 Welcome everyone to Course in Miracles Lessons Live. We are on workbook lesson number 41 today. And today we will have the reading of the workbook lesson and then we'll have a little bit of text that will come in as well from chapter 20, entering the arc. And then we did receive one question today from Heidi in Colorado, so we'll address that one as well. So today's lesson. God goes with me wherever I go. Today's idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment. All the separated ones experience. Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering and intense fear of loss. The separated ones have invented many cures for what they believe to be the ills of the world. But the one thing they do not do is to question the reality of the problem. Yet its effects cannot be cured because the problem is not real. The idea for today has the power to end all this foolishness forever. And foolishness it is, despite the serious and tragic forms, it may take deep within you is everything that is perfect, ready to radiate through you and out into the world. It will cure all sorrow and pain and fear and loss because it will heal the mind that thought these things were real and suffered out of its allegiance to them. You can never be deprived of your perfect holiness because its source goes with you wherever you go. You can never suffer because the source of all joy goes with you wherever you go. You can never be alone because the source of all life goes with you wherever you go. Nothing can destroy your peace of mind because God goes with you wherever you go. We understand that you do not believe all this. But we do believe you when the truth is hidden deep within under a heavy cloud of insane thoughts, dense and obscuring, yet representing all you see. Today we will make our first real attempt to get past this dark and heavy cloud and to go through it to the light beyond. One long practice period today in the morning, as soon as you get up if possible, sit quietly for some three to five minutes with your eyes closed. At the beginning of the practice period repeat today's idea very slowly, then make no effort to think of anything. Instead to get a sense of turning inward past all the idle thoughts of the world. Try to enter very deeply into your own mind, keeping it clear of any thoughts that might divert your attention. From time to time you may repeat the idea if you find it helpful. But most of all, try to sink down and inward away from the world and all the foolish thoughts of the world. You are trying to reach past all these things. You are trying to leave appearances and approach reality. It is quite possible to reach God. In fact, it is very easy because it is the most natural thing in the world. You might even say it is the only natural thing in the world. The way will open if you believe that it is possible. This exercise can bring very startling results even the first time it is attempted. And sooner or later it is always successful. We will go into more detail about this kind of practice as we go along. But it will never fail completely. An instant success is possible. Throughout the day, use today's idea often. Repeating it very slowly, preferably with eyes closed. Think of what you are saying, what the words mean. Concentrate on the holiness that they imply about you. On the unfailing companionship that is yours. On the complete protection that surrounds you. You can indeed afford to laugh at fear thoughts. Remembering that God goes with you wherever you go. You can feel the hush, the hush of today's lesson. Strong invitation to go inwards, think inward. And in terms of practical application, remember there is just this one practice period required. And it is just to give yourself over completely. Wherever you seem to be, whatever your circumstances seem to be, just give yourself over to this thought. God goes with me wherever I go. Just give your mind over to the thought. Give yourself completely to the thought. So we had one question, as I mentioned earlier, that was written in for today's lesson. And this is from Heidi in Colorado, the United States. And Heidi writes, I thought the metaphysics of the course was that God did not participate in the separation. And isn't even aware of it. And then in this lesson, God is with me wherever I go. Indicates that he is. Help. Well, as you work with the Course in Miracles, the metaphysics are so clear and you're right. This is the indication in the Beyond All Idols section of the text. Jesus says, God knows not form. That's one sentence. It's a period at the end. That's very clear. It's very clear metaphysics. And then when we get to the workbook lessons, it's stated in there as well. But we can say in certainly in workbook lesson number 14, God did not create a meaningless world. That is very, very clear. And as I have said that there is a maker of the world with a capital M, and you might say the maker of the happy dream or the real world is the Holy Spirit. And in these workbook lessons, as well as many prayers that will come in the workbook, they do seem to address God, the prayers will start off with Father. It's Jesus. If you go through the text and you go through the workbook and the manual for teachers, basically you'll see that Jesus is very, very, very precise with his metaphysics. But he does use words in the practical application to reach the mind that is asleep and dreaming. So, for people who have written in issues that they have where they think that the workbook lessons clash with the metaphysics. For example, as you're doing today, Heidi, you could say the Holy Spirit goes with me wherever I go. Because the Holy Spirit is God's representative. Jesus came as a full demonstration of the Holy Spirit to demonstrate that that God's will for perfect love and happiness is one forever. And, and the only problem is not being aware that my will is God's will, not my will as a person, but my will as the Christ is one with God the Father. So Jesus was the, you might say the manifestation of the