Workbook · Part I · Review
Lesson 209
I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. (Lesson 189)
What this lesson is saying
Today is a review, not a new idea. The workbook asks you to take earlier lessons — 189 (“I feel the Love of God within me now.”) — and use them on one real irritation. Reciting titles is not the review.
Pick one person, one thought about yourself, or one situation that is actually bothering you. Run each reviewed idea on that same thing. Notice which one you want to skip. That one is the work.
You still need not believe any of it. Use it. Then live the hour — work, home, the next encounter — from the one you actually used.
This is not saying
This is not a lighter day and not a reading assignment. A review that never touches a real face is how the ego keeps the year as a book report.
Why this can change a day
The early ideas only become yours when they meet a life. Review is the test: which sentence did you actually use on a judgment, an attack thought, a belief about yourself, or a relationship? That is the curriculum.
In your day
Same idea, three ordinary places — a relationship or encounter, the case against yourself, and a situation at work or at home. You do not need a special mood.
With someone
Someone cut you off, a line did not move, a tone in a shop — a fictitious anger.
What to do
Say the words as written: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. (Lesson 189).” Name the official reason. Set it down. One breath without the story that they caused your aloneness. Then the next useful thing.
Toward yourself
An ex, an old friend, a name you still use as a wound.
What to do
Say the words as written: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. (Lesson 189).” Remember the event if you must. Stop using it as the law of now. This person is not that hour. You do not have to call them.
At work, at home, or in a situation
You are kind in the room and cruel in the mind — a smile, and a case running underneath.
What to do
Say the words as written: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. (Lesson 189).” You are not alone in the effects of your thoughts. Catch the case. Choose a different one. Then the smile can be true.
Two voices in the same mind
Hear which one is running. Then today’s idea, on a real person — or on you.
Unloving thought
Of course I am upset — look at them. Anyone would be. The anger proves I am right and alone. Reciting the titles is enough. This situation can wait.
Jesus’s way
“I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. (Lesson 189).” Review is whether you used the ideas on a real person — this situation, not a new philosophy. The ones you only admired are the curriculum.
Spalding · 2019 · episode #415
Jesus’s commentary for Lesson 209
Tina reads the official workbook lesson first. Then she channels. The video is the source. The notes below are study notes of that sitting — not a transcript, and not A Year of Forgiveness.
After the reading
In the video · Jesus speaking
This is the channeled portion — after Tina has read the lesson. Study notes of that sitting. Not a transcript.
- After the reading, this sitting is a review. He checks whether you used the ideas on an irritation — not whether you can recite “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. (Lesson 189).”
- The ideas under today: 189. Which did you actually use on a person? The ones you only admired are the curriculum.
- The body stays as a communication device. Care for it. Do not worship it and do not punish it as a spiritual proof.
How to sit today
Review VI · Lessons 181–200
The idea is above. This is the one sitting this number asks — how often, how long, and the words. Not a second lesson.
“I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
- How often
- Morning and evening, plus hourly remembrance, plus as often as you can between the hours
- How long
- Morning and evening should not be less than 15 minutes each
- Through the day
- Every time the hour strikes, and whenever you remember in between.
- When shaken
- Permit no idle thought to go unchallenged. If you notice one: “This thought I do not want. I choose instead…” and then today’s idea.
How
- The day begins and ends with the refrain. Then a repetition of Lesson 189’s idea. Then a deep relinquishment of everything that clutters the mind.
- Close your eyes and forget what you thought you knew. Beyond the refrain and the day’s idea, no extra form is urged — except the challenge to idle thoughts.
- Give the quiet to the Teacher Who instructs in quiet. Trust Him for how each sitting can become a gift of freedom to the world.
Longer sitting
Morning and evening — not less than 15 minutes each
- The day begins and ends with the refrain.
- Say, slowly: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
- Then a repetition of Lesson 189’s idea: “I feel the Love of God within me now.”.
- Then a deep relinquishment of everything that clutters the mind. Close your eyes and forget what you thought you knew.
- Give the quiet to the Teacher Who instructs in quiet.
Short / hourly
Every time the hour strikes, and whenever you remember in between
- Say, slowly: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
- Say, slowly: “I feel the Love of God within me now.”
When shaken
Permit no idle thought to go unchallenged
- Say, slowly: “This thought I do not want. I choose instead…”
- Then today’s idea: “I feel the Love of God within me now.”, held in the refrain.
Ideas in this review
These scripts follow the workbook’s own method for this number — duration, frequency, and the sentences it asks you to use. They are a study paraphrase, not a replacement. Read the official lesson at acim.org and follow any wording it gives that is more specific than this card.
Words you may not know
Full glossaryCourse words do not mean what church, psychology, or ordinary English usually mean. These notes are for this lesson — tap a word.
Other voices — Tina, Ra, Carla
Short notes from the four streams. The teaching above is the lesson. These are doors if you want them.
Spalding
Review is not a lighter day. In the 2019 commentary he treats “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. (Lesson 189)” as a check: which of these ideas did you use in a real situation, and which did you only admire? Skimped ideas are the curriculum. Do the review as the workbook asks, then let him speak to the ones you still argue with.
Watch this lesson’s commentaryRa
This lesson is practice in polarizing with the person in front of you. Service to others is not a slogan. It is whether you treat them as the same being you are.
Open streamRueckert
A wanderer on Earth does not need a different lesson. She needs this one, done with her hands. Carla's whole archive is the proof: contact follows a life, it does not replace it.
Open stream