 Hi everyone. Welcome again to another session of A Course in Miracles' Workbook Lessons Live. And I'm popping in here from time to time to do a lesson with you and share it. And then also to perhaps read a little bit of text or something from the manual for teachers that corresponds with the workbook lesson to give us a little more depth than insight. And then sometimes I do get questions written in, so I will address those questions in terms of practical application. Today's Course in Miracles' Workbook Lesson is Lesson 40. I am blessed as a son of God. Today we will begin to assert some of the happy things to which you are entitled, being what you are. No long practice periods are required today, but very frequent short ones are necessary. Once every 10 minutes would be highly desirable, and you are urged to attempt this schedule and to adhere to it whenever possible. If you forget, try again. If there are long interruptions, try again. Whenever you remember, try again. You need not close your eyes for the exercise periods, although you will probably find it more helpful if you do. However, you may be in a number of situations during the day when closing your eyes would not be feasible. Do not miss a practice period because of this. You can practice quite well under any circumstances if you really want to. Today's exercises take a little, very little time and no effort. Repeat the idea for today and then add several of the attributes you associate with being a son of God, applying them to yourself. One practice period might, for example, consist of the following. I am blessed as a son of God. I am happy, peaceful, loving and contented. Another might take this form. I am blessed as a son of God. I am calm, quiet, assured and confident. If only a brief period is available, merely telling yourself that you are blessed as the son of God will do. I am blessed as a son of God. So as we open to practice this quite frequently today as we go through our day, whether our eyes are open or closed, and truly whenever we think of it, whenever we have a moment in the day as the day passes by, our teeth is a beautiful, succinct message to ourselves. I am blessed as a son of God. It's a message of gratitude. It's a message of thankfulness, of happiness, of really feeling a sense of recognition. It's also helpful as we move into the day to remember that our lesson today, I am blessed as a son of God, is not talking about the personality self. It's not talking about a part of the whole. It's really giving glory to God and gratitude and thankfulness to God for creating the Christ as whole and complete. So when we do the lesson for today, I am blessed as a son of God. We are thanking God for creating us in spirit. We are thanking God for creating us as an eternal being that has our eternal life with our Creator in the Kingdom of Heaven. So that's always important to remember that this is a course in mind training and we're remembering our divine mind, our identity as an idea in the mind of God. And that is our devotion. It's everything. It's our commitment to go deep into that experience. It puts a smile on your face. I am blessed as a son of God. It's amazing. It's an amazing reminder. I thought I would read today also from the text in chapter 27. Section four. And the section is titled, The Quiet Answer. This will really help us, I think, as we begin to associate the quietness, the stillness, the silence, the tranquility of a quiet still mind with our being as the son of God. That's where our blessing is. In quietness are all things answered and is every problem quietly resolved. In conflict, there can be no answer and no resolution. For its purpose is to make no resolution possible and to ensure no answer will be plain. A problem set in conflict has no answer for it is seen in different ways. And what would be an answer from one point of view is not an answer in another light. You are in conflict. Thus it must be clear you cannot answer anything at all. Or conflict has no limited effects. Yet if God gave an answer, there must be a way in which your problems are resolved. Or what he wills already has been done. Thus it must be that time is not involved. And every problem can be answered now. Yet it must also be that in your state of mind solution is impossible. Therefore God must have given you a way of reaching to another state of mind in which the answer is already there. Such is the holy instant. It is here that all your problems should be brought and left. Here they belong. For here their answer is. And where its answer is a problem must be simple and be easily resolved. It must be pointless to attempt to solve a problem where the answer cannot be. Yet just as surely it must be resolved if it is brought to where the answer is. Attempt to solve no problems but within the holy instance surety. Or there the problem will be answered and resolved. Outside there will be no solution where there is no answer there that could be found. Nowhere outside. Is a single simple question ever asked. The world can only ask a double question. One with many answers can have no answers. None of them will do. It does not ask a question to be answered, but only to restate its point of view. I'll pause right there. That's amazing that Jesus is saying that the world can only ask a double question. The ego can only ask a double question. And Jesus is bringing this interesting concept up to us because it's not what we tend to think of a double question. We tend to think of a double question as two questions. But basically Jesus is saying that a double question is of the ego and it's basically a declaration or it's a statement. It's not really true curiosity because it doesn't want the answer that will end all questions. It doesn't want the piece that passes the understanding of the world. It doesn't want this divine solution, this divine correction to be experienced. And so the double question is really another way of saying not really a question at all. It's just a declaration or a statement. It's a question disguised as a question. It's really the ego asserting itself as being real and true and God and the Holy Spirit and Jesus as being untrue. So this is very important when we come across Jesus talking about double questions. Of course, the questions of the world, all the questions of the world seem to have many, many different answers. That's why they're called theories and ponderings and assumptions because there's no clarity. It's not really a true question or a true answer. True questions are of the mind, bringing you back to the light in your mind. That's true, sincere questions, more like the some of the ancient Greeks, Socrates and in these deep questions that question the nature of the mind and of the universe. All questions asked within this world are but a way of looking. Not a question asked. A question asked and hate cannot be answered. It is an answer in itself. A double question asked and answers, both the testing the same thing in different form. The world ask, but one question. It is this of these illusions, which of them is true. Which ones established peace and offer joy. Can bring escape from all the pain of which this world is made. Whatever form the question takes, its purpose is the same. It asked but to establish sin is real and answers in the form of preference. Which sin, do you prefer. That is the one that you should choose. The others are not true. What can the body get that you would want the most of all. It is your servant and also your friend. But tell it what you want and it