I am in need of nothing but the truth.

I accidentally blogged about Lesson 251 the other day, without realizing there was a page missing in my Course book. So I wrote about Lesson 251 without realizing I was on the totally wrong day, wrong lesson.

But there are no accidents, so it was the perfect lesson for me on that particular day.

Here we are again. Lesson 251: I am in need of nothing but the truth.

I’ll do it again, since every time I read a lesson it shows me something new.

I am need of nothing but the truth.

That’s wild, huh? It seems that I have many needs. I can even list them all to prove it. But are they really needs? Or do they just keep me trapped in the illusion??

What needs do I have?

This is a tough lesson - one that a lot of people want to justify and explain. They will say, in defense of their own position:
YOU NEED MONEY.
YOU NEED A JOB.
YOU NEED FOOD.
YOU NEED A PLACE TO LIVE.

But do you need these things? In a dream?

The only need you really have is to wake up and know the truth, and then automatically all your “needs” (see above list) are taken care of automatically by the very nature that you have located Creative Source - God - as your own mind.

This lesson is NOT asking you to give away all your things and go sit in a cave, monastery or mountain. No. It is simply asking you to recognize the complete unreality of everything that your body’s eyes show you.

You have no needs except the truth.

The Holy Spirit knows what you need, and He will give you all things you need that do not block the way to light. He will supply these “needs” and renew them as long as you do not use them to linger in time and space.

Here’s the sections from A Course in Miracles that describe it (from the original manuscript called the Urtext, bold letters are not mine, they are written this way in the original document):

Chapter 16, Section 2:
No needs will long be left unmet, if you leave them ALL to the Holy Spirit Whose FUNCTION is to meet them. This is His function, and NOT YOURS. He will NOT meet them secretly, for He would share everything you give through Him. And that is WHY He gives it. What you give through Him is for the whole Sonship, NOT FOR PART OF IT. Leave Him His function, for He WILL fulfill it, if you but ask Him to enter your relationships, and bless them FOR you.

Chapter 12, Section 6:
Your Father knoweth that you have need of nothing. In Heaven this is so. For what could you need in eternity? In YOUR world you DO need things, because it is a world of scarcity, in which you find yourself BECAUSE you are lacking. But CAN you find yourself in such a world? Without the Holy Spirit the answer would be no. But BECAUSE of Him, the answer is a joyous YES. As Mediator between the two worlds, He knows what you have need of, and WHICH WILL NOT HURT YOU. Ownership is a dangerous concept, if it is left to you. The ego wants to HAVE things for salvation, for possession IS its law. Possession for its OWN sake is the ego’s fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches that it builds unto itself. And at ITS altar it demands you lay ALL of the things it bids you get, leaving you no joy in them.

EVERYTHING that the ego tells you that you need will hurt you. For although it urges you again and again to GET, it LEAVES you nothing, for what you get it will DEMAND of you. And even from the very hands that grasped it, it will be wrenched and hurled into the dust. For where the ego sees salvation IT SEES SEPARATION, and so you lose whatever you have gotten in its name. Therefore, ask not of yourselves what you need, for YOU DO NOT KNOW, and your advice unto yourself will hurt you. For what YOU think you need will merely serve to tighten up your world AGAINST the light, and render you unwilling to question the value that this world can REALLY hold for you.

Only the Holy Spirit KNOWS what you need. For HE will give you all things that do NOT block the way to light. And what else COULD you need? In time, He gives you all the things that you need have, and will renew them as long as you have need of them. He will take nothing FROM you, as long as you have ANY need of it. And yet He knows that EVERYTHING you need is temporary, and need but last until you step aside from ALL your needs, and learn that all of them HAVE BEEN fulfilled. Therefore He has no investment in the things that He supplies, except to make certain that you will NOT use them on behalf of lingering in time. He knows that you are not at home there, and He wills no delay to wait upon your joyous homecoming.

Leave, then, your needs to Him. He will supply them, with no emphasis at all upon them. What comes to you of Him comes safely, for He will ensure it never can become a dark spot, hidden in your mind, and kept to hurt you. Under His guidance, you will travel light and journey lightly, for His sight is ever on the journey’s end, which is His goal. God’s Son is not a traveler through OUTER worlds. However holy his perception may become, no world OUTSIDE himself holds his inheritance. Within HIMSELF he HAS no needs, for light needs nothing but to shine in peace, and from ITSELF, to let the rays extend in quiet to infinity.

Let me not see myself as limited.

Let me behold the Son of God today, and witness to his glory. Let me not try to obscure the holy light in him, and see his strength diminished and reduced to frailty; nor perceive the lacks in him with which I would attack his sovereignty.

I used to think this lesson was asking me to see my brother as the holy Son of God. I thought when it said “Let me behold the Son of God today and witness to his glory” … the use of the word “his” made me think the lesson was asking me to see my brother clearly.

But now I see that it is asking me to see myself clearly.

He = me.

Now I realize that I’m asked to see the Son of God in me. I’m being asked to witness to my own glory, which is his glory. To not obscure the holy light that is in me. To not reduce my strength or reduce it to frailty.

He is Your Son, my Father. And today I would behold his gentleness instead of my illusions. He is what I am, and as I see him so I see myself. Today I would see truly, that this day I may at last identify with him.

The “He” here in this lesson is talking about something in me. “He is Your Son” is talking about me. I am He. He is me.

Let me behold my gentleness - so that I see Son of God as what I am.

I’ve been learning a lot about myself this past month, being on my own. The major things I’ve learned is:

1. how much I limit myself
2. how much I procrastinate, waiting for life to begin later
3. how much I wait for other people’s permission to act, be, do.

One of my 5 Wishes is to do work I love every day and get paid for it - to not procrastinate, to stop waiting and to live every day as if it’s my last day.

(yes, that’s all one wish!)

So all this week I’ve been doing work I love - not procrastinating or waiting - and it feels marvelous.

I’ve got four other Wishes but they are actually contained in this one wish - so I am putting all my love, energy, focus, joy and attention on this ONE WISH knowing it will take care of the other four wishes automatically when this one wish is accomplished.

No more waiting, no more procrastination, no more limiting myself.

Let me not see myself as limited.

I am free.

As these things go, I found a sweet little book for $1 in a second-hand bookshop yesterday afternoon called “If Life is a Game, These are the Rules” by Cherie Carter-Scott. It goes along perfectly with what I posted yesterday morning about each and every one of us making a promise to God before being born.

You said “I will” to God which allowed you to come into a body, but then you promptly forgot your promise the second you arrived here in a body.

The Ten Rules for Being Human by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body.
2. You will be presented with lessons.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.
4. Lessons are repeated until learned.
5. Learning does not end.
6. “There” is no better than “here.”
7. Others are only mirrors of you.
8. What you make of your life is up to you.
9. All the answers lie inside of you.
10. You will forget all of this at birth.

Most people do not realize that they made a promise to God to “be perfect” before they were born into bodies. You said “I will.”

You don’t remember saying “I will” though in that promise were you born:

God keeps His promises; His Son keeps his. In his creation did his Father say, “You are beloved of Me and I of you forever. Be you perfect as Myself, for you can never be apart from Me.” His Son remembers not that he replied “I will,” though in that promise he was born. Yet God reminds him of it every time he does not share a promise to be sick, but lets his mind be healed and unified. His secret vows are powerless before the Will of God, Whose promises he shares. And what he substitutes is NOT his will, who has made promise of himself to God.

- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 28, Section.

To read this section, click here:

The Secret Vows

Forgiveness ends all suffering and loss.

I want you to think about situations in your life that cause you pain, confusion, suffering and loss. This should be easy to do. You probably can come up with the name of a person, place or thing quite easily that disturbs you. It is any idea that causes you grief, anger, or doubt.

It’s any thought that is resistance to the flow of God’s Love. It’s a block. It’s a hindrance. It’s a wall.

The way I know when I am BLOCKING the flow is that I tend to start having imaginary conversations in my mind about things that are in the future OR about things in the past that I could have changed “if only” I had done something differently. The other thing I do is start to play out imaginary situations in my mind, trying to sort out the future in the now by thinking about it! Talk about insanity! Talk about the land of make-believe!

When I do this (start playing out scenarios in my mind) I actually start feeling bad in the now, based on something that is not even here in this moment except as a thought in my mind. It’s crazy. It’s controlling. It’s manipulation. And it makes me feel terrible.

It’s insane to think about the loss of something (or the potential loss of something) when it’s only in your mind because all this does is wreck your day.

Based on thoughts that are not even here!

It’s completely crazy.

Forgiveness paints a picture of a world where suffering is over, loss becomes impossible and anger makes no sense. Attack is gone, and madness has an end. What suffering is now conceivable? What loss can be sustained? The world becomes a place of joy, abundance, charity and endless giving. It is now so like to Heaven that it quickly is transformed into the light that it reflects. And so the journey which the Son of God began has ended in the light from which he came.

