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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: IV.The Gift of Freedom, Paragraph 3. 8-27-14

IV. The Gift of Freedom P3
3 You were in darkness until God’s Will was done completely by any part of the Sonship. When this was done, it was perfectly accomplished by all. How else could it be perfectly accomplished? My mission was simply to unite the will of the Sonship with the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father’s Will myself. This is the awareness I came to give you, and your problem in accepting it is the problem of this world. Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I am the salvation of the world. The world must therefore despise and reject me, because the world is the belief that love is impossible. If you will accept the fact that I am with you, you are denying the world and accepting God. My will is His, and your decision to hear me is the decision to hear His Voice and abide in His Will. As God sent me to you so will I send you to others. And I will go to them with you, so we can teach them peace and union.

I don’t know why exactly, but this paragraph makes me cry when I read it. I think my reaction is one of gratitude. I feel so grateful to Jesus for what he did for us all. I am still choosing some silly grievance or another over salvation and I have the advantage of Jesus having already accomplished salvation, then sending me this Course to help me accept his gift. How did he do it? How did he come to be aware of the Father’s Will for himself? I can’t imagine.

But I do have help, lots of it, and I must be able to do this because I am like Jesus. I do my part the best I can. I notice those silly grievances and let them go as quickly as I am able. I decide against them. I decide for God. Really, this is all I have to do to complete my part. I accept the Atonement for all wrong minded thinking that I notice, mine or anyone else’s. This is the plan Jesus set out for us so we could join him in rejecting the world, which is accepting salvation.

I reject the world each time I reject guilt and fear, and in rejecting the world, I save the world. All of my life I felt lost because I couldn’t see a purpose to my life. I thought everyone else had a purpose because they seemed content, and I seemed the only one who’s life had no meaning. Then I found A Course in Miracles and I knew this was my purpose. I was to join Jesus in saving the world. So when I read the last two sentences I really cried.

“As God sent me to you so will I send you to others. And I will go to them with you, so we can teach them peace and union.”

I am joining with Jesus for the purpose of releasing the world of the separation idea, the belief that love is impossible. I am accepting my part as I allow the Holy Spirit to undo what I did, to remove from my mind the belief in guilt and fear. I am doing my part as I allow Jesus to send me to others. He knows where he needs me and what he needs me to say and do and be. I just have to follow and I am learning to do that without resistance. And, thank God, he goes with me and teaches through me as I get my ego out of the way.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 5 IV, The Decision for God,Paragraph 4. 8-26-14

VII. The Decision for God, P4
4 But the time is now. You have not been asked to work out the plan of salvation yourself because, as I told you before, the remedy could not be of your making. God Himself gave you the perfect Correction for everything you made that is not in accord with His holy Will. I am making His plan perfectly explicit to you, and will also tell you of your part in it, and how urgent it is to fulfil it. God weeps at the “sacrifice” of His children who believe they are lost to Him.

The time is now for me! If you are reading this book and you haven’t tossed it aside by this time, the time is now for you, too. It is time to wake up, time to lay aside the dream of separation and embrace our true Self. We have sacrificed our joy and peace for far too long, and it is time to let all that go. I have been asking very frequently for some days now to be reminded of what I am.

When I feel sad or fearful, when I am angry or upset in any way, to any degree, I ask again, “What am I?” I am ready to know. The ego mind that loves its stories and doesn’t want to give them up resists this change in direction. I am assaulted by fearful thoughts and distracting situations, but as this happens I meet each one with the question, “What am I?”

I am spirit. I am a divine being. I am His Son. How can I be subject to the ego fears and guilt? How can I be subject to sickness, pain or suffering of any kind? I remind myself of the passage in Lesson 190 that says I dominate everything I see. I dominate physical pain and mental anguish. I dominate the little distractions and the big ones. As I realize that my holy self cannot be assaulted from without, I see the harmlessness in all these things.

