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Study of Text, Chapter 9, I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 9. 12-11-14

I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 9

9 Ultimately everyone must remember the Will of God, because ultimately everyone must recognize himself. This recognition is the recognition that his will and God’s are one. In the presence of truth, there are no unbelievers and no sacrifices. In the security of reality, fear is totally meaningless. To deny what is can only seem to be fearful. Fear cannot be real without a cause, and God is the only Cause. God is Love and you do want Him. This is your will. Ask for this and you will be answered, because you will be asking only for what belongs to you.

The title of this section is, The Acceptance of Reality, and the reality is that God’s Will and my will are the same. With this recognition, which must come for us all, the ego is undone and we will remember what we are. While we all fear this shift from the illusion to truth, until me don’t, the fear is unwarranted. “Fear cannot be real without a cause, and God is the only Cause.” There is no fear in reality.

In reality, we want love and God is Love. This is our will. This is the will we are learning to remember and to embrace. It is already ours and so this is a simple process of releasing the false will and accepting what we really want. Today I am going to add to my usual practices. I am going to add this mantra.

“God is Love and I want Him. This is my will.”

This prayer will be answered because I am asking for what belongs to me.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 8. 12-10-14

I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 8
8 No right mind can believe that its will is stronger than God’s. If, then, a mind believes that its will is different from His, it can only decide either that there is no God or that God’s Will is fearful. The former accounts for the atheist and the latter for the martyr, who believes that God demands sacrifices. Either of these insane decisions will induce panic, because the atheist believes he is alone, and the martyr believes that God is crucifying him. Yet no one really wants either abandonment or retaliation, even though many may seek both. Can you ask the Holy Spirit for “gifts” such as these, and actually expect to receive them? He cannot give you something you do not want. When you ask the Universal Giver for what you do not want, you are asking for what cannot be given because it was never created. It was never created, because it was never your will for you.

There are so many ways I ask for what I don’t want. I ask for what the ego wants, but I am not the ego. The ego always thinks the solution is in the story, in the world of time and space. It prays for more money, a better relationship, a healthier body. If I think I am an ego, if I am highly identified with the ego mind, I believe these things will give me what I want.

As my mind has healed and I have begun to identify more closely with the self that God created, I realize that these are simply symbols of what it is I truly want. I want to be happy and peaceful. The ego mind thinks that having these things will give me peace and joy. But, while I may achieve a different relationship, a healthier body or more money, it is all temporary and the satisfaction is temporary. When I ask for what is not real, I ask it of the giver of the unreal. All the ego has to offer are shifting forms.

What I have learned is that I really want peace that never ends, and joy that is unaffected by anything. I want to remember what I am and I want to return to full and open communication with God. This is true prayer and it has been answered. I am accepting that answer as quickly and fully as I am able. Within that answer all things needed are provided. If what I have asked for (and if it is in my life, I asked for it) does not bring me full joy, then it is not the will of God and so it is not my will. It is the ego separate will and I know that I can and want to choose again, this time asking from my true will.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 9, I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 7. 12-9-14

I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 7
7 You may insist that the Holy Spirit does not answer you, but it might be wiser to consider the kind of questioner you are. You do not ask only for what you want. This is because you are afraid you might receive it, and you would. That is why you persist in asking the teacher who could not possibly give you what you want. Of him you can never learn what it is, and this gives you the illusion of safety. Yet you cannot be safe from truth, but only in truth. Reality is the only safety. Your will is your salvation because it is the same as God’s. The separation is nothing more than the belief that it is different.

Two ideas came to my attention as I read this paragraph. First that I might believe that the Holy Spirit does not answer me, and second that the separation is the belief that my will is different than God’s Will. Looking at the first idea, that Holy Spirit sometimes does not answer, I remember that I used to be tortured by that belief. I would ask and ask and it would seem that I would ask in vain and this would frighten me.

