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Study of Text, Chapter 13: VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 8. 10-7-16

VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 8

8 The peace of God passeth your understanding only in the past. Yet here it is, and you can understand it now. God loves His Son forever, and His Son returns his Father’s Love forever. The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of the one thing that is wholly true and wholly yours. For all else you have lent yourself in time, and it will fade. But this one thing is always yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your one reality was given you, and by it God created you as one with Him.

Journal
I can have the peace of God right now and in having it I can understand it. But it must be now, not in the nowhere time of the past or the future. That is why I am forming the habit of noticing when I am in the past or the future and then making a decision to be in the present moment. At first it felt like an impossible task, but now it is easier. As I stay more in the present, I am more in the presence of Love and that is a powerful motivation.

I have been sending my son encouraging text messages once a day while he is going through this difficult time. He hasn’t answered me this week. The ego mind is making up all kinds of dreadful stories. Then I heard something very upsetting about a niece and that added to my sense of dread. The ego stories quickly pile up and take on a heaviness that they don’t actually have.

But I am also aware of what is happening. About the time I start to feel desperate, I remember that this is a story. It is an illusion and not actually happening. I am watching the story and my son and my niece are watching their stories. I ask for a different way to view this, a way I can detach from them. I suddenly had the memory of a section I read in The Afterlife of Billy Fingers. He was watching scenes from his life, not with guilt or fear but with interest. I felt like that memory was made available to me in answer to my prayer. I am willing to watch this story and all my seeming errors without fear and guilt and only with interest.

I was also reminded that I could look at the future that the ego stories point to, or I can return to the present moment where I will find the peace of God. That is my choice and one I make in every moment. After all, what is actually happening in this moment? I am not at peace because I am imagining some other moment. Right now, right this moment I reside in God’s Love. Nothing can touch me here.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 13: VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 7. 10-6-16

VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 7

7 It is God’s Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself, and nothing else comes nigh unto him. He is as safe from pain as God Himself, Who watches over him in everything. The world about him shines with love because God placed him in Himself where pain is not, and love surrounds him without end or flaw. Disturbance of his peace can never be. In perfect sanity he looks on love, for it is all about him and within him. He must deny the world of pain the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. And from this point of safety he looks quietly about him and recognizes that the world is one with him.

Journal
What an incredible paragraph this is! I remember Cate’s suggestion that we read the words as if Jesus was sitting next to us, saying them to us. I did this, and I did it in first person. As written these words have a strong impact. Reading them in first person with the inflections I imagine Jesus would use if speaking directly to me, the impact is powerful. Would you like to try this? Read it slowly, seeing Jesus sitting beside you, or before you. Imagine him leaning into you, his eyes sparkling with intensity, his voice filled with love as he shares this news with you.

And then Jesus says to you:
It is God’s Will that nothing touch You except Himself, and nothing else comes nigh unto you. You are as safe from pain as God Himself, Who watches over you in everything. The world about you shines with love because God placed you in Himself where pain is not, and love surrounds you without end or flaw. Disturbance of your peace can never be. In perfect sanity you look on love, for it is all about you and within you. You must deny the world of pain the instant you perceive the arms of love around you. And from this point of safety you look quietly about you and recognize that the world is one with you.

Even after all these years of study, I have to very deliberately shift my thinking from ego to God when I read truth like this in the Course. I am more used to thinking of myself as needy, someone who lacks, someone who has a lot of work yet to do to be ready for the truth, to be able to accept the truth. I still have enough belief in guilt in my mind to deny that this is true right now. So I have to shift my mind. This is why I use this technique. I imagine that this is true for me, and wait for it to sink in. I read it slowly. I read it with feeling. I open my heart and ask for the meaning of those words to fill me.

Can this be true right now? Can it really be that it is God’s Will that nothing touch me except Himself, and nothing else comes nigh unto me? Am I really as safe from pain as God Himself? Does God watch over me in everything? I want to know that this is true, to feel it in my heart of hearts. I have been staring into the illusion as if it were true, and doing it for so long that I must tear my eyes away from it so that I can know God, even though He surrounds me with Himself.

