Weekly ACIM workbook lesson: letting go rather than attracting our desires

AP Photo/Mike Derer

This is the second in a series of 10 weekly articles that will focus on selected lessons from A Course in Miracles (ACIM): Workbook for Students. There are 365 lessons in the workbook that are meant to be completed daily over the course of a full year, but I will only be focusing on 10 of those 365 lessons.

For this article, I chose a lesson that addresses a relatively new practice of focusing our mental energy on receiving or attracting whatever we want. I am not referring to the energy spent on studying for school, putting in extra hours to get a promotion, spending extra time with our kids, working to address global climate change, or taking steps to help the homeless. I am referring to using mental energy to attract things that are outside our sphere of influence or control, like attracting a new car or $5000.

Sidestepping the skeptics’ legitimate questions about whether we can do this, is it a good idea for us to do it? 

How often have you fervently wished or prayed for something that you didn’t get, and then looked back on the situation and thought, “Thank God I didn’t get what I thought I wanted!” Or have you ever gotten exactly what you wanted, such as a job, and then decided you hated it? If so, you're not alone. Garth Brooks touched on this idea when he sang, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.” There are many Arabian tales of people who were granted wishes by a genie, and each wish proved more disastrous than the last. Similarly, I think many people might be trying to attract outcomes that would not really be best for them. And if we don't know what's best for ourselves, how could we know what's best for other people? If you win the lottery, someone else loses. If your team wins the game, the other team loses. How could we know what is best for ourselves and everyone else involved?

As the mental energies of human beings are being directed in multiple directions (when we might not even know what the best possible outcome would be), A Course in Miracles quietly offers Lesson #155: I will step back and let Him lead the way.

There is a Divine Will at work, and you are an important part of it. There is a natural flow of energy, chi, or the Tao, and we can choose to either swim against that current, or we can stop resisting and go with the flow. One of the most powerful themes in Islam in the theme of submission to the Divine. Instead of focusing on receiving and attracting, we can focus on giving and loving.

The Chilean novelist Isabel Allende wrote about this concept more eloquently than I ever could:

The pain of losing my child was a cleansing experience. I had to throw overboard all excess baggage and keep only what is essential. Because of Paula, I don't cling to anything anymore. Now I like to give much more than to receive. I am happier when I love than when I am loved… Give, give, give -- what is the point of having experience, knowledge or talent if I don't give it away? Of having stories if I don't tell them to others? Of having wealth if I don't share it? I don't intend to be cremated with any of it! It is in giving that I connect with others, with the world and with the divine.

Step back. Let Him/Her/Them/the Divine/the Tao/the natural flow of the universe lead the way.

Below is a video of Carrie Underwood singing her amazing song, “Jesus take the wheel.”