rest | Urtext A Course in Miracles

Today we have met in the Light Vespers online. In day 5 of the 40 Days Awakening Intensive there is so much love coming our way. Maybe when you have a moment. Breath and relax your shoulders for a moment. I want to share something with you that we read in the ‘vespers’. Let it sink in, close your eyes and see what is given inward…

Each moment that you take your rest today a tired mind is suddenly made glad, a bird with broken wings begins to sing, a stream long dry begins to flow again. The world is born again each time you rest, and hourly remember that you came to bring the peace of God into the world, that it might take its rest along with you…

With each five minutes that you rest today the world is nearer waking. And the time when rest will be the only thing there is comes closer to all worn and tired minds, too weary now to go their way alone. And they will hear the bird begin to sing, and see the stream begin to flow again, with hope reborn and energy restored to walk with lightened steps along the road that suddenly seems easy as they go.
From Lesson 109 Urtext Manuscripts of a Course in Miracles

Lesson 76 “I am under no laws but Godʹs”
We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation. Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. You are not bound by them. Yet to understand that this is so, you must first realize salvation lies not there. While you would seek for it in things that have no meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no sense.

Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it is not. Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. For if you could, you would forever seek where it is not and never find it. The idea for today tells you once again how simple is salvation. Look for it where it waits for you, and there it will be found. Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere else.

Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.

It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the “laws” of medicine, of economics, and of health. Protect the body and you will be saved. These are not laws, but madness.

The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The bodyʹs suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your “laws” would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body.

There are no laws except the laws of God. This needs repeating, ‐ over and over until you realize that it applies to everything that you have made in opposition to His Will. Your magic has no meaning. What it is meant to save does not exist. Only what it is meant to hide will save you.

The laws of God can never be replaced. We will devote today to rejoicing that this is so. It is no longer a truth which we would hide. We realize instead it is a truth which keeps us free forever. Magic imprisons, but the laws of God set free. The light has come because there are no laws but His.

We will begin the longer practice periods today with a short review of the different kinds of “laws” we have believed we must obey. These would include, for example, the laws of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the bodyʹs protection in innumerable ways. Think further; you believe in laws of friendship, of “good” relationships and reciprocity.

Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is Godʹs and what is yours. Many “religions” have been based on this. They would not save, but damn in Heavenʹs name. Yet they are no more strange than other “laws” you hold must be obeyed to make you safe.

There are no laws but Godʹs. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today, and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice that speaks the truth to you. You will be listening to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of God. Payment is neither given nor received. Exchange cannot be made, there are no substitutes, and nothing is replaced by something else. Godʹs laws forever give and never take.

Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the laws you thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. He will tell you more. About the love your Father has for you. About the endless joy He offers you. About His yearni ng for His only Son, created as His channel for creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell.

Let us today open Godʹs channels to Him, and let His Will extend through us to Him. Thus is creation endlessly increased. His Voice will speak of this to us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever. We will now repeat todayʹs idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws but Godʹs. Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice period concludes:
“I am under no laws but Godʹs.”

We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today; at least four or five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to experience ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved.