Updated: More Lessons from the Workbook that suggest the inclusive heart
by Tom Baker
Date: Sunday, May 24th, 2009
I will begin today by quoting from the third Emmanuel book subtitled "What Is An Angel Doing Here?" In this book we are referred to loosely as angels who have forgotten that we are angels, forgetful rather than fallen, muddled rather than evil. When asked what a miracle is Emmanuel gives his usual charming and rather arresting answer:
"It is the natural flow of Love’s power.
It is the Angel present upon the planet Earth.
It is the Love that you feel in your own heart.A miracle is mind’s definition
for Love’s natural capacity to be.The mind sets up boundaries
of reasonable expectation and declares,
"This is the natural order."Love enters and knows no boundaries.
The presence of Love,
which is indeed the only reality that exists,
takes all of mind’s careful planning
and simply blows it to bits.Mind has determined, "Reason comes to this point
and can go no further."Love does not even see the barrier.
When Love crashes through
mind’s familiar understanding
of how things ‘ought’ to be,
mind can only cry out, ‘That’s a miracle!’‘No,’ Love answers, ‘that’s just the way I am.’"
(Emmanuel’s Book III compiled by Pat Rodegast and Judith Stanton, 1994, pp. 78-89)
In Course terms "mind" represents "ego" or, as Eckhart Tolle puts it, "egoic mind." The next inclusive heart lesson reflects the final line in the poem from last time, "’No,’ Love answers, "that’s just the way I am’" in which love declares itself as simply itself. (see Moses, Burning Bush, I am that I am, Exodus 3:1-15) Lesson 77 declares I am entitled to miracles. We are entitled to miracles simply because we are what we are, that which Love created like Itself. No proof necessary, only acceptance and a deep and simple opening to being.
"You are entitled to miracles because of what you are. You will receive miracles because of what God is. And you will offer miracles because you are one with God. Again, how simple is salvation! It is merely a statement of your true Identity. It is this that we will celebrate today.
Your claim to miracles does not lie in your illusions about yourself. It does not depend on any magical powers you have ascribed to yourself, nor in any of the rituals you have devised. It is inherent in the truth of what you are. It is implicit in what God your Father is. It was ensured in your creation, and guaranteed by the laws of God." (Workbook, L. 77, p. 137)
Lesson 78 Let miracles replace all grievances has the angel look back over her shoulder and nod to what has shaped her response to joy as she allows blessing to take the place of disgust (from the Latin gustus, taste, as in "The thought of you tastes bad").
"Perhaps it is not quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal…….He waits for you behind your grievances, and as you lay them down he will appear in shining light where each one stood before. For every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts you see the Son of God where he has always been." (W. L. 77, p. 139).
In Lesson 93 Light and joy abide in me assures us we need not replace what we fear is our poisonous, repulsive heart with someone or something that is pure or cleansing or more noble. The good Jesus does not redeem his evil sister in Mary Magdalen but only sees her for the fellow angel she is.
"You think you are the home of evil, darkness, and sin. You think if anyone could see the truth about you he would be repelled, recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake. You think if what is true about you were revealed to you, you would be struck with horror so intense that you would rush to death by your own hand, living on after seeing this being impossible.
These beliefs are so firmly fixed that it is difficult to help you see that they are based on nothing." (W. L. 93, p. 161)
Lesson 95 I am one Self, united with my Creator has in it the interesting assertion that nothing we have done or said or thought or failed to do, say, or think can change the angel that we are. In other words, our heart of love is invulnerable to ours or anyone else’s behavior. Being out of step with love doesn’t make you bad, it simply and often deeply mixes you up so that you confuse what is with what is not. Judgment is like mistaking the bad weather for the beautiful mountain.
"Today’s idea accurately describes you as God created you. You are one within yourself, and one with Him. Yours is the unity of all creation. Your perfect unity makes change in you impossible. You do not accept this, and you fail to realize it must be so, only because you believe you have changed yourself already.
You see yourself as a ridiculous parody on God’s creation; weak, vicious, ugly and sinful, miserable and beset with pain. Such is your version of yourself; a self divided into many warring parts, separate from God, and tenuously held together by its erratic and capricious maker [the ego], to which you pray [the conditional god of popular religion]. It does not hear your prayers, for it is deaf. It does not see the oneness in you, for it is blind. It does not understand you are the Son of God, for it is senseless and understands nothing.
We will attempt today to be aware of only what can hear and see, and what makes perfect sense. We will again direct our exercises towards reaching your one Self, which is united with Its Creator. In patience and in hope we try again today." (W. L. 95, p. 166).
Lesson 102, I share God’s Will for happiness for me is one of the many times in which the Course reminds us of what we really want. It is deep within the earth’s religious consciousness that suffering is the price we pay for salvation. Jesus himself has often been reduced to a martyr and his followers, martyrs in his name. In the Course Jesus is teaching that there need be no prerequisite to happiness, no condition that must be met first. A way to think about it might be to say, "The first thing I am, before I think about it, is happy." Only unhappiness needs reasons. The glue that makes unhappiness stick to our consciousness is old anger or grievances, both against others and ourselves.
"You do not want to suffer. You may think it buys you something, and may still believe a little that it buys you what you want. Yet this belief is surely shaken now, at least enough to let you question it, and to suspect it really makes no sense. It has not gone as yet, but lacks the roots that once secured it tightly to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind: I share God’s Will for happiness for me, and I accept it as my function now." (W. L. 102, p. 184).
Lesson 121 Forgiveness is the key to happiness answers the question, "What will finally make me happy?" To give blessing is to receive it. See the light in them, then ask the blessing of that light for yourself.
"Each unforgiving mind presents you with an opportunity to teach your own [mind] how to forgive itself. Each one awaits release from hell through you, and turns to you imploringly for Heaven here and now. It has no hope, but you become its hope. And as its hope, do you become your own. The unforgiving mind must learn through your forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. And as you teach salvation, you will learn. Yet all your teaching and your learning will be not of you, but of the Teacher Who was given you to show the way to you [the holy spirit]." (W. L. 121, p. 215).
© Copyright Tom Baker 2009