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Study of Text, Chapter 12: !. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 8. 1-1-16

I. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 8
8 By applying the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the reactions of others more and more consistently, you will gain an increasing awareness that His criteria are equally applicable to you. For to recognize fear is not enough to escape from it, although the recognition is necessary to demonstrate the need for escape. The Holy Spirit must still translate the fear into truth. If you were left with the fear, once you had recognized it, you would have taken a step away from reality, not towards it. Yet we have repeatedly emphasized the need to recognize fear and face it without disguise as a crucial step in the undoing of the ego. Consider how well the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the motives of others will serve you then. Having taught you to accept only loving thoughts in others and to regard everything else as an appeal for help, He has taught you that fear itself is an appeal for help. This is what recognizing fear really means. If you do not protect it, He will reinterpret it. That is the ultimate value in learning to perceive attack as a call for love. We have already learned that fear and attack are inevitably associated. If only attack produces fear, and if you see attack as the call for help that it is, the unreality of fear must dawn on you. For fear is a call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied.

Journal
This is the perfect paragraph for me today. Something has been coming up for me to look at and now is the day I want to do so. Here is what has been going on.

For as long as I can remember, I suffered from depression. I am 66 years old now, and for a period of time from my teens until I began studying the Course I had moments of depression so intense that I was suicidal. There were days when I could only crawl into bed and pull the covers over me until these feelings began to pass. These bouts of intense depression seemed to just occur without reason. Anyone who has suffered depression probably recognizes these symptoms.

It was frightening because I had no warning. They would just come on. Even after I began to study the Course, I still got depressed a lot, just not so intensely, and I was no longer suicidal. However, I would still wake up in the morning and lay there waiting to see how I would feel. Would this be a good day? Or would it be day of sadness?

Eventually, though, through the practice of the Course, I began to understand that somehow and as a reaction to unconscious guilt, I was doing this to myself. Somewhere along the line I accepted enough healing that it all changed for me. I remember the moment I noticed, exactly where I was. I had just woken up and was laying in bed when I realized that I couldn’t remember when those old feelings last occurred. I couldn’t remember when I last wondered if today would be a day of depression.

Nothing like that has ever happened since. I do still have moments of depression, of feeling sad, of feeling doubtful and uncertain. Sometimes it is upsetting because of the meaning I give it. The difference is that I never stay there. I know that it is ego wanting to go back to those emotional responses to life, and I know I am not the ego and so I don’t have to do that.

I have even heard the ego say that death was the only option left, but I heard it. I heard it as if I was a third person watching and listening. I stood amazed at the lengths the ego mind will go to preserve itself. It tries that tactic from time to time and if I am really down, I feel the emotion of it, but I am never attracted to it. It is really a strange place to be when you have enough detachment to recognize that the thoughts in your mind are not yours, really, and can be meaningless if you don’t attach to them.

Which brings me to what has been going on lately. I began to notice that I will be doing very well during the day, watching my thoughts, accepting the Atonement, being peaceful and happy more than being attracted to the ego. But by the end of the day I would often times lose that detachment and start identifying with the ego reactions. I still had enough detachment to know what was going on and so it wasn’t awful the way depression used to be. I finally decided that enough was enough.

“For to recognize fear is not enough to escape from it, although the recognition is necessary to demonstrate the need for escape.”

I began to ask Holy Spirit for help with these emotional reactions. I asked that my mind be healed. It has been kind of rocky. I do well and then I fall back into the old way of thinking, and then start over. This is not an unfamiliar pattern for me, but it has gone on for longer than is normal. I seem to have become really attached to this ego personality trait of Myron’s, this desire to feel sad and sorry for herself.

When I read this morning’s paragraph, something clicked. I have chosen to see my brother asking for help more than I see him attacking me. I have done this over and over for a long time now. I have had a couple of circumstances that seemed very hard, but I was persistent in my practice and even those have fallen away. I traded resentment and defensiveness for love. As a result, I see that I have learned to see my own errors as a call for love, and nothing else. I am not guilty, and because I am not guilty, I have nothing to fear.

This morning I woke up feeling down. There is no reason for this feeling, at least no reason the ego could point to, and I started to push it away and get on with day, but as I read today’s paragraph I felt strongly that this would be helpful in ending the ego feelings of sadness and depression. I am only asking for love, and through giving love instead of punishment, instead of blame and guilt, I know that this is what I can do for myself, too.