This lesson talks about a JOURNEY so let’s use that idea. Think about a road trip. When you are headed to a certain destination, do you worry about where you came from?? Does the road you have already traveled affect where you are going? It does not. You look at a map, find where you are - YOU ARE HERE - and then you look at the space between where you currently are and where you want to go. You don’t keep back-tracking to the starting point. That would be just plain stupid. Although that is what almost everyone does when it comes to emotions. They keep going back to roads they have already traveled … and then they wonder why they never seem to arrive at their destination.

Wherever you are reading this blog post, is where you are.

Where you came from does not matter anymore. How you got to this point no longer serves. You are here. The past is gone. The road behind you is dust. You are here.

With an actual road trip, you wouldn’t even bother with road that is behind you. It got you to where you are now. Your only concern would be: OKAY, HOW DO I GET TO WHERE I AM NOW TO WHERE I AM GOING?

And the answer is forgiveness.

Forgiveness will make you realize the road you have traveled (that got you to where you are now) is absolutely utterly meaningless. It cannot serve you now. It’s behind you. YOU ARE HERE. There’s no need to look back to where you traveled from. YOU ARE HERE.

Where’s your destination?

Where are you going?

Start where you are, right now, from the chair in which you are sitting. This is your new starting point.

Forget where you came from. And by all means, stop backtracking.

This all sounds really logical when you think of road maps with physical terrain. Or races with a definite START POINT and FINISH LINE. I’ve driven a couple of times from Wisconsin to New Hampshire. I just head east. That’s all. My starting point is Wisconsin and my destination is New Hampshire. It’s EAST so I head EAST. I don’t start traveling west in order to get to New Hampshire. I would never arrive. It’s east so I travel east. That’s just common sense.

But when it comes to emotional terrain, we keep circling around again - or we go the opposite direction. We keep going back to where we came from. That’s just dumb. It’s a waste of time. You’ll never get to your destination if you travel in the opposite direction or if you keep going back to where the journey began.

So it’s important for you to know your goal in advance in order to get to where you want to go … and then to keep heading in that direction! Keep going straight!

You’ll arrive eventually, I promise.

My goal is God. My goal is peace. My goal is happiness. That’s all I need to know. That’s my destination. I don’t have to be concerned about the road that has led me to where I am now. I AM HERE. My destination is God. It’s one straight line.

“God has not left man to grope his way to Heaven in the dark. The traveler with a road map - the Bible - may easily follow the signs on the highway to Heaven.” - Arthur E. Lickey, God Speaks to Modern Man, 1952

Whatever suffers is not part of me.

Every day the workbook lesson seems perfect for where I am on that day!

The reason this lesson is perfect for me on this particular day is that I am playing with energy frequencies now … for fun and as an experiment.

As most of you know, I’m not interested in what I already know about … if I already know about it, I’m already bored with it. I’m interested in what I don’t know about! I’m interested in the mystery and unknown! So this blog is NOT about me giving you information that you could apply in your life (although if that happens, that a nice bonus), but it’s about me using my own life like a guinea pig to experiment on the power of mind to uncover exciting new discoveries.

How far can I stretch myself? How deep is the rabbit hole? What’s on the other side? What’s around the corner? Can we fly? What’s out in the universe? What occurs when you move through energy fields? Does the form shift? Etc.

Gorgeous for God is a science project.

So today’s lesson - Whatever suffers is not part of me - is an energy frequency that is, well, NOT PART OF ME!

Ha. I can let it go. I can change the emotional response, like one changes the dial on a radio.

If I’m trying to tune into 101FM … I cannot set the dial for 88FM and be tuned into 101FM. It doesn’t work that way. This is logical. I have to set the dial at 101FM to listen to 101FM.

It’s not mystical. It’s not miraculous. It’s not magic. It’s a natural law.

It’s simple & easy: you’ll get whatever station you are tuned into.

All these frequencies are going on all the time, but which one is your dial turned to?

If you don’t like the song you are listening to, then change the station!

I’ll be listening to whatever I tune into … and if there is sadness and suffering in my life then it means only one thing (and one thing only!): that I have tuned into a station of sadness and suffering.

All I have to do is change the dial! How simple!

There are other songs playing!

Tune into love. Tune into gratitude. Tune into appreciation. Tune into wonder. Tune into joy.

If you don’t like rock & roll (do they still call it that?), you would cruise right past that station until you found a station you liked: jazz, easy listening, oldies.

You wouldn’t stay on a rock & roll station praying for a miracle that they start playing easy listening! It doesn’t work like that. On a rock & roll station they play rock & roll! It’s all they play, all the time. It would be insanity to stay at a station you didn’t like hoping that it would miraculously turn into a station that you loved.

