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Study of the Text 8-22-12

8-22-12
2 Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their Source, which is far beyond evaluation.

When I first read this I had to wonder why I was studying a whole course in miracles if miracles did not matter. But now I understand that it is the Love that sources the miracle that is important. As we continue to uncover the love that we are, our memory returns. Once that happens we eagerly return to our Source and there will no longer be a need for miracles. It is Love that is eternal and so Love that matters. But right now, it is our destiny to live a miraculous life.

3 Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.

It took awhile, but eventually I figured out that I didn’t know the first thing about love. When the course talks about love it is not talking about the secret bargains we make with each other in an effort to trade the little we believe we have for what we think we need that the other person seems to have. Nor is it talking about the victim/victimizer relationship, where one gives “selfless” love in the hopes of receiving an undeserved response, and a sense of power and control.

The Course isn’t even talking about feeling in love, or feeling love for some specific object of our affection. This is the love that we are. It cannot be contained. It cannot be aimed at one but withdrawn from another. It simply is, and is without limits or boundaries. It has no conditions. There is no place it is not.

We have imagined that we have made a place where love cannot go, and then imagined something to take its place, a pale and pitiful substitute that meets the restrictions that separation places on all things. But this can only be true in our imaginations. In truth, love cannot be destroyed or limited. It is eternally itself, undiminished and undivided.

It is this Love that is the Source of all miracles. As we uncover the Love that we blocked from our awareness, the effects of this Love begin to blossom in our life as miracles. After living in the darkness of separation, any bit of love we uncover is a miracle and as we uncover more and more our life becomes alight in this love, and miracles abound.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 8-21-12

8-21-12
I. Principles of Miracles

1 There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not “harder” or “bigger” than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal. 

Jesus started off with a bombshell. This just blew up all my preconceived ideas about miracles, and about life in general. Certainly, I had always assumed that it would be a greater miracle to raise the dead than it would be to cure a headache. I mean, who wouldn’t? This is a world of separation, differences, and contrasts. And my resistance to this idea has been strong and persistent.

I am finally beginning to see things differently, and the reason I can do this now is that I understand the last sentence. All expressions of love are maximal. Miracles are an expression of love and there are no degrees of love. Love is whole, eternal, and unchanging. Love heals and it doesn’t require more love to heal bigger errors.

The reason for this is two-fold. The first is because love is complete in itself; there is neither more nor less of love. This is hard for us to understand because there is nothing in this world we can hold to that standard. I can’t think of a metaphor because what would I use? There is no meeting place between the world and reality.

The second reason this is true is that there are no bigger errors. Cancer is not a bigger error than a headache. It appears so but appearances are not the truth. All forms of suffering occur because of an untrue belief. Beliefs don’t come in sizes. I believe that pain is real, or I believe that pain is not real. I simply choose the belief that I want to be real, and what I believe is true for me.

One of the reasons it has been hard for me to accept this idea is that I still seem to have use for some forms of suffering. Before I can let go of the idea of suffering, I have to realize why I value it, and then I have to change my mind about that. I have to realize that suffering does not actually get me what I want. I do this by asking the Holy Spirit to heal me when I see this belief in my mind.

The Holy Spirit has been working on this with me. This year when I read Lesson 190, which says that it is my thoughts alone that cause me pain, and that nothing external to my mind can hurt or injure me in any way, it seems that I was ready to go deeper into this lesson. The Holy Spirit used physical pain to teach me that this is true.

I opened my mind to the possibility that this is meant literally for all forms of pain. Into the crack I made in my firmly held belief that pain was caused by something outside me, the light of truth began to permeate my thoughts. I became willing to see differently.

It took months of looking at my beliefs and allowing love to heal me before I began to generalize the lesson. At first I thought of the different kinds of pain as being different because they felt different. Some felt worse than others. Some seemed to be connected to one thing and some to another and so I thought they were different.

What I eventually discovered is that none of these differences mattered because they were just the way my belief took form. One of the reasons it was time to go more deeply with Lesson 190 is that I was beginning to accept that I was not the self I had always assumed as my identity. I was starting to believe that I am Self, and that Myron was not real. So when I read the following lines, I was more open to receiving them.

But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs.

With this promise in mind I found another passage in this lesson that served as a mantra I could use when I became aware of a thought in my mind that came from a belief in pain. Any time I felt physical pain or emotional pain, I would use that moment as an opportunity to remind myself of the truth by reciting my mantra, with a willingness to accept it as true even if I did not currently believe it.

If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God.

