LESSON SEVENTY-TWO

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: The Course text is in bold face. The Guidance is in normal type In His Guidance, He has asked Me to capitalize the pronouns You and We as an acknowledgement of the Divinity of All of Us, an acknowledgement of Equality, an expression of His Love and respect for You. When You see the word ‘YOU’ capitalized in the Guidance, know that He is not just speaking to YOU, He is honoring YOU.

Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.

For God’s plan for salvation is but Love.  This Love then is expressed by forgiveness.

¹ While we have recognized that the ego’s plan for salvation is the opposite of God’s, we have not yet emphasized that it is an active attack on His plan and a deliberate attempt to destroy it. In the attack, God is assigned the attributes which are actually associated with the ego, while the ego appears to take on the attributes of God.

This is actually a favorite ego ploy used between Dreamers too.  One does accuse a Brother of One’s own faults.  As You well know, this is known as projection.  What You may not have known is that it is used with God as well.

For the ego has no scruples, absolutely none, and will betray anyone.

Holiness is foreign to the ego.

² The ego’s fundamental wish is to replace God. In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of this wish. – Do You not imagine Yourself to be ‘physical’ – a solid body, which You delight to worship?  Your so-called ‘lives’ are spent in bringing to it offerings, appeasing its insatiable desires. –  For it is this wish which seems to surround the mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone and unable to reach other minds except through the body which was made to imprison it. – It is crucial that You understand this: that to ‘know’ Yourself as a mind within a body, all of which seems so real to You – is complete delusion, and is not occurring, ‘real’ as it may seem.  On this Truth rests Your healing. – The limit on communication cannot be the best means to expand communication. Yet the ego would have you believe that it is.

It surely seems so.  It is all You know.  You are clueless to Your Reality of Be-ing Spirit, and the ego intends to keep You so.  And it has been so far quite ‘successful’.  Look how attached You are to Your bodies, how You identify Yourself with them.

Yet, how successful truly is an endeavor that ultimates in sin, disease and death?  Well, it’s kept You in the dream, which is the ego’s most important purpose.  So it’s ‘successful’ for the ego, and not for You, for You are not an ego.  You’re the Son of God.

³ Although the attempt to keep the limitations which a body would impose is obvious here, it is perhaps not so apparent why holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation. But let us consider the kinds of things which you are apt to hold grievances for. Are they not always associated with something a body does? A person says something we do not like; he does something that displeases us, he “betrays” his hostile thoughts in his behavior.

The body is the symbol of the ego, the ‘stuff’ of dreams.  Your quasi ‘identity’ while You are dreaming; and it is specious.  Something that seems to be and isn’t.

⁴ We are not dealing here with what the person is. On the contrary, we are exclusively concerned with what he does in a body. – Okay!  I hear You saying: ‘Whoa!  Slow down!  Body or no body, isn’t it His intention to be wounding with His words and with His actions? And don’t those actions begin in His mind? What’s the difference?’  Good questions!  First let’s continue reading. – We are doing more than failing to help in freeing him from its limitations. We are actively trying to hold him to it by confusing it with him and judging them as one. Herein is God attacked, for if His Son is only a body, so must He be as well. A creator wholly unlike his creation is inconceivable.

I hear You saying that it is not inconceivable at all, since the ego apparently has accomplished total disconnect from God, albeit solely in its delusions.

And it’s true that consciousness can go anywhere it pleases, as long as it refuses to distinguish between Reality and dreaming.  And since All is Mind, what’s the difference?  One more good question!

The difference is that Reality is wonderful, and dreams are a miserable existence.  Are sin, disease and death enjoyable?

Back to Your question about body being there or not is irrelevant to Your Brother’s bad behavior.  Hardly. And it is a simple answer.  Remember that the body is but the symbol of the dream, far from irrelevant to dreaming.  And ‘injury’ takes place only in the state of dreams.

Thus when You think Your Brother lives within a body, You may know that You’re dreaming.  What then goes on is an illusion in which Your Brother has attacked You.  Will You blame Him for Your choice to abide with Him in the land of dreams?  Doubtless He does feel that You are attacking Him.  For He, too, is quite deluded.  Would You not prefer to free both of You from this nightmare state?

Would You withhold Your forgiveness for One Who is quite insane?  Then You lock Yourself into His insanity, as well as Your own.  Now since You need to forgive Yourself, You might as well forgive Your Brother!

It costs You but Your belief in dreaming.  A ‘penalty’ You’ll gladly pay.

⁵If God is a body, what must His plan for salvation be? What could it be but death? In trying to present Himself as the Author of life and not of death, He is a liar and a deceiver, full of false promises and offering illusions in place of truth.

The only point of body, as You experience it, is that it is always amenable to dying to exit a dream that has become quite unpleasant.  This, then, offers the opportunity to dive back into the dream with a brand-new body and what You think is a brand-new story. Uh uh.

All You’re doing is going round and round in endless circles.

Would You continue to do this if Christ came to You and suggested that You choose again?  Well, I have come, and I am suggesting that You choose again; this time, instead, choosing for Life.

