September 29th 2014   Lesson 195

Love is the way I walk in gratitude. 

• Intention:  To remember that gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found.  For gratitude is but an aspect of the Love which is the Source of all creation.

• Practice:  Twice today, let us go to that quiet place within our hearts and minds where the Light and Love and Joy of God abides.  In that place of safety, let us remember with gratitude the oneness we share with Him who is our Creator and with all of creation.  And when we return to the world of form, let us with gratitude, give a little time each hour to practice forgiveness in the form of today's lesson, applying it to whatever is happening in that hour and releasing all concerns when the hour passes, so that the next hour is free of the one before.      
        
•  Application:  We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom.  It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound.  Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity.  And let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you; the sick, the weak, the needy, and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death.  All these go with you.  Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us. 
    
  We thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him.  And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which world reduce our wholeness, nor impair or change our function to complete the One Who is Himself completion.  We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing, and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us.  When our forgiveness is complete we will have total gratitude, for we will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as our Self. 
    
  Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge.  We have been given everything, so we practice being thankful for everything.  Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions.  God has cared for us, and calls us Son.  Can there be more than this?  God gives thanks to you, His Son being what you are; His Own completion and the Source of love along with Him.  Your gratitude to Him is one with His to you.  For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God.

---

Insights/comments:

• The understanding of our inherent oneness with all things and with God is the basis for our gratitude to God.  The deeper we understand this oneness the deeper is our appreciation and gratitude.  And the deeper is our love for God who is but Love.  To walk in gratitude then is to walk in the awareness of our eternal oneness and the appreciation of that oneness.  In this state of awareness, all that we interact with is as holy as our Self, and so there is no room for comparison, for fear, anger, revenge and death.  We, the created, are all One, united with our Creator, perfect, Spirit, free.  All is unified as one and in this knowing all become Love.

---

---

I and my Creator are One. 

September 28th 2014   Lesson 194

I place the future in the Hands of God. 

• Intention:  To remember to let the future go and place it in God's Hands.  And you will see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in His Hands as well, because the past will punish you no more, and future dread will now be meaningless.

• Practice:  Twice today, let us go to that quiet place within our hearts and minds where the Light and Love and Joy of God abides.  Let us release all thoughts and concerns about the future or about past mistakes.  God holds our future as He holds our past and present.  They are one to Him, and so they should be one to us.  Remember the peace of God in your silence, and when you return to the world of form, give a little time each hour to practice forgiveness in the form of today's lesson, applying it to whatever is happening in that hour and releasing all concerns when the hour passes, so that the next hour is free of the one before.   
             
•  Application:  What worry can beset the one who gives his future to the loving Hands of God?  What can he suffer?  What can cause him pain, or bring experience of loss to him?  What can he fear?  And what can he regard except wit love?  For he who has escaped all fear of future pain has found his way to present peace, and certainty of care the world can never threaten.  He is sure that his perception may be faulty, but will never lack correction.  He is free to choose again when he has been deceived; to change his mind when he has made mistakes. 
    
  Place, then, your future in the Hands of God.  For thus you call the memory of Him to come again, replacing all your thoughts of sin and evil with the truth of love.   Who entrusts himself to God has also placed the world within the Hands to which he has himself appealed for comfort and security.  He lays aside the sick illusions of the world along with his, and offers peace to both.  Now are we saved indeed.  for in God's Hands we rest untroubled, sure that only good can come to us.  If we forget, we will be gently reassured.  If we accept an unforgiving thought, it will be soon replaced by love's reflection.  And if we are tempted to attack, we will appeal to Him Who guards our rest to make the choice for us that leaves temptation far behind.  No longer is the world our enemy, for we have chosen that we be its friend.

---

Insights/comments:

• We appeal to God for help only when we realize the immensity of the challenge we face, only when we have tried and failed countless times and now realize that there must be something we do not perceive or understand, and that by surrendering control to God we will now easily achieve our goal of lasting peace, freedom from worry, and eternal joy.  How else can this be achieved except with God's Help?  We work tirelessly at trying to secure a future at the cost of the present, and still we feel anxious for we fear the inevitability of death.  Only in accepting today's idea are we freed from death's grip, from an imagined hell, depression, and thoughts of sin brought about by guilt.  Trust God as a little child trusts its parents to nurture and protect him from danger, and as a wise student trusts his teacher to show him the way to peace.

---

---

I and my Creator are One. 

September 25th 2014   Lesson 193 

All things are lessons God would have me learn. 

• Intention:  To remember that forgiveness is the way to change our experience of things.  We are all children of God therefore all of us are innocent and sinless.  Forgiveness for what seems to be mistakes or sins is the only way to see them differently.

