LESSON 173
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
1 (155) I will step back and let Him lead the way.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2 (156) I walk with God in perfect holiness.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
If there is one thing I feel certain about it is that I am not a human being in spite of waking up every morning to a body. I am even learning to detach from the personality of this character, Myron. I am aware of it as I am aware of the body of Myron, but I don’t claim either as being me. I am Love because God is Love and I am His creation. But, I am not fully separated from the body/personality of this incarnation’s character either.
I still have some preferences, though much less than before. I still think in terms of the personal, but again, much less than I have in the past. Sometimes I get caught in one story or another. My daughter asked me to babysit for her again and she said she hated to do it but didn’t have anyone else to ask. It took some juggling of students to free up the four hours she needs me, but I did it.
I don’t like doing this. I don’t like moving my schedule around and falling behind on my work. I don’t like babysitting an active 2-year old for four hours, climbing up and down the stairs. But I saw the need was legitimate and so I agreed. I am using this time to practice giving up the idea that I like some things and dislike others.
The reason I want to give up the liking/disliking dichotomy is that disliking something is a sure-fire way to suffer because if I like something, I am automatically setting up the opposite. If what I like becomes unavailable, then I will be stuck with what I don’t like and so here we are again at suffering.
I joined with my holy Self and made a decision to release any thought of preferring to babysit or preferring to not babysit. I am emotionally allowing this part of the script. How will it turn out? Dread instantly turned to curiosity when I made that decision. At the same time, I told my daughter that she needs to get another backup sitter because I can’t be that for her in the future.
And now…
The decision to love the situation at hand has worked out very well. She calls on me only in the direst emergencies and I have come to enjoy my time with my granddaughter. It seems all my objections were of the ego and now that I no longer ask the ego for advice, I am discovering a whole world filled with opportunities to extend love and experience joy and peace.
Manual for Teachers
2. WHO ARE THERE PUPILS? 4,5
4 Time really, then, goes backward to an instant so ancient that it is beyond all memory, and past even the possibility of remembering. Yet because it is an instant that is relived again and again and still again, it seems to be now. And thus it is that pupil and teacher seem to come together in the present, finding each other as if they had not met before. The pupil comes at the right time to the right place. This is inevitable, because he made the right choice in that ancient instant which he now relives. So has the teacher, too, made an inevitable choice out of an ancient past. God’s Will in everything but seems to take time in the working-out. What could delay the power of eternity?
That we are here studying A Course in Miracles together was always inevitable because it has already happened. It only seems to be a new event, something we decided on in this lifetime. Like everything in our stories, what seems to be true is not. But it is not a choice made for us, but a choice we made ourselves long ago. Both student and teacher made an inevitable choice out of an ancient past. This is God’s Will and though it seems to have taken a lot of time to work its way, there is no time in eternity so it was done instantly and always had been done. Weirdly enough, though I have trouble finding words for this, I am beginning to make sense of it.
5 When pupil and teacher come together, a teaching-learning situation begins. For the teacher is not really the one who does the teaching. God’s Teacher speaks to any two who join together for learning purposes. The relationship is holy because of that purpose, and God has promised to send His Spirit into any holy relationship. In the teaching-learning situation, each one learns that giving and receiving are the same. The demarcations they have drawn between their roles, their minds, their bodies, their needs, their interests, and all the differences they thought separated them from one another, fade and grow dim and disappear. Those who would learn the same course share one interest and one goal. And thus he who was the learner becomes a teacher of God himself, for he has made the one decision that gave his teacher to him. He has seen in another person the same interests as his own.
I love the way paragraph 5 begins. Right away the stage is set to express the fluid nature of the teaching-learning situation. I have students I work with every day. It appears as if I am the teacher and they the student, and those are the terms we use to make things simpler to speak about. But actually, when we come together for the purpose of true learning, that is checking our egos at the door, leaving behind our separate agendas and all expectations based on what we think we know, neither is the teacher and both are the teacher.
In our emptiness, we have made a place for the Teacher to come forward in our awareness and to teach through us. Since He knows the gap of personhood is an illusion, He moves seamlessly from one to another, healing as we speak our inadequate words, or say nothing. All that is needed is a true Heart’s desire to be healed through our union of purpose. This profound event, this holy instant may even go unnoticed and unremarked by the two who have come together, but it is a miracle, none-the-less. It is the fulfillment of our purpose.
My experience of the process is that I have absolutely nothing to do with its fulfillment. I simply show up where prompted, follow guidance as best as I can, be as willing as I can be, and even all this is only vaguely in my awareness, and sometimes not at all. It’s not my job to choose where and with whom this is to happen. Jesus is in charge of the Atonement and knows where the chain needs to link next. What a relief to be moved, to be lived, to let go of the intolerable burden of making decisions and taking action on my own. And what an illusion it was anyway. It’s amazing how thoughtlessly I will pick that burden back up again.
Holy Spirit, I invite you to guide me today in all things, to speak through me, to move me where I am needed, and above all, to call me back to sanity when I start running around on my own, thinking I am the one doing something.
XI. Christmas as the End of Sacrifice
T-15.XI.1. Fear not to recognize the whole idea of sacrifice as solely of your making. 2 And seek not safety by attempting to protect yourself from where it is not. 3 Your brothers and your Father have become very fearful to you. 4 And you would bargain with them for a few special relationships, in which you think you see some scraps of safety. 5 Do not try longer to keep apart your thoughts and the Thought that has been given you. 6 When they are brought together and perceived where they are, the choice between them is nothing more than a gentle awakening, and as simple as opening your eyes to daylight when you have no more need of sleep.
Journal
In seeking safety, we have only two choices, the ego or the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit offers us our place in God, complete invulnerability, eternal life, joy, and perfect peace. The ego offers us the world, a separate self, the illusion of infinite choices and the effects of this choice, pain, suffering, and death. You would think the choice for God would be an easy one, and yet, Jesus spends a lot of time convincing us that God is the safe choice and that no sacrifice is asked of us.
The thing is, we made the idea of sacrifice, just as we made the idea of an ego. Sacrifice is unknown in God; it is only in our imagined world that the idea of sacrifice has any meaning. Do you see the implications of this? There is no sacrifice as soon as we stop believing in the idea of sacrifice.
It is no different than when a child is fearful of the monster in the closet until the parent opens the closet door and shines a light to prove there is no monster. When we open our minds to the Holy Spirit, the Light shows us we are safe, loved, and cherished. And it costs us nothing.
What likely began as an interesting exercise in imaginative play has gone awry. Our imagination ran away with us and now we have lost our way. There is nothing to fear, though, because we have total control. We can choose to open our eyes and see what is real. We have a Guide to help us remember who We are.
We are the Sons of God and it is time to claim our birth rite. Open the door to your secret fears and let the Holy Spirit shine His Light on them and they will disappear. The only thing hiding in the closet are imagined guilt and fear and imagination is easily dispelled by the Love that is God the Father and God the Son.
© Copyright 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.
Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution in support of this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution or become a member online, go to http://www.pathwaysoflight.org/polshop/home.php?cat=254.
Or send a check or money order to Pathways of Light, 6 Oak Court, Ormond Beach, FL 32174-2623 (USD only, please) Thank you for your support.