Lesson 106
Let me be still and listen to the truth.
If you will lay aside the ego’s voice, however loudly it may seem to call; if you will not accept its petty gifts that give you nothing that you really want; if you will listen with an open mind, that has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages.
Listen, and hear your Father speak to you through His appointed Voice, which silences the thunder of the meaningless, and shows the way to peace to those who cannot see. Be still today and listen to the truth. Be not deceived by voices of the dead, which tell you they have found the source of life and offer it to you for your belief. Attend them not, but listen to the truth.
Be not afraid today to circumvent the voices of the world. Walk lightly past their meaningless persuasion. Hear them not. Be still today and listen to the truth. Go past all things which do not speak of Him Who holds your happiness within His Hand, held out to you in welcome and in love. Hear only Him today, and do not wait to reach Him longer. Hear one Voice today.
Today the promise of God’s Word is kept. Hear and be silent. He would speak to you. He comes with miracles a thousand times as happy and as wonderful as those you ever dreamed or wished for in your dreams. His miracles are true. They will not fade when dreaming ends. They end the dream instead; and last forever, for they come from God to His dear Son, whose other name is you. Prepare yourself for miracles today. Today allow your Father’s ancient pledge to you and all your brothers to be kept.
Hear Him today, and listen to the Word which lifts the veil that lies upon the earth, and wakes all those who sleep and cannot see. God calls to them through you. He needs your voice to speak to them, for who could reach God’s Son except his Father, calling through your Self? Hear Him today, and offer Him your voice to speak to all the multitude who wait to hear the Word that He will speak today.
Be ready for salvation. It is here, and will today be given unto you. And you will learn your function from the One Who chose it in your Father’s Name for you. Listen today, and you will hear a Voice which will resound throughout the world through you. The bringer of all miracles has need that you receive them first, and thus become the joyous giver of what you received.
Thus does salvation start and thus it ends; when everything is yours and everything is given away, it will remain with you forever. And the lesson has been learned. Today we practice giving, not the way you understand it now, but as it is. Each hour’s exercises should begin with this request for your enlightenment:
I will be still and listen to the truth.
What does it mean to give and to receive?
Ask and expect an answer. Your request is one whose answer has been waiting long to be received by you. It will begin the ministry for which you came, and which will free the world from thinking giving is a way to lose. And so the world becomes ready to understand and to receive.
Be still and listen to the truth today. For each five minutes spent in listening, a thousand minds are opened to the truth and they will hear the holy Word you hear. And when the hour is past, you will again release a thousand more who pause to ask that truth be given them, along with you.
Today the holy Word of God is kept through your receiving it to give away, so you can teach the world what giving means by listening and learning it of Him. Do not forget today to reinforce your choice to hear and to receive the Word by this reminder, given to yourself as often as is possible today:
Let me be still and listen to the truth.
I am the messenger of God today,
My voice is His, to give what I receive.
Initial Insight: There are two things that stand out to me in this lesson. One is that in choosing to hear the truth in my mind, I am giving that truth to all of the mind and thus to each brother. I used to be egocentric, and so often I would think of these lessons as helping the “me” I was still attached to. I would do a lesson well and Myron seemed to change. Actually, Myron changing is just a symbol or a reflection of the change that occurs in the shared mind. The healing that occurs is so much more than what I experience from this point in time and space.
The other thing that I found immediately useful is that I had the opportunity to choose the voice I would believe all through the day, and having learned that this is possible has made all the difference. It happens in many little ways. This is something from my journal that I wrote when I was still working and it is a good example.
I was really busy last week as I tried to get work wound up and get packed and ready to go to a conference. I kept thinking of last-minute things to do, and I had to decide how early to wake up to make the flight. I missed a flight last year because I got there one minute late so this was really on my mind. Also, I don’t use an alarm clock generally, because I don’t enjoy being jarred awake. So, this change in routine was making me nervous. That is the ego voice warning me of all the things that can go wrong.
I also heard, very faintly, the Voice for God offering to help. Eventually, I gave up trying to plan the perfect time to go to bed and to get up guaranteeing that I would get “enough” sleep. I stopped listening to the ego voice telling me that getting that magic number of at least seven hours of sleep would be my salvation. Instead, I trusted the other Voice that said all would be well if I stopped making my own plans.
As a result of my choice to listen to Spirit rather than the ego-mind, I had an extremely long day yesterday, getting up at 3:00 AM and going strong until after 9:00 PM. And I enjoyed every minute of it! I didn’t get tired until I was through with all the day’s activities. I slept well and woke up feeling good. There were a few instances that could have been a problem but I let them go to Spirit and so I didn’t suffer from anxiety like I would if I had listened to the ego’s fearful warnings.
