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Study of the Text II. The Voice for God 10-2-13

II. The Voice for God
10-2-13
1 Healing is not creating; it is reparation. The Holy Spirit promotes healing by looking beyond it to what the children of God were before healing was needed, and will be when they have been healed. This alteration of the time sequence should be quite familiar, because it is very similar to the shift in the perception of time that the miracle introduces. The Holy Spirit is the motivation for miracle-mindedness; the decision to heal the separation by letting it go. Your will is still in you because God placed it in your mind, and although you can keep it asleep you cannot obliterate it. God Himself keeps your will alive by transmitting it from His Mind to yours as long as there is time. The miracle itself is a reflection of this union of will between Father and Son.

It is my will to awaken from the dream of separation and to return my full mind to God. This will has been asleep, out of my conscious awareness, for most of my life. This has happened because it is what I wanted to happen. While I can be oblivious to my will, I cannot destroy or lose or even change my will because God keeps it alive for me. I must have changed my mind about remembering my will because it is beginning to surface.

The Holy Spirit is in my mind to help me with this. Because I want to awaken, the Holy Spirit looks with me at the ego beliefs which have been blocking the awareness of God’s Love, and transforms these beliefs. For instance, in order to sustain the belief that I am separate from God, I have had to project an image of a body and give it autonomy. I make it seem as if the body gets sick and suffers and needs magical help to recover. I give it medicines and exercise it and sometimes I have to take it to a doctor to save it.

The Holy Spirit is teaching me that this is insane. The body is only an image of a belief in my mind. It cannot cause anything, being an effect itself. It cannot get sick or suffer or die. When it does these things it is only because it was so directed by the mind. So when it seems I have pain in the body, I really have pain in the mind which I then project onto the body. In this way I convince myself that the pain is real and so is the body because it feels the pain. Because I seem to be feeling pain, I seem to prove that I am the body.

No matter how much care I take to preserve my “self” the body continues to age and to suffer sickness, eventually to die. This is perfectly ego, which always seeks only to fail in what it seeks. I am a part of God, but as ego I see myself as separate and different from ego. I become my own creator, as I see myself as a body. I am not a very good creator, but I am a jealous god. I would rather be sick and suffer than to give into the truth.

I use my pathetic creation to prove that God has no power over me. I can be sick and there is nothing He can do about it.  I prove I can stand outside and apart from God and that He can’t get to me. Better to be fat, unhealthy, in pain, even to die than to subject myself to God. No wonder I feel afraid of Him. I seem to have made God my enemy and my only defense against Him is the pathetically inadequate and weak body.

This is what the Holy Spirit is showing me. And He is showing me the insanity of it all. God is Love. God is Life. I could never be a body and I could never be sick or suffer. I certainly could never die. I can pretend to be outside of Life and Love, but I cannot actually do that. As I look at these thoughts in my mind and ask the Holy Spirit to heal them, and as I become willing to accept the Atonement for them, I begin to awaken to the truth. I can never have a separate will from God because I can never be separate from God.

The miracle is the change of mind that allows me to remember the truth that God and I are joined forever and nothing can come between us, not even my dreams of separation. Just as my beliefs of separation have been projected as if they were outside me, the happier dreams of union are being projected outward as well. They appear as literal miracles in my life.

I need to know something and there it is, in a book or a recording. I didn’t search for it as I didn’t even know what it looked like. I needed it and it was there. I was in pain and remembered that pain is not possible and the pain went away. I was in fear and remembered that fear is not part of God and asked for healing. The fear vanished as if it were smoke blown by the wind. My mind was darkened by a long held grievance, and in a moment of sanity I asked for healing and the grievance disappeared. I cannot even remember what it felt like to hold that grievance. It is a miracle.

I didn’t do any of these things from within the dreamy world of separation. I welcomed the miracle of a healed mind and the miracle was projected onto the world. I know it is a miracle when it comes from outside my ego mind, when I know that Myron could not have done it. The miracle in the world is a symbol of the healed mind that remembers, even if for just a moment, the union of Father and Son.

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

Study of the Text I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 7 10-1-13

I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 7
10-1-13
7 The Holy Spirit, the shared Inspiration of all the Sonship, induces a kind of perception in which many elements are like those in the Kingdom of Heaven itself:
First, its universality is perfectly clear, and no one who attains it could believe for one instant that sharing it involves anything but gain.
Second, it is incapable of attack and is therefore truly open. This means that although it does not engender knowledge, it does not obstruct it in any way.
Finally, it points the way beyond the healing that it brings, and leads the mind beyond its own integration toward the paths of creation. It is at this point that sufficient quantitative change occurs to produce a real qualitative shift.

