In the summer between my sophomore and junior years at Kalamazoo College, a small liberal arts college in Michigan, I won a Light Scholarship to travel abroad the following year, giving me my junior year to learn a language. I had three choices: French, Spanish, or German. I selected French and studied it intensively that fall, winter, and spring, and attended the University of Caen, in Normandy, for the summer of 1962.
I kept a journal of that incredible summer, and I called it Pensees, inspired by reading Blaise Pascal’s Pensees. In fact, I walked around saying one sentence from his book that I just loved:
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas.
The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know.
I just went a long way to explain the form of this post, expressing my thoughts, a simple journal entry.
* * *
I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.
W-p1.RevVI.Intro.3:3-5
God created me as an extension of His Thought.
His Thought manifests as consciousness, Mind.
It all comes down to my state of mind.
There are three:
The state of mind where I ally with the ego.
The state of mind where I unite with the Christ in me.
The state of mind where I find myself in between, i.e., the mechanism of decision, deciding between allying with the ego, or uniting with Christ.
It is always a question of where my awareness is, now.
If I am uniting with the Christ, then my awareness is truly now, and in this union I am experiencing peace and joy and truth.
If I am allying with my ego, it is in the past or future, and in this alliance I am experiencing the illusions of disaster and disunity and pain.
If I am in the state of mind, deciding, I am in between, experiencing indecisiveness.
The root meaning of decide comes from the Latin word, decidere, meaning “to cut.” When I decide for union, I cut away from any experience of alliance with the ego; when I decide for alliance, I cut away from any experience of union.
Here is Jesus addressing these decisions in His Text of A Course in Miracles.
What is temptation but a wish to make the wrong decision on what you would learn, and have an outcome that you do not want? The reference for the pronoun “you” is the mechanism of decision.
It is the recognition that it is a state of mind unwanted that becomes the means whereby the choice is reassessed; another outcome seen to be preferred. You are deceived if you believe you want disaster and disunity and pain. The reference for this “you” is the you allied with the ego.
Hear not the call for this within yourself. But listen, rather, to the deeper call beyond it that appeals for peace and joy. And all the world will give you joy and peace. For as you hear, you answer. And behold! Your answer is the proof of what you learned. Its outcome is the world you look upon. (T-31.I.11) This is the “you” united with the Christ.
Thank God that I am not alone in making these decisions. God created the Holy Spirit to be the bridge between pain and peace, whispering to me forgiveness all through the day.
The Holy Spirit mediates between
illusions and the truth. Since He must bridge
the gap between reality and dreams,
perception leads to knowledge through the grace
that God has given Him, to be His gift to
everyone who turns to Him for truth.
Across the bridge that He provides are dreams
all carried to the truth, to be dispelled
before the light of knowledge. There are sights
and sounds forever laid aside. And where
they were perceived before, forgiveness has
made possible perception's tranquil end.
W-pll.7. What is the Holy Spirit? 1
Thank you, God, that I am not alone in making these decisions.
I have this strength in the face of temptation.
What is temptation but a wish to make
the wrong decision on what you would learn,
and have an outcome that you do not want?
It is the recognition that it is
a state of mind unwanted that becomes
the means whereby the choice is reassessed;
another outcome seen to be preferred.
You are deceived if you believe you want
disaster and disunity and pain.
Hear not the call for this within yourself.
But listen, rather, to the deeper call
beyond it that appeals for peace and joy.
And all the world will give you joy and peace.
For as you hear, you answer. And behold!
Your answer is the proof of what you learned.
Its outcome is the world you look upon.
T-31.1.11
Now I see the wisdom of Pascal's quotation, even though I certainly did not see it at the time.
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas.
When I decide to ally with the ego, I am tempted to use reason and logic to maintain my world, my dream, but mon coeur, my heart, my Self, the Christ, is knowledgeable in ways that la raison, reason, cannot know.
And, now, I can declare my decision to follow my heart.
I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole,
shining in the reflection of His Love.
W-p11.14 Who am I? 1:1
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