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Study of the Text 4-5-13

Chapter 4: THE ILLUSIONS OF THE EGO
________________________________________
Introduction
1 The Bible says that you should go with a brother twice as far as he asks. It certainly does not suggest that you set him back on his journey. Devotion to a brother cannot set you back either. It can lead only to mutual progress. The result of genuine devotion is inspiration, a word which properly understood is the opposite of fatigue. To be fatigued is to be dis-spirited, but to be inspired is to be in the spirit. To be egocentric is to be dis-spirited, but to be Self-centered in the right sense is to be inspired or in spirit. The truly inspired are enlightened and cannot abide in darkness.

I wrote an article for Miracle News on not setting my brother back on his journey. I could write one every day, because it is easy to do this if I am not vigilant for my thoughts and words. I am staying at a hotel in New Orleans and it is not in the best part of town. When I got here last night around 10:00, there were young men loitering around the front of the hotel.

When I walked in the lobby there was a young woman working the front desk. I had the urge to ask her if she was not worried about working in this area so late at night. By grace, I kept my thought to myself, and instead asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind. I thanked Him for helping me to refrain from spreading the ego disease of fear.

When I thoughtlessly said something to my daughter that triggered feelings of shame in her, I apologized. I felt really bad and wanted to wipe those words away. I felt guilty for my careless words and this triggered a lot of other parental guilt. I wanted to do more, to say more, to somehow ease my guilt through gaining her absolution. Once again, through grace I held my tongue. I was acting from guilt and guilt is not something I want to teach. Teaching my daughter guilt would set her back on her journey.

I cannot set someone back on their journey unless they are uncertain in their own mind, but then, who among us is completely free of fear and guilt? Jesus refers to the ego mind as sick, and I refer to fear and guilt as the disease that causes this sickness. We are careful to cover our mouth when we sneeze so as not to spread germs. I am learning to close my mouth when I feel fear or guilt coming on so as not to spread that disease. And always, when I notice these beliefs in my mind, I ask for the Atonement and gratefully accept it.

When I forget and speak my fear or guilt, I am dis-spirited. Even if I don’t speak it aloud, a thought that has gone unhealed supports the ego thought system, and so it is spread throughout the Sonship. This, too, is dis-spiriting. On the other hand, if I am being vigilant and notice the thought, in asking for healing I am uplifted and inspired because my mind is Self-centered. I feel dispirited when I am egocentric in my thinking and uplifted when I am Self-centered because the former goes against my nature, and the latter is natural to me.

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

Study of the Text 6-4-13

6-4-13
6 The branch that bears no fruit will be cut off and will wither away. Be glad! The light will shine from the true Foundation of life, and your own thought system will stand corrected. It cannot stand otherwise. You who fear salvation are choosing death. Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and perception, are irreconcilable. To believe that they can be reconciled is to believe that God and His Son can not. Only the oneness of knowledge is free of conflict. Your kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from beyond this world. Only in this world is the idea of an authority problem meaningful. The world is not left by death but by truth, and truth can be known by all those for whom the Kingdom was created, and for whom it waits.

I absolutely believe every word in the Course. Either it is all true or none of it is to be trusted. When I first read this, and other passages like it, I believed that the world is not real and that I will eventually forgive it and return to God. I believed it, but my understanding was uncertain. My mind made exceptions to what I understood, and simply would not understand all Jesus was telling me. And while I had no doubt that I would wake up, I could not envision that happening anytime soon. Of course, now I understand that all of this doubt was just a delaying tactic. It was my defense against God.

I am not feigning ignorance anymore. At least, I am not doing so as much as I used to. Now when it seems confusing to me, or when I can’t seem to let go, I am fully aware that it is by design, even if I don’t understand my own reluctance. I would swear to you that all I want is to wake up, and yet, here I am feeling frustrated that I am fighting for the right to be miserable, just so I can keep the story going a little longer. I don’t understand myself.

I am awake enough, though, to know that this is possible and is not that far away. I am awake enough that no matter what the circumstances show me, I know they are not true, but not awake enough to disregard them in every case. I still get afraid, feel guilty and get angry. The difference is that I watch myself do this and know its crazy. I know to ask for the Atonement and I accept it to the degree I am able. I never, ever believe my anger, fear and guilt are justified. No matter how upset I may be I never stop listening to the Holy Spirit.

