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.

Workbook PART I

Lesson 72

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

God’s plan for salvation flows from Love, and grievances are far from Love’s expression. We could truly say that they are opposed to one another.  You have not realized how full of hate is unforgiveness.  It seems justified, just what “they” deserve!  So thinks the ego.

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.  The ego knows that it cannot rule where God’s reign is supreme. It seeks to abrogate God’s goodness and insist that it is Your real source of good.  It tells You all day long that it knows best, and You believe 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.  Will You fall for its slick blandishments, or will You stick with 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 seeming naturalness of Your mind being encased in a body which is Your identity (instead of mind) demonstrates just how successful has the ego been with its charade.

Think of Yourself.  What comes to mind? Are You thinking of Your consciousness or body?

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.  When You think of him, do not You think of him as a body?  As such He is identified by You. And You are cheating both Yourself and him, holy Sons of God.

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. 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 binding Him We bind Ourselves as well. 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.  The whole thing is an attack on Reality, which keeps You tight bound to dreaming.  Read on for the ego’s coup de grace, it’s very favorite thing!

⁵If God is a body, what must His plan for salvation be? What could it be but death? Oh yes! The zenith of the human dream. The culminating point of so-called ‘life’. 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. So does the ego clothe the Supremacy of the Universe in a body.  How preposterous is the idea of God as a man. Yet is this belief so widely embraced that almost no-one ever questions it.

Why is this: because it suits ego purpose to believe it.

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.  Yet does the body still seem so real to You – and such a source of pleasure and identity – that You are quite loath to come to this conclusion. And every grievance that you hold insists that the body is real. You can now see the point of grievances? They make body real, and guilty and unforgiveable! It overlooks entirely what your brother is. Consciousness like You. 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. And no-One stops to reason why and how a Creator would destroy Its own Creation, for that would blow the ego’s game.

⁷ To this carefully prepared arena, where angry animals seek for prey and mercy cannot enter, the ego comes to save you.  From this God with no mercy, killing off His offspring as fast as He can make them! And who knows when You’ll be the next to go. God made you a body. So You’ve got to die. Every body does! 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. Now You see the source of the attachment to sex and eating. At least the body gives You some pleasure! God gave you nothing. The body is your only savior. It is the death of God and your salvation.  It is what You are! Love and revere it!  So claims the body.

⁸ This is the universal belief of the world you see. It’s the world of materiality. Some hate the body and try to hurt and humiliate it. Others love the body and try to glorify and exalt it.  Others just care to indulge it, thereby  indulging themselves.; all the while thinking it is what They are.  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. While You believe that You are body, You cannot experience that You are consciousness instead.

⁹ We will try today to stop these senseless attacks on salvation. We will try to welcome it instead.  And in this welcoming We will succeed. 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.  And in Our trying be victorious!

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.  Yet has it become Our prison through Our false beliefs  that it is Our saviour when it is jailer to the Son of God. To be without a body is to be in our natural state. That of consciousness; therefore, immortal. 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.  I am not a body; and therefore, I am free to be as God created Me. These words are Your freedom from the ego.

 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. For We’ve never really been a ‘human’; just a Son of God lost in His dreaming.  Our goal is easily achievable. 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: We can ask Him with some humility.

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

And We will be still, for We want to hear.

¹³ Then we will wait in quiet for His answer.  He speaks to You continuously, if You would only still Yourself and listen for His loving Voice.

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.  Our grievances, which to Us have seemed so important.  The question has been asked: Would You rather be right or happy? Now we would see and hear and learn. “What is salvation, Father?” Ask and you will be answered. Seek and you will find.  And when You’ve found, You will wonder why You waited so long to be truly happy.

¹⁵ We are no longer asking the ego what salvation is and where to find it. It has no answers. We are asking it of truth. 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:

¹⁶ What is salvation, Father?
I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand. And in understanding, I may live it.

¹⁷ He will answer. Be determined to hear. Gently let Your mind be open to His words of Love, so kind.  He has so much Love to give You, and longs for Your glad receipt.

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? Please show Me Your plan, and help Me to be willing to do it.

²⁰ Then wait a minute or so in silence, preferably with your eyes closed, and listen for His answer.  God waits with Love for You and Your question.

 

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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