Lesson 150. My mind holds only what I think with God.

(139) I will accept Atonement for myself

(140) Only salvation can be said to cure

Years ago, the way we spoke or thought about religion and its basic principals was there were two alternatives only. While the two alternatives were the opposite of each other in every way, they had one thing in common, and that was their duration. Both were to last for an eternity. The alternatives were salvation and damnation.

Salvation meant you were seeking God while alive in this lifetime and therefore God bestowed eternal existence to you because of your attempts at goodness.

Damnation, the other and opposite alternative,was your just desserts imposed upon you by God because you pursued a physical life of Riley. Therefore after your current physical and pleasurable lifetime, you could only expect the torments of hell for an eternity.

We made God the heavy and the churches promoted these concepts to control the masses. Now we realize that it is the mind that imposes the idea of punishment and limited rewards. Now we have come to understand that salvation simply means you are free in your mind. You don’t buy into salvation’s alternative, damnation, because you aren’t listening to the counsel of the chattering mind threathening you every step of the way.

Instead you have become clear that, as the empty shell, you are open to intuitive inner wisdom that flows through you and directs you. The chatter of the punitive alternative is released immediately if it even comes up because it is no longer considered believable. This is the Correction that I have accepted. Salvation is only what my mind holds with God and that is why it can be said to cure.

Lesson 149. My mind holds only what I think with God.

(137) When I am healed I am not healed alone.

(138) Heaven is the decision I must make.

I am not healed alone, because this very idea carries with it the notion of separation. As I have often said, there is only one thing going on here. That “thing” is the awakening of the one mind unto itself. It is for this reason that all my mighty companions are having epiphanies that feel so similar to the ones “I” have been experiencing. I look at the world outside this spiritually oriented circle of friends and family, however, and what I see doesn’t look like the healing of the one mind. Rather, outside that circle, it appears as if the divisions are deeper and greater than ever before. It occurs to me that this phenomenon is reflective of the healing process I witness in this little space of the mind/body/personality of Jacquelyn. Those parts that aren’t healed are more heated, more pronounced than before as the ego seemingly battles for survival. Is this, indeed, a reflection of that same seeming process? I can’t know the answer to that. I do know that as I look out on the world, I know that what I see need not be different. I know that all is well. I know that life itself lives.

Even as I seem to be a mind/body/personality walking about in a world of others like me but somehow removed from me, I know that when I am healed, I am not healed alone. How could that be? My healing is my extension of peace and wholeness to those whom I encounter. I see it in them. I feel the desire within them for connection and the extension of love and gratitude towards me in equal measure to that extended them. This is not to say I never encounter someone “having a bad day.” But, my heart opens to them as well. It is in my remembrance of our joint true desire that I join with them. I am blessed to offer love and receive the same from all I see.

Heaven is a decision I have made and continue to make as I become enlightened to one thought at a time. I have become more interested in removing the blocks to awareness of True Nature than in maintaining an image of myself. I have become less defensive and self-protective. It still stings a bit when I uncover a blind spot, but in my heart I am happy. I pray for my undoing. I submit my self to be undone.

Lesson 148. My mind holds only what I think with God.

(135) If I defend myself I am attacked

(136) Sickness is a defense against the truth

We are beginning to think (or not think) from a new perspective. Many of us, until recently, have been wrong about what we think we think and how the mind works or doesn’t work. We are now aware enough that we know we don’t want to come from that unconscious chatter that claims to be us. We want to stop defending ourselves. Aren’t we cognitive enough to ask, ‘who would I defend myself from?’

I’m ready to change. Until recently I used defenses casually, almost jokingly to justify everything. I forgot to do so and so, oh I must be getting old. I never have been good with numbers, you will have to figure it out. I was raised to think _____ so I can’t go there. I always let my husband do that because men do that sort of thing. When we use defenses like I’m too old, too fat, too ugly, too poor, too sick, too tired, too weak, or too busy we are confirming with more power than we might realize our limitations as we unconsciously believe them. This is an attack against ourselves. These are attacks on truth because the mind, the perceiver of life as we know it, believes it when we say and think these concepts.

Some might say we are just protecting ourselves, but in so doing we are hiding the truth about ourselves from ourselves. Maybe you just think you need for some things to change in order for you to be happy or safe or whatever you are defending yourself against. Nevertheless, when we defend ourselves we are making a choice, conscious or not, to identify with the deceived mind, attack ourselves and others and keep our minds focused in the world. I’m ready to let go of these interpretations, mind chattering concepts and justifications. I’m ready to drop the habit of ignorance and turn attention toward the heart, towards truth.

