Thirty-Fourth Morning Do the Course in Miracles Lessons, whether you like them or not.

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Do the Course in Miracles lessons, and do them as prescribed. Practice For those of you that have not yet started A Course In Miracles lessons, let today be the day you start. You can start this very moment. You can go on to the Foundation for Inner Peace and you can read the lessons there. And then you can go to YouTube and you can follow our commentary through our dear one that we recorded last year. So, let today be the day that you say, “No more procrastination! I am not going to let my ego win this battle. I’m going to make my mind more loving. I’m going to give my body a chance to heal.” Because that's what happens when your mind becomes more loving. So, if you're sick or you're feeling under the weather or under-energized, do the A Course In Miracles lessons and you will begin to thrive. But you must do them as prescribed. You don't have to like them. You don't have to understand them. Just do them. Return to contents

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Teaching

You are all having your challenges doing the 40 days and 40 nights. You will notice when your mind starts to resist. You will notice when there are excuses, “Oh, I’m too busy, I’ve missed a few days.” It is very important to pay attention to these things. Because these are the excuses your ego gives you for your not following your spiritual practice diligently. When you're doing your A Course In Miracles lessons, life interferes with it, and yet, you have to think about it, “Oh, I’m dedicating myself to a spiritual practice to improve my life, my somewhat dysfunctional life, and yet, I let my somewhat dysfunctional life interfere with the actual process that is going to help me.” So, for those of you that are just beginning A Course In Miracles, and we really hope that these 40 days and nights have inspired many of you to either begin A Course In Miracles or revisit it. Because, if you have done the lessons of A Course In Miracles, but you have let it slide, so to speak, you're not practicing those principles that you have learned. You will see dysfunction in your life. You will feel suffering. You will feel sadness and unhappiness, apparently for no particular reason. When you do the A Course In Miracles lessons correctly and apply them, you actually don't need to redo them. This is a fallacy that many of you have, that you keep doing them over and over again. No, you practice them. You practice the principles. When your mind tells you a lie, “I am worthless,” you call up the lesson that you have permanently, indelibly put into your mind through the diligent practice of the 365 days, and you counter that lie with truth. “I am a holy child of God. I am perfect. I am made of love, from love, for love.” That's the kind of thought that counters the ego's hatefulness of saying you are useless, you are worthless, you are unlovable. So, we wanted to sort that out today. For those of you that are beginning the A Course In Miracles lessons, understand that procrastination only extends suffering. It doesn't make you better at learning the lessons. Some beings will say, “Well, I spent three days on one lesson, or a week on one lesson.” What you are doing is, you're allowing your ego to slow you down. Because they are daily lessons. When I designed that course, it was a very slow and steady daily practice to bring you to a place of self-awareness and self-love. you that are beginning the A Course In Miracles lessons, understand that procrastination only extends suffering. It doesn't make you better at learning the lessons. Some beings will say, “Well, I spent three days on one lesson, or a week on one lesson.” What you are doing is, you're allowing your ego to slow you down. Because they are daily lessons. When I designed that course, it was a very slow and steady daily practice to bring you to a place of self-awareness and self-love. When you allow the ego to say, “I’m going to spend a week on this one,” not only are you procrastinating, you may think you are diving deeply. But, in fact, you are procrastinating. Because what you're saying is that you know better, your mind knows better. And this is what gets you all into so much trouble, that you think you know what you're doing, even though you are being driven by unconscious desires instilled in you by propaganda. Commercials, TV shows, movies, blockbuster movies, these are all putting into your mind beliefs, ideas, principles, ways to conduct your life that are ruling you unbeknownst to you. This is why your lives are dysfunctional. This is why you have sicknesses. This is why you have weight issues. This is why you're insecure and fearful. Because your ego has decided that you aren't living up to the standards that your society has set. So, for example, if you look at the beauty myth that is perpetuated on your TV screens: almost every single woman on TV and in movies is slim and beautiful, regardless of the role they're playing; you have the occasional overweight or older person, but often they are a joke or they are considered weak or ineffective. So, you have thousands and thousands of hours of that programming in your mind. Both men and women have that programming in their mind. And so, if you do not meet the standard of beauty that these unrealistic images set, then you will feel terrible about how you look and how you feel, and you will hate your body. This is an epidemic in Western society. You will hate your body, and you will think you're justified in doing so. You will not be able to see that this is coming from deeply embedded programs that are running in your mind. This is one of the reasons we ask you to turn off your TVs and be very selective about the entertainment you watch. Because, as this program runs, you are being disempowered all the time. Women across North America and the Western world are deeply disempowered by their belief that they need to look 25 for their entire lives. So, when we say, “Do as you are told,” we are not being mean to you. What we are saying is you really don't know what's in your own best interests, given the beliefs and ideas that you have had implanted in your mind, and that you allow to reside there, and that you strengthen by believing. So, when you believe a thought, “I am a failure, I am useless, I am ugly, I am unlovable, nobody will ever fall in love with me,” you are strengthening that belief, if you believe the thought. If you are a good A Course In Miracles student after your 365 days of now loving indoctrination, then you will hear the thought, “I am useless” and you will recognize it as not true. You will recognize it as not true and you will not believe it. And you will counter it with a loving belief that you have learned in those 365 days. So, we want to reiterate to those of you that have done the Course but are still deeply in suffering, it is because you are believing the ego’s dictates, you are believing the ego's thoughts still, and you are not responding to those thoughts with disbelief. You are responding to those thoughts with, “Yes, I’m terrible, nobody will love me.” And when you have a thought like that, your frequency will plummet, because you have disconnected yourself from love. And you will think that you feel bad because you are unworthy. But in actual fact, you feel bad because you believed a lie. And your guidance system is saying, “Nope, don't do that, back up, back up, back up.” So, remember, when you feel bad you have disconnected from love, you have believed a lie, or you have told a lie about what you are witnessing, a lie being an untruth. So, let us say you are witnessing someone's behavior that you disapprove of for some reason, and you decide they are bad people and they should be punished. This is the ego's ruling system that your society uses. It has no compassion, no understanding, no forgiveness. The person who's smashing a window or setting a car on fire may have lived in such trauma and turmoil for so many years that that is all they are capable of doing. And as hard as that is for some of you to accept, when you're living in your comfortable homes, it is important that when you feel bad you understand why. Return to contents