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Gentle Healing Lesson 141, Manual for Teachers, Text.  5-13-19

LESSON 141
My mind holds only what I think with God.

(121) Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

(122) Forgiveness offers everything I want.

I went into silence and waited. The first thing I was given was the reminder that I have been worried about my son. I believe that my son is suffering and if I believe in his suffering then I must also believe I suffer. I waited to hear what was next.

Forgiveness is the key to happiness and it offers everything I want, so I forgive the belief in suffering. I was given this:

If my son’s sad story is true then everyone’s sad story is true and the world is real.

But, forgiveness is the key to happiness and forgiveness is everything I want.

I forgive the belief that the world is real. If the world is not real, then my son’s story is not real. My son is safe.

I release the story of my son to the Holy Spirit. I don’t want it anymore. My mind holds only what I think with God. This is a fact, all else is self-deception.

I waited to hear what was next.

Oh, I forgive the belief in the world. Only forgiveness will bring me happiness. The world never will. If I believe in the world, I believe in suffering.  I release this belief to the Holy Spirit. It is a self-deception that cannot take the place of truth.

The ego cannot accept that this is all there is to the process. It wants to keep trying to make things change, to at least concentrate hard on the idea. But I know from experience that I have only one part in this process, that is, to let go of what does not bring peace, that is, to forgive. Job done.

Regina’s Tips
The dictionary defines ‘think’ as “to have a conscious mind” or “to have in consciousness.”

Therefore, “My mind holds only what I think with God” means that anything we are conscious of that is not truth is temporary. Only truth is lasting. And it is this simple fact that sets the stage for the contemplation of every lesson that we will review over the next ten days.

Sometimes A Course in Miracles uses the term “real thoughts” to refer to the thoughts we think with God. Real thoughts are the environment of pure consciousness. You can think of them as attitudes or ways of being.

Real thoughts include:

~ All-is-well (peace)
~ Open embracing acceptance (love)
~ An inherent sense freedom—a sense of soaring from within (joy)
~ Intimacy with everything (oneness).

Patience, allowance and compassion are the reflections of our real thoughts.

So, “My mind holds only what I think with God” means that only these qualities are lasting. Everything else that appears in consciousness is temporary and passing.

My Thoughts

Yes, even as I contemplate the idea of forgiving my belief in suffering and in the world, I experience peace, and love. I feel free and joyful. I experience intimacy with everything. I walked into my bedroom to fold some clothes and I loved my bedroom. I had to smile. There is nothing about my bedroom that evokes those feelings. It is simply that I am still feeling oneness with everything and so my bedroom brings me joy as does everything else. Oneness brings joy. I think of my son and I feel this same joy and heart-soaring love. I pray to never lose sight of the forgiven world. May I be aware only of what I think with God.

Manual for Teachers
13. WHAT IS THE REAL MEANING OF SACRIFICE? P 5
5 What is the real meaning of sacrifice? It is the cost of believing in illusions. It is the price that must be paid for the denial of truth. There is no pleasure of the world that does not demand this, for otherwise the pleasure would be seen as pain, and no one asks for pain if he recognizes it. It is the idea of sacrifice that makes him blind. He does not see what he is asking for. And so he seeks it in a thousand ways and in a thousand places, each time believing it is there, and each time disappointed in the end. “Seek but do not find” remains this world’s stern decree, and no one who pursues the world’s goal can do otherwise.

Journal

“Seek but do not find” is going to occur if I pursue the world’s goals. I don’t need to be convinced of that as I have spent most of my life trying to make that work. It doesn’t. No matter what I try for and how close I come to achieving it, I am left dissatisfied. The world says I need to have lots of money, many friends, relationships that give me what I want, health, beauty, travel, and on and on. I’ve had a lot of what the world offers and I have had times when there was not enough. Either way, I was left wanting.

Nothing changed until I found A Course in Miracles and stopped listening to the ego tell me what it was that I needed to achieve in the world. Now I use the world to help me awaken. I find satisfaction in releasing guilt and happiness in extending love. I have stopped judging everything that happens and simply accept it as perfect. After all, everything is in my best interests, and if I make that assumption, I begin to see the value and to appreciate the circumstances rather than to fight them. Giving up the goals of the world is no sacrifice at all.

