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Study of Text, Chapter 13: II.The Two Emotions, P 7. 8-18-16

V. The Two Emotions, P 7

7 Little child, would you offer this to your Father? For if you offer it to yourself, you are offering it to Him. And He will not return it, for it is unworthy of you because it is unworthy of Him. Yet He would release you from it and set you free. His sane Answer tells you what you have offered yourself is not true, but His offering to you has never changed. You who know not what you do can learn what insanity is, and look beyond it. It is given you to learn how to deny insanity, and come forth from your private world in peace. You will see all that you denied in your brothers because you denied it in yourself. For you will love them, and by drawing nigh unto them you will draw them to yourself, perceiving them as witnesses to the reality you share with God. I am with them as I am with you, and we will draw them from their private worlds, for as we are united so would we unite with them. The Father welcomes all of us in gladness, and gladness is what we should offer Him. For every Son of God is given you to whom God gave Himself. And it is God Whom you must offer them, to recognize His gift to you.

Journal
God loves us all. He wants us to be happy. He knows we are perfect because He created us perfect, because we are an extension of Him. God does not hold grievances because God is not a person and so has no ego. That is our hallucination, not God’s. We have nothing to fear from God. H offers us only love. When we offer ourselves insanity we offer it to Him, but He does not accept it because it is unworthy of Him and thus unworthy of us.

These are true statements, but we don’t actually know this. If we did, we would be having a different experience. We would be awake having a happy dream and then we would wake up from the dream and know our Divinity and the Love that we are and the Love that God is. Jesus says the way we know Him is to come out of our little private worlds and meet our brothers in love instead of judgment. Offer our brothers God and we will know God.

We practice this in our everyday life as we treat others as if they were dear to us, closer to us than our breath, a part of us. Last night I received very poor service where I ate supper. Instead of asking blessings on the overwrought waitress, I resented her. That is me in my own little world, separate from her, separate interests, separate goals.

I could easily have forgiven the whole situation and spent my time knowing that each and every one of the wait staff and the other patrons are part of the Sonship along with me. I could have reveled in that sweet knowing and been a blessing to everyone. Well, perhaps I will remember the next time. And the next time comes very quickly as thoughts of “others” come into my mind, as I interact with dozens of people today.

Here is another truth, I love them, even if, caught up in the story of being separate from them I have forgotten that, I do love them. In loving them, I draw close to them and I draw them out of their private worlds. Jesus says this:

I am with them as I am with you, and we will draw them from their private worlds, for as we are united so would we unite with them.

Yes, Jesus, my brother, I am ready to spend this day with you, saving the world, bringing us all home. What I give to myself, I give to God. What I give to my brothers, I give to myself and I give to God.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 13: V. The Two Emotions, P 6. 8-9-16

V. THE TWO EMOTIONS, P 6
6 As you look with open eyes upon your world, it must occur to you that you have withdrawn into insanity. You see what is not there, and you hear what makes no sound. Your manifestations of emotions are the opposite of what the emotions are. You communicate with no one, and you are as isolated from reality as if you were alone in all the universe. In your madness you overlook reality completely, and you see only your own split mind everywhere you look. God calls you and you do not hear, for you are preoccupied with your own voice. And the vision of Christ is not in your sight, for you look upon yourself alone.

Journal
I will be honest; it feels pretty depressing as I look at the world I made, depressing and sometimes hopeless. I want to let this all go. I want to look at a world that has been purified of my projections. I want to see people for who they are in truth rather than see my sick mind projected onto them. I want to hear the words that come from their heart rather than giving their words meaning that comes from my unhappy and confused mind.

I am doing the work I need to do, and still I feel like I am pushing that great stone uphill only to have it roll back down again. And I know that God is speaking to me all through the day but that I listen to Him only occasionally. However, I also know that I am beginning to see things differently and that when I hear His Voice, I hear it clearly. I see that no matter how discouraged I might get, and how afraid I am of my own stubborn insistence on holding attack thoughts in my mind, I always remember that I don’t have to do this and that I have help to stop. I remember my purpose.

I have a support group. I have my fellow Course students and very helpful teachers. I have my quiet time in the morning as I read and listen and write what I hear. I have my Course groups and I have my students and mind healing partners. I have my classrooms where I practice and where I learn much needed lessons through experience, which is the best teacher, after all.

I also have much unseen help. I have the Holy Spirit, and I have Jesus, my dear brother. I have angels and guides and other non-physical beings who have much to offer me. Mostly I am unaware of their help except that I will have sudden insights and clarity. I will move inexplicably from sadness or anger and into peace simply because I called out for help. I don’t see them and mostly don’t hear them, but I know they are there. They want me to help awaken me and I welcome their help.

