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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-26-12

6-26-12
And now in all your doings be you blessed. God turns to you for help to save the world. Teacher of God, His thanks He offers you, And all the world stands silent in the grace You bring from Him. You are the Son He loves, And it is given you to be the means Through which His Voice is heard around the world, To close all things of time; to end the sight Of all things visible; and to undo All things that change. Through you is ushered in A world unseen, unheard, yet truly there. Holy are you, and in your light the world Reflects your holiness, for you are not Alone and friendless. I give thanks for you, And join your efforts on behalf of God, Knowing they are on my behalf as well, And for all those who walk to God with me.
AMEN

Holy Spirit, I read this prayer from Jesus to me and I am overwhelmed with gratitude and love. Jesus is thanking me for my work and assuring me that he is joining me in it. I don’t know how to respond to that. I am so happy that I have the way to do this work, and I gladly agree to be a teacher of God.

I also feel some fear that I will not be the teacher I could be. I know that this could not be true, that God does not choose His teachers in error, but I’m in my mind all the time and so I see the doubts and fears, the judgments and the grievances, and so it is hard to believe in myself.

Holy Spirit: Yesterday you heard the ego voice tell you that you should be offended by a response you got from a brother. You saw this thought come up over and over and you saw the ego try to build a story around that response. You also noticed that you were not interested. Do not be concerned that the thought passes through your mind. If you find you are attracted to a thought, bring that thought to me as you always have, and I will heal your mind as I always have.

Last night you had a dream that frightened you. This morning you recognized that the dream was caused by a fear you have not relinquished. Let me have that fear, my dear one. You have spent much of your life looking at fear, finally realizing that you don’t have to live in fear.

This morning you thought to say, “I cannot be in pain because pain is not in God.” You actually said, “I cannot be in fear because fear is not in God.” That was not an accident. That was a gift from Me, a thought that you were finally ready to acknowledge. You may live the rest of your life fearlessly if you so choose. You have asked for this and it has been given to you. It awaits only your acceptance.

Don’t give thought to how you will be a teacher of God, or whom you will teach. That is not your concern. Continue to heal your own mind and those who are ready to learn what you are learning will be guided to you. The time will be made. The words will be given. Remain willing, listen, speak or act according to your Inner Guidance. Take joy in this. God wants happy learners and the world wants happy teachers. You are appreciated and you are loved.

Me: Thank you, God. I love you, God.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Manual for Teachers 6-25-12

6-25-12
7 Remember you are His completion and His Love. Remember your weakness is His strength. But do not read this hastily or wrongly. If His strength is in you, what you perceive as your weakness is but illusion. And He has given you the means to prove it so. Ask all things of His Teacher, and all things are given you. Not in the future but immediately; now. God does not wait, for waiting implies time and He is timeless. Forget your foolish images, your sense of frailty and your fear of harm, your dreams of danger and selected “wrongs.” God knows but His Son, and as he was created so he is. In confidence I place you in His hands, and I give thanks for you that this is so.

Truly I still see myself as weak. I so easily fall back into ego thinking, and I spend long periods of time listening to ego chatter before I even notice I am doing it. I entertain judgmental thoughts, and I still project my fears and doubts placing blame outside my mind onto others and onto my body. I do all this less often and for much shorter periods of time so I see myself as getting better, but still.

What Jesus reminds me here in this paragraph is that my weakness is an illusion. Actually, I have the same strength in me that is in God, because He created me as an extension of Himself. Anything that is not like God must be an illusion. I made up the idea of weakness just like I made up the idea of pain. It was all part of my plan to have a experience that is different from God.

If you take out the mistaken belief that we have actually done something real and irreparable, then there would be no reason for guilt and so no reason for fear. Then this experience would simply be interesting, and even fun. After our forays into our made up world we would sit around and talk about how it feels to be afraid and what rage does to the body. And if we were no longer drowning in our guilt and fear, we would have been through with the game a long time ago.

