To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend
that you read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
“I merely follow, for I would not lead.”
Looking out through the body’s eyes is like having blinders on because what we see through the body’s eyes is the opposite of the truth. Because we are blind to the truth, we need a Guide Who is not deceived by what the body’s eyes show us. We need the Holy Spirit’s guidance to show us the difference between truth and illusion.
Because we have been so totally lost in the forest of our belief in separation, we cannot find our way out without help. The way to do this is to refrain from deciding what anything means on our own, and recognize that we have been blinded by our false beliefs.
Our thoughts of separation, which is what this world is based on, seem so real to us that we don’t realize that we need to question these thoughts. These thoughts are false ideas and so the premise on which this world is based is totally false.
In truth, there never could be a world of separate bodies. The world is not real. Bodies are not real. Minds are not separate. We have been very mistaken in the story we have been telling ourselves. We have gotten so caught up in the story that most of our thinking is based on the premise that it is true.
As we continue following this false premise, we just keep going deeper and deeper into the ego’s mire of false perception, which only causes more guilt and fear. The only way out is to avoid making any decisions on our own.
We need to be willing to go to that place in our mind that has not joined with separation. We need to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, hour by hour, day by day. In truth we are not a separate individual with a unique, separate mind encased within a separate body. This is not true. There is only one true Mind and that is the Mind of Love. We have never changed from that Love. We remain as Love created us. We are an Idea in the Mind of Love.
As we open to the truth, we are gently led back to the totality of Love which has never changed. We are led back as we are willing to follow and not make decisions on our own. “I merely follow, for I would not lead.”
You may have heard someone referred to as a “control freak” or as having control issues. The truth is that everyone in this world has control issues. This world is the effect of rejecting God’s Will and wanting to be in control. It’s like we are all teenagers trying to establish our independence from our Parent. The Course refers to this syndrome often. It is what it refers to when it talks about our attempt to self-create and when it talks about the “authority problem.” The wish to be in control is the rejection of God’s Will that we are one Mind, which is undivided and the same.
The cost of “being in control” is the perceived loss of our unity with our Creator. That loss of unity means that we have lost awareness of the strength and Love that is ours because of our unity with our Creator. The result is that though we seem to have established control, what we have control of is only an illusion. There is no substance to it.
We are in control of the images we make up in our mind. We can have those images act out our beliefs. They can seem to be in conflict or they can seem to be special partners, allies with which we feel safe in a dangerous world of images. Yet all these images we control have no substance, no meaning in truth, no reality. So we go through “life” playing with images, thinking that they are real, yet feeling empty, alone and lacking Love.
To remember the Love we are and that is ours, there is only one thing to do. We must give up our attempt to control and accept that, in truth, God’s Will is our will. We must be willing to follow the inner Guide in our minds Who remains our Link with our Source.
By relinquishing control and following that Guide, we awaken to the Love, strength, peace and joy of the Self That remains united with Its Source. We give up control of nothing and gain everything, all that is real. We return to Love. This is why it is important for me to remember, ” I merely follow, for I would not lead.”
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