¹Today's idea is a complete and accurate statement of what you are. This is why you are the light of the world. This is why God appointed you as the world's savior. This is why the Son of God looks to you for his salvation. He is saved by what you are. 

 

²We will make every effort today to reach this truth about you and to realize fully, if only for a moment, that it is the truth. In the longer practice period, we will think about your reality and its wholly unchanged and unchangeable nature. We will begin by repeating this truth about you and then spend a few minutes adding some relevant thoughts, such as: 

 

  Perfection created me perfect.

 

⁴Any attribute which is in accord with God as He defines Himself is appropriate for use. We are trying today to undo your definition of God and replace it with His own. We are also trying to emphasize that you are part of His definition of Himself. 

 

⁵After you have gone over several such related thoughts, try to let all thoughts drop away for a brief preparatory interval, and then try to reach past all your images and preconceptions about yourself to the truth in you. If Love created you like Itself, this Self must be in you. And somewhere in your mind, It is there for you to find. 

 

⁶You may find it necessary to repeat the idea for today from time to time to replace distracting thoughts. You may also find that this is not sufficient and that you need to continue adding other thoughts related to the truth about yourself. Yet perhaps you will succeed in going past that and through the interval of thoughtlessness to the awareness of a blazing light in which you recognize yourself as Love created you. Be confident that you will do much today to bring that awareness nearer, whether you feel you have succeeded or not. 

 

⁷It will be particularly helpful today to practice the idea for today as often as you can. You need to hear the truth about yourself as frequently as possible because your mind is so preoccupied with false self-images. Four or five times an hour, and perhaps even more, it would be most beneficial to remind yourself that Love created you like Itself. Hear the truth about yourself in this. 

 

⁸Try to realize in the shorter practice periods that this is not your tiny solitary voice that tells you this. This is the Voice for God reminding you of your Father and of your Self. This is the Voice of truth replacing everything that the ego tells you about yourself with the simple truth about the Son of God. You were created by Love like Itself.   

This thought follows on yesterday's lesson which reminds us that we cannot change ourselves as we were created.  We were created by God as love because that is what He is and we are His Son. We are a thought in the mind of God. "Love created me like Itself", which  "is a complete and accurate statement of what you are." (1.1)How much more clear can a statement be about who we are as the light of the world? It is not something that we can change about ourselves. We can't change the truth of who we are. "Truth is beyond your ability to destroy, but entirely within your ability to accept. It belongs to you because as an extension of God, you created it with Him. It is yours because it is part of you, just as you are part of God because He created you." (T.5.IV. 1.4-6)

We don't regard ourselves as holy, or as savior of the world, or the light of the world. That is why there are so  many lessons where we are reminded of our true identity. (daily reminders in Review V, and also in lessons 94,110,162 (I am as God created me), 201-220 as well as in many other lessons). This is not about simply affirming the truth by "shouting down our ego" as Ken Wapnick puts it. To know that we are as God created us is to undertake the mind training by   bringing our dark thoughts to awareness. Jesus is constantly reminding us of the truth so that we stay focused on who we really are in truth and that we stay motivated in working with him to undo the false. Our false concepts of ourselves can only be undone by seeing them for what they are. That is our part in the forgiveness process. The Holy Spirit does the rest. The ego will never undo itself. When we do our part, we need to trust that the undoing of the false is in good hands. All that is required of us is the willingness to be wrong about the way we think about ourselves and others when we are thinking with the ego. We are asked today to make every effort to reach the truth of who we are. So what is required is not just about affirming the truth but being willing to keep looking at how we are blocking it  so the truth of who we really are can shine through.

In today's lesson we are asked to remind ourselves at least four or five times an hour, if not more, so that we can "hear the truth about yourself in this." (5.4)  Jesus also asks us to   "try to reach past all of your  images and preconceptions of yourself to the truth in you."  (3.1)  As much as possible "think about your reality and its wholly unchanged and unchangeable nature." (2.1)  Include related thoughts like  "kindness created me kind, holiness created me holy, perfection created me perfect." (2.3-6) Just keep adding relevant thoughts. Why is there so much focus on talking to ourselves of who we are? Because we don't believe this about ourselves. In fact, we spend most of our time listening to the voice of our ego which is reinforcing our preconceptions of who and what we think we are. We are listening to the dirge we constantly sing to ourselves.  "Healing occurs as a patient begins to hear the dirge he sings, and questions its validity." (P.2.VI.1.5)  These are the false ideas that occupy our minds and keep the truth at bay. It is our defense against the truth because truth will only come to the quiet mind. Whenever we are not forgiving, we are defending this concept of ourselves.  

We think of ourselves as sometimes loving but often impatient, demanding, controlling, manipulating, fearful, angry,  and yes some "nice" attributes ....but all of them are of our making and all changeable. And they change with the issues, circumstances and events of the day. So these emotions, feelings, and concepts of ourselves are getting reinforced all day, except when we are focusing on forgiving what we are holding as true about ourselves.  I am always trying to improve myself. But what is this self I am trying to improve? It is my ego...my false self. That is the reason for reminding ourselves of the truth as often as we can today. "You need to hear the truth about yourself as frequently as possible, because your mind is so preoccupied with false self images." (5.2) And when those false self images take precedence in the mind, we need to bring our awareness to them. "This thought I do not want", I tell myself; I am instead, willing to bring it to the truth so that I can truly know that "Love created me like itself." If I am willing to take the false thoughts and misinterpretations of everything and everyone that I hold in my mind to the Holy Spirit, He will give me His interpretation. What is that? It is that we have not changed ourselves,  that what we are seeing is not true, that our brother is our Self, that everything is either love or a call for love, that Love created me and everyone like Itself.