If I ask for help from the Holy Spirit and I don’t receive it that would mean that I am wrong about everything. It would mean the Course is not true and I have put all my apples in that particular basket, so that would be very frightening, indeed. Eventually, I came to the same conclusion as is said here in this paragraph. It is never the Holy Spirit that fails to answer; it is my self that fails to question correctly.

Here is an example. If I feel anxious about not having enough time to get my spiritual work done before I have to go to work, I know that I have a belief in lack and in time as an absolute, so I ask that my mind be healed of that belief. That sounds like a perfect question of the Holy Spirit, and I should feel relief after asking and receiving. However, I have noticed that sometimes I ask for help with this problem and nothing changes. I remain anxious.

What has happened is that receiving an answer to this problem with time would mean turning my world upside. If time is not real and can be as elastic as I want because it is not real, then nothing is certain anymore. We may as well throw gravity out the window, too. My fear of change of this magnitude is greater than the fear I will have to choose between my spiritual commitment and my job.

Lack is such a cornerstone of my belief system that I cannot really imagine life without it.  In other words, I ask for the belief in lack to be gone, but I don’t really believe it can happen. I am reminded of the scene in Star Wars where Luke was attempting to levitate his space ship out of a bog. He said to Yoda, “All right, I’ll give it a try.” And Yoda said, “No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.” When Luke failed and Yoda did it easily, he said, “I don’t believe it.” And Yoda said, “That is why you fail.” I am like Luke. I know it can be done, but I just can’t believe I can do it.

In both cases the Holy Spirit is not failing in His answer to me, I am failing in my questioning. I am afraid to ask of the One Who would answer me surely, and so I am asking the ego mind. The ego mind tells me what it believes. Time is real and lack is a certainty. And so I am able to continue believing in my story of separation, pretending to myself that I tried. I know what Yoda would say about that! ~smile~

The way I have dealt with this is to chip away at the belief one circumstance at a time. I need time to finish writing my commentary, and I remember that Jesus said he would arrange time for me if I would let him and so I do. I finish the work, get it posted and still meet my customer on time, and I am amazed that I did all of that in less time than it was possible.

I am like Luke watching Yoda do the seemingly impossible. But each time it happens I lose some of the certainty about time being real, and a lot of the fear that maybe Jesus is right and time is something I made up. Now that this has happened over and over, the surprise is that I still believe in time. I still get anxious about it. Jeez, what is it going to take? The same thing happens with lack. I work with the circumstances one at a time until I have built my willingness to allow total healing.

And the second issue, that separation is no more than the belief that my will is different than God’s Will, rings so true for me now. I know it did not always feel right, and in fact, for awhile it felt threatening in a way I was unwilling to examine too closely. I just didn’t want to give up my separate will and so I couldn’t accept I shared God’s Will.

That is slowly reversing itself, though. I still have resistance but it is lessening by the day. I now have full willingness to face the old beliefs wherever they surface and to allow my mind to be healed. As this belief is undone the entire ego thought system is undone.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 9, I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 6. 12-8-14

I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 6
6 It is impossible to communicate in alien tongues. You and your Creator can communicate through creation, because that, and only that is Your joint Will. A divided mind cannot communicate, because it speaks for different things to the same mind. This loses the ability to communicate simply because confused communication does not mean anything. A message cannot be communicated unless it makes sense. How sensible can your messages be, when you ask for what you do not want? Yet as long as you are afraid of your will, that is precisely what you are asking for.

My Creator doesn’t speak English. He doesn’t speak words at all. We cannot communicate in that way. We communicate through creation only. I have to admit that I don’t know how I do this, but I know that I must, because in another place in the Course it says that we communicate directly with God. It must be heart to Heart. My truest desires and my truest love is received by God without the interference of inadequate words and concepts, and without the confusion I suffer when I try to communicate through my ego mind.

Do I ask for what I do not want? All the time. I have become more aware of this conflicted asking since I began practicing Lesson 325. It says that everything I see is a reflection of a process in my mind that begins with a desire, becomes an image in my mind, and is then projected outward where I can look at it, believe it and defend it.

