A Course
In Miracles

Authorized Online Edition
Workbook For Students

 
 

LESSON 45

God is the Mind with which I think.

1. 1Today’s idea holds the key to what your real thoughts are. 2They are nothing that you think you think, just as nothing that you think you see is related to vision in any way. 3There is no relationship between what is real and what you think is real. 4Nothing that you think are your real thoughts resemble your real thoughts in any respect. 5Nothing that you think you see bears any resemblance to what vision will show you.

2. 1You think with the Mind of God. 2Therefore you share your thoughts with Him, as He shares His with you. 3They are the same thoughts, because they are thought by the same Mind. 4To share is to make alike, or to make one. 5Nor do the thoughts you think with the Mind of God leave your mind, because thoughts do not leave their source. 6Therefore, your thoughts are in the Mind of God, as you are. 7They are in your mind as well, where He is. 8As you are part of His Mind, so are your thoughts part of His Mind.

3. 1Where, then, are your real thoughts? 2Today we will attempt to reach them. 3We will have to look for them in your mind, because that is where they are. 4They must still be there, because they cannot have left their source. 5What is thought by the Mind of God is eternal, being part of creation.

4. 1Our three five-minute practice periods for today will take the same general form that we used in applying yesterday’s idea. 2We will attempt to leave the unreal and seek for the real. 3We will deny the world in favor of truth. 4We will not let the thoughts of the world hold us back. 5We will not let the beliefs of the world tell us that what God would have us do is impossible. 6Instead, we will try to recognize that only what God would have us do is possible.

5. 1We will also try to understand that only what God would have us do is what we want to do. 2And we will also try to remember that we cannot fail in doing what He would have us do. 3There is every reason to feel confident that we will succeed today. 4It is the Will of God.

6. 1Begin the exercises for today by repeating the idea to yourself, closing your eyes as you do so. 2Then spend a fairly short period in thinking a few relevant thoughts of your own, keeping the idea in mind. 3After you have added some four or five thoughts of your own to the idea, repeat it again and tell yourself gently:

4My real thoughts are in my mind. 5I would like to find them.

6Then try to go past all the unreal thoughts that cover the truth in your mind, and reach to the eternal.

7. 1Under all the senseless thoughts and mad ideas with which you have cluttered up your mind are the thoughts that you thought with God in the beginning. 2They are there in your mind now, completely unchanged. 3They will always be in your mind, exactly as they always were. 4Everything you have thought since then will change, but the Foundation on which it rests is wholly changeless.

8. 1It is this Foundation toward which the exercises for today are directed. 2Here is your mind joined with the Mind of God. 3Here are your thoughts one with His. 4For this kind of practice only one thing is necessary; approach it as you would an altar dedicated in Heaven to God the Father and to God the Son. 5For such is the place you are trying to reach. 6You will probably be unable as yet to realize how high you are trying to go. 7Yet even with the little understanding you have already gained, you should be able to remind yourself that this is no idle game, but an exercise in holiness and an attempt to reach the Kingdom of Heaven.

9. 1In the shorter exercise periods for today, try to remember how important it is to you to understand the holiness of the mind that thinks with God. 2Take a minute or two, as you repeat the idea throughout the day, to appreciate your mind’s holiness. 3Stand aside, however briefly, from all thoughts that are unworthy of Him Whose host you are. 4And thank Him for the Thoughts He is thinking with you.