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Study of the Text, II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 12. 12-4-13

II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 12

12 The difference between the ego’s projection and the Holy Spirit’s extension is very simple. The ego projects to exclude, and therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit extends by recognizing Himself in every mind, and thus perceives them as one. Nothing conflicts in this perception, because what the Holy Spirit perceives is all the same. Wherever He looks He sees Himself, and because He is united He offers the whole Kingdom always. This is the one message God gave to Him and for which He must speak, because that is what He is. The peace of God lies in that message, and so the peace of God lies in you. The great peace of the Kingdom shines in your mind forever, but it must shine outward to make you aware of it.

Here is what I understand from reading this paragraph. The Holy Spirit extends through recognizing Himself in everyone He sees, thus offering us a vision of wholeness, and so the peace of God. Through looking with the Holy Spirit we see that we are one because we see what He sees. This is the Holy Spirit’s purpose, what He was created for and therefore what He is.

Because He is in our mind, the peace of God is always available to us. If we are not in God’s peace it is not because His peace is not available to us. It is because we have made a deliberate choice to look through the ego perception rather than through the Holy Spirit’s Vision. Understanding that this is the problem, the reason we are not at peace, we can choose again. Looking through the shattered lens of ego we will always see separation and this will show us war. Looking through the single lens of Spirit we will always see One and this will show us peace.

Here is a simple example that happened to me yesterday. I got to my favorite hotel to discover they are in the middle of construction and so had limited in rooms available. I was given a room upstairs and on the outside. I usually stay downstairs and always on the inside. As it turns out, it seems my preference about rooms is very important to me. I was immediately upset.

Since I was out of peace I watched my thoughts to see what happened. I saw that I resented being in a place I didn’t like and that I blamed the hotel staff for my unhappiness. I looked at these people through the shattered lens of ego and saw them as separate from me. I saw that I had an objective and that was to be in the room I wanted, and they had a different objective and that was to put me in the room they had available. This put us at war and one of us was going to win and it wasn’t going to be me.

I allowed the ego mind to run with this and I saw that it took me from mild disappointment to rage at not getting my way. All kinds of vengeful thoughts came up as I continued to project blame for my upset on them. My behavior changed to reflect the feelings I was choosing to have and I didn’t smile and joke with the employees. Most of this was in my mind only, and I doubt anyone but me noticed. I am not so insane that I believe my thoughts, but I was very aware of them and chose to change them because I don’t want to lose my peace.

It took some effort on my part. This is where my work comes in. I set my intention to return my mind to God. I asked Holy Spirit to show me how He sees this. He gently showed me the belief in my mind that this situation was the fault of the hotel, and then asked me how this could possibly have anything to do with them. I write my own story and the script is drawn from the beliefs I hold to and defend. If I seem to be a victim in this story of the hotel it can only be because I still treasure my victim story and through projecting blame I continue to defend it from the healing power of the Christ Mind.

Seeing this so clearly, it was easy enough for me to change my mind. It still took a little effort as the ego continued to try to interest me in finding someone else to blame. But who could I blame? The hotel is not the author of my story. I am the one who put this into play. I used a prayer that I find simple and effective. I surrendered my story and my beliefs to Spirit and accepted His healing grace. He showed me that even after the fact I still was not without choices. I could allow a new vision of the written story. As soon as I made that choice the way I felt about the room changed.

I realized that the stairs were a rare opportunity for exercise. I saw that the outside rooms are under an awning and so protected from weather which we are supposed to have tomorrow. I laughed as I saw that I had a full refrigerator instead of a little hotel fridge and wondered if I wanted to go by some groceries. Well, maybe not, but I do have to take samples that need to be kept cold and this refrigerator would provide plenty of room for that.