I am not alone. I am so thankful for that. I am beginning to see that Jesus is right that we but do this to ourselves, and that there are no accidents, and that our day is not at random. As I learn more about projection and perception I begin to see how I do it to myself. I see how I use the ego mind to perceive situations, and then I project what I perceive onto the world. Then I use the body’s eyes to prove my insane conclusion is real. My new clarity about how all this works motivates me to push through my episodic periods of discouragement to ultimately reach my goal.

Thank you, Jesus, for A Course in Miracles.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 13: V. The Two Emotions, P 5. 8-9-16

V. The Two Emotions, P 5

5 You have but two emotions, yet in your private world you react to each of them as though it were the other. For love cannot abide in a world apart, where when it comes it is not recognized. If you see your own hatred as your brother, you are not seeing him. Everyone draws nigh unto what he loves, and recoils from what he fears. And you react with fear to love, and draw away from it. Yet fear attracts you, and believing it is love, you call it to yourself. Your private world is filled with figures of fear you have invited into it, and all the love your brothers offer you, you do not see.

Journal
As I was reading this I was trying to picture those in my life who represent my hate and fear. Then I tried to imagine them without my projections. Here is what happened at first. I thought of some people I work with and my mind boggled at the thought they could represent love to me. They do not love me, and I do not love them. They seem to attack me, and I know I defend and I return the attack. My lower mind insisted they are not loving at all. I draw nigh them and I don’t see them as love, and I do recoil.

Then Holy Spirit helped me to see the problem and it wasn’t them. We laughed at the idea that they could offer anything but love. How could they? They are love. If I don’t see the love then I must be projecting something onto them that is hiding their true visage. Evidently, the problem is me. But I must be love, too, so where is the projection coming from? It is coming from my ego. I have this hatred and fear in my lower mind, and feeling guilty for it, I am projecting it away from me and onto them.  There I can look at it without owning it, at least not owning it consciously.

This is not working and never has. There is a place in my mind where I know what I am doing, and so I am never fully convinced that I am innocent. My fear and guilt are just pushing me further and further from the truth of my being. The only answer to this sticky mess is to become willing to withdraw my projections, and bringing them back to myself, to allow them to be undone. It is amazing how hard I make this simple task. The ego mind shrieks at the idea of doing this. It is comfortable in its old habits and maintains that the guilt belongs where I put it.

I’m looking though, in spite of the ego’s objections. I look at my boss and see him making what appears to be a big mistake with a customer. I feel disgusted with him thinking he should know better and will regret this, though not as much as me when I lose that customer. I feel resentment and fear and hate. He is my problem and I feel helpless because I cannot do anything to defend myself from his ineptitude.

I ask the Holy Spirit for another way to see this. I see that all my thoughts about this stem from the ego’s interpretation of the situation. I see that I am perfectly protected. He is not my source. He is not responsible for my fear. He is not his ego or his story. I still see him making a strategic mistake, but that is his script and his problem. It is my problem only if I continue to ask the ego for advice. I cannot blame him for my situation because my situation is my script.

How fortunate that I know this and that I can ask for another way to see. Then I can act from that clarity. I can trust and be at peace. We are sharing this part of our stories because they compliment each other. I am learning something in our shared classroom and he is as well. That is why we are doing this dance; it is helping us to awaken. Ha! I am feeling gratitude for the situation and for him. I am beginning to see him as the love that he is rather than as my enemy, and the only thing that changed was me.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 13: II.The Two Emotions, P 4. 8-11-16

V. The Two Emotions, P 4

4 The delusional can be very destructive, for they do not recognize they have condemned themselves. They do not wish to die, yet they will not let condemnation go. And so they separate into their private worlds, where everything is disordered, and where what is within appears to be without. Yet what is within they do not see, for the reality of their brothers they cannot recognize.

Journal

This sentence stands out to me: They do not wish to die, yet they will not let condemnation go. We are literally condemning ourselves to death with our grievances. I seem to live a life of confusion and condemnation and then I seem to die. All of this I do to myself because I will not let the condemnation go. I separate from all else and live in my private world where I imagine all is outside me. I imagine I am not responsible for anything because I have projected it outward and see it as belonging to others.