In the morning I start my day by deciding with God what kind of day I want. This morning, I have decided I will look on the world and see the love that is all around me without end and without flaw. And if anything comes to disturb my peace I will shift my mind to God again. I will know safety. I will know that all I perceive is one with me, and that as one, we are surrounded by God. Nothing can touch me except God.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 13: VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 6. 10-5-16

VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 6

6 No one in this distracted world but has seen some glimpses of the other world about him. Yet while he still lays value on his own, he will deny the vision of the other, maintaining that he loves what he loves not, and following not the road that love points out. Love leads so gladly! As you follow Him, you will rejoice that you have found His company, and learned of Him the joyful journey home. You wait but for yourself. To give this sad world over and exchange your errors for the peace of God is but your will. And Christ will always offer you the Will of God, in recognition that you share it with Him.

Journal
This morning I glimpse the other world. I follow love gladly because it feels so good! It feels like joy. It feels like I am supported and cared for. It feels like I am cherished. It also feels like I am something that I don’t remember, a mystery, but a mystery just only out of reach, something very close. There is this sense of happy anticipation.

I see the ego thoughts in my mind trying to pull me back to its world of separate beings with separate thoughts and separate goals. It reminds me of things I need to worry about, things that need my attention, things that are sure to go wrong. It wants to be angry and fearful. It wants to find the guilty party. It wants to overcome others and be the winner. It is dark and foreboding, the best of its gifts fleeting and unsatisfying.

But right now in this moment, I just don’t care about ego, and am uninterested in its offerings or its warnings. Just in this moment, I am carried by peace, by Love. And just this moment is the only reality that exists. In this moment is the Will of God, and in this one moment, I share it with Him. I have thought that the world had meaning and value and I sought for my place in it. And I suppose that this will happen again for awhile, but maybe not. Who knows, maybe I will follow Him gladly all day long, maybe all the way Home.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 13: VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 5. 10-3-16

VII. ATTAINMENT OF THE REAL WORLD, P 5
5 You have been wrong about the world because you have misjudged yourself. From such a twisted reference point, what could you see? All seeing starts with the perceiver, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false he does not see. You who would judge reality cannot see it, for whenever judgment enters reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is there but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does not depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind and enter into the world He holds out to you in love.

Journal
I love the sentence where Jesus tells us that all seeing begins with the perceiver. I will perceive according to my understanding, and according to my desire for one thing or another to be true. What I desire to see, I will see even if it is illusion and not really there. What I judge against, I will not see though it is there. So what I see in my world is only and always what I choose to see, what I want to see. When I first realized that was true, it was a startling revelation.

How is it that I came to see some of the pretty awful things that have shown up in this life experience of mine? They are here because I have misjudged myself. I have judged myself worthy of nothing else. How is it that my life has become more peaceful and loving? I have stopped judging myself as much, and have given that function back to the Holy Spirit where it belongs. And so I am beginning to accept my true nature, rather than the ego version I made to take its place.

My true nature is love, and acknowledging that nature, I have begun to see love everywhere. I feel loved, and I give love. I feel cherished and valued, and I cherish and value others. This used to be a rare feeling for me, and undependable, coming and going for no apparent reason, and often questioned and doubted even when it occurred. That seldom happens anymore.

When some little doubt tries to find a place in my mind, it usually withers before it can grow. Doubt and fear cannot grow where peace abides. When it does find a place in my mind, I begin to weed it out immediately, asking the Holy Spirit to purify my mind once again.

I have so often in the past struggled to see the Christ in another, to experience that elusive Christ Vision the Course talks about. I finally began to realize that Christ isn’t seen with the body’s eyes, and is not realized with the ego thinking- mind. Now I am opening my heart to the Christ within that has seemed absent to me only in my confusion. I open my heart to know the Christ in me, and this is the prerequisite to seeing it in others.

