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Gentle Healing Lesson 175, Text, Manual for Teachers. 11-24-19

LESSON 175

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1 (159) I give the miracles I have received.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2 (160) I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

Fear is the hardest belief for me to give up. I have succeeded in giving up many forms of fear. For instance, I realize that my grandchildren are going to begin feeling very real effects from global warming and their children will truly suffer. I don’t know what to do about that except to keep trying to get someone who cares elected.

At one time this sort of thing scared me and I would be anxious every time I thought of it. Now, I do what I can to change this, but I am not afraid of it. The same thing is true about the possibility of Trump getting us into a nuclear war. I recognize the possibility and do what I can but I am not afraid of it.

But I am still afraid of heights and I still fear for my son. I even get fearful for my granddaughter who is a fearless little explorer. What I do know about fear is that it is not real. It is the effect of believing in separation. As long as I identify with my humanness, I will have fear, but that fear lessens as I remember who I am. It lessens daily now. One day, I will shoo that stranger out of my mind altogether.

PS: The only fear I still have these months later is the fear of heights. I care about the other stuff to some degree and I will do what feels right to do, but I am not afraid. So it is that we can let go of the belief in fear. It can be done. It’s funny to me that I still have the fear of heights but each time it comes up, I give my willingness to see this differently, so let’s see how that goes.

Manual for Teachers
2.WHO ARE THERE PUPILS? 4,5
4 Time really, then, goes backward to an instant so ancient that it is beyond all memory, and past even the possibility of remembering. Yet because it is an instant that is relived again and again and still again, it seems to be now. And thus it is that pupil and teacher seem to come together in the present, finding each other as if they had not met before. The pupil comes at the right time to the right place. This is inevitable, because he made the right choice in that ancient instant which he now relives. So has the teacher, too, made an inevitable choice out of an ancient past. God’s Will in everything but seems to take time in the working-out. What could delay the power of eternity?

That we are here studying A Course in Miracles together was always inevitable because it has already happened. It only seems to be a new event, something we decided on in this lifetime. Like everything in our stories, what seems to be true is not. But it is not a choice made for us, but a choice we made ourselves long ago. Both student and teacher made an inevitable choice out of an ancient past. This is God’s Will and though it seems to have taken a lot of time to work its way, there is no time in eternity so it was done instantly and always had been done. Weirdly enough, though I have trouble finding words for this, I am beginning to make sense of it.

5 When pupil and teacher come together, a teaching-learning situation begins. For the teacher is not really the one who does the teaching. God’s Teacher speaks to any two who join together for learning purposes. The relationship is holy because of that purpose, and God has promised to send His Spirit into any holy relationship. In the teaching-learning situation, each one learns that giving and receiving are the same. The demarcations they have drawn between their roles, their minds, their bodies, their needs, their interests, and all the differences they thought separated them from one another, fade and grow dim and disappear. Those who would learn the same course share one interest and one goal. And thus he who was the learner becomes a teacher of God himself, for he has made the one decision that gave his teacher to him. He has seen in another person the same interests as his own.

I love the way paragraph 5 begins. Right away the stage is set to express the fluid nature of the teaching-learning situation. I have students I work with every day. It appears as if I am the teacher and they the student, and those are the terms we use to make things simpler to speak about. But actually, when we come together for the purpose of true learning, that is checking our egos at the door, leaving behind our separate agendas and all expectations based on what we think we know, neither is the teacher and both are the teacher.

In our emptiness, we have made a place for the Teacher to come forward in our awareness and to teach through us. Since He knows the gap of personhood is an illusion, He moves seamlessly from one to another, healing as we speak our inadequate words, or say nothing. All that is needed is a true Heart’s desire to be healed through our union of purpose. This profound event, this holy instant may even go unnoticed and unremarked by the two who have come together, but it is a miracle, none-the-less. It is the fulfillment of our purpose.

My experience of the process is that I have absolutely nothing to do with its fulfillment. I simply show up where prompted, follow guidance as best as I can, be as willing as I can be, and even all this is only vaguely in my awareness, and sometimes not at all. It’s not my job to choose where and with whom this is to happen. Jesus is in charge of the Atonement and knows where the chain needs to link next. What a relief to be moved, to be lived, to let go of the intolerable burden of making decisions and taking action on my own. And what an illusion it was anyway.

Holy Spirit, I invite you to guide me today in all things, to speak through me, to move me where I am needed, and above all, to call me back to sanity if I were to start running around on my own thinking I am the one doing something.

Text

XI. Christmas as the End of Sacrifice P 2

T-15.XI.2. The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. 2 See it not outside yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come. 3 He comes demanding nothing. 4 No sacrifice of any kind, of anyone, is asked by Him. 5 In His Presence the whole idea of sacrifice loses all meaning. 6 For He is Host to God. 7 And you need but invite Him in Who is there already, by recognizing that His Host is One, and no thought alien to His Oneness can abide with Him there. 8 Love must be total to give Him welcome, for the Presence of Holiness creates the holiness that surrounds it. 9 No fear can touch the Host Who cradles God in the time of Christ, for the Host is as holy as the perfect Innocence which He protects, and Whose power protects Him.

Journal
I used to abide in the darkness and didn’t even know it was dark. It was just all I knew. As I studied and practiced the Course, light began to shine within me, first just a spark, a tiny spark. The more I aspired to spiritual enlightenment, the brighter the light became. Now, in retrospect, I see how dark it was before and wonder how I could function in such dismal conditions. I had no idea who or what I was, and I didn’t feel the connection with all my brothers like I do now. How lonely it was, how discouraging and fearful to think I was alone.

Now it feels very strange that I was afraid of the light of love that was waiting for my desire for it so that it could ignite into the blaze of love it is now. I wonder what I thought it was going to cost me. I see now that there was no sacrifice asked of me. None. God is Love and Love can only offer Itself, certainly not harm, nor can It ask for sacrifice. Here is all I gave up in order to know this wonder; hatred, fear, guilt, rage, jealousy, competition, grievances, judgments and depression. It doesn’t feel like a sacrifice at all.

As soon as I made room for it, I received peace that hardly ever wavers and never wavers for long. I received love that seems to grow daily as if it has taken root within me and flourishes there. I feel the love in me and as it flows outward it is returned to me. What an amazing experience this is! I feel protected and upheld, enlightened and cherished. Instead of being upset that I am not perfect, I joyfully anticipate perfection as I open my heart to it. That I don’t seem to be a perfect expression of my Creator now, doesn’t matter at all. The perfection is there and I know it will show itself soon enough and I look forward to the experience of love that is total. What a Christmas gift this is!

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Gentle Healing Lesson 174, Text, Manual for Teachers. 11-11-19

LESSON 174
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1 (157) Into His Presence would I enter now.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2 (158) Today I learn to give as I receive.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

“But the Holy One, the Giver of the happy dreams of life, Translator of perception into truth, the holy Guide to Heaven given you, has dreamed for you this journey which you make and start today, with the experience this day holds out to you to be your own.”

Today, I have experienced a touch of Heaven, perhaps not exactly as described in Lesson 157, but definitely a touch of it. My ego mind doesn’t find it to be perfect. I have resisted every effort the ego has made to pull me into one of its stories. Oh, yes, the ego has really tried, but I am more interested in peace today.

This morning during meditation, I asked for help in experiencing a deeper level of meditation and to more often feel the quiet joy of knowing who I am. Before I read these lessons, I was asking for what is offered here. I was asking the Giver of happy dreams of life to work miracles in my mind.

What I feel is quiet joy. I am not exhilarated or excited, but just quietly joyful. I haven’t done anything differently, and I don’t know anything today that I didn’t know yesterday. But each group I was part of, each person I spoke to seemed precious to me and I felt joyful being a part of it.

Each time an untrue thought came into my mind, I gently released it without effort and with no concern it was there. I knew the Translator of perception was on the job and I didn’t need to concern myself other than to see the need for translation. I just let myself be carried.

“What has been given you? The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because you were created out of love. Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does it live.”

Today, this passage from 158 was self-evident to me and therefore nothing that happened was important because it was just an illusion. This is what is true and cannot be changed or altered. My only purpose here is to stop believing anything else.

Manual for Teachers

3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING?
1 The teachers of God have no set teaching level. Each teaching-learning situation involves a different relationship at the beginning, although the ultimate goal is always the same; to make of the relationship a holy relationship, in which both can look upon the Son of God as sinless. There is no one from whom a teacher of God cannot learn, so there is no one whom he cannot teach. However, from a practical point of view he cannot meet everyone, nor can everyone find him. Therefore, the plan includes very specific contacts to be made for each teacher of God. There are no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. They are ready for each other.

Every sentence in this paragraph tells me something I am happy to know. Relationships have different forms but all have the same goal. Through the teaching-learning process they have the potential to become holy relationships in which they look on each other and see only innocence. While this can happen with any two, there are very specific contacts for all of us and they will show up in our lives.

I have had relationships that have been very challenging and some of them took most of my life to resolve. I fully accept that there are no accidents in salvation. Every one of these relationships was important to my awakening. Even though some of them were quite painful for a time, I am grateful for the healing that came through them.

I know that I certainly didn’t approach them from the point of view that they had the potential for a holy relationship, yet I know now that they did. I will say that the relationships in my life have been healed of any anger or guilt. I think back on some of them and I see that all contention was just a thought in my mind and had nothing to do with the other person. So, as my thoughts were healed, the relationships were healed.

Text
This is from one of the Pathways of Light courses that I did. I thought it might be helpful to post it here. We were asked to write on the key thoughts we wish to reinforce to heal our mind and to share with our mind healing partner. Review T-7.VI.1-13

1. “It is impossible, however, to see something in part of it that you will not attribute to all of it. That is why attack is never discrete, and why it must be relinquished entirely. If it is not relinquished entirely it is not relinquished at all.”
So if I see someone as a threat, I will see threats everywhere I look and I will attack. I remember something that happened years ago. I was very upset with my husband and could do nothing about it. When my daughter did something I didn’t like, I attacked her like she had done a terrible thing. I didn’t understand at the time why I did that, and I felt very guilty for it.

I did it because attack is not discreet. The rage at my husband boiled over onto my daughter. Then I attacked myself for my behavior. As I chose to make more of my decisions with God, this kind of thing happened less and less. It never happens now. It became my goal to give up attack for all time.

Knowing that we are all one is what makes this possible. I notice that as I feel the oneness that we are, the desire to attack and defend has ended.

2. If I attack, I lose the awareness of love and since I am love, I have also lost the awareness of my self, my identity.

3. “… the ego attacks what is preserving it, which must result in extreme anxiety.”
Have you ever experienced unspecified anxiety, the feeling something was wrong but not had anything to pin the feeling on? I think this happens because of the ego attacks and what that means to us. We attack and we feel the wrongness of this and if we don’t take responsibility we will project. This just confuses the situation further and creates more anxiety. It is a terrible cycle that would go on forever were it not for the Holy Spirit in our mind.

4. “Produced by fear, the ego reproduces fear.”
First, I notice that Jesus is putting fear before the ego. That is, we felt fear then we made the ego in response to that fear. So, in the tiny mad idea, we made a decision to experience separation and this decision caused us to be afraid. Then the fear in our mind caused the ego as a way of dealing with that fear, thus we came up with a thought system that allowed us to have the experience we wanted within a system that provided a means of dealing with the emotional effects through projection. We could make it someone else’s fault thinking this would hide our evil deed.
Since all thoughts produce after its kind, that fear thought continued to produce more fear thoughts which were then given form and projected as the world we seem to live in. The same power that made all of this can be used to undo it. As we notice the effects of the fear in our minds, we can learn to see it differently, to withdraw our belief in it, and to focus on the truth, which is love. Just as fear makes more fear and then manifests as fearful events, love, will make more love and will manifest as loving experiences.

5. “No one who has everything wants the ego.”
It is absolutely necessary that the ego deny your true self. If the ego accepts any part of you as love, it will be completely undone. If it accepts anyone else as pure love, it will be undone. So, it keeps everyone as enemies and hides this way of thinking from us. It does this, as far as I can see, by increasing fear and guilt and making everything seem so complex that we give up trying to understand it or change it. This is why we need the Holy Spirit and why God created the Holy Spirit. It is not fooled by the ego and can help us disentangle from it when we are ready to do so.

