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Study of Text, C 15: IV. Practicing the Holy Instant, P 3, 12-13-17

IV. Practicing the Holy Instant, P 3
3 Be humble before Him, and yet great in Him. And value no plan of the ego before the plan of God. For you leave empty your place in His plan, which you must fill if you would join with me, by your decision to join in any plan but His. I call you to fulfil your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world for its release from littleness. God would have His host abide in perfect freedom. Every allegiance to a plan of salvation apart from Him diminishes the value of His Will for you in your own mind. And yet it is your mind that is the host to Him.

Journal
Be humble before Him, and yet great in Him.

What I think this means to me is that it is God in me that is great and that works through me. It is not the ego in me that is holy, but rather it is in undoing the ego that I am released from littleness and can take my place beside Jesus in saving the world. Yes, the power of God is in me and it is through this power that we perform miracles as is His Will and our will, too. But I cannot use that power if I am trying to manipulate the world using the ego mind.

That is the difference between God’s plan for salvation and my ego plan. In my ego plan, I look at the effects of the ego thinking and try to save these effects using more ego thoughts. Today, in doing Lesson 347, I was reminded of how we misunderstand salvation. Here is what I wrote.

Something that helped me to see what I have been doing is a message from the Holy Spirit shared by Regina Dawn Akers, in which He was helping her see that she uses her body as a depository for her sense of unworthiness. The way she explained it is that she looks at her body and feels unworthy and thinks it is the body that makes her feel this way. The Holy Spirit helped her to see that it works the other way around. She feels unworthy, projects it onto the body and then she can hope to improve the body and thereby become worthy. It is her plan for salvation. When I read this it was like a bright light came on in a darkened room.

When I first heard Regina say this, I understood how it is that I try to find salvation fixing the effect rather than correcting the cause. I make the problem with my ego thoughts and then I try to fix the problem by manipulating what I made with those thoughts, like trying to diet or use other means to enhance the body and thus feel more worthy. Wouldn’t it be more effective to let the Holy Spirit heal my belief in unworthiness instead, and then I won’t use the body to prove my unworthiness.

I once used this faulty reasoning with relationships and lack and loss, and all the ego effects in my world. I have learned to spot that and to choose differently. Now, if I feel attacked by someone, I immediately turn inward to the Holy Spirit to look at what is going on in my mind rather than trying to change how I am seen by that one, or to try to stop him from attacking me.

If I am in a difficult situation, I don’t use my ego mind to find a way out of it. I turn inward to see how I got into it, what were my thoughts, what is the lesson in this situation? Then, I find that no one is at fault, and I am not the victim of the world I see. I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of any remaining beliefs like these, and thus, through the power of God in me, I am truly saved.

The more I do this, the more I am able to take my place in God’s plan for salvation. When I am defenseless in the face of attack, I am teaching the other that he is innocent. If I defend myself I am teaching him he is guilty. Clearly, it is not God’s plan to have us teach guilt. Guilt is not salvation. Before I can teach innocence, I must be willing to allow my mind to be healed of guilt. Sometimes I have noticed that the healing of my mind is simultaneous with teaching innocence. Perhaps it occurs because of the heart’s desire for innocence.

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Manual for Teachers: VII. Generosity. 12-12-17

VII. Generosity, P 1
1 The term generosity has special meaning to the teacher of God. It is not the usual meaning of the word; in fact, it is a meaning that must be learned and learned very carefully. Like all the other attributes of God’s teachers this one rests ultimately on trust, for without trust no one can be generous in the true sense. To the world, generosity means “giving away” in the sense of “giving up.” To the teachers of God, it means giving away in order to keep. This has been emphasized throughout the text and the workbook, but it is perhaps more alien to the thinking of the world than many other ideas in our curriculum. Its greater strangeness lies merely in the obviousness of its reversal of the world’s thinking. In the clearest way possible, and at the simplest of levels, the word means the exact opposite to the teachers of God and to the world.

