“I hear the Voice that God has given me, and it is only this my mind obeys.” (W-199.8:9)

Our problem is that we have placed our mind, will and spirit at the disposal of a tyrant, the ego. Our mind, will and spirit are imprisoned by the ego in a maximum security facility. We did this. We surrendered our mind, will and spirit to the ego. Now, we are not getting out of our prison except by our complete surrender to the Holy Spirit and His guidance.

In order to hear the Holy Spirit we must die to self. This self we made is a block to our hearing. We will either continue to engage in the ego’s game of self-crucifixion, of which sickness and death are major components, or we will learn to burn off the self we made, and think we are, with the Holy Spirit. Such is our choice.

I DO NOT KNOW

In our prison, there is one possibility of escape. We must be humbled. The Course lessons are not about us understanding something. The Course is medicine for a sick mind. Doing the lessons is medicine for a sick mind. We are not asked to understand the lessons but to do them. We are asked to be humble servants of the Spirit. We are asked to participate from another place yet unremembered. Only our ego mind wants to understand. If understanding is necessary, it will be revealed to us.

“Of yourself you can do nothing, because of yourself you are nothing. I am nothing without the Father and you are nothing without me, because by denying the Father you deny yourself.” (T-8.IV.7:3-4)

“The world can teach no images of you unless you want to learn them. There will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will see you know not what you are. It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is. When every concept has been raised to doubt and question, and been recognized as made on no assumptions that would stand the light, then is the truth left free to enter in its sanctuary, clean and free of guilt. There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:

I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.

Yet in this learning is salvation born. And What you are will tell you of Itself.” (T-31.V.17:1-9)

“I do not know what anything is for.” (W-25)

 

As long as we appear to be in form we do not know. Staying humble is the only way to hear the Holy Spirit. We know nothing. We can only ever operate in faith while being completely Holy Spirit reliant.

“How could I recognize my own best interests when I do not know who I am? What I think are my best interests would merely bind me closer to the world of illusions. I am willing to follow the Guide God has given me to find out what my own best interests are, recognizing that I cannot perceive them by myself.” (W-55.4:2-4)

“Now we are going to try to lay judgment aside, and ask what God’s plan for us is:

What is salvation, Father? I do not know. Tell me, that I may understand.

Then we will wait in quiet for His answer. We have attacked God’s plan for salvation without waiting to hear what it is. We have shouted our grievances so loudly that we have not listened to His Voice. We have used our grievances to close our eyes and stop our ears.” (W-72.10:5-12)

 

“My Name, O Father, still is known to You. I have forgotten It, and do not know where I am going, who I am, or what it is I do. Remind me, Father, now, for I am weary of the world I see. Reveal what You would have me see instead.” (W-224.2:1-4)

“Father, I want what goes against my will, and do not want what is my will to have. Straighten my mind, my Father. It is sick. But You have offered freedom, and I choose to claim Your gift today. And so I give all judgment to the One You gave to me to judge for me. He sees what I behold, and yet He knows the truth. He looks on pain, and yet He understands it is not real, and in His understanding it is healed. He gives the miracles my dreams would hide from my awareness. Let Him judge today. I do not know my will, but He is sure it is Your Own. And He will speak for me, and call Your miracles to come to me.” (W-347.1:1-11)

“You Who remember what I really am alone remember what I really want. You speak for God, and so You speak for me. And what You give me comes from God Himself. Your Voice, my Father, then is mine as well, and all I want is what You offer me, in just the form You choose that it be mine. Let me remember all I do not know, and let my voice be still, remembering. But let me not forget Your Love and care, keeping Your promise to Your Son in my awareness always. Let me not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all.” (W-358.1:1-7)

We are asked to forgive but at His instruction.

“What should I do for him, Your holy Son?” should be the only thing you ever ask when help is needed and forgiveness sought. The form the seeking takes you need not judge. And let it not be you who sets the form in which forgiveness comes to save God’s Son. The light of Christ in him is his release, and it is this that answers to his call. Forgive him as the Christ decides you should, and be His eyes through which you look on him, and speak for Him as well. He knows the need; the question and the answer. He will say exactly what to do, in words that you can understand and you can also use. Do not confuse His function with your own. He is the Answer. You the one who hears.” (S-2.III.5:1-10)

IF we are able to surrender to the Holy Spirit by letting the self we made be burnt off and become totally reliant on Him, standing with empty hands in I do not know and making no decisions by ourselves, this is the promise.

“Only the Holy Spirit knows what you need. For He will give you all things that do not block the way to light. And what else could you need? IN TIME, He gives you all the things that you need have, and will renew them as long as you have need of them. He will take nothing from you as long as you have any need of it. And yet He knows that everything you need is temporary, and will but last until you step aside from all your needs and realize that all of them have been fulfilled. Therefore He has no investment in the things that He supplies, except to make certain that you will not use them on behalf of lingering in time. He knows that you are not at home there, and He wills no delay to wait upon your joyous homecoming.