6. “The Holy Spirit does not want you to understand conflict; He wants you to realize that, because conflict is meaningless, it is not understandable.”
The Holy Spirit does not fight the ego or try to understand it. The Holy Spirit simply disregards it because it does not exist. Ultimately, this is my goal as well. I began by learning about the ego so I could recognize it. I was not trying to understand it or destroy it, I just wanted to know the difference between ego’s voice and the Voice for God. I then began to loosen my hold on these untrue thoughts and allow my mind to be corrected. I am still not at war with the ego, but I see that it is not me and I am practicing recognizing the tendency to identify with it so I can stop doing that. I hope that soon I will be able to disregard it completely because no part of my mind believes in it or has an interest in it. I am very close to this.

7. “If the mind cannot attack, the ego proceeds perfectly logically to the belief that you must be a body.”
The ego wants me to be the body because that is its chosen home, its chosen identity. It works diligently toward engaging my mind as its own delusional thought system, which keeps us from remembering who we are. It does this because knowledge would dispel the ego immediately. We must believe in one or the other, but not both if we are to remain at peace. This is why we must be vigilant for the truth if we want to be free.

8. “Unless you perceive His creation truly you cannot know the Creator, since God and His creation are not separate.”
It is when we accept our God and all His creations as whole and indivisible that we recognize our own identity and our power. This is why I cannot accept conflict and grievances in my mind. It is why I ask for correction the moment I notice this belief in my mind. If I believe in attack, I will think I am attacked and I will defend myself. And this very act of defense, the very thought of defense, keeps the ego in place. It leaves me feeling weak and vulnerable and makes attack seem fully justified.

9. “The attack must be blind, however, because there is nothing to attack.”
And yet, what do I attack? There is nothing to attack so we make up images that allow us to seem to attack and so seem to defend. That is what everyone and everything is to the ego. It is something to project upon and to attack, thus to seem to keep myself as innocent and everything else as guilty. It also serves the purpose of fleshing out my existence so that I can actually believe in this body as myself. This is clearly insane.

10. “Allowing insanity to enter your mind means that you have not judged sanity as wholly desirable.“
I think I need to defend myself against God and this is what I seem to be doing as I divide my allegiance by making instead of creating. I need scapegoats and I need to pretend none of this happened and the world I see is the only world there is. But in my mind is the truth and I cannot altogether ignore it and so I am not happy no matter what I do. I am not sane either while I claim two diametrically opposed thought systems and try to operate from both at the same time. This is almost completely gone now.

11. “In this depressing state the Holy Spirit reminds you gently that you are sad because you are not fulfilling your function as co-creator with God, and are therefore depriving yourself of joy. “
Thank, God, we are not left in this state. We but do this to ourselves and we have been given the means to undo it. We begin by deciding to remember that we are one with our brothers in spite of appearances and that we love our brothers as we must if we are one. Then we accept that we are one with God and that this oneness does not in any way diminish us. It is actually easy to shift into this way of thinking because it is the simple truth.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Gentle Healing Lesson 173, Text, Manual for Teachers. 11-04-19

LESSON 173
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1 (155) I will step back and let Him lead the way.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2 (156) I walk with God in perfect holiness.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

If there is one thing I feel certain about it is that I am not a human being in spite of waking up every morning to a body. I am even learning to detach from the personality of this character, Myron. I am aware of it as I am aware of the body of Myron, but I don’t claim either as being me. I am Love because God is Love and I am His creation. But, I am not fully separated from the body/personality of this incarnation’s character either.

I still have some preferences, though much less than before. I still think in terms of the personal, but again, much less than I have in the past. Sometimes I get caught in one story or another. My daughter asked me to babysit for her again and she said she hated to do it but didn’t have anyone else to ask. It took some juggling of students to free up the four hours she needs me, but I did it.

I don’t like doing this. I don’t like moving my schedule around and falling behind on my work. I don’t like babysitting an active 2-year old for four hours, climbing up and down the stairs. But I saw the need was legitimate and so I agreed. I am using this time to practice giving up the idea that I like some things and dislike others.

The reason I want to give up the liking/disliking dichotomy is that disliking something is a sure-fire way to suffer because if I like something, I am automatically setting up the opposite. If what I like becomes unavailable, then I will be stuck with what I don’t like and so here we are again at suffering.

I joined with my holy Self and made a decision to release any thought of preferring to babysit or preferring to not babysit. I am emotionally allowing this part of the script. How will it turn out? Dread instantly turned to curiosity when I made that decision. At the same time, I told my daughter that she needs to get another backup sitter because I can’t be that for her in the future.

And now…
The decision to love the situation at hand has worked out very well. She calls on me only in the direst emergencies and I have come to enjoy my time with my granddaughter. It seems all my objections were of the ego and now that I no longer ask the ego for advice, I am discovering a whole world filled with opportunities to extend love and experience joy and peace.

Manual for Teachers

2. WHO ARE THERE PUPILS? 4,5
4 Time really, then, goes backward to an instant so ancient that it is beyond all memory, and past even the possibility of remembering. Yet because it is an instant that is relived again and again and still again, it seems to be now. And thus it is that pupil and teacher seem to come together in the present, finding each other as if they had not met before. The pupil comes at the right time to the right place. This is inevitable, because he made the right choice in that ancient instant which he now relives. So has the teacher, too, made an inevitable choice out of an ancient past. God’s Will in everything but seems to take time in the working-out. What could delay the power of eternity?

Holy Spirit, I invite you to guide me today in all things, to speak through me, to move me where I am needed, and above all, to call me back to sanity when I start running around on my own, thinking I am the one doing something.

XI. Christmas as the End of Sacrifice

T-15.XI.1. Fear not to recognize the whole idea of sacrifice as solely of your making. 2 And seek not safety by attempting to protect yourself from where it is not. 3 Your brothers and your Father have become very fearful to you. 4 And you would bargain with them for a few special relationships, in which you think you see some scraps of safety. 5 Do not try longer to keep apart your thoughts and the Thought that has been given you. 6 When they are brought together and perceived where they are, the choice between them is nothing more than a gentle awakening, and as simple as opening your eyes to daylight when you have no more need of sleep.

