LESSON ONE HUNDRED-NINETY-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.

L e s s o n  195

Love is the way I walk in gratitude.

It is the only road, in midst of hell, that leads to Heaven. Why take anger, which leads You to nowhere but deep misery? Love gladly frees You.

¹ Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. The most that they can do is see themselves as better off than others. And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they. You know the saying: “There but for the grace of God go I.” Yet does God not give grace to everyOne, or just to favorites? How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause, and who could suffer less because he sees another suffer more? This is typical of how ego thinks. Your gratitude is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world. Everywhere, for God has no favorites. Each One is special.

² It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering. God needs no martyrs. Don’t see Me as one. But it is equally insane to fail in gratitude to One Who offers you the certain means whereby all pain is healed and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness. Gratitude means that You see God as the Source of all Your Good. And that is correct! Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs and follow in the way He sets before them to escape a prison that they thought contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive. Would You not be free, or have You become attached to prison? That’s insanity: hallmark of the dream.

³ Your brother is your “enemy” because you see in him the rival for your peace, – for there seems to be so little of it – a plunderer who takes his joy from you and leaves you nothing but a black despair so bitter and relentless that there is no hope remaining. Yet all of this is a misperception. Now is vengeance all there is to wish for. What great insanity it brings to You. Now can you but try to bring him down to lie in death with you, as useless as yourself, as little left within his grasping fingers as in yours. God’s answer is Love. There is no other.

⁴ You do not offer God your gratitude because your brother is more slave than you, nor could you sanely be enraged if he seems freer. For Your happiness You look straight to God, not to the condition of Your Brother. Love makes no comparisons. It’s Gifts are equal. Love meets all needs, transforming them to Its Own great abundance. And gratitude can only be sincere if it is joined to love. We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom. As We re-learn and We remember Love. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound, for who can bargain in the name of love? All receive freedom!

⁵ Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity. To be truly grateful is happiness. And let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you—the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. All these go with you. Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off in our awareness from the unity we share with them, as they must share with us. Look past their story to their real nature, which – like Yours – is Love.

⁶ We thank our Father for one thing alone—that we are separate from no living thing and therefore one with Him. Thus are We complete. No fragmentation. And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness nor impair or change our function to complete the One Who is Himself completion. A function We share with All Our Others. We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us. Yes even for rats and havelinas, for We see them but through the lens of dreams.

⁷ Then let our brothers lean their tired heads against our shoulders – like loving children – as they rest a while. Let Us remember that We All are One, separate as We seem to be, We’re not. We offer thanks for them. For if we can direct them to the peace that we would find, the way is opening at last to us. For it is in giving We receive. St. Francis is correct. An ancient door is swinging free again; ending the separation that We made between Ourselves and God and each Other; a long forgotten Word re-echoes in our memory and gathers clarity as we are willing once again to hear. The Word is but Love, which is Unity. Love All-inclusive is Reality. Is not this the healing of the discord of the world today? You know it must be. Love has always been the one solution.

⁸ Walk then in gratitude, the way of love. Grateful for Brothers, no matter what their colour or their creed. For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside. What more remains as obstacles to peace? The bottom line: You do Love Your Others. The fear of God is now undone at last, – when We Love universally, We are in harmony as He would have Us be – and we forgive without comparing. Thus we cannot choose to overlook some things and yet retain some other things still locked away as sins. When your forgiveness is complete, you will have total gratitude, for you will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as your Self. To do this it is helpful to remember Werner Erhard’s words: “Sometimes the best Someone can do to say ‘I Love You’ is to say ‘I hate You.’ ” How hard it must be to be He. See how much He needs Your Love.

⁹ Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice, and revenge. How do We have it? By Our willingness. We have been given everything. How do We see it? By Our willingness. If we refuse to recognize it, – We must be willing to change angry minds – we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness and to a self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit where we are badgered ceaselessly and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future. Let Us take on faith that God is Love and be grateful. We won’tbe disappointed. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us and calls us Son. Can there be more than this? Trust, and You will have the experience.

¹⁰ Our gratitude will pave the way to Him and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of. A grateful heart is a lovely garden (and a healthy heart). Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is, the other must be found. For gratitude is but an aspect of the love which is the Source of all creation. The Love which is God. God gives thanks to you, His Son, for being what you are—His own completion and the source of love, along with Him. Your gratitude to Him is one with His to you. For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God. If You would be happy, trust gratefully. It has been truly said that while complaint is poverty, gratitude is riches.

 

 

[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