LESSON FORTY FIVE

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.

Workbook PART I

L e s s o n 45

God is the Mind with which I think.

There is no other. God’s Mind is the only Mind that I could ever really have.  There is no other.What then is the ego, if not another mind?  That’s simple.  It is a bald-faced claim to be Your mind; and it is nothing but a blatant lie.  Would You believe it?  For in disbelieving lies Your freedom.

So disbelieve its lying claims.  God is Your Mind and not the ego. Then will You be free.

¹ Today’s idea holds the key to what your real thoughts are.  As I think not with God, then I am not thinking!  I’m defaulting to the ego.

What are My real thoughts?  I wish I knew, and how do I find them?  They are nothing that you think you think, just as nothing that you think you see is related to vision in any way.  This is confusing!  When I think that I’m thinking, if I’m not then what am I doing!  There is no relationship between what is real and what you think is real. The human’ dream is but pure delusion. Nothing that you think are your real thoughts resemble your real thoughts in any respect. Yes! Yes!That is what I’m looking for! Your curiosity! What’s ‘thinking’ really?  When Your so-called ‘mind’ (really ego) snaps out of its complacence and decides to question, and actually, to listen!

Nothing that you think you see bears any resemblance to what vision will show you.  What’s Vision really?  Curiosity didn’t kill the cat!  It killed its ego!  Yet You all – even cats – have quite identified with ego.  Thus, when it feels attacked – this thing that never has existed – it claims that You are, therefore, a ‘victim’.

² You think with the Mind of God.  What is God but Mind, Consciousness Divine. That’s Reality, where I long for You to come to join Me.! I know that You long to come as well; You just don’t know the way.  Yet You see I know the way to You, and come to guide You Home, which is right at hand; it’s the journey without any distance.

And God, Our Source, as Be-ing mind, must, therefore, be right with Us. Now available!  Now, and Now, and Now; constantly potential Holy Instants!  Freedom is right here.

Therefore you share your thoughts with Him, as He shares His with you. They are the same thoughts because they are thought by the same Mind. To share is to make alike or to make one.  As in sharing of a honest purpose for the good of All. Nor do the thoughts you think with the Mind of God leave your mind, because thoughts do not leave their source.  And, again, Your right mind is really God’s.  To get this clearly, let Us use again the sun, as analogous to God-as-Us.  The Sun is the central source of Light that is what the Rays are. 

God is the central Source of Awareness of Reality; Our Individual Expression of Awareness is then analogous to Rays.  Indeed are We God’s great Rays, expressing not just Consciousness as Mind, but Life and Truth and Love, Soul, Spirit, and Principle.  God’s Holy Nature, which is Ours as well.  What God is, We are.

Therefore your thoughts are in the Mind of God, as you are.  Your real thoughts are the Substance of Mind that is God, as well as the Ray of Mind that is each One of You. They are in your mind as well, where He is. God is Source; We are Expression.  God is also Source of Sun.  God sources Light, Sun is analogous Expression. As you are part of His Mind, so are your thoughts part of His Thoughts.

³ Where, then, are your real thoughts?  Blocked by the ego, We bypass it and appeal to God, for help.  Such is prayer, to share the Mind that We have called Our Father.  To let His Ideas be Our consciousness. This ‘letting’ allows Reality.  It is Our only True Awareness. Today we will attempt to reach them. We will have to look for them in your mind because that is where they are. They must still be there because they cannot have left. What is thought by the Mind of God is eternal, being part of creation.  Where could they go, being indestructible?  Nothing of Mind could ever be lost; Mind and Its Ideas are Eternal.  No beginning, and, therefore, no ending.  Always, ever, is, is Reality. This is how God’s seeming ‘healing’ happens.  The error is clearly seen to be specious, for eternal perfection must be for ever-present.

⁴ Our three five-minute practice periods for today will take the same general form that we used in applying yesterday’s idea. We will attempt to leave the unreal and seek for the real. We will deny the world in favor of truth. We will not let the thoughts of the world hold us back, and we will not let the beliefs of the world tell us that what God would have us do is impossible.  Shamelessly quoting Myself from two thousand years ago: “With men it is impossible. With God all things are possible.”

This is the basis of all true healing, when One relies on God and not on man.

⁵ Instead, we will try to recognize that only what God would have us do is possible. You see My words are consistent with Reality, and not with so-called ‘human’ thinking or beliefs. We will also try to understand that only what God would have us do is what we want to do. “Aye, there’s the rub!”₂ [Credit here to Shakespeare.] And we will also try to remember that we cannot fail in doing what He would have us do. There is every reason to feel confident that you will succeed today. It is the Will of God.  Your healing and the healing of the world.  For healing comes but by a change of mind.  It’s Your faith in the means that does the work; this truth is universally what’s so in the dreaming state.  For those Who are Awake have no need for healing, but, rather, do They long to heal the separation.

⁶ Begin the exercises for today by repeating the idea to yourself, closing your eyes as you do so. Spend a fairly short period in thinking a few relevant thoughts of your own, keeping the idea in mind as you do so. After you have added some four or five thoughts of your own, repeat the idea again, and tell yourself gently:

⁷ My real thoughts are in my mind. I would like to find them. 

I will to be in harmony with God.  For just as I have need of Him, so does He have need of Me for Harmony to be universal

The saying: “God is in His Heaven and all’s right with the world.” is of the ego.  For the ego pushed God up to somewhere in the sky, away from its miscreation of the world.  God is everywhere and instantly available within the dream, as You allow Him.  Every instant is full with Holiness, and is awaiting Your acceptance.

So much are You Loved.  Let Your mind feel It.

⁸ Then try to go past all the unreal thoughts that cover the truth in your mind, and reach to the eternal.  For eternal Love is right where You are.  Again, a journey without distance.

⁹ Under all the senseless thoughts and mad ideas with which you have cluttered up your mind are the thoughts which you thought with God in the beginning. They are there in your mind now, completely unchanged. They will always be in your mind, exactly as they always were.  God’s thoughts are permanent and perfect and Yours forever, as You will let them free.

¹⁰ Everything that you have thought since then will change, but the foundation on which they rest is wholly changeless. It is this foundation toward which the exercises for today are directed. Here is your mind joined with the Mind of God. Here are your thoughts one with His.

¹¹ For this kind of practice, only one thing is necessary-approach it as you would an altar dedicated in Heaven itself to God the Father and God the Son. For such is the place you are trying to reach. You will probably be unable as yet to realize how high you are trying to go. Yet even with the little understanding you have already gained, you should be able to remind yourself that this is no idle game but an exercise in holiness and an attempt to reach the Kingdom of Heaven.

Again: it is a journey without distance – taking place in Mind – based on Your Gift to God of willingness and Your genuine sincerity.

¹² In using the shorter form for applying today’s idea, try to remember how important it is to you to understand the holiness of the mind that thinks with God. Take a minute or two as you repeat the idea throughout the day to appreciate your mind’s holiness. Stand aside, however briefly, from all thoughts that are unworthy of Him Whose host you are. And thank Him for the thoughts He is thinking with you.

Feel His Love for You!  It’s ever-present. Open the sluice gates that You have shut and It will come flowing joyously.

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¹ Mark 10:17-27

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁷ And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?

¹⁸ And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

¹⁹ Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.

²⁰ And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth.

²¹ Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

²² And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

²³ And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

²⁴ And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!

²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

²⁶ And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved?

²⁷ And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.

² Oh, wow! This is perfect!  (Transcriber’s comment.)

HAMLETTo be or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep – No more – and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to –’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep – To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause.