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October-December, 2023

Healing the Split Mind

by Dani Novak, Student of the POL Ministerial Program

For many years I suffered from depression. The irrational fears, dense self hatred and guilt were so great that I could not face them. They were too scary. I was barely breathing.
It all started one fateful day when I was 14. I was sitting by another student in a high school class in Israel. We were pushing each other’s arms and he told me one sentence with just two words in Hebrew. The English translation has three words: “You are gay.”
The words penetrated my mind like a sharp knife. When I came home I opened the old testament and read in Leviticus 20 13: “And a man who lies with a male as one would with a woman both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon themselves.” I wanted to die.
I envied my father who was 57 years old at the time that he did not have so many years left on the earth… I did not share this with anyone for years. Shame was too great and I stuffed it into my subconscious. My mind split.  “Because your mind is split, you can perceive as well as think.” (T-6.II.9:3) This is when the depressions started for me in this life.
Split mind leads to split life. On the surface I was a happy teenager. The inner life was hell. There was a constant chatter in my mind that I hid from awareness. I tried to prove to myself that I was not gay and started to hate gay people. I felt so alone. No one would guess since I tried to hide my thoughts both from myself and others.
Fast forward about 30 years: I became a Math professor at Ithaca College. I had a loving wife and was a father of two beautiful girls. The old fears took other forms and the mental pain and agony were unbearable. Then came a miracle. My wife told me to listen to the radio. It was an interview of a man called Jerald Jampolsky who wrote a book named “Love Is Letting Go of Fear”.
The words of Dr. Jampolsky were soothing my inner agony and I bought this small book. I read it and at the very end it said that all the ideas came from another book called “A Course in Miracles” (ACIM). I decided to buy that book also.
I tried reading ACIM but it did not make sense. It was filled with Christian concepts and I was Jewish. The book stayed with me for two years and one day when I just could not bear the mental agony of guilt any longer, I opened the book and it became a celestial poem. It soothed my sick mind. I found a local ACIM group and started to study the Course with other people. I started feeling better. Still the mind was split.
Moving fast forward 30 years later: Until recently I continued suffering from depressions that would be very painful and lasted for weeks. In between there were weeks and months of living a happy life. Each time the depression would strike I would feel terribly guilty.
I wanted to be saved. I wanted to find a formula where I would not suffer from these depressions. I did not realize that the “I” that wanted the depression to stop was not me. Only very recently (listening to Keith Kavanagh was very helpful for me) I experienced a breakthrough and this is what I want to share with you.

There were two insights: The reason for my severe depression was that the constant chatter in my mind was so scary that I was hiding my scattered thoughts from myself. My mind turned against itself. “A mind that has been blocked has allowed itself to be vulnerable to attack, because it has turned against itself.” (ACIM, T-8.VII.10:7)

I knew what to do: One night, when I could not sleep because of the attack, I was simply breathing (Michael Brown’s Presence process helped me) for hours and writing down pages of that scattered garbage that was in my mind. It purified me.

The second insight that came about a week later: I AM not the chatter. There is no need to stop the chatter. The chatter cannot stop the chatter. I realized experimentally that I can choose Love instead of fear, simply by choosing it. For example, when I get irritated by something (either a painful thought or a seemingly external trigger), I notice it and allow the feeling or thought to be there without judging it.
This is becoming my constant practice now. I am just a beginner in this but it feels so good to practice it, and I am becoming stronger. I am no longer afraid of the depression as I used to be. I am learning that I have a choice. The choice is always in the present moment. I am learning that I am not that insane chatter in my head. I know I am Love.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2023

Perfect Love and the Mind of God

by Rev. Peggy Rivera, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

I have a friend I have been talking with who has been dealing with a lot of problems. She has had more on her plate than she feels she can deal with. I wondered how I can help someone who is visibly unhappy and seems to feel like a victim of their circumstances.

If I sit and listen and try to console, am I adding to the problem, because the Course says none of this is real. If I acknowledge that I hear them, am I acknowledging that it is real?

I asked Holy Spirit for guidance when I truly wanted to help. I got an answer so fast it was funny. As I was asking for guidance from Holy Spirit, the telephone rang and it was someone who was very distraught and upset with others saying that “they won.” She felt humiliated and like a loser. And Holy Spirit said to me that very moment, “There is no competition, you are love and so are they.”