As I used that mantra over and over I saw the miracle take form. The miracle was the change in my belief, and the form was the pain dissolving right before my eyes. I saw this happen many times.

But pain is such a useful belief that I would pick it back up over and over again. Because I am ready to learn this lesson, the Holy Spirit is helping me to see the value I place in the belief in pain. I noticed one day that I use sickness to get out of things I don’t want to do, so I stopped doing that. I changed my mind as I realized what this cost me.

He showed me how I use pain to get attention from those who I thought were not giving me what I needed in attention and affection. That was an embarrassing revelation, but I forgave myself and accepted the benefits of letting that go. There was another whole lesson there that I will talk about another time.

Yesterday, I had a headache and this is a form of pain that I have not given up. I know it is not any bigger or different than any other form of the belief in pain and I think because I have a magical solution for it, and because it is bearable, I decided to keep this one for the value it has for me. As that realization was given me, I asked Holy Spirit to help me see why I was choosing pain over love this time.

Suddenly I had the thought that I was working late and that I was very tired and feeling put out. I felt like the company demanded too much of me, and that they should not expect me to work extra hours. It was a lot of thoughts along that line. Then I noticed the feeling that came with these thoughts and realized that I felt like a victim. It was a “poor me” feeling, and I blamed the company and my boss, because projection is the way we get out of responsibility and how we avoid change here in the world.

As soon as I saw the reason for holding onto this form of pain, I returned to my mantra. I remembered that sickness is a decision I make. I remembered that nothing can be done to me, but only by me. I remembered that pain is not real so I must be imagining this and now I understand my motivation for doing so, I choose to let it go. I am not a victim of the world I see and I cannot really believe that anymore. It is just a habit I fall back into from time to time.

With a simple change of mind, love healed me. My mind was healed, and the form the madness took (this time a headache) dissolved away into nothingness. The ego questions this, saying I am just asking for worse pain, that I would not find this so easy if it were a serious illness, but I hold that Jesus meant what he says in the Course. He said that there is no order of difficulty in miracles and that all expressions of love are maximal. I believe him.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 8-20-12

8-20-12
INTRODUCTION

1 This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
 
2 This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:

Nothing real can be threatened. 

Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God. 

From the very beginning I see that free will is different than what I thought it was. The world was made as a place I could pretend that I am free to be something I am not, but it is a finite experience. I must awaken from the dream of separation because that is the Will of God, which is also my will. I cannot remain forever separate from my reality and so I must one day take a course in miracles. When I do this is up to me. I am free to play in a world of experience for as long as I can stand the pain.

To have an experience that is different from reality I needed to block reality from my mind, otherwise the experience would not feel real. Since reality is Love, I have hidden love from my awareness and now must uncover it. It feels like I am learning what it means to love so different is the experience of love as we see it in the dream, but as the introduction to the Course says, love is beyond what can be taught.

Through the study of A Course in Miracles, I am learning to remove the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence. First I have learned to recognize those blocks in my mind; the belief in guilt, fear, pain, suffering and death. I am learning to recognize them in all the forms in which they appear in this story of Myron’s life.

The next step is to realize that I don’t want them anymore. It is hard to believe that I could value experiences that are so painful but it seems that I have done so and sometimes still do. I have clung tenaciously to my dream existence, insisting that I can dream a happier dream, a better dream, a different dream. I can rearrange this one with a different decision. I can learn from my mistakes and gather more information, get smarter, finally meet the right person, earn more money, find the key to happiness within the dream. And if this doesn’t do it for me, then I’ll try again in a different life, a different form and personality.

I am like a child having the most amazing play-day ever with all my friends. We are dressing up in an incredible array of costumes and are taking on the personas that go with the bodies we have chosen for this act in the play. Every experience is so real it is easy to forget that I am not that. And like a child who has over stayed her curfew, and who has done something not allowed, I feel guilty and fearful of facing my Father. It seems the only thing to do is to stay in the play and bury my fear under more and more experiences, trying to forget my belief that I am in trouble.

This sense of guilt and fear are the blocks that keep me unaware of my Father’s unconditional and unending love. They are the blocks that keep me from remembering my true Self. So these are the blocks I am learning to recognize in their many guises, and these are the blocks I am deciding that I don’t want anymore.

That the Course came into my life and I picked it up and kept reading past the introduction; that I have practiced it and embraced its hopeful promise, is the way I know that I am ready to wake up from this dream of separation. And A Course in Miracles is the way I have chosen to do it. Or perhaps, the way that has chosen me.

