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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VI.From Vigilance to Peace, Paragraph 11. 4-25-14

VI. From Vigilance to Peace, Paragraph 11

11 Perceived without your part in it, God’s creation is seen as weak, and those who see themselves as weakened do attack. The attack must be blind, however, because there is nothing to attack. Therefore they make up images, perceive them as unworthy and attack them for their unworthiness. That is all the world of the ego is. Nothing. It has no meaning. It does not exist. Do not try to understand it because, if you do, you are believing that it can be understood and is therefore capable of being appreciated and loved. That would justify its existence, which cannot be justified. You cannot make the meaningless meaningful. This can only be an insane attempt.

Oh man! This brings a lot of clarity to what we see as the world. In an attempt to experience separation from God, we perceived ourselves as no longer whole since we thought we were no longer part of God. Simply being separate rather than whole made it seem as if we were weak, and feeling weak we felt defensive and so felt the need to attack.

But what could we attack? Now we had to “make up images, perceive them as unworthy and attack them for their unworthiness.” Voila, separate bodies! How perfect is that? We have these bodies that are weak and vulnerable, and will ultimately die and decay. These bodies interact in painful and cruel ways.

Even in good intentions they hurt each other. They have twisted the idea of love until it barely resembles itself. Because they were made out of fear, they are fearful. How else to see these images except as unworthy. All made up. All serving the purpose of giving us something to defend against because we made ourselves feel weak.

Jesus then warns us not to try to understand the world we made, not to appreciate or love it, because we don’t want to justify it. It is meaningless, and we cannot make it meaningful. That’s why we are still here, we keep trying to find meaning where there is none. We keep trying to justify our existence as egos.

We are not that. We are not bodies. We are not weak and vulnerable. We are not fearful and guilty. We are not hateful and we have no need to defend ourselves, and nothing to defend against. We are simply confused. However, if we continue trying to understand and improve the illusion, this insane world we imagined, we will continue to think that this is exactly what we are.

We could have reason to love and appreciate the world, or to hate the world, only if the world were meaningful and it is not. This is why I don’t pray for a better, more loveable world, but rather I pray that I awake from the dream of the world. I dream that I live in this hellish expression of confusion and fear, then I dream that I die from it. Then I pop back in and dream that this time I will have a better “life” and then I dream I die. It is an endless cycle of nothing happening.

If I did not believe in it this whole thing would be funny, but as Jesus tells us in the Course, what I believe in is real for me, so it is more tragic than funny. But thank God, it is never real. I can wake up from the dream of life and the dream of death. Thank God, I am still as I was created, and my real life has not ceased because part of my mind is involved in this insane dream.

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

Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VI.From Vigilance to Peace, Paragraph 10. 4-24-14

VI. From Vigilance to Peace, Paragraph 10

10 You can be perceived with meaning only by the Holy Spirit because your being is the knowledge of God. Any belief you accept apart from this will obscure God’s Voice in you, and will therefore obscure God to you. Unless you perceive His creation truly you cannot know the Creator, since God and His creation are not separate. The oneness of the Creator and the creation is your wholeness, your sanity and your limitless power. This limitless power is God’s gift to you, because it is what you are. If you dissociate your mind from it you are perceiving the most powerful force in the universe as if it were weak, because you do not believe you are part of it.

God created me like Himself, with limitless power. Limitless power! I had to read this paragraph over and over. I just wasn’t understanding it and of course that means I just didn’t believe it because it is not hard to understand. I was created one with God and that oneness is my wholeness, my sanity, my limitless power. The reason I had trouble with this paragraph is that I have dissociated myself from this truth.

This means that I am pretending to be separate from God and from my power. I am pretending that this is even possible. I am pretending that it is possible to perceive the most powerful force in the universe as if it is weak. It is the only way I could have this separation experience. Now that I am waking up from this nightmare, I am beginning to remember some things about my Self.

Right now my experience includes pain, both physical and emotional. This pain seems to prove that I have no power, and yet Jesus says that I have limitless power. He has made it clear that I return to my natural state by letting go of what I taught myself in order to experience separation. I do this by becoming aware of my thought errors and agreeing to have them corrected.

