Over the next 10 days, I will share something in each tip about our new special theme, and then I will share about the lesson for the day. I will end each tip with a recommended meditation.
What is the World?
Our special theme begins, “The world is a false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source.” Its source is error. In this case, it is an error about what we are. The Course calls it “the thought of separation.” The thought of separation, the ego and the I-thought are synonymous.
As Michael Langford writes, the ego “has created all the wars, diseases, death, suffering and evil that every human has ever experienced.”
It might be helpful to look at the suffering the thought of separation creates. In Chapter 5 of The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss, Michael Langford speaks of the “thousands of wars; thousands of diseases; thousands of forms of violence; all of the ways humans deceive, hurt, and cheat each other; and every other form of human suffering that you can think of.” I find it helpful to look at specific examples of suffering, so let me share two news stories that came to my attention today:
- Police in Kentucky say a 5-year-old boy watched helplessly as his mother was beaten, bound and thrown off a cliff over the weekend. Two hikers discovered the boy’s mother Saturday morning at the bottom of an 80-foot embankment. She survived the fall and is recovering in the hospital. Her discovery set off a search for her son. More than 200 people searched for the boy on Saturday and Sunday. Authorities found the boy’s body near where his mother was left for dead.
- Members of an indigenous tribe in Brazil’s Amazon Basin were allegedly killed by illegal gold miners, according to Survival International. The organization, which advocates for indigenous rights, said the massacre included women and children and may have wiped out one-fifth of the tribe. Members of the tribe were gathering eggs along a river in the Javari Valley, in the country’s remote west, when they came across the illegal miners. The miners later boasted about the slaughter at a bar in the nearest town, and even showed off a hand-carved paddle they claimed to have stolen as a trophy. They bragged about cutting up the bodies and throwing them in the river.
Sadly, there are many, many more stories like these that are not in the news. These stories are only a tiny sample of the suffering caused by the thought of separation everyday.
It would be helpful to read Chapter 5 from The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss again. Please read it at a time of your convenience today.
This holy instant is salvation come.
Our last special theme said that salvation “is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to Him at last. It cannot but be kept. It guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born in time will end as well.”
Today we celebrate this promise. We also realize that we are not passive receivers of the promise. We have a role to play. Our role is forgiveness. Forgiveness is remaining focused on our unaffected Self while failing to support the ego—choosing not to uphold it with our attention and action.
Since we are not supporting the ego, we need another way to live in the world. That way is surrender, seeking guidance from spiritual intuition by asking, “What am I to do now?” and letting it lead us in everything we think, say and do.
How glad we are to celebrate the promise of salvation today! We celebrate by joyously doing our part. We are eager to play our role in salvation. (With a heart full of joy, we make Choice A.)
If you have 45 minutes for meditation today, I recommend this meditation:
If you don’t have that much time, consider this 25-minute meditation:
If there is time in your day today, consider doing both meditations, possibly one in the morning and one before bed.
