Lesson 165

LESSON 165

Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.

¹ What makes this world seem real except your own denial of the truth that lies beyond? What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life your Father wills for you? And what could hide what cannot be concealed except illusion? What could keep from you what you already have except your choice to see it not, denying it is there?

² The Thought of God created you. It left you not, nor have you ever been apart from it an instant. It belongs to you. By it you live. It is your Source of life, holding you one with it, and everything is one with you because it left you not. The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love. Eternity and everlasting life shine in your mind, because the Thought of God has left you not, and still abides with you.

³ Who would deny his safety and his peace, his joy, his healing and his peace of mind, his quiet rest, his calm awakening, if he but recognized where they abide? Would he not instantly prepare to go where they are found, abandoning all else as worthless in comparison with them? And having found them, would he not make sure they stay with him, and he remain with them?

⁴ Deny not Heaven. It is yours today, but for the asking. Nor need you perceive how great the gift, how changed your mind will be before it comes to you. Ask to receive, and it is given you. Conviction lies within it. Till you welcome it as yours, uncertainty remains. Yet God is fair. Sureness is not required to receive what only your acceptance can bestow.

⁵ Ask with desire. You need not be sure that you request the only thing you want. But when you have received, you will be sure you have the treasure you have always sought. What would you then exchange for it? What would induce you now to let it fade away from your ecstatic vision? For this sight proves that you have exchanged your blindness for the seeing eyes of Christ; your mind has come to lay aside denial, and accept the Thought of God as your inheritance.

⁶ Now is all doubting past, the journey’s end made certain, and salvation given you. Now is Christ’s power in your mind, to heal as you were healed. For now you are among the saviors of the world. Your destiny lies there and nowhere else. Would God consent to let His Son remain forever starved by his denial of the nourishment he needs to live? Abundance dwells in him, and deprivation cannot cut him off from God’s sustaining Love and from his home.

⁷ Practice today in hope. For hope indeed is justified. Your doubts are meaningless, for God is certain. And the Thought of Him is never absent. Sureness must abide within you who are host to Him. This course removes all doubts which you have interposed between Him and your certainty of Him.

⁸ We count on God, and not upon ourselves, to give us certainty. And in His Name we practice as His Word directs we do. His sureness lies beyond our every doubt. His Love remains beyond our every fear. The Thought of Him is still beyond all dreams and in our minds, according to His Will.

 

Journal

“The Thought of God created you. It left you not, nor have you ever been apart from it an instant. It belongs to you. By it you live. It is your Source of life, holding you one with it, and everything is one with you because it left you not. The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love. Eternity and everlasting life shine in your mind, because the Thought of God has left you not, and still abides with you.”

I know that the Thought of God is not just me thinking about God. It is the Creative Force that is Life. I could not have lost that or I would not live. It remains with me even in my dreams of separation. All the things that the Thought of God gives me, care, protection, happiness and love, are still there for me and if that is not my experience it is because I have turned away from them. My attention is on the ego’s gifts of pain, suffering and death. As I have released more and more of the ego beliefs, my experience is closer to my reality.

“Sureness is not required to receive what only your acceptance can bestow.”

 It’s a good thing this is true. When I started asking for healing, I was not entirely certain I wanted it. I wanted to be free of the effects of choosing ego, but I sometimes still wanted to feel like a victim or unfairly treated. I often wanted to keep pointing at my brother as the guilty one so as to obscure my part. But that I asked, meant that I was answered. And, as I was able, I accepted the answer even if I had to do so a little at a time.

“Ask with desire.”

 When I first began this journey, I asked out of desperation for a better life. It took a while before that asking changed to one of true desire. Now my heart longs for the memory of Self and the memory of the oneness of God. Now the answers come quicker and I embrace them faster and more completely.

“Now is all doubting past, the journey’s end made certain, and salvation given you. Now is Christ’s power in your mind, to heal as you were healed. For now you are among the saviors of the world.”

