 We are going through the workbook of A Course in Miracles again, and we are into the 70s now. Today our lesson will be lesson 71. Only God's plan for salvation will work. You may not realize that the ego has set up a plan for salvation in opposition to God's. It is this plan in which you believe. Since it is the opposite of God's, you also believe that to accept God's plan in place of the egos is to be damned. This sounds preposterous, of course. Yet after we have considered just what the ego's plan is, perhaps you will realize that, however preposterous it may be, you do believe in it. The ego's plan for salvation centers around holding grievances. It maintains that if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved. Thus, the source of salvation is constantly perceived as outside yourself. Each grievance you hold is a declaration and an assertion in which you believe that says, if this were different, I would be saved. The change of mind necessary for salvation is thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself. So this is so beautiful. This is Jesus getting us prepared for the lesson only God's plan for salvation will work and he's mentioning the ego's plan is holding grievances and it's basically the basis that if someone else spoke or acted differently or some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved. There's a part in the course where Jesus says, if you want anything from a brother, you will see him as a brother no longer. This is a world of lack. It's a world of want. It's a world of need. It's a world of scarcity. It's a world of expectations and and it's really interesting that that whenever someone calls you, writes you, or asks for something to be different, something informed to be changed, to set things right. Basically, this is the ego's plan. It's still holding on to grievance and saying, if someone else acted differently, if someone behaved differently, if someone did something informed that would be different, that would make everything all goody-goody and Jesus is getting us prepared by saying, no, this is the ego's plan for salvation and if you are holding grievances and if you are seeing others as having fault or blame or shame or anything less than perfection, perfect love, because right-minded seeing sees only perfection, right-mindedness. So he's basically whittling it down here to to bringing it back to the mind and then he continues, the role assigned to your own mind in this plan, the ego's plan, then is simply to determine what other than itself must change if you are to be saved. According to this insane plan, any perceived source of salvation is acceptable, provided that it will not work. This is the ego. This ensures that the fruitless search will continue for the illusion persists that although this hope has always failed, there's still grounds for hope in another, in other places and in other things. Another person will yet serve better. Another situation will yet offer success. Such is the ego's plan for your salvation. Surely you can see how it is in strict accord with the ego's basic doctrine, seek but do not find. For what could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to channelize all your efforts in searching for it where it is not. God's plan for salvation works simply because by following his direction you seek for salvation where it is. But if you are to succeed as God promises you will, you must be willing to seek their only. Otherwise your purpose is divided and you will attempt to follow two plans for salvation that are diametrically opposed in all ways. The result can only bring confusion, misery and a deep sense of failure and despair. Yes, if you follow the ego's plan of salvation, you will feel a heavy heart. You won't feel gleeful, you won't feel light, you won't feel joyful. If you're following the ego's plan, it's a plan of grievances and it's a fault-finding mission. It's like going out and trying to find fault in your brothers and sisters and tell them that they have to change something, change their ways and Jesus is gently pulling us in and saying, change your mind about your mind. It's your purpose in your mind that needs to change to see a bright new world, not people, places, things, behaviors. You are addicted to grievances because you're addicted to the belief in the body and you think that these bodies, which really are just learning devices for the mind, you think they actually have made mistakes and then they need correction and Jesus is telling us, no, only the Holy Spirit is the correction and that's a correction of purpose in the mind. It's a new way of looking at the world. It's the release from the perceptual problem of perceiving a fragmented world. How can you escape all this? Very simply, the idea for today is the answer. Only God's plan for salvation will work. There can be no real conflict about this because there is no possible alternative to God's plan that will save you. His is the only plan that is certain in its outcome. His is the only plan that must succeed. Let us practice recognizing this certainty today and let us rejoice that there is an answer to what seems to be a conflict with no resolution possible. All things are possible to God. Salvation must be yours because of his plan, which cannot fail. Begin the two longer practice periods for today by thinking about today's idea and realizing that it contains two parts, each making equal contribution to the whole. God's plan for your salvation will work and other plans will not. Do not allow yourself to become depressed or angry at the second part. It is inherent in the first. And then the first is your full release from all your own insane attempts and mad proposals to free yourself. They have led to depression and anger, but God's plan will succeed. It will lead to release and joy. Remembering this, let us devote the remainder of the extended practice periods to asking God to reveal his plan to us. Ask him very specifically. What would you have me do? Where would you have me go? What would you have me say? And to whom? Give him full charge of the rest of the practice period and let him tell you what needs to be done by you in his plan for your salvation. He will answer in proportion to your willingness to hear his voice. Refuse not to hear. The very fact that you are doing the exercises proves that you have some willingness to listen. This is enough to establish your claim to God's answer. In the shorter practice periods, tell