Lesson 340:

I can be free of suffering today….

There is a flow, like water; to this section of lessons… It is the steady, gentle awareness of our choice to no longer serve guilt but to allow for all the defenses and make-believe that held its value in place, to be dispersed into the tranquil rousing that forgiveness brings. What is apparent now, here, as we gaze with Christ’s vision is all the beauty which was always present, but which our faith in guilt concealed. It is here, we have the chance of recognizing the Son of God; to look and see the face of Christ.

The freedom from suffering is the change of mind from dreams of guilt to happy dreams. This is the choice takes the place of the formerly worshiped ‘idol’ of guilt and its dwindling reign in mind. ‘Choose once again’, the Course tells us again and again… This lesson says we can, today, choose forever to let go of suffering and allow the flow of love forgiveness brings…freely…

We decide one simple thing; we do not want whatever we believe an idol gives. For thus the Son of God declares that he is free of idols. And thus he is free…

I am, indeed, free of suffering today; for I am as God created me. This choice exposes the madness of following guilt’s chosen path as a way of life…. Appearances can but deceive the mind that wants to be deceived. There is no meeting place for the peace of God and guilt. Forgiveness allows for the dance of suffering to be seen for what it is: guilt is the one and only cause of pain, no matter what it seems to look like. And the peace forgiveness brings makes it so we are no longer enticed by guilt’s pretentious, hopeless allure.

We choose freedom from, or instead of suffering and through this choice we see what was previously invisible (due to our desire not to see, per guilt’s wishes). The idea of salvation is viable at last. This one choice is the decision to expose the false; not so much running from the make believe toys in the idol dream, but rather deciding against their reality, which was only kept alive by deception. It is the decision to let the truth be true. I love the what the Course says in the section in the text called Beyond All Idols where it states:

“Salvation is a paradox indeed! What could it be except a happy dream? It asks you but that you forgive all things that no one ever did; to overlook what is not there, and not to look upon the unreal as reality. You are but asked to let your will be done, and seed no longer for the things you do not want. And you are asked to let yourself be free of all the dreams of what you never were and seek no more to substitute the strength of idle whishes for the Will of God… No more than this is asked… salvation asks for nothing in reality. And even in illusions it but asks forgiveness be the substitute for fear Such is the only rule for happy dreams”…

To “let all things be exactly as they are” is another way of stating the running theme of these later lessons in the Course… as a matter of fact, that is what the Course says… “No rules are idly set, and no demands are made of anyone or anything to twist and fit into the dream of fear. Instead, there is a wish to understand all things created as the really are. And it is recognized that all things must be first forgiven, and then understood…. The real world is the state of mind in which the only purpose of the world is seen to be forgiveness.”…

The peace of God flows naturally as we let go all attachment to guilt… Can’t you just feel it? Right Now!

~We can be free of suffering today~

Ah, God’s plan for salvation rocks! There’s simply nowhere to turn that doesn’t lead back to the yummy presence of God’s Love; always, already forever present… now that’s a groovy present, eh?

Lesson 266:

My holy self abides in you, God’s Son…

“Father, You gave me all Your Sons, to be my saviors and my counselors in sight; the bearers of Your holy Voice to me. In them are You reflected, and in them does Christ look back upon me from my Self. Let not Your Son forget Your holy Name. Let not Your Son forget his holy Source. Let not Your Son forget his Name is Yours.”

Once the decision for the Atonement is made, healing can’t help but be seen… For everywhere in everyone we see but our Self, shining in the light of Christ love. As our forgiveness becomes the only thing we have to do, the reason for why we are always at the right place at the right time becomes obvious. And we recognize it for what it is and not the seeming circumstances it is wrapped in. Temptation to see what is not there through projection looses its appeal, as the feeling of wholeness and everlasting purpose replace it.