The Christ resides in a peaceful mind, in a loving mind. This peaceful, loving mind is in me and always will be, having been established in my creation. I become aware of it, as I desire it. I learn that I desire the peaceful loving mind as I turn from the ego offering of self-will, which inevitably bring chaos, drama, hatefulness, fear and guilt. The more often I choose God over ego, the more certain I become that this is the choice I want to make every time.

And speaking of time, I have learned something about this through experience. The Course tells me that time is not real and that past and future do not exist. It tells me that Loves Eternal Presence can be found only in this present moment. I have seen that this is true and so I know it. Because I know it as true, and because being in the presence of Love is a blissful experience, I choose this as often as I can.

I am still in the practice stage of making this choice, but just thinking about it brings tears of joy to my eyes, so I know I will continue to make the choice. It feels hard right now because my mind is so used to wandering to the past or the future. Keeping it in the present sometimes feels like I am herding cats. But I have already, even with such little effort that I have made, experienced the effects of this choice and so I will keep doing this until wandering away from the present moment is a rarity.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 13: VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 4. 9-27-16

VII. ATTAINMENT OF THE REAL WORLD, P 4
4 Yet the real world has the power to touch you even here, because you love it. And what you call with love will come to you. Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it from every part of this strange world you made but do not want. All that you need to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did not make is willingness to learn the one you made is false.

Journal
Love always answers every call for help, whether it is a call from one who knows he or she needs help, or one from someone who doesn’t even know help is available, or even from one who asks even in denial that help is needed. Love is not confused by the form of the request. It knows what is needed and gives answer to the call. However, we must accept the answer. Love will not force Itself on us. We will not be aware of the answer we do not want.

When I was divorced the first time, I lost the privilege of receiving the sacraments of the Catholic Church. I took this as a rejection of God because I had not learned to separate the laws of Love from the laws of religion. I was very afraid and so I was very angry with God who I imagined had abandoned me. I spent about a year ranting and raving at God.

What God heard was my desire to be loved and accepted. This call for love, he answered. But it took me some time to accept the answer. When I was ready, the answer was there waiting for me. Interestingly, when I was ready to put my own feelings aside in an act of love toward another, I discovered a God I had not learned about at church, a good I could trust and depend on. I suppose that in giving love I was receiving love.

Sometimes I still slip back into the idea that God is like me rather than the truth that I am like God. God is not a person with an ego. He cannot be hurt or offended. He cannot judge or condemn. It is essential that I remember this or I will hate and fear God. Here is an idea that helps me to see God differently.

I think of God as more like the law of gravity than as a person. Gravity simply is. If I step off a cliff I will fall. Gravity did not do it to me, gravity simply was. If I was then laid up in the hospital recovering from my fall, I would not lay there berating gravity for my accident. I would not feel abandoned by gravity, angry with gravity, or afraid of gravity. I would not curse gravity. I would just realize that I ignored the law of gravity and my fall was the consequence, and I would decide not to do that again.
 It is the same with God. God is Love and there are laws of Love just as there are laws of gravity. For instance, if I hold a grievance this is going to solidify my belief that I am what I projected onto my brother. As a result, I am going to be unhappy. God did not make me unhappy. God did not want me to be unhappy. God simply is, and when we ignore the law of Love, we take a tumble and it hurts. God did not stop loving me, and is not responsible for my tumble. I am the one that stepped off that particular cliff.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 13: VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 3. 9-26-16

VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 3
3 You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired and ready to return to dust even as you made it. This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads away from it into another world.

Journal
I am turning from this world, but Jesus, do I really do so in sadness? I want very much to find my way home. I want to look around and see the light and beauty that is the real world reinterpreted by the Holy Spirit. I want to look at each person and each place, at each thing and see only God expressed. I want to respond to what I see with joy and I want the peace of God, uninterrupted. So what is it that I find so important, of so much value that I would choose it instead?

