A Course in Miracles Workbook Daily Lesson 358, Year 2022

ACIM Daily Lesson 358. No call to God can be unheard nor left unanswered. And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want.

Lesson 358

No call to God can be unheard nor left unanswered. And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want.

1. You Who remember what I really am alone remember what I really want. ²You speak for God, and so You speak for me. ³And what You give me comes from God Himself. ⁴Your Voice, my Father, then is mine as well, and all I want is what You offer me, in just the form You choose that it be mine. ⁵Let me remember all I do not know, and let my voice be still, remembering. ⁶But let me not forget Your Love and care, keeping Your promise to Your Son in my awareness always. ⁷Let me not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all.

We are studying this Course and having gotten this far in the lessons; we have called to God. This is our time; we have made choices that brought us to this place on our journey. We are ready to awaken. We still maybe have a way to go as we forgive all beliefs that obscure our Self from our awareness. However, it is just a matter of time now. We do truly want His answer even as we resist it. The desire for the answer will bring it to us. We can trust that this is true, but we must also do our part.

During my long journey, I had many ups and downs.

I would experience the miracle of a healed mind, but then I would find myself lost in another ego story. For a long time, when this would happen, I would be upset. I would feel guilty and afraid I couldn’t do this. But in spite of my fear, I would continue the practice. Finally, I began to understand that just as the miracle was perfect, so was the next error in thinking. It was just something in need of healing coming up for me to work on. This is what I came for, so how could anything be wrong with it?

Sentence seven points to the ultimate goal. We think we are this self we so closely identify with in this story. For all of my life, I have thought I was Myron, and for most of my life, I have worked diligently to make a better Myron. When my spiritual aspiration became strong, I even thought that I was making Myron more spiritual. The joke was on me because there is no Myron. She is just a collection of ego beliefs specific to this story. My spiritual path has actually been moving me toward letting her go so that I could embrace the Self that I am.

This was scary at first to even think about letting go of the self I call Myron.

Who would I be? For a time, I comforted myself with the idea that I would still exist as spirit, but in my mind, that meant there would still be a self. I would be a self without a body but still a self as spirit with other spirits. I retained hope of a separate self, independent of others. At that time, I didn’t tell myself this, but now I recognize it as true.

What I long for now is to know my Self as one with All That Is, that is, to know my Self as part of Creation in which there is no separation. I don’t have a clear picture of this, but I still want it. I find that I still think of myself in terms of duality, but I also know that I am moving toward non-duality. It’s true that I don’t have a reference point for that, but I am willing to step out into the unknown. What does it feel like not to have a personal self? I don’t remember. However, I am ready to remember. Others have gone before me and have done it and have rejoiced in it. Here I am, God.

You Who remember what I really am alone remember what I really want.

I’m intrigued by this first sentence. How strange that I don’t remember what I am or what I really want. Even in asking to awaken, I was asking blindly and really didn’t know what awakening was for. Honestly, I just wanted to feel better, to be happier, to feel safe and at peace. But I had no idea of anything past that. I still don’t have any idea of anything past my present experience. But the Holy Spirit does know and is gently guiding me one step at a time.

Another intriguing idea is in sentence four, where he says, “…and all I want is what You offer me, in just the form You choose that it be mine.” This is a sentence of surrender. I don’t know what I need, but I trust that it will come to me, and the form it takes is perfect. I have seen this is true in my life. Situations that seemed perfectly awful in the midst of them, in retrospect, have brought me to awakening.

I don’t regret a moment of those trying times. While they were happening, I often thought something was wrong, and I thought I knew what needed to occur for me to be happy, and what needed to stop occurring for me to be happy. But I was wrong. I needed the moment just as it was transpiring.

Let me remember all I do not know, and let my voice be still, remembering.

This story is not over, so there will probably be other valuable moments that I will want to resist. If so, the wisest thing I can do is remember everything I do not know. Now I have experience with this, perhaps it will be easier for me to realize that One Who does know has my best interests at heart and will bring to me what I need rather than what I want.

My little ego self isn’t interested in awakening from the world, but I am not that self, and I am ready to move forward as my Self. “I am ready to let go of self until there is nothing left but God,” I say. Even now, my little mind starts bringing forward objections and offering compromises and assuring me there is plenty to be done in preparation. The ego, always the seeker, safely seeking, never really intends to find. Good thing I am not the ego nor beholden to the ego.

Regina’s Tips

Our special theme began with the question, “What am I?” and ended with, “disappear into the Heart of God.” In between that beginning and ending, although we were given words to contemplate, we were not given an answer to the question, “What am I?” That answer comes best in those last few words, “disappear into the Heart of God,” especially in the word “disappear.”

My Thoughts

The idea of me disappearing is what leaves the ego trembling and afraid. The ego is the only me that exists. What I am is beyond my present knowing, and… oh wait, here I am talking about myself as if I exist outside the Heart of God. If the “I” that seems to define me disappears, then I believe I do not exist. This is not what is being said here.

I cannot cease to exist because I am eternal, but I do not exist as I see myself now. Since there is nothing to be gained from contemplating what I am past this one thing, I will let it suffice me to know that the “I” disappears into God. Isn’t that enough? To disappear into God is to become God. Not an “I” that is part of or in, but to become.

Past Entries

A few years ago, when I was still listening to the ego voice in spite of my growing desire to hear only the Voice for God, I talked to the Holy Spirit about my discouragement.

