For this review, we take but one idea each day, and practice it as often
as is possible. Besides the time you give morning and evening, which
should not be less than fifteen minutes, and the hourly remembrances you
make throughout the day, use the idea as often as you can between them.
Each of these ideas alone would be sufficient for salvation, if it were
learned truly. Each would be enough to give release to you and to the
world from every form of bondage, and invite the memory of God to come
again.
With this in mind, we start our practicing in which we carefully review
the thoughts the Holy Spirit has bestowed on us in our last twenty
lessons. Each contains the whole curriculum if understood, practiced,
accepted, and applied to all the seeming happenings throughout the day.
One is enough. But for that one, there must be no exceptions made. And
so we need to use them all, and let them blend as one as each
contributes to the whole we learn.
These practice sessions, like our last review, are centered round a
central theme with which we start and end each lesson. It is this:
“I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.”
The day begins and ends with this. And we repeat it every time the hour
strikes, or we remember, inbetween, we have a function that transcends
the world we see. Beyond this, and a repetition of the special thought
we practice for the day, no form of exercise is urged, except a deep
relinquishment of everything that clutters up the mind, and makes it
deaf to reason, sanity and simple truth.
We will attempt to get beyond all words and special forms of practicing
for this review. For we attempt this time to reach a quickened pace
along a shorter path to the serenity and peace of God. We merely close
our eyes, and then forget all that we thought we knew and understood.
For thus is freedom given us from all we did not know and failed to
understand.
There is but one exception to this lack of structuring. Permit no idle
thought to go unchallenged. If you notice it, deny its hold and
hasten to assure your mind that this is not what it would have. Then
gently let the thought which you denied be given up in sure and quick
exchange for the idea you practice for the day.
When you are tempted, hasten to proclaim your freedom from temptation,
as you say:
“This thought I do not want. I choose instead…”
And then repeat the idea for the day, and let it take the place of what
you thought. Beyond such special applications of each day’s idea, we
will add but a few formal expressions or specific thoughts to aid your
practicing. Instead we give these times of quiet to the Teacher Who
instructs in quiet, speaks of peace, and gives our thoughts whatever
meaning they may have.
To Him I offer this review for you. I place you in His charge, and let
Him teach you what to do and say and think each time you turn to Him. He
will not fail to be available to you each time you call to Him to help
you. Let us offer Him the whole review we now begin, and let us also not
forget to Whom it has been given, as we practice day by day, advancing
toward the goal He set for us; allowing Him to teach us how to go, and
trusting Him completely for the way each practice period can best become
a loving gift of freedom to the world.