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.
Journal
I am aware that if I condemned another I would be hurting myself. I can only condemn another if I think I can be separate from them. And no matter how it looks here in ego land, there is no other. We are one and so what I do to another, I do to myself. The only reason anyone condemns another is so they can imagine themselves elevated by their loss. People condemn in an effort to look innocent in comparison to someone else. Another reason not to condemn others is that doing so strengthens the belief in separation, and thus, is an attack on oneself.
How about when people condemn themselves? If I thought I was guilty, I would be teaching myself that guilt is real and guilt is always going to injure me. If I believe in guilt, I will be unable to control where it goes, out into the world, or seen within. I don’t want guilt in my mind at all. How can anyone know who they are with vision so dark?
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.
Past Entry
In the past, I have thought that the world is the cause of my injury. I have thought that if only this person would not treat me this way, or if that situation had not happened, then I could be happy. My bad behavior could be explained as a normal reaction to someone’s attack, or because a situation provoked me. Even though I now know this is never true, my first reaction is still sometimes (very briefly) that it is not my fault but someone else’s.
The difference now is that I don’t stay there. I notice when I am projecting and placing blame, and with the Holy Spirit’s help, I withdraw those projections as quickly as I am able. I am now very uncomfortable when I am blaming and placing guilt outside myself, and just as uncomfortable when I do it to myself. I quickly change my mind. Well, sometimes I resist awhile, and it still sometimes seems to require a lag in time for me to accept a new way to see it. But always, I do it.
This lesson speaks of dark vision and sightless eyes and this is an excellent description of what it feels like to blame and condemn. It is like dark clouds have rolled in and blocked the light from my life. I completely lose sight of who I am and my awareness shifts from the glory of being God’s only Son. In condemnation I see myself as only a body in competition with other bodies, living in time and space. I feel heavy, dark, and utterly lost. It feels foreign and yet depressingly familiar.
I think of identifying with the ego as being stuck in quicksand. It seems to draw me relentlessly down into the muck of ego thinking. The only way to free myself is to remember that nothing draws me except by my own decision to allow it. The ego is nothing without my support. I created it, and it is sustained only by my belief. If I withdraw my awareness from it, it will cease to exist.
This thought is both exhilarating and frightening. The quicksand of ego thinking may be an entrapment, but it is one of my own making. It may be depressing, but it is familiar and it is of my own choosing. I seem to be reluctant to entirely give it up. I used to think: What if I need it later? What if someone does something so bad that I don’t want to forgive it? What if I don’t like being glorious and want to be small and insignificant again? What if I decide that I can’t handle being perfect and joyous and miss drama and excitement and chocolate? Now I don’t think those particular thoughts, but I know I still think that ego has some value to me because sometimes I stubbornly cling to a grievance or a fear or some guilty thought for a time. The ego tries to entice me into not quite letting go.
But I must choose; one or the other. I cannot be God’s Son and have a little ego thinking in reserve. God is Whole and there is no separation in Him. There is no little of this and little of that. There is only God. To know myself as existing in God, I must know myself as complete and whole. So I practice letting go of ego thinking. I practice turning my attention from ego to God. I practice tuning out the ego voice and listening only to the Voice for God. As I experience the utter peace and joy this brings me, and as I notice how this contrasts to life as an ego thought, as a body living in fear and condemnation, I am more and more willing to choose God.