Lesson 147. My mind holds only what I think with God.

(133) I will not value what is valueless.

(134) Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

I am struck by how different this lesson appears to me now. There was a time when I believed that I was somehow being asked to give up that which I valued and exchange it for something else that someone else thought was more valuable.

I will not value what is valueless. What is valuable?  What is valuable is what we have identified as that which “I think with God”: peace, love, joy and oneness. These qualities engender the knowledge that all is well, cause me to greet everyone and everything with an open embracing acceptance, give me an inherent sense of freedom—a sense of soaring from within—and cause me to feel an intimacy with everything. I know the value of these inherent characteristics of my being from my own direct experience. What could possibly be more valuable than this?

Forgiveness is the invitation to experience only this. Forgiveness is to let go confusion over who I am so that I experience only those qualities inherent in Source and thus inherent in me. Forgiveness is, in fact, the embodiment of those very things: knowing all is well, practicing open embracing acceptance, experiencing and extending an inherent sense of freedom and experiencing an intimacy with everything. Forgiveness is recognizing that anything I seem to think or experience that is different from those qualities is simply untrue.

I am grateful for the simplicity of “salvation”/freedom.

Lesson 146. My mind holds only what I think with God.

(131) No-one can fail who asks to reach the truth

(132) I loose the world from all I thought it was

“I loose the world from all I thought it was.” This declaration is saying I was wrong about what I think I am, what I think the world is and what I think the world’s source is. Now I recognize that the mind contains the world. If this is true, I want to loosen my grip on the thoughts I thought were true and see from another way. If I am starting to recognize my thoughts have been wrong about everything I want to allow this doubt of validity to be the impetus for finding the truth.

Lesson 131, “No-one can fail who asks to reach the truth.” Now that this idea has been proposed, and that I have been wrong, that my perceptions are wrong, I want to open my mind to a new perspective, a shift in the way I perceive. I want to actively seek this new perspective. And the good news is we have been given the tools with which to find it. We can find it by becoming as an empty shell according to 1 Corinthians 13, “Become as a empty shell to know Love.” We seek it through our spiritual aspiration and through Awareness watching Awareness, as well as, practicing the Loving All Method. It is exciting to let the old go and to contemplate Life from the perspective of truth. Glory be to God and Truth.

Lesson 145. My mind holds only what I think with God.

(129) Beyond this world there is a world I want.

(130) It is impossible to see two worlds.

When I look out at the world I see from the perspective of this body/mind/personality, it appears to be a place of sorrow and suffering. If I allow what is seen by the body’s eyes to tell me who I am, I too suffer. I understand that I have an alternative choice. If I turn my looking inward, and ask the silence who I am, I do not experience the suffering of the world. Rather, I experience peace and joy unaffected by the world or its events. I see the world beyond this world as I remove my believing attention (my belief in my thoughts about it) and sit in the truth of silence.

If I give my believing attention to the events and the “laws” of the world, I continue to experience the world as solid—fact based—reality. I have been graced with the vision to understand that this world is not reality. Only by removing my thoughts from the world and my seeming place in it, do I make room for the truth to be seen by me. I cannot believe in some aspects of the world I see (like the one’s I like) and withdraw my belief from other aspects. I either invest in this world – and so imbue it with seeming reality – or I recognize that what this world would show me has no relation to the truth.

Lesson 144. My mind holds only what I think with God.

(127) There is no love but God’s.

(128) The world I see has nothing that I want.

For the review we are to practice repeating the two lessons each hour after we gave the first five minutes to the central idea of this review section. But how are these thoughts connected?

The Thoughts of God would have to refer to our true nature. Because our true nature is all that exists, Lesson 127 could also say, “There is nothing but love.” It couldn’t have anything to do with form. There is no independent life in form. Life is eternal and formless. Then I went back and read lesson 128, “The world I see has nothing that I want.” That lesson also says, “For what you value you make part of you, as you perceive yourself.” I want to experience the Love that I am.

1 Corinthians 13 says, “When you look on the world you see the reflection of your mind, which makes the world through thought. What you believe and what you accept is seen in the world. There is division [in the world], because there is division in your thought. This thought is not love.”

