A Course In Miracles - Chapter 15, Section XI
ACIM is read one section at a time. It is a guidebook leading us back to our true natures, as we open to the awareness of love's presence. All quoted material is from A Course in Miracles, copyright ©1992, 1999, 2007 by the Foundation for Inner Peace, publisher, and the copyright holder. This material is used with permission. Glossary-Index for a Course in Miracles, 8th edition, Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. Music: Bensound
Transcript
Hi,
I'm Teresa Hubbard.
Welcome back to our continued reading of the text to A Course in Miracles.
We continue today in Chapter 15,
The Holy Instant,
Section 11,
Christmas as the End of Sacrifice.
To summarize my takeaways,
In Section 11 of Chapter 15,
Jesus,
Our Brother and Guide,
Speaks to us directly,
Explaining that the sign of Christmas is a star,
A light in darkness.
We are told not to see this light outside ourselves,
But shining within us,
And to accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come.
Christ comes demanding nothing,
No sacrifice of any kind,
For Christ is host to God and we are host to Christ.
We must recognize that we need but invite in whom is already there,
And understand that no fear can touch the Christ who cradles God.
Jesus offers us two invitations here,
One for welcoming the Christ that is already within us and one for releasing our brothers in love.
For us,
Jesus invites us this Christmas to give the Holy Spirit everything that would hurt us.
Let us be healed completely that we may join with Christ in healing,
And let us celebrate our release together by releasing everyone with us.
We must leave nothing behind,
For release is total,
And when we have accepted it with Christ,
We will give it with Christ.
All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in our relationship,
Which is as innocent as our relationship with our Father,
And as powerful.
Pain will be brought to us and disappear in our presence,
And without pain there can be no sacrifice,
And without sacrifice there love must be.
And for our brothers,
Jesus invites us to say,
I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.
I know that you will be released unless I want to use you to imprison myself.
In the name of freedom,
I choose your release because I recognize that we will be released together.
In accepting these invitations,
We begin the year in joy and freedom.
We must let no despair darken the joy of Christmas,
For the time of Christ is meaningless apart from joy.
Let us join in celebrating peace by demanding no sacrifice of anyone,
Letting all our relationships be made holy for us.
For in so doing,
We offer Christ the love Christ offers us.
I invite you to keep a few things in mind as you listen to the reading.
The Course uses male pronouns,
Yet this is simply a way of pointing to the spiritual being,
Having no gender.
The Course is written in first person,
And although not introduced directly to the reader,
It becomes clear that the words are from Jesus,
Often quoting from the Bible.
The Course uses traditional Christian terms in a non-traditional manner.
These words are simply pointers to truth,
Nothing more.
A few terms you will hear within this reading.
Christmas,
A symbol for the rebirth of Christ within ourselves,
The time of Christ.
Holy Instant,
The instant outside of time in which we choose forgiveness instead of guilt,
The miracle instead of a grievance,
The Holy Spirit instead of the ego,
The expression of our little willingness to live in the present,
Which opens into eternity,
Rather than holding on to the past and fearing the future.
Sacrifice,
A central belief in the ego's thought system that someone must lose if another is to gain,
The principle of giving up in order to receive,
Giving to get.
Salvation,
We are saved from our belief in sin and guilt through the change of mind that forgiveness and the miracle bring about.
And now,
On to the reading.
A Course in Miracles,
Chapter 15,
The Holy Instant.
Section 11,
Christmas as the End of Sacrifice.
Fear not to recognize the whole idea of sacrifice as solely of your making,
And seek not safety by attempting to protect yourself from where it is not.
Your brothers and your father have become very fearful to you,
And you would bargain with them for a few special relationships in which you think you see some scraps of safety.
Do not try longer to keep apart your thoughts and the thought that has been given you.
When they are brought together and perceived where they are,
The choice between them is nothing more than a gentle awakening,
And as simple as opening your eyes to daylight when you have no more need of sleep.
The sign of Christmas is a star,
A light in darkness.
See it not outside yourself,
But shining in the heaven within,
And accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come.
He comes demanding nothing.
No sacrifice of any kind,
Of anyone,
Is asked by Him.
In His presence,
The whole idea of sacrifice loses all meaning,
For He is host to God.
And you need but invite Him in who is there already,
By recognizing that His host is one,
And no thought alien to His oneness can abide with Him there.
Love must be total to give Him welcome,
For the presence of holiness creates the holiness that surrounds it.
