Lesson 84

These are the ideas for today’s review:

W-pI.84.1. (67) Love created me like itself.

2 I am in the likeness of my Creator. 3 I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss and I cannot die. 4 I am not a body. 5 I would recognize my reality today. 6 I will worship no idols, nor raise my own self-concept to replace my Self. 7 I am in the likeness of my Creator. 8 Love created me like itself.

W-pI.84.2. You might find these specific forms helpful in applying the idea:

2 Let me not see an illusion of myself in this.
3 As I look on this, let me remember my Creator.
4 My Creator did not create this as I see it.

My Thoughts

What I am is so very different from what I made as an image of a separated self that it is hard to fathom from this perspective. But this body/personality self is not me and has never been me. I am spirit. I am in the likeness of my Creator. All these things I seem to experience in a body in a world of time and space happen nowhere but in the mind. I know this is true, but our stories feel so real that it is easy to get lost in them.

I received a call from my son today. His mother-in-law died at his house and he and his partner want me to do the funeral. I don’t mind doing funerals and I will be glad to do this for Trish but I will have to drive quite a way to do this as they live in another state. It will mean canceling appointments and trying to find my way there without getting lost as well as the long drive back.

I stopped myself and remembered that I am looking at an illusion. The illusion is filled with objections. I feel like this is too much for me. But I also know that is not true. Let me not see an illusion of myself in this. My Creator did not create this as I see it, so I must be seeing it wrong. I let my mind rest in the truth and I felt the distress fall away.

The ego-mind is always so dramatic about everything. I slipped into a story for a few minutes and became confused about reality. There is no reason to think this is going to be a problem. I will drive there and do the funeral and drive home. I’ve done things like this many times. I laughed at myself for my temporary relapse into insanity.

W-pI.84.3. (68) Love holds no grievances.

2 Grievances are completely alien to love. 3 Grievances attack love and keep its light obscure. 4 If I hold grievances I am attacking love, and therefore attacking my Self. 5 My Self thus becomes alien to me. 6 I am determined not to attack my Self today, so that I can remember Who I am.

W-pI.84.4. These specific forms for applying this idea would be helpful:

2 This is no justification for denying my Self.
3 I will not use this to attack love.
4 Let this not tempt me to attack myself.

My Thoughts

The experience I had today talking to my son is an example of a grievance. I was aggrieved that I was being asked to do something I didn’t want to do and that I had no reasonable way out of it. There was no way I was going to say no to my son, so to resent being asked was nonsense. I saw this pretty quickly and I am grateful for the practice of the Course that makes these turnarounds so simple and easy. To do otherwise is to attack myself and to deny who I am. I’m no longer interested in living like that. How I react to what happens in the world is up to me. I can look at it with my wrong-mind and suffer, or I can look at it with my right-mind and enjoy myself. I’m going with the right mind this time.