Lesson 303:

The holy Christ is born in me today…

Of course we talking about giving up the façade here and deciding to see as Christ; the Son which God created as Himself… whose vision replaces our faulty perception… by our decision for it…

This is to say, that while I wish to believe I am a body; identify with being a victim of circumstances, a character pawn in a heartless world, at the mercy of or on the guard for unforeseen enemies, competing for the scarce and limited resources to sustain my form until the inevitable death that will take us all, I can not see the truth about my self…

It’s like trying to look at the world through the opening in a drinking straw. Quite limiting, yes?

Imagine with me and follow my train for a second… So, you’re looking at your life and the world you live in with through this tiny opening… all your senses tell you there is so much more going on than you have access to, you begin to notice how limiting believing the straw-perception feels to your experience of your life. You begin to focus more on the information you are receiving from your intuition as to what the bigger picture must be. This feels freeing. It feels good; loving… So you increase your amount of attention given to the internal, experiencing a more natural and expansive experience of your life… You, simultaneously, are withdrawing attention from the limited little space you once believed to be the only perception… your belief in it, goes with it… the straw drops. For it was only your attention that kept it in place… Now, your eyes open wide… Light floods your sight and what you see is what you had come to believe you would… and oh, how you love what you first placed your faith in, then decided to trust; trusting inspiration toward life, verses preservations for the death script…

And JOY abounds for in trusting, you have found your Self; always, already here, waiting for your trust… shining in the brilliance of your forgiven brother’s eyes and warming your heart with her smile and filling your soul with the belonging that Christ has unified the Son of God, forever whole…

Let’s share in the prayer today’s lesson offers:

Your Son is welcome, Father. He has come to save me from the evil self I made. He is the Self That You have given me. He is but what I really am in truth. He is the Son You love above all things. He is my Self as You created me. it is not Christ that can be crucified. Safe in Your Arms let me receive Your Son…

Review V: Lesson 171:

GOD IS BUT LOVE, AND THEREFORE SO AM I:

Join me in this prayer:

“Steady our feet, our Father. Let our doubts be quiet and our holy minds be still, and speak to us. We have no words to give to You. We would but listen to Your Word, and make it ours. Lead our practicing as does a father lead a little child along a way he does not understand. Yet does he follow, sure that he is safe because his father leads the way for him… So do we bring our practicing to You. And if we stumble, You will raise us up. If we forget the way, we count upon Your sure remembering. We wander off, but You will not forget to call us back. Quicken our footsteps now, that we may walk more certainly and quickly unto You. And we accept the Word You offer us to unify our practicing, as we review the thoughts that You have given us”… “God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

This is the prayer given us in review V of the workbook. Once again, we see His gentle approach to our childish fears while at the same moment, sweeping us up in the sure and loving arms of the Parent we trust implicitly, complete with the sense of never even considering what mistrust of Him might be. We feel safe and assured in His certainty.

A new level of faith and trust reside within us now. We have met the arrogant character of ‘self-reliance’, accepting instead the arm we felt on our shoulder, the hand already in our own that rests as calm assurance in our hearts. We value the path we take in a wholly different way, for we no longer value for ourselves alone. In fact, we are loosing all sense of the idea of aloneness, for it slips gently away as the abundance of oneness fills the forefront of our mind returned the present~ now.

We have accepted that God set the plan for salvation, and we, with relief, have given up the arrogant belief that it is up to us. “Me” ceases its importance; what is not for all, cannot be for any… for such is the composition of oneness, which we know, however vaguely, is the meaning of what we are… We gladly embark on this review group with the vision rendered by first accepting our station in God… We use the core idea, which zeros out the rest and grounds us at the zero point of thought…

“GOD IS BUT LOVE AND THEREFORE SO AM I.”

