Lesson 236: “What is salvation?”  “I rule my mind, which I alone must rule.”

The Course teaches us how to take care of our own minds.  

What we think is what creates the content within our minds- and will reflect how happy and peaceful we are.

This may not seem too far a stretch to master because it does seem obvious on some levels.  However, the Course wants us to practice the art of mind watching.  The practice takes much, much greater time and attention to really undertake in a way that will ultimately bring us peace.  The Course is just a little instruction book on how to make ourselves happy.  The amazing thing is it works if we do it.

But it takes a good bit of inner willingness to stay engaged in the effort it takes to manage our minds regularly.  We just have to be patient with this process.  

It can feel like it takes a million years and we certainly will meet with moments of frustration.

Just keep holding in our minds that the Course- as Jesus’s instruction- works so well we can not even fathom how amazing it is.

We just have to sit and have faith that it, the end product, is out of this world. 

But in the meantime, we must be willing to keep showing up to practice until we become so practiced that choosing God is now our first response to everything. 

Just appreciate that we may often want to throw the book away.  It can, initially or throughout, be a source of distraction because we are asked to really look at what is happening in our minds.  We are asked to be honest about everything and give our every challenge to God for transformation.

This surely entails some moments we think are not fun.

Just know the Course may push our buttons, or when we don’t understand something immediately, we often throw away our desire to achieve whatever goal for which we search.

When we don’t understand the Course’s unusual way of explaining how the world is unreal and how nothing but God is really true, we are reminded that everything has a higher purpose.  We may have to study the Course for years or go to a large array of study groups before we get to a place where the meaning finally sinks in.

Trust that this will happen in the appropriate time.  

God doesn’t want us to miss anything so sometimes we need to take extra steps in the process of getting to the total comprehension of the Course. 

Trust that when we get to that end point, we will understand it so clearly because we did the depth of work needed to make sense of it.

And trust that God will make the process perfect so we can get to all the meetings we need to get to and meet all those teaching the Course, from whom we need to listen in our process of learning the Course’s philosophy.

Know God is teaching us perfectly even if we think we stumble in the learning process.  Just love the process anyway, even if it is bumpy.

We are learning how to get to God.  We are already united with God.  All we have to do is remember this.

Therefore, allow the Course to be as simple as possible. 

As difficult as some things are to understand, just realize that all we have to do is remember there is never anything wrong even as difficult as the philosophy seems.  Just keep approaching learning with an open mind and a grateful heart for an easy process.  Allow all the difficulty to become easy with a switch of our thinking.

When we allow it all to be easy, we greatly contribute to de-stressing ourselves about the learning we are doing. 

We can just take deep breaths and allow our frustrations to be soothed by God.