Daily Lesson

  

Lesson 149
My mind holds only what I think with God.

<  GUIDANCE from ELDER BROTHER > 

   ~ Original Handscript of ACIM

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REVIEW IV  

W-pI.149.1. (137) When I am healed I am not healed alone.

W-pI.149.2. (138) Heaven is the decision I must make.  

 
 "Heaven is a decision that I must make."  I realize how important this thought is when I am entertaining thoughts of worry, anxiety, anger, grievances, annoyance, irritation, impatience, any kind of distress, or, in fact, any kind of expectation ....all of which I can choose to change my mind about and choose Heaven instead. It is so easy to just say that I am in a bad mood, or I am having a difficult day and allow my mind free reign to stay that way. It can be funny to ask "Who is the "I" that is in a bad mood?" When we identify with that "I" small self, we believe that this is our identity. But when we withdraw belief from it, we can simply be the witness of this state and choose to change our minds. When we witness this state through the eyes of Jesus/Holy Spirit from outside of this dream then we are seeing it for what it is...nothing.

Choosing happiness, choosing Heaven, choosing joy and peace, takes a kind of mind discipline that we "don't always feel like doing." We let the ego run rampant and justify why we feel the way we do. To make a choice for Heaven is to be willing to have the blocks to love removed with the help of the Holy Spirit. These blocks keep us from awareness of the truth of who we are. When we stubbornly resist the healing work, we are then closing the door to Heaven.  That is why the beautiful painting of Jesus knocking on the door, has no door handle on his side of the door. Because it is only by our choice that he can be let in.   It is our decision. It is all up to us. Only we, have the power and the freedom to choose. Jesus will never impose his will on us. In fact it is entirely up to us to save ourselves as there is no savior outside of our own minds. The Power is in our right mind.

 Jesus or the Holy Spirit can't bypass our choice as this would only serve to undermine the power of our minds and our will to choose when we will allow Heaven in by being willing to release our blocks to God's Love for us. Our will is as powerful as God's because He created us and we have all of His attributes. But we are also told that our pain threshold is not without limits. That is why He can be certain that the day will come when we will choose the path to Heaven because while our tolerance for pain may be huge, He does tell us that it is not without limit.

 But, we don't have to wait for pain to become intolerable in order to make a decision for Heaven and we need to be motivated to keep making this choice with every negative thought that crosses our minds. That is what these practices are about. Each time we apply the lesson, our motivation for peace and for Heaven are increased. We can change our minds at any time and recognize that peace can be available to us right now in this very moment. And as we connect our minds to Heaven, we will also connect to each other because as today's lesson also reminds us "When I am healed, I am not healed alone." There is no other. "As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself." (T-8.III.4). What healing does, is overturn the laws of sickness showing us their unreality. These laws, which we believe have power, must not be real when we see how easily they are overturned without physical means. Healing cancels out the dream of sickness and demonstrates that we are all one.

 So, it is all about deciding and choosing and being willing. What holds us back? What are we afraid of? We think we can protect and defend ourselves from being too vulnerable. We think that by staying angry, by being right, by holding onto our perspectives and our opinions, we will maintain our independence and our autonomy. But it is in our vulnerability that we are strong. So we need to be willing to surrender to the love that surrounds us by plugging into our power source-God. If we can choose Heaven at any moment and don't, we need to ask ourselves, "what is stopping me in this moment?" "What is my payoff to stay with the ego choices?" There is always a payoff for being in control, for being the martyr and for being the victim. We don't do anything without some kind of 'juice' that we are getting from the program we have chosen. Even pain is a payoff because someone must pay. By our suffering we show our brother how guilty he is. We demonstrate their sin by showing them our injured self. Examining our ego programs is not always fun but always worthwhile if we are committed to our healing. It is the only way to Heaven. We can't go around our own fear but must go through the darkness. And fortunately for us, it shows itself to us daily every time we are triggered by anyone or any situation outside of us.

Under all of this is the unconscious belief in sin and with it the belief that we will be punished with hell. So we spend our lives running from this belief by focusing on distractions and refusing to look at our fears. We pursue the good life in the belief that we can somehow carve out some kind of pleasure in the face of aging, dying and spending an eternity in hell. This is apparently what we are running from with our pursuit of happiness as we define it in the world. So this unconscious belief  in death and our fear of waking up to the god of the ego, that we have made, must be brought to light to see that it has no validity. This is a vengeful god that we have projected our own ego onto and told him who he is. There is only Heaven and that is the only choice to be made.   Our guilt is released through forgiveness by watching our unforgiving thoughts and being willing to turn them over to the Holy Spirit and when we do,  we will experience the truth of our being which has never sinned and is eternally pure and innocent as created by God.

