Lesson 182

I will be still an instant and go home.

This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown. Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here. Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind again.

No one but knows whereof we speak. Yet some try to put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time, and keep their sadness from them. Others will deny that they are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. Still others will maintain that what we speak of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. Yet who, in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny he understands the words we speak?

We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is not at home. He goes uncertainly about in endless search, seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing what it is he seeks. A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents his restless mind. He does not understand he builds in vain. The home he seeks can not be made by him. There is no substitute for Heaven. All he ever made was hell.

Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. The childhood of your body, and its place of shelter, are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened. Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father’s house, and knows that He is alien here. This childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy ground. It is His Holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one.

It is this Child in you your Father knows as His Own Son. It is this Child Who knows His Father. He desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. He does not ask for more than just a few instants of respite; just an interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that fills His Father’s house. You are His home as well. He will return. But give Him just a little time to be Himself, within the peace that is His home, resting in silence and in peace and love.

This Child needs your protection. He is far from home. He is so little that He seems so easily shut out, His tiny voice so readily obscured, His call for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and harsh and rasping noises of the world. Yet does He know that in you still abides His sure protection. You will fail Him not. He will go home, and you along with Him.

This Child is your defenselessness; your strength. He trusts in you. He came because He knew you would not fail. He whispers of His home unceasingly to you. For He would bring you back with Him, that He Himself might stay, and not return again where He does not belong, and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts. His patience has no limits. He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you, calling you to let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at home and you with Him.

When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home.

Rest with Him frequently today. For He was willing to become a little Child that you might learn of Him how strong is he who comes without defenses, offering only love’s messages to those who think he is their enemy. He holds the might of Heaven in His hand and calls them friend, and gives His strength to them, that they may see He would be Friend to them. He asks that they protect Him, for His home is far away, and He will not return to it alone.

Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his home. For he must learn that what he would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is protected by defenselessness. Go home with Him from time to time today. You are as much an alien here as He.

Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing, and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence. Christ has called you friend and brother. He has even come to ask your help in letting Him go home today, completed and completely. He has come as does a little child, who must beseech his father for protection and for love. He rules the universe, and yet He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take illusions as your gods no more.

You have not lost your innocence. It is for this you yearn. This is your heart’s desire. This is the voice you hear, and this the call which cannot be denied. The holy Child remains with you. His home is yours. Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. And now the way is open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. Be still an instant and go home with Him, and be at peace a while.

INITIAL INSIGHT: In this lesson, Jesus evokes the innocence of a child lost in time but finding its way home. The child he speaks of is the holy Child within each of us and he strongly encourages us to give that child respite from the world today as we sit in silence. My thought as I read is that the world, we move from is the world of thought. Not the thought that tells me it is time to make a call or how to cook my meal, but the thoughts that say what I like and what I don’t like, that judge everything it experiences, that is constantly in defense mode.

“Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his home. For he must learn that what he would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is protected by defenselessness. Go home with Him from time to time today. You are as much an alien here as He.”

This is the paragraph that stood out to me, both because of a personal experience and because it feels like something of a puzzle to me. The personal experience first. I spoke to my mom after she passed and she told me that we have always loved each other and she inferred that we have spent other lifetimes together. She said that she was just going to wait for me because I am the one who likes to wander. I took that to mean I am the one who enjoys these life experiences. Reading this paragraph seemed to confirm that is what she meant by wandering.

It came as a real surprise to me when she said this. I thought the reason I wanted so desperately to awaken is because I hated it here, but obviously, that is not the case. No one forced me into a life, I came willingly because I wanted the experience. How strange. I no longer hate my life here, this conversation with my mom changed all that.

But I understand now why I did hate it and wanted out of it. It was because I believed my thoughts and tried to live by them. And I understand why Jesus is telling me to give myself a break from them, to settle into the silence and get some relief from this constant fear-mongering chatter in my mind. He tells me this will bring me home for a while, will put me in touch with my innocence. Who can be at peace while she gives her attention to endless thoughts of defense? Who can feel innocent in this environment?

So, I am looking at this paragraph more closely.

“Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his home.”

I understand this to mean that each time anyone wanders into time, it is the Christ that does so. The Christ takes on the human form and is reborn. This tells me that I am the Christ and that Christ I remain even as I walk the earth as a human. The Christ within is the holy Child Jesus speaks of. He implores me to take care of this Child by protecting and loving him, by letting Him go home awhile each day.

Then Jesus says that I am to go home with Him from time to time today because I am as much an alien here as is He. This is where it felt like a puzzle to me. If I am the Christ reborn, then how is it that I am to go home with Him as if we were separate. I think Jesus is speaking to us here as if we were separate because we think we are. I’ve noticed that he does this in the Course, at times speaking of one level then another time speaking of a higher level. 

I don’t really have to understand this in order to use it. What is clear is that in my natural state I am innocent and that here I don’t feel innocent. Here I feel like I must be in defensive mode all the time and so I feel unnatural. I long for peace, I long for home even when I don’t understand the longing. I can return to my home if I slip beneath my thoughts and let myself be drawn home. I can do this because home is not something far away, it is within me.

