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Study of the Text, Chapter 5 IV, The Decision for God,Paragraph 4. 8-26-14

VII. The Decision for God, P4
4 But the time is now. You have not been asked to work out the plan of salvation yourself because, as I told you before, the remedy could not be of your making. God Himself gave you the perfect Correction for everything you made that is not in accord with His holy Will. I am making His plan perfectly explicit to you, and will also tell you of your part in it, and how urgent it is to fulfil it. God weeps at the “sacrifice” of His children who believe they are lost to Him.

The time is now for me! If you are reading this book and you haven’t tossed it aside by this time, the time is now for you, too. It is time to wake up, time to lay aside the dream of separation and embrace our true Self. We have sacrificed our joy and peace for far too long, and it is time to let all that go. I have been asking very frequently for some days now to be reminded of what I am.

When I feel sad or fearful, when I am angry or upset in any way, to any degree, I ask again, “What am I?” I am ready to know. The ego mind that loves its stories and doesn’t want to give them up resists this change in direction. I am assaulted by fearful thoughts and distracting situations, but as this happens I meet each one with the question, “What am I?”

I am spirit. I am a divine being. I am His Son. How can I be subject to the ego fears and guilt? How can I be subject to sickness, pain or suffering of any kind? I remind myself of the passage in Lesson 190 that says I dominate everything I see. I dominate physical pain and mental anguish. I dominate the little distractions and the big ones. As I realize that my holy self cannot be assaulted from without, I see the harmlessness in all these things.

Having realized their harmlessness, I ponder what Jesus said next in Lesson 190, that what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness. I open my heart and mind to understand this more fully. I think that every word in A Course in Miracles is meaningful and important, and I have been doing this long enough to realize that my understanding deepens as my desire to awaken overtakes my fear of awakening. As this happens I really want to understand and it is like a light coming on and illuminating the words.

I was reminded of something as I wondered about all things I see becoming a source of innocence. I woke up at 3:48 this morning. I was expecting to wake up at 5:00 or later and so I lay there for a few minutes expecting to go back to sleep, but that didn’t happen. For awhile my mind was conflicted as the ego insisted on its way. It has definite ideas about what I need as far as sleep goes. But I dominate all things I see and I see that it is now nearly 4:00 and I am awake.

I let go of the idea that lack of sleep is the enemy I must fight. I let go of the idea that my body is the decision maker and dominates my mind. I remember what I am. The idea of sleep deprivation ceases to be the boogeyman I thought it was and it appears harmless to me now. I realized how nice it would be this morning to have so much time to commune with Spirit and to write.

I see that this idea of not enough sleep that has always haunted me and caused anxiety and seemed to drain my energy was just a thought in a confused mind. It is really innocent. Ha! That is it! That is how the things I see are innocent. They do not cause my unhappiness. I cause that, and because I caused it, I can stop causing it. I don’t quite get the holy part, but I will stay open to understanding.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8 IV, The Gift of Freedom,Paragraph 2. 8-25-14

IV. The Gift of Freedom P2
2 I am come as a light into a world that does deny itself everything. It does this simply by dissociating itself from everything. It is therefore an illusion of isolation, maintained by fear of the same loneliness that is its illusion. I said that I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. That is why I am the light of the world. If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, the loneliness is gone. You cannot maintain the illusion of loneliness if you are not alone. My purpose, then, is still to overcome the world. I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it because of what it is. Light does not attack darkness, but it does shine it away. If my light goes with you everywhere, you shine it away with me. The light becomes ours, and you cannot abide in darkness any more than darkness can abide wherever you go. The remembrance of me is the remembrance of yourself, and of Him Who sent me to you.

This is a world of pretense. I pretend to be alone. I pretend to be afraid and lonely. I pretend to dwell in darkness. I do this through pushing away the light and the love and the peace that are everything and everywhere. I stare out of sightless eyes and behold a world bereft of God. I make a god of darkness and give it the dark attributes I have come to identify with, and he becomes vengeful and punishing. I have done this for so long that I believe what I have pretended is there and forgotten the reality of all that is.

It is not necessary that I keep doing this. The veil I have pulled over reality is thin and insubstantial. The light that Jesus brought into the world will penetrate it easily and I can have this light. It is here for me. I simply change my mind. I had decided for darkness and the play of images on that dark screen. Now I decide for light to show me the real world. I ask for light to shine away the darkness in my mind and then I carry that light everywhere I go. So now I am the light of the world along with Jesus.

