Lesson 189. I feel the Love of God within me now.
Our current goals:
- Widen the horizons of our vision
- Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
- Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
- Intensify our motivation for freedom
Yesterday’s Course lesson told us, “Sit quietly and close your eyes. The light within you is sufficient. It alone has the power to give the gift of sight to you. Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within.”
Today’s lesson gives us more specific instructions:
“Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.”
Our job is to let go of “all obstacles that you have interposed between the Son and God the Father … And with this choice we rest.” That’s it. Nothing more. The Course calls this “simplicity.”
The Course is clear that we remove the obstacles, we rest in awareness-watching-awareness, and “do not make demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be. For in that way is your reality proclaimed as well.”
Our thoughts are blocks to our awareness of what we are. You cannot hold onto ideas about what you are—necessarily, ideas about what this one you think you are can and cannot do—and know the truth of being. You have heard it said “Ye are gods.” This is a true statement of our nature. Thus, it must carry with it the understanding that as such, we have no limits.
Why do we insist on claiming limits for ourselves? We enjoy kicking this idea around as theory, but our fear keeps us from seriously embracing the truth of the statement. As gods, we are responsible for what we see—who could keep your heart’s desire from you?
When we are asked to “be enlightened now,” our clinging to our habitual conceptions of ourselves twists that directive into a milquetoast entreaty along the lines of “do the best you can.” We are not humans trying to be a better humans. We are gods pretending to be human.
What this paragraph does is invite us—the prodigal son—to return home. Note that in the story of the prodigal son, no one came bounding in to save him from the life he had chosen. It was by his own choice that he returned.
We are made slave by choosing our own mantel. This lesson entreats us to throw off the mantel—acknowledge we have chosen confusion and renounce it. Acknowledge we are confused about who we are, who God is, what is good, what is bad; acknowledge that we cannot reason our way back to sanity or understanding.
The only way back home is to simply offer ourselves unto God (Truth) and ask to be shown our truth. We do this by resting in the silence—not just during sitting meditation, but during our day, in the face of the proffered answers of the thinking mind, despite our confusion about who we think we are or how we think the world works. Turning to these tactics keeps us wrapped in confusion.
We are not being asked to sit in the corner of the room and do nothing. We are being asked to ask our hearts for guidance–ask as if we were little children, who really don’t know. We don’t know what we are, what we should say or do, or what is in our own best interests. This lesson is just reminding us that we need to quit pretending that we do know and surrender to that which does.
As we are reading this week in NTI John, Chapter 10:
“I Am the way, and the thoughts that came before were not. You spent many years listening to the thoughts that came before Me, and they have given you nothing. I Am the way, because I Am the Light, and the Light is the way to Life. Open to Me. Listen to Me. Tune out all other voices by letting go of all other thoughts. The time has come to listen only unto the Light.
How is it that I Am known? I Am the Light, and so I carry with Me the characteristics of the Light and only the characteristics of the Light. You will not find fear in Me. You will find only Love. You will not find attack and war; you will find only peace. You will not find guilt or accusation; you will find only sweet forgiveness that sees that which is meaningless as meaningless and asks it to take on no meaning. You can trust My Voice, because you recognize it as yours, and you know it is yours. I Am the Light, the Light of which you are. We are one and the same, and you are Me. And so you know Me, and you recognize your desire to remember Me as all that you are.”