⁶ The body’s apparent reality makes this view of God quite convincing. In fact, if the body were real, it would be difficult indeed to escape this conclusion. And every grievance that you hold insists that the body is real. It overlooks entirely what your brother is. – What is My Brother? – It reinforces your belief that he is a body and condemns him for it. And it asserts that his salvation must be death, projecting this attack onto God and holding Him responsible for it.

Look how firmly held is the ridiculous belief that the one way to get to Heaven is to die!  Yet, 2000 years gone by I said: “The Kingdom is at hand.”  Even now, this Truth still has not sunk in.  And yet It is what speaks the Truth about Your Brother.  The Kingdom is at hand, and with It, Your Reality, as well as Your Brother’s.  What is Your Reality?  What is the Kingdom but the realm of Mind.

Think on this: Where are You aware of all things, but in and as consciousness.  Therefore, You must be mind, rather than a body.

This is completely different from the materiality that always claims all of Your attention.  It is the bizarre playground’ of the world.

⁷ To this carefully prepared arena, where angry animals seek for prey and mercy cannot enter, the ego comes to save you. God made you a body. Very well. Let us accept this and be glad. As a body, do not let yourself be deprived of what the body offers. Take the little you can get. God gave you nothing. The body is your only savior. It is the death of God and your salvation.

Pretty somber world that You’ve created.

⁸ This is the universal belief of the world you see. Some hate the body and try to hurt and humiliate it. Others love the body and try to glorify and exalt it. But while it stands at the center of your concept of yourself, you are attacking God’s plan for salvation and holding your grievances against Him and His creation that you may not hear the Voice of truth and welcome it as Friend. Your chosen savior takes His place instead. It is your friend; He is your enemy.

Every grievance that You hold against a Brother is really held against Your sense of God.

⁹ We will try today to stop these senseless attacks on salvation. – They are attacks on You as well as God. For the ego is not Your friend; it intends that You never accept salvation. – We will try to welcome it instead. Your upside-down perception has been ruinous to your peace of mind. You have seen yourself in a body and the truth outside you, locked away from your awareness by the body’s limitations. Now we are going to try to see this differently.

The body is the symbol of separation, for You seem to be there, while I am here.  Only as Consciousness can the Love of True Oneness be experienced.  Realize that All of Us are only Mind.  Your embodiment is only mental.  It is Consciousness.

¹⁰ The light of truth is in us, where it was placed by God. It is the body that is outside us and is not our concern. To be without a body is to be in our natural state. To recognize the light of truth in us is to recognize ourselves as we are. To see our Self as separate from the body is to end the attack on God’s plan for salvation and to accept it instead. And wherever His plan is accepted, it is accomplished already.

Too long now have You thought Yourself to only be a body.  In Reality, all You are is Mind.

¹¹ Our goal in the longer practice periods today is to become aware that God’s plan for salvation has already been accomplished in us. To achieve this goal, we must replace attack with acceptance. As long as we attack it, we cannot understand what God’s plan for us is. We are therefore attacking what we do not recognize. – We are asked to stop this foolishness and listen for the Loving Voice for God. Now we are going to try to lay judgment aside and ask what God’s plan for us is:

¹² What is salvation, Father?
I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand.

¹³ Then we will wait in quiet for His answer.

¹⁴ We have attacked God’s plan for salvation without waiting to hear what it is. We have shouted our grievances so loudly that we have not listened to His Voice. We have used our grievances to close our eyes and stop our ears. – Having eyes You do not see, and ears You do not hear. – Now we would see and hear and learn. “What is salvation, Father?” Ask and you will be answered. Seek and you will find.

It is Your Self for which You seek.  For You are not an ego.  You’re the Son of God.

¹⁵ We are no longer asking the ego what salvation is and where to find it. We are asking it of truth. Be certain, then, that the answer will be true because of Whom you ask. – You are now seeking a better Teacher, and better teaching. – Whenever you feel your confidence wane and your hope of success flicker and go out, repeat your question and your request, remembering that you are asking them of the infinite Creator of infinity, Who created you like Himself:

¹⁶ What is salvation, Father?
I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand.

¹⁷ He will answer. Be determined to hear.

Always is He speaking words of Love to You, if You would only listen to Him.

¹⁸ One or perhaps two shorter practice periods an hour will be enough for today since they will be somewhat longer than usual. These exercises begin with this:

¹⁹ Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.
Let me accept it instead.
What is salvation, Father?

With this question You are really asking:  ‘What are Life and Truth and Love?

²⁰ Then wait a minute or so in silence, preferably with your eyes closed, and listen for His answer.

… … … …

They are You, if You will but accept Them.

Thank you Dear Brother]

*Sun~Rose is the scribe of the recently published book, “YOU ARE LOVED AND SAFE: PREP NOTES FOR EXPERIENCING GOD’S LOVE“, Jesus’ Guidance on the Miracle Principles

She is also author of, “RADIANT LIFE: RAW FOOD AND THE PRESENCE OF LOVE”

BOTH now available on amazon.com