Continue your practice as before beginning and ending the day with time devoted to the preparation of our minds to learn what each idea can offer us in freedom and in peace.   Let us commit today to raising every judgment to doubt. Open your mind and clear it of all thoughts that would deceive. Continue with the hourly remembrance and whenever you feel triggered by anything today, apply the lesson.

Love and Blessings,  

Quotes in this article are from Foundation for Inner Peace edition; To locate the same quotes in the 'Original Edition', use this link:  http://www.jcim.net/acim_us/Acim.php  
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A Course in Miracles   
TEXT  

Chapter THIRTEEN    

From Perception to Knowledge

VII. The Happy Learner                                                               

⁵⁴ The Holy Spirit needs a happy learner in whom His mission can be happily accomplished. You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are miserable and not happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast, for you believe that misery is happiness. This has so confused you that you have undertaken to learn to do what you can never do, believing that unless you learn it, you will not be happy. You do not realize that the foundation on which this most peculiar learning goal depends means absolutely nothing. It does make sense to you.

⁵⁵ Have faith in nothing, and you will find the "treasure" that you sought. Yet you will add another burden to your mind, already burdened or you would not have sought another. You will believe that nothing is of value and will value it. A little piece of glass, a speck of dust, a body or a war are one to you. For if you value one thing made of nothing, you have believed that nothing can be precious and that you can learn how to make the untrue true.

⁵⁶ The Holy Spirit, seeing where you are but knowing you are elsewhere, begins His lesson in simplicity with the fundamental teaching that truth is true. This is the hardest lesson you will ever learn, and in the end the only one. Simplicity is very difficult for twisted minds. Consider all the distortions you have made of nothing-all the strange forms and feelings and actions and reactions that you have woven out of it. Nothing is so alien to you as the simple truth, and nothing are you less inclined to listen to. The contrast between what is true and what is not is perfectly apparent, yet you do not see it.

⁵⁷ The simple and the obvious are not apparent to those who would make palaces and royal robes of nothing, believing they are kings with golden crowns because of them. All this the Holy Spirit sees and teaches simply that all this is not true. To these unhappy learners who would teach themselves nothing and delude themselves into believing that it is not nothing, the Holy Spirit says, with steadfast quietness:

⁵⁸ The truth is true. Nothing else matters, nothing else is real,
    and everything beside it is not there. Let Me make the one
    distinction for you which you cannot make but need to learn.
    Your faith in nothing is deceiving you. Offer your faith to Me,
    and I will place it gently in the holy place where it belongs.
    You will find no deception there but only the simple truth.
    And you will love it because you will understand it. 

⁵⁹ Like you, the Holy Spirit did not make truth. Like God, He knows it to be true. He brings the light of truth into the darkness and lets it shine on you. And as it shines, your brothers see it, and realizing that this light is not what you have made, they see in you more than you see. They will be happy learners of the lesson which this light brings to them because it teaches them release from nothing and from all the works of nothing. The heavy chains which seem to bind them unto despair they do not see as nothing until you bring the light to them. And then they see the chains have disappeared, and so they must have been nothing. And you will see it with them. Because you taught them gladness and release, they will become your teachers in release and gladness.

⁶⁰ When you teach anyone that truth is true, you learn it with him. And so you learn that what seemed hardest was the easiest. Learn to be happy learners. You will never learn how to make nothing everything. Yet see that this has been your goal and recognize how foolish it has been. Be glad it is undone, for when you look at it in simple honesty, it is undone. We said before, "Be not content with nothing," for you have believed that nothing could content you. It is not so.

⁶¹ If you would be a happy learner, you must give everything that you have learned over to the Holy Spirit to be unlearned for you. And then begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly on the firm foundation that truth is true. For what is builded there is true and built on truth. The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity. With truth before you, you will not look back.

⁶² The happy learner meets the conditions of learning here, as he also meets the conditions of knowledge in the Kingdom. All this lies in the Holy Spirit's plan to free you from the past and open up the way to freedom for you. For truth is true. What else could ever be or ever was? This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door which you believe is locked forever. You made this door of nothing and behind it is nothing. The key is only the light which shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing. Accept this key to freedom from the hands of Christ Who gives it to you that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light to darkness. For, like your brothers, you do not realize the light has come and freed you from the sleep of darkness.

⁶³ Behold your brothers in their freedom and learn of them how to be free of darkness. The light in you will waken them, and they will not leave you asleep. The vision of Christ is given the very instant that it is perceived. Where everything is clear, it is all holy. The quietness of its simplicity is so compelling that you will realize it is impossible to deny the simple truth. For there is nothing else. God is everywhere, and His Son is in Him with everything. Can he sing the dirge of sorrow when this is true?

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