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4-29-13

4-29-13
7 God and His creations remain in surety, and therefore know that no miscreation exists. Truth cannot deal with errors that you want. I was a man who remembered spirit and its knowledge. As a man I did not attempt to counteract error with knowledge, but to correct error from the bottom up. I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body and the power of the mind. By uniting my will with that of my Creator, I naturally remembered spirit and its real purpose. I cannot unite your will with God’s for you, but I can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance. Only your misperceptions stand in your way. Without them your choice is certain. Sane perception induces sane choosing. I cannot choose for you, but I can help you make your own right choice. “Many are called but few are chosen” should be, “All are called but few choose to listen.” Therefore, they do not choose right. The “chosen ones” are merely those who choose right sooner. Right minds can do this now, and they will find rest unto their souls. God knows you only in peace, and this is your reality.

I know how to listen to the Holy Spirit. I do it all the time, that is, except when I don’t. But I know how, and I know I want to. I just returned from the ACIM Conference in Chicago and I am still floating on the love and joy that comes from being with 400 or so people who have joined in a single purpose. The energy level is so high or the vibration level is up or whatever you want to call it. But it is a real phenomenon. I have experienced it at other conferences, but this one more so than ever before.

I feel such a strong connection with Spirit and it’s like being wrapped in the arms of One Who loves me without condition or end. So when I sat down to read the next paragraph and to ask Jesus to help me understand it, I was eager to see what would come. I was fully engaged. I began reading through this paragraph and when I got to the sentence that says few choose to listen, I didn’t think of myself as one of those few.

As I finished the paragraph, I again asked Jesus what it is he would have me know about this and began receiving thoughts. Suddenly, I realized that my mind had strayed to other things. I was not listening. I was one of those many who was choosing not to listen. Wow! How could that be? Where was my dedication? Where was the passion I felt just moments before? How is it that I could want anything more than I want to hear what Jesus would say to me?

If I continue to listen to the ego mind I will soon find myself lost in wrong-minded thinking and too discouraged to go on with the writing. I remember what that feels like and I feel the tug of it even now, though not the compulsion to follow the ego into hell. While at the conference I heard part of a presentation by Jennifer Hadley. In it she talked about getting on the pain train.  She reminded us that we don’t have to get on and if we do get on we can get off anytime we choose to. She also said that the end destination is self- loathing.

The reason I thought of this talk is because just now I was handed a ticket to that train. I so easily allowed my mind to wander away from Spirit and that was my ticket to hop aboard. The ego wants to take me to shame and guilt and fear and finally to self-loathing where I can wallow around in the idea that I don’t deserve the blessings I received this weekend. I don’t deserve the opportunity to journal with the Holy Spirit if I can’t even listen for a few minutes. I can’t do this. Why even try.

Fortunately, having taken that pain train many times before, I don’t need to do that again. I know where it goes and I know I am not interested. It is weird that I even feel the pull to hop on, but I absolutely am not going there. No matter how many times the ego mind turns from God, I will turn back. Jesus cannot turn me back to Him, but he will absolutely help me to make that choice myself.  He will erase all misperceptions from my mind if I will bring it under his guidance. Thank you, Jesus. I choose to take you up on that offer. Please guide me.

When he says that he will correct error from the bottom up, this is exactly what he meant. He cannot correct an error I want, but if I want to be corrected, he will do that for me. So I notice that my mind wanders and I notice that I feel guilty for this. I remember that my perception of guilt is screwy and I want it to be corrected. I ask for correction and it is done.

The Holy Spirit does not bring knowledge to me, and He does not drag me to knowledge, but He speaks to me all through the day and waits patiently for me to decide to hear Him. Then He heals what I ask Him to heal. This is how he starts at the bottom. As the perceptions are corrected and the mind is healed, I will naturally receive knowledge because it is only my misperceptions that are blocking my awareness. “Sane perception induces sane choosing.”

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 4-25-13

I am leaving this morning for Chicago where I will be presenting at the ACIM Conference. I will be back and writing again, probably next Tuesday.

4-25-13

6 The ability to perceive made the body possible, because you must perceive something and with something. That is why perception involves an exchange or translation, which knowledge does not need. The interpretative function of perception, a distorted form of creation, then permits you to interpret the body as yourself in an attempt to escape from the conflict you have induced. Spirit, which knows, could not be reconciled with this loss of power, because it is incapable of darkness. This makes spirit almost inaccessible to the mind and entirely inaccessible to the body. Thereafter, spirit is perceived as a threat, because light abolishes darkness merely by showing you it is not there. Truth will always overcome error in this way. This cannot be an active process of correction because, as I have already emphasized, knowledge does not do anything. It can be perceived as an attacker, but it cannot attack. What you perceive as its attack is your own vague recognition that knowledge can always be remembered, never having been destroyed.

Me: Jesus this is interesting, but how do you want me to use it? What is its practical application?

