Lesson 272
How can illusions satisfy God’s Son?
Father, the truth belongs to me. My home is set in Heaven by Your Will and mine. Can dreams content me? Can illusions bring me happiness? What but Your memory can satisfy Your Son? I will accept no less than You have given me. I am surrounded by Your Love, forever still, forever gentle and forever safe. God’s Son must be as You created him.
Today we pass illusions by. And if we hear temptation call to us to stay and linger in a dream, we turn aside and ask ourselves if we, the Sons of God, could be content with dreams, when Heaven can be chosen just as easily as hell, and love will happily replace all fear.
Journal
I wrote the following at the end of May. So much has changed but I will get to that in the postscript.
I think that I don’t need to be convinced that I cannot be satisfied with illusions, nor do I need to be convinced I could experience Heaven instead. But if that is so, why am I still here? Why do I linger in the dream? What does it have to offer me that I would trade eternity for time and divinity for humanity? It doesn’t seem reasonable or even sane.
When I reflect on the day, I see that it is the most mundane things that keep my attention. I seem to think this battle with my body for size, shape, and health needs to be won. Could it possibly be that I still want to win, that I want to be right, and that this desire is stronger than my desire to be happy? My belief that fear is real and can be ignored only at my peril is another anchor to the illusion.
These are the kinds of things I watch for in my mind. I watch for them so that I can understand what is holding me bound to this illusion and so that I can then make a different decision and release these ideas. It is the beliefs themselves that cause suffering and that keeps me interested in the illusions. If I stop being interested in them, they will not show up for me and my experience will change.
Even who I think I am in this body is a matter of thought. I have had brief moments in time in which I stopped thinking and, in those moments, I, as I know myself, ceased to be. I always start thinking again and when I do, the I that I know as Myron, reinstates itself. Another way of saying this is that I think myself into existence. Who am I when I am not thinking Myron? Could I be life itself? Or as it is expressed in the Course, could I be the Self, that which God created?
I was reading something like this in a Gina Lake book, All Grace, and here is how it is phrased there: But because the experience of the Truth is often uncomfortable, since it is unfamiliar, most people quickly return to creating themselves through thought. This is fascinating, how you do this! You create yourself by thinking about yourself! But the self you create lives only in your imagination and in other people’s imaginations (although differently), as they also share in the great illusion.
Is this any different than what Jesus tells us in the Course? The world, including our bodies, are an illusion. Lesson 325 tells us this:
All things I think I see reflect ideas.
- This is salvation’s keynote: What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. 2 From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. 3 These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one’s own.
It goes on to tell us that we can make a different world, a kindly world where we can rest a while. We do this with different thoughts, forgiving thoughts.
So whatever it is that we have presently made of ourselves, we can make something different. We can forgive these ego ideas that have made this world, and this self, and with a healed mind, we will make a healed self. We will still be thinking ourselves into existence, but we will be thinking a better, truer version of our self until we are done with the illusion altogether. Another way to envision this is to realize that as the mind heals, the Self will take the place of the self we made in its place.
PS Now, just a short time later, everything has changed. I still have stuff to undo, but it is simple and easy to do so. Like this morning, I had slept restlessly and on awakening my thoughts were restless. I had a lot to do and so I lay there in bed making plans and feeling anxious. Suddenly, I realized what had happened and I told the Holy Spirit that I am choosing again, this time for Him. I surrendered my day to him and asked Him to let me know how he wanted to use this day. Immediately, peace returned to my mind and my day was just lovely.
Regina’s Tips on What Is Christ?
Temporary appearances are made of consciousness. They are an extension of consciousness just as consciousness is an extension of source. Yet on the surface, they appear to be something other than consciousness. They appear to be thousands upon thousands, actually billions of different names and forms. The temporary things they appear to be are “not true.” They are “illusion,” because each of these things is actually more than it appears to be. Each thing is not its temporary appearance, but the eternal essence of its source.
To become clear on what is true and what is illusion, we will continue to focus on awareness in ourselves and on life in the living things that we encounter throughout the day.
Regina’s Tips on the lesson
Temporary appearances occupy the mind. Temporary appearances give the mind something to think about. Since things are always coming and going, shifting and changing, the mind remains very occupied. This is life to the mind.
