A Course in Miracles Workbook Daily Lesson 339, Year 2022

ACIM Daily Lesson 339. I will receive whatever I request. 1. No one desires pain. ²But he can think that pain is pleasure.

Lesson 339

I will receive whatever I request.

1. No one desires pain. ²But he can think that pain is pleasure. ³No one would avoid his happiness. ⁴But he can think that joy is painful, threatening and dangerous. ⁵Everyone will receive what he requests. ⁶But he can be confused indeed about the things he wants; the state he would attain. ⁷What can he then request that he would want when he receives it? ⁸He has asked for what will frighten him, and bring him suffering. ⁹Let us resolve today to ask for what we really want, and only this, that we may spend this day in fearlessness, without confusing pain with joy, or fear with love.

2. Father, this is Your day. ²It is a day in which I would do nothing by myself, but hear Your Voice in everything I do; requesting only what You offer me, accepting only Thoughts You share with me.

Jesus says that no one desires pain.

But what if I can’t tell the difference between pain and pleasure? What if I have experienced pain and thought it was pleasure for so long that I no longer know the difference? My first question was, how is it that I am asking for pain when I think I am asking for pleasure? But on reflection, I began to see my error. I am asking to be separate from God and from my brothers. I must have thought that this would make me happy. Obviously, I thought that having a separate will would make me happy. Clearly, I was wrong about those desires, and I see that now.

I know that I was wrong about what makes me happy. I know this from years of observing the connection between my desire for separation and the suffering I experience. ButI chose an experience as a body so that I could be something different than I was created. I discovered pain, suffering, and death instead of the blissful eternity I had. I wanted to make my own world with my own laws. What I discovered was chaos, where I used to know only peace. I discovered loneliness where I once knew only unity.

For a while, I refused to concede that I made an error.

It seemed to me that if I kept trying, I would surely succeed. So, I came back again and again, trying to make my plan for happiness work, but it never has. I tried to find love through secret bargains and only found attack and defense. I tried to project my guilt and fear onto others and onto the world. But it went nowhere, and I only caused myself more distress in the effort.

This is the lifetime in which I discovered that there is a difference between pain and joy. I know now that it is my thoughts and beliefs that source the world and that I can change those beliefs. It is through forgiveness that I do this, and my healed mind is beginning to show me a healed world. From there, it is just a step more to find myself in Heaven. And I don’t even have to worry about that step. It will be done for me.

This is such an important concept to understand and accept.

First, I will receive whatever I request. Jesus tells us this over and over in the Course and is very clear when he does. Reference Lesson 152, which says this:  5 Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. 6 Here is your world, complete in all details. 7 Here is its whole reality for you. 8 And it is only here salvation is. Could he be any clearer? Then why is it that we don’t experience joy all the time” It seems we are very confused about the things we want.

I thought I needed a husband, and I thought that would make me happy. Three times, I thought that. Finally, I realized that I was asking for someone outside me to make me happy. And I learned that I don’t receive happiness from anything outside me and that when I expect others to serve my needs, I suffer. Making me happy is not their job, it seems. ~smile~

I have been wrong about what I thought would bring me happiness.

This has happened so many times that I almost never ask for something specific. My prayer is more likely to be, “What do I want, Holy Spirit?” I have learned that what I thought would bring me joy, like winning, for example, often left me feeling empty after the very temporary adrenalin rush. When I had no money, I thought that having money was the solution to my distress, only to discover that I was no happier once I got what I wanted.

I discovered that the things I thought would alleviate the pain of feeling alone and unworthy only made things worse once I got them. But I wasn’t left in this discouraging state. I also discovered that there is within me the Guide through this illusion, and this Guide does know the difference between pain and pleasure and will help me choose what actually works. I think of this Guide as my wise, all-knowing Advisor. Why on earth would I make a decision with my little ego-mind when I have my Guide to direct me?

Regina’s Tips

Regina begins her tips by talking about moving through the darkness. She says this:

The path of awakening is a passage through all that is not true in order to arrive at the destination of truth. As Sister Bernadette so eloquently put it:

I had learned long ago that the essence of life’s movement was not contentment or security; rather, it was growth, change, and challenge, wherein the external circumstances of life merely reflected the needs of each moment in the thrust of life’s flow. … We never know the time or place where our destiny will catch up with us….”

In other words, we have to face the darkness if we want to reach the light, but we are not in charge of when, where, or how our opportunities to face the darkness will come.

She also says that we will go through a lot of scary, upsetting stuff and the way to do this is to keep one eye on our unaffected Self. We probably want that Self to jump in like the hero of stories and save us, but the unaffected Self doesn’t enter the fray. It saves us by remaining the unaffected Self. It doesn’t sound all that impressive just to read about it, but having experienced this, I know that this works.

You have probably seen it work, too.

Have you ever been afraid or upset and asked the Holy Spirit to help you? Maybe all that happened is that you felt better, safer, calmer. Eventually, we learn that there is something in us that is unaffected by the crazy stuff in the world and that we can abide in that Self, and we are unaffected, too.

