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Study of the Text 5-1-13

5-1-13
V. Beyond Perception
1 I have said that the abilities you possess are only shadows of your real strength, and that perception, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the separation. No one has been sure of anything since. I have also made it clear that the resurrection was the means for the return to knowledge, which was accomplished by the union of my will with the Father’s. We can now establish a distinction that will clarify some of our subsequent statements.

Jesus, you said in this paragraph that the return to knowledge was accomplished by the union of your will with the Father’s. Is there anything you want me to know about that?

Jesus: You are confused about what this can mean. You wonder if you have never accepted that your will is the Father’s will because you do not feel anything momentous. This has been done, Myron. I have accepted the Father’s Will as our own. You do not need to do this. When I accomplished this union it was done for all. What you need to do is to allow your perceptions to be corrected to the degree that your mind can come into alignment with this holy Union.

Me: Ahh, I see. Thank you, Brother.

2 Since the separation, the words “create” and “make” have become confused. When you make something, you do so out of a specific sense of lack or need. Anything made for a specific purpose has no true generalisability. When you make something to fill a perceived lack, you are tacitly implying that you believe in separation. The ego has invented many ingenious thought systems for this purpose. None of them is creative. Inventiveness is wasted effort even in its most ingenious form. The highly specific nature of invention is not worthy of the abstract creativity of God’s creations.

What stands out to me in this paragraph is that when I make something it is always out of the belief in lack. I think I need something and this implies separation. When I know who I am I will know there is no lack. There is nothing I could need because I have everything. Obviously, though I am learning differently, I still believe in separation. I still believe I need some things. This will be true for as long as I believe in this bodily identity. For instance, I will need to eat.

So how do I apply this idea now? The first thing that comes to mind is that it is not helpful to try to stop thinking “need” thoughts. I think I need a paycheck next week. I am not going to try to suppress this thought. I cannot stop thinking I need a paycheck. I can, however, realize that paychecks are something that we made to fill a perceived need.

When I think about needing the paycheck it is because I think that if I don’t get one I will not be able to survive. I need it to eat. I need it to buy clothes, pay my mortgage, buy gas for my car, which I need to get from one place to another.. All of these needs are based on ideas I made to support the idea of separation.

I made the need. I made the solution. But no matter how many needs I solve, and no matter how clever I am in doing so, I will always make another need and conceive of another solution. I will never be satisfied. I will never feel safe. I will never feel full. This is because I still believe in lack and loss. The very act of trying to fill that emptiness reinforces the feeling of lack.

So here I am, in this world I made for the purpose of fulfilling a need so great and so deep that I cannot allow my mind to remember the source of this need. I will not make this need go away by filling the hole with more things I make up for that purpose. I will not fill it by thinking of more ingenious thought systems. I will not stop the desire to do this by trying to control this impulse through a separate will, no matter how strong I’ve trained that will to be.

What seems to be working for me is to notice the feelings of neediness. For instance, yesterday I noticed that periodically during the day I would want to be with my kids. I would think of one of them and wonder if they were home from work yet and if I should invite myself over. I examined that feeling and realized it was not coming from love, but from neediness. I thought I needed them to fill the hole in my heart.

I asked Holy Spirit to help me see this differently. I realized that it had to do with the Conference. While I was there I felt a sense of oneness because we were gathered for a single purpose. Now that I am home the feeling of joining was missing. I mistook the hugs and smiles and joy (which were symbols of the feeling of oneness) for Oneness. So I was trying to make a replacement for that feeling by being with my kids and getting the hugs and smiles back.

Of course the solution was not to avoid my children. The solution was to ask the Holy Spirit to correct my perception, to heal my mind of the belief that I lack anything. I cannot be separate from love and separate from oneness. I cannot replace love and oneness by placing myself in close proximity to special people chosen for that purpose.

The Holy Spirit is helping me to remember that I could not be alone. I am part of a whole. That whole is available to me at all times if I do not block it from my awareness through the desire to be separate. A little thing that I am doing that is helping me to remember is this. When I feel lonely I remind myself that loneliness is impossible.

I am surrounded by all that is. My angels and guides, my brothers and sisters in and out of body are all around me all the time. I don’t remember how to feel them, but if I want their presence known to me, they can help me with that. They can make their love known to me. So far what has happened is that when I ask for this reminder, I simply no longer feel lonely or alone. It is a subtle but sweet difference.

