⁴For ten minutes twice today, morning and evening, let the idea for today sink deep into your consciousness. Repeat it, think about it, let related thoughts come to help you recognize its truth, and allow peace to flow over you like a blanket of protection and surety. Let no idle and foolish thoughts enter to disturb the holy mind of the Son of God. Such is the Kingdom of Heaven. Such is the resting place where your Father has placed you forever.

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I am reminded today of the words we had inscribed for my father's funeral from Jeremiah 17.8

"For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit when he trusts the Lord and places his hope and confidence in Him" That passage was selected for my father because not only was he a tree farmer and planter, but also had overcome amazing amount of adversity escaping with his family from a war-torn country and thriving in spite of great odds.

This verse is very relevant to this lesson. We are sustained like the tree by the water; we are constantly renewed, constantly supplied and nourished, never in need of anything in truth. This kind of inner stability and calm is what is available all the time when we turn to the truth within. With practice and commitment to our healing and awakening, we come to accept the truth of who we are as we were created. Of course this requires that we stop listening to the voice of the ego that never has our best interests at heart.

Jesus tells us what we already see for ourselves, that there are many things that we turn to in the world to sustain us other than God. What do I turn to when I am feeling needy, sad, alone, empty? Do I turn to God's Love or to food, money, pills, status, power, prestige, special relationships, control, attention, sleep, distraction...all these things that we give priority to in our lives because we think that this is where our happiness lies.  They are all things that the Course calls idols. Are they bad? Of course not. What we need to realize is that they are not the answer for our unhappiness.

"Let not their form deceive you.  Idols are but substitutes for your reality.  In some way, you believe they will complete your little self, for safety in a world perceived as dangerous, with forces massed against your confidence and peace of mind.  They have the power to supply your lacks, and add the value that you do not have.  No one believes in idols who has not enslaved himself to littleness and loss.  And thus must seek beyond his little self for strength to raise his head, and stand apart from all the misery the world reflects.  This is the penalty for looking not within for certainty and quiet calm that liberates you from the world, and lets you stand apart, in quiet and in peace."  (T.29.VIII.2)

We believe that these idols are the source of nourishment and support for us. We think that if we found the right partner we would not be lonely; that if we found the right job, we would be happy. We have a long list of things in this world to which we have given power and value. But Jesus tells us that they are mere symbols. They are trivial forms of nothingness that we endow with meaning. But clearly it is not to feel guilty about needing our special relationships or taking pills or any form of bodily or psychological sustenance.  

And neither are we being asked to give anything up. That would be a confusion of levels, as the Course calls them, where we confuse the level of the body and behavior with the level of the mind. Jesus is not asking us to let go of our bodily concerns but only to look at the thought system on which they are based. It is to recognize that when we put our faith in illusions they will fail us.  (4.1-2) In other words we will not find our peace and happiness in them. Through the healing of the mind we come to a recognition of our true identity, not as a body and individual unique self, but as the dreamer of this dream. We come to recognize that peace is an inner condition and has nothing to do with how things go in the world.

I was listening to a program about the beliefs held by Mormons and learned that they wear sacred underwear that they believe protects them. Looking at this from the outside it seemed trivial to me, yet we all have our idols that we too have given magical powers. They may be our pills, our food, knowing the right people-all things we consider important to our safety, well-being and sustenance. Yet Jesus calls them all "an endless list of forms of nothingness that we endow with magical powers" (1.3) They are all "cherished to ensure body identification,"  (2.2) and "songs of praise to the ego." (2.3)

And they are all replacements for the Love of God, which does sustain us.  Developing the habit of turning to God's Love by bringing all of our dark thoughts to the light of His truth assures us of something totally reliable. The special love that we know in the world is tenuous and does not make us feel safe. It is a false substitute for the Love of God and is based on guilt and tinged with fear. Our worldly love is unreliable, changing, takes a lot of effort to maintain and does not bring the kind of safety and support that is reflected in this lesson. When this earthly love is expressed as forgiveness, while not even close to how God loves us, it does give us a reflection of that Love. Forgiveness is the closest we come to experiencing His Love in our lives. Why is that? Because forgiveness is all about letting go of our demands, expectations, grievances, and all the dark thoughts that take up the space where Love resides in us. When we experience this kind of healing in ourselves, we know that we are valued and supported. Idols can never fill us up. All that they do is to distract us from the pain of our lives. And the biggest distraction of all, which Jesus calls the ego's most boasted gift, is the special relationship. That is why we are all constantly looking for love outside of ourselves.  Yet, God's Love is infinitely greater than anything we can imagine as even close to the most powerful human love.

