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Lesson 45. God is the Mind with which I think.

Lyn Johnson All Messages By This Member #93043 Lesson 45. God is the Mind with which I think. Today's idea holds the key to what your real thoughts are. They are nothing that you think you think, just as nothing that you think you see is related to vision in any way. There is no relationship between what is real and what you think is real. Nothing that you think are your real thoughts resembles your real thoughts in any respect. Nothing that you think you see bears any resemblance to what vision will show you. You think with the Mind of God. 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. Nor do the thoughts you think with the Mind of God leave your mind, because thoughts do not leave their source. Therefore, your thoughts are in the Mind of God, as you are. They are in your mind as well, where He is. As you are part of His Mind, so are your thoughts part of His Mind. Where, then, are your real thoughts? 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 their source. What is thought by the Mind of God is eternal, being part of creation. 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. We will not let the beliefs of the world tell us that what God would have us do is impossible. Instead, we will try to recognize that only what God would have us do is possible. We will also try to understand that only what God would have us do is what we want to do. 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 we will succeed today. It is the Will of God. Begin the exercises for today by repeating the idea to yourself, closing your eyes as you do so. Then spend a fairly short period in thinking a few relevant thoughts of your own, keeping the idea in mind. After you have added some four or five thoughts of your own to the idea, repeat it again and tell yourself gently: My real thoughts are in my mind. I would like to find them.< Then try to go past all the unreal thoughts that cover the truth in your mind, and reach to the eternal. Under all the senseless thoughts and mad ideas with which you have cluttered up your mind are the thoughts that 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. Everything you have thought since then will change, but the Foundation on which it rests 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. For this kind of practice only one thing is necessary; approach it as you would an altar dedicated in Heaven to God the Father and to 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. In the shorter exercise periods for today, 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. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The commentary on this lesson (below) is from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume series of books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lesson 45. "God is the Mind with which I think." (1:1) "Today's idea holds the key to what your real thoughts are." That is because our real thoughts are with God. Note in the following discussion that Jesus identifies our real thoughts with the Christ Mind. (1:2) "They are nothing that you think you think, just as nothing that you think you see is related to vision in any way." Jesus is always giving us a little jibe, telling us that we but think we think, we but think we see. In fact, we are not thinking or seeing at all. (1:3) "There is no relationship between what is real and what you think is real." Other words could be substituted for these. We could say, for example, there is no relationship between what God is and what the world thinks God is -- so much for theologies of the world! Returning to the workbook lesson, we see a Level One statement -- there is absolutely nothing, no middle ground, between the truth and illusion. Any time we think we understand something, such understanding cannot be real because we are involved only with our own thoughts, and <our> thoughts are never real. The purpose of A Course in Miracles is not to lead us to an <understanding> of God, but to an experience of His Love, for which we must escape the darkness of our guilt and hatred. The following statement from the Introduction to the clarification of terms expresses this goal of experience rather than understanding: "A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary. It is this experience toward which the course is directed. Here alone consistency becomes possible because here alone uncertainty ends." (C-in.2:5-7). We can also recall this wonderful line from the text: "You are still convinced that your understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing." (T-18.IV.7:5-6). (1:4 -- 2:5) "Nothing that you think are your real thoughts resemble your real thoughts in any respect. Nothing that you think you see bears any resemblance to what vision will show you." "You think with the Mind of God. 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. Nor do the thoughts you think with the Mind of God leave your mind, because thoughts do not leave their source." The extremely important principle <ideas leave not their source> makes its first appearance here in the workbook, although we have already discussed it many times. Jesus mentions it again later in the lessons, and it is at the center of his teaching throughout the three books. To state it differently: This principle is the Atonement, which reflects the unchanging truth we are an idea or thought in the Mind of God, and have never left our Source. This means the separation never happened. We are thus saying that all thoughts, if they are real, have never left their Source. Even though we believe we have left God and are asleep in the dream, we can still have reflections of these thoughts. Once again, in these passages Jesus is not making a distinction between real thoughts and the reflection of real thoughts. (2:6-8) "Therefore, your thoughts are in the Mind of God, as you are. They are in your mind as well, where He is. As you are part of His Mind, so are your thoughts part of His Mind." All is one, since <ideas leave not their source>. The mind we think we are is unreal, in contrast to the Mind of Christ, Jesus' referent here. This is yet another example of how the language of the workbook is not, strictly speaking, theologically correct. Since forgiveness is impossible in God, as we shall see in just a moment, our forgiveness thoughts, in reality, have nothing to do with God either. More properly, forgiveness is the <reflection> of God's Thought. Read this material, therefore, as you would a wonderful poem, not a technical treatise to be analytically dissected. (3) "Where, then, are your real thoughts? 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 their source. What is thought by the Mind of God is eternal, being part of creation." The function of the Holy Spirit is to hold those thoughts in our minds, which, despite our mind wandering, remain in their source. Projection is a powerful and persuasive defense, yet it cannot defy the basic principle: <ideas leave not their source.