This is what Jesus is telling us. There are two voices in the mind, the one that we made up, and the only real Voice, the Voice for God. We can believe either one. Believing the ego will not make it real, but it will affect our experience because what we believe in is real for us. Learning to disregard that voice will leave only the truth in our mind and we will be happy no matter what is going on. Not only will our illusion be happier, but in doing this, we are undoing the illusion for us all.
The entire mind is healed as we make the choice to be still and hear His Voice, but we also help on this level as well. If I had believed the ego voice in that instance, I probably would not have had the same happy experience. What we believe is true for us and what is true for us is what we give to others. We do this with our complaining, for instance. If I believed I would be tired, I would have been so, and I would have mentioned it to people and talked about the lack of sleep and how it affects me. What a useless gift that would be, and a lie as well. It is not a lack of sleep that would be the problem but rather it is my belief about sleep is the problem. Let’s not spread the ego deceptions today, but instead, listen for the truth and share that instead.
Daily Application: “And you will learn your function from the One Who chose it in your Father’s Name for you”.
I often think of those moments that changed the course of my life. I had a moment in which I knew I had to leave my husband. I had been thinking about doing so for a long time, for years, really. But I kept putting it off and then one day the thought came to me that I could not conduct my ministry if I was married to him, and I decided right then to end the marriage with no more questioning and doubting. That thought came from the Holy Spirit and that was the reason I simply accepted it.
A couple of years before that, I had the desire to find something to do that would help me to feel useful since my kids were all nearly grown. It seemed to me that I was going through possibilities and deciding what I wanted to do, but I know that it was being decided for me. I was led to Pathways of Light, and shortly after that, I heard the calling to minister.
It was not a decision made by the ego even though it came through the mind. It was a calling that was so clear and compelling that I simply did what I was told. “I did this” and “I did that” was just a story that I made up to explain my choice because at that time I was not used to following the Holy Spirit, wasn’t familiar with His Voice in the way I came to be. I still needed the idea of words and ego reasoning.
“Hear Him today, and listen to the Word which lifts the veil that lies upon the earth, and wakes all those who sleep and cannot see. God calls to them through you. He needs your voice to speak to them, for who could reach God’s Son except his Father, calling through your Self? Hear Him today, and offer Him your voice to speak to all the multitude who wait to hear the Word that He will speak today.”
God needs my voice. At first, it was hard for me to accept this. I did not think I had anything worth sharing and I was right about that. My ego-self had nothing to offer, but I was not being asked to share from that part of the mind. I came to understand that the words or actions that were needed would come through the mind but not from the mind.
It was touch and go for a while until I got the hang of it, but now I experience it regularly even if not perfectly. This is now my favorite prayer: Where would You have me go? What would You have me do? What would You have me say and to whom?
I use to wish I had been given a different function. I wonder why I am not a scribe like Regina. I wished I was a better teacher. I have students that I send to someone else because I am told to do so, and I wonder why I can’t do what they do. But that is just the ego always wanting more and different than it has. The ego is a wanting machine, always dissatisfied.
What Jesus helped me to understand is that it doesn’t matter what part of the Sonship does this thing or that as long as it gets done. The ego thinks we are separate and this automatically creates the idea of competition and dissatisfaction. The understanding I received from the Holy Spirit stopped me from caring about what my part seems to be and now I just strive to get better at it.
“Let me be still and listen to the truth.
I am the messenger of God today,
My voice is His, to give what I receive.”
I use to question if I was doing what I came to do. It seemed to me that I was, but I still heard the ego voice of doubt. I write and I teach and I counsel and I mentor. As I do so, I am a conduit for His Voice just as I was asked to be. I do it to the best of my ability and then I don’t worry about it. If I make a mistake, I forgive myself and learn from the error. I don’t know why I used to worry so much. How hard could it be to just give what I receive?
Insights from Holy Spirit: Here is a message I received at one time.
Holy Spirit: When you are sad during the day, or feeling anything but wholly joyous, it is because you are looking at what the ego would show you. Shift your focus, and look to Me to interpret what you see. The ego will always show you sin; I will help you see your brother calling to you for love. You will see your purpose in your brother and be filled with joy.
Gratitude: I know this is true. I always feel more peaceful and more joyful when I remember my purpose and remember my brothers are part of my purpose.