Lesson 143. "My mind holds only what I think with God."
(125) "In quiet I receive God's Word today."
(126) "All that I give is given to myself."
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A brief excerpt from both Lessons 125 and 126, with the commentary by Kenneth
Wapnick, that we had formerly looked at. And if you feel so inclined, just go
back over the whole lesson and commentary. ~ M. Street.
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(125) "In quiet I receive God's Word today."
(3:1) "In stillness we will hear God's Voice today without intrusion of our
petty thoughts, without our personal desires, and without all judgment of His
holy Word."
*We experience the Holy Spirit and remember His Love by letting go of all things
that interfere with it. Here Jesus refers to these blocks as "petty thoughts,"
"personal desires" and "all judgment." This means becoming aware of them, for
otherwise we cannot choose against them. We learn of these ego defenses as we
see their manifestations: our special relationships with each other expressing
the mind's special relationship with the ego. As we become increasingly aware of
the guilt and hatred expressed in our bodies -- special hate and special love --
we learn that what we are experiencing outside is the shadow of what we have
first made real in our minds. This is the first clue that there is a mind, which
allows us to be aware it is our thoughts that have to change, not anything
external.*
(3:2) "We will not judge ourselves today, for what we are can not be judged."
*Our Identity as Christ has only to be accepted, not judged. The ego's initial
judgment was that our individuality was a horrific, sinful thing, reinforced by
guilt. Before we knew it we found ourselves in a world of judgment, each one
justified by a plethora of misperceptions. All the while, the vision of or
collective holiness as God's Son remained concealed behind our judgments of sin
and guilt, fear and attack.*
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(126) "All that I give is given to myself."
*In this beautiful lesson Jesus talks about being still, reminiscent of the
line: "The memory of God comes to the quiet mind." (T.23.I.1.1) If we are truly
serious about our desire to remember God and return home, our minds must be
quiet. The problem is we have filled them with the static of the ego's raucous
shrieks -- its thought system of separation and individuality; sin, guilt, and
fear; specialness and attack -- which makes it impossible to hear the Holy
Spirit remind us of our Identity. If we are to be quiet and receive God's Word
-- the Atonement principle -- we need to look at our ego's interferences without
judgment, thus letting them go.*
(1:1-4) "Let this day be a day of stillness and of quiet listening. Your Father
wills you hear His Word today. He calls to you from deep within your mind where
He abides. Hear Him today."
*Deep within is the right mind, which we have sought to hide, and hide from. If
we want to reach the quiet place wherein dwells the Voice for our Father, we
have to return and unveil what we kept hidden. In the text we find this
beautifully evocative passage of the forgotten song, whose wondrous melody is
heard again, to the extent we can be quiet and listen:
"Listen, -perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten;
dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar, like a song whose name is long
forgotten; and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not
the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached
not to a person or a place or anything particular. But you remember, from just
this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you
heard it, and how you loved those who were there and listened with you."
"The notes are nothing. Yet you have kept them with you, not for themselves,
but as a soft reminder of what would make you weep if you remembered how dear it
was to you. You could remember, yet you are afraid, believing you would lose the
world you learned since then. And yet you know that nothing in the world you
learned is half so dear as this. Listen, and see if you remember an ancient song
you knew so long ago and held more dear than any melody you taught yourself to
cherish since." (T.21.I.6-7).*
(1:5) "No peace is possible until His Word is heard around the world; until your
mind, in quiet listening, accepts the message that the world must hear to usher
in the quiet time of peace."
*When Jesus speaks of the world, he does not refer to the external world of the
body, but the world that exists in the mind. Since <ideas leave not their
source>, the idea of a separated world has never left its source in the mind.
When, therefore, we are healed of the thought of separation by releasing our
investment in specialness, God's Word can be heard around the world, for the
Sonship is one. The world -- being nothing but the mind's projection of
separation -- has been healed, and so Jesus does not advocate preaching his holy
word to a world that is already saved, but only accepting it -- the Atonement
--within our minds.*