Holy Spirit or the representation only in the sense that, that the form of Jesus, which I have a beautiful painting behind me. The form of Jesus was a demonstration in a world of illusions of divine love in action, we'll say. But actually Jesus does say in the, in the text of a course of miracles that in the Bible when it says the word was made flesh strictly speaking, this is impossible. You can't have eternal spirit into a world of darkness. Light does not come into darkness. Truth does not come into illusions, but illusions can be brought to truth. Like you can bring all the beliefs of the ego beliefs of the devil, we could say if you want to use Christian terms to the light of truth within, and the Holy Spirit will shine these beliefs away. And when we talk about illusions, bringing illusions to truth, this is the pathway to wake up to the truth. You cannot bring the truth into the illusions. So, yes, God does not come into a world of separation. God does not know of separation because God is love. God is not an anthropomorphic God that has human emotions and it gets angry or that that even would understand what illusions would mean because God creates in perfect spirit and only that is real. Hence the summary at the beginning of a course in miracles that nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists herein lies the peace of God. So Heidi getting back to your question. Whenever you see a prayer that is praying to God or praying to the Father, you can safely say that you're speaking in a mind that believes it's separate. You're speaking to the Holy Spirit, to God's representative, and you're imploring the Holy Spirit to help instruct, to help the mind heal, to help the mind forgive. The Holy Spirit is a great comforter and Jesus brought the Holy Spirit, you might say, to earth in the sense that the Holy Spirit is an eternal creation. Christ is an eternal creation because God is eternal and God creates only eternally and that perception is a faulty formulation of reality. It has really perception of the world of linear time and space has nothing to do with reality, nothing to do with truth, nothing to do with what's real. These are the beautiful crystal clear pristine metaphysics of Jesus through a course in miracles, but he will use terms sometimes loosely, even at the beginning of the text with his 50 miracle principles. He's describing a miracle in many different ways in those first 50 miracle principles, but then he'll come up and say, you are a miracle when actually we have an awareness that the true identity is the living Christ is a pure abstract light that was created by God, eternal love. So strictly speaking, the miracle is a time-collapse device to bring the Alpha and the Omega together so that you can realize and say and speak and demonstrate, I and the Father are one. So even the beautiful teaching from Jesus, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one's comes to the Father except through me is really the universal spirit, the Holy Spirit speaking through Jesus and that universal spirit that seems to take on the form of a voice which is helpful for the mind to sleep because it believes in separate everything in separate words, it needs instructions and so the voice for God which is really an eternal creation, the Holy Spirit is eternal creation doesn't have a voice in heaven doesn't need a voice in heaven, but is the bridge back for the sleeping mind. So when you go through those workbook lessons like this one, God is in everything I see. Basically, we're looking at God goes with me wherever I go that the Holy Spirit, the presence of God's love goes with me wherever I go. The representative of God's love goes with me wherever I go. The comforter that Jesus talked about when I go away I will bring forth a comforter the comforter goes with me wherever I go. And you can see that when we get to these workbook lessons. Jesus is going to ask us to tap in and go inward for an experience like he's doing today. God goes with me wherever I go to help us get in touch with the presence of that love in our mind. You might say that the Holy Spirit is like a spark of light a blazing spark of light in a darkened mind that believes in error that believes in illusions that believes in Satan. If you want to use Christian terms, this bright spark, this bright light in our mind is always there always there to comfort us to give us instructions to give us guidance. And you might say that Jesus, his body seemed to pass away, you know, 2000 years ago, but the presence of Jesus, the presence of the Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit is our helper. It's our instructor. It's that which reaches the mind that's asleep. And when we have these prayers to God or prayers to God the Father, we're really just praying for the Holy Spirit's help. We're just saying, presence of love, presence of light, representation of God's eternal love for me, go with me wherever I go. God's God goes with me wherever I go. So thank you, Heidi. I thought to help us deepen in this experience to today that I would just read a section from the text. And this is actually from chapter 20. And it's the section for entering the Ark. Because as we sink deep in our mind and we go to, to find the strength of God's presence in our mind, which is our, our salvation, it's our, it's our joy, it's our happiness, it's our everything. There will be the egos, distractions and temptations that will seem to come up to distract us from the light to distract us from even going inward toward the light. And this world of distractions and temptations is very much made by the ego to keep us from remembering who we are and who our Creator is. So here is entering the Ark. Nothing can hurt you unless you give it the power to do so. Yet you give power as the laws of this world interpret giving. As you give, you lose. So in other words, in the law in the world of ego, scarcity of lack of temptation and the ego of Satan to use the Christian term. In this world, as you give you lose. So