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January-March, 2012

The One About Money

Rev. Stephan Mead, O.M.C.

I shuttered with fear when I noticed an envelope the mailman just dropped off, had “IRS-NOTICE OF LEVY” prominently stamped on it. Although the exact words going through my mind are not printable in this magazine, you can be assured they were not words of acceptance and gratitude. “How can this be happening to me?” And, “This cannot happen to me!” Are two thoughts I can share. Remember, I still hadn’t even opened the letter yet! My mind (ego) went straight to the worst case scenario: ”Life is so unfair and now I’m going to die!” (Footnote: it used to be my ego would take me down that path in stages, but since studying The Course, it just slams me there.)

In ACIM Lesson 76 we are told, “You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper and piles of metal discs.” Yes! Jesus is right again! That is exactly what I thought, “Forget salvation, forget ‘correct’ thinking, forget ‘oneness,’ forget everything except the thought that nobody should take my money!”

Remembering I still haven’t opened the envelope, and realizing I have gone insane in my thinking, I consciously tried to quiet my mind. When that didn’t work, I figured I might as well go over and over and over in my mind why this shouldn’t be happening to me. Curiously, everything I have been studying in The Course and saying that I believed was not available to me.

Very quickly my ego pointed out that once again I have failed and I was also an idiot for even thinking that I could read spiritual books and end up with a happier life. Perhaps thinking it helpful, my ego also reminded me of other debts I have and how they are not going to get paid as planned.

I opened the envelope and had to laugh — not only were my funds all taken, somehow they took even more! My new balance was -$100. Immediately I tried to go even deeper into depression, but found I couldn’t. I was still laughing at my balance. Have you ever tried to be depressed and laugh at the same time? I couldn’t pull it off.

I called Nancy, (she is my mighty companion,) and told her the story. Nancy suggested we look at the first 10 Workbook Lessons in The Course and use my thoughts about money and debt as subject matter.

I asked the Holy Spirit for willingness to look at my life differently. I needed help because I was really attached to my thoughts, and help was granted. As I am writing about this experience, I’m still broke but found out my company was just awarded the biggest construction contract I have ever bid on. You know what? It is true, I don’t know the reason(s) for anything!

These past couple of months have been anything but peaceful to me. Now, looking back, I have so much to be appreciative for. An ex-wife, (thank you Nancy!) some good friends and even a couple of my brothers have really pitched in to help me out. What I needed to look at with the Holy Spirit, was the thought, “This should not happen to me” when it was happening to me.

Healing from my thoughts that cause me to suffer is my only goal now. I can see there is still a long way to travel, because it wasn’t until I was awarded this current contract that I found any relief at all — so here I am still, believing that happiness can come from a dollar sign. (sigh)

Rev. Stephan Mead, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Seattle, Washington.

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

Receiving Guidance from Within

by Rev. Peggy Rivera, O.M.C.

I recently had a disagreement with a friend of mine.  I lost sleep over it. I felt insulted and I thought negative thoughts about her. I wanted it to be about her.

Then I remembered that what we think are our own projections. I remembered to take it to Holy Spirit. I asked Holy Spirit why I had created this in my life. What in me needs to be healed? I’m innocent, I said. 
I felt the warm comforting feeling that comes over me whenever I go to Him for help and heard the softest voice whisper, “If you find yourself feeling angry at her, look deeper.”

I saw I was angry that I felt dismissed, unimportant and discredited. And then I heard him say, “None of that matters. You have to see past the ego’s needs for importance. We are all extensions of God’s Love. The ego needs power and anything outside of Love does not exist in reality.”

The more I engage in the ploys of the ego, the more turmoil I feel. When I woke up the following morning, I checked my e-mail for the lesson of the day and in it I found solace.

It said, “Today I would practice freeing my brother and myself from the insanity that comes from the split mind.” It was so amazing to me that I had asked for guidance the night before and I was so restless, even though I felt He had answered me.

He also further confirmed what he said through the lesson of the day. This now happens all the time. I find comfort in knowing that all I have to do is ask for help.  I find that we need not look any further than our own Inner Source. The Holy Spirit leads me into peace every time.

Rev. Peggy Rivera, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Miami, Florida.

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

Unearthing and Healing Our Biggest Block to Love

Rev. Nouk Sanchez, O.M.C.

As many of you know, Tomas, my soul buddy, left the body in December 2010. He left through what appeared as cancer of the body. Tomas ‘awakened’ prior to leaving the body. However he was very aware that he chose cancer as a means by which he could apply vigilant discipline to prioritize peace, in order to achieve only ONE goal — to awaken.

Since Tomas left physical form, communication between us has remained unbroken. In fact he is more available now without a body, than he was with one! This is quite miraculous to say the least. Prior to his leaving the body, we both had lived and studied the principles of A Course in Miracles for 20 years. We took the long meandering path and made every conceivable mistake along the way.

