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Gentle Healing Lesson 131, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-24-19

LESSON 131
No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

“Be glad that search you must. Be glad as well to learn you search for Heaven, and must find the goal you really want.”

“You will find Heaven. Everything you seek but this will fall away. Yet not because it has been taken from you. It will go because you do not want it.”

“Why wait for Heaven? It is here today.”

“How could it be His Son could be in hell, when God Himself established him in Heaven?”

“I ask to see a different world, and think a different kind of thought from those I made. The world I seek I did not make alone, the thoughts I want to think are not my own.”

“You cannot fail today. There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you, that you might approach this door some day, and through His aid slip effortlessly past it, to the light. Today that day has come. Today God keeps His ancient promise to His holy Son, as does His Son remember his to Him. This is a day of gladness, for we come to the appointed time and place where you will find the goal of all your searching here, and all the seeking of the world, which end together as you pass beyond the door.”

Wow! That was quite a meditation. I went into it as the holy endeavor it was, seeking to end my searching, seeking to enter that sacred room. I don’t really want to try to put words to this experience. It was different than anything I have done before. I still feel the effect even now.

Regina’s Tips

It is very good news that “no one can fail who seeks to reach the truth,” but the key in that sentence is that it is the one who seeks that finds. When one is tempted to listen to recommendations to drop seeking, it might be helpful to ask, “How does not seeking serve the ego?”

Based on Jesus’ example of the woman with the lost coin, it seems that Jesus recommends determined seeking. That reminds me of a quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj:

“We discover it by being earnest, by searching, inquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one’s life to this discovery.”

My Thoughts

I’m still a little disconnected from my thinking mind right now. I do believe in seeking and have never felt drawn to the idea that seeking is not necessary. I think even in an awakened state one will probably need to remain a seeker, in the sense that awakening is not an end but a true beginning. I am not at that place so I could be wrong.

Manual for Teachers
Jesus gives the Holy Spirit different names in the Course depending on His particular function in a situation. Just as He is the Voice for God He is also the Answer and is God’s Judgment. He is the Answer because through the power of our belief we have made problems that need an answer, and because we believe in what we make, we cannot answer our own problems. This conundrum is something Jesus speaks of more than once. We cannot heal ourselves, for that we need the Holy Spirit Who is God’s Answer to our self-made problems.

One time, I had one of those problems that triggered feelings of unworthiness. I knew this is the ego mind that is judging the situation. What happened is that a particular thing occurred that reminded me of something from the past, and without giving it thought, I automatically asked the ego what it meant. The ego reminded me of my unworthiness, and as I accepted the ego’s judgment, I began to feel bad about myself. I then projected this feeling onto the one that triggered me because I had asked the ego what to do about this feeling and projection is the ego’s advice.

When this happened, I knew that I had been listening to the ego and I knew that I must stop listening to the ego’s judgment and turn my attention to the Holy Spirit. I was reminded that my mind holds only what I think with God. This didn’t feel true for me at this time because I seemed to have a lot of ego at that moment. I asked Holy Spirit for guidance and I wrote into my journal what I received.

Holy Spirit: That your mind holds only what you think with God is merely a fact. When it seems to not be true, you may rest assured that you are dreaming of other things. You are dreaming that you can change the nature of God. You are dreaming that you are a human being rather than a Divine Being. But dreams do not change reality. Your mind holds only what you think with God.
Wake up, my sweet sister. Let me show you your real thoughts. You have been searching in dreams for these thoughts and that is not where they will be found. Even as you remember what you have read in the Course and recite these very true words to yourself, you do this alone within the ego mind made to give you the illusion of aloneness. There is no power in decisions made alone.

Now you are changing your mind in union with Me and that is power indeed, power that will move mountains. This seeming problem you have made within your dreaming is the mountain we are interested in today. Give me your wholehearted desire for the solution and I will be your Solution.

Me: Holy Spirit, I give you this problem, this belief that God could have ever created a Being that was unworthy, the belief that any Being could make of itself something that God did not create. I am ready to remember my true Self, to know myself as the magnificent creation I am.

Oh my gosh, Holy Spirit, I can feel the ego mind rushing in to save me from God.

Holy Spirit: Do not be afraid of the ego mind that continues to chatter away and makes futile efforts to keep you involved in this story. It is nothing, a collection of beliefs from which I will relieve you. It has no power to contain your glory unless this is your desire.

