Lesson 76. I am under no laws but God's.
(1) We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to be
salvation. Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. You are not
bound by them. Yet to understand that this is so, you must first realize
salvation lies not there. While you would seek for it in things that have no
meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no sense. Thus do you seek to prove
salvation is where it is not.
(2) Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. For if you could, you would
forever seek salvation where it is not, and never find it. The idea for today
tells you once again how simple is salvation. Look for it where it waits for
you, and there it will be found. Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere else.
(3) Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the
strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you. You really think that you
would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal
discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your
veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death. You really
think you are alone unless another body is with you.
(4) It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them
under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve
no purpose. You think you must obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics and of
health. Protect the body, and you will be saved.
(5) These are not laws, but madness. The body is endangered by the mind that
hurts itself. The body suffers just in order that the mind will fail to see it
is the victim of itself. The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to
hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it
attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your "laws" would save the
body. It is for this you think you are a body.
(6) There are no laws except the laws of God. This needs repeating, over and
over, until you realize it applies to everything that you have made in
opposition to God's Will. Your magic has no meaning. What it is meant to save
does not exist. Only what it is meant to hide will save you.
(7) The laws of God can never be replaced. We will devote today to rejoicing
that this is so. It is no longer a truth that we would hide. We realize instead
it is a truth that keeps us free forever. Magic imprisons, but the laws of God
make free. The light has come because there are no laws but His.
(8) We will begin the longer practice periods today with a short review of the
different kinds of "laws" we have believed we must obey. These would include,
for example, the "laws" of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the
body's protection in innumerable ways. Think further; you believe in the "laws"
of friendship, of "good" relationships and reciprocity. Perhaps you even think
that there are laws which set forth what is God's and what is yours. Many
"religions" have been based on this. They would not save but damn in Heaven's
name. Yet they are no more strange than other "laws" you hold must be obeyed to
make you safe.
(9) There are no laws but God's. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today, and
hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice that speaks the truth to
you. You will be listening to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of
God. Payment is neither given nor received. Exchange cannot be made; there are
no substitutes; and nothing is replaced by something else. God's laws forever
give and never take.
(10) Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the "laws" you
thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. He will tell
you more. About the Love your Father has for you. About the endless joy He
offers you. About His yearning for His only Son, created as His channel for
creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell.
(11) Let us today open God's channels to Him, and let His Will extend through us
to Him. Thus is creation endlessly increased. His Voice will speak of this to
us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever. We
will repeat today's idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws
but God's. Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice
period concludes:
I am under no laws but God's.
(12) We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today; at least four or
five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to experience
ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. It is our statement of
freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is
our Father, and that His Son is saved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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 76. I am under no laws but God's.
*If memory serves me correctly, it was well over twenty years ago that questions
asked about the two levels on which A Course in Miracles was written. As I
discussed in the Prelude, Level One is the Course's metaphysics foundation,
which contrasts the reality of God and Heaven with the illusion of the ego's
thought system and the world that arose from it. On this level there is no
compromise between truth and illusion. Level Two treats <only> the illusory
realm, contrasting the ego's wrong-minded thought system of separation with the
Holy Spirit's thought system of Atonement.
The reason students find this lesson so difficult, not to mention infuriating,
is their confusion of these levels, not understanding that the purpose of Level
Two discourse is to meet us in the illusionary state we believe we are in, and
not to make statements of absolute truth. Thus, even though the body is
inherently illusory, we are not asked to dismiss it. Quite the contrary. We are
asked to pay careful attention to it and its place in our special relationship,
for these become the classrooms in which we learn the Holy Spirit's lessons in
forgiveness.
From this perspective we can see how Jesus pokes fun at the body; more
importantly, at our use of it. You may recall Jesus' statement that it is
practically impossible to deny our physical experience in this world
(T-2.IV.3:10). Therefore he is not asking us in this lesson to deny our bodies
by not taking medicine, let alone not eating, breathing, spending money, etc.
Rather, Jesus presents a vision of what it is like to be in the real world,
without the belief in bodies. A passage in "The Attainment of the Real World"
highlights the complete absence of separation that characterizes this advanced
state of mind:
"The real world ... has no buildings and there are no streets where people
walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of
things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes
not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss.
Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever".(T.13.VII.1.)
This is not describing a physical place, but the healed mind in which the
thought of separation has been undone. In that state, the holy instant wherein
we have accepted the Atonement for ourselves, there is no longer a body "At no
single instant does the body exist at ll." [T.18.VII.3.1] ) Therefore if there
is no body, there can be no laws to govern it. That is the point here. Jesus is
not making fun of us, nor, again, challenging us to give up our beliefs in the
necessity for medicine, food, or relationships. He simply reminds us that we
believe in is not really there. The new understanding enables us not longer to
take our physical and psychological experiences in the world as seriously as we
once did, reflecting our having learned not to take the tiny, mad idea of
separation seriously either ( T-27.VIII.6.2-5)
Once again, this is not meant to be a statement in which Jesus is pressuring us
to give up our belief in the body. In fact, he says in the text:
"Your question should not be, "How can I see my brother without the body?" Ask
only, "Do I really wish to see him sinless?" (T.20.VII.9.1-2).
Rather than having us deny our experience that bodies exist external to us,
Jesus stresses that his goal for us is to change our <minds> about the body,
i.e., its purpose. He urges us no longer to project our perceived sin onto
others, thereby attacking them and reinforcing the belief in separate interests.
Forgiveness -- <the> message of A Course in Miracles -- rests on the simple
premise that our interests are one. *
(1:1) "We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to
be salvation."
*The reference of course is to our special love objects, the idols we made to
show God we did not need His Love. Special hate objects function that way as
well, insofar as we feel salvation comes when we can truly hate another or
suffer pain. By blaming someone (or something) other than our selves for our
misery, we establish our innocence. Salvation, then, takes either form, and the
ego does not care whether it is special love or hate, as long as salvation is
seen to be external to our minds.*
(1:2-4) "Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. You are not
bound by them. Yet to understand that this is so, you must first realize
salvation lies not there."
*This is a reference to the laws of specialness, which center on the rock on
which the ego's salvation rests: <one or the other> -- someone must lose so that
another can win. Every law of the ego -- in the mind as in the world -- reflects
this basic principle. One finds them as well in the ego's five laws of chaos
(T-23.II), the virtual grandfather of all laws. The key point is that these laws
not only emanate from the mind, but they remain there as well, following the
fundamental principle <ideas leave not their source.> Yet they do appear to be
external, and our lives are governed by them. The truth, however, is that we are
bound only by our mind's decision, and this is truly good news. We have very
little -- if any -- control over the body's laws, and this would seem to condemn
us to a life of hopeless victimization, the helplessness felt by almost all
people. But only <we> -- the decision-making part of our minds -- can control
the fact that we have chosen to identify with these laws. Therein lies our true
help.
This is an extremely important concept to grasp, for it would keep you honest as
you work through this lesson. In order to understand why you are under no laws
but God's, and why you are not bound by any of the body's laws, you must first
realize that you have a mind, because that is where salvation lies. The problem
is that we do not believe we do. No matter how many times Jesus tells us this in
A Course in Miracles, no matter how many times we read the same lines, there
remains a part of us that does not believe it, because we still believe he is
teaching us <as a body>. He repeatedly teaches how we are not really here, and
so the body does not do anything: it is not born, nor does it live or die; it
does not suffer pain or feel pleasure. In other words, everything occurs in the
mind. Yet this means absolutely nothing to us, because, again, we still think
Jesus is talking to us as a person, living in a body. We refuse to go to the
source of this self -- the mind -- that is not in the body at all, and find the
real problem. Were we to find this in our minds -- the guilt over the separation
-- we would see the answer of the Atonement.