Anytime I feel needy and have the desire to fill that need with anything other than God’s Love, I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind. I accept that healing to the best of my ability at this time and know that the desire to remember the truth will bring the truth forward in my mind in perfect timing.

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

4-29-13

4-29-13
7 God and His creations remain in surety, and therefore know that no miscreation exists. Truth cannot deal with errors that you want. I was a man who remembered spirit and its knowledge. As a man I did not attempt to counteract error with knowledge, but to correct error from the bottom up. I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body and the power of the mind. By uniting my will with that of my Creator, I naturally remembered spirit and its real purpose. I cannot unite your will with God’s for you, but I can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance. Only your misperceptions stand in your way. Without them your choice is certain. Sane perception induces sane choosing. I cannot choose for you, but I can help you make your own right choice. “Many are called but few are chosen” should be, “All are called but few choose to listen.” Therefore, they do not choose right. The “chosen ones” are merely those who choose right sooner. Right minds can do this now, and they will find rest unto their souls. God knows you only in peace, and this is your reality.

I know how to listen to the Holy Spirit. I do it all the time, that is, except when I don’t. But I know how, and I know I want to. I just returned from the ACIM Conference in Chicago and I am still floating on the love and joy that comes from being with 400 or so people who have joined in a single purpose. The energy level is so high or the vibration level is up or whatever you want to call it. But it is a real phenomenon. I have experienced it at other conferences, but this one more so than ever before.

I feel such a strong connection with Spirit and it’s like being wrapped in the arms of One Who loves me without condition or end. So when I sat down to read the next paragraph and to ask Jesus to help me understand it, I was eager to see what would come. I was fully engaged. I began reading through this paragraph and when I got to the sentence that says few choose to listen, I didn’t think of myself as one of those few.

As I finished the paragraph, I again asked Jesus what it is he would have me know about this and began receiving thoughts. Suddenly, I realized that my mind had strayed to other things. I was not listening. I was one of those many who was choosing not to listen. Wow! How could that be? Where was my dedication? Where was the passion I felt just moments before? How is it that I could want anything more than I want to hear what Jesus would say to me?

If I continue to listen to the ego mind I will soon find myself lost in wrong-minded thinking and too discouraged to go on with the writing. I remember what that feels like and I feel the tug of it even now, though not the compulsion to follow the ego into hell. While at the conference I heard part of a presentation by Jennifer Hadley. In it she talked about getting on the pain train.  She reminded us that we don’t have to get on and if we do get on we can get off anytime we choose to. She also said that the end destination is self- loathing.

The reason I thought of this talk is because just now I was handed a ticket to that train. I so easily allowed my mind to wander away from Spirit and that was my ticket to hop aboard. The ego wants to take me to shame and guilt and fear and finally to self-loathing where I can wallow around in the idea that I don’t deserve the blessings I received this weekend. I don’t deserve the opportunity to journal with the Holy Spirit if I can’t even listen for a few minutes. I can’t do this. Why even try.

Fortunately, having taken that pain train many times before, I don’t need to do that again. I know where it goes and I know I am not interested. It is weird that I even feel the pull to hop on, but I absolutely am not going there. No matter how many times the ego mind turns from God, I will turn back. Jesus cannot turn me back to Him, but he will absolutely help me to make that choice myself.  He will erase all misperceptions from my mind if I will bring it under his guidance. Thank you, Jesus. I choose to take you up on that offer. Please guide me.

When he says that he will correct error from the bottom up, this is exactly what he meant. He cannot correct an error I want, but if I want to be corrected, he will do that for me. So I notice that my mind wanders and I notice that I feel guilty for this. I remember that my perception of guilt is screwy and I want it to be corrected. I ask for correction and it is done.

The Holy Spirit does not bring knowledge to me, and He does not drag me to knowledge, but He speaks to me all through the day and waits patiently for me to decide to hear Him. Then He heals what I ask Him to heal. This is how he starts at the bottom. As the perceptions are corrected and the mind is healed, I will naturally receive knowledge because it is only my misperceptions that are blocking my awareness. “Sane perception induces sane choosing.”