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study of the Text, Chapter 5, VII> The Decision for God,Paragraph 2. 8-22-14

VII. The Decision for God, P 2
2 There have been many healers who did not heal themselves. They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith was not whole. Some of them have healed the sick at times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer heals himself, he cannot believe that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. He has not learned that every mind God created is equally worthy of being healed because God created it whole. You are merely asked to return to God the mind as He created it. He asks you only for what He gave, knowing that this giving will heal you. Sanity is wholeness, and the sanity of your brothers is yours.

I’m ready to heal the sick, to move mountains and to raise the dead. How about you? All of those things seem easy when you realize what you are. As you realize what you are, all things become harmless and are easily set aside. But I see that all things must become one thing. I must see not only my own wholeness, and my own sanity, but also my brother’s as well. I must see there is no gap between me and my brother. This is hard if I still see either of us as a body, but once I realize what I am, I will have no problem at all.

Yesterday, I practiced remembering what I am. It made for a very peaceful and happy day. But toward the end of the day, the weather got bad with thunderstorms and I got a headache. My first thought was that the change in weather was the cause. This used to be what I believed and the weather and headache combination seemed to prove I was right.

The ego always speaks first so that was my first thought. But I don’t believe that anymore. I know that the headache/weather connection has nothing to do with cause. It is simply the effect of the belief that I hold in my mind. I choose a headache (I’m sure the ego was getting desperate to undo all the healing that has been occurring lately) and then I use the device of weather changes as cause to make the headache seem reasonable and outside me.

If the body can get sick without my mind being involved the ego can use this as proof that I am a victim and thus not part of God. It was a good plan. Every time the weather changed like this I got a headache and so the consistency of it was enough to convince me of the connection. The ego mind is sick, but not without power and cleverness.

It’s not working anymore. I am onto the whole thing and am letting go of the idea that the world happens without my consent. So I went back to my study for the day and remembered that it is me who has the power to dominate all things I see by merely recognizing what I am. As I perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept my holy will as theirs.

I looked at the headache in this new light. I am spirit, divine being, Son of God, and as such, I dominate all things. This includes the body and sickness and pain. I dominate them by remembering what I am and in remembering, the headache is seen as harmless rather than a threat to my newfound understanding, and harmless rather than painful and outside my control. I reminded myself that in its harmlessness the headache (body/pain) will accept my holy will as their its. The body must respond to my mind; whether my mind is sick or healed, the body must respond to it.

It was interesting to watch. I would remind myself of the truth and the headache would subside, then it would return. I continued the practice and after awhile I was tired of the pain and thought about giving in to a magical solution and taking an aspirin. But really, while I did want to do this, I also was having fun. I wanted to see what could be done with merely changing my desire.

Could I effect a permanent change in the condition of the body just that quickly? I have no doubt that someday I would be able to do that and more, but why not now? I asked Jesus to help me understand his teachings and I asked him to help me accept them. The pain subsided more quickly and easily and eventually it went away all together. I guess I practiced for about an hour or so. I don’t know for sure because it was awhile before I realized the pain was gone for good.

This morning I got the chance to up the stakes on my practice. My son called me with bad news. He had surgery recently on his back and had hoped for relief from the chronic pain he has suffered for years now. It doesn’t seem to be happening and now he seems to have re-injured it. All of this bad news has caused him to be very depressed.

I love him so much and want only that he be happy. I also know that his story of pain and suffering is not real. He is still as God created him. He is master of his universe. But that is not his experience and the experience he is having is really painful. I felt his deep discouragement as we spoke and I wanted so much to do something, but what can I do?

I find that it is harder, somehow, to know the truth for him, that is, that he is not his body either, and that he is the cause of his universe as much as I am the cause of mine.  Because he has no interest in approaching this from a spiritual point of view, it is easy for me to think that he has no recourse and must suffer. I have had to overcome my own lack of faith to be helpful for him in any way.

