Lesson 233
I give my life to God to guide today.
Father, I give You all my thoughts today. I would have none of mine. In place of them, give me Your Own. I give You all my acts as well, that I may do Your Will instead of seeking goals which cannot be obtained, and wasting time in vain imaginings. Today I come to You. I will step back and merely follow You. Be You the Guide, and I the follower who questions not the wisdom of the Infinite, nor Love whose tenderness I cannot comprehend, but which is yet Your perfect gift to me.
Today we have one Guide to lead us on. And as we walk together, we will give this day to Him with no reserve at all. This is His day. And so it is a day of countless gifts and mercies unto us.
INITIAL INSIGHT: For the last few days, I have been responding to these prayerful lessons with strong feelings of love for my Creator and for my brother, Jesus. These feelings well up in me as I read them and at different times during the day. I can’t call the feelings to me or make them happen, they simply occur. Today, it is the same.
I put aside any desire today to live my life on my own (with ego). That means I will make no decisions on my own, and I will disregard the ego chatter, the ego objections, and ego judgments, and the other ego temptations. I’m not interested. I see that the ego is already urging me to hurry and get things done and to worry about some plans for later.
I experience this urging as a slight tension, a contraction in my stomach, a stiffening of my neck and jaw. But this time, I just notice and as I choose to disregard the ego, I feel peace fill my mind. That is what I have instead of the dubious “right” to decide what things mean and how to respond based on that meaning. I get peace and happiness. I get something more, too. I feel this love of God rising up in me, and I wish I could adequately describe how this makes me feel. I want it to never end.
DAILY APPLICATION: I am so very happy to give this day to the Holy Spirit. I started that before I even woke up. I had been half in and half out of sleep and my mind kept going to a student who is having marital problems. It was an ego reaction of being involved in her story and trying to get her to see her error. I would awaken enough to realize what was happening and ask for help to see it differently. This happened over and over until I finally let it go.
When I woke up, I had only had 3 hours of restless sleep, and only time enough to make a cup of coffee before I began my work with a student. I felt a little dazed at first, but I know better now than to let this go on. I reminded myself that for all I know 3 hours is a perfect amount of sleep for me right now. Evidently it is since that is what I got. ~smile~ I asked HS to work with my mind to override my tired brain and I feel fine.
I also have been thinking about my son who is going through a rough patch. The ego would like to think about this situation, worry about it, suggest things to say to him. I see those thoughts and I ignore them, placing my attention on truer thoughts instead. I trust the Holy Spirit to guide me today in this situation as well. If there are words to say, I will be given them. So far it seems my only part is to trust my son and remember who he is.
It is good to disregard the ego thoughts and to follow Inner Guidance instead.
Here is something that happened while I was working.
I am so happy that this is today’s lesson! It is such a beautiful prayer and so encouraging. I had a long week at work. That is the days were long and I ended them feeling very tired. It is at times like this that the ego-mind sees an opening and jumps right in. It doesn’t have as much luck pulling me into false thinking as it used to but it tries really hard, and lately, either it is trying harder or I am more aware of the ego thoughts and feelings.
Yesterday, after the last customer, but a good two hours from home, I decided I had better stop for supper. I was tired and running out of energy. When I got back to the car, I was glad I had stopped and felt much better. As I sat there getting ready to pull out, I suddenly felt so sorry for myself. The ego had all the proof that I was overworked and underappreciated. My body was achy and I just dreaded the rest of the ride home. I just felt like sitting there and crying.
It was an ego attack that came out of the blue and hit hard, but not really. I mean, these are beliefs that are in my mind all the time and have not been fully released to the Holy Spirit. These were thoughts of victimhood, of being unfairly treated, of hopelessness, and carefully hidden rage. I have given these beliefs to the Holy Spirit any number of times, and have received blessings in their place, but I have not let them go completely. I suppose I foresaw a need for them in the future.
So here they were again, insisting they were real and important and not to be denied. But I want the peace of God. The peace of God is everything I want, my one goal, the aim of all my living here. I cannot have the peace of God and feel sorry for myself or blame someone for my discomfort. I do all this to myself and I can stop doing it. I cannot wish myself at home when I am far away, but I can drive home in ease and even in joy. Yes, I feel the pull of ego thinking, but I don’t have to go there.
I felt better after this little talk with the Holy Spirit and began my way home. The ego tried one more thing as I was leaving. It started up its chatter about not having enough time. I didn’t get time this morning to read my paragraph in the Text and ask Jesus to enlighten me. Now I would not get home until after 9:00 PM and would be short on time again. I began to worry about this and try to figure out what to do about it. Then I laughed as I realized the ego was at it again. Could I just be at peace?