Having realized their harmlessness, I ponder what Jesus said next in Lesson 190, that what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness. I open my heart and mind to understand this more fully. I think that every word in A Course in Miracles is meaningful and important, and I have been doing this long enough to realize that my understanding deepens as my desire to awaken overtakes my fear of awakening. As this happens I really want to understand and it is like a light coming on and illuminating the words.

I was reminded of something as I wondered about all things I see becoming a source of innocence. I woke up at 3:48 this morning. I was expecting to wake up at 5:00 or later and so I lay there for a few minutes expecting to go back to sleep, but that didn’t happen. For awhile my mind was conflicted as the ego insisted on its way. It has definite ideas about what I need as far as sleep goes. But I dominate all things I see and I see that it is now nearly 4:00 and I am awake.

I let go of the idea that lack of sleep is the enemy I must fight. I let go of the idea that my body is the decision maker and dominates my mind. I remember what I am. The idea of sleep deprivation ceases to be the boogeyman I thought it was and it appears harmless to me now. I realized how nice it would be this morning to have so much time to commune with Spirit and to write.

I see that this idea of not enough sleep that has always haunted me and caused anxiety and seemed to drain my energy was just a thought in a confused mind. It is really innocent. Ha! That is it! That is how the things I see are innocent. They do not cause my unhappiness. I cause that, and because I caused it, I can stop causing it. I don’t quite get the holy part, but I will stay open to understanding.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 8 IV, The Gift of Freedom,Paragraph 2. 8-25-14

IV. The Gift of Freedom P2
2 I am come as a light into a world that does deny itself everything. It does this simply by dissociating itself from everything. It is therefore an illusion of isolation, maintained by fear of the same loneliness that is its illusion. I said that I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. That is why I am the light of the world. If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, the loneliness is gone. You cannot maintain the illusion of loneliness if you are not alone. My purpose, then, is still to overcome the world. I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it because of what it is. Light does not attack darkness, but it does shine it away. If my light goes with you everywhere, you shine it away with me. The light becomes ours, and you cannot abide in darkness any more than darkness can abide wherever you go. The remembrance of me is the remembrance of yourself, and of Him Who sent me to you.

This is a world of pretense. I pretend to be alone. I pretend to be afraid and lonely. I pretend to dwell in darkness. I do this through pushing away the light and the love and the peace that are everything and everywhere. I stare out of sightless eyes and behold a world bereft of God. I make a god of darkness and give it the dark attributes I have come to identify with, and he becomes vengeful and punishing. I have done this for so long that I believe what I have pretended is there and forgotten the reality of all that is.

It is not necessary that I keep doing this. The veil I have pulled over reality is thin and insubstantial. The light that Jesus brought into the world will penetrate it easily and I can have this light. It is here for me. I simply change my mind. I had decided for darkness and the play of images on that dark screen. Now I decide for light to show me the real world. I ask for light to shine away the darkness in my mind and then I carry that light everywhere I go. So now I am the light of the world along with Jesus.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

study of the Text, Chapter 5, VII> The Decision for God,Paragraph 2. 8-22-14

VII. The Decision for God, P 2
2 There have been many healers who did not heal themselves. They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith was not whole. Some of them have healed the sick at times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer heals himself, he cannot believe that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. He has not learned that every mind God created is equally worthy of being healed because God created it whole. You are merely asked to return to God the mind as He created it. He asks you only for what He gave, knowing that this giving will heal you. Sanity is wholeness, and the sanity of your brothers is yours.

I’m ready to heal the sick, to move mountains and to raise the dead. How about you? All of those things seem easy when you realize what you are. As you realize what you are, all things become harmless and are easily set aside. But I see that all things must become one thing. I must see not only my own wholeness, and my own sanity, but also my brother’s as well. I must see there is no gap between me and my brother. This is hard if I still see either of us as a body, but once I realize what I am, I will have no problem at all.

Yesterday, I practiced remembering what I am. It made for a very peaceful and happy day. But toward the end of the day, the weather got bad with thunderstorms and I got a headache. My first thought was that the change in weather was the cause. This used to be what I believed and the weather and headache combination seemed to prove I was right.

