Friday, December 4, 2015
Lesson 338: ‘What is the ego?” “I am affected only by my thoughts.”
This lesson reminds us that there is this one simple idea in the Course. It is one of the main ideas of the Course. Further, Jesus gives us instructions in the Course how to manage what we want to think in place of our faulty thoughts. It explains that God is the one and only one Who gives us the answers we need about who we are- as His heirs and why this is important. As God’s heirs we naturally inherit His brilliant capacity to Love and also to Create. Therefore, with that knowledge we can totally change our thinking and then from this action completely recreate our world as the accurate reflection of our current Godly thinking. The Course gives us a foolproof plan to do away with entirely and get out of our inner reality which feels like hell when our egos are the makers of our thinking.
The Course gives us the easiest way to get to God and remember that we never left Him in the first place. In the moment of insanity we had a tiny mad idea that we separated from God. This however was absolutely an error. This is the greatest news ever because it means there is nothing wrong with us or the world or our lives. We never erred and thus there is never a need to feel guilty as we are always simply a creation of God’s essence. We are perfect in God’s eyes and so therefore, we also are taught in the Course to give ourselves the same identity that God gives us. We are asked to see that we and all around us are all in total sinlessness.
The good news about the Course is that it gives us a perfect, and I mean PERFECT, setup to completely change our minds and change our realities. God says the world is an illusion because we just made a mistake in perceiving it and making it. We hold on one hand that this is utmost truth, and then on the other, proceed with kindness and gentleness to the inner workings of our minds and get serious about our task as the sole creator of our thinking. We need to understand that while we are in the world because it is not in truth of God, we can invest our time and energy into remembering that we are simply God’s beloved children who are gifted with the awareness of our true essence.
However, what we need to do is take our thoughts seriously. The Course says that the only problem is that we forgot to laugh- about this supposed separation from God and essentially about everything. We get very dense in the world we forget the lightness of God’s energy because we are not disciplined enough to hold this consistently in our minds. Just know that everything about how to do this task of undoing our blocks to love’s presence is absolutely accounted for. We got all the rules.
What our only real job while we are here on the earth is develop our discipline. Fortunately everything else is taken care of so we don’t have to shudder at our long list of to-do’s to accomplish. The only thing we are asked to develop is our discipline. God gives us in the Course perfectly good reasons to do what He says there because it makes incredibly sound sense. We need instead to stay focused on our discipline. This is the one thing that we must bring to the Course because our vigilance in the practice is the only way to ultimately get it and also apply it.
Fortunately we don’t need to do this well already. All we need to do is be willing to learn and grow in developing discipline to deeply integrate God’s mind and energy. We can be absolutely lost in our own sense of disciple thus far. We just need to be open to trying and failing when need be, and then trying again. Vigilance in our minds is the only way to God. We are gifted with the amazing opportunity to grow. And if we can find no willingness to grow, our back up plan is always praying and asking God for gifting us with this. God is always available for all of our needs. Thus, we can in no way fail to apply the Course to our lives.