While our misunderstanding and confusion appeared to increase our suffering during that period, I see now that we chose this so that we could help light the path Home for others. In particular, we now see a much gentler and more joyful path to undoing suffering and hope to share this with all who are called to walk with us.

Since Tomas left the body, I have been blessed with a monumental leap forward in understanding and embracing the next phase or paradigm of Jesus’ teachings in the Course. I believe that Tomas is helping with this as he’s currently helping many who are committed to undoing fear.

I promised to share these teachings with those who are guided at this time, to take their experience of the Course to a whole new level. This is an invitation to experience and to demonstrate a miraculous paradigm shift. This… is embodying being a true miracle-worker.

Perhaps the strongest catalyst for this recent leap in perception comes from discovering something with Tomas. I must admit that it’s been only recently that I was shown our greatest individual and collective blocks to God’s Love. I was shocked, I had no idea, even after 20 years of ACIM. I see now just why it took me 20 years of such unnecessary suffering to arrive at this present and joyful state of awareness. And no one needs to suffer the way that Tomas and I did. That’s why I’m feeling so guided to hold a 4-Day Retreat in May 2012 to share these epiphanies and to help others overcome pain and suffering; to find deep and unshakable security, Love and joy much sooner.

The first of our major blocks to Love is incredibly well hidden in our unconscious. Even after 20 years, Tomas and I were stunned that we hadn’t recognized it. Yet when we saw it and released it to Spirit, we understood why it took us so long to trust in God’s Love. Until we’d advanced with trusting in Spirit, we did what everyone does here in the dream — we relied largely on our own ‘will’ and the world’s laws. Or, we tried to balance between two paradigms, partially trusting in Spirit and partially trusting in our own (ego) will.

We had one foot each in ‘both’ boats and the mighty current of ego-undoing, rapidly pulled those boats apart. The outcome? Well you can guess, we fell head first in the water and we felt like we were drowning. That’s the feeling all of us have when we attempt to integrate the ego’s laws with Spirit’s paradigm. The two are absolutely irreconcilable. Not until we choose only one will there be consistent peace and joy. Until then we’re welcome to torture ourselves; there is no compromise in this… none.

The biggest of our blocks and the one that hides the deepest is this: Our fear of God. While it’s the last of the obstacles to peace, it can and should be exhumed as soon as possible. I am learning now that this fear of God is so insidious and prevalent, that it sabotages every single thing we do, including the spiritual path that we’re so invested in. It’s at the seat of all our physical pain, our need to control, our attraction to disease, attraction to scarcity, and our attraction to conflict and eventually, to death itself.

If you don’t believe me, maybe you could do a little introductory exercise here…

With pen and paper, write down all the beautiful attributes of God or Life as imagined in the Awakened State. For example: Unconditional Love, peace, joy, safety, security, all my needs are met consistently, etc.

Spend time sitting with all these. These are the intellectual list of God’s celestial attributes. This is what the ego is happy for us to see as long as we don’t dare to delve any deeper and find what we really believe about Love (God) in our unconscious.

Now, with total and radical self-honesty, watch for any signs of fear or concern when you ponder the following statement. Write down each of your fears. Unearthing these fears is invaluable. They pave the way out of fear forever, so please be honest. “I choose only God’s Will for me, from this moment onward. In so doing, I choose to forfeit my own independent ‘will’ in every area of my life.”

If you ask for and accept only His Will, there is no room for your own separate will.

More questions to ponder: Write down any concerns about possible change, loss or sacrifice in each of the important areas of your life. “What do I fear may change or fall away, specifically in the following areas?”

• finances and income

• relationship

• children and family

• security and self-image

• the body and health

• other areas

Any signs of concern or fear represent the tip of the so called ‘iceberg’ as far as our unconscious distrust in God’s Love is concerned. When Tomas and I did this exercise after nearly 20 years of the Course, we were astounded at how much we didn’t completely trust Spirit. We still compartmentalized some parts of our life; the body being the biggest of all (Tomas had cancer at the time). And I saw later (after Tomas had passed) that the ‘special’ relationship with our own body, appears to be the last of our ‘special’ relationships that we surrender fully. Not to disease and death, as the ego dictates. But Jesus is asking us to totally surrender the body as a Holy device through which the Holy Spirit lives by demonstration and extends Love.

When our life looks like a 10 slice pizza and we insist on keeping and controlling some slices independently apart from Spirit, the heat eventually becomes unbearable. And it’s here that we either opt out to recycle again through scarcity, disease or death, or we decide to jump into undoing the ego totally.
To the degree that we continue to maintain our own independent goals, plans and control shows us just how fearful we are still, of God’s Love.

