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Study of the Text I.The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 6 9-30-13

I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 6
9-30-13
6 God honored even the miscreations of His children because they had made them. But He also blessed His children with a way of thinking that could raise their perceptions so high they could reach almost back to Him. The Holy Spirit is the Mind of the Atonement. He represents a state of mind close enough to One-mindedness that transfer to it is at last possible. Perception is not knowledge, but it can be transferred to knowledge, or cross over into it. It might even be more helpful here to use the literal meaning of transferred or “carried over,” since the last step is taken by God.

In order to help us accept the Atonement, Jesus spends a lot of the Course describing the ego. He explains it in detail, what it is, how we recognize it, the behavior that we can expect when we identify with the ego. He then contrasts this with life lived from a healed mind. The goal is to help us see that we don’t want to continue to live through the ego and that we do want to let it go.

While in this phase I began to think of the ego as something bad and something I really needed to dump. Over time my attitude changed. I began to look at the ego differently. Instead of seeing it as a terrible mistake I made and desperately needed to undo, I saw it as an idea gone askew. I had a thought, the thought played out and then I stopped thinking it. Except for the part of the mind that is still reviewing the thought, and this is where my awareness seems to be right now.

Because of my nature as the Son of God, the thought I had, while impossible, played out in all its detail as if it were really happening, and it seemed very realistic, like a finely crafted movie. It is a testimony to my power as God’s Son that this could happen. The error, the place it all went wrong, is that I began to take it seriously. I felt guilt and fear that I had actually done something wrong and I hid myself from my Father within my miscreation. The idea itself, the unfolding of that idea was not a sin. It was not inherently evil or wrong. In fact, Jesus says that God honored my miscreation simply because it was mine.

The shift for me is that I am letting go of the shame that was the original error. I am learning to honor my own miscreation. I don’t want to continue identifying with it as if it is myself, but I see that it is important that I understand I am not guilty for it. It is actually quite a remarkable feat. I have made something impossible and made it so well that I got lost in it.

God would never limit me in anyway because limitation is not part of His nature. But in His love for me, He placed in my mind a way out of this miscreation. He brought into being the Holy Spirit, the memory of God and His Voice that speaks to me all through the day.  It is His function to direct me out of the illusion and back to my real life when I was ready.

So the Holy Spirit is helping me to see the ego thinking in my mind, recognize it as something I am no longer interested in and allow it to be undone for me, not because it is a sin, but because I am through with it. The only way to have my illusion was to substitute perception for knowledge, so now the Holy Spirit is inspiring my perceptions so that they are very near knowledge, near enough that Knowledge Itself can flow into my mind. Perception will be transferred into knowledge, or as Jesus refers to it, God will take the final step and lift me up to Him.

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Study of the Text. I.The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 5 9-27-13

I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 5
9-27-13
5 The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind which is aware of the knowledge that lies beyond perception. He came into being with the separation as a protection, inspiring the Atonement principle at the same time. Before that there was no need for healing, for no one was comfortless. The Voice of the Holy Spirit is the Call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed there will be no Call to return. But what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless their creations and keep them in the light of joy.

In the very instant we were in need of healing, the Holy Spirit came into being. He is the Healer we need to bring the mind back to truth. Before we had the thought of separation there was no need for healing so there was no need for a Healer. I am so grateful. We are perfectly protected, even from our errors. Through the thought of separation we created an experience of pain, suffering and death, and even though we could not make it real, we could feel as if it were real. Loneliness, confusion, guilt and fear are the effects of this belief and if there were no Correction in place we would be lost in our dreams, unable to remember who we are, forever trading one perception for another, sinking deeper and deeper into the hell of our nightmares.

But we are protected from this fate, protected in our dreams, comforted and guided out of them by the Holy Spirit. I feel like a lost child and so to me the Holy Spirit feels like a protective being, but this is not actual. The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind. He is the Call to Atonement. He is the Voice for God. Probably it would be more appropriate to think of the Holy Spirit as It rather than He, but that wouldn’t be very comforting for me. Maybe that is why the Holy Spirit is referred to as He in the Course, or maybe the Holy Spirit is something beyond my understanding. Maybe everything is beyond my understanding at this time and so it is all a metaphor, a bridge to the truth.