The Holy Spirit corrects my perception so that it is as close to knowledge as we can get here, and my perception becomes universal. I notice that I am slowly letting go of the idea of specialness and am beginning to see everyone as the same. I remember being freaked out as I sat on the bridge waiting for a wreck to be cleared. This is an older bridge and is considered by many not to be safe. In the opposite lane traffic continued slowly and lots of big trucks went by making the bridge shake.

I was nervous about being stuck on this bridge and when the traffic started moving, I felt tense as I neared the top and then felt relief as I got closer to the bottom. Suddenly I had the thought, “What about all the people behind me? Would a failed bridge be disastrous only if I were on it, or more disastrous if I was on it?” It was one of the first moments of perceiving more universally, or rather of glimpsing a more universal way of perceiving.

It happened other times after that. For instance, I would hear a siren in the night and automatically take roll call for my children. Where were they? Could the siren be for them? And then feeling relief and then disinterest as I realized my kids were all safe at home. And one day when this was happening I had the thought that everyone is some mother’s child, and I understood that there was a way of perceiving that is not special. I still sometimes count my children when I hear a siren, but the Holy Spirit is beginning to make some headway with me as I let go of the idea of specialness.

I began by caring most for “me” this body of Myron. My care expanded to include my family, then a husband, and when children came along, my care centered on them above all others. What has happened as my mind heals is that my care is less discriminating. I find that when someone I have not met comes into my awareness I can care as deeply for that person as for someone I feel close to. This is not complete for me, but as my perception is corrected my care grows to encompass all and it is beginning to feel strange to think of anyone as more special than another.

There is enough of a healing of the mind for me to understand that love cannot be diluted through giving it. I cannot give love away in the sense of not having it, as would happen if I gave away a thing. My care does not lose value because it extends to everyone in my awareness. I don’t love my children less because I love your children.

I think that in the past I must have been thinking that there is only so much safety and love to go around and so if there was danger I had to put all my hopes and wishes toward the few people who mattered to me and to do less would leave them vulnerable to attack. For that reason I couldn’t afford to care about someone else’s child, or at least not about everyone’s child. This seems so weird to me now that I wonder if that was really the way I thought, but I think it was. 

Is my perception now truly open and incapable attack? No, but it is closer to that. I am still capable of attack. I attack myself when I feel guilty and attack others when I assign guilt. I cannot be open if I am defensive. I am so much more open than I used to be and I attack less and when I do, I see my error and ask for correction. I look forward to the day when I am truly incapable of attack.

I can now imagine that happening and that is exciting for me. I notice that now when I have an attack thought I remember that I cannot attack my brother and enter into the presence of God. This motivates me to allow my perception to be further corrected. Letting go of the belief that I must attack and defend is the way the blocks to Loves presence are removed.

As I allow my mind to be healed in many little ways, I begin to experience a different life. I am happier and more peaceful. At first it was slow going as I became convinced that it was ok to give up the old way of thinking and then I realized it was more than ok, it was actually to my advantage. Eventually what has happened is that I care less about what is to “my” advantage and instead I began thinking in terms of the Sonship. Is this going to advance us or hinder us, will it help awaken the Sonship or add to Its illusion. When that happened I realized I had made a significant shift in my perception.

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

Study of the Text I.The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 6 9-30-13

I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 6
9-30-13
6 God honored even the miscreations of His children because they had made them. But He also blessed His children with a way of thinking that could raise their perceptions so high they could reach almost back to Him. The Holy Spirit is the Mind of the Atonement. He represents a state of mind close enough to One-mindedness that transfer to it is at last possible. Perception is not knowledge, but it can be transferred to knowledge, or cross over into it. It might even be more helpful here to use the literal meaning of transferred or “carried over,” since the last step is taken by God.

In order to help us accept the Atonement, Jesus spends a lot of the Course describing the ego. He explains it in detail, what it is, how we recognize it, the behavior that we can expect when we identify with the ego. He then contrasts this with life lived from a healed mind. The goal is to help us see that we don’t want to continue to live through the ego and that we do want to let it go.

