ACIM Daily Lesson 283 My true Identity abides in You.1. Father, I made an image of myself, and it is this I call the Son of God. ²Yet is creation as it always was, for Your creation is unchangeable.
My true Identity abides in You.
Lesson 283
My true Identity abides in You.
1. Father, I made an image of myself, and it is this I call the Son of God. ²Yet is creation as it always was, for Your creation is unchangeable. ³Let me not worship idols. ⁴I am he my Father loves. ⁵My holiness remains the light of Heaven and the Love of God. ⁶Is not what is beloved of You secure? ⁷Is not the light of Heaven infinite? ⁸Is not Your Son my true Identity, when You created everything that is?
2. Now are we one in shared Identity, with God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us. ²And so we offer blessing to all things, uniting lovingly with all the world, which our forgiveness has made one with us.
We are the Sons of God.
And this image we made of ourselves does not change what God created. He did not create us to be separate individuals imprisoned within bodies of flesh and bone. He did not create us to be in competition with each other, to be jealous of each other. Nor did He create us to defend against love, our true Identity. We can only imagine such a travesty, and that we treasure this image we made of ourselves is beyond comprehension. In the Course, Jesus tells us often that we are insane, and that is the only explanation I can imagine for our choices.
But the fact that it is a choice we made assures us that we can change our minds and choose again. Jesus says we have left ourselves one power, and that is the power of choice. But, he says, it is enough. Let us choose our holiness rather than the image we made to take its place. Let us choose it over and over again in every circumstance until it is the only choice we make. In this way, we instruct the mind always to choose God.
Here is what I understand so far.
I am not a body or in a body, as Jesus makes clear often in the Course. So, the body is not the Son of God. The Christ in you inhabits not a body. ²Yet He is in you. ³And thus it must be that you are not within a body. (ACIM, T-25.in.1:1-3) I am not separate from anyone or anything. To think I am a body or that I am something separate from all creation is to worship an idol.
When Jesus talks about us as the Son of God, if I think he is talking about an individual self, I am confused. When he talks about my holiness, he is not talking about me as a personal self. And I cannot continue to worship this personal, individual, embodied self and know what I am as God created me. When he says “we,” he implies a shared identity. The “I” he refers to is this shared identity. Together with all creation, we are the Son of God.
Seeing what I am not, I wonder what it is I am.
Besides watching my mind for untrue thoughts that I can forgive and let go, I also remind myself often that I am not the self I have always believed in. I open my mind to the Holy Spirit to show me the truth of my Self. I don’t think about this or anticipate some experience. Instead, I just allow and accept what comes. Jesus tries to prepare us for this by giving us words as a bridge to this knowledge. He tells us that we are the light of Heaven and the love of God. That is a good starting place.
Awakening is all about identity. We awaken as we accept our true identity. I do this by letting go of thoughts that do not reflect my true identity, primarily judgment. I do it by listening to guidance that comes from outside the illusion rather than listening to guidance from my thinking ego mind. And I remind myself frequently that I am not the body or the separate self; I am Self/spirit/ awareness/ consciousness/ God the Son.
Here are a couple of past entries.
2019
Once again, Jesus reminds me that I am still as God created me. He reminds me that I can make an image of myself that is unlike what God created, and I can worship this idol, but I cannot make it real. My true Self continues as it always has and always will be and is unaffected by my thoughts of separation. Thank you, God, for this.
For as long as I continue to believe in the littleness of the image I made and to identify with it, I will be unaware of my glory; I will be unaware of peace which continues unabated just beneath the story I created to make its opposite; I will be unaware of my wholeness which has been lost to me as I continue to insist I am separate from my brothers and from God. How do I undo this strange belief in my mind?
First, I must stop denying the obvious. It is in refusing to look at what I am doing that I keep it in place within my mind. Holy Spirit, I ask you to look with me at this thought in my mind. As He looks with me, I see a vision different than what the ego showed me. When I look with the ego, I see the mind as a huge ego with a little small part which is the Holy Spirit. This is a little spark of God that cannot be put out and keeps me from being in hell forever. The ego does not scare me with the thought that I can get out of hell right now but rather holds that little spark up to me as something safely in the future, the far, far future.