This disordered and deeply disturbing world seems to be caused by unkind and cruel people, the fault of greedy capitalists, corruptible politicians, drug lords, and the list goes on. I think that my boss is my problem, a co-worker, a competitor. I think that if only this person would love me better or that person were not in my life I could be happy. And all along, there is nothing outside me. There is only my mind that I alone rule. But in my confusion, I lash out, and I fight the shadow figures and bring more destruction into my private world.

Worst of all, I think, is that each of these “enemies” I have created in my imagination could be seen differently. If I forgive what I have done, they will be seen as holy and brilliant, so beautiful and perfect that I will want to fall to my knees before them. If I could let go of the destructive thinking and let my mind be healed of its fearful defenses, if I could do this, I would stop attacking the Son of God and I would remember what they are and what I am.

I look at my son and believe in his sickness and this is an attack on his holiness. In truth, I cannot affect his holiness, but in the attack of it, I obliterate it from my mind. I believe the insane picture of a sick child of God, and my heart breaks and I move deeper into the lower mind and further from the memory of God. I also do this with people I hardly know, with co-workers and friends.

I condemn myself to misery and suffering with the most casual thoughts. I treat my thoughts as if they had no power, all along I am making an insane world and pretending it just happened to me and I have no way out. Then a ray of light enters my mind and I see clearly for a bit. I recognize that I have but done this to myself and I turn to that light for more clarity.

That person at work that I thought of as my bitter enemy is suddenly seen as a reflection of my thoughts about myself. It is so clear that I am amazed I could have been so blind before. Just the day before I had trouble being in the same room with her. She seemed so sly and manipulative, so bossy and like my mortal enemy. Now from this more enlightened place in my mind, I look at the same face and I don’t see any of that.

Could it be that I was seeing only what was in my mind, only what I believed about myself, and now that this is healed, I am glimpsing the real person I had veiled with that projection? Or maybe I am still looking at myself, but it is a higher version of myself. Anyway it happened I am grateful to have let go of some of the death and destruction thoughts in my mind. Today I am not so separated and alone in the private world of my imagination as I was yesterday.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 13: V. The Two Emotions, P 3. 8-9-16

V. The Two Emotions, P 3

3 It is through these strange and shadowy figures that the insane relate to their insane world. For they see only those who remind them of these images, and it is to them that they relate. Thus do they communicate with those who are not there, and it is they who answer them. And no one hears their answer save him who called upon them, and he alone believes they answered him. Projection makes perception, and you cannot see beyond it. Again and again have you attacked your brother, because you saw in him a shadow figure in your private world. And thus it is you must attack yourself first, for what you attack is not in others. Its only reality is in your own mind, and by attacking others you are literally attacking what is not there.

Journal
In the first paragraph we saw clearly that we don’t really know anyone, only our thoughts about that one, a projection of what we believe. Jesus is now calling this a shadow figure. I think I know my daughter, my friend, my enemy, but I know only the shadow figure that I see as the thoughts and beliefs in my mind. In other words, I know only myself projected onto the world, so the daughter I know is a projection from my mind, as are all the other people who populate my story.

As much as I love my daughter, I still attack her. I think that she is difficult to talk to, easily offended, defensive of her beliefs, and those thoughts are an attack. But whom am I attacking, really? That daughter I see is a shadow figure created in my mind, and so if I attack it, I am really attacking my self. I think about Donna, and I see that my attacks are more overt. I see her as arrogant and pushy, and that is an attack. But who is arrogant and pushy, this shadow figure from my mind? These thoughts are an attack on myself because the Donna I know is in my mind only.

As I write this about Donna, I realize that I have forgiven that shadow figure and have let it go. I felt sad writing those things I used to utterly believe. I see the face that used to irritate me and now I see something else. I see a face that expresses fear of not being enough and the driving need to prove itself worthy. I feel compassion and I feel bad that I didn’t see that before. And is this the real Donna I see now? No. It is just another shadow figure that I have projected from the mind that I call my own. Donna represents my belief that I am arrogant and push and that it is just a cover for my fear that I am not enough. No wonder I don’t like her. She is an unconscious but constant reminder of what I don’t want to see in myself.

It’s funny that as I accept that everyone I know is a projection from my mind I can see those traits in myself. I couldn’t see them before. The reason we project onto others is that we don’t want to accept responsibility for the things we find in ourselves. So we throw them out and see them as belonging to someone else. But pretending they don’t belong to us doesn’t get rid of them, and so we just continue to attack others and hurt ourselves. Recognizing what is really going on allows us to withdraw our projections, and bringing them back to ourselves we can now ask for healing and truly be done with those errors in our mind.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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