Lesson 156

Lesson 156

I walk with God in perfect holiness.

Today’s idea but states the simple truth that makes the thought of sin impossible. It promises there is no cause for guilt, and being causeless it does not exist. It follows surely from the basic thought so often mentioned in the text; ideas leave not their source. If this be true, how can you be apart from God? How could you walk the world alone and separate from your Source?

We are not inconsistent in the thoughts that we present in our curriculum. Truth must be true throughout, if it be true. It cannot contradict itself, nor be in parts uncertain and in others sure. You cannot walk the world apart from God, because you could not be without Him. He is what your life is. Where you are He is. There is one life. That life you share with Him. Nothing can be apart from Him and live.

Yet where He is, there must be holiness as well as life. No attribute of His remains unshared by everything that lives. What lives is holy as Himself, because what shares His life is part of Holiness, and could no more be sinful than the sun could choose to be of ice; the sea elect to be apart from water, or the grass to grow with roots suspended in the air.

There is a light in you which cannot die; whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you. All things that live bring gifts to you, and offer them in gratitude and gladness at your feet. The scent of flowers is their gift to you. The waves bow down before you, and the trees extend their arms to shield you from the heat, and lay their leaves before you on the ground that you may walk in softness, while the wind sinks to a whisper round your holy head.

The light in you is what the universe longs to behold. All living things are still before you, for they recognize Who walks with you. The light you carry is their own. And thus they see in you their holiness, saluting you as savior and as God. Accept their reverence, for it is due to Holiness Itself, which walks with you, transforming in Its gentle light all things unto Its likeness and Its purity.

This is the way salvation works. As you step back, the light in you steps forward and encompasses the world. It heralds not the end of sin in punishment and death. In lightness and in laughter is sin gone, because its quaint absurdity is seen. It is a foolish thought, a silly dream, not frightening, ridiculous perhaps, but who would waste an instant in approach to God Himself for such a senseless whim?

Yet you have wasted many, many years on just this foolish thought. The past is gone, with all its fantasies. They keep you bound no longer. The approach to God is near. And in the little interval of doubt that still remains, you may perhaps lose sight of your Companion, and mistake Him for the senseless, ancient dream that now is past.

“Who walks with me?” This question should be asked a thousand times a day, till certainty has ended doubting and established peace. Today let doubting cease. God speaks for you in answering your question with these words:

I walk with God in perfect holiness. I light the world,

I light my mind and all the minds which God created

one with me.

 

Journal

I realize that I really do believe that I am sinless. The ego, on the other hand, takes serious exception to that belief and is only too happy to remind me of my many errors. But it seems like I am beginning to understand that errors are not sins. In fact, maybe the things I thought were errors really were not. Maybe they were perfect in ways I cannot, with my limited vision, understand.

God did not cause guilt and so it cannot exist. Besides which, thoughts leave not their source and since I am a Thought in the Mind of God, I cannot be apart from God. No matter how vivid this dream of being separated from God, it cannot possibly be true. I cannot be apart from my Source.

As Jesus says: “He is what your life is. Where you are He is. There is one life. That life you share with Him. Nothing can be apart from Him and live.” I must be holy because God is holy. I must be innocent because He is innocent. I must be life because He is Life. When I see this written out and follow the logic of it, I see that I must be this.

Look at paragraph five.

“The light in you is what the universe longs to behold. All living things are still before you, for they recognize Who walks with you. The light you carry is their own. And thus they see in you their holiness, saluting you as savior and as God. Accept their reverence, for it is due to Holiness Itself, which walks with you, transforming in Its gentle light all things unto Its likeness and Its purity.”

I have to stop and contemplate this.

The above statement is true of Who I am. It feels weird to say this about myself only when I think of myself as Myron the body/personality mask I assume for this dreamy experience. Even if I think of myself without the body but still dreaming of being separate from God, I cannot believe what Jesus is saying here.

But if I simply accept as true that I am not separate from God nor different than He created me to be, then I must be a holy savior. I must be God. The one Who walks with me is my true Self. That Self is part of God. Ultimately, that Self is God because God is Whole and does not have parts. I am practicing simply accepting that what Jesus says about me is true, and everything I perceive is part of a dream I am having, a long con I am playing on myself.

And what is it that keeps me from reclaiming my birthright? It is only the belief in sin. This is why Jesus keeps reiterating that we are innocent, and that we are sinless, and that guilt does not exist. I don’t have to undo every error I ever made or somehow make amends for them as the idea of karma suggests. Instead, what I need to do is to accept that I have never done anything that makes me guilty except in time and time doesn’t exist. I can know that I am God the Son if I simply step into that role, I think.

“Yet you have wasted many, many years on just this foolish thought. The past is gone, with all its fantasies. They keep you bound no longer. The approach to God is near. And in the little interval of doubt that still remains, you may perhaps lose sight of your Companion, and mistake Him for the senseless, ancient dream that now is past.”

 So what must I do about the little interval of doubt? I continue to be aware of those doubts and to remind myself that I am innocent and I am holy and that I am the Self I have been trying to remember. I can believe everything that Jesus says about me and my belief will change everything because what we believe is true for us. I can do what Jesus suggests at the end of the lesson.

“Who walks with me?” This question should be asked a thousand times a day, till certainty has ended doubting and established peace. Today let doubting cease. God speaks for you in answering your question with these words:

 I walk with God in perfect holiness. I light the world, I light my mind and all the minds which God created one with me.

