Together, We Light the Way

Click link to go to:
Together We Light the Way Index

Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 8. 2-11-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 8

8 If you have no idea what is happening, how appropriately can you expect to react? You might ask yourself, regardless of how you may account for the reaction, whether its unpredictability places the ego in a sound position as your guide. Let me repeat that the ego’s qualifications as a guide are singularly unfortunate, and that it is a remarkably poor choice as a teacher of salvation. Anyone who elects a totally insane guide must be totally insane himself. Nor is it true that you do not realize the guide is insane. You realize it because I realize it, and you have judged it by the same standard I have.

Journal
I am convinced that the ego is a poor guide and I have learned to vigilant for the ego’s attempts to be the guide. I have learned to discern the difference between the ego’s guidance and the Holy Spirit’s guidance. I still hear the ego and I still follow ego sometimes, but I regret it when I do and I always change my mind. It came as a little surprise, however, when I read the last two sentences. I have always realized the ego was insane? I thought I just learned that. I guess I was hiding that from myself because I wanted to keep playing its game.

Actually, I guess the only reason I ever listen to ego even for a brief time is that I am being offered some bit of the game that still amuses me, or that still holds some value for me. Here is something I am noticing; the more I release the idea of guilt, the less interest I have in the ego thought system. What seems to follow naturally is that fear then begins to fall away. Let’s see, if I choose Holy Spirit as my guide, I will respond appropriately, teaching love and helping my brother to wake up, or at least certainly not holding him back.

If I choose Holy Spirit as my guide, I will live a happier life, free of regrets and disappointments. I will be peaceful and filled with joy regardless of what seems to be happening in the story. If I choose Holy Spirit as my guide, guilt will cease to attract me and fear will fall away. Or I can choose ego as my guide and keep the status quo. I can go on pretending to be master of my miserable little universe, making images that I pretend are creations, born of the twisted desires of an insane mind, and suffering the consequences, And all the while I can pretend I am the victim and this was done to me.

Hmm. Join God in unending blissful creation, or join ego in pain, suffering and death. Which one will I choose today?

© 2015, 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.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 7. 2-10-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 7
7 The confusion of functions is so typical of the ego that you should be quite familiar with it by now. The ego believes that all functions belong to it, even though it has no idea what they are. This is more than mere confusion. It is a particularly dangerous combination of grandiosity and confusion that makes the ego likely to attack anyone and anything for no reason at all. This is exactly what the ego does. It is unpredictable in its responses, because it has no idea of what it perceives.

Journal

Oh my goodness! Do I ever know this is true! The ego thinks its job is to forgive and all it winds up doing is hiding hate behind “kind” words, and creating feelings of resentment at the sacrifice made. It is no kind of forgiveness, really, and what winds up happening is that the anger buried behind the so-called forgiveness rears its ugly head again and catches me by surprise. I wind up saying something I regret, and the process starts all over. I would laugh at the foolishness of ego forgiveness, but sometimes the result is not very funny.

I usually catch this kind of thing quickly because I have learned to recognize the signs of when I have allowed the ego to take on a function that belongs to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes though, I fall prey to the ego desire to take all functions for itself. I think that when this happens it is because I don’t really want to forgive.

Recently I talked about having an ongoing forgiveness lesson with someone at work. The reason it was ongoing is because I continued to allow the ego to be in charge of the process. This will always fail because the ego doesn’t know anything about forgiveness. Looking at the situation through the ego I saw the other person as the other person. ~smile~ I couldn’t see our unity because the ego doesn’t accept unity as a possibility.

Seeing him as separate from me, I saw our interests as separate. From that point of view it became a matter of whose interests would be served, so there had to be a winner and a loser, and I sure didn’t want to be the loser. The ego then focused on how to win and still look spiritual. See how confused and hopeless is the ego version of forgiveness? Every time I let the ego be in charge of forgiveness with this person, I wound up with another grievance.

The way it played out is that I would say something I immediately regretted, and then would sit there wondering where those words came from. Then I would have to justify my failure to forgive and so I would think of all the ways he provoked me. I would then find myself talking to my boss about how hard it is to work with this man, hoping to get her on my team to help support my weak case for him being the cause of my unhappiness.

Immediately, I would feel regretful because the sane part of my mind would recognize what I was doing. I don’t want to teach hate. I don’t want to teach unforgiveness. I would then sit in my office and ask for help. I would ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind, and though I meant I wanted to be free of this conflict, I still didn’t want to let him off the hook. More evidence of ego arrogance and confusion. What kind of forgiveness is that?

I don’t know how many times I had to go back to my boss and try to undo the harm I had done. I would talk to her about my desire to let this go, and my desire to withdraw my projections and to accept responsibility for my own feelings.  If I could not show her perfect forgiveness, at least I could share my process as I moved in that direction.