It seems very simple but as I sit here in pain, it seems impossible. I would be discouraged except that I have done this before. It always seems hard when I sit on the fence, teetering toward ego, then toward spirit, putting off the inevitable decision. I will, in the end, choose God because of who I am, because perception is not knowledge and because I am known.

The Holy Spirit provides all the help I need to make the decision to fall into God. I have the Course. I have teachers and guides and angels. I have mighty companions. I have books and prayers and processes. I have experienced success in the past and these successes have built one on another until I am almost convinced that I am what I am.

So I sit here in pain and I know the pain is not real. The pain in my body is not real and the pain in my heart is not real. It can’t be real because it is not part of God and I am in God no matter what my crazy dream tells me. How can I absolutely know this and still experience the opposite? It is because I still see value in pain.

This morning I was guided to listen to a guided meditation by Nouk Sanchez. It reminded me that there is no pain or sickness or loss that is greater than the power of God. This gift was just another way that the Holy Spirit is helping me to remember the truth and to remind me that I want the truth. My desire for an experience other than reality is the only cause of my pain, and the decision to choose otherwise is the only cure.

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

Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VI.From Vigilance to Peace, Paragraph 9. 4-23-14

9 Your mind is dividing its allegiance between two kingdoms, and you are totally committed to neither. Your identification with the Kingdom is totally beyond question except by you, when you are thinking insanely. What you are is not established by your perception, and is not influenced by it at all. Perceived problems in identification at any level are not problems of fact. They are problems of understanding, since their presence implies a belief that what you are is up to you to decide. The ego believes this totally, being fully committed to it. It is not true. The ego therefore is totally committed to untruth, perceiving in total contradiction to the Holy Spirit and to the knowledge of God.

Part of my mind believes I am this body/personality. It gives its allegiance to the idea that I am Myron and that I live in this body and in this world, and I will die here. This part of my mind believes that it is up to me to decide what I am and that I can make my decision true simply by deciding on it. I don’t know anything; I perceive and I think that my perceptions are meaningful.

Part of my mind knows who and what I am. I am God’s Son, free and whole and perfect, and I exit in Him and as part of Him. I don’t think; I know. I am not influenced in any way by the part of the mind that is insane. No matter what I think, I simply am as I was created and nothing I think or do can alter that in any way. I am a creator but I am not my own creator.

As long as I try to hold onto both ideas I will be in conflict. If I want peace, and I do, I must let go of one identity and become totally dedicated to the other. It is not possible to be totally committed to a lie, and why would I want to anyway. I have already made my decision to return my whole mind to God, and now it is just a matter of commitment and vigilance.

I watch my mind for the dark thoughts that take me deeper into the illusion and realize they are meaningless and that I am not interested in them. This is not hard to do and when it seems hard it is only because I have placed value where there is none and I change my mind. I don’t have to do anything to be my Self, I just stop trying to be something else.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VI.From Vigilance to Peace, Paragraph 8. 4-22-14

VI. From Vigilance to Peace, Paragraph 8

8 I have repeatedly emphasized that the ego does believe it can attack God, and tries to persuade you that you have done this. If the mind cannot attack, the ego proceeds perfectly logically to the belief that you must be a body. By not seeing you as you are, it can see itself as it wants to be. Aware of its weakness the ego wants your allegiance, but not as you really are. The ego therefore wants to engage your mind in its own delusional system, because otherwise the light of your understanding would dispel it. It wants no part of truth, because the ego itself is not true. If truth is total, the untrue cannot exist. Commitment to either must be total; they cannot coexist in your mind without splitting it. If they cannot coexist in peace, and if you want peace, you must give up the idea of conflict entirely and for all time. This requires vigilance only as long as you do not recognize what is true. While you believe that two totally contradictory thought systems share truth, your need for vigilance is apparent.