if you have a million dollars and you give a million dollars, you lose a million dollars you see so so the giving is not understood. In this world, because it's this world was made by the belief in scarcity and lack. This world was made by the belief in reciprocity. So that's why giving is not understood in this world philanthropy, for example, goes for giving in this world and Jesus is saying, we need a new definition. In the manual for teachers. He's got the characteristics of a teacher of God and number seven is generosity and he's saying in the most simple direct way that generosity as the world believes it is the exact opposite of true generosity. So we need to clear away a lot of our beliefs before we can come into a clarity and understanding. That clarity would bring us the Holy Spirit and Jesus is teaching about giving that giving and receiving are the same. All that I give is given to myself. It is not up to you to give power at all. Power is of God, given by him and reawakened by the Holy Spirit. Who knows that as you give you gain. He gives no to sin and therefore it has none. Nor to his results as this world sees them. Sickness and death and misery and pain. These things have not occurred because the Holy Spirit sees them not and gives no power to their seeming source. Thus, would he keep you free of them. Being without illusion of what you are. The Holy Spirit merely gives everything to God, who has already given and received all that is true. The untrue he has neither received nor given. God has already given and received all that is true. It's all ready. There it has always been there. Love is eternal. Eternal love has been given. Eternal love is received. Eternal love is all that there is. And this is harking the the introduction from a course of miracles. Harkening the teachings. Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists herein lies the peace of God. So spirit has already been given. It's not something that is bound by time. You don't have to wait for God's love to be given. God's love simply is because it is eternal. You have to be recognized and you have to follow the Holy Spirit's instructions and what Jesus is instructing to clear away the obstacles of belief and the obstacles of false thought, attack thoughts and private thoughts. You have to clear that away by giving it to the Holy Spirit to be shown away in light. And then you make way for just what is. That's why Jesus talks about knowledge, not as intellectual knowledge or learned knowledge in the world, but to know God. To know God. God is all knowing, all powerful, all loving, the attributes, the characteristics of God, and this knowledge or this knowing goes together with all loving and all powerful. But power, you can't give or receive power in terms of perception. Nothing is powerful in perception. That's right. Nuclear bombs are not powerful. Tsunamis, hurricanes are not powerful. People are not powerful. Dictators are not powerful. Politicians are not powerful. Perception doesn't involve power because God gives power and God gives power in spirit. And spirit is reality and therefore all power is of God. All power is of spirit. Sin has no place in heaven where its results are alien and can no more enter than can their source. And therein lies your need to see your brother sinless. In him is heaven. See sin in him instead and heaven is lost to you. But see him as he is and what is yours shines from him to you. Your savior gives you only love, but what you would receive of him is up to you. It lies in him to overlook all your mistakes and therein lies his own salvation. And so it is with yours. It is the reawakening of the laws of God in minds that have established other laws and given them power to enforce what God created not. Your insane laws were made to guarantee that you would make mistakes and give them power over you by accepting their results as you're just do. What could this be but madness? And it is this that you would see within your savior from insanity. He is as free from this as you are and in the freedom that you see in him you see your own. For this you share what God has given follows his laws and his alone. Nor is it possible for those who follow them to suffer the results of any other source. Those who choose freedom will experience only its results. Their power is of God and they will give it only to what God has given to share with them. Nothing but this can touch them or they see only this sharing their power according to the will of God. And thus their freedom is established and maintained. It is upheld through all temptation to imprison and to be imprisoned. It is of them who learned of freedom that you should ask what freedom is. Ask not the sparrow how the eagle source for those with little wings have not accepted for themselves the power to share with you. So this whole section is is really supporting our work with lesson today. God goes with me wherever I go. And what it's telling us is that we need to join in the truth of the laws of love. This is the one law of the universe the law of love. And I'm not talking about the physical time space universe I'm talking about the the universe of eternal creation, which which could be described again as heaven or reality. Eternity is real. And the law of love is the law of eternity that what is real and true is forever. It lasts forever. It was is and will be in reality it simply just is and and it needs to be accepted. It doesn't have to be made you don't have to try to figure out how to make reality reality is. And then you have to release everything that reality isn't to remember what reality is. So as we talk about the God goes with me wherever I go. Let's jump down to paragraph six, because this relates to the plan that we are embracing in our hearts and minds. The plan is not a view. Nor you need you be concerned with anything except the part that has been given you to learn. For he who knows the rest will see to it without your help. So this is where you just know that as you follow