ACIM Rewind: To see or not to see THAT is the question-ACIM Lesson #72

Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation [W-p1.72.1.1]

Have you seen the 1994 Jim Carrey movie The Mask? In it, Stanley (aka Carrey) finds a mystical mask that allows him to do whatever he wants. He has superpowers.

Can manifest at will. This version of Stanley is confident. Self-assured. Entertaining.

The mask is lovely for Stanley. Stanley grows addicted to wearing it. But, spoiler alert, the mask also has some unwanted side effects.

Along with Stanley’s confidence comes a liiitttle less concern for how he is affecting those around him. With his unlimited power, comes a disregard for how his manifestations can hurt others. Stanley becomes a distorted version of himself. And he begins losing himself in the process.

Lesson 72 cautions me that I too can sometimes see only the masked version of self in others. When someone honks at me in traffic. Or when I see the world as an angry, hopeless place. I am really just seeing what their ego-driven body is doing. Something they have done. Rather than the Divinity of who they are.

Lesson 72 reminds me that it is easy to confuse actions motivated by fear and survival, with the truth of who we all are underneath the mask. And by doing this-we limit that person’s Divinity to a box of labels. The very labels we are asking them to release. By seeing only the mask of fearful actions, we limit the essence of who they are. And we ask them, through our expectation of who we think they are, to give us more of the same.

Lesson 72 suggests a different paradigm. What if, rather than holding on to the mask of the grievances I perceive others have wrought against me, I look harder (sometimes much harder) for the light of Source gifted to us all? Seeing the brilliance of their Divine self shining through.

There is beauty within every being upon this planet. Even those who we feel hurt us the most. It is natural to want to defend. To want to protect. But what are we protecting ourselves from? And what could we be missing out on as a result?

Eventually Carrey destroys the mask. He decides the price of loosing himself to the darkness of ego-driven personality is not worth the reward. He chooses himself over the mask’s version of himself embodied.

We too are more than the mask this body presents my dear friends. We are free.

Your brothers and sisters in Source live in a light of truth that glows within. And if this glow is difficult to see today, we can ask to choose again.

Let the light that is within all of us glow bright with the love of our infinite Creator. Let us see beyond the mask to accept the perfect peace that shines within us all. That calls us back to the light which we can only be in love.

Namaste Dear Ones.

All quotes are from A Course in Miracles, copyright ©1992, 1999, 2007 by the Foundation for Inner Peace, 448 Ignacio Blvd., #306, Novato, CA 94949, www.acim.org and info@acim.org, used with permission.