Lesson 254
Let every voice but God’s be still in me.
Father, today I would but hear Your Voice. In deepest silence I would come to You, to hear Your Voice and to receive Your Word. I have no prayer but this: I come to You to ask You for the truth. And truth is but Your Will, which I would share with You today.
Today we let no ego thoughts direct our words or actions. When such thoughts occur, we quietly step back and look at them, and then we let them go. We do not want what they would bring with them. And so we do not choose to keep them. They are silent now. And in the stillness, hallowed by His Love, God speaks to us and tells us of our will, as we have chosen to remember Him.
Journal
I did the meditation first and enjoyed it very much. I had difficulty sleeping last night so I listened to a meditation play over and over last night, waking up periodically to parts of it. It’s a really good one, actually, two of them by Joe Dispenza from his book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. That was helpful, too.
I am also doing the work suggested in the second paragraph. I do this anyway, but today I am paying closer attention than usual. Something helpful happened. I have a student on Fridays and all we talked about today was not letting our ego thoughts direct our words or actions. She is not a Course student and so I have to explain this in different ways with lots of examples. This is a gift to me.
Regina’s Tips on What is Sin?
We have read the special theme while replacing the word sin with “insanity.” Let’s read the special theme again, and this time let’s replace “sin” with “My ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be.”
For example, “My ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be are the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts that are untrue. They are ‘proof’ that what has no reality is real. My ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be ‘proves’ God’s Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; eternal life must die. …”
Most people take their ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be to be fact. However, not everyone sees right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be in the same way. Therefore, our ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be are opinions.
NTI calls these ideas “judgment,” and claims that judgment is the building block of illusion. Our special theme makes the same claim:
[My ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be are] the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts that are untrue. They are ‘proof’ that what has no reality is real.
My Thoughts
Using the words “My ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, what should be and what should not be,” works well for me. That is mostly what the ego is about, this personal self with its opinions. Wednesday, I left early for my Al-Anon meeting because of heavy traffic. Since I was so early, I stopped at Sams to pick up a few things and my daughter called to ask if I wanted her to come spray my lemon tree for whiteflies. I was disappointed to have to tell her I wasn’t home.
Then, I went to the building where we have our meeting and when I got out to go in, I could hardly walk. I realized that I had done too much and while I could have stayed, I was concerned that coming home would be difficult. I decided to skip the meeting and I had the feeling that it was all for nothing since not only did I not get my meeting, but I missed getting my tree sprayed.
Twice, I judged the situation of what was good and what was bad. The only thing I got for my judgment was suffering and reinforcing the ego. If I had not judged it, the same thing would have happened but I would not have suffered. Fortunately, I recognize this kind of thinking for what it is and I let it go pretty fast. As it turns out, it rained that night or early morning so I am glad my daughter had not sprayed the tree. It would have all washed away.
When I let go of the idea that I needed that evening to turn out a specific way, I did that by remembering to love all things just as they are and to choose happiness regardless of the circumstances. Here is what Gina Lake says about this.
“The duality of good/bad is transcended by recognizing where those opinions come from and that they serve only the ego, and then holding them lightly or letting them go.
The duality of emotional highs and lows is transcended by coming into right relationship with life, which is experienced as equanimity. … This equanimity is sober, steady, okay with everything, at peace and content. It is a state of causeless, subtle happiness, or inner joy.”
Regina’s Tips on the lesson
Regina recommended meditations. I might do that if I have time later.
Past Entries
All day yesterday when I would find my mind wandering, I would remind myself that I will to hear only the Voice for God today. It was very helpful to do this. I love that today the lesson is helping me to continue that practice. I notice the first paragraph is in first person, and I decided to say the second paragraph in that way, too. It was more powerful and made more of an impact on my mind when I did this. I invite you to join me.
Today I let no ego thoughts direct my words or actions. When such thoughts occur, I quietly step back and look at them, and then I let them go. I do not want what they would bring with them. And so I do not choose to keep them. They are silent now. And in the stillness, hallowed by His Love, God speaks to me and tells me of my will, as I have chosen to remember Him. (It gives me chills to say that and in the stillness, hallowed by His Love, God speaks to me.)