DAILY APPLICATION: I occasionally have moments in which I think that changing the world is the answer. But I always come back to recognizing that changing my mind is the only answer. I remind myself often that I am not a victim, ever. When the temptation is great, I ask myself whose dream is this? I long for the day when I no longer lapse back into the illusion, and when I step out of the dream completely.

Here is a message I received when I was still struggling with this.

INSIGHTS FROM HOLY SPIRIT: Myron, your mind is confused at times because you are standing between truth and illusions, and sometimes your foot comes down in one and sometimes the other. It is helpful that you recognize this as it happens. When you feel an overwhelming need to ask Me to join you in your dreams of pain, notice what you are doing. Rest in Me. It is not your dream that needs correction, Myron, it is your mind that needs my help. The world does not cause you pain or take your peace away; it is your thoughts that do this.

While it is true that you still experience yourself as being in the dream, this is seldom completely true anymore. Even in your most confused moments you are aware on a deeper level of what is happening. As you continue to be vigilant for Me rather than the ego, you will more and more often experience yourself as being the watcher rather than the participant. Again, I encourage you to rest in Me often today. Do not allow yourself to fall into the trap of trying to solve your problems with the thinking mind. Thinking is a way of keeping your problems. Your problems are a way of staying in the world. I am the way out of this vicious cycle.

REGINA’S TIPS

The ego likes to fill our time. There’s an expression that I have used many times in my life. It’s “kill time,” as in, “How are we going to kill time this weekend?” The thought behind that expression is this:

Having nothing to do is so undesirable that we have to find something, anything to do, in order to avoid simply sitting quietly with ourselves.

Filling time is undeniably an ego preservation strategy.

It’s helpful to begin to notice how we fill time. There are some things that we do that are necessary to this human life. There are other things that we do which are guided by intuition. And then there are the things that we do to “kill time,” to avoid simply sitting quietly with ourselves. Are we ready to be self-honest and discern between these three?

Today’s workbook lesson says, “When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home. Rest with Him frequently today.”

Let’s do two things today.

First, let’s not avoid our meditation practice today. Our gentle healing homework asks us to spend 15-20 minutes in meditation daily. Let’s be sure to do that at least once today. You might also see if you can find 15-20 minutes at least two additional times today. That will help fulfill the request, “Rest with Him frequently today.” Another option is to give 5 minutes every hour. Follow your individual intuition to find your way of fulfilling this request.

Secondly, let’s begin to notice the difference between time that is spent in necessary activities and time that we are “killing.” That is, time that could be used to sit quietly instead of being filled with something that is completely unnecessary.

There is one more thing worth commenting on before ending this tip. You know this, but let’s bring it into awareness now anyway.

Ego will attempt to use any time we allot to sitting for active thinking. Thinking is another way to “kill time” and avoid being still. Remember that your attention does not have to go to thought. Initially, you can place attention on the sounds in your environment, on the breath, or on sensations in the body. Let attention rest with something other than thought, and thought will slow down and quiet. Once thought has grown quieter, place attention with awareness and abide there. “Be still” by holding attention with yourself as the observer. Pay attention to what you are, and stay there, no matter what may happen in mind during the meditation.

Here’s a story that Mooji tells about ‘staying as the watcher’ during meditation. It is called, “The Yogini.” Buddha remained still as Mara attacked with desire, anger and fear. Notice that the Yogini remains still in the same way as the mind attempts to distract her with a different kind of trick:

A great Yogini was deep in meditation. Suddenly, beautiful and melodious sounds could be heard, appearing as if from nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. It was like nothing she had ever heard. She felt, “This music is truly wonderful, but it cannot be what I am, for I am here to hear it.” She remained inside her meditation, and the music faded away.

Next appeared the most exquisite colors, shimmering with so much luminosity and brilliance, like no painter could paint; nor could any flower display it, for it was not of this earthly realm. She thought, “This is, indeed, astonishingly beautiful. However, it cannot be the ultimate, for I am here to perceive it.” This phenomenon, too, she ignored. Shortly afterwards, it also vanished in the presence of her deep and unmoving silence.

Shortly after this, there appeared several beings shaped as if from pure light, floating through space and smiling lovingly at her in a welcoming manner. She felt profoundly touched and filled with loving emotions, but inwardly she somehow kept her composure. “How profound,” she felt, “but this also cannot be what is the unchanging reality, for, were I not here, who would see them?”

As soon as this insight occurred, the figures vanished. Her mind entered her heart and could no more produce any effects. A deep silence prevailed as her mind merged inside her indivisible, unconquerable, and essential being. She awakened completely to Truth.

MY THOUGHTS

This morning I woke up earlier than I meant to. When this happens, I usually use the time for meditation. I went to YouTube for a guided meditation and the first one I found was one by Mooji. It turned out to be a really good guided meditation that was leading me to exactly what we are talking about here in this lesson and in Regina’s tips. I was letting go of my little self, the roles I play, and looking toward my Self.

I really loved the meditation but eventually, I fell back to sleep. I had the best dream ever, influenced, I’m sure, by the meditation. It was an awakening dream and though I don’t remember much of it, I was in a bubble of joy. Things were happening around me but I was unaffected by them. When I woke up, I wanted so badly to go back to the dream, it was that good. It is perfect that today we are being asked to let the little Child return Home during the day. I am highly motivated since I got a taste of what that is like.