Text

C 28: V. 2: 4-7

Where fear has gone there love must come, because there are but these alternatives. Where one appears, the other disappears. And which you share becomes the only one you have. You have the one that you accept, because it is the only one you wish to have.

What came clear to me is that fear is a choice. I don’t have to feel it, and if I do feel it, I can choose otherwise. All it takes is vigilance and willingness. I notice I feel anxious or worried and I ask myself what I was thinking that triggered those feelings in me. Then I realize that the thoughts that appear in my mind are harmless to me unless I choose to believe them.

If a thought is causing me discomfort, it cannot be a thought of God and so it does not belong in my holy mind. I can ask the Holy Spirit to remove it for me and if I am truly done with it, the belief in that thought is gone. It is a miracle. If I am not done with it, I go back and do it again. I have had thoughts that I valued too much to give up right away no matter how much discomfort they cause, but I have never had a thought I refused to give up eventually.

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

Gentle Healing Lesson 140, Manual for Teachers, Text.  5-9-19

Lesson 140
Only salvation can be said to cure.

“He is not healed. He merely had a dream that he was sick, and in the dream he found a magic formula to make him well. Yet he has not awakened from the dream, and so his mind remains exactly as it was before.”

There is only one way to be healed and that is through forgiveness. Nothing else works. Some forms of magic will bring relief, but will not cure the mind that believes in guilt. Doctors, medicine, energy work, crystals and oils, homeopathy, all of these are magic. There is nothing wrong with using them if that is what must be done to get relief.

Sometimes the mind cannot make the leap that brings true healing and there is nothing to be gained from suffering. But it does not help to believe that some forms of magic are better or more spiritual. It also does not help to believe that magic actually cures. That just delays actual healing.

“One either sleeps or wakens. There is nothing in between.”

Here is another of those uncompromising statements from Jesus. I have ignored this one and insisted on compromises but it didn’t do me any good to do so. It remains true. Dreaming that I am sick and dreaming that the medicine cured me are still just dreams. A good dream is no different than a bad dream.

“The dreams forgiveness lets the mind perceive do not induce another form of sleep, so that the dreamer dreams another dream. His happy dreams are heralds of the dawn of truth upon the mind. They lead from sleep to gentle waking, so that dreams are gone. And thus they cure for all eternity.”

Now here is a dream that is different. Forgiveness does not lead to more ego dreams. The happy world of forgiveness heralds the dawn of truth upon the mind and true waking begins to occur. Then all dreams are gone and there is no more sickness. Of course, at that level, there is no body to be sick because there is no dreaming at all.

“Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return.”

There is the possibility of sickness as long as there is a body because the body itself is the symbol of our guilt. It represents the belief we are separate from each other and from God. But as more and more guilt is released, it seems there is less sickness. At least, that has been my experience.

I notice I get sick way less often, and that when I do get sick, I suffer less. While this is nice, it is not the same as being cured and is not my goal. I see sickness as just another opportunity to look at the guilt in my mind and let it go. I discover that it is possible to know that sickness is not real and watch it disappear along with the guilt.

“There is no place where holiness is not, and nowhere sin and sickness can abide. This is the thought that cures.”

In truth, we are in God and part of God and, therefore, there is no place in us for sin and sickness. It only appears there could be because we dream we are someplace else, someplace that could be outside God and therefore a place that could be sinful and thus sick. It is only a dream, an illusion, a bit of imaginative thought that makes the appearance of sickness. Knowing this to be true is healing.

“We will try today to find the source of healing, which is in our minds because our Father placed it there for us.”

Once again, I am given the opportunity to sit in stillness and allow my mind to be healed. There is the Voice for God in my mind just beneath the ego thoughts that are “my ticket to this virtual reality show” (from Gina Lake) that I call my life. But as I let those thoughts slide by without giving them my attention, I leave the world behind long enough for some healing to take place. Then the next time I go into meditation, there is less temptation to follow those thoughts and even more healing occurs.

“We hear Him now. We come to Him today. With nothing in our hands to which we cling, with lifted hearts and listening minds we pray:

“Only salvation can be said to cure.

