XI. THE PEACE OF HEAVEN, P 6
6 You will not remember change and shift in Heaven. You have need of contrast only here. Contrast and differences are necessary teaching aids, for by them you learn what to avoid and what to seek. When you have learned this, you will find the answer that makes the need for any differences disappear. Truth comes of its own will unto its own. When you have learned that you belong to truth, it will flow lightly over you without a difference of any kind. For you will need no contrast to help you realize that this is what you want, and only this. Fear not the Holy Spirit will fail in what your Father has given Him to do. The Will of God can fail in nothing.
Journal
We will not experience contrast in Heaven. Funny, but I noticed a thought of resistance to this. It was something like, “Will I miss choices? Will I miss the feelings that occur with contrast and differences?” Then I thought about standing in Walmart looking at the many different toothpastes and trying to choose the one I want. I narrowed it down to a single brand name, but even then there were a lot of choices.
Each different tube promised to do something specific for me. I wondered which one I needed the most, enamel protection, whitening, repair and strengthen, help with my bad breath, deep cleaning and on and on. So to make a choice, I read the ingredients on each one and discovered they were all pretty much the same. I also realized that when I was younger I took great pride in finding the “right” everything. It made me feel successful and in charge. Now it just makes me tired.
So what is the toothpaste example all about? Well, this is how it feels to me here in the world now. This is why I won’t miss the contrasts, the differences. First, they are all the same really, new packaging, new ways of saying the same thing, but really, all the same. I have a worry, a fear, a guilty feeling, and the ego offers me an array of choices. Which one do I need today? I was a bad mom and now I need to make up for it. I may not have enough money so I must find a way to earn more. I don’t know what will happen with our country now that things have changed so much, and can’t find a package with a solution for that. Ha ha.
The thing is, the ego offers the same solution with different words and promises and in the end, nothing does much except to make the problems look different, if even that. The Holy Spirit, however, shows me that all the problems are the same, that the package they come in is irrelevant. He offers me a solution that works for them all. No worrying a fretting over which to choose, just accept His solution and move on.
If I don’t choose the Holy Spirit’s easy solution, I focus on the problem in its current form. I ponder one ego solution and then another. Eventually, I discover what became obvious to me at the toothpaste isle, all the solutions, while sounding good, have the same ingredients. I don’t know how important the toothpaste ingredients are. After all, people used to clean their teeth with baking soda and peroxide and that seemed to work. But what I discover through the school of hard knocks that the ego puts me through is that its solutions are pretty ineffective.
I have tried one ego solution after another and really, what has it accomplished? The best I can say for it is that the contrast between the ego solution and the Holy Spirit’s solution has helped me choose the Holy Spirit more and more often. I used to revel in making those choices for the same reason I thought it was a reflection on my self worth that I would, through careful study, choose the best toothpaste. Now I am just bored with the whole thing, choosing the right toothpaste, and choosing the right solution to life’s problems.
Sometimes I get very discouraged because I seem to go back to listening to ego even though I thought I had learned my lesson. I start to doubt that this is going to work. But Jesus keeps me on track. He reminds me over and over that I cannot fail because God’s Will is my will and God cannot fail, so I cannot fail. I suspect I have unseen help, angels and masters who stand behind me, before me and around me, uplifting and supporting as the need may be. This complete thought reversal the Course has given me, and the Holy Spirit is accomplishing in me, would be more than I could do alone.
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