A Course In Miracles Lesson 20

A Course In Miracles Lesson 20 states:

I am determined to see.

Determination is the non-negotiable key ingredient to any shift in perception.  If we want something, we get it.  If we do not want it, we do not receive it.  If we want to improve our experience, we must change the quality of our thoughts.  Changing the quality of our thoughts requires energy.  That energy comes in the form of determination.    Determination is the fuel for change.  Determination is the alignment of our interests with our souls true nature.  

The lessons in A Course In Miracles have been quite casual about the practice sessions thus far.  There has been no emphasis placed on time or focus.  You have not even been asked to have a cooperative interest in the lessons.  This casual approach has been deliberate and very carefully planned.  We have not lost sight of the vital importance of the reversal of how you think.

The way you think must change for peace to unfold on Earth.  But you will not ever change one single belief if you feel you are being coerced.  If a quality of coercion is involved with any attempts to change one’s perspective, resentment and objection will always double back as an “out of the blue” response to any efforts made.  There is no coercion in these lessons.  We are appealing to your logic with statements of facts and giving you all the time and all the space needed to decide for yourself when you will agree with facts of truth from your own interest and conviction to do so.

A Course In Miracles Lesson 20 is  the first attempt to introduce structure to the process of changing the way you think and see the world.  Do not misconstrue structure as an effort to exert force or pressure.

Structure is not force.  Structure does not coerce.  You come to the structure of your own free will and learn of its nature.

We want to change how we understand this world.  We want peace.  We want wellness.  We do not have peace and wellness now because our minds are totally undisciplined.  Our minds can not distinguish between joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, love and fear.  In taking this course you are now learning how to tell these things apart.  The result of learning this will be a profound reward.

Your decision to see is all that vision requires.  Your decision is the doing of the seeing.  Your will, your interest, your attention is all that you ever are.  What you place attention on is not what you are.  The act of placing that attention is your will, which is what you are.  You are a movement, a decision to move in a direction.  The direction you choose is yours to choose from any condition in any situation.  You can get anywhere from anywhere.  Your conviction to do so is the primary ingredient in that movement.  When we choose to align with the qualities of determination, the movement of our lives will feel aligned with peace and wellness regardless of what may happen on the path.

What we want is ours when we set our attention upon it.  We are given all of time to maintain an interest in pain.  And each one of us are free, at any time to put down that interest and turn our attention towards the physics and the logic of what leads to peace.

Just because the approach to the lessons have been casual up until now, do not think that attitude is an indication that our goal is of little worth.  Do not underestimate the power of these lessons if they are not presented in a forceful or imposing way with authoritative coercion.  The gentle, patient way the lessons are offered is deliberate and is undoing the authority problem our culture suffers from.

You are the authority that will bring yourself to the lake of these teachings.  The lake will not ever come to you and make you drink.

Locating your personal interest in letting go of painful logic is the only way the “existence” of painful logic can ever vanish. Vanishing painful logic within you transforms the world into the true creative state it is always meant to me.  Your learning process could not be more important.  It is of the utmost importance.  There is nothing more important than your learning how to release painful logic.

While these lessons have been relaxed and casual up to now, they have in no way been trivial in purpose.  Can ending pain for yourself and the world be trivial?

A Course In Miracles Lesson 20 states, “God has one Son, and he is the resurrection and the life.  His will is done because all power is given him in Heaven and on Earth.”

That is quite a lot of religious terminology in one phrase.  It can be helpful to work through these to better understand the message.

From previous discussions, we can understand God to be an infinitely vast Unified, and Creative Field of All that is. Because the God Field is creative, It creates.  What It creates are its offspring, Its sons and daughters, Its children. And we understand that the word “son” means offspring, a descendant of, child of, and an extension from a parent source.  Today’s lesson is conveying that you are an extension of the Source Field from which all things come.  You are a “child of God.” Because you are from a Creative Field, you are made of the same attributes of That Which made you.  You are an extension, a movement of and from the Creative Field.  

 From Lesson 19 we can understand “salvation” to mean assistance with the end of suffering.  This leaves us with the word, “resurrection” to clarify.

The word “resurrection” is deeply embedded in Christian vocabulary.  It calls to mind the act of bringing someone dead back to life.  As a story plot point found in biblical passages, resurrection is an expression of defying the laws of earth, defying death and refusing to see it as a permanent state.  Resurrection is the act of restoring one to what is true.  The truth being pointed out in bible stories of resurrection are illustrating that death is an illusion and life is the permanent state of reality.  Life (reality) is of a non-physical nature and that life engages (initiates) forms as a means of self-expression.  What is true is always true.  What is true is always there.  Truth is ever present.  What fades away was never true.  When what was not true fades away, real truth is revealed as the ever-present state of reality within every illusion.  

With these words redefined,  we can rephrase:

God has one Son, and he is the resurrection and the life.  His will is done because all power is given him in Heaven and on Earth.  

To be: 

The Creative Field of all that is created an expression of itself and that expression is in a constant state of restoring truth from illusion.  

It is the expressive movement (you and me) who are the ones that end illusion.  We are able to do this because we have all the capacities and powers of the Creative Field that created us when we align with that Unified Power Field.

Today’s lesson is connecting us with the existence of Truth as our parent. Our parent (the Unified Field of All) does not coerce us.  It lets us roam free and decide for ourselves what we wish to do.  We are an ever exploring, ever expanding extension of the Creative Field.  We are free because creation, to be creative, must be free.  When we want to become aligned with the truth, we will need to locate our own determination to do so.  We will need help out of the illusion we built.  It will not be something we do alone since the whole event is a returning to connection and putting away the impossible notion that we could ever exist in isolation, separate from the Field of All Creation.  

Because we come from such a Source, we can know that what we seek to do will succeed.  What we want to do is given to us to achieve every single time we choose to do so.  In our determination to see, we obtain true vision. (Clarity)

Today’s exercise involves reminding yourself throughout the day that you want to see.  This is a conviction building day.  In today’s lesson, it is inherently implies that you do not see now.  Therefore, as you repeat the idea, you are stating that you are determined to change your present state for a better one, for one you really want.

Repeat today’s idea slowly and positively at least twice an hour – every half hour.  Give it a try.  Do not be distressed if you forget to do so, but make a real effort to remember.  The extra repetitions should be applied to any situation, person or event that upsets you.  You can see those people or situations differently when you want to, and you will.  What you desire, you will see.  Such is the law of cause and effect as it operates in the world.