Me: I give You my ego; it knows not what it does.

Text
Since the Atonement is meant to undo the belief in separation, it naturally is for all. It undoes the belief that anything could be for me alone. I hear the ego in my mind separating out a brother and seeing him as guilty and it is just insane. How could my brother be separate from me? We share the same identity, the same mind.

The idea that I am different from you, separate and apart, is an illusion. If I would remember reality, this is an idea I must release. I cannot believe in the illusion of separation and believe in Reality at the same time. Could you believe that the sky is blue and believe it is red at the same time? One thought would have to be seen as wrong.

It is the same with illusion and reality. Only one is true. I can believe something is not true, but my belief will not change reality. However, if I believe a lie is true I will live as if the lie is true. This is what has happened. We have chosen to believe a lie and it has become true for us. Not true in reality, but true in our mind. This lie is that we are separate from each other and what happens to me does not affect you.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 130, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-23-19

LESSON 130
It is impossible to see two worlds.

“No one can see a world his mind has not accorded value. And no one can fail to look upon what he believes he wants.”

This was a rude awakening when I first believed it. It is hard to believe I value the world as I see it now and yet, Jesus says that our world is a reflection of our thinking and that we see what we want to see and we believe what we see is really there. I see this at work on two levels.

What I see is a projection from my mind and so is not real and is not there and only appears to be there because I want it to be there. And on another level, how I see it is dependent on how I want to see it. And I will believe that the way I see it is the only way that it can be truly seen. Both of these levels represent my desires and neither level is true.

“It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears.”

There are two worlds from which to choose, the real world and the illusion of a world. I’m grateful that this is our range of choice. I can spend 10 minutes on the toothpaste aisle trying to decide which I want, which brand and which type within that brand. This is much easier. I want the world of love or I want the world of fear. I know which one I choose by which one I experience. And if I experience the world of fear, I cannot reasonably deny that I want it.

I will no longer try to believe in a part of this world of illusion and a part of the real world and think this can work. Today, I will ask for strength beyond my own to deny a desire for illusions. Jesus reassures me that God will be there. He says that I have called on the great unfailing power and that it will take this giant step with me. He also says that I will see His thanks expressed in tangible perception and in truth. I look forward to seeing this.

“It is impossible to see two worlds. Let me accept the strength God offers me and see no value in this world, that I may find my freedom and deliverance.”

Regina’s Tips
This is where A Course in Miracles and other truth teachings can become a little difficult to accept. You may feel resistance to this message. However, let’s put any resistance we may feel aside and look at today’s lesson and ourselves objectively (without judgment).

We are told that we see this world because we value it. Is that true? There is a way you can find out. How much of your time is spent thinking about you and the world from your point-of-view? And how much of your time is spent in awareness-watching-awareness, turning attention away from the world and away from thought, and turning attention towards the Self?

If we look honestly at how we spend our time, we can see which we value more.

My thoughts
I have noticed that I have more time in the day to spend on meditation and on contemplation. I could spend quite a bit more time seeking to know my Self. But I also notice that often I don’t do that. I will watch TV or read a book. I will go shopping or spend time on Facebook. I will sometimes realize what I am doing, and decide to change my mind, but instead of using that time to ask the Holy Spirit to purify my mind and then giving Him my silent attention so He can do it, I will watch a Mooji video or read something spiritual. It sounds good, but is it really? Or is it just another way to avoid awakening? Is it just another decision to believe in the world dressed up as spiritual in nature? I set an intention right now to increase the time I spend in meditation because I do understand that I must choose one over the other and I know the one I want.

Manual for Teachers
“This time ask yourself whether your judgment or the Word of God is more likely to be true.”

The ego has an interpretation for everything, but it is always going to be in direct opposition to the Word of God. When I am not at peace, I look to my thoughts for the cause of my distress. Realizing that I must have asked the ego what something meant, I change my mind and ask the Holy Spirit to interpret for me.

When I do this my mind returns to peace. Do I feel sick? If so, I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of those thoughts that manifest as sickness. If I am worried about money, I ask that the Holy Spirit correct my thinking because it cannot be that I lack anything.

If I have a relationship issue, I ask the Holy Spirit to help me see my brother as he is rather than as the ego personification that he is showing me. I ask for help to release the idea of differences and to recognize my brother as one with me. Every disagreement dissolves in the face of universal love.

