Lesson 257
Let me remember what my purpose is.
If I forget my goal I can be but confused, unsure of what I am, and thus conflicted in my actions. No one can serve contradicting goals and serve them well. Nor can he function without deep distress and great depression. Let us therefore be determined to remember what we want today, that we may unify our thoughts and actions meaningfully, and achieve only what God would have us do this day.
Father, forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation. Let us not forget today that we can have no will but Yours. And thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will for us.
Journal
This could be my mantra. I know I have a purpose and I stick to that purpose as closely as I can. When I stray from my purpose, I return to it because serving that purpose makes me happy and keeps me at peace. My purpose is always forgiveness. I forgive everything that is not of God.
I forgive by recognizing it is not real and does not exist. Even if I don’t yet feel like my Self all the time, when I am uncertain, I can ask myself what I would do if I were awakened and then do that. Yesterday, I was thinking about something I did in the past that I regretted. I was feeling guilty for that and so I asked that question. What would I do right now if I were awakened? I would recognize that this feeling of guilt is not real. I would let it go. So that’s what I did.
Regina’s Tips on What Is Sin?
Today, we begin another day with clarity regarding the problem that “appears indeed to terrify.” That is ignoring truth, focusing outward and believing the mind’s judgments. This clarity reinforces the realization that the solution to the problem is paying attention to awareness, focusing inward for intuitive guidance and ignoring the mind’s judgments by practicing the Loving All Method.
Regina’s Tips on the lesson
Today’s lesson reminds us to focus on our spiritual aspiration so “we may unify our thoughts and actions meaningfully.”
When we remember what we truly want, we are more likely to pay attention to awareness, feel inward for intuitive guidance and practice the Loving All Method. When those habits are our central focus, we are more likely to live from our unaffected Self than from the frantic personality-mind.
Past Entries
This is a rather long entry since it spans a number of years, but as I read what I wrote before, I saw a present forgiveness lesson in another light. Each year I wrote something that helped me to untangle my present situation. I am sincerely grateful for that.
I hear people use the term “to live in purpose” and I love that. When I think of living in purpose I think of forgiving every untrue thought that enters my awareness. I think of forgiving my miscreations, and of forgiving myself for ever having held them in my mind. What a beautiful way to spend my time and how lovely the world will be when I have forgiven it.
Holy Spirit, I remember to forgive when pain has drawn my attention to my mistaken thoughts, but what I really want is to do this all the time. Immediately when I think of something that is not in alignment with God’s thoughts, I want to allow You to correct my thinking. But it can be difficult sometimes to let certain fear thoughts go. They seem to just stick to me like glue.
I did not sit still for an answer on my most recent problem right away, so I woke up this morning with a particular problem on my mind, the same one I went to sleep with, and suddenly I remembered the obvious. Everything is neutral. I gave it the meaning I think it has. It seems I only needed to “sleep on it.”
The miracle of the change in thought is that understanding the circumstances are neutral, there is nothing about them that needs to be different. It also places the responsibility right back on me where it belongs. This situation is not responsible for my anxiety. I am the one that decided it was anxiety producing. I took a perfectly neutral incident and made it into a highly charged situation.
Ego loves the charge, the high emotions, but I am learning not to identify with that part of my mind and so I am no longer so interested in them. Now I want to just release that idea and move on. I want the truth instead. I want to live my purpose. Thank you, Holy Spirit.
2009
As I was reading what I wrote a couple of years ago I also thought about something Regina Dawn Akers suggested when I was having trouble letting go of my fear. She said to let go of the story and focus on the obstacles. I didn’t realize at the time how important this concept is. Since then, I have realized that it is the story that hooks me and keeps me in confusion. If I let go of the story and look only at the obstacles it is much easier to move forward. It is like a fog has cleared.
Here is an example. I have experienced problems with a relationship. The ego loves my stories of past relationships and how they influence this one. It wants to justify my fear and anxiety with “true life” experiences. While I look at the story I have trouble not believing what it says to me. But when I quit looking at the story and looked, instead, at what I was believing, then questioned that belief, I suddenly saw the situation with new clarity.
