Self – Guidance

1 – Day 26

“It has been said that you are the source and the power of coming to know and making known. It naturally follows, then, that you are capable of self-guidance. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 26)”

2 – Guidance

We have not been accustomed to thinking in the manner that this quotation leads us to think. We have believed that self-guidance was certainly guidance of the ego, and we have turned to the Holy Spirit. We have not attempted to make judgments by ourselves.

3 – Jesus

Now Jesus is telling us that we can know self-guidance. I think this is because we have walked further along the pathway. Note that he is not saying that we ought to give up guidance, relying on our feeble minds. Self-guidance, as he views it, is guidance of the the Self with a capital “S,” the Christ Self. This is the new way in the time of Christ. Jesus has already told us that we are leaving the time of the Holy Spirit.

4 – Wither Comes Guidance?

We may not know where we are getting guidance, and, this, I think, is an important point. We get a nudge or an intuition, we act on it, our life goes smoothly—and we never know if the Holy Spirit is guiding us or if it is the Christ Self. If it is the Holy Spirit, the Universal Inspiration, He is still part of us—for we are part of the All, Everything, God Himself. And if the guidance is coming from the Christ Self, we have tuned into that aspect of us, that at least temporarily, is experiencing Awakening. We may not yet have sustained Awakening, but we are getting glimpses.

5 – Self

“Now let’s speak a moment of the Self as guide. This simply means that you turn to the Self as the source of coming to know of the unknown. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 26)”

6 – A Progression

This quotation simply builds on the previous one. We turn to the inner Self, the Christ Self, when we want to know what to think, or say, or do. We don’t depend on our little minds, minds that have given up the ego but are perhaps floundering, not knowing where to turn.

7 – Inward

We turn inward, we are moved from within.

8 – The Garden

“You can trust in your Self. Will you? By tending your garden you will develop this trust and prepare for your descent to level ground.

“Your self-guidance can be thought of as an internal compass. It will not necessarily know the answers as each answer is sought, but if paid attention to, it will show you the way to knowing. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 196)”

9 – Holy Spirit

We have often prayed for guidance from the Holy Spirit. This was the way laid out for us in A Course in Miracles. We may not have fully understood exactly Who the Holy Spirit was, but we knew that He was our true guidance, as the Course made clear. Now we are led to understand that we can get guidance from our Self–the grander Self, not the little self of the ego. We have traveled farther along the pathway.

10 – Internal Guidance

Turn inward for this internal guidance of the Self. This Self will lead us down the mountain top to level ground.

11 – Previously

Previously, not only have we listened to the Holy Spirit, but we have sought external guidance from other teachers and books. Now we reach inward, and we find the guidance that we have sought so fervently. This Self-guidance is the way that we will come to know the one Self, the Self that we share with all the universe.

12 – Birth of Creation

“This alchemical transition, this passing of the unknown into the known, this moment when the unknown becomes the known within the Self, is the birth of creation. It is the culmination of all that has come before, the All of Everything realized in a single heartbeat, a single instant of knowing. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 26)”

13 – Dawning

This “birth of creation” is the dawning of Christ-consciousness, or Awakening, or enlightenment. And we know in an instant. Or perhaps we don’t. But the moment is there in an instant, waiting to be discovered.

14 – Unaware

I think that many of us catch glimpses of Christ-consciousness quite unawares. When we are loving, when we have dropped fear and judgment, and when we have walked the pathway as far as we have, then we are open to Christ-consciousness almost without knowing it. The requirements are to drop fear and judgment. Indeed, if we don’t drop these consistently, we cannot sustain Awakening (said elsewhere in ACOL). And nobody has yet to sustain Awakening consistently. But now is the time for us to do so. Jesus is depending on us. The world is depending on us. And it is God’s Will that we live naturally, and natural living is what Christ-consciousness is all about.

15 – Heartbeat

To realize in a single heartbeat is a powerful metaphor, for we have learned in A Course of Love that we want wholeheartedness—the union of mind and heart. To know in an instant that we are living in Christ-consciousness is a great blessing. And we can have this blessing at any moment that we are not fearful or judgmental. The heavy curtains of fear and judgment drop upon us sometimes, and then we are lost again. We have not walked with Jesus, with God, or with our better Self.

16 – One Self

“Self-guidance is the propulsion, the fuel, for the One Self to know itself. You are ready to be so known. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 26)”

17 – Jesus’s Words

Jesus says here that we are ready for Self-guidance, and this is the same as saying that we are ready to follow the inner Christ. Note that the Self is capitalized here. This is our real Being, our God within. And He will never let us down.

18 – Home

We walk home to God in listening to our inner Self.

19 – What Matters?

If you don’t recognize when guidance is coming from the Holy Spirit or from the inner Self, don’t be perturbed. Does it really matter that we know this? Do we have to know this? The Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is One, Everything. Jesus does not discuss the Trinity as such in A Course of Love, but the evidence for the Trinity is here in everything that he says.

20 – Trinity

I think A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love build logically from the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, and these teachings build on the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. There is a beautiful rightness about this.

21 – Other Teachers
Note that other teachers are available for those who are not open to Jesus. But to follow as we have, Jesus is our way. Let us go with him in peace.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I come to know through listening to guidance from my Self. May I never mistake the Self for the little self that is frequently informed by the ego.

When I am overwrought, I can’t hear the voice of the Holy Spirit or of my Self. Thus it behooves me to stay close to guidance when my mind is calm and easy. I think that this is true for many people. We just can’t think in realistic ways when we are agitated. May agitation fall from us, even in the midst of it. May we know Your peace. May we handle our upsetting moments in the best way, by going to You for an Answer.

Thank You for this logical progression, in the time of Christ-consciousness. Our heretofore dependence upon the Holy Spirit is tempered by the understanding that we live in the time of Christ now.

Amen.