« Lesson 189 — Home —

Lesson 190

I choose the joy of God instead of pain.

p1. Pain is a wrong perspective. 2
When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. 3
It is not a fact at all. 4 There is no form
it takes that will not disappear if seen aright. 5
For pain proclaims God cruel. 6 How could it
be real in any form? 7 It witnesses to God the
Father’s hatred of His Son, the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane
desire for revenge and death.

p2. Can such projections be attested to? 2
Can they be anything but wholly false? 3 Pain
is but witness to the Son’s mistakes in what he thinks he is. 4
It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed;
for attack on what is wholly unassailable. 5
It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love, which could not leave
the Son whom It created out of love.

p3. Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. 2
It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and
seen as traitor to Himself. 3 If God is real,
there is no pain. 4 If pain is real, there is
no God. 5 For vengeance is not part of love.
6 And fear, denying love and using pain to prove
that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. 7
The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father
he has slain.

p4. Peace to such foolishness! 2 The
time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. 3
There is no need to think of them as savage crimes, or secret sins with
weighty consequence. 4 Who but a madman could
conceive of them as cause of anything? 5 Their
witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared than the insane
illusions which it shields, and tries to demonstrate must still be true.

p5. It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. 2
Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. 3
There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression.
4 No one but yourself affects you. 5
There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad,
or weak or frail. 6 But it is you who have the
power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are.
7 As you perceive the harmlessness in them,
they will accept your holy will as theirs. 8
And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.

p6. My holy brother, think of this awhile: The world you see does
nothing. 2 It has no effects at all. 3
It merely represents your thoughts. 4 And it
will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy
of God as what you really want. 5 Your Self
is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable, forever
and forever. 6 And would you deny a little corner
of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain; a
sickly place where living things must come at last to die?

p7. The world may seem to cause you pain. 2
And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. 3
As an effect, it cannot make effects. 4 As an
illusion, it is what you wish. 5 Your idle wishes
represent its pains. 6 Your strange desires
bring it evil dreams. 7 Your thoughts of death
envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live.

p8. Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc
in your holy mind. 2 Pain is the ransom you
have gladly paid not to be free. 3 In pain is
God denied the Son He loves. 4 In pain does
fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven.
5 And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter
place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught
of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery.

p9. Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet
place where Heaven’s peace holds all things still at last. 2
Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. 3
Let no attack enter with you. 4 Lay down the
cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside
the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness.

p10. Here will you understand there is no pain. 2
Here does the joy of God belong to you. 3 This
is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson that contains all
of salvation’s power. 4 It is this: Pain is
illusion; joy, reality. 5 Pain is but sleep;
joy is awakening. 6 Pain is deception; joy alone
is truth.

p11. And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made;
we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and
Heaven. 2 Let our gratitude unto our Teacher
fill our hearts, as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness
in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of
Heaven for the darkness of the world.

Posted on July 10, 2008 :: Print This Post

« Lesson 189 — Home —

Comments

Leave a Comment

If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Email Version

Enter your Email


Preview | Powered by FeedBlitz

Archives

Syndicate

Recently