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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: IX.The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 6. 6-5-14

IX. The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 6

6 You have not failed to increase the inheritance of the Sons of God, and thus have not failed to secure it for yourself. Since it was the Will of God to give it to you, He gave it forever. Since it was His Will that you have it forever, He gave you the means for keeping it. And you have done so. Disobeying God’s Will is meaningful only to the insane. In truth it is impossible. Your Self-fullness is as boundless as God’s. Like His, It extends forever and in perfect peace. Its radiance is so intense that It creates in perfect joy, and only the whole can be born of Its wholeness.

What a beautiful thing to read this morning. Today’s Lesson (156) assures me that I walk with God in perfect holiness. It reminds me that thoughts leave not their source and so as a Thought of God, I remain in God. And now as I read today’s paragraph, I am further assured that it is not possible that I disobey God’s Will. What He has given me is given forever, and I cannot lose it.

As I read this paragraph and take in what it says to me, I am overjoyed. My Self-fullness is as boundless as God’s, and it extends forever and in perfect peace. This is the truth, not the ego small self that I made to take the place of my Self-fullness. I intend to place my focus on the truth today. When I notice that my thoughts are wandering into ego again, I will remember my holiness and place my awareness on the truth instead.

I wonder if this is how we wake up? Do we simply choose to place our awareness on the truth each time we notice that we are focused on ego? After all, nothing is happening when we think our ego thoughts and watch our ego stories. The only thing that is actually happening is happening in God, where I am creating in perfect joy. If I keep shifting my attention back to reality, surely I will soon decide to remain there.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 7: IX.The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 5. 6-4-14

IX. The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 5
5 Your creations are protected for you because the Holy Spirit Who is in your mind, knows of them and can bring them into your awareness whenever you will let Him. They are there as part of your own being, because your fulfilment includes them. The creations of every Son of God are yours, since every creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Sonship as a whole.

My creations are protected for me and always will be. They are part of my being, just as I am part of God’s Being. Every creation of every Son of God is mine as well because they were created for the Sonship as a whole. This is fairly amazing for me to even think of, but I can accept it as being part of the Self I don’t fully remember yet. I am most certainly the Son of God. I am whole and perfect and like my Father.

I accept all of this as being true even though I am not having the full experience of it yet, and I accept that someday I will not just believe it is true, but I will know it is true. I accept that I will feel like the Son of God when the ego is fully undone. All of this seems like something that is going to happen in the future. Even though I am told that it is happening right now, it feels like something that is coming but is not here yet.

The part that just blows me away is that the Holy Spirit knows of them and can bring them into my awareness whenever I will let Him. Whenever I will let him! Holy Spirit, I just don’t know what to think about this. Can this mean that You can do this for me right now? Can I know of my creations simply because I want to? Do I have to be fully and permanently awake for this to happen?

What has happened as I write this is that I feel afraid. I am afraid that nothing will happen if I say yes, and maybe it is better to not know for certain that the answer is no. Truthfully, I don’t believe anything will happen which probably guarantees nothing will happen. If nothing happens then does that mean the truth is not true, or as I suspect, that I am unworthy of the truth?

Well, I see the fear and the doubt and I know that is the ego. I am not the ego and I want to know what it feels like to remember my creations. I want that awareness in my mind. “Holy Spirit, thank You for helping me to see this fear in my mind. I do want this, and I ask You to heal the part of my mind that is uncertain and afraid.”

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 7: IX.The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 4. 6-2-14

IX. The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 4

4 The Kingdom is forever extending because it is in the Mind of God. You do not know your joy because you do not know your own Self-fullness. Exclude any part of the Kingdom from yourself and you are not whole. A split mind cannot perceive its fullness, and needs the miracle of its wholeness to dawn upon it and heal it. This reawakens the wholeness in it, and restores it to the Kingdom because of its acceptance of wholeness. The full appreciation of the mind’s Self-fullness makes selfishness impossible and extension inevitable. That is why there is perfect peace in the Kingdom. Spirit is fulfilling its function, and only complete fulfillment is peace.

