Lesson 248
Whatever suffers is not part of me.
I have disowned the truth. Now let me be as faithful in disowning falsity. Whatever suffers is not part of me. What grieves is not myself. What is in pain is but illusion in my mind. What dies was never living in reality, and did but mock the truth about myself. Now I disown self-concepts and deceits and lies about the holy Son of God. Now am I ready to accept him back as God created him, and as he is.
Father, my ancient love for You returns, and lets me love Your Son again as well. Father, I am as You created me. Now is Your Love remembered, and my own. Now do I understand that they are one.
Journal
Because my body was low on iron after my procedure, I had a lot of distracting symptoms and what I noticed is that even when the symptoms were not occurring, I was thinking about them. I noticed that I was wondering what they meant, how I should deal with them, and wondering if they could be more serious than they seemed. I would think about how miserable I would be later in the day after I’d done more things.
The ego loves our stories of being sick. Sickness seems to prove its point that we are bodies after all and so it emphasizes those moments in our mind. It tells the story of being sick over and over. Once I noticed what is going on, I stopped this from happening. One of the things I did was to remind myself that this day I will accept God’s peace and joy, in glad exchange for all the substitutes that I have made for happiness and peace.
I reminded myself of the truth in spite of appearances to the contrary. I reminded myself of this because that is the truth, not the body and its ills. What a perfect lesson this is to reinforce that decision for today and in the future. I will not disown the truth no matter what is happening in the illusory story of Myron right now.
Regina’s Tips for “What is the World?
Our special theme says, “Let us not rest content until the world has joined our changed perception. Let us not be satisfied until forgiveness has been made complete.”
If you continue to read the last paragraph of our special theme, it appears to have an outward focus. It says, “We must save the world.” However, an outward focus that attempts to save others, possibly by converting them to the teachings that we study and practice, ignores the teaching itself.
Remember, “Inward problems cannot be solved by looking outward. Inward problems can only be solved by looking inward.”
Or, as A Course in Miracles puts it, “The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the atonement for himself.” (T-2.V. 5:1)
What is meant by, “Let us not rest content until the world has joined our changed perception … ”?
The desire to end suffering for one’s self can be highly motivating for a time. However, it is not enough motivation to keep one determined until the ego has ended. A motivation that continues beyond the desire to end one’s own suffering is the desire to end suffering for everyone. This was Buddha’s motivation. This was also Jesus’ motivation.
My Thoughts
Ending the ego’s reign over the mind is my goal, not just for myself, but for the entire mind. I am not free until everyone is free.
Regina’s Tips for “Whatever suffers is not part of me.”
The proper way to deny suffering is to look at awareness, recognize it as my true Self and recognize that awareness is forever unaffected by perception. In other words, I reclaim my true Self and disown the false self.
As today’s lesson says, “What is in pain is but illusion in my mind. What dies was never living in reality, … Now I disown self-concepts and deceits and lies …”
Many people have been confused about the proper use of denial. Do not deny the suffering that others experience. Have compassion for their suffering. The suffering that you deny is your own. You deny your suffering by noticing that your true Self does not suffer. It never has.
Past Entries
Because the Holy Spirit is always gentle with me, I am learning to be gentle, both with myself with and others. My vigilance in mind watching, and my willingness to change are bringing me back to the reality of who I am. My practice is helping me release my belief in the ego identity and accept my identity as the Son of God.
I am using every opportunity to deny anything in my mind that is not true. If I am in pain I may take something to relieve the pain, but first I deny pain as the result of a false belief. Pain is not real. I remind myself of the truth each time I feel pain in the body or if I feel emotional pain. It doesn’t matter what form it takes as all pain is unreal. God is not pain so pain cannot exist.
I deny grief in all its forms. When I feel grief, such as I did when my mom died, I don’t try to suppress the feeling, but I do remind myself that it is not real either. God is not grief so grief cannot exist. Loss cannot exist. No matter how much I believe I can experience loss, I cannot. I deny its ability to affect me. The same is true for anything that does not exist in God. God is all there is. If it is not a part of God it does not exist.
Because I have embraced the idea of separation and have made a world that embodies this strange belief, I will see a lot of apparent proof that separation effects do, in fact, exist. Of course I will, I put the effects there through my beliefs, and my desire to experience. I am learning to look through those appearances and to open my mind to the truth instead. The truth is there. It remains untouched by the illusions I have chosen to experience, and so when I choose differently I will see reality.
Holy Spirit, help me today as I remain vigilant for the truth. I know I can be vigilant because I spend each moment of my life supporting a system of belief that has no foundation in truth. I have effectively kept the world of illusion in place with my vigilance. Today I choose to use my vigilance to let go of that false idea and to bring my focus to the only thing that is true.
2016
I am being very specific now as I continue the process of letting go of thoughts that are not part of God and therefore are not part of me. Any thought of anger, fear, guilt, loss or lack, dread, anxiety, even a slight concern are going out the door. Here is an example. I have some free time this morning and I spent some of it amusing myself on Facebook. I began to notice a slight anxiety creeping in. When I looked for the thought that made this feeling, I saw this; I had squandered my time uselessly. I went from a lovely peace to guilt, just like that!
I could just dismiss this and get on with my morning, but I have discovered that pushing away these little thoughts just allows them to grow into larger more uncomfortable stories. Instead I looked right at it and decided it was too ridiculous to hold onto. Why would I want to think about being guilty for wasting time? Why would I give that concept my attention and let it grow into something worse? It was at least fun to waste time on Facebook, but wasting time on guilt stories is only painful, and leads only to more pain. I let it go, and now it is gone. I am peaceful. I wonder why I used to find this so hard to do.
Here is another from this morning. As I was enjoying my free time this morning I had the thought that I am going to enjoy retirement very much. Maybe every morning will feel like this. I was making some breakfast and I noticed another thought. When I retire I won’t be able to afford this fancy coffee I like so much. Immediately I felt some anxiety. There was a time, (A week ago, maybe. LOL) when I would have followed that thought with other concerns about money and would have begun to make elaborate plans about how to be frugal.
That thought was just taking hold when I noticed what I was doing. I was actually planning how to be poor. I was worrying about what would happen and how I would deal with it, like I knew what would happen and what I was supposed to do with it. In the process I was taking myself out of peace and happiness and going into fear and dread. Why would I want to do this? Nothing has happened and no decisions are required of me right now. I was deliberately scaring myself.
I did have a decision to make after all. I decided that I had asked the ego what something meant and I decided that was a bad idea. I let it all go. I am not going to spend my life encouraging disturbing thoughts and watching them grow in my mind. Lack and loss are not in God and they are not in me unless I want to have that experience, and I don’t. That whole scenario went up in smoke and I laughed at myself for my foolishness in entertaining it even for those few moments. Why would I want to do that? And look how easy it is to just say no. I desire abundance and happiness and peace. As Jesus says, every thought becomes form on some level. I want my thought forms to represent truth, not falsity.