In the world, I am sick. My body has slowed down, and feels unwell. Part of me is involved in this because I still feel connected to this body. Part of me hears the ego thoughts about this and wants it to be over. But I have one eye on the unaffected Self. Here is how this feels to me. All the while the ego complains, I also feel fine. It feels like this is happening, and I am doing what I need to overcome it, but I am fine.

I am not worried about being sick. I am not worried about what it means, and I don’t care that it is happening. Never has the split mind been so obvious. It doesn’t feel distressing to me because I know what is happening, and I feel more attached to the unaffected Self than to the ego self at this time. It is good practice for me for when harder experiences occur.

Regina also talked about receiving what we request.

Here is part of what she said:

We think we want joy, but what we don’t always see is that we want a shortcut to joy, which is false joy. If we don’t walk through the darkness, we don’t get to the light.

This is why we need to investigate deeply to discover what we really want. Do we want true and everlasting joy, and are we willing to walk the journey that one must walk to that final reward, or do we prefer to piddle around in a pale comparison and call it joy, because we are afraid of the journey?

“Everyone will receive what he requests.”

What do I truly want?

Am I ready and trusting?

We are ready to the degree that we trust. If we need more time to build more trust, it will be given naturally. We do not have to hold back in fear. We can move forward with whatever little trust we have. The process knows how to lead us forward; it knows what we need and it will give that.

Regina got that right! We do have to walk through the darkness if we want to get to the light, and the more we do this, the easier it becomes. We start to feel safe even in the dark. This is because we are developing trust.

Past Entry

This lesson speaks to the foundation of all my spiritual work. What I want is in my life, and there is nothing else in my life except what I want. I am completely responsible for everything. I am a victim of nothing. And the world perfectly mirrors what needs correction in my mind. I tell myself that I look at the world and then react to what I see, but in truth, I decide what I want the world to be, and it appears before me. I then react as if it were all a surprise to me. At any point, I am perfectly free to change my goal, and when I do, my experience changes. All I need to do is make a different request.

Holy Spirit, this day I choose to be vigilant for signs that I have chosen ego. I will notice anger, fear, frustration, boredom, specialness, and all other effects of holding ego beliefs, and I will accept full responsibility for my life. Looking at them with You, I will make the choice for healing and watch them disappear. In their place will be what has always been there but was invisible to me because I was looking at illusions. I am ready to experience the effects of choosing Love over fear. I request this help, and so it is mine.

2015

Jesus says that no one desires pain. But he can think that pain is pleasure. So, I asked myself how it is that I think that pain is pleasure. I am guided to look at my special relationships. When I think that I can experience love only with certain people and so make them special above all others, I cause myself pain because separation is painful.

On one level, I believe I need my love object to be with me, to show up in a certain way, and to return my love. When that doesn’t happen, I suffer, and it is inevitable that it will happen at times. And yet, I cling to the belief that these special relationships are pleasure no matter how much pain I feel. On another level, they are pain because I am teaching myself that separation is not only real but necessary if I am to have this love object that is so important to me. I am teaching myself that pain is pleasure and thus closing myself off from true pleasure.

At one time, I discovered a way that I avoid happiness.

No one would avoid his happiness. But he can think that joy is painful, threatening and dangerous. I have noticed that I tend to close myself off from feeling too much love and from being too happy. In all of my life before, I have never let myself notice this, or if I did, I chose to quickly forget it.

Obviously, I think it is dangerous to let myself love too much. I have taught myself that love is short-lived and that it can be snatched away from me, as can happiness. The feeling of loss is too painful, so it is better not to go there at all. You can’t miss what you don’t have. Well, first of all, there is no way to avoid the feeling of loss if you believe in loss because we project what we believe in.

Second, the solution to pain is never in changing the effect of our thoughts but in changing the thoughts themselves. So, I have asked that my mind be healed of this most unfortunate belief. I have also asked that I be guided to love more fully and to accept joy at every opportunity. It is interesting to watch this happen.

The Holy Spirit is pointing out little things I have never paid attention to before. I will suddenly look around me with my eyes wide open to notice the color of a wall or the print on the bedspread and realize how beautiful it is. As I open my heart to seeing differently, I am mesmerized by what I see with my eyes. A moment of pure joy undiluted by a desire to move on, to be somewhere else, or think of something more important.

Evidently, I am a baby at this finding happiness in the moment thing.

So Holy Spirit is taking me on a tour of my illusion, showing me how even the smallest thing can bring pleasure if I let it. He is helping me to expand my shrunken heart center and let in more love. The ego thinks this is scary, but I am in good hands with the Holy Spirit and am willing to trust. It is still necessary to actively remind myself to allow this, to be still for a moment and become willing to see, but I am doing it.

I eventually moved on to allow more love to flow through me in my relationships. I allowed myself to be loved and allowed myself to love others more fully and without fear. Though I still notice myself pulling back at times, I know this is just ego fear-mongering again. I look at that fear response with the Holy Spirit so that it can be undone.

Contemplation 2025

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 339 click here.

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