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.

 Since His plan is to discard them. So why not put them in the garbage pail, not Your memory box.

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.

² The ego’s fundamental wish is to replace God. In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of this wish. 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. The limit on communication cannot be the best means to expand communication. Yet the ego would have you believe that it is.  The ego is diametrical to God (And if there were no such word, a moment past, there is one now!)

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. Yes, that is so.  A hostile mind has an attack just as powerful as a hostile body.  You are right: minds are joined.

⁴ We are not dealing here with what the person is.  In other words, His/Her Reality. For, although S/He appears to be, a person is not body. On the contrary, we are exclusively concerned with what he does in a body. instead of His or Her Reality, We’re deeply sleeping, immersed in the dream.  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.  In other words, when We see Him or Her as a body, We are entrenching Ourselves – as well as them – in body. That is now how or where They really are, for All is Consciousness as God. 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.  You see clearly here the error of confusing body with Identity.  The body serves to hide Your unique Individuality.  The ego’s presentation of You as body is completely opposed to You as Consciousness.

Let Us remember together, You’re not a body, and neither is Your Brother. You are Mind, and as Mind, You’re Infinite, as is Your Brother.  You might just want to take a moment here to contemplate the magnitude of Your shared Infinity. … …

Yet now listen to thoughts belonging to the ego, how it opposes God, Our dear Father-Mother.

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.  In My words quoted in the Bible:

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44)

Read now these words, and apply them to the ego, to every thought You have that is not in line with Love.

I cannot say this too often about the ego, for the whole dream is based upon a lie, upon Your believing it.  Living Your lives based upon these beliefs.

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.  This is why the ego clings so tightly to the so-called reality of a matter body, the ‘solid’ evidence of its ‘reality’; all it is is a delusion. Yes, You have embodiment; You are identified.  It isn’t ‘matter’; it is mind.

Even within the dream, Your good ‘health’ depends on consciousness, and not on ‘matter’. So watch the use to which You put Your mind! Especially keep an eye on those beguiling grievances!  Let them go now, before they do You in!

And every grievance that you hold insists that the body is real. (Grievances insist that You are ‘matter’ instead of Spirit. And grievances lie.) It overlooks entirely what your brother is. And what You are as well; for Truth of You is Truth of Your Brother, and vice versa. It reinforces your belief that he is a body – and that You’re one too – and condemns him for it.  In so doing, You condemn You as well. You and S/He are one. And it asserts that his salvation must be death, projecting this attack onto God and holding Him responsible for it.  So operates the shameless ego.  Dearly belovèd Son of God, wake up! You are not an ego!

You can leave the dream without dying, and without leaving Your Others.

Let’s look more closely at the dream:

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.  Disbelieve this!  Do not trust the ego!

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, – pay close attention to those words, for You think You’re a body! – 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.  You’ve made ‘friend’ of what seeks to kill You, and turned Your back on God – on Real Life Itself – in insane preference for the ego.

And why would You choose such suffering, but because You are addicted to the dream.  How You love to make all Your own decisions!  Reveling in separation.  They may be mistakes, but I’m the one that’s choosing, crows the ego, quite delightedly.

If this were a movie, the audience would be screaming “Wake up Dreamer!” to You!

⁹ We will try today to stop these senseless attacks on salvation. I’m being kind in saying senseless. They are blooming insane! Remember what “salvation is”?  Life, Truth and Love – God’s own Living Presence – showing up within the dream. Why not be grateful? 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.  Allowing God to help, We will succeed!

¹⁰ The light of truth is in us, where it was placed by God.  This Light is What We are; It is Our very Substance, and the Substance of All things. It is the body that is outside us – a deranged projection, this idea of ‘matter’, and to the ego mindset, it is quite convincing – 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 – and this is to recognize It as 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.  Why do I say this?  Are You a disembodied spirit floating aimlessly with no identity? Hardly! Yet You’re still not a body; You are mind.  And wherever His plan is accepted, it is accomplished already.  For You have said Yes! to God, already in Your mind.  And when the mind is changed, whatever Your experience of body is follows after.

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. Again, it is as I said above, when the mind is changed, the body cannot help but follow after, even in the dream. For no-One can be healed, unless – even in smallest measure – their mind is willing. 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. Now we are going to try to lay judgment aside and ask what God’s plan for us is:

It must be benign; God is only Good.

¹² What is salvation, Father?
I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand. Then may I be healed, understanding You.

¹³ Then we will wait in quiet for His answer.  It may come as words, a sudden rush of Love, a “peace that passes all understanding.”₁

¹⁴ We have attacked God’s plan for salvation without waiting to hear what it is.  How like the ego!  Attack is is modus operandi!₂ We have shouted our grievances so loudly that we have not listened to His Voice. We shouted so We wouldn’t have to hear! We have used our grievances to close our eyes and stop our ears. We have reveled in being a victim.  Now that’s too painful!  We are more willing. Now we would see and hear and learn. “What is salvation, Father?” Ask and you will be answered. Seek and you will find.  (Unlike the ego!)

¹⁵ We are no longer asking the ego what salvation is and where to find it. We have a far, far better Teacher now: the Holy Spirit. We are asking it of truth.  And Truth will answer, having waited patiently (for eons!) for You to request. Be certain, then, that the answer will be true because of Whom you ask. 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: (Who Loves You dearly.)

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

Speak very simply for this is new for Me: patient yielding.

¹⁷ He will answer. Be determined to hear.  It needs no force to be quietly attentive; it needs just some self-discipline.

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?

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

Remember that the Love of God is always present right there where You are.  God will answer, for God is not ever separate from You.  Your quiet receptivity is the beginning of the answer.

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