This lesson, then, is a plea to all of us to pay careful attention and think
about what Jesus is teaching us in A Course in Miracles. When he has us say over
and over again -- as he does later in the sixth review -- "I am not a body. I am
free. For I am still as God created me," he means that very literally as well.
We must be really clear that we do <not> believe it, because we still think that
Jesus, a separated person, is talking to <us>, as separated persons, and
teaching <us> very nice things. However, we do not yet realize he is not
teaching us as a body. What we think of as our bodily self but reflects a
thought in the mind. This is such an important lesson because it points out so
clearly the illusory nature of the body. Just as clear, if we study it
carefully, is the reason we have so much trouble with it: <We do not want to
believe it!> The basis of our difficulty is the refusal to accept that salvation
does not lie outside us, but rather within our minds, the locus of both the
problem and answer.*
(1:5-6) "While you would seek for it in things that have no meaning, you bind
yourself to laws that make no sense. Thus do you seek to prove salvation is
where it is not."
*That, again, is the problem: We do not want to know we have a mind, for if we
do, we will at some point choose against the ego, and our individuality will
disappear. The ego tells us the problem is sin and guilt, found either in our
body or someone else's. Since that is where the problem is, salvation is found
there as well. If I believe sin is in my body, I believe in suffering and
sacrifice; if I believe it is in yours, I believe in judgment and attack. The
ego's plan for salvation therefore consists of punishing the body -- mine or
yours.
Evading the truth that we have a mind can take another form. For example, A
Course in Miracles says that I am under no laws but God's and that I am not a
body. Therefore since my body is an illusion, I do not have to see doctors; nor
need I lock my car or apartment; I do not have to care for my body and so it
does not matter what I eat or what I do. These are a few examples of what I
refer to as "blissninnyhood": the simplistic and naive denial of the body and
its problems. Rather than accepting the fundamental unreality of the body as a
shadow of guilt, "blissninnies" simply deny they have a body, which renders the
source of the shadow -- our mind's guilt -- even more inaccessible. Thus does
the answer of the Atonement remain buried still further beneath the ego's
arsenal of defenses.
This lesson is certainly <not> intended to discourage Course in Miracle students
from seeking medical attention, or to decline inoculation if they plan to travel
abroad, for example. It is not meant to discourage students from eating foods
that are good for them, or doing whatever it is that they believe is healthy. We
all have some notion of what is good in this regard -- and whatever you believe
in is what you should do. Moreover, Jesus is not saying you should give up
friendship or anything that reflects the laws of the world. He is simply saying
it would be of value to realize the source of these laws, and to understand
their place in the ego's thought system. Only then may you choose to shift their
purpose so that they fill their more proper place in the Holy Spirit's thought
system of correction.
Implicit in all of this, to make the important point again, is the necessity of
realizing the tremendous resistance we have to accepting the fact we are not
bodies. This is an important theme in the text, and is one of the centerpieces
of the workbook. Again, Jesus uses these statements to poke gentle fun at us, as
he does in these passages from the text that highlight the futility of trying to
protect the body and make it real and attractive:
"Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it in loveliness, pet it and
pamper it, and make it live?" (T.23.II.18.8)
"What would you save it [the body] for? For in that choice lie both its
health and harm. Save it for show, as bait to catch another fish, to house your
specialness in better style, or weave a frame of loveliness around your hate,
and you condemn it to decay and death." (T.24.VII.4.4-6)
"It [the body] puts things on itself that it has bought with little metal
discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and real. It works to get
them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless things it does
not need and does not even want. (T.27.VIII.2.2-3)
Thus we are encouraged to ask Jesus for help learning not to take our bodily
identification so seriously. But -- one more time -- he is not asking us to
<deny> our bodies in the process.
We would know we have fallen into the trap of seriousness when we find ourselves
becoming impatient with those who do not deny their body or accusing others of
not doing A Course in Miracles right, seeing that they have physical or
psychological concerns. Those judgments should be a red flag, indicating we are
accusing others of what we secretly accuse ourselves. Remember, we want the
complete patience the previous lesson spoke about, and we cannot have it without
being completely gentle. Patience and gentleness go hand in hand -- that is why
they are among the ten characteristics of God's teachers. (M-4.IV,VIII). *
(2:1) "Today we will be glad you cannot prove it."
*The part of us that clings to our individual and special self is <not> glad! We
need to be aware of our resistance to being truly glad that salvation is not
outside of us but within. That awareness will eventually make it possible for
true gladness to come.*
(2:2-4) "For if you could, you would forever seek salvation where it is not, and
never find it. The idea for today tells you once again how simple is salvation.
Look for it where it waits for you, and there it will be found."
*Salvation waits for us, and so the one we have to be patient with is ourselves
-- to choose the salvation that awaits us in our minds. We must be willing to
<seek> salvation where we can <find> it. To achieve that goal Jesus instructs us
in seeing the body as the effect of the mind, which is the cause: the <cause>
that is the problem; the <cause> that is the solution. What could be simpler?*
(3) "Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the
strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you. You really think that you
would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal
discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your
veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death. You really
think you are alone unless another body is with you."
*Jesus is taking three of the most important aspects of our existence here:
dependence on <money>, fear of <sickness> and need to go to doctors for help,
and the <special relationship that says if I do not have another person with me,
I will be alone in my misery. However, Jesus is not telling us to give these
things up; merely to look at our investment in them.
Near the end of the Psychotherapy pamphlet, in a section called "The Question
Payment" (P-3.III), Jesus discusses money, but does not say therapists should
not charge their patients. He says that "even an advanced therapist has some
earthly needs while he is here" (P-3.III.1:3), and will thus require payment. It
is evident, however, that Jesus is not talking about money <per se>, but rather
the therapist's attitude that would lead to gouging patients, for example, or
that would insist that they pay even if they lacked funds. Again, as long as we
are here we are going to have needs, which means money is a necessity.
Therefore, Jesus is not against our making money, just as he is not against our
taking care of he body. He is helping us shift our emphasis from the body to the
mind, which the understanding of purpose allows us to do.
At the end of the journey, in the real world, there will be no emphasis at all
on the body, because we shall have realized there is none. At the point,
recognizing the illusory nature of the body is not denial, nor is it the basis
of affirmations to repress an experience with which we do not want to deal. We
have become aware of what Jesus refers to in the text as "a simple statement of
a simple fact" (T-26.III.4:5). What enables us to reach this simple fact of the
real world, in which there is no separation and no body, is gently looking at
our investment in denying both the guilt and Atonement that are in our minds. We
learn we are gentle with ourselves by the degree to which we are gentle with
others. When we <un>gently judge them, it is only because we have attacked
ourselves for pushing Jesus away once again. Further, since he is within, we
have pushed the mind away as well, which roots our attention to the body, the
ego's principal form of protection and the consummation of its plan for
salvation.*
(4) "It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them
under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve
no purpose. You think you must obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics and of
health. Protect the body, and you will be saved."
*It is essential that you take care of your body <as long as you think you are
one.> Not doing so as long as you identify with it is only an expression of
self-hatred and self-punishment, not to mention silliness. <Taking care of your
body can therefore be a gentle and kind way of forgiving yourself.> Remember, no
one who reads A Course in Miracles fully believes in what Jesus says, because if
he or she did they would not need it. We very much believe we are bodies. In
fact, these lessons are geared specifically to those who believe in them. As
bodies we live in time, and it is obvious these lessons are geared toward
time-bound people. Almost every lesson mentions some aspect of our temporal
existence -- minutes, hours, days, weeks, years -- because Jesus' students
believe they are bodies existing in time and space, and he does not ask us to
deny them. Once again, he but asks that we be gentle and kind towards our and
other people's bodies, reflecting the desire to forgive ourselves for our misuse
of them, the shadow of our misuse of the mind.