What I know is that the Holy Spirit is in my mind and will correct my thinking, and heal me. He will comfort me and guide me. He waits patiently for my acceptance of His help. I am always willing to look at my thoughts with the Holy Spirit and let Him purify them, and sometimes I will ask for a certain idea to be healed and He will direct me to those thoughts in my mind. It sounds like such a simple straightforward process. I ask Holy Spirit to look with me, I realize my thoughts are hurting me and I accept the Atonement. Easy peasy, right?

Well, yes and no. It is a simple process, and no it is not always easy. Remember that my mind is split. I do want to be healed, and there is the other part of my mind that defends against this healing. That part of me wants to remain in this separated state and to continue the stories. This conflict in the mind is painful and sometimes frightening. The way I defend against the truth is to ignore it and place my attention on the stories instead. I can get lost in the stories for awhile when I do this.

Recently, the Holy Spirit has been directing me to look at guilt. At first this was pretty exciting because I was seeing guilt where I had not seen it before. This is good, because looking with Holy Spirit is safe and doesn’t cause more guilt. In this way, I can see it as if it was just part of a movie, as if I were removed from it, and from this detached point of view it is clear to me that it is not helping and that I don’t want it anymore.

But what happened is that as I looked at more and more guilt in my mind, I forgot my purpose. I forgot that I want to see the guilt and I forgot that I am looking so that it can be healed. Instead I got caught up in all the guilty stories and believed them. I knew that I had made an error and that I had moved off my path, but I was drawn to the guilt. Jesus says that we have a sick attraction to guilt and that is true. Soon, I completely forgot that I was looking at stories so I could forgive them and all I was aware of was the guilt I felt for all these stories.

But my heart wants to be healed and so that desire for healing was still strong. I couldn’t stop feeling guilty, but I could ask for help. I was led to inspiring words coming through someone else. I was also led to inspired words that came through me at an earlier time. My mind began to clear of the fog of confusion and I opened my heart to healing. In the moment I wanted healing more than I wanted the guilt, it was done. That is the miracle, this instantaneous healing simply because I want healing. It doesn’t come from me. It is not a reward for good behavior. It is not withheld because of bad behavior. It is simply done the moment I really want it.

We will all be healed, and our mind’s returned to truth. Perception will fall away and knowledge will flow, once again, unimpeded throughout the mind. When this happens the Holy Spirit as Healer will no longer be needed, but He is a creation of God and so is eternal. Jesus tells us that He will be given another function. His function will then be to remain with Us, to bless our creations and keep them in the light of joy. You know, every time I read something like this in the Course, something that speaks so casually of my Divinity, my heart leaps in joy. This is Who I Am, not the confused mind that thinks its salvation is guilt. I wish I would stop forgetting that.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text I.The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 4 9-26-13

I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 4
9-26-13
4 The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity that has a symbolic function. He is referred to as the Healer, the Comforter and the Guide. He is also described as something “separate,” apart from the Father and from the Son. I myself said, “If I go I will send you another Comforter and He will abide with you.” His symbolic function makes the Holy Spirit difficult to understand, because symbolism is open to different interpretations. As a man and also one of God’s creations, my right thinking, which came from the Holy Spirit or the Universal Inspiration, taught me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for all. I could not have It myself without knowing this. The word “know” is proper in this context, because the Holy Spirit is so close to knowledge that He calls it forth; or better, allows it to come. I have spoken before of the higher or “true” perception, which is so near to truth that God Himself can flow across the little gap. Knowledge is always ready to flow everywhere, but it cannot oppose. Therefore you can obstruct it, although you can never lose it.

I’ve always tried to understand what the Holy Spirit is but find it easier to understand what the Holy Spirit is for. The Holy Spirit’s function is to bring us the truth, to help us undo the mistaken idea of separation so that knowledge can flow unimpeded throughout the Mind. Knowledge is meant for us but to receive knowledge we must not oppose it. The ego opposes knowledge because knowledge would undo it, so we need the Holy Spirit to correct our thinking and heal our mind.

This process of asking for and receiving help from the Holy Spirit is simple. First we learn to recognize the ego in our mind, and realize we don’t want it. Then we ask the Holy Spirit to heal our mind, or correct our thinking, or purify our thoughts. Or we ask for the Atonement. I use whatever words come to me in that moment. Sometimes I just say, “Help” or, “God.” The words don’t matter; it is the prayer of our heart that He hears.

