Lesson 202:

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

I will be still an instant and go home.

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

“There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten; where no memory of sin and of illusion lingers still. There is a place in your which time has left, and echoes of eternity are heard. There is a resting place so still no sound except a hymn to Heaven rises up to gladden God the father and the Son. Where Both abide are They remembered, Both. And where They ere is Heaven and is peace… Think not that you can change Their dwelling place. For your Identity abides in Them, and where They are, forever must you be. The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of it creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within.” (T-29.v.1-2).

Imagine that at any moment, you could just slip off into paradise of total peace and bliss.... You can. It’s called the present moment.

What this lesson is reminding us, is that we can experience this any time we choose. It’s saying, “How’s Now”?

It is a decision of the state in which we want to be. It is a wholehearted decision and can’t be made half-massed. We either want Heaven and the peace of God, or we want hell. In other words, what I am saying is that, if we are telling ourselves that we want Heaven yet don’t feel it is being given us, we are simply still harboring fugitive values in this world of hell. We are still valuing the belief that there is something outside our Self that can determine our experience of life. I like how the Course addresses this as a parallel to childish dreams. They make up characters and pretend the rule the world, and give their toys the power to move about, and talk and think and feel and speak for them. Yet everything their toys appear to do is in the minds of those who play with them. But they are eager to forget that they made up the dream in which their toys are real, nor recognize their whishes are their own, when in nightmares, it seems the toys have turned against the child who thought he made them real.

This is just how we do it, isn’t it? We experience said situation; say, you’re waiting at the amusement park, watching your child riding rides. It begins to pour rain. Those are simply the facts of the situation; the ‘innocent’ or neutral facts of the situation. It’s what is. Now, what if you don’t like it when this happens; what if you have a belief that rain will spoil the fun, or your hair, or you just plain don’t want it to rain, what happens? Does the rain back off? See, we give life (outside our self) to the object of our attention, with our judgment of it. Does our irritation change anything; but perhaps our sanity to insanity?

What if we remain in the present moment; totally, joyously accepting, without expectation, whatever happens?

This is the practice of ‘being still an instant and going home’. This is how we do our part in practicing the holy instant, till we have no more resistance left, and God can enter and the holy instant can be given us by God. For we are ready to receive…

Now, I am not talking about how we love certain things seemingly in this world, its only natural. We love what we make. Just as God loves what he created. We made the ego and with it a world opposite to Heaven in everyway (or it would be Heaven, wouldn’t it). So it must be a dream…

The thing is that we also cannot be apart from what we are; which is as God created, which is Heaven and home. We are the love we experience in this world. The joy and love and happiness we experience are infused by our being. Form has only the function we give it. It is our dream. We are at home in God.

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

and

I will be still an instant and go home…