The ego always speaks first so that was my first thought. But I don’t believe that anymore. I know that the headache/weather connection has nothing to do with cause. It is simply the effect of the belief that I hold in my mind. I choose a headache (I’m sure the ego was getting desperate to undo all the healing that has been occurring lately) and then I use the device of weather changes as cause to make the headache seem reasonable and outside me.

If the body can get sick without my mind being involved the ego can use this as proof that I am a victim and thus not part of God. It was a good plan. Every time the weather changed like this I got a headache and so the consistency of it was enough to convince me of the connection. The ego mind is sick, but not without power and cleverness.

It’s not working anymore. I am onto the whole thing and am letting go of the idea that the world happens without my consent. So I went back to my study for the day and remembered that it is me who has the power to dominate all things I see by merely recognizing what I am. As I perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept my holy will as theirs.

I looked at the headache in this new light. I am spirit, divine being, Son of God, and as such, I dominate all things. This includes the body and sickness and pain. I dominate them by remembering what I am and in remembering, the headache is seen as harmless rather than a threat to my newfound understanding, and harmless rather than painful and outside my control. I reminded myself that in its harmlessness the headache (body/pain) will accept my holy will as their its. The body must respond to my mind; whether my mind is sick or healed, the body must respond to it.

It was interesting to watch. I would remind myself of the truth and the headache would subside, then it would return. I continued the practice and after awhile I was tired of the pain and thought about giving in to a magical solution and taking an aspirin. But really, while I did want to do this, I also was having fun. I wanted to see what could be done with merely changing my desire.

Could I effect a permanent change in the condition of the body just that quickly? I have no doubt that someday I would be able to do that and more, but why not now? I asked Jesus to help me understand his teachings and I asked him to help me accept them. The pain subsided more quickly and easily and eventually it went away all together. I guess I practiced for about an hour or so. I don’t know for sure because it was awhile before I realized the pain was gone for good.

This morning I got the chance to up the stakes on my practice. My son called me with bad news. He had surgery recently on his back and had hoped for relief from the chronic pain he has suffered for years now. It doesn’t seem to be happening and now he seems to have re-injured it. All of this bad news has caused him to be very depressed.

I love him so much and want only that he be happy. I also know that his story of pain and suffering is not real. He is still as God created him. He is master of his universe. But that is not his experience and the experience he is having is really painful. I felt his deep discouragement as we spoke and I wanted so much to do something, but what can I do?

I find that it is harder, somehow, to know the truth for him, that is, that he is not his body either, and that he is the cause of his universe as much as I am the cause of mine.  Because he has no interest in approaching this from a spiritual point of view, it is easy for me to think that he has no recourse and must suffer. I have had to overcome my own lack of faith to be helpful for him in any way.

That I am still seeing an order of difficulty in miracles, means that my mind is not healed and so I must step back from trying to heal until I accept my own healing. This is what I have been doing this morning since I talked to him. My prayer this morning began with the reminder that I am not what I seem. I am not the body; I am spirit. I dominate all things and in seeing their harmlessness, they bow to my holy will. Now my prayer is also this: Toby is not his body; he is spirit. He dominates all things and as he sees their harmlessness they will bow to his holy will.

As I write this I am reconsidering. All things I see must bow to my holy will. As I see Toby’s body manifestations as the illusions they are and know they are harmless because they are illusions, they must bow to my holy will. How is that any different than accepting the Atonement on his behalf, something Jesus has told us we can and must do? I think this is the prayer I will hold in my heart today. If this speaks to your heart, I invite you to join me in this holy endeavor. We are meant to be healers, and we are meant to remember healing through joining in healing.

Today’s prayer: Because of what we are, we dominate all things. Knowing what we are, we see these manifestations as the harmless illusions they are whether they occur in ourselves or in another. And so they must bow to our holy will. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 5,VII. The Decision for God, P 1. 8-21-14

Chapter 5, VII. The Decision for God
1 Do you really believe you can make a voice that can drown out God’s? Do you really believe you can devise a thought system that can separate you from Him? Do you really believe you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon Him because He careth for you. You are His care because He loves you. His Voice reminds you always that all hope is yours because of His care. You cannot choose to escape His care because that is not His Will, but you can choose to accept His care and use the infinite power of His care for all those He created by it.