No fear can touch the host who cradles God in the time of Christ,
For the host is as holy as the perfect innocence which He protects,
And whose power protects Him.
This Christmas,
Give the Holy Spirit everything that would hurt you.
Let yourself be healed completely,
That you may join with Him in healing.
And let us celebrate our release together,
By releasing everyone with us.
Leave nothing behind,
For release is total.
And when you have accepted it with me,
You will give it with me.
All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in our relationship,
Which is as innocent as our relationship with our Father,
And is powerful.
Pain will be brought to us,
And disappear in our presence.
And without pain,
There can be no sacrifice.
And without sacrifice,
There,
Love must be.
You who believe that sacrifice is love,
Must learn that sacrifice is separation from love.
For sacrifice brings guilt,
As surely as love brings peace.
Guilt is the condition of sacrifice,
As peace is the condition for the awareness of your relationship with God.
Through guilt,
You exclude your father and your brothers from yourself.
Through peace,
You invite them back.
Realizing that they are where your invitation bids them be.
What you exclude from yourself seems fearful,
For you endow it with fear,
And try to cast it out,
Though it is part of you.
Who can perceive part of himself as loathsome,
And live within himself in peace?
And who can try to resolve the conflict of heaven and hell in him,
By casting heaven out,
And giving it the attributes of hell,
Without experiencing himself as incomplete and lonely?
As long as you perceive the body as your reality,
So long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived.
And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice,
Justified in sacrificing others.
For who could thrust heaven and its creator aside,
Without a sense of sacrifice and loss?
And who could suffer sacrifice and loss,
Without attempting to restore himself?
Yet how could you accomplish this yourself,
When the basis of your attempts is the belief in the reality of the deprivation?
Deprivation breeds attack,
Being the belief that attack is justified.
And as long as you would retain the deprivation,
Attack becomes salvation,
And sacrifice becomes love.
So is it that in all your seeking for love,
You seek for sacrifice and find it.
Yet you find not love.
It is impossible to deny what love is and still recognize it.
The meaning of love lies in what you have cast outside yourself,
And it has no meaning apart from you.
It is what you prefer to keep that has no meaning,
While all that you would keep away holds all the meaning of the universe,
And holds the universe together in its meaning.
Unless the universe were joined in you,
It would be apart from God,
And to be without Him is to be without meaning.
In the holy instant,
The condition of love is met,
For minds are joined without the body's interference.
And where there is communication,
There is peace.
The Prince of Peace was born to reestablish the condition of love by teaching that communication remains unbroken even if the body is destroyed,
Provided that you see not the body as the necessary means of communication.
And if you understand this lesson,
You will realize that to sacrifice the body is to sacrifice nothing,
And communication,
Which must be of the mind,
Cannot be sacrificed.
Where,
Then,
Is sacrifice?
The lesson I was born to teach,
And still would teach to all my brothers,
Is that sacrifice is nowhere,
And love is everywhere.
For communication embraces everything,
And in the peace it reestablishes,
Love comes of itself.
Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas,
For the time of Christ is meaningless apart from joy.
Let us join in celebrating peace by demanding no sacrifice of anyone,
For so you offer me the love I offer you.
What can be more joyous than to perceive we are deprived of nothing?
Such is the meaning of the time of Christ,
Which I give you,
That you may give it and return it to the Father,
Who gave it to me.
For in the time of Christ,
Communication is restored,
And He joins us in the celebration of His Son's creation.
God offers thanks to the Holy Host who would receive Him,
And lets Him enter and abide where He would be.
And by your welcome does He welcome you into Himself,
For what is contained in you who welcomes Him is returned to Him.
And we but celebrate His wholeness as we welcome Him into ourselves.
Those who receive the Father are one with Him,
Being host to Him who created them.
And by allowing Him to enter,
The remembrance of the Father enters with Him,
And with Him they remember the only relationship they ever had and ever want to have.
This is the time in which a new year will soon be born from the time of Christ.
I have perfect faith in you to do all that you would accomplish.
Nothing will be lacking,
And you will make complete and not destroy.
Say then to your brother,
I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.
I know that you will be released,
Unless I want to use you to imprison myself.
In the name of my freedom,
I choose your release,
Because I recognize that we will be released together.
So will the year begin in joy and freedom.
There is much to do,
And we have been long delayed.
Accept the holy instant as this year is born,
And take your place,
So long left unfulfilled,
In the great awakening.
Make this year different,
By making it all the same.
And let all your relationships be made holy for you.
This is our will.
Amen.
Amen.
