We are spending two days with Lesson 47, because it represents an important shift. It represents a shift from trusting in ‘me’ to trusting in a mystery that the mind cannot begin to fathom.

Last week I wrote about some of the aspects of reality: life, awareness, intelligence, and love (unconditional-allowance). Another important aspect of reality is mystery; reality can never be fully understood.

The human idea of love is typically very different from the love of God. Since our ideas about love can be mistaken, we can also misunderstand a lesson that uses the word ‘love.’ So, let’s take a minute to look at ‘love.’

Love may be best defined as openness. Other words that help us grasp the meaning of love are allowance, non-judgment, non-interference. An example of love is the space in the room where you are sitting now (or the space outside, if you are outside now). If you contemplate the space around you, notice it is open, allowing, non-judgmental, and non-interfering. For example, if two lovers decide to make love in the space around you, the space does not get in the way of that. Its openness naturally allows that. Likewise, if one person violently murders another person in the space around you, the space does not get in the way of that. Its openness is as equally open to murder as it is to making love. The openness of space is so naturally open, it can’t be anything but open. Judgment and interference are impossibilities for the space around you.

God (our true nature) is exactly the same. It is completely open and it cannot be anything but completely open.
Love = openness.

One extra practice that you can add to today’s practice, if you want to, is the practice of taking some time to notice your natural openness. Your natural openness is not the mind. The mind obviously judges, rejects, condemns, etc., but there is a part of you that doesn’t. That is your true nature.

You might start this extra practice by spending a few moments contemplating the space around you. Notice its intrinsic openness. And then close your eyes, and look for your intrinsic openness. You might notice that your intrinsic openness allows all sounds and all sensations. Notice there is no block to anything in your openness. It is simply openness. If the mind begins to chatter, look to see the openness that allows the chatter. This openness is completely natural for you. It’s an openness you cannot close.

If you notice your inherent openness for even a fraction of a second today, you have taken a giant step forward into realizing your true nature.

Today’s lesson points toward abidance as our natural open Self. In that abidance, there is nothing to forgive. However, before we fully realize our natural Self, we tend to believe the mind’s judgments. We can move toward the state of abidance through forgiveness. Forgiveness is open-allowance-without-clinging. It might look like this:

~ Someone insults me. (Happening)
~ I get angry. (Effect of believing the mind’s judgment of the previous happening.)
~ I see my anger. (Awareness)
~ I remember my purpose. (Heart)
~ I practice Rest – Accept – Trust. (Open-allowance-without-clinging)
~ The temporary event ends as all temporary events do.

For those of you who know Michael Langford’s Loving All Method, Rest-Accept-Trust is the same as “emotionally allow” in his Loving All instructions. Both Rest-Accept-Trust and “emotionally allow” are forms of forgiveness.

Love, Regina

In order to have openness to what this lesson points toward, we may need a different understanding of the words “thought” and “think”.

In the awareness-watching-awareness practice instructions, Michael Langford defines thought as “the words of your native language in your mind.” Thoughts can also come as pictures, as they did for Temple Grandin and possibly for some of you. However, when Lesson 45 says, “You thinkwith the Mind of God. Therefore you share your thoughts with Him, … They are the same thoughts, because they are thought by the same Mind,” it is not referring to the words of your native language in your mind and it is not referring to picture thoughts. This is important to know, because if you are looking for the right words in your mind or the right pictures, you will remain focused on form and not go beyond form, which is where your “real thoughts” are realized.