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Study of the Text 3-21-13

3-21-13

2 The best defense, as always, is not to attack another’s position, but rather to protect the truth. It is unwise to accept any concept if you have to invert a whole frame of reference in order to justify it. This procedure is painful in its minor applications and genuinely tragic on a wider scale. Persecution frequently results in an attempt to “justify” the terrible misperception that God Himself persecuted His Own Son on behalf of salvation. The very words are meaningless. It has been particularly difficult to overcome this because, although the error itself is no harder to correct than any other, many have been unwilling to give it up in view of its prominent value as a defense. In milder forms a parent says, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” and feels exonerated in beating a child. Can you believe our Father really thinks this way? It is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled that we must be sure that nothing of this kind remains in your mind. I was not “punished” because you were bad. The wholly benign lesson the Atonement teaches is lost if it is tainted with this kind of distortion in any form.

Everything in the Course teaches us that God is Love and so are we. It teaches us that God loves us and does not want us to suffer, and in fact wants only our happiness. It teaches us that we are one with each other and with God and that everything to the contrary is an illusion of our own making. The Course teaches us that to experience this we only need to let go of our illusion. It even tells us how to do this.

We can’t believe that Jesus was punished for our sins and still believe what he is telling us in A Course in Miracles. Either his death has been completely misunderstood or what he has told us in the Course is wrong. The desire to hold onto this idea of Jesus dying for our sins is representative of our desire to justify holding onto some of the illusion while letting the rest go, and is why we experience the process as hard.

Jesus gives the example of using his death as justification for beating a child. If our Heavenly Father killed His son to atone for our sins, then it makes perfect since to believe it’s alright to beat a misbehaving child. I see that this kind of thinking shows up in my life in many ways. I want to let go of the illusion of separation and return my mind to God, but it seems I want to retain my “right” to punish myself and others.

As I was writing about beating a child, I thought about an instance when I lost my temper and slapped my daughter. Just thinking about this I felt so guilty and so regretful that I cried. Even after all these years I had not allowed this guilt to be healed because I didn’t feel worthy of forgiveness. I have been holding onto the idea of condemnation and punishment for just these kinds of things.

I have learned to civilize my behavior so I seldom act on my angry thoughts, but the thoughts are still there sometimes. Any time I think someone should have acted differently, I have silently condemned them, and in my mind I have punished them. The punishment might even show up in our life. I might punish them by avoiding them, for instance.

In the scheme of things it doesn’t seem like much, but in judging this person and finding him guilty and deserving of punishment I have rejected everything the Course is teaching me. I have rejected my true Self, my Oneness, my unity with my brothers and with God. In short, I have said that I choose not to accept my self as Love because it would mean that I would have to be one with this person who just doesn’t meet my standards.

It would also mean that I cannot accept God Who is Love and Who knows nothing of condemnation or punishment. However, if I can say that God punished His Son with death, then this makes it easier to justify my own judgments. This is why Jesus says that we must get rid of any belief that we still hold about his death being a punishment.

To return to God, we must let go of the idea of guilt, blame and punishment; even of death. These are things we made up as part of the separation idea. They didn’t exist before we made them and they do not truly exist now. They have nothing to do with God and nothing to do with reality.

It is not that we have to forgive a guilty behavior, but that we have to forgive the very idea of guilt. Yes, we practice this by forgiving people, ourselves, and situations. We do this by forgiving one guilty thought at a time, because we must start someplace. But in doing this practice we are simply allowing our mind to adjust to the truth that guilt itself is unreal and so there is nothing to forgive.

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Study of the Text 3-20-13

Chapter 3: THE INNOCENT PERCEPTION
3-20-13
I. Atonement Without Sacrifice

1 A further point must be perfectly clear before any residual fear still associated with miracles can disappear. The crucifixion did not establish the Atonement; the resurrection did. Many sincere Christians have misunderstood this. No one who is free of the belief in scarcity could possibly make this mistake. If the crucifixion is seen from an upside-down point of view, it does appear as if God permitted and even encouraged one of His Sons to suffer because he was good. This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which arose out of projection, has led many people to be bitterly afraid of God. Such anti-religious concepts enter into many religions. Yet the real Christian should pause and ask, “How could this be?” Is it likely that God Himself would be capable of the kind of thinking which His Own words have clearly stated is unworthy of His Son?

The crucifixion did not establish the Atonement; the resurrection did. This was a very important sentence for me when I first read the Course. I remember sighing a deep sigh of relief. Having spent most of my life as a devout Catholic, I had bought into the idea that the focus of my spiritual beliefs was that Jesus died for my sins and that I should, in return, live a sinless life or his suffering and death were for naught.

This idea of suffering for God was very strong in the Catholic Church. Saints were venerated for their martyrdom and as a child I hoped that one day I would face a crisis of faith and have the opportunity to prove that I was willing to suffer for God, too. I loved God so much that I just knew I would not back down from this challenge.

As I grew older and committed “sins,” I lost faith in myself as a good Catholic. I was guilty and so no longer believed in my pure love of God and His love for me. I became afraid of the idea of sacrifice for God and felt even guiltier. This change did not evolve consciously, and it is only in retrospect that I see how it happened that I went from feeling loved and protected by God to feeling guilty and fearful of God. I learned to dread the moment I would be asked to face crucifixion to prove myself worthy of salvation.

The idea of guilt and the need to atone for this guilt through suffering is a very deeply rooted belief and shows up in my life even now. It shows up in many little ways. I think I choose to suffer sickness and heartache, poverty and disillusionment because I am afraid of something worse. I am trying to appease an angry and vengeful God so that He will not inflict worse upon me.

I throw myself headlong into pain and suffering and finally death in an effort to convince God I have hurt myself enough and He doesn’t need to demand my crucifixion. Maybe my self-inflicted suffering will convince Him I am worthy of His love again, and I will be saved. Of course, I don’t consciously ascribe to this theory, but I keep hurting myself so what can I say?

Jesus has offered us a new way of atoning for our supposed sins. He has set into place a plan that will actually save us from our mistaken beliefs. His plan of Atonement requires that we look at those ideas and choose against them. The Holy Spirit will then purify our minds and heal us. We will be left with nothing but truth and will surely laugh at the idea that God has ever wanted our suffering.

What will I have to give up to join Jesus in his plan of Atonement? I will have to give up the belief in guilt. The idea of suffering will have to go. That means no more sickness, no more poverty, no more pain, jealousy, rage, doubt, fear, loneliness, depression or death. I will have to give up the idea of a God that wants me to suffer to prove my love. I don’t know, if I give up all of that, what will be left?

Can that be a real fear I have, that I am nothing without my sins and my punishments? Maybe. Evidently, this is exactly what I did believe for my whole life. Now I have embraced the possibility that I am more than my fear and guilt and that there is a way to reclaim this Self that loves God and is loved and cherished by Him. Through the Plan of Atonement established by Jesus, I am resurrecting my real Self. My thinking is being corrected, my mind is being healed, and my memory is returning. Love is reclaiming me.

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Study of the Text 3-19-13

3-19-13
5 The term “Last Judgment” is frightening not only because it has been projected onto God, but also because of the association of “last” with death. This is an outstanding example of upside-down perception. If the meaning of the Last Judgment is objectively examined, it is quite apparent that it is really the doorway to life. No one who lives in fear is really alive. Your own last judgment cannot be directed toward yourself, because you are not your own creation. You can, however, apply it meaningfully and at any time to everything you have made, and retain in your memory only what is creative and good. This is what your right-mindedness cannot but dictate. The purpose of time is solely to “give you time” to achieve this judgment. It is your own perfect judgment of your own perfect creations. When everything you retain is loveable, there is no reason for fear to remain with you. This is your part in the Atonement.