Leave, then, your needs to Him. He will supply them with no emphasis at all upon them. What comes to you of Him comes safely, for He will ensure it never can become a dark spot, hidden in your mind and kept to hurt you. Under His guidance you will travel light and journey lightly, for His sight is ever on the journey’s end, which is His goal. God’s Son is not a traveller through outer worlds. However holy his perception may become, no world outside himself holds his inheritance. Within himself he has no needs, for light needs nothing but to shine in peace, and from itself to let the rays extend in quiet to infinity.” (T-13.VII.12:1–13:7)

Make all decisions with the Holy Spirit.

“There are decisions to make here, and they must be made whether they be illusions or not.” (S-1.I.2:4)

SURRENDERING OF SELF-RELIANCE, DYING TO SELF IS TRUE PRAYER

“True prayer must avoid the pitfall of asking to entreat. Ask, rather, to receive what is already given; to accept what is already there.” (S-1.I.1:6-7)

“Prayer is a stepping aside; a letting go, a quiet time of listening and loving. It should not be confused with supplication of any kind, because it is a way of remembering your holiness. Why should holiness entreat, being fully entitled to everything Love has to offer? And it is to Love you go in prayer. PRAYER IS AN OFFERING; A GIVING UP OF YOURSELF TO BE AT ONE WITH LOVE. There is nothing to ask because there is nothing left to want. That nothingness becomes the altar of God. It disappears in Him.

This is not a level of prayer that everyone can attain as yet. Those who have not reached it still need your help in prayer because their asking is not yet based upon acceptance. Help in prayer does not mean that another mediates between you and God. But it does mean that another stands beside you and helps to raise you up to Him. One who has realized the goodness of God prays without fear. And one who prays without fear cannot but reach Him. He can therefore also reach His Son, wherever he may be and whatever form he may seem to take.

Praying to Christ in anyone is true prayer because it is a gift of thanks to His Father. To ask that Christ be but Himself is not an entreaty. It is a song of thanksgiving for what you are. Herein lies the power of prayer. It asks nothing and receives everything. This prayer can be shared because it receives for everyone. To pray with one who knows that this is true is to be answered. Perhaps the specific form of resolution for a specific problem will occur to either of you; it does not matter which. Perhaps it will reach both, if you are genuinely attuned to one another. It will come because you have realized that Christ is in both of you. That is its only truth.” (S-1.I.5:1–7:11)

DO AS THE HOLY SPIRIT DIRECTS

“And so they need a Teacher Who perceives their madness, but Who still can look beyond illusion to the simple truth in them.” (W-155.3:4)

“Do as God’s Voice directs. And if It asks a thing of you which seems impossible, remember Who it is that asks, and who would make denial. Then consider this; which is more likely to be right? The Voice that speaks for the Creator of all things, Who knows all things exactly as they are, or a distorted image of yourself, confused, bewildered, inconsistent and unsure of everything? Let not its voice direct you. Hear instead a certain Voice, which tells you of a function given you by your Creator Who remembers you, and urges that you now remember Him.” (W-186.12:1-6)

“There is one way, and only one, to be released from the imprisonment your plan to prove the false is true has brought to you. Accept the plan you did not make instead. Judge not your value to it. If God’s Voice assures you that salvation needs your part, and that the whole depends on you, be sure that it is so. The arrogant must cling to words, afraid to go beyond them to experience which might affront their stance. Yet are the humble free to hear the Voice which tells them what they are, and WHAT TO DO.” (W-186.5:1-6)

THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL TELL US WHAT TO SAY, WHAT TO DO AND WHAT TO THINK

The Holy Spirit will tell us what to say, what to do and what to think if we will do the work to remove the blocks, to undo the wrong-minded thinking, that prevents us from hearing His Voice. We must burn away the self we made and refuse to participate in the world as if it were real. We must learn of the insignificance of the world and its stories, the self we made and the body. We must stop valuing them. Only then can the Holy Spirit flow through us. There are no miracles until this happens, only grievances.

“I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me.” (T-2.V-A.18:4)

“And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him.” (T-27.II.5:5)

“Everything I think or say or do teaches all the universe.” (W-54.4:3)

 

“With one purpose only (the Holy Spirit’s), I am always certain what to do, what to say and what to think.” (W-83.1:4)

“I place you in His charge, and let Him teach you what to do and say and think, each time you turn to Him.” (W-rVI.in.7:2)

“For Your Voice will tell me what to do and where to go; to whom to speak and what to say to him, what thoughts to think, what words to give the world.” (W-275.2:3)

As Course students, actions consistent with our stated beliefs will be guaranteed if we become humble servants of the Holy Spirit participating only in the world at His behest and for His purpose. Only then can we be truly honest.

“Honesty does not apply only to what you say. The term actually means consistency. There is nothing you say that contradicts what you think or do; no thought opposes any other thought; no act belies your word; and no word lacks agreement with another. Such are the truly honest. At no level are they in conflict with themselves. Therefore it is impossible for them to be in conflict with anyone or anything.” (M-4.II.1:4-9)

We believe we are participating in the world and making decisions here. That is not happening. As long as we seem to be here our will, mind and spirit are imprisoned because we made up that ridiculous story and believed it. We are trapped in a hell of our own making. Want out? Stop participating, playing, interacting and acting in the illusion, the prison, as if it were real. How do we do that? Surrender, stand in I do not know and ask the Holy Spirit everything. He knows the plan. He will guide us home.