A Course in Miracles Lesson 45

God is the Mind with which I think.

Two things about this lesson of A Course in Miracles jump out. First are a couple of lines set about halfway through the lesson suggesting our egoic thoughts are actively working against God’s Will.

We will not let the beliefs of the world tell us that what God would have us do is impossible. Instead, we will try to recognize that only what God would have us do is possible (W-pI.45.4:5-6).

This is related to the first principle of miracles, which teaches us that to the miracle no problem is harder or bigger than another. It is ego that decides this burden is too heavy or that challenge too hard.

A critical theme of A Course in Miracles is the degree to which the ego does not mean us well. We’re apt to forget this. But from time to time – either explicitly or in powerful image-based language – the course reminds us that the ego is our enemy and that it wants us dead and would kill us in a second if it could figure out a way to survive without us.

However ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane mind, never forget that the ego is not sane. It represents a delusional system, and speaks for it. Listening to the ego’s voice means that you believe it is possible to attack God, and that a part of Him has been torn away by you (T-5.V.3:8-10).

In other words, ego is most definitely not our friend. And since it’s the ego whose direction we follow, we live in – and follow rules for decision – that have but one goal: chaos, misery and death.

Most people – including long-time course students – resist this. Me too, sometimes. Life is good! I’m feeling happy vibes! Whatever. But all the time, the ego is working hard to keep us away from true joy and true peace. It doesn’t object to the fleeting instant of happiness, so long as we never challenge its foundation of guilt and hate.

The other aspect of this lesson is the idea that below the clutter of worldly thoughts is the foundation in which we think with God. And that foundation is changeless. It doesn’t come and go. It can’t be affected by apparent shifts in external conditions.

This is what the course says about the thoughts that we think with God.

They are in your mind now, completely unchanged. They will always be in your mind exactly as they always were. Everything you have thought since then will change, but the Foundation on which it rests is wholly changeless (W-pI.45.7:2-4).

The ego has lots of ideas about what enlightenment is or what awakening will be like. They’re not good yardsticks. We don’t really know what that’s going to be like because the ego has no language nor experience with which to describe it. And what it suggests isn’t trustworthy anyway. In the lines I just quoted, we get some interesting suggestions (from a trustworthy source) about what that experience is going to be like. The course is full of such intimations.

This world of light, this circle of brightness is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness. Here the world outside is seen anew, without the shadow of guilt upon it . . . Here is the new perception, where everything is bright and shining with innocence, washed with the waters of forgiveness . . . (T-18.IX.9:1-2, 4).

We’re used to thoughts that shift and change. Ideas and concepts that float around, change shape, get judged, get corrected, get admired. But the thoughts we think with God are a foundation – which means that they don’t move. They don’t change. What is a thought that never changes? What is a thought that is so strong and still that it can serve literally as a foundation for love?

These are good questions to ask! And the answers are worth waiting on. Lesson 45 is our assurance that we do not have to wait long on those answers because they are already given.

←Lesson 44
Lesson 46→