On Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:00:01 GMT, Gene Ward Smith
chewbacca.org>
wrote:
>MikeRyder
nospam.com> wrote in
>news:iltav3tu35vr9goi4n5bo7kg78m4hat1oc@4ax.com:
>>> You have asked that I open discussion of the Workbook's
>lessons. I
>> will do as you asked.
>>
>> What is your analysis of the following Lesson 155? In
>particular, how
>> do you conceptualize paragraphs 1, 5 and 6?
>
>This isn't a very good way to open a discussion, since you
>aren't saying anything.
After you got in your dig here, you did continue on. So I will do so
as well...
>I don't see any need to
>"conceptualize" much of what this lesson is saying, beyond
>the remark that I presume it means what it says. It mostly
>seems quite straightforward to me.
If you dont like "conceptualize" I'll substitute the word "interpret."
>
>Some particular comments where things do not seem entirely
>clear: I wonder about the claim that "Those who choose to
>come to it are seeking for a place where they can be
>illusions, and avoid their own reality", since I wonder if it
>applied even to Jesus.
I dont see why you would have a problem with this. You refer to Jesus
again. If you're referring to the historical Jesus, how would it not
have been that he came here to avoid his reality? What the historical
Jesus did *with* that is another story altogether.
>I don't know what to make of "You walk
>this path as others walk, nor do you seem to be distinct from
>them, although you are indeed"; it seems worth thinking
>about.
This is one of the central features of the lesson -- conceptualized in
such a way that the ego thought system can gain a modicum of
understanding. But the "modicum" of understanding is only superficial.
I will tell you this...and you will take it for what it's worth to
you. This passage can not be understood by thinking more about it. It
only becomes understandable when a person opens up his mind to what
I've been talking about all along -- to the "no thing," "nothingness,"
however one may want to describe it using ego's inadequate words.
>"We walk to God. The truth that walks before us now is
>one with Him, and leads us to where He has always been" I
>presume is talking about the Holy Spirit.
This ties in with the idea that when a person stills his mind, he
comes unto his God -- God being the nothingness that only the ego
would define it as.
A question might be, does the "Holy Spirit lead the way to God," or
does "God take the final step"? From my own standpoint, I dont see
this question to be a particularly important one, because a successful
"walk to God" either way results in opening to the "nothingness,"
which is nothing only because the ego cannot conceive of it.
To put it another way, the passage refers to efficacy of the undoing
of the ego in a practical way. And the undoing does not mean the ego
is going to disappear. It means that one having opened to the "no
thing" that is God can now see the ego for what it is. When that
happens the ego has lost its power.
>
>Here is the nitty gritty in terms of practice:
>
>And now He asks but that you think of Him
>a while each day, that He may speak to you
>and tell you of His Love, reminding you
>how great His trust; how limitless His Love.
>In your Name and His Own, which are the same,
>we practice gladly with this thought today:
A person can indeed read this as a practice, and maybe come up with
a...ritual to go with it. But "thinking of God" can also be, and is, a
metaphorical way of saying that a person can become aware of God
directly -- even when he opens his body's eyes afterward and the world
of form is still there. The perception of the world, however, is now
radically changed. For sure, there is still the injustice and the
conflict to be seen, as the ego will want to continue trying to show
those things, but the person who has opened up to God directly Knows
(and I use a capital K specifically) that what the ego shows is the
real nothing.
The lesson goes on to say:
"This is the way appointed for you now. 3 You
walk this path as others walk, nor do you seem to be distinct from
them, although you are indeed. 4 Thus can you serve them while you
serve yourself, and set their footsteps on the way that God has opened
up to you, and them through you.
W-155.6. Illusion still appears to cling to you, that you may
reach them. 2 Yet it has stepped back. 3 And it is not illusion that
they hear you speak of, nor illusion that you bring their eyes to look
on and their minds to grasp."
This is the result of having opened up to God directly. It can be done
right now.
>What happens when people apply this lesson? His limitless
>love is more than a religious-sounding phrase, and as He
>speaks to us through His Voice, we can become aware of a bit
>of it.
Here is where a definition of "love" is needed. Love is more than just
an emotion, though the ego will want to define it so. Instead, love is
creation itself. Love is therefore God. And when a person opens his
mind to the "no thing," the "nothingness" as the ego would see it, he
opens directly...unto God. And *why* the world looks so radically
different when the person opens his body's eyes again is because he
now sees the world through the eyes of ongoing creation, not as death,
which is what the ego insists on trying to show.