Journal
I like being generous. I like giving to friends and loved ones. It is one of the reasons I have always enjoyed Christmas so much. I like giving to someone in need whether I know them or not. I give money, clothes, attention, love, a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, whatever form love takes at the time.

I am about half way to generosity. I am not entirely generous because I pick and choose where I will be generous. I sometimes decide who deserves my generosity. I hold back when I think I don’t have enough. Sometimes I am miserly in my giving, sharing a little or with resentment. My trust is not yet complete so I cannot afford to be generous in the way Jesus speaks of it.

What I do when I notice these behaviors is to ask for healing, to ask for help in trusting completely. I want to be completely surrendered so that in all things I ask for direction and follow it without exception. I want to do this without fear and without a sense of sacrifice, but because it brings me joy to do so. This will happen only as I develop trust.

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Study of Text, C 15: IV. Practicing the Holy Instant, P 2, 12-11-17

IV. Practicing the Holy Instant, P 2
2 Your practice must therefore rest upon your willingness to let all littleness go. The instant in which magnitude dawns upon you is but as far away as your desire for it. As long as you desire it not and cherish littleness instead, by so much is it far from you. By so much as you want it will you bring it nearer. Think not that you can find salvation in your own way and have it. Give over every plan you have made for your salvation in exchange for God’s. His will content you, and nothing else can bring you peace. For peace is of God, and no one beside Him.

Journal
There is only the peace of God. I cannot find peace on my own. I have tried many times to bring peace to my mind on my own and none have worked. I have tried to manipulate the world and accommodate to the world, but no lasting peace has come from that effort. I have tried every form of distraction from what robbed me of peace and that gave me only a brief respite. Every attempt I made eventually fell through and left me feeling small and insignificant in the face of my suffering.

Now, Jesus is telling me that I must let go of the littleness that plagues me, that I can let it go, and that I only need desire magnitude to dawn on my mind and it is done. After all the failed attempts to save myself, it seems unlikely the answer could be so simple. After teaching myself false humility or equally false arrogance, the simple fact of magnitude seems an impossibility. But Jesus says otherwise and I am willing to believe him.

Here is something I have noticed. When I am immersed in my study or in my teaching, or when I am fully surrendered to God, and when I am in gratitude, I feel the magnitude that Jesus is talking about. It doesn’t make me feel arrogant as I first thought it would. In fact, I feel humbled by it. When I let my story draw my attention away from God, I become confused and I feel little again.

At first, I didn’t really put this together as cause and effect, but studying this part of the Course made it obvious. The ego argues that this elevated feeling cannot possibly last. One cannot go around thinking about God and love all the time. One cannot be a channel for God all the time. Life requires attention and decisions and plans. But I don’t think so.

I think that I can do all that the story demands of me and still know that I am in God and of God. I think that I can spend this life extending God rather than writing more ego script. I am willing for that. Father, I am willing to do what You would have me do and willing not to do what You would have me not do. I think this is a real expression of magnitude. I accept my magnitude as simply that which I am as a creation of God. I welcome the peace of God that is a natural consequence of that acceptance.

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Study of Text, C 15: IV. Practicing the Holy Instant, P 1, 12-07-17

IV. Practicing the Holy Instant, P 1
1 This course is not beyond immediate learning, unless you believe that what God wills takes time. And this means only that you would rather delay the recognition that His Will is so. The holy instant is this instant and every instant. The one you want it to be it is. The one you would not have it be is lost to you. You must decide when it is. Delay it not. For beyond the past and future, where you will not find it, it stands in shimmering readiness for your acceptance. Yet you cannot bring it into glad awareness while you do not want it, for it holds the whole release from littleness.

