Read on the ACIM CE App: https://acimce.app/:W-75
Lesson 75
The light has come.
Practice Instructions
Purpose: To set aside your unforgiving perceptions of the world and look with vision upon the real world. Today is cause for special celebration, for it will be a new beginning, “the beginning of your vision and the sight of the real world” (10:2).
Longer: Two times, for ten to fifteen minutes.
- Tell yourself, as if announcing “the glad tidings of your release” (5:1), “The light has come. I have forgiven the world.”
- The rest of the practice period is an exercise in trying to see the world that vision shows you. Begin by consciously withdrawing all the meanings you have put on the world. Imagine that your mind is “washed of all past ideas and clean of every concept you have made” (5:4). Imagine that “you do not know yet what [the world] looks like” (5:7). This act of wiping off the meanings you have written on the world is also an act of forgiving the world, and this is what grants you vision.
- Then wait, with eyes open, to have vision dawn upon you. While doing so, occasionally repeat, slowly and patiently, “The light has come. I have forgiven the world.” The main attitude to hold while you wait is confidence, that you will experience vision because “your forgiveness entitles you to vision” (6:4), and because the Holy Spirit will be there with you and will not fail to give you the gift of vision. Tell these things to yourself and to the Holy Spirit while you wait, and thereby give yourself the confidence you need. And when your confidence fades, repeat again the lines with which you began, and then continue waiting for vision to dawn.
Frequent reminders: Every fifteen minutes.
Joyfully remind yourself that today is a time to celebrate by saying, “The light has come. I have forgiven the world.” Say it with a sense of thankfulness to God. Say it as a rejoicing in the healing of your sight. Say it in the confidence “that on this day there is a new beginning” (8:5).
Response to temptation: Whenever you are tempted to be upset with someone.
Do not let this person pull you back to darkness. Say to him instead, “The light has come. I have forgiven you.”
Commentary
In this lesson, as in several others, the Course speaks of me as though I have accepted its message and have forgiven the world; as though I am ready, this very day, to see the real world; as though I have attained its goal of peace. Perhaps today I do not feel quite worthy of such confidence. Yet, if what we have been reading the past two days is true, any impression that I may have that my will differs from God’s is only an illusion. My true Self, which in my right mind I am aware of, is exactly as this lesson depicts me. This lesson is the truth about myself, whether or not I have yet recognized it.
If I feel a little hypocritical in practicing this lesson exactly as instructed, so be it. If I have self-doubts that arise when I say, “I have forgiven the world” (6:5; 6:14; 8:10), I let them be there; I attribute no power to them to disturb me. I am simply affirming the truth about myself. Today, I am at peace, and I bring peace with me wherever I go (1:5). “The light has come.” I let myself believe it; I let myself enter into knowing that frame of mind.
Whatever my experience today, this lesson is the truth. I cannot stand against what is within me; I cannot be other than what God created me to be. “The outcome is as certain as God,” as the Text says (T-2.VI.8:7). “Our single purpose makes our goal inevitable” (4:3). I will see the real world; I will see Heaven’s reflection everywhere.
Do I feel I lack the certainty of this lesson’s words? That is exactly why I need to practice saying them. Perhaps if I give my little willingness to speak them, affirming that this is what I want to be true, the Holy Spirit will add His strength to my words and make them true for me. Perhaps even today. “The light has come.” It is here, right now, with me, available to me.
The Holy Spirit “will be with you as you watch and wait. He will show you what true vision sees. It is His will, and you have joined with Him. Wait patiently for Him. He will be there” (6:8-12). So I wait. I wait “patiently” and not anxiously. It may take time to manifest, but I wait patiently, confidently, knowing that His promise cannot fail. The vision I seek will come to me. “He will be there.”
We are told to “tell Him you know you cannot fail because you trust in Him” (7:1). So I say it; I pray, “Holy Spirit, I know I cannot fail because I trust in You.” I affirm my confidence in my Self; I affirm the truth about me, and put aside the lies I have believed. I can be confident that this day is a new beginning for me. Something has shifted within me, and I know that I want the peace and the light this lesson speaks of. I know that since I want it—because of what I am, and because I am joined with the power of the Holy Spirit in wanting it, in agreement with the Will of God—I cannot fail.
Today is dedicated to serenity (10:1). Today is for celebration of the beginning of my vision. I accept myself as God created me. “The light has come.”