> It is our learning this salvific fact that the ego continually tries to prevent. (4:1-2) "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." Sentence 2 seems to say the exact opposite of the passage in Chapter 16 that I quoted earlier -- "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers that you have built against it" (T-16.IV.6:1) -- for here the words say you should seek for truth. This is yet another indication of his inconsistent use of words. However, it is equally true that the principles he teaches never vary and are consistent, as the remainder of the paragraph makes clear. In other words, we find the truth (the real) by first finding the illusion (the unreal) and then leaving it and deciding against it. Incidentally, 4:2 is taken from the famous Hindu statement about leaving the unreal for the real. Here now is the rest of the paragraph: (4:3-6) "We will deny the world in favor of truth. We will not let the thoughts of the world hold us back. We will not let the beliefs of the world tell us that what God would have us do is impossible. Instead, we will try to recognize that only what God would have us do is possible." The way we seek for truth and what is real is by denying the unreal, which we deny by looking at our unreal thoughts with Jesus. Again, when we look with him at our judgments, hatred, and guilt they will disappear, leaving only the truth. Indeed, the very process of <looking> is what heals. As I discussed in the Prelude, it is not looking at our guilt that preserves its illusory existence. That is the function of the world and body: to keep us from looking within. Therefore, looking without guilt or judgment at our decision to be guilty undoes it, transferring its substance from a solid wall of granite -- <heavy, opaque, and impenetrable> -- to a <fragile veil> that has no power to keep away the light (T-18.IX.5:2-4). We shall return to this important theme repeatedly before our journey through the workbook is completed. (5) "We will also try to understand that only what God would have us do is what we want to do. 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 we will succeed today. It is the Will of God." Jesus is reminding us here of our purpose in doing the workbook and studying his course: what we really want to do is be an expression of God's Will, even though strictly speaking God does not have us do anything. Once again, and hardly for the last time, we see Jesus appealing to our right-minded motivation: We want to learn his lessons because they will make us feel better. (6) "Begin the exercises for today by repeating the idea to yourself, closing your eyes as you do so. Then spend a fairly short period in thinking a few relevant thoughts of your own, keeping the idea in mind. After you have added some four or five thoughts of your own to the idea, repeat it again and tell yourself gently: My real thoughts are in my mind. I would like to find them. Then try to go past all the unreal thoughts that cover the truth in your mind, and reach to the eternal." The way you go to the eternal is through your unreal thoughts, which you bring to the real ones of the Holy Spirit. Our chart (in Lesson 43) illustrates this. You find God by going through the ego system, which begins with your experience of yourself as a body. You next realize your body is a projection of the mind's unreal thoughts of separation, specialness, and guilt, which you bring to the real thoughts of the Holy Spirit. And then they are gone, leaving only the truth. This process of going through the <unreal> to the <real> -- the essence of forgiveness -- is powerfully described in the following passage from the text that tells of our journey through the "circle of fear" to God, with the Holy Spirit as our companion and guide: "Yet God can bring you there [beyond all fear], if you are willing to follow the Holy Spirit through seeming terror, trusting Him not to abandon you and leave you there. For it is not His purpose to frighten you, but only yours. You are severely tempted to abandon Him at the outside ring of fear, but He would lead you safely through and far beyond." (T-18.IX.3:7-9). (7:1) "Under all the senseless thoughts and mad ideas with which you have cluttered up your mind are the thoughts that you thought with God in the beginning." These are not thoughts we normally think of as thoughts, for Jesus speaks of an expression of God's Will -- Oneness, truth and love. Even though we are unaware of them, these thoughts remain nonetheless, "held in safekeeping" in our right minds against the time we choose them, <and only them.> Jesus makes the same point in this moving passage early in the text. I quote it in its entirety. "How can you who are so holy suffer? All your past except its beauty is gone, and nothing is left but a blessing. I have saved all your kindnesses and every loving thought you ever had. I have purified them of the errors that hid their light, and kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within you, and we know what God creates is eternal. You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I loved myself. You go with my blessing and for my blessing. Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. The heart is pure to hold it, and the hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgment is as strong as the wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. His quiet children are His blessed Sons. The Thoughts of God are with you." (T-5.IV.8) (7:2-4) "They are there in your mind now, completely unchanged. They will always be in your mind, exactly as they always were. Everything you have thought since then will change, but the Foundation on which it rests is wholly changeless." These thoughts, reflecting the Love of God are always with us -- totally unchanged. We have covered them over with senseless and cluttered thoughts, and Jesus is helping us uncover the truth that is in us. In the end we shall come to recognize that these insane thoughts are made up. Their seeming power had no <effect> on the truth, and of such truth <is> the Kingdom of Heaven remembered on earth. (8:1-4) "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. For this kind of practice only one thing is necessary; approach it as you would an altar dedicated in Heaven to God the Father and to God the Son." Jesus again is urging us to take these lessons seriously and remember why we are doing them. However, we are not taking them seriously if we do not apply them, which is why our vigilance becomes so important. In the text, Jesus explains that altars are devotions: "Both Heaven and earth are in you, because the call of both is in your mind. The Voice for God comes from your own altars to Him. These altars are not things; they are devotions. Yet you have other devotions now. Your divided devotion has given you the two voices, and you must choose at which altar you want to serve. The call you answer now is an evaluation because it is a decision. The decision is very simple. It is made on the basis of which call is worth more to you." (T.5.II.8.5-12). And so we are instructed to recognize <which call is worth more to us>. It is our practice and vigilance that will reinforce what we <truly> want. (8:5-7) "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." We are once more asked to remember the importance of these lessons to us, being the practical and specific application of the principles of the text. The sincerity in our desire to return home will be reflected in our commitment to this ongoing practice. Thus Jesus says in the first sentence in paragraph 9: (9:1) "In the shorter exercise periods for today, try to remember how important it is to you to understand the holiness of the mind that thinks with God." It should be apparent by now, through his continual emphasis, how important Jesus believes these lessons to be, and how important they should be to us. We shall discuss presently how this importance will be measured by our willingness to relinquish our investment in specialness. The lesson closes with this final plea from Jesus to choose against ("stand aside") our ego's thoughts, and <for> his reminders of the Thoughts we share with God: (9:2-4) "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." Gratitude is an important theme in A Course in Miracles, and one to which we shall often return. The core of this gratitude is that God has never ceased to be Who He is, despite all our insane attempts to make Him be otherwise. Love and Blessings, Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822

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