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Many options are available to you on the Pathways of Light website to help you work with A Course in Miracles and stay connected with Holy Spirit.

• Daily Inspiration for Living ACIM
• ACIM Daily Lesson Insights
• ACIM Text Made Simple
• Ministers’ Inner Healing Journals
• POL Ministers’ Audio/Videos

You may have ACIM Workbook Lesson Healing Perspectives and/or Daily Inspiration emailed to you daily. Also available to you are questions and answers on the Text of A Course in Miracles.

Also many Pathways ministers share their healing process through Inner Healing Journals and sharing audio/video’s.

To find these beautiful sharings of awakening to the truth, go to: http://www.pathwaysoflight.org

© 2020, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Awakening vs. Revelation

by Rev. Barbara Goodman Siegel, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

Perhaps from stories that I read about people such as Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, etc., I formed a belief that awakening and revelation were one and the same. I believed awakening and revelation to be linked together in a monumental moment where, in a flash, divine Truth is revealed and one is changed forever.

When I hear stories about ‘spontaneous awakenings,’ I think: “Yes, God, give me that!” It seems so simple and complete as opposed to all this studying, meditating, writing, journaling, teaching, learning, praying and even, at times, pleading followed by endless loops of doing it all over and over again.

Contemplating awakening vs. revelation, it occurred to me that maybe I have been confused between the two. I began looking for clarity and I thought a good place to begin would be with the definition of each term. The definition of “awake” in the 10th edition of the Merriam Webster’s dictionary is: “fully conscious, alert, and aware: not asleep.” The definition of “revelation” from the glossary of Course terms in the Circle of Atonement’s Complete and Annotated edition of A Course in Miracles is: “The experience in which God reveals Himself to us in direct, wordless experience of union with Him (traditionally called the mystical experience).”

As I contemplated the above definitions, the difference came to me in one of those “Ah ha” moments in which I realized the absolutely irrefutable truth that I am in control of my awakening and it has been occurring all my life. It was a very “Wizard of Oz” moment much like the scene where the beautiful, good, and loving fairy Godmother (the Holy Spirit) told Dorothy that she always had the power to go home. Yes, I have always had the power to awaken but the dear Holy Spirit (which I call Mother Shekhinah or might also be call the divine Mother) did the same thing that She had done with Dorothy; She let me find it out for myself.

“So, Barbara, how does this awakening happen?” you might ask. I wish I could think of a less used allegory than a mother awakening her child, but I cannot, so please forgive me.

Let us start with the child’s original intention which both the mother and the child agreed on when the child went to bed. The mother asked the child if she would agree to wake up in the morning and help her with some work that needed to be done. The child agreed. The mother told the child that she would wake her up and not to set an alarm as the mother knew that the alarm often frightened the child.

Morning came and the mother found the child in a deep sleep. The mother gently touched the child saying: “Time to wake up.” The child’s sleep was so deep that at first she didn’t hear the mother. The mother again gently touched the child. Now, the child is aroused a little, but has forgotten the agreement she made with the mother to wake her up in order to help the mother with her work. The child is a little annoyed with the mother and says: “Just give me five more minutes.” The mother agrees and leaves the room only to come back in five minutes and gently try to arouse the child again. Now, the child remembers the agreement that she is to get up and help her mother, but she is comfortable in her bed and she no longer wants to get up and help.

The mother has many children and she knows through experience that waking a child up to get them to help her with her work is not an easy process, but she continues to be very patient with the child. She is careful not to yell or admonish the child as she knows that is no way to get the child to cooperate.

Depending on the child, this process can go on over a short or very long period of time. During this time, the mother remains very patient, but also very steadfast in her attempt to awaken the child.

