Monday, August 10, 2015
Lesson 222: “What is forgiveness?” “God is with me. I live and move in Him.”
What the Course teaches us is that God is ever inside of us. We don’t have to find God in a church or monastery. That’s fine if we like to go there too- places can have truly holy energy by which we might feel inspired if we choose to visit.
The Course very specifically says that we don’t have to go somewhere outside of ourselves to find God. This external search for God would be frustrating at best. Often places of God are not open all day or all year. They could be negatively influenced at some point with some ego wrangling that happens frequently in the world. Because the people that run these holy places all have their own egos, and they may become misled for a while. They may follow the ego and then get confused about how to stay focused on our own divine nature.
Then instead their ego becomes law and practice of their lives at least for a time. We can barely care for our own inner need around focusing on God. We have our own confusion about whom to follow. This in itself is plenty to deal with. But when we are relying on other people to always stay in their spiritually elevated spot as the caretaker of a holy place, this will be a frustrating journey. People all can’t help but stumble sometimes and lose Godly footing for a spell.
This is all possible when relying on other people to be messengers of God. It’s great to commune with other like minded people and people who are committed to staying tuned into their own God energy. Joining and communing with people is always a good thing. But we want to understand that everyone is fallible. We can have compassion for other people because we simply understand our own susceptibility around losing our alignment with God. This is why it is ever so important that we look to find God within us.
We are invited to look within first because this is the most reliable place. This is a guaranteed direct answer. We don’t have to wonder about where it is coming from. When we get used to listening to God from the voice in our hearts then finding it is instantly easy. This is unfiltered. Religion- as great as it is- in some ways is always filtered by lots of other people and then it gets to us. This is like playing “Telephone.” Inevitably people don’t hear it exactly as it was in the first person’s voice. Sometimes in the game of “Telephone” we end up with drastically different outcomes than the first speaking of the sentence.
This is why we have to just understand the nature of being human. We forget what was said or we never understood it in the first place so we have a faulty translation. There could be so many reasons people sharing information from person to person simply fails the translating accurately. We can forgive how hard communicating is. However, just understand how often this happens. Don’t try to look for God elsewhere without looking within first.
Find the answers to our questions via listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice. We have God in our minds. All we need to do is be quiet and listen. Don’t shortchange yourself at all thinking that we are just one human among the masses. How could I -with my faults and difficulties- be important enough to hear the voice of God? The Course says that everyone is equally important and that every fault I think I have is simply a form of my perfection in truth. There is never anything unlovable about anyone. This is why we all get to hear the voice of God within. God isn’t for just the chosen few. God’s presence and guidance is for all. All we have to do is be willing to hear and be willing to learn how to hear His voice if it seems too hard to do initially.