I used to have doubts and uncertainties, but now it is more like confusion. I have been working on food and body issues, and it is really kicking my butt. It seems that I have some very fixed ideas about food and the body. I am having trouble letting those go. I don’t doubt I am wrong and I don’t doubt that I will succeed, but I get confused about how I am to see this, and I also notice that I am quick to feel guilty when I don’t succeed. Of course this means I am judging the situation and judging myself. So I know I still believe in guilt and I still cling to judgment.

Most of the time I am very happy to see what needs to be healed so that I can ask for the Atonement in that situation, but then at times, I make myself guilty instead. I catch it and forgive myself, but sometimes it takes awhile. I also know that the confusion is not really because this is so complicated, but because I don’t want to accept it and that is really frustrating. I feel like I am at war with myself.

Part of this correction the Holy Spirit is helping me with is realizing that the body is not “out there” but in my mind, and therefore anything that happens is only happening in my mind. The emphasis here is on “only.” In no case is my body affected by something I put into it or do for it. That is just the way that I project my beliefs onto the body, the story I use to make it feel real to me.

I have been applying this to pain, sickness, medicine, and most recently weight gain. One of the medicines I stopped taking was my Cenestin, which is used for hormone replacement, and at first everything was fine. Then I started having some symptoms such as trouble sleeping and weight gain. 

A couple of days ago, I got myself into a state over whether I should start taking it again or not. I could not decide and I noticed I felt guilty at the thought of taking it again, and I felt afraid that I would be going backward, that stopping the pill was forward motion and starting it again would keep me from waking up. It sounds silly as I put it into words but, really, in retrospect I see that is the meaning I was giving it.

When I saw the guilt and fear I knew I was doing something wrong. I was confused about the whole thing and so I sat with Jesus and asked him to help me. I surrendered. I stopped trying to figure it out myself and asked what I should do. This is the message I got.

Jesus: Myron, stop scaring yourself. It does not matter if you take the pill or not. It doesn’t matter if you go back to dieting. You are innocent regardless of any decision you make. Your immortal soul is not in danger. It does not matter what you eat or what magic you use. Just do this: When you diet, remind yourself that nothing that goes into the mouth of the body has any affect on it. It is only your mind that can affect the body.

Every time you take your pill, remind yourself that this pill only does what you want it to do. It has no power outside your mind. It does what you believe it will do, and nothing else. You could just as easily say what you want and have it occur without these “helpers.” Go on the diet and take the pill. Then ask for healing of the mind that believes it is guilty for believing it needs the diet and the pill. Forgive yourself for wanting to be thinner, and forgive yourself for caring how your body looks.

You have become confused because you started believing that you need to change your own mind. Instead, go back to noticing, without guilt, without concern of any kind, what the ego mind wants. Notice the guilt and the fear when it arises. When you notice these things, ask the Holy Spirit to heal your mind, and accept His healing.

That is all that is required of you. You have done this many times and you know that it is effective. You also know that it is the only thing you have ever done that has worked for you. There is no hierarchy of illusions and you are not guiltier for your imagined sin of dieting and taking medicine, no more than you are for anything you do.

As soon as I heard this message, my mind cleared and what Jesus said became obvious to me. I don’t know why I forgot that, and why I thought this one thing should be different from any of the other healings I have experienced. I went back to the process knowing that I did not have to stop myself from doing anything, and that as I allowed my mind to be healed, whatever needed to be done in the world, would be done. It would not be an effort or a struggle, because I would want it.

It is only when my mind is conflicted that fear and guilt arise and it is only when I am conflicted in what I want that I become confused. What happened after I stopped trying to heal myself, and listened to his words is that I became very calm and peaceful. That is the miracle. I did nothing to make myself peaceful except to ask for healing. The peace was just there.

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

Study of the Text 6-3-13

6-3-13
5 The mind can make the belief in separation very real and very fearful, and this belief is the “devil.” It is powerful, active, destructive and clearly in opposition to God, because it literally denies His Fatherhood. Look at your life and see what the devil has made. But realize that this making will surely dissolve in the light of truth, because its foundation is a lie. Your creation by God is the only Foundation that cannot be shaken, because the light is in it. Your starting point is truth, and you must return to your Beginning. Much has been seen since then, but nothing has really happened. Your Self is still in peace, even though your mind is in conflict. You have not yet gone back far enough, and that is why you become so fearful. As you approach the Beginning, you feel the fear of the destruction of your thought system upon you as if it were the fear of death. There is no death, but there is a belief in death.