We tend to think that we have some love in us but we don't think that that is all we have and are. The truth is that we are only love and nothing else.   So through our work with the course the way we have defined ourselves is brought to awareness so that our misconceptions of ourselves can be replaced with what we are in truth. Our nature is unchangeable regardless of how much we think we have changed ourselves."What fear has hidden, (our magnificent Self) still is part of you. Joining the Atonement (the correction of errors)  is the way out of fear." (T.5.IV.1.1-2) The Atonement Principle is the assurance from God that we can't change what we are in truth. But we can be, and are, unaware of the truth about ourselves. And thus we need to hear this truth. It is not our familiar ego voice that talks incessantly that says this. It is the Voice for God, the Voice for Truth which is in our right minds. When we affirm the truth with great conviction and take it to heart we are affirming a truth that is already in the mind.

Just like Jesus, who brought light to the world and is recognized as the savior of the world, we are to be teachers of love too. He is our example, our teacher and our guide which we can access when we make the sincere choice to release the ego and invite in the truth. And thus we open to healing and when that happens, we bring light to the world by being a demonstration of that light that shines through us. But the key is that we need to bring to our awareness, the darkness of the ego if we are to know the Self that we are. And to look at the ego darkness without judgment is to see our fear without being afraid of it, our anger without being angry at ourselves for it, our judgments without judging ourselves, our distress without being distressed by it, our guilt without feeling guilty about it. In other words we look at our self concepts with the Holy Spirit from outside of this dream seeing that they are false, meaningless, and without value, but not judging any of our thoughts and emotions as bad. On the contrary, we are happy to see our ego for what it is.

So what we need to do is look at all those thoughts that we have, that get in the way of our true nature, and to release them. Remember in lesson 65 where we were asked to look dispassionately at each interfering thought and let it go until we reach a place of peace. It is from this place of peace that we get a glimpse of our true nature. It is from this place that we experience the holy instant. And that is where this lesson is taking us-to the experience of the truth.

It is a place of peace, a place of healing, a place of deep calm, a place where we can truly feel protected in the loving arms of our Father. We can totally relax there. We can let all our fears dissipate. There are no needs there for acceptance or for approval; there is no guilt, no self condemnation, no tension. And as we emerge into the world, we bring this light of acceptance to everyone we meet. Every meeting becomes a holy encounter. We become invulnerable to attack. What can hurt a Child of God? What can bring guilt to an innocent mind? What can bring attack when we remember that every "negative" behavior as a call for love? "This is why God appointed you as the world's savior. This is why the Son of God looks to you for his salvation." (1.3) So while we can have moments of such an illuminated experience, this is a process and we are being led to where this becomes more and more available to us. The memory of who we are is already in our minds. It is about clearing away the ego debris by bringing our awareness to it. And we must look at what our ego is up to in every encounter and every relationship. The Holy Spirit can't replace the ego with His truth unless I bring that ego thought system to Him.

"We are trying today to undo your definition of God and replace it with His Own. We are also trying to emphasize that you are part of His definition of Himself." (2.8-9) Our definition of God is one of duality. If we exist then He cannot. Thus He becomes our enemy, someone we can't trust. He is the God that the ego made and having made Him we tell Him who He is.  

I was listening to Sean Penn today in an interview he did about his work in Haiti where he said that God had put his heavy hand on the people of Haiti and suppressed them. That is the consciousness all of us hold about God in our minds. It is a God that seems to bring difficulties to our lives. This is the God we have projected our split mind onto, believing that He is like us, only more powerful and somehow out of reach. But the truth is that there is no duality. We are exactly like God, we have the same power and we share it with all our brothers as One.

And we can make a difference in ways that we can't even conceive of when we let His love shine through us. It is not something we try to do. It is something that we are and know when we get our of our own way. Jesus urges us today to "be confident that you will do much today to bring that awareness nearer, whether you have succeeded or not."  (4.4). Let's just get out of our own way and let Him lead us with our willingness to do this practice. Let's not worry today about outcomes or become impatient with ourselves because ego thoughts show up. Let's remember that we can afford to be confident today because of the Mighty Companions that are there for us to reinforce every step in our journey home. "Be confident that you will do much today to bring that awareness nearer, whether you feel you have succeeded or not."  (4.4) In other words, we will have wandering thoughts and we may not have the experience that is the goal for this practice, but he is, nevertheless, encouraging us to keep doing the lessons as we are still accomplishing mind training by practicing the lesson. We continue to bring discipline to our wandering thoughts and bringing the time that we experience deep inner peace, closer. "Now you must learn that only infinite patience produces immediate effects." (T.5.VI.12.1)

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