LESSON ONE HUNDRED-NINETY

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.

L e s s o n  190

I choose the joy of God instead of pain.

Well, who wouldn’t make that choice? It surely is much more pleasant. Yet so many of God’s Sons prefer to suffer in Our self-made hell that We call “the world”. Oh let Me not be One of them!

¹ Pain is a wrong perspective. Now what does this mean? It means You are looking through the wrong end of the telescope; seeing a narrow and shrunken view of things that limit You. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. There is a payoff for this view of things, so You espouse it. It is not a fact at all. But simply chosen; so it can be easily unchosen. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. Think for a moment what great ramifications can this Truth bestow upon You. For pain proclaims God cruel. God Whose Name is Love. How preposterous! How could it be real in any form? Or any shape whatsoever; it can’t! It witnesses to God the Father’s hatred of His Son, – just ridiculous! – the sinfulness He sees in him, – sees in His dearly belovèd Son in Whom He is well-pleased? – and His insane desire for revenge and death. God Whose Name is Love. Let this be Our song. Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false? Yet are they believed!

What they do show is but the mindset of the separated Son of God, which isn’t very pleasant.

² Pain is but witness to the Son’s mistakes in what he thinks he is. A bloomin’ human. And what is a human but the Son of God as a deep-in-dreams amnesiac. To wander into dreams was to forget His Self completely. Guilt for what He thinks He’s really done is just overwhelming. As is His fear of the consequences. He has completely blocked the memory of His Father’s Love. He dwells in a nightmare. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed, for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by an eternal Love which could not leave the Son whom it created out of love. Are You getting an idea of why the Course says to forgive Your Brother for what He never really did?

So that You can forgive Yourself!

³ Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. For Truth is always happy, always peaceful. It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself. If that seems to makes no sense, it is because it doesn’t. The guilt for what S/He never really did has driven Him insane. If God is real, there is no pain. God is surely Real, which means Good is Real. If pain is real, there is no God. For vengeance is not part of love. And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain. If all of this sounds too strange and convoluted that is because it is. So works the ego mindset.

None of it is true. Dreamers – not understanding God at all – have fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker, as the saying goes.

⁴ Peace to such foolishness! These beliefs are just ridiculous! The time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. First You need to stop believing in them! There is no need to think of them as savage crimes or secret sins with weighty consequence. Trust Me; trust My words. You are dreaming all this insanity. Who but a madman could conceive of them as cause of anything? Their witness, pain, is mad as they and no more to be feared than the insane illusions which it shields and tries to demonstrate must still be true. Time to awaken.This will dis

⁵ It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. This is not just true for You, but for everyOne. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad or weak or frail. How can I believe this Brother If flies in the face of everything that I believe is real. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. The ego says that this is nonsense, and arrogance to boot. Don’t trust its assessment; it’s a liar, from the beginning. Now ask Yourself: the beginning of what? The separation.  As you perceive the harmlessness in them, – and You begin to remember Yourself – they will accept your holy will as theirs. For Your will is now good and now benign. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness. When seen through the lovingkind Eyes of God.

⁶ My holy brothers, think of this awhile—the world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It is but an ongoing nightmare. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind and choose the joy of God as what you really want. How could there possibly be another choice than happiness. Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging, and unchangeable forever and forever. And would you deny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance and keep it as a hospital for pain, a sickly place where living things must come at last to die? Why would You do this but to punish Yourself for separation to avoid something worse You still think that God will do to His belovèd Son. You just can’t accept that word: belovèd.

⁷ The world may seem to cause you pain. It sure looks awful. How did it get so bad, You ask. Remember its inception? It was made as a very deliberate attack on God. And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. In itself, it can do nothing. ForYou are its ‘creator’. As an effect, – at effect of You – it cannot make effects. As an illusion it is what you will. I know this seems horrible to You, to be responsible. Your idle wishes represent its pains. Your strange desires bring it evil dreams. Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, – yet can You heal it! – while in your kind forgiveness does it live. It’s just that simple. Forgive Your Others their insanity, for it’s just like Yours.

⁸ Pain is the thought of evil taking form and working havoc in your holy mind. You may not even be aware of it. Pay attention. You will be if You watch Your thoughts carefully. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. Anything so You can keep on dreaming. Such insanity! You gave up Love to suffer in Your dreams. Has it been worth it? In pain is God denied the Son He loves. Yet He still Loves You. His Love continues, extending thoughout Love’s Eternity. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love and time replace eternity and Heaven. Again, all the horror is merely seeming; the seeming of the dreaming. You can will to dream a much better dream. For You choose horror. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery.  Why not choose again, for You can Waken. It’s a viable possibility.

⁹ Lay down your arms and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven’s peace holds all things still at last. God’s Love is certain. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. Let no attack enter with you. Come with open mind. Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness. Here will you understand there is no pain. Here does the joy of God belong to you. Let Us sit here together for a while, enjoying God’s Peace.

¹⁰ This is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson which contains all of salvation’s power. It is this: pain is illusion; joy reality. Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening. Pain is deception; joy alone is truth. This does make Your healing very simple? Your ‘medicine’ is to just be happy! God forgives You for what You never do!

¹¹ And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made—we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven. Shall it be dreaming? Or Reality. Let our gratitude unto our Teacher – the Holy Spirit, here, as Our Right Mind, ever available – fill our hearts as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world. There need be no delay. The choice can be made now,in any and every instant!

 

 

[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