Lesson 149

Review 4: My mind holds only what I think with God.

Practice Instructions

Commentary

More and more, as we progress through the Workbook, what we are being asked to do is really to commune with God. Or, to put it in more mundane terms, to get back into communication with Him:

You taught yourself the most unnatural habit of not communicating with your Creator. Yet you remain in close communication with Him and with everything that is within Him, as it is within yourself. Unlearn isolation through His loving guidance, and learn of all the happy communication that you have thrown away, but could not lose. (T-14.IV.9:6-8)

As we clear our minds of lesser thoughts and tune in to the thoughts we share with God, thoughts will come to our minds, and they won’t be from ourselves alone:

And so each one will bring the message of His love to you, returning messages of yours to Him. So will communion with the Lord of hosts be yours, as He Himself has willed it be. (W-Re.4.In.6:3-4)

Connecting in my mind with God connects me, as well, with my brothers and sisters, because all of us are connected to the Source. I am not healed alone.

I could use a “message of His love” today; how about you? And I wouldn’t mind returning my message of love to Him, as well. There are moments in a loving relationship where the love just seems to be ping-ponging back and forth so fast you can’t follow it, you can’t even be sure whose love is whose. It outstrips ping-ponging, in fact; it transcends the back-and-forth motion implied by that analogy and becomes a constant, cyclical current of love, going both ways simultaneously. You don’t even feel as though you are doing anything; you are just caught in the current, possessed by love. Sort of the way you might feel when you look into your beloved’s eyes and feel you are falling in, when the love coming back at you is almost too much to bear, and the love you are feeling threatens to blow your circuits. I’d like a moment like that today with my Beloved. Well, I’d like a moment like that this year. I’ve had such moments, but they are rare.

Why are they rare? Having those moments of communion, which are a foretaste of Heaven, is up to me. It’s a decision I must make; no, the decision I must make:

The instant in which magnitude will dawn upon you is but as far away as is your desire for it. As long as you desire it not and cherish littleness instead, by so much is it far from you. By so much as you want it will you bring it nearer. (T-15.IV.2:3-5)

It is nearer than my own heart, so close. This ecstasy of love, this communion with God, is actually going on right now. My right mind has never ceased to be in perfect communication with Him (see T-13.XII.6-7). “The part of your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not” (W-49.1:2).

So all that is necessary is to decide that I want it, and it is there. I just plug in to it. What is it that prevents me from choosing it? What keeps me from letting myself fall in love with God? What holds me back? Am I willing to be in love with everyone, or am I afraid of appearing too “mooshy”? Am I afraid of being out of control? Am I afraid of being too vulnerable? What holds me back? Let me look at myself today and ask myself, “Why am I not experiencing being in Heaven right now?”

When you realize that you could just “switch over” at any instant—and that you don’t!—it is a sobering moment. All of a sudden you can’t blame anyone or anything for experiencing anything less than Heaven. You recognize that you are choosing it; “I am doing this to myself” (see T-27.XI.1:1). There is literally nothing to prevent me from experiencing the holy instant right now. Nothing but my refusal to accept it; nothing but my fear. “So we begin today considering the choice that time was made to help us make” (W-138.7:1). There is no rush; we have all of time to make this choice. But why wait? Why not now?