PART II. SECTION 5: WHAT IS THE BODY?
Lesson 264 I Am Surrounded By The Love Of God
- Father, You stand before me and behind, beside me, in the place I see myself, and everywhere I go. You are in all the things I look upon, the sounds I hear, and every hand that reaches for my own. In You time disappears, and place becomes a meaningless belief. For what surrounds Your Son and keeps him safe is Love Itself. There is no Source but This, and nothing is that does not share Its holiness; that stands beyond Your creation, or without the Love Which holds all things within Itself. Your Son is like Yourself. We come to You in Your Own Name today, to be at peace within Your everlasting Love.
- My brothers, join with me in this today. This is salvation’s prayer. Must we not join in what will save the world, along with us?[1]
Notes and Personal Application In this morning’s devotion we sat outside in the sun, sipping our second cup of coffee, looking out over the pond and the woods. It was a lovely morning here in Central PA – the temperature may have been just a few degrees above freezing but the sun was shining bright and warm, the air smelled clean, and the scent of fall in the air filled our lungs and seemed to uplift our spirits.
Jesus teaches that God is everything and everywhere. He is what we see, what we hear, what we touch. In God, Jesus says, time and place disappear because we are once again together, realizing we are whole and holy only when we are no longer dreaming of separateness, adrift and alone. As we awaken, we realize our divine nature. We step out of the sheath of flesh and blood destined to repeat cycles of decay and death; we return to our everlasting spirits, divine Sons of God, like God, and at peace in His everlasting love. No longer do we perceive ourselves as separate, lost, and yearning for that which never satisfies, for in God and through God we are united with the whole, we are home, and our desires are fulfilled.
When we discussed this concept this morning, we talked about how the eyes of the body do not see. In fact the eyes of the body were purposefully designed to see only separateness, promoting judgment, condemnation, favoritism, and specialness. With my human eyes I can only see you as different from me. I do not see how we are alike. I can only imagine the ways in which we may match for my eyes will only see the shape of your body, the color of your skin, the length of your hair. I will only see and judge you by the clothes you wear, the condition of your teeth, the way you smell, or by your gender identity or sexual preferences. I will not be able to see with my eyes how you lay awake in bed at night and ponder the meaning of life, how you feel ashamed of the ways you have disappointed your family and friends, or how you may worry about being able to pay your bills. I will not see how hard you work at being smart, rich, and accomplished, it will look to me that you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. I will think when I look at you all spiffed up in your Sunday best, that all your stars lined up to make your life wonderful while all my stars scattered to make my life chaotic and unlucky. I will not see the hours your practiced, the fun you missed, the meals you did not enjoy. I will not know that you went without sleep, or that at one time in your life, you felt like giving up. I will have no way of knowing that you and I are one, for in this realm we experience reality in shards and bits and pieces; reality has shattered for us in the world of separation, and I judge you and you judge me on what our ego tells us about the other based upon the ego-devised senses, perceptions, and judgments.
We are doomed in our separateness. We cannot partake in the everlasting kingdom as long as we see each other as apart from ourselves. This world of separateness will never be stable or offer us a place of certainty, love, peace, or joy because it is a kingdom apart from certainty, love, peace, and joy. In a universe where God is Everything, that which is not of God must be an illusion, a mass delusion. To escape this madness we seek God, we forgive the separation, we accept the message of Christ and devote our minds and hearts as one to God and all of Creation.
On a personal level, it simply means we lay our egos aside. On a moment-to-moment basis we train our minds to identify with Christ and no longer define Creation as separate from ourselves. Instead of seeing differences, we see how we are alike, how we fit into the whole. God directs even our dream of separation when we seek Him, recognizing our need for salvation, preparing our hearts and minds to return to Him, to come Home – bringing all of Creation with us.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 264. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com
the friar patch 