So as I notice situations in my life that are upsetting in some way, I ask myself what it was that I desired. What I am discovering is that I desired something, made an image of it, and in my experience of that image I often suffer. For instance, I had some physical discomfort this weekend. I asked the Holy Spirit to show me the desire that caused this image to be made and I saw that I wanted to suffer physical pain.

All this healing of the mind is challenging the ego and physical pain has been effective in the past as a deterrent to the idea I am not a body. It is also a major distraction and keeps the mind focused on the story rather than the cause of the story. So I can see why I desired pain. There can be other reasons, too, but the issue right now is that I desire pain, and then when I get the pain, I don’t want it.

Like Jesus said, I ask for what I don’t want. I don’t want the pain I asked for because then I have an unpleasant experience, but mainly because it teaches me that I am something I am not. What I truly want is to remember what I am, and I am certainly not the frail sickly body I asked for. Noticing this process, becoming aware of and accepting that I did indeed choose to experience pain, is helping me to accept full responsibility for the world I made, and it is helping me to allow the mind to be healed.

I could have taken medicine this weekend, but fixing the image I made isn’t really fixing the problem. Neither is it helpful to try to think differently. The one who thinks she is a body in a real world is the one who wants the pain to go away by thinking different thoughts. She is an image I have made as well. What I did instead is to realize that the desire to be in pain is the point of healing and to ask the Holy Spirit to remove that from the mind, now, and forever.

These insane thoughts are making an insane world, and the way to correct this is to allow the Holy Spirit to heal the mind. When there are no more insane thoughts in the mind, all desire will come from the Love that we are and the images we make will be the real world, or the happy world that Jesus talks about. From that place, we will be lifted up by our Creator, and all else will disappear.

This weekend it looked like I just wanted to be pain free, but what I really wanted was a healed mind. I wasn’t just asking to feel better; I was asking to return the mind to its natural state, to be free of all conflict and to return my awareness to true creation, and to full communication with my Creator. 

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A Reflection of Ideas. Part 2

A Reflection of Ideas. Part 2

This is salvation’s keynote: What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one’s own. From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God. Lesson 325

First I understand how I make the world I see.

It is a reflection of a process in my mind.
It starts with a desire.
I make an image of that desire. I judge it valuable. I seek to find it.
I project it outward. I look upon it. I decide it is real and I guard it as my own.

I also see that, just as these insane thoughts make an insane world, forgiveness makes a gentle world. I can change the world I see when I change my thoughts. So I am continually creating the world I see.

Knowing this, I started using these ideas. The first thing I did was to begin looking at things differently. I would look at a lamp and the thought in my mind was that this thing is a lamp. I would change that to, “This is an image I have made that I call lamp.” I did this often during the day to help me shift my thinking about the things I see.

The next thing I did was to change the way I see circumstances in my life. The old way of viewing these circumstances went like this. I would have a headache and the ego mind would think of why my head hurts. I would think about the weather, what stress I am under, or if I had enough sleep. I would nervously wonder if this was the beginning of a migraine, and start thinking of possible triggers.

Now, when I noticed something like this, I would stop the process and shift my perspective. I would remember that this headache is an image I have made. It is not real and it did not begin in the world, but began in my mind, and remains in my mind with the rest of the world I have made. I would then ask to see the original desire that sourced the image of Myron with a headache. It is this desire that will point me to the belief that needs to be healed.

I saw the desire to prove the body is real. That desire was coupled with the desire to prove the body is stronger than the mind through making an image of Myron helpless against a migraine. I saw that sometimes the desire was to ground Myron in the illusion by making an image of her running around looking endlessly for solutions to the migraine problem. This, of course, led me to a deeper desire, which was to keep the illusion in place and the ego self strong in the mind.

In order for all of this to be effective as a believable story that keeps the mind engaged so as not to remember it is only a story, it must be consistent. It doesn’t have to make perfect sense, but it must be logical and coherent. So each time I make an image of a headache, I make that image something believable and something that makes sense to the story.