I am interested in you, holy Son of God. For in my relationship with you is the only way I can re-member my Self. Each day I look forward to meeting my Self in the myriad of holy encounters laid out for my arrival home… We are united in the holy Love of God and there is no where and nothing else. How joyous to see and value only this… thank you…

Lesson 256:

God is only goal I have today…

The first thing that went through my mind when I read that today was, “You got anything better to do?” I don’t…. God is what is left when I quit trying… That’s what forgiveness is; surrendering my little idea into the mighty idea that sponsored idea itself, God~ God’s thought extend as His Son… It takes abundant willingness to have this, and only this as the one goal: but then, what else we going to do at this stage of the game? Nothing else has satisfied, brought peace, of fostered happiness; this we know by now… So we round the doggies and forgive…

“God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last.”

Try a little experiment in willingness. Set a timer for 5 minutes. Set the goal: God is only goal I have today… And watch your mind. Is it a still and quiet surface and at perfect rest? Does joy penetrate your bosom? Do superfluous thoughts barge in and try to make a splash; demand your attention, screaming their importance? Notice their incongruous content, always grounded in the past, pulling it into the attention of Now, which is God-time… chuckle, and remind yourself the simple fact that the past is gone… and forgive. Merely let that thought slip back into the nothingness from which it came and feel the peace beneath it… Breath into the still center between the thoughts where the goal is still set… and feel God… Five minutes… then ten… an hour… a day… five minutes at a time… one lifetime given to God-time, Now… Heaven…

Lesson 250:

Let me not see myself as limited…

It seems anything of this world and its symbols that we can use to describe the Son of God would be by definition, too limiting to accurately depict. It is the experience of wholeness and magnitude present within that is us… the one we feel fully in the holy instant and tune to in forgiveness. That feeling where lack has disappeared and passionate giving moves us to speak and act….

We’re all familiar with it. In fact, we love it so much; we try to use the ego’s mechanisms to simulate it in special relationships that we design. (As if one could replicate what was created by God) You can’t get something you already have and have never lost. You can only let go every thing that is in the way of feeling its presence. ~Bingo~forgiveness~

The unlimited glory and power of the Son of God is closer than our breath, yet gives us our breath, beats our hearts and moves us within and beyond the gross and the subtle; the world, the universe and the empty fullness of the zero-point to which it all returns in full appreciation and creation ~ God, His Love, the Son, the sun, the beam, the Light…

It is spectacular that something glorious and so easily reached could so elude us, so much of the time…

Yet, we get caught in a little contraction in the thought of time; give our body’s name to it and separate it off… then spin time’s wheels trying to get off the self-appointed merry-go-round of self-identity, and back to the truth of what we already, always, are…

Certainly it’s insane. But in truth, it’s nothing…. (And inevitably culminates in the big cosmic belly-laugh)

We but need suspend everything we think we know, believe, value or love, for an instant and come with wholly empty hands unto our God~ and in a holy instant our

Today’s lesson is that invitation once again…

Self floods our awareness with the only thing we ever knew… the love we are~

Lesson 239:

The glory of my Father is my own…

How ‘bout it? Can we today, just let the truth of our being be true; not needing to understand any better what that means than wherever we might be at this time? Can we not judge and just allow; just for today, this hour, this moment~ this holy instant? The section called Attainment of the Real World from chapter 13 comes to mind, where it says:”You have been wrong about the world because you have misjudged yourself. From such a twisted reference point, what could you see? All seeing starts with the perceiver, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false he does not see. You who would judge reality cannot see it, for whenever judgment enters reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is there but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does not depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind and enter into the world He holds out to you in love”… No one in this distracted world but has seen some glimpses of the other world about him. Yet while he still lays value on his own, he will deny the vision of the other… Love leads so gladly… you but wait for yourself… to give this sad world over and exchange your errors for the peace of God…”

So, how ‘bout we just get over our little selves? Let go and let the glory of our Father, which is within us shine through and show us the real world. Let us accept Christ’s version of us and forgive ours. And let us then look about us and see but love reaching out and love taking love’s hand in glad exchange... for the glory of God is here, now… And it is our own…

We thank you, Father, for the light that shines forever in us. And we honor it, because You share it with us. We are one, united in this light and one with You, at peace with all creation and ourselves.