My mistaken beliefs were obstacles to my peace. I used Byron Katie’s, The Work, to cut through the distractions of the stories and get right to the mistaken belief. The Holy Spirit helped me to see differently. This is my purpose. This is the entire purpose of my life. It is not to make more stories or more acceptable stories, but to look, with the Holy Spirit, at the obstacles that are revealed through the story, and then to allow my Holy Spirit to correct my thinking.
2011
If anything has changed for me as far as this lesson goes, it is that I am more certain than ever that I have only one purpose, that is, to forgive all things that prevent me from knowing God. Just looking at my life it may seem the same. I do all the same things I have always done. I do my job, spend time with friends, shop, rest, play with my granddaughter. But as I do all of these things, I am vigilant for any indication that I am doing them with the ego, and I quickly forgive the belief that stands between me and my awakening.
I put God first. I am in communication with the Holy Spirit nearly all the time. I wake up asking what I should do today and I talk with the Voice for God during the day. I notice what is in my mind and I ask Him to purify my thoughts. I wonder how to handle problems and I ask Him. I share both my fears and my joys with Him.
At night I go to bed reviewing the day with Him. I notice that I still sometimes hold onto the idea that I made mistakes and need forgiveness, and He gently reminds me that I made mistakes that need correction, but that I am innocent. He says that I need only to forgive the obstacles to peace. The Holy Spirit says that I do not need forgiveness for my choices as if the Son of God were a recalcitrant child in need of punishment, but that I need to forgive (that is, undo) the beliefs within my mind that sourced these choices so that I will make choices that lead to my happiness. This is a subtle but very important difference, and I am grateful to have this clarified.
2015
This year I am having trouble forgiving a particular person and situation. I think I have forgiven it, only to pick it up again. I can’t believe how stubbornly I am holding onto this. It is making me unhappy and that would seem to be reason enough to forgive. I cannot think of what to do next and so I asked the Holy Spirit to help me. I surrender this to Him.
He reminded me to let go of the story and look at the obstacles just as I wrote about before. When I do this I see that I have a lot of fear about this work situation. I think the co-worker in question is threatening my job and my happiness. I also see that I feel threatened in other ways in this job story and that I have used this one person as the receptacle for all my fear.
Now I see that, with the ego mind, I set some goals and that I decided these goals must be met. I decided on a financial goal and when I do not seem to be reaching that goal I am upset. But really, I am only upset about my thoughts about not reaching this goal. Another goal I set was to have my work environment meet certain conditions. Those conditions are changing and that feels threatening, but again I see that it is only my thoughts about the changes that are upsetting.
Holy Spirit seems to be leading me to see that my unhappiness is not about the work, the finances, or the challenging relationship with my coworker. I made some decisions about what I need to be happy and I did this without the Holy Spirit, which means I did it with the ego. When these decisions seemed to be threatened, the ego offered solutions such as projecting blame for my unhappiness onto someone else.
What I must do now is to let go of these goals and remember that the peace of God is my one goal. It is everything I want. I feel a sense of relief as I do this and I have to laugh because each time I come to this same conclusion, I get that same relief. I wonder how it is I keep getting so involved in the story that I lose sight of this one simple solution. Right now I let go of the financial goals I have thought were my salvation. I let go of the idea that my work environment matters. I let go of all the meaning I have given these things.
I think about the troubled relationship with a co-worker and I let go of all expectations I have of how this relationship should look and how the problems in it should be resolved. I let go of the idea that she is my problem and that she needs to change. I look at it and at her with new eyes, eyes that are not determined to prove guilt, but that simply observe.
It makes me happy to see that nothing in the story is an obstacle, but rather my judgments and my expectations, and deciding on my own for false and distracting goals are my obstacles. My solution is simple and known to me and accepted by me. The peace of God is everything I want. I wonder how it will feel today when I get to work? Holy Spirit, please help me to remember what it is I really want.