I love this section on the Last Judgment. When I first began the study of the Course I could not imagine God not judging my behavior. I considered all sorts of variations of the Last Judgment in which God judged me but was merciful, but always there was a judgmental God. I guess this part of Christianity was hard for me to let go.

Perhaps it was because I felt so guilty that I could not imagine not being judged. And of course, I still found value in judging others so I would not let go of the idea of judgment. If I hold onto the idea of judgment, I will judge myself. As Jesus said in the New Testament, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” He understood that if I judged others it was inevitable that I judge myself as well.

I understand now that the last judgment is the process of looking at all I have made and deciding what is real and worth keeping. I have all the time I need to do this. That is what time is for. Yesterday, I mentioned that I had another opportunity to look at the idea of pain and suffering (which is one of the things I made up) and decide if this is something I want to keep.

I have had a pain in my neck off and on for a long time now, maybe a couple of years. It suddenly got worse and the ego would like to make a big deal of this. I have thought about getting an MRI for this and the ego thinks this would be a good idea. I will if I need to, but I don’t really want to because having a diagnosis will just make it harder to realize it is not real.

I am absolutely not against going to the doctor and doing whatever it is I need to do at this point in my process of waking up. I am where I am and that’s ok. I am never guilty for any decision I make so there is no need to act in a certain way. In fact, knowing where I am is useful because it lets me know what yet needs to be healed, and I can work on that. But I have let go of a lot of things and I want to give myself a chance to look at this before I make a medical decision.

When I had a kidney stone I used the situation to do this work. I looked at it and decided if this thing I had done was valuable and something to hold onto. I finally decided against it because I foresaw a lot of pain and I did not want that pain, and I had practiced enough to know that it was possible to let it go.

However, I had set things in motion with a doctor and even though I knew the problem had been resolved, since there was no pain involved the doctor didn’t believe it. I allowed myself to be swayed and let the doctor do surgery. In spite of weeks of cat scans which clearly showed a fair sized stone, when he did the surgery he didn’t find anything. It was no longer there.

It was an unnecessary surgery and financially costly, but it was a part of my learning process. This is one of the reasons I am waiting to see with the neck problem. I remember how hard it was to ignore the diagnosis and the warnings of the medical profession. However this goes, whether I will decide to judge against this thing I have made or not, I will use it for the purpose of waking up. This process of looking and making a judgment about what I made is part of the Last Judgment, and whether I decide against it or not it is an important step in that direction.

Here is another example of the Last Judgment. I was annoyed with someone I know. I noticed how harshly I was judging him, and so I asked for the Atonement for myself in this situation. I repeated this several times and in a moment of frustration I wondered how many times I was going to have to do this before I let it go.

I had no doubt that this belief in judgment needed to be released. I saw clearly that I was projecting. Projection is another defense that I want to see healed. But I kept going back to how wrong he was in spite of the obvious truth. When I had that thought, “How many times am I going to have to do this before it is done,” I received an answer. There were no words, just a knowing, but if put into words this is what I was told. “You must mean it. “

I immediately realized that I had been going through the motions without truly looking at it and deciding what I wanted. I was saying I wanted the Atonement because my judgment was making me anxious and unsettled, not because I wanted anything to change. I had not decided that I wanted to be free of judgment and projection, just that I didn’t want to suffer the consequences of those things.

So I stopped immediately, realized that I do want to be free. I mentally went through the process of opening my heart to Love and allowing my self to accept the Atonement. I asked, with sincerity that my mind be healed of this. It took all of three or four seconds, but then it was done. Forgiveness was complete and I was at peace.

This is the process of the Last Judgment. Who knew it would be me that was doing the judgment, and not of myself, but of what I have made? I cannot judge myself because I did not make myself. I can only judge what I made. I am not judging that I was wrong to have made them, but am judging whether they are worthy of me and if I want to keep them. 