More important than my ease with the room, my vision cleared and I saw my own Divine Mind at work within the story and so I saw everyone else in the same way. Christ sees only Christ. Oneness restores peace. Even if the room were a mess I would still have seen the perfection within the mess, because a healed mind sees only perfection and only the movement of Spirit in everything. It is a wonderful thing to be aware of the Christ within, but the only way to do that is to allow it to shine outward and show me the Christ in everyone else.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 10 12-2-13

II. The Alternative to Projection
10 The Holy Spirit uses time, but does not believe in it. Coming from God He uses everything for good, but He does not believe in what is not true. Since the Holy Spirit is in your mind, your mind can also believe only what is true. The Holy Spirit can speak only for this, because He speaks for God. He tells you to return your whole mind to God, because it has never left Him. If it has never left Him, you need only perceive it as it is to be returned. The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the separation never occurred. The ego cannot prevail against this because it is an explicit statement that the ego never occurred.

I am in God and there is a place in my mind that knows this is true. To find that truth and stay with it is to return home. What seems to be happening now is that I find the truth in my mind, but then I become diverted by the story, which is also in my mind. I always bring myself back to the truth, though, and usually very quickly. I write this and I realize what it means and I get chills up and down my spine. I am waking up.

Every time I turn to the Holy Spirit, He tells me, in some way, to return my mind to God where it has never left. I am not returning to God, really, I am already there. Since I am already there the separation never occurred and the ego does not exist. “It is not possible for me to fail, is it Jesus?” When I think of this I smile and laugh and cry. I don’t know what to do with myself.

Just a short time ago I would notice judgmental thoughts or grievances in my mind and I would know that this was not good. I would try to look at them with the Holy Spirit but would have trouble understanding how they could not be true. The story would seem so real it was hard to see the truth behind the story.

Sometimes, I would ask for my mind to be healed, but my heart wasn’t on board with the words. I would want to be healed, but I would also want to keep my grievance. This conflict was very painful and very confusing and it would scare me. I thought it meant I couldn’t do this. I didn’t know how to resolve it and I felt guilty that I was in this position.

Now what happens is that sometimes I find a grievance or a judgment in my mind and I know that I don’t want it, because this grievance or judgment stands between me and God. It might take a little while to decide I want only God, but I no longer doubt myself. I know what my choice will be. Yesterday I had an experience of judgment while I was with someone. This person lacks some basic hygiene skills and smells very bad. It was hard for me to be with her.

The Virgo personality I have chosen for this story really hates that kind of thing. Because I want to wake up more than I want to judge, the situation in which I found myself, (and which should have been short-lived), went on for hours, so I had plenty of time to watch my mind and make a choice for love. I went back and forth with it for the longest time, and this is what I noticed; I am OK with myself, I can take all the time I need and it doesn’t make me guilty.

It took longer than usual for me to overcome my judgment and to make a new decision and that’s all right. I was patient with myself because I know the outcome is inevitable. I have no fear that my judgment will condemn me, and no fear that I will not choose love. If not now then later, but always, I will choose love.

In fact I was able to laugh at myself even while it was happening. The ego tried to engage me in a little fear and guilt, but I wasn’t interested. I was able to remember that my belief this person should be clean is just an opinion and not truth. I had decided yesterday that I was through with defending my beliefs, and, lo and behold, right away I got a chance to see this decision in action. Now tell me if that isn’t both cool and funny!

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 9 11-29-13

II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 9
9 Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker, from which they reach outward. This is as true of God’s Thinking as it is of yours. Because your mind is split, you can perceive as well as think. Yet perception cannot escape the basic laws of mind. You perceive from your mind and project your perceptions outward. Although perception of any kind is unreal, you made it and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. He can inspire perception and lead it toward God. This convergence seems to be far in the future only because your mind is not in perfect alignment with the idea, and therefore does not want it now.

This first sentence explains how we made the world we see. First we thought of it, then the thoughts took form. This is the way God made us as well. We know from the previous paragraph that God’s Thoughts remain in His mind, and so we know that this is true of our thoughts as well. What we made as the world is in our mind, just as we are in God’s Mind.

Because our mind is split we both think and perceive, and perception follows the same rules as does thinking. The world we made is a perceived world. It is not real because it is not created, but made up of impossible thoughts. Still, because we made it, the Holy Spirit can use it. The way He uses it is to help bring our thinking into alignment with truth. He inspires our perceptions and therefore turns them toward God.