Journal
In seeking safety, we have only two choices, the ego or the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit offers us our place in God, complete invulnerability, eternal life, joy, and perfect peace. The ego offers us the world, a separate self, the illusion of infinite choices and the effects of this choice, pain, suffering, and death. You would think the choice for God would be an easy one, and yet, Jesus spends a lot of time convincing us that God is the safe choice and that no sacrifice is asked of us.

The thing is, we made the idea of sacrifice, just as we made the idea of an ego. Sacrifice is unknown in God; it is only in our imagined world that the idea of sacrifice has any meaning. Do you see the implications of this? There is no sacrifice as soon as we stop believing in the idea of sacrifice.

It is no different than when a child is fearful of the monster in the closet until the parent opens the closet door and shines a light to prove there is no monster. When we open our minds to the Holy Spirit, the Light shows us we are safe, loved, and cherished. And it costs us nothing.

What likely began as an interesting exercise in imaginative play has gone awry. Our imagination ran away with us and now we have lost our way. There is nothing to fear, though, because we have total control. We can choose to open our eyes and see what is real. We have a Guide to help us remember who We are.

We are the Sons of God and it is time to claim our birth rite. Open the door to your secret fears and let the Holy Spirit shine His Light on them and they will disappear. The only thing hiding in the closet are imagined guilt and fear and imagination is easily dispelled by the Love that is God the Father and God the Son.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Gentle Healing Lesson 172, Text, Manual for Teachers. 10-30-19

LESSON 172
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1 (153) In my defenselessness my safety lies.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2 (154) I am among the ministers of God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

I practice defenselessness all the time and have been for years now. I don’t often feel defensive anymore, but when I do, I catch it right away. I used to feel defensive when my kids would say something to me that I perceived as critical. At some point, I must have practiced enough that this stopped bothering me. Now when they do say something like that to me, I usually just laugh and agree that they probably have a point.

And the cool thing about that is that I mean it. I have evidently mostly stopped thinking that my human self has to be perfect and I have stopped identifying so much with that part of me so I don’t take it personally anymore. Occasionally, something will be said that actually triggers some unworthiness and that’s OK. It is just a chance to really master the decision to see this differently.

This newfound freedom is helpful in being a teacher of God. If I showed my child a hurt face, this would infer that he/she was guilty and guilt is what we are here to undo. I want to teach my children they are innocent. I want to do this with everyone. I am definitely becoming a better teacher of God through learning and practicing what I read in the Course.

Manual for Teachers
2. WHO ARE THEIR PUPILS? P 2, 3
2 In order to understand the teaching-learning plan of salvation, it is necessary to grasp the concept of time that the course sets forth. Atonement corrects illusions, not truth. Therefore, it corrects what never was. Further, the plan for this correction was established and completed simultaneously, for the Will of God is entirely apart from time. So is all reality, being of Him. The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God’s Son, in that same instant was God’s Answer given. In time this happened very long ago. In reality it never happened at all.

3 The world of time is the world of illusion. What happened long ago seems to be happening now. Choices made long since appear to be open; yet to be made. What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach. Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there. As the course emphasizes, you are not free to choose the curriculum, or even the form in which you will learn it. You are free, however, to decide when you want to learn it. And as you accept it, it is already learned.

There are two important ideas about time that I take from these paragraphs. The first is that time is not real; it is part of the illusion. We are eternal. Here is a definition of eternity: a state to which time has no application; timelessness. We, as we were created, have nothing to do with time. We stand outside time, which doesn’t actually exist anyway.

The next thing I sort of understand is that while in the experience of a world we are having a linear experience in which time seems to be happening. So, it seems that we are making choices and we are experiencing the effects of those choices now. But what is really happening is that we are experiencing something that has already happened because in eternity everything happens at once or not at all. It seems that the world we know never happened because it starts and stops and changes, so it is an illusion.

Well, now that that’s crystal clear… What we can know is that within the story we are apparently living, which is an illusion, we are given the task of discovering what we already know. We look at our thoughts and allow them to be corrected where they are not true and this is what the Course calls accepting the Atonement. Eventually, our mind becomes clear enough that we know this is an illusion (called awakening) and we are on our way to returning to our true state.

Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there.

We are also told that the path home is already chosen but we are free to choose when we want to learn it. My path is A Course in Miracles. It looked like I found it by happenstance and that I decided to read it and to practice it all these years. But that this would happen was a done deal and my only part was to decide if it would be this lifetime in which I decided on it. And then Jesus says, And as you accept it, it is already learned. My assumption here is that I cannot fail to learn it because I have already done so.

Chapter 16: The Forgiveness of Illusions
I. True Empathy
T-16.I.1. To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand. 2 That is the ego’s interpretation of empathy, and is always used to form a special relationship in which the suffering is shared. 3 The capacity to empathize is very useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let Him use it in His way. 4 His way is very different. 5 He does not understand suffering, and would have you teach it is not understandable. 6 When He relates through you, He does not relate through your ego to another ego. 7 He does not join in pain, understanding that healing pain is not accomplished by delusional attempts to enter into it, and lighten it by sharing the delusion.

Journal
I used to think that empathy was to relate to the problem and to express that to the person who had the problem. For instance, if someone lost a loved one, I would agree with them how very hard this is and I would cry with them because their grief triggered my fear of loss. I catch myself doing this very thing sometimes even now that I know better. I am always surprised at myself when I choose to form a special relationship through shared suffering. In doing this, I would be strengthening the belief in suffering for both of us. That is just plain crazy.

The question becomes, how do I relate to someone who is suffering? It would seem cruel not to respond at all and I’m not foolish enough to believe this is the time and place to talk to them about illusions. The solution is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in my mind and will give me the words to say if I ask and then pause long enough to receive them. I sometimes do funerals and, of course, I go to funerals, more of them than before now that I am older. So, it is important to me that I follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

When I am talking to a Course student, it is a little different. My assumption when a fellow student comes to me with a problem, they are hoping to receive some guidance from the Holy Spirit through me. I will speak to them differently than I do with someone else but, again, I ask first so that what I share will be helpful. I do feel empathy in both cases because I have both grieved and been confused.

