Together, We Light the Way

Click link to go to:
Together We Light the Way Index

Study of Text, Chapter 11, VIII.The Problem and the Answer, P 6. 12-2-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 6

6 The Holy Spirit will give you only what is yours, and will take nothing in return. For what is yours is everything, and you share it with God. That is its reality. Would the Holy Spirit, Who wills only to restore, be capable of misinterpreting the question you must ask to learn His answer? You have heard the answer, but you have misunderstood the question. You believe that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit is to ask for deprivation.

Journal
I am drawn to that last sentence. I believe that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit is to ask for deprivation. Could that be true? I remember when I first started working on special relationships, especially those with my children. It took a long time for me to accept that the Holy Spirit wasn’t asking me to give up love when He asked me for those relationships.

I felt like Abraham offering the sacrifice of his son on the altar. When I told Him about my fear, He told me that He just wanted to take the elements that were not love, such as neediness, and that He would give the relationship back to me purified. At first it was hard to accept because I didn’t know how to truly love, so I was afraid of what it would mean for the relationship to change.

I have asked for help with body issues and noticed thoughts that indicate I believed that He wanted me to sacrifice. Maybe this pain or this sickness is to help me in some way. Maybe I am to remain sick for some good I don’t understand, as if God would teach through pain. So I would look in the world for an answer, the right doctor or the right medicine.

Then there are the more subtle fears. If I ask the Holy Spirit for everything, where does that leave the self? What would the self that I have thought of as me do if it did not make decisions? Do I want to abandon this little self I made? Would that be the ultimate sacrifice? I am learning to let that idea go.

First I am learning that I don’t want to make plans or decisions on my own. I am learning to ask for guidance in all things, and to wait for that guidance. I practice this as often as I can, and in so doing, I am learning that doing all things with God is not a sacrifice. In fact, I am learning that I don’t even know what would make me happy, much less how to achieve it so I need help.

Ultimately, and I am beginning to understand this, I am learning that there is no “by myself.” How could I do anything by myself if I live in God, and if I am one with God? How could I make decisions on my own when there is nothing but God? So what is happening when I think I am deciding on my own? I am dreaming. That’s all, just dreaming.

Giving up the dream is no sacrifice. I am giving up an illusion of separateness in favor of my divinity. I am giving up nothing so that I can remember that I have everything. All these little forms of surrender are important only in that they remind me that I can trust God, and they remind me of my reality. As I surrender the little self, the Holy Spirit gives me everything in its place, but I won’t recognize it as everything if I cling to the notion that the ego is valuable to me. I’m letting that go.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 11: VIII: The Problem and the Answer, P 5. 12-1-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 5

5 You may complain that this course is not sufficiently specific for you to understand and use. Yet perhaps you have not done what it specifically advocates. This is not a course in the play of ideas, but in their practical application. Nothing could be more specific than to be told that if you ask you will receive. The Holy Spirit will answer every specific problem as long as you believe that problems are specific. His answer is both many and one, as long as you believe that the One is many. You may be afraid of His specificity, for fear of what you think it will demand of you. Yet only by asking will you learn that nothing of God demands anything of you. God gives; He does not take. When you refuse to ask, it is because you believe that asking is taking rather than sharing.

Journal
If I ask, God gives, and He doesn’t give in the way that we do. He does not give to get, He gives to share, and that means nothing will be taken from us in the giving. This makes it perfectly safe to ask. He even answers specific problems even though He knows that we have only one problem appearing as many. He answers the problem we believe we have until we learn that all problems are one problem with one solution.

What more could we ask? What are we waiting for? He is asking us to practice this, to put it to the test and let the results convince us. What would you ask for if you knew you would be answered, and that the answer would cost you nothing? I was thinking about this and I wondered why anyone would hesitate. What would I fear would be taken from me if I asked for what I want? Jesus gave me a specific need to look at so he could help me understand this.

I have the possibility of retirement looming ahead. It is getting closer and so is no longer just a vague idea to look forward to, but a reality coming soon. This is something I want, but at the same time, I am afraid of it. I won’t have much money and that is the problem that I am most concerned about. I notice that sometimes when it comes to mind I remember that all my needs are met because all my problems are answered.

But then other times I listen to the ego and the ego says that there is no way for this to happen. It says that I should have prepared better, saved money, invested. It says that I will get what I deserve and that ain’t much. I am not becoming as a little child, asking as a child would ask, with happy anticipation of a loving answer. I am asking out of fear and little expectation of a generous answer, but rather a meager answer based on my perceived guilt.
In order to ask differently, with confidence and with an open heart ready to receive, I will have to give up my specialness. I will no longer be the one who did not plan and so is guilty. God will not take this from me, but on the other hand, He cannot give me what I do not think I deserve and so do not really want.

The first thing I am asking for is a healed mind. I ask that I be healed of the belief I am guilty about my failure to plan for the future. And now that I think about it, guilt wants to attach to the idea that I think I should plan for the future when the Course tells me that a healed mind doesn’t make plans.

Could I give up all this guilt? Could I at least accept the Atonement for this particular form of guilt in this particular circumstance? If this is the sacrifice asked of me, the sacrifice I am afraid of, then clearly I have been afraid of nothing. Freedom from guilt would not be a sacrifice. And obviously, I believe I have specific problems. So I will use those perceived needs to teach myself trust and acceptance, and eventually, that all needs are one need and that need is answered.

Thank you, Brother, for this clarity. I am opening to a new way of perceiving this future. I am asking for help to remember my purpose and to release my fear. God wants me to ask and He wants to answer. I want to receive and receive fully. Help me to do so.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 11: VIII: The Problem and the Answer, P 4. 11-30-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 4

4 No one can withhold truth except from himself. Yet God will not refuse you the Answer He gave. Ask, then, for what is yours, but which you did not make, and do not defend yourself against truth. You made the problem God has answered. Ask yourself, therefore, but one simple question:

Do I want the problem or do I want the answer?

Decide for the answer and you will have it, for you will see it as it is, and it is yours already.

Journal
It seems the answer is always available to us because the answer has already been established and is ours. The only way we could not be aware of the answer is if we deliberately choose the problem over the answer. I have been asking myself what are the problems I am choosing to keep when I could have the answer instead. Obviously, they are the problems I still have.

I still look in the mirror and see an image of a chubby woman and that feels like a problem to me. The image is of my own making, a projection of the beliefs in my mind. I see it as a problem, and yet, if the image is a representation of my beliefs, and if my beliefs can be changed, why am I holding onto this problem image? I must be defending myself against the truth. This is true of all the problems I perceive in the world.

All of them are the same problem. They are just different forms of the one problem; I think I am separated from God. What am I afraid of? Not enough money? Not enough love? Sickness? Loss of some sort is always involved in my fears. All of those fears are really the fear that I am separated from God. Could loss of anything be found in God? Could even the idea of loss and lack be found in God? All forms of loss have something to do with the body. Could a body be found in God?

These are problems that I made and the solution to those problems, the one problem, was given in the instant it was needed. It is in my mind waiting for me to want it. For right now I am still looking at my problems as if each one was discreet and allowing myself to find the answer. But each time I do so, I remind myself that it is just a form of the one problem and the answer is for all forms of that problem. In this way I am learning not to defend against the answer and that I don’t even want to defend against it, because it is a defense against God. I am learning that I want God.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 11: VIII: The Problem and the Answer, P 3. 11-24-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 3

3 You do not know the meaning of anything you perceive. Not one thought you hold is wholly true. The recognition of this is your firm beginning. You are not misguided; you have accepted no guide at all. Instruction in perception is your great need, for you understand nothing. Recognize this but do not accept it, for understanding is your inheritance. Perceptions are learned, and you are not without a Teacher. Yet your willingness to learn of Him depends on your willingness to question everything you learned of yourself, for you who learned amiss should not be your own teacher.

Journal
I think that surely I have learned this and surely I believe it and even want it to be true. Then I see that I am defending myself, and in doing so I am defending the right to be my own teacher. Why would I do that? I know it has only brought me suffering in the past so why would I want to do it again?

I also know that following Spirit instead, brings me joy and peace. You would think that the contrast alone would be enough to convince me of the teacher I want.  And yet, I still listen to the ego and the ego is nothing, so I don’t just follow the wrong teacher, I follow nothing. In doing so, I make more of nothing, but it is a nothing that I believe in and so it is true for me, and thus it is painful to me.

This morning while doing my lesson I wrote about defending myself at work. I saw myself doing it and regretted it right away. I asked the Holy Spirit to undo this need to defend myself, and at the same time, I saw my reluctance to let that go. I opened my mind to Spirit as I asked for clarity about this. Why do I think I need to defend myself?

Here is what He showed me.

