LESSON 139
I will accept Atonement for myself.
“Uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast, its magnitude can hardly be conceived. To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead. For what is life except to be yourself, and what but you can be alive instead? Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts? Whom does he question? Who can answer him?”
“Thus he becomes uncertain of his life, for what it is has been denied by him. It is for this denial that you need Atonement.”
“Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are. And they will come again until the time Atonement is accepted, and they learn it is impossible to doubt yourself, and not to be aware of what you are.”
“We have a mission here. We did not come to reinforce the madness that we once believed in. Let us not forget the goal that we accepted. It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain. What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be, along with us. Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them, that they may know that they are part of you, and you of them.”
“I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me.”
This statement, this acceptance of the Atonement is the same thing I have been doing for the last couple of weeks. I begin my meditation with the simple statement that I want to know my Self. I have no doubt that I am Self and not self. I have no doubt that the memory of Self is in my mind and available to me. I am simply expressing my decision to know again what is actually true about me, and thus to live from that knowledge.
Jesus emphasizes again as he does throughout the Course that we know who we are by knowing that we are one with all that is. We cannot see our brothers as separate and somehow different than our Self and know our Self. I was listening to a meditation this morning that used the terms essence energy and said that this same energy is exactly the same in every one of us. Exactly the same.
That is how we are the same and one. Using the body as our identity keeps this knowledge from us because the body is not the same, the personality is not the same. But the body/personality is not us. What is the same and what is us is what animates the body/personality.
Regina’s Tips
If you look, you will notice the one thing you can never honestly deny is that you live. When you look even closer, you will notice the one fact that is obvious: You are life.
Have you ever experienced death as a direct experience? Sure, people and pets you loved died and you perceived that, but what was your direct experience as you perceived it? Wasn’t it life that perceived the concept/perception of death?
Do you have any proof of death as a direct experience?
Or is life the only thing that you can verify as a fact?
Look carefully. Forget ideas. What do you know from direct experience?
“Here is the end of choice. For here we come to a decision to accept ourselves as God created us. … For what is life except to be yourself, …?”
“Today accept Atonement, not to change reality, but merely to accept the truth about yourself, and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God.” Celebrate today that You Are Life!!
You are life! And you know it, because you live.
My Thoughts
It is interesting to realize that I have no direct experience of death. At first, I thought to dispute this. I haven’t died yet in this life, but I must have died before to be reborn here. And yet, is that true? If I am reborn, how could I have ever died? I am life, therefore, I cannot be death. I think this more than anything convinced me that I am life.
Manual for Teachers
All Pleasures of the World Are Nothing
An example of a “pleasure” that I have valued and allowed to define me is the special relationship. The only enduring special relationship I have ever had is with my children. Even though I had considered myself a failure in many ways as a mom, my children persist in loving me and thinking well of me; I think even liking me. And yet, I have never felt secure in these relationships and since I value them above all else, I have gone to great lengths to keep them in place.
As I look at these relationships with the Holy Spirit I see that I have used bribery, sacrifice, martyrdom, guilt, and fear to bind my children to me. I remember when my youngest child graduated from college and moved away, I felt bereft, adrift and anxious. When a very short time later he needed my financial assistance, I remember the flood of relief that came over me. That was my first clue that something was seriously sick in this relationship. But it would be a long time before I was able to look at my thoughts without judgment and allow the Holy Spirit to help me see what was going on.
Because I believed that I could not be happy without the special relationships in my life, I condemned myself to misery. Special relationships are inherently guilt driven and destined to fail. What will not fail is the certainty that if I continue to hold onto the specialness in a relationship, I will never experience real love, and if I don’t know Love, I will not know my Self. I fully understand the fear of letting go of special love because it seems to be all that I have ever known and yet, holding onto the specialness is what prevents me from knowing Love.
I have grasped these relationships so tightly and for so long that it has taken me a very long time to let them go. I am still letting go, but now it is easier because I see that the specialness I thought was precious was actually painful. It defined me in ways that diminished me, and in my desperation to hold onto it, I tried to teach those I loved that they were needy too. Specialness defines me as separate from others and holds that belief in place. I believed in this definition of myself until I began to accept the Word of God through His Voice. Through the healing of my mind, I am letting go of my definition of my self and accepting His definition instead.
Today I have a much healthier relationship with my children. I don’t know if they have even noticed a difference because the change had nothing to do with them, as it was all about me. I slowly, through vigilant mindfulness, watched my thoughts about these special relationships and accepted healing where I could. There is less pain now, less neediness, and more actual love. It is an ongoing project but I have no doubt as to the outcome because I am not alone. The Holy Spirit works with me and guarantees my success. It is not the Will of God that I suffer.
Text
“No one who has everything wants the ego.”
It is absolutely necessary that the ego deny your true self. If the ego accepts any part of you as love, it will be completely undone. If it accepts anyone else as pure love, it will be undone. So it keeps everyone as enemies and hides this way of thinking from us. It does this, as far as I can see, by increasing fear and guilt and making everything seem so complex that we give up trying to understand it or change it. This is why we need the Holy Spirit and why God created the Holy Spirit. It is not fooled by the ego and can help us disentangle from it when we are ready to do so.
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