Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Lesson 20: “I am determined to see.”
This is one of the most primary of instructions that the Course gives us. If we can’t remember anything else, just focus on this simple instruction. Know that God is giving us the most straightforward of messages. He says “Just do this, and everything else will fall into line accordingly.”
What we tend to do is get our perception all locked up with the ego’s tight fist in our minds. We are judging machines and we judge every last thing. And because we judge everything, we end up being attached to what we are perceiving and necessarily find argument with everything. This is the ego’s constant approach. It keeps us bound up in its philosophy of scarcity.
The ego thinks there isn’t enough love, there isn’t enough kindness, there isn’t enough good will. The ego sits in judgement and then refuses to take responsibility for its evaluation of everything made with judgement. It refuses to act in the holy way of providing a miracle when we see a situation that looks like a call for love. The ego doesn’t act because it is stuck in its own agenda of hell.
Since the ego is so stuck, we have to just stop following the ego’s lead. Ultimately it leads us to the depths of our hell. What we can do when our egos are stuck is simply have willingness to see. This willingness to see is all we have to do to find our way back to God’s memory. We don’t have to know what that looks like, and HOW to see. All we need is the willingness to understand what the ego sees is not what we want.
We just have to look at the picture and not flinch and fail to act. We, instead, come from the place of our own inner power. And we open our minds for the possibility of God’s shift in consciousness, which is the next step in our transformation process. God will bring us back to our gates of Heaven and the memory of our perfection as a holy child of God. We must simply open our eye of God’s vision which we can call upon to teach us holy sight whenever we need the help of our Maker to get to the truth.
This lesson says, “Yet you will not see if you regard yourself as coerced, and if you give in to resentment and opposition.” The way the Course approaches encouraging us to seriously undertake the lessons and to be vigilant and disciplined in our mind watching is one of the reasons the Course’s philosophy resonates so deeply with me. I grew up with a heavy dose of religion, starting with Catholicism. I felt greatly coerced by the religions I was involved with and this always turned me away.
I felt like if I didn’t do something right I would be punished and that coercion was at the root of getting me to follow laws of the church. Then there was guilt galore after I made mistakes. I feel so strongly that I want to do everything from the intention of love and kindness. I don’t want to do anything because someone is making me follow their rules. This feels fake because I am not following my own heart and passion for doing something which I find gets squelched when I am in the position of being coerced.
The Course makes a huge amount of explanation to help me understand that the reason we want to be disciplined in changing our minds is because the salvation of the world depends on it. When there are happy reasons to make this effort, this makes me undeniably happier in the depths of my heart. This is a much happier way to live.