Saturday, November 7, 2015
Lesson 311: “What is the Last Judgment?” “I judge all things as I would have them be.”
The Course gets right to the point on this one. Jesus wants us to learn that we are the ones in charge of our minds and therefore the quality of our lives. This drives the point home and is one of the fundamental ideas in the Course. The reason we can connect with our own salvation is because we can choose our thinking. This means everything because it means that we can choose our perceptions and therefore our belief systems.
The ever so important point here is that I must take responsibility for my own thinking. The ego would have us just stay stuck and never move or grow. The ego isn’t at all interested in our taking responsibility because it would get us out of our hell and the ego likes to rather maintain the status quo. Furthermore, the ego is afraid and shamed about claiming responsibility. The ego thinks acknowledging our insanity is an absolute no-no; therefore, it pretends that it never has the opportunity to take responsibility. Then it can just keep that ego feeling of ever sinking in the doldrums of our minds in its depressive stupor, saying that everyone else caused our lapses into misery and disempowerment.
The most amazing thing about the Course is that it gives us a thorough way to actually claim our power. We are so used to our ego’s rants which are filled to the top with inane options. The ego has no idea what and how to be empowered so it finds every way in the book to just remain stuck. Jesus teaches us in the Course that our ego’s desire for inaction is something we can change with our own vigilant practice of watching our minds, by replacing insane thoughts with God’s loving and plentiful energy and thoughts.
However, our task which is an absolutely necessary part of the equation is that we simply need to step up and take responsibility. This doesn’t have to be difficult or unpleasant. The Course says we need not judge ourselves, because we simply made a mistake. This is absolutely fixable in the process of seeing it as unreal. We simply hold that there was an error but it has no impact at all on our own inherent worth- which is our inherent nature as God’s children. It helps to understand this. The Course has a plan about what to do with our thoughts. We have a perfect way to get to our peace when we simply stay vigilant in this process. So we can take heart. This is ever so important because we want to not be afraid of the process of taking responsibility.
The ego always may have a trick or two up its sleeve in trying to divert us from getting to this place of honest and comfortable responsibility-taking. We may run up against some pitfalls along the road. But it helps in the overall process to simply assure our minds that we have an answer about how to manage our taking personal responsibility. It helps to assuage our minds long the way.
What we want to do is take responsibility and then take whatever appropriate action from there to make peace within over the errors we have made. But what is also so important is to realize that I have made everything I see. The Course says that our world and all of our lives are simply a reflection of our minds. I think this can help us have a deeper compassion for the world we see if we feel like we aren’t happy about what we see. We need to take an intent look at what we have made in the out picturing of our lives. The ego can be so quick to complain about everything we see.
The ego is quick to point fingers at everyone else to complain about everything. The ego likes to play the victim and have a pity party for itself. The ego likes to feel like it has no choice in suffering over what is happening. The ego likes to latch onto this incessant pain. We just are invited in the Course to notice this tendency. Realizing that the world is none other than the out picturing of our selves making insanity gives us a clear moment to think twice about getting in the ego’s crazy train of pain. We can just appreciate instead how to allow this undoing of our attraction for suffering.