Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

Review IV

Lesson 150 My Mind Holds Only What I Think With God.

(139)  I will accept Atonement for myself.

(140)  Only Salvation can be said to cure.¹

Notes and Personal Application: Today is our last day in Review IV.  We spend five minutes in the morning and evening contemplating the theme of our review – My holds only what I think with God.  The thoughts we think in the world that revolve around survival, pleasures, avoiding pain, and planning our defenses against all of the world’s woes are only temporary.  We must think them in time, but now that we have made the decision for Heaven, we know that these thoughts are not our own.  They are thoughts generated by a world separated from God, from truth, from reality.  We do not need them where we are going.  We do not want them.  We are willing to loose them.  While we are in time, we may enjoy our food, our clothes, our means of transportation.  We may like our hobbies, excel at our jobs, enjoy the companionship of our mates and children and friends, but we no longer cherish the thoughts of the world; we cherish only the thoughts of God.

In lesson review 139, we tell our minds firmly and with certainty that we accept Atonement for ourselves.  We have made the decision for Heaven.  We no longer accept the world’s version of ourselves.  No matter how much we love our bodies, we know that we are not our bodies!  We know that we are not our occupations.  We know that we are far more than what we have in the bank, or how much we do for our families or communities.  We no longer question who we are!  We have accepted the Atonement for ourselves and we know who we are – we are God’s perfect Son, part of the Brotherhood of Christ, the Sonship of God.  Atonement is the remedy for any question about our identity.  We have no concerns about our ancestry, evolution vs. creation, or our DNA.  We are not made of flesh and blood.  We are born of God, we are the Mind of Christ, everlasting spirits dedicated to the cause of unity. 

Atonement clear our minds of all the cobwebs the world weaves around our identity and gives us the certainty of God.  Atonement exposes the world’s mockery and spite it would use to keep us from knowing who and what we are.  As we accept the Atonement of Christ, we become one with Christ.  It is our salvation.  And salvation is the cure for all that ails the world.

When we are saved, we are cured.  Our minds no longer accept the world’s label of what and who we are.  We are whole, we are holy, we are free of condemnation, of sin, of guilt and shame.  God abides in us and where God abides sin and sickness cannot be. 

It is this thought that cures us – it makes no distinctions.  It is not magic – it does not involve spells, potions, or sacrifices.  It does not call upon a special someone to perform a costly operation or exorcism or provide a miracle.  It is simply truth applied.  We listen for the Voice for God, the Voice for healing, the Voice for sanity.  There is nothing else can heal except this quiet Voice for God.  When we quiet our minds and still our bodies, we listen.  We clear our inner altars of all the chatter, the demands, the chores that pile up and clamor for our attention.  We stop all interfering thoughts as one and lay them aside.  We come to Him now with nothing to offer him except our quiet hearts and open minds. 

We say with the earnestness of an unblemished child, “Only salvation can be said to cure.  Speak to us, Father, that we may be healed.”  For all of our mental anguish, stress, and sorrow we say this prayer.  For all of our aches and pains that strain and weary our earthly domains, we pray these words. 

Jesus says that as we pray this prayer, our salvation covers us softly, protecting us with a peace so deep the world can no longer deceive us or tempt us to believe in its dreams.  Give it a go.  As we get past our skepticism, our irrational affection for pain and suffering, we call upon our Father, believing in our salvation to not only save our souls but keep our earthly bodies functioning in health and wellness.  His Will is our happiness, here in this dream and in the world beyond.  When we know this, we can accept it as gratefully and as expectantly as a most treasured child, His beloved Son. 

¹A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 150. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 277.

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

Review IV

Lesson 149 My Mind Holds Only What I Think With God.

(137)  When I am healed, I am not healed alone.

(138)  Heaven is the decision I must make.[1]

Notes and Personal Application:  Today we open with the prayer that our mind holds only what we think with God.  This is not a prayer request; it is a prayer of confirmation.  All other thoughts in our mind fade away – we are left holding only what we think with God.  When we meditate upon this lesson idea for five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the evening, we are setting ourselves free from troublesome worries, cares, and concerns – everything is in God’s capable hands.  We are His and only what we think with Him means anything at all.  There is no need to fight off ungodly thoughts; we simply recognize them for the big nothing that they are and gladly let them go.  Unholiness is a thing of the past – it is gone, as if it never were. 

