Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Recognizing Forms of Defense


Robert:
I could be called a second generation pack rat. I save things thinking they may be helpful some day. And it seems like I do need something I saved just frequently enough to justify continuing the pack rat habit. I am seeing now how this is just another form of defense. Saving something I have no use for now but may someday is a form of planning for my safety. It represents a belief that sometime in the future I may experience lack, so I need to prepare for it now.

As we prepare for the move, I am faced with all those defenses of the past in the form of collections of stuff that I haven’t needed for years. Even now my tendency is to think I might still need it. Once again it is an opportunity to practice following Holy Spirit’s lead. It is helpful that I have no idea what the circumstances we will be moving to will be like. It forces me not to depend on my own “reasoning” to prepare for the future.

There are things that will be helpful to take with us, but the decision to take or leave needs to be made with the Holy Spirit. When I step back and honestly and openly ask for help, decisions become simple and easy. When I try to add my defenses into the decision making, the decisions become complicated and hard.

Holy Spirit:
You are being carried. You have always been carried. When you honestly look back at your life experiences, you see that even in the darkest moments, you were being carried. You will always be carried because the strength of God is always in you.

Your attempts to prepare for the future come from your belief that you have separated yourself from God. That could never be, though you can dream of being alone and weak. This experience of moving can serve your awakening well if you use it as your strength conditioning to develop your trust muscles.

Having placed your trust in your own isolated identity, you have every reason to feel weak and vulnerable. This is only because you have placed your trust in empty images. Now you can practice placing your trust in the strength of God in you that is your own. Your trust may seem easily shaken, but that is only because you associate trust with belief in empty images.

Now you have an opportunity to practice placing your trust in all the Power That is, all the strength. As you allow yourself to experience the effects of placing your trust in strength instead of weakness, it will become easier and easier. You will feel less and less of a need to hang on to things, be they forms or simply beliefs in your mind, in order to feel safe. You will learn that you are absolutely safe beyond question. So today is another day bringing you rich opportunity to practice remembering that the strength of God in you goes with your wherever you go.



Mary:
  It is abundantly clear that we could not do this move without the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is abundantly clear that we know nothing on our own. What a great practice this is, giving each day to the Holy Spirit. Each day seems to bring up new questions, new possibilities as to which steps we should take each day. Do we renovate these facilities or do we leave that to the new owner?

The Holy Spirit knows the big picture for each step along the way that would be the most helpful for everyone concerned. In this game of separate bodies with separate minds, we can not possibly know what would be truly helpful for everyone concerned. This means that the practice of stepping back and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead with every step in this process gets strengthened day by day.


Holy Spirit:
  Remember again that you are in a school and that the Holy Spirit is the Teacher. Remember again that it is only the Holy Spirit That knows what everything is for. Take today and treat today as lab time in refining the practice of stepping back and listening for Holy Spirit’s guidance. Hour by hour, and sometimes minute by minute, you are learning to let go of thinking that you know anything.

You are learning that the identity you have identified with is ultimately nowhere and nothing. You have nothing individually to defend against because there is no such thing as individuality. You are learning to side with the truth that only Love is real and that the ego’s image making is not what you want to make real. You are learning to allow the Holy Spirit to write the script instead of judging anything on your own. Learning this from Holy Spirit’s school is the most important thing you can learn.

In truth you reside outside of time and individual forms. In truth you remain as God created you. This is why you are invulnerable. This is why you are safe. This why your natural Home is in God’s peace. Allow yourself to remember this. Allow yourself to strengthen the consistent habit of allowing the Holy Spirit to write the dream script and give you the meaning behind everything that shows up in the dream. This is how you teach through demonstration.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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