Fear of facing our Creator has kept the illusion in place. We are like children who snuck out of the yard for an adventure in the nearby woods. We realized we were late for supper and were probably in serious trouble, and in our fear of our parent’s anger, went more deeply into the woods.

The longer we stayed the more trouble we expected to be in and the more afraid we became. Finally, we were in the woods so long we got lost and then decided, like kids everywhere today, that if you don’t think about something its like it didn’t happen. So we lost our way and lost our memory, and our fear keeps us in this sorry state.

Finally one of our brothers began to remember. He learned to listen to that Voice of Reason, the Voice of God that is still intact within our mind. He made it back to sanity and has made it easier for us to do the same. What we are doing now is getting in touch with our true Self. This Self is, of course, just as Its Creator. It is powerful and perfect. It is Love. It is everything our illusory self is not.

This Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, remembers all and whispers the truth into our Hearts all the time. When we are ready, when we feel strong enough to look past our fear, we begin to hear it. It takes courage and determination to do this. For me, it has been helpful to practice what I hear until my memory becomes stronger than my illusion.

So when I am in pain I remind myself that this cannot be true. I cannot be in pain because I am in God and God is not in pain. When I feel weak, I remind myself that this cannot be true. It must be part of the illusion, because I am in God and God is not weak.

This seems to be taking a long time, and sometimes I back off from it because the part of my mind that is still afraid starts to look at the illusion for proof that I am weak and sick and fearful. It always finds plenty of proof because it put it there. But I have also formed the habit, through my practice of listening to the Holy Spirit, and so I can now pull my attention away from the false proof and allow my mind to be soothed and comforted and healed.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Manual for Teachers 6-24-12

6-24-12
6 Never forget that the Holy Spirit does not depend on your words. He understands the requests of your heart, and answers them. Does this mean that, while attack remains attractive to you, He will respond with evil? Hardly! For God has given Him the power to translate your prayers of the heart into His language. He understands that an attack is a call for help. And He responds with help accordingly. God would be cruel if He let your words replace His Own. A loving father does not let his child harm himself, or choose his own destruction. He may ask for injury, but his father will protect him still. And how much more than this does your Father love His Son?

Jesus assures us that the Holy Spirit does not respond to the desire for attack. He understands that this desire is actually a call for help. Beneath the desire for attack is the true desire of our Heart, which is to know God. The desire to attack is simply a response to the guilt and fear that comes from our confusion about who we are.

There is a person in my life I have judged, and if anything, my strongest wish was for him not to be in my awareness at all. I wanted him to be out of my life, to not even show up on my radar, not even as a memory. I have thought he was contemptible and maybe even evil. I felt he was ruining the life of an innocent young woman and I felt helpless to do anything about it, and helpless to see it any other way. And I felt guilty for my thoughts.

Our thoughts are prayers so I was praying that this person be attacked and to be attacked in such a profound way that he didn’t exist and had never existed, at least in the sphere of my awareness. Definitely an attack prayer, right? So did the Holy Spirit answer my prayer? Of course not. He saw that what I really wanted was help.

I just wanted to be happy again, and at peace. In my confusion I thought that I had the answer to my unhappiness but of course I didn’t. Obliterating the perceived cause of my lack of peace was not the answer because he was not the cause. The Holy Spirit answered my confused call for help by giving me clarity.

It took a lot longer than usual for me to accept His answer because this man triggered some unacknowledged and long held beliefs, and forgiving this situation would mean letting down my guard against those beliefs. But I continued to do my part by asking for help and knowing that I would get it when I was ready for it.

So much of the real work and the real healing happens below my conscious awareness. I don’t even know it’s happening much less how it is happening. Evidently enough healing had taken place for the next step. I had been asked to be someplace where he was going to be and I said yes. That was not a planned response. I didn’t think, “OK, its time to do this.” Later I gave myself that story, but in the yes moment, I just opened my mouth and the words came out.

