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Study of the Text,B. To Have Peace, Teach Peace to Learn It, Paragraph 1. 1-17-14

B. To Have Peace, Teach Peace to Learn It
1 All who believe in separation have a basic fear of retaliation and abandonment. They believe in attack and rejection, so that is what they perceive and teach and learn. These insane ideas are clearly the result of dissociation and projection. What you teach you are, but it is quite apparent that you can teach wrongly, and can therefore teach yourself wrong. Many thought I was attacking them, even though it was apparent I was not. An insane learner learns strange lessons. What you must recognize is that when you do not share a thought system, you are weakening it. Those who believe in it therefore perceive this as an attack on them. This is because everyone identifies himself with his thought system, and every thought system centers on what you believe you are. If the center of the thought system is true, only truth extends from it. But if a lie is at its center, only deception proceeds from it.

Because I believe in separation I have a basic fear of relation and abandonment. I see that this is true and as long as I continue to believe in this I will teach it through my behavior and through my thoughts. This will reinforce the belief for myself and for others. However, knowing that this belief is in my mind, and knowing that I want my mind to be healed is helpful. I can watch my mind for thoughts that reflect these beliefs and ask for healing.

The whole point of this life is to use it to wake up from the belief in separation, so I don’t want to teach separation through teaching retaliation and abandonment. In order to stop teaching it, I must first realize when I am doing it. So I stay vigilant for this kind of thinking and its projections.

One example I can think of is the belief I sometimes have that someone I care about does not love me. For instance, I will start to miss my daughter and realize I haven’t heard from her in a while. I will text or call and maybe she won’t answer her phone or the text. Then I might start to worry that she is mad at me about something I said or failed to do. I start to think that she is too sensitive and it’s easy to offend her. If I stay with this long enough I will begin to resent her.

If I question this, I see that the only thing that happened is that I miss my daughter and she did not return my call. Everything else is something that I thought based on the belief in abandonment. I believe I can be abandoned and so I project a story of abandonment. I don’t even need the abandonment to actually happen; I can simply perceive that it happened. If I stay with the story soon I am projecting guilt onto her and if I don’t stop my crazy thinking I might start to plan my retaliation. “Fine, if she doesn’t want to talk to me, I don’t want to talk to her.”

Fortunately, I am not that insane anymore, but I can still torture myself with unquestioned beliefs for a long time before I come to my senses. If I don’t allow my thinking to be corrected, I am probably going to teach abandonment and retaliation in some way even if it is subtle. My mom used to be really fond of doing this through martyring herself and expecting us to accept the guilt for her suffering. I catch myself doing this sometimes, too, just mentioning casually that I had been concerned when I didn’t hear back from her right away.

When I hear myself say that kind of thing, I know that I have fallen for the ego again. I don’t want to teach this, but I will do so until I accept healing for the belief driving it. I cannot be abandoned, and therefore I never need to retaliate. There is a lot of ego resistance to this lesson. I cannot break this ugly cycle from within the belief system, but I can accept help from outside it. That is why I have the Holy Spirit, and I call on Him to correct my thinking and to undo what I have done.

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

Study of the Text, A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 6. 1-16-14

A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 6
6 This is a very preliminary step, and the only one you must take for yourself. It is not even necessary that you complete the step yourself, but it is necessary that you turn in that direction. Having chosen to go that way, you place yourself in charge of the journey, where you and only you must remain. This step may appear to exacerbate conflict rather than resolve it, because it is the beginning step in reversing your perception and turning it right-side up. This conflicts with the upside-down perception you have not yet abandoned, or the change in direction would not have been necessary. Some remain at this step for a long time, experiencing very acute conflict. At this point they may try to accept the conflict, rather than take the next step towards its resolution. Having taken the first step, however, they will be helped. Once they have chosen what they cannot complete alone, they are no longer alone.

Jesus says that what he is telling us is going to conflict with the upside- down perception we have not yet abandoned. So I am looking at what it is I think now. My thinking is no longer completely upside down, but even the thinking that I have abandoned for the most part, shows up in certain circumstances.

Upside-down thinking: I am a body and the body is real. The body and many things in the world determine my destiny and affect my everyday life in ways I cannot control. I am alone in the world, and even when I try to join with others there is an element of fear and uncertainty because of the inevitable competition that arises when one believes they are separate. There is only so much love, and so much things and I have to get mine regardless of what is left for others.

