We are going to speak this morning about a very simple question
that can guide us throughout our day
and actually the rest of our lives.
Over and over again, Jesus tells us in A Course in Miracles how
very simple his course is.
At the beginning of the last chapter of the text,
the section at the beginning of the last chapter of the text,
is called "The Simplicity of Salvation,"
but that idea recurs all throughout the three books of the Course.
And we could consolidate all the Course's teachings
and all of its guidance for our everyday practice of the Course,
such as we find in the workbook, in this very simple question
to ask every single time we're confronted by anything in our day,
from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep:
a situation, an event, a relationship, something that occurs
within our own body that we react to.
But this simple question, simply asked,
would guide us through the entire morass
of the ego thought system, all the complexity,
all the anguish, the guilt, the fear, the pain, the judgments,
everything that goes along with our everyday living in this world.
All of this can be cut through very, very simply
by posing this very simple question
every single moment of every single day,
and the question is
is what I am doing, is what I am feeling, thinking, saying,
will this impede my Atonement path or will it enhance it?
Will this solidify my being in the ego's dream
or will this help me awaken from the ego's dream?
This simple question, simply posed but religiously done so
with great dedication and devotion day-in and day-out,
cannot help but bring us closer and closer to our goal
because this will cut through everything that the world tells us is true,
is valuable, is important, and significant.
Because the only thing that is true within the world of illusion
that is important, significant, and valuable
is will this help me awaken from my dream or will this hinder my progress?
To do this over and over again each and every day
would help unify our life so that no matter what is going on,
whether it's something we judge as being significant or insignificant,
something that arouses great passion, anger, fear,
gives us pleasure or pain, no matter what the form is,
no matter what seems to be going on outside of us in our world,
it brings us all back within to the decision-making mind,
and the only question is is what I am doing,
what I am thinking, what I feeling, what I am saying,
will this help me on my path or will this hinder me?
What could be simpler?
And so again as Jesus says over and over again,
this is a very simple course.
As he tells us at the beginning of Chapter 31,
what is true is true, what is false is false,
what could be easier?
In the workbook, he says what is false is false
and what is true has never changed.
So everything comes down to this very simple question.
The problem is that its simplicity is what terrifies us
because we want to make things very complicated.
Indeed that's why we made the world right at the beginning,
and that's why we made bodies and made lots of bodies,
because nothing is more complicated
than our own body in terms of how it functions and
nothing is more complicated in terms of our daily living
than interacting with other bodies.
It's extraordinarily complicated.
As Lessons 79 and 80 say,
Let me recognize the problem so it could be solved
and Let me recognize that all of my problems have been solved
That there is only one problem,
the belief in separation, and only one solution,
that's the decision for the Atonement.
But so many problems keep rising up, and rising up, and rising up,
and we are enveloped in these clouds of complexity
that conceal from us how very simple everything is.
Is what I am doing an interference to my Atonement path
and my awakening from the dream
or will it help me up my Atonement path?
Again there's absolutely no reason why day-in and day-out
we can't practice that very simple question.
And if we don't practice it and we forget
and get caught again in the flotsam and jetsam of
our everyday life and all the complexities of
the ego thought system, it's only because we became afraid,
not only of the simplicity of the question
but the simplicity of the answer.
Do I truly want to awaken from the dream and return home?
And it's only we who could provide the answer to that.
And looking at everything that happens in our day
provides the framework within which we could learn,
practice this lesson, ask this question,
and then one day give the answer and truly mean it.
Yes, I do want the peace of God.
I do want to return home.
I do want to awaken from the dream.