I will be still an instant and go home.
This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown. Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here. Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind again.
No one but knows whereof we speak. Yet some try to put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time, and keep their sadness from them. Others will deny that they are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. Still others will maintain that what we speak of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. Yet who, in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny he understands the words we speak?
We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is not at home. He goes uncertainly about in endless search, seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing what it is he seeks. A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents his restless mind. He does not understand he builds in vain. The home he seeks can not be made by him. There is no substitute for Heaven. All he ever made was hell.
Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. The childhood of your body, and its place of shelter, are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened. Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father's house, and knows that He is alien here. This childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy ground. It is His Holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one.
It is this Child in you your Father knows as His Own Son. It is this Child Who knows His Father. He desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. He does not ask for more than just a few instants of respite; just an interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that fills His Father's house. You are His home as well. He will return. But give Him just a little time to be Himself, within the peace that is His home, resting in silence and in peace and love.
This Child needs your protection. He is far from home. He is so little that He seems so easily shut out, His tiny voice so readily obscured, His call for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and harsh and rasping noises of the world. Yet does He know that in you still abides His sure protection. You will fail Him not. He will go home, and you along with Him.
This Child is your defenselessness; your strength. He trusts in you. He came because He knew you would not fail. He whispers of His home unceasingly to you. For He would bring you back with Him, that He Himself might stay, and not return again where He does not belong, and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts. His patience has no limits. He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you, calling you to let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at home and you with Him.
When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home.
Rest with Him frequently today. For He was willing to become a little Child that you might learn of Him how strong is he who comes without defenses, offering only love's messages to those who think he is their enemy. He holds the might of Heaven in His hand and calls them friend, and gives His strength to them, that they may see He would be Friend to them. He asks that they protect Him, for His home is far away, and He will not return to it alone.
Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his home. For he must learn that what he would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is protected by defenselessness. Go home with Him from time to time today. You are as much an alien here as He.
Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing, and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence. Christ has called you friend and brother. He has even come to ask your help in letting Him go home today, completed and completely. He has come as does a little child, who must beseech his father for protection and for love. He rules the universe, and yet He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take illusions as your gods no more.
You have not lost your innocence. It is for this you yearn. This is your heart's desire. This is the voice you hear, and this the call which cannot be denied. The holy Child remains with you. His home is yours. Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. And now the way is open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. Be still an instant and go home with Him, and be at peace a while.
The Following is Forwarded from Pathwaysoflight.org
-
Lesson 182
"I will be still an instant and go home."
As I began to work with this lesson, I was amazed at my resistance manifested as mind chatter that captured my attention. In the moment I gave more value to a passing thought about a project to do today, about something somebody said yesterday, about something I read, and on and on. Paying attention to these things is clearly valuing the valueless. I have the opportunity right now to return Home to the peace and Love of God. There is nothing to keep me from it except my own decision to value something else more.
All my life I have been searching for this peace. I have had glimpses of it, fleeting moments of joyous, all encompassing Love. Yet things of the world soon capture my attention again and the feeling fades. In this lesson the Course is not asking us to be able to maintain a state of full awareness of Heaven yet. It is simply giving us the means to experience it for an instant and bring back the experience so that we may look upon the world differently, value its images a little less. As we give ourselves the experience of Home more and more, the world will be less and less attractive.
The Love we experience at Home in Heaven we bring back with us and share with our brothers. Each experience strengthens our willingness to keep on practicing, to keep on opening our minds to that innocent Child within. As I let go and let myself sink into deep peace, the mind chatter fades. As the Love in my heart swells, the Love brings with It the desire to share It. I look upon the world with kind benevolence. The habit of judging fades and I see loving friends everywhere.
There is no sense of urgency, no impatience, for there are no expectations. My brother is perfect Love in truth. There is no need to change him. I do not need to make him conform to an image I have made for him to be. I know he is perfectly safe along with me. In that safety, I trust and I wait in the certainty of changeless Love, knowing we go Home together, for there is no such thing as apart. In this feeling I recognize that I have gone Home for an instant. I carry the memory in my heart. In every moment it reminds me of the truth. It all comes with allowing myself to be still an instant.
This world is alien to our true Nature. It is not our home. It is the effect of the desire for separation from the oneness of God. Our true Father is not our earthly father. Our true Father is the Love that abides within us still. We are invited here today to return to our true Home, to return to Love which is our natural state. We are invited to let Love be our highest priority. We are invited to let Love, which is our natural state, be given the opportunity to breathe the fresh air found in Its natural Home. We are invited to give Love a chance.
We are reminded that the Love we are is there right now in our minds, to be found and experienced if we so choose. We are invited to rest in the Love we are awhile. We are invited to let the Love we are be recognized as our true Home, as everyone's true Home.
We are aliens in this world of separation. This is an alien world. It does not belong to us. It is not true to our true Nature. It is not our birthplace and it is not our death place. This alien world was spawned from the desire to be as we could never really be in truth.
This alien world can be let go of just as easily as it was desired. It is not what we truly want in our heart of hearts. In our heart of hearts, we want to return Home. We want to return to Love, our Father. We want to return to the only Reality we have in truth. Letting go of limitation and death takes a willingness to let it go. This is my practice today. I will be still an instant and go Home and rest a while in the rich of environment of oneness, of peace, of joy.
For me, this is the most beautiful lesson in the Course. For so long I craved to find serenity in my homes, in my relationships, in my jobs, but somehow I always felt I was missing something. These things would eventually tire me and I'd find myself being restless again and would begin that fruitless search; I began to think something was wrong with me.
When I read this lesson the first time, it brought tears to my eyes; tears of relief because I knew this was my answer; this was what I had been searching for all along. The lesson says that the Child in me needs my protection because He is far from home.
The lesson also says that I will fail Him not and these are the words I need to know that I will fail Him not -- I WILL succeed. Yes, go home, Child, go home for an a little while and bring back with you the air that you breathe with my Father, the silence and the peace and the love you find there. Bring this back with you so that the memory of these things can strengthen my journey. And while you're there, tell my Father that I'm on my way home.
Having no awareness of searching, I never felt the restlessness. However, the “feeling of discomfort in my own skin,” or “on the outside looking in” has plagued me for as long as I can remember. I never connected these feelings to the voice in my head that would cry and shout and whisper, “I just want to go home!” That voice has been with me always.
The first time I read it, I cried too. To know that I was not alone in hearing that voice was an enormous relief. This year’s insights have given meditation to me. Meditation has given me the place within to go home to when the Voice says I need replenishing. And today I get the connection of thoughts. This is great stuff.
©2003, Pathways of Light, Inc. http://pathwaysoflight.org You may freely share copies of this page with your friends, provided all copies include this notice.
-
-