• Practice:  Twice today, morning and night, devote what time you can to serve time's proper aim, and do not let the time be less than meets your deepest need.  Give all you can, and give a little more.  For now we would arise in haste and go unto our Father's house.  We have been gone too long, and we would linger here no more.  And as we practice, let us think about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and keep apart from healing.  Let us give them all to Him Who knows the way to look upon them so that they will disappear.  Truth is His message; truth His teaching is.  His are the lessons God would have us learn. 
        
•  Application:  In addition to our morning and nightly practice, each hour, spend a little time today and in the days to come, in practicing the lesson in forgiveness in the form established for the day.  And try to give it application to the happenings the hour brought, so that the next one is free of the one before.  The chains of time are easily unloosened in this way.  Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one that follows, and when that one goes, let everything that happened in its course go with it.  Thus will you remain unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time.
     This is the lesson God will have you learn:  There is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him, and to salvation of the world.  To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:
   
  I will forgive, and this will disappear.
     
  To every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering, repeat these selfsame words.  And then you hold the key that opens Heaven's gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven.  God will take this final step Himself.  Do not deny the little steps He asks you take to Him.

---

Insights/comments:

• This is an excellent lesson in mindfulness, to let go of what happened last year, last month, last week, yesterday, and even what occurred in the last hour, good or bad, let it go so that it casts no shadow on this present moment, leaving it free to be what it is and for us to be free in it.  Using this technique of mindful forgiveness we can progress quickly in our Self-awakening.  Forgive everything and let it go!  Know that God has our best interests at heart and every situation we find ourselves in are His way of helping us find our way home, in accord with our deepest wishes.  Whatever we find interesting, whatever state of mind or situation we are in, whatever we think we want or need, God will use all of it to help us move forward in our evolution.  Our challenge is to be without judgement or insistence that things be other than the way they are, and to forgive whatever appears troubling to us so that we can release it.  Whatever it is, if we forgive it, we will see it differently. 
     
• All that appears troubling to us indicates that there is still something in our minds that we have not forgiven.  The pain or suffering we feel is presenting to us an opportunity to forgive the situation by seeing it differently and thereby releasing it.  The only question then is whether we want to hold on to the pain or release it; whether we want peace and joy or tension; whether we want the joy of God or pain; whether we want Heaven or hell; all these alternatives are the same.  The choice is ours alone, so choose wisely.

---

---

I and my Creator are One. 

September 26th 2014   Lesson 192

I have a function God would have me fill. 

• Intention:  To remember that the function God would have us fill is to forgive our brothers and the world for what we thought they did or didn't do to us.

• Practice:  Twice today, let us go to that quiet place within our hearts and minds where the Light and Love and Joy of God abides.  Let us leave behind all thoughts about anything and relax into that deep refreshing silence, the Heaven that God established forever in us.  And in that silence accept our true Identity as the holy children of God.  In this experience of peace we can release all fear and guilt, and know that we are one with our Creator, perfect, Spirit, free.  To know this truth is the fulfillment of our divine function, but we have another function in the world of form--forgiveness.
           
•  Application:  Forgiveness gently looks upon all things unknown in Heaven, sees them disappear, and leaves the world a clean and unmarked slate on which the Word of God can now replace the senseless symbols written there before.  Forgiveness is the means by which the fear of death is overcome.  It lets the body be perceived as what it is; a simple teaching aid, to be laid by when learning is complete, but hardly changing him who learns at all. 
    
  The body is the source of all attack, the core of anguish and the seat of fear.  The mind without the body cannot make mistakes.  It cannot think that it will die, nor be the prey of merciless attack.  Anger becomes impossible, and where is terror then?   Only forgiveness can relieve the mind of thinking that the body is its home.  Only forgiveness can restore the peace that God intended for His holy Son.  Only forgiveness can persuade the Son to look again upon his holiness.  Only forgiveness offers the gift of Christ's vision.  Who can be born again in Christ but him who has forgiven everyone he sees or thinks of or imagines?  Who could be set free while he imprisons anyone?
    
  Therefore hold no one prisoner.  Release instead of bind, for thus are you made free.  The way is simple.  Every time you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head.  And it will fall or be averted as you choose to be condemned or free.  Thus does each one who seems to tempt you to be angry represent your savior form the prison house of death.  And so you owe him thanks instead of pain.    
    
  Be merciful today.  The Son of God deserves your mercy.  It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now.  Deny him not.  Your function here on earth is only to forgive him, that you may accept him back as your identity.  He is as God created him.  And you are what he is.  Forgive him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him.

