A Course in Miracles Workbook Daily Lesson 290, Year 2022

ACIM Daily Lesson 290 1. Unless I look upon what is not there, my present happiness is all I see. ²Eyes that begin to open see at last.

Lesson 290

My present happiness is all I see.

1. Unless I look upon what is not there, my present happiness is all I see. ²Eyes that begin to open see at last. ³And I would have Christ’s vision come to me this very day. ⁴What I perceive without God’s Own Correction for the sight I made is frightening and painful to behold. ⁵Yet I would not allow my mind to be deceived by the belief the dream I made is real an instant longer. ⁶This the day I seek my present happiness, and look on nothing else except the thing I seek.

2. With this resolve I come to You, and ask Your strength to hold me up today, while I but seek to do Your Will. ²You cannot fail to hear me, Father. ³What I ask have You already given me. ⁴And I am sure that I will see my happiness today.

This morning, I closed my eyes, and I thought about a duck.

I saw a white duck in my imagination. My eyes were closed, and there was no duck there, but I could have drawn the duck that I saw if I were an artist. My thought of a duck made an image of a duck. This is actually how we made the world. As Lesson 15 tells us, our thoughts are images we have made.

Using the power of creation, we made up a whole world by closing off our true vision and imagining what we want to see instead of what is there. We made bodies and gave them eyes so that they could show us our thoughts. We did such a good job and did it for so long that we have forgotten that our eyes don’t really see. They are just image makers. We have forgotten that we have true vision and that there is something real to see.

Let’s see what is really there.

What is really there is bright and beautiful and brings joy and peace. What we made to take the place of reality is dark and frightening because it was made to be unlike reality. What is real shows us our unity with each other and our oneness in God. The images we made show us separation, discord, competition, guilt, fear, suffering, and death.

As we let go of the desire for our images, we start to see past them to what is really there. It doesn’t feel like what we have always called ‘seeing.’ I haven’t reached the point where I see the real world, but I am consistently getting glimpses. I know I am by the effects of Christ’s vision. People that used to irritate me, I now feel love for. Things I used to worry about go unnoticed. I’m happy most of the time and usually at peace.

The mind can’t take us where we don’t want to go.

Those times when I do worry, or I feel irritated with someone, I notice it right away. I realize that I have become focused on the image and have failed to see the beauty that is right there in front of me. I look again, this time with the Holy Spirit, and the image becomes unimportant, and I feel loving once more. I have to be vigilant about this kind of thing, though.

For instance, I woke up this morning feeling out of sorts. There was nothing really wrong, but I didn’t feel happy. At first, I tried to think about what must be wrong, and of course, I could think of possible problems. Then, I realized that nothing was wrong, and I just let go of the mood. The mind is my servant. It can’t take me anywhere I don’t want to go, but it took a few minutes for me to remember that. As I continue to be consistent in choosing reality rather than images we made, these slips into illusion will cease. Already, they are becoming rare.

I do better if I begin my day with God.

As the day goes on, distractions make it harder to settle into the work. My mind has shifted into high gear, and it’s harder to dial it back. So, I found myself wishing I didn’t have to do this, and in fact, wishing I didn’t have to do anything for the rest of the day.

This happens sometimes for various reasons or no reason, but I know that I don’t really mean it. I love my work, and I love spending time with God and with the writing that comes from that time. I love spending time with fellow students. If I were to put everything away and give myself a day off, I would soon long for my calls and my writing. So, what I did instead was to declare with conviction that I forgive this thought, and I watched it disappear.

Immediately after, I got a call from a student who was experiencing confusion and needed to talk it out. Together we got to the truth in her mind and ended the call with laughter. Oh, yeah, that’s why I love this work! When I looked at the day as something to push through, something that was a burden, the work seemed like suffering. As soon as I forgave it, the same day began to feel like a blessing. Both the idea of suffering and the idea of a blessing is available to me, and I will see the one I decide on.

