LESSON 204
I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.
1 (184) The Name of God is my inheritance.
God’s Name reminds me that I am His Son, not slave to time, unbound by laws which rule the world of sick illusions, free in God, forever and forever one with Him.
I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.
Review
I am God’s Son, but I deny that claim when I choose the ego as my teacher. I make my claim to my inheritance every time I notice I have done this and change my mind. It requires only my vigilance and my willingness to trade in my claim to littleness and accept the truth about myself. The following is a prayer and the answer I received in the past.
Me: Holy Spirit I have chosen to be a seeker for so long that seeking has become my goal. I am willing to see this differently. I am willing to become a finder. Help me please, as I shift my desire, and uplift me when I become afraid to claim my inheritance. Help me to remain steadfast in my decision, and correct my thinking when I veer from the path.
Holy Spirit: My precious child, you are always supported. You are surrounded by Light. You are loved by Light. You cannot lose your way because you have set your intention. Your intention will sustain you, and I will guide you. We love you, dear one, and We are with you always.
Using the Course for the Right Purpose
A Course in Miracles is a doorway to Heaven. It can be a clear and helpful guide, but it can also be the way one stays in the illusion. I spent a long time using it for that purpose; playing with the concepts, debating the meanings of the words, using spiritual language to create the illusion of working toward going home, using small victories to create a sense of self-satisfaction, even to feel superior to those who have not come that far. Then, a few years ago, I changed my mind.
I am not conscious of the moment I chose again, but in retrospect, I see that this is what happened. I still had work to do, but my intent was fixed. It is like I had been playing around in hell all my life and began toying with the idea of getting out. But instead of using the tools given me for that purpose to step out of hell, I tried to use them to make hell a nicer place. Then one day, I changed my mind. I realized that I was ready to wake up from the illusion. In this moment I chose to claim my inheritance.
I continue to sort out what is valuable and what is valueless, and I still make a few forays into hell from time to time, but I never forget my purpose, and those times are infrequent and short-lived. Clinging to the valueless and becoming confused about what was true and what wasn’t used to be something I did every day. Now it is a rare occasion.
Even while lost in the fog of ego thinking, there is the memory that this, too, is for my awakening. I can be drowning in fear or guilt and still I call on the Holy Spirit to show me the meaning of that moment. I am no longer under the misperception that I am bound by the ego desires and beliefs. My sincere desire for freedom will supersede the laws of man. This is the way I claim my inheritance.
For instance, I had one of those frustrating days as I noticed attack thoughts in my mind and asked that the Holy Spirit help me to relinquish them. He showed me how I was trying to defend myself and how I was trying to see myself as unfairly treated. I saw that so clearly, knew it was not what I wanted, and yet, I kept picking it up again. I did my best to be patient and consistent in my work for the day.
I have asked that I be healed of the belief I need to attack, so of course, the effects of that belief were coming up for me to look at with the Holy Spirit. I have asked that I be healed of the belief that attack will get me anything I really want, to be healed of the belief there is any value in attack at all. I want this body of Myron to be a useful tool for Holy Spirit to do His work to awaken us all, and attack thoughts are a barrier to that. So, I am staying the course and accepting the Atonement for all that blocks my awareness of my inheritance as a Son of God.
Regina’s Tips
The ego-perspective focuses on differences. The spirit-perspective focuses on sameness, awareness-life-presence. Today, we will use the idea for the day along with a Name of God mantra to repeatedly turn our attention away from the ego-perspective to contemplation on awareness-life-presence.