Jesus: It is helpful to understand that you made perception, which led to making the body so you could employ perception, since to perceive you must have something to perceive and something that perceives. It is hard for you to conceive of existence without conflict, but before perception there was only pure knowledge and therefore perfect peace.

Placing your awareness outside of what you are caused such confusion and distress that it felt necessary to find a way to be that was less distressful. A place was needed to fully explore what you had made and at the same time to avoid or at least distract yourself from the repercussions of your choices. So you made a self unlike what you are and a world unlike reality.

This put you in an impossible situation. To be something you are not, you had to “forget” what you are. This was done to keep your self “safe” from that awareness. You cannot be self if you have a memory of Self, so it was necessary to forget everything except what you made to take the place of reality. Now you must constantly guard against the truth and that makes the return of your memory seem like an attack. In your confusion you have made your Self your enemy.

As you have studied and practiced A Course in Miracles you have felt resistance each step of the way. Sometimes the resistance has been very strong and has slowed you to a stop until you were willing to trust me a little more. This resistance is the fear felt by the false self you made. As your mind is enlightened, the darkness will disappear and your memory will return. You will know your Self, and there will no longer be a self. The self you made senses this and resists it. 

Having just a little understanding of this will help you feel more comfortable with the idea of surrender. As you allow me to help you make different choices your memory will recover and you will see that you are surrendering only to your Self and that there is no loss in that surrender. Understanding this will help you overcome your resistance more easily and more quickly.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 4-24-13

4-24-13
5 Perception always involves some misuse of mind, because it brings the mind into areas of uncertainty. The mind is very active. When it chooses to be separated it chooses to perceive. Until then it wills only to know. Afterwards it can only choose ambiguously, and the only way out of ambiguity is clear perception. The mind returns to its proper function only when it wills to know. This places it in the service of spirit, where perception is changed. The mind chooses to divide itself when it chooses to make its own levels. But it could not entirely separate itself from spirit, because it is from spirit that it derives its whole power to make or create. Even in miscreation the mind is affirming its Source, or it would merely cease to be. This is impossible, because the mind belongs to spirit which God created and which is therefore eternal.

What a relief it is to read this paragraph! My mind may be confused, it may be misused, but it is eternal. It will never cease to be because it belongs to spirit which was created eternal. I am spirit. I belong to God. I love to think of that. Even my miscreations are an affirmation of the power of mind, and of my Source.

Jesus says that mind returns to its proper function only when it wills to know. This is why the question, “What am I?” is such a good question. It is an expression of my desire to return to my true will, my heart’s desire. I want to return to God, and to be my Self again. So I ask over and over, “What am I?” I ask repeatedly not because there is no answer, but to reestablish my will to know. I have been in denial about my true will and now I am learning to remember it.

And I am learning to remember that I want to know my true will. Just as Jesus said it would, doing the work, practicing the Lessons, asking for and accepting the Atonement is working. I am returning my mind to its proper function. Often this does not seem to be the case, but I do sometimes get affirmation of my true will rising in me.

When this is most striking is when I am in the middle of an ego storm, confused as hell, and someone asks me to help him or her see a problem differently. I will feel love rising in me and extending outward. Sometimes I will experience words not my own coming with this flow of love. Afterwards I will cry out of sheer gratitude. I may even go right back into my ego storm, like nothing just happened, and yet I just experienced a miracle.

At those times it feels like Myron is just stumbling around trying to get her footing, but that I am intact, whole and part of Something Else. I think that the Self that is never affected by Myron’s dramas is always there, but I am too distracted by my story of the world to feel it. I also think that since I am becoming aware of this Self, it is a sign that I am expressing my will to know.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 4-23-13

4-23-12
4 Right-mindedness is not to be confused with the knowing mind, because it is applicable only to right perception. You can be right-minded or wrong-minded, and even this is subject to degrees, clearly demonstrating that knowledge is not involved. The term “right-mindedness” is properly used as the correction for “wrong-mindedness,” and applies to the state of mind that induces accurate perception. It is miracle-minded because it heals misperception, and this is indeed a miracle in view of how you perceive yourself.

Jesus is going to a lot of trouble to help me understand the difference between perception and knowledge. He wants me to keep in mind that the miracle of mind healing is still in the realm of perception. No matter how clear my mind becomes, how right minded it is, it is not the same as the knowing mind.

He points out that as my mind is healed, or corrected, I can be both wrong-minded and right-minded, and that this can occur in varying degrees, therefore it cannot be knowledge, which is whole and certain and does not vary. But, as he points out, even being right-minded is a miracle. We really are a mess.

I definitely relate to that. Sometimes I feel so clear about myself, who I am and what it all means, then the next moment I am Myron and the world is real and I am trying to make it all better. Then I remember that it is the mind that needs correction, not the illusion. I go back and forth with this all the time.