Nonetheless, it is also important for us to recognize that these "laws" hold
<only> because we have given them power to do so. We are not bound to the body's
laws, but rather to our mind's decision to be a body, which as been specifically
designed to be under the laws that appear to bind us. Thus it is that we seek
"protect the body ... [to] be saved," while our true protection -- the Atonement
-- is kept buried beneath the ego's laws of guilt and specialness.*
(5:1) "These are not laws, but madness."
*They are madness because in reality there are only God's laws: the laws of
love, oneness, and eternal life. All other "laws" are outside the Mind of God,
and therefore dwell in the ego's mind of madness. ... The next paragraph
explicitly states the causal relationship between the mind and body, which
relationship is, in a sense, the very heart of the lesson.*
(5:2-3) "The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers
just in order that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself."
*How does the mind hurt itself? Guilt. The original "injury" to my mind was the
belief I separated from God, for in that decision I denied my true reality. From
that moment on I continually punished myself through guilt. My ego does not want
me to realize it is my mind that is victimizing me, and that I -- the decision
maker cloaked by the ego's thought system -- am the one who is suffering.
Therefore, my decision maker, now identified with the ego, projects the guilt
onto the body, which thus becomes guilt's shadow. It now appears that the body
suffers -- the smoke screen that keeps my mind out of awareness. In the
following passage Jesus explains the insanity of seeing the body as the problem,
when all along it is the clever ego mind calling the shots from behind its veil
of secrecy:
"Who punishes the body is insane. ... It is indeed a senseless point of view
to hold responsible for sight a thing that cannot see, and blame it for the
sounds you do not like, although it cannot hear. It suffers not the punishment
you give because it has no feeling. It behaves in ways you want, but never makes
the choice." (T.28.VI.1.1;2:1-3)
Our mind is indeed the source of the problem, but even there its guilt does not
deserve punishment, as the ego would have us think, but simply correction.*
(5:4) "The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really
suffers."
*What Jesus means by "mind," of course, is the decision maker, which chooses to
make guilt real, and then chooses to project it onto the body. It is thus the
decision maker that uses the body to hide the real cause of the suffering: its
decision for separation and guilt. The cleverness of the ego's strategy is
described in more detail below, part of the section from which we have just
quoted. Here we see the <you>-- our decision maker -- hides behind the body so
that no one is ever the wiser about what is really going on: the mind's decision
to be separate and guilty:
"The thing you hate and fear and loathe and want [ the ego's guilt, ] the
body does not know. You [ the decision making part of our minds] send it forth
to seek for separation and be separate. And then you hate it, not for what it
is, but for the uses you have made of it. You shrink from what it sees and what
it hears, and hate its frailty and littleness. And you despise its acts, but not
your own. It sees and acts for you. It hears your voice. And it is frail and
little by your wish. It seems to punish you, and thus deserve your hatred for
the limitations that it brings to you. Yet you have made of it a symbol for the
limitations that you want your mind to have and see and keep." (T-28.VI.3).*
(5:5) 'It [ the mind's decision maker] would not understand it is its own enemy;
that it attacks itself and wants to die."
*If we knew this, of course, we would change our minds in an instant. If we knew
that <we> were the problem -- we would not hesitate to choose the Holy Spirit,
marking the end of the ego. Once again, to ensure that this catastrophe never
occurs, the ego -- the part of our minds that embraces separation -- devises its
strategy of mindlessness, which has the Son identify with the body -- other's
and our own -- are the enemies, while the true "enemy" -- our decision maker's
wrong-minded choice -- remains safely hidden out of awareness, concealed by
guilt and fear.*
(5:6-7) "It is from this your "laws" would save the body. It is for this you
think you are a body."
*Jesus helps us to understand the motivation or purpose for having a body; to
have a place in which to hide the mind's guilt. Thus the ego tells us we do
indeed have a real problem -- in our bodies -- but fortunately there are laws
that will take care of it, The problem, the ego convinces us, is not our inner
emptiness because we left God, but, for example, the emptiness in our stomachs.
