Lesson 138
Heaven is the decision I must make.
We are gifted with free will. We have the ability to choose from the smorgasbord of options and play in this world and in this body as we wish. We can play with fear, suffering, illness, beauty, love, joy, and every other emotion and mask in between. Free will gives us free reign in this cosmic playground. Yet we have fooled ourselves into believing our play area is actually a house of horrors. Once more, that is included in our ticket of free will to do so.
I once heard someone say, “God only knows one word, “Okay!”” This had my mind thinking and what came to mind were some of the following scenarios,
Soul: “God, I want to play as small as I can.”
God: “Okay!”
Soul: “God, I want to see what it is like to be fearful for my life.”
God: “Okay!”
Soul: “God, I want act like I have no clue why I am here on earth.”
God: “Okay!”
Soul: “God, I want to pretend I am the biggest tyrant the world has ever seen!”
God: “Okay!”
Soul: “God, I want to forget then remember I am the Light of the World.”
God: “Okay!”
I like to imagine that God is watching us like a guardian at the playground and She is saying, “Look at little Tommy with his sword pretending his is the ruler of the free world! And there is sweet Rebecca as she plays with her angel wings and then all the sudden forgets she has them on. Oh, and there is sovereign Sam as he acts like the biggest tyrant that ever lived! How creative my Children are.”
Often when we come across atrocities in the world we tend to say, “How could God let this happen?” If we remember that we all have free will and that God only says, “Okay!” then we are given a glimpse into the madhouse we have created using our own freedom. This mad world was not created by God but by mad men (and women).
But as we turn on the lights one by one in this madhouse we come to find that we are still in our Father’s house to which He has many, many rooms. To use our analogy from Lesson 135, “If I defend myself I am attacked,” we have just being playing in the various forts we have created, with each one containing a various maddening scenario. Yet we have never left the comfort of Home. Although Heaven appears to be a choice, it is truly just remembered.
“In this insanely complicated world, Heaven appears to take the form of choice, rather than merely being what it is” (ACIM Lesson 138 6:1).
In Lesson 133, “I will not value what is valueless,” we discussed how although it appears we choose between love and fear, there is really only the choice for love. Choosing between love or fear really gets us down to choosing “the lesser of two evils,” which is still fear or fear. In love there is no opposite. There is no “less fear” in love. There is no fear at all in love. This is what makes love the only choice, as there is no other. Like Heaven, it just IS.
However, it is up to us to experience that there is no choice but Heaven to make. Part of our journey here is to follow the yellow brick road, to try all the candy in the candy store, and to go down the rabbit hole, to find out we had the answer with us all along. But it could not be chosen for us, we had to come to choose it for ourselves.
“Ours [the lessons in A Course in Miracles] are teaching goals, to be attained through learning how to reach them, what they are, and what they offer you. Decisions are the outcomes of your learning, for they rest on what you have accepted as the truth of what you are, and what your needs must be” (ACIM Lesson 138 5:5-6).
This is what makes each soul’s journey so colorful and unique. We each have our own mystery to uncover although we are all uncovering the same thing. This is also why we cannot choose for another, as we have no clue what the uncovering process is for another. Why would we want to take that away from someone? If we finished our math test first in grade school, could we go finish the test for a fellow student who was still completing it? No, we could not, as that was considered cheating. In so many words, it would be cheating the other student out of his or her own experience in exploring the depth of his or her knowledge. Thus, we had to sit patiently while the others finished their test, to then join us one by one. Such is the choice for Heaven, where we are all due to meet one by one.
The choice for Heaven has come because we have chosen everything else unlike Heaven. In not choosing for Heaven, we actually end up choosing Heaven. We have fallen for the idea that we must solve multiple problems to get there, believing, “When this…then that.” As we hop on board of this belief, when I get a new job, save money, get married, take a vacation,…then I will be happy,” we trick ourselves into thinking Heaven is a distance away. Even when we get on the spiritual train we turn that into, “When I go to India, meditate 100+ hours, give up meat, live in poverty,…then I will find God.” Still, with the best of intentions, we believe Heaven is hidden beyond such rites and rituals. Why would a loving God, so full of Light, hide Herself? How could She hide such brilliance? Simplicity is godliness; simplicity is where we find Heaven. We are not trying to solve an eternal number of math problems to find Heaven. We are only trying to solve the One Eternal math problem, that there is only Heaven. We must release the complicated to see what is right in front of us, should we choose.
“Of all the choices you have tried to make this is the simplest, most definitive and prototype of all the rest, the one which settles all decisions. If you could decide the rest, this one remains unsolved. But when you solve this one, the others are resolved with it, for all decisions but conceal this one by taking different forms. Here is the final and only choice in which truth is accepted or denied” (ACIM Lesson 138 6:2-5).
In our search for Heaven, time has truly been on our side. Time has been our reference point as we have retraced our steps realizing, “I have been in this madness before and it never produced Heaven.” Time shows us the nothingness that has been our choices, that what we have chosen previously has never maintained its luster or value. Thus could we reflect and begin to narrow our search to where we are today, choosing the choiceness choice, Heaven.
“The conscious choice of Heaven is as sure as is the ending of the fear of hell, when it is rated from is protective shield of unawareness and brought to the light” (ACIM Lesson 138 10:1).
The choice we make for Heaven is a pure one. It is one we make after we have the courage to see the nothingness that lies in the dark. We have come to face the monsters in our closets and under our beds, finding that nothing is really there, it was only our imagination. Peacefully, we come to abide in our Heavenly Home with our Father-Mother God.
“Heaven is chosen consciously. The choice cannot be made until alternative are accurately seen and understood. All that is field in shadows must be raised to understanding, to be judged again, this time with Heaven’s help” (ACIM Lesson 138 9:1-3).
We bookend our day as we acknowledge our choice for Heaven in the morning and evening, and each hour in between. We allow Guidance to reveal Itself to aid in our decisions throughout the day in order to maintain our original intent to remember our chosen choice. We recognize that everything, including time, and everyone is on our side as we each uncover our steps towards our Creator.
As we close, I would like to include a song by the Rolling Stones, Time Is On My Side. I imagine God to be watching Her Children at play as She hums these words,
Go ahead, go ahead and light up the town
And baby, do everything your heart desires
Remember, I’ll always be around
And I know, I know
Like I told you so many times before
You’re gonna come back, baby
‘Cause I know
You’re gonna come back knocking
Yeah, knocking right on my door
Yes, yes!
God, so sure of Her Love and Brilliance and Ours, She gives us the gift of free will knowing full well that there is nothing greater than the Heaven we always abide in. There is nothing we can do wrong or nothing that we can create to take the place of our rightful seat next to Her. She merely says “Okay!” to our mad idea of the grand adventure to forget then remember Heaven. How loved we, truly, are! Namaste.