Lesson 226
My home awaits me. I will hasten there.
If I so choose, I can depart this world entirely. It is not death which makes this possible, but it is change of mind about the purpose of the world. If I believe it has a value as I see it now, so will it still remain for me. But if I see no value in the world as I behold it, nothing that I want to keep as mine or search for as a goal, it will depart from me. For I have not sought for illusions to replace the truth.
Father, my home awaits my glad return. Your Arms are open and I hear Your Voice. What need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of shattered dreams, when Heaven can so easily be mine?
INITIAL INSIGHT: I used to think that I had to die to depart this world and while I did want Heaven, I didn’t want it right away. What I discovered is that Heaven is not a place I go, it is a state of mind and is available to me at all times regardless of where I seem to be. I have learned to see the world differently and so to experience it differently. I’ve learned that it is possible to be in the world without being of the world and thus to be Home even while experiencing the illusion.
As I learn to see the world differently, I lose interest in it. I lose interest in all the parts I used to value and without interest in it, the world as I used to experience it has gone from me. There is nothing here that I need to sacrifice. In fact, what I have learned is this. The many things I thought I would miss if they were gone caused not a ripple in my life as they left. It is not a sacrifice if something of no value is gone.
DAILY APPLICATION: I don’t have to die to be free. Nothing about the world has to change; only my mind must change to experience God.
In fact, dying is just another way of staying in the world (staying in the illusion). Sure, we will all lay our bodies down at some point, but that is different than dying. Dying is an attempt to escape, it is giving up, hoping that after this is something we like better. It is just another attempt to usurp God, to make your own decisions, to make plans of your own.
It is just moving from one illusion into another, to get spit back into the illusion of the world again. There is no freedom in that. It is just an endless cycle of birth and death, which is nothing at all. Laying down the body is receiving the knowledge that you are through now and it is time to go because the mind has changed and the work is done.
REGINA’S TIPS
Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 226, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:
My home awaits me. I will hasten there.
There is no reason for us to hold onto unhappiness of any kind. Only our own ideas and the value we give them create unhappiness.
What ideas are you giving value to that create your unhappiness?
Do you think things should be different than they are? Is there an ideal perfection that is not being met? Is someone acting different than you want him/her to act? Should you have something that you do not have? Is your mind full of self-condemnation, or is it highly critical of another?
When you are unhappy, pause and look. What idea is currently present and currently valued as true? Do you value this idea more than the opportunity to know the freedom of truth realization? Or are you willing to release this idea and any value you’ve given it in order to be one step closer to total freedom?
MY THOUGHTS
I know for a fact that I can be happy right now as I do the work I came here to do, but there are times when I feel frustrated or sad and those are choices I make. There is no reason for them, just a decision I made. It is the result of believing the ego thoughts in my mind. The ego is never satisfied and is always looking for the next best thing. Because these thoughts of failing to reach my goal soon enough are about my spiritual path, I can be temporarily fooled into thinking it is something besides ego. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t encourage through discouragement. That is always the ego and I don’t have to believe these thoughts.