What have I made through the ego thought system? Conflict. Conflict everywhere I look. Conflict within my own mind and extending to my immediate family as illness, addictions, and a brother in prison. Conflict extending to friends appearing as grief and many of the same forms as are in my family. Conflict extending over all the world, appearing as death and destruction from natural disasters and from war and strife, hunger and disease.

“Much has been seen since then, but nothing has really happened.” I could cry with relief. This horror show is an illusion. Nothing has happened. Every sad, every violent, every emotionally wrenching story is just a projection of the belief in separation, an experience that appears real because I believe in it. The stories will cease when I choose to return to the Beginning.

This is what I am doing right now. It is what all of us studying and practicing the Course are doing. We are backing out of our stories, backing out of our belief in separation. Every time one of us becomes aware that we are speaking angry words and we acknowledge those words are not the truth, we back out of the illusion a bit. Each time we realize we don’t want our righteous anger and that we would rather have healing, we back out a bit. Each time we accept the Atonement instead, we back us all out of the illusion a bit more.

I used to be fully convinced that I was a victim of the world. I tried to get smarter and wiser so that I could fight back. I tried to defend myself against the world by learning to manipulate the system. I thought I was clever as I learned how to make more money, how to get people to do things my way. I tried all sorts of things to feel safe and yet, nothing really worked. I was afraid of everything and I was drowning in guilt. Thinking back on my early life I don’t know how I stood it.

Through A Course in Miracles, I slowly learned to accept that I but do this to myself. I learned that I am not a victim of the world, but the maker of the world. I learned that wisdom is not learning how to defend myself, but rather it is learning that in my defenselessness my safety lies. I began to recognize that no matter how hard I try, there is no way I can make plans on my own and have any confidence the plans will bring the results I hoped for. So I learned to surrender my plan to One Who knows.

I used to be painfully lonely and now I see how impossible that is. I am one with All That Is. I have learned that alone is not the same thing as lonely. If I begin to feel lonely, I ask for comfort, I ask to feel the unity of One Self. Learning to let go of the burden of judgment has been such a relief. Now, instead of trying to judge for myself, I ask what a thing means.

I am learning to let go of the tight grip I have had on control, understanding that being in control was the greatest illusion of them all. I surrender control to Love and let it take care of me. Instead of fighting against life, I forgive. I forgive and forgive and forgive. At first I forgave grudgingly, suspicious of the process, expecting loss. Now I do it not in a sense of giving up, but forgiving for the joy of it.

I continue with these practices, and now I am becoming vigilant for the exceptions I make, the places in my life where I try to hold back something, believing that these places have some value and hold some meaning. Sometimes it feels like a big deal. Sometimes it feels small and inconsequential.

What I am learning is that they are all the same. Any time I want to decide for myself, make plans on my own, feel righteous in my judgment, fail to love, am blind to the Christ in my brother, or feel separate from others I am placing value where there is none, and I am defending against God. Each of these things, even though they feel different to me, is all the same. They are symbols of my opposition to God.

It is true that the closer I come to the Beginning, the harder the ego self fights for its life. It places obstacles to the truth in my path. It tries to distract and discourage. It uses fear and guilt to move me from my path. Sometimes it feels like a battle is raging in my mind, but it is only my self that I fight.

Yes, the ego fights against waking up, but I have so much help now. I am not alone in this. I sometimes feel like I don’t know how to find my way out of an ego storm, but now I never believe that I will fail. I call for support, for comfort, for clarity, and for help in whatever way would be most helpful, and I am answered.

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

Study of the Text 5-31-13

5-31-13
4 Eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a symbolic expression for usurping the ability for self-creating. This is the only sense in which God and His creations are not co-creators. The belief that they are is implicit in the “self-concept,” or the tendency of the self to make an image of itself. Images are perceived, not known. Knowledge cannot deceive, but perception can. You can perceive yourself as self-creating, but you cannot do more than believe it. You cannot make it true. And, as I said before, when you finally perceive correctly you can only be glad that you cannot. Until then, however, the belief that you can is the foundation stone in your thought system, and all your defenses are used to attack ideas that might bring it to light. You still believe you are an image of your own making. Your mind is split with the Holy Spirit on this point, and there is no resolution while you believe the one thing that is literally inconceivable. That is why you cannot create and are filled with fear about what you make.

