May 25th 2014 Lesson 24
I do not perceive my own best interests.
In no situation that arises do you realize the outcome that would make you happy. Therefore, you have no guide to appropriate action, and no way of judging the result. What you do is determined by your perception of the situation, and that perception is wrong. It is inevitable, then, that you will not serve your own best interests. To realize that you do not perceive you own best interests, you could be taught what they are, and today's idea is a step towards opening your mind so that learning can begin.- Intention: Five practice periods are required in applying today's idea, allowing two minutes for each of the mind-searching periods which the exercises involve.
- Practice: Begin by repeating today's idea to yourself, then
close your eyes search your mind for any unresolved situations about which you are currently concerned. The emphasis should be on uncovering the outcome you want.
In applying today's idea, name each situation that occurs to you, then enumerate carefully as many goals as possible that you would like to be met in its resolution. The form of each application should be roughly as follows:
In the situation involving ________, I would like _______
to happen, and _______ to happen, ...
- Application: If these exercises are done properly, you will quickly recognize that you are making a large number of demands of the situation which have nothing to do with it. You will also recognize that many of your goals are contradictory, that you have no unified outcome in mind, and that you must experience disappointment in connection with some of your goals, however the situation turns out.
After covering the list of as many hoped-for goals as possible, for each unresolved situation that crosses your mind repeat the following to yourself, then go on to the next one:
I do not perceive my own best interests in this situation.
Insights/comments:
- It may seem to be a bold and exaggerated statement to say: "In no situation that arises do you realize the outcome that would make you happy," but let us look at this a bit closer. We certainly have had many instances where this was true, where we were happily surprised by the outcome of a situation, either getting what we did not know we wanted, or not getting what we didn’t want. So we can agree that the statement is true in many cases; but is it so in every instance? Let us examine the criteria for knowing the outcome of a situation that would make us happy. First we must be clear about who we are; clear about what makes us happy or sad, and clear about how the specific situation can potentially fulfill the goal of making us happy.
The answer to the question of who we really are, as God created us, as opposed to who we think we are, as our self created egos, is at best, moot, and herein lies the root of the problem: How can we possibly know what would make us happy when we do not know our true identity. Further, we do not know who our own self-created ego is, so again how can we possibly know what would make it happy. And unless we can see the future, we cannot know for sure the outcome of our actions in any situation, far less to know whether or not it results in happiness. From this perspective, the world we created is a dice game at best, and a nightmare at worst. We know only the probabilities of how things may work out, and can only speculate as to whether it would indeed make our ego-self happy—sometimes they may other times they won't
But fortunately, God does not play dice with our salvation and for Him the outcome of every situation is known and stacked in our favor for He knows our true identity and therefore what is in our best interest. Our salvation is not in question for we are the eternal children of God, forever at one with Him and because of this, we do get to decide collaboratively when salvation will occur. We can postpone it for as long as we like, but it is guaranteed.
I and my Creator are One. 
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