Regina’s Tips

NTI Acts, Chapter 5 makes this point when it says, “God is Life, and you live, so Life must be within you. This means that God is within you also. … Right now, as you sit reading this, you live. So right now, you cannot be separate from God. Right now, God is in you and you are in God. There is no separation. Right now, your oneness with God is complete …”

Guilt and unworthiness are concepts. They are imagination. This is easy to see if you will look beyond your imagination to truth.

Life is always clean, untouched by what the body does or what the mind thinks, just as sunlight is untouched by the stained glass window that it shines through. And life is what you are, and what others are. This is what’s consistently true. When your eyes have learned to look at truth, everything else pales by comparison.

Today’s lesson says, “’Who walks with me?’ is a question that “should be asked a thousand times a day, till certainty has ended doubting and established peace.” When you ask this question, look. Is life here now? Does it go wherever you go? Is life what you are? Keep looking. Keep noticing until you have trained your eyes to look beyond everything temporary and focus themselves on life.

Past Entries

This Lesson brought to mind the Biblical story of Jesus in the boat with the apostles. There was a great storm and the apostles were afraid. In response to their cries of fear, Jesus calmed the seas. Because he knew who he was and who walked with him, the waves bowed down before him. This is our destiny, our certainty. As we release the illusion and accept our reality, we will light the world with our holiness. Instead of feeling like we are a victim of the world, we will walk the world in perfect safety, knowing we are loved and treasured by God.

When I read my past entries of this journal I could see how I slowly changed my mind, becoming less fearful and more certain. I am sharing this journey here.

Forgive Your Resistance 

I am a thought of God and thoughts do not leave their source so I must still be with God. This means I am also all that God is so I am perfectly holy. This doesn’t seem to be true in time, but it must be. I walk with God because there is no other place to be.

I experienced passive resistance in the form of forgetfulness often during the day. It is as if my mind was coated with Teflon and I could not hold onto this lesson.

My message from Holy Spirit

Forgive your resistance, Myron. Never make yourself guilty. Today we did work together with this thought. You are very holy indeed, and this is the simple truth about you. It is not a grandiose statement because we are not speaking of your ego self. It is the simple truth of your creation in God. To notice that your mind is straying is not a failure, but exactly what I need you to do. Continue to give Me your mind, step back and allow me to correct and heal. Do your part by being willing for this to happen. Focus your willingness by taking a few moments every hour of the day to remind yourself that this is something you want to do. Don’t worry about how it is going, or consider how much there is left to do. After all, you walk with God, today… and every day.

In and Out, Up and Down

As I read what I wrote in 2007, I notice that I didn’t really write about my holiness which is the whole idea in this lesson. I didn’t write about it because I didn’t have a feeling for it. Now I sometimes do, and sometimes not. I understand that holiness does not apply to the self I usually identify with. But that self is not really me, and my true Self is that light which shines undisturbed by my illusions of personhood.

I don’t know how the awakening process feels to anyone else, but for me, it is in and out, up and down. Most of the time these days I am so happy and peaceful, with moments of being nearly blissful. I am not awakened in the way Jan Frazier or Byron Katie are. But I can imagine being there (something I could not do in 2007) so I know I will be at some point.

But I still have days when I feel like the separated self, and the disparity is so apparent that it feels disheartening when I fall from the heights of near truth to the pits of forgetfulness. I don’t know what causes me to slip, maybe just lack of vigilance in my practice, but I now know that my spiritual amnesia is not permanent and joy will return as I renew my practice.

I’m learning to make this a part of my practice too. I am learning that when this happens it is best to rest my mind in God and to try not to give the ego thoughts credence. This is just a feeling, not the truth. Always, I am as God created me. Always, I walk with God in perfect holiness. The ego thoughts in my mind cannot affect what God created; they affect only my momentary experience.

I Will Remember Who Walks With Me

The chief difference in how I feel about this lesson is that I do not doubt that I am holy and that I light the world because of the light that is in me. Still, there are times when I don’t feel like that is true, but I know it is only the ego that has this feeling and I am not the ego. No matter how I feel, I never doubt the truth. Now when I read the lessons that speak about my reality, my heart soars in wonder and joy!

Today when I become annoyed, when I get tired, when I feel doubtful and uncertain, I will remember Who walks with me. I will remember that I am a Thought of God and thoughts leave not their Source, so I have not left God. As I exist in God, there is no weariness, no guilt, no fear, no pain or suffering, and death is unheard of. When my mind wanders to the beliefs of the world I will remember that this can’t be right and I will return my awareness to the only thing that can be true. I walk with God.

2015

The most helpful change so far is that I have gone from trying to heal my mind, to allowing the transformation. I rest in God, simply allowing the healing to occur. I do this without concern and with patience knowing that the Holy Spirit does not need my help, only my consent.

Learning to Open My Heart

“This is the way salvation works. As you step back, the light in you steps forward and encompasses the world.” The light is in me and always will be. Nothing for me to do there. I need only step back. I step back as my ego self, step back and let it die so that I can live as the light of the world. Every day, I do this to the best of my ability.

It used to feel scary and difficult and it felt like an endless amount of really hard work. Now it feels good. It feels peaceful and I am happy. Even with the punishing stories, there is a numbing effect that prevents the pain from being too sharp because I remember that I am very holy, and I walk with God. Knowing this, I am far less reluctant to open my heart and accept all my story has to offer, knowing that when my stuff comes up, it comes up for healing, that’s all.