“4 What I perceive without God’s Own Correction for the sight I made is frightening and painful to behold. 5 Yet I would not allow my mind to be deceived by the belief the dream I made is real an instant longer.”

In these past entries, the emphasis is on awakening.

In my first entry into this journal, I knew this message must be true, but I also knew that it didn’t feel true to me. I said:

He reminds us that not only is it possible to live in perfect peace and joy but that it is inevitable and that we are keeping ourselves in hell as we put this off. I completely accept this, and I do recognize that I am not what I seem. I am not this body and personality. And yet, as I look at my world, I see that I cling to the hope that Jesus is wrong and I am right as I maintain my stubborn insistence on living as Myron.

On the other hand, I am learning acceptance. I am not resisting as much as I used to. When I am unhappy with what is happening, I notice my unhappiness and forgive it. I don’t insist the world be different, and I do not delude myself into thinking that I would be happy if it were. And when I do, I change my mind.

And even then, I knew that I do not do this just for Myron but for all of us. I said this:

But I am learning to give my thoughts to the Holy Spirit to reinterpret for me. In this way, I am slowly but surely accepting more light into my mind. Because there is only one appearing as many, this light shines for us all.

Then two years later, I was beginning to shift.

I was beginning to think I wanted more and wanted it more quickly. I probably didn’t realize it at the time, but I was making a commitment to take the next step. Of course, when we make this kind of commitment, the first thing that gets flushed up are the objections to awakening. Here is what I wrote about it.

2009

While reading yesterday’s lesson, I was suddenly overcome with the desire to flush up all of the blocks to awakening to get this done. I asked the Holy Spirit to do this for me, flush it all up, sweep the basement clean, as it says in The Way of Mastery. There really isn’t anything down there worth defending. I noticed that I felt a little fear, as if I were asking for suffering. I gave that to the Holy Spirit as well. I am willing to be wrong about that. I am willing to trust.

This morning as I read this lesson, I felt that desire wash over me again, especially when I read, “And I would have Christ’s vision come to me this very day.” I thought, maybe for the first time, that awakening is an immediate possibility. I saw that I always put it in the future so that I would be safe from it, but I thought maybe I am ready now. It cannot be hard because I would simply remember what already is. Why not today?

Then a funny thing happened on the way to awakening.

I noticed the thought that this could be really disruptive to my day. I remembered what I read about Byron Katie’s awakening. I very much want her joy, but awakening took some getting used to. What about my customers who I am supposed to see today?

What about my promise to my daughter that I would help her pay for my grandson’s car insurance? What about my trip to see Regina? Would all that change? Maybe I should wait and awaken on another day when my story would not be so disrupted, perhaps after the holidays when everything settles down. Ha ha ha. Isn’t this the very reason we are still dreaming? We want to keep our story going. Well, this is disappointing.

Holy Spirit, thank you so much for helping me to see my resistance. It is hard to believe that it is so mundane. Yesterday when I asked you what it was that I thought was so important about being Myron that I would not give it up to live a life awakened, I had no idea it would be this petty stuff, just the everyday boring life of Myron. Good grief.

It is really important to me that I continue living the story of Myron.

Is that true? Could that possibly be true?

Evidently, it is.

I am sooo willing to be wrong about this. Holy Spirit, I completely surrender this belief to you. Please correct my thinking.

By 2011 there was another shift. I was still doing the work, still experiencing resistance, though not as strongly. Here is what I said:

I don’t seem to have the same resistance to awakening as I did two years ago. I am actively and joyfully working toward that moment. And yet… here I am. I’m still snoring away, dreaming I have many fascinating choices even though I know I only have two, and one of them isn’t real. It seems that I am still pretending that this story is true and Myron is real, even though I know it isn’t true. And I am still projecting and judging and riding the emotional roller coaster.

So, it seems nothing has changed, and yet, everything has changed. I never quite believe any of it, even when the drama is high. I am watching it all, enjoying the show, often laughing my fool head off. Ok, it may not look like it to you, and it often doesn’t look like it to me, but I really am waking up. And I don’t have anything better to do.

