Lesson 187:

I bless the world because I bless myself…

We bless as is our true nature. Blessing is an extension of creation which happens naturally when we resist not what we think we see or feel or experience. When we say we bless, we are accepting we have received the simple fact that we are as God created us, into our mind and therefore have blessing to extend. Blessing is another way of saying, “all of love is mine in union with One Source, which purifies whatever else mind might think it sees or feels or has, with the peace that passeth understanding, but belongs to all as one, nonetheless…”

As we look closely at our daily lives, we see that how we are experiencing ourselves at any given moment is what we’re ‘blessing’ the circumstances around us with... If I see myself as limited and scarce and being generous in my thoughts to others as some sort of sacrifice to me, I come across as stingy and bitchy, because I have temporarily forgotten who I am and have taken myself to be ‘less’, requiring ‘more’ to feel I can give… We’ve all had this experience. If I notice however, that I don’t like the way I feel, so therefore must have decided wrongly about myself and the situation, and choose to forgive my misperception and allow the Holy Spirit within my mind to show me another way of perceiving; hell turns to Heaven… Persons and the situation suddenly are seen as bearing a gift for all. Haven’t we all had those miracle moments where we changed the way we were looking at a situation or person, from a negative perspective to one of commonality, and seen the whole situation shift around us? Yes.

When I turn my mind to the remembrance of truth; assigning it as my one goal, I bless my self. And the entirety of my involvement with the world becomes one blessed by the desire to unite with the truth in everyone and everything; for-giving the false in accordance.

We revisit in coupling some of the fundamental themes this Course rests corner-stoned upon. “Ideas leave not their source” and “to give and to receive are one”. We give to realize we have. I love the clarity of these paragraphs from today’s lesson:

“Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them. If you are to save the world, you first accept salvation for yourself. But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon. Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. Now you can perceive that by your giving is you store increased…

Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them. What you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours. Ye t value not its form. For this will change and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. No form endures. It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable.

Illusion recognized must disappear. Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering. Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers, when you choose to see all suffering as what it is. The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.

Never believe that you can sacrifice. There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen and correction must be made. Your blessing will correct it. Given first to you, it now is yours to give as well. No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has blessed himself… “

Let us not be afraid to look within at the truth of who we are, first, today, and stay with that inward vision till it fills the entire embodiment of our being, blessing us and giving us eyes to see and desire to bless each and every encounter as the holy encounter that it is…