“Yet we have repeatedly emphasized the need to recognize fear and face it without disguise as a crucial step in the undoing of the ego.”

Sometimes I write my way through these problems, but today, Spirit sent me away from my computer and into my sanctuary. I sat in my chair and waited. What came were tears, then wracking sobs. It was the recognition that I believed the ego reaction of depression meant something about me. It was also the release of that belief. It was just a call for love.

“Having taught you to accept only loving thoughts in others and to regard everything else as an appeal for help, He has taught you that fear itself is an appeal for help. This is what recognizing fear really means. If you do not protect it, He will reinterpret it.”

I suddenly felt panicky because I couldn’t think what to do about this, how to think about it. I called out for help, and was reminded that it is not my job to heal myself, only to want healing. What a relief it was to remember that! Then what I heard in my mind is that I cannot keep depression if I want to wake up. I must give up the story of “Myron is depressed” if I want to remember who I am.

“If only attack produces fear, and if you see attack as the call for help that it is, the unreality of fear must dawn on you. For fear is a call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied.”

This is a choice I make, just like peace is a choice I make. There can be no compromise in this. I either decide to retain my sense of identity as a depressed person or I let it go. I choose to know myself or I choose to remain stuck in the dream of Myron. I had fallen for the old ego trick of thinking that because I had let go of part of the idea, that I had done everything. In holding onto even a little depression, I was still attacking myself and this morning, I remembered that fear is a call for love. It is a call to remember I am the love I had been denying, but to know that love there can be no compromise where I am love and something else.

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

Study of Text, Chapter 12: !. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 7. 12-31-15

I. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 7

7 Your interpretations of your brother’s needs are your interpretation of yours. By giving help you are asking for it, and if you perceive but one need in yourself you will be healed. For you will recognize God’s Answer as you want It to be, and if you want It in truth, It will be truly yours. Every appeal you answer in the Name of Christ brings the remembrance of your Father closer to your awareness. For the sake of your need, then, hear every call for help as what it is, so God can answer you.

Journal
“Your interpretations of your brother’s needs are your interpretation of yours.” One of the things I have noticed is that when someone tells me about their problem, what I hear is my own problem, and if I answer them, I tend to speak of what I think I need. For instance, When someone talks to me about a relationship problem with their child, my mind automatically references my problem relationship with a child of mine. As they speak, that reference is refined to a specific child of mine, and a specific problem. So if I answer this person based on my ego judgments, I will give him and myself an ego answer, thus being no help at all.

However, if I go immediately to the Holy Spirit to ask what He would have me say, I answer both my student and myself with a true answer. Even if this is a case where my input is not needed by the other person, my heart answers the call for help and so I answer my own heart’s call for help.

How this works out depends on what it is I really want. What is my goal in that moment? Am I interested in defending my false gods, or am I interested in remembering God? I will get what I ask for, so I practice choosing God in every circumstance. When I notice that I failed to do so, I forgive it and move on to the next opportunity. Simply being aware of the voice I choose to hear is very helpful. My willingness to be aware is a step forward.

Not every question sounds like a question. Sometimes a call for help feels like an attack. Sometimes it feels like the other person is schooling me. Sometimes it feels like the other person is running away from the answer. Often times it feels like guilt and fear. But, What I am learning through my practice is that everyone’s deepest heart desire is to know God. So I can always hear that call and I can always answer that call, and in the answering, I receive the answer I long for. This is worth my practice, my time and my effort.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 12: !. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 6. 12-29-15

I. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 6

6 Only appreciation is an appropriate response to your brother. Gratitude is due him for both his loving thoughts and his appeals for help, for both are capable of bringing love into your awareness if you perceive them truly. And all your sense of strain comes from your attempts not to do just this. How simple, then, is God’s plan for salvation. There is but one response to reality, for reality evokes no conflict at all. There is but one Teacher of reality, Who understands what it is. He does not change His Mind about reality because reality does not change. Although your interpretations of reality are meaningless in your divided state, His remain consistently true. He gives them to you because they are for you. Do not attempt to “help” a brother in your way, for you cannot help yourself. But hear his call for the Help of God, and you will recognize your own need for the Father.