I make certain triggers, like not enough sleep makes the head hurt. I do this often, and soon, the idea that not enough sleep causes a headache is so fixed in the mind that it seems like an undeniable fact. Now it is harder than ever to refute. That I found a trigger for the headache reinforces that the headache is real and is something separate from my will, and that I must battle it with all my resources.

When, after every effort on my part, I still get headaches, I have proven to myself that I am victim to the body. I have convinced myself that I get headaches and there is nothing I can do about it. I am a frail and weak body and each headache brings to doubt the words I read in the Course that tell me I am God’s Holy Son.

But now that I understand the process, now that I understand why it is that this world I see represents my every wish, I am not fooled by my images. I ask to be shown the original desire, and the belief that desire represents. I have seen how this desire is keeping me in the dream, and is hurting me. I ask that my mind be healed.

Seeing it all so clearly has helped me to truly desire something else. Now that I see what I don’t want, I am asking the Holy Spirit to remove from my mind those beliefs and the desires that source the images I make. And I am learning to make images from the desire to awaken. I will share some other examples later, because I notice that in true ego fashion the mind wants to separate out and make this true for some things, but confuse other things and make it seem like there are exceptions. There aren’t.

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A Reflection of Ideas, Part 1

I am interrupting my study of Chapter 9 to share with you something that has occurred through my study.

For a long time now I have accepted that I am 100% responsible for my life, and then I realized I was 100% responsible for the world. I understand that if I am aware of something, it is there because I desire it to be there. I can find endless quotes from all the sections of the Course that tell me I do this to myself. For a long time, even though I knew it must be true, I was resistant to it because it made me feel guilty to think about it. As I began to let go of the belief that guilt is real I could see that responsibility did not imply guilt, and then I started receiving more clarity.

Lesson 152 has long been one of my favorite lessons, even when I was still resisting the idea. In part this is what it says:

1 No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is.

This is so very clear, and yet I still insisted that someone did it to me, or I am just a victim. I think one of the reasons I could not fully accept it even though I believed it must be true, is that I could not understand how this could be true. I couldn’t understand how I made it happen. There have always been circumstances over which I seemed to have no control. How could they be my responsibility?

Recently, I read Lesson 325 and everything changed for me.

LESSON 325
All things I think I see reflect ideas.
1 This is salvation’s keynote: What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one’s own. From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God.

Finally, I understand how I made the world I see.

I have read this lesson many times, but this time I was ready to accept the full meaning. Immediately, when I read the first phrase, “This is salvation’s keynote” I stopped. What? Did I read that right? How is it I never noticed that important statement. If you look up synonyms for key note you will find these words: important, crucial, major, essential, central. This lesson is evidently important, no, crucial to salvation.

What I read next explained to me how it is that I made this world and that I am continuing to make it every moment of every day. Everything starts with a thought in my mind, something I believe I want.

“What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want.”

So the first step to making the world I see is to have an idea of something that seems desirable to me. I might start with the idea that I want to win. I want to be the best at what I do. That means I want to overcome my brothers, to beat them, to prove I am better than them.

The next step is this:  “From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find.”

So I have an idea of what I want and now I make up an image of the thing I desire. Perhaps that image is something like this. The coworker sitting at the table with me disagrees with my assessment of a situation. I know I am right and I tell everyone at the table why I am right and he is wrong. I use all the facts at my disposal. He has to see my point as does everyone else and so my foe is vanquished. I win!

Now comes the next step: “These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one’s own.”

So now I have a clear image of something I desire and think is valuable. I now prove to myself that my desire to win is fulfilled as I project that image outward and it becomes a situation in the life of Myron. The body’s senses seem to prove that I win as I see and hear the confrontation through Myron. That whole episode with the coworker was an image I have made.

To assure myself that I have actually proven my worth through defeating my opponent, I make that image so real and so believable that it is hard to deny. Even knowing what I now know, I experience so much emotion and my image of the coworker is very reactive so that adds to the experience of it. The ego mind argues that I was right and he was wrong and if I didn’t make that clear, there would be consequences.