While yesterday’s last lesson review was “sickness is a defense against truth,” today’s idea pulls us away from the idea of sickness and assures us that as we choose truth over sickness, our healing heals not only ourselves, but our brothers as well.  While sickness operates on laws from this world, healing operates on laws from the world beyond this one.  Sickness splinters our wholeness with others; healing makes us one again.  Healing is wholeness, and we are whole only through our oneness, the Brotherhood of Christ, the Sonship of God. 

Jesus reminds us that in the world Anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those whose body seems more stable and solid than the mind.  In the world, the message of Christ is nothing but a dream, a false hope.  Those who seek the world beyond are despised here as insipid and foolish, while salvation’s cynics are seen as shrewd and smart, the ones who have a firm grip upon a reality which can be witnessed, defended, examined, judged, condemned, and justified.   Yet these world views sicken our minds, cause our bodies to fail us, and cement our minds in fear and separation. 

When we allow our minds to grasp the truth, we are healed.  And we are not healed alone!  In paragraph 10, Jesus tells us that all of those around us, who cross our minds, the ones we touch, and even those with whom we have lost touch with, who no longer speak to us or appreciate our gifts, are healed along with us.[2]  We have no need to go out in the highways and byways and convert others to our way of thinking.  We simply focus upon our own healing and the healing of others naturally follows. 

In our second review idea, we contemplate the idea that Heaven is the decision that we must make.  It is not “a” decision, it is “the” decision, the one decision we must make while we are under the mesmerism of time.  In reality, the decision has already been made for us.  There is no choice.  God has made us and has not abandoned us.  But in the dream-like enchantment of separateness, we are here to make the conscious choice for heaven.  Consciously, we must consider the alternatives, to understand what we are up against, we must look upon the darkness and the shadows and to judge it with the help of Heaven.  We must be willing to have our perceptions be corrected; we must want the truth, and only the truth.  We must give up our love for darkness and the lie.  We choose heaven when we recognize how all else lacks meaning, has no value, and ends in death. 

Choosing heaven ends not only the fear of hell, but the fear of God.  Choosing heaven means we no longer value the valueless – we no longer insanely attempt to make meaning where none can be found.  Our attachments, our idolatry, our bad habits, the false affections and affectations that loomed so large are seen for what they truly are – dumb and trite mistakes, easily forgiven, long forgotten, of no lasting effect.  We are free of terror, spite, and lies forever.  We are free of the world of opposites, of specialness, of death.  Heaven is the decision that we make.  We never change our minds, because when we make that conscious choice, it is the only thing we could possibly want. 

[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 149. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 277.

[2] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 139. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 265.

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

Review IV

Lesson 147 My Mind Holds Only What I Think With God.

(133)  I will not value what is valueless.

(134)  Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.[1]   

Notes and Personal Application:  We thought we would take our minds from God, but it is impossible to take what belongs to God.  What belongs to God will always remain as God’s.  We belong to Him.  In time, we may experience what feels like a separation, but Jesus assures us throughout our Course study, that our humanity is a hoax – we are not bodies, we are spirits, made in the image of God.  We belong to Him and we are one with Him.  Our minds cannot exist without Him; our minds can hold only what we think with Him.  Everything else is a fabrication.  It dies and is no more.  Good riddance!

Today we give five minutes to contemplating this truth.  We give back to God that which never left Him, for we have always belonged to Him, heart, mind, and soul.  He never left us go, He never abandoned us to a cruel world.  He never kicked us out of His Kingdom.  Once we recognize this truth, we are no more willing to value the worthless dream.  We can only value that which is of God.  We can only be drawn to that which speaks of God, for we no longer value the nightmare of separation when we remember our oneness and unity with God. We can only hold in our mind that which we think with God.