And I have all the time I need to do this. I can drag it out for another million years if I want the misery. Or I can, with the Holy Spirit’s help, look at what I have made, judge against what is not creative and good, and live the happy dream until we all return our mind to Oneness. I have made my choice about this, and I make it over and over until there is no question in my mind about what I want.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 3-18-13

3-18-13
4 The first step toward freedom involves a sorting out of the false from the true. This is a process of separation in the constructive sense, and reflects the true meaning of the Apocalypse. Everyone will ultimately look upon his own creations and choose to preserve only what is good, just as God Himself looked upon what He had created and knew that it was good. At this point, the mind can begin to look with love on its own creations because of their worthiness. At the same time the mind will inevitably disown its miscreations which, without belief, will no longer exist.

It is interesting that Jesus calls the period of sorting out the false from the true the Apocalypse. The definition of apocalypse is total destruction and also revelation of future. Though Jesus probably wasn’t thinking of Webster’s when he used the term, it feels like both to me. I am totally destroying the way I used to think and what is left is revealing my future.

For a long time now I have been going through the process of sorting through my thoughts. I look at the thought in my mind and if it is a thought I would think with God then I am happy with it and keep it. If it is an ego thought, anything that does not reflect God, I realize I don’t want to keep it and I ask that my mind be healed. Then I accept the healing because this is what I really want.

I have begun to truly experience the results of this work. I have watched as the wrong minded thinking, now disowned and no longer existing for me, ceased to have effects in the world of time and space.  The miracle is the healing of the mind, and it is an awesome miracle when it happens. Within the world I see the miracle reflected in the form of peace and happiness and often in the form of a shifting illusion.

Sometimes, oftentimes, as the mind is healed of a belief, that belief no longer shows up in my world.  Sometimes the effect remains in the world, but no longer has a negative impact on me. An example of the first occurred when I was working on pain as not being real. The Course says that pain cannot be real and that began to make sense to me.

My mind believed in pain as real and unavoidable under certain conditions. The one thing I was looking at was pain from driving so much. At first I did what I have always done. I looked for ways to relieve the pain. I tried getting my car seat redone. I went to a chiropractor. I took pain pills. I used yoga to relieve the pain. Nothing worked and the pain just got worse, and I am glad it did.

It was because I could not manipulate the effect, that I began to question the source, which was my belief about pain.  One day I thought I could not continue to do my job and I talked to the Holy Spirit about it. I said that I didn’t know what to do, but something had to give. I just could not continue to work like this. I asked for His help. I thought He would lead me to another job or something like that. Open a door I had not known was there.

He did open a door for me, but it was not from one story in the illusion to another story in the illusion. It was a door leading out of the illusion. I found myself reading Lesson 190 that is about pain. I was drawn to the one sentence that says pain cannot be real and I started working with that thought. It took me many weeks of looking at the belief in pain with the Holy Spirit, feeling the pain, questioning the belief that sourced the pain and rejecting it, before I began to believe that pain could not possibly be real.

I began to realize that I must be making this up as a defense against God. I was using pain as a way to prove separation is real and that God does not love me, or maybe doesn’t exist at all.  I looked at the idea that I could have pain in my legs and finally rejected that idea. The pain ceased to exist. It was amazing! I still do the same job, still drive hours a day in the same car, but I have no pain. When I asked for help, I thought it would come as a new job, but Holy Spirit gave me a new mind. Sweet!

It is interesting to me that I am willing to let the idea of pain go in many situations, but not in all. This willingness is not always apparent on a conscious level. I don’t say to myself that I will not believe in pain in this situation, but I will believe in it in another. But at some level I am deciding. I am looking at a thought and deciding if it is real and if I want to keep it.