Journal
This is so simple that I am amazed at how long it took me to see the simplicity of it. I don’t understand anything and I don’t know what anything is for. I have no way to judge so I should not judge. My brother is always loving me or calling for love, and if I think something else is happening it is because I have asked the ego for an interpretation, and the ego is the part of me that doesn’t know anything.

I am confused because I listen to two diametrically opposed voices and try to believe both of them. But I can change this. I can learn to listen to only the Voice for God. Even in this world I can do that. As I listen to the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of my brother’s words and actions, I learn that he only wants love however he may be confused about that. I give him the love he asks for by remembering who he is. At the same time, the memory of who I am becomes stronger in my mind. Perfect.

The Holy Spirit’s interpretation is always the same because reality is always the same. The ego mind sees fear and guilt, attack and defense, pain and suffering. The Holy Spirit sees only the Son of God, perfect, free, joyful and peaceful. He sees only innocence regardless of what seems to be happening in the illusion. He sees the truth because He looks right through the illusion to the only thing that is real. I cannot do this with the ego mind. This is why I must learn to listen only to the Voice for God.

After Jesus helped me to use yesterday’s paragraph to work out my confusion with a particular situation, I was freed from my distorted vision of this brother of mine. I saw him as he is, not as his story. This freed me of my confusion about my own story and left me feeling peaceful and happy. I no longer had a need to change anything, and my mind was clear.

Later that day I had an occasion to talk to this person. We had a nice conversation that led effortlessly into talking about his troubled relationship. The words that needed to be said came easily and were well accepted, because I was no longer trying to help him in my way. In fact, I was now so clear that my way was insane that it would never have occurred to me to do that. I didn’t plan this conversation, or even know I was going to have it. I just allowed the words to come when they did.

Will this be helpful to him? I’m sure it will because it came from a source outside my ego mind. Will I see a difference, will the relationship change in form? I don’t know and it is none of my business. I did the part I was to do. I saw that my mind needed to be healed and I accepted the Atonement for myself. That was my function.

Then with a clear mind, I was able to be a channel for healing. There is nothing left for me in this particular story. To judge it by appearances would be to fall into error again. To think I know what it means would be to listen to another voice. My part is over. I feel only appreciation for my brother and for this opportunity to choose salvation.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 12: !. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 5. 12-28-15

I. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 5

5 It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do not understand. No one with a personal investment is a reliable witness, for truth to him has become what he wants it to be. If you are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help as what it is, it is because you are unwilling to give help and to receive it. To fail to recognize a call for help is to refuse help. Would you maintain that you do not need it? Yet this is what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize a brother’s appeal, for only by answering his appeal can you be helped. Deny him your help and you will not recognize God’s Answer to you. The Holy Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation, but you do need His.

Journal
I love this paragraph! I am going to write about something in my life and use this paragraph to see differently. A couple I know very well are having marital problems. When I first witnessed an argument between them, I was certain I understood the problem. The man was drinking too heavily and was being an ass. There! That was simple to figure out.

“It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do not understand.”

Ok, maybe I could be wrong, here. I am judging the situation according to what I think I know using the ego mind to do the reasoning. My judgment is based on my past experiences, and really, just on my interpretation of those experiences. In truth, I don’t really understand anything. I don’t understand what anything is for so how can I make a true judgment, and without the true judgment, how can I give good advice.

“No one with a personal investment is a reliable witness, for truth to him has become what he wants it to be.”

So, I have these pasts experiences that came from living with alcoholics. I obviously still have resentment and anger about these experiences and the people involved; otherwise my judgment would not have been so quick and so harsh. As they say, I have a horse in this race. I have a personal investment because I want the truth to be that this guy is a jerk when he drinks and he should just stop. Clearly, I am not a reliable witness.

“If you are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help as what it is, it is because you are unwilling to give help and to receive it.”

My original judgment of this situation and the man involved had nothing to do with help. Sure, I could tell myself that I was helping her, or even that I was helping him. It would be a great help to him to understand his problem and get help for it before he destroyed the relationship. I mean I know this, right? And maybe he does need to do this.

What I did not see is that his behavior is a call for love. To perceive the call for help as what it is, I would have to forgive him for exposing my fear and dread around my own personal past hurts. I would have to see that I have failed to forgive and this unforgiveness would have to be looked at and resolved.