will serve you lovingly and well. And this is not a question for it tells you what you want and where to go for it. It leaves no room to question its beliefs, except that what it states takes questions form. So we're seeing now the underlying characteristics it's always to try to get something. It's that's why it's a double question. If it's always made in hate. It always proceeds from hate. It always is a question that's trying to get something. And then Jesus is trying to boil it down. It seems to take many forms in this world. There are many different questions to try to get something. And of these illusions, which of them is true. It's always trying to pick from the preferences of the ego. It made up the false world. It made a hierarchy out of the false world. And now it's trying to say of all these illusions, which one of them is true. And Jesus, of course, is telling us none of them. And the question itself is trying to say, well, there must be one or some that are true. There must be something informed to seek for it to find happiness. Jesus is saying, no, there isn't all of your goals in this world, your goals from the past and your goals for the future. Are all preferences. There are illusions that you can take up, make a hierarchy of illusions and then pick and choose from the ones that you like the most, the better ones. And these are double questions. It asked, but to the purpose is really the same in all the double question it asked, but to establish sin is real and answers in the form of preference. Which sin do you prefer? Well, that's pretty radical way of looking at the questions of the world. As you go through your day and you look at things and you think, I like that thing. I want this thing. I like that thing, you know, just remember the question underneath, the double question underneath is of these illusions, which one is true? Of these illusions, which one do I prefer? And wow, Jesus, you're really giving it to a straight today and not deluded. Which sin do you prefer? Okay. Sin is will say multiplicity of options of nothingness. So which sin do you prefer? It's, he's basically saying which option of nothingness do you think is best? Correct answer, zero. But when your mind's asleep and you're listening to the ego and it's double questions and it's trying to perpetuate itself, it's going to try to be navigating time and space. And for it, for the ego, it's a legitimate question. Which sin do I prefer? But it just doesn't tell the mind that it's a double question and it doesn't tell the mind that you're choosing which sin do I prefer? This is not allowed up into awareness. This is all down in the basement in the unconscious mind. On the surface it's like, what, what does this mean? When you go a lot deeper into the metaphysics, you know, oh, okay, now, now I see. And there's the getting mechanism. What can the body get that you would want most of all? There it is. The get word comes up again. We're seeing that flash around. The ego is showing its colors. What can you get the body would want most of all? A pseudo question has no answer. It dictates the answer even as it asks. Thus is all questioning within the world a form of propaganda for itself. Just as the body's witnesses are but the senses from within itself. So are the answers to the questions of the world contained within the questions that are asked. Where answers represent the questions, they add nothing new and nothing has been learned. An honest question is a learning tool that asks for something that you do not know. It does not set conditions for response but merely ask what the response should be. But no one in a conflict state is free to ask this question. For he does not want an honest answer where the conflict ends. Okay. No one in the conflict state is free to ask this question. If you're conflicted, then the question is going to come from hate and a question from hate is a double question that's going to ask an answer. Very tricky. You see how sneaky the ego is it makes makes up a world out of hate. If space cosmos out of hate, then it makes up unreal questions which aren't really questions at all are just statements. And then when you ask those questions, labeling them as a question, you really aren't asking a question at all you're just declaring yourself as separate from the whole as separate from one another, as having a separate mind with private thoughts and private thoughts. That's that's the nature of deception. That's the nature of distortion. That's the nature of sleep. I'm talking about the mind sleeping and forgetting the kingdom of heaven forgetting God, forgetting the love of God, only within the holy instant can an honest question honestly be asked. And the meaning of the question does the meaningfulness of the answer come. Here is it possible to separate your wishes from the answer. So it can be given you and also be received. The answer is provided everywhere. It is only here it can be heard an honest answer, ask no sacrifice because it questions. It answers questions truly asked. The questions of the world, but ask of whom is sacrifice demanded asking not if sacrifice is meaningful at all. So, unless the answer tells of whom it will remain unrecognized unheard, and thus the question is preserved intact, because it gave the answer to itself. The holy instant is the interval in which the mind is still enough to hear an answer that has not entailed that is not entailed within the question asked. The answer is something new and different from the question. How could it be answered. If it but repeats itself. Wow, therefore attempt to solve no problems in a world from which the answer has been barred, but bring the problem to the only place that holds the answer lovingly for you. Are the answers that will solve your problems because they stand apart from them and see what can be answered. What the question is within the world the answers merely raise another question. Though they leave the first unanswered in the holy instant you can bring the question to the answer and receive the answer that was made for you. So, what a beautiful section to go along with I am blessed as a son of God because this section from chapter 27 is basically it's called the quiet answer and is basically saying, don't attempt to resolve anything apart from quietness of apart from the deep stillness within. Don't attempt to problem solve. Based on the past and the future come to the holy instant come to the present moment. Be humble. Be still. That you don't want conflict and you're coming into the stillness for the resolution. And as you quiet the mind. This is where you can hear the solution. This is most extreme form of guidance that there is when you come and and you hear the quiet answer. Everything is all right now. God's will is perfect right now. Everything I could ever want. I already am. Right now. I am blessed as a son of God. Right now. The instant come to the quiet answer. Very good. Well, I enjoy these, these lessons that we can share. I hope this is helpful. I hope it brings you nurturing and and helps you in your mind training practice. And again, if you have questions, please write them in right to me. Right, right in your questions or your dilemmas and issues that that seem to be confronting you and we'll look at it together. We'll look at it together and the left together at it because we were not going to be fooled by double questions anymore. We're asking a sincere question of the Holy Spirit and we shall be answered in the quietness. Okay, thank you. Thank you for tuning in.