As the time approached for this meeting, I became nervous and had many ego objections going through my mind. I felt myself becoming resentful and feeling victimized. I gave my mind to the Holy Spirit and asked Him to give me His help. My next thought a prayer. I asked that God show me how He wants me to love these children of his. I didn’t ask why I should love them, or if they deserved my love. The ego wanted to talk about throwing pearls before swine, but I went back to the prayer the Holy Spirit had given me and asked how I was to love them.

There was all this background noise in my head about not wanting to do this and being uncomfortable. There were judgment thoughts tumbling all over the place, but I just kept moving forward like they weren’t there and soon we were having a conversation and I noticed that I didn’t plan a single thing I said, and that when I looked in his eyes I didn’t see the evil man I expected. In fact I saw a vulnerability that was completely unexpected.

I know when I left that man did not feel judged by me, and I think that is how God wanted me to love his child. I also saw how my ego mind asked for attack and the Holy Spirit reinterpreted my prayer as a call for help, and answered it. I had to wait for the answer until I wanted it. The ego was still dead set on attack as the only defense, but the ego is just a small voice in my mind. I turned my attention from that noisy little voice to the part of my mind that wants nothing as much as it wants God. As soon as I did that, the Holy Spirit’s answer was there waiting for me. 

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Manual for Teachers 6-23-12

6-23-12
5 Who assumes a power that he does not possess is deceiving himself. Yet to accept the power given him by God is but to acknowledge his Creator and accept His gifts. And His gifts have no limit. To ask the Holy Spirit to decide for you is simply to accept your true inheritance. Does this mean that you cannot say anything without consulting Him? No, indeed! That would hardly be practical, and it is the practical with which this course is most concerned. If you have made it a habit to ask for help when and where you can, you can be confident that wisdom will be given you when you need it. Prepare for this each morning, remember God when you can throughout the day, ask the Holy Spirit’s help when it is feasible to do so, and thank Him for His guidance at night. And your confidence will be well founded indeed.

This paragraph is a real treasure. First Jesus talks to us about the difference between the ego’s “gifts” and the true gifts of our Creator. The ego gave us the gift of belief in an unreliable power. We spend all of our life trying to learn to gain enough information, and experience using that information, that we can finally make good decisions.

Because the ego gave us the belief that we have power, we always think we will succeed, and often fool ourselves into believing we did succeed. If we become suspicious of the outcome, we quickly find someone to blame for it, so that we can bolster the belief we actually know something, that information is knowledge and manipulation of that information is wisdom.

All along we have true power at our disposal. God created us like Himself and nothing about our creation has changed, so we have the power of God. In order to use this power, we must acknowledge it, and we cannot acknowledge true power if we are holding onto the belief in its substitute.

The way to regain the use of the power that is in us, is to turn from the made up power of the ego, and ask the Holy Spirit to decide for us. This gives us access to knowledge and true power. It is ours and has always been ours, but we cut off access to it when we turned our back on it in favor of something else. The Holy Spirit is the memory of that power and knowledge, and our way back to it.

Do I have to ask the Holy Spirit every single time I make even the smallest decision for this plan to work? Jesus says no, that this would not be practical. Here is the way I have done it. At first I learned to notice when I was making decisions and I learned to realize that there were times when I really didn’t want to turn those decisions over to the Holy Spirit.

An example was when my son was sick. I thought I knew what should happen, even what I should pray for. I hated the thought of surrendering the whole thing. I was afraid to let go of my yearning for him to be well. Yeah, I know, that was pretty crazy. As if I could know better than God, what my son needed. As if God would ever want anything less than absolute joy for his child.

But that was the ego’s belief that it has knowledge and power. I gave it that belief and now I was now experiencing the consequences. The gift I found within this experience was that I now had the opportunity to see that it was an insane decision, and so choose differently. I chose differently through acknowledging the error by asking Holy Spirit to choose for me. I would never have gotten to that choice if I had not been willing to look at how much I didn’t want to do it.

