Lesson 232
Be in my mind, my Father, through the day.
Be in my mind, my Father, when I wake, and shine on me throughout the day today. Let every minute be a time in which I dwell with You. And let me not forget my hourly thanksgiving that You have remained with me, and always will be there to hear my call to You and answer me. As evening comes, let all my thoughts be still of You and of Your Love. And let me sleep sure of my safety, certain of Your care, and happily aware I am Your Son.
This is as every day should be. Today, practice the end of fear. Have faith in Him Who is your Father. Trust all things to Him. Let Him reveal all things to you, and be you undismayed because you are His Son.
Journal
Today’s lesson is encouraging us to be aware of God all the time, to rise from bed with Him, to be thankful for Him during the day, to hear His Voice as the answer to all needs, and to sleep with Him, and to be happy. Jesus tells us this is the practice of the end of fear. We are assured that if we allow it, He will reveal all things to us, His Son. I do this for the most part, but today is going to be busy so I am going to remind myself frequently to stay mindful of these instructions.
Regina’s Tips
Throughout this section of A Course in Miracles Workbooks for Students, we are using this process:
1 – Each day read and contemplate the “special theme” that we are currently working with. Currently that theme is, “What is Salvation?”
2 – Contemplate the day’s workbook lesson.
3 – Spend time in meditation.
4 – Recall the day’s workbook lesson hourly.
5 – Spend at least a brief time with the workbook lesson and/or meditation before going to bed at night.
Maybe you’ve remembered to follow all five steps in this current process, maybe you’ve forgotten part of it, or maybe you decided to skip part of the process because you thought it wasn’t important for you. Today is an opportunity to recommit to the entire process that is requested in this section of the workbook.
I look at it this way: We have been vigilant for the ego. However, we joined this group because there is a calling in us. The calling is to be vigilant for salvation. It’s what we want. That’s why we’re here, so let’s do it.
NTI Luke, Chapter 5 says:
“Old habits must be let go, for old habits will not usher in a new day. With old habits, all things remain the same. But with new habits, all things are possible.
I have come to teach you new habits. You will learn these habits by practicing them as I ask. Remember Me, and practice.
You will catch yourself practicing the old habits, for this has been your way until now. Slipping into old habits does not ruin the new ones. So when you find yourself doing this, forgive yourself your attraction to the old by stepping away from the old and stepping into the new. Each time you do this, you help yourself to unlearn the old and to learn the new.”
So today, let’s remember our desire for salvation and recommit to practicing the workbook lessons in the way the workbook asks us to.
My Thoughts
With Regina’s reminder not to skip any of the steps, I went back and read “What is Salvation?” again. This is what stood out to me this morning.
“Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. 2 Thus it lets illusions go. 3 By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust.”
I do this in two ways. First, I let ego thoughts be without giving them attention. I do this better than I used to, but I need to be more vigilant in my practice. I have a lazy habit of becoming involved in my thoughts until I notice that it is affecting me. The second is to not support the world of dreams. These dreams come from thought. For instance, when someone is sick and I feel sorry for them or worry for them, I am supporting the world of dreams. When I am aware that the body is sick but know that the sickness is actually in the mind and that it is not God’s Will and therefore must be an illusion, then I am not supporting the dream.
I am still experiencing the effects of anemia from the hemorrhaging. Last night, I noticed that I was focused on the symptoms and that it was making me feel worse. I snapped out of it. There was no reason for me to be doing this other than the ego likes the drama of sickness. It likes the attention and is entertained by the whole thing. As soon as I changed my mind and shifted my thinking, the whole experience changed. This is the kind of thing for which I need to be heedful. As long as we are having a human experience, there is the possibility of sickness because there is the possibility of guilt, but there is no reason to indulge it and to suffer from it.
Past Entries
I hardly know what to add to this most beautiful of all prayers. Every day my experience of being loved by God grows and with it, my love for God expands. I am filled with gratitude for a Father Who loves His Son even as His Son dreams of being separate. The dreaming mind pushes the love of God away and fills the gap with grievances, but God remains untouched by my delusions. He simply continues being Love.
This is the model I use in my daily life. As I seem to see others as enemy, I ask the Holy Spirit to help me see as God sees. I ask that I might recognize their complete innocence and simply be the love I was created to be; wholly untouched by anything that appears less than love. I am protecting my healing as I am vigilant for a return to ego thinking.
If I seem to be hooked by an ego grievance I look within. Is there something within myself that I am projecting outward? I’ve noticed that sometimes when I have a reaction to someone it is because they are reminding me of something in me I don’t want to see. They may be acting in a way I used to act but failed to forgive in myself. They may be acting in a way that still holds some appeal to me and so I am disturbed to be reminded.
I have learned that as I forgive this energy in myself there is nothing within me to project onto the other person and so I am able to see that person free of my projections. This must be how it is for the Holy Spirit. He has nothing within Him except love and so He sees nothing but love. Each time I am willing to practice this kind of forgiveness, I come closer to experiencing myself as God created me.
