Part II

4. What Is Sin?

Sin is insanity. It is the means by which the mind is driven mad and seeks to let illusions take the place of truth. And being mad, it sees illusions where the truth should be, and where it really is. Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach to grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know. And truth can be but filled with knowledge and with nothing else.⁵¹

2. The body is the instrument the mind made in its striving to deceive itself. Its purpose is to strive. Yet can the goal of striving change. And now the body serves a different aim for striving. What it seeks for now is chosen by the aim the mind has taken as replacement for the goal of self-deception. Truth can be its aim as well as lies. The senses then will seek instead the witnesses to what is true.⁵²

3. Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts which are untrue. They are the “proof” that what has no reality is real. Sin “proves” God’s Son is evil, timelessness must have an end, eternal life must die. And God Himself has lost the Son He loves, with but corruption to complete Himself, His will forever overcome by death, love slain by hate, and peace to be no more.

4. A madman’s dreams are frightening, and sin appears indeed to terrify. And yet what sin perceives is but a childish game. The Son of God may play he has become a body, prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death. But all the while his Father shines on him, and loves him with an everlasting love which his pretenses cannot change at all.⁵³

5. How long, O Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin.⁵⁴ Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children’s toys? How soon will you be ready to come home? Perhaps today? There is no sin. Creation is unchanged. Would you still hold return to Heaven back? How long, O holy Son of God, how long?^[1].

[1]. A Course in Miracles Complete & Annotated Edition.

Footnote 51. The idea in this paragraph is that sin is a break with reality—the reality of spirit. Therefore, to maintain itself, sin must distance us from reality. It does this by giving us physical senses (“Sin gave the body eyes”, which distance us from reality in two ways. First, our senses do not provide direct knowledge, but rather stand forever outside what they are trying to know, always reaching but never truly grasping. Second, our senses look on a world of illusions, a world that seems to prove that the insanity of sin is actually the truth.

Footnote 52, In the Course, the witnesses to the truth, the witnesses our senses should look for, are expressions of love in the world. See, for instance, T-19.IV.A. 16:4: “They [the messengers of love, the senses used for the purpose of seeking love] will be as careful to let no little act of charity, no tiny expression of forgiveness, no little breath of love escape their notice.”

Footnote 53. Jeremiah 31:3 (RSV): “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”

Footnote 54. Psalm 13: 1-2 (ESV): “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” The above passage takes the traditional cry “How long, O Lord?” and transforms it. Instead of us asking God how long He will wait before He frees us from our trials and our enemies, Jesus is asking us how long we will wait before we return home to God. As the rest of the paragraph implies, we wait because we believe we have sinned and therefore cannot come home. But our supposed sin is just a childish game, and thus our original innocence remains unchanged. Why, then, are we waiting?

Part II

4. What Is Sin?

Lesson 251

I Am In Need Of Nothing But The Truth.

I sought for many things and found despair. Now do I seek but one, for in that one is all I need and only what I need. All that I sought before I needed not and did not even want. But now I see that I need only truth. In that, all needs are satisfied, all cravings end, all hopes are finally fulfilled, and dreams are gone. Now have I everything that I could need. Now have I everything that I could want. And now at last I find myself at peace.

2. And for that peace, our Father, we give thanks. What we denied ourselves You have restored, and only that is what we really want.^[1].

Personal Notes:

I am in need of nothing but the truth. I meditate on above prayer today, and in quiet I wait to hear my Father’s Voice. I pray for all my brothers and myself for continued guidance, wisdom, discernment, protection, and illumination, of The Way, The Truth, The Life, in Christ Jesus, Amen. Thank you for sharing with me. Walk in Love my friend!

God is Love

Love is God

I choose Love