That I am still seeing an order of difficulty in miracles, means that my mind is not healed and so I must step back from trying to heal until I accept my own healing. This is what I have been doing this morning since I talked to him. My prayer this morning began with the reminder that I am not what I seem. I am not the body; I am spirit. I dominate all things and in seeing their harmlessness, they bow to my holy will. Now my prayer is also this: Toby is not his body; he is spirit. He dominates all things and as he sees their harmlessness they will bow to his holy will.

As I write this I am reconsidering. All things I see must bow to my holy will. As I see Toby’s body manifestations as the illusions they are and know they are harmless because they are illusions, they must bow to my holy will. How is that any different than accepting the Atonement on his behalf, something Jesus has told us we can and must do? I think this is the prayer I will hold in my heart today. If this speaks to your heart, I invite you to join me in this holy endeavor. We are meant to be healers, and we are meant to remember healing through joining in healing.

Today’s prayer: Because of what we are, we dominate all things. Knowing what we are, we see these manifestations as the harmless illusions they are whether they occur in ourselves or in another. And so they must bow to our holy will. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 5,VII. The Decision for God, P 1. 8-21-14

Chapter 5, VII. The Decision for God
1 Do you really believe you can make a voice that can drown out God’s? Do you really believe you can devise a thought system that can separate you from Him? Do you really believe you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon Him because He careth for you. You are His care because He loves you. His Voice reminds you always that all hope is yours because of His care. You cannot choose to escape His care because that is not His Will, but you can choose to accept His care and use the infinite power of His care for all those He created by it.

The ego mind does believe it has made a self separate from God. That is why the ego is so afraid. But I did not. I am still as God created me. The only reason I am ever afraid is because sometimes I still believe I am the ego. I identify with ego and so think that what the ego believes is true for me. I have this voice in my head that is demanding I believe it and it seems so very loud that I tell myself I can hear nothing above its clamor.

But that isn’t true. I can hear silence. I can hear God’s Voice. I see now that I have always been making a choice about what I would hear. I used to think I could not hear His Voice, but what was really happening is that I was listening to ego so that I couldn’t hear His Voice. Acknowledging this as true is very freeing, because now that I am willing to admit this is true, I can change my mind. Now instead of telling myself that I can’t hear His Voice, I can tell myself that I have chosen to listen to ego, but now I want to hear God.

For the last two days, that Voice has been telling me something of who I am. It started when I read in Lesson 190 that it is me who has the power to dominate all things I see by merely recognizing what I am. As I perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept my holy will as theirs. Since I have been allowing Him to show me that this is true, I feel like I have turned a corner so to speak.

Everything seems different now. It also seems very new, like when a plant first peeks out of the ground. I must be careful and care for the plant until its roots are firm in the ground and it has some growth. Then I need only weed around it and water it from time to time. That’s how it feels with this new realization. It has just peeked out and it is still fragile and needs my care so it does not get trampled by the careless thoughts of the ego, and so it doesn’t die from lack of attention.

Yesterday I had a very busy day. Outside of a shake in the morning and a bit of popcorn as a snack, I had not eaten all day. I was starting to get hungry and when I pulled up for gas I had the thought of going in to get a cupcake. I thought about how tasty that would be and a familiar longing for some sugary confection came over me. I recognized it as the ego body appetite wanting to be filled.

In the past, I have often fed those body appetites and thought I didn’t have any choice. I would crave some food, usually sugar, and then I just couldn’t help myself. Even when I swore I wasn’t giving in to that craving I would do it anyway and so I convinced myself I was out of control and it wasn’t my fault. I was a victim to my appetites. Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with eating a cupcake. It is not true, however, that I have to eat a cupcake.

When I felt that old urge, I also felt fear because in the past I believed I was subject to my appetites. Yesterday, I heard another Voice and this one asked that I question that belief. (It all happened very quickly and I am putting words where there were none at that moment, but this is what it felt like.) I remembered that I dominate all things because of what I am.

I asked the Holy Spirit what it is that I am. I was reminded that I am a divine being, that I am God’s own Son, that I am a perfect creation of a perfect Creator. I remembered that all things must bow to my will because this is true. The urge to feed my appetite disappeared without even a whimper. It bowed to my will. The choice to eat a cupcake or not to eat it is not earth shattering in and of itself. But the decision to acknowledge the power of my decision is.

