Lesson: Week 19
by Tom Baker
Lesson 69: My grievances hide the light of the world in me.
Not only does love not hold grievances, but the grievances we keep hide the light of God that is within us. They shroud our love in darkness by making the "clouds" that surround the light within us. We literally get lost in our grievances. When we challenge our grievances we naturally begin to have more gratitude for everything in our world. Another way to say this is that when I accept what is I smile upon the world. Our old, egotistical way of thinking would be, "God or the universe is smiling upon me when I get what I want." When I am in the ego’s consciousness I of course do not know what I want.
Lesson 70: My salvation comes from me.
This lesson declares the triumph of the true self. No one outside of ourselves brings us salvation and no one outside of ourselves brings us guilt. A savior is simply one who introduces us to our true selves, while the ego gives us our false self. The resurrected Jesus is the true self of Jesus. The Holy Spirit (in Jesus or in any teacher of God who can reach us) is the other who teaches us that It nor God is the other or the enemy or the judge or a stranger. It is the ego idea that gives the Holy Spirit or God those attributes. The will of love is our true will, just as our true nature is love, for Love created us like Itself.
Lesson 71: Only God’s plan for salvation will work.
The ego’s plan for salvation "maintains that, if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved." That is why the ego’s counsel so often is to move or divorce or even to commit suicide. With a change in circumstance or the absence of certain people in our lives, everything would be better: "Another person will yet serve better; another situation will yet offer success." Change is of the ego when a grievance is ignored or worsened or put off for later to be resolved. The dilemma of what to choose and what to change is resolved by making Love our authority asking Him what to do, where to go, and what to say and to whom. All this by resolving to withdraw any and all grievances.
© Copyright Tom Baker 2014