I never have a problem that is caused by something outside my mind. I don’t care what my brother is doing or saying or what the situation seems to indicate, healing occurs when I question my thoughts. Are they in alignment with the thoughts I think with God? If not, I release them to the Holy Spirit and allow correction. This is how I have peace of mind most of the time. And this is how I regain peace of mind when I lose it.

Text
1 The alertness of the ego to the errors of other egos is not the kind of vigilance the Holy Spirit would have you maintain. Egos are critical in terms of the kind of “sense” they stand for. They understand this kind of sense, because it is sensible to them. To the Holy Spirit it makes no sense at all.

The Holy Spirit has encouraged me to be vigilant for the thoughts in my mind and to ask for correction when they are not in alignment with the thoughts I think with God. I ask Him to help me to use words that are in alignment with Truth. I agree to step back and let Him lead the way. I do this to the best of my ability. What I am not asked to do is to be vigilant for my brother’s thoughts and words.

Under no circumstance is it my job to keep an eye on anyone else and to judge the sense of what they say. It is not my job to correct them or set them straight. It doesn’t matter how “gently” I correct. It doesn’t matter how many of the right sounding words I use. It doesn’t matter how right it feels to me to do this. If I am watching someone else, judging the correctness of their words, whether I say anything to them or not, this is my error and it is my mind that needs correction.

When I used to do this it was most obvious on social media. There were just so many opportunities. I would read through the postings looking for the ones that were “right” and the ones that just didn’t quite hit the mark. Sometimes I would even tell them what was wrong with their posting. Of course, I would use my spiritual ego to do this so that it sounded spiritual. I told myself that I was helping. None of that was true. I was just using the ego to decide what made sense to it.

Now I always try to respond only to a direct question. If it is appropriate I might add my own experience. But I am vigilant for my motive because my spiritual ego is alive and well. I can indulge it, or I can disregard it. My choice. In all my groups, the guidelines are to share from our experience and to never correct another. I try always to live this. When I fail to do so, I forgive myself and try again.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 129, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-22-19

Lesson 129
Beyond this world there is a world I want.

“Our emphasis is not on giving up the world, but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying,”

“Value them not, and they will disappear. Esteem them, and they will seem real to you.”

I’m not spending too much time on recognizing the world as I see it is not something I want. I know that it is not. Even those small things I still cling to, the things I value, I do not value much. Even as I write about them, I am releasing them. I do understand that my value of them makes them real to me. When I worry about my weight or about my child’s problems, I make them real in my mind. I am learning to release these things, learning that I want to release them and learning that I can release them.

“Is it a loss to find a world instead where losing is impossible; where love endures forever, hate cannot exist and vengeance has no meaning? Is it loss to find all things you really want, and know they have no ending and they will remain exactly as you want them throughout time? Yet even they will be exchanged at last for what we cannot speak of, for you go from there to where words fail entirely, into a silence where the language is unspoken and yet surely understood.”

I understand this paragraph to mean that as I forgive the world I made through the projections of my guilt and hatred, I awaken to a world projected from the love and peace and joy that is in me and is me. It is the real world, the happy dream, and I know it is possible because I know people who have awakened to this world. And as wonderful as it is, it is not all there is.

From this purified and perfected world, we move into something for which there are no words. This is where we are lifted into God. I find that I am not interested in lingering on this idea because I cannot imagine it and I feel I need to place my focus on that part which needs my attention and my agreement. I am doing as Jesus asks me to do. I am sitting in quiet and contemplating the idea for today as I allow the Holy Spirit to purify my mind of all other beliefs.

“Beyond this world there is a world I want. I choose to see that world instead of this, for here is nothing that I really want.”

Regina’s Tips
Anyone who is familiar with Michael Langford’s work may have noticed “Choice A” and “Choice B” in today’s workbook lesson. These choices are laid out in Chapter 5 of ‘The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss.’ Here are some excerpts:

“The primary means to awaken the extremely intense desire for liberation is to carefully examine two choices everyday until the extremely intense desire for liberation awakens. …

“Choice A is Infinite-Eternal-Awareness-Love-Bliss with no sorrow and no suffering. Choice A is Eternal Life. Choice A is to live as your true Self for all eternity. Choice A is absolutely perfect joy.