When I first read the introduction I didn’t understand it at all. If fear is the opposite to love (and really, how is that true?) then how could love then have no opposite? And nothing real can be threatened? Everything I ever thought of as real could be threatened, and I had so much proof that this was true because of all the loss I had suffered in my life.

Nothing unreal exists? Well, yeah. But what did that mean? It was all such nonsense that I didn’t even try to figure it out. And yet, I read it over and over, returning to it like a metal filing to a magnet. With the ego mind I was working with at the time I was unable to understand what was being said, but there was a deeply guarded memory in my mind that was being tickled awake as I read those enigmatic words.

The ego didn’t understand them, but I was to discover that I am not the ego and “I” know exactly what they mean. That memory pulled me along and kept me reading even though the ego self I was so thoroughly identified with was mystified as to why I wanted to study this book. A Course in Miracles is not the only path home. There are thousands to choose from, but it is the path I am to take, and I am deeply grateful to have found it.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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God Doesn’t Condemn Me. Why Should I?

I was looking at Lesson 228 this morning. It says that God has condemned me not. No more do I, or in normal language, God doesn’t condemn me, why should I? ~smile~ In a past journal I was wrestling with a fear thought and Holy Spirit had given me a very helpful message. I told Him how I felt and asked for help. Here is an abbreviation of what was said.

Me: How do I shake this off? If God does not condemn me, why should I? Holy Spirit, please help me to understand this differently. I get it on an intellectual level, but my intellect does not serve me here. It simply masks my doubt with all the right words. My heart still contracts at the thought of my “sin.” Holy Spirit, I know all the right words. I don’t want words and intellectual reasoning. I can’t think of anything more symbolic of the ego than just saying all the right words and trying to change my mind through reason. I want to slough off the ego thought of separation from You. I want to slough off the ego thought of unworthiness and condemnation.

Holy Spirit: My dear friend, Do you feel like someone in a fight with themselves, and if you are fighting your self who do you think will win? Surrender the fight. Surrender the struggle. You are sloughing off the ego identity every day. Every day you feel less like the ego and more like your true Self.

The thought in your mind that wants to be separate and autonomous is in resistance, but it is just a small thought in the vastness of your holy mind. It is nothing to fear, and nothing to fight. Surrender. Surrender to the truth. Remember that you are loved, you are loving, and you are Love. Let the struggle and the fight go out of you and allow the gentle arms of Love to wrap around your holy Self. Relax into the Truth. We surround you with love and support and wait patiently for you to accept all the help you are offered. Will you accept the Love of God now? Do you see how easy this is? Merely stop wrestling with yourself, surrender to Love, and allow us to support you.

Well this is funny, because again this morning I find myself looking at a persistent fear thought. For a couple of days it felt heavy and burdensome, but today I understand that this thought is coming up in different ways so that I can see it and let the light of truth shine it away. At first I completely bought into the ego belief that even having the thought in my mind was a sin, and that it meant I was not saved and evidently never would be. This thought, believed, led to fear which made the lie feel more real and more serious.

I knew that this was not right even though I was feeling it. I stayed with the Holy Spirit on it and kept asking for healing and another way to see it.  I began to let it go but it was not immediate. It felt stubborn and as hard to remove as ink on white linen. I kept returning to the thought and felt like I was indeed wrestling with myself. I felt like I had finally won the fight but this morning I noticed that another similar thought on the same subject arose in my mind but this time I remembered that the thought does not define me. It is just a thought. I looked at it and saw that it was not a true thought. End of story.

I could have done that from the first moment I noticed that thought, but I became entangled in the ego belief that having the thought in my mind somehow made me guilty. Now it was not just a thought to examine, but it was a confusion of self-condemnation and guilt added to a wrong minded thought. This is what made it feel like a big deal and difficult to let go. To extract my mind from this I had to relax around the belief and see it as an opportunity to forgive what is in the mind rather than a condemnation of what is in the mind.

This morning there was total clarity. I could not be guilty. The other person could not be guilty. Guilt is just something made up, part of the ego illusion of separation. In the real world there is no guilt at all; it is inconceivable. There is no one to forgive because there is nothing to forgive; not ever. The ego mind keeps throwing out different circumstances to entice me back into the story, but the truth is not to be found in the story.

