❤❤❤Lesson 71: Only God’s plan for salvation will work.

The ego has set up a plan for salvation in opposition to God’s, and its plan centers on holding grievances. It maintains that if someone else spoke or acted differently or if some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved. It involves looking for salvation outside yourself, from any place except you. Since you already have learned that there is nothing outside of you, the ego’s plan cannot but fail. In fact the ego’s basic doctrine is “Seek but do not find.”

The role assigned to your own mind in the ego’s plan, then, is simply to determine what, other than itself, must change if you are to be saved. According to this insane plan, any perceived source of salvation is acceptable provided that it will not work. This ensures that the fruitless search will continue, for the illusion persists that, although this hope has always failed, there is still grounds for hope in other places and in other things. Another person will yet serve better; another situation will yet offer success.

God’s plan is in your mind (where the need for it is), and is wholly centered on forgiveness, on seeing things differently (truly, gently, lovingly) as guided by the Holy Spirit. His plan works simply because, by following His direction, you seek for salvation where it is. But if you are to succeed, as God promises you will, you must be willing to seek there only. Otherwise your purpose is divided and you will attempt to follow two plans for salvation that are diametrically opposed in all ways. The result can only bring confusion, misery, and a deep sense of failure and despair.

How can you escape all this? Very simply. Remember that only God’s plan for salvation will work. Look for it where it waits for you, and ask God to reveal His plan to you. Ask Him very specifically:

What would You have me do?

Where would you have me go?

What would You have me say, and to whom?

He will answer in proportion to your willingness to hear His Voice. Remember the Source of your salvation, that God always answers truly, and see His plan where It is. Seek (will) and you will find.

Lesson 72: Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.

The ego’s fundamental wish is to replace God, and is the physical embodiment of that wish. The body seems to surround the mind like a fence, keeping it separate and alone, and unable to reach other minds except through the limitation of the body. This implies that God is also a body as you were created in His Image. If the body were real, it would be difficult to escape this conclusion. A Creator wholly unlike his creation is inconceivable.

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 stands at the center of your concept of yourself, you are attacking God’s plan for salvation by holding grievances against Him and His creation. This upside-down perception has been ruinous to your health and to your peace of mind.

When holding grievances, you are not dealing with what the person is. On the contrary, you are exclusively concerned with what he does in a body. To recognize the light of truth is to recognize yourself and your brothers as you are. Your Self is One with God, therefore separate from the body. Ask your Father what salvation is; wait in silence and listen for His answer. His answer will be true.

Lesson 73: I will there be light.

Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. Neither light nor darkness can be found outside yourself, because there is nothing outside yourself. Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see. Grievances darken your mind making seeing impossible. Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will with God, and lets you look upon a world of light as a co-creator with God. Do you agree that in truth, suffering is not what you want, and happiness is what you want? Accepting God’s plan for salvation, and willing with Him that there be only light, will bring you the happiness you want. So join your will with the power of God and the Christ. When you join your will with Them, nothing can prevail against you.

Lesson 74: There is no will but God’s.

This idea can be regarded as the central thought toward which all the exercises are directed. God’s is the only Will. Therefore His Will is unopposed and nothing apart from Him and His Creation exists. This includes you. Therefore there can be no conflict, between you or in you. The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It cannot come where there is conflict, for a mind at war against itself does not remember eternal gentleness. So where does conflict come from?

“The war against yourself is but the battle of two illusions . . .

There is no conflict between them and the truth . . .

Truth does not fight against illusions, nor do illusions fight against the truth.

Illusions battle only with themselves.”

(T-23.I.6:1-2,7:3-4)

To discern the reality of peaceful feelings (as opposed to false peace resulting from withdrawal and repression), recognize that true peace brings a deep sense of joy and an increased alertness, while false peace brings drowsiness and enervation.

Lesson 75: The light has come.

There are no dark dreams now. The light has come. A new world is born. The old one has left no trace upon it in its passing. Today you see a different world, a passing of the old and the beginning of the new. Today no shadows from the past remain to darken your sight and hide the world forgiveness offers you. The new world is what you want to see; you will be given what you desire. So keep a completely open mind, washed of all past ideas and clean of every concept you have made. Look upon the world now as if you never saw it before. Let it be shown to you. Your forgiveness entitles you to vision. The Holy Spirit will be with you while you watch and wait. He will show you what true vision sees. It is His Will, and you have joined your will with His. The light has come.

Lesson 76: I am under no laws but God’s.

You have observed how many senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation. Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. You are not bound by them because they have no meaning and they make no sense. They are all concerned with the body and the body is not real. There are no laws except the laws of God. Magic has no meaning.

You are perfect, formless mind, each of you parts of a seamless whole, but you have wished to separate and fragment a small piece of your mind which you call “me.” Moreover, you have not only wished to do so, you have convinced yourselves that you have actually done it. Thus your sense of identity has become restricted to this little fragment of mind. Your mind has felt enormous guilt because of this false belief. Lies beget guilt; truth begets innocence.

You have made up a world filled with bodies for two reasons: first, to support your illusions of separateness; and second, to escape from the guilt in your minds by projecting that guilt onto the world and the “others” who fill it.

You have become primarily identified with your body, rather than with the fragment of mind you perceive as being within the body. Believing that as a body you are endangered by many things in the world, you have devised an endless list of means for protecting and preserving the body. These are the “laws” of the world spoken of in this lesson:

• You think you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs (money).

• You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death (innoculation).

• You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.

• You think you must obey the “laws” of medicine, of economics and of health.

• You believe you must obey the “laws” of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the body’s protection in innumerable ways.

• You believe in the laws” of friendship, of “good” relationships and reciprocity.

Yet you are not bound by any of the “laws” of the world, laws you made up to “save” you. In order to free yourselves from the belief in these laws, you must first realize that your salvation does not lie in them. You have to realize that your bodies and your egos are not what need preservation. You have to undo the mistake you have made in identifying what and who you are according to the dictates of the ego.

As long as you are seeking for salvation by attempting to change something – anything – other than your minds, the course is telling you that your subjugation to these laws is yet another thing that you have chosen in yet another attempt to allow yourselves to be blinded once again by the ego. The laws you think you must obey in order to save your bodies are just the mind’s attempt to camouflage the real problem, which is that you think your mind’s thoughts of guilt and separation are real. You must bring these illusions to the Holy Spirit to be exchanged for the truth. Recognizing the truth of who you are will release you from your belief in all these worldly laws.

The Holy Spirit will tell you about the Love your Father has for you,

and about the endless joy He offers you,

and about His yearning for His only Son,

and about the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever.

(W-76.10,11.all)

Lesson 77: I am entitled to miracles.

“I will not trade miracles for grievances. I want only what belongs to me.

God has established miracles as my right.”

(W-77.8:3-5)

You are promised FULL RELEASE from the world you made. You are assured that the Kingdom of God is WITHIN YOU, and can never be lost. You ask for no more than that which belongs to you because of what you are. The Holy Spirit will grant you your request. ❤