LESSON 49
February 18

"God's Voice speaks to me all through the day."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

Longer: 4 (more if possible) for 5 minutes

In deep stillness, open your mind and listen. Sink past the insane, riotous thoughts of this world. Sink into what they obscure, the peace of your real home. We are trying to reach God, to hear His Voice. Approach this holy thought with confidence, knowing that God wants you to hear His Voice.

Shorter: very frequently

Repeat idea.
Whenever possible, sit quietly, close eyes and repeat idea, realizing you are inviting God's Voice to speak to you.

COMMENTARY

"God's Voice speaks to me all through the day." Yes, It does! It may seem like wishful thinking to you when you say this sentence, but it isn't. God's Voice really does speak to us all through the day, every day. "The part of your mind in which truth abides [i.e. the right mind] is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not" (1:2). There is a "part" of our mind that is in constant communication with God. We aren't usually aware of it, although we could be. Our consciousness simply isn't tuned in.

It's like a radio signal. Here in Sedona we have a radio station called KAZM ("chasm," cute, huh?). KAZM is in communication with my radio all through the day, but I may not have my radio tuned to that station. The Holy Spirit is in communication with my mind all through the day, but I may not be tuned in.

There is another "part" of our mind that carries on the busy-ness of this world. That is the part we are mostly aware of. I'll label it "wrong mind" so we can tell the "parts" apart. This "part" really does not exist, and the "part" tuned in to God (right mind) is really the only part there is.

The wrong mind is an illusion. The right mind is real. The wrong mind is frantic, distraught, filled with a chattering madhouse of "thoughts" that sound like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. The right mind is "calm, always at rest and wholly certain" (2:1). The right mind is what Lesson 47 spoke of in its last paragraph: "There is a place in you where there is perfect peace." In this place, "stillness and peace reign forever" (2:5).

We can choose which voice to listen to, which "part" of our mind to attend to. The frantic voice or the peaceful Voice. Does it seem hard to believe that there is a place in you that is always perfectly peaceful, like the eye in a hurricane? But there is. I found it hard to believe, but when I began looking for it I began finding it.

Often when we first try to find this place, the other voice shrieks so loudly that it seems we can't ignore it (as the lesson instructs us to). Just the other day someone was telling me how when they sat in meditation, the onset of peace was so frightening that they had to jump up and get busy with something. Isn't it weird that we find peace so unacceptable? Sit for a few minutes trying to be peaceful and something inside you is screaming, "I can't stand it!" That's the frantic voice. "Try," the lesson says, "not to listen to it" (2:4).

It's worth the effort! That place of peace is there in all of us, and when we find it--Ahhh! I still have some days when I can't seem to stop the yama-yama of my mind, but the times when I sink into the peace beyond my thoughts are increasing, for which I am very grateful. You simply have to stop your activity to find it; you can't find it without sitting down, quieting down, and shutting down for a while. The world is far too distracting otherwise, at first.

Eventually we can learn to find this peace any time, anywhere, and even to bring it with us into chaotic situations. At first, however, we need to act out the stillness in order to find it, closing our eyes on the world, going past the stormy surface of our minds and into the deep, calm depths, asking God's Voice to speak to us.

One more thought. You might think, from this lesson, that if God's Voice speaks to you all through the day, it must be easy to hear it. Wrong. The ego's voice is characterized here as "raucous shrieks" (4:3), "frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds" (4:4), and "constantly distracted" (1:4). Listening to God's Voice, at first, is like trying to meditate in the middle of a riot. It's like trying to compose a new tune while a rock band is tuning up. Or like trying to write a careful letter when three people are shouting different things into your ears. It's hard work. It takes focus and concentration. It takes, above all, willingness. "The Holy Spirit's Voice is as loud as your willingness to listen" (T-8.VIII.8:7).

You have to be willing to tune out that other voice. The shrieks of the ego don't just happen without our willingness; they do not stem from some malevolent demon trying to frustrate our efforts to hear God. They are our own unwillingness taking form; that's all. We've spent eons turning on the noisemakers in our own minds. We have to start going around and choosing to turn them off.

So hearing the Holy Spirit isn't something that happens overnight--read about it today, start being "divinely guided in all I do" tomorrow. No. It's not that simple. In fact, in the Text, Jesus himself says that learning to listen only to that Voice and no other was the final lesson he learned, and that it takes effort and great willingness!

"The Holy Spirit is in you in a very literal sense. His is the Voice That calls you back to where you were before and will be again. It is possible even in this world to hear only that Voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God's Sons are as equal as learners as they are as sons." (T-5.II.3:7-11)

So, let us begin today to learn this so-very-important lesson. Let us listen.