---

Insights/comments:

• We are all the holy children of God; we are as God created us:  perfect, Spirit and free, yet we think of ourselves as vulnerable, guilty, mortal, and afraid of death in all its forms.  Yet this is what forgiveness can heal.    Forgiveness is a dream, but one that does not perpetuate other dreams, nor itself.  Instead Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred.  It does not pardon sins and make them real.  It sees there was no sin.  And in that view are all your sins forgiven.  What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son?  Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go.  God's Will is then free to take the place of the false ideas we hold about our brothers.
     
• Forgiveness is a difficult concept for us only because we believe that what we perceive is real.  But there is another reality, true, and far beyond our perception, the place where we came from and to where we must return home.  In that reality we know ourselves to be Spirit, and therefore have none of the fears we experience here in the world of form.  Our function here on earth then is to remember our true reality as Spirit and as one with God and all of creation.  Forgiveness is the only means to regain our memory, and therefore forgiveness is our only function here.

---

---

I and my Creator are One. 

September 25th 2014   Lesson 191

I am the Holy son of God Himself. 

• Intention:  To remember our true identity as the holy children of God--the unified sonship of the Lord of creation.

• Practice:  Twice today, let us go to that quiet place within our hearts and minds where the Light and Love and Joy of God abides.  Let us leave behind all thoughts about anything and relax into that deep refreshing silence, the Heaven that God established forever in us.  And in that silence accept our true Identity as the holy children of God. 
        
•  Application:  You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this:  All power is given unto you in earth and Heaven.  Say with certainty:  I am the holy Son of God, and play no more the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tided to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you.  Reclaim your glory as the holy Son of God and accord the world the mercy and forgiveness it needs so that these shine on you.  Be glad today how very easily is hell undone.  You need but tell yourself:
   
  I am the holy Son of God Himself.  I cannot suffer, cannot be in pain;
  I cannot suffer loss, nor fail to do all that salvation asks.
         

---

Insights/comments:

• To claim that we are the holy sonship of God may seem arrogant, but since this is the truth, it is but arrogance to deny it and think ourselves unworthy, weak, mortal, and unholy.  We are as God created us:  perfect, Spirit, free.  And if the Lord of creation created us perfect, how can we possibly be less, or fail to fulfill the function that He created us to do.  No, it is arrogance only when we deny our true identity.  Being the holy Son of God does not mean we go about forcing change on the world; no!  It only means that we realize we created it and it will change as we accord it mercy and forgiveness.  Like the image in a mirror, the world will change only when we who stand before it change our minds about it and smile on it.  Not by force will it change, but by love.  The world awaits our awakening and in that awakening is it healed.  Our brothers await our own release.  They stay in chains till we are free.  They cannot see the mercy of the world until we find it in ourselves.  They suffer pain until we have denied its hold on us.  They die till we accept our own eternal life.  We are the holy children of God Himself.  Remember this, and all the world is free.  Remember this and earth and Heaven are one.

---

---

I and my Creator are One. 

September 24th 2014   Lesson 190

I choose the joy of God instead of pain. 

• Intention:  To remember that through our thoughts, we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world.  Remember that no one but myself affects me.

• Practice:  Today again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven.  Twice today, let us go to that quiet place within our hearts and minds where the Light and Love and Joy of God abides.  Let us leave behind all thoughts about anything and relax into that deep  refreshing silence, the Heaven that God established forever in us.    
        
•  Application:  Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven's peace hold all things still at last.  Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear.  Let no attack enter with you.  Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness.  Here will you understand there is no pain.  Here does the joy of God belong to you.  This is the day when it is given us to realize the lesson that contains all of salvation's power.  It is this:  Pain is illusion; joy, reality.  Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening.  Pain is deception; joy alone is truth.
   
  The world may seem to cause us pain.  And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause.  As an effect, it cannot make effects.  As an illusion, it is what we wish.  Our idle wishes represent its pains.  Our strange desires bring it evil dreams.  Our thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in our kind forgiveness does it live.  The world you see does nothing.  It has no effects at all.  It merely represents your thoughts.  And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want.  Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging, and unchangeable, forever and forever.
         

---

Insights/comments:

• How is it that we fail to experience the joy of God consistently in our lives.  We thought it was the world and all its apparent problems that caused us pain, but now we know that it is only our thoughts about who we are and about what the world is that cause us pain.  This is quite a startling awakening for us, but one that places the power to change our world right back into our hands.  The solution is clear:  remember, who we are, remember who God is, and remember to let our thoughts flow in harmony with His.  Let us daily and hourly, and even momentarily culture our awareness to think with Him, by bringing our awareness to Him.  And let us remember, even while we are in the world of illusions, that we are of God.  Only then will we recognizing the world of illusions for what it is, the effect of our idle thoughts, and bear its slings and arrows patiently, knowing that it, like a reflection in a mirror, will change only as we change our minds about what we think it is, and about what we think we are. 
    