Once I understood the mechanism the ego uses, and my reluctance to let go of my false power, it was just a matter of vigilance. I paid close attention to my thoughts and my choices. I gave all the willingness I had to allow my mind to be changed. It was all about practice and, honestly, it felt like work. A lot of work. But that was because I did not entirely want the change and so I was conflicted, which is always a painful state to be in.

But the work did pay off and I began to truly change my mind about the gifts I wanted to accept. I learned through contrast that the ego gives false gifts, and that God gives truly. I learned that I wanted the Holy Spirit to decide for me, as I began to realize that I lost nothing when I gave up the ego belief in personal decision-making. It had no value, and therefore its absence was not a sacrifice. The conflict began to fall away and the process became easier, and even joyful.

The result of this is that there is a true desire in my Heart for Holy Spirit to choose for me and so I don’t have to notice every little thing. The Holy Spirit answers the prayer of my Heart, and my Heart wants the gifts of God. My vigilance now is only to protect this desire. The ego self does not give up so easily and is always offering me its gifts.

This is why I begin and end my day in gratitude for God’s Love. It is why I think of God often during the day, and ask for healing often. This is the way I protect my desire. Evidently, I will have to always do this while I am living an experience of separation. It is a small thing, though, for the peace it has brought me.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Manual for Teachers 6-22-12

6-22-12
4 Here again is the paradox often referred to in the course. To say, “Of myself I can do nothing” is to gain all power. And yet it is but a seeming paradox. As God created you, you have all power. The image you made of yourself has none. The Holy Spirit knows the truth about you. The image you made does not. Yet, despite its obvious and complete ignorance, this image assumes it knows all things because you have given that belief to it. Such is your teaching, and teaching of the world that was made to uphold it. But the Teacher Who knows the truth has not forgotten it. His decisions bring benefit to all, being wholly devoid of attack. And therefore incapable of arousing guilt.

I gave the self the belief that it knows, and now I have to let that misconception go. It is a stubborn idea and in spite of accumulated evidence that proves it wrong, the ego continues to insist it knows something. Even though I have accepted that this is an error, I see proof the belief remains fixed in the mind as I notice the idle thoughts that chatter away. I see it in the thoughtless automatic responses I make on a regular basis.

When I notice that I still believe the ego has power and knowledge I remind myself of the truth. Of my self I can do nothing. As I let go of the idea of self, I gain the memory of my true Self, and with it the power of that Self. The way I let go of self is to turn to the Holy Spirit often during the day. I ask Him for the answer because He has not forgotten the truth.

This is the reason I will make no decisions on my own. I have no reason to trust such a decision. Because I believe I am separate from everyone and everything else, I will always make decisions based on what will benefit me alone. This is an attack on everything else and will always arouse guilt.

I do not acknowledge where the guilt came from because that will create a paradox I cannot afford to look at if I am to maintain the belief in this separated self I am so attached to. So I make up stories to explain the guilt, always placing the source of it on someone or something I see as outside me. This keeps me safely deluded and protects the idea of separation. But it also creates more guilt and keeps me in fear.

My carefully constructed plan for self-delusion may be insane, but it has been effective for eons of time. Because I designed the whole plan myself and put it into place through the creative power of my mind for the purpose of keeping the ego in place, I cannot undo it from within the system. I need outside help. I need to be reminded of the truth, to be gently led to reality. This is the purpose of the Holy Spirit within my mind.

I think of the Holy Spirit as the safeguard, placed within my mind to be sure that I would not be forever lost in the confusion of the game. When the Holy Spirit begins to sense an awakening desire to return to God, He responds to that desire by quickening my memory. He does this at the perfect pace, and in just the way that will be helpful and not frightening.

I am not in charge of my awakening. I gladly surrender my mind to the One Who knows. There will be hundreds of little decisions to be made today. I would make none of them on my own. Holy Spirit, again today, I ask that You choose for me.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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