Lesson 35
My mind is part of God’s. I am very holy.
W-pI.35.1. Today’s idea does not describe the way you see yourself now. 2 It does, however, describe what vision will show you. 3 It is difficult for anyone who thinks he is in this world to believe this of himself. 4 Yet the reason he thinks he is in this world is because he does not believe it.
W-pI.35.2. You will believe that you are part of where you think you are. 2 That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want. 3 And you want it to protect the image of yourself that you have made. 4 The image is part of this environment. 5 What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. 6 This is not vision. 7 Images cannot see.
W-pI.35.3. The idea for today presents a very different view of yourself. 2 By establishing your Source it establishes your Identity, and it describes you as you must really be in truth. 3 We will use a somewhat different kind of application for today’s idea because the emphasis for today is on the perceiver, rather than on what he perceives.
W-pI.35.4. For each of the three five-minute practice periods today, begin by repeating today’s idea to yourself, and then close your eyes and search your mind for the various kinds of descriptive terms in which you see yourself. 2 Include all the ego-based attributes which you ascribe to yourself, positive or negative, desirable or undesirable, grandiose or debased. 3 All of them are equally unreal, because you do not look upon yourself through the eyes of holiness.
W-pI.35.5. In the earlier part of the mind-searching period, you will probably emphasize what you consider to be the more negative aspects of your perception of yourself. 2 Toward the latter part of the exercise period, however, more self-inflating descriptive terms may well cross your mind. 3 Try to recognize that the direction of your fantasies about yourself does not matter. 4 Illusions have no direction in reality. 5 They are merely not true.
W-pI.35.6. A suitable unselected list for applying the idea for today might be as follows:
2 I see myself as imposed on.
3 I see myself as depressed.
4 I see myself as failing.
5 I see myself as endangered.
6 I see myself as helpless.
7 I see myself as victorious.
8 I see myself as losing out.
9 I see myself as charitable.
10 I see myself as virtuous.
W-pI.35.7. You should not think of these terms in an abstract way. 2 They will occur to you as various situations, personalities and events in which you figure cross your mind. 3 Pick up any specific situation that occurs to you, identify the descriptive term or terms you feel are applicable to your reactions to that situation, and use them in applying today’s idea. 4 After you have named each one, add:
5 But my mind is part of God’s. 6 I am very holy.
W-pI.35.8. During the longer exercise periods, there will probably be intervals in which nothing specific occurs to you. 2 Do not strain to think up specific things to fill the interval, but merely relax and repeat today’s idea slowly until something occurs to you. 3 Although nothing that does occur should be omitted from the exercises, nothing should be “dug out” with effort. 4 Neither force nor discrimination should be used.
W-pI.35.9. As often as possible during the day, pick up a specific attribute or attributes you are ascribing to yourself at the time and apply the idea for today to them, adding the idea in the form stated above to each of them. 2 If nothing particular occurs to you, merely repeat the idea to yourself, with closed eyes.
Journal
And thus, we begin the holiness lessons which I love. I did not always love them as I do now. What changed is that I finally began to believe them. Jesus describes our predicament very succinctly when he says it is difficult when in this world to believe our mind is very holy, but that not believing it is why we are in this world. And so, obviously, it is important to accept this truth.
I want to look more closely at paragraph two sentence by sentence.
You will believe that you are part of where you think you are. I had never thought of this before but I see it now. As an example of this, I have thought that I am an American, and a southern woman with all that implies about me.But really, that is not what I am, it is where I think I live and how I think I live.
2 That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want. What kind of environment do I think I want? I am surrounded by other bodies with whom I have relationships. Some of those relationships are friendly and some are not. Some of these other bodies are kind and loving and some are angry and spiteful. There is competition with everyone. There is abundance and there is lack. There is health and there is sickness. And nothing is guaranteed; it can all change in the blink of an eye. This is the environment I want? Obviously, my mind was sick when I made this choice.
3 And you want it to protect the image of yourself that you have made. This image of myself is the body and the personality that I call Myron. I protect the body with all sorts of magic. I take it to the doctor and give it magic potions to keep it healthy. I lock it in at night so that it is safe from other threatening bodies while it sleeps. I dress it nicely when I present it to the world so that it will be accepted.
4 The image is part of this environment. One of the lies I told myself when I made the decision to experience this life is that this image, this body, is who I would be. I continue to try to convince myself that I am in this body and all that happens to the body happens to me. But that is not true. The body is just part of the environment, all made up to give the appearance of reality that I could sink into as if it were real and happening right now. The truth is that I am spirit. I am awareness watching this show and the body is just part of the show.
5 What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. 6 This is not vision. 7 Images cannot see. Jesus has already touched on this idea but he is reminding us that what we do with the eyes is not seeing, it is image-making. We use the eyes of the image (body) to see the rest of the environment we made for our imaginative landscape. The good news in all this is that nothing we see or experience through the image of bodies is real and therefore does not in any way affect the mind that is thinking them. We are that mind and that mind is perfectly safe. In fact, it is holy and that is because our Source is holy.
When we were kids, my brothers and I played cowboys and Indians and cops and robbers. We also played superheroes. I notice my teenage granddaughter loves cosplay. She dresses up as characters she wants to pretend are her for a little while. This is what we have done in making this world. We play that we are our own god, our own creator and we dress up and play these characters. It is all imagination, all in our mind, and happening nowhere else. The problem is, we have done this for so long we have forgotten who we are. Now we are ready to remember, ready to wake up from this long dream. We are ready to remember that we are Divine Beings playing at being human beings. We are ready to remember that we are very holy, so for today, let us remind ourselves that no matter what seems to be happening in our imaginative play, we are really very holy.