Today, I feel more like what I am than I did before that moment at the gas station. I know that all this time I was not subject to my appetites; I was using them to drown out the Voice for God. I was using them to separate myself from God, through separating myself from my true nature. I was in charge all the time. I was just using my power to pretend that I was powerless. I pretended to device a thought system of powerlessness that separated me from God, but it was nothing, just smoke and mirrors. I cannot undo what God has done, and what God has done is available to me at any time.

I am fully protected even from my vain imaginings. He loves me and His love protects me. “You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon Him because He careth for you.” I can pretend to escape His care, but it is just pretense. I am learning to accept His care through accepting what I am. In so doing this for me, I do it for us all.

I wrote down today’s lesson (233) so that I could remind myself all day that this day is dedicated to hearing only His Voice and following His guidance without reserve. How perfect is the above quote. I can afford to put aside my ego drive to be in charge because He careth for me. I am safe in following Him because I am safe in Him.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: IV.The Gift of Freedom, Paragraph 1. 8-18-14

IV. The Gift of Freedom
1 If God’s Will for you is complete peace and joy, unless you experience only this you must be refusing to acknowledge His Will. His Will does not vacillate, being changeless forever. When you are not at peace it can only be because you do not believe you are in Him. Yet He is All in all. His peace is complete, and you must be included in it. His laws govern you because they govern everything. You cannot exempt yourself from His laws, although you can disobey them. Yet if you do, and only if you do, you will feel lonely and helpless, because you are denying yourself everything.

I have been out of peace since yesterday. I have a very full schedule for a couple of months and I have been anxious about getting everything done. I am afraid I will run out of time or forget to do something. It is an old story for me, this battle with time. The problem is not time. The problem is that I am refusing to acknowledge God’s Will. It is not that I lack peace, because it is not possible that I be outside peace. To be outside peace I would have to be outside God and there is no “outside God” for me to be.

Peace is the law of God and I cannot exempt myself from it. However, I can disobey God’s laws and as Jesus says, when I do I feel lonely and helpless. I feel this way because I have denied myself everything. This is exactly how I feel when I become anxious about time. I feel lonely and helpless. If I allow myself to stay in that state very long, I get panicky as the ego mind adds more and more upsetting scenarios.

So yesterday afternoon, this anxiety reached a level I could not ignore. I started taking care of a few things, fiddling with the scheduling, writing myself notes. I was busy, busy in the world trying to fix the effects of my problem. All I did was move things around. As I read this morning’s paragraph, I remembered that the source of all problems is in my mind, not in the world. The world is just a picture of the problem in my mind. It is an enactment of my thoughts and beliefs.

I don’t need that old story about time running out. Time is not my enemy. Actually, time is the tool that I am using to heal my mind, so it is my friend. I am happy to release the notion that there is never enough time. I asked the Holy Spirit to remove that old story from my mind and free me of its affects. I don’t want it and I don’t need it.

As I did this I realized that I am not behind on anything. I had a couple of things I actually needed to do this weekend, and they are done. The anxiety is about what I will need to do in the future, so I am worrying about what has not happened and may never happen. That’s just crazy. I also realized that I have a long weekend coming up and that I can use it to catch up. As soon as I let go of the problem created by my thinking mind, answers began to show up without my effort.

The thing that I want never to forget is that I don’t actually “lose” my peace; I push my peace away. It is a deliberate act on my part. Loss of peace is always the refusal on my part to acknowledge God’s law, which is complete peace and joy. I am like a recalcitrant child, refusing to be happy, choosing misery instead, just because I can. Always, I come back to that simple sentence in the Course, “You but do this to yourself.” I am equally free to surrender to His law and accept that I have everything because I was given everything.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: III.The Holy Encounter, Paragraph 8. 8-15-14

III. The Holy Encounter, P 8
8 Power and glory belong to God alone. So do you. God gives whatever belongs to Him because He gives of Himself, and everything belongs to Him. Giving of yourself is the function He gave you. Fulfilling it perfectly will let you remember what you have of Him, and by this you will remember also what you are in Him. You cannot be powerless to do this, because this is your power. Glory is God’s gift to you, because that is what He is. See this glory everywhere to remember what you are.

Power and glory belong to God and so do I. I belong to God. I love to think that. I belong to God. Because it is His nature to create by giving Himself, He gave me everything that belongs to Him and it is my function to do the same, because it is the function He gave me. In fulfilling my function, I will know what I have and what I am. It won’t be just words and concepts, but will be what I know.

