LESSON EIGHT

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.

My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

This surely would be obvious were You to be willing to be truly present at any instant.  Yet do You live continually in what happened in the past and has been over for eternity, since it never actually happened.

Yet in a world of dreaming, dreams pass easily as if they were reality.

¹ This idea is, of course, the reason why you see only the past. No one really sees anything. He sees only his thoughts projected outward.

How can this be so?  It’s very simple. Turning Your backs on God, You have refused the Holy Instant, which is simply constant, Holy Communion with Our Father.  And there You stay, in Groundhog Day, in Groundhog Day, in Groundhog Day, in Groundhog Day.  You get the picture?

The mind’s preoccupation with the past is the cause of the total misconception about time from which your seeing suffers. Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is.

(Why not?  Because it isn’t willing to.  It is that simple.  Again We do see the value of a “little willingness.”)

Without giving that willingness, One stays lost in endless dreams; Groundhog Day again.

It therefore cannot understand time and cannot, in fact, understand anything.

This does stem from Your refusal to actually be here Now continually.

² The only wholly true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here.

With a willingness to do this, all dreams would so easily now be corrected.

To think about it at all is therefore to think about illusions. Very few minds have realized what is actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the future. The mind is actually blank when it does this because it is not really thinking about anything.

For there is but one Reality, and it is only Now.

³ The purpose of the exercises for today is to begin to train your mind to recognize when it is not really thinking at all. While thoughtless “ideas” preoccupy your mind, the truth is blocked. Recognizing that your mind has been merely blank, rather than believing that it is filled with real ideas, is the first step to opening the way to vision.

⁴ The exercises for today should be done with eyes closed. This is because you actually cannot see anything, and it is easier to recognize that, no matter how vividly you may picture a thought, you are not seeing anything. With as little investment as possible, search your mind for the usual minute or so, merely noting the thoughts you find there. Name each one by the central figure or theme it contains, and pass on to the next. Introduce the practice period by saying:

⁵ I seem to be thinking about _____.

⁶ Then name each of your thoughts specifically. For example:

⁷ I seem to be thinking about [name of person],
about [name of object], about [name of emotion];

⁸ and so on, concluding at the end of the mind-searching period with:

⁹ But my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

¹⁰ This can be done four or five times during the day, unless you find it irritates you. If you find it trying, three or four times are sufficient. You might find it helpful, however, to include your irritation, or any emotion which the idea may induce, in the mind searching itself.

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[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