Lesson 66
My happiness and my function are one.
W-pI.66.1. You have surely noticed an emphasis throughout our recent lessons on the connection between fulfilling your function and achieving happiness. 2 This is because you do not really see the connection. 3 Yet there is more than just a connection between them; they are the same. 4 Their forms are different, but their content is completely one.
I can attest to the fact that fulfilling my function is happiness for me. The more I healed my mind and the more I dedicated myself to awakening and sharing what I was given, the happier I became. Now when I am not happy, even when there is a slight decrease in happiness, I notice it immediately and ask for correction. It feels so uncomfortable that I can’t miss it and wonder how I tolerated life before.
W-pI.66.2. The ego does constant battle with the Holy Spirit on the fundamental question of what your function is. 2 So does it do constant battle with the Holy Spirit about what your happiness is. 3 It is not a two-way battle. 4 The ego attacks and the Holy Spirit does not respond. 5 He knows what your function is. 6 He knows that it is your happiness.
I found a TV show I like and I started watching two episodes a night, and then three, and sometimes four. This morning, I looked around and saw that I was behind on everything. I fell for the ego’s function and the ego’s idea of happiness. The Holy Spirit is not doing battle with this, He was just waiting for me to notice so I could choose again.
W-pI.66.3. Today we will try to go past this wholly meaningless battle and arrive at the truth about your function. 2 We will not engage in senseless arguments about what it is. 3 We will not become hopelessly involved in defining happiness and determining the means for achieving it. 4 We will not indulge the ego by listening to its attacks on truth. 5 We will merely be glad that we can find out what truth is.
When the mind becomes clearer it is a wonderful thing. I know what makes me happy. I know it is in accepting the function God gave me that I am happy. I know what that function is. I already know what I will do. I will choose again. There is nothing wrong with watching TV, but when it becomes a distraction from what truly makes me happy, then I need to notice this and change the way I watch. I will watch TV only when I am done with everything else.
Another thing I noticed is that once I noticed all the things that were left undone, I wanted to quickly get caught up. There is no way I can do that today and it made me feel edgy, so I questioned that. This was another ego attack on the truth. It was saying that I am guilty of my error and that I need to obliterate the proof of my guilt as quickly as I can so I can pretend I am not guilty. But the truth coming from my right mind is that I could never be guilty. I simply made a mistake and now I am correcting it.
W-pI.66.4. Our longer practice period today has as its purpose your acceptance of the fact that not only is there a very real connection between the function God gave you and your happiness, but that they are actually identical. 2 God gives you only happiness. 3 Therefore, the function He gave you must be happiness, even if it appears to be different. 4 Today’s exercises are an attempt to go beyond these differences in appearance, and recognize a common content where it exists in truth.
The appearance is that I am, for the most part, living my purpose. But the content is that I am happy. I have learned to see past the appearance to the content and so recognize that my purpose and my happiness are the same thing. As Jesus tells us, 2 God gives you only happiness. 3 Therefore, the function He gave you must be happiness, even if it appears to be different.
The things that I used to think brought me happiness I now realize were not really making me happy. I used to think I was happy if my children came to see me or called me or sent me presents. Now, I see that this was not happiness, it was just a temporary relief of the hidden belief that I did not deserve their love. Through the healing of my mind, I discovered true happiness. Now, I am happy whether they do any of these things or not. And I discovered that it is enough that I love them; I do not need anything in return.
W-pI.66.5. Begin the ten-to-fifteen-minute practice period by reviewing these thoughts:
2 God gives me only happiness.
3 He has given my function to me.
4 Therefore my function must be happiness.
5 Try to see the logic in this sequence, even if you do not yet accept the conclusion. 6 It is only if the first two thoughts are wrong that the conclusion could be false. 7 Let us, then, think about the premises for a while, as we are practicing.
W-pI.66.6. The first premise is that God gives you only happiness. 2 This could be false, of course, but in order to be false it is necessary to define God as something He is not. 3 Love cannot give evil, and what is not happiness is evil. 4 God cannot give what He does not have, and He cannot have what He is not. 5 Unless God gives you only happiness, He must be evil. 6 And it is this definition of Him you are believing if you do not accept the first premise.
This is very clear. I completely follow the reasoning and accept it as true. If God gave me anything that is not loving, He would not be love. He cannot give what He does not have and what He is not. God is not evil so he cannot give unhappiness. The idea that I have ever thought this just shows how confused we have become from choosing to believe the ego. It is like we have made the ego our God.
W-pI.66.7. The second premise is that God has given you your function. 2 We have seen that there are only two parts of your mind. 3 One is ruled by the ego, and is made up of illusions. 4 The other is the home of the Holy Spirit, where truth abides. 5 There are no other guides but these to choose between, and no other outcomes possible as a result of your choice but the fear that the ego always engenders, and the love that the Holy Spirit always offers to replace it.
Again, I absolutely know this. The ego gives me functions that will cause me to suffer. The Holy Spirit reminds me that God gives only a loving function and it will make me happy if I accept it. My function is to accept the Atonement for myself and to help others do the same. As long as I continue to do this, I am peaceful and happy. I accepted this on faith at first, I then practiced it, and discovered for myself that it is true.
W-pI.66.8. Thus, it must be that your function is established by God through His Voice, or is made by the ego which you have made to replace Him. 2 Which is true? 3 Unless God gave your function to you, it must be the gift of the ego. 4 Does the ego really have gifts to give, being itself an illusion and offering only the illusion of gifts?
Jesus points out in this paragraph what should be obvious to us. Not only does the ego’s offers bring suffering, but it is offering only illusions and there is no value in an illusion. What kind of gift is that?
W-pI.66.9. Think about this during the longer practice period today. 2 Think also about the many forms the illusion of your function has taken in your mind, and the many ways in which you tried to find salvation under the ego’s guidance. 3 Did you find it? 4 Were you happy? 5 Did they bring you peace? 6 We need great honesty today. 7 Remember the outcomes fairly, and consider also whether it was ever reasonable to expect happiness from anything the ego ever proposed. 8 Yet the ego is the only alternative to the Holy Spirit’s Voice.
Jesus says that it takes honesty to look at the many ways the ego has offered us guidance that did not work out. The more I have done this the easier it is for me to see that the ego has no idea how to make me happy. There are so many ways it has led me astray. For instance, I have been married and divorced three times. Each time the ego promised that this man was the one. That if only I had this guy, I would be happy. I was a slow learner. Haha.
W-pI.66.10. You will listen to madness or hear the truth. 2 Try to make this choice as you think about the premises on which our conclusion rests. 3 We can share in this conclusion, but in no other. 4 For God Himself shares it with us. 5 Today’s idea is another giant stride in the perception of the same as the same, and the different as different. 6 On one side stand all illusions. 7 All truth stands on the other. 8 Let us try today to realize that only the truth is true.
I noticed a while back that everything is really very simple. It is true or it is not true. There really aren’t any other categories, just saying the same thing differently. So from this simple perspective, I let go of the complexity that is the ego. Is it an illusion or is it real? Even within the illusions, I can ask if it is a helpful illusion that is a step toward truth. Another way to say the same thing is to ask if it came from the ego-mind or the holy mind. Did I ask the ego for an interpretation or did I ask the Holy Spirit? It is all the same thing, and if I question everything from that perspective, I will not be confused and will choose wisely.
W-pI.66.11. In the shorter practice periods, which would be most helpful today if undertaken twice an hour, this form of the application is suggested:
2 My happiness and function are one, because God has given me both.
3 It will not take more than a minute, and probably less, to repeat these words slowly and think about them a little while as you say them.