“Choice B is being identified with a body subject to suffering, sorrow, disease, death, violence, fear, anger, etc. Choice B is to allow an imposter called the ego to pretend to be yourself and to control you. Choice B is to allow an imposter called the ego, that has created all the wars, diseases, death, sorrow, suffering and evil that every human has ever experienced, to continue. Choice B is to have a temporary and therefore futile life that leads only to death.”

Today’s Course lesson asks us to look at these same choices.

We have found the pathway home. Now, let’s walk it.

My Thoughts
Both Langford and Jesus ask us to so two very important things. One is, as expressed by Michael Langford, “Co-operate with your Heart. Stop listening to your ego.” The other is to spend time in meditation today coming to know you Self. I intend to do both.

Manual for Teachers
“The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world.” 11. I

What is the world that God loves and therefore I can love as well? Jesus tells us that we cannot choose what the world is, but we can and do choose how we see it. This is how I am at peace most of the time. It is how I have learned to love the world. Because I consistently release ego thoughts of separation, I see the world differently than I used to. This is not perfect for me, yet. I still see the world through ego perception to some degree and sometimes more than other times. But enough has changed for me to understand what Jesus means here.

When our mind is sufficiently healed, we will see the real world, which will not have the elements familiar to us through our belief in the ego. There will be no sickness, hatred, suffering, fear or death. Then God will take the final step and the world will disappear altogether, at least the world as we envision it. Perhaps the world will be transformed so that it is a world of light and love only without form of any kind that we would recognize. I only say that because of something I read in the Course that said God would honor what we made because of who we are. I don’t really know what happens at that point. Neither does anyone else.

What I am most concerned with right now is what is before me. If I am unhappy, I need to ask the Holy Spirit to help me understand what went wrong. We were created Happiness and anything less is unreal. If I am having a relationship issue, I ask what it is I am to say or do. If I feel attacked or in lack, I ask what this is for, what I am to learn from it. I ask the gift it has to offer me. I recognize that nothing is happening to me but for me. I recognize that my problems are caused by my thinking, not by anyone else or anything else. Everything becomes my next step Home. As a result, my whole life has become happier and more peaceful than it ever has been. I see the world differently than I used to.

Text
III. The Correction of Error, P 5
5 When a brother behaves insanely, you can heal him only by perceiving the sanity in him. If you perceive his errors and accept them, you are accepting yours. If you want to give yours over to the Holy Spirit, you must do this with his. Unless this becomes the one way in which you handle all errors, you cannot understand how all errors are undone. How is this different from telling you that what you teach you learn? Your brother is as right as you are, and if you think he is wrong you are condemning yourself.

This paragraph tells me both why I must not accept my perception of my bothers insane behavior, and what to do with that perception. First, if I accept my perception that my bother is acting insanely, I cannot heal him because I heal through my certainty of health, and if I believe what I am trying to heal is real I have no certainty.

This gets worse because if I believe my brother can be in error, I believe in the error and so in believing in the error, I have now opened the possibility, (no, the probability) that I too am in error or will be in error. I have taught myself that error is real for everyone. The ego mind insists that this is true and anyone can see that it is true.

Here is what I say to the ego “proof” that I can see my brother is in error and that I often am in error, as well. I see the insane behavior for what it is, an ego reaction to fear. It is an ego reaction to an ego emotion. What has that got to do with reality? God did not create ego nor its effect, fear. Neither is real or true. I am seeing an illusion. An illusion can appear very real, but it cannot be real.

Now, this is how I get free of both the belief in my own insanity and that of my brother. I stop using this ego behavior to separate myself from my holy Self. Instead, wherever I see insane behavior or when I experience insane thinking in my own mind, I give my perception to the Holy Spirit to heal for me.

I notice my brother’s insane behavior and see it for what it is, but I do not mistake it for reality. If I do, momentarily, believe in it, I recognize what I have done. I have become as insane as I think my brother is. So I give that belief to the Holy Spirit to be corrected. From this healed place, I know the truth. I am as God created me and my brother is as God created him. No matter how confused my brother is about that, I know the truth and the light that is in my mind will extend to his and heal him.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 128, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-18-19

LESSON 128
The world I see holds nothing that I want.

“All things you seek to make your value greater in your sight limit you further.”

“Let nothing that relates to body thoughts delay your progress to salvation,”

“letting go all thought of values we have given to the world”

“We hold it purposeless within our minds”

I think I agree that the world holds nothing I want and yet, here I am. So what is it that I still want from the world? I am given clues throughout this lesson. When I try to do something that gives me greater value in the world. This could be how I look. Or it could be how people view me and how I view myself as a teacher, a minister, a parent. So much of that I have released. Some I still cling to but I loosen my hold on it every day.