Last night when my daughter was getting ready to leave the house I asked her if she remembered her phone. She tends to forget things. She said she had it and drove off. I found her phone on the kitchen table. I expressed out loud to those still at the house that this girl tests my faith. Every time she leaves I worry because she seems to be so unaware. I meant it as a joke, but it didn’t feel funny to me when I said it out loud. I immediately regretted my words.

Here is how the Holy Spirit inspires my perceptions and turns them toward God.

The Holy Spirit showed me that the reason I felt bad about what I said is that it is an attack on my daughter. I see her as less than what she is. I overlook her holiness and see her behavior instead. When I asked for help the Holy Spirit inspired my perception, and I was able to see my daughter as the brilliant being she is. What is her story of forgetfulness next to the truth of her holy Self?

Then the Holy Spirit helped me to see my guilty feelings differently as well. I saw that I did not ever mean to attack my daughter. The attack was a projection of my fear for her. We looked at the fear together and I was reminded that fear is not real, but something we made up through our faulty perceptions.

This helped turn my perceptions away from the darkness to the light. The Holy Spirit gave me a vision of my daughter and I sitting together enjoying the story of Susan and Mom. This story is better than anything on TV, and just as unreal. We are not guilty because nothing is really happening. Our stories cannot alter what God created.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 8. 11-27-13

II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 8
8 God created His Sons by extending His Thought, and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other. The Holy Spirit enables you to perceive this wholeness now. God created you to create. You cannot extend His Kingdom until you know of its wholeness.

Very clearly we cannot be apart from or different from, God. He created us by extending His Thought, that is, He created us by extending Himself and, therefore, we are like God. We are powerful creators just as is God. This powerful creative ability is what allows us to make the world we see in all its complexity. Because we did not create in the way of Creation (through extending our Thought) what we made is not truly created, but in making it, we used the same power that we would use in creation.

When God created us He extended His Thought, but He also held His Thought within His Mind. This is why we can never truly be separate from God. We are not only like God, we are in God. Being in God, we are perfectly protected and are in no danger from our illusions. We can dream of being separate and in danger, but clearly that cannot actually happen. Because we are in God, it is clearly possible and perfectly safe to awaken from this dream.

Our made world is a world of separation where we each seem to be discrete, and unconnected, and yet, that is obviously not possible. We are part of each other and part of God and still within God, One Whole Self. The belief that we are separated from each other and from God is the only thing holding us in our illusion and holding our illusion together.

Let go of that thought and we wake up to our true Self and know ourselves in God. We return home to discover we never really left, we were just dreaming of being separate. We wake up to our Father and to our true creations. It really is that simple. We imagine we are in this world of pain and sorrow and that it is worth all the suffering because it keeps us safe from a vengeful God.

And yet, we are all the time in God. If He were truly vengeful we would already be destroyed. We are like children afraid of the monsters in the dark. We sit with our eyes tightly closed and imagine that we are safe because we don’t see the monster. All the time, there is no monster, just the imagined shadows of our fear.

Do I truly believe that I am safe at home in God, and that I only imagine this world? I asked myself that as I wrote what came to me this morning, and I heard only whispers of dissent. The ego is afraid, but I am not the ego and its voice is fading from my mind. Then the ego asks if I believe my son is not real, and reminds me of his upcoming surgery.

Will I be so certain he is not real when he is under the knife and in danger? I ask the Holy Spirit about this, and He reminds me that my son is very real and he is with me in God. It is the story of his suffering that is the illusion. I ask that my mind be healed of the lingering belief in the illusion.

I imagine myself in that situation, sitting in the waiting room with my son’s fiancée and I feel the fear in the clinching of my stomach and the tightening in my chest. I feel it moving up my throat and making a lump there that I can barely breathe around. I feel the fear melting out of me as tears.

I watch this happen knowing that this is exactly what needs to be healed. It comes up so that the Holy Spirit and I can look together, and together, agree that this cannot be. How can a Thought of God be endangered? I used to ask for help then put up a wall against that help. It seemed so wrong, so disloyal, to not be afraid for my son.