The ego mind does believe it has made a self separate from God. That is why the ego is so afraid. But I did not. I am still as God created me. The only reason I am ever afraid is because sometimes I still believe I am the ego. I identify with ego and so think that what the ego believes is true for me. I have this voice in my head that is demanding I believe it and it seems so very loud that I tell myself I can hear nothing above its clamor.

But that isn’t true. I can hear silence. I can hear God’s Voice. I see now that I have always been making a choice about what I would hear. I used to think I could not hear His Voice, but what was really happening is that I was listening to ego so that I couldn’t hear His Voice. Acknowledging this as true is very freeing, because now that I am willing to admit this is true, I can change my mind. Now instead of telling myself that I can’t hear His Voice, I can tell myself that I have chosen to listen to ego, but now I want to hear God.

For the last two days, that Voice has been telling me something of who I am. It started when I read in Lesson 190 that it is me who has the power to dominate all things I see by merely recognizing what I am. As I perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept my holy will as theirs. Since I have been allowing Him to show me that this is true, I feel like I have turned a corner so to speak.

Everything seems different now. It also seems very new, like when a plant first peeks out of the ground. I must be careful and care for the plant until its roots are firm in the ground and it has some growth. Then I need only weed around it and water it from time to time. That’s how it feels with this new realization. It has just peeked out and it is still fragile and needs my care so it does not get trampled by the careless thoughts of the ego, and so it doesn’t die from lack of attention.

Yesterday I had a very busy day. Outside of a shake in the morning and a bit of popcorn as a snack, I had not eaten all day. I was starting to get hungry and when I pulled up for gas I had the thought of going in to get a cupcake. I thought about how tasty that would be and a familiar longing for some sugary confection came over me. I recognized it as the ego body appetite wanting to be filled.

In the past, I have often fed those body appetites and thought I didn’t have any choice. I would crave some food, usually sugar, and then I just couldn’t help myself. Even when I swore I wasn’t giving in to that craving I would do it anyway and so I convinced myself I was out of control and it wasn’t my fault. I was a victim to my appetites. Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with eating a cupcake. It is not true, however, that I have to eat a cupcake.

When I felt that old urge, I also felt fear because in the past I believed I was subject to my appetites. Yesterday, I heard another Voice and this one asked that I question that belief. (It all happened very quickly and I am putting words where there were none at that moment, but this is what it felt like.) I remembered that I dominate all things because of what I am.

I asked the Holy Spirit what it is that I am. I was reminded that I am a divine being, that I am God’s own Son, that I am a perfect creation of a perfect Creator. I remembered that all things must bow to my will because this is true. The urge to feed my appetite disappeared without even a whimper. It bowed to my will. The choice to eat a cupcake or not to eat it is not earth shattering in and of itself. But the decision to acknowledge the power of my decision is.

Today, I feel more like what I am than I did before that moment at the gas station. I know that all this time I was not subject to my appetites; I was using them to drown out the Voice for God. I was using them to separate myself from God, through separating myself from my true nature. I was in charge all the time. I was just using my power to pretend that I was powerless. I pretended to device a thought system of powerlessness that separated me from God, but it was nothing, just smoke and mirrors. I cannot undo what God has done, and what God has done is available to me at any time.

I am fully protected even from my vain imaginings. He loves me and His love protects me. “You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon Him because He careth for you.” I can pretend to escape His care, but it is just pretense. I am learning to accept His care through accepting what I am. In so doing this for me, I do it for us all.

I wrote down today’s lesson (233) so that I could remind myself all day that this day is dedicated to hearing only His Voice and following His guidance without reserve. How perfect is the above quote. I can afford to put aside my ego drive to be in charge because He careth for me. I am safe in following Him because I am safe in Him.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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