Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
Lesson 76 I Am Under No Laws But God’s.[1]
- We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation.[2] Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. You are not bound by them. Yet to understand that this is so, you must first realize salvation lies not there. While you would seek for it in things that have no meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no sense. Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it is not.
- Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. For if you could, you would forever seek salvation where it is not, and never find it. The idea for today tells you once again how simple is salvation.[3] Look for it where it waits for you, and there it will be found. Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere else.
- Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet, or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.
- It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the “laws” of medicine, of economics, and of health. Protect the body, and you will be saved.
- These are not laws but madness. The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body’s suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your “laws” would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body.
- There are no laws except the laws of God. This need repeating, over and over, until you realize it applies to everything that you have made in opposition to God’s Will. Your magic has no meaning. What it is meant to save does not exist. Only what it is meant to hide will save you.
- The laws of God can never be replaced. We will devote today to rejoicing that this is so. It is no longer a truth that we would hide. We realize instead it is a truth that keeps us free forever.[4] Magic imprisons, but the laws of God make free. The light has come because there are no laws but His.
- We will begin the longer practice periods today with a short review of the different kinds of “laws” we have believed we must obey. These would include, for example, the “laws” of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the body’s protection in innumerable ways. Think further, you believe in the “laws” of friendship, of “good” relationships and reciprocity. Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is God’s and what is yours.[5] Many “religions” have been based on this.[6] They would not save but damn in Heaven’s name. Yet they are no more strange then other “laws” you hold must be obeyed to make you safe.
- There are no laws but God’s. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice That speaks the truth to you. You will be listening to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of God. Payment is neither given nor received. Exchange cannot be made, there are no substitutes; and nothing is replaced by something else. God’s laws forever give and never take.
- Hear Him Who tells you this and realize how foolish are the “laws” you thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. He would tell you more about the Love your Father has for you, about the endless joy He offers you, about His yearning for His only Son, created as His channel for creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell.
- Let us today open God’s channel to Him and let His Will extend through us to Him. Thus is creation endlessly increased. His Voice will speak of this to us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever. We will repeat today’s idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws but God’s. Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice period concludes: “I am under no laws but God’s.”
- We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today; at least four or five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to experience ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgement that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved.
Notes and Personal Application (2019): Morning meditation: The “laws” that we have believed, and feel must be obeyed: Brush your teeth and wash your face and keep yourself constantly groomed to the best of your ability. Do not eat too much, do not eat too little, eat just right and make sure you get at least a half hour of exercise every day and don’t be fat or let your thighs rub together or get a big butt because boys will not like you, and eventually you will die of cardiac trouble. Be a good friend and reciprocate hospitality, gifts, cards, and that kind of stuff in kind or you won’t get invited back. Go to church, pay your tithes, sacrifice your privacy, time, money, and effort for others and do it for God, pay your medical benefits, get an education, drive the speed limit, get your car inspected, pay your taxes, love your family, celebrate the holidays on the specified days, get people – even the ones you don’t like that much – birthday cards, wash your car, once married always married, no divorce and remarriage, women wear dresses and men wear slacks, cover up your fat legs…Sacrifice baby animals, observe the Sabbath, honor your parents, don’t do this and don’t do that.
In order to survive and thrive in this world, these are some of the laws that we have made to keep the temporal world going from generation to generation. It seems to “work,” in the sense that we are born, we learn, we develop, we contribute, we do all sort of things, and then we die. In reality, I am not the body that the ego has created to symbolize our separation from God. My reality is my eternal Mind, my spirit, that which is created in God’s image and which never dies. The laws of this world do not apply to God’s kingdom where I am loved for simply being, where nothing is exchanged, where no sacrifices are required, where no debts are accumulated. In that Kingdom love rules and reigns and happiness is the goal. God’s law forever gives and never takes! I am under no laws but God’s.
Notes and Personal Application (2020): As long as we identify with our bodies, today’s lessons ideas seem crazy and irrational. Of course we have to work and make those green paper strips and metal disks! That is how we buy our food and pay our mortgage and credit card. When we are sick, we take small round pellets and sometimes get sharp needles injected into us to ward off death and disease. Our lesson is merely pointing out the laws of this world that we must follow to protect our body. We spend our whole lives here catering to and protecting our bodies and the bodies of those we love.