I look at that wall with the Holy Spirit and together we agree that it is unnecessary, and that Love is not fear. I watch as the wall crumbles before my eyes. The ego tries to worm its way into this moment with Holy Spirit, asking what we are to do next to achieve this healing, and I am told that my part is done. The Holy Spirit will do the rest. I am to rest in Trust and allow it to happen.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 7 11-26-13

II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 7
7 The perfect equality of the Holy Spirit’s perception is the reflection of the perfect equality of God’s knowing. The ego’s perception has no counterpart in God, but the Holy Spirit remains the bridge between perception and knowledge. By enabling you to use perception in a way that reflects knowledge, you will ultimately remember it. The ego would prefer to believe that this memory is impossible, yet it is your perception the Holy Spirit guides. Your perception will end where it began. Everything meets in God, because everything was created by Him and in Him.

My perception is my way of seeing things. It is how I interpret what I see and hear and think. My perception was informed by influences from my childhood and it varies even now according to my mood and which book I have read lately. At its best, my perception will only be an opinion formed outside of knowledge. There is no perception in God. There is only Knowledge that does not change. God does not perceive, He knows.

It seems such a huge gap, this perceiving that I do and the absolute knowledge of God. The ego would have me believe that there is no way to bridge that gap, but there is a way. The Holy Spirit is the bridge between perception and knowledge. As I willingly offer the Holy Spirit my thoughts for reinterpretation, He corrects them so that they are closer to knowledge.

As I have done this my thinking, my perceptions, have shifted to something that more accurately reflects knowledge. While it is not knowledge it is so much closer to knowledge that an ancient memory has begun to stir within me. As this memory grows and comes more into focus, I begin to remember who I am.

I am meant to recover this memory and I am meant to do so now! This is the secret that ego would keep from me. It would have me work toward awakening as long as I keep it as a distant possibility. I can even think of it as an inevitability as long as it still seems far away. This is why, as I approach awakening, the ego points out my errors, dredging up long forgotten sins to show me how unworthy I am.

It distracts and discourages. But now I remember that the ego has no power over me. It is not my master, but only an idea in my mind, an idea I formulated and therefore one that I can choose against. The Holy Spirit has corrected my thinking about the ego and so I am closer to being in alignment with knowledge than before. I am not so easily fooled now, and can even laugh to realize that I was only being fooled by myself.

At one time I would have been greatly discouraged by the ego thoughts that arise in the mind. I would have thought that their presence meant I was failing to awaken, and that I was so far from awakening that it felt hopeless to me. Now I see the thoughts and realize that any reaction to them, any feeling of anxiety, indicates that I am experiencing the remnants of a belief I no longer want. I turn to the Holy Spirit for healing.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 6 11-25-13

II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 6
6 How else can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there? You cannot be anywhere God did not put you, and God created you as part of Him. That is both where you are and what you are. It is completely unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot change it now or ever. It is forever true. It is not a belief, but a Fact. Anything that God created is as true as He is. Its truth lies only in its perfect inclusion in Him Who alone is perfect. To deny this is to deny yourself and Him, since it is impossible to accept one without the other.

I cannot imagine how Jesus could state the truth any more clearly than he has done so here. In the world there is only temporary happiness, or rather there are moments when we forget that we are not happy. There is no joy in the world. Our moments that seem the most joyful, falling in love, the birth of a child, seeing a grandchild for the first time, these moments are examples of what we call joy. And yet, they are tinged with fear. We fear falling out of love or losing the one we love. We fear for our children and grandchildren. There is no joy in the world that is pure.

The only way to find joy is to realize we are not in this world. We are where God put us and He put us with Him. In God we are purely joyful with nothing to tinge that joy. There is no loss or fear in God. And in God is where we are. It is not where we are going or where we hope to be one day. It is certainly not a place we get to by dying. Jesus is very clear about this. God created us like Him and in Him and that is unalterable.

