Lesson 50 from A Course in Miracles reads, "I am sustained by the Love of God." It goes on to talk about what that means, what that looks like, and some things that we should be careful not to do because we don't need to, as it argues how we are sustained by the Love of God.
So this lesson, in the very first paragraph, talks about the fact that the answer to every problem that will confront us at any point in time is inside of us, and that it's the love of God inside of us. This is the answer to every problem.
Then it contrasts that answer with stating, as human beings, we put our energy, faith, and trust in things that are outside of ourselves in the space-time-energy-matter continuum and the things that we see in our field of perception or in "the matrix," "simulation," or "illusion" as we've talked about before. So it has this list of things such as pills, money, protected clothing, influence, prestige, being liked, knowing the right people, and then endless list of forms of nothingness that we endow with magical powers and want to then make as powers that can save us or help us solve our problems really at the most fundamental level. The simulation says all these things are replacements for the love of God inside of us. This lesson is saying that's a very tragic mistake to do that.
And then all these things are cherished to cultivate a “body identification” and that at the end of the day, none of these things will sustain us in a lasting way. There is a dichotomy between things that are external to us that we put a lot of energy and trust and faith into. But at the end of the day are not the answer to our deepest problems and don't have real continuity or consistency or problem-solving ability for us.
When it says body identification, I imagine that people reading the passage would say, "What is that?" Or, "What's wrong with body identification? Shouldn't we take care of our bodies? Shouldn't we love our bodies?" And I just want to highlight that I think the course is saying that the ego wants to make us think that the sum total of who we are is in and through our bodies. That's who we are, the way we look, the way our bodies is presenting the world. That that's who Dave actually is, and that's a mistake. To fall into the trap of aligning with the body and all the things that the body sees and obsesses about out there, because who we really are is spirit, and that by definition, spirit isn't limited. It doesn't have the same limitations that a body does of space, time, energy, matter and all of that. So that's really where our true limitlessness comes from is by identifying with the spirit rather than being body identified.
So again, we're not down on the body; we don't want to hate the body. We want to take care of it. We want to love it. We want to be invested in health and wellness, eat right, sleep, exercise. But we don't want to stop at the idea that the body and its seemingly palpable quality is all that we are. We are so much more than that. Because the eternal, enduring part of us that never changes because it's already perfect and has maximum worth. Is the spirit in each of us.
Consider this metaphor to the sun: even though it's 93 million miles away, it's so blazingly powerfully, bright and full of energy that even though the seasons change on the Earth (that's like the body identification part of it) the sun itself is consistent. It's the same pretty much through millions and millions and millions and billions of years. The highest height of our work comes from the sun inside of us, the spirit, that spiritual sun.
So the lesson then begins to intensify the message about not being body identified. And it says, "Only the love of God will protect you in all circumstances. It will lift you out of every trial and raise you high above all the perceived dangers of this world into a climate of perfect peace and safety. It will transport you into a state of mind that nothing can threaten. Nothing can disturb and where nothing can intrude upon the eternal calm of that inner sun."
I really want to highlight the sentence in paragraph four, sentence number five. It says, "Through the love of God within you, you can resolve all seeming difficulties without effort and ensure confidence." This is my favorite sentence within this one of my favorite lessons, because that sentence, every time I read it as it is or in the version that I've made of it, which is a personal affirmation. I just get a sense of inspiration and lift that whatever problem I'm dealing with, whether it's a health issue, a financial issue, a business development issue, a relationship issue or romantic, whatever it is that if I pivot to this sentence, I begin to feel the solution to the problem approaching. So it's a reminder to me not to get too involved in an external hustle without doing the inner work first.
The practical application for this lesson is simply, "Tell yourself this often today." Anybody can do this exercise and once we start to really gain familiarity with it, we hesitate to use any other type of approach to solve a problem because this way is guaranteed and it has minimal effort involved and we can do it with maximum confidence. The instructions are do this often and it says for ten minutes twice a day in order to let this idea sink deep into your consciousness. Repeat it. Think about it. This lesson is our pivot moving into the new theme for 2022 which is "Love" and we will use this as an anchor lesson to keep drawing upon.
I want to illustrate the practice of this lesson to a situation which has been occurring with my weekly schedule. I usually map out the clients I'm going to do Zoom calls or phone calls with throughout a day and I have kind of an optimal number of sessions; I can do four sessions a day to be at my maximum energy and focus. However, in the last few months, I've been booking seven or eight calls a day! And sometimes I'll do this part of the exercise getting into the love of God, thinking to myself, "What are you doing? You have to have some boundaries and stick to your four, maybe five calls a day, but you're booking too many calls. You're burnt out." But as I began tuning into spirit inside, I would notice that my schedule would just kind of iron itself out. A client would reschedule or one session would get miraculously dropped. If one day I needed to drop two sessions, two sessions would get dropped! To my benefit, spirit would orchestrate things to help me manage my day better with more ease and effectiveness. By collaborating with this inner source, it solves the problem for us is it deletes things or reorganizes things without violating free will.
This way of approaching the miracle mindset through the love of God within can help very busy CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs who can often seem to have the weight of the world on their shoulders in a million different directions. If we can tap into this mindset, then the heavy lifting of most of that gets organized on one's behalf. Everything gets done in a cadence and a rhythm that's completely manageable and completely in flow and relaxed because spirit is solving the heavy duty problems. Make an intention today to act as if the Love of God is all you need to be sustained.