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

Study of the Text 4-25-13

I am leaving this morning for Chicago where I will be presenting at the ACIM Conference. I will be back and writing again, probably next Tuesday.

4-25-13

6 The ability to perceive made the body possible, because you must perceive something and with something. That is why perception involves an exchange or translation, which knowledge does not need. The interpretative function of perception, a distorted form of creation, then permits you to interpret the body as yourself in an attempt to escape from the conflict you have induced. Spirit, which knows, could not be reconciled with this loss of power, because it is incapable of darkness. This makes spirit almost inaccessible to the mind and entirely inaccessible to the body. Thereafter, spirit is perceived as a threat, because light abolishes darkness merely by showing you it is not there. Truth will always overcome error in this way. This cannot be an active process of correction because, as I have already emphasized, knowledge does not do anything. It can be perceived as an attacker, but it cannot attack. What you perceive as its attack is your own vague recognition that knowledge can always be remembered, never having been destroyed.

Me: Jesus this is interesting, but how do you want me to use it? What is its practical application?

Jesus: It is helpful to understand that you made perception, which led to making the body so you could employ perception, since to perceive you must have something to perceive and something that perceives. It is hard for you to conceive of existence without conflict, but before perception there was only pure knowledge and therefore perfect peace.

Placing your awareness outside of what you are caused such confusion and distress that it felt necessary to find a way to be that was less distressful. A place was needed to fully explore what you had made and at the same time to avoid or at least distract yourself from the repercussions of your choices. So you made a self unlike what you are and a world unlike reality.

This put you in an impossible situation. To be something you are not, you had to “forget” what you are. This was done to keep your self “safe” from that awareness. You cannot be self if you have a memory of Self, so it was necessary to forget everything except what you made to take the place of reality. Now you must constantly guard against the truth and that makes the return of your memory seem like an attack. In your confusion you have made your Self your enemy.

As you have studied and practiced A Course in Miracles you have felt resistance each step of the way. Sometimes the resistance has been very strong and has slowed you to a stop until you were willing to trust me a little more. This resistance is the fear felt by the false self you made. As your mind is enlightened, the darkness will disappear and your memory will return. You will know your Self, and there will no longer be a self. The self you made senses this and resists it. 

Having just a little understanding of this will help you feel more comfortable with the idea of surrender. As you allow me to help you make different choices your memory will recover and you will see that you are surrendering only to your Self and that there is no loss in that surrender. Understanding this will help you overcome your resistance more easily and more quickly.

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

Study of the Text 4-24-13

4-24-13
5 Perception always involves some misuse of mind, because it brings the mind into areas of uncertainty. The mind is very active. When it chooses to be separated it chooses to perceive. Until then it wills only to know. Afterwards it can only choose ambiguously, and the only way out of ambiguity is clear perception. The mind returns to its proper function only when it wills to know. This places it in the service of spirit, where perception is changed. The mind chooses to divide itself when it chooses to make its own levels. But it could not entirely separate itself from spirit, because it is from spirit that it derives its whole power to make or create. Even in miscreation the mind is affirming its Source, or it would merely cease to be. This is impossible, because the mind belongs to spirit which God created and which is therefore eternal.

What a relief it is to read this paragraph! My mind may be confused, it may be misused, but it is eternal. It will never cease to be because it belongs to spirit which was created eternal. I am spirit. I belong to God. I love to think of that. Even my miscreations are an affirmation of the power of mind, and of my Source.

Jesus says that mind returns to its proper function only when it wills to know. This is why the question, “What am I?” is such a good question. It is an expression of my desire to return to my true will, my heart’s desire. I want to return to God, and to be my Self again. So I ask over and over, “What am I?” I ask repeatedly not because there is no answer, but to reestablish my will to know. I have been in denial about my true will and now I am learning to remember it.

And I am learning to remember that I want to know my true will. Just as Jesus said it would, doing the work, practicing the Lessons, asking for and accepting the Atonement is working. I am returning my mind to its proper function. Often this does not seem to be the case, but I do sometimes get affirmation of my true will rising in me.

When this is most striking is when I am in the middle of an ego storm, confused as hell, and someone asks me to help him or her see a problem differently. I will feel love rising in me and extending outward. Sometimes I will experience words not my own coming with this flow of love. Afterwards I will cry out of sheer gratitude. I may even go right back into my ego storm, like nothing just happened, and yet I just experienced a miracle.