In lesson review 134, we ask to perceive forgiveness as it is.  True forgiveness cannot be found in the world.  The world does not understand true forgiveness because when the world forgives it makes wrongdoing real.  It does not correct.  It does not undo.  True forgiveness undoes any wrongdoing by simply recognizing that it is not real.  When someone steals from me, what they stole is not real, the alter self which would take that which does not belong to them is not real, nor is the justice system that is set up to judge, punish, and condemn real in the everlasting sense of the word. 

It certainly feels real enough.  Even as I sit here and write this blog I am thinking of how much I despise a thief.  I can hardly bear the thought of someone stealing from me.  I honestly think that thieves are as bad as killers, and I have every right to protect my stuff from someone’s sticky fingers!  But no matter how real it would seem to me if someone stole my car or my tractor or my homemade potholders, it simply is not real.  As much as it might bother me, it is just a glitch in time, it passes, it means nothing, and it is nothing.  The only way to undo the thievery is to forgive it.  We do not value the valueless.  We let it go.  We trust in God and we hold everything here in this world with an open hand.  Forgiveness then goes deep.  This was something we discussed in yesterday’s ACIM meeting.  When we first started this path, forgiveness was highly personalized – one by one we went through our past and forgave (as best we could) those who we had formerly condemned for disappointing or hurting us.  The list seemed endless.  Sometimes the forgiveness would “take,” and other times we would have to keep doing it.  But now forgiveness is more abstract.  It is less personal.  We forgive because we have no expectations here.  We no longer value the valueless.  We forgive it because the world cannot be any other way. 

While I enjoy my stuff and am happy with what our hard work and sacrifices has brought into our existence here, I understand that it has no eternal value whatsoever.  I cannot take any of it with me to the world beyond!  I would not want to.  I want to hang on to what brings me joy and pleasure here as long as I can, but if someone steals it from me, they will not be stealing my joy, my freedom, or my salvation.  When I forgive the world, I undo all the effects it has on me, I loosen its hold upon me, I am liberated. I am saved! 

Throughout the day remind yourself of the lesson review ideas.  Seal them in your mind and heart by asking Holy Spirit to reveal their truth to you.  Nothing we go through in separation is real or has any meaning or worth.  We do not take it with us.  When we go to the world beyond this one, we go pure and holy and unencumbered.  We do not take our wounds, our sorrow, our grief, our pleasures, or our belongings.  We return to God in our right minds and with our eyes awakened from the enchantment of the world.  We do not return groggy, drunken, or in a drug induced stupor.  We have looked at the world with opened eyes, we are deceived no more.  We no longer value the valueless. We forgive it and everything and everyone in it for being the big nothing it has proved to be.  This is forgiveness as it is.

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 147. Kindle Edition.

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

Review IV

Lesson 146 My Mind Holds Only What I Think With God.

(131) No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

(132)  I loose the world from all I thought it was.[1]

Notes and Personal Application:  Today during our ACIM meeting, I shared how much the theme of Review IV means to me.  One of the most difficult struggles that I have had throughout my life is holding loving and trusting thoughts in my mind.  I always felt as if I were not a good enough person to be a Christian because no matter how hard I tried I could not control the thoughts that were in my mind.  They seemed to just pop into my head and many times out of my mouth before I even had a chance to process them.  Thoughts seemed to be my responsibility even though they seemed to be coming from everywhere.  But the onus for thoughts are not ours, Jesus informs us.  Thoughts are from one of two sources – the thoughts of the ego which are not true thought but only random and chaotic distractions to keep us from the truth, or the thoughts of God which are the truth.  Our mind holds only what we think with God.  Everything else fades in time.  I have no reason to be ashamed of them, to take responsibility for them, to try to change them.  They are not mine!

Knowing that they are not mine, that there is no reason to act upon them, knowing that they are not true or real or hold any promise at all, sets me free.  I am free to forgive, I am free to hold thoughts of God, I am free to be creative and to fulfill my God-given function. 

My God-given function here in time is to seek the truth.  And today’s lesson review assures us that no one who seeks the truth can fail.  We can not fail.  This means that every path, even those which seem to lead us astray, always ends in truth.  We tend to judge ourselves and others by our process, but the process is only the means, and not the end.  The end for all of our seeking is truth.  We cannot fail.

