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We Return to God Together

by Revs. Robert & Mary Stoelting

Several months ago we received a clear message from our inner Teacher to give time first thing each morning to opening to Spirit to receive guidance for the day and to place what we received on a Daily Inspiration Blog on the Pathways of Light web site. (You can now have this daily inspiration message emailed to you.)

Because we have a lot going on in our lives, on some days it seemed like there was not enough ‘time,’ but we did it anyway. Always, without fail, we were glad we did. Through this commitment, no matter what, to open to Holy Spirit first, we have been brought to a stronger awareness of what is truly important in our lives. We are learning to strengthen our trust in God’s laws rather than the laws of the world that seem to be outside our minds.

We are being guided to walk softly in the world and put all our concerns in God’s hands instead of the ego’s hands. Following is an example of what we receiving:

Holy Spirit to Robert:  “Walk softly in the world” means don’t give credence to the images of the world. They are not real and can have no effect on the Son of God. As you walk softly, you are able to see past the images to the reality of the invulnerability and strength of the Love you are. In seeing this you recognize that Love is everywhere and only Love is real.

You do not need to defend against the images of the world. Your only need is to extend Love. Where there is the appearance of lack of Love, you offer Love. Where Love is offered, you join with It and extend It. This is natural to you, the Son of God. As you accept this you recognize that all the appearances of bodies and personalities are simply masks that seem to hide the Son of God Who is the one extension of God’s Love.

Walk softly today and let Love guide all your seeing. Love will show you all forms of doing that will help to bring awareness of Love’s presence everywhere.

Holy Spirit to Mary: An important key to receiving a change in perception is to focus on relaxing and letting go, letting your mind receive the Light of truth, putting out the “welcome mat” for your inner Teacher in quiet. It does not matter how much time this takes. Your willingness to receive the truth is what matters.

During this time you may receive images of being showered with Light or peace. Taking the time to receive peace and feeling it is very helpful. As peace takes over, you see that there is nothing more for you to do. You just receive. The strength of God does the rest. Your little part is to be open to receive.

The ego thoughts just naturally fall away as the Light grows stronger. The feeling that everything is all right and that you are safe gets stronger. You identify with this feeling of peace as Home. As the feeling of peace grows even stronger, you experience being free of stress and strain. You experience that the individual self identity dissolves in this peaceful Light. Nothing matters now but this Light of Love. You see that It is all that is real. You naturally receive and extend the Love and Light that you feel. It feels so effortless and natural.

You innately know that this is your function now — to open to Love’s Presence and extend Love’s Presence. This is how you heal. This is how you are healed. This is what time is for.

Many times during the day we forget, but we are learning that even though we still forget, we are still innocent. This helps us remember that everyone’s forgetting in this world doesn’t matter. Everyone is still innocent and nothing has changed God’s one Son, no matter what he dreams.

Recently we have had the benefit of working on the audio book, “Healing Family Relationships” by Rev. Myron Jones. In working with preparing Myron’s audio book for publication, we have found it to be a very compelling, powerful and practical source of helping our awakening process. (There are no accidents.)

In her book Myron shares how she is awakening from the dream of separation and what blocks around family relationships she has encountered and passed through with the help of the Holy Spirit. One idea in her powerful audio book that was particularly helpful to us is asking in every situation, “Holy Spirit, how can we use this situation for awakening?”

We have been practicing this and we find it very helpful when we catch ourselves futurizing instead of being in the present moment in order to learn our lessons with Holy Spirit. If we jump to the future, we are not learning what is there for us now.

Practicing Myron’s suggestion has helped us feel so blessed that, no matter what, Holy Spirit can use everything that shows up in our dream for the purpose of awakening. Note: You can purchase this wonderful, healing audio book by going to http://www.pathwaysoflight.org or call 1-800-323-PATH. (See back cover.)

We want to thank you for the emails we have received from many of you who have been joining with us on our daily inspiration blog. We see that we are not alone on our journey Home and it is so encouraging to see that thousands are truly willing to let their minds be healed of the belief in separation, which is the only problem.

In this issue of Miracles News we are introducing a new way of joining through weekly teleconference that is both simple and powerful. People can now register for Miracles Practitioner courses that are being offered through teleconference. (See web site or catalog for course descriptions.)

Also included with this issue of Miracles News is our annual membership renewal. We would appreciate it if you would be willing to help us now by becoming a sustaining member or renewing your membership. In addition to the growing expense of printing and mailing Miracles News, we have had a significant increase of people asking for scholarships. We would like to respond to these requests, but we need your help to continue these services.