The Holy Spirit must think this is very funny.
When I look with Him, I see a vast unending mind that is the Holy Spirit with a little sliver of a thought that is the ego. The mind is perfectly still and peaceful. It is joyful and It is love. It is playful and creative. And It forever extends itself. The ego is a little thought of chaos. It is like a child continually throwing a tantrum because it goes unnoticed. It is like a dog chasing its tail because it has no real destination. If it stops running in frantic and nonsensical circles, it will cease to exist because it will no longer be able to maintain the lie that is its existence.
The Holy Spirit reminds me that He will always show me the truth if I will only ask. I identify with the ego when that is where I place my attention. The Holy Spirit asks me to quiet my mind during the day and look again, this time with Him, and see who I really am. He offers to show me the vast and glorious truth of my Self as often as I like. Just as I reinforce my smallness by looking at the small ego-self, I can learn to identify with my true Self by choosing to allow the Holy Spirit to correct that vision.
How often will I remember to ask the Holy Spirit for His help today?
How often will I be willing to still my thinking mind and turn to silence so that I can hear His Voice? If the answer to those questions is not often, that will tell me how much value I still place in my own self-will and how unwilling I am to give it up. I will not try to cover my unwillingness with lovely words and pretty thoughts. Instead, I am going to look unafraid into the ego thought of separation and allow my mind to be healed.
2014
A few days ago, a sentence from the Course came to my attention. It is the one that says we should ask the Holy Spirit to decide for us. I must have been ready, more than I have in the past, to do this. This time, when I read it, I felt something in me crack open. I have been using this simple prayer frequently, and more has revealed itself to me.
Now I use it when I think about it, even for the most mundane things. What to choose from the menu becomes an opportunity to allow the Holy Spirit to choose rather than the ego. I have done this before, but this time it feels different, though it is hard to explain the difference. Perhaps the difference is the conviction I feel. I want to bypass the ego mind and make all decisions through Spirit rather than ego.
I have been asking Holy Spirit to decide for me when I am confused about my thoughts. And when I don’t know what to believe. I ask when I am confused about what I should do, what I should say, how I should feel. It is not the sacrifice I used to think it was to give up deciding for myself and making my own choices. Instead, it feels like freedom. It feels like love.
The question He brought to my mind to examine is this: What am I afraid to bring to Him? What little part of the dream am I still holding onto and holding back from Him? I am watching my mind for those thoughts. And I am more than willing to see them to allow them to be undone. I don’t want to be a little free or even mostly free. I want to be free!
2017
I slept for a little while and then woke up. It seemed I was going to be awake for a little while, so I wondered what I should do. I started looking at this lesson and it brought to mind that there is a better way to phrase this question. What would You have me do with this body that is awake?
Whenever I see a distinction between the body/personality I think of as me and the observer self that is aware of the body but doesn’t think it is the body, I come a little closer to remembering what I am. And what am I? The answer I find depends on who is being asked. If I am asking the body/personality self, I would say that I am me.
If the observer-self answers, it might say that I am an extension of God, God experiencing itself as form. And the thought that ideas leave not their source becomes a little more meaningful. I know I am not a body but that which is aware of the body. One is not separate from the other, but the observer is freer than the “me” that thinks it’s a body, more in touch with its Godness.
There is more, though.
There is a glorious self that is without form and without any identification with form. I am told that in meditation, I can touch that part of Self. There is no me to be found and no them either. I can only learn about that from those who have shed their identification with body and separation because I have not.
But I can move in that direction with some simple practices. That is why I remind myself as often as I think to do so that I am not a body. That is why I ask what would be the best use of the body right now rather than what shall I do right now. It is a way to shake loose this persistent idea of being unlike I was created, of being different than the Creator. I long to know my shared identity with God.
Contemplation 2025
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