How could I not argue the point? I was clearly saving myself and the company from his ignorance. It all feels and looks so real, and I feel so justified in what I did. The ego declares me the winner, no, the hero who saved the day. I didn’t make this situation, the ego mind says, I just reacted to a situation that the coworker caused.

Once I have reached that third stage where I project the desired image, I can easily convince myself that I am only reacting to a situation in the world. I now believe that I have to do something about a very real situation in a real world. I have completely hidden from my mind that I made the situation and that it could not have occurred unless I desired that it do so. I have hidden from my awareness that I had a desire, made an image that expressed that desire, and then projected it outward where I could use it to experience my desire.

“From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned.”

The solution to this insane world is to realize that my wishes are insane. Since I read this lesson, I have used it to help me see differently. It is like a fog has lifted and suddenly everything is seen in sharp relief. Next time, I will write about how I am using this lesson and why it has changed everything.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 9, I. The Acceptance of the Atonement, P 5. 12-3-14

I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 5
5 I have emphasized many times that the Holy Spirit will never call upon you to sacrifice anything. But if you ask the sacrifice of reality of yourself, the Holy Spirit must remind you that this is not God’s Will because it is not yours. There is no difference between your will and God’s. If you did not have a split mind, you would recognize that willing is salvation because it is communication.

I’m going to consider the idea of willing is communication when I look at the next paragraph where Jesus says more about it. Right now my mind is focused on the idea of sacrifice and the idea of my will and God’s Will being the same.

I have always thought that God was asking me to sacrifice. This has been going on all my life. Sacrificing for God was strongly emphasized when I was a Catholic, not that I needed any encouragement to believe in sacrifice, but through Catholicism sacrifice became confused with love of God in my mind. In reality, sacrifice is related not to love of God, but to the fear of God.

Slowly, through the study of ACIM, I have learned that God does not want my sacrifice. The idea of sacrifice is a sticky mess in my mind though, and I still notice the belief cropping up so it is still there, though not as strongly believed as before, and denied as truth when I notice it. If God wanted my sacrifice, He would not be Love.

The belief that is hardest to release is the belief the Holy Spirit is asking me to sacrifice the world and my own self in order to be saved. The confusion occurs because, while He does encourage me to give up the world and the ego self, He is also teaching me that this is no sacrifice, and up until now I just wasn’t buying it. There was still this corner of my mind where insanity reigns, and I think it is better to rule the asylum than to be one with God. Well, it is still there but it is a shrinking space.

In this part of the mind, the ego insists that with just a little more time the world can be improved upon and I will finally get what I want. No matter that it has been saying this for eons, and no matter that it can’t articulate exactly what it is I want or how that task will be accomplished. The ego mind is insistent that giving up on the separation idea is loss.

As a concept, I have already given up on the separation idea, and now I am just looking at the many forms of the idea in my mind and life, and realizing that I don’t want it anymore. I am learning through contrast that it is no sacrifice to let it all go. I have been doing this a thought at a time, a situation at a time, a relationship at a time, but the lesson is being generalized and I am much closer to letting go of the idea that I am ever being asked to sacrifice. I am finally realizing that there is nothing here worth keeping so how could it be that letting it go would be a sacrifice.

Which brings me naturally to the next idea; God’s Will is my will. We share the same will, God and I. This separate ego will is a toy I have played with, not what I am. I am one with God and so I am one with His Will. That is the only will I have, and as I let go of the belief I am being asked to sacrifice my own will for God’s, I become more eager for the truth.

I have become less protective of the ego will, and more willing to accept my own true will. Now the idea of my will being overcome by God’s Will no longer frightens me because I realize that is not what is happening. I am, instead, simply returning to my own will, which is returning to God’s Will. I’m still allowing this to be untangled in my mind, but it will go faster now that I am no longer afraid of it.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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