Jesus said that he understood he could not have the Holy Spirit’s help unless he understood that It is for everyone. This is so essential, this understanding of Its universal nature. Everything in the Course revolves around the fact that I must forgive myself and everyone else. I cannot leave unforgiven a single person or a single circumstance. I cannot make anything special or separate. I must join with my brother wherever he appears and under whatever circumstances. No one can be condemned because the Holy Spirit is in everyone, guiding, comforting and healing. I go to God in union with my brother or not at all.

Understanding this it makes no sense at all to cling to my judgments. Whether I judge the murderer I read about in the paper or the clerk at the store, I close myself to the knowledge it is the Holy Spirit’s function to bring forward. I close myself to God. In doing so I suffer, and I but do it to myself.

“Today, Holy Spirit, bring to me the one You would have me forgive. Help me to remember what it is I truly desire. When I am tempted to see the behaviors and hear the confused words of my brother, reveal to me his innocence so that I may know mine as well. Please help me to experience the joy that comes when we place nothing between us, nothing to prevent union.” 

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text I.The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 3 9-25-13

I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 3
9-25-13
3 This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I have said already that I can reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you, but I can bring Him to you only at your own invitation. The Holy Spirit is in your right mind, as He was in mine. The Bible says, “May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,” and uses this as a blessing. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as I thought, joining with me in Christ thinking.

The Holy Spirit is in my mind. This is very literal. He is never absent to me in any circumstance. I can always have His guidance and if I think I do not, it is because I don’t like what He has to say and am pretending to myself I don’t hear it. In some way, Jesus is responsible for our awareness of the Holy Spirit. His life and his acceptance of the truth is what makes it possible for us to hear the Holy Spirit, too.

While the Holy Spirit is always there in our right mind, and speaks to us all through the day, we do not always listen. Listening is our choice, just as not listening is our choice. The Holy Spirit’s guidance and comfort cannot be forced on us. Jesus was the first of us to hear the Voice and to accept it and because he did so, it is available to us. Jesus says that the Biblical passage, “May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,” is a blessing of miracle mindedness. I think of it as a prayer, and maybe that is the same thing.

I want to let go of the ego thinking mind and become open to guidance outside the wrong mind. I want to be a follower of Christ until I remember I am part of Christ. I want to be miracle-ready so that I can perform whatever miracles I am guided to. I want to wake up from this illusion of separation and the Holy Spirit is my ticket Home. So this is my prayer, said with great sincerity and with all the willingness I have, “May the mind that was in you, Jesus, also be in my awareness, and may I always choose to hear it.” 

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 2 9-24-13

I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 2
9-24-13
2 Let us start our process of reawakening with just a few simple concepts:
Thoughts increase by being given away.
The more who believe in them the stronger they become.
Everything is an idea.
How, then, can giving and losing be associated?

Thoughts increase by being given away. I feel very strongly about watching my thoughts and noticing the ones I am giving away. When someone says something negative today, complaining about the weather, expressing fear of political changes, worrying about their job, or any of the many other ways we express the belief in lack and loss, the belief in pain suffering and death, what will I say in return? I have heard myself join right in with my own complaints, my own fears, and I don’t want to do that anymore.

I don’t want to ever do that again, and the way to stop doing it is to notice when I do and ask that my mind be healed of these beliefs. In the past, I have tried swallowing the words and that is not the solution. My beliefs will find a way to surface in spite of my efforts to hide them. And whether I actually voice wrong minded beliefs or not, they still affect the Sonship. I choose healing today. I don’t want to be the complainer or the fear monger. I want to have a grateful heart and a thankful mind. I want to increase love, not fear.

Everything is an idea. We have already talked about that, but it is good to look at it again because it is a different way to think. Before ACIM, I didn’t think of a couch as an idea. I thought of an idea as potential. It was the first step in making something. A Course in Miracles has turned my understanding upside down. I don’t have a clear understanding of the way things are, but I understand enough to know how ignorant I was before.

Jesus doesn’t say that everything starts with an idea. He says everything is an idea. The ego begins with a thought and then looks for a way to make something that represents that thought. I wonder how many patents there are for things we have made. I think that making things is a distortion of creation. It is a way of convincing us that our mind is powerless.

