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Study of Text, C 15: VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 2. 3-14-18

VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 2
2 The ego establishes relationships only to get something. And it would keep the giver bound to itself through guilt. It is impossible for the ego to enter into any relationship without anger, for the ego believes that anger makes friends. This is not its statement, but it is its purpose. For the ego really believes that it can get and keep by making guilty. This is its one attraction; an attraction so weak that it would have no hold at all, except that no one recognizes it. For the ego always seems to attract through love, and has no attraction at all to anyone who perceives that it attracts through guilt.

Journal
Why do couples come together? What do they expect to get out of the relationship? Perhaps we feel lonely and hope a relationship will relieve that feeling.  Maybe we feel vulnerable and think a relationship will make us feel stronger or safer. Perhaps we want children and someone to share that with.

There might be a feeling of emptiness in us and we think a relationship will fill that hole in our hearts. It is possible that we feel a strong attraction to someone and this attraction feels like love, as we understand it. And maybe we think this feeling of love comes from the other person and so we think we need that special person in order to feel love.

Whatever the reason for the relationship, if it doesn’t come from a desire to share and to join as one without the need to get something from the other, then it is going to create guilt in the mind. And guilt causes fear, and fear often takes the form of anger. What generally happens is that the couple begins to use guilt and fear to keep the relationship intact.

I know that nearly everyone has used guilt or had guilt used on them in a relationship as a means to control. I know that I used to do this, but I don’t think I do that anymore, at least not outwardly. I still notice the tendency in my mind, though. There will be some form of the thought that the other person should do something for me, that is, act a certain way, say certain things, visit or call, maybe agree with me or take my side.

These are all ways of using guilt to control the nature of the relationship. I have avoided saying these things out loud and I catch them quickly when they show up in my mind and ask for another way to see the situation, but this tendency to use people and to make them special, and to use guilt to control the relationship, is a stubborn idea and keeps showing up.

As I learn that love does not seek to get anything from a relationship, I begin to experience my relationships differently, and there is not such a strong pull toward guilt. The tie to guilt is weaker and breaks more easily. I also see that the relationship is not so fragile and is more loving, and more fulfilling.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Manual for Teachers: 7. SHOULD HEALING BE REPEATED? P 6. 3-13-18

7. SHOULD HEALING BE REPEATED? P 6
6 The mistake is always some form of concern with the self to the exclusion of the patient. It is a failure to recognize him as part of the Self, and thus represents a confusion in identity. Conflict about what you are has entered your mind, and you have become deceived about yourself. And you are deceived about yourself because you have denied the Source of your creation. If you are offering only healing, you cannot doubt. Doubt is the result of conflicting wishes. Be sure of what you want, and doubt becomes impossible.

Journal
Let me not get in the way of God’s work through me.

Healing is a simple thing. I need only allow the power of God to work through me. It becomes complicated or confused only when the ego mind is allowed to intrude on the healing. Then the mind begins to question; can this be healed, should it be healed? Have you ever had the thought that maybe it was the person’s classroom and maybe you should not interfere? The healer has become confused about his own identity. Conflict has entered the mind.

I was asked to pray for someone this morning. The ego mind jumped right in with questions about the problem and I saw my mind become confused about how to pray in this situation. So I stopped thinking. I let my mind go still and right away, I knew how to pray. I knew that this person was healed and whole and nothing else about her was true.

I knew she was energetic and in love with life, that she felt loving and joyful simply because that is her true nature. These things are true about her because of who she is and I cannot imagine anything else being true. My mind is clear about this and so my prayer is powerful as is the mind that holds it as true. I know what is true and so doubt is impossible and healing is certain.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, C 15: VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 1. 3-9-18

VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 1
1 Beyond the poor attraction of the special love relationship, and always obscured by it, is the powerful attraction of the Father for His Son. There is no other love that can satisfy you, because there is no other love. This is the only love that is fully given and fully returned. Being complete, it asks nothing. Being wholly pure, everyone joined in it has everything. This is not the basis for any relationship in which the ego enters. For every relationship on which the ego embarks is special.

Journal

The hardest thing for most people to accept is that we don’t know what love is. We think we do. We think we love our spouses and parents and children. And of course, there is love in those relationships, but it is not pure, unconditional love. It is not fully given and fully returned. It is not untainted by the special needs we think we have.

There is such a thing as love and that is the love we share with our Creator. It is powerful, pure and completely satisfying. Unfortunately, while here in time we can only take Jesus’ word on this. There is no memory of it. We deliberately blocked that memory so that we could have this experience.

We keep the memory of God’s love blocked now because if we remembered His love, we rush back into Him. Jesus says in the Course that we have become afraid to return to God, afraid of retribution. In the ego mind from which most of us make decisions, we defend and attack, and so we imagine that God does the same thing. Of course, Love cannot attack and has no need to defend, but we no longer understand love so here we are in this crazy cycle with no apparent way out.