Speak to us, Father, that we may be healed.”

This is the only way we are going to be cured of our only ill, the belief in guilt. We must go to God with no other desire than to know the truth and to return our minds to Him.

Regina’s Tip
The goal is not to change the dream. The goal is to awaken from it.

It is okay to seek resolution to problems that come up in the dream. If there is a headache, it is okay to take aspirin. If a job ends, it is ok to look for another job. However, keep in mind that this is all dream stuff. Let the dream be the dream, AND remain clear on the goal. It is possible to do both by keeping the mind focused in the direction of truth. This is often referred to as “being in the world but not of it.”

Remember that the only resolution that can be a cure (a successful and permanent remedy from suffering) is awakening to truth. Everything else is temporary relief from suffering at best. Temporary relief is acceptable and can be helpful, but it isn’t the goal.

2nd Day for Lesson 140
I do know that there is only one cure and that is to awaken from the dream of separation. I know that everything I do with magical means to end my suffering is useless toward awakening, but I also know that there is no benefit in suffering if I cannot yet accept healing. I still feel uneasy about using magical means and I wonder if that is because I am listening to ego tell me how guilty I am or if it is because I could be practicing accepting healing instead.

There are two ways to look at this; that it doesn’t matter what we do as long as we understand that magic is magic and not really a cure, or that we can heal the body by allowing our true Self to work in it. Both seem equally true to me. There is ample proof that healing the body can be accomplished as the mind is healed. I know that guilt for any reason is not the answer, and so I am not guilty for my choices. I am going to surrender this whole issue to the Holy Spirit and let Him speak to me about it.

What I got is that I should not become obsessed with these body things I have been concerned with. It is not that I am to ignore the body, but just not get wrapped up in it. Take it a moment at a time allowing myself to be led, and absolutely not to worry about any of it or be concerned at all. Ok. I can do that.

Manual for Teachers
I cannot say how I will feel when I have completely given up all value of the world, but as I have some experience with this, I can extrapolate from that success and say that I believe what Jesus says here. I am not angry that we made the world or that we chose to have this experience. I don’t even regret it. I am ready to be through with it, but I don’t condemn it or any of those who are still interested in it.

But nor do I regret any part of it that I have given up already. I used to take great pleasure in winning. I loved competitive games. I enjoyed being better than others at my job. My last job was in sales, which is very competitive. It was a perfect job for someone like I was, and it was a perfect job to discover that winning didn’t have any real value and that it didn’t really make me happy. I don’t miss competing or winning at all.

When I began to do my job solely with a focus on being helpful, I enjoyed it more and so much of the stress fell away. It did not happen all at once and I had to work at it, but it was worth it. Work helped me to let go of other things I used to value, like projecting guilt. I used to think that finding someone to be guilty instead of me was quite literally my salvation. Now, I just notice the old habit trying to reestablish itself and I choose again. There is no value in guilt. Taking responsibility and making different choices is far better.

I can enjoy standing on the shore of a beach and listening to the surf. I can enjoy good music that stirs my soul. I can enjoy trees and the green of the grass and the vibrant colors of my zinnias, and at the same time, I can enjoy the stark beauty of the desert earth colors. I like movies and vacations and family gatherings and all manner of beauty in the world. And yet, I would not hold onto any of it. I suspect that there is something far more beautiful than what my eyes show me and that it is just waiting to be known.

Special relationships are maybe the most convincing prize the ego offers, and it is the one that still compels my attention. It is one of the few things that can draw me into the ego story so deeply that I still have trouble resisting. But even that fails to keep my attention completely, and, always, eventually, I turn from this false happiness. I remember that I can have a holy relationship instead and that it is the only kind of relationship I want. The relinquishing of the special relationship is not the sacrifice the ego claims it to be.

Text
“The Holy Spirit does not want you to understand conflict; He wants you to realize that, because conflict is meaningless, it is not understandable.”

The Holy Spirit does not fight the ego or try to understand it. The Holy Spirit simply disregards it because it does not exist. Conflict is of the ego so conflict is meaningless and so not understandable. Ultimately, this is my goal as well. I began by learning about the ego so I could recognize it. I was not trying to understand it or destroy it, I just wanted to know the difference between ego’s voice and the Voice for God.