Therefore, we fill them with food and we feel fine. The "law" states: if you are
hungry, you eat. Furthermore, if you want to stay healthy by your eating, you
must eat specific foods -- whatever it is you believe in, for the food itself
does not matter.
The ego has thus taken the problem of lack -- the absence of Christ because I
believe I crucified Him -- splits it off and projects it, so now there is a lack
perceived in my body. The ego's "laws" then come to save it, and solve the
problem of maintaining our physical and psychological existence as creatures of
the world. Thus it becomes, in addition to the problem of food:
1) The problem is that I am alone in the universe, since I destroyed God. Yes,
the ego agrees, there is a problem of loneliness, but it is in the body.
Therefore, I will invent special relationships, and teach you the laws of
manipulation and seduction, which will enable you to keep other bodies close to
you. Thus the problem of your loneliness is solved.
2) The problem is that I am impoverished because I threw away the treasure of
God. I have nothing. Yes, the ego agrees, there is a problem of impoverishment
but it is in the body. Therefore I will invent money and teach you the laws of
earning it. Thus is the problem of your impoverishment solved.
3) The problem is that I am sick at heart because I betrayed God. Yes, the ego
agrees, there is a problem of sickness, but it is in the body. Therefore, I will
invent medicine and teach you the laws of acquiring and using it. Thus is the
problem of your sickness solved. ... And on and on it goes.
This lesson helps us understand that the laws the ego tells us will save the
body only uphold the separation and guilt that is in our minds. Jesus' purpose,
once again, is not to make us feel guilty or like failures, but simply to help
us realize where the problem is so it can be <truly> solved.*
(6:1-2) "There are no laws except the laws of God. This needs repeating, over
and over, until you realize it applies to everything that you have made in
opposition to God's Will."
*By "repeating, over and over," Jesus does not mean, once again, that we use the
words as a mantra of affirmation. Rather, they are a statement of truth to which
we bring the ego's laws of illusion. The body is nothing but the end product of
a long series of thoughts that were made in opposition to God's Will:
separation, specialness, sin, guilt, fear, and death. Thus we need to pay
careful attention to our experiences of victimization at the hands of laws over
which we have no control, and on which we believe the fate of our peace rests.
It is this misplacement we bring to the truth, recognizing how we have used the
body's laws as a cloak to conceal our guilt over believing we had, in fact,
chosen against the laws of God.*
(6:3) "Your magic has no meaning."
*The laws of the world have to do with magic because they are external. The
miracle -- magic's counterpart -- is internal. Magic helps us change our
bodies, the miracle helps us change our minds. Magic is the ego's solving a
problem where it cannot be solved -- in the body. The miracle is the Holy
Spirit's solving a problem where it can be solved -- in the mind.*
(6:4-5) "What it is meant to save does not exist. Only what it is meant to hide
will save you."
*This a nice Level One statement: the body does not exist. Moreover, the body
and its laws were made to hide guilt in our minds. Yet they do not only hold the
guilt but its undoing, brought about through the acceptance of the Atonement,
which alone can save us.*
(7) "The laws of God can never be replaced. We will devote today to rejoicing
that this is so. It is no longer a truth that we would hide. We realize instead
it is a truth that keeps us free forever. Magic imprisons, but the laws of God
make free. The light has come because there are no laws but His."