Here, we wait for the prompting of the Holy Spirit within our mind, and then look with Him, upon the ideas presented in each days lesson. Whatever we thought we thought they meant before, we surrender before the now of meaning that our readiness shall lend…

All things are echoes of the Voice for God…

With the vision of oneness upon our eyes, we are satisfied with what we see, willingly opening all darkened corners of our mind to the light: “Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches as you look into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes. The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it is no longer contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity forever shining and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything could be outside, for there is nowhere that this light is not… This is the vision of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you are; a part of this, with all of it within, and joined to all as surely as all is joined in you.”(T-21.I.8-9)

God is but Love, and therefore so am I…

Having grounded in the truth these symbols represent, we are rejoice in our decision for Heaven, instead hell on earth, for we see simply that decision is the one tool we have to make determination of our experience in time… Will we be hostage to the ego or host to God?

The power of decision is my own…

And about what seems to be making specific decisions on a daily basis? I am immediately referred in my mind to chapter 30 of the text, the section called “Rules For Decision”, where the clearest of instruction is given, including steps for redirection as we fail along the way….

I am also reminded of what the Song of Prayer says in this regard:

“A specific question is actually a decision about the kind of answer that is acceptable. The purpose of words it to limit, and by limiting, to make a vast area more manageable… Answers are not up to you. Any limit you place on them interferes with hearing”…

The careful study and tenacious practice supplied in “Rules For Decision” has been, and continues to be, an invaluable source for me… Turns out, like it says in the section on willingness in chapter 18, good intentions are not been enough, yet also, willingness, is… “Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why you came. If you could come without them you would not need the holy instant. Come to it not in arrogance, assuming that must achieve the state its coming brings with it. The miracle of the holy instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it is. And in your willingness for this lies also you acceptance of yourself as your were meant to be”…

~ “God is but Love and therefore, so am I.” ~

Lesson 152:

The power of decision is my own…

We see what we believe and we believe what we want to be true. This is what suffices in this world of illusion.

Yet only the truth is true and nothing else is true. Today’s lesson states: Truth must be all-inclusive, if it be the truth at all. Accept no opposites and no exceptions, for to do so is to contradict the truth entirely.

I decide one thing within this dream; to view from the experience of oneness and innocence, accessing the Holy Spirit within mind, seeing as the dreamer of the dream, or I decide a worldly view, as a small character within the dream, alone. Literally everything that seems to happen in my world happens due to my decision. If I was not decided by me, it didn’t happen. And if it seemed to happen, I decided it was so. There is not someone else here making decisions, making up my so-called life. There isn’t anything else, at all, you see… There is only the truth. And truth alone is actually being/existing/ creating…

Now, within the realm of consciousness (which the Course tells us was the first split of mind), where the power of decision resides, and the seeming separation story began, made by our decision to split. My decision…

I decided to divert my attention from the truth to illusion. I decided to then to forget that I made that decision and decided to see myself as victimized by it instead. The focus of the mind in consciousness is entirely my discretion, based on what I believe I am. And what I believe I am is based on what I want it to be.

How do I know what I want my experience to be? Look around~ I’ve got it. If it seems I am a victim of a world outside myself~ that is the experience I want instead of truth. Period. ~Like captain Picarrd of Star Trek, I said: “make it so, and so it is… This is the power of decision. The power of decision is our own.

However, as the lesson states, we are in truth beyond consciousness: The power of decision is our own. And we accept of Him that which we are, and humbly recognize the Son of God. To recognize God’s Son implies as well that all self concepts have been laid aside, and recognized as false. Their arrogance has been perceived. And in humility the radiance of God’s Son, his gentleness, his perfect sinlessness, his Father’s Love, his right to Heaven and release from hell, are joyously accepted as our own.

So powerful are we that nothing can be beyond the all of everything that we are….

Let’s be honest with ourselves, not one of us, absolutely cannot identify, deep within, with the essence of the message of this lesson. It asks only that we come clean with ourselves and cop to our arrogance, and accept instead our holy station as co-creator, all mighty, all-powerful and humbly only the truth.

Truth comes present in our minds where it never left, the instant we decide for nothing else. This requires that we claim what we know is so; to the power of decision being ours, perfectly extended as creation in and through us. We can misuse this power and mis-create or make a images of illusory experience, in consciousness… and lord knows we have… but we cannot alter the unalterable, perpetual, wholly complete creation of God the Father and His holy Son, constant; eternally all that is… It is whole mind that decides … and decide it must…

The power of decision is my own… This day l will accept myself as my Father’s Will created me to be…