We are smart enough to think of ways to make things happen within a very limited scope, but there is too much fear to accept our true power. As egos we accept that we are clever, but our fear is that to think we are powerful is to invite the wrath of God. Playing small is the way we hope to convince God that we are not worth His concern, to allow him to forget that we, in a long ago moment of madness, usurped His power and became our own creators. So we pretend that if we want a new and better mouse trap we have to invent one. Its all part of the game we play, the game of being human.

We have done such a good job of hiding out in the world, pretending to be small and insignificant that we have truly forgotten who we are. We have forgotten our Divinity and all that means. Jesus remembered and he is helping us, as we are ready, to remember. He says that we can start with a couple of simple concepts. Thoughts increase by being given away and everything is a thought. Give freely what you want to see increased, what you want to grow stronger in your mind. Give freely because the more you give it the more you have it. Give freely because there is no loss in giving, only increase.

Today I am going to give what I want; I am going to give love and kindness. I am going to ask that every other thought in my mind be healed. I will ask for healing of the need to be right, the need to be first or greater, the need to hide or be smaller. I will ask that my mind be healed of the belief in pain, suffering, and death in whatever forms they may take. I will give (believe in, think about, express) only what I want to retain and what I want to increase.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit 9-23-13

I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit
9-23-13
1 Healing is a thought by which two minds perceive their oneness and become glad. This gladness calls to every part of the Sonship to rejoice with them, and lets God go out into them and through them. Only the healed mind can experience revelation with lasting effect, because revelation is an experience of pure joy. If you do not choose to be wholly joyous, your mind cannot have what it does not choose to be. Remember that spirit knows no difference between having and being. The higher mind thinks according to the laws spirit obeys, and therefore honors only the laws of God. To spirit getting is meaningless and giving is all. Having everything, spirit holds everything by giving it, and thus creates as the Father created. While this kind of thinking is totally alien to having things, even to the lower mind it is quite comprehensible in connection with ideas. If you share a physical possession, you do divide its ownership. If you share an idea, however, you do not lessen it. All of it is still yours although all of it has been given away. Further, if the one to whom you give it accepts it as his, he reinforces it in your mind and thus increases it. If you can accept the concept that the world is one of ideas, the whole belief in the false association the ego makes between giving and losing is gone.

I see two ideas in this paragraph that speak to me. First is the recurring idea that it is in joining that we wake up. Jesus tells us later in the Text that we cannot enter God’s presence if we attack His Son, not the brother standing next to us, or ourselves. He tells us in another place that every encounter with a brother has the potential to be holy. He says that separation is the problem and joining is the solution. Over and over he tells us that our happiness, our peace and our return to God is dependent on joining with our brother and in making no exceptions to this. No one is to be left out. No one is to stand outside forgiveness in our minds.

In this paragraph Jesus is telling us that joining is the same as healing and that joining is the way we allow God to flow between us, and joining is the way we experience joy. He is also saying that joining is the way we experience lasting revelation since joining equals joy and revelation is an experience of pure joy. This really makes me want to be aware of those times when I am judging someone so that I can choose again. Judgment separates and so takes me to the other end of the spectrum from where I want to be.

The other thing I want to consider is the relationship between giving and receiving. Jesus points out that we think giving and receiving are different because we think in terms of form. When someone needs money if I have it I will give it. Here is how I used to do it. I would see how much they need and then look into my bank account to see how much of that I can afford to give. This is the way we generally give.

As my mind heals and I get a grip on the metaphysics of the Course, I begin to understand that everything is just an idea. The money in my bank account is just an idea in my mind that has been projected outward so I can see what it looks like and experience it in a different way. The money, the bank, my body, everything is just an idea. If that understanding were complete, then how would that change the way I give?

You can’t really give away an idea in the way you give away your money. If I give you my money it isn’t there anymore. But if I give you an idea I still have the idea. If you accept the idea that I give as true, that idea is stronger in my mind as well. So in giving the idea to you I not only didn’t lose the idea, I actually gained in the giving. Now let me relate that to giving away money. If I understand that money is just a projection of an idea, then I could give away money with impunity, knowing that I can’t give away the source of the money. The source of the money, the idea, remains in my mind where it continues to be projected.