 This isn’t 100% true for me 100% of the time, but it is truer for me than it ever has been, and true enough for me to know that the journey’s end is imminent. Abundance dwells in me and what deprivation is left in my mind is being undone even now as I write about this. It cannot cut me off from God’s sustaining Love.

“We count on God, and not upon ourselves, to give us certainty. And in His Name we practice as His Word directs we do. His sureness lies beyond our every doubt. His Love remains beyond our every fear. The Thought of Him is still beyond all dreams and in our minds, according to His Will.”

 Regina’s Tips

Today’s workbook lesson encourages us to practice with hope, because hope counteracts doubt.

What if we replaced every thought of doubt with a thought of hope? For example, we could replace, “I do not want truth enough” with “I must want truth more than I think, because spirituality is an ongoing focus in my life.”

Which do you think benefits the purpose of awakening more: negative thoughts of doubt or positive thoughts of hope? Which do you think benefits the ego more?

Let’s do two things today:

1 – Pay particular attention to discover the thoughts of doubt that you listen to. Look at those thoughts with reason, meaning notice that those thoughts serve the ego and discourage spiritual aspiration. Look for reasonable thoughts of hope to replace them with, thoughts that encourage you instead of discouraging you.

2 – Continue to notice awareness-life-presence. Throughout the day, each time you remember, take a moment to notice that you are aware and you exist. Even when you are distracted from awareness-life-presence by doubt, you are still aware and you still exist. Doubt does not change the truth; it only denies it.

My Thoughts

One of my common doubt thoughts was that I do not practice well enough or long enough to realize truth. That is no longer true for me. I have noticed the Holy Spirit’s nudge from time to time to give more time to meditation. It feels more like a strong desire to meditate or just an awareness that I am not as happy when I don’t give time for meditation. It is not that same feeling of dread that I used to have when I thought I was slacking off and my laziness or inability to do this right was going to keep me in hell. I am grateful for these gentle reminders.

Past Entry

I have placed before my eyes all manner of “proof” that the world is a scary, cruel place and that I have no protection. My eyes have been fixed on this hellish sight and I have had trouble pulling them away. But in truth, my “proof” is an illusion and without substance. This life is a result of denying the Thought of God.

The denial of truth does not make it no longer true; it just makes it invisible to me. As I no longer desire to live in hell, this life as I know it will cease to be there, like awakening from an interesting but unpleasant dream. One moment it seems very real, the next it is simply gone as if it had never been.

And it is just that simple. To have God in my awareness, I need only desire God. I take my eyes off my fabricated proof, and the truth, which has always been in my mind, becomes apparent to me. The truth is the exact opposite of all I think I see now. Where there was doubt there is certainty. Where there was weakness there is strength. Where there was grief there is joy.

There is the ego voice in my mind scoffing at this even as I write it. It says that I cannot deny what is before my eyes. It says that even if unending joy were possible, I certainly don’t deserve it. But I have experienced this turnaround. I have given a thought to the Holy Spirit and allowed Him to reinterpret it for me. I have seen everything change in that moment.

Jesus says that we don’t have to be certain when we ask, that we can count on God to give us certainty. This is the paragraph I keep reading over and over.

Practice today in hope. For hope indeed is justified. Your doubts are meaningless, for God is certain. And the Thought of Him is never absent. Sureness must abide within you who are host to Him. This course removes all doubts which you have interposed between Him and your certainty of Him.

I have practiced and I have seen doubts removed and I am here to witness to the truth of this statement. I know what it is to be certain, and I know what it is to doubt yet again, but those moments of certainty are so powerful that I can never again return to complete uncertainty. My doubts are meaningless, for God is certain. This Course is, indeed, removing all doubts I have interposed between Him and my certainty of Him. And my certainty of God is my certainty of my Self, because I am His Creation and thus like Him.

This is my mantra for today: My doubts are meaningless, for God is certain. I go forward in strength and certainty.