The error I make is in confusing myself with the ego. I am not the ego. That is the truth and that makes all the difference in the world. The ego really does believe it can attack God, and it tries to convince me that I am the one attacking God. When I identify with the ego, I believe I have done this and so the guilt I feel is immense, so immense that I hide from it instead of bringing it into the Light for healing. As I have allowed more and more healing of my mind, I have withdrawn my allegiance from the ego.

I see that I cannot keep dividing my allegiance between ego and Truth. This has split my mind and put me in a perpetual state of conflict, which has become intolerable. I have made a decision to choose God once and for all. For the time being this requires vigilance on my part to be aware of the tendency to choose conflict over peace.

I never stay with conflict when I am aware that I am doing it. If I see that I am angry with someone, anyone, for any reason, I choose to forgive. I forgive the person, the situation, and myself. I cannot have this conflict and be at peace, and I choose peace every time. I might have to talk myself into making this choice but even that is not necessary most of the time.

My vigilance must be strongest for the conflict that is not as obvious. Sometimes I notice that I feel anxious and don’t know why. This is conflict that I am hiding from myself. I become willing to see it, and my willingness exposes the problem. Then I can confront my conflicted thoughts and ask for and accept the Atonement for them.

Yesterday I noticed that I was feeling little twinges of anger at one person then another. I felt impatient with them. This is unusual enough for me to take notice and ask Spirit for clarity. Suddenly I felt grief stricken and cried. I realized that what was really happening is that I was trying to avoid feeling upset about my sister-in-law being close to death.

It was like I had two thoughts in my mind; “Brinda is going to die” and “I am not going to think about Brinda dying.” There was a little battle going on in my mind, and in trying to be unaware of this inner war, I was projecting the upset onto other people. But I am very vigilant for conflict, and my truest desire is to be free of conflict, so I let Holy Spirit show me the problem and I accepted healing. I let myself feel the grief rather than shielding myself from it.

I want peace and so I am determined to give up the idea of conflict entirely and for all time.

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

Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VI.From Vigilance to Peace, Paragraph 7. 4-21-14

VI. From Vigilance to Peace, Paragraph 7

7 If you will keep in mind what the Holy Spirit offers you, you cannot be vigilant for anything but God and His Kingdom. The only reason you may find this hard to accept is because you may still think there is something else. Belief does not require vigilance unless it is conflicted. If it is, there are conflicting components within it that have led to a state of war, and vigilance has therefore become essential. Vigilance has no place in peace. It is necessary against beliefs that are not true, and would never have been called upon by the Holy Spirit if you had not believed the untrue. When you believe something, you have made it true for you. When you believe what God does not know, your thought seems to contradict His, and this makes it appear as if you are attacking Him.

This is what really stands out to me this morning.

“When you believe something, you have made it true for you.”

Jesus has made it clear to us that the life we think we are living is just a dream, an illusion, and it has no real effects. In other words, we cannot affect reality. We cannot change creation or make God something that He is not. So, ultimately our beliefs and actions are meaningless. However, what we believe is true for us, so in time we are suffering because of our beliefs. We are holding ourselves apart from God because of our beliefs.

The second thing that stands out for me is this.

“When you believe what God does not know, your thought seems to contradict His, and this makes it appear as if you are attacking Him.”

This is the source of our fear and guilt. We think that we are attacking God through holding beliefs that are in opposition to His nature. The solution is to be vigilant for signs that we are believing what is not in alignment with Truth, and to ask the Holy Spirit to undo this belief for us. We will not always have to do this because one day we will have allowed healing of these separate thoughts often enough to realize that they are all the same. This transfer of learning allows healing of the one thought, that we are separated from God. Once that is healed we will be at peace.

In the meantime, I am vigilant for my thoughts and my emotions. I notice when they are not the thoughts I think with God. I realize that I am willing to be corrected. I accept the healing of my mind. So simple. Oh yeah, I disregard appearances. What appears to have substance, my body and of all I see with the body’s eyes, is just an expression of the beliefs in my mind. I will notice when I am taking them for fact and remember that they are meaningless except for the opportunity they afford me to see what is going on in my head.

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

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