The thinking toward which I am being led: The body and the world are an illusion, the effects of wrong-minded thinking. I am neither a body nor am I in a body. I am one with all there is and one with God. I am powerful beyond measure and perfect in every way. I am part of God and in God and therefore eternal and safe. There is no loss nor lack and therefore no need for competition. No matter how much I give, I can never be without. There is no separation, my brother and I are one with each other and therefore I can only give to myself. I can know these things are true only as I give all to all.

In other words, I know who I am by stepping into who I am.

That’s about it in a nutshell. It is easy to see that while I hold onto any vestige of my upside-down thinking, the truth is going to seem like nonsense. And that is at best, because it is also going to seem threatening. When I felt like there was only a very limited amount of anything, I clung to what I had and sharing felt like a sacrifice. The idea of giving all to all was just crazy.

When I look back on my overly long journey through this Course, I am amazed that I ever made it this far. I was so afraid of everything and guilt was my constant belief. I was guilty in my mind for everything and the guilt I couldn’t bear, I projected onto others. No one was safe from my attacks. I was that afraid.

However, in spite of my fear and guilt, I turned in that direction. I turned and stayed turned. For a long time, that was all I could do. But I was not alone and my Help was constant and strong, and eventually, I become more consistent and stronger. I am not through yet. I still believe in me a bit.

Eventually that “me” will fall away. I don’t know when and it is not my job to do anything about that. I am in charge of my journey in that every step of the way is a choice I make, but I am not generally aware of the part of my mind that makes this decision. For now, my awareness is primarily focused on Myron and her story, and that is where I see the effects of my change of mind and so am motivated to continue my awakening, receiving help and guidance to do what I cannot do alone.

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

Study of the Text,A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 5. 1-15-14

A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 5
5 The Holy Spirit, Who leads to God, translates communication into being, just as He ultimately translates perception into knowledge. You do not lose what you communicate. The ego uses the body for attack, for pleasure and for pride. The insanity of this perception makes it a fearful one indeed. The Holy Spirit sees the body only as a means of communication, and because communicating is sharing it becomes communion. Perhaps you think that fear as well as love can be communicated; and therefore can be shared. Yet this is not so real as it may appear. Those who communicate fear are promoting attack, and attack always breaks communication, making it impossible. Egos do join together in temporary allegiance, but always for what each one can get separately. The Holy Spirit communicates only what each one can give to all. He never takes anything back, because He wants you to keep it. Therefore, His teaching begins with the lesson:
To have, give all to all.

I don’t need to be convinced that I misuse the body. I often misuse it. I want it to present to the world this strong willed person who is in charge of her life. That is why I spent so much of my life trying to mold it into what I perceived as a body that represented this image I wanted to project. I tried to keep it a certain shape and size.

I wanted my hair to look like the shampoo models and my skin to be smooth and flawless like the make-up models. I can’t tell you the time, money and effort spent toward this goal. Even if I could have achieved it, what would I have really achieved, anyway? That I am the maker of my self? That I am a better maker of self than others? Is that communication? Or is that separation?

I seem to be losing my desire to misuse my body. It is not a done deal, yet, but I feel differently about it now and I am looking forward to seeing how this unfolds. I am no longer obsessed with my weight, though I haven’t completely lost interest in it. I used to stand in front of the mirror and wonder what I could do with this body to make it more appealing, to attract people to me. Now I sometimes forget to look at all and at the end of the day realize I didn’t comb my hair. Looking for some balance here. Ha ha.

I am now a lot more interested in using the body for true communication and though I don’t understand this completely, I know I will because it is God’s Will and now it is my will, too. I spend some time each morning working in my journal and sharing what I get. I think maybe this is true communication because there is no ulterior motive. I don’t do it to look holy or to prove I am a better student or more spiritual than someone else. I do it because that is what I am supposed to do. I do it out of love.

I communicate during the day when I see past someone’s behavior to the Christ within. I communicate when I respond to attack, not with defense, but with compassion and understanding. I communicate when I express love to whoever is in front of me or in my thoughts, rather than to those special few who I designate as “loved ones.” I don’t do any of this perfectly, but I do it as consistently as I can, and when I notice that I am not doing it, I ask for and accept the Atonement for it.

How do I give all to all? I give love to everyone in every circumstance. Love will take whatever form is needed as long as I am allowing it to flow through me and I am not trying to direct it myself. This is my desire and my commitment.

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

Study of the Text A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 4 1-14-14

A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 4
4 To the Holy Spirit, there is no order of difficulty in miracles. This is familiar enough to you by now, but it has not yet become believable. Therefore, you do not understand it and cannot use it. We have too much to accomplish on behalf of the Kingdom to let this crucial concept slip away. It is a real foundation stone of the thought system I teach and want you to teach. You cannot perform miracles without believing it, because it is a belief in perfect equality. Only one equal gift can be offered to the equal Sons of God, and that is full appreciation. Nothing more and nothing less. Without a range order of difficulty is meaningless, and there must be no range in what you offer to your brother.