I saw fear in my mind. I made of myself something that is not real and therefore is not eternal. This thing I made, this separate vulnerable self is in constant danger of not existing because it doesn’t. And yet, I made it and want it and so I must defend it all the time. How exhausting! I want to know my real self, and I want to let this little self disappear from my mind.

I become confused about what I am defending. It is not really my place within the company I am defending. That is just an image I made of the desire to exist as a separate self with a will apart from my Creator. If everyone at work valued me above all others and couldn’t imagine the company surviving without me, I would still not feel safe, because the idea of vulnerability would not have been healed. It would just show up differently.

These stories of Myron are not the problem; they are the effect of a mistaken belief in a self that is apart from God. The solution is to stop asking the self that is the problem for the solution. The ego self will only look for solutions within the images it makes. It will never offer a solution for the source of those images because that would end it. I am asking for salvation of a teacher that doesn’t want me saved.

Thank you, Holy Spirit.

I surrender as my own teacher and I ask that my mind be healed of all the false thoughts I have accepted in the past. I want to wake up from this dream of separation and I will never do that if I keep asking the ego mind to be my teacher. I surrender! I surrender not in fear and not with a sense of loss, but in laughter and joy! I surrender, Holy Spirit. Please teach me. I will try to stay out of the way.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 11: VIII: The Problem and the Answer, P 2. 11-23-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 2

2 The Bible tells you to become as little children. Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they ask what it means. Do not make the mistake of believing that you understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you. Yet the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning for you, and if you will let Him interpret it, He will restore to you what you have thrown away. Yet while you think you know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of Him.

Journal
As part of yesterday’s practice, I became willing to see everything in my life as perfect. The ego mind did not appreciate that decision and argued vigorously against it at times. When something happened that seemed not to be perfect, I stopped and asked Jesus to show me the perfection. Instead of saying that this could not be perfect, I asked how this is perfect. It made all the difference.

What a happy day it was! I decided that I must be what God created and so I must be happy and at peace. I decided that I would act as if that is the truth for me regardless of the ego objections. And when it seemed that ego thinking was intruding on my decision for God, I reminded myself that this was not my choice. I decided for joy and I decided for peace. In so doing, I decided to disregard appearances and disregard ego.

I realize that I had become as a little child yesterday awaiting wise counsel rather than deciding for myself based on false meaning. My reward yesterday was to have restored to me what I daily throw away, joy, love, and peace. What is the little ego self compared to this? I wanted to yell from the rooftops; “We are forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are our Cause. As You created us we have remained. Where You established us we still abide.”

I want to tell everyone that we can be happy and at peace now! We don’t have to wait for anything to change, but the changeless belongs to us, is us. All we need to do is stop deciding for ourselves what everything means. Instead, we need only set aside what it appears to mean and open the mind to the truth, which will be readily revealed to us because it is ours to have.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 11, VIII.The Problem and the Answer, P 1. 11-20-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer
1 This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel you need a course which, in the end, teaches that only reality is true. But do you believe it? When you perceive the real world, you will recognize that you did not believe it. Yet the swiftness with which your new and only real perception will be translated into knowledge will leave you but an instant to realize that this alone is true. And then everything you made will be forgotten; the good and the bad, the false and the true. For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. The end of the world is not its destruction, but its translation into Heaven. The reinterpretation of the world is the transfer of all perception to knowledge.

Journal
This reinterpretation of the world, the transfer of all perception to knowledge, is our goal. It is our ultimate goal, but not my immediate goal, I think. When this goal is complete the world we know will be forgotten. Everything we made will vanish, the good and bad, the false and the true, as Heaven and earth become one. Even the real world will vanish. That seems far from anything that I can imagine or have any part in accomplishing.

I look toward allowing all untrue thoughts in my mind to be healed, at least all that I am able to do toward this goal. I look toward awakening within this world, knowing that what I believe is not true and experiencing the real world. This I can anticipate because I can understand it even if I have not yet fully accomplished it. I think that is not phrased exactly right. I have not fully accomplished my part in it would be more accurate.

I know people who have done so, and I see what it must be like to live a more honest and therefore more beautiful, happier and peaceful life. My life has become more so even now, though not truly the happy dream or real world. But that it is closer makes it seem possible and even probable of accomplishment. But to think of the ultimate goal of the illusion disappearing completely and being only one with God, that is something outside my imagination. I understand the concept but have no experience of it in my recovered memory. One day, though.