The Holy Spirit answered my question and I pulled over to the side and shared it on Facebook because sharing something is how we make it our own. Here is what I was given.
I will get home when I get home. I will go to sleep when I go to sleep. I will wake up when I wake up. I will get as much done as I get done. That was easy! LOL.
INSIGHTS FROM HOLY SPIRIT: This is a conversation with the Holy Spirit that helped me to let go of guilt that would come up when I was mind-watching. It is so much easier to catch the ego thoughts now that I don’t feel guilty for them.
I ask the Holy Spirit to bring to my attention whatever it is that I need to look at just now. I set my intention to look at whatever needs to be seen, and I trust my Guide to help me in a way that will be most useful to me at this stage in my spiritual growth.
Me: Holy Spirit, my goal is to become completely empty of any desire to think with the ego-mind. I know that You know the way home that is perfect for me. I surrender myself to your loving help. And please don’t mind any kicking and screaming you hear as it will subside as I release the ego thought.
Holy Spirit: My dear child, indeed you are one who has been consistently bringing your thoughts to Me for correction, and all of the Sonship is in gratitude. If you would like to avoid that period of kicking and screaming, I will tell you that you can by simply knowing that it is not required. Because you chose to make this a difficult and frustrating process in the past does not mean it must remain so. Would you accept it as easy and, yes, even delightful, it would be so to you.
It would give us great joy to surprise you with the ease of allowing without resistance. Perhaps you would like to set your intention to trust yourself to gladly and gleefully look within yourself for mistaken thoughts, as looking in your closet for worn out and unwanted clothing, and as easily tossing them out, knowing you are making room for what will bring you much joy. Or if you still feel the need, you may kick and scream through the whole process.
GRATITUDE: Holy Spirit, you have said before that I am making this harder than it needs to be, but I keep doing it. (Sigh.) It seems that especially these deeply hidden thoughts would be painful to look at and discard. After all, if they are deeply hidden it must be for a reason. But I do love the picture you draw of me looking at and tossing out unwanted thoughts. I will set that intention, though as I type this, I notice some contracting of my body around itself as if fending off something fearful or unwanted. This may take some practice, but wouldn’t it be fun to do this with ease! Thank you for the thought.
REGINA’S TIPS
Please take time this morning to read, “What is Salvation,” to contemplate Lesson 233, 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:
I give my life to God today.
Nisargadatta Maharaj said that in order to realize the Self, you need the right teacher. He went on to say:
“Generally speaking, there are two ways: external and internal. Either you live with somebody who knows the Truth and submit yourself entirely to his guiding and shaping influence, or you seek the inner guide and follow the inner light wherever it takes you. In both cases your personal desires and fears must be disregarded. … If you are earnest, whatever way you choose will take you to your goal. It is the earnestness that is the decisive factor.”
Our way is a combination of the external teacher and the internal teacher. We have structure laid out by the external—by A Course in Miracle Workbook for Students, by Gentle Healing Homework Assignments, by Tips from Regina—but most of the time we are left alone with our internal teacher, inner spiritual intuition. Within the structure given by the external, it is the internal we need to submit ourselves to. We submit ourselves to its “guiding and shaping influence” by asking, “What am I to do now?”
Today’s lesson is very clear. An important part of salvation is surrender. We surrender our thoughts, we surrender our actions, and we surrender without questioning the guidance of the teacher. (Note: Nisargadatta does indicate that not all external teachers are trustworthy. Therefore, the wisdom of the internal must guide us in selecting the external.)
It’s important to notice that Nisargadatta said “your personal desires and fears must be disregarded.” If we let our personal desires and fears lead us to ignore the guidance of the teacher, we will remain attached to the ego.
True surrender transcends the personality-mind entirely.
There is a paragraph from The Teachings of Inner Ramana that has been coming to my mind over the last two days. That paragraph says:
“Watch the mind carefully. Notice how it wants to judge my words or judge my methods. Notice how it wants to choose against me and decide what is best for itself. That is the confusion-mechanism. That questioning and doubting feature, which is a core mechanism within the mind, is a separation-creation mechanism that keeps you blind to the truth.”
First, we can ask ourselves if we are remembering to seek the guidance of the inner teacher by asking, “What am I to do now?” Next, we need to ask if we are following the intuition we receive, or are we judging for ourselves whether we want to follow or not?
Yesterday we recommitted to following the instructions laid out by one of our external teachers, A Course in Miracles Workbook for Students. Today, we recommit to seeking guidance from the inner teacher, and we commit to follow the guidance we receive.