*We need to pay careful attention to the ego's laws we obey in order to trace
them back to what they represent in our minds, as I just did above. Thus: money
undoes our experience of spiritual <impoverishment>, putting food in our stomach
and oxygen in our lungs supplies the <lack> in our split minds; and specialness
undoes the <loneliness> that is the "natural" state of a separated mind. We can
therefore use the ego's laws to reflect back to us what they were meant to hide:
the belief that the laws of God can be replaced. Indeed, they have been replaced
-- by me; at least by the wrong-minded, deluded me that thinks it is a separated
self. However, we are now ready to learn that this delusion occurred only in our
dreams. Our real Self but awaits the opening or our eyes. ... Jesus now pokes
further fun at us:*
(8:1-5) "We will begin the longer practice periods today with a short review of
the different kinds of "laws" we have believed we must obey. These would
include, for example, the "laws" of nutrition, of immunization, of medication,
and of the body's protection in innumerable ways. Think further; you believe in
the "laws" of friendship, of "good" relationships and reciprocity."
*It should be quite obvious by now that Jesus is not asking us to give up our
belief in these laws, which are the very bedrock of our existence in the world.
But we are asked to step back with him -- to go <above the battleground>
(T-23.IV) -- and look through his eyes at the place these laws hold in our ego's
defensive system and strategy of mindlessness. Thus we learn not to take them or
our lives as seriously as before. This point, like so many others, cannot be
stated too often. Our resistance to looking at the ego without judgment is
enormous, and needs the gentle persuasion of gentle repetition to be effectively
diminished.*
(8:5-6) "Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is
God's and what is yours. Many "religions" have been based on this. "
*Jesus puts "religion" in quotes because he is telling us that these -- the
formal religions of the world -- are not <true> religions. The etymological
meaning of <religion> is "to bind together again," by realizing God's Son is one
-- we are one with each other and one with God. The "religions" of the world
separate, their adherents judging everyone who does not agree with them,
unconsciously believing they themselves are separate from God. Thus Jesus states
the following in the pamphlet of Pyschotherapy, addressing the issue of
religion's place in the practice of pyschotherapy:
"Formal religion has no place in psychotherapy, but it also has no real
place in religion." (P-2.II.2.1)
Once religion, regardless of its inspirational origin, becomes formalized, it
becomes separatist. It invetibly then becomes subsumed under the laws of <homo
sapiens>, which not only demarcate the respective and hierarchical places of
different members of the species, but also respective and hierarchal places of
God and us. Separation becomes Heaven's law, while the true law of unity and
oneness disappears into the reality that has been hidden by the externalization
of God's Love, the only law.*
(8:6-7) "They would not save but damn in Heaven's name. Yet they are no more
strange than other "laws" you hold must be obeyed to make you safe."
*These "laws" of formal religions are indeed strange, for they make the Love of
God conditional, accessible through the body. On the other hand, the
universality of love makes it totally accessible, and easily remembered when the
world is seen as a classroom in which we learn of forgiveness that enables us to
<transcend> the world and body entirely. *
(9:1-2) "There are no laws but God's. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today,
and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice that speaks the truth
to you."
*How do you become silently ready? You quiet the ego's raucous shrieks and
stubborn insistence that you are right and God is wrong. And then wait in
patience for yourself to move beyond the resistance born of fear to the truth
born of love.*
(9:3) "You will be listening to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of
God."
*In all the ego's laws -- whether religious or not -- there is loss. If I am to
eat, an animal or vegetable must lose its "life"; if I am to have my specialness
needs met, another must sacrifice. It must be so, for the rock on which the
ego's <slavation> rests is that one must lose so that another can win.
Statements like the above gently correct that illusion.*
(9:4-6) "Payment is neither given nor received. Exchange cannot be made; there
are no substitutes; and nothing is replaced by something else. God's laws
forever give and never take."