If I feel more than empathy, if I feel sympathy or a desire to share their suffering, I give it to the Holy Spirit and then I ask for words to share with the one in front of me. If I need to revisit the issue later, I do that when I am alone. One of the things I have noticed is that with grief, sometimes all that is required of me is a hug. And with other problems sometimes all that is needed from me is a listening ear. The important thing for me to remember is that my part is to be there, to be open and receptive. Knowing what to say or do is the Holy Spirit’s part.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 171, Text, Manual for Teachers. 10-24-19

Lesson 171
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1 (151) All things are echoes of the Voice for God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2 (152) The power of decision is my own.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

I was guided to look at the power of decision again and was further guided to review how it is I make decisions. This is from Rules for Decisions in Chapter 30.

Paragraph 14 on page 628 of the Text popped out at me. It says, ” We said you can begin a happy day with the determination not to make decisions by yourself. This seems to be a real decision in itself. And yet, you cannot make decisions by yourself. The only question really is with what you choose to make them. That is really all. The first rule, then, is not coercion, but a simple statement of a simple fact. You will not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For they are made with idols or with God. And you ask help of anti-Christ or Christ, and which you choose will join you and tell you what to do.”

And paragraph 16 on page 628 popped out at me too. It says, “The second rule as well is but a fact. For you and your advisor must agree on what you want before it can occur. It is but this agreement that permits all things to happen. Nothing can be caused without some form of union, be it with a dream of judgment or the Voice for God. Decisions cause results because they are not made in isolation. They are made by you and your adviser, for yourself and for the world as well. The day you want you offer to the world, for it will be what you have asked for, and will reinforce the rule of your adviser in the world. Whose kingdom is the world for you today? What kind of day will you decide to have?”

The lesson tells us in no uncertain terms and with no comprise that whatever is in our lives is there because we decided on it. In the Text he is explaining how we make the decision. We make it in union, either with the ego or the Holy Spirit. There is no other option. We do not make decisions on our own no matter what we tell ourselves to the contrary.

Here is an example. How is it that loss shows up in my life? Who would want that? Who would decide for loss? We did. We decided to show up as bodies that die. We then decided that when someone’s body dies, it means they die and we will suffer their loss. On two levels we made that decision, on the level of manifestation and on the level of interpretation. Neither death nor loss are in God, so we must have made those decisions with the ego.

Text
X. the Time of Rebirth, P 9
9 You will not succeed in being partial hostage to the ego, for it keeps no bargains and would leave you nothing. Nor can you be partial host to it. You must choose between total freedom and total bondage, for there are no alternatives but these. You have tried many compromises in the attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision you must make. And yet it is the recognition of the decision, just as it is, that makes the decision so easy. Salvation is simple, being of God, and therefore very easy to understand. Do not try to project it from you and see it outside yourself. In you are both the question and the answer; the demand for sacrifice and the peace of God.

Journal
This decision to be part ego and a part spirit has never worked and is not ever going to work. We live an illusion of a life and we suffer. We tell ourselves that when we die, then we will be spirit but then we wind up back here trying again and suffering again. We try all sorts of compromises. We become religious and at least once a week for an hour or so we give ourselves to God. Or spiritual, and we spend at least some of our time as seekers without ever really becoming a finder. All to keep from making a decision for God. But nothing we do brings us perfect joy or unending peace, and we wind up suffering after all.

What are we clinging to? What is so valuable that we cannot bear to give it up? What are we so afraid of? I think there is nothing to be afraid of but it is the fear that this is not true that keeps us sitting on this uncomfortable fence. We say we are afraid of God, but I wonder about that. Perhaps the real fear is in giving up what we made to take His place. We have convinced ourselves that this separate self with its endless stories is what we are and that to give it up would be annihilation.

We are afraid that we would be asked to give up our very life and everything that makes us what we are. But what we would actually be giving up is what we are not, so that we could embrace what We are. We are going to have to eventually get off that fence and choose reality. Why not sooner than later? Why continue to suffer when we could be living in continuous bliss? There is no compromise in this. We must choose and we will, in the end, choose God. So, again, why wait?

Manual for Teachers
2. WHO ARE THEIR PUPILS?

1 Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God’s teachers, and they will begin to look for him as soon as he has answered the Call. They were chosen for him because the form of the universal curriculum that he will teach is best for them in view of their level of understanding. His pupils have been waiting for him, for his coming is certain. Again, it is only a matter of time. Once he has chosen to fulfill his role, they are ready to fulfill theirs. Time waits on his choice, but not on whom he will serve. When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him.

I find it very comforting to know that as a teacher of God, my students are being sent to me. I need do nothing to find them. It’s not up to me to decide if they are ready for what I offer. I don’t have to worry that I won’t have what they need. If they have been sent to me, I can be sure that we are perfectly matched for a learning/teaching situation.

Again, Jesus reminds us that as we teach we learn when he says, “When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him.” My experience has proven this to me. I am very grateful to each and every teaching/learning opportunity that is given to me.

Since I was ordained, I have had numerous students and opportunities to teach, but Holy Spirit began sending me students before I even knew I had answered a call or even that there was a call to answer. They would come right out of the blue.

My spiritual life had slowly begun to expand outside the perimeters of traditional religion. Holy Spirit started me off slowly by sending some simple books my way. One of the first I read was a book about Edgar Cayce. That was pretty radical stuff for me back then. It was important because it was a gentle way for me to begin to consider that things are not always what they seem.

Then a book about life after life came my way and I opened to even more to possibilities. I had just finished reading this book when I received my first teaching opportunity, or at least the first one that I was aware of. I was driving a taxicab in Houston, Texas at the time. When my fare got into the cab that morning he was at first quiet, then struck up a conversation, and immediately began telling me about a near-death experience he had. It was strange, almost like he was just waiting for the chance to tell me about this.

This man, whose name I never got, had surgery some time back and “died” on the table. They revived him and he had a very vivid memory of his death experience. When he finished telling me about it, he confessed that he had never shared this experience with anyone because he was afraid of being judged. There was only one book out about this kind of thing at that time and it was not as accepted as it is now. He asked me what I thought about what happened to him and what did I think it meant.

I told him about the book I had just finished and suggested he get hold of a copy. I told him I believed him and I don’t know if I said much of anything else, but he left my cab more relieved than when he got in, and he now had a resource that could help him learn more if he wanted to. I was just a bit astounded by the whole thing. Why did he tell me that? How was it that I was one of the few people he would speak to that day that would understand?

