Lesson 104

I seek but what belongs to me in truth.

Today’s idea continues with the thought that joy and peace are not but idle dreams. They are your right, because of what you are. They come to you from God, Who cannot fail to give you what He wills. Yet must there be a place made ready to receive His gifts. They are not welcomed gladly by a mind that has instead received the gifts it made where His belong, as substitutes for them.

Today we would remove all meaningless and self-made gifts which we have placed upon the holy altar where God’s gifts belong. His are the gifts that are our own in truth. His are the gifts that we inherited before time was, and that will still be ours when time has passed into eternity. His are the gifts that are within us now, for they are timeless. And we need not wait to have them. They belong to us today.

Therefore, we choose to have them now, and know, in choosing them in place of what we made, we but unite our will with what God wills, and recognize the same as being one. Our longer practice periods today, the hourly five minutes given truth for your salvation, should begin with this:

I seek but what belongs to me in truth,
And joy and peace are my inheritance.

Then lay aside the conflicts of the world that offer other gifts and other goals made of illusions, witnessed to by them, and sought for only in a world of dreams.

All this we lay aside, and seek instead that which is truly ours, as we ask to recognize what God has given us. We clear a holy place within our minds before His altar, where His gifts of peace and joy are welcome, and to which we come to find what has been given us by Him. We come in confidence today, aware that what belongs to us in truth is what He gives. And we would wish for nothing else, for nothing else belongs to us in truth.

So do we clear the way for Him today by simply recognizing that His Will is done already, and that joy and peace belong to us as His eternal gifts. We will not let ourselves lose sight of them between the times we come to seek for them where He has laid them. This reminder will we bring to mind as often as we can:

I seek but what belongs to me in truth.
God’s gifts of joy and peace are all I want.

Initial Insight: God’s gifts will bring us joy and peace because His gifts remind us of who we are and that we are one with Him. How could we be anything but joyful to remember that we are God the Son. All that we need to do to receive these gifts is to desire them more than anything else, to desire them instead of anything else.

What are the gifts we have given ourselves, the gifts that we chose over those our Creator gave us in our creation? We gave ourselves a separate self. This is a self very different than what we are. What came from this separate self were beliefs that do not exist because there is no separation in reality.

We seemed to have gained the right to choose outside the will of God and with this gift we gave ourselves came the right to be wrong, to experience strong emotions like rage, the right to experience sickness then health then sickness, back and forth until finally at the end, we suffer and die.

These are the “gifts” we gave ourselves. They do not, nor could they ever exist, but we, the Son’s of God can have that experience because we want to. For that very same reason, we can change our minds and awaken to reality. This is what we are practicing today with this lesson. We are choosing reality over illusions.

We are reminding ourselves that it is still possible to accept God’s gifts because they belong to us and because that is what we want. We must have thought that being “on our own” would be freedom, but it only imprisoned the mind that knew true freedom. Today, as we lay aside our conflicts, we release our minds and return to true freedom.

What a relief that will be! And if we need to stretch out the instant of freedom so it seems to take time, that is okay. Nothing can keep us from God because there is nothing but God. I choose to do this as quickly as it is possible because I want to be free again, free to be what I am and free of even the memory of the dream of separation.

Daily Application: This was an early journal entry, but it was such an important turning point for me that I have kept it as is. I can still get caught up in the distraction of everyday life, but since this time, it happens only occasionally and  I find it less upsetting and more easily undone.

Yesterday was a hectic and uncomfortable day. I had pain from carpel tunnel; I had pain from some kind of lower back thing; I had a lot of unfinished business at work and not enough time to get it done; I had some last-minute preparations for the conference to take care of, and on and on it went. By the time I was driving home and realized I had to stop at the store for one more thing, I felt like crying.

This was definitely not the happy life I felt so optimistic about that morning. So, I asked the Holy Spirit for clarity. I was shown that these are the gifts I gave myself, and they are the blocks that prevent me from accepting God’s gifts instead. Pain and suffering prove that I am a body, and the demands of time keep me on the hamster wheel, running in circles and getting nowhere. Who has time to be happy with all the distractions I have given myself. Some gifts!

As soon as I saw clearly what was going on, a lot of the frustration and upset fell away. I got home to another unexpected problem, but now I felt differently about it and so it was a quickly passing upset. But again, I was shown that seeing everything from the perspective of separation thinking, I am confronted with problems and enemies. As soon as I choose to see from the perspective of joining with life, I see opportunities and love.

I felt unnerved by this experience yesterday, Jesus. I haven’t had pain in a long time, not since I did the work with lesson 190. I haven’t gotten so entangled with the ego thinking in a long time. Could you please talk to me about this.