Journal
I want to remind myself of what the holy instant is. I think a very inclusive definition can be found in the Glossary –Index of A Course in Miracles by Ken Wapnick. It says this. It is the instant outside of time in which we choose forgiveness instead of guilt, the miracle instead of a grievance, the Holy Spirit instead of the ego; the expression of our little willingness to live in the present, which opens into eternity, rather than holding onto the past and fearing the future, which keeps us in hell; also used to denote the ultimate holy instant, the real world, the culmination of all the holy instants we have chosen along the way.

So now I am going to look at the first sentence, which tells me that this course is not beyond immediate learning. Then I am going to have a little laugh before I go on. Ok, I am sure that Jesus is right. I could have chosen to know that God’s Will is immediate and therefore it is so right now. I just did not.

As Jesus says, the holy instant is this instant and every instant according to my decision. It is any instant I want it to be. And if I accept the first meaning, that I have chosen forgiveness over guilt in this instant, then, yes, I have done that. I have done that many times. And I have chosen the miracle rather than the grievance. I have even chosen many moments in which I existed in the present rather than the past or future.

It is only when I look at the second meaning that I laugh at the idea I might have chosen complete freedom, the real world once and for all, and that I could have done so at any time. For a long time, it seemed so far from a possibility for me. Now it doesn’t so far-fetched and yet, I find it hard to accept that all I have to do is decide for it and it is mine. How is it that I do not want it?

That is so crazy. I have had many holy instants over the years and many more than that in the last year or so, and still, I have not fully accepted it though it stands in shimmering readiness for my acceptance. I don’t want to delay it longer and so I am excited about this section on practicing the holy instant.

Here I am, Lord.

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Study of Text, C 15: III. Littleness versus Magnitude, P 12, 12-05-17

III. Littleness versus Magnitude, P 12
12 Call forth in everyone only the remembrance of God, and of the Heaven that is in him. For where you would have your brother be, there will you think you are. Hear not his appeal to hell and littleness, but only his call for Heaven and greatness. Forget not that his call is yours, and answer him with me. God’s power is forever on the side of His host, for it protects only the peace in which He dwells. Lay not littleness before His holy altar, which rises above the stars and reaches even to Heaven, because of what is given it.

Journal
Call forth in everyone only the remembrance of God, and of the Heaven that is in him.

This is the lesson that has been put before me, my present classroom. I have been called to notice and to choose. I notice my thoughts about the one before me, whoever that might be, and I choose what I am to believe about that one. Will I believe his story? Will I believe what he thinks about himself? Will I believe that his ego actions and words define him? Or will I call forth in him the remembrance of God?

Can you feel the power in those words? To call forth is to cause (something) to come into action or existence. You could interchange it with the words to activate, awaken, animate, arouse, enliven. When I call forth something in my brother, I awaken it in him, I cause it to come into existence!

This is one of my favorite passages from ACIM. The mind is very powerful, and never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power surge that can literally move mountains. My mind is a creative force. Belief and thought combine into a power surge. Dear God, let me always remember to give belief only to those thoughts that create what is eternally true in my brother!

For where you would have your brother be, there will you think you are.

What I know for my brother, I know for myself. What I call into existence for my brother, I call into existence for myself. So when a friend tells me how sick she is, let my mind slide harmlessly over the thought of sickness. Let me settle on the thought of health and linger there instead. When I see my brother acting foolishly, let my mind know only wisdom and l will know that the power that is in me will awaken wisdom in him and that is where I will see myself as well.

God’s power is forever on the side of His host, for it protects only the peace in which He dwells.

We are God’s Host and His power is forever in us protecting our peace. Let us remember this in all our comings and goings. Let us remember this indwelling power and use it wisely in protection of our brothers and ourselves by choosing carefully what we would believe and thus bring to life.

