Lesson 238
On my decision all salvation rests.
Father, Your trust in me has been so great, I must be worthy. You created me, and know me as I am. And yet You placed Your Son’s salvation in my hands, and let it rest on my decision. I must be beloved of You indeed. And I must be steadfast in holiness as well, that You would give Your Son to me in certainty that he is safe Who still is part of You, and yet is mine, because He is my Self.
And so, again today, we pause to think how much our Father loves us. And how dear His Son, created by His Love, remains to Him Whose Love is made complete in him.
INITIAL INSIGHT: My faith may not be absolute and I may have some identity with the ego left in my mind, but Jesus is letting us know that this is irrelevant. God created us so He knows us. He knows what I am and He trusts me so I must be trustworthy. If I am trustworthy so are all my brothers because they are part of the Sonship as am I. We are loved and safe. We are part of God. I have a part to play in salvation and I can and will do that.
DAILY APPLICATION: Last year when I read this lesson I noticed an ego response in my mind. The ego talks about how hopeless it is that I will ever go home if going home must include all my brothers. It begins to look at the cruelty and wrong minded thinking that is so prevalent in the world. The ego reminds me of how hard it is for me to forgive and to see with Spirit and so imagine how impossible it is for those who are not at all aware.
For a moment I was dazed by the ego words and feel a sense of confusion as what I am hearing conflicts with what I am reading. Then my mind clears and I remember that I am not really in a world of cruelty and hopelessness. The separation was a brief thought within the mind and was discarded nearly as quickly as it was thought. I am remembering the effects of that thought and as I do so, I am truly astonished at the power of the mind that a single brief thought can make an entire world peopled by millions and designed to allow a completely imaginary thought system to appear real.
How loving is our Father that He created us to create in complete freedom and yet created us to be always and forever only like Him. We can play in our illusions until we tire of them and then decide to awaken to the happy truth that we are exactly where we started from, in the heart of a loving Father. It does seem at times to be impossible because I cannot even hold onto the idea that it is not real; how am I going to hold onto the idea that I can stop thinking it.
We did such a good job making the illusion that it is very hard to look away from it. It is so very easy to become entrapped in the dream when we forget it is not real. But the same power that created the world can awaken us from the world. I trust that power because it is of God. It may seem at times that I will never get free of my dreams but I then remember that I am as God created me and that He created me like Himself. As I am free to create illusions, I am also free to awaken from them.
Thank you, Holy Spirit, for helping me to pull my mind free of the false ego thinking. Sometimes I think I must know how it feels to be a fly caught in the spider’s web as I struggle against the ego thinking that is so compelling in its fearfulness. I see that mind-watching has made it possible for me to slowly but surely extricate myself, but that it is through joining with you in the forgiveness process that it is possible to do so. If it were not for this work and for Your support and guidance, I would still be defining myself as a body with a name and a personality, and I would still see myself in constant battle with other such separated beings, fighting for my place within the scheme of things. No wonder I was depressed for so many years. It is only surprising that there is anyone who is not depressed.
INSIGHTS FROM HOLY SPIRIT: Dear one, I assure you that everyone is depressed to the extent that they allow themselves to be aware of their apparent loss. Who would not be depressed to know that they are the Son of God and are living like a stranger in a strange land? Truly you are prodigal children, and most do not even allow themselves to remember that they have a home to return to. Your mind seems full of thoughts, never ending thoughts that take all of your attention so that you don’t have to look at the illogic of a child of God living in lack and fear.
In truth, those thoughts are as much illusion as is your body. There really are only two thoughts in your mind, the ego and God. You have begun to focus your attention on the thought of God and that is why your perceptions of the world are changing. You did nothing to make this happen other than to notice the other thought, and then choose to focus on it. I know that your mind becomes literally stunned when you try to work through how it is that the return to God will happen, but do not be concerned with that. Simply know that it is done. Your only purpose right now is to continue the mind watching that you are learning to do so well, and remain steadfast in your decision to choose God.
GRATITUDE: I followed those clear instructions and I am so glad I did so. I am steadfast now, uncompromising as I follow this path that I was led to. I am happy and peaceful and sometimes so filled with love and joy that it makes me cry. Thank you, Holy Spirit.
REGINA’S TIPS
Please take time this morning to read, “What is Salvation,” to contemplate Lesson 238, 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:
On my decision all salvation rests.
Our decisions are made based on who we think we are. Every decision is based on the current moment’s identity. For example, if I think someone is taking advantage of me, I will react from that identified perception.
Please contemplate the sentences above, and notice this is true for you. It might help to remember two or three recent decisions or recent reactions, which are simply fast decisions. Look to see what idea you were identified with at the moment, and notice your decision came from that identification. (For example, I recently snapped at my partner. In that moment I was identified with, “I am being pulled in too many directions at once. “)
Because our decisions are based on who we think we are, it is important to realize who we are. When we know ourselves as awareness-life-presence, we naturally make decisions that are based on love. Our decisions are based on love, because awareness-life-presence is love.
Today we contemplate the love that we are. Today’s recommended meditation will help with this contemplation. The more we contemplate the love that we are, the more we realize ourselves as love. As we see love as our Self, our decisions spring forth from that instead of from misidentification. In this way, we are effortlessly “steadfast in holiness” and a natural savior in the world.
p.s., Notice that I am not asking you to try to be love. You will always make decisions based on what you think you are, so I am asking you to notice, again and again, the truth of what you are until you naturally identify with that.
MY THOUGHTS
Because ACIM teaches us that we are innocent, that we are like God, and that we are Love, and it teaches it over and over again, and because I spend so much time studying and practicing the Course, I am immersed in this idea. The immersion has caused a change in my thinking so that I just naturally identify with Love as my true nature.
It is a slow and subtle change so that I can’t tell when it happened. It is not complete yet, because sometimes I fall back into ego identification but the change is strong enough that I am aware of the difference. I continue to contemplate the truth and I also practice mind watching and am open and receptive to spiritual help.