Part 1

Undoing the Way We See Things Now

Lesson 66

My happiness and my function are one.

You have surely noticed an emphasis throughout our recent lessons on the connection between fulfilling your function and achieving happiness. This is because you do not really see the connection. Yet there is more than just a connection between them; they are the same thing. Their forms are different, but their content is completely one.

2. The ego does constant battle with the Holy Spirit on the fundamental question of what your function is. So does it do constant battle with the Holy Spirit about what your happiness is. It is not a two-way battle. The ego attacks and the Holy Spirit does not respond. He knows what your function is. He knows that it is your happiness.

3. Today we will try to go past this wholly meaningless battle, and arrive at the truth about your function. We will not engage in ceaseless arguments about what it is. We will not become hopelessly involved in defining happiness and determining the means for achieving it. We will not indulge the ego by listening to its attacks on truth. We will merely be glad that we can find out what truth is.

4. Our longer practice period today has as its purpose your acceptance of the fact that not only is there a very real connection between the function God gave you and your happiness, but that they are actually identical. God gives you only happiness. Therefore the function He gave you must be happiness, even if it appears to be different. Today’s exercises are an attempt to go beyond these differences in appearance, and recognize a common content where it exists in truth.

5. Begin the ten-to-fifteen-minute practice period by reviewing these thoughts:

God gives me only happiness.

He has given my function to me.

Therefore my function must be happiness.

     Try to see the logic in this sequence, even if you do not yet accept the conclusion. It is only if the premises are wrong that the conclusion could be false. Let us, then, think about the premise for a while as we are practicing.

6.  The first is that God gives you only happiness. This could be false, of course, but in order to be false it is necessary to define God as something He is not. Love cannot give evil, and what is not happiness is evil. God cannot give what He does not have, and He cannot have what He is not. Unless God gives you only happiness, He must be evil. And it is this definition of Him which you are believing if you do not accept the first premise.

7. The second premise is that God has given you your function. We have seen that there are only two parts of your mind. One is ruled by the ego, and is made up of illusions. The other is the home of the Holy Spirit, where truth abides. There are no other guides but these to choose between, and no other outcomes possible as the result of your choice but the fear which the ego always engenders and the love which the the Holy Spirit always offers to replace it.

8. Thus it must be that your function is established by God through His Voice in you, or is made by the ego which you have made to replace Him. Which is true? Unless God gave your function to you, it must be the gift of the ego. Does the ego really have gifts to give, being itself an illusion and offering only the illusion of gifts?

9. Think about this during the longer practice period today. Think also about the many forms the illusion of your function has taken in your mind, and the many ways in which you have tried to find salvation under the ego’s guidance. Did you find it? Were you happy? Did they bring you peace?

10. We will need great honesty today. Remember the outcomes fairly, and consider also whether it was ever reasonable to expect happiness from anything the ego has ever proposed. Yet it is the only alternative to the Holy Spirit’s voice. You will listen to madness or hear truth. Try to make this choice as you think about the premises on which our conclusion rests. We can share in this conclusion, but in no other. For God Himself shares it with us.

11. Today’s idea is another giant stride in the perception of the same as the same, and the different as different. On one side stand all illusions. All truth stands on the other. Let us try today to realize that only the truth is true.

12. In the shorter periods, which would be particularly helpful if undertaken twice an hour today, this form of application is suggested:

My happiness and function are one, because God has given me both.

     It will not take more than a minute, and probably less, to repeat these words slowly and think about them.^[1]

^{[1] A Course in Miracles Complete and Annotated Edition}

Personal Notes:

My happiness and my function are one. Although the ego does constant battle, according to paragraph 2, it is not a two-way battle because the Holy Spirit does not respond, knowing what our function is in truth, knowing that happiness is our God given gift. This tells me that should be my response also, to go past the meaningless battle, to not engage in ceaseless arguments, to not indulge the ego by listening or responding to attacks on truth. My happiness and function are one, because God has given me both. The Battle is not mine it has already been Won! I offer only love and forgiveness. I do not forget my function, offering salvation to the world in Christ Jesus. God gives my only happiness. I pray for all my brother, sisters, and myself for continued guidance, wisdom, discernment, protection, and illumination of purpose in The Way, The Truth, The Life in Christ Jesus, Amen. Thank you for sharing with me. Walk in Love my friend!

God is Love

Love is God

I choose Love