Lesson 218 

I am not a body. I am free. 
For I am still as God created me. 

(198) Only my condemnation injures me. 

My condemnation keeps my vision dark, and through my 
sightless eyes I cannot see the vision of my glory. 
Yet today I can behold this glory and be glad. 

I am not a body. I am free. 
For I am still as God created me. 

Review 

This lesson is interesting because Jesus doesn’t say that my condemnation is one of the things that injures me. He says that it is the only thing that injures me. He also doesn’t designate that it is my condemnation of others or that it is my condemnation of myself that injures me. From my own experience, I have seen that the desire to condemn hurts me regardless of who is being condemned. It is the belief itself, not the specific situation, that is the cause of suffering. 

This morning while taking my shower my mind was wandering, and I suddenly realized that I was condemning someone for a past behavior. This behavior was not important to me, wasn’t affecting me in any way at this time , and barely did when it happened. It was just a memory coming forward for me to look at once again.  

As soon as I became aware of it, I examined it with the Holy Spirit and realized right away that it is just the ego wanting to revisit one of its stories. I am not interested. I let it go. Shortly afterward, the ego tried again with another story. This is what the ego does but I don’t have to give it my attention, so I released it and reminded myself that this kind of thinking has no value.  

I remembered that the peace of God is my goal and condemnation is not going to bring me peace. It never has. The ego argues that remembering these past grievances and holding onto them protects me. It keeps me from being a victim again, the ego says. But I never was a victim to anything except my own desires and my own choice to use the ego to interpret circumstances. And I don’t need the ego’s protection. 

I don’t need the thinking mind to help me in any way. That was the big ego lie. I have another way now of living. I am learning to surrender decision making to my holy Self rather than to the ego. I ask what it is I am to do now, how I am to understand the present experience or even the memory of a past experience. I ask what I am to say and to whom. Life is easy and peaceful and I am happy. This remains true until I slip back into deciding for myself, that is, with the ego and this is happening much less often. 

I know now that any desire to condemn takes me right out of peace. It shrouds my real Self in darkness so that I don’t experience myself as I am. It moves me further from my own true nature and keeps me from experiencing the love of my Creator. How is that protecting me? Clearly, it is not protection but injury. This is why I quickly and easily move out of those memories. I’m just not interested. Nor do I regard any of the ego’s attempts to interest me in its kind of “help” with current problems. 

Regina’s Tips 

If we decide that certain circumstances are justification for our judgment and condemnation, we have decided those same circumstances are a good reason to suffer. By making this choice, we have also decided we prefer to focus on illusion than realize truth. 

The ego, which is the wish to be focused on illusion instead of realizing truth, will come up with certain circumstances that seem to absolutely justify our judgment. But that is just the ego preferring attention on illusion instead of truth realization. 

Do not be fooled by the ego’s tricks. Whenever you are tempted to condemn, ask yourself this clear-minded question: Do I want freedom and truth? If the answer is yes, then shift to a spiritual practice that will help free you from the current temptation to judge and condemn. 

My Thoughts 

One of the ways the ego tries to tempt me into condemning myself is to question my spiritual path and to question my ability to walk it. Each time I slip into old wrong-minded thinking, even if it is only for a few minutes, the ego-mind wants to think about how I am not doing this right and that I never will. It insists that I am just kidding myself when I think I am doing well, or in its more vicious moments, it thinks that I am an outright fraud. At the least, it wants to think about how I have it all wrong or that I can’t tell the difference between following ego and following Spirit. 

I can still sometimes feel fear pass through me when this happens. But I also know now that this is the usual ego thinking and doesn’t mean anything and so I turn from it and toward the light. It is in light that we see clearly, not in darkness. I know too much now to fumble around in the dark when light is readily available to me. I am no longer willing to suffer as I used to now that I know I don’t have to. There is an ego thought system in my mind, but there is also the Holy Spirit and it is my choice the one I turn to.