All there is, is God’s all-encompassing Love. There is nothing else. When we see or feel anything else, we are hallucinating. So if all there is, is God’s Love, what then do we consistently defend ourselves against? Why do we insist on problem-solving independently from Spirit? And the answer is, because we still fear God. And Jesus tells us below, that we make up all these defenses, (e.g. conflict, sickness, scarcity, death, etc) not realizing that by defending ourselves against them, we make these illusions appear real and inescapable:

“You make what you defend against, and by your own defense against it is it real and inescapable. Lay down your arms, and only then do you perceive it false.” (W-170.2:6)

We don’t trust Love because we don’t yet know it. From the ego thought system, we project an ego image onto God. And the God that we’re so reluctant to surrender to is the imaginary god the ego made — a cruel and demanding god who tests us constantly through lessons and gives us freedom only in death. No wonder we are so terrified of surrender! The ‘god we made’ is the biggest block to trusting in the process of Awakening from suffering.

Stacy Sully joins me in facilitating our May 2012, 4-day “Know Thyself Retreat” where we’ll literally be undoing the ego’s projections at an experiential level. Stacy helped Tomas through to his Awakening, and she has a truly miraculous ‘gift’ of intuiting and taking people into a deep place of healing. Together, we will also learn to identify our varied hierarchies of illusion (blocks to Love, distrust of God). These demonstrate to what extent we are open (or closed) to practicing the number one miracle principle that, “there is no order of difficulty in miracles.” Until we take a radically honest look at our own order of priorities, we won’t be open to receiving and extending miracles. Healing then, is barred until we review and re-order these, because of our own unconscious defenses against it.

We will be lead through an individual process of learning the true Nature and Will of Love. When we can unearth our fear of Love (God) and expose these deepest and darkest of ego projections and release them, there is a profound movement forward into trusting Love; trusting our Holy Self. From here on in, we can truly embrace Life. Because now we have renounced death in all its forms and no longer fear God’s Love.

Rev. Nouk Sanchez, O.M.C., is co-author (with Tomas Vieira) of best-seller, Take Me to Truth; Undoing the Ego. Website: http://www.undoing-the-ego.org

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

Messages from Spirit

Rev. Mary Manke, O.M.C.

Spirit: You are the Light of the world. You are Divine Light, right now, right where you are.

Dear Child, how little you see of Truth, how little you really comprehend. You need only ask, and it is given you. But still you do not ask, because you think that you will not like what you hear, or that you will be forced to disagree with your first choice.

So, do you like the feelings that you have, are aware of? Do you think these feelings can help you in any way? What you truly search for, can never be found in the illusions of this place or time. The world can offer nothing to make you feel loved, better or whole. Your wholeness already is. It is yours right now, if you choose to have it.  

Choose again. Choose to hold the truth, to hold the value of what you are. Choose to accept that you remain the perfect Child of God. You have not sinned, and can let the dream go as easy as breathing. Let Spirit give you the sight, the knowing, and you will feel the freedom again. You remain as God created you, therefore you are innocent, safe, whole, healed and loved. You are always loved. Choose Love Now.

Spirit: My loving Daughter,
Everything you have, you give. Everything that you are aware of, you give. When you are immersed in Love and are aware, then you naturally give Love. You become aware of the Real-ness of Love. You feel calm, confident and happy.

My dear dear Child,
You ask endless questions but there is nothing you need “do” to receive what is given you Now. The array of questions is just a screen for not letting go of false ideas and idols that do not protect you.

Dear, dear Child, you are safe this very instant. You are always loved in each moment. You are free in every instant. The Love that created you has not changed nor has the Thought about you dimmed. You are loved beyond this crazy world. You are loved and cherished and sustained without measure of any kind. What is Itself without distance or measure cannot conceive of such devices or thoughts. You are whole, complete, flawless because you have not changed what Love created perfect.

Lay down your defense against the Truth. Lay down the endless excuses of what you can or can not be. You did not make yourself — yet you exist — and so you can and will remember the truth beyond this dream of shadows. Your shadow dream is not life, yet has become the means to set you free and find your way Home. It is the means for you to wake because in this dream you let go and overlook the illusions that seem to separate.

Dear Child, you are never, never alone. Always your Companion, your Guide walks with you. Rest in this certainty. You can have perfect rest in this thought: You cannot be alone, you cannot fail to hear His words. His attendance to you is undiminished, unswayed and in perfect timing and cadence to your position.

Trust in His Presence. Trust in His Voice for you. Trust in His direction.

How perfect is your path; how bright the visitation; how joyous is the journey!

It is an adventure, a daily adventure into the Heaven and you go not alone. Your path is lit, and you cannot fail to move ahead. Simply remember you are not alone, you can never be alone.

Rev. Mary Manke, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister who lives in Wautoma, Wisconsin. Read more of her inspiring Healing Journal articles on the Pathways of Light web site.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

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