I then began to loosen my hold on these untrue thoughts and allow my mind to be corrected. I am still not at war with the ego, but I see that it is not me and I am practicing recognizing the tendency to identify with it so I can stop doing that. My goal is to disregard it completely because no part of my mind believes in it or has interest in it. As I release the belief in the ego, I release any interest in conflict.

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

Gentle Healing Lesson 139, Manual for Teachers, Text.  5-8-19

LESSON 139
I will accept Atonement for myself.

“Uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast, its magnitude can hardly be conceived. To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead. For what is life except to be yourself, and what but you can be alive instead? Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts? Whom does he question? Who can answer him?”

“Thus he becomes uncertain of his life, for what it is has been denied by him. It is for this denial that you need Atonement.”

“Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are. And they will come again until the time Atonement is accepted, and they learn it is impossible to doubt yourself, and not to be aware of what you are.”

“We have a mission here. We did not come to reinforce the madness that we once believed in. Let us not forget the goal that we accepted. It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain. What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be, along with us. Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them, that they may know that they are part of you, and you of them.”

“I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me.”

This statement, this acceptance of the Atonement is the same thing I have been doing for the last couple of weeks. I begin my meditation with the simple statement that I want to know my Self. I have no doubt that I am Self and not self. I have no doubt that the memory of Self is in my mind and available to me. I am simply expressing my decision to know again what is actually true about me, and thus to live from that knowledge.

Jesus emphasizes again as he does throughout the Course that we know who we are by knowing that we are one with all that is. We cannot see our brothers as separate and somehow different than our Self and know our Self. I was listening to a meditation this morning that used the terms essence energy and said that this same energy is exactly the same in every one of us. Exactly the same.

That is how we are the same and one. Using the body as our identity keeps this knowledge from us because the body is not the same, the personality is not the same. But the body/personality is not us. What is the same and what is us is what animates the body/personality.

Regina’s Tips
If you look, you will notice the one thing you can never honestly deny is that you live. When you look even closer, you will notice the one fact that is obvious: You are life.

Have you ever experienced death as a direct experience? Sure, people and pets you loved died and you perceived that, but what was your direct experience as you perceived it? Wasn’t it life that perceived the concept/perception of death?

Do you have any proof of death as a direct experience?

Or is life the only thing that you can verify as a fact?

Look carefully. Forget ideas. What do you know from direct experience?

“Here is the end of choice. For here we come to a decision to accept ourselves as God created us. … For what is life except to be yourself, …?”

“Today accept Atonement, not to change reality, but merely to accept the truth about yourself, and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God.” Celebrate today that You Are Life!!

You are life! And you know it, because you live.

My Thoughts

It is interesting to realize that I have no direct experience of death. At first, I thought to dispute this. I haven’t died yet in this life, but I must have died before to be reborn here. And yet, is that true? If I am reborn, how could I have ever died? I am life, therefore, I cannot be death. I think this more than anything convinced me that I am life.

Manual for Teachers
All Pleasures of the World Are Nothing

An example of a “pleasure” that I have valued and allowed to define me is the special relationship. The only enduring special relationship I have ever had is with my children. Even though I had considered myself a failure in many ways as a mom, my children persist in loving me and thinking well of me; I think even liking me. And yet, I have never felt secure in these relationships and since I value them above all else, I have gone to great lengths to keep them in place.

As I look at these relationships with the Holy Spirit I see that I have used bribery, sacrifice, martyrdom, guilt, and fear to bind my children to me. I remember when my youngest child graduated from college and moved away, I felt bereft, adrift and anxious. When a very short time later he needed my financial assistance, I remember the flood of relief that came over me. That was my first clue that something was seriously sick in this relationship. But it would be a long time before I was able to look at my thoughts without judgment and allow the Holy Spirit to help me see what was going on.

Because I believed that I could not be happy without the special relationships in my life, I condemned myself to misery. Special relationships are inherently guilt driven and destined to fail. What will not fail is the certainty that if I continue to hold onto the specialness in a relationship, I will never experience real love, and if I don’t know Love, I will not know my Self. I fully understand the fear of letting go of special love because it seems to be all that I have ever known and yet, holding onto the specialness is what prevents me from knowing Love.