the Holy Spirit and you follow Jesus, everything that you seem to need in playing your part. And in extending God's love and in forgiving all illusions and accepting the truth of reality of true identity in Christ. Then everything is included in that the means are included in the awakening. You want to awaken to God and you are given the means to awaken. Of course the means are included you don't have to figure out the means you don't have to come up with the means. The means are given. It's divine providence, it's guidance, it's instruction, it's practical, it's glorious. And for me as I was practicing a course of miracles when I first picked it up. After my first 28 years being raised in Christianity at about the age of 28 in the parable of David I picked up a course of miracles. And I began to study it and read it and use it as an oracle to to provide practical wisdom and direction to me. At that point I was not hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit and Jesus so clearly that it was conversational. But I was given the book in order to use it as an oracle to speak to me and that I would learn to connect directly with the voice for God within me. So the arc of peace is entered two by two. At the beginning of another world goes with them. It's a reference to Noah's Ark in the Bible and the animals coming in two by two. And when we enter into a holy relationship, we are calling upon the Holy Spirit to be the purpose that we share that we may extend and share it with everything and everyone that we may understand it and grasp it and merge with it ourselves. Each holy relationship must enter here to learn its special function in the Holy Spirit's plan. Now that it shares his purpose. And as this purpose is fulfilled a new world rises in which sin can enter not and where the Son of God can enter without fear and where he rest a while to forget imprisonment and to remember freedom. So I'll jump down here to the final paragraph and in this final paragraph we have a passage that has come to be known as the promise. Christians are aware when they read the Bible that that God is sovereign and and God keeps promises. And if God created Christ as free, and God gave Christ free will in heaven, then that must be our inheritance, our inheritance must be to will with the Father with the Creator. And so, as we look at our workbook lesson today, 41 God goes with me wherever I go. Here is a beautiful paragraph to remind us in soft, loving, gentle terms what this means for us. God goes with me wherever I go. paragraph eight. Chapter 20. And section four entering the arc paragraph eight. You may wonder how you can be at peace. While you are in time. There is so much that must be done before the way to peace is open. Perhaps this seems impossible to you. But ask yourself if it is possible that God would have a plan for your salvation. That does not work. Once you accept his plan as the one function that you would fulfill. There will be nothing else the Holy Spirit will not arrange for you without your effort. He will go before you making straight your path. And leaving in your way no stones to trip on and no obstacles to bar your way. Nothing you need will be denied you. Not one seeming difficulty, but will melt away before you reach it. You need take thought of nothing, careless of everything except the only purpose you would fulfill. As that was given you so will its fulfillment be. God's guarantee will hold against all obstacles for it rest uncertainty and not contingency. I am blessed on you. And what can be more certain than a son of God. So it's going together it's all merging together yesterday's lesson number 40 I am blessed as a son of God. And today, God goes with me wherever I go. I began traveling around the United States around 1990 I started took a trip to Roscoe, New York and and in 89 I was up in Monroe Michigan but in 1991 I started traveling extensively across the United States and and I had this passage that I just read to you. In my heart so deeply that every day as I would wake up and just be shown where to go what to do traveling around through the Southwest Midwest. The plane states Southwest California Pacific Northwest, and then back through the planes to Wisconsin and back down to Cincinnati. I just had this passage that I read to you singing in my heart it was like Jesus. The Holy Spirit singing to me every day. And I'm gleefully joyfully waking up and saying okay what do we got today and Jesus was teaching me to trust and teaching me to relax and teaching me to be joyful and playful and extend the love of God. I had this song. It was recorded by Oman and shanti, and it was called the promise. And it just was ringing in my mind every day. So our lesson today is God goes with me, wherever I go, and then I heard the voice of. Oman and shanti in my mind all the time. Once you have accepted his plan as the one function that you will fulfill there will be nothing else the Holy Spirit will not arrange for you. Without your effort, he will go before you, making straight your path and leaving in your way no stones to trip on and no obstacles to bar your way no stones to trip on and no obstacles to bar your way. You need do nothing except this plan. Have that happy song on your heart. Carry that beautiful message. We just read in paragraph eight of chapter 20 in the section entering the arc. Carry the promise of God's love in your heart with you wherever you seem to go and let it shine through you and begin to understand that this world is not your home but your home in heaven has not been lost. It's still there. It's still weights awareness. It's still weights on awakening. It's still weights on acceptance. But love is real and love is all that there is. Thank you. Thank you for joining me. It's a great day to start the day or start any where you are whatever you seem to be whatever time zone in the world, whatever it looks like in in your world. The love of God wants to shine through today. Let's accept it. Thank you. Thank you for joining in.