I have had many opportunities to sort this idea of pain. It seems to be a process for me that continues. I suppose that it will continue until I make a final decision. Just as I chose to use the leg pain to decide if pain is real, I continue to make the decision about pain using other circumstances. I’ve decided not to judge myself for my apparent indecision and to just be patient with myself as I continue the work.

Even as I write this I am given another opportunity to decide if pain is real. Sometimes I scare myself because I know I choose everything in my life. Will I never stop choosing pain and suffering? And yet, I know that the mind that chooses pain is not my real mind. It is the ego mind that wants to continue the story and that is afraid of God. Through the power of my real mind, the mind I share with God, I make another choice.

Another problem I had with my work was the extreme conditions I worked under. At times it was very pleasant work, but other times it was much harder. I worked outside most of the time and the heat was very bad during the summer. As I have gotten older I notice that the heat affects me more strongly than it did when I was younger and I was truly miserable. At the time this was happening the heat index was in excess of 100 degrees and the humidity was 100%. Sometimes I thought I was going to suffer heat stroke, something that happened to a couple of my customers.

I decided that since I couldn’t do anything about the weather, I should do something about my thoughts about the weather. It occurred to me that this situation was of my own making. As Jesus says, I but do this to myself. I asked the Holy Spirit to purify my thoughts about this and I looked forward to seeing the solution. Almost immediately, I noticed the change in how I reacted to the situation. I simply didn’t feel upset or miserable.

The heat was still there and I was still working in it. The difference was that I didn’t react to it. I have remained unaffected by it since. Recently, my job description was changed slightly and while I still do the work I enjoy, I am not working in the elements as much as I was before. I didn’t do anything within the story to make this happen. When I change my mind about the purpose of the story, the story often changes as well.

The most wonderful part of this process is that in sorting out my thoughts and letting go of the wrong-minded ones, I am not just feeling less negativity; I am experiencing my true thoughts. I feel loved and loving. I feel happy. I feel something I don’t know how to describe. It is gratitude and love and happiness and yet, just saying those words does not do justice to the feeling. Am I beginning to look with love on my own creations? Or is it a foreshadowing of this? I don’t know but I’m glad it is happening.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 3-15-13

3-15-13
3 The Last Judgment is generally thought of as a procedure undertaken by God. Actually it will be undertaken by my brothers with my help. It is a final healing rather than a meting out of punishment, however much you may think that punishment is deserved. Punishment is a concept totally opposed to right-mindedness, and the aim of the Last Judgment is to restore right-mindedness to you. The Last Judgment might be called a process of right evaluation. It simply means that everyone will finally come to understand what is worthy and what is not. After this, the ability to choose can be directed rationally. Until this distinction is made, however, the vacillations between free and imprisoned will cannot but continue.

I had always imagined that when I died I would stand before God and be judged. I thought I would have to look at my life being replayed before me and see every mistake I had ever made balanced against the things I did right. I imagined God frowning down at me in either anger or disappointment. When I would do something especially shameful I would cringe at the thought that one day, I would have to explain myself to God. No wonder I was afraid of death.

In spite of my fear of the last judgment, it was hard to let go. I felt I deserved to be punished. More importantly, I felt others needed to be punished, but the problem was that if I believed they needed to be punished, then I could not believe I would be found innocent either. It’s ridiculous to me now, but I would think of some people and feel a thrill of righteousness as I imagined them finally getting theirs when they had to face God. God was my own personal avenger.

The unfortunate side effect was that the sword cut both ways and so I would have to face the same avenger. I guess that’s why we thought up purgatory or levels of heaven or some such nonsense. We were trying to find a way to condemn others without condemning ourselves. We are always trying to do this, but it cannot work.

We are experiencing the last judgment right now. We are learning to tell the difference between what is valuable and what has no value. Until we learn to tell the difference we have no basis for judgment, and so we cannot make a rational choice. We are always choosing between God and ego. We do this all day long every day. But our choices are haphazard, and often senseless, because we don’t understand why we make the choices we do, and because we are mistaken in our reasoning.

This happens over things that we think of as major decisions and the ones that are so minor in our minds that we hardly notice them. This morning I went online and checked my bank accounts like I always do. The first thing I noticed is that the bank did not add my house note like they promised to a week ago, and like they should have when I first signed the note.

I chose to be angry about that. I thought of all the times when I have had to ask them to do things more than once and I thought about how careless this is for a bank. I chose to reign in my anger and thought about how I would approach the problem to let them know that I wanted this fixed without appearing bitchy. All of this happened in maybe a single minute.

Then, I realized the choice I had made. I chose anger, projection, and blame. I chose anxiety over peace. I chose to teach all of this to the bank personnel that I spoke with, and hopefully to do so in a way that left me looking innocent. I chose to teach us all that getting the banking right was our purpose, and determined our worth, and determined our state of mind. If it all went well then we could be at peace. If it was not done correctly then peace was out the door and someone was guilty.

Seen like that, I easily and quickly made a saner choice. I re-evaluated it and decided to accept the Atonement in this situation. I opened my heart and asked for Love to heal my mind and this situation. This is how I made another choice. You see! I am learning to tell the valuable from the valueless! This is the last judgment occurring right here before our eyes.

I am doing this with Jesus, under his direction and with his help. And in so doing, I am being a teacher for God and am sharing this with my brothers at the bank through my actions and attitude, and now to you through the re-telling of the story. Of course, the peace is spread throughout the Sonship and so the healing is for us all.

I am learning that all decisions are useful for this healing, not just the ones that feel important to me. I am learning to watch for these opportunities and to open my mind to the truth. In this situation with the banking error this morning, I could have closed my mind to the Holy Spirit. If I were very fearful about money, I might have been unwilling to see the bank as innocent. I might have been more interested in defending myself and unable to see that this defense is valueless.

Where I sometimes remain confused is in relationships. Anywhere I have a lot of fear I can become confused about what is important. When in fear I tend to want to set up my defenses and this seems to be a valuable choice. Sometimes I cannot think past my defenses. I just cannot see how the other person or the situation can be anything but threatening and I cannot imagine defenselessness as being a viable option.

These are the opportunities to be taught differently. My experience has been that I can be easily healed if I step away from my fear long enough to ask for the Atonement and if I can trust enough to accept the healing. It is easier if I remember that my trust in Jesus is well founded. It helps to remember that the Holy Spirit responds to my slightest invitation. I am not doing this alone. I am fully supported.

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Study of the Text 1-14-13

3-14-13
2 The Last Judgment is one of the most threatening ideas in your thinking. This is because you do not understand it. Judgment is not an attribute of God. It was brought into being only after the separation, when it became one of the many learning devices to be built into the overall plan. Just as the separation occurred over millions of years, the Last Judgment will extend over a similarly long period, and perhaps an even longer one. Its length, however, can be greatly shortened by miracles, the device for shortening but not abolishing time. If a sufficient number become truly miracle-minded, this shortening process can be virtually immeasurable. It is essential, however, that you free yourself from fear quickly, because you must emerge from the conflict if you are to bring peace to other minds.

Jeepers! The last judgment will last for millions of years unless we do something to speed it up. Only miracles will help. If enough of us become miracle minded we can really shorten the time. All along Jesus has been asking us to allow our mind to be healed and to allow him to direct our miracles so that we can help awaken our brothers. This is the reason. But to do this we must free ourselves of fear quickly so that we can be at peace and bring that peace to others.

The first fear to let go if we want to be part of this chain of Atonement is the fear of the Last Judgment. This fear is really the fear of God, the fear that finally, our misdeeds are catching up with us, that finally we have been backed up against the wall and there is nowhere to run, no way to get away from God. He has seen what we have done and now we will be punished, annihilated for our temerity. We tried to leave God and He is finally and forever through with us.