I would have to let some people off the hook, including him. In holding him to my judgment, I am failing to give the help he needs, and at the same time I am failing to receive the help I need. I need to forgive in order to know I am forgiven. I need to respond with love to know I am loved.

“To fail to recognize a call for help is to refuse help. Would you maintain that you do not need it?”

When this first happened, I did not see a call for help. I saw my past being superimposed on this situation. I saw a guilty person who needed to straighten up and do right. The thing is, I had to deliberately see this as a matter of guilt rather than a lack of love in order to refuse to help. If I had been willing to see the true purpose of the situation, I would have immediately chosen to respond to the call for love. Obviously, I was still treasuring my judgments and didn’t want to relinquish them.

“Would you maintain that you do not need it? Yet this is what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize a brother’s appeal, for only by answering his appeal can you be helped. Deny him your help and you will not recognize God’s Answer to you.”

I see that I do need God’s help, and I accept that it is only in giving help that I know I have been helped. It is the elegant solution to our only problem. We treat our brothers the way we would want to be treated and in so doing we begin to recognize that we are one mind, that we are one with our brothers. In other words, through giving what we would receive, we undo the separation idea in our mind.

This brother of mine, is deceived in his understanding of what he is. He needs my forgiveness, that is, he needs me to give him the love he thinks he lacks, so that he can remember his true self. In so doing, I experience my true self, the self that loves rather than judges. As I allow God’s Answer to my brother rather than the ego’s answer, I become aware of God’s Answer to me, and so I begin to remember who I am. The separation idea undone!

“The Holy Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation, but you do need His.”

Even while I lied to myself about my judgment of this man, and tried to convince myself that he was guilty and so deserved my judgment, I knew this could not be right. So I didn’t say what I felt, and for that I am grateful. While I was judging him and arguing for my judgment, I was, in essence, trying to convince the Holy Spirit of my interpretation. As it turns out, He doesn’t need my help. Big surprise there. Anyway, I see that I certainly needed His help, and my willingness to be helped eventually opened me to receive the help.

Am I supposed to do anything in this situation? If so, what? Well the first thing and most important thing I can do is to know that this man is perfect and whole and absolute joyful love, regardless of the story he is living. His reality has nothing to do with his behavior and this is what he needs me to know for him, while he is still confused about his identity. My absolute certainty in him will help him to see himself differently.

As I know it is true for him, I begin to accept that it is true for me. I am not guilty of judging him anymore than he was guilty of my judgment. As for anything I am to say or do, that is up to the Holy Spirit. I remain open and ready with a mind that is clear of ego judgment. If He needs me to do something in this situation, the Holy Spirit will channel through me what needs to be said.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 12: !. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 4. 12-24-15

I. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 4

4 There is nothing to prevent you from recognizing all calls for help as exactly what they are except your own imagined need to attack. It is only this that makes you willing to engage in endless “battles” with reality, in which you deny the reality of the need for healing by making it unreal. You would not do this except for your unwillingness to accept reality as it is, and which you therefore withhold from yourself.

Journal
When someone thinks they are attacking me, I don’t have to see it that way. Suppose I fail to do something at work and my boss reprimands me for that. I could see it as an attack, thinking that I have lost value in his view, that maybe I could get fired. I could imagine my image has value, and it has been threatened and I need to defend it. Or I can see he might be right and ask what I can do to correct the problem.

What determines my response to a perceived attack? It is never about what actually happened, nor is it about the other person. My response is always a reflection of my view of reality. In reality I cannot be attacked. I am Love and perfect and part of God. I am invulnerable. When I see myself as attacked and in need of defense, I have questioned reality and decided against it. I have convinced myself I am something I could never be, and that thing is vulnerable and weak, and so, in need of constant defense.

When I accept my reality, I lose my need to defend. I simply hear what is being said as love or a call for love, and, whichever it is, I answer with love. If my boss is unhappy with my performance, either he is giving me valuable information I can use to correct the problem, or he is projecting his fear onto me. Either way, I know what to do.

I had noticed a knee jerk reaction to any criticism my boss made of me and, often after I reacted, I would realize that there was absolutely no reason to defend myself. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me with this. I didn’t need to analyze it; I just turned the situation over and expected correction.