This reminds me of a recent interview I heard of a woman's near death experience. She had the experience of being out of her body, going through the tunnel to the light, and into the presence of God. She was told she must go back but she begged to stay, basking in the love. She said she had been a good mother and wife and was currently caring for cancer patients and had given a lot in life and did not want to return. The question put to her by the Being she called God was, "yes, but have you loved the way you feel loved here?" She acknowledged that she had not, and agreed that she had not really understood this kind of love in the roles she had played in the world prior to this experience.  She then returned willingly to her body to learn more about how she could experience this kind of love in the world. The only way we can offer this love in the world is by removing the blocks that we put in its way, such as the roles we take on and our efforts at being loving, which are often based on fear, worry and guilt on behalf of our special loved ones. Removing the blocks to love is what the practices of the lessons are all about. This is how forgiveness is defined in the course. It is all about healing of our own minds by bringing our perceived ego needs to awareness and asking for help in letting them go.

We are confronted with many difficulties in this world. The purpose of all of our problems is to keep us invested in them so that all of our attention will go into trying to solve problems in form. But Jesus encourages us to see that "Through the Love of God within you, you can resolve all seeming difficulties without effort and in sure confidence." (4.5)When our attention is focused on solving problems in our own way, we are trusting in our own strength. When we recognize the power of God's Love in us, we bring our interpretations of what we see as a problem to the light of His healing power. This is the only answer to every problem. When we try to solve problems in the world through the ego's guidance, we keep the problems since they just show up again in a different form. The only true answer comes when the problem is brought to the truth within.

Jesus is gently guiding us not to put our faith in illusions and in choosing idols for our happiness. Illusions will always fail us. Most of us get that. Yet we still so often make the choice to rely on our own resources instead of asking to hear God's Voice and His guidance. So whatever it is that confronts you today, remember that the power of the Holy Spirit is in your mind. We can be released from the tyranny of the ego that is built on guilt, fear, feelings of worthlessness and doubt thoughts about ourselves. If we keep telling ourselves our story of how we are victims of the world, we will continue to buy into wrong-minded perceptions. But today, we are asked to acknowledge the truth about ourselves and really declare our release from the investment in the idols that we have made to take the place of His Love so that we may recognize how idols work to substitute for our reality. He is asking us today to withdraw faith that we have invested in the illusion, helping us to see that illusions will always fail us. (4.1-4) To put our faith in illusions is to put it in nothing.

Today we look beyond our limitations and needs and recognize that our only real sustenance is the Love of God. "For ten minutes, twice today, morning and evening, let the idea for today sink deep into your consciousness.  Repeat it, think about it, let related thoughts come to help you recognize its truth, and allow peace to flow over you like a blanket of protection and surety.  Let no idle and foolish thoughts enter to disturb the holy mind of the Son of God." (5.1-3)

So really try to take this idea deep into your mind today. Let it sink into your consciousness, so that you can experience the truth of this thought. Know that anything that we focus on today where we think our happiness lies in the world, is false. True happiness can never come from these things. Be willing to look at your idle and foolish thoughts and when seen from above the battleground, when we stand aside from the ego, we can smile at their unreality. When they are taken seriously, they do not seem foolish for they hurt us and keep us in pain.

Today is a much longer practice and it is a new kind of practice where we really "allow peace to flow over us like a blanket of protection and surety," ( 5.2) by releasing the "idle and foolish thoughts" (5.5) that disturb the mind so that we might know the beautiful "resting place where your Father has placed you forever." (5.5)This is the experience of the "Kingdom of Heaven." (5.4)It comes about as a result of our "declaration of release from the belief in idols." (4.7)

Finally use this lesson whenever you are confronted by any problem, issue or difficult situation during the day reminding yourself that God is with you in this situation and His Love is the Answer to whatever confronts you. His Love "can resolve all seeming difficulties without effort and in sure confidence." (4.5) Our seeming difficulties are always about the forms of this world, but the content of love never leaves our minds. If we don't feel it, it is only because we are blocking it from our awareness. Any event or situation that we give power to, to take from us our peace, is actually neutral. But the interpretations we give such events is what brings distress. So now we ask the Holy Spirit to reinterpret these events so we can see them through His loving eyes instead of through our own.

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