A Course in Miracles,
Lesson 184 The name of God is my inheritance.
You live by symbols.
You have made up names for everything you see.
Each one becomes a separate entity,
Identified by its own name.
By doing this,
You carve it out of unity.
By doing this,
You designate its special attributes and set it off from other things by emphasizing the space around it.
This space you lay between all things.
This space to which you give a different name to all happenings in terms of place and time.
This space to which you give a different name to all bodies which are greeted by a name.
Let's practice.
Think about how we live by symbols.
We have made up names for everything we see.
Each one becomes a separate entity,
Identified by its own name.
When we do this,
We move it out of unity.
When we do this,
We designate special attributes.
We set it off from other things.
We emphasize the space surrounding it,
The space we lay between everything,
Between all happenings in terms of place and time,
Between all bodies which we greet by a name.
This space we see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which we perceive the world.
We see something where nothing is.
We see nothing where there is unity.
We see a space between all things,
Between all things and each of us.
Ponder on this.
We see something where nothing is.
We see nothing where there is unity.
We see a space between all things.
We see a space between all things and each of us.
Everyone who learns to think that it is so accepts the signs and the symbols that assert the world is real,
That what is named is really there.
They think separation is the ultimate reality,
And to question separation is madness.
They think that to accept the presence of separation is the proof of sanity.
Such is the teaching of the world.
This teaching is a phase of learning.
Everyone who comes to this world must go through it.
The sooner you perceive on what this teaching rests,
The sooner you recognize how questionable are its premises.
Think not,
You made the world.
Illusions,
Yes,
But what is true in earth and heaven is beyond your naming.
When you call upon a brother or when you call upon a sister,
It is to their body that you make appeal.
Their true identity is hidden from you by what you believe they really are.
Their body makes response to what you call them,
For their mind consents to take the name you give them as their own,
And thus their unity is twice denied.
You perceive them as separate from you,
And they accept this separate name as theirs.
Let's practice again.
When you think of another person,
Are you thinking of them as a body or as a child of God,
Who they really are?
When this person responds to you,
Responds to their name,
Are they responding to who they really are or as their body?
When we respond,
Our unity is twice denied,
For we are perceived as separate from them,
And we accept our name as separate.
Ponder on this.
God has no name,
And yet God's name becomes the final lesson that all things are one,
And at this lesson does all learning end.
No one can fail who seeks the meaning of the name of God.
Experience must come to supplement the word,
But first you must accept the name for all reality,
And realize the many names you gave its aspects have distorted what you see,
But all these names have not interfered with truth at all.
One name we bring into our practicing,
One name we use to unify our sight,
Though we use a different name for each awareness of an aspect of God's child.
We understand that they really only have one name,
Which God has given them.
It is this name we use in practicing,
And through its use all foolish separations which kept us blind disappear.
We are given strength to see beyond the separations.
Now our sight is blessed with blessings we can give as we receive.
The name of God is my inheritance.
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