At the time this happened, I didn’t know about the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know about being a teacher of God, or that once we put our foot on this path opportunities would unfold before us without our effort. I did feel wonder that it happened and gratitude that somehow, I managed to be helpful. I felt a deep satisfaction that only in retrospect did I understand. It seemed a small teaching, but he needed the only thing I could give him, and so it was perfect.

The second teaching opportunity came within a year or so, and I had joined a Unity church by this time and was a tiny bit less clueless than before. I was working in an ad agency and a man came in to look over our stock and started a conversation with me. He quickly began telling me things about his life and I knew he wanted me to help him figure it out.

I didn’t have a clue what to say, but something in me caused me to ask God for words. I think I was very helpful to him. If he was surprised, I was even more surprised. I had never had the experience of teaching myself as I taught someone else. I didn’t know where the words came from, well, from God of course, but I didn’t know, up until that moment, that this could happen.

We don’t need to think about how we are going to be used and we don’t need to understand anything that happens. We just need to show up with a willingness to be used by the Holy Spirit.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 170, Text, Manual for Teachers. 10-20-19

LESSON 170
There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

Jesus begins by telling us that attack is an attempt to hurt and this is always true, whatever our justifications. We tell ourselves that we are just defending against harm when we attack, but Jesus says that this is cruelty and thus we believe that to be cruel is to be safe. I thought of an example to test this idea. I have attacked in the past. I will use my ex-husband as an example.

I didn’t feel like he put his family first, and so I felt unsafe with him. I would defend myself by using guilt and shame to change his behavior thinking that if he understood the harm he was doing to us and ultimately to himself, then he would change. Because I was so caught up in my story of victimhood, I failed to see that he was not the problem and that I could simply change my perception of the situation and restore peace to my mind.

I really believed that he was the problem and the solution was to attack him. I did not see that I had made changing him my salvation, the idol I was worshipping. It was a cruel and relentless god that I was bowing to and nothing good came from it. I only felt guiltier myself and he became more stubborn in his determination to live as he chose to live.

Attacking him and making him my enemy left me feeling afraid and vulnerable because who can attack can also be attacked. It increased my belief that I could both love and hate and this is not possible. Either love is real or hate is real. They cannot both be true and these opposing ideas were a continuing war in my mind. My failure to forgive demanded constant justification and so the war escalated. And having an enemy seemed to prove separation was real. The lack of peace in my home was a reflection of the lack of peace in my mind.

“For fear becomes your safety and protector of your peace, to which you turn for solace and escape from doubts about your strength, and hope of rest in dreamless quiet.”

The way this was manifested in my marriage was that I projected onto our relationship this belief that fear is my salvation and attack is my defense. Now my husband was my enemy and I had to protect myself through attack. It seemed that to lower my defenses in the name of love was to bare my neck to the sword, so to speak. If love demanded this of me, then love must be my enemy.

Jesus says we need to look at this dynamic and that it might seem fearful to us to do so, but it will also be our time of release. I did do this finally and having waited until I was divorced to do so, made it a little easier. I had some distance to give the illusion of safety, and there was not the constant reinforcement of the perceived need to defend.

Because we worked at the same job, there was just enough interaction to help me see the mistaken thoughts in my mind without overwhelming me. Probably now, with this success and others, I would be able to heal without divorcing myself from the problem, but at that time, it was a necessary component of healing.

My marriage and my divorce were only symbols of the one problem, as are all facets of the illusion. The deeper meaning the marriage symbolized was my war with God. God, Who is Love, is seen as enemy and is feared. All fear in the world is a reflection of the fear of God. We have the belief that fear protects from what would hurt us and so fear becomes salvation in our mind, and love which would strip us of the protection is now seen as the enemy.

But just as I learned that I could see my relationship with Greg differently and come to love him without fear of that love, so can I do the same with God. I think I have divorced God just as I divorced Greg even though ideas cannot actually leave their source. I pretend I am separate from God just as I pretended that the idea of relationship with Greg would be separate from me through divorce, and that I could make separation real through assigning error to an other I see as outside me.

I was able to overcome the belief I could sever my relationship with Greg simply by moving my body away from his body. And so I will overcome that same belief in my relationship with God, that pretending to be in a body that exists outside God actually accomplishes separation. Ideas leave not their source and love is not fear. These are truth, and there are no opposites to truth.

Text
X. the Time of Rebirth, P 8
8 You think that everyone outside yourself demands your sacrifice, but you do not see that only you demand sacrifice, and only of yourself. Yet the demand of sacrifice is so savage and so fearful that you cannot accept it where it is. The real price of not accepting this has been so great that you have given God away rather than look at it. For if God would demand total sacrifice of you, it seems safer to project Him outward and away from you, and not be host to Him. To Him you ascribed the ego’s treachery, inviting it to take His place to protect you from Him. And you do not recognize that it is what you invited in that would destroy you, and does demand total sacrifice of you. No partial sacrifice will appease this savage guest, for it is an invader who but seems to offer kindness, but always to make the sacrifice complete.

Journal
You think that everyone outside yourself demands your sacrifice, but you do not see that only you demand sacrifice, and only of yourself.

What is the sacrifice I demand of myself? I demand the sacrifice of God and of Self. In choosing this experience of separation and clinging to the ego mind, I sacrifice the memory of What I am and of my relationship to my Creator. Within the story, I sacrifice happiness, and health. My efforts to place the blame elsewhere only succeed in causing further self-sacrifice.

For if God would demand total sacrifice of you, it seems safer to project Him outward and away from you, and not be host to Him.

The ego does, indeed, demand total sacrifice. It would leave you without recourse to suffering and death. But in our confused state, we think that it is God that demands total sacrifice of us. No wonder there is such a strong fear of God and no wonder we try to push Him away and see Him as separate and outside of us. We are holding the real enemy close and pushing away Love.

I’m trying to think how all of this applies to my life. When I awakened, any belief in the world I had left was gone. I know, no think or believe, but know that this world and the experience of the world that I seem to be involved with is an illusion. It is imagination. I know for a fact that it feels real only because we decided to make it feel real.

I also discovered that this shift did not cost me anything. I didn’t sacrifice anything to God in order to be where I am now in my experience. The ego is a stalker, though. Like a boyfriend who will not accept that the relationship is over, the ego follows me around trying to entice me back into some of our old behaviors.

