I am not a body. I am free. I hear the Voice that God has given me, and it is only this my mind obeys. (W-199.8:7-9)

I AM NOT A BODY. What am I? I am spirit. This is what the Course tells us. We cannot know that it is true because we cannot know anything while we believe that we are in perceptionland. We can have fleeting experiences of it, but we cannot know or we would not seem to be here. We can, however, stand in faith that it is so.

What is standing in the way of our knowing? The blocks to love’s presence, our miscreations and the unforgiving thoughts that have us believing that we are a body. These need to be undone by looking at them, and the whole thought system of which they are a part, with the Holy Spirit that He might use His reason to persuade us to give them up by withdrawing our belief in them. This process of correction can be experienced as fearful and painful because of our identification as the body and all the hidden beliefs that shore up that identification.

“If you will look, the Holy Spirit will judge, and He will judge truly. Yet He cannot shine away what you keep hidden, for you have not offered it to Him and He cannot take it from you.

We are therefore embarking on an organized, well-structured and carefully planned program aimed at learning how to offer to the Holy Spirit everything you do not want. He knows what to do with it. You do not understand how to use what He knows. Whatever is given Him that is not of God is gone. Yet you must look at it yourself in perfect willingness, for otherwise His knowledge remains useless to you. Surely He will not fail to help you, since help is His only purpose. Do you not have greater reason for fearing the world as you perceive it, than for looking at the cause of fear and letting it go forever? (T-12.II.9:7–10:7)

I AM FREE. I am spirit and therefore I am free because that is how God created me. That is the nature of spirit. But, we are not free as long as I we seem to be in consciousness, the level of perception or perceptionland. The truth of our self is spirit and therefore that Self is free. But we have made another self to take that real Self’s place. That self we have made is NOT free. It is a result of an imprisoned mind and an imprisoned will.

In order to claim our remembrance of the Self we are in truth, the free Self, we have to identify and remove all the thinking and beliefs that block that remembrance. We are not focused on the truth, but on the false that is blocking our awareness of the truth. The journey inward to the foundation of the ego thought system, which is the freedom journey we all must take, can only be taken when we are ready and with our complete dependence on our Teacher, Guide, Therapist and Friend, the Holy Spirit.

I HEAR THE VOICE THAT GOD HAS GIVEN ME. In order to hear the Holy Spirit we must train ourselves to listen to Him and not to listen to the ego. We are programmed, almost hardwired, to listen to the ego. Listening to the ego has the world go round. No ego, the thought of separation made out of the denial of the Father, no world. If we are identified as the self we made to replace our Self, we are happy subscribers to the ego’s incessant podcasts of fear, guilt and self-hatred. Most of us have the ego volume on max and the Holy Spirit on mute. Fortunately for us, even on mute, we can still sense theVoice for God in the background, however faintly.

“The Holy Spirit’s Voice is as loud as your willingness to listen. It cannot be louder without violating your freedom of choice, which the Holy Spirit seeks to restore, never to undermine.” (T-8.VIII.8:7-8)

Our willingness to listen to the Holy Spirit is dependent on our willingness to not listen to the self we made. We cannot listen to the Holy Spirit if we think we are the self we made. We cannot participate in the world as if our personality self is real and hear the Voice for God. The only way to hear the Holy Spirit is to become His servant and denounce the slave master, the ego. If we make the self we made real, we are making its master real by default. Jesus challenges us to make that self we made insignificant. How do we do that? Ask the Holy Spirit what to do, say and think. Become His servant and stop participating in that self’s “life” as if it were ours and real. If we are willing, the Holy Spirit will show us how.

AND IT IS ONLY THIS (the Voice that God has given me, the Holy Spirit) MY MIND OBEYS. Is our mind presently obeying only the Voice for God?

“That is why you must choose to hear one of two voices within you. One you made yourself, and that one is not of God. But the other is given you by God, Who asks you only to listen to it. The Holy Spirit is in you in a very literal sense. His is the Voice that calls you back to where you were before and will be again. It is possible even in this world to hear only that Voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God’s Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Sons.” (T-5.II.3:4-11)

Jesus said his final lesson was to listen only to the Holy Spirit and to achieve this it took effort and great willingness to learn. He became a humble servant of the Spirit and let all illusions go. He obeyed only the Holy Spirit and freed his mind and will that they might unite with His Father’s.

Have no doubt that the ego can direct our words and actions. We will obey the ego or the Holy Spirit.

Today we let no ego thoughts direct our words or actions. (W-254.2:1)

Obey the Holy Spirit, and you will be giving up the ego. (T-7.X.3:8)

There are two types of actions. Let us examine this.

“Revelation unites you directly with God. Miracles unite you directly with your brother. NEITHER EMANATES FROM CONSCIOUSNESS (the level of perception), but both are experienced there.” (T-1.II.1:5-7)

This means that miracles and revelation come from outside of consciousness, the level of perception, but they are experienced in the level of perception.

“Consciousness (the level of perception) is the state that INDUCES ACTION, though it does not inspire it.” (T-1.II.1:8-9)

This would be uninspired action, not of the spirit, or wrong action.

“The body can act wrongly only when it is responding to misthought.” (T-2.IV.2:5)

All thought in consciousness, the level of perception, is misthought. On the other hand…

“Revelation induces only experience. Miracles, on the other hand, INDUCE ACTION.” (T-1.II.2:3-4)

Miracles would induce inspired action or right doing.

“When you say you are acting on the basis of knowledge, you are really confusing knowledge with perception. Knowledge provides the strength for creative thinking, but not for right doing.” (T-3.III.5:7-8)

And then there is this…

“Perception, miracles and doing are closely related.” (T-3.III.5:9)

So consciousness, the level of perception, induces uninspired wrong-minded action while the miracle, of which the Holy Spirit is the mechanism of and motivation for, inspires right doing or right-minded action. As long as we believe we are the selves we made, we will engage in wrong-minded action. It is only in dis-identifying ourselves with the self we made, learning and therefore behaving as if it were insignificant, and continually placing our mind and will at the disposal of true Authority that we can learn to hear the Holy Spirit and engage in inspired doing. Holy Spirit tell us what to do, say and think. I hear the Voice that God has given me, and it is only this my mind obeys.

“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 (not humble, no open hands) 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)