SIN is a very loaded word in our modern consciousness. It is perhaps even more difficult than the word God. People will tell me “I don’t believe in sin”. What they are rightly saying is that they don’t believe in a traditional religious story that keeps us in a state of unworthiness and perpetual guilt, feeling bad about ourselves. Modern consciousness knows that isn’t the truth. Like many of us, I experience a growing awareness and desire to accept the Innocence and genuine loving nature that we share.
However, the section just finished, (for those following the yearly cycle of lessons), lessons 251 – 260, took me into a whole new realm of understanding what is really meant by the word sin. Here I will comment on a few thoughts that were particularly meaningful to me.
Anything that is not the Oneness, (Love creating love, us, like Itself), is sin. Sin is all the thoughts/devices/bodies that we put between ourselves and truth, to stop us from knowing the truth about our Oneness. What need would I have for eyes to see if I was being who I really am? There is NOTHING out there to see. We created the world as proof that everything is separate, diverse, different. Eyes, and all our other senses, simply perceive our belief in separation, they prove there is a you and a me. The world doesn’t exist in and of itself, but it does reflect my state of mind in any moment.
Lesson 251 begins, “I sought for many things and found despair”. How true is that?! When I look back over my life, I feel exhausted by all my seeking and striving that seems to have come to nought. The theme of this section reminds me of two of the most important lessons for me in the first half of the work book: 128 “The world I see holds nothing that I want” and 129 “Beyond this world there is a world I want”. I am not going to find anything here in this world that endures, that does not change, that will not eventually hurt me, however hard I try to find it and keep it safe. That is the meaning of sin. But there IS a world that is true and constant and filled with a LOVE I can only begin to imagine right now, but that I can open to and have in this holy instant! It is all a question of choice.
That is what we are reminded of in lesson 253. “My Self is ruler of the Universe”. ~ With which self do I want to identify? The self that rules a separate universe as small as my identity as Annie, body and personality, or the Self that rules a universe that stretches as far as I can imagine and beyond time and space, emanating an unconditional and boundless Love.
A huge relief for me in doing A Course in Miracles is finally I feel like I have found my purpose, I know what I am doing here on Earth. And that is practicing forgiveness. Lesson 257 reminds us, “let me remember what my purpose is” and lesson 258 tells us why, “let me remember that my goal is God”. That is all I want, not the things for which I have sought and striven, that I thought would bring me happiness and peace.
In the introduction to the section about sin, Jesus says it is the body’s nature to strive.. I have just started working out with a personal trainer at the gym, and joked that luckily for him, because it keeps him in work, “the body always wants more”. And what he really means is the ego. Whatever we achieve we will never be satisfied for long. However, we can give the striving of the body a different goal, remembering it is, in itself neutral, an effect of the mind and not a cause of anything. We can use it as a means of communicating Oneness, through our being-ness, not our proselytising. Just being, extending love. This leads on wonderfully into the next section of the workbook which is all about the body!
Blessings to you all who might be reading this. Have a beautiful day.
Annie.
Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness 
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