• This we should always remember:  "It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain.  Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way.  There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression.  No one but yourself affects you.  There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail.  But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are.  As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."
  

---

---

I and my Creator are One. 

September 23rd 2014   Lesson 189

I feel the Love of God within me now. 

• Intention:  To remember that the love and peace, and light of God is in us now; we need only turn our attention to it and away form the world.

• Practice:  Today we pass illusions and seek to reach what is true in us--God's Love, and feel its all-embracing tenderness, its Love which knows us perfect as itself, its sight which is the gift its Love bestows on us.  Twice today, let us sit in silence and open our hearts and minds to the Love of God that shines forever in us.   
        
•  Application:  Simply do this:  Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself.  Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed.  Hold onto nothing.  Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything.  Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God. 
  
  Is it not He Who knows the way to you?  You need not know the way to Him.  Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the son and God the Father be quietly removed forever.  God will do His part in joyful and immediate response.  Ask and receive.  But do not make demands nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you.  The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be.  for in that way is your reality proclaimed as well.  And in our quiet hearts and open minds, His Love will blaze its pathway of itself.
    
  Father, we do not know the way to You.  But we have called, and You have answered us.  We will not interfere.  Salvation's ways are not our own, for they belong to You.  And it is unto You we look for them. Our hands are open to receive Your gifts.  We have no thoughts we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are, or Who created us.  Yours is the way that we would find and follow.  And we ask but that Your Will, which is our own as well, be done in us and in the world that it become a part of Heaven now.  Amen.   
      

---

Insights/comments:

• God created us perfect and knows us as we truly are.  He is not dismayed by our ideas and beliefs about ourselves for He know what He created cannot be changed or diminished in any way.  That we are perfect is the truth about us and only this is true, but because we do not experience ourselves in this way, we have doubts, and in our doubting make up stories about about what we think we are.  The solution to this is simply to let go of our thoughts and ideas about ourselves and we will surely come to rest in the peace that we truly are.   All the false layers we have built around ourselves will gently fall away as we let go of our fantasies and trust in the love that is God.
   
  

---

---

I and my Creator are One. 

September 22st 2014   Lesson 188

The peace of God is shining in me now. 

• Intention:  To remember that the peace of God is in us now; we need not wait for heaven.  Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all.  The light of God is in us now and can never be lost.

• Practice:  Sit in silence at least twice today and let your mind experience the peace of God that shines within you now and from your heart extends around the world.  It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless.  It brings renewal to all tired hearts and lights all vision as it passes by.  All of its gifts are given everyone, and everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give, and you who have received.   
        
•  Application:  Sit quietly and close your eyes.  The light within you is sufficient.  It alone has power to give the gift of sight to you.  Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within.  They know the way.  For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy messengers of God Himself.  These thoughts you think with Him.  They recognize their home.  And they point surely to their Source, Where God the Father and the Son are one.  God's peace is shining on them, for they were born within your mind, as your mind was born in God's. 
  
  These honest thoughts lead you back to peace, from where they came but to remind you how you must return.  They urge you gently to accept God's Word for what you are, instead of fantasies and shadows.  They remind you that you are the co-creator of all things that live.  For as the peace of God is shining in you, it must shine on them.
  
  We practice coming nearer to the light in us today.  We take our wandering thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God.  We will not let them stray.  We let the light within our minds direct them to come home, and wash them clean of strange desires and disordered withes.  We restore to them the holiness of their inheritance. 
    
  Thus are our minds restored with them, and we acknowledge that the peace of God still shines in us, and from us to all living things that share our life.  We will forgive them all, absolving all the world from what we thought it did to us.  For it is we who make the world as we would have it.  Now we choose that it be innocent, devoid of sin and open to salvation.  And we lay our saving blessing on it, as we say:
    
  The peace of God is shining in me now.
  Let all things shine upon me in that peace,
  And let me bless them with the light in me.   
      

---

Insights/comments:

• We are thoughts in the mind of God and as such share His peace, light and knowledge.   We are one with Him and with all our brothers and everything in our "reality," just as all the people, places and things in our dreams are but thoughts in our mind and share with us all of our peace, light and knowledge.  Yesterday's lesson reminded us that "... things but represent the thoughts that made them," and that "No form endures.  It is the thought behind the for of things that lives unchangeable."   We, being thoughts in God's mind live unchangeable, while being free to represent ourselves in various transient forms, just as the clothes we wear represent our bodies in various situations.  Our bodies are not the clothes we clothe them in, and neither are the we the bodies we clothe our thoughts in.
   
  

---

---

I and my Creator are One.