The only way I know I am making any progress is that it takes me less time now to remember the truth and I stay right-minded for increasing lengths of time. Obviously, though, what I think I know, though closer to truth than ever before, is not knowledge. If it were knowledge, if I knew, I would not forget. I would not move from my certainty to the illusion, even if I did come back quickly.

An example of this is when I think about my younger son. He has been having physical challenges for some time now and sometimes I have no trouble seeing him as he truly is. Jesus says that at no moment does the body exist and I know this is true. The suffering body of Toby is not my son. In spite of appearances, in spite of what my eyes show me, Toby is exactly as God created him.

But then I am with him when he gets a treatment and the body I identify as my son is suffering so much pain that I completely forget the truth. My mind sees only the pain and suffering and my heart breaks for him. At that moment I am right in the middle of the illusion and I can’t see anything else. All I want is for him not to hurt anymore. I would gladly accept a better medicine, a different doctor, another treatment. I would beg God for his relief if I could, but I don’t believe in that kind of God anymore so I can’t go there.

Now after all the mind healing that has taken place for me, I know that this is not right. I know that no matter how much pain I am in as I watch my son suffer, that this, too, is an illusion. I know it even as I sit here sobbing at the memory of that experience. I thank the Holy Spirit for helping me to see that this remains unhealed in my mind. I ask that He heal this belief in the world of suffering that I see.

For this to be a real prayer, I must set aside what I think I know. I must set aside the belief that the pain I see in my son is real. It is amazingly hard to do this. It sounds so easy, and yet I see myself cling to the picture of pain and suffering and realize that I am afraid to let go of it. It almost feels like a betrayal to my son to know that he is not really in pain because pain cannot be real. But I know enough to understand that I cannot heal him if I am an unhealed healer.

“So, Holy Spirit, I stand here before you, open and willing. I set aside all I think I know and all I think I want. I invite you into my mind and ask that you correct my thinking. I ask that you heal me. I don’t know what the outcome will look like, and I let go of what I think it should look like. I ask for the Atonement and I accept the Atonement in this situation.”

It is easy to see how my mind has been healed to the degree that I no longer lose sight of my purpose and no longer completely lose sight of the truth, but I do step out of joy and into pain at times. It is a matter of moving back and forth and it’s a matter of varying degrees of acceptance, so though there has been healing it is not complete and it is not knowledge.

I am not ungrateful for what I have. When I think of my life before A Course in Miracles, I know that the degree of mind healing I have experienced is indeed a miracle. My perception is being corrected and I am so grateful. I know that knowledge will come when the perception has stabilized. Surely that would be Heaven.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 4-22-13

4-22-13
3 The ego is the questioning aspect of the post-separation self, which was made rather than created. It is capable of asking questions but not of perceiving meaningful answers, because these would involve knowledge and cannot be perceived. The mind is therefore confused, because only One-mindedness can be without confusion. A separated or divided mind must be confused. It is necessarily uncertain about what it is. It has to be in conflict because it is out of accord with itself. This makes its aspects strangers to each other, and this is the essence of the fear-prone condition, in which attack is always possible. You have every reason to feel afraid as you perceive yourself. This is why you cannot escape from fear until you realize that you did not and could not create yourself. You can never make your misperceptions true, and your creation is beyond your own error. That is why you must eventually choose to heal the separation.

A part of the split mind sees itself as self-created and sovereign. It imagines itself to be separate from all else and self-determined. The right mind sees its true nature as part of a whole, and existing within and sharing the Will of God. There is no meeting ground between these two visions. Never will the right and wrong mind be in accord and so there is constant conflict. It is a wonder we are not all insane. But wait. Perhaps we are.

The mind, because it believes diametrically opposed views of itself, is confused and does not know who it is. This is frightening and an impossible position to be in and yet, here we are. There is no compromise we can make to ease the situation. We think we have options, that is, we think we can choose between being self-created and being the creation of God. But that is delusional. We don’t get to choose who or how we were created. We can only pretend to be something other than what we are, and when we do we feel confused and afraid.

Up until now we have tried to have both options be true. We see ourselves as separate from God and from each other. We see ourselves as the planners and the decision makers, the movers and the doers. We made a world with endless choices and convinced ourselves they mattered and that making a choice between one illusion or another illusion was important. 

We think that we can be a teacher of God even as we judge and condemn our brother. We think we can be happy even as we imagine ourselves to be sinners and deserving of punishment. Do you see how impossible it is to conciliate the two minds? We even made a God in our own image and gave ourselves the choice of whether or not to believe in Him. We have tried to have a God and still be the God we have. No wonder we are frightened and confused.

Our only true option is to back out of the alternate reality we made for ourselves. We do this by first recognizing it has no value. We start looking at the effects of the separation idea and as we do so we realize there is no reason to hold onto it. Then we make the only other choice there is and decide for God as our Creator. With this decision made, the Holy Spirit undoes what we have done, and we are left with a clear mind that allows the truth to be true.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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