I am spirit (Lesson 97)
I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation (Lesson 98)
In many ways, A Course in Miracles is a correction to a fundamental spiritual identity crisis. We have forgotten what we are, and therefore have forgotten our function, and therefore have become deeply confused about reality.
A Course in Miracles offers clear – sometimes so painfully clear we resist seeing them – answers to those questions.
We have forgotten what we are. We think we are bodies, and are thus limited to the body’s vulnerabilities. We are subject to time – are ravaged by it until we die, and in its interims suffer all kinds of sicknesses and injuries, both physical and psychological.
So we become scared and defensive. We plot and plan, always trying to make better a dream which shifts and changes on its surface but never surrenders its commitment to death.
But we are not bodies! We are spirit, Thoughts in the Mind of God, forever extending in and through creation as creation.
And when we see this clearly – when we begin to accept it as our reality, no matter how persistent the dream of bodies appears – then we also remember our function. We are here to accept God’s plan for salvation.
People say: but I don’t know what the plan is. That’s okay! The plan is not ours, because our planning is always tainted with ego’s agenda for its own welfare, which always involves getting rather giving, and forcing others to suffer. Ego cannot touch God’s plan; only spirit can align itself with what is salvational.
All we have to do in order to accept God’s plan, is to be as helpful as possible. Cooperate with others rather than compete with them. Don’t hurt people. If you do hurt them, apologize and resolve to do better.
In very ordinary ways, be the kindest and gentlest person you can be. Simply give attention to this – make this the essence of your behavioral practice, the way that you live in a body in the world – and let the rest of it all settle in whatever way it chooses.
In this way, our misunderstanding of reality is gently and speedily corrected. It is not a thing we do, but rather a thing which is done through us. We are more like witnesses to healing, like minds observing their own cloudiness slowly dissolving into a radiant light.
We don’t have to hustle for this grace. We don’t have to do anything other than be willing to get out of our own way, which we accomplish by making ourselves of service to our brothers and sisters (who includes dogs, horses, lobsters and birch trees).
In our practice today – in the attention we give these ideas – let us be willing to see the world healed, not as a personal accomplishment of our own, but rather as a grace-filled surrender to Love. In truth, there is nothing else we want.
