PART II. SECTION 7. What is the Holy Spirit?
Lesson 281 I Can Be Hurt By Nothing But My Thoughts
- Father, Your Son is perfect. When I think that I am hurt in any way, it is because I have forgotten who I am, and that I am as You created me. Your Thoughts can only bring me happiness. If ever I am sad or hurt or ill, I have forgotten what You think, and put my little meaningless ideas in place of where Your Thoughts belong, and where they are. I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts. The Thoughts I think with You can only bless. The Thoughts I think with You alone are true.
- I will not hurt myself today. For I am far beyond all pain. My Father placed me safe in Heaven, watching over me. And I would not attack the Son He loves, for what He loves is also mine to love.[1]
Today Jesus teaches us the power of our thoughts. Remember that the theme of this lesson is What is the Holy Spirit. Even though Jesus does not mention the Holy Spirit in today’s lesson, He is reminding us Who is to be in charge of our thoughts. When we are hurt in any way it is simply because we have forgotten to think with the Holy Spirit. This is a moment-to-moment walk and especially while we are in training, we are to devote as much time and energy and focus to our lesson concepts in order to train our minds to choose happiness, wholeness, and holiness. We can only do this by accepting the help of the Holy Spirit!
When we hold unforgiveness in our hearts toward those who hurt us, who abused us, who mocked or tormented or disappointed us in any way, we are not allowing Holy Spirit to sit on the throne of our minds. We have put up our small-minded ego to squat in His place. And it is going to hurt us because that is how it gets its jollies. We are going to get depressed instead of full of joy. We are going to be sad instead of happy. We are going to come down with symptoms. We are going to feel weak, helpless, grumpy, mean, and ill. If we continue letting the little toad spread viciousness and unforgiveness and condemnation in our minds, we will only get sicker and darker and sadder and weaker.
Jesus reminds us in today’s prayer that the thoughts we think with God can only bless. The thoughts we think with God alone are true. So let’s stop hurting ourselves today. Let us put God’s Gift upon the throne and keep Him on the throne of our minds. Holy Spirit only comes when welcomed. He only stays where He is respected, embraced, and heeded. Welcome with joy and with eyes alight Holy Spirit. Tell Him to influence our every thought, word, and deed. When memories of past abuse, bad manners, rudeness, and false prophets come to mind, hark back to what Jesus tells us in Chapter 22:6 v.8:
You will see your value through your brother’s eyes, and each one is released as he beholds his savior in place of the attacker who he thought was there. Through this releasing is the world released. This is your part in bringing peace. For you have asked what is your function here and have been answered. Seek not to change it, nor to substitute another goal. This one was given you and only this. Accept this one and serve it willingly, for what the Holy Spirit does with gifts you give your brother, to whom He offers them, and where and when, is up to Him. He will bestow upon them where they are received and welcomed. He will use every one of them for peace. Nor will one little smile or willingness to overlook the tiniest mistake be lost to anyone.[2]
As we stop cherishing our victimization and are willing to let the past be over in our minds, we step into the holy instant where everyone who has ever done anything wrong to us is welcomed as new creatures. What they did in the flesh is washed away. We no longer see an attacker; we no longer use their attack as an excuse to attack. We set them free and we are set free. We are not only releasing ourselves and our attackers, but we are releasing the world from sin. We are fulfilling our holy function. No matter what else we may think we are doing for God, if we harbor any unforgiveness and condemnation in our hearts toward our fellowman, we are keeping ourselves alien from the Sonship of God.
Years ago my sister and I had it out. I tried to set a boundary with her and instead of respecting it, she decided to withdraw from me and make me the guilty culprit. There is no doubt in my mind that I could have said what I said in a kinder way, there is no doubt in my mind that the issue was much larger than setting a much-needed boundary, I have no trouble at confessing that there were many other issues, namely that our relationship was built upon a framework of specialness instead of holiness and was doomed long before our falling out.
For years I dwelled upon all the ways in which my sister let me down. I talked it over with a therapist, I talked about it with my son and husband, my stepdaughter and friends. I talked about it at work. No matter how many times I gave the situation to Holy Spirit, I took it back again and tried to figure it out, get insights from others, come up with solutions that would not subjugate me to the old ways of making up with her – mainly taking all the blame, saying I was sorry when I was clearly not in the wrong, and letting her completely off the hook which would not help either one of us. It was not until I gave the relationship completely to Holy Spirit with total forgiveness extended on both sides and I quit dwelling on it, talking about it, and trying to patch things up that peace came to my mind. Now when I think of my sister, I think of her goodness, beauty, humor, kindness, the fun things we did together down through the years, the deep and abiding love we have for one another in our spirits. The flesh part of our relationship may have been hindered by mockery, jokiness, falsehoods, jealousy, and rivalry but through Holy Spirit I can overlook all of that and can rest assured that one day, when she welcomes God’s Gift, so will she. The fallout no longer makes me ill. I have learned so many important lessons from it through the gift of Holy Spirit who translated all of the hurt, pain, and sorrow into a means to learn the difference between a special relationship built on ego and a holy relationship built upon the love of God.
When we hold on to unforgiveness, when we condemn others in our minds and with our words, when we allow our minds to ruminate upon the negative things from our past that hurt us and confused us, we are holding on to our pain and sorrow and our bodies will reflect it and we will suffer.
However when we take everything to Holy Spirit and ask Him to translate it into whatever he sees fit, we no longer carry the pain, the hurt, the stress of trying to find a solution in a world designed to keep us searching without finding. We are taking it to the one whose very function is to take that which is unreal and make something useful from it. Only Holy Spirit knows the answer to our relationship woes. The ego craves to sit on the throne where Holy Spirit belongs, but it is ill-equipped to heal relationships, offer healing, or bring correction to the circumstances and situations we find all around us in the world. The ego can only make matters worse filling our hearts and minds with thoughts of hatred, fear, attack, and counterattack. And we end up hurting ourselves and everyone around us when we let the ugly little squatter sit where it simply does not belong.
Refuse to have anything more to do with ego worries, frets, concerns, and fear. Invite and keep the altar of your mind fresh, clean, and pure for the Holy Spirit to move and work its heavenly function of love and forgiveness. Every time you think of one who hurt you, who took from you, who did something that your ego simply will not forgive, put down the ego by calling upon God’s love. Follow in the footsteps of Jesus who loved His enemies, blessed those who cursed Him, and prayed for the very people who beat, humiliated, and crucified Him. While this is impossible to the ego, this is the Holy Spirit’s function in our lives. Our function is to keep our minds aligned with His.
Remember this is only hard on the ego, not on our true Selves. This is our way to health, our well-being, our eternal happiness and is well-worth every effort!
[1] A Course In Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 281. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 438.
[2] A Course in Miracles. Chapter 22:VI:8, Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). P. 482.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ www.eckiefriar.com
the friar patch 