Holy Spirit, I am willing to look at every grievance, no matter how small it seems, no matter how deeply I have hidden it within my mind. I want to ferret out all grievances, every thing that is not pure love, and allow it to be healed. I dedicate myself to this practice and I ask that You be with me in each moment that I do this. You are my Guide and my Courage and my Strength. I place my trust fully in You.
Holy Spirit: Thank you for your faith and your trust. It is not misplaced. You will find that you need not ferret out grievances; your desire to heal will bring them up in your mind and show them to you. All you need to do is pay attention. Notice your feelings which will alert you to false thoughts in your mind, grievances to be healed. Close your eyes to the story which wants to distract you from your purpose. Instead, look for the grievances, the judgments, fears, guilty thoughts and all other obstacles to love, knowing you want only to let them go. God is in your mind today and every day. Give your willingness to release all that hides His presence from your awareness.
2014
I was drawn to the sentence that says today we should practice the end of fear. I started practicing that yesterday. Well, everything in the Course points to this, but I started thinking about it in a different way yesterday. Last night just before I went to sleep, I had the thought that I have nothing to fear because of what I am. I asked the question, “What am I?” The answer is that I am a divine being. And of course that answer is the reason I have nothing to fear.
The ego mind reminds me of all the things I have to fear, but it is actually telling me of all the things the ego has to fear. I am not the ego so it has nothing to do with me. I only fear when I think I am an ego. That is why Jesus keeps telling us we are not a body. All we are doing here is learning to transfer our identity from the illusory body-self to our reality, to our divine-self. I am not an ego-body, I am a divine being.
The ego is afraid of everything because it believes it is a frail and fragile body with an easily damaged psyche. “I” on the other hand, am perfectly safe and perfectly protected and cannot be hurt. I am love itself and there is nothing beside love. Can I be overcome by too little time, which does not actually exist? Can I be hurt when the body is hurt? I am not the body. Can death destroy me when I am immortal?
Can a body appetite control me when the body I imagine does not actually exist outside my imagination? If I imagine the body, I must also imagine the cravings it experiences, the sicknesses it suffers, the desires it succumbs to. Should I no longer choose to experience these things, I need only stop imagining them. If this seems hard to do then I am obviously using the idea of “hard” to keep the story in place. I am never a victim, because I am the maker of it all. I am reminded, once again, of my favorite sentence in the Course, “You but do this to yourself.”
My two most persistent stories in this life right now are; there is not enough time, and I need a certain amount of sleep which often seems to elude me. This morning I was looking at the story that there is not enough time. I have spent my life proving to myself that this is true. I never have enough time and so I worry constantly about time. Will I get through in time? Will I have time to prepare? Will I be able to complete this before my time is up?
I was thrilled when I read in the Course that Jesus would arrange time for me if I asked him to. I proved to myself this was true many times when I really needed his help. But I so often do not ask. I obviously like my story of too little time. I must find value in it because I have seemed unwilling to relinquish it. But I know it is not a true story. How could time control a divine being when that being made time up?
Time is just a device we use for the purpose of separation. It isn’t a real thing outside our minds that is fixed and unchangeable. It slows down and speeds up according to our desire at the moment. I have seen this happen so many times, and yet, I keep clinging to the idea that I am its victim. It’s insane. How can I know what I know about time and still go on pretending that I am ruled by it?
A friend of mine asked me what was going on in my life. I began listing all the things I have coming up for the rest of the year. Everything on the list is something I want to do, something I enjoy doing and each thing is like an answer to my prayer to be used by Spirit. But what I could feel is that the more I told her, the more panic I felt. Could I get them all taken care of? Would I fail to be prepared for something? How could I do all of this? There is not enough time.
I want a healed mind. I am being healed because it is what I want. I am learning to practice patience as the belief in time, and the belief that I am the ego mind that panics at thought of time barking at its heels, is undone. I feel like I know time is not real and I am not its victim. The part of my mind that is certain of this thinks the whole issue is silly. I also feel afraid of time running out. That is the part of the mind that is the ego, and I feel what the ego feels when I identify with it.
That is why I can know the truth, and yet still feel oppressed by the illusion. In this issue at least, I keep looking back and forth between the truth and the illusion. This is no reason to be afraid. Inevitably I will choose to disregard the illusion entirely. I have to. You can’t really hold onto an illusion that you can see through. It is so much easier to allow my healing to unfold when I am not afraid of the ego thinking. The reason I need not fear is that I am a divine being. The thing I am undoing is harmless before my beingness. It must bow to my will.
2015
Since I have placed my entire attention on accepting the peace of God, and have done so without compromise, time has ceased to be an issue. I allow things to unfold as they unfold and life seems to work out. Sleep is less of an issue, but I still hold onto it. I experience some anxiety when I think about it so I give the belief that I am a victim to sleep to the Holy Spirit. I ask Him to undo this in my mind.
I have gone without what I thought was the necessary amount of sleep without effect, and yet I still think about getting enough sleep, and plan for it, so I know it is still a story in my mind and I still want it. No problem. I know what to do about this and I do it each time I see those thoughts. I know that what I want is the peace of God. The peace of God is everything I want, so getting a certain amount of sleep cannot be what I want. Success is imminent and inevitable.