This sentence stands out for me. “Exclude any part of the Kingdom from yourself and you are not whole.” First, I understand that it is the memory of my wholeness that restores me to the Kingdom. The emphasis I want to focus on is that I cannot exclude any part of the Kingdom from myself if I want to know my wholeness. I suppose that should be obvious. If I exclude, then I am not whole. And yet, I notice myself doing this.

As I was sitting here this morning getting ready to read today’s paragraph, I noticed a thought in my mind. It was a thought of exclusion. Someone I know and don’t want as part of my life, part of my self. I don’t have really strong feelings about this person, and in fact seldom think about him. But when I do, my thoughts are thoughts of exclusion.

So I am sitting here getting ready to join Spirit in my morning reading and this thought flits across my mind. This man is not like me. Just at that moment, I glanced to my right and this is where I keep my reminder board. It has a picture of my oldest child, a card from my youngest, and many little notes, helpful ideas, things I want to remember. The note that caught my attention says, “You cannot enter God’s presence if you attack His Son.”

Well, ok. I see my problem. I want to return my full mind to the Kingdom. I want to enter the presence of God. More than anything, this is what I want. Well, mostly more than anything. Would I have to like this man who crossed my mind? Would I have to acknowledge him as part of my Self? Would I have to give up my attack on him? It would seem so.

I started out by saying that I don’t have extreme feelings about him. I don’t hate him; I just don’t want to spend time with him. At one time when I was still trying to negotiate with God to let me in Heaven with some of my more favored sins intact, I would have argued the point. Here are some of the arguments I would have used. I would have said that I am not really attacking him; I just happened to “discern” that he is a jerk. Or, I can love him without liking him. Here is an early favorite; I would reason that I could love everyone else except him. I would leave out just this one person.

In the ego there is always room for compromise. That is what the ego is all about. It varies with the circumstances. It shifts according to mood and perceived needs. It is completely undependable and totally unstable, but it allows me to hold grievances and to exclude anyone who does not meet my expectations. I used to think this was a fair exchange and one that I valued. Fortunately, I have come to my senses.

Truth is uncompromising. It is also completely stable and dependable. It is eternal. It is love and joy and perfect peace. It is my inheritance, my birth rite, mine for the asking. But it is also whole. That means nothing is absent from it. There is nothing outside it. That one man, that irritating person who is not what I think he should be, is part of the Kingdom or the Kingdom is not what It is. I can have the Kingdom, or I can have my grievance. I cannot have both because I cannot enter God’s presence if I attack His Son.

I could talk about this man and I could list his faults and I could try to convince you that we don’t want him in our Kingdom. But honestly, I can’t remember who it was I thought of this morning. I can’t remember him or his sins. It just passed through my mind for a brief bit of time, just long enough to remind me that I still hold the belief that grievances have some value for me. I willingly, and enthusiastically relinquish the belief that my petty grievances, or even my major grievances, are valuable to me in any way.

There is only one way to approach God, and that is hand in hand. No one stands alone or at the back. We are one whole Self and to know Self I must know my wholeness. I am grateful for this moment of recognized insanity. It gave me the opportunity to change my mind. When I stop trying to push my brother away, the Holy Spirit shows me his beauty and his perfection and it is mirrored back to me and I see my Self.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 7: IX.The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 3. 5-30-14

IX. The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 3
3 The extension of God’s Being is spirit’s only function. Its fullness cannot be contained, any more than can the fullness of its Creator. Fullness is extension. The ego’s whole thought system blocks extension, and thus blocks your only function. It therefore blocks your joy, so that you perceive yourself as unfulfilled. Unless you create you are unfulfilled, but God does not know unfulfillment and therefore you must create. You may not know your own creations, but this can no more interfere with their reality than your unawareness of your spirit can interfere with its being.

This paragraph is very clear. My only function is to extend God’s Being, and this is true creation. The ego blocks this function and so blocks my joy and I am unfulfilled. But, God does not know unfulfillment and so I must create. This reminds me of the Introduction to the Course which tells us that nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal can exist.