The story was designed to draw me away from truth. Each time the story returned to mind I looked away from it and back to truth. What shall I believe, the ego or truth?  Looking to the story to tell me what I am is the same as asking the ego what I am. The ego story says everyone is guilty of something. The Holy Spirit doesn’t show me how each person can be seen as innocent, He shows me that guilt does not exist so everyone is innocent.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 8-15-12

8-15-12
5 Let us go out and meet the newborn world, knowing that Christ has been reborn in it, and that the holiness of this rebirth will last forever. We had lost our way but He has found it for us. Let us go and bid Him welcome Who returns to us to celebrate salvation and the end of all we thought we made. The morning star of this new day looks on a different world where God is welcomed and His Son with Him. We who complete Him offer thanks to Him, as He gives thanks to us. The Son is still, and in the quiet God has given him enters his home and is at peace at last.
I don’t think I have to wait for this. I think the delay is only in my mind and that salvation waits complete, for me to notice it is here. Could it possibly be so easy after eons of telling myself that it is too hard, too much work, too scary? Could I simply accept that it is done, that I have been saved from my illusion, my dream of being separate from God? Could it be that it has already been accomplished and I sit here in my messy story pretending that there is more to do?

I have considered this possibility and I have taken a step out of the story. It is glorious! So much has fallen away and I feel so free. I watch the story unfold and find it more interesting than upsetting. I wonder how it is that I could have been so blind before, how I could have ever taken this seriously. Didn’t Jesus tell me that nothing can be real if God did not create it? Did I think he was just saying those words to hear himself talk? Of course he meant it. It is so obvious now. Why can’t everyone see this? I feel like shaking everyone and saying, “Wake up! Wake up!”

Then a couple of days ago I have an insane moment when I imagine that I am separate from someone else and catapult myself right back into the world, and suddenly it all seems so real and so serious. It seems that this person should stop being himself and be someone I like better. It seems like I am suffering because of his words and his attitude. It even seems like he got me kicked out of paradise with his meanness.

All the while there is this voice of sanity that I’ve pushed to the back of my mind saying, “Really? Really, Myron? This is where you want to go with your thinking?” I know I’m crazy to listen to the mind tell me that I am a victim and can’t do anything about it. I know I’m crazy to listen to the mind say that it’s too late, I’m lost again and will never find that eye of the needle, that hidden way out of the world, that I will never luck into that again. The mind says that paradise is lost again, I lost it and I don’t deserve to find it again if I would throw it away over such a little thing.

Isn’t that just like the ego mind? It seems like a tyrant that batters me with mean and disheartening thoughts, but really it is just a belief that generates thoughts in support of that belief. The ego mind is the belief in separation and so all the thoughts it has to offer me are thoughts that come from that belief, thoughts that encourage fear, guilt, anger, shame, frailty, suffering and death. Why would I expect anything else from the ego? Would I expect apples from an orange tree?

Sitting around blaming the ego for doing its job and feeling assaulted by the ego is ridiculous. It’s like sitting under that orange tree and saying “Ouch” every time an orange fell on my head. I can wish the oranges would stop falling and berate the tree for throwing oranges on me, or I can get up and go someplace else.

I asked myself, does it make me happy to think my brother’s words are disrespectful and unkind? Does it make me happy to think I am a victim to my feelings? Is there another way to see this? I seemed to remember that just the other day there was another way to see. So I got up and went someplace else. I am sitting under a flowering tree now. When something falls on me it is soft and fragrant and doesn’t cause me pain. ~smile~

It is as simple as choosing to recognize the source of the thoughts in my mind and deciding to listen to the thoughts that come from a different Source. The Voice for God is just as available to me as is the ego voice, and this Voice is not a liar, so why would I not listen to it. Why on earth did I listen to the ego to begin with? Is it so seductive? Does it offer me something sweeter than unending peace and joy? Or is it just familiar, an old habit?

I embraced fear and guilt for a very long time and I see that those ideas still live in the mind, still tempting. But I know something else now. I know that no matter how real it appears, separation and all its effects are an illusion. That fact is undeniable. It seems that once I know something, it is not possible to un-know it. I might get temporarily distracted from the truth, but I cannot lose it. I might slip into confusion, but I cannot stay there. The truth is in my mind and it is not going anywhere.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 8-14-12

8-14-12
4 Let us wait here in silence, and kneel down an instant in our gratitude to Him Who called to us and helped us hear His Call. And then let us arise and go in faith along the way to Him. Now we are sure we do not walk alone. For God is here, and with Him all our brothers. Now we know that we will never lose the way again. The song begins again which had been stopped only an instant, though it seems to be unsung forever. What is here begun will grow in life and strength and hope, until the world is still an instant and forgets all that the dream of sin had made of it. 

There are many places in the Course that encourage gratitude, including some Workbook Lessons such as, Love is the way I walk in gratitude.  Here again, gratitude is encouraged. We are told to wait here in silence, and kneel down an instant in our gratitude. I am not sure why gratitude is so important, but I don’t have any trouble feeling gratitude.