Revs. Robert and Mary Stoelting are co-founders of Pathways of Light. They live at the Pathways of Light Center in St. Cloud, Florida. To support Pathways of Light this coming year by becoming a supporting member or renewing your membership, click here.

© 2009, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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Soul Acceptance Is Being Truly Helpful

by Rev. Mary Gerard Lenihan

Our purpose is to accept our soul. That’s it! My mind does a flip as I am driving to the grocery store. What once seemed the easier way — talking about my Higher Self, reading about my eternal Spirit, analyzing the ego and writing about our true Nature — now seems a lot more difficult than just being it… being who I am.

I felt safe indulging in spiritual studies. While I was thankful for an occasional glimpse of peace, the thought of hanging out there indefinitely brought up fears of loss, loss of the life I live and loss of my identity. What if I disappear? For moments here and there I am experiencing the soul’s purpose — Self Acceptance and the undeniable peace it brings. I ask myself, “What more of a purpose could I desire than to be my Self?”

This appears to be easier said than done, yet to my surprise I am discovering that it is easier done than said! That is precisely because there is nothing to do — simply be willing to be. I feel safer being in peace than talking about peace; moving from distancing myself from peace to Connection. I have been misled to believe, by guess who (the ego), that if I only read, study, write and teach enough spiritual material, I will get to the bottom of this ego, figure it out and one day I will wake up! Not so, this misleading is the ego spiritual distraction program.

Certainly we read, study, write, teach and discuss spiritual material, and it is enormously helpful when we put into practice the purpose of doing all of this — to practice forgiveness with Holy Spirit and be at peace. At what point do we move from attempting to understand the ego and understand peace to being peace? Here we discover that in being lies the peace that passes all understanding which is the understanding we have been seeking. This is forgiveness.

One minute I am feeling a dark cloud over my head. I feel it, go within to ask for help and the next minute here I am driving in the midst of peace hearing the words coming from within me, “Self-Acceptance.” Yes, I have heard these words before, but how can I come to accept who I don’t know? Well, I observed, I have spent my life trying to come to accept who I thought was my True Self only to find out it is the false self I have befriended.

This took a lot of time, hard work and energy. I came to see who I am not, yet still didn’t know who I am. So then the ego tells me I will have to spend an equal, if not more, amount of time, energy and hard work getting rid of this darn false self before I can come to know my Self! I’ll be dead by then. And who knows how much havoc I will have wreaked in the process?

I see now why the ego is so anxious for me get a bachelor’s degree in Ego Science, because then it will send me on for my Master’s. Of course you know you have to go for the PhD after that. Then there is post-graduate work and a lifetime of, “guess what?” Research and independent study! If I become the ego’s star spiritual pupil, I will get tenure! Where is my Self in all of this?

It is one thing to have awareness of the ways of the ego and be honest about how its perceptions are running my life and use these observations to join with Holy Spirit for the practice of forgiveness. It is a whole other thing to be so focused on the ego and what I have to do to rid myself of this character, that I never become aware of my True Self, much less come to accept my Self. Here is where “Inspired To Be Truly Helpful” enters. Being Truly Helpful happens as I accept my soul’s purpose which is Self Acceptance. My soul is the spirit of God in me. It is my identity. I ask my soul, so how does Self-Acceptance operate in the world? Here is my conversation:

Forget about the world. Do not focus on physical manifestations in the world. Be your soul. It is not about the world.

How do I forget the world?

Stay connected with your soul.

How do I stay connected?

Listen. This is the peace you seek. The soul’s silence gets your attention. No matter the world, it never satisfies. Disillusionment is in the world. The soul is an illusion to the world because the world is without a soul. But you are not. Remember, the soul has no interest in the body. It had no need to incarnate. It was the mind experiencing itself without a soul, groping in gaping darkness, which needed a body for its sense of purpose. Jesus’ resurrection is the “savior,” if you will, from the belief in the world, the belief in unworthiness, the belief in separation from God. The resurrection was a demonstration of Reality, the Kingdom of Heaven within.

I have looked closely at the darkness and the more I try to understand it, the more food for thought it puts on my plate. What is the purpose of being here? What do I do?

Connect with other souls! Now, you have done some Real good.

It is the mind separate from the soul who is seeking physical manifestation for a sense of purpose and meaning — never will it be found — the split mind has no purpose. My soul is my Self and Self is my purpose for it is my creation.