Jesus says there is no truth to this. He says that judgment is not in God’s nature and that before the separation there was no such thing as judgment. Actually, judgment was made just so that we would have a way out of the impossible situation we put ourselves in when we made up separation. We have looked on judgment as a frightening thing, and in reality, when used correctly it is it is our way out as we shall see when we read further. (I peeked ahead to see what was coming. ~smile~)

Right now, our job is to free ourselves of fear so that we will be useful to the awakening. Not to lose sight of how this is done, I remind myself that all I need do is notice the fear thoughts (remembering that fear is everything that is not love), ask for healing and accept the Atonement. So simple, so easy to do.

This is my goal while I am here, my purpose, the only thing I do that really matters. This is the way I undo fear for myself and for all of us, for all time. This is the way I return my mind to God. I will not become distracted from my holy purpose today. Yes, I will continue to do what seems to need to be done in this life I dream, but it will all be used to undo fear. This is the part I will not forget.

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Study of the Text 3-13-13

VIII. The Meaning of the Last Judgment
1 One of the ways in which you can correct the magic-miracle confusion is to remember that you did not create yourself. You are apt to forget this when you become egocentric, and this puts you in a position where a belief in magic is virtually inevitable. Your will to create was given you by your Creator, Who was expressing the same Will in His Creation. Since creative ability rests in the mind, everything you create is necessarily a matter of will. It also follows that whatever you alone make is real in your own sight, though not in the Mind of God. This basic distinction leads directly into the real meaning of the Last Judgment.

I’m not going to think about the Last Judgment right now. I want to think about what Jesus has said about the magic-miracle confusion. He says that the key is to remember I did not create myself. Here is how this feels to me as I rest my mind and allow some clarity to come to me.

God created me like Himself so there is in me the creative impulse. I can, therefore, create as God creates. When I try to see this in my mind, I see creation occurring in a straight line. From God comes creative power which manifests as the Son of God. From the Son of God comes the same creative power which manifests as His creations. This power always moves forward and does not turn on itself. The Son cannot turn the power and re-create Himself. He can only continue to create as He was created. This creative power has never ceased.

There was a tiny mad idea in which the Son wondered what it would be like if creative power could actually allow Him to recreate Himself in an image other than God. This was not possible, but imagining it was. It was imagined in all its possibilities, seen as undesired and dismissed. Some part of the mind is still watching the possibilities as they unfold over and over, deciding when it wants to wake up from the dream of separation.

Within the dream there are always two choices being made in every moment. One is the choice to end the story. This is done by turning the attention to God and giving full desire to that choice. The other is to continue the story as if it is real. In this choice the solution is magic, that is, to solve problems that don’t exist using the tools provided in the illusion, which of course are no more real than the illusion itself.

I like to imagine this as a video game with lots of levels. I made up the game and designed the levels. I hid tools all through the game and planted clues on each level to lead me to the next level. But within the game there is no solution. There is only the illusion that there is a way to win. No matter how long I play, how skilled I become, how many tools I find and use, I never find the way out.

The only way to win this game is to end it because it was based on an impossible premise. The way to win it is to stop looking at the magical solutions, and to start looking for the Holy Spirit clues. Eventually, the Holy Spirit clues become a constant Voice that guides me through the game and, when I am ready, out of the game.

Before I started playing the game with the Holy Spirit, I was trying to use the creative impulse on my own. This cannot be done and that is why it didn’t work. I would get the illusion that I was moving forward, winning at the game, but then I would get knocked back to another level or I would die and have to start over. The creative impulse can make illusions, but does not create when used by myself because it is not the nature of God to be separate and creation is always of God. Creation cannot be anything other than what It is.

Once I begin to follow the Guide and listen to only that Voice, I begin to experience miracles. These miracles are actually the only natural things to be found within the game, though in the game they seem super natural. They occur as a result of the corrected mind which begins to make in a way that, while not creation, more closely resembles creation.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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