April 17
"Truth
will correct all errors in my mind."
PRACTICE
SUMMARY
Purpose: To let truth correct your dreams. To give truth its due, that
it may give you yours. To recognize it belongs to you.Longer: every hour on the hour 5 minutes
* Ask your Self to be in your awareness. He always goes with you for He is identical to you. Let truth correct all your mistaken beliefs that He could be apart from you. Say, with His confidence: "Truth will correct all errors in my mind. And I will rest in Him Who is my Self."
* Then let Him lead you to the truth. It will encompass you and give you peace so deep that you will return to the world reluctantly. Yet you will be glad to bring the truth back with you to heal the world. You will let your Self's function be expressed through you, that you may share His joy.
Remarks: Every five minutes you give will correct your errors as well as increase the gifts you give the world. Practice on the happy note of certainty, not with the unsteady footsteps of illusions. Be certain of success. Count on truth to enter the exercises.
Shorter: Do not forget today
Repeat idea with confidence. Each time you do you let your Self express through you and release the world, as well as you.
COMMENTARY
This is the promise that gives courage! Errors are only errors, not flaws. "What are errors but illusions that remain unrecognized for what they are?"An illusion that is not recognized as illusion causes us to react as if it were real. If I see an illusory enemy and respond with attack, that does not make me bad or stupid. The reaction was appropriate, given what I believed to be the truth.
I can recall many evenings in the past where I was sitting at home feeling lonely and world-weary. Something in me saw an illusion and believed it to be true. I saw some loneliness or weariness, a need to be comforted, and so I sought comfort in television and in staying up late. What I did was not the mistake; the mistake was believing the illusion was real. When I look at the illusion, it vanishes.
The holy instant is a state of mind without illusions, a moment of unquestioned peace, "when you were certain you were loved and safe" (2:3). It is a foretaste of "the state your mind will rest in when truth has come" (3:1). It is my true state. I can find that true state any time I am willing to look at my illusions and to let them go. So often, late at night, I used to feel disconnected, unfulfilled, empty somehow, and I tried to fill that emptiness with fantasy, television, reading, or food. The emptiness is illusion. When I feel that emptiness let me remember it is not real; let me affirm my fullness.
The state of mind that stays exactly as it always was, without shifting and changing, still seems so far away from me. Jesus says, "It will be yours; it already is yours. It is guaranteed." "It is impossible that anyone could seek it truly, and would not succeed" (6:4). The seeming shifts and changes I go through now are all part of the illusion; they are not real, they are not truly happening. I am safe; I am steady; I am whole.
When the shifting and faltering seem to occur, let me remind myself they are only a dream. They mean nothing, they change nothing. Let me not accord them strength to disturb my peace. Let me not make the mistake of identifying with that shift and change and thinking it is me that is shifting and changing. I am fixed and unalterable.
The errors in my mind are those that tell me I could be apart from Jesus, the Christ. He is my Brother. We are the same. He is my Self. How can I be apart from my Self?
Let me take regular times today to return to this center, to recognize that Jesus and I are One Self. Today I will bring any thought that tells me different to him for correction. Any thought that tells me I am something other than this calm, serene, fearless, wholly fulfilled Being. Let me watch my mind for thoughts that say otherwise and bring them fearlessly to the light of truth. Jesus, help me to break the connection, the identification with any thought of weakness or emptiness or disconnectedness. Let me lean on your strong arm and trust in you. Let the demons scream and rant and rave around me; though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me (Psalm 23). You are the Strong One in me, and You are my Self.
Copyright © 1996, The Circle of Atonement, Sedona,
Arizona, USA.
All rights reserved.