Insights from Jesus: I wouldn’t be too worried that this is happening to you right now. You noticed yourself that the ego has gone from suspicious to vicious recently. The part of your mind that is afraid of union and afraid of God is digging in its heels. It is kicking and screaming. You are used to believing what you hear in your mind and even though you have done well in learning to question your thoughts, you can still become confused.

Let me remind you that you did not give time to your lesson yesterday. Instead, you gave your attention to the ego-mind. You must protect what you have accomplished because it is still new and separation thinking is well established. You were given the idea of a garden newly planted, with new and tender sprouts that must be protected until they are stronger and more firmly established. This is why you were guided to do the lessons again this year.

I know you have been happy to see how new they feel, and how meaningful they are to you. You also know that understanding no matter how deep that understanding goes is not the same thing as application. Give me more of your time, my sister, and you will find this transition period easier.

When you start to feel harried by life, too busy to stop for five minutes, remember that this is exactly the purpose of all this activity. The ego part of your mind may want desperately to hold onto the separate identity, but that is just a small part of your mind. You pay attention to it simply because you are used to doing so.

You can stop any time by simply turning away from it. This you know. What it offers you is nothing, and a lot of nothing is still nothing. What you give your time to defines your goal and your purpose. You want to be happy. You want to awaken. Read the lessons; write about them. This establishes your intent for the day. But then do the lessons. This establishes your purpose and keeps it at the forefront of your mind.

Gratitude: Thank you my brother.

Regina’s Tips

This week we are looking deeply at happiness. I’ve said that happiness is natural, and when we are not happy it is because we decided we wanted something else. We judged a circumstance as something that should not be, and we decided we want it to be different.

Right now I sit in bed in Branson, Missouri. In about 90 minutes I will take my suitcases, go out to my car and drive to Springfield, Missouri for a gathering. It is storming outside. There is heavy rain and lightening. It’s been this way for hours. If there isn’t a break in the weather, I will get soaked when I leave. I have no umbrella, no raincoat and my car is parked far enough from the front door that remaining dry is an impossibility in the heavy rain. Once I am in the car, I will drive nearly an hour in the weather to the gathering I am to teach today. It’s possible some people will not come because of the weather. At least one person has already cancelled. I might have heard hail last night. I could go outside today and find my car has hail damage.

Should I choose to be unhappy? Will my unhappiness get me what I want? Heck, what do I want? Do I want sunshine and bird’s singing and lots of people at the gathering? Maybe I at least want dry clothes. Can’t I at least have a break in the weather when I carry my luggage out to the car? If God loves me, I will at least get that, right?

This is an example of the kind of thinking people choose everyday, probably multiple times everyday. “I want this!” our mind screams, and if it isn’t given we are unhappy.

“I want things my way,” but maybe the trees, bushes and flowers want rain. Maybe the thunder wants to roar. Maybe the storm clouds want to dance in the sky like native Americans around a drum circle. Maybe, just maybe, if I look at today with a little bit of openness, I will enjoy this weather powwow.

Today’s lesson tells us there must “be a place made ready to receive His gifts. They are not welcomed gladly by a mind that has instead received the gifts it made where His belong, as substitutes for them.”

We prepare the place for happiness when we let go of wanting what isn’t present. If it isn’t present, it isn’t a present. ~ha ha~ That’s just a silly play on words that just came to me. Get it? If it isn’t present (here), it isn’t a present (gift).

But seriously … It’s okay to want what’s here. Wanting what is here will never bring us unhappiness. If the sun is shining, love the sunny day. That is okay! But if the rain is pouring, love the rain. If you are wet, love being wet. If you have no money, love having no money. If you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, love not knowing what is going to happen tomorrow. The truth is, none of us really know that anyway. We only imagine we know.

Happiness isn’t really a choice. Unhappiness is a choice. If we stop choosing to be unhappy by wanting something that isn’t present, we will find more gifts here now than we can count, and happiness is one of them.

This life as this person is a temporary experience, like a novel or a movie. What’s happening in your scene now? Enjoy it! Love the temporary. Also take time to notice, you aren’t the temporary. The more you see that you aren’t the temporary, the more you relax, and the temporary can be loved just as it is now

My Thought

I have continued my practice of accepting this experience exactly as it is happening and choosing to be happy while I do so. I woke up this morning in some bit of pain. I got my flu and pneumonia shot yesterday and this morning both arms hurt. (I wrote this at another time) I decided to be happy anyway. Why should pain stop me from being happy? I can be miserable while I am in pain, or I can be happy while I am in pain. It’s my choice.

What I have noticed is that when I decide to be happy, I am not accepting the ego gifts of depression, rage, fear or guilt. In my decision to be happy, I am making room for the gifts of God, the gifts I prefer. This is working out very well. Regina also said that while I notice my experiences are only temporary, I also notice that I am not temporary. This body having separation experiences isn’t me. I’m the one learning to love the temporary as well as the permanent. I am learning that I am in the world but not of it.