Lesson 223
God is my life. I have no life but His.
I was mistaken when I thought I lived apart from God, a separate entity that moved in isolation, unattached, and housed within a body. Now I know my life is God’s, I have no other home, and I do not exist apart from Him. He has no Thoughts that are not part of me, and I have none but those which are of Him.
Our Father, let us see the face of Christ instead of our mistakes. For we who are Your holy Son are sinless. We would look upon our sinlessness, for guilt proclaims that we are not Your Son. And we would not forget You longer. We are lonely here, and long for Heaven, where we are at home. Today we would return. Our Name is Yours, and we acknowledge that we are Your Son.
Journal
Today, when I talked to Jesus, I asked him to help me navigate this life so that I stayed as close to him as possible and that I moved toward God as fast as possible. I asked him to help me remember to stop during the day to visualize myself as I am rather than as the body living in a world of imagination.
I still forget my purpose sometimes and I was thinking about this and feeling a little discouraged about it even as I was reading the lesson that is telling me to see the face of Christ instead of my mistakes. I had to laugh at myself for that. Let me remember what is the truth rather than the ego thoughts in my mind. The truth is I am not this body and these errors. I am God’s Son and I am sinless.
Regina’s Tips
God is my life. I have no life but His.
The ego is the thought that I am my own entity. It is the thought that I have life and I have awareness, but I am the entity; the life and awareness that I have are my possessions. They are “my life” and “my awareness.” It is also the thought that life and awareness other than my life and my awareness are separate from the life and awareness in me. It’s as if I have a bottled up source of life and awareness that exists in the body, which is my container.
My Thoughts
It is this idea that I am a self separate from all other selves, that I am life that is different from all other life that we are learning to release. This idea that I can bottle up life in this container that I think of as my body that is the error. Jesus says that we are not the body and not in the body. We are life itself, and life is not discrete in various forms, other bodies, plants, animals.
All around us is life and we are that. All these different forms and happenings pass through us but are not eternal and thus not life. They are imagination coming from the mind which is not us either, but is a useful tool for experiencing being human. In the Course Jesus distinguishes between the mind and the Mind, using the capitalized version of Mind to indicate God.
Regina uses different words like presence and life awareness. But these are all just words. The thing I want to remember is that I am nothing like the body. I think of myself as conscious awareness or spirit. I am part of God and exactly like God. I cannot know what that is exactly. But I know it cannot be like a body and it cannot be separate in any way from my brothers. My Self is not discreet from other Selves. The oneness is what makes it Self rather than self.
Past Entry
Boy, am I glad that I was mistaken to think I am this body and that I live in time and space! I am not always certain of who I am yet, but I am happy to know that someday I will be. Right now I don’t feel like an ego but I still act like one. I know that will continue to change and who I act like will begin to fall in line with who I am. It is inevitable.
I seem to think a lot of things that are not God’s thoughts, but I know they are not my real thoughts. It is just part of that general confusion of not acting like who I am. These ego thoughts are useful only in that they point to the mistaken ideas that need correction. Many of the thoughts in my mind are like background static. They are there but I don’t believe them and so they are meaningless to me. Many catch my attention briefly but I do not put my faith in them and so they pass. There are still some that hook me and keep my attention for awhile. These are the ones that create suffering in my life until I am ready to allow them to be corrected.
Dear God, I am lonely for You. I know You haven’t gone anywhere, and really I have not left you, but I have turned my awareness from Your Love and I long to return. I know that forgiveness is the way I do this. I know that as I forgive I see only the face of Christ in all my brothers and in myself. The little experience I have had in this has convinced me it is true. I am willing to be aware of each thought that would condemn my brother and so condemn myself, and I am willing to see it differently. This is now the focus of my life and everything else is just the classroom that allows me to continue this work.
Jesus, if you could look upon the one who would nail you to the cross and forgive, then I can certainly forgive. Thank you so much for the example you gave me, and for showing me it is possible to do this. You are my shining example and I love you and appreciate you more than I can express in words.
I had the opportunity to experience myself on the cross and then, through forgiveness, to realize I put myself there and could get down whenever I chose to. My son hurt himself through what seemed like a foolish and unnecessary act. I was angry with him and fearful for him and for myself. I felt like, through his thoughtless behavior, he had crucified me.
Because I have been practicing observing my thoughts, I pretty quickly saw that I was not really suffering because he did something. I was suffering because of how I felt about what he did. I crucified myself. Byron Katie says that all suffering is caused by believing something that is not true and I certainly saw this in my own mind. I believed he was responsible for my suffering and therefore could save me by acting differently. I also saw, nearly simultaneously, that this is not true.
It took a little while for me to completely relinquish my fear and the mistaken belief that he was guilty, but I never doubted I would. It was the only possible solution because it was the only one that led to peace and therefore to God. This is why accepting that the peace of God is everything I need is so important. It is in this peaceful mind that I meet God.