This lesson says something very important. “… how simple is salvation.”
Our confusion is thinking we need something other than salvation to save us. We think we need a healthy or beautiful body, a certain amount of money, a certain quality of relationship, etc. And because we think we need these things, we then think we need to get them by either the laws of the world or through divine intervention. Either idea is the same mistake. The mistake stems from a fundamental error, the belief that we are bodies.
Ramana Maharshi is one example of a master who showed that health is not necessary for salvation. Peace Pilgrim showed that money and house are not necessary. Jesus showed that you can be betrayed, abandoned by friends, falsely accused of crime, beaten and painfully executed, and none of that affects salvation.
Sometimes when people read Lesson 76, they miss this part of its message: “The body suffers just in order that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body’s suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. … It is for this you think you are a body.”
Salvation is not divine intervention to receive the cures and fixes we think we need in order to be happy. Salvation is seeing beyond the belief that I am a body-mind. Salvation is realizing what I am, something real that cannot be threatened.
It’s true that miraculous healings happen; checks miraculously arrive, etc. I’ve experienced these things myself. When they happen, it feels wonderful. They provide temporary relief from fear, and that does have some value. However, the keyword in that sentence is “temporary.” These types of miracles provide a reprieve from fear, and they may increase our faith in something we cannot see. However, these useful effects of the miracle (reprieve from fear and a boost in faith) will wear off if we do not use the opportunity to increase our desire to realize truth, which is beyond the body-mind entirely.
Salvation is simple. You don’t need a physical healing, a change in your economic situation or a change in your relationships in order to realize truth and perfect happiness. You only need to realize what you are, which is present and available to be seen in this very moment.
Today, when practicing “I am under no laws but God’s,” do not practice with the idea in place that you still need magic, except now you want the magic to come from God. Instead, begin to wonder, “What am I?” and “What are God’s laws?” Let truth whisper into your mind and shine in your awareness.
See how simple salvation is. Absolutely nothing has to change. Salvation need not wait on anything
