Friday, January 11, 2008

~umm... contemplationshare~ lesson 11

Lesson 11:

“My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world…”

My mind keeps referencing early sections of the Course~ the part where it (Jesus) is saying to watch your mind carefully…

“It has never really entered your mind to give up every idea you ever had that opposes knowledge. You retain thousands of little scraps of fear that prevent the Holy One from entering. Light cannot penetrate through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever unwilling to destroy what you have made. No one can see through a wall, but I can step around it. Watch your mind for the scraps of fear, or you will be unable to ask Me to do so... watch carefully and see what it is you are really asking for. Be very honest with yourself in this, for we must hide nothing from each other. If you will really try to do this, you have taken the first step toward preparing your mind for the Holy One to enter. We will prepare for this together, for once He has come, you will be ready to help Me to make other minds ready for Him. How long will you deny Him His Kingdom?

…Watch your mind for the temptations of the ego, and do not be deceived by it. It offers you nothing. When you have given up this voluntary dis-spiriting, you will see how your mind can focus and rise above fatigue and heal. Yet you are not sufficiently vigilant against the demands of the ego to disengage yourself. This need not be.

The habit of engaging with God and His creations is easily made if you actively refuse to let your mind slip away. The problem is not one of concentration; it is the belief that no one, including yourself, is worth consistent effort. Side with me consistently against this deception, and do not permit this shabby belief to pull you back. The disheartened are useless to themselves and to me, but only the ego can be disheartened…Watch your mind carefully for any beliefs that hinder its accomplishment, and step away from them. Judge how well you have done this by your own feelings, for this is the one right use of judgment. Judgment, like any other defense, can be used to attack or protect; to hurt or to heal. The ego SHOULD be brought to judgment and found wanting there. Without your own allegiance, protection and love, the ego cannot exist. Let it be judged truly and you must withdraw allegiance, protection and love from it. (T4.III-IV)

I remember the horrid self-debasement I put myself through for my lack of discipline, for my addiction to “being” the character in the script, for ‘seeing’ it theoretically and yet completely caught up in the dream… whipped by it. God, how I have wished that something ‘out there’ could shoulder the burden of my feelings of uselessness and imperfection and hopelessness…but there’s nothing out there. Having given everything all the meaning it has for me and having projected it ‘out there’ has resulted in the futile exercise of trying to rearrange the figures on the screen. And seeing that this attempt has never changed a thing, the only thing left to do has been what the Course suggests...In every situation, ask “what is this for?’…Then wait, watch and listen.

It has been these simple lessons that have placed me in this excellent seat in the audience of the show “My So Called Life’.

It’s so interesting (from where I seem to be right now) to observe my seeming world with its seeming thoughts; to notice the compulsion to make it ‘the real thing’. I watch the shifting, changing landscape and characters and opinions. What a Show! I laugh out loud… So capricious is this serious character, ‘the hero of the dream”. I feel the still, silent prayer of gratitude for having the ‘best seat in the house’ to watch this production from. ~I weep… I laugh…I forgive…

We’re in this together, you and I, and we are not alone. I am joined with you in the joyous realization of the Truth~ you and I are One~

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