For instance, the ego says I should worry about someone I love. It says that worry is a sign of love and not to worry is weird. I see myself looking at that idea but I can’t go back there. I know too much, now. This is the kind of ego belief I had to sacrifice in order to be happy.

I had to give up making decisions with the ego and I had to relinquish making others guilty, even making myself guilty had to be sacrificed. The ego insists that I need these things and that they are being taken away from me. The ego says that I will miss them. But thus far, I haven’t found that to be true.

I like the trade-off. Instead of fear and guilt, I have peace and happiness. Instead of death, I have Life. Instead of competition and loneliness, I have love. That doesn’t feel like a sacrifice to me. And the Holy Spirit is helping me to see the bits that I have not released yet so that I can be entirely free.

WHO ARE GOD’S TEACHERS? P3 & 4
3 There is a course for every teacher of God. The form of the course varies greatly. So do the particular teaching aids involved. But the content of the course never changes. Its central theme is always, “God’s Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation.” It can be taught by actions or thoughts; in words or soundlessly; in any language or in no language; in any place or time or manner. It does not matter who the teacher was before he heard the Call. He has become a savior by his answering. He has seen someone else as himself. He has therefore found his own salvation and the salvation of the world. In his rebirth is the world reborn.

4 This is a manual for a special curriculum, intended for teachers of a special form of the universal course. There are many thousands of other forms, all with the same outcome. They merely save time. Yet it is time alone that winds on wearily, and the world is very tired now. It is old and worn and without hope. There was never a question of outcome, for what can change the Will of God? But time, with its illusions of change and death, wears out the world and all things in it. Yet time has an ending, and it is this that the teachers of God are appointed to bring about. For time is in their hands. Such was their choice, and it is given them.

Here is what I have learned so far about being a teacher of God.

His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else’s.

Everyone is called but few answer at this time though everyone will answer eventually.

There is a course for everyone and they vary greatly but this one teaching doesn’t change: “God’s Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation.”

It doesn’t matter who the teacher was before his call.

We teach in many ways, with words or without words. The path for each person is very specific.

A Course in Miracles is a special form of a universal course. There are thousands of paths all designed to save time because the world is weary and we have caused ourselves much suffering.

There was never a question of outcome, for what can change the Will of God?

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Gentle Healing Lesson 169, Text, Manual for Teachers. 10-11-19

LESSON 169
By grace I live. By grace I am released.

Yesterday, I contemplated grace as a gift of God that is always available to me. Today, I am contemplating that grace is past learning and yet the goal of learning. It is in learning that I don’t want anything in my mind that threatens my choice for peace and in practicing releasing such thoughts that I prepare for grace and am able to accept it. Jesus says that grace not only comes to the mind thus prepared for it, he says that it becomes inevitable instantly.

I feel the rightness of the statement that grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. How else could we ever see this world as Love if it were not for the grace of God. My eyes certainly don’t show me the Love of God. My ego mind isn’t even interested in looking for the Love of God. But as I have released many mistaken ideas, I have learned to desire the peace of God above all else and in many little ways I am beginning to see something else, or at least the shadow of something else in this world.

I have opened my mind and heart to the call to waken and I am no longer shut tight against God’s Voice. I realize that no matter what I think I know about the world, about my spiritual nature, about God, I am wrong, and I am OK with that. In fact, I am quite comfortable with the I don’t know mind. I am given ideas that are helpful to me in the moment, and I hold those thoughts loosely knowing that they will shift and expand into something that is helpful in the next moment. Neither idea is right or wrong, just helpful until I am ready for something else.

I have always thought that when someone has their awakening moment and they are able to see the world differently, that is the result of grace. The learning and practicing made way for grace. Like Regina, my experience has been a slow and gradual movement toward awakening. But the moment the entire Sonship awakens, I think that is when God leans to us and takes the final step. And that is what grace is inevitably bringing us to.

I know the world is not ready for the final Awakening in which we experience the revelation of the Father and Son as one. But, from time to time, I questioned why it was that I had not experienced my personal awakening within the world. Jesus says this about the timing:

“We have perhaps appeared to contradict our statement that the revelation of the Father and the Son as one has been already set. But we have also said the mind determines when that time will be, and has determined it. And yet we urge you to bear witness to the Word of God to hasten the experience of truth, and speed its advent into every mind that recognizes truth’s effects on you.”

Did anyone find that helpful? Yeah, me either. Haha. Anyway, I think he is referring to the last step that is taken by God and not to our individual journeys.

The next several paragraphs in this lesson are so inspirational to me that I don’t know how to talk about them. I can’t say it any better than Jesus did. I think I know that God Is and all things are encompassed by God. This means, of course, that we are all encompassed by God right now, and it means that we are God, not as the ego human self we pretend to be, but we, in perfect union with each other and with God, are God.

This union of Father and Son is not part of what we are learning here. It isn’t about salvation, forgiveness, Christ’s Vision, or even awakening in the world. This final step is beyond any of that and it is beyond any experience we try to hasten. But, our awakening within this world through true forgiveness, this is something we evidently can hasten. At least, we can help each other awaken and we can relieve suffering while still in the dream state as we practice forgiveness.

Now, here is something interesting.
“All learning was already in His Mind, accomplished and complete. He recognized all that time holds, and gave it to all minds that each one might determine, from a point where time was ended, when it is released to revelation and eternity. We have repeated several times before that you but make a journey that is done.
For oneness must be here. Whatever time the mind has set for revelation is entirely irrelevant to what must be a constant state, forever as it always was; forever to remain as it is now. We merely take the part assigned long since, and fully recognized as perfectly fulfilled by Him Who wrote salvation’s script in His Creator’s Name, and in the Name of His Creator’s Son.”

Jesus says that we can’t really understand this and so there is no sense in talking about it further. All that it says to me is that nothing has really happened and that I am perfectly safe regardless of how I seem to suffer. I already accept that is script and all other scripts I have lived and may yet live are ancient history even though I seem to be living them now. It helps me to know this.