So it is with us. Holy Spirit (divine Mother) is continuously trying to gently awaken us. We may fight it, we may forget our agreement to awaken, we may even resent this constant nudging by the Mother, and we may keep falling back asleep, but our Mother never gives up.
Chapter 6, section V of A Course in Miracles is entitled, “The Lessons of the Holy Spirit.” In this section, God wants to communicate with his children, but He sees that, “My children sleep and must be awakened.” (T-6.V.1:8) So what does God do? He sends a Spirit so patient and loving that His children will respond to Her not with fear, but with love.

Now, as I look back on my own gentle awakening, I see all the gentle nudges; some I accepted and some I chose not to receive. It started as a young girl in my secular, Jewish family. I don’t remember as a child going to temple, but I do remember my father coming in my room every night to say bedtime prayers and I enjoyed that prayer time with him. As I got older, I found the Jewish religion to be sexist, and, although I had always been proud to be of the Jewish people, the religious doctrines did not resonate with me.

My first introduction into a spiritual approach to God was through listening to a recorded retreat by Thich Nhat Hahn, a Tibetan monk and teacher. I had never heard anything like his teachings and I thirsted for more. After that experience, I looked at various spiritual paths and meditation practices. Some I enjoyed, some were clearly not for me, and none of them totally resonated.

In 1995, after a bout with breast cancer, I went for therapy to a woman who, it turned out, was A Course in Miracles teacher and she introduced me to the Course. The philosophy of this book resonated more than anything I had encountered so far, but coming from my Jewish background, I had trouble with the language and, for a while, I put the book down.

Around 1998, I was guided to a very enlightened rabbi who taught mystical Judaism. In my experiences with Judaism, I had not heard anything like his teachings and it brought me to tears. I was with him for 10 years and during that time I realized that he was saying what the Course was saying but without the Christian terminology. I picked up the Course again so that I could better understand the Rabbi’s teachings. (Ironic, don’t you think?)

During the time I was taking the rabbi’s classes, I was guided to Pathways of Light, a non-denominational spiritual college based on A Course in Miracles. From my studies there, I received certification as an Ordained Ministerial Counselor. After the rabbi I had studied with retired, I continued to study the Course as well as teachings from a variety of teachers, some Course and some not, some Western and some Eastern. They all had one thing in common, they all spoke Truth and the music of that Truth was very familiar.

There was a very important practice I learned from my dear rabbi and that was to pick a teaching and keep studying it. He would always say that repetition is the best teacher. In the Jewish religion, the Torah (the first five books of Moses) is read from beginning to end every year. A learned man, such as my rabbi, sees beyond the stories and, with each year’s reading, sees deeper into the mystical teachings that are hidden there. I set the intention to do the same thing with the Course that my rabbi had done with the Torah. Every year I read the text and do the lessons. This is not to the exclusion of other books, but as the foundation upon which all else is set.

In January of 2015, I was guided to write a book on the lessons of the Course entitled, Finding Your Self in the Mirror: Awakening Through Mirror Affirmations for the 365 Lessons of A Course in Miracles. The book took me three years to complete and went onto Amazon January of 2018. It has had a very quiet, little life thus far. I won’t lie to you, my ego self wanted it to be a best seller and sent me into fits of anxiety on how and where I should be marketing it. When I could no longer tolerate being in an almost constant state of anxiety, I made the choice to listen to the gentle voice of Mother Shekhinah telling me to let the marketing go and, as Lesson 34 states: “…see peace instead of this.”

All this brings me to the present day. I started the Text and the Workbook Lessons again on the first of January. I have also been guided to listen to and read new, younger teachers who are bringing in the Divine Feminine. And in the midst of the week in which I was writing this article, clarity was given me between revelation and awakening.

First, I was given a huge revelation into the oneness of all. I am using the term as I described it earlier, and I must tell you that the intense, mystical experience scared the heck out of me. I laughed to myself and said to my dear Mother Shekhinah: “Okay, I see why revelation is not just given out for the asking. For most of us, it would just be too scary to be given true vision all at once.”