Me: Holy Spirit, sometimes I notice signs that I am clinging to the ego, and I feel so sad and disappointed.

Holy Spirit: Child of God, I felt your sadness this morning when you wished you could hear My Voice as clearly as you still hear the ego. I noticed that you were comparing your ability to that of another and had found yourself wanting. My Voice is as strong in you as it is in anyone who lives or has ever lived. It is as strong in you as anyone who has taken a body or never taken a body. My Voice does not vary with persons, nor is it dependent on anything in its strength. I am never absent from anyone in any circumstances.

When I am not heard, it is because of fear. There is fear of hearing my Voice because then the other voice is no longer heard. Do not be discouraged by your desire to withhold your attention from the truth, but also, do not be hesitant to see it for what it is. You are not wrong for choosing the ego voice, just mistaken in your desire. Know that My Voice is always the same. I do not become quiet in the face of your mistaken choice but remain constant as your source of truth.

There is nothing you can ask for that will be denied you, Son of God.

Everything you want is provided to you the instant you want it. Just look around at the effects of all your choices. Your world is complete and just as you desired. If you are not satisfied with what you have made, then choose again. Truly it is that simple. Just as you asked for and received conflict and its resultant pain, you can choose the peace of God and experience joy instead.

It is no harder to choose peace than it is to choose conflict. Do you want it? If you prefer your interesting little dramas for a while longer, then, by all means, have them. You are never wrong, and God does not judge your choice. But look closely at the effects of your choices and decide if that is what you want to continue to create. And when you change your mind, know truly that your experience will change… just like that!

When you are tempted to feel less than someone else, talk to me.

If you are tempted by the egoic part of the mind to think that you cannot have what you want, come to me with your concerns. Or if you think that the world reflects something other than your choices, remember what I have told you about the power of decision. Come to me and laugh with Me at the absurdity of such a possibility and watch it melt away from your consciousness.

Do not take it seriously because it does not deserve your serious concern. It is only important that you see it as it is and that you decide if you would keep it or let it go, and that is not serious but only a choice to be made. Open your heart, precious one, and accept the joy that is yours and has always been yours. Only you can close yourself to that joy, and only you can change your mind and accept it.

You have always celebrated the birth of Jesus at this time of the year. Perhaps you would like to celebrate the birth of Christ in your mind instead. Remove the block to the awareness of the Christ within, and It will rise up in your conscious mind, and you will experience the truth of who you are as you are meant to do. I know you think that moment must be years and years away because of all the blocks. But I say to you truly, there is only one block, and that is the desire to experience something else. Choose this moment to awaken, and you are awake. Give Me the fear this thought brings. I know what to do with it.

2015

Here is the sentence that is most meaningful to me this morning. “Let me not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all.” I feel a sense of excitement or anticipation because I have become willing to let the self be nothing. This has been my practice for a few days. I am doing it in a particular way. I didn’t think this practice up on my own or even the desire to do it. It was simply time, and the idea began to show up in different places.

I suppose the idea that the self I cling to so tenaciously is not real is one that has been growing in me, but lately, I have felt the need to be me falling away. Happiest of all, I don’t feel panic about this; some ego resistance but no strong fear.

This is the form the practice is taking at the moment. I notice the thought that I have a headache, and I mentally shift that thought to this body has a headache. It is not just a play on words. When I shift from the personal to the impersonal, I feel a shift in identity. I began to know myself as something more than a body with a headache. I was more aware that a headache is a projection of a thought onto a body and not my identity as one who has headaches.

When I said, “I have too much to do today,” I shifted to, “there is too much to do today.”

That shift from the possessive pronoun shifted more than I would have expected. When I owned that thought, “I have too much to do today,” I assumed responsibility for either finding a solution or for suffering because of it. Probably both. When I simply noticed that there was too much to do today, I automatically asked the Holy Spirit to guide me in my choices.

I felt more peaceful immediately, and I realized I would finish what needed to be finished, and if something was left incomplete, then it was meant to be incomplete. Or, as Byron Katie often says, I don’t argue with reality. Regardless of what was left undone, by the end of the day, I felt complete and at peace.

Here is something that happened during my practice that I wrote about last night.

It was a really busy day, and I was starting to get tired when I remembered that I still had to grocery shop. My kids are coming for lunch tomorrow. Usually, I cook the main dish, and each of them brings a side dish, but no one volunteered this time, and I started feeling sorry for myself.

The thought was something like this. “Why is no one helping me? This isn’t fair. Why should I do all the work when I am so tired?” I noticed that these thoughts were all about the Myron character and her little world. It is a favorite drama that she plays out in many forms. She wants to feel unfairly treated because that is her story and one she likes.

Seeing this very clearly, I had to let it go because it is no longer desired. Letting go of the desire for this little drama is letting go of the desire to keep the little self in place. Letting go of the story of Myron in this small way opened a space for life to unfold differently. A few minutes later, my daughter called to see what she could bring. ~smile~ And without the burden of being “unfairly treated,” the shopping went well, and the meal will be simple and easy to prepare today.

The thing is, I am beginning to accept that the little self I made, with all its needs and the peculiarities that define it, is nothing. I am letting it go so that Self can rise in its place. Is it silly to do this one little pronoun at a time? I think it is a perfect way to practice.

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 358 click here.

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