In addition, I am told that I am not powerless to do this because He gave me His power also. Finally, I am told that Glory is God’s gift to me, and that to remember what I am I must see this glory everywhere. I restated everything this paragraph said because I wanted to be sure I understood it.

It was hard for me to get what Jesus was telling me, and I’m not sure why. He seems to be telling me that God creates by giving all of Himself to His creations and that I am to do that as well. I think the reason I had trouble understanding at first is that I was thinking of myself as the ego self, as if he were talking to Myron the character in my story.

The ego personality cannot imagine what to do with those words. It has no idea how to give all of itself. Giving even a bit of itself often seems like a burden, and generally it gives only because it expects something in return. However, as I realized that this was not instructions to the ego, but to my true self, it began to make sense.

I don’t remember what this feels like, but the memory is in my mind somewhere, so I can retrieve it. I can find that memory as I let go of the little self I made to take the place of my true self. Jesus reminds me of my power and glory and this is something else I don’t remember, but it is incentive to do the work necessary to reach the truth in my mind.

First I know I have the power to do so, and I want to know my glory. I am also given a clue as to how to begin this search. I am to look for the glory everywhere, because if it is anywhere, it is everywhere. Not just in some people or in special places, but everywhere. I put this into practice in very simple and practical ways.

When I see that I am looking with my ego at another ego, I remember that this can’t be right and I ask that the Holy Spirit correct my perception. I ask to see the glory that is right before me. I ask for vision. I make no exceptions. I leave no one out. And I don’t tilt my head at just the right angle, squint my eyes and hold my tongue just right.

I don’t try to see glory through these eyes the ego made. I simply request that the glory that is of God be revealed to me. I give my willingness to see it. This must work because I am simply following the instructions I have been given and because I have been given the power to do this. Actually, I know this works because I have experienced it to some degree. Now I am willing to see as God sees. I open my heart to this. I am willing to put aside all other goals the ego has offered me.

So what does this have to do with the holy encounter? I understand now that it is the holy encounter. I encounter a brother and choose to disregard his appearance and truly see him. I see into him. And the glory I see there is reflected back to me, as I realize that he is the mirror in which I see myself. It is an amazing thing to glimpse my holiness in this way, and the reason I am willing to accept this as my function, and to look into everyone rather than looking at them.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: III.The Holy Encounter, Paragraph 7. 8-15-14

III. The Holy Encounter, P 7
7 You can encounter only part of yourself because you are part of God, Who is everything. His power and glory are everywhere, and you cannot be excluded from them. The ego teaches that your strength is in you alone. The Holy Spirit teaches that all strength is in God and therefore in you. God wills no one suffer. He does not will anyone to suffer for a wrong decision, including you. That is why He has given you the means for undoing it. Through His power and glory all your wrong decisions are undone completely, releasing you and your brother from every imprisoning thought any part of the Sonship holds. Wrong decisions have no power, because they are not true. The imprisonment they seem to produce is no more true than they are.

In choosing separation we made a wrong decision, but God does not will that we suffer for it. He wants only our happiness and so has given us the means to correct our error. This original error is repeated over and over in our lives, appearing in different forms, but it is all the same error.

The ego is always trying to find ways to correct my errors or to project them onto others in an attempt to make me feel safer, but I am not meant to correct my errors alone because I am not alone. That is just another mistake. I have been given a Corrector and the way to make use of that gift is to turn my guilty thoughts over to Him to be undone.

I made mistakes when I was raising my children and for a long time I suffered for those errors. But then I learned that I have a Holy Spirit that undoes this error and ends my suffering. When I have guilt thoughts about parenting, I remember that God does not will I suffer for that error and I ask the Holy Spirit to remove from my mind the belief that I am forever imprisoned by a wrong decision. I ask that He release me from my fear by undoing my decision.

I made mistakes in my relationships, and mistakes as a teacher of God. I made wrong decisions many times, and all these wrong decisions were a reflection of the decision for separation. But none of these decisions, not the original error or any of the reflective errors is real and so they have no real power and are easily undone by One Who was created for that purpose. As I allow the Holy Spirit to undo these wrong decisions that I seem to make daily, I am allowing Him to correct the original error and free us all from our belief in guilt.

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