The second review idea has proved to be the biggest illusion-buster of all.  When we loose the world from all we thought it was, we are free of it.  The world’s battles are not our battles.  The world’s worries are not our worries.  The world with all its calls and causes, its chaos and consternations, its proposals and plans is recognized for the shadowlands it is, and we let it go. It was not what we thought it was.  We thought we could find happiness, meaning, love, certainty, and security, but the world cannot give what it was meant to take away.  We see it for what it is, a death trap, a network of lies, centuries of war, purges, plunder, rape, and despair.  We loose it.  We forgive it.  We get over it.  No more whining and complaining about it.  No more thinking others have got a better deal than us, no more demanding our rights or clamoring for justice.  We no longer seek for what will never be found here.  When we loose the world, we are free! 

Today we ask Holy Spirit within to inform us, to make these concepts real to us, to bring them to life.  We let them light our path and bring peace to our hearts.  We repeat them often and memorize their truth.  We share these concepts only with those who desire to hear them for they are precious and of great value and not to be broadcast indiscriminately or given to those who are not prepared.  Our mind holds only what we think with God.  With certainty we reach for truth as we loose the world from what we thought it was. 

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 146. Kindle Edition.

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

(129) Beyond this world is a world I want.

(130) It is impossible to see two worlds.[1]

Notes and Personal Application: Each day in Review Four, as we focus upon the main theme of “my mind holds only what I think with God,” our eyes are opened to the reality of God’s Kingdom, our everlasting home.  In the world, our brains are constantly firing off random and not so random thoughts – calling for us to do this and to do that, to come here and go there, to chase this cause or trash that one, to love him or to hate her.  This continues while we sleep – our evolved brain manufactures dreams that we cannot help but ponder.  Are their hidden messages, signs and omens of unforeseen events or happenings in our nighttime fables? 

Our personal concerns and cares loom large in our brains; we chew our nails and gnash our teeth with worry and fret; and then they pass, and our brains go on to gnaw upon fresh cartilage.  But our minds!  A completely different story.  Time cannot steal the thoughts we think with God.  The thoughts we think with God are forever.  And so it is with this understanding, this keen awakening to its truth, that we begin to remember the real world.

Beyond this world, is the world we yearn for and long for, the world we really want.  Here we have an upside down, twisted version of that one.  Here we have the polluted nightmare – the fear of God, and not the love of God.  Here we have the special relationships, which the world substitutes for holy relationships.  Here we learn in bits and parts and scattered, disconnected pieces; there we learn holistically because everything and everyone are unified.  Here we chase after that which will never satisfy; there we have no need to pursue, strive, or stress ourselves over what we have freely, abundantly, and forever.  You get the picture.  This is the world we want.  This world is the tormented reflection of the world that lies beyond.  Throughout the day, we are to remind ourselves that the world beyond this one holds everything we want.  To want anything in this world is to doom ourselves to constant repair, regret, and dissatisfaction; to merely want the world beyond this one sets our feet upon the right path and heals our minds in the here and now. 

And then we learn that we cannot see two worlds.  We are either totally bamboozled with this one, or we see it for what it is – a sham, a perversion, a matrix of opposites.  We either continue to seek for that which cannot be found here in this world, or we seek for the happiness which can only be found in the world beyond.  We identify ourselves and others through egos, personality, and bodies or we identify through our brotherhood in Christ, our Sonship with God, our everlasting spirits.  We judge ourselves and others by the past, or we set each other free in the present moment as we recognize our wholeness, our holiness.  We cannot have it both ways.  We either awaken in the nightmare and bring it to truth, or we continue to dream the dark dreams of death, seeking for truth where it cannot be found.