Having asked for healing once again, and having done my penance by admitting my culpability, I would think it was finally done. Then it would happen again and I would realize that while I was truly regretful for my ego driven behavior, my apology was from my spiritual ego, not from a place of true forgiveness.

I don’t know exactly when I finally gave the function of healing to the Holy Spirit, but I know I did because the animosity is gone. I feel nothing but good will and kindness toward this man. I can’t even really remember the feeling of being at odds with him. I remember the circumstances and the facts of the story, but I can’t go there anymore. This is how the Holy Spirit functions.

Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit removes all offending thoughts from the mind and with the thoughts gone, the feelings of anger and resentment are gone as well, as if they had never existed. True forgiveness leaves me wondering what it was I thought I had to forgive. This is something the ego will never accomplish for me, because the ego doesn’t know what true forgiveness is, or how to achieve it.

© 2015, 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.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 6. 2-9-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 6
6 Follow the Holy Spirit’s teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness is His function and He knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what I meant when I said that miracles are natural, and when they do not occur something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow the Holy Spirit’s plan of salvation, recognizing that you do not understand what it is. His work is not your function, and unless you accept this you cannot learn what your function is.

Journal
When I think of living like this everything seems so simple. If I am experiencing anything except love, joy and peace then I am following the ego’s plan for salvation. Knowing this, I can choose again. I can choose to release the ego thoughts to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to do His work. He knows His function and will complete it if I don’t interfere, if I don’t try to do it myself.

The ego wants all functions for itself. This is what is happening when I think that I know what to do about a situation. When I got upset with a coworker, I knew that I wanted the situation resolved. I had thoughts about who was to blame. I had thoughts about letting my anger go even though the coworker was wrong, because being angry was not helping. I had thoughts of being guilty for my feelings, and then I would feel rage at the coworker.

The ego mind thinks this is helping. When I am looking at this from the ego mind, it seems like I must consider all angles of the situation, look closely at the story, deciding who is wrong and what I need to do about it to defend my position and protect myself. Sometimes I stumble over a useful idea and things seem to get better for awhile, but nothing is solved because the ego cannot heal. The best I can hope for is a temporary secession of conflict, knowing it will show up somewhere else, in some other form.

When I choose to release this to the Holy Spirit, the experience and the outcome is entirely different. I notice that I am angry and upset with my coworker. I realize that my thoughts about this situation are making me miserable and I show them to the Holy Spirit, asking Him to correct my thinking and heal my mind. He does this. Sometimes I stray back into the ego mind and pick up the problem again, but if I do, I just repeat the process with the Holy Spirit.

When I am looking at this situation with the Holy Spirit and handing it over to Him, it is all very simple and easy and the solution is permanent because a healing has occurred. All that I have to do is stay in my real mind and let Spirit complete His function. I have no part in that other than to not interfere.

I have noticed that not interfering is the only hard part for me. The ego mind wants to do the Holy Spirit’s job. It requires vigilance to be aware when I have strayed into a function that is not mine to fulfill. I remind myself that my job is to notice the ego thoughts, to realize I don’t want them and to release them to the Holy Spirit. Period. I am through. Now it is the Holy Spirit’s job to complete the forgiveness process.

What occurs when I do my part and stand back is a miracle. My mind is healed and from a healed mind, a healed world becomes manifest. If I follow this simple plan, doing only my part and allowing the Holy Spirit to do the rest, my life will be miraculous. The world’s laws will be meaningless as the miracle supersedes them. As I do this more and more, forgiveness becomes easier and more natural, and so does miraculous living.

© 2015, 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.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 5. 2-6-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 5
5 Forgiveness that is learned of me does not use fear to undo fear. Nor does it make real the unreal and then destroy it. Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus keeping it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your mind, or you will also believe that you must undo what you have made in order to be forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit the effects of error are nonexistent. By steadily and consistently cancelling out all its effects, everywhere and in all respects, He teaches that the ego does not exist and proves it.

Journal
This is so simple it is hard to believe that we make it hard. In essence, there is no guilt and so nothing to forgive. No matter what I think I see, and what I think I think, I am innocent and so is everything else. I am learning to look past the appearance of guilt and thus not see it at all. As I look past the appearance of guilt, I see only holiness reflected back to me.

The Holy Spirit teaches me true forgiveness as I ask Him to look with me at my assumed guilt. He sees no effects from my error and therefore there are none. If there are no effects there is no error and I am free. In this way he methodically teaches me the ego does not exist and proves it to me as He teaches me I am innocent. This applies equally, and in exactly the same way to everyone.

I was just minding my own business yesterday when I was assailed by a sudden vivid memory of something I did in the past for which I felt guilty. It was like it was happening all over again the guilt was so strong and fresh. The way the ego would have me deal with this is to recognize that I sinned and am guilty and then to forgive myself for this.