I have grasped these relationships so tightly and for so long that it has taken me a very long time to let them go. I am still letting go, but now it is easier because I see that the specialness I thought was precious was actually painful. It defined me in ways that diminished me, and in my desperation to hold onto it, I tried to teach those I loved that they were needy too. Specialness defines me as separate from others and holds that belief in place. I believed in this definition of myself until I began to accept the Word of God through His Voice. Through the healing of my mind, I am letting go of my definition of my self and accepting His definition instead.

Today I have a much healthier relationship with my children. I don’t know if they have even noticed a difference because the change had nothing to do with them, as it was all about me. I slowly, through vigilant mindfulness, watched my thoughts about these special relationships and accepted healing where I could. There is less pain now, less neediness, and more actual love. It is an ongoing project but I have no doubt as to the outcome because I am not alone. The Holy Spirit works with me and guarantees my success. It is not the Will of God that I suffer.

Text
“No one who has everything wants the ego.”

It is absolutely necessary that the ego deny your true self. If the ego accepts any part of you as love, it will be completely undone. If it accepts anyone else as pure love, it will be undone. So it keeps everyone as enemies and hides this way of thinking from us. It does this, as far as I can see, by increasing fear and guilt and making everything seem so complex that we give up trying to understand it or change it. This is why we need the Holy Spirit and why God created the Holy Spirit. It is not fooled by the ego and can help us disentangle from it when we are ready to do so.

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

Gentle Healing Lesson 138, Manual for Teachers, Text.  5-7-19

LESSON 138
Heaven is the decision I must make.

“In this world Heaven is a choice, because here we believe there are alternatives to choose between.”

“Creation knows no opposite.”

“Yet what is true in God’s creation cannot enter here until it is reflected in some form the world can understand.”

Heaven is real, it is truth and there is no opposite to truth. It doesn’t seem so in this world which was made for the purpose of having an opposite to reality. So, what we must do is decide for truth, as if there could be something else beside truth. Our decisions have power and that power will show us that what we really want is ours and always has been.

‘You need to be reminded that you think a thousand choices are confronting you, when there is really only one to make. And even this but seems to be a choice.’

It seems I have to choose how I feel about what someone said to me and how much of my money I can afford to spend on entertainment and which toothpaste to buy. The range and number of decisions is overwhelming. And yet, I only need to decide on one thing. In every case, I decide for God or for ego. That is all that is happening. Deciding for ego is deciding for nothing, so there is really only once choice.

Here is an example of how this works. Someone I care about seemed to be rude and disrespectful the other day. I had a decision to make.

Would I take this personally, as if it meant something about me?

Would I in some way try to manipulate that person’s behavior to something more acceptable to me or demand an apology?

Would I feel bad about myself? Would I forgive? Would I hold a grudge? Or would I choose to be happy and to love the situation just as it was? In other words, would I choose ego or choose God. It was so much simpler when I chose God, and the outcome so much more peaceful.

“Decisions are the outcome of your learning, for they rest on what you have accepted as the truth of what you are, and what your needs must be.”

What I have learned is that love is all there is and peace is all I want. I have learned that no other outcome is of interest to me. I have learned that I can have this outcome simply by disregarding any thought or action that does not bring me closer to love and peace. It is really that simple. For now, I still make choices but that will end soon.

As Jesus says: “If you could decide the rest, this one remains unsolved. But when you solve this one, the others are resolved with it, for all decisions but conceal this one by taking different forms.” Why choose anything except Heaven? I notice the ego trying to interest me in more drama but I just keep saying no. It gets easier all the time.

“Heaven is the decision I must make. I make it now, and will not change my mind, because it is the only thing I want.”

Regina’s Tip
Today’s lesson says, “Heaven is chosen consciously. The choice cannot be made until alternatives are accurately seen and understood. All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding, to be judged again, this time with Heaven’s help.”

That’s the purpose of inquiry, which we will go deeper into over the coming weeks. We question our thinking to see its worthlessness and untruth. As we see that clearly, we are willing to let go of our thinking and choose only truth. After all, “Who can decide between the clearly seen (aka, our thoughts and perceptions) and the unrecognized (truth)?