I am trying to create myself. That is a fact. I see myself as a body, and no matter what I say about it, that is if I say I am a body, in a body, or pretending to be a body, I believe I am an image of my own making. Of course I do! I am certainly not an image of God’s making, so it must be my making. It will not help me to return to my true Self if I deny what I have done.

From within this image, I continue to tweak my self concept, as I try to control the body image, keep it healthy, clothe and decorate it in an effort to express my “self” and thus become something of my own making. I “make something of myself.” I “become the best I can be.” I take self improvement courses.

I will never be through making myself, never be satisfied with the results, because I know (I deny, but I know) that I have a true Self that cannot be altered, and so all my effort does nothing. I know that this made up self, no matter how refined, is not me, doesn’t even come close to my true self. All of these things I do are defenses against the truth, efforts to hold at bay the reality that I am trying to improve on something that does not exist and never has.

While I continue to play in the world of make-believe I rob myself of true creation. I also scare myself. I live in uncertainty and doubt about nearly everything. Should I take this medicine or that supplement? Would it be good for me or hurt me? Studies vary. And that is just one area of uncertainty. There is nothing certain in our world and we live with the constant, though seldom acknowledged anxiety of not knowing.

The separation story will never get better. We will discover the cure for one disease and another will pop up. We will find the perfect diet and exercise program combined with the most effective meditation practice and death will claim this body, anyway. We will form a self-governing system and change the world and it will ultimately fall apart.

Nothing will work because the idea of separation cannot work. Its destruction is built into the concept itself. It will never make us happy because it is the opposite of our natural joy and peace. It will always leave us fearful and guilty because these are components of separation and unavoidable.

Our experiment in self-creating has had a good run, but surely it is time to set it aside. Of course it is. That is why we are here, studying A Course in Miracles, together. It is why I spend every day watching my thoughts, asking for guidance and healing. I am ready to retire as my own teacher, as my own guide, and absolutely as my own creator. All these things I do are symbolic of my growing desire to awaken from the dream of separation. I long for something I can’t quite remember.

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

Study of the Text 5-30-13

5-30-13
3 We have discussed the fall or separation before, but its meaning must be clearly understood. The separation is a system of thought real enough in time, though not in eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer. The fruit of only one tree was “forbidden” in the symbolic garden. But God could not have forbidden it, or it could not have been eaten. If God knows His children, and I assure you that He does, would He have put them in a position where their own destruction was possible? The “forbidden tree” was named the “tree of knowledge.” Yet God created knowledge and gave it freely to His creations. The symbolism here has been given many interpretations, but you may be sure that any interpretation that sees either God or His creations as capable of destroying Their Own purpose is in error.

I am happy to read this. Right now I have no trouble accepting that the generally accepted religious interpretation of the fall of man is a mistake, but when I first read it, I was so relieved I cried. Believing that God tempted us to sin and then punished us for our failure was a very frightening thought. It generated in my mind many false beliefs about the nature of God.

I also resented that it set up the idea that women were in some basic way, evil, and the cause of man’s fall from grace. I think that this idea seemed entirely too convenient for men in general and that alone caused me to doubt the Bible as the true source of God’s Word. At the very least, I doubted the interpretation, which was given by men. Did God create women for the sole purpose of giving men an excuse for bad behavior? I questioned that this was likely.

On the other hand, everybody seemed to accept this interpretation and it is one I was taught from a very young age so I was afraid it was true. God was manipulative and vengeful, and he had little regard for women. What a chilling vision of my Creator that was! Of course it is only the projection of our fear that we sinned when we had the thought of separation, but before I had the Course, I didn’t know about projection. At that time in my life, I took the allegory literally and very personally.

The other thing in this paragraph that stands out to me is the sentence that explains what the separation really is. It is just a thought system. It is a belief in our mind and that is all it is. It isn’t a true thought so it has no true effects, and that is a relief. A thought can be changed and if the effects are not real, then the seeming effects will disappear with the change of mind.

Even though the separation idea is not real, it seems to be real, and to those of us who are under its sway, it is real. So while I still believe in the separation thought, I still suffer its effects as if they were real, too. I want to change the mind about separation, not because it is a sin or because I have really done anything. I want to change my mind about separation because my belief in it is painful. I want to heal. I want to be at peace. I want to return the whole mind to God. I want to remember who I am.

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

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