yourself often that God's plan for salvation and only his will work. Be alert to all temptation to hold grievances today and respond to them with this form of today's idea. Holding grievances is the opposite of God's plan for salvation. And only his plan will work. Try to remember today's idea some six or seven times an hour. There could be no better way to spend a half minute or less than to remember the source of your salvation. And to see it where it is. Only God's plan for salvation will work. Let me remember to change my mind and accept God's purpose of forgiveness. Let me not attempt to hold grievances or to expect the form of the world to change in some way. Let me have no expectations of the form changing. Let me have no outcomes in mind. Just the inner experience of peace, joy, love, happiness, and glee. Yeah. So as we go to the text for support for today's idea, I went to the text and I just typed into my search program today, change of mind. Because that's what God's plan is, changing your mind, accepting the holy purpose of forgiveness to see the false is false, to let go of the belief and hierarchies of illusions and orders of difficulties and miracles and better and worse and bigger and smaller and what seems important in form and what seems unimportant because the Holy Spirit's telling us forgive and you will see it's all the same. So chapter one, section five, to change your mind means to place it at the disposal of true authority and that's with the capital A. Yeah, that's the Holy Spirit. Chapter two, section six, you must change your mind, not your behavior. And this is a matter of willingness. That's a good one. Say it again. You must change your mind, not your behavior. And this is a matter of willingness. Chapter two, section seven, the state does not imply more than a potential for a change of mind. So when you're ready and when you're willing, you are ready, you have a potential for a change of mind. And then you let it be, you let it happen. Chapter four, section five, when you make a decision of purpose, then you have made a decision about your future effort, a decision that will remain in effect unless you change your mind. Chapter six, change in motivation is a change of mind and this will inevitably produce fundamental change because the mind is fundamental. The fundamental change will still occur with the change of mind in the thinker. And then chapter seven, this places you in a position of needing to learn a lesson that seems contradictory, that you must learn to change your mind about your mind. Yeah, accept its changelessness, accept its oneness, one mind. Chapter eight, this interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. When we are with the Holy Spirit, we see the valuable nature of the mind and of spirit and the valuelessness of the body. Chapter 10, introduction, God does not change his mind about you for he is not uncertain of himself. Also from chapter 10 in the introduction, when anything threatens your peace of mind, ask yourself, has God changed his mind about me? It's reminding me of that Amanda Cook song, Miracle of the Mind. Yeah, it's a miracle of the mind. Yeah, it's so beautiful that God has not changed his mind about me and that is the miracle of the mind. I think there's a line in that song that I really like, I am what you think of me. I am what God thinks of me. Wow, that is a nice idea to hold in your heart. I am what God thinks of me. It's a miracle of the mind. Chapter 17, section five, only a radical shift in purpose could induce a complete change of mind about what the whole relationship is for. Yeah, when we change our mind about the purpose of a relationship and we change it completely, then that induces a complete change of mind of what the whole relationship is for. We don't see it the same way. It seems when we're looking through the ego's filter that everything seems very personal and interpersonal, but when we have a complete change of mind, then it gets very holistic, very unified. We see the big picture. Chapter 21, section two, it is the same small willingness you need to have your whole relationship transformed to joy, the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit for which he gives you everything, the very little on which salvation rests, the tiny change of mind by which the crucifixion is changed to resurrection. Chapter 30, section three, and in the mind of God, there is no ending nor a time in which his thoughts were absent or could suffer change. To say I am as God created me is the same as saying I live and breathe and move in the mind of God. I have no thought thoughts apart from my Creator. I and my Creator are one. I am one with God. I share thoughts with God. Those are my real thoughts. I am happy with my real thoughts. If I believe in attack thoughts and grievances and judgments, no happiness there. Chapter 31, section seven, yet it need not be fixed unless you choose to holy pass the hope of change and keep it static and concealed within your mind. Yeah, if you are looking out to the world to change and you're looking out for something to get fixed in an external world, that is not going to work. But you have hope. You have the Holy Spirit in mind and that spirit has already corrected the misperception. So it's just a matter of joining, aligning with the Holy Spirit and that brings all the joy and the radiance into direct awareness. Beautiful. Well, also I was thinking today, I was thinking, hmm, 2024. I actually started, we'll say, actively living in community. I mean, I started traveling a bit in 1989 and 1990. I did more extensive travels in 91 and 92. I did start to open myself to the possibility of living in a Course in Miracles community in 1993. And then it really seemed to happen in the dream metaphor. It happened around 1994. So 30 years of living in community with Course in Miracles students and teachers. Wow. That is an experience because, you know, out of all the seeming hours in the day, you're just with your brothers and sisters talking, sharing, extending, living, communicating, sometimes meditating together, calling upon God, calling upon the name of God. And of course, the unconscious is going to come up. So you're facing the grievances in mind. You're facing the judgments that arise. You're facing the desire to get rid of something or get away from something. You're facing the desire that something should be different than it is. You're facing that deep desire for connection. And