Lesson 97: I am spirit
Sometimes, when people tell me the truth about myself, I am startled. I had no idea that they thought of me in some way as maybe talented, or honest, or reliable or magnificent in some way. I begin to demur and say, “No, I can’t be that great. You must have me confused with someone else.”
The thing is, they don’t. Those who truly compliment us are simply seeing who we are and helping us see our real Self, which is infused with God’s magnitude, according to A Course in Miracles. My protestation of their compliment isn’t me being humble, the Course says, it’s me choosing my littleness – my ego over my real, Divine Self.
The Course asks, in Chapter 15, “Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?” When we remember that we are spirit, and nothing more – not this body, this job, this relationship, this identity – then we become a host to God and free ourselves from the bondage of ego.
“You are the spirit lovingly endowed with all your Father’s Love and peace and joy,” this lesson says. “You are the spirit which completes Himself, and shares God’s function as Creator. He is with you always, as you are with Him.”
This is the truth about ourselves and the ego wants us to believe that it is arrogant to think of ourselves as completing God and sharing the Divine’s function as a Creator. But, it is arrogant to dismiss this idea in favor of some false humbleness. We must – we absolutely must – be convinced that we are spirit or we will never fulfill our function in this world.
Our one function is salvation – which has nothing to do with being forgiven for any “sin,” but everything to do with remembering who we are. We are Spirit – we are Joy, we are Peace, we are Love. We are one in the mind of our creator and can be nothing else but these things. Everything we have created in this ego world has been created in fear – therefore it has never truly been created at all.
Because we believe so fully in the illusion, though, we have to deal with the events that unfold in this dream world. We have to deal with the anxiety. We have to deal with latest crisis and situation. What we cannot do, however, is forget who we truly are. We are Spirit. We have miscreated this world, but if we approach it from that place of our calm, true, loving center then we will bring calm, truth, peace, love and joy to everyone involved in this crisis. This is the key. We must remain in our center. We must know that we are spirits having a human experience and not allow the experience – no matter how bad or good we judge it to be – to move us from our true reality as Spirit.
The truth is, since we are all one in the mind of God, we are all spirit. As bodies we must remember we are all Team Spirit – appearing to be separate but all on the same Divine team.
Hafiz puts it this way:
The copper coin understands its place
amongst the gold
any words that can tarnish another
know they are meant to one day be discarded
from your speech, and they will as you
mature, grow ripe and nourish others
more
the sounds of pure gold are different than
anything still alloyed; what they say never
in any way harms.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash