Lesson 222
God is with me. I live and move in Him.
God is with me. He is my Source of life, the life within, the air I breathe, the food by which I am sustained, the water which renews and cleanses me. He is my home, wherein I live and move; the Spirit which directs my actions, offers me Its Thoughts, and guarantees my safety from all pain. He covers me with kindness and with care, and holds in love the Son He shines upon, who also shines on Him. How still is he who knows the truth of what He speaks today!
Father, we have no words except Your Name upon our lips and in our minds, as we come quietly into Your Presence now, and ask to rest with You in peace a while.
Journal
One morning while I was meditating on this beautiful lesson, I had thoughts come into my mind. Usually, I just let them be. But today, they were thoughts about the doctor who did my colonoscopy. I am not going to use him anymore, and thoughts about that came up and I was having trouble just letting the thoughts come in and go out. I was paying attention to them.
I talked to Jesus about it and he let me know that the reason is because the ego mind wants to fix this problem as it wants to fix all problems. He let me know that the only solution to any and all problems is to realize who I am and to remember that God is with me because He is in me. This brought me back to the meditation, looking within for my Self, or as Regina calls it, Awareness watching Awareness.
I do a meditation that I like a lot. I used this meditation while I was in the hospital. Yesterday, I talked about the judgments I had about the hospital and the people who worked there. The only reason that got away from me is that once I released the judgments to the Holy Spirit, instead of focusing my attention elsewhere, I continued to think about it. Finally releasing them yesterday was such a relief.
The only other lesson I was gifted with while at the hospital happened twice. The first time it happened was around 1:00 in the morning as I was finishing the prep for the second colonoscopy. I was exhausted and I was really feeling it. I had not eaten for the previous 30 hours, I had lost a great deal of blood and had slept for only a few hours during that time and it was all getting to me.
The second time this feeling of being overwhelmed and exhausted happened the next day at 1:00 in the afternoon when I was waiting for the next colonoscopy. Still, I had not eaten or had any uninterrupted sleep and I continued to lose blood. And again, I felt like it was all too much.
What I did each time was to go inward, to look for the self that is not the body and I used this meditation to do it. I remembered that I am not the body and that I remain as God created me. I visualized that self as the conscious space through which all else came and went.
The body on that bed was in this space, the bed was in this space, as was the hospital. It all came into the space and would all leave the space and the space was unaffected by what came and went. Just as the space you experience around you right now is unaffected by what is in it, the consciousness that I am is unaffected by the world that passes through it.
Both times, this meditation helped me to regain peace of mind. Our subject for these lessons right now is forgiveness. Forgiveness is basically the undoing of any belief that causes us to lose our peace of mind. So, this meditation could be called a forgiveness process. It made it possible for me to forgive the people and the situation and the thoughts in my mind. Really, all I was forgiving was the thoughts in my mind.
There was nothing happening that caused my distress except my thoughts about it. I was tired, exhausted, really. But that was just an event. It was upsetting to me because I was fighting it. When I wasn’t at war with what was happening, it didn’t upset me. These thoughts were passing through the conscious space that is my Reality and they were not affecting my Self either. That is why when I meditated on the Self, I could be at peace regardless of what was happening. When I abide as my Self, I am at home in God and I am safe and I am at peace.
Regina’s Tips
Contemplate anything in creation. Notice it is present. Rest with the idea that life-awareness extends to presence, and in the same way, presence projects to become the manifestation of all things. (Some people use the word consciousness instead of presence.)
As you contemplate these things deeply, notice you are always in the presence of God, in the presence of that which is before presence and is the essence of all things that are present.
My Thoughts
Ha ha. I sometimes feel like I am reading a different language when I read Regina’s tips. But what I take from this tip is that everything is God and I am always in the presence of God. That is enough. How can I be in fear or think I lack anything if I am in the presence of God? How can I judge anyone if when I am before them, I am in the presence of God? I am tired today just as I was yesterday and I am OK with that. It is what it is and I will deal with the body in whatever way I need to. But I am done with caring about it.
Past Entry
I notice that the longer I do the Course, the more meaning certain words have for me. I used to think that God is with me and I live and move in Him were pretty words, and I understood them as a concept. Now my understanding of them has more depth and more breadth. I am in God very literally. I could be no place else because there is only God. There is no outside God where I could be instead. I live and move in God and am sustained by Him. To think of this and to say the words lifts my heart. It evokes strong emotion and brings tears of joy to my eyes.
It seems perfect to then become quiet and just experience this love. What words could I say at this point that would come close to describing the way I feel when I realize how much my Creator loves me. As I read what I wrote it seems to underline the inadequacy of words, certainly this writer cannot find words to describe the Love of God. And this is only the love that I have experienced through the fog of ego thoughts that still crowd my mind. Oh my Dear God, what would it feel like to experience Your Love without the filter of ego!
Me: Holy Spirit, I know in my heart this joy and peace I have only recently begun to experience is just a shadow of what I am meant to have. I don’t know if I could stand such happiness.
Holy Spirit: This is the reason the Son awakens slowly. The idea of complete Love is frightening because there is still much self-hate in the mind. But you are doing what you need to do to release the ego guilt and fear that clouds your thinking. It seems like a very slow process to you and I know you sometimes become discouraged. I want to assure you that you are much closer than you think. It is especially helpful to your awakening that you are willing to see whatever thoughts are binding you to the world, even if it is hard to look at them. When you seem unwilling to understand, you joke about persistence being your ticket home, but in truth, persistence is a certain route home.
You have many processes that help you put words to ideas that seem too abstract to be meaningful to you. But you are going to notice that you need fewer words now. When you began this journey home you needed the rules and the reminders of what was literal and what was given as poetic expression. You wanted everything to have a specific, unchanging meaning. This is because you were building a foundation for this new thought system, and you wanted that firm ground to stand on. After all, A Course in Miracles was turning your life upside down, and you were flailing for awhile.
Do you notice that now you have your footing, you are more comfortable with the abstract? You are not constantly searching for just the right word to keep the meaning firm and unyielding. This is as it should be for you are Abstract in your creation as is your Creator. For awhile longer you need the symbols of words and what they represent, but you will not always. The second half of the workbook represents this change as fewer words are used and the concepts are not as concrete.
What remains the same is the need for trust. You become uncomfortable when our discussions become too specific, and become afraid that you are allowing the ego to join us. I ask that you trust Me to guide you. Trust this process now. You will find it more useful if you do not allow the ego doubts and uncertainties to interfere with our communication. If the words are not exact, forgive yourself for that, and trust that I know the way to your heart. What you sincerely want will be given to you in a way that is understandable. Remember that words are just symbols and not true communication, but they will do for now.
Me: Holy Spirit, the more I live in gratitude and forgiveness, the more my experience reflects this. I do not understand Love and cannot define it. I barely experience it, and yet the little Love that I am willing to allow to flow through me is expressed in my life in wonderful ways. I am so grateful for this reflection and it is definition enough for me. I just want to focus on releasing more and more of all that blocks this Love from my awareness.