It’s insanity to stay in a situation or relationship that hurts you hoping that it miraculously turns into a situation that you love.

It’s insanity to stay at a job you hate hoping it transforms into something better.

And yet that’s what most people do in their life. They stay in the frequency of suffering praying for a miracle to be in a frequency of love. That’s insanity. Change the dial.

Move out of that space.

On the suffering station, they play suffering! It’s all they play! All the time!

If you don’t like it, change the dial.

There’s love playing on other stations, right in this moment, now. All you have to do is tune in.

Without forgiveness, I will still be blind.

My total apologies!! There is a page missing in my Course book. It goes from page 416 to 419 - so I was completely on the wrong lesson today. Unless, as Lana points out, it was the perfect lesson for me, the one I was supposed to do.

There are no accidents.

So, Lesson 247: Without forgiveness, I will still be blind.

Great lesson. Forgiveness is the ONLY MEANS whereby Christ vision comes to me.

I am more surprised than anyone by what has been happening to me lately. I’m in a constant state of wonder. I thought that by forgiving everyone and everything that I’d be in a happier world, things would be effortless, and miracles would occur naturally. And yes it’s true: miracles are happening and there is a tremendous amount of love but it’s SO SMALL (tiny!) to the real gift of Christ vision and hearing the Voice of God!!!

WHO KNEW??

Who knew about this??

I didn’t. I had no idea.

I seriously thought that by my forgiveness the only thing I could expect was that life would become easy & effortless. And while this is true - life has become easy & effortless - I didn’t expect to find the Kingdom of Heaven and all these Gifts bestowed upon me.

Like Dorothy in Oz finding The Emerald City, with mighty companions beside her.

Still an illusion … but magnificent!

It’s like mining for gold or diamonds, thinking you’ll be thrilled if you should find a few glittering stones … and then stumbling upon a whole lost kingdom filled with treasures. That’s what it feels like to me lately.

I thought - mistakenly - that forgiveness would simply give me a better human life. What a laugh. I HAD NO IDEA that my forgiveness would open up a new world full of possibilities and God-given gifts like the ability to create.

Am I the last to know about this?

You are probably all laughing at me … like .. ahhh … it’s taken her long enough to get here!

Forgiveness gives Christ vision! Who knew!

I am in need of nothing but the truth.

Before I even opened my eyes this morning in bed from sleeping, this sentence came booming into my mind, loud and clear, with the volume up high:

“As the teachers of God advance in their profession, they become more and more certain that the body’s function is but to let God’s Voice speak through it to human ears.”

It’s from A Course in Miracles in the Teacher’s Manual: How Many Teachers of God are Needed to Save the World?

(One. The answer is one.)

And there it was booming in my head, like someone shouting: LISA, YOU ARE A TEACHER OF GOD. YOUR PROFESSION IS TO COMMUNICATE THE WORD OF GOD TO THOSE WHO CANNOT YET HEAR IT.

Oh. Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m up. I hear you.

I keep forgetting because I have so much fun doing what I’m doing that it doesn’t feel like a job or meaningful or significant. It feels like play-time.

It was a good moment, because last week I dusted off my resume, updated it, polished it, and have been sending it to high-level corporate jobs for a career in marketing. I’ve been looking for a PROFESSION. Now that I have accepted the Love of God and Christ in my life, I feel like I can do anything - like work in marketing.

But apparently, Christ has other plans for me.

I have tons of “great ideas” usually which lead me off the path, into trouble, or into an experience that either leads to a fantastic story or unforgettable memory. My friend Evan used to laugh so hard at me when I would say ‘I have an idea” and he would roll his eyes (in delight) knowing this statement was going to lead to the most fun ever OR to the worst hangover in the morning.

“I have an idea” is an old habit with me. Famous last words. I’ve been doing it since I was a child. Ask anyone who knows me. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it still makes me laugh. You can almost see the dust from the cobwebs of my mind coming out of my ears with every “brilliant brainstorm.”

Evan used to also say that I steam-rolled through life, plowing my way through with no thought to consequences, as if this was a bad thing. Only now am I starting to realize the importance of what he was trying to communicate to me. It’s good to take a step back, rather than moving blindly though life at top-speed.

So now, I’ve got this Voice that speaks to me. It’s there all the time. Now when I get a “great idea”, I have a Guide who either puts the brakes on it OR who gives me a few additional necessary details and then guides me gently.

Yesterday someone wrote to me that they received shaktipat from me, and I laughed because I have no idea what that means. I said “It sounds good, like delicious buttery Christmas cookies.”

Apparently, it’s Divine Grace given by a teacher to a student - an experience of awakening or enlightenment.