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Manual for Teachers: V. Joy. 12-04-17

V. Joy

1 Joy is the inevitable result of gentleness. Gentleness means that fear is now impossible, and what could come to interfere with joy? The open hands of gentleness are always filled. The gentle have no pain. They cannot suffer. Why would they not be joyous? They are sure they are beloved and must be safe. Joy goes with gentleness as surely as grief attends attack. God’s teachers trust in Him. And they are sure His Teacher goes before them, making sure no harm can come to them. They hold His gifts and follow in His way, because God’s Voice directs them in all things. Joy is their song of thanks. And Christ looks down on them in thanks as well. His need of them is just as great as theirs of Him. How joyous it is to share the purpose of salvation!

Journal
I am usually gentle with others, but I think that sometimes the reason I don’t feel joy is that I have not been gentle with myself and so I am in fear. The fearful suffer pain and distress. This brings more fear and this can spiral out of control if one is not vigilant for this kind of thing. If caught quickly before it gains momentum, it is a simple matter to turn from the ego interpretation and toward the Holy Spirit’s interpretation.

I might wonder how this happens, except that when I think about it I know exactly how it happens. I misspoke, or I had a memory of something I now regret, or maybe I see that something I thought was healed is clearly still a problem. The surprise of it throws me off guard and without thinking, maybe without even realizing it, I have asked the ego what it all means. And the answer sends me down the rabbit hole, and there is no joy to be found there.

Fortunately, this is easily corrected. As soon as I ask for help, which I always do, I become aware of what went wrong and I change my mind. I ask the Holy Spirit to interpret the situation for me, and His help brings me back to sanity. It is all very gentle. I don’t fight the ego; I simply disregard it and let my mind be corrected. With Holy Spirit’s help, I forgive myself. As soon as this happens, I become gentle with myself again and I feel safe, loved and protected. I am peaceful and joyful.

The following is my favorite part of this passage and the motivation that is nearly as strong as peace and joy.

And Christ looks down on them in thanks as well. His need of them is just as great as theirs of Him. How joyous it is to share the purpose of salvation!

It brings tears to my eyes to think of being helpful to the Plan of Atonement, to doing my part, to joining with Christ to help us all wake up. I am deeply humbled and grateful that this is so.

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Study of Text, C 15: III. Littleness versus Magnitude, P 11, 12-01-17

III. Littleness versus Magnitude, P 11
11 If you are wholly willing to leave salvation to the plan of God and unwilling to attempt to grasp for peace yourself, salvation will be given you. Yet think not you can substitute your plan for His. Rather, join with me in His, that we may release all those who would be bound, proclaiming together that the Son of God is host to Him. Thus will we let no one forget what you would remember. And thus will you remember it.

Journal
Two things are very clear now. The first is that my plan for salvation will not work and only God’s plan will. I can join with Jesus in His plan and salvation will be mine. Might plan might include things like special relationships that I think will provide me with what I appear to lack. Or it might be trying to change my behavior so that I appear innocent and worthy. Or perhaps salvation might seem to be having more stuff, making more money, being admired and respected.

None of those attempts to save myself will work. Only God’s plan works. A Course in Miracles gives me specific steps to take in order to join in His plan. It gives me explanations to help me accept a new way of seeing. It gives me processes to practice so that I can learn to open my mind and heart to my Inner Guide. Meditation will help me to quiet the mind so that I can be aware of my guidance. All I have to do is to accept this help.

The second thing that is clear is that I do this with my brother. I cannot awaken alone because I am not alone. I am part of a whole and the parts cannot be the whole and therefore cannot achieve salvation, which is the awareness of the whole. So, I watch my mind for thoughts that would exclude anyone. I accept responsibility for the exclusion and ask for correction when I find it. I make no exceptions; everyone is included.

Because we are one, what I remember is available to all and what they remember is available to me. It is apparent that as I give, I receive. So I want to always give love and inclusion so that I know I am loved and included in the Wholeness that is the Son of God. This knowing is my salvation. With it comes all that is God, love, peace, joy, perfection, and immortality. And in this knowing, there is nothing unlike God, no anger, fear, guilt, suffering, sickness or death.

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