This was perfect because it made her see she was believing a situation where one person is having to be better than another but, in God’s eyes, we are all perfect. God’s Love for us is perfect and there are no circumstances that makes that not true for any of us. I realized that here on planet earth this is what we can use the body for. We need to consult with the Holy Spirit’s help because this is the tool we are given.

The ego always tries to trap us into the thought process of making judgments and comparisons that create war between us. When we are not aware of His complete Love, we feel like we are guilty.

Most of the time we do not understand where that feeling of guilt comes from. We think it is circumstantial for the present moment. Little do we know that it originated a very long time ago and we re-create situations that keep this alive within ourselves.

I see patterns of thinking that mimic this pattern over and over again. So, as I reflect on the question I began with, I got my answer.

We can listen and feel empathy and console, but we must also remind them that they are perfect in God’s eyes; that we do not need to create any chaos or drama in our lives.

Sometimes I think it is helpful to just listen and be in a state of love and peace. We remind each other to lift ourselves above the fray and gain a new perspective; the perspective of unconditional Love.

In A Course in Miracles it says, “To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother and yourself by sharing the Holy Spirit with him. This places you both within the Kingdom, and restores its wholeness in your mind.” (T-7.II.2:1-2)

When I try to console without asking for help from Holy Spirit, my ego can try to insert itself to confirm their fears. I may try to agree with them and see others as being cruel to them. But under the guidance of Holy Spirit, I can remind them that they are all Love. When we judge others we also judge ourselves. That judgment keeps us feeling alone and afraid. If I am talking to someone who does not study the Course, I can word it in ways that they are able to accept.

I realize that as we live here in this world of duality, we need to continually bask in the Light of the Holy Spirit. That is why He is here — to remind us of our true Self.
It is so easy in this world of illusion to feel unloved and afraid, to feel judged by our peers. I remember feeling that way when I was younger and had not studied the Course.

Slowly I have integrated the realizations of truth. If I judge my brother, I become that which I condemn. I realize it is difficult to let go of the need to be right, the need to blame others for hurting me, but it adds to living a life of victimhood. It keeps us on the not-so-merry-go-round of “stinkin’ thinkin’.” While I explained to my friend that the people she was upset with were just confused and had not realized their true identity, she was meeting me with a lot of resistance and she so much wanted to lash out at them.

As we learn the law of the Kingdom, which is the law of Love, we can find It in ourselves to see others as innocent; as little children who have not yet learned to let go and let God. We let God in to heal our minds. God is Spirit and He can heal our mind. And as we heal our mind, we feel better.

The friend I was talking with said she felt like she was somehow being punished. She is not A Course in Miracles student. She is a Christian, but decided to convert to her husband’s religion of Judaism. I know she is searching for truth. I feel the need to just remind her how much God loves her. God’s perfect love cancels out all fear, all pain. When we forget that we are pure love in the mind of God, we live by the laws of ego. Here on Earth the ego tries to rule us and keep us in the prison of its laws.

“The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone.” (T.23.ll.2:1) As long as we try to believe we are who the ego says we are and we live in duality believing that two things can be true, we will be imprisoned into fear and conflict. When we realize that we are not the body but Spirit in the Mind of God, we will know peace.

We are all innocent and have not sinned. We are all trying to find our way back into the realization that we are perfect and loved unconditionally.

When we perceive ourselves as being judged by another, we can see them as little children who lack the maturity to see what the truth is. We can take measures to nurture ourselves, and accept the Love that we are. We can see that they are not bad, they have just forgotten who they are. And if we judge others, we are also putting ourselves in that prison alongside of them.

We must remind each other that the Love of God is perfect. There is no war, there is no conflict in the mind of God. There are no differences. God is pure Love and we are perfect in the mind of Him Who created us in Spirit.

The second law of chaos is, “…that each one must sin, and therefore deserves attack and death.” (T.23.II.4:1)

Here we can see how my friend believed she was being punished and, furthermore, that she deserved it. We seem to make God a co-conspirator of hate and death and punishment. We need to remember Who we are and also remember Who God is, realizing He would never ever condemn His creations.

The third law of chaos is, “…if God cannot be mistaken, He must accept His Son’s belief in what he is, and hate him for it.” (T.23.II.6:6)

In the descent from Heaven, we have made God our enemy and we live in fear of Him. If we believe this, we can feel that we are forever lost and that there is nowhere to turn that is safe.

The fourth law of Chaos “…is the belief that you have what you have taken.” >(T.23.II.9:3)