“I do not perceive my own best interests…”
Perhaps today’s lesson immediately makes perfect sense to you. It certainly does to me, ~now, that is~ But it wasn’t always so for me. Although I could easily look around me and see how well (or poorly) my best thinking had served me, I. like everyone, was trapped in the cycle of victimhood, shame and futurism, totally distracting) me from the facts (let alone the truth).
Many eons of beating myself over the head and battering up my life, seemed to be the only way to get me to surrender and see that my belief that I knew what was in my best interest was wrong. It was a seductive lie. From there I dreamed up the rest; what I liked and what would make me happy. What a thick skull the dream of guilt posses, eh?
As I have looked with honesty at every seeming situation in my so-called life as they arise; reviewing the past, expecting a possible outcome in the future, or feel I even know what I am doing now, I see honestly that
1) I have never being right about any of it.
2) ‘It’ has never really been in the now, whatever this instant’s seemingly apparent situation was.
3) Even my seeming “told-ya-so”s’ have required justification and a massive story to keep alive. No wonder I have felt weary, overwhelmed, exhausted…dis-spirited.
The pain of having to have things figured out became the very catalyst for letting go. In whole hearted defeat by my ‘best’ judgment, I gave up…. I finally no longer believed anything that the guilty, self-loathing, self-aggrandizing voice tried to pass off as ‘right’ for me or anyone.
For one instant, I completely emptied out. And in that moment of defeat I saw the present for what I was: All there is! In that instant of release, I found out what willingness means. It means, ‘I know not, yet knowledge knows and I am to be danced by its pace.
What a joyous relief! What a burden it was to think I know and then have the responsibility of making ‘it all go the right way’ for all the characters in my dream. Frightening…Exhausting…and futile…
Thank God there is One who does Know, the Holy Spirit within my mind is so close to me I cannot see, yet closer than my hand to reach out and touch ~ always, already. I need only accept this statement, “I do not perceive my own best interests”…
So, I am at peace with not ‘figuring-it-out’ (most of the time) I have found that only ‘not-knowing’ gives me peace, only ‘not-knowing’ cracks open my strategic mind to that still place within, where I reside along with Christ…
It is this still instant from which I emerge with new perception, with trust Christ and in my brothers and myself~
The more I am willing to accept this, the more I experience peace of mind. It is such a practical, powerful and useful instrument in the process of forgiving the world. Apply the principle and allow the Holy Spirit to visit into my mind the replacement thought for the one that I thought I knew. One I appreciate, value and utilize.
It is enlivening to allow for the present moment to be enough; to trust that all that is needed will be supplied, that joy is here, now, the instant I am present and accounted for.
A phrase from a poem by David Whyte that really struck a cord with me and I always recall whenever I start deviating into weariness is this:
“The antidote for exhaustion is not necessarily rest.
The antidote for exhaustion is WHOLE-HEARTEDNESS,”
Yes!
Like the Course says, All Happiness comes from doing God’s will…and I can’t know God’s Will as along as I think there is a will apart from Him…I merely relinquish what I think ‘my’ will is to see they are the same. This make today’s lesson pretty reasonable to accept for what is, yes?
“I do not perceive my own best interests…”
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