The reason there is no order of difficulty in miracles is that the miracle is a correction in perception and perception is how I see things. So all that is happening is that I am learning to see what is really there. How could one corrected thought be harder than another? A thought is a thought even if a particular thought triggers more fear or guilt than another. It is still just a thought.

My experience has gone something like this. I have experienced sickness, asked that my mind be healed of the belief in death (sickness), and seen the effect of the wrong-minded thought disappear. That is, the sickness disappeared. I have seen this happen in very dramatic ways. The body was not healed; the mind was healed. But it is the sick mind that projects the sick body and so when the mind is healed, it projects a healed body.

The ego world is based on separation, and that includes the idea of levels and ranges. So to the ego mind, one type of sickness is different than another and one type would be harder to heal than another. This cannot be true, because everything is only an idea, and you can’t have a bigger or smaller idea. I can have an idea I am simply not willing to release, but that doesn’t make the idea bigger or harder.

Accepting that the world and the body are not real, but simply the reflection of beliefs held in the mind has made it easier to accept that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. It is essential that I fully accept this premise if I am to perform miracles. The truth is whole and wholeness doesn’t vary. My fear of sickness and my fear of poverty and my fear of heights are all the same. They are exactly the same “size” and the solution to these problems are exactly the same.

In my ego mind the fear of heights and the fear of losing a child, for example, loom large and firmly rooted. I see them as giant sequoias with roots going so deep I cannot imagine getting to them. I see me with a little spade removing the dirt from around the roots but with little hope of taking down that giant tree. At the same time, I see a cold or the flu as weeds in my garden. Pull those suckers up and throw them away. I don’t get sick often and the sickness is mild and short lived generally because I can’t sustain a belief in them, and they can’t exist without my belief.

Of course, the truth is, those beliefs are all the same size and none of them is more deeply rooted than the other. I know this is true, and yet I have held onto certain beliefs even as I asked that they be healed, and doing this makes one seem harder to heal than another and encourages the idea that there is an order of difficulty in miracles.

My job here is to allow my mind to be healed, which then allows miracles to be performed through me. In this way I join Jesus in awakening the Sonship. I cannot do my part if I use my fear to perpetuate the belief in order of difficulty. If I offer miracles that are less than whole, then I am really offering magic and not miracles. When I am afraid this seems like an impossible task, but really, I just change my mind. I change my mind all the time so I know I can do it.

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

Study of the Text A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 3 1-13-14

A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 3

3 I have said that the Holy Spirit is the motivation for miracles. He always tells you that only the mind is real, because only the mind can be shared. The body is separate, and therefore cannot be part of you. To be of one mind is meaningful, but to be one body is meaningless. By the laws of mind, then, the body is meaningless.

It is obvious that when the Course says that we are One, it does not mean we share one body. It would clearly be a meaningless statement. I didn’t put it together like this, though, and realize that logically, it follows that the body is meaningless. But of course it is. I often say that the body is not real, and while that is true, it is hard for my thinking mind to make sense of that idea. The body feels very real and even Jesus says that we are not to deny that we think we have a body.

What is easier for my mind to grasp is that the body is meaningless, since what cannot be shared is meaningless. The ego “me” is meaningless for the same reason; it cannot be shared. Neither one can be who I am. This weekend I had a shaky moment when I felt this more deeply than I have before. I had the thought that I could not go back to living a meaningless life and that was followed by the understanding that what I really meant was that I could not stand the thought that I am meaningless. The question, of course, is who is the “I” that is meaningless.

I think what happened is that I brought into question the meaning of the ego, and the ego responded with fear. The ego does not want to be seen as meaningless because then why would I continue to be interested in it. I was upset because, in a moment of profound confusion, I identified completely with the ego and so it felt like I was saying that I am meaningless. Questioning the ego at this basic level will continue to elicit fear as long as I am vacillating between identities. I appreciate this reminder from Jesus that the body cannot be part of me.

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

Study of the Text A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 2 1-10-14

A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 2

2 God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of what you think you are. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist. The Holy Spirit, as always, takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device. Again as always, He reinterprets what the ego uses as an argument for separation into a demonstration against it. If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be stronger than the body. Every miracle demonstrates this.