Jesus shares, “I am in the world, but not of the world. My kingdom is not of this world. Why do you look for the living among the dead? The kingdom of Heaven is within.” Jesus demonstrated “Inspired to Be Truly Helpful” through his demonstration of Self-Acceptance. “Christ walked the earth and the trees arranged themselves around him.” I heard this from the Mentor Within several years ago. Now, I see what it means.

As one is willing to be brought into Self-Acceptance through the Holy Spirit, those around that one naturally move toward Self-Acceptance as well. Love attracts love. This is communion. This is the giving over of separation in exchange for coming into union. This is the meaning of Jesus’ words at Passover, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” He is saying, “Accept your Self as I have done to help you to remember.” This is Being Truly Helpful!

Since this experience I am finding myself smiling at souls I once judged and experiencing peace instead. Now, all movement in the world, our comings and goings, our bodies, our work, our play and our plans may truly respond to the calls for love. We are vessels of Self-Acceptance. This is the help that heals. This is the silence of my soul in action in the world. This is the peace that passes all understanding. This is my purpose. How would my everyday life be different, if I were to connect with my soul and the souls of all? Would not all my prayers be answered? Is this not forgiveness, as my Self shows up and the ego simply dissolves?

This is “Inspired To Be Truly Helpful.” Being in the world and extending the peace not of this world. Transcending our images, definitions and meanings of spiritual language because Spirit itself transcends such. Instilling peace, not fear. So, we speak of the “cubicle self heart ÷ mind (the divided heart and mind experiencing separation from peace), the “Inspiring Self Heart ∞ Mind (our infinite created spirit) and Inspiration (Holy Spirit). “Peace Instead of This,” is the practice of forgiveness.

The WNYHOO — NOW! programs, “Inspired To Be Truly Helpful,” “We Are All Customers In the Business of Living in the World,” “Which Relation Ship Are You Sailing?” and “Health and Healing Begins with Peace,” are an answer to a prayer. In my desire to share the Peace of God with the world, years ago I asked Holy Spirit how can I share and teach this peace with those who do not resonate with spiritual language? One day while writing Visions of Illumination, I looked up, I observed a person’s actions, I did not judge the actions (a miracle) and then I immediately heard, “We all need training on how to Be Truly Helpful.” My pen hit the paper and out came “Inspired To Be Truly Helpful.”

Only now am I seeing the lessons in all of this for me. A lover of spiritual language,  little did I know the thoughts of separation I was harboring in my unawareness about this language until I was willing to go beyond the language and experience the Peace that is here and beyond.

Rev. Mary Gerard is a Pathways of Light minister living in St. Louis, Missouri. She is author of the books Visions of Illumination and The Mentor Within. To find out more about her workshop, click here.

© 2009, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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New Miracles Practitioner Teleconference Courses

Pathways of Light

Now you can join with fellow Course students for in-depth study of A Course in Miracles in the comfort of your home!

How does it work? 

You first work with the course materials on your own and then join with others in the teleconference for in-depth discussion and processes. You will love the energizing and inspiring group interaction! If you have already purchased the course self study, you can register for the teleconference for $70. Upon completion of this teleconference, you are then certified to facilitate this teleconference course in the future.

Each course includes:
• 50+ page workbook to guide you through passages in ACIM and processes to help you apply what you are learning in your life.
• Guided meditations and experiential processes on two CD’s.
• Two pocket-size remember cards and laminated poster to help you reinforce what you are learning.
• Binder conveniently organized with all course materials.

Teleconference Course Schedules

901: Introduction to Miracles Practice — begins Jan. 9, 11 a.m.-Noon est, 8-9 a.m. pst biweekly. Reinforce the daily practice of receiving and extending miracles. With the Holy Spirit, we allow ourselves to see the false ideas for what they are and allow Him to bring us the vision of true perception. We want to return Home and we have the means to do it. Course Materials plus Teleconference: US$129.00 Plus shipping.      Facilitated by Rev. Nancy Miiller

902: Remembering to Choose Peace — begins Jan. 6, 11 a.m.-Noon est, 8-9 a.m. pst weekly. It is important to practice being in peace so it is easier to recognize when we are not in peace. As you strengthen your motivation to choose peace, you remember that peace is your real home and that thoughts of conflict, limitation and strife do not come from your real Self. Course Materials plus Teleconference: US$129.00 Plus ship.  Facilitated by Mary Stoelting & Mary Manke

918: The Power of Prayer & Meditation — begins Jan. 5, 7-8 p.m. est, 4-5 p.m. pst weekly. Included is The Song of Prayer, which is an extension of the principles of A Course in Miracles. The Song of Prayer reveals the secret of true prayer as compared to praying for specific forms we perceive as outside ourselves, which is the prayer of the ego. Course materials plus Teleconference: US$129.00 Plus shipping.       Facilitated by Mary Stoelting and Mary Manke

To register for teleconference, call 1-800-323-PATH or click here for current schedule or to purchase online.

© 2009, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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Overcoming Death with a Single Choice for Love

by Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Vieira

The ego thought system is geared to present us with a billion choices throughout our lives. Everyday it dishes out problems that appear to require solving or avoiding. A billion complex decisions all with one intent — to avert our awareness from the fact that at any ‘now’ moment there is always just a single choice calling to us, regardless of perceived complexity. That choice is Spirit… the choice to love and trust. Choosing Spirit first and foremost is the choice that excludes all fear-mongering by the ego.  

It appears to us (the current world consciousness), that life is full of conflict, full of opposing choices. The ego’s agenda is to confuse us by presenting a billion choices that all arise from and end in fear. And in all the ego decisions we seem to make, not one will arise from Love and end in Love, no matter how long and hard we try.

While we still keep faith with the ego we will be attracted to sickness and death. Death, to the ego, appears to grant us relief and respite from the burden of life’s incessant decision making. Death is seen as the great savior sent to rescue us from the overwhelming burden of conflicting choice. In death it seems we are no longer afflicted with the persistent sense of threat engendered by the overwhelming responsibility of making billions of choices. All these decisions, made consciously and unconsciously, entail great effort and sacrifice in either their attainment or the resistance applied to protect ourselves from change or loss.

Death is seen as escape from life’s challenges. Yet life, in truth, holds no challenges other than letting go of our addiction to death in all its forms. We overcome death in every moment with the single choice for Love. Our choice for Love is the only choice to make. In fact it is the Will of God. The pseudo choice for death is one with no real effects other than the continuation of a dream of death. Once we drop our delusional attraction to the ego (death), all that’s left, in fact all that really ever was, is the Will of God, which is unchanging and uninterrupted Love. Once we release our desire for sin, guilt and fear we drop our blocks to the awareness of Love’s Presence and we remember that we are the Will of God. With delusion and insanity gone, we recognize God’s Will and finally see it as our own! In this there is no choice… there is no conflict! All conflict we experienced was born from wishing for guilt and death in the form of an independent will apart from God… so called freedom!

With no desire for the trappings of death anymore, with no separate will running counter to the divine, death holds no lure. And in this is death overcome. Having no purpose, death falls away together with the sin, guilt and fear that appeared to give it cause.

Uncertainty of What we are, and therefore obscurity of our purpose, underlies all our fears and choices. If we are certain of What we are, we are assured too, of our only purpose which is to awaken to Love through forgiveness. The means to achieve this is brought about through the recognition and unequivocal acceptance of our eternal essence, the uninterrupted Love of God. Forgiveness restores in our awareness the Love that the ego previously obscured.

The Body is Not Your Responsibility

In every instant we choose. But if we choose independently without consulting the Holy Spirit, we will be choosing from unconscious guilt and fear — the ego.

Let’s look at the statement that “the body is illusion only.” In fact let us look at the ‘content’ of this statement rather than to allow the ego’s interpretation of it.

The body being yours or another’s, while an illusion, is not understood and accepted as illusion until one has explored the depth of the value he places on and within it. You cannot undo this illusion unless you see all the areas in which mistaken value has been placed upon the body. This means we are called to disclose all the body belief systems that we consciously or unconsciously value and trust. Specifically they include:

•  The body’s five senses. Trusting that what we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste is true.

•  Trusting the body’s desires. Believing that the pursuit of pleasure is the body’s (our) purpose; its body appetites, i.e. food, financial security, emotional security, sex, etc.

•  Trusting the body’s judgment. Believing that attack and defense are justified and that worldly cause and effect can bring about sickness and death ie. germs cause illness.

•  Believing we need to avoid. Get insurance,  protect ourselves from pain and suffering.

•  Believing that suffering is a legitimate experience, including physical and emotional suffering as an extension of this world’s ‘cause and effect’ ideas.

All these areas are illusory because, until they are raised to awareness and handed over to Holy Spirit, they are substantially governed by the ego. Therefore until we undo the ego, our underlying intent is to get our physical and emotional (ego) needs met through the body in the mistaken belief that it is who we are and houses us. The body here in this dream is seen as an end in itself. Nearly every decision we make in every moment is directed by an illusory need. We need approval. We need affection. We need money. We need sex. We need emotional security. We need excitement. We need recognition and validation. But, do we? Do we really need these things? Which self needs these things? Needing any of these things alerts us to what’s really missing here, which is the one cause of all seeming needs the body has. All our needs are met when we learn to prioritize the Peace of God first; when we set aside the ego’s illusory hierarchy of needs that act purely as a mass distraction from the one need that when met, cancels out the perception of all unfulfilled needs.

The degree to which we value the body as an end in itself is the extent that we value illusion over truth. When we switch to prioritizing Truth over illusion, the body reflects the one purpose it was gifted to fulfill; it becomes the means (and not an end in itself) by which the Holy Spirit carry’s forth His plan for awakening. The mind, and therefore the body, purified of the ego’s delusional intent, is ‘guilt-free.’ The body, being the screen upon which the ego projects its unconscious guilt (self-hatred), is free of the ego’s unrelenting attacks. The healed mind then cannot help but imprint its chief communication device (the body) with perfect health, being testimony to prioritizing Truth over illusion. Now the Holy Will of God is free to use the body to express Divine communication.

The body is illusion only. This statement cannot be truly known and experienced until you transcend the body. This comes not with denial, but with integration. You cannot transcend that which you have not yet integrated. The process of integration includes radical self-inquiry and the eventual voluntary abdication of the purpose of the body. Part of the integration process includes the discovery of untruth. Another stage of the process includes recognizing the body’s true purpose which leads to understanding the Divine value of the body; not for what it can give you but for what it can give away or share. Once this has been seen and accepted, there is no more need to deny the body’s value. You deny the body’s Divine value while you remain in resistance of it. Denial of the body’s true value is natural while your vision of the body is clouded by the ego’s guilt and fear. Until you voluntarily offer your body’s purpose along with its appetites to Spirit, you will continue to deny the body’s true value. Denial makes the error real and what you still believe is true, you cannot forgive (undo and correct).

Once the purpose of the body is relinquished to Spirit, there is no more need to deny or defend the body. In this purpose it becomes simply a conduit through which the Holy Spirit’s Will expresses Itself uninterrupted. The body itself is no longer your responsibility. Having the purpose of being a Divine conduit, all concerns about its health are also not your responsibility as these are thankfully offered to the Holy Spirit for His correction.

From the novice’s perspective, the body is indeed something to be mastered or denied. None of these approaches will work. Not until you recognize that the body is no-thing in itself will you see that You are everything. In this will your maturity reveal the nonsensical nature of previous attempts at mastery over or denial of the body. All these arise from the very fear that made the body in the first place. These must be set aside before understanding of the body’s purpose is accepted. Once acceptance has taken place all need to defend or deny fall away. There is no independent will to do either.  

Simple Exercise to Release Fear

Regardless of the degree of fear (or judgment, or need to control) you feel, this practical exercise is valuable in helping you to relinquish it. Look at your issue and ask the following questions:

1. Is this (fear, judgment, conflict, scarcity, disease, or pain) in any way a natural part of God, of absolute Love with no opposite?

2. Does God, Who is all Love, will this (fear, judgment, conflict, scarcity, pain, disease or death) for you?

3. Would Love ask for fear, judgment, conflict, scarcity, pain, disease or death?

4. How can your fear, judgment, conflict, scarcity, pain, disease or death possibly bring about Love and therefore healing?

See then that you do not want it! You must first see that you have made a judgment. Your perception of whatever is confronting you has caused you fear. This is your first step. Then, see that you made a mistake in choosing to listen to fear and it’s illusory consequences. Next, give it to Holy Spirit. Allow Him to take it from you and judge it. He will then reinterpret the situation and use it to teach you the single choice you ever need to make — that you are Love. Your last step is to accept the Atonement for yourself. You can do this by saying with sincerity: “I will accept Atonement for myself.” Read ACIM Lesson 139.

About the Authors: Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Vieira are the authors of best-seller Take Me to Truth, Undoing the Ego. Initiated by A Course in Miracles, their seventeen year Spiritual Awakening journey led to the almost total deconstruction of their lives and belief systems before emerging from the process together. The result is this profoundly practical guide that clearly defines the blocks and the stages involved in Spiritual Awakening. They now travel the world together facilitating their ‘life-changing’ workshops. For information or to order their 8-DVD workshop, Undoing the Ego II, click here. Web site: Take Me to Truth

© 2009, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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