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July-September, 2004

Above All Else I Want to See Differently

by Rev. Mary Stoelting

One of the main goals of A Course in Miracles is to help me see the ego thought system clearly for what it is so that I will be willing to forgive, or let it go. It tells me that the ego thought system (belief in individuality) is not my friend and instead of giving me the freedom it promises, it only imprisons and hides reality from my awareness.

It is becoming clear that when I identify with the ego, it promises uniqueness, specialness and pleasures of the body as its gifts, but what I am really getting is an illusion of a “life” of vulnerability, weakness, conflict and death.

The Course teaches me how to see the difference between the ego’s thought system, whose one intent is to separate, and the Holy Spirit’s goal, which is to return me to the awareness of oneness. The ego separates through projecting guilt and the Holy Spirit unifies by seeing only innocence.

In Chapter 14, Section V it says, “Crucifixion is always the ego’s aim. It sees everyone as guilty, and by its condemnation it would kill. The Holy Spirit sees only guiltlessness, and in His gentleness He would release from fear and re-establish the reign of love.” (T-14.V.10:6-8)

Until I became a student of the Course, I thought it was only natural to think that everything I experienced with the body’s senses was real. Now I see how important it is to be willing to see the world differently with the help of the Holy Spirit. When I first started studying the Course, it seemed to be a shock to learn that the world I appeared to be in was not real. It seemed unsettling to learn that the physical world was completely the opposite of reality.

The good news is that behind the false world that I see through the body’s eyes is the real world. The Course does not leave me in the cold once it helps me understand the world I see with the body’ senses is not real. It shows me very clearly how to move past the false perceptions of the ego, which is the cause of all my unhappiness, to the true perception of the Holy Spirit.

It instructs me how to be successful in opening to an awareness of what is real. In Chapter 14, Section VII I am told, “The search for truth is but the honest searching out of everything that interferes with truth.” (2:1) It also explains that I cannot search for truth inside the ego box (the ego thought system). That is why I need the Holy Spirit to help me see past all the many forms of the tiny mad idea of separation.

The Holy Spirit is the one communication link with the truth, or Reality. The Holy Spirit is always there in my mind, behind all the raucous, busy noise of the ego. But in order for me to hear the Holy Spirit, I must be willing to quiet my mind and listen. I must be willing to take everything I think I believe is real to the Holy Spirit to be undone. “Light cannot enter darkness when a mind believes in darkness, and will not let it go.” (T-14.VII.5:1)

In order to let my mind be healed by the Holy Spirit, I have to be open to seeing the world differently. (See Workbook Lesson 28) I think this lesson gives the most valuable and practical ‘life skill’ I am learning from the Course.

In order to see the world differently I need to have an open mind instead of a closed mind. If I think I already know from past experience, I will not ask for the Holy Spirit’s healing perception. I believe this one habit of accepting Holy Spirit’s help is so important that it is the single thing that makes all the difference between my being happy or unhappy. This practice of consistently accepting Holy Spirit’s help to see everything in this world differently leads me back up the ladder to Heaven.

An important message in the Text about this practice is, “The Holy Spirit asks for you but this; bring to Him every secret you have locked away from him. Open every door to Him, and bid Him enter the darkness and lighten it away. At your request He enters gladly. He brings the light to darkness if you make the darkness open to Him.” (T-14.VII.6:1-4)

The darkness it is referring to is any guilt I am holding onto, be it in myself or another. This darkness is also referring to every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering. (See Lesson 193) As long as I continue to hold onto the ego thought system by believing in a world of time and space, I will be keeping myself in hell. I will not be happy. It will seem to give me a few brief encounters with worldly happiness, but nothing in this world of separation lasts. It was made to be constantly shifting and changing until it ends in death. As long as I continue to believe in a world of separation, I will think that I am separate and alone. “The world I see holds my fearful self-image in place, and guarantees its continuance. While I see the world as I see it now, truth cannot enter my awareness. I would let the door behind this world be opened for me, that I may look past it to the world that reflects the Love of God.” (W-pI.56.3:2-4)

Everything I experience in the world is coming from my mind. As I let my mind be changed, my experience of the world changes because the world has not left my mind. I want to be consistently happy. I want to awaken to the truth and see a world that reflects the Love of God. That is why above all else, I want to see differently. That is why my one goal is to take every apprehension and every concern to the Holy Spirit for it to be undone.

This is the process of true forgiveness. This daily practice sets me free. “The constancy of happiness has no exceptions; no change of any kind. It is unshakable as is the Love of God for His creation. Sure in its vision as Its Creator is in what He knows, happiness looks on everything and sees it is the same. It sees not the ephemeral, for it desires everything be like itself, and sees it so.” (T-21.VIII.2:3-6)

What do I desire to see? Do I want to see differences and the constantly changing, or do I want to see only the eternal? In order to be consistently happy, my one choice now is to see past differences to the one eternal Love that is always there. Above all else I want to see differently through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As I choose in my heart of hearts, I receive.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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