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).”