When I have done something I regret and start to feel guilty for it, what I understand is that I am simply playing out a script and that script was written by us and that I am experiencing this because I want to do so. I volunteered for this experience. What this does for me is to take me above the battleground so that I can be aware of the lesson it holds for me rather than getting lost in the experience itself. This hastened my awakening within the world. I wanted this because it will ends my suffering while I remain and because it is preparing the Sonship for the grace of revelation.

Now Jesus is telling us something that is perfectly understandable and is relevant right now. He says,
“Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done. It does not matter. For your part is still what all the rest depends on. As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God.”

I get very emotional when I read things like that. I have a part to play and my part is essential and especially that last phrase that tells me my role is going to bring salvation nearer to each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God. That brings tears to my eyes and touches me deeply.

As has been true for me now for many years, I play my part by forgiving the world I see. And now I ask for the final gift, grace. Grace provides an experience that is between Heaven and time. This sentence was helpful to me: “What is the face of Christ but his who went a moment into timelessness, and brought a clear reflection of the unity he felt an instant back to bless the world?” Alisha did that for me. So did Regina and Cate. Others have as well. I am eternally grateful to them because they showed me it could be done. If each person who awakened left the world at that point, who would witness to the truth for us who have not yet joined them?

Regina’s Tips
This is the part of Regina’s tips that I found especially helpful.

“Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done.”

What is our part? Preparing ourselves to accept awakening. Let that be our only concern. It is the ego that becomes over-concerned with finding ways to be helpful. Helpfulness occurs naturally as we prepare ourselves for awakening.

So then, our part is this:
~ self-inquiry, which is inquiring into the ego thought system in order to see its ideas are not true and in order to see we are not the false-self, which is made through identification with thought.
~ Self-inquiry, which is glimpsing awareness many times throughout the day & spending more concentrated time in awareness-watching-awareness meditation
~ surrender, which is discerning between intuition and ego, and then following intuition instead of ego.

Manual for Teachers
WHO ARE GOD’S TEACHERS? P2
2. They come from all over the world. They come from all religions and from no religion. They are the ones who have answered. The Call is universal. It goes on all the time everywhere. It calls for teachers to speak for It and redeem the world. Many hear It, but few will answer. Yet it is all a matter of time. Everyone will answer in the end, but the end can be a long, long way off. It is because of this that the plan of the teachers was established. Their function is to save time. Each one begins as a single light, but with the Call at its center it is a light that cannot be limited. And each one saves a thousand years of time as the world judges it. To the Call Itself time has no meaning.

There is a universal Call for the teachers of God. That means it goes out to all, not just to ACIM students. Everyone gets this call, but not many choose to answer at this time, though all will eventually answer. In the meantime, within the illusion (where we think we are), time drags on and with it, suffering. So, in order to speed things along and avoid some of this pain, we are given a plan for the teachers. Jesus is pretty clear about time saved. He says that each of us will save a thousand years.

I personally became tired of the world as I saw it. This is obviously true, or I would not have accepted the call. I became tired of conflict, tired of drama, and tired of suffering. I became very tired of the instability we experience in time. There is no permanence, nothing to depend on. No matter how happy I might be in any moment, there is the sure knowledge that soon, I will be unhappy. There is another way to experience the world and I became determined to find it.

This plan of Atonement is one of the things that makes A Course in Miracles different from other paths. It is designed as a time saver. A single light in a mind and a teacher of God begins her service to the Sonship. And because that light cannot be limited, that teacher extends the light to others and each of them extends the light to more of us and it goes on and on with many more being awakened. This is how we will make our way back to paradise, to the real world and then to God.

Text
T-15.X. the Time of Rebirth, P 7
7 How fearful, then, has God become to you, and how great a sacrifice do you believe His Love demands! For total love would demand total sacrifice. And so the ego seems to demand less of you than God, and of the two is judged as the lesser of two evils, one to be feared a little, perhaps, but the other to be destroyed. For you see love as destructive, and your only question is who is to be destroyed, you or another? You seek to answer this question in your special relationships, in which you seem to be both destroyer and destroyed in part, but able to be neither completely. And this you think saves you from God, Whose total Love would completely destroy you.

Journal
I see how true it is that through the perspective of the special relationship, love seems to ask for sacrifice. Even in the relationship with my children, I could see the demand for sacrifice from both parties. Sometimes my children ask me to sacrifice my time and my effort on their behalf, and do so in the expectation that because I love them, I will gladly give what they want. I see that I ask for their sacrifice as well. I expect them to give me their concern, their respect, and to do for me what I can’t do for myself.

So, is it any surprise that we would think of God in terms of sacrifice since God is Love Itself, and how frightening this makes Him. When reading about the higher stages of awakening, we are told that ultimately we give up our very self and if one still values the self, this seems like the greatest sacrifice of all. Rather than thinking of it as a loss of self, I prefer to think of it as gaining God.

In reading The Path to No-Self by Bernadette Roberts she has this to say about her experience.

“The major change affected in this Night (Passive Night of the Spirit) is that our initial, deepest sense of being is replaced by the indescribable sense of God’s being, so that God and self are indistinguishable in our singular sense of being. We might describe this change as a movement from the I-thou consciousness to ta simple and singular We consciousness.”

This is the experience of a no-ego is quite amazing and wonderful, but it is not the end. Bernadette goes further and reaches the next state which is no-self. In giving up the self altogether, she says that before there was an I that saw with God, saw God; now “…wherein God is no longer known relative to the self, but instead is known as He is in Himself – known as He knows Himself.” Or put another way, “the Eye seeing Itself.” Can you imagine? Me either.

So, I use the information that Bernadette so generously shares with us to calm the disquiet the ego instills at the idea of its demise. Then I go back to doing what it is that I am to do right now, learning to live life from a place of love rather than fear. Those incredible heights that Bernadette Roberts reached were not her doing. These are steps that God takes on our behalf and we can be assured that when it happens we will be ready for it.

What I understand now in this place on the path where I find myself, is that I have nothing to fear from God. He is not the insane expression of ego-love that has left me wary and cautious. He is not going to ever ask me to sacrifice anything real. What I give up is nothing disguised as something.

That nothing is what I used to think of as my self. And, I still do but not as much as I used to. I no longer guard this self against God in the same way that I did in the past. And where I see myself doing so, I am willing and ready to accept the Atonement and release my hold on ego-self, and even on my higher Self when the time comes.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.