The body is not a creation of God and so it is not real. We made the body to prove separation. Obviously we do not share one body and so we can say, “I am separate from you and therefore separation is real.” As long as I believe I am the body, I am living proof that I made something unlike God. This is the way the ego establishes it’s self as our god and keeps us enthralled to it.

It is also the reason for the deep well of unconscious guilt that makes us afraid to face God whom we believe we dethroned when we made bodies and identified with them as self. But all this is undone with the simple realization that the body does not exist. It cannot exist because God did not create it. If it does not exist, we cannot be guilty for making it, which means we are, after all, still as God created us, and so innocent of any wrongdoing.

We made the body to prove separation, but as with anything we made, the Holy Spirit can reinterpret it and use it to demonstrate against separation. Here is how this works. I become sick and it seems that germs or environmental factors caused it. My brother is not sick and so I have use the body to prove that I am separate from him. I have also proven that the body is stronger than the mind because it can be affected by something outside the mind and the mind cannot do anything about it.

If we are ready to know the truth, we can ask the Holy Spirit for correction. We can ask Him to reinterpret what we made and undo what we have done. As the mind is healed of the belief in sickness, pain, suffering and death, the body (which is just a projection of the mind) begins to reflect the healed thoughts and so the mind proves to be stronger than the body. As the healed mind projects a healed body we begin to remember that mind is cause and body is simply an effect.

Because Jesus knew the body was nothing, just a thought in the mind, he was able to “heal” many and just as easily brought bodies back from the dead and “resurrected” his own body. He showed us that it is the mind that causes everything we see. If we see suffering and death, the mind must be sick and in need of healing (forgiveness), rather than the body. The body must simply follow along because, without the mind it is nothing and doesn’t even exist.

This is good news because while we cannot be one body, we absolutely can be, and are, one mind.

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

Study of the Text,A. To Have, Give All to All, Paragraph 1. 1-9-14

A. To Have, Give All to All
1 When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that you will last forever. Perhaps you think this is accomplished through death, but nothing is accomplished through death, because death is nothing. Everything is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who are life. If we share the same mind, you can overcome death because I did. Death is an attempt to resolve conflict by not deciding at all. Like any other impossible solution the ego attempts, it will not work.

I really didn’t fully understand this until recently when I started reading excerpts from a new book by Nouk Sanchez, The End of Death, and attended her workshop. I don’t know why I didn’t really get it because Jesus is very clear. He says that death is not real, doesn’t help, certainly doesn’t wake us up. He says that death is an attempt to resolve conflict by not deciding at all. It is an ego attempt to solve a problem and he emphasizes that it will not work.

Back in the bad old days I used to suffer from depression and I held tightly to the idea of suicide as my way out when I couldn’t take it anymore. Obviously I never got that desperate but I got close. My mind was a huge knot of conflicted thinking, and I didn’t know what to do about it so I thought that dying would solve the problem without solving it. Then later I understood from doing the Course that suicide wouldn’t help anyway because death would not alleviate my problems and I would still have to face them.

Then as my mind was healed more and more, the depression fell away and I no longer looked for a way out. Without the suffering of depression driving my thoughts, I realized I was afraid of the death of the body and went through a period of healing until that was no longer an issue either. At that point I thought I had solved the whole death issue. I could die without fear, but could also stay here and do my work.

What I was left with was a desire to be here as long as I needed to complete my part in the Atonement and then the body would die and if I still had more to do I would come back in another body-story to work some more. But if I finished with my part and didn’t need to return, which was my plan, I would die and then I would work from the other side to help others.

The one thing all my plans had in common was death as a resolution, a solution to my pain and suffering. I don’t know how I overlooked the obvious for so long. Clearly, death is not a solution. Life is the solution. Now my focus is on awakening, not at death or after death, but now. I am still doing the same thing as far as being vigilant for ego thoughts and allowing my mind to be healed, but now I have withdrawn this false value in death as some kind of solution.

Another thought from this paragraph that caught my attention is that just as death is nothing, the body is nothing. The body doesn’t live, nor does it die. The belief that it does is just part of the illusion. When I am strongly identified with the ego and thus the body, I think that this story of Myron is my life. I think I am living it. This cannot be so, because as Jesus says, “it cannot contain you who are life.”

Sometimes in my writing I say that I am in this body, but that is not actually true. I cannot be in the body because that would require that I literally be separated, split off in some way from my vast and holy Self. I can imagine this, but I cannot be this. So once again I see that I am not what I seem; I am so much more. The body is simply an idea in the mind and nothing else. The life the body lives is simply an idea in the mind and nothing else. The death of the body is simply an idea in the mind and nothing else.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.