LESSON 178
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
1 (165) Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2 (166) I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Regina said something in a tip from an earlier lesson. She said: “…from NTI Ephesians, Colossians and Luke 9: As we contemplate our truth, the clean energy of our truth goes into the world as grace. As grace, it will do what it does to correct misperceptions and miscreation.”
I think this is the most important thing I can do in the world. I keep my focus on who I really am, on the Self. I remember that I am not the illusion of this body/personality that I seem to be. I remember that beneath that mask, I am Love Itself. As I do this, I also allow my Higher Self to guide me as to what I am to do in the world when there is something that must be done. From a consistent practice of remembering that I am Love, my mind is open and receptive to any guidance I receive.
I am, in union with my brothers, the Thought of God. It is not enough to say that I am the Thought of God if I am going to deny it through my thoughts, words, and actions. When I follow thoughts into a story and I find myself angry or resentful or any of the other emotional states that the story calls for, my mind is denying the Thought of God. That is why I am vigilant for my thoughts. When I see that I am interested in one and it is taking me into the virtual world again, I stop it quickly before I am too deeply into the story. If I fail to do that, I let the story go as soon as I can.
Manual for Teachers
3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING? Paragraph 3
3 It is difficult to understand that levels of teaching the universal course is a concept as meaningless in reality as is time. The illusion of one permits the illusion of the other. In time, the teacher of God seems to begin to change his mind about the world with a single decision, and then learns more and more about the new direction as he teaches it. We have covered the illusion of time already, but the illusion of levels of teaching seems to be something different. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate that these levels cannot exist is simply to say that any level of the teaching-learning situation is part of God’s plan for Atonement, and His plan can have no levels, being a reflection of His Will. Salvation is always ready and always there. God’s teachers work at different levels, but the result is always the same.
I have an incomplete understanding of time; I know that it does not exist as I experience it, but eternity is beyond my grasp so I let that alone. I stayed confused about levels within the illusion for a long time. I used to think of those chance encounters as small and so not important. And I used to think of the relationships with my friends and children and coworkers as being more important because they seem to impact me in a stronger way.
My work seemed to be different in some relationships than in others, that is, the level of work required for some relationships may be more intense, but the healing is equal and this is how they are all the same. It takes a slight shift in perception to understand this.
I think of the old adage, you can’t be a little bit pregnant. Well, you can’t have a little peace. You are either peaceful or not. Love is not divided into categories and levels in spite of our mistaken beliefs about it. And your salvation doesn’t come in part, it is whole in each instance or it is not salvation.
When I smiled at the woman who gave me a paper towel and she smiled at me, it was fully a holy encounter, complete in itself. Salvation had come. It was just as complete and important as the moment in which I completely forgave my ex-husband and myself and our relationship. The smile took only a moment and no struggle at all. My forgiveness lesson with my marriage took years and hard work and so it seemed bigger and more important. But love is love and the difference is illusory.
As I think of this, I envision myself looking each person I interact with right in the eye, and giving him my loving attention for whatever brief moment we meet. This person like many that I have, in the past dismissed as unimportant, is the Son of God. I envision today meeting each seeming attack, big or small, with love. I see myself pausing for inspiration when unsure what to say, and especially if my immediate thought is to defend myself. Every moment holds the potential for salvation and I will not forget that.
This weekend was one of leisure as I visited with a friend and so I am a bit behind in my writing and calls. I have not even finished my time with Spirit yet, and already my mind has strayed to the busy day ahead. Before I read this paragraph, it seemed like today would be about catching up. Now I understand that today is about holy encounters with my brothers.
Text
XI. Christmas as the End of Sacrifice P 5
T-15.XI.5. As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. 2 And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice, justified in sacrificing others. 3 For who could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside without a sense of sacrifice and loss? 4 And who could suffer sacrifice and loss without attempting to restore himself? 5 Yet how could you accomplish this yourself, when the basis of your attempts is the belief in the reality of the deprivation? 6 Deprivation breeds attack, being the belief that attack is justified. 7 And as long as you would retain the deprivation, attack becomes salvation and sacrifice becomes love.
Journal
If we become sick and we believe the sickness is about the body (and we will believe it is about the body if we believe we are the body) we will feel deprived and will suffer. We will feel resentful and angry. We will blame (attack) others who we imagine made us sick with their germs. Or we will blame (attack) God who we think is punishing us for our sins. This way of thinking applies to any sense of deprivation, lack of money, lack of love, of friends, of mental health, or purpose. Lack is lack regardless of the form it takes.
To believe we are a body is a way of saying that we are separate from God and that belief is painful. We know that this is not normal and that makes it scary. Why are we lacking anything? On some level, we know that we are not supposed to be separate from All That Is, and to feel like we are terrifies us. This is why we go straight to projection, trying to find someone to blame, anyone but ourselves.
I don’t do this anymore, but I remember when I did. I remember the confusion and feeling alone in my sickness. Recently, I was sick and this body was suffering like crazy. While I was very aware of the suffering of the body and for a couple of days that was my world, I was never confused about it. I never thought it was anyone’s fault and I never thought of it as a punishment or that it had anything to do with God. My only question was, “What is this for?” What am I to learn from this? I am grateful for this healing of my mind.
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