While in this phase I began to think of the ego as something bad and something I really needed to dump. Over time my attitude changed. I began to look at the ego differently. Instead of seeing it as a terrible mistake I made and desperately needed to undo, I saw it as an idea gone askew. I had a thought, the thought played out and then I stopped thinking it. Except for the part of the mind that is still reviewing the thought, and this is where my awareness seems to be right now.

Because of my nature as the Son of God, the thought I had, while impossible, played out in all its detail as if it were really happening, and it seemed very realistic, like a finely crafted movie. It is a testimony to my power as God’s Son that this could happen. The error, the place it all went wrong, is that I began to take it seriously. I felt guilt and fear that I had actually done something wrong and I hid myself from my Father within my miscreation. The idea itself, the unfolding of that idea was not a sin. It was not inherently evil or wrong. In fact, Jesus says that God honored my miscreation simply because it was mine.

The shift for me is that I am letting go of the shame that was the original error. I am learning to honor my own miscreation. I don’t want to continue identifying with it as if it is myself, but I see that it is important that I understand I am not guilty for it. It is actually quite a remarkable feat. I have made something impossible and made it so well that I got lost in it.

God would never limit me in anyway because limitation is not part of His nature. But in His love for me, He placed in my mind a way out of this miscreation. He brought into being the Holy Spirit, the memory of God and His Voice that speaks to me all through the day.  It is His function to direct me out of the illusion and back to my real life when I was ready.

So the Holy Spirit is helping me to see the ego thinking in my mind, recognize it as something I am no longer interested in and allow it to be undone for me, not because it is a sin, but because I am through with it. The only way to have my illusion was to substitute perception for knowledge, so now the Holy Spirit is inspiring my perceptions so that they are very near knowledge, near enough that Knowledge Itself can flow into my mind. Perception will be transferred into knowledge, or as Jesus refers to it, God will take the final step and lift me up to Him.

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

Study of the Text. I.The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 5 9-27-13

I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 5
9-27-13
5 The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind which is aware of the knowledge that lies beyond perception. He came into being with the separation as a protection, inspiring the Atonement principle at the same time. Before that there was no need for healing, for no one was comfortless. The Voice of the Holy Spirit is the Call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed there will be no Call to return. But what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless their creations and keep them in the light of joy.

In the very instant we were in need of healing, the Holy Spirit came into being. He is the Healer we need to bring the mind back to truth. Before we had the thought of separation there was no need for healing so there was no need for a Healer. I am so grateful. We are perfectly protected, even from our errors. Through the thought of separation we created an experience of pain, suffering and death, and even though we could not make it real, we could feel as if it were real. Loneliness, confusion, guilt and fear are the effects of this belief and if there were no Correction in place we would be lost in our dreams, unable to remember who we are, forever trading one perception for another, sinking deeper and deeper into the hell of our nightmares.

But we are protected from this fate, protected in our dreams, comforted and guided out of them by the Holy Spirit. I feel like a lost child and so to me the Holy Spirit feels like a protective being, but this is not actual. The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind. He is the Call to Atonement. He is the Voice for God. Probably it would be more appropriate to think of the Holy Spirit as It rather than He, but that wouldn’t be very comforting for me. Maybe that is why the Holy Spirit is referred to as He in the Course, or maybe the Holy Spirit is something beyond my understanding. Maybe everything is beyond my understanding at this time and so it is all a metaphor, a bridge to the truth.

What I know is that the Holy Spirit is in my mind and will correct my thinking, and heal me. He will comfort me and guide me. He waits patiently for my acceptance of His help. I am always willing to look at my thoughts with the Holy Spirit and let Him purify them, and sometimes I will ask for a certain idea to be healed and He will direct me to those thoughts in my mind. It sounds like such a simple straightforward process. I ask Holy Spirit to look with me, I realize my thoughts are hurting me and I accept the Atonement. Easy peasy, right?

Well, yes and no. It is a simple process, and no it is not always easy. Remember that my mind is split. I do want to be healed, and there is the other part of my mind that defends against this healing. That part of me wants to remain in this separated state and to continue the stories. This conflict in the mind is painful and sometimes frightening. The way I defend against the truth is to ignore it and place my attention on the stories instead. I can get lost in the stories for awhile when I do this.

Recently, the Holy Spirit has been directing me to look at guilt. At first this was pretty exciting because I was seeing guilt where I had not seen it before. This is good, because looking with Holy Spirit is safe and doesn’t cause more guilt. In this way, I can see it as if it was just part of a movie, as if I were removed from it, and from this detached point of view it is clear to me that it is not helping and that I don’t want it anymore.

But what happened is that as I looked at more and more guilt in my mind, I forgot my purpose. I forgot that I want to see the guilt and I forgot that I am looking so that it can be healed. Instead I got caught up in all the guilty stories and believed them. I knew that I had made an error and that I had moved off my path, but I was drawn to the guilt. Jesus says that we have a sick attraction to guilt and that is true. Soon, I completely forgot that I was looking at stories so I could forgive them and all I was aware of was the guilt I felt for all these stories.

But my heart wants to be healed and so that desire for healing was still strong. I couldn’t stop feeling guilty, but I could ask for help. I was led to inspiring words coming through someone else. I was also led to inspired words that came through me at an earlier time. My mind began to clear of the fog of confusion and I opened my heart to healing. In the moment I wanted healing more than I wanted the guilt, it was done. That is the miracle, this instantaneous healing simply because I want healing. It doesn’t come from me. It is not a reward for good behavior. It is not withheld because of bad behavior. It is simply done the moment I really want it.

We will all be healed, and our mind’s returned to truth. Perception will fall away and knowledge will flow, once again, unimpeded throughout the mind. When this happens the Holy Spirit as Healer will no longer be needed, but He is a creation of God and so is eternal. Jesus tells us that He will be given another function. His function will then be to remain with Us, to bless our creations and keep them in the light of joy. You know, every time I read something like this in the Course, something that speaks so casually of my Divinity, my heart leaps in joy. This is Who I Am, not the confused mind that thinks its salvation is guilt. I wish I would stop forgetting that.

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

Study of the Text I.The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 4 9-26-13

I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 4
9-26-13
4 The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity that has a symbolic function. He is referred to as the Healer, the Comforter and the Guide. He is also described as something “separate,” apart from the Father and from the Son. I myself said, “If I go I will send you another Comforter and He will abide with you.” His symbolic function makes the Holy Spirit difficult to understand, because symbolism is open to different interpretations. As a man and also one of God’s creations, my right thinking, which came from the Holy Spirit or the Universal Inspiration, taught me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for all. I could not have It myself without knowing this. The word “know” is proper in this context, because the Holy Spirit is so close to knowledge that He calls it forth; or better, allows it to come. I have spoken before of the higher or “true” perception, which is so near to truth that God Himself can flow across the little gap. Knowledge is always ready to flow everywhere, but it cannot oppose. Therefore you can obstruct it, although you can never lose it.

I’ve always tried to understand what the Holy Spirit is but find it easier to understand what the Holy Spirit is for. The Holy Spirit’s function is to bring us the truth, to help us undo the mistaken idea of separation so that knowledge can flow unimpeded throughout the Mind. Knowledge is meant for us but to receive knowledge we must not oppose it. The ego opposes knowledge because knowledge would undo it, so we need the Holy Spirit to correct our thinking and heal our mind.

This process of asking for and receiving help from the Holy Spirit is simple. First we learn to recognize the ego in our mind, and realize we don’t want it. Then we ask the Holy Spirit to heal our mind, or correct our thinking, or purify our thoughts. Or we ask for the Atonement. I use whatever words come to me in that moment. Sometimes I just say, “Help” or, “God.” The words don’t matter; it is the prayer of our heart that He hears.

Jesus said that he understood he could not have the Holy Spirit’s help unless he understood that It is for everyone. This is so essential, this understanding of Its universal nature. Everything in the Course revolves around the fact that I must forgive myself and everyone else. I cannot leave unforgiven a single person or a single circumstance. I cannot make anything special or separate. I must join with my brother wherever he appears and under whatever circumstances. No one can be condemned because the Holy Spirit is in everyone, guiding, comforting and healing. I go to God in union with my brother or not at all.

Understanding this it makes no sense at all to cling to my judgments. Whether I judge the murderer I read about in the paper or the clerk at the store, I close myself to the knowledge it is the Holy Spirit’s function to bring forward. I close myself to God. In doing so I suffer, and I but do it to myself.

“Today, Holy Spirit, bring to me the one You would have me forgive. Help me to remember what it is I truly desire. When I am tempted to see the behaviors and hear the confused words of my brother, reveal to me his innocence so that I may know mine as well. Please help me to experience the joy that comes when we place nothing between us, nothing to prevent union.” 

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

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