Or not. Because now that it is real in my mind, I cannot be free of it. No matter how much I tell myself that I am forgiven, I still remember doing this real thing. The ego suggests I make amends somehow, do something to make up for my evil deed. I can’t do enough good things to undo what is real for me. The belief in that sin remains in my mind no matter what I do to atone for it, because I believe in it.

After taking it to the ego and getting no relief, I take it to the Holy Spirit and ask for forgiveness. The Holy Spirit looks at me and sees only God’s holy Son in His perfect sinlessness. There is nothing to forgive. Everywhere He looks, He sees innocence. Where are the effects of sin now? Where is guilt now? Without guilt, where is the ego?

I don’t need to know how this is done. I know only that when I released to the Holy Spirit the guilt I felt for the remembered error, the guilt was no longer there. My mind was purged of the ego belief I had sinned. Sometimes when this happens the undoing is so complete, I can no longer remember the imagined sin.

The most remarkable of all, is that I am learning true forgiveness. I am learning to disregard appearances and see innocence where I used to see guilt. I fail to do this perfectly, but the shift is occurring. There are many times now when I am aware of ego behavior and it means nothing to me. I see right through it to the innocence beyond it. I don’t see anything to forgive.

© 2015, 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.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 4. 2-5-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 4
4 The ego, too, has a plan of forgiveness because you are asking for one, though not of the right teacher. The ego’s plan, of course, makes no sense and will not work. By following its plan you will merely place yourself in an impossible situation, to which the ego always leads you. The ego’s plan is to have you see error clearly first, and then overlook it. Yet how can you overlook what you have made real? By seeing it clearly, you have made it real and cannot overlook it. This is where the ego is forced to appeal to “mysteries,” insisting that you must accept the meaningless to save yourself. Many have tried to do this in my name, forgetting that my words make perfect sense because they come from God. They are as sensible now as they ever were, because they speak of ideas that are eternal.

Journal
Jesus said even in the Bible that we must not judge and must forgive. He said we must love each other and treat others as we would want to be treated. We found this to be too hard and so we did not take his words literally. We called it a mystery as to how this works, and we just kept on judging and hating and failing to forgive. That is why we are still living the dream of separation.

It is not hard to do what Jesus said, it is just necessary that we want to do it. Our error in forgiveness (and all other errors follow from this) is that we made the offense real and then tried to forgive it. This is the ego’s plan for forgiveness and of course never works. On the cross, Jesus did not say, “Forgive these terrible people for their sin.” He overlooked their actions knowing they were just confused. They were acting out of ego thinking and the whole thing was meaningless because the ego is meaningless, the illusion is meaningless.

Jesus knew there was nothing to forgive and this was forgiveness. I used to be confused about this. If there was no sin then why did he ask that they be forgiven? I think (that if he actually said this) that he was modeling forgiveness for us. He was showing us that no insult, regardless of its seeming severity, is to be taken as sin. Everything is to be forgiven. Now that we are ready, he is telling us that nothing actually happened to be forgiven and that is forgiveness.

In Lesson 36, we are told that there is no sin. Our mind is part of God’s Mind and we are very holy. There is no sin in God so there can be no sin in us. None. Ever. So what could there be to forgive? If there seems to be sinful action, it can only be an illusion, an ego story, meaningless because it is not real.

I would not find anyone guilty because I want to release the separation idea now. I am ready to wake up. I cannot wake up if I believe in sin and guilt. I awaken to reality and sin and guilt have no existence in reality. When I am aware of an ego behavior, I know it is not in alignment with the Love that we are, but I remind myself that the Love that we are cannot be affected by ego. We remain sinless. This is what Jesus has told us from the start. Don’t look at the action, judge it is sinful and then try to forgive it. Simply look at your brother and know he is holy.

© 2015, 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.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 3. 2-3-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 3
3 The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because you have forgotten how to do it. The Holy Spirit merely reminds you of the natural use of your abilities. By reinterpreting the ability to attack into the ability to share, He translates what you have made into what God created. If you would accomplish this through Him you cannot look on your abilities through the eyes of the ego, or you will judge them as it does. All their harmfulness lies in the ego’s judgment. All their helpfulness lies in the judgment of the Holy Spirit.

Journal
I was a little confused at first when I read this. But then I read it again and sentence three really clicked for me. “By reinterpreting the ability to attack into the ability to share, He translates what you have made into what God created.” Here is an example of this. At the sales meeting yesterday I discovered that something important had been overlooked by a member of the team. This could have serious repercussions for me and I immediately attacked him.

