Too Sleepy to Remember

"But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil." -- The Bible; Matthew 5:39

"Defenses are the costliest of all the prices which the ego would exact. You behold the Son of God as a victim to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions he has made; yet helpless in their presence, needful of defense by still more fantasies, and dreams by which illusions of his safety comfort him." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 153, 4:1 & 5

"Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Choice is always made between Christ's strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great that attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants." A Course in Miracles; Workbook 153, 6:1-4

We've all been too sleepy to remember. It happened to me this morning... a bright, slumberous tropical morning with exotic bird calls and blowing palm branches. I awoke feeling oddly disoriented, looking for something familiar. That's what our illusory separated selves do... they identify with particular things or people, and then feel lost beyond the familiar props. That's because they don't really exist... like a stage persona, without the other characters and props, the illusion of it all vanishes. Where am I? Who am I?

But this morning I am willing to be still... and as I quietly listen, I remember: "I am the holy Son of God HimSelf." (ACIM; Workbook 191) My whole being melts and dissolves and relaxes into this Truth. As ACIM goes on to remind us, "In that thought is everything you look on wholly changed. Let the Son of God awaken from His sleep, and opening His holy eyes, return again to bless the world he made. In error it began, but it will end in the reflection of His holiness."

I love this passage. It reminds me that regardless of how it all began, or how many times I forget or seem to fall asleep, God is inevitable. God doesn't sleep. Who We Are is a given. Our Oneness with All Holiness and Goodness is simply All that IS. My imagined self may sometimes seem too sleepy to remember, but my true Self is Mind Awake... eternally safe, eternally whole, eternally One. As ACIM puts it: "Wholeness has no form, because it is unlimited."

Our human way is to struggle with everything. We struggle to relax enough to go to sleep at night, then we struggle again to wake up just enough to remember our own fictions, and then we struggle to resist whatever appears to be in consciousness that we think we don't want. What we have chosen to forget is that every act of struggle and resistance and defense is the glue that holds the stage persona together. The illusion requires a story, and all stories have resistance and struggle involved. All stories involve some sort of attack and defense, even if it's only worrying about our food and how it will or won't protect our imaginary bodies.

We sleep and dream that we live a life apart from God. Thank God it has never been true, and nothing we ever dream will change the Truth of Being. Becoming quiet and defenseless returns us to our right mind and the remembrance of all that is True. Our right mind is always One with God, and never sleeps. We can turn from illusions to Truth at any moment. We are never really too sleepy to remember.

"Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee Light." -- The Bible; Ephesians 5:14