May 29
"My
mind holds only what I think with God."
"When
I am healed I am not healed alone."
"Heaven
is the decision I must make."
PRACTICE
SUMMARY
Review IVPurpose: To prepare for part II of the Workbook, by concentrating on readiness for it and by reviewing the last 20 lessons in a way that will facilitate that readiness.
Longer: 2--beginning and ending of the day for 5 minutes or more.
* Open your mind, clear it of all distracting thoughts. For five minutes let this thought alone occupy it, displacing all others: "My mind holds only what I think with God."
* Read the day's two ideas. Close eyes and repeat ideas slowly, without hurry, for this is what time was made for. Let each word shine with the meaning God gave it. Receive from each idea the gift God placed in it.
Remarks: Phase 1 will be enough to set your day along the lines God planned, making it a special time of blessing for you and for the world. It will be enough to place Him in charge of all your thoughts. Your thoughts will come from more than you. They will also come from Him and tell you of His Love. Thus will you, His completion, join with Him. And He, your completion, will join with you. He thanks you for your practicing. And as your day ends, His gratitude will surround you.
Shorter: hourly, for a quiet moment
* Say: "My mind holds only what I think with God." Spend a quiet moment with it.
* Then repeat the day's two ideas, slowly enough to see their gifts and receive their gifts.
COMMENTARY
More and more, as we progress through the Workbook, what we are being asked to do is really to commune with God. Or, to put it in more mundane terms, to get back into communication with Him.
"You taught yourself the most unnatural habit of not communicating with your Creator. Yet you remain in close communication with Him, and with everything that is within Him, as it is within yourself. Unlearn isolation through His loving guidance, and learn of all the happy communication that you have thrown away but could not lose." (T-14.III.18:1-3)
As we clear our minds of lesser thoughts and tune in on the thoughts we share with God, thoughts will come to our minds, and they won't be from ourselves alone. "And so each one will bring the message of His Love to you, returning messages of yours to Him. So will communion with the Lord of Hosts be yours, as He Himself has willed it be." (W-pI.rIV.6:2,3) Connecting in my mind with God connects me, as well, with my brothers and sisters, because all of us are connected to the Source.I am not healed alone.
I could use a "message of His Love" today; how about you? And I wouldn't mind returning my message of love to Him, as well. There are moments in a loving relationship where the love just seems to be ping-ponging back and forth so fast you can't follow it, you can't even be sure whose love is whose. It outstrips ping-ponging, in fact; it transcends the back-and-forth motion implied by that analogy and becomes a constant, cyclical current of love, going both ways simultaneously. You don't even feel as though you are doing anything; you are just caught in the current, possessed by love. Sort of the way you might feel when you look into your beloved's eyes and feel you are falling in, when the love coming back at you is almost too much to bear, and the love you are feeling threatens to blow your circuits. I'd like a moment like that today with my Beloved. Well, I'd like a moment like that this year. I've had such moments, but they are rare.
Why are they rare? Having those moments of communion, which is a foretaste of Heaven, is up to me. It's a decision I must make; no, the decision I must make.
"The instant in which magnitude dawns upon you is but as far away as your desire for it. As long as you desire it not and cherish littleness instead, by so much is it far from you. By so much as you want it will you bring it nearer" (T-15.IV.2:2-4). It is nearer than my own heart, so close. This ecstasy of love, this communion with God, is actually going on right now. My right mind has never ceased to be in perfect communication with Him (T-13.XI.8). "The part of your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not." (W-pI.49.1:2)
So all that is necessary is to decide that I want it, and it is there. I just plug in to it. What is it that prevents me from choosing it? What keeps me from letting myself fall in love with God? What holds me back? Am I willing to be in love with everyone, or am I afraid of appearing too "mooshy?" Am I afraid of being out of control? Am I afraid of being too vulnerable? What holds me back? Let me look at myself today and ask myself, "Why am I not experiencing being in Heaven right now?"
When you realize that you could just "switch over" at any instant--and that you don't!--it is a sobering moment. All of a sudden you can't blame anyone or anything for expriencing anything less than Heaven. You recognize that you are choosing it; "I am doing this to myself" (see T-27.VIII.10:1). There is literally nothing to prevent me from experiencing the holy instant right now. Nothing but my refusal to accept it; nothing but my fear. "So we begin today considering the choice that time was made to help us make." (W-pI.138.7:1) There is no rush; we have all of time to make this choice. But why wait? Why not now?
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Arizona, USA.
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