Lesson 71 – Only God’s plan for salvation will work.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary

From 2011:  Today’s meditation clearly instructs us to ask God, “What should I do?  Where should I go?  What should I say and to whom?”  I asked and received some specific information but even though it was specific, it was simultaneously translated to this:

One is the Same as Another.
Everything is Easy.

God explained:  Your questions need to be specific for now, so my Answer may seem to be specific so you can understand it, but ultimately all people are the same (One Unified Creation) and all answers are the same (Love).  However, we will practice in form for a while longer using your body and the concept of time until your fear dissolves enough that generalization occurs naturally.

Marinating in the Self since that 2011 blogpost now has me here:  Lesson 71 directs us very specifically, “… let us devote the remainder of the extended practice periods to asking God to reveal His plan to us.  Ask Him very specifically:

1. What would you have me do?
2. Where would You have me go?
3. What would You have me say, and to whom?”

In the Epilogue to the Workbook for Students, Jesus say, “No more specific lessons are assigned, for there is no more need of them.  Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God and for your Self when you retire from the world, to seek reality instead.”  What is clear now is that consciousness is streaming through everyone and everything everywhere.  Therefore, the answers are (1) Love, (2) Wherever I am, (3) What You Would Say through me to everyone.

Shapes and forms appear different, but consciousness is the same.  This consciousness is the right-minded choosing point where one decides for unconscious guilty separation, or reabsorption into the Oneness from which we seemed to emerge.  Source has no opposite, no description, no comparisons, no mission.  God is and then we cease to speak.

 

LESSON 71

Only God’s plan for salvation will work.

You may not realize that the ego has set up a plan for salvation in opposition to God’s.  It is this plan in which you believe.  Since it is the opposite of God’s, you also believe that to accept God’s plan in place of the ego’s is to be damned.  This sounds preposterous, of course.  Yet after we have considered just what the ego’s plan is, perhaps you will realize that, however preposterous it may be, you do believe in it.

The ego’s plan for salvation centers around holding grievances.  It maintains that, if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved.  Thus, the source of salvation is constantly perceived as outside yourself.  Each grievance you hold is a declaration, and an assertion in which you believe, that says, “If this were different, I would be saved.”  The change of mind necessary for salvation is thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself.

The role assigned to your own mind in this plan, then, is simply to determine what, other than itself, must change if you are to be saved.  According to this insane plan, any perceived source of salvation is acceptable provided that it will not work.  This ensures that the fruitless search will continue, for the illusion persists that, although this hope has always failed, there is still grounds for hope in other places and in other things.  Another person will yet serve better; another situation will yet offer success.

Such is the ego’s plan for your salvation.  Surely you can see how it is in strict accord with the ego’s basic doctrine, “Seek but do not find.”  For what could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to channelize all your efforts in searching for it where it is not?

God’s plan for salvation works simply because, by following His direction, you seek for salvation where it is.  But if you are to succeed, as God promises you will, you must be willing to seek there only.  Otherwise, your purpose is divided and you will attempt to follow two plans for salvation that are diametrically opposed in all ways.  The result can only bring confusion, misery and a deep sense of failure and despair.

How can you escape all this?  Very simply.  The idea for today is the answer.  Only God’s plan for salvation will work.  There can be no real conflict about this, because there is no possible alternative to God’s plan that will save you.  His is the only plan that is certain in its outcome.  His is the only plan that must succeed.

Let us practice recognizing this certainty today.  And let us rejoice that there is an  answer to what seems to be a conflict with no resolution possible.  All things are possible to God.  Salvation must be yours because of His plan, which cannot fail.

Begin the two longer practice periods for today by thinking about today’s idea, and realizing that it contains two parts, each making equal contribution to the whole.  God’s plan for your salvation will work, and other plans will not.  Do not allow yourself to become depressed or angry at the second part; it is inherent in the first.  And in the first is your full release from all your own insane attempts and mad proposals to free yourself.  They have led to depression and anger; but God’s plan will succeed.  It will lead to release and joy.

Remembering this, let us devote the remainder of the extended practice periods to asking God to reveal His plan to us.  Ask Him very specifically:

What would you have me do?
Where would You have me go?
What would You have me say, and to whom?

Give Him full charge of the rest of the practice period, and let Him tell you what needs to be done by you in His plan for your salvation.  He will answer in proportion to your willingness to hear His Voice.  Refuse not to hear.  The very fact that you are doing the exercises proves that you have some willingness to listen.  This is enough to establish your claim to God’s answer.

In the shorter practice periods, tell yourself often that God’s plan for salvation, and only His, will work.  Be alert to all temptation to hold grievances today, and respond to them with this form of today’s idea:

Holding grievance is the opposite of God’s plan for salvation.  And only His plan will work.

Try to remember today’s idea some six or seven times an hour.  There could be no better way to spend a half minute or less than to remember the Source of your salvation, and to see It where It is.

Let’s practice together!  Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube.  Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.