"God in His mercy wills that I be saved" from what? From all things that seem to hurt me. (1.1) And what hurts me is my own thoughts. How willing am I to be saved from my perception that I can be hurt? If His will for me is only happiness 1.2, then the way I am seeing a situation must be off. We can't mar our own perfection as we were created by God. The prayer is just another way of talking about this as we affirm again that Love is what created us and made us sinless forever, always perfect and always safe. Clearly we don't feel that way much of the time. Because we have made a will separate from God's. We think our reality is that of a body and personality relating to 'others' as separate entities from us. Give over that picture for a moment. Open yourself to question that perception. In C.3.6:1 we are told that "God's will is all there is". Therefore the separate will that we think is ours does not exist. And we do not exist as these separate entities living in the world. If God is all there is then we must be one with Him.

 T.31.1 "The Simplicity of Salvation" says "how simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be. The impossible (separation from God) has not occurred, and can have no effects. And that is all. Can this be hard to learn by anyone who wants it to be true?"  So on the level of where we think we are, it is all about our willingness. "Only unwillingness to learn it could make such an easy lesson difficult" Our unwillingness points us to the authority problem. We think we have made another will and we give power to that will by our belief.

 Salvation in the Course is about healing our perception that we are separate, deficient, victims of the world. None of this is real but it is not helpful to us just to be told that it is all unreal or that it is all illusion. Why? Because right now we believe in the reality of what we see, feel and experience. We believe that our body is who we are. And we cling to this self that we believe that we made.

 In lesson 70 we are told that guilt and salvation are in our minds and nowhere else. "When you realize that all guilt is solely an invention of your mind, you also realize that guilt and salvation must be in the same place. In understanding this you are saved" What we do is to put the responsibility for the source of our pain outside of our minds. We make others, the situations in the world and events and circumstances outside of ourselves responsible for how we feel. We make them the guilty ones instead of looking at the guilt in our own minds that we have projected on them. What that does, though is make us helpless victims. If indeed salvation comes from me, and it is of my choosing, then I am able. at any time, to choose to know the truth about myself. No one can save me but me. No workshop leader, no guru, no course, no psychotherapist, not even Jesus can save me. It is all about my choice. And that choice is reflected in my willingness to look at my thoughts, take responsibility for them, see that everything I see is a projection of my own guilt mirrored back to me, and be willing to release it.

Yet as this lesson says, if God in His mercy wills that I be saved, then it is a done deal. As lesson 229 affirms, "Love, Which created me is what I am" then "Now need I seek no more. Love has prevailed. He has kept my Identity untouched and sinless. (Lesson 229.2.1) Nothing we can do can ever mar our perfection. So why do we need salvation? As Chapter 11.IV.1 reminds us "As God's creation It (salvation) is yours, and belonging to you It is His. Your Self does not need salvation, but your mind needs to learn what salvation is. You are not saved from anything, but you are saved for glory. Glory is your inheritance, given you by your Creator that you might extend it. Yet if you hate part of your Self (another brother or sister) all your understanding is lost, because you are looking on what God created as yourself without love." In other words, any hatred, dislike, anger, we have toward any of our brothers and sisters is what keeps us from knowing that we are already saved. Such thoughts hide the truth of who we are from our mind. "Therefore, look only to the power that God gave to save you, remembering that it is yours because it is His, and join with your brothers in His peace". (T.11.IV.2.5)

The ego also developed a plan for our salvation. It is to hold grievances against others so that the guilt in our mind seems to rest on them rather than on ourselves. So we play the game of blaming everyone else for our circumstance. So the solution offered by the ego to get rid of our guilt, actually maintains it because what the ego's proposed solution does is keep the guilt alive in our mind rather than undoing it.

The ego's guidance is to do everything on our own. Part of the ego's seductiveness is that it tries to persuade us to continue to believe that if we simply select the right combination of options from all available ones, we can be happy. It might be the right relationship, the right career, the right place to live, the right investment, the right numbers on the lottery tickets, the right job, or any combination of the above. But what the ego keeps hidden from us is the underlying content of these choices which is sin, guilt and fear and a belief in separate interests. "The dreams you think you like would hold you back as much as those in which the fear is seen. For every dream is but a dream of fear no matter what the form it seems to take. The fear is seen within, without, or both. Or it can be disguised in pleasant form. But never is it absent from the dream, for fear is the material of dreams, from which they all are made. (T. 29.IV.2)

Now we turn to another Guide, the Holy Spirit who offers us the memory of God's Love for us and now we have another choice. He teaches us that the only really meaningful choice we can make in time is to allow His purpose to guide us whenever we make a decision and instead of looking for the perfect ego dream, we now learn to release our own judgments on how everything should be and what outcomes should look like. And that requires stepping back outside of the dream and looking from above the battleground.

The lesson offers beautiful opportunity today to use as a practice when we are tempted to get upset. If I see something disturbing to my mind, I can immediately respond with "God wills that I be saved from this". And when we look at every situation with Jesus/the Holy Spirit with us and choose peace, what was hidden is now revealed. It is the beautiful peace that is within us. When we withdraw support from the illusions of war and malice, they go down to dust and we see the beauty of our brother's  innocence and thus our own.

Let's go through the day in confidence that God is on the side of our happiness. I need but look upon all things that seem to hurt me and with perfect certainty and conviction say "God wills that I be saved from this". Anything that is causing you pain and unhappiness is grist for application of this lesson. Tell yourself with assurance that God would not have you suffer. God only wants your happiness. What this means is that we are looking at the ego without judgment. Now watch your upset disappear. God's power that is in our minds as the Holy Spirit, trumps anything you are concerned about. He only wants our happiness, keeping us safe. Feel His protection and safety all through the day. Look at what you are projecting on others. Realize that there is nothing in the world that can affect you unless you give it the power to do so. Bring anything that seems hurtful to you to the Correction of the Holy Spirit. Look without guilt or fear at everything that seems to be upsetting to you today and watch it disappear. Remind yourself again and again about His kindness and love for you. Let His Love be felt surrounding you reminding you of your innocence which came with your creation.

Love and blessings, Sarah

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^{A Course in Miracles
 TEXT
 Twenty One
The Inner Picture}

III. Introduction