Jesus tells us that this is madness. We are freed from this madness and despair of this constant vigilance toward our flesh body when our minds are healed. Jesus says that the body suffers to draw the mind away from its own hurt and despair over our separation from our Source, from our Father, from our Creator. Our ego uses the body to distract us from who we are and what we are. The ego uses the constant demands, drives, and need for protection of our bodies to hide what it meant to save us! We know that this is true.
Anyone who has experienced the call of God upon their life will attest to the fact that one’s own body is the biggest interference to setting aside time every day to go inward. The body always “needs” something. Jesus is saying that these “needs” or the suffering we experience from the body is actually a mask that the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. When we identify as bodies, we spend our whole lives supporting flesh, transporting it from place to place, feeding it, grooming it, keeping it clean, teaching it to read and write and cater to the needs and suffering of other pieces of flesh. We can spend our whole lives under this false impression that the flesh is us and we are flesh. Jesus says there is no saving your flesh because it does not exist.
Here in the body, the flesh certainly seems to exist, but in the spiritual realm, which is reality, it is nothing but an illusion, a dream of separation, a nightmare of nothingness. Jesus calls it a realm of magic, which has imprisoned us. It enchants us. It charms us. It tricks us. It enslaves us. It can only do this as long as we identify with that which is not real. But God’s laws set us free! The light has come. Jesus asks us this day to remind ourselves repeatedly, in reality there are no laws but God’s. And God’s law is love. God’s law is liberty. God’s law is happiness. God’s law saves us from destruction, disease, and death which are the certain end of the body’s story.
I love how Jesus brings the truth to our religions that would enslave us to false beliefs about God’s laws. He blows the concept of God hoarding things to Himself right out of the water. God shares His all in all with us. He is not the big I Am while we are the grovelers and hangers-on. He made us to be like Him, to be with Him, and He needs us as much as we need Him. If God is all powerful, we are all powerful; if God is love, we are love; if God is holy and righteous, we are holy and righteous. Jesus says that our “religions” have made gods who are both loving and hating, forgiving and unforgiving, spiteful and vengeful, that He wishes for us to suffer to prove our goodness to Him. These are intentional misrepresentations of God meant to keep the truth of God’s love from us, meant to frighten us away from Him instead of love Him.
In this world, there are endless dictates which tell us how to protect ourselves. Wash our hands, don’t touch our faces, keep separate from others by at least six feet! This week schools, businesses, churches, and synagogues are closing their doors and canceling events in order to protect our mortal bodies from a virus which nobody seems to really know anything about.
In God’s Kingdom, there are not such worries. All is love, joy, and peace. Jesus says to seek first the Kingdom of God and find your identity there. Heal your mind and remind yourself of God’s laws. While we are still in the body, let us prepare for our release by repeating today’s idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws but God’s.
I am under no laws but God’s.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 76 I am under no laws…Circle of Atonement, Complete and Annotated Edition (2017). pp. 1080-1082.
[2] Workbook Lesson 50 p. 1, sentence 3 (W-150:1:3): “Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols: pills, money, ‘protective’ clothing, influence, prestige, being liked, knowing the ‘right’ people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness which you endow with magical power.” Text Chapter 27. Section 10, p. 2, sentence 3 (T-27:X:2:3): “It (the body) works to get them (‘little metal disks and paper strips’), doing senseless thing and tosses them away for senseless things it does not need and does not even want.”
[3] T-12:1:9:1: “How simple, then, is God’s plan for salvation.” T-15-10:VIII:6: “Salvation is simple, being of God, and therefore very easy to understand.” T-31:I:1:1: “How simple is salvation!”
[4] John 8:2 (KJV) “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
[5] A major focus of the Course is to correct the traditional view that what is God’s is His alone. The Course, therefore, emphasizes that God’s power, glory, will, Name, holiness, love, thoughts, peace, function, purpose, Kingdom, and Sons are also ours, because He has shared them with us.
[6] “Religions” is in quotation marks (as it is in the Notes) because Jesus does not consider these true religions, since they are based on a God that is not purely loving. This is similar to his comment in chapter 3 of the Text, where he mentions the traditional view of the crucifixion – that “God permitted and even encouraged one of His Sons to suffer because he was good” (T-3:III:2:1) – and then says, “This particularly anti-religious concept happens to enter into many religions, and this is neither by chance nor coincidence” (T-3.III.2:4).
the friar patch 