“Thus I will speak to you from this point onward as the voice of Christ-consciousness, the voice of your own true consciousness, the consciousness that we truly share. I came to you in the form of the consciousness of the man I once was because you were, prior to this point, unready to give up image for presence, the individual for the universal, reliance on an outside source for reliance on yourself, Jesus for Christ-consciousness. (ACOL Dialogues, p. 148)”
Affirmation: “Christ-consciousness is my own true consciousness.”
Reflections:
This chapter is lengthy, but the passage above does encompass the most important point. Jesus tells us many things about power, but his most important concept is the fact that reliance upon our own Self in Christ-consciousness will help us to save the world. This is a strong assertion, but he does not mean for us to be crusaders unless our intuition guides us to our goals. He says quite a bit about following intuition, in relying on our Self rather than to turn to outside sources in trying to make decisions about our life. We must have confidence in our feelings.
So Jesus will stop speaking in these 40 days and nights as the man who lived over 2,000 years ago. He will speak as our own Self, the Christ-consciousness that we are meant to share with him and all others. Jesus stresses that these communications are dialogues, not simply the imparting of information from him to us.
He describes what we will feel as the elevated Self of form. We will feel not much different than we do now, but more peaceful and free of the constraints of the body. Jesus compares what we will feel in this world with how we imagine our loved ones who have crossed the barrier of death. We imagine them as we knew them, but more peaceful and free of the body that they knew in this life. Jesus too notes that he wants us to feel happiness and peace, especially now in this final chapter in which he addresses us as the man Jesus, rather than the Christ-consciousness which we will share in the remainder of the 40 days and nights.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
Thank You that Jesus is ready to see our own Christ-consciousness, and, in effect, to speak to us as equals. I do not feel worthy, but help me to realize that these thoughts and feelings are the vestiges of the ego.
I welcome Jesus, once again, into my life today. I am very grateful that he lives in service to all of my brothers and sisters, and myself. Thank You for Jesus.
Amen.
ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 103:
God, being Love, is also happiness.
Mari Perron
/ April 16, 2010Picking one reflection out of some of these chapters is a hard choice. The choice presented here concerns one of the most startling announcements of this Course and yet there is something that feels natural about it and the call to quit relying on an outside source. It makes sense to me — heart and mind — that this would be crucial to accepting power in a real way.
I also love, and find essential, the definition of power and the contiuation of the dialogue on confidence, so I thought I’d share these:
“The power you must come to rely upon is the power of your own Self to create and express the cause and effect that is the power of love.
Certainty is knowing that this power exists. Confidence is the expression of your reliance upon it.”
celiaelaine
/ April 18, 2010Dear Mari,
By Day Thirteen, many readers were still referring back to this Day describing power. (I learned this from the blog’s statistics.)
I think that perhaps there is much interest in a religious notion of power, because many times we see power as a negative attribute. I remember once wanting a older male friend of mine to be successful, but when another friend pointed out that I really meant that I wanted him to have “power,” I objected. Power seemed negative to me then, but “success” was a more acceptable trait.
True power does not infringe on the rights of anybody else. It enables us to live in confidence. In “A Course of Love,” we are led to a new understanding of coming into our own power, and thus into our greater Self.
This is a humbling experience, not one of the ego.
Love, Celia
Mari Perron
/ April 19, 2010Dear Celia,
I love your story and the newness with which you greet this “religious notion of power,” which would never be confused with having power-over anyone (as more worldly ideas of power are). It is a liberating power and I agree that coming into our own power is a humbling experience.
Mari