Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
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 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; 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, 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.[1]
Notes and Personal Application: In our devotional this morning, James and I discussed at length paragraphs eight through 10. The way some people act, you would think that the Holy Spirit is delayed in His teaching by our mistakes! The benefits of knowing that nothing can delay God’s Will, give us a tolerant, forgiving, and the correct point of view toward mistakes. Our mistakes are not powerful; they do not define us; they do not hinder God or His Will; they mean nothing except what we learn from them.
Jesus was discussing our mistakes in terms of not doing our mind-training exercises required by this Course. Five minutes every hour is not that big of a deal. We usually take a break of one kind or another every hour, no matter in what we may be engaged. What better use of our time than to remind ourselves that we are one Self, united with our Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace! Giving a few minutes of every hour to contemplating the truth about us, training our mind to get past the ego identity which we have in the world, rids us of any vain, vicious, or warped ideas that we may have about ourselves or others.
In our devotional this morning, James and I discussed how easy it is to define ourselves by our achievements or by our mistakes, by the opinions that other people would put upon us, by our bloodlines or our cultural heritage. How easy it is to label people by the crimes they have committed or the pickles they have got themselves involved in! Conversely, we tend to revere people who accomplish great things in the world or have accumulated fortunes.
Christ calls us to get past all that. This Sunday as we celebrate Palm Sunday, we are reminded of how fickle the flesh as we remember the crowds that flocked to welcome Christ into Jerusalem, throwing down robes and waving palm fronds – they called him King and sang Hosanna. Wowed by his miracles and desperately wanting to be free of the Romans, the people mistook the Savior for a mere earthly ruler who would vanquish their enemies and set up an earthly kingdom, elevating their status, and strengthening their cultural prestige.
Christ was not that kind of king, and we can be so thankful for that. While His followers did nothing to defend him in fear, disappointment, and sorrow, Christ knew that He was not a body. He knew that the witnesses to his body’s death would suffer guilt, shame, and bitter grief, and His heart of love went out to them. “Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do,” he prayed. Faced with beating, mockery, nakedness, and crucifixion was a sentence that nothing in God’s Kingdom could ever prepare Him for, and yet He knew that no matter the humiliation, the pain, the suffering – He would rise again. He was one with God, and the disloyalty of his followers, the fear of his beloved disciples, the betrayal of Judas, did nothing to hinder His resurrection, His purpose, God’s plan of salvation.
Jesus tells us today that none of our weaknesses, shortcomings, or failures will hinder God’s Will. We are not to give mistakes that kind of power in our spiritual training or any aspect of our life. We will do the best we can, and Holy Spirit will take our efforts and work with us. This Palm Sunday and throughout the coming week, let us remind ourselves as often as we can to stand with Christ. Repeat often the following words: Christ is the resurrection and the life, and we are One in Him, our holy Self. We are one with God. We honor one another because of what we are and what He is, because He loves us all as one.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 95. I am one Self…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). pp. 166-168.
the friar patch 