Secondly, while journaling, I was given these words: “Gentle awakening is the whole book, yours and mine. Yours provides a very personal, tangible process which will be helpful to many who have a hard time with (what will seem to them) the more abstract lessons of the Course. Others will do very well with the instructions in my workbook and others may need an entirely different curriculum. But, the most important thing to remember is that it is an inside job. Revelation is from God, awakening is being aware of what is going on in your mind.”

(Note to reader: I never identified the voice guiding me as Jesus when I wrote my book. The above transmission is the first time a message has clearly been from him because of his reference to A Course in Miracles.)

I was given a great gift of knowing that awakening is up to me. It is up to me to be conscious of what I think, what I read, what I watch, and what I say. It is up to me to correct myself when I have a loveless thought about myself or a sister or brother and correct it immediately by knowing that we are both holy. It is up to me to act with love and integrity. It is up to me to stay conscious and to become aware when I have fallen back to sleep, which, I must admit, still happens more frequently than I would wish. I have been given the choice to awaken and it is up to me.

Rev. Barbara Goodman Siegel, O.M.C. is a Pathways of Light minister living in St. Louis, MO. Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Web: Barbaragoodmansiegle.com
Barbara is on ACIM Gather radio (which you can find via a google search) from noon to 1:00 PM EST every Friday during which time she will review the upcoming week’s ACIM lessons using the affirmations from her book: Finding Your Self In The Mirror

© 2020, 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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“I Am Never Upset for the Reason I Think”

by Rev. Jennifer McSween, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

In my early days as a spiritual counseling student I met someone in one of my classes with whom I became fast friends. We both felt deeply drawn to this field. I had a genuine desire to heal, grow, and transform our lives and wanted to learn to help others do the same. 

We were around the same age and had more than a few shared interests. Though we came from different backgrounds we had more than a few mess ups and major mishaps in common. Naturally we bonded and became fast friends. As friends do, we would talk frequently on the phone, go out to eat, exchange our favorite books and attend spiritual related lectures, workshops and events.

In spite of the fact that we seemed to like each other’s company and had many shared interests, our conversations and interactions with each other often bordered on being somewhat “highly charged” and did not always play out in ways that felt loving. It felt like there was always this undercurrent of tension.

In retrospect, I realize she was my “Forgiveness Partner” at the time. “Forgiveness Partner” is the term I coined to describe anyone (or anything for that matter) by which you feel taken off your peace, unfairly treated, attacked or victimized in some way. I introduced this idea of Forgiveness Partners in my book, True Forgiveness.

Even though we were both very conscious of the borderline charged interactions or underlying tension between us, neither of us ever brought it up. It was as if we had the unspoken agreement that said, “I know that you know, and you know that I know but we’re not going to talk about it.” What we would do, was distance ourselves from each other for brief periods from time to time, again, seemingly by mutually conscious unspoken agreement.

One of these periods of distancing lasted for almost a year. I had reconnected by calling to wish her ‘happy birthday.’ About five minutes into the conversation, which had consisted mostly of her telling me what she had been up to over the past year, she asked what was going on with me. I’d only gotten out a couple of sentences when she interjected with “hmm… it doesn’t seem like you have had any spiritual growth over the past year.”

I asked how she could say this given that we hadn’t been in touch for the past year and had only been talking for about five minutes? She said it was based on what she had ‘observed’ about me and proceeded to share her thoughts based on those ‘observations.’ It seemed like she was metaphorically ‘unloading.’ Each thought she shared felt like a blow to my chest.

This was a new feeling. It was way beyond the ordinarily highly charged feeling that would come up for me during our conversations. I felt like I was physically and emotionally being attacked. At this time, I had begun studying A Course in Miracles. I had not yet completed either the Workbook or the Text, but I had become open to it and was beginning to consider the Course’s perspective that we are not victims of the world as a possibility.