Yet who can fail to make a choice between alternatives when only one (truth) is seen as valuable; the other (thoughts and perceptions) as a wholly worthless thing.”

So, let’s let go of the idea that we have to be masters of learning. It’s okay if we don’t learn anything. It’s okay if we can’t remember yesterday’s workbook lesson today.

Focus on the practice. When we focus on the practice to the best of our ability in every moment, we are choosing Heaven.

My Thoughts
Regina brings up an important point. A Course in Miracles is about learning. We are learning that we want to awaken. Once we learn that one thing, we don’t need to learn anymore. We just make a decision for awakening. All the practice we do is in making that decision. That is the reason for looking at our thoughts, and for releasing them. It is the reason for the daily lessons.

We are practicing making a decision for Heaven. The meditations in which we choose to know our Self and to allow the mind to be healed, that is not about learning anything, it is about resting in God and accepting what is ours. It is practice, not learning. The point is that sometimes we get stuck in the learning phase and we listen to the ego tell us that it is dangerous to go any further and so we become perpetual students.

But that is not the point of A Course in Miracles. Jesus wants us to learn enough to decide for Heaven and then he tells us to leave everything behind including this book. He wants us to practice until we are fully accepting of our true Self. That doesn’t mean that we cannot ever use the book again. We can read it because it is beautiful and inspiring. We can use it as a teaching aid for those who want to learn what we learned. But it will not be helpful to let it become a block to our awakening by continuing to “learn” when we should be focused on acceptance.

So, every day I make a choice for Heaven and I go to sleep making that choice. I learn if there is something to learn, but I also make the choice. One day, I will simply wake up. There is no magic amount of learning that is necessary. As Regina says, I don’t have to know everything. I used to focus on how much I know and it was a lot more than I used to know, but never enough. When I read something that opposed what I thought knew, it scared me because I thought I had to “know” things and so what if I got it wrong. But I understand now that I don’t have to know anything about Heaven; I only need to choose Heaven.

Manual for Teachers
I have had times when I was worried because I didn’t have enough money, and I have had times when I had more money than I needed and I worried that some day that would not be true. Obviously, the money was not the issue. It was my belief in lack and loss that was making me suffer.

This feeling of never having enough slowly changed though practicing abundance as the Course helps us to see it. What turned out to be of value was the slow and methodical change of mind that I underwent as I studied and practiced the Course.

I learned that I was abundant regardless of the numbers in my bank account or what I owned. I learned that money wasn’t the issue but rather it was a belief in lack and loss that was tormenting me and robbing me of my peace of mind and my happiness.

Now that I actually am retired, I don’t have very much money at all, but I have peace of mind and I never lack for anything I need. I have something much more valuable than money. I have faith in my innate abundance.

I can do this with all the things the ego mind finds valuable in the world. None of them are of the least value. The only thing of value here is the opportunity to recognize the world has no value and thus to make a different choice about what I strive for. There is no sacrifice in letting go of any goal in the world. There is nothing of value to be gained here.

Text
“It is impossible, however, to see something in part of it that you will not attribute to all of it. That is why attack is never discrete, and why it must be relinquished entirely. If it is not relinquished entirely it is not relinquished at all.”

So if I see someone as a threat, I will see threats everywhere I look and I will attack. I remember something that happened years ago. I was very upset with my husband and could do nothing about it. When my daughter did something I didn’t like, I attacked her like she had done a terrible thing. I didn’t understand at the time why I did that, and I felt very guilty for it.

I did it because attack is not discreet. The rage at my husband boiled over onto my daughter. Then I attacked myself for my behavior. As I chose to make more of my decisions with God, this kind of thing happened less and less. It almost never happens now. It is my goal to give up attack for all time. Knowing that we are all one is what makes this possible. I notice that as I more often feel the oneness that we are, the desire to attack and defend has lessened.

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

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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Gentle Healing Lesson 137, Manual for Teachers, Text.  5-6-19

LESSON 137
When I am healed I am not healed alone.

“Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make the separation real, and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh, which it can not surmount.”

