Lesson 95

Lesson 95

I am one Self, united with my Creator.

Today’s idea accurately describes you as God created you. You are one within yourself, and one with Him. Yours is the unity of all creation. Your perfect unity makes change in you impossible. You do not accept this, and you fail to realize it must be so, only because you believe that you have changed yourself already.

You see yourself as a ridiculous parody on God’s creation; weak, vicious, ugly and sinful, miserable and beset with pain. Such is your version of yourself; a self divided into many warring parts, separate from God, and tenuously held together by its erratic and capricious maker, to which you pray. It does not hear your prayers, for it is deaf. It does not see the oneness in you, for it is blind. It does not understand you are the Son of God, for it is senseless and understands nothing.

We will attempt today to be aware only of what can hear and see, and what makes perfect sense. We will again direct our exercises towards reaching your one Self, which is united with Its Creator. In patience and in hope we try again today.

The use of the first five minutes of every waking hour for practicing the idea for the day has special advantages at the stage of learning in which you are at present. It is difficult at this point not to allow your mind to wander, if it undertakes extended practice. You have surely realized this by now. You have seen the extent of your lack of mental discipline, and of your need for mind training. It is necessary that you be aware of this, for it is indeed a hindrance to your advance.

Frequent but shorter practice periods have other advantages for you at this time. In addition to recognizing your difficulties with sustained attention, you must also have noticed that, unless you are reminded of your purpose frequently, you tend to forget about it for long periods of time. You often fail to remember the short applications of the idea for the day, and you have not yet formed the habit of using the idea as an automatic response to temptation.

Structure, then, is necessary for you at this time, planned to include frequent reminders of your goal and regular attempts to reach it. Regularity in terms of time is not the ideal requirement for the most beneficial form of practice in salvation. It is advantageous, however, for those whose motivation is inconsistent, and who remain heavily defended against learning.

We will, therefore, keep to the five-minutes-an-hour practice periods for a while, and urge you to omit as few as possible. Using the first five minutes of the hour will be particularly helpful, since it imposes firmer structure. Do not, however, use your lapses from this schedule as an excuse not to return to it again as soon as you can. There may well be a temptation to regard the day as lost because you have already failed to do what is required. This should, however, merely be recognized as what it is; a refusal to let your mistake be corrected, and an unwillingness to try again.

The Holy Spirit is not delayed in His teaching by your mistakes. He can be held back only by your unwillingness to let them go. Let us therefore be determined, particularly for the next week or so, to be willing to forgive ourselves for our lapses in diligence, and our failures to follow the instructions for practicing the day’s idea. This tolerance for weakness will enable us to overlook it, rather than give it power to delay our learning. If we give it power to do this, we are regarding it as strength, and are confusing strength with weakness.

When you fail to comply with the requirements of this course, you have merely made a mistake. This calls for correction, and for nothing else. To allow a mistake to continue is to make additional mistakes, based on the first and reinforcing it. It is this process that must be laid aside, for it is but another way in which you would defend illusions against the truth.

Let all these errors go by recognizing them for what they are. They are attempts to keep you unaware you are one Self, united with your Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace. This is the truth, and nothing else is true. Today we will affirm this truth again, and try to reach the place in you in which there is no doubt that only this is true.

Begin the practice periods today with this assurance, offered to your mind with all the certainty that you can give:

I am one Self, united with my Creator, at one with every 
aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace.

Then close your eyes and tell yourself again, slowly and thoughtfully, attempting to allow the meaning of the words to sink into your mind, replacing false ideas:

I am one Self.

Repeat this several times, and then attempt to feel the meaning that the words convey.

You are one Self, united and secure in light and joy and peace. You are God’s Son, one Self, with one Creator and one goal; to bring awareness of this oneness to all minds, that true creation may extend the allness and the unity of God. You are one Self, complete and healed and whole, with power to lift the veil of darkness from the world, and let the light in you come through to teach the world the truth about yourself.

You are one Self, in perfect harmony with all there is, and all that there will be. You are one Self, the holy Son of God, united with your brothers in that Self; united with your Father in His Will. Feel this one Self in you, and let It shine away all your illusions and your doubts. This is your Self, the Son of God Himself, sinless as Its Creator, with His strength within you and His Love forever yours. You are one Self, and it is given you to feel this Self within you, and to cast all your illusions out of the one Mind that is this Self, the holy truth in you.

Do not forget today. We need your help; your little part in bringing happiness to all the world. And Heaven looks to you in confidence that you will try today. Share, then, its surety, for it is yours. Be vigilant. Do not forget today. Throughout the day do not forget your goal. Repeat today’s idea as frequently as possible, and understand each time you do so, someone hears the voice of hope, the stirring of the truth within his mind, the gentle rustling of the wings of peace.

Your own acknowledgment you are one Self, united with your Father, is a call to all the world to be at one with you. To everyone you meet today, be sure to give the promise of today’s idea and tell him this:

You are one Self with me, united with our Creator in this Self. 
I honor you because of What I am, and What He is, 
Who loves us both as One.

 

Journal

“You are one Self, and it is given you to feel this Self within you, and to cast all your illusions out of the one Mind that is this Self, the holy truth in you.

¹⁴ Do not forget today. We need your help; your little part in bringing happiness to all the world. And Heaven looks to you in confidence that you will try today. Share, then, its surety, for it is yours. Be vigilant. Do not forget today. Throughout the day do not forget your goal.”