Then in 2015, I saw another shift.

I am experiencing the effects of the decisions I have made over the years. I am more certain than ever that awakening is possible and is what I want. I do still have some resistance, but because my truest desire is to know peace, to remember who I am, and to return home, I am happy to see that resistance and to make another choice.

This work, this undoing, goes on all day, every day, and into my dreams. It doesn’t feel tiring or burdensome anymore. There are little fear and few doubts. I don’t know why I cling to some of these ego beliefs still, but I know I want a healed mind, so I do what I am led to do. I am learning that I want to fully surrender this little self, and Jesus is showing me how to do this.

Here is something I am noticing. I sometimes react out of habit rather than conviction. I was driving to the hotel after a long tiring day. I was starting to get stiff and achy with all the sitting and stressed from navigating the traffic. At least, I thought, I am halfway there. Then I reached for my phone, and it wasn’t next to me. I felt a twinge of fear as I felt around for it and couldn’t find it.

I’ve lost my phone before, and it is really hard, even impossible, to do my job without it.

I thought about having to tell my boss I lost another one. I thought about the wedding I have to do when I get to New Orleans and not having a way to contact the couple. I was starting to panic. Then I thought about where I might have left it and realized I would have to retrace my steps, and thought about how tired I was and how I so didn’t want to do that.

All this flashed through my mind pretty quickly. I pulled over to the side of the road and began a serious search for my phone. I didn’t find it, and I thought, “I feel like crying at the idea of having to go back and look for it.” Then I started to cry. Only wait, no, I tried to cry. I tried to be upset. I tried to stay afraid. Nothing happened. All of this thinking, all of these thoughts and the feelings that, in the past, would have come with it, none of that was real. I was remembering how that felt. I wasn’t actually feeling it. I didn’t really believe it. I just laughed at myself.

Then I remembered that I have a function on my car that allows me to use the phone without having it in my hand, as long as I have the phone in the car. I made a phone call through that function, and so I knew the phone was there someplace. I did a more methodical search and finally found it buried under some papers. There was never actually a problem, there were only my thoughts about having a problem.

Here is what I am beginning to understand; there never is a problem.

There are always only my thoughts. Salvation is not only possible but simple. All that hurts me are only thoughts, and thoughts can be changed. I know they can because I have done it, and I continue to do it every day, all day long, and into the night.

2017

The Course is mostly about the ego, how to recognize it, how to let it go, and many words to convince me I want to let it go. I think of these final lessons as encouragers. I am being encouraged to let it happen, to let awakening become my heart’s truest desire. I can see with Christ’s vision that is possible it tells me. Reading these lessons encourages me to let those final stubborn blocks go, to look for what it is I want more than awakening, and to laugh it away. I don’t have to make anything happen, I only have to get out of the way and allow it to happen. Christ’s vision is not something I can accomplish; it is something I must allow, and it happens naturally when I awaken.

And in 2018.

Now I am very aware of my only purpose. When something arises, some situation, some emotional reaction, or a thought that causes me to be distressed even a little, I know that I am not interested. I ask myself, is this going to bring me closer to awakening? Is this going to bring me the peace of God? If not, then I remind myself that it is just ego and I don’t want it. I release it, and I let my mind be filled with the truth instead.

And finally, in 2019.

This is the year I shifted in a significant way. It was the result of a culmination of forgiveness work. I still hear the ego, but I never believe it, and even when its arguments catch my attention, I let them go as quickly as possible. I love peace and happiness and have no intention of losing it. I am not done yet, but on the other hand, nothing will ever be the same. Everything changed. Happiness and peace are now my most consistent state of being. Even when something interrupts my peace, I see what is happening, and I know it is without meaning. I quickly return to peace. The effort it took to get to this place is well worth it. In fact, nothing else is worth the least bit of effort; nothing else matters.

Contemplation 2025

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 290 click here.

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