“But healing is accomplished as he sees the body has no power to attack the universal Oneness of God’s Son.”

“Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins that never were accomplished, healing but removes illusions that have not occurred.”

“Yet think not healing is unworthy of your function here. For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real.”

“Healing is freedom.

Healing is shared

Healing is strength.”

“And legions upon legions will receive the gift that you receive when you are healed.”

“What is opposed to God does not exist, and who accepts it not within his mind becomes a haven where the weary can remain to rest.”

When I am healed I am not healed alone. And I would share my healing with the world, that sickness may be banished from the mind of God’s one Son, Who is my only Self.

This lesson is very clear to me. Sickness is not in God and therefore it does not exist. It is another illusion to be forgiven, another defense against the truth to be denied, another separation device to be released. An understanding of the purpose of sickness is helpful in deciding against it, but to forgive it, to have the belief in sickness removed from the mind, allowance, and acceptance seem to be the key.

I sit in quiet and the Holy Spirit heals my mind and this healing goes out to those who cross my mind and to legions upon legions that I am unaware of. Sometimes when I meditate like this, I feel something happening even if I cannot describe it in words, but this morning I didn’t feel anything, but I trust and am confident that healing occurred. I began by talking to the Holy Spirit about two areas of my life where I know my mind has been confused and then I simply opened to healing without regard to outcome.

Regina’s Tips
This is my humble advice regarding physical healing:

~ Remember that physical healing is not the goal. It may occur along the way if it is helpful to you, but the goal is spiritual awakening.

~ Watch the mind for ideas that may create sickness or block the opportunity for healing. There are many types of ideas that fall into that category including ‘miraculous healing isn’t possible,’ ‘I am not worthy of miraculous healing,’ and ‘I am guilty,’ especially if one sees a relationship between one’s guilt and the sickness. Also, most people get a subtle pleasure from sickness. It is a pleasure that is often fleeting and can easily be denied, especially as one tires of the suffering, but if one looks you can find it. You may like the break from work. You may like the special attention from others. Sickness can even make us feel special. Etc.

~ Notice that awareness is constant and unchanging. Awareness is the same in health and sickness. Pay close attention to notice that awareness is more intimately you than the body. Notice that the body has no affect on you whatsoever.

~ Let go of all ‘rules’ and ‘judgments’ about sickness and health. The path of awakening happens differently for different people. Some awaken through allowing sickness and noticing they aren’t the body. Some receive a boost in faith through miraculous healing. There is no rule about how this has to look.

~ Remember that what is most important is what is always most important: Inquire into false beliefs; let go of ego thinking; practice awareness-watching-awareness; be tuned in for your personal intuitive guidance and follow it.

The spiritual path requires more honesty than the mind is capable of. That means that in order to know what is best for you on this path, you have to let go of your individual thinking.

My Thoughts

I think that sickness is a choice and noticing that choice we can ask for healing of the beliefs that led to that choice.  Ultimately, it will always be a desire for separation, a desire to identify with the body, a desire to be unconscious of our true Self. It is not special, but is just another signpost leading us to what needs to be healed in the mind. Feeling guilty for sickness is no different than feeling guilty for anything else. It is just an ego response that can be disregarded. The entire lesson seems to be saying that sickness is a form of separation and that healing is a form of union and that our healing impacts the Sonship.

Manual for Teachers
12. HOW MANY TEACHERS OF GOD ARE NEEDED TO SAVE THE WORLD? P 6
6 Oneness and sickness cannot coexist. God’s teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are? Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God’s teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God’s teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs.

Journal

I have often said that a thought or decision was not conscious. Jesus says that all our decisions are made consciously, that we know exactly what we are doing and aware of the consequences of that choice. I use the word unconscious to mean that my ego mind is in denial and so as I am using the ego mind to think, it feels like an unconscious decision.

The point Jesus is making here is important, though, and perhaps it would be of benefit to me to recognize my intention when I choose to dream. This would help me to become more aware of when I am indulging the dream and by so doing, giving myself another opportunity to further awaken from the dream.

