Lesson 189
I feel the Love of God within me now.
There is a light in you the world can not perceive. And with its eyes you will not see this light, for you are blinded by the world. Yet you have eyes to see it. It is there for you to look upon. It was not placed in you to be kept hidden from your sight. This light is a reflection of the thought we practice now. To feel the Love of God within you is to see the world anew, shining in innocence, alive with hope, and blessed with perfect charity and love.
Who could feel fear in such a world as this? It welcomes you, rejoices that you came, and sings your praises as it keeps you safe from every form of danger and of pain. It offers you a warm and gentle home in which to stay a while. It blesses you throughout the day, and watches through the night as silent guardian of your holy sleep. It sees salvation in you, and protects the light in you, in which it sees its own. It offers you its flowers and its snow, in thankfulness for your benevolence.
This is the world the Love of God reveals. It is so different from the world you see through darkened eyes of malice and of fear, that one belies the other. Only one can be perceived at all. The other one is wholly meaningless. A world in which forgiveness shines on everything, and peace offers its gentle light to everyone, is inconceivable to those who see a world of hatred rising from attack, poised to avenge, to murder and destroy.
Yet is the world of hatred equally unseen and inconceivable to those who feel God's Love in them. Their world reflects the quietness and peace that shines in them; the gentleness and innocence they see surrounding them; the joy with which they look out from the endless wells of joy within. What they have felt in them they look upon, and see its sure reflection everywhere.
What would you see? The choice is given you. But learn and do not let your mind forget this law of seeing: You will look upon that which you feel within. If hatred finds a place within your heart, you will perceive a fearful world, held cruelly in death's sharp-pointed, bony fingers. If you feel the Love of God within you, you will look out on a world of mercy and of love.
Today we pass illusions, as we seek to reach to what is true in us, and feel its all-embracing tenderness, its Love which knows us perfect as itself, its sight which is the gift its Love bestows on us. We learn the way today. It is as sure as Love itself, to which it carries us. For its simplicity avoids the snares the foolish convolutions of the world's apparent reasoning but serve to hide.
Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.
Is it not He Who knows the way to you? You need not know the way to Him. Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. God will do His part in joyful and immediate response. Ask and receive. But do not make demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be. For in that way is your reality proclaimed as well.
And so today we do not choose the way in which we go to Him. But we do choose to let Him come. And with this choice we rest. And in our quiet hearts and open minds, His Love will blaze its pathway of itself. What has not been denied is surely there, if it be true and can be surely reached. God knows His Son, and knows the way to him. He does not need His Son to show Him how to find His way. Through every opened door His Love shines outward from its home within, and lightens up the world in innocence.
Father, we do not know the way to You. But we have called, and You have answered us. We will not interfere. Salvation's ways are not our own, for they belong to You. And it is unto You we look for them. Our hands are open to receive Your gifts. We have no thoughts we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are, or Who created us. Yours is the way that we would find and follow. And we ask but that Your Will, which is our own as well, be done in us and in the world, that it become a part of Heaven now. 0 Amen.
The Following is Forwarded from Pathwaysoflight.org
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Lesson 189
"I feel the Love of God within me now."
This lesson is an extension of one of the very first lessons which taught us that we don't know what anything means. If I can wholly embrace that idea that I don't know what anything means, then I can come to the Holy Spirit with a wholly open mind. It is my cherished beliefs, the meanings I give things, that stand in the way of knowing the Love of God that is already within me, shining with the brilliance of innocence and peace.
The Light of God is already within me. It has never left me and I have never left It. Only my denial of It, my belief that anything could be apart from or other than the Love of God, stands between me and my awareness of the Love of God that shines within me eternally. His Love abides in me and my Self returns the Love in gratitude and joy. This circle of Love continues unabated within me, no matter what images I may make up that hide It from me. The Love of God IS shining in me now. I don't have to wait for it to happen. I need only remove the barriers to my awareness of It.
I am grateful that I have the means within my confused and delusional mind to find my way out, to return to my natural state as Love created me. The Holy Spirit in my mind recognizes the confusion in my mind but does not believe any of it, and so He can bring full awareness of God's Love to my split mind. He can use the images and false ideas that I hold for His own purpose to lead me back Home to the Heaven I never left in truth.
My job now is to practice again and again and again, turning everything I believe I see over to Him with an open mind to receive His perception. He will show me the innocence behind the behavior, the Light that is ever present in the darkness, the Love beyond the fear. As I open to His vision, I receive the miracle of Love. And I embrace the world with its blessing.
In this lesson, Jesus shows me what my part is. He says, "Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever." (8:3) This means that I am not the one to remove the obstacles. My job is to open up my mind to God to let them be removed. My job is to be willing to let God, which is Love, into my mind. When I open the door to Love, Love does the rest. Love knows what to do, I don't.
My willingness to open up to God is what brings me the experience of God's Love. I can tell how much I am opening up to God by what I feel within. If I don't feel God's Love, then I must still be holding on to ego's values, ego's priorities, ego's thoughts. It is my willingness to open up to let the false values and priorities be removed that allows them to be replaced by God's Love. I must learn to hold on to nothing. I must open to God's Love with empty hands and an open heart. If I want to see the real world, I must first let God into my mind. "You will look upon that which you feel within." (5:3)
The following is a prayer that came to me as I asked for help with my willingness: "Dear God, I have joined with the values of separation, and now I choose to return to the awareness of your ever-present Love. I have wandered in the wilderness of separation, thinking it real and have been frightened and confused by my choice to join with ego thinking.
I realize now that what is truly important above all things is opening to your ever-present Love. I consciously choose that now. I let my mind quiet, because I would have it be so. I allow the feeling of your ever-present Love to return to my awareness. I would not keep my mind closed to your eternal Presence. Your Love is in me and surrounds me always. Your Love is all that is real. I accept it and allow myself to feel it now." Amen.
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