feel icky compared to how you feel when you are in alignment with God. As we come to experience our Holy Nature, we intuitively begin to know (and choose) what is Real, even when we don’t exactly have the words to explain it. Maybe today’s lesson on judgment puts words to how you have been feeling as you notice how others judge fellow brothers, sisters, and even themselves.
In our practice periods, we turn to God to have Her reinterpret what we see, hear, touch, etc. We clear our minds of judgments and listen to the Voice for God to teach us That which is Real.
“He will not tell you that your brother should be judged by what your eyes behold in him, nor what his body’s mouth says to your ears, nor what your fingers’ touch reports of him. He passes by such idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness to God’s Son. He recognizes only what God loves, and in the holy light of what He sees do all the ego’s dreams of what you are vanish before the splendor He beholds” (ACIM Lesson 151 7:2-4).
We do not have the power to judge. We can only discern the soft echoes of God’s Voice as we are shown in each instance and circumstance how this very echo is laced into each action and non-action as a reminder of the eternal Love that surrounds us. As we clear our minds from what we believe to be true, God is already present, ready to light our awareness with all that is holy, true, and loving. God uses our world for teaching purposes only and as Head Master in this Heavenly Academy, She anoints our senses with the sacred ability to see through the madness of the world to the Love that abides in All.
“He will remove all faith that you have placed in pain, disaster, suffering, and loss. He gives vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle face of Christ in all of them” (ACIM Lesson 151 10:1-2).
The Course could easy keep repeating how effortless God’s Love is and to clear your mind and to no longer judge, but the masterfulness of the Course is in the invitation of experience. In each practice period and time of hourly reflection, we go to the depths of each teaching, taking us beyond reasoning to why the Truth is truly so. We, as explorers of mind and ego, come to a reckoning with our own misguided thoughts. We are the proof. We are the pudding. We are the revealers of Truth, as guided by the Voice for God.
“And He will reinterpret all you see, and all occurrences, each circumstance, and every happening that seems to touch on you in any way from his one frame of reference, wholly unified and sure. And you will see the love beyond the hate, the constancy in change, the pure in sin, and only Heaven’s blessings on the world” (ACIM Lesson 151 11:2-3).
We have often said, “Inner peace is world peace.” Today our walk leads us right in the middle of this saying to the “IS.” The “IS” is the echo of God’s Voice. We clear our minds, come to stillness and inner peace, and hear the Voice for God as She points out to us the Love that is echoed in the outer world. In Her echoes, we see the heaven that is on earth. In Her echoes, we see what it truly means to be healed. In Her echoes, we fully witness our Oneness.
“Such is your resurrection, for your life is not a part of anything you see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as Itself. In everyone and everything His Voice would speak to you of nothing but your Self and your Creator, Who is one with Him. So will you see the holy face of Christ in everything, and hear in everyone no sound except the echo of God’s Voice” (ACIM Lesson 151 12:1-4).
As we communicate with the Voice for God with an open, clear mind, we are sure to experience our certainty in an uncertain and changing world. One of the best lines in A Course in Miracles is, “Christ cannot doubt Himself” (ACIM Lesson 151 8:2). Oscillating between “being and becoming” our nucleus from which we orbit is our certainty. In our time of quiet and reflection, come to know that peace and certainty are one. Come to experience that there is nothing to judge. There is only an echo, calling for the remembrance of all there Is, Love. Namaste.