Thursday, November 12, 2015
Lesson 316: “What is the Last Judgement?” “All gifts I give my brothers are my own.”
The Course is giving us today, almost exactly like yesterday- a teaching about how to make peace with giving.
It also teaches us the way to be certain that our gifts extended come right back to us without missing a beat. All we have to do is show up and be willing to comprehend the true reality of what giving feels like and then why giving feels so wonderful for us when we stay connected to the Godly concept of giving. The Course says we don’t have to wait to find this layer of peace about giving. We can just realize that we have it all wrong in the ego’s view. We gain this idea from our experience in the world that giving necessarily comes with a price. Our egos think giving is always a sacrifice; that we have to betray ourselves in giving something that is priceless and invaluable, which in the world’s terms we can never get back.
Giving is definitely associated with great loss and often is avoided or when we do give we feel resentful about it because we think we have gotten the raw deal to have to give away what is priceless to us. In this then, we always equate the giving with what is undesired. When giving has this meaning to it, in every way it feels negative. No wonder we build up so much baggage over giving in the ego’s terms.
Giving seems like the worst fate imaginable. Giving seems unfortunate to us. We then start to look instead for someone the ego can get from because at least in that instance we won’t end up in lack if we associate with those who give and never receive. The ego doesn’t buy that giving can also be a gift as it is when associated solely with God energy- as Love- which we definitely feel and experience when we send it through our own minds. This is why giving is in fact a sheer pleasure, when we get the clear scoop about how giving is wholly desired. Our outlook is changed when we understand that we can and do receive such plenty from the expanded feeling of giving with God’s Love. This information totally rearranges our relationship with giving. This is why we are asked to let giving be the gift of grace and gratitude experienced when we give to others.
The Course says that is ever so important that we include ourselves in our loving. Sometimes the ego is quick to give other people the gifts of love and forgiveness and of worldly abundance if appropriate but we forget to include ourselves. Jesus says love others as we love ourselves. Some people probably get stuck in one or the other ends of that spectrum. Sometimes people forget or are blocked around extending love to others. Sometimes the ego is self centered and the ego assumes that we are perfect but no one else is.
Or it is the other way around. Some egos decide that everyone else deserves every break in the book or to be fully loved and appreciated but we on the other hand can’t imagine that we too as individuals are worthy. This is very, very important that we love everyone equally. It may help to realize some of our inner tendency when we operate in the world. If we tend to exclude anyone from God’s Love, let’s just understand we may habitually do this. It helps to have information about where our blocks are so we can correct them with a dose of God’s Love when we need to resolve that block.