At those times it feels like Myron is just stumbling around trying to get her footing, but that I am intact, whole and part of Something Else. I think that the Self that is never affected by Myron’s dramas is always there, but I am too distracted by my story of the world to feel it. I also think that since I am becoming aware of this Self, it is a sign that I am expressing my will to know.

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

Study of the Text 4-23-13

4-23-12
4 Right-mindedness is not to be confused with the knowing mind, because it is applicable only to right perception. You can be right-minded or wrong-minded, and even this is subject to degrees, clearly demonstrating that knowledge is not involved. The term “right-mindedness” is properly used as the correction for “wrong-mindedness,” and applies to the state of mind that induces accurate perception. It is miracle-minded because it heals misperception, and this is indeed a miracle in view of how you perceive yourself.

Jesus is going to a lot of trouble to help me understand the difference between perception and knowledge. He wants me to keep in mind that the miracle of mind healing is still in the realm of perception. No matter how clear my mind becomes, how right minded it is, it is not the same as the knowing mind.

He points out that as my mind is healed, or corrected, I can be both wrong-minded and right-minded, and that this can occur in varying degrees, therefore it cannot be knowledge, which is whole and certain and does not vary. But, as he points out, even being right-minded is a miracle. We really are a mess.

I definitely relate to that. Sometimes I feel so clear about myself, who I am and what it all means, then the next moment I am Myron and the world is real and I am trying to make it all better. Then I remember that it is the mind that needs correction, not the illusion. I go back and forth with this all the time.

The only way I know I am making any progress is that it takes me less time now to remember the truth and I stay right-minded for increasing lengths of time. Obviously, though, what I think I know, though closer to truth than ever before, is not knowledge. If it were knowledge, if I knew, I would not forget. I would not move from my certainty to the illusion, even if I did come back quickly.

An example of this is when I think about my younger son. He has been having physical challenges for some time now and sometimes I have no trouble seeing him as he truly is. Jesus says that at no moment does the body exist and I know this is true. The suffering body of Toby is not my son. In spite of appearances, in spite of what my eyes show me, Toby is exactly as God created him.

But then I am with him when he gets a treatment and the body I identify as my son is suffering so much pain that I completely forget the truth. My mind sees only the pain and suffering and my heart breaks for him. At that moment I am right in the middle of the illusion and I can’t see anything else. All I want is for him not to hurt anymore. I would gladly accept a better medicine, a different doctor, another treatment. I would beg God for his relief if I could, but I don’t believe in that kind of God anymore so I can’t go there.

Now after all the mind healing that has taken place for me, I know that this is not right. I know that no matter how much pain I am in as I watch my son suffer, that this, too, is an illusion. I know it even as I sit here sobbing at the memory of that experience. I thank the Holy Spirit for helping me to see that this remains unhealed in my mind. I ask that He heal this belief in the world of suffering that I see.

For this to be a real prayer, I must set aside what I think I know. I must set aside the belief that the pain I see in my son is real. It is amazingly hard to do this. It sounds so easy, and yet I see myself cling to the picture of pain and suffering and realize that I am afraid to let go of it. It almost feels like a betrayal to my son to know that he is not really in pain because pain cannot be real. But I know enough to understand that I cannot heal him if I am an unhealed healer.

“So, Holy Spirit, I stand here before you, open and willing. I set aside all I think I know and all I think I want. I invite you into my mind and ask that you correct my thinking. I ask that you heal me. I don’t know what the outcome will look like, and I let go of what I think it should look like. I ask for the Atonement and I accept the Atonement in this situation.”

It is easy to see how my mind has been healed to the degree that I no longer lose sight of my purpose and no longer completely lose sight of the truth, but I do step out of joy and into pain at times. It is a matter of moving back and forth and it’s a matter of varying degrees of acceptance, so though there has been healing it is not complete and it is not knowledge.

I am not ungrateful for what I have. When I think of my life before A Course in Miracles, I know that the degree of mind healing I have experienced is indeed a miracle. My perception is being corrected and I am so grateful. I know that knowledge will come when the perception has stabilized. Surely that would be Heaven.

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

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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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