Next, I say this the way it was written knowing that all around the world there are my brothers and sisters saying it with me. We share this and it increases exponentially in power. Again, I get chills thinking about this. Together, you and I and all our fellow students join in the prayer for God’s Voice alone to speak to us and guide us and heal us.
2016
In this lesson, we commit to not letting ego thoughts direct us. I am ready for that commitment. I have been working toward this for a long time and I am so much closer to this being true for me. He says this: “When such thoughts occur, we quietly step back and look at them, and then we let them go.” This tells me two things. One is that I am going to have ego thoughts in my awareness, and two, that I can let them go. This letting go is something that I have focused on for a few days now.
I will notice that I feel sad or guilty or fearful, and I consider the thoughts I was having. Those thoughts are the cause of the feeling, and I don’t have to keep thinking them. I look at them and then I let them go. I haven’t reached the stage in my healing where I can be in silence without thoughts for very long, but I can choose not to stay with dark thoughts. I sometimes still catch myself thinking about something that could go wrong or some grievance or past upset. When that happens I stop thinking about it. Why should I waste my time thinking about things that don’t make me happy?
I used to feel compelled to think about the scary stuff, like what if I retire and a hurricane damages my house and I don’t have the money to fix it? Then I would get scared about retiring. And probably I would worry about having enough insurance and what if I can’t afford the insurance. I would spend time planning for these disasters and before you know it, I was all into being a victim and feeling sorry for myself thinking I would have to work till I died. Let’s see; I am not a victim of the world I see, I will make no plans by myself, I will make no decision on my own. Ha! All my rules for a happy life, right down the drain.
One day, I just decided to stop doing this. I will see some ego thought arising in my mind, and I will decide not to continue it. Mostly, this is pretty easy. Very quickly, I acknowledge the thought, look at it with Holy Spirit, and then choose to think of something else. If I need to, I think true thoughts for a while as I get my head on straight. I do have times when it is not as easy. For instance, if my child is sick or endangered in some way, I notice it is much harder.
But I also see that it is still possible. I ask the Holy Spirit for help, I still my mind, I rest in God, and I am in peace. I allow myself to be aware of the true thoughts that are in my mind. If the thoughts pop back up, I just do it again. I don’t want what they bring with them, and so I don’t choose to keep them. It is taking practice, but it is time well spent. I am so much happier now than I used to be.
Past Entry
What a perfect prayer this is! This is going to be my prayer every morning as I get out of bed and every night when I prepare for sleep. I have been practicing awareness of those brief moments between ego thoughts when the Holy Spirit can give me His thoughts. My hope is that by paying attention to that silence I can deliberately increase its duration. But it is hard to do this. Every little silence seems to demand something to fill it, and quickly the ego thoughts rush in.
Holy Spirit, as I wrote that last line I had a thought that I think was from You. I heard that I have been trying to create space and that I might do better to set my intention to allow silence; I cannot make my mind be silent, but that if I decide for silence I will have it. I think I understand this. I am willing to let the ego voice be silent to me. I am willing to not listen to it. I am willing to listen only to Your Voice. I ask that you guide my practice.
In The Way of Mastery, Jeshua said that I live no ordinary moments. This morning I was very aware of this. I was getting ready for work, watching my time closely so that I would have time for my journaling and realized I needed something from my car. That was when I realized that I didn’t know where my keys were. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find them. I thought I might have left them in my car which would not be good, or even dropped them where someone could find them. All you would have to do to match them to the car would be to push the button and wait for the beep. So I checked to be sure the car was in the hotel parking lot and it was.
I was aware that I was using up time looking for the keys that I could have been using to do my journaling. I was aware that if I had to call for another key it would completely screw up my schedule for the entire month as it was very tightly packed with no room for rescheduling. And yet, the whole time this was happening, I watched my thoughts with the Holy Spirit. This was no ordinary moment; it was an opportunity to stay asleep or to wake up. I chose to use it for my awakening by using it to remember to listen to Holy Spirit rather than ego.
I found my keys and did this journaling. I would eventually have done all of this even if I had listened to the ego, but it would not have been as peaceful and would probably have been a more protracted situation because I would have been too upset to think straight. And, because I gave it my willingness, my willingness is now stronger. I won’t say that the ego was silent in my mind, but I didn’t listen to it, choosing to listen to the Holy Spirit instead.