The other day, my boss stood by my door for a moment as I was typing out a letter. Then he said, “After all these years, you would think you could type a little faster.” Immediately I laughed and replied that the worst part is not only do I type slowly, but I type badly. This was a complete turnaround from the way I used to react to his comments. I didn’t change my behavior, just my mind. I chose to see love and that is what I saw. I am teaching myself to recognize reality.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 12: !. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 3. 12-23-15

I. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 3

3 There is but one interpretation of motivation that makes any sense. And because it is the Holy Spirit’s judgment it requires no effort at all on your part. Every loving thought is true. Everything else is an appeal for healing and help, regardless of the form it takes. Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a brother’s plea for help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to him, for this and only this is what he is asking for. Offer him anything else, and you are assuming the right to attack his reality by interpreting it as you see fit. Perhaps the danger of this to your own mind is not yet fully apparent. If you believe that an appeal for help is something else you will react to something else. Your response will therefore be inappropriate to reality as it is, but not to your perception of it.

Journal
This is one of my favorite paragraphs in the Text. I felt the truth in it from my first reading, though I did not understand or accept it to the degree that I do now. “Every loving thought is true. Everything else is an appeal for healing and help, regardless of the form it takes.” These are words to live by, and truly, I do try to live by them. I don’t always succeed at first, but I always get there eventually.

I want to see my brother as Christ. I want to recognize that his behavior is not a reflection of who he is, but only a reflection of the confusion in his mind. I want always to recognize that bad behavior is a call for love and that is all the meaning I want to give it. Like me, this brother of mine longs for love, but doesn’t really remember how to get it or even that this is his goal. To the degree I can remember my purpose, I can remember for him, and so offer him the miracle of healing.

“No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to him, for this and only this is what he is asking for.” No matter what his seeming offense, the request is for love and love is the only appropriate response. It helps to remember that there are only two emotions, love and fear. So when someone is rude or insulting, when they seem to betray, or act in hateful ways, they are only expressing the fear they feel, and they feel fear because they don’t know they are loved. Love is what they are asking for and so how could I offer them anything else?

If I react in defense of myself it is only because I have forgotten that I am loved, and my defense is a call for love. I don’t have to wait for someone to recognize it as such and give me the love I am calling for. I can accept the healing the Holy Spirit holds out to me and know myself as the Love I am. Today’s lesson says “Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed.” If I react to my brother’s error, I will be as confused as he. But, as I see my brother sinless, I will be healed.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 12: !. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 2. 12-22-15

I. The Judgment of the Holy Spirit, P 2

2 The analysis of ego motivation is very complicated, very obscuring, and never without your own ego involvement. The whole process represents a clear-cut attempt to demonstrate your own ability to understand what you perceive. This is shown by the fact that you react to your interpretations as if they were correct. You may then control your reactions behaviorally, but not emotionally. This would obviously be a split or an attack on the integrity of your mind, pitting one level within it against another.

Journal
I am very aware of this ego process. Here is an example. I have a conversation with someone at work and it becomes heated. I think about what happened and I try to figure out why I said what I did and why they responded in the way they did. The ego interprets the conversation from both sides, and I believe what I think about it.

I reason that I now understand the motivations and so I attempt to correct the situation by controlling my reactions. Because there was not healing of the mind, and because I was still using the ego to solve the problem as I saw it, I may be able to control my reactions behaviorally, but not emotionally.

Two problems I anticipate are that the emotions will bubble out at some point. Maybe not right away, but eventually. At least that has been my experience. Jesus talks about the second, very serious problem; I have split my mind, pitting one level against another. This is an attack on the integrity of my mind. On an unconscious level this must be creating extreme unease. On a conscious level I am conflicted because I am doing what I don’t really want to do.

My experience has been that being aware of this mental process, I can stop it by asking for the Holy Spirit’s interpretation instead of the ego’s interpretation. This is very simple and easy to do and can occur in an instant, right in the middle of whatever chaos my unhealed mind has created. I also notice that I am becoming intolerant of lack of peace, so I really want to know the truth.

My sincere desire for healing can turn the situation around instantly. Or I can forget that I must give up conflict for all time, and I can stubbornly insist that the ego has the answer I want. It is entirely up to me. I am learning that the whole process represents a clear-cut attempt to demonstrate my own ability to understand what I perceive, and this is a lost cause with suffering the inevitable outcome. The more vigilant I become for this kind of self-deception, the easier it is to make the better choice.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.