LESSON 107. Truth will correct all errors in my mind.

This lesson is about resting in truth. In this resting, we let go of listening to the stories of the mind and simply rest in Awareness. The lesson says we should say to ourselves, “Truth will correct all errors in my mind, And I will rest in Him Who is my Self.” The Him referred to here is not separate from us, it is the Awareness we are coming to know as our selves. When we rest in Awareness, we remove our attention from the belief in the world and our thoughts about it. Having done so, “They are gone because, without belief, they have no life.”

Yesterday’s tip pointed out that true spirituality is based on trusting the teachings enough to engage in spiritual practice. The benefits of spiritual practice are highlighted in today’s workbook lesson.

Yes, the words of the lesson are beautiful. However, their true beauty and meaning is realized as we have a direct experience of letting go of error thinking (or outward focus) and rest within Awareness.

Today, I experienced a felt sense of the meaning of these words. Last week, I went back home to Kentucky to visit friends and family. I have four sisters, my mother, my son, nieces and nephews, and friends there–lots of activity to fit into a week’s vacation. I did the lessons each day, although not first thing in the morning and not consistently for the first five minutes of each hour. Longer meditations were few and far between. Today was my first full day back in Colorado and it was a busy day indeed. I meditated for half an hour this morning and “mostly” did the lessons for the first five minutes of each hour. After our board meeting tonight I decided I had missed my own cooking and made a meatloaf. The time was running short to get this tip posted in time for it to go out with the Daily Update. I heard very clearly that I was to sit down and meditate before writing the lesson. With the cat on my lap and the meatloaf in the oven, I did just that. I sorted through various thoughts in the mind, let them go and came back to awareness watching awareness several times. What unmistakably greeted me in that meditation, was a felt sense of peace, a spaciousness and a true sense of resting beyond the thinking mind. I have no question that the peace in which I rested was the truth of my being.

As you practice your five minutes with the lesson each hour today, rest with the felt sense of these words—of the experience to which the lesson points. As the lesson tells us, “Truth does not come and go nor shift nor change, in this appearance now and then in that, evading capture and escaping grasp. It does not hide. It stands in open light, in obvious accessibility. It is impossible that anyone could seek it truly, and would not succeed.”

Though the truth is “obviously accessible,” for me, it is important to take a bit more time to have the direct experience of the truth to which the lesson points. It takes me some time to get “settled in” beyond the thoughts and outer focus which hold my attention for most of the day. This is why it is so important for me to practice an extended period of awareness watching awareness meditation as the homework directs us to do. When I do so, I make room for the experience of the truth. In that space, I am aware only of being aware. In that space I experience the constancy of truth, where “nothing comes to interrupt [my] peace; [where I am] certain [I am] loved and safe.” Longer periods of time spent in the direct experience of Awareness seem to make it easier to find in my five minute practice periods.

This lesson is so straight-forward. It sets forth a simple truth. “Give truth its due, and it will give you yours.” The direct experience of truth is always readily available. We need merely turn our attention away from thought and rest in the awareness of its presence to prove this to ourselves. Truth (awareness) corrects all errors in my mind as I willingly pull attention out of thought and rest with awareness to the best of my ability. As we practice, we see the miraculous results, if only briefly. As I practice I see that even my small, poorly skilled effort is allowing something remarkable to take place.

Lesson 106. Let me be still and listen to the truth.

I’ve done these lessons before, so when today’s lesson said don’t listen to the ego, it was, “Okay, okay.” But then I realized there was something different for me here today.  Just today, Jacquelyn and I were talking about how the ego makes you miserable by using what seems like your own beliefs against you.  It will tell you if you are to be in integrity you must do this or think about it like this.  Surely you want to be in integrity, the ego asked about a scenario you just played out in your mind.  How about, if you were really honest, like you proclaim to be, then you should…. The ego will use all your beliefs you hold about yourself to let you know you aren’t that caliber of a person.

I thought I had overcome the unworthy ego suck you in principal, but when I shared my thoughts with Jacquelyn she reminded me I had followed that ego rabbit down its hole.  Today’s lesson says, “If you lay aside the ego’s voice however loudly it may seem to call; if you will not accept its petty gifts which give you nothing that you really want, if you will listen with a open mind, which has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth (awareness), quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages.”

The ego’s voice pops up from nowhere, with all of your insecurities dangling from the carrot stick, enticing you to follow it one more time down the rabbit hole of unconscious thoughts.  Beware, this lesson says.  It has nothing of value.  It cannot save you.  How could the ego save awareness?  To hear the mighty Voice of Truth we have to give up our beliefs.  They are not truly our beliefs. They are a big bundle of beliefs that we have repeatedly followed down the rabbit hole of unconsciousness.  We learned this already.  A thought comes in and instead of giving it any attention we can dismiss it. But instead of telling it, “You ain’t me”, I follow it. Lets see, where will this lead?  It leads to the same place it always leads.  It leads to feeling like crap.  It makes me suffer every time it pops in and I follow it.

Sometimes this disparaging voice seems to come from someone else, but surely I’m not fooled by my own projection.  Somewhere in the Course it says that all the Course really promises is peace of mind.  Please of mind will never be revealed by listening to these impostors.

