A Course In Miracles Lesson 36

A Course In Miracles – Lesson 36 states:

My holiness envelops everything I see.  

 -Or-

My eternal state of wellness within is also found within every person, place, and thing I see.

If from Lesson 35 we understand holiness to mean eternal wholeness and wellness, today’s lesson translates as:

My eternal state of wellness within is also found within every person, place, and thing I see.

That is a very powerful concept to consider which, if grasped, changes my relationship to the world around me as well as my understanding of reality.

Today’s idea is a continuation of yesterday’s idea which focused on the perceiver (me).  Today we are asked to see what we have located within ourselves as also located in the things around us.  Yesterday explained that I am an eternal state of wellness (I am holy) because I come from an eternal state of wellness (God).  The maker of something makes more of itself.  An oak tree will always only ever make acorns which lead to more oak trees.  An oak tree will never produce a seed that would grow a pine tree.  That which makes, makes more of what it is.   I can know that I have the qualities ascribed to holiness and to God because I am also informed that I am from a state of holiness.  If this sounds too religious, which it does to me, I can also translate the concept in a more secular way.  Everything that is, exists all together.  I am part of everything that is.  Being is a joy.  The experience of being is a deep joy even during times of pain and suffering.  When the experience of life becomes unbearable, something changes, adjusts, and carries on.  The fundamental is-ness of existence is good even as it explores the spectrum of experiences good and bad.  If we are able to agree with this idea, we are able to take life as it comes.  We are able to recognize that we like what life is.  We sign up for adventures, we step onto playing fields, get kicked about and experience change because we have an elemental, foundational enjoyment of the expanding experience.  Being is fun.  We can take what comes because at our core, we are forever connected to a Field of wellness so vast, it extends beyond any physical form.  That wellness is within every form.  God is in all things because all things come from God.  In physical form, which is by definition, a limited perception, God will always be a mystery.  When we release physical form, God will be a given, understood, known, and experienced fully without confusion.  That which is itself returns to itself no matter how seemingly large the separation may be.  

Today’s lesson is saying that everything comes from that same state of wellness.  That state is everywhere and within all things.  It is not possible for something to exist without a connection to the source of All That Is.  

This is not a religious concept as much as it is a logical one.  Because we all come from a Field of whole, good, innocent creation, we all contain those qualities within.  Even those who appear to us to be violent and confounding also come from the same field we come from.  There is no other possibility.  All that is includes everything.  So when I see something I just do not understand as possible, I can remember this lesson which tells me that we are at some level, unified.  The isolation and separation I am experiencing is a limitation on my own understanding and I can know, beyond whatever this confusion or conflict or even outright violence I am experiencing, there is peace.  Peace is there.  I am that peace, and so are you.

You are holy because your mind is part of God’s mind.  In other language this is saying-You are whole and well because you come from an eternal state of wholeness and wellness.   You have a sacred goodness within you because you come from a source of sacred goodness.  You are free to believe you come from something bad, violent, harmful and wrong.  You are free to believe you are not good.  But you will eventually always return to what is the fact about reality.  What is, is good.  The reason confusion occurs is because What Is is free.  Free to experience things that can not be true.   Free to believe things that are not true.  Doing this does not change what is true.  What is true is still there no matter how many illusions cloud its being seen.

You are not your body.  You have made your body from a non-physical state of being.  So has everything you see around you.

Today’s exercise asks you to sit four times today for 5 minutes.  Close your eyes and repeat the idea for the day: My inherent wholeness envelops everything I see. (My holiness envelops everything I see)

As you say this idea, open your eyes and look around slowly at the things you see.  Say to the objects you see, “My wholeness envelops that book.” “My wholeness envelops that lamp.”  Apply the idea to whatever you see and do not exclude any object your eyes fall upon.  Also, while you practice, occasionally close your eyes and say the idea to your mind without sight.  Then open your eyes and continue as before.  What you see out there and what you see inside are all in the same field.

Also see if you can apply this idea to anything you may be looking at whenever you remember to think of today’s lesson.  Sit at four distinct times for five minutes and also recall the concept as often as you think of it.  But do not strain or fret about trying to recall it.  Just let your natural awareness of the concept present itself without pressure.