Which means, obviously, there must be something else in me, because as far as I’m concerned I’m just blogging happily, being myself as God created me. I’m no guru or master. I am nothing special. I am just myself.

Thank God Christ is working through me!

What a tremendous gift.

I’m in new territory, in case you haven’t noticed. Honestly, I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what is happening. I don’t know what I need.

But there is One in me who knows!

My friend Marielle and I went to Chicago a couple months ago - I drove my car - and I remember being terrified once we arrived. I’m a great driver but I’m super disoriented when I first arrive to a place that is foreign. I had never driven in Chicago before and the location was brand new. I didn’t pretend to know the roads, because I didn’t know the roads. It was an entirely new space. So what did I do?? I drove slow! I looked at the map. I didn’t pretend to be in control, because obviously, I didn’t have a clue.

And here is the miracle, within 3 days of driving slow, being super aware, conscious, alert to road signs, I was driving like a pro in Chicago without the map. My friend Marielle was amazed. She kept saying: How do you do that?

I have no idea. I knew where the shortcuts were. I knew which roads crossed with other roads, and which were one way streets, and where the construction was.

I surprised myself even. And so it is with my life lately: I’m in an entirely foreign location. I have no idea where I am. I’m driving slow.

And today’s lesson is the map I need: I am in need of nothing but the truth.

When you live in the truth, gifts and abilities are given to you that will shock you to your core. You start trusting in the Guide who walks with you. It can be a very scary experience initially because how do you trust in something that is invisible??

You can’t see Christ but the more you trust in Him, the more you will know He’s there, helping you. You’ll see time and space bending, shifting, and re-arranging itself.

I keep searching and seeking to fulfill my own imaginary needs. I still do it. But there is now something else operating in my life that has GOT MY NUMBER.

“I sought for many things, and found despair. Now do I seek but one, for in that one is all I need, and only what I need. All that I sought before I needed not, and did not even want.”

HOW TRUE!

“My only need I did not recognize. But now I see that I need only truth. In that all needs are satisfied, all cravings end, all hopes are finally fulfilled and dreams are gone. Now have I everything that I could need. Now have I everything that I could want. And now at last I find myself at peace.”

Thank you Father for these gifts, for Christ who walks with me, and for these mighty companions who travel with me.

To love my Father is to love His Son.

“Let me not think that I can find the way to God, if I have hatred in my heart.”

Loving your brother is what loving God is. It’s the same exact thing! Identical!

Amazing, huh?

Your brother - the guy out there, the stranger, the shopkeeper, your husband, your wife, your children, other people’s children - IS what God is.

He’s not in the sky. He’s not separate. He’s you - His Son - and He’s everyone you see and think of.

So … if you love God, then automatically, by the nature of what God is, you love everyone.

For a lot of people, this is a brand new idea. Most people think they have to stay guarded with other people until they get to know them. They wait until those other people show themselves lovable or worthy.

But if you love God …. IF YOU LOVE GOD … then you automatically love all those other people before you’ve even met them!

The whole human nature is to love only a select handful of people, based on criteria that you have determined. Think about it. Think about all the people you have loved in your life. It’s probably under 50 people, 100 tops.

200 if you’re really popular.

It probably took some time to love them. Even for “love at first sight” it usually has to do with a physical chemistry, or at least a couple of words exchanged between each other. Imagine just loving everyone without them doing anything at all! For no reason at all! Imagine having only love in your heart, for every single solitary person, for the murderer and the saint.

Equal love, all the time, no exceptions.

And on the opposite end of the spectrum, many people are famous for snatching love away if someone is not acting according to the way they think they should be acting … according to guidelines that have been determined by the snatcher himself.

If someone does not do what you want them to do, or does not say things the right way, or does not express their full emotion, or is guarded … then you justify a reason for taking that love away.

“I don’t love him (her) anymore” is the most insane ridiculous statement in the whole human language.

What you are saying then (perhaps unconsciously) is that you don’t love God.

What does Jesus say on the subject??

Love thy Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind and soul … and thy neighbor as thyself.

Here’s a beautiful prayer from today’s Lesson:

“I will accept the way You have chosen for me to come to You, my Father. For in that will I succeed, because it is Your Will. And I would recognize that what Your will is what I will as well, and only that. And so I choose to love Your Son. Amen.”

God, Your Will is what I will as well, and only that. And so I choose to love Your Son.

Amen.

I love you.

I love you just the way you are.

(by Billy Joel)

Don’t go changing. I love you just the way you are.

I would not leave you in times of trouble.

I said I love you and that’s forever. That is a promise from the heart.