Today’s lesson says, “Be not afraid today to circumvent the voice of the world, walk lightly past their meaningless persuasion.”  Walk past them.  Keep your faith.  True faith isn’t belief.  Faith is trusting the teachings we have been receiving–trusting them enough to practice our Workbook lessons.  Trusting enough to practice meditating with awareness watching awareness; practice the Loving All Method; practice our True Spiritual Aspiration along with our visualization plan.  I need these practices.  I need to believe in them by putting them into practice.  I need these practices because I’m still spiritually immature enough to follow the wrong guide, the wrong path, the thinking mind.  These practices help prepare me for miracles.  They will prepare me for my own direct experience of the Truth.  They help me “be still and listen to the truth (awareness).”

Lesson 103, God, being Love, is also happiness.

Today’s workbook lesson begins with this:

“Happiness is an attribute of love. … Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy. This strange bellef would limit happiness by redefining love as limited, and introducing opposition in what has no limit and no opposite.”

“Sin” is that which should not be. It is impossible to be happy with something if we judge that it should not be. This judgment, which is the fundamental judgment and the root of all judgments, is what we need to learn to let go of. There isn’t one circumstance that we can withhold from our love, our happiness, our forgiveness, because if there is any circumstance that we withhold from love, we have deemed that to be separate from love. Metaphysically, we withhold healing from anything that we withhold love from. We also withhold healing from ourselves in the same instant.

The decision not to love something, not to be happy with something, not to forgive something, is the cause of all suffering everywhere in the world.

This week as you read the Loving All Method, contemplate it deeply. Look at those situations that you want to withhold from love, realize those are situations that you’d like to see healed, and then remember that love is the only healing power. We cannot guarantee that a specific situation will be healed by your love, because many others may still hold judgments against it, but we can guarantee that your love will heal something. Not least of all, your love will heal you. We can also guarantee that your love will never add to a problem anywhere. When you love, you subtract from problems; you do not add to them.

The Loving All Method is generous. It gives you options. If you find you cannot love something, you can at least accept it. If you find you cannot even accept it, you can at least emotionally allow it. “Emotionally allow” is the same as Rest, Accept and Trust with the feelings you have about it.

Read today’s lesson again, and notice how clearly it points to the Loving All Method as an important practice in accepting truth. If love is all there is, if God is all there is, then happiness is all we experience. If we do not experience happiness, we have defined something as sin. Pause, look at it. Notice you have decided that should not be, and then practice the Loving All Method with it. Love it if you can. Accept it if that is the best you can do. Emotionally allow it if love or acceptance is too much of a stretch for you now.

Gotta go. Dad is calling me to breakfast. Gotta love it!

Lesson 102, I share God’s Will for happiness for me.

Today’s workbook lesson tells us that we think pain and suffering buy us something, something that we want. If we are not perfectly happy, this belief is in our mind. It may not seem that way. It could even feel offensive if someone tells us that we are unhappy because we think unhappiness will get us something that we want, but it’s true.

One example: When we are unhappy with the government or its policies, we think enough unhappiness like ours will generate the change we want to see.

Some of you may have thought, “Well, yea!” when you read that. There might even be a fear that if you aren’t unhappy, the change you want will never happen.

This belief that unhappiness will get us what we want is a deeply held belief, and it is completely screwed up. The only thing this belief does is keep us from being happy when we could be happy. Metaphysically, that’s more sinister than it may sound since our energy goes out and paints the world we see.

If you want the world to be a happier more secure place, offer it a happier more secure person. Give what you want to see by being what you want to see.

In Chapter 15 of “The Untethered Soul,” Michael Singer wrote:

“[Unconditional happiness] leads you to absolute transcendence because any part of your being that would add a condition to your commitment to happiness has to go. … You have to transcend the personal, and as you do, you will naturally awaken to the higher aspects of your being.”

Happiness is the way to contribute to a better world, and happiness is the path to enlightenment. If you are not choosing to be happy now, there must be something else that you think you want. What is it?

Don’t simply read this and say, “Uh-huh,” or click Like. Read this and look. Whenever you are not happy, you think you can get something from not being happy. What is it that you think unhappiness will get you?

Will people start acting the way you want them to act?
Will people give you attention that you want?
Will God grant your wishes like a genie?
Will your thoughts quit coming?
Will you quit making mistakes?
Will your health get better?
Will someone love you?

Just what do you think you have to gain by being unhappy? What is the hidden desire that unhappiness is chartered with resolving? AND can you see that it is not your true desire? Are you willing to let it go, and simply be happy ???

Be happy even if people act differently than you would have them act. Be happy even if you don’t get attention from others. Be happy even if your wishes are not granted. Be happy even if the same thoughts keep coming in your mind. Be happy even if you make mistakes. Be happy even if the body isn’t healthy. Be happy even if someone chooses not to love you.

Do you share God’s Will for your happiness? Are you ready?

Lesson 101, God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.

Two days ago the tip for Lesson 99 led you in an inquiry. As part of that inquiry you were asked to “Notice the difference between thought and awareness. Notice which causes all kinds of trouble and suffering, and which is peacefully present. Notice which is you and which is not.”

I hope you were able to see, at least briefly, that you are awareness, which is peacefully present. This seeing helps you to understand what today’s lesson points to…there is no sin.