Sometimes I do watch the dream figures come and go and I am not deceived. I know it is a dream. Other times, I am as lost in the dream as anyone, just another dream figure coming and going. When we are lost in the dream and believe we are the dream figures, our mind is sick and needs to be healed. Then Holy Spirit will do this for us if we ask with a true willingness to be healed.

Then Jesus says something else interesting. He says that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Our goal is to recognize the dream figure as unreal.  I had not thought of it like that, but I see that it is true. I do ask for healing so that I never become confused about what is real and what is not. As I give up the belief that bodies are real, the remembrance of oneness takes their place.

From reading something that Regina Dawn Akers wrote, I am reminded that our efforts are two-fold. We notice our thinking errors and let them be healed. Then we shift our focus to what is true. This is my process for releasing the untrue thoughts and embracing the truth of oneness, and it works well for me. If I notice that I feel disheartened, I look within for the thoughts I have chosen to believe that caused this feeling. Then I ask for correction, for another way to see. Once that is done, I choose different thoughts, thoughts that come to me as a result of that request for healing. I give them my attention and my belief.

Text

When I ask for anything that would support the ego thought system and thus maintain the dream state, I am asking for something that would hurt me and since I cannot be hurt I am asking for nothing. This would not be a true question, and it would not even be a question from me, but from the ego.

Here is an example of how I saw this in action one time a while back when I was still working. I had a very chaotic day at work. Nothing went right. I had to wait for customers at each stop and this put me behind on my schedule at a time when I could not afford to be behind. A lot of things went wrong, little mix-ups, miscommunications, and the lot. By the end of the day, I realized that my chaotic thinking had made a chaotic day and so I asked for clarity.

I used Lesson 325, the keynote, to salvation to help me see what happened. This lesson tells us how we make the day we experience. We have a desire and from that desire, we make an image of what the desire would look like. Then we project that desire and look on it as if it was real and we defend it. So I asked the Holy Spirit to show me the desire that sourced this chaotic day,

It all began because I was disgruntled with work, with the company I work for and with my boss. I felt underappreciated and unfairly treated. This feeling was my request. Holding this belief in my mind and believing it was true is what started the whole thing. My desire, based on this belief was to be unfairly treated, and to see myself in a job that made me miserable.

From this desire, I made an image of how this could be true. This image could have appeared in many ways but the image I made for that day was to have a chaotic day of late meetings and everything going wrong. I got a clue during the day when after one particularly difficult experience. I had the thought that this was just not fair. I have noticed since I started using Lesson 325 as a practice that I have a lot of experiences stemming from the request to be unfairly treated, and to be a victim. So I knew, in a general way what was going on, but it took me a while to let go of my victim stance and ask for clarity.

This desire to see what it feels like to be unfairly treated and to be a victim is not a real question because it hurts me. It is an effort to make the world real. The ego answers it readily because making the world appear real is its goal. That is why it took me a whole day to get clear on it. All the circumstances I had projected outward confused me temporarily and I believed in them and defended them.

I had thoughts like, “This is so unfair,” and “I wish I could retire and not have to do this job anymore.” Those thoughts were in defense of the idea that my experience is reality, I really am a victim, and the answer is to change the world. I had a desire, I made an image of that desire, I projected the image and then I believed in it and defended it.

But I also have true thoughts in my mind and even while all this was happening, I was aware of those thoughts as well. It felt frustrating because I was asking for conflicting solutions. I was asking the ego to fix this problem and I was asking the Holy Spirit to heal my mind. Conflict is suffering, and boy, was I suffering! It wasn’t until I was clear about what I really wanted that I got relief.

When I finally set aside the desire to be unfairly treated and made a different choice, that is, I wanted my mind to be healed, the Holy Spirit answered my request swiftly and completely. When I asked for my mind to be healed, I was asking a real question, one that leads me to an awareness of love’s presence. This is a question from my right mind and the answer is the Will of God so it cannot fail to be answered.

It became clear to me that my job is not my problem and retirement or another job is not the answer. There is only one problem and one solution and the circumstances in my life represent either the problem or the solution, depending on what I want. The problem did not begin in the world and the solution is not there. It began in my mind with a desire to be unlike God, and the solution is in my mind as well. It is the Holy Spirit, and the remembrance of what I am.

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

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