 We constructed a thought system that allowed us to have this experience of separation from God. If we imagine this thought system occupying a small room in our spacious mind, we can see that we gave the ego the job of keeping the door shut on this room. Jesus tells us that if we remember the love of God we will be drawn into that love, so the only way to have the experience is to be sure that door is never opened.

Lost as we are in our stories, we have forgotten that we made the ego and that it knows nothing of the truth and has no power over us. It can only distract us in some way from going through the door into eternity. It distracts through offering us shiny objects and stories to keep our attention. It distracts through fear and guilt. However, as we are ready to awaken, we are discovering that while it can distract us from wanting to go through the door, it cannot prevent the opening of the door.

Jesus is helping us to discover the door and helping us to move through it. He is doing this gently, a step at a time because we have become so confused that we think the ego is all there is and what it offers is the truth. This is why I keep asking the all important questions: What does this really mean? What am I? It is why I keep questioning the obstructions to that door and rejecting them as they occur to me. It is why I keep working to discipline my mind, frustrating as that is for me.

I am so moved by Jesus’ plea to us to not forget and to do our part to bring happiness to the world. I will be vigilant, Jesus. I won’t forget.

Regina’s Tip

“I am one Self, united with my Creator.” If this is true (and it is true), can I do anything apart from my Creator? In order to do something apart from my Creator, we’d have to be two, wouldn’t we?

This means that if I forget the lesson for a few hours, or if I remember but I have too much resistance to give 5 minutes to practice, that I am forgetting or resisting WITH my creator.

Again, remember The Code. The code that we create has different vibrational levels in it. When we choose the highest level available to us, we rise higher in vibration.

Choosing to believe a lower vibration thought/feeling cannot keep you down; only continuing to believe lower vibration thoughts/feelings can keep you down.

So when you make a mistake, correct it as soon as possible by choosing the highest vibrational thought available to you now. That is, forgive yourself, don’t give power to ideas like failure or guilt, and try again.

My Thoughts

So, this is another way to look at things. I love this way of seeing it because it includes the fact that we are part of God and this never changes, not even while we play at being human. I like the idea that all we are doing is choosing to raise our vibrational level so that we get closer and closer to our reality as part of God. It emphasizes that we are not trying to become Divine, we are Divine. We are not trying to get back to God, we are in God and trying to increase our ability to experience eternity rather than time.

Past Entry

I went back and read past journal entries and was not surprised to see that I started off believing that I was guilty and afraid because I could not do the lessons as I was supposed to. I was very aware of my fear of God, and my fear of losing myself. I see how resistant I was.

Here is what I said about my strong resistance:

“I forgot to do the lesson yesterday. I mean I completely forgot, did not even post on my website and thought I did. This is clearly resistance to learning this lesson. I began the lesson today and thought about how tired I feel after being sick and working while I was sick. I deserve a day off, I told myself. I just want to sit here and read a book or something. I need to go to the post office and the bank. I think of a hundred excuses and distractions; the ego mind doing its thing.”

Each year that I made an entry into my journal, I became more comfortable with the whole thing. By the last entry on this lesson, I was laughing at my lapses and my mistakes. It’s nice to see evidence of a gradual, consistent growth. This year I am completely comfortable with the lesson. I am not guilty when I do a less than stellar job with it. I am not guilty when I forget it all together. I can’t be guilty because I was created innocent and God’s creations remain as they were created.

What I feel as I read this lesson is that I and my brothers and sisters are one, united forever. Together we are the Christ Mind and we are one, united forever with our Creator. Nothing I think about myself or anyone else is true unless it is in alignment with this truth. Everything I think that denies this is an illusion and meaningless, and I would not have it stand between me and my reality.

Every grievance I hold is a block to the awareness of my reality. When I think of something unkind that was done to me or that I did to someone else, I have a choice. I can choose to hold that grievance close, but cold comfort it will be. Or I can release it to the Holy Spirit and ask to see the face of Christ instead. These are the only two options I have and I always choose one or the other. There is no neutral stance to take.

The choice I make determines whether I am moving closer to God, or entrenching myself in ego. How important can my grievances be when they keep me in hell? The ego lament, “But she is guilty,” begins to sound as foolish as it is when I consider the cost of believing it. It is patently foolish and completely impossible. The Son of God is innocent. Without my belief in guilt barring the way, union is sweetly inevitable.

I sometimes stop what I am writing in the morning and come back with fresh eyes and start again. I did that this morning and while away from the computer, I put my dirty dishes in the dishwasher. As I did so, I noticed a chip on a plate and my immediate reaction was one of anger. I had to laugh.

Am I seriously going to hold a grievance about a chipped plate? Who could have done this awful thing? How could I afford to leave hell if it means letting this scoundrel off the hook? The ego is absurd sometimes, and if I am not watching my mind, little grievances like this get right by me, but just because they seem little does not mean they will not block the awareness of love’s presence.

The one who chipped my plate is separate from me. He is the one responsible, the one guilty. I see how easy it is to slip into the ego belief that I and each other one is separate, and how I use grievances to maintain this impossible belief. I see how easy it is to give up the Kingdom and in its place, I get to be the separate one who was wronged.

I am laughing at the whole thing because it is blatantly absurd. Certainly, it is not a sin as the ego insists. That’s the way the ego perpetuates the illusion. Someone sinned against me. I hold him guilty. Now I am guilty of my unforgiveness. And around and around it goes, with no end in sight. Or I can laugh and release the ego thinking to the Holy Spirit, and be done with it. I choose freedom.