you're basically saying, all right, Jesus, Holy Spirit, use this perception I have of my brothers and sisters to heal my mind. And that's exactly what goes on. So for me, it's like this is 30 years of community living, living with people. Of course, they're, they're even before that there was travels and living in people's homes with them and, you know, not just doing the travel route from hotel to hotel or motel to motel, but just being with people in their house, in their yard, in their basement, in their living room, in their kitchen, having those coffees and teas and juices, having those long chats, those long dialogues, those long conversations, facing things. What's important? What's really important? And what is the meaning of life, going for the meaning of life through finding it in in the Holy Spirit and Jesus's use of relationship. And that's, it's a beautiful thing. So as we go forth practicing this lesson, our lesson today, only God's plan for salvation will work. Then it's just like a willingness to let your mind open up to the idea that, that a change of purpose will bring happiness, that it's tempting to think that the form needs to change. It's tempting to think that something went wrong in form, even though Jesus tells us, all things work together for good. And the Bible says, for those who love the Lord in the Course, it's all things work together for good. There are no exceptions except in the ego's judgment. And Jesus told us in the Bible, judge not. It's, it's just that we have to begin to start to equate spiritual awakening with a state of non-judgment, a state of acceptance. Yes, we, we've been told this by Jesus, you know, the ego analyzes the Holy Spirit accepts, accept the innocence, accept the grace, accept the joy and the joyfulness, accept everything exactly as it is in this moment. And that's what we're doing when we, we live in the present moment, when we are the present moment, when we, when we are the being that is present, we are the, the spirit that is present. We are the presence of love itself in the present moment, not in the past and not in the future. Linear time is a construct that the ego is used to try to dissuade us from our freedom, our inner freedom. And we're determined to pray and align with the spirit and, and have it work, have ourselves be as, as God created us. So, yeah, yesterday we were looking at the lesson salvation. My salvation comes from me today, only God's plan for salvation will work. I have to accept the purpose that God has given me. I have to extend and share and shine the purpose that God has given me if I'm going to know myself as God created me, my Christ self. So, we make ourselves available. We make our mind available to Jesus and say, yeah, use me, perform miracles through me. I'm going to keep my devotion on my willingness to be used by you, dear, dear Holy Spirit, and not try to think that I need to do something on my own as a person, because that own person is a body and God didn't create the bodies. So, we're going for a blessed or pure of the pure of heart for they shall see God. So, I started off in community back in 1994, and then an early friend of mine named Resta began receiving songs from the angels. And I think all in all, she received over 270 songs from the angels. And yeah, if you just step back a moment, you know, that's like an entire pathway to God. 270 songs from the angels. So, I thought I would play you a song from her first album, The Music of Christ, Volume 1. And this song from the angels is called One Mind. And of course, she would go on to take down many, many more songs, I think over 270 and make many, many albums. And this is an entire pathway back to God for sure. So, in honor of our Lessons Today, Only God's Plan for Salvation Will Work, the reason it's so is because there's really just one of us, and that one mind is one with God. And we're an idea in the mind of God. Christ is an idea in the mind of God. We think the same thoughts that God thinks. We were thunk by God, so to speak. Christ is an idea in the mind of God, and it's a spiritual reality. It's a fact. So, here we are, Resta singing One Mind. All is one in the one mind. One mind. One mind. I am forever once. No shame. Love forgives in the one mind. After washes out, we dreams of peace. Still does that sing. Infinite beers. Oh, this little house I've seen too. Sweet. What a joy. What a life to bask in the stillness, bask in the presence of God's love, and and to let go of all attempts to find something wrong in the world. The world is not apart from the mind, and if you're trying to find something wrong or make a correction personally in the world for some person, place, or thing, you know, it's basically just what Jesus calls wrong-mindedness. It's a very personal perspective, but the great corrector, the great comforter, is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit sees the world as whole, as complete, as nothing is out of place, that all things are exactly as they are. Let all things be exactly as they are. All things work together for good. There are no exceptions to this, only in the ego's judgment. We could say that right-mindedness sees only perfection, and that's what Jesus is really calling us to. He's not calling us to look for mistakes and then try to make a personal correction or personal, give personal advice, but he's saying, see no error. Look beyond the error. Look with the Holy Spirit who sees no error. Look with unified perception. Look with unified awareness and see that what you thought was wrong is not wrong. There is no control. There is no manipulation in the world. There is no mistreatment. There is no victim, victimizer in the world. These are all projections of the death wish of the ego, and the teachings are that God is real and nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists. Jesus is really calling us to rise up into whole awareness, into unified awareness, and really see that there is no error and the perfection of the right mind is reflected in a perfect world because that real world of that happy dream is not outside the mind, so it's just like taking everything in and embracing everything of your mind and being grateful for that mind, and that mind being a divine mind, a creation of a perfect God and of perfect love. So away we go today to practice again. We're on lesson 71, so we're practicing today. Only God's plan for salvation will work, and I am happy it is so. God bless you. Lots of love.