The title of Workbook Lesson 5 came to my mind: “I am never upset for the reason I think.” And, like I said, even though I didn’t fully accept this lesson yet, I knew it meant that my feelings are never caused by anything or anyone outside me. That what I feel in any moment is simply my experiencing the contents or the nature of the thoughts within my mind.
Thoughts of judgment will always be experienced in the form of being attacked, so the thought that then came to my mind was, “Who was I judging?”

What happened next was very interesting. That shift from thinking of myself as being attacked to realizing that I was only experiencing my own attack thoughts — thoughts of judgment — completely diffused my previously charged feelings towards my friend.

I don’t recall how the conversation ended but I remember getting off the phone with one thing on my mind — the question: “Who was I judging?”

A couple of days later I was driving somewhere and came to stop light at a major Intersection. As I waited for the lights to change, I glanced over to my left across the intersection ahead of me and noticed a high-rise industrial building. My eyes seemed to be drawn along the height of the building and rested at the top on which there was a billboard spanning the width of the building, and on the billboard were larger than life photos of Oprah and Dr. Phil.

My mind instantly made a connection and I shouted out loud, “That’s it!” just like Charlie Brown did in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” when he discovered what he was afraid of after paying Lucy a nickel, who was pretending to be a psychiatrist to help him discover his fear.  She had been naming off different types of phobias and what they meant you were afraid of and Charlie Brown heard the one that related to him.

The discovery I made was that my feelings of being attacked by my friend, were not caused by the things she said, but because I was experiencing thoughts of judgment about Oprah and Dr. Phil. At that time Oprah was at her peak with her talk show and had become “Oprah” as we know her today. She was a powerful voice and influencer, a catalyst for change and had the ability to bring people from obscurity to celebrity, seemingly with just a word or a nod. Dr. Phil was one of those people who had been launched into the spotlight and was a regular on her show.

The funny thing is I was a big fan of Oprah for many years. But for whatever reason I began having some thoughts of judgment about her. I felt she had begun acting like a “know-it-all,” thinking that she knew what was best for people and she could tell them what to do. And with regards to Dr. Phil… I was never a fan as I thought he too, as a person, came across as a “know-it-all” and, as a therapist, was very hostile… talk about thoughts of judgment!

No wonder I was feeling attacked. ‘They’ were the ‘who’ I was judging, and it was those thoughts of judgment I was experiencing in the form of feeling attacked by my friend.

Workbook Lesson 5 is teaching that, contrary to appearances, what I feel in any moment or situation is not caused by what is taking place outside me but by what is taking place within me in terms of how I’m looking at what is taking place outside me.

Learning this lesson is the essential first step to recognizing I am not the victim of the world I see so I need not feel threatened, attacked or affected by anything outside me or the words or actions of others regardless of appearances.

Rev. Jennifer McSween, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light Minister living in
Montreal, Canada. She Hosts a Weekly Podcast you can listen to at: http://www.revjennifermcsweenpodcast.com 
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

© 2020, 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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The First Five Lessons & Relationship Healing

by Rev. Cathy Silva, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

For me the journey of this lifetime is all about relationships — my relationship with myself, with others and ultimately my relationship with God. It’s through our relationships that we can experience tremendous growth and healing, if we are open and willing.

I seemed to have known this for quite some time and could clearly see a need in my own relationships. I felt a Call to help heal relationships through my coaching work. I didn’t quite know how but I did have the willingness. Not just the ‘little’ willingness that Jesus mentions in the Course. I was determined to experience a healing and find a way to bring us all back to love, peace, and harmony.

For years I muddled through seeking ways to achieve ‘my’ goal to heal. When things got to the level that I can only describe as a ‘war zone’ with my relationships, it was my breaking point. That’s when the Course found me. I do believe the Course finds us somehow. When we are ready, it finds us. Through the Course and the related Pathways of Light courses, the way to heal my relationship with myself and others has led to an experience of Love, Oneness, and true purpose.

I think it’s important to note that we are not actually ‘working on’ our relationships when we engage in this work. We are healing our mind through the process of undoing the fearful ego thought system that has been running the show in our relationships and life for long enough. It’s time to remove the blocks and let the Love that we are be revealed and extended in the world. We are healing the way we see ourself and others, which shifts our way of seeing, being, and interacting in the world. Ultimately we experience inner peace.

The goal of the Course and any relationship healing work is healing the mind and removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence.

The first five workbook lessons in the mind healing process applied to our relationship healing journey.

Lesson 1: Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) means anything. 

This first lesson has us looking slowly around at objects in the room. I think this is a way to begin looking at everything I see with the body’s eyes as neutral. So we can apply this to anything we see and any actions or behavior in others as well. This can be particularly difficult when what someone does or says is triggering a negative emotion for me or I am perceiving them to be causing me harm in some way. At this point it’s easy for me to predict, judge, or psycho analyze what their motivation or intention is. But if I am able to simply observe and see that what they are doing is nothing, certainly nothing to do with any ill intentions against me, it opens up a space in my mind to another way of seeing them and their behavior. This leads us to:

Lesson 2: I have given everything I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) all the meaning that it has for me.

This helps me see that I am interpreting what others do according to what I see from my ego mind. I have given it a meaning — good or bad. For example, if my partner doesn’t pick up his socks, it means he doesn’t care and further more he doesn’t care about me or respect me. I’ve noticed that I can go into a whole big ugly unloving story about the littlest things that are really nothing, but I’ve made them something.

Lesson 3: I do not understand anything I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place).

In the instructions for this lesson I am told specifically not to exclude anything in the application of this idea. It says, “These are not exercises in judgment.” It recognizes that some things I see will have emotionally charged meaning for me. It’s good to recognize what I am feeling and then do my best to lay those feelings aside.

We very often judge others’ actions and behaviors in relation to the past — specifically our judgments and ideas of the past. If we are invested in those ideas and judgments and stay focused on them, it blocks the ability to see the good in others and the true loving intentions they have.

No matter how covered or deeply buried, we all have the desire and intention to love and be loved. This exercise is to help us clear our mind of those past associations and blocks to see our brother and the situation as it is now and realize that there is so much we don’t know or understand about them or the situation. Ultimately the goal here is to keep an open mind.

Lesson 4: These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place).

In the instructions it states, “The aim here is to train you in first steps toward the goal of separating the meaningless from the meaningful.” I see this helping me separate out or letting go of any idea or thoughts that are not aligned with the Love we are as God created us. Another way to put it is we are sorting out the True and the untrue. Somewhere in the Course Jesus says, “Only loving thoughts are true.”

Since I am still not fully awake and there is so much I do not know, I depend on Jesus or Holy Spirit to show me what I am missing. I simply need to step back from making any thought about myself and others mean anything. This is another way of clearing my mind of the clutter so the truth of love and oneness with God and my brother can show up in my experience.

Lesson 5: I am never upset for the reason I think.

This idea is one that comes up over and over in my relationship healing work with clients as well as my own relationships. It is so tempting to place blame and judgment for our upset on people and circumstances outside ourselves. From our perceptions, the cause of our upset is what others are doing or not doing. And referring back to the prior Lessons, we have thoughts and ideas about what they are doing means.

The meaning we give it results in attack and defense and thinking we are justified in that. This is how the person that we love seems to become our enemy. This is done to defend a faulty, fearful thought system that has hurt me and others and keeps us in hell together. We are beginning to realize it’s just not working anymore. We want to live in Love not fear. We are willing to let go of the need to attack, defend, and get love. We are open and willing to find a better way. From here our relationship journey begins.

Rev. Cathy Silva is Pathways of Light minister living in Punta Gorda, FL who specializes in being of help to heal our relationships. To learn more about working with her visit her website: cathysilva.org or reach out via email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or phone: 941-626-5551.

© 2020, 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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