Pretending to live in a strange world does not make it happen. We dream of life and death, but we only Live. To stop this absurd dream we need only to awaken to the simple fact that we cannot be what God created not. It is not possible to undo what God has done. We can, however, undo what we have done simply by desiring it to be undone.

For myself, I am noticing those times when I am uncertain or confused about what I want. My desire to abandon my imaginative play must be unqualified. If I value anything in the illusion then I will keep the illusion. If I reserve the right to judge then I have chosen the illusion. If I reserve the right to see myself as less than or better than someone else, I have chosen the illusion. So I watch my mind for the things I still think I want, and I realize that I do not want them. They are sharp edged toys that hurt me and I don’t want to play with them anymore.

The other thing I do is to remind myself of Who I am and What I am. I do this often. I remember that my mind is healed and Whole now! This is not something I have to earn or a goal I seek. It is the truth right now! I am God’s child, His holy Son, His perfect creation. Everything else is just part of the illusion, nothing, the remnants of a dream I have awakened from. I have lost interest in fixing the dream. What is the point? And when old habits lure me back into the dream, I shake myself awake again. I will not deny myself, and I will not deny God.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 3,Part 2 11-21-13

II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 3 Part 2
3 Yet projection will always hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its only purpose is to keep the separation going. It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different from your brothers and separated from them. The ego justifies this on the grounds that it makes you seem “better” than they are, thus obscuring your equality with them still further. Projection and attack are inevitably related, because projection is always a means of justifying attack. Anger without projection is impossible. The ego uses projection only to destroy your perception of both yourself and your brothers. The process begins by excluding something that exists in you but which you do not want, and leads directly to excluding you from your brothers.

I am going to buy a new car, an activity I don’t look forward to. I feel at a disadvantage in this situation. I am not good at looking at all the aspects of a situation and pinpointing the ones that really matter. I am not good at thinking on my feet. I need time and solitude to sift through the facts and then allow the solution to rise to the surface. Being a sales person myself, you would think I would be able to handle the situation with another sales person better, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

As I was sitting here thinking about how to write about projection, my mind wandered to the dreaded car-buying project. I began to pay attention to my thoughts and saw a lot of projection going on. I was feeling judgmental and resentful of car salesmen. I was thinking of defense strategies.

I see that I feel I lack the skills to do this job well, and this makes me feel vulnerable and weak. I don’t like feeling this way so I projected onto some unknown sales person. I made the sales person the problem and then started planning my defenses against him. I noticed that I was beginning to feel angry and resentful of someone I have yet to meet. I start by thinking I have a problem, and end up making some man my enemy. Right from the comfort of my home. Jeez.

Looking at this I see that my first error was in losing my sense of purpose. Is it my purpose to get a good deal on a car? Or is it my purpose to awaken? How can I use this experience to help me and everyone else awaken? Certainly it is not going to help my cause to separate myself from my brother through projection. Awakening doesn’t occur through making separate, and placing blame.

Not only did my exercise in projection make me feel separate from this person I have not even met, it made him seem like an enemy and me feel like a helpless victim. Even more important, these projections reinforce the belief in separation and the belief that I need to defend myself in this way, that is, projection protects me. If I believe this, I am not going to be interested in letting this device go.

As I have become aware of how important it is that I let go of the whole idea of projection, I have become vigilant for projection thoughts in my mind. It seems that projection is pervasive in my thinking. This does not mean, however, that I cannot stop. It has become just as much a habit for me to stop when I notice that I am projecting. I stop and ask that the Holy Spirit heal my mind of this kind of thinking.

At first I did this because I knew I was hurting myself. Now I do it because I really want to experience unconditional and universal love. I want to remember what it feels like to know that I am one with everything and everyone. I want to remember my Father as I knew Him before I dabbled in the separation game.

These desires dwarf the belief I need to feel savvy on the car lot, and that I need to leave the winner. In fact, the very thought makes me laugh. I’m through making plans on my own. I remind myself this morning that it is all an illusion and why would I want to fix the illusion. I turn my attention back to the truth and the only thing that matters. I surrender the whole process to the Holy Spirit and invite Him to use this body as His channel in this situation as in any other.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.