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Study of the Text, Chapter 9, I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 7. 12-9-14

I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 7
7 You may insist that the Holy Spirit does not answer you, but it might be wiser to consider the kind of questioner you are. You do not ask only for what you want. This is because you are afraid you might receive it, and you would. That is why you persist in asking the teacher who could not possibly give you what you want. Of him you can never learn what it is, and this gives you the illusion of safety. Yet you cannot be safe from truth, but only in truth. Reality is the only safety. Your will is your salvation because it is the same as God’s. The separation is nothing more than the belief that it is different.

Two ideas came to my attention as I read this paragraph. First that I might believe that the Holy Spirit does not answer me, and second that the separation is the belief that my will is different than God’s Will. Looking at the first idea, that Holy Spirit sometimes does not answer, I remember that I used to be tortured by that belief. I would ask and ask and it would seem that I would ask in vain and this would frighten me.

If I ask for help from the Holy Spirit and I don’t receive it that would mean that I am wrong about everything. It would mean the Course is not true and I have put all my apples in that particular basket, so that would be very frightening, indeed. Eventually, I came to the same conclusion as is said here in this paragraph. It is never the Holy Spirit that fails to answer; it is my self that fails to question correctly.

Here is an example. If I feel anxious about not having enough time to get my spiritual work done before I have to go to work, I know that I have a belief in lack and in time as an absolute, so I ask that my mind be healed of that belief. That sounds like a perfect question of the Holy Spirit, and I should feel relief after asking and receiving. However, I have noticed that sometimes I ask for help with this problem and nothing changes. I remain anxious.

What has happened is that receiving an answer to this problem with time would mean turning my world upside. If time is not real and can be as elastic as I want because it is not real, then nothing is certain anymore. We may as well throw gravity out the window, too. My fear of change of this magnitude is greater than the fear I will have to choose between my spiritual commitment and my job.

Lack is such a cornerstone of my belief system that I cannot really imagine life without it.  In other words, I ask for the belief in lack to be gone, but I don’t really believe it can happen. I am reminded of the scene in Star Wars where Luke was attempting to levitate his space ship out of a bog. He said to Yoda, “All right, I’ll give it a try.” And Yoda said, “No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.” When Luke failed and Yoda did it easily, he said, “I don’t believe it.” And Yoda said, “That is why you fail.” I am like Luke. I know it can be done, but I just can’t believe I can do it.

In both cases the Holy Spirit is not failing in His answer to me, I am failing in my questioning. I am afraid to ask of the One Who would answer me surely, and so I am asking the ego mind. The ego mind tells me what it believes. Time is real and lack is a certainty. And so I am able to continue believing in my story of separation, pretending to myself that I tried. I know what Yoda would say about that! ~smile~

The way I have dealt with this is to chip away at the belief one circumstance at a time. I need time to finish writing my commentary, and I remember that Jesus said he would arrange time for me if I would let him and so I do. I finish the work, get it posted and still meet my customer on time, and I am amazed that I did all of that in less time than it was possible.

I am like Luke watching Yoda do the seemingly impossible. But each time it happens I lose some of the certainty about time being real, and a lot of the fear that maybe Jesus is right and time is something I made up. Now that this has happened over and over, the surprise is that I still believe in time. I still get anxious about it. Jeez, what is it going to take? The same thing happens with lack. I work with the circumstances one at a time until I have built my willingness to allow total healing.

And the second issue, that separation is no more than the belief that my will is different than God’s Will, rings so true for me now. I know it did not always feel right, and in fact, for awhile it felt threatening in a way I was unwilling to examine too closely. I just didn’t want to give up my separate will and so I couldn’t accept I shared God’s Will.

That is slowly reversing itself, though. I still have resistance but it is lessening by the day. I now have full willingness to face the old beliefs wherever they surface and to allow my mind to be healed. As this belief is undone the entire ego thought system is undone.

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