The ego mind resists this logic but Jesus tells us that we must create. He tells us in other places in the Course that we are creating. We are unaware, but that does not interfere with reality. I have ways to think about this, stories that I tell myself to make it easier for me to accept. But I don’t really understand, not with my ego mind.

There is a part of me, however, that knows the truth and this knowing is stronger than the not knowing. I accept that I am still as God created me and that nothing I believe in can change reality.  I am, right now, creating as God creates. This is true even though I am not aware of it. I don’t want to sleep through this anymore. Wake up, Myron, wake up!

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 7: IX.The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 2. 5-29-14

IX. The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 2

2 Spirit knows that the awareness of all its brothers is included in its own, as it is included in God. The power of the whole Sonship and of its Creator is therefore spirit’s own fullness, rendering its creations equally whole and equal in perfection. The ego cannot prevail against a totality that includes God, and any totality must include God. Everything He created is given all His power, because it is part of Him and shares His Being with Him. Creating is the opposite of loss, as blessing is the opposite of sacrifice. Being must be extended. That is how it retains the knowledge of itself. Spirit yearns to share its being as its Creator did. Created by sharing, its will is to create. It does not wish to contain God, but wills to extend His Being.

Jesus is telling us something about our Self. We are created by God as an extension of Himself. That is, God created us through sharing Himself. That means that we are equal in perfection and power with our Creator. This is so hard to take in because we have made a self that is opposite of Reality and so we feel small and weak and vulnerable.

What we feel is exactly the opposite of what we are. This is why we must let go of what we think we know before we can take our place in the Kingdom. What we think we know is blocking our awareness of our Reality. Recently, I have begun to respond to ego feelings by telling myself, “That can’t be right.”

Yesterday, I spent the day with my sister-in-law at the emergency room. She is experiencing Restrictive Lung Disease. Her lungs just won’t let her exhale breath so there is a build up of carbon dioxide. At least this is what I understood the doctor to say. There were a lot of emotions going on as I was there with my family.

When I would feel that hospital personnel were guilty for not responding quickly, I would remind myself of the truth, “That can’t be right.” There is no such thing as guilt. It is just one of those ego things we made up to keep separation in place. When I felt helpless and didn’t know what to say, I could remind myself, that can’t be right. The Holy Spirit is in my mind and always ready to respond through me as I step back and allow that to happen. Why should this be any different.

The ego is always going to react with fear and guilt because that is how it was made, from fear and guilt. But, as Jesus says, the ego cannot prevail against a totality that includes God and any totality must include God. I am beginning to see things differently now. I am beginning to see everyone as part of me, not separate people with separate needs, but one whole thing of which I am a part. And all of us are in God. This changes everything.

What I noticed yesterday is that I still sometimes react to the unknown as if it is the enemy. I feel afraid and uncertain. Because I feel so at sea, not knowing how to feel, I grab onto any familiar anchor and that is sometimes the ego. But my connection with Spirit is firmly rooted through years of practice as I have turned to Him for guidance and clarity over and over.

So what that looked like is this. I would see myself agreeing with fear stories, or finding fault with the medical system. I would hear myself telling stories to support this fear. I could see myself doing it as if it was someone else. I even saw the reason I did it, how it was like a drowning person grabbing the first solid object to keep afloat. That was how I felt, like I was drowning in uncertainty and it was better to be egocentric than to drown. 

I watched all this happen and it was ok. I knew what was happening and why and I knew to let it go. This is so much better than when I would stay in it for a long time and when I finally came to my senses, would feel guilty and beat myself up for not doing better. It was also very reassuring to see that the Holy Spirit is still there even when I am confused, stronger than the ego in my mind. When I was finding fault I was seeing us as separate, and I was allowing fear to block the extension of love, which is creation.

More than once I notice how I felt, tired and weepy, and reminded myself that it is ok to feel whatever I feel. This is an important reminder for me because I can start to feel guilty for not being “stronger” and when this happens I know that it is the ego wanting to be strong. Over all, I am happy that even though I was caught up in the ego story of Brinda in the emergency room, I was also detached enough to see what was going on. The ego will not prevail. It is not possible. Even when everything seems crazy and scary, part of me knows it is just a story and that it can’t be true.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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