Day 72

Today's Lesson:

Holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation.

The ego is the physical embodiment of the wish to replace God. And the things we are apt to hold grievances for are always associated with something a body does. We are not dealing with what the person is, but what he does in a body. We are doing more than failing to help in freeing him from the body's limitations. We are actively trying to hold him to it by confusing it with him, and judging them as one. When we do this, we are actually attacking God, for if His Son is only a body, so must He be. A creator wholly unlike his creation is inconceivable.

As we create this reality in our minds, the ego comes to save us. It tries to convince us that God gave us nothing. The body is our only savior. It is the death of God and our salvation. This is the universal belief of the world we see. Some hate the body and try to hurt and humiliate it. others love the body, and try to glorify and exalt it. But while the body is at the center of our concept of ourselves, we are attacking God's plan for salvation, and holding our grievances against Him and His creation, that we may not hear the Voice of truth and welcome it as Friend.

The actual reality is that the light of truth is in us, where it was placed by God. It is the body that is outside us, and is not our concern. To be without a body is to be in our natural state. To recognize the light of truth in us is to recognize ourselves as we are. To see our Selves as separate from the body is to end the attack on God's plan for salvation, and to accept it instead. And wherever His plan is accepted, it is accomplished already.

Miracles I'm noticing:

These lessons and everything we're learning from the course is actually very simple. The more I study and open my eyes to what I'm learning, the more I see that when things are difficult, it's because I've put obstacles in my path. As I read Debbie Ford's The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, I realize that when things upset me, it is because I am not owning the dark side of myself. My natural state - which today's lesson tells me is light and not a body - is one of ease and comfort and joy. When I'm not in that natural state, it is because I have allowed something in the realm of body to take over.

I know someone who has cancer, and she never talks about it. In fact, she never talks about anything. I have known her for more than 15 years, but I know very little about her because she never says anything. It occurred to me yesterday when I saw her and she didn't say anything - to me or to others who were at an activity we both participate in - that maybe I am judging her because I always say something. I think it's better to greet people when you see them because that's what I see myself doing and I don't see her doing that so I think I'm better than she is. Maybe I'm seeing each of us as bodies instead of as the Light which in each of us, whether we know and acknowledge it or not. It is not for me to judge anyone or anything - it is just for me to accept and Know that salvation is ours because we are not our egos. As I can shift my perception of her from fear - maybe fear of her illness and having to deal with that reality - to love, I see that my attitude can produce a miracle by allowing her to be who she is in Spirit. When I can own the dark side of myself - the side that judges - I can be in a position to let go of grievances and accept God's plan for salvation.