LESSON 203
July 22
"I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me."
"I call upon God's Name and on my own."
"I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me."
PRACTICE SUMMARY
Review VI
Purpose: To carefully review the last 20 lessons, each of which contains the whole curriculum and is therefore sufficient for salvation, if understood, practiced, accepted and applied without exception.
Morning/Evening Quiet Time: 15 minutes - at least
Repeat: "I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me."
Close eyes and relinquish all that clutters the mind; forget all you thought you knew. Give the time to the Holy Spirit, your Teacher. If you notice an idle thought, immediately deny its hold, assuring your mind that you do not want it. Then let it be given up and replaced with today's idea. Say: "This thought I do not want. I choose instead (today's idea)."
Remarks: We are attempting to go beyond special forms of practice because we are attempting a quicker pace and shorter path to our goal.
Hourly Remembrance: Repeat: "I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me."
Frequent Reminder: as often as possible, as often as you can.
Repeat: "I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me."
Response To Temptation: permit no idle thought to go unchallenged.
If you are tempted by an idle thought, immediately deny its hold, assuring your mind that you do not want it. Then let it be given up and replaced with today's idea. Say: "This thought I do not want. I choose instead (today's idea)."
COMMENTARY
To "call upon" the Name of God is not simply to repeat a word, but to reach out from within myself, affirming my connection to my Source. To call upon this Name means to remind myself of my union with God. "...it is my own [name] as well as His" (1:2). In a sense, it is similar to the way soldiers in battle might cry out the name of their king, or the way a football crowd chants the name of a favorite player. It is a means of identification, an affirmation of a solidarity and unity.
Yet it is more than any such thing that we might compare it with in this world, because God's Name is my name in a much deeper sense than mere emotional identification. I am the extension of God. What He is, I am as well. I am created of the essence of Godhead. "I am still as God created me" (1:5). I affirm this every time I call upon His Name.
To call upon God's Name is to remind myself that the lesser name and the lesser self with which I commonly identify is not who I am. "I am not a body" (1:3). In the midst of the daily crunch of busy-ness, when I call on this Name, I am delivered "from every thought of evil and of sin" (1:2). When I feel limited or confined, I can rediscover my freedom by calling on His Name. I remember that I am not this body; I am free.
As I sit in quiet today, let me open to the experience of God. Let me become aware of the vast Love without boundary or restriction. Let me sink into His limitless peace. Let me be transported in His joy. And as I do, let me remember that all that I experience of God, I AM. Let me call, too, on my own name. In remembering God, let me remember, "This is me."
Copyright © 1996, The Circle of Atonement, Sedona,
Arizona, USA.
All rights reserved.