If the world is in my mind and my beliefs are what is reflected there, then I certainly want to believe my mind holds only love. So again, how does this connect to “There is no love but God’s”? If love is what I am and this world is intended to offer me the experience of something other than what is, then love can’t really be known within this temporal reflection. Our beliefs keep love blocked from our minds. Lesson 127 says, “The world that seems to hold you prisoner can be escaped by anyone who does not hold it dear.” I hold it dear by giving my thoughts about who I am my believing attention.

Again, 1 Corinthians 13 says, “Become as an empty shell to know Love.” I think that is the connecting idea. Just what we have been learning. First, we must removing our believing attention from the thoughts that purport to tell us who we are. In the space made empty, we find that awareness watching awareness is the portal to Real Vision and Love.

My mind holds only what I think with God.

Each day during the review period, be sure to start with five minutes contemplating this thought. You don’t need to write anything about it, although you can if something begins to come that you want to write down. However, be sure to spend five minutes marinating in this thought. Assume that it is preparing you for what will follow next, even if you do not notice the preparation at all. After you’ve spent five minutes with this initial thought, go on to contemplate the review lessons for the day. Write down what comes as you contemplate them.

This is my personal contemplation for the day. Be sure to write your own.

LESSON 143. My mind holds only what I think with God.

(125) In quiet I receive God’s Word today.

(126) All that I give is given to myself.

The quiet mind is often quiet, not just when sitting in meditation. I see thoughts that clamor for my attention. I see the choice to be quiet. My peace lies in the choice to rest in awareness. How do I receive God’s Word? I receive God’s Word by leaving space for it. In this quiet space there is clarity and absence of doubt.

I give to myself by resting in awareness. By removing attention from the thoughts that offer themselves to be thought, I receive that which is always present within the spaciousness of awareness. The peace that is present is that which I give to myself. By giving myself the space in which to simply be, I receive the gift of spaciousness. It is this same spaciousness and allowance I take to my interactions with others. Like meets like and this spaciousness, joy even, is given back to me.

Lesson 142. My mind holds only what I think with God.

(123) I thank my Father for His gifts to me.

(124) Let me remember I am one with God.

As I contemplate God’s gifts to me, immediately I am aware of the life I have lived. It has been a pathway to God from the very beginning.

I was seemingly born to two loving parents. My father was studying theology in college and became a Methodist minister.

Years later, my parents lives (and subsequently their children’s lives) were changed when they found a New Thought Sunday school class within the Methodist church that the family attended.

My parents discovered the books and teachings of Edgar Cayce, Ruth Montgomery and others and would reads their books to their daughters like most parents would reads children’s books to their children before bed. My sisters and I loved it and we couldn’t get enough.

My parents moved to Unity Village to further their spiritual education. My Mother became a Unity Teacher and my father became a Unity minister.

My parents gave all five of their daughters the three piece book set of A Course In Miracles for Christmas shortly after I graduated from college.

We had regular family “Course” meetings for many, many years.

My Dad became the minister at Unity of Louisville. Dad invited Regina Dawn Akers to come and speak at the church. Several family members went to some of Regina’s speaking engagements.

My Dad, and later my Mom, moved to Wisconsin and studied with the group at The Endeavor Academy. My sisters and I spent time within the community and I had numerous mystical experiences.

Dad found David Hoffmeister and his Messengers when they were in the northern Kentucky and Cincinnati area. Several of us spent significant time with the group. New and expansive teachings were lighting us up.

Jacquelyn left her position as a District Court judge in Louisville, Kentucky to go with the Hoffmeister group to Utah. Mom went also and stayed for several years. I spent lots and lots of time with the group mostly via retreats.

Jacquelyn found Regina Dawn Akers in Colorado and moved close by.

When Regina received guidance to start Awakening Together, Jacquelyn was a founding trustee, eventually becoming vice-president. I joined a little after the church began. Jacquelyn and I teach and facilitate a Consistent Gentle Healing group together.

I am grateful for the path that was laid out before me. I am grateful to all those family and non-family members who lit the way for me. I feel I have been in the flow of Purpose for most of my life and never more than I presently am. Even helping facilitate the Consistent Gentle Healing Group has felt like the universe has been encouraging me to be more and more involved in my awakening. I am well on my way to remembering who I really am because I have more and more certainty I am one with God.