Lesson 279 • October-6
Creation's freedom promises my own.
Practice Instructions
See complete instructions in separate document. A short summary:
- Read the commentary paragraph slowly and personally.
- Pray the prayer, perhaps several times.
- Morning and evening: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind Meditation.
- Hourly remembrance: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind Meditation.
- Frequent reminders: Repeat the idea and then spend a quiet moment in meditation.
- Response to temptation: Repeat the idea whenever upset, to restore peace.
- Read the "What Is" section slowly and thoughtfully once during the day.
Commentary
Because creation is free, I am free. Because no one is bound, I am not bound. "Now is freedom his already" (1:4). It is here and now. Freedom is not future.
As I recognize the freedom that belongs to everyone, I find my own. In giving, I receive. In loving, I am loved. In healing, I am healed. In recognizing the existence of absolute perfection I experience my participation in that perfection, and I am most aware of it when I am recognizing Christ in my brothers.
Yesterday's lesson was the inverse of this: "If I am bound, my Father is not free." When we accept the apparent prison we are in we are saying God is imprisoned. If I see no way out, then God must be stymied too. Here again it becomes plain that:
As I see my brother, so I see myself.
As I see myself, so I see God.
The simplicity of this lesson is staggering. Everything keeps coming back to this.
Why do some people fear God? Why does the concept, the very word, scare them away? It is because they see God in their own image; we always do. If I see myself as threatening, I see God that way. If I see myself as weak and ineffective, I see God that way. I am running from my own idols, not from the truth.
Only in dreams is there a time when he appears to be in prison, and awaits a future freedom, if it be at all. (1:2)
We can understand how we can be perfectly free, safe at home in bed, and in our sleep, dream of imprisonment. That exactly describes our experience in this world. We are already free, but dreaming we are imprisoned. Salvation, to the Course, is simply becoming aware that we are dreaming, and that the freedom we think we lack is already ours. We become aware of it through recognizing it in others.
What are we seemingly imprisoned by? Of what do our chains consist? Are they not chains of guilt? "The Holy Spirit knows that all salvation is escape from guilt" (T-14.III.13:4). To see my brother as free is to see him without guilt; in other words, forgiveness. That is how escape from guilt happens: when I realize that creation itself is free from guilt, that everyone is guiltless, I recognize that I must be included. It works this way because what I perceive as the world is a projection of my own self-judgment: "The world you see is but a judgment on yourself" (T-20.III.5:2). In lifting judgment and guilt from the world I am lifting it from myself because what I see is only a reflection of how I see myself.
Creation's freedom promises my own.
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