I am very grateful to Jesus for remembering the truth and then being in charge of the Atonement. I can’t imagine how he did that. It has taken me 30 years to get where I am in it and I have all this help. I am also extremely grateful for A Course in Miracles and other books that have been helpful. I am so grateful for the Holy Spirit, for His unfailing presence in my mind, His guidance, His gentle persuasion and endless patience.

In gratitude I follow that guidance, and I am very grateful indeed, that I travel this road with His help and with my mighty companions. Jesus tells us that now we will never lose our way again. I wander off the path from time to time, but he is right; I never lose my way anymore. Even when I forget myself and look to the ego for guidance I see what is happening, and I choose again.

Yesterday was such a day. I reacted to something said to me and it is like I opened the door to every unhealed thought in the mind. I suppose that is good thing because it gave me that opportunity to forgive. However, it felt dark in that place for awhile as I experienced the effects of giving the ego mind my attention. And yet, even while I was in the middle of that experience, I knew it was just an experience and that it would pass.

I asked for help and of course I received it, but I had to wait until I really wanted the help. I laugh now as I think about it because I thought I was asking for healing, but really I was asking for relief. I hated the feeling of being angry and frustrated, but I also hated the idea of being wrong so I held onto it far too long, which simply means I suffered longer.

Right before I went to sleep I asked for healing and I guess I meant it. The thought I was given was to listen to the first chapters of ACIM as I slept. I did this and all night I dreamed wonderful stories of being taught about the Holy Spirit, and stories of people being led by the wise counsel of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus says that what is begun here will grow.  I feel a thrill of gratitude thinking about that, knowing that while it feels like Myron is waking up, really the whole Sonship is waking up through the story of Myron and all our stories. It grows exponentially as each of us who walk this path will be sent students, people who are ready to walk a path also, and each of them will touch many others.

We will probably have students we don’t even recognize as such, those who just need to be in the presence of a teacher of God to get the encouragement they need to take the next step. Much teaching is done without words or our conscious awareness, which is probably good, as the ego likes to play teacher, too. I am still learning to step back and let Him lead the way. 

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 8-13-12

8-12-12
3 Be not afraid. We only start again an ancient journey long ago begun that but seems new. We have begun again upon a road we travelled on before and lost our way a little while. And now we try again. Our new beginning has the certainty the journey lacked till now. Look up and see His Word among the stars, where He has set your Name along with His. Look up and find your certain destiny the world would hide but God would have you see. 

This makes me wonder exactly what is meant. We start a journey… does this mean Holy Spirit and I? Jesus and I?  My brothers and sisters and I? Have I imagined the life of Myron over and over or have I imagined many, many different lives? Perhaps I focus my attention on a story as often as I need to until I have learned the lesson within the story, then I move to another story for awhile. It feels as though it must be many stories but I don’t really know. I don’t even understand the concept of “I”.

I know that I am not Myron. I presume I have taken on the persona of other characters, but whether I have or not, I have left Myron behind in the ritual of death and awoken to my self, but it is still a separated self. Without the story of a body and the feeling of being that body, it must feel a bit more real, and not as confusing, I would think. Without the complete amnesia we experience when we “enter” the world (maybe immerse ourselves in that experience would describe it better) it must feel so much freer.

But if there is not a complete and permanent awakening, a total enlightenment such as occurred for Jesus, then the journey is not over and presumably rebirth is chosen so we can try again. This cannot be the “I” that I truly am, the real Self, because it is still not One. It must still be part of the dream. Letting go of the idea of animating a body for a while in the dream story does not end the dream.

And yet, I exist. I exist exactly as God created me. I exist in God, as part of God, and I exist as creator. I, at this moment exist. I continue to create as God created. I have creations that know me and love me. Creation does not cease to exist simply because I am dreaming.  Some part of mind has wondered off on an adventure and is being called back home. My focus seems to be on the part that is dreaming of this strange world of separation with its impossible possibilities.

Jesus tells us that the world is old and tired. We are beginning to realize that it is time to let go of the adventure, to return to our Self and that is what is happening. That is the reason this time the journey is going to have a different ending. This time we began the journey with a new certainty. We have seen past the world to the truth that has been kept perfectly safe for us.

It seems that we need to waken gently, allowing the memory to surface in its own way and in its own time. The death of the body does not awaken us; it does nothing but end a certain story, an experience of a certain body. But we will awaken, because we already have. We are one with Jesus and he has awakened, therefore so have we. Now we are only using time to accept what has happened. We are forgiving the dream and allowing it to end.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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