In this YouTube video, Susan Dugan and Bruce Rawles read portions of Lesson 138: “Heaven is the decision I must make.” (ACIM, W-138) from the workbook of A Course In Miracles. This quote from Chapter 12 nicely summarizes one of the crucial ideas in this Workbook Lesson:
“The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world.” (ACIM, T-12.VII.9:1)
When we recognize our sameness, we establish a necessary condition for true compassion; recognizing our shared need to return “home” to the place in our mind where peace cannot be compromised, yet awaits us all. We all have this path available to us through the Guide in our mind that waits patiently, gently, and steadfastly for our willingness to let go – usually very gradually but steadily – of ego’s pathetic craziness that never works. Here are the first three paragraphs of Ken Wapnick’s commentary on Lesson 138 (from Journey Through The Workbook, Volume 4, page 152):
“We come to another important lesson, its major theme being the power of our minds to choose. Making a decision is meaningless unless we know what we are deciding between. Thus, to decide for Heaven we must first be aware of the ego’s hell we are choosing against. This awareness of the split mind undoes the ego’s strategy of mindlessness, a quick review of which will introduce the lesson that focuses specifically on this plan.
Once the decision-making power of the Son’s mind has chosen the thought system of individuality and specialness, the ego’s concern is that the Son might change his mind. It sets upon a brilliant strategy to make the Son of God mindless, by fabricating a tale of sin, guilt, and fear: separation means sin, because I attacked God so I could live; I feel guilty over what I have done; and am horrified of the monster that lurks now in my mind, poised to attack me in vengeance for my sin. Ontologically, I think of this “monster” as the supreme Authority, Whose position as Creator I usurped. Now I must escape this Monster in my mind, hell-bent on destroying me for what I did to Him. I have no recourse but to flee my mind and project myself into a world and body, making a physical universe of specifics in which I now see the sin and guilt I do not want to recognize in myself.
The result of this plan is that the decision-making part of my mind seems forever buried, hidden by the sin, guilt, and fear that are in turn hidden by my bodily experiences in the physical world. In order for me to make the decision for Heaven—deciding for the Holy Spirit—I must first recognize my original choice for the ego. Thus, the specific role of our new Teacher is to help us identify the ego’s secret plan, so we may learn that what we perceive outside reflects what we first made real within. Only then does our choosing become meaningful. The Holy Spirit’s “plan” of unveiling the ego’s strategy thus underlies this lesson.”
Here are three of the paragraphs we read and reflected upon:
4. You need to be reminded that you think a thousand choices are confronting you, when there is really only one to make. ²And even this but seems to be a choice. ³Do not confuse yourself with all the doubts that myriad decisions would induce. ⁴You make but one. ⁵And when that one is made, you will perceive it was no choice at all. ⁶For truth is true, and nothing else is true. ⁷There is no opposite to choose instead. ⁸There is no contradiction to the truth.
5. Choosing depends on learning. ²And the truth cannot be learned, but only recognized. ³In recognition its acceptance lies, and as it is accepted it is known. ⁴But knowledge is beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework of this course. ⁵Ours are teaching goals, to be attained through learning how to reach them, what they are, and what they offer you. ⁶Decisions are the outcome of your learning, for they rest on what you have accepted as the truth of what you are, and what your needs must be.
6. In this insanely complicated world, Heaven appears to take the form of choice, rather than merely being what it is. ²Of all the choices you have tried to make this is the simplest, most definitive and prototype of all the rest, the one which settles all decisions. ³If you could decide the rest, this one remains unsolved. ⁴But when you solve this one, the others are resolved with it, for all decisions but conceal this one by taking different forms. ⁵Here is the final and the only choice in which is truth accepted or denied.
When we question ego’s insane fraudulent façade, we invite Holy Spirit’s sanity automatically; the help we get metaphorically is like asking for the light to reveal that the “monsters” under our dreaming beds were truly trivial dust bunny demons that we can blow away with a gentle puff, breathing a sigh of relief as they disappear into the nothingness from whence they came.
“There is a way of living in the world that is not here, although it seems to be. ²You do not change appearance, though you smile more frequently. ³Your forehead is serene; your eyes are quiet.” (ACIM, W-155.1:1-3)
(This video was recorded on May 27, 2022.)
We also referenced an article entitled “The Causes of War” by J. Krishnamurti – a public talk given in New York on 17 April 1984 – which reminds us that our peace (or lack of warfare in our mind) is always about the internal choice for the thought system of forgiveness, kindness and undoing the belief in separation – which means we simultaneously choose against the thought system of victimization, blame, and the projection of guilt. By rejecting insanity (without reinforcing the conflict inherent in that thought system) we automatically accept sanity. Here’s an insightful paragraph from that essay:
“So, we are asking a most fundamental question: why do human beings who have lived on this earth for so many millennia, who have done extraordinary things technologically, who have brought about good health for people – we have done the most incredible things externally but inwardly we are savages. Forgive me the use of that word. We are fighting each other, even in our most intimate relationships. So how can one have external peace in the world, pacem in terris, if one is not peaceful in oneself? We never answer that question, we are always trying to bring changes in the outer, but we never ask of ourselves why we live this way, perpetually in conflict. Fairly obvious when you ask that question seriously, not casually; we never spend a day trying to find out why we live this way, a vast network of escapes from this basic fact. And we are still going on. We never seem to realise unless each one of us fundamentally changes radically there will be no peace on earth – as long as you are an American and they Russian, different ideologies, different concepts, different gods, and so on, we will never have peace on this earth. So it behoves us, and each one of us, to find out why we live this way. And whether it is possible radically to change our whole psyche. If there is not a revolution there mere outward revolutions have very little meaning. We have had Communist revolution, French revolution, other forms of revolution throughout the world and we remain what we are: self-centred, cruel, all the rest of it.”
If you have questions or comments about this video, prior videos in this ACIM-related video series, or other Course-related topics, please email them via the ACIMblog.com contact form. Susan and Bruce will review and try to respond to questions and suggestions for future conversations. We look forward to extending the conversation with you!
Here are some prior ACIM-related conversations with Susan Dugan and Bruce Rawles.