Jesus overcame this confusion, found the way out of our self-imposed prison of ego thinking and makes that escape available to us. Because he did it, it was done for the entire mind. We are saved. Now we only need to accept that this is true. Like frightened children we hide from our salvation, mistaking it for danger. We pretend that we don’t need help and we can do it for ourselves.

So we form relationships in which we bargain for love. It makes me want to cry to think about it. I have done this so many times and every time it has failed and continues to fail over and over again. There is a light for me at the end of this long, long tunnel. I am learning the difference between love and need.

I am learning that I deserve love and am worthy of it. I am learning that I can actually love others, really love them as I let go of using them to get what I already have, that is, love. When I stop using my relationships to get, they become relationships of sharing what we both already have. Then they are closer to what love truly is, not exactly the same, but a clearer reflection of love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Manual for Teachers: 7. SHOULD HEALING BE REPEATED? P 5. 3-7-18

7. SHOULD HEALING BE REPEATED? P 5
5 The real basis for doubt about the outcome of any problem that has been given to God’s Teacher for resolution is always self-doubt. And that necessarily implies that trust has been placed in an illusory self, for only such a self can be doubted. This illusion can take many forms. Perhaps there is a fear of weakness and vulnerability. Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy. Perhaps there is a guilty embarrassment stemming from false humility. The form of the mistake is not important. What is important is only the recognition of a mistake as a mistake.

Journal

Now Jesus explains the basis for doubt and he tells us it is self-doubt. Of course, he is talking about the ego-self since your true-self has no doubt. I can see why I sometimes doubt if I am using my ego mind to affect healing. The ego has no interest in healing and no ability to heal. The only thing it can offer is fear and doubt, and as a relief, distractions, such as magic potions to temporarily relieve the effects of the magical problem.

Jesus talks about the different ways doubt will manifest such as a sense of inadequacy or fear of failure. I have experienced both of these. There are other forms doubt takes, but as Jesus says, the form doesn’t matter. The only thing that does matter is that we recognize it is just a mistake. As it happens, I have an issue right now.

I got sick the other day with viral bronchitis. I looked at my mind and I saw the thoughts that caused this manifestation and I have changed my mind about them. I have remembered that the peace of God is everything I want and that I have no use for sickness. I also asked my friend and healer to pray with me about this.

I saw that I was noticing the symptoms and was tempted to doubt, but I also know the truth and I know I cannot trust the body’s senses to tell me the truth. So I am disregarding the body and placing my trust in what Jesus tells us. I have asked that my mind be healed of the beliefs that source sickness and I have brought my doubt to the light to be undone. I am in expectation of a speedy recovery.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text: C 15, VI. The Holy Instant and the Laws of God, P 8. 3-6-18

VI. The Holy Instant and the Laws of God, P 8
8 In the holy instant God is remembered, and the language of communication with all your brothers is remembered with Him. For communication is remembered together, as is truth. There is no exclusion in the holy instant because the past is gone, and with it goes the whole basis for exclusion. Without its source exclusion vanishes. And this permits your Source, and that of all your brothers, to replace it in your awareness. God and the power of God will take Their rightful place in you, and you will experience the full communication of ideas with ideas. Through your ability to do this you will learn what you must be, for you will begin to understand what your Creator is, and what His creation is along with Him.

Journal

Jesus talks about the holy instant in two ways. In some instances, he refers to moments of clarity, of healing, of making another choice. In this instance, he is talking about the culmination of all those instances that bring us to the real world in which we remember God and remember who we are as one. He says that in this holy instant we will remember the language of communication with all our brothers. I wonder what it will be like to communicate without words getting in the way.

Another thing that will happen is that exclusion will no longer exist. As the Course says, love excludes no one. This is another way to express separation, I think. In separation, we exclude some brothers from our love. We do this deliberately and in carelessness. I would say that we do it all the time, dividing humanity into levels of feeling and concern.

We have a small group of people we love, family mostly, and maybe a few friends. We have more people we call friends and acquaintances whose well-being seems to impact us in some lesser way. Then there are people in our town who mean more to us than others outside that town, then state and then country. It seems proximity and relatable characteristics play a part in our decision to love, like, or care about others.

Another thing that matters to us as we choose the objects of our affection is our past experience with them. We learn to exclude certain people, either through past experience with them or personally, sometimes just past experience with people like them. We learn exclusion from things we were taught in the past about their gender identity or race or ethnicity. Sometimes we learn to judge them according to their status within the society. When we finally let go of the past, all of this judgment is gone because the basis for judgment is gone and we are free to know our union with each other.

There will come a time when all these groupings and levels and degrees of love will cease to exist. We will love everyone the same because we will discover that we are all the same. We will love everyone because we learned to love ourselves first. We are learning to do this now. Each time we ask the Holy Spirit how to see a brother differently and each time we bring a grievance to the light for healing we come closer to the ultimate holy instant in which we remember who we are and thus remember God.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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