I stopped myself as quickly as I could, but still, I did attack. I said something like, “You can’t do that. This is important.” Just reading the words it doesn’t seem like much, but in my mind it was a full out attack. If I said what my ego mind was thinking, it would have been more like, “You are such an idiot! How could you do something so dumb? You are attacking me with your behavior and I’m going to return the attack. Then we will see how you feel.” Luckily, I do have a filter and I generally use it.

This is the ego use of my abilities. The ego uses everything as either an attack or a defense. The ego felt that his behavior was an attack on me and could affect my income. The ego response was to do something about this. It wanted to defend through making him do better, which is an attack on him. I recognized this and I was able to recover my senses and ask for healing before it got too far out of hand.

How is it that the Holy Spirit could use my abilities to share? In this same situation, once I allowed my mind to be corrected and I had returned to peace, I saw it as a situation to be resolved. I thought about it during the day and came up with some solutions. It was no longer about assigning blame and defending myself. Now I can honestly say that I love this person. I see him differently. I see with greater vision because I asked for vision. Instead of projecting blame and assigning guilt, I feel like I just want to extend love and understanding.

It’s funny that during the same meeting I discovered I had made a mistake that could negatively affect a member of the team. My first reaction was to defend and lash out (in my mind at least) doing what the ego always does, projecting the fault on others. I saw that desire right away and I knew that isn’t what I want. I looked at it again with Holy Spirit and felt led to make amends. I did this and the other person was gracious in accepting my apology, and even in insisting it was no big deal.

There is a world of difference in the ego’s judgment and the Holy Spirit’s judgment. I have learned to value the peace and joy that comes from judging through the Holy Spirit rather than judging through the ego. The ego judgments pop up in my mind, and to the degree that I believe them, I suffer. But the truth is in my mind as well, and even in the middle of an ego storm of resentment and rage, I know what I want. Eventually, and usually soon, I choose peace.

© 2015, 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.

Printable Page

Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 2. 2-2-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 2
2 You have a part to play in the Atonement, but the plan of the Atonement is beyond you. You do not understand how to overlook errors, or you would not make them. It would merely be further error to believe either that you do not make them, or that you can correct them without a Guide to correction. And if you do not follow this Guide, your errors will not be corrected. The plan is not yours because of your limited ideas about what you are. This sense of limitation is where all errors arise. The way to undo them, therefore, is not of you but for you.

I don’t see the real world; I see only the images I have made based on my beliefs. But I can see the real world, and I will see that world as my beliefs are corrected. This is the purpose of the Atonement, to guide me out of my errors and their effects. It is important for me to first acknowledge the error, and to desire to be free of it, and then to realize that what I have made cannot be undone by me alone.

This is my only way to freedom. Right now I am trapped in an illusory world of my own making, but that is temporary. I have been given the plan for escape. The Atonement is that plan. The thought occurred to me that a being with the power to make this world in all its complexity could surely figure out how to stop making it.

But the whole point of the dream world is to give us a place to experience ourselves as mortal. This world we made is where we discover what it would be like to be limited. From the belief in limitation it was impossible to believe we could be unlimited. That is why we needed a plan to extricate ourselves.

Thus we have a guide, and a plan for us but not of us, a plan made and operated outside of the belief in limitation. This plan will allow us to undo what we have done. It is so simple as to be overlooked. It really has only three simple components. We notice that what we are thinking is imprisoning us in this illusion. We decide that we are ready for the dream to end. We ask our Guide to undo what we have done.

That is all. It is simple and easy. It seems hard because our desire to awaken is not unopposed. There is still a part of the mind that values the story and is afraid to let it go. There is also a part of the mind that is afraid of change. What would it mean, how would it look? Are we in trouble for trying to change reality?

As we begin this process of awakening, the sleeping mind is reluctant to let go of its false sense of power to accept true power. In this upside down world, releasing our confused thoughts can feel like giving up, like losing. So we hesitate and try again to do it ourselves. It feels hopeless as once again we fail.

Our Guide takes all of this into account, our reticence, our doubts and uncertainties. He works with each of us individually, gently guiding us toward freedom, moving only as fast as we are willing to go, never coercing or forcing. Not that anything could force the Son of God, but even the appearance or sense of being forced is avoided.

In releasing our beliefs that we are separate and our beliefs that we are limited, our memory is going to return and reality will dawn on our minds. But we must not think that we can do this on our own. We have deliberately chosen to believe in limitation. It is this belief in limitation that limits our ability to undo what we have done.

We are not helpless, however. The Atonement Plan is in place, which uses the power of our desire to awaken us. In small simple steps, our Guide is reminding us of our power. All we have to do is follow His directions, and soon we will remember our desire to be what we are. Then it is done.

© 2015, 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.

Printable Page

Page 137 of 271 pages ‹ First  < 135 136 137 138 139 >  Last ›

<< Back to main page of Together, We Light the Way