Saturday, November 14, 2015
Lesson 318: “What is the Last Judgment?” “In me, salvation’s means and end are one.”
The Course says that we find our salvation within our own minds and in our lives. Commonly people hold fast to the idea that salvation is exterior to us. We hear in the world to look outside of us to find it. We are getting barraged with these messages that our salvation is something we are supposed to buy or earn. Our salvation is always an uncertain thing, it seems like winning the lottery or winning a bet. It is a matter which is against all odds.
Then we sometimes even put it out of our minds at an early age and then our egos make a practice of disregarding our salvation. We think its better to downplay the importance of how awesome it would be to achieve our own salvation. We think this is better than trying to get our salvation and then be endlessly disappointed because the chance of our achieving this seems incredibly slim. Often we associate lots of baggage around our salvation because it seems so far fetched a goal and we feel unworthy of receiving it.
The Course teaches us on the other hand to understand that in the world Jesus describes to us our experience of salvation can be and is necessarily our dream come true. We simply need to understand that our salvation is the simple awareness that we never did anything wrong. Our guilt is completely absent when we know what God says about us- our sinlessness is permanent and unchanging regardless of what occurs. The way we get out of the cycle of attack with ourselves is that we understand than God made us always sinless.
Then there is no reason for shame or blame or guilt. All of our emotional drama ends when we simply accept the truth of our sinlessness. This is why this also ends all our suffering now and always. When we realize that nothing we could do can alter in any way our worthiness and lovability in God’s eyes and our own eyes and everyone else’s eyes then we can once and for all experience our own inner peace. When we understand that we never did anything wrong then we can be light and playful and live in sustained joy. Nothing at all weighs us down in any way because our mind is light and guilt free.
This is the cause of our salvation. When we sit in the certainty of our perfection then we are free in our minds- we aren’t encumbered with ideas of sin. This is why this is how our salvation is achieved. When we live in that sure awareness that we are entirely worthy of all the gifts of God, especially God’s Love and peace then our minds are saved because we know nothing can affect us in any negative way.