Giving our minds to thoughts of God and with God only seems unnatural in time.  While in this world we need to set times for devotion, for times of quiet and contemplation, for times of remembering and refreshing our minds – in the world beyond we are one with God.  We are plugged in, so to speak, to our Source at all times.  Nobody has to remind us; no temptations would come to knock us off our paths or steal the truth and twist it to alarm and stress us.  As we awaken in this world, do not let the calls for five minutes in the morning and in the evening distress us, do not let the calls for hourly reminders of our lesson review ideas weigh upon us.  Ask God to help us learn to stay as one with Him throughout the day.  The quiet Voice for God is within us, is one with us.  As we begin to practice quietness, we will realize how full our minds are of thoughts with God.  It becomes then, unnatural, and shocking even, to imagine ever wanting any other world then the one beyond the one in which we dream. 

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 145…Kindle Edition.

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

Lesson 144 My Mind Holds Only What I Think With God.

(127) There is no love but God’s.

(128) The world I see holds nothing that I want.¹

Notes and Personal Application: This morning we spend five minutes reflecting upon the ongoing theme of Review Four: “My mind holds only what I think with God.” When this concept becomes clear to our understanding we begin to get a glimmer of what the whole intention of A Course in Miracles is all about – there is God who is Everything, and there is nothing which is not everything.  When we say we are afraid of nothing, we should mean that we are sincerely afraid of that which is not God!  For that which is not God, is the nothingness of time where we cannot even begin a sentence and complete it without it disappearing into the past. 

It is not a matter of willpower then to hold thoughts with God in our mind – it is simply a matter of recognizing all other thoughts are only meaningful in time and that they all end up as nothing in the end.  There is a certainty and a freedom that comes with realizing that while it feels like a choice for God, in reality there is no choice to be made, it is simply a matter of how much time it will take for our minds to realize that God is the One and Only and we are one with Him. 

We see how this serves as a framework for our two lesson ideas.  When we grasp our oneness with God, we experience the truth of “There is no love but God’s.”  The attachments that we have in this world are the closest we get to experiencing love, but Jesus tells us that nothing that can turn to vengeance, to spite, to hate, suspiciousness, jealousy or possessiveness is love.  All of us know how very possessive we are toward those we love in the flesh.  We want them to all to ourselves.  In time we are limited by our separation – when my friend runs off to the other side of the world and meets new friends, I am left behind and cannot help but feel abandoned.  When our mates lick their chops over someone else, we feel jealousy like stabs to our heart.  When our little ones start to grow up and do not want to spend as much time with us, we are bewildered and feel a bit lost and may grow petty and possessive and put unnatural demands upon them.  We say we love this one and that one but say mean things behind their backs and judge and condemn and get jealous when things turn out better for them than they do for us.  We have experienced our own capricious natures – how we can be so in love one day and fall for someone completely different the next.  We can always find reasons to love and reasons not to love – it feels like a choice.  But there is no love, but God’s and God’s love is not fickle.  His love does not change, falter, dim, and betray.  It is certain, it is constant, it is forever.  We can bank on it.  It does not die, it does not cheat, it does not demand, or manipulate.  God’s Love is the only love – if we do not have forever love, we do not have love – we have something else that we may call love, but it is a counterfeit, a stand-in, an imitation.  The world would have us believe that love is a bitch, a torment, and sorrow, but the world knows nothing of love. 

Once we understand that there is no love but God’s, we stop trying to find it in the world.  We no longer have to bark up the wrong tree!  We are free.  We forgive the world and everyone in it for not loving us the way in which we craved to be loved.  We can forgive ourselves for not loving others the ways in which they demanded they be loved from us.  We can absolve everyone and everything for failing, because the world and everyone in it is only here to teach us who and what we really are.  As we review lesson idea number 128, “The world I see holds nothing that I want,” we know what it means!  We know that it is true!  We know that no matter what we gain in the world, it ends, it comes to naught, it lasts for a fleeting moment and then is gone.  All we want is God’s Love, God’s certainty, for we are one with Him. 

Reflect upon these ideas often today, memorize them, recite them.  Ask Holy Spirit to make them real to your mind and heart, open your spiritual eyes to see the lessons that He will use to illustrate the truth of your salvation, your unity with God, your Sonship.  Our minds belong to Him and only Him.  There is no love but His.  The world does not compare!   

¹ A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 144. Kindle Edition.

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com