*The ego is born of the original thought I am a substitute for God or Christ,
and everything else logically from that ontological premise. In other words,
from the sin of substitution I experience guilt, which then demands I be
punished. In order to assuage the vindictive wrath of the sinned-against deity,
I concoct a theory of salvation in which it appears as if He demands my payment
for what I stole, a payment that drips with the blood of my suffering and
sacrifice: the ego's meaning of atonement. From this insane thought arises a
world in which we believe that we can achieve happiness or salvation only
through payment of some kind. Thus we find the following statements in
Psychotherapy regarding the question of payment. Unlike the world's view, in
which patients pay therapists for their expertise, a <quid pro quo>, Jesus
advocates the more Marxist view: <From each according to his ability. To each
according to his need.> This utopian vision has, unfortunately, never been
tried, yet Jesus makes it the basis for his view on <payment>, distinguishing it
from <cost>:
"Only an unhealed healer would try to heal for money, and he will not
succeed to the extent to which he values it. Nor will he find his healing in the
process. There will be those of whom the Holy Spirit asks some payment for His
purpose. There will be those from whom He does not ask. ... There is a
difference between payment and cost. ... Patients can pay only for the exchange
of illusions. This, indeed, must demand payment, and the cost is great. ... If
their relationship is to be holy, whatever one needs is given by the other;
whatever one lacks the other supplies. ... The therapist repays the patient in
gratitude, as does the patient repay him. There is no cost to either. ... This
... [reflects] the law of God, and not of the world."
Anticipating the inevitable complaint, Jesus states:
"This view of payment may well seem impractical, and in the eyes of the
world it would be so. Yet not one worldly thought is really practical. How much
is gained by striving for illusions? How much is lost by throwing God away? And
is it possible to do so?" (P-3.III.2:1-4, 6-8;3:3-4;4:4,6-7;5:4;7:1-5).
The law we are asked to reflect in our relationships is the law of perfect
Oneness, in which there can be no cost or loss. Its loving expression within the
world of illusion is the rock on which salvation rests: "And everyone <must>
gain, if anyone would be a gainer" (T-25.VII.12:2).
The next paragraph asks us to listen to the Holy Spirit tell us, again, how
foolish indeed are the "laws" we have striven to follow:*
(10) "Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the "laws" you
thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. He will tell
you more. About the Love your Father has for you. About the endless joy He
offers you. About His yearning for His only Son, created as His channel for
creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell."
*The Holy Spirit does not take our laws away from us, but shows us their
foolishness in that they reflect a thought system that is foolish. Remember how
miracles do not make the correct choice. They simply show us how incorrect we
have been in our prior choices:
"The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true
... The miracle does nothing but to show him that he has done nothing."
(T-28.II.7:1,10).
Once He has our attention, the Holy Spirit "speaks" to us of he heavenly Love we
chose to forget, when we chose to remember the hell of he ego's special love.*
(11:1) "Let us today open God's channels to Him, and let His Will extend through
us to Him."
*The way we open God's channels -- our minds -- is to forgive ourselves for
having chosen the ego as substitute for the Love of God. Forgiveness is the key
that opens the right-minded home of the Holy Spirit, which we had sealed with
locks of guilt and specialness.*
(11:2-6) "Thus is creation endlessly increased. His Voice will speak of this to
us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever. We
will repeat today's idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws
but God's. Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice
period concludes:
I am under no laws but God's."
*Once we choose to accept the Atonement and remember our Identity as Christ, we
identify with our true function of creation: the endless increase of God's Love
<through> us and <as> us. This "us" is God's one Son, the Christ He created as
one with Him; the Self that is no longer <under> the laws of God -- It <is> the
law of God.*
(12) "We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today; at least four
or five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to experience
ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. It is our statement of
freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is
our Father, and that His Son is saved."
*We are back where we began -- the acceptance of the Atonement. Jesus is asking
us to strengthen our resolve to accept this acceptance throughout the day -- <at
least> every twelve-to-fifteen minutes. Thus we seek to remember -- as often as
we can and especially when tempted to believe in the ego's laws of scarcity and
deprivation, of specialness and loss -- that "there is no will but God's; no
laws but His." We then gladly acknowledge: "Yes, I made these laws and still
believe in them. But I am now willing to admit I was wrong. The truth is that
God is my Father and not the ego, and therefore I am saved from my thoughts of
sin and guilt, for they have disappeared into His Love." The only remaining
question for ourselves is why would we not remember this happy fact throughout
the day.*