As I think of this I let my mind wander to yesterday. I notice the times I felt happy. I was sitting with my boss and thinking what a kind man he is and how happy I am I finally chose to see that in him. Another time, I joined with two coworkers to discover the answer to a sticky problem. I felt so pleased to just be in their company and I felt our unity. Another time I was at the bank and a teller I was not using took the time to speak to me and seemed happy to see me, and I took the time to look into her eyes and I knew there was a joining

These were little things, but as I look on the day, it was moments like these that made it a happy day. They were moments of union, of shared purpose and of gratitude. So what happened during the day to pull me out of peace? Well, I feel myself being annoyed at a coworker and saying something “funny” about her to another coworker. As we laughed the day felt a little darker. Another time, an error was made and I saw the error and felt superior that I did so, and pointed to the error, and I lost the sense of union that is so essential to my happiness and peace.

I was grudging in my kindness at the restaurant because of judgments that I was making. I had a moment of thinking my boss was foolish in his decision, and another of wondering if someone else was silently judging me. I had a couple of times of thinking that my son needs to do something he is not doing and to stop other behaviors and felt really dark and heavy. I texted him advice but felt uncertain that I was doing so with guidance. I was definitely taking advice, but was it from Holy Spirit or was it from ego?

These little moments in the day point to what it is I value more than Heaven. It seems I would rather be well thought of, secure in my job, and feel superior, than to feel the touch of God. I would rather laugh at a coworker and gossip, I would rather judge than love, and I would rather accept the fearful ego interpretation of my sweet son than to let Holy Spirit show me his beautiful essence. I would rather act out of fear than to rest in trust and certainty.

How very strange it is to see the things I value over my joy and peace. I am grateful that I can see this so clearly because for most of my life I was oblivious. Now that I see it, I can change it. In fact, I see that scale is tipping. I was much more accepting and loving than I was judgmental, and though I did have moments of fear for my son, I had many more of faith and trust and certainty. Some days I wonder if I will spend eternity in this messy hell that I made, and those are dark days indeed. But those days are the exception now, as I am learning to love the light.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 13: VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 2. 9-26-16

VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 2
2 The world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. You cannot see both worlds, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other. Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is not the same, because their real attraction to you is unequal.

Journal
Here is how I am learning to deny the world I see. When I wake up and my first thought is, “Oh shoot, it’s Monday. I have to go to work,” I remind myself that this disheartening feeling is made up. There is no such feeling in the real world. Then I decide if I want to keep that gloomy feeling or allow a real feeling to express through me.

When I look in the mirror and see something I don’t like, something older and heavier and saggier than I want to see, I remind myself that this judgment is not reality. It is something I made up. It is a choice based on a false belief. Then I decide if I want to keep this judgment and believe in it. Or would I like to look in the mirror and see the reflection differently? I wonder how this could be, how could it feel. I don’t understand how it would work, but the truth does not need my understanding. All it needs is a wish, a desire to see differently

When I was with my son, and my eyes showed me his pain and suffering, his confusion and his depression, I had a choice. I could believe in what I was seeing, and for awhile I did. This belief showed me a bleak future for him. But I knew then as I know now, that I was not looking at the real world. There is a real world and I can see it if I am willing to look away from the world I made up.

For awhile I was mesmerized by the fearful world of the ego belief system, but peace called to me and after a few days of suffering I decided to allow that vision to fade away. When I did, I began to see something closer to the real world. I began to see my son, not as he sees himself, but as he truly exists.

Jesus tells us that every thought is a prayer. He tells us that our thoughts are images we have made. He tells us that every thought takes form on some level. He tells us that no one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision, and that nothing occurs but represents our wish, and nothing is omitted that we choose. He says that here is our world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for us. He says that we but do this to ourselves.

He says that what I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one’s own. From insane wishes comes an insane world.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.