However, we are not the mind, and what is life to the mind is actually agitation or suffering for us. It’s like keeping our attention with the restless waves on a stormy sea, fearing what will happen to the wave, while ignoring the changeless nature of the sea at its depths. Focusing on the surface is suffering. Realizing and abiding as the depth is peace.
The practice we have already committed to today is also the practice that will bring us to realize peace. It is the practice of focusing on the depth instead of the surface. We will focus on awareness in ourselves, and we will focus on life in each living thing that we encounter today. It doesn’t matter if the people we encounter seem happy, angry, or afraid. The life in each one is the same. Life-awareness is the changeless depth of our source.
My Thoughts
Today, I am focused on myself as life awareness. I know that I am life or to put it another way, I am formless Self, that which God created and remains as it was created. I had an opportunity to use this. Someone triggered worry in me and instead of following those habitual ego thoughts and feelings, I asked for another way to see this. Jesus showed me something I am going to try to put into words.
I saw myself as outside the bodies and the drama as it unfolded. I was looking at it and recognizing it was just thoughts given form and these thoughts came from beliefs. I was being given the chance to decide if I wanted to keep believing the same thing based on how it affected the self. At the same time, this other person who I cared about a lot, was outside the scene and making the same deliberations.
How he processed it was not my concern, only that he was doing so and that neither of us was in any way changed by the tableau we were engrossed in. That which was observing, that self, was not altered in any way by the script being played out but was experiencing it as if the feelings were it’s own, and this helped motivate the decisions being made.
What I gained from this experience was that what I am is safe. My friend is safe. Our choices don’t hurt us. We exist outside of the script even as we experience the script. This made it easier for me to let go of the old way of thinking that was causing my suffering. It no longer seemed to be about me. She no longer seemed to be me. Then, as always, I went back to thinking me into existence again. But I am not the same exact me. I am changed.
Past Entries
Which illusions am I still clinging to? Not too many, actually. I notice the ego thoughts that show up in my mind, but there are not many I believe and thoughts without belief are without effect. There are still a few beliefs, though, that hook me, but none that I do not bring to the Holy Spirit. We talk about them and then I let Him take them from me. And if I pick them up again, I talk to Holy Spirit again and He responds again. I am so grateful for this powerful help.
Holy Spirit, thank you for reinterpreting the ego thoughts for me. Thank you for helping me to see these temptations differently. Truly I don’t want to waste any more time in the illusion when I could experience Heaven instead.
2015
Here is something I’ve noticed. If the ego can’t get me interested in the latest drama, it bombards the mind with a constant stream of ego thoughts perhaps in the hope that one of them will hook me. For instance, I had barely gotten out of bed when I noticed the thought that my car has 88,000 miles on it. This led to worry thoughts about my warranty ending and concern I might have to buy a new car before I am ready.
Who knows where that would have gone had I more interest in it. I’m happy to be using my most recent favorite counter-thought as I practice total surrender. I borrowed this from Mooji. “Take it up with the boss, okay? I don’t deal with it anymore; it’s not my business anymore. I’ve handed myself in.” Before getting dressed I thought about getting on the scale and felt some tension at the thoughts. Then I remembered that I don’t deal with this anymore; I’ve turned myself in.
This kind of thing goes on all day. The ego always has another thought ready in case I’m not interested in the current one. Mind watching is so helpful. I might let a whole stream of thoughts go by, but if one catches my attention and leads to distress of any kind or degree, or even if it leads to pleasant fantasies, I notice it and I let it go to Spirit. This is how I am letting go of the illusion. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it seems to be working.
2009
I notice that after years of mind watching it is now easy and natural to do so. I also notice that I still have resistance to releasing certain errors. These are the ones I call “hard.” But I also notice that I can no longer confuse myself as easily as I did before. I know that the only thing hard about them is wanting to release them. As soon as my desire is unequivocal, the Holy Spirit reinterprets for me.
Something else that has changed is that now I don’t often become frustrated with the process. I just let it be what it is. I’m not going to get there before my time and that’s ok. And then sometimes I do get frustrated or anxious and that’s ok, too. Every moment of every day I continue my imaginary journey from an illusionary existence. Each moment is a clear step forward or an opportunity to experience not moving forward so that I can, once again, decide if I truly want to call hell my home.