So lets say I believe that everything is an idea because it says so in the Course. But I am still afraid to put it to the test because what if there is a catch someplace. What if I have to do something to make this my experience, and I don’t know what that is? What if I believe it, yet doubt it? That is a familiar experience for me. Nearly everything I have learned from the Course started out as a possibility, not a certainty. I practiced what I learned until it became a certainty.

So here I am in that in between place. I believe everything is an idea except when I don’t. What do I do about giving? And how do I get all the way from the belief in loss to the thought that getting is meaningless and giving is all? Someone needs money. I open my checkbook to see how much money I can afford to give. I write a check for what seems right to me. I really want a healed mind and so as I do this, I ask Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the belief in lack and loss.

I do this until one day I realize that I didn’t check my bank account first. I just asked Spirit what he would have me do, and if I feel the prompt to give, I ask how much. I have shifted a bit through the desire and willingness to heal. There is more belief in my mind that giving is not loss because everything is an idea and you cannot diminish an idea through giving it away.

If the guidance were to give all that I have, I would get the chance to see how much I believe this. But what I have noticed in my practice is that Holy Spirit never asks me to step into a place that I am not ready to go. I am where I am through a gentle step by step process. I can absolutely trust Holy Spirit. Through this practice and my willingness to be healed I am learning that Jesus is right, as I can accept the concept that the world is one of ideas, the whole belief in the false association the ego makes between giving and losing goes away.

A last thought: I was looking at my desk and thinking, that cup is not real. It is a thought, an idea. If I were to give it away, I could think it again and it would appear. But this would not be the ego mind doing this because the ego does not create, it can only make. The ego could replace the cup by buying another or if it was feeling creative and had the equipment it could form one from clay and bake it in a kiln. But spirit through Myron, without the obstruction of doubt and fear, could simply replace the idea of a cup with a thought of another cup. It would seem like a miracle if a cup appeared, but the miracle would be the mind healed of doubt and fear. Never the less, the cup would appear.

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Study of the Text Healing and Wholeness, Introduction Paragraph 3 9-20-13

Chapter 5 Introduction, Paragraph 3
9-20-13
3 You are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers anywhere. You should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude. You need not know them individually, or they you. The light is so strong that it radiates throughout the Sonship and returns thanks to the Father for radiating His joy upon it. Only God’s holy children are worthy channels of His beautiful joy, because only they are beautiful enough to hold it by sharing it. It is impossible for a child of God to love his neighbor except as himself. That is why the healer’s prayer is:
Let me know this brother as I know myself.

Every thought we have and that we believe is doing one of two things. It is adding to the ego, or it is undoing the ego. Those thoughts I think with God are undoing the ego and since there is only one ego, it is undone in all of us. I am so grateful to everyone for doing their part, and we are all doing our part whether it looks like it or not, whether we know it or not.

Even in my BC days (Before the Course) I was doing my part. I was learning what it is that I don’t want. I was showing others what they didn’t want. I was setting up the lessons that would bring me to this very place in my spiritual life. It looked like I was screwing everything up, but that was just how I perceived it. I’m sure that from some else’s story it seemed I was sometimes the bad guy. But every part I have played has been essential to my development and theirs as well.

Now that the light is growing in me, I am helpful in different ways. That light shines throughout the Sonship. To be a real pain in someone’s side I had to be in their life, but to influence the Sonship, I only had to believe my thoughts. Now I believe the thoughts I think with God a lot more than I believe the ego thoughts in my mind and so now I am influencing the Sonship in a different way.

I love sharing through my words, written and spoken, when they are inspired, because it allows the flow of God through me to you, and this flow continues until I impede it with my untrue thoughts. I can be feeling sad or discouraged or angry, but when it is time for me to journal or to teach, all that goes away. I feel energized and positive. I feel love flowing through me and there is nothing better than that. But if I never wrote another word or said another word, the work of undoing the ego in the Sonship would go on, because when my mind is healed so is yours. And visa versa. Thank you.

My most consistent prayer these days is to see the Christ in my brother no matter what the circumstances may be. The only way to know and love God is to know and love my brothers, all of them, not just the ones who reflect my “good” self, but the ones who reflect my confusion as well. If I don’t know and love and appreciate all of God’s creation, I cannot know and love the Creator.

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