In the meantime, I will continue the practices and I will continue to be open and available to guidance and instruction and even revelation. I know these things work and have brought me to this much happier state of mind and to the clarity that I have at this time, so I will stay on this path unless guided elsewhere. I know the end is certain and as Jesus tells us it will be, just as I know that tonight the sun will set and tomorrow the sun will rise. I know it even though it has not yet occurred.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 11, VII.The Condition of Reality, P 4. 11-19-15

VII. The Condition of Reality, P 4

4 The perception of goodness is not knowledge, but the denial of the opposite of goodness enables you to recognize a condition in which opposites do not exist. And this is the condition of knowledge. Without this awareness you have not met its conditions, and until you do you will not know it is yours already. You have made many ideas that you have placed between yourself and your Creator, and these beliefs are the world as you perceive it. Truth is not absent here, but it is obscure. You do not know the difference between what you have made and what God created, and so you do not know the difference between what you have made and what you have created. To believe that you can perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself. You can know God because it is His Will to be known. The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for you out of what you have made, and to perceive only this is salvation, because it is the recognition that reality is only what is true.

Journal
How I see the world depends on whether I am looking at what God created and what I created, or if I am looking at what I made. I cannot perceive the real world if I look at the illusory world. To be free of the illusion I must no longer desire it. I must desire only what is real. From that desire I am led to release to the Holy Spirit all that is not truth. He remembers the truth for me and will show it to me when that becomes what I want. The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for me out of what I made. Salvation is the willingness to perceive only this.

I was reading in the paper this morning some comments people made about the refugees being placed in our towns. I see that some people have so much fear they cannot conceive of allowing these people into their states. It seems insane to them to even consider it. Their fear is all that drives them and so the world they see is a frightening place in need of constant defense. Their fear will not let them see how their Christian values such as “what you do for the least of my brothers you do for me” and “do unto your neighbors as you would have them do unto you” apply here.

Then there are some who seem to know that they should be generous and provide refuge, but who are afraid to do so. They justify the fear they feel by saying things like, “We don’t hate the ones that would come, but love those who are here.” It is still fear driven thoughts and behavior, but there is also a glimmer of truth in their minds. They know on some level that love is important but fear is still too strong in their minds to choose only love.

Then there were comments from those who spoke from reason. These people are in need, they have been vetted, and we should open our hearts to them. It is the right thing to do and the American way. I have been looking within my own heart. What do I feel? I know that what is fear is not God and not the real world. Fear is always the ego mind and the ego world. Which one will I choose to perceive? It matters, because the choice I make determines my happiness and either pulls us all more deeply into the illusion or lifts us all a little more into the Kingdom.

The words I say about this, knowing how I should feel, are not the same as believing them so I choose to be honest and from that honesty allow healing of all that is not truth. I feel like we should accept these people and give them comfort and help to make a new life. I also feel trepidation. I feel afraid. What if one of them is a terrorist plant that evaded the scrutiny of the government and in inviting them in, I have invited the wolf to take refuge among the sheep.

The fear in my heart is the illusion I made. It is the ego. It is also the veil that keeps me from seeing the real world and from returning my mind to God. I cannot enter His presence if I attack His Son, and these refugees are His Son. Looking at them in fear is an attack. What do I do with the fear thoughts that are blocking love?

I made fear and so I believe in it, and as Jesus tells us in the Course, what we believe in is true for us. That is why I cannot undo fear in my mind. I can see the fear and recognize the harm it does. I can know that fear blocks all that is true and good and that it keeps me in the dark. I can know that I cannot have both fear and joy and that I must choose what it is I really want. But I cannot destroy or change what I believe to be true.

The solution is to turn to the Holy Spirit who is in my mind for that purpose. It is His function to undo for me what I no longer want to believe. I give Him the fear in my mind. I put it on the altar within; all the fearful thoughts, all the justifications, all the judgments about this issue. I ask for the Atonement as I set it all next to Him. I trust in His power to undo what I have done in making a world unlike Heaven.

There. I have done my part and now I wait in trust for the Holy Spirit to do His. The ego mind argues against this and tries to show that there is no way to see this differently. It argues for common sense. It argues for separation, at least in this case. I am willing to perceive only the truth. I don’t have to figure out what that looks like or how it could work. I only need to put my trust in God rather than the ego. The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for me out of what I made. Salvation is the willingness to perceive only this. I am willing.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Page 114 of 271 pages ‹ First  < 112 113 114 115 116 >  Last ›

<< Back to main page of Together, We Light the Way