What body thoughts am I interested in? I want to be healthy, slim -  well, slimmish. I want certain bodies in my life and others not to be there. I think that it is better to have one of those bodies near me than not, as if I could ever be alone when I am one with all that exists. That I can understand this concept but not feel it means that I am more identified with the body than with the spirit. I am willing for this to not be true anymore.

What values and what purpose have I given the world? I don’t know, really. I sometimes think about how I would feel if I had a sudden heart attack and lay there dying. What would I miss? What would I wish to experience one more time? The answer to those questions would help me to know the value and purpose I have given the world.

I think I would long to see and touch my children one more time. I would long to say I love you to them, to hug them. I would regret not seeing my grandchildren smile at me. I might give a thought to wishing I had taken the time to put my thoughts into a book I could leave behind. I don’t have a beloved pet, nor do I care much for nature. I have no interest in fame or wealth. So nothing to regret there.

I notice that now I am getting older and closer to saying goodbye to this world, I do feel a pang of regret for never again, in this life at least, experiencing the love of a man. That kind of surprised me. I thought of past relationships and of the happy moments in them and felt sad not to do that again, not sad enough to go for it, but just a little grief for lost opportunity.

As I look at this writing, I think that I don’t have a lot to release before I can say that the world holds nothing that I want. I think that not needing much from the world makes what I do have even better because there is no clinginess to it. Without need, there is no fear of loss so there is only pleasure in the moment and then moving onto the next moment.

Regina’s Tips

One way to let go of our value in the world and increase our desire for awakening is to let tragedy strike so that we are disillusioned by the world. However, today’s workbook lesson offers a gentler solution:

“Pause and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world, when you release your mind from chains and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home.”

I told you that spiritual practice itself motivates me to spiritual practice. That is the gentler method that is recommended by the Course. Practice awareness-watching-awareness anyway, even if you do not think you are ready to let go of the world, and the practice itself will prepare you for awakening.

My Thoughts
This is the method I want, to be still and let my mind be healed by the Holy Spirit. I am determined to do this. I know that the Self is going to bring me to awakening and it will do so by whatever means are necessary. I prefer to choose the gentle way rather than relying on tragedy to impel me toward awakening.

Regina also quotes Michael Langford as saying that ultimately all things disappear, the world, the universe, the galaxies. I noticed that there was a reaction in me. Is Infinite-Eternal-Awareness-Love-Bliss enough? What will we do? That is the ego in my mind worrying about being bored with nothing to do, nothing to see. I’m not too concerned about that. By the time I get to this part, I will have discovered what being has to offer. Right now, I will concern myself with letting go of the belief that my body size and shape matter. ~smile~

Manual for Teachers
In releasing the judgmental thought, I am teaching myself that I want to let go of the desire to judge.

Today, I am asking the Holy Spirit to bring these judgments to my attention, and when He does so, I am fully committed to accepting correction for my errors. I don’t want to add to the misery we suffer as we keep these thoughts in our mind. I want to do this with enthusiasm and with joy knowing that I am helping us all awaken through my efforts. Letting go of the desire to judge will bring us all to the peace of God. It might seem like work to be vigilant, but the most important element in this decision is the unequivocal desire for freedom from the burden of judging. As Jesus says, “Can it be difficult to want but this?”

Text
Christ is in me, and where He is God must be, for Christ is part of Him. 9.I: 14

God’s Will is already possible. We don’t have to do anything to make that true; it simply is. All we have to do to experience reality is to accept it. We accept reality when we stop trying to make it something else. We distort reality when we believe the ego thoughts in our mind. When we forgive those thoughts we reveal the truth and know reality.

When we believe the ego thoughts we suffer because when we distort reality, we feel like we are trying to make ourselves unreal. This sense of unreality leads to depression, anxiety and ultimately panic. Jesus says when this happens we should not look beyond ourselves for truth, but to look within. He doesn’t mean to look within at the ego thoughts to make sense of things, but to look within for the Christ, for God. That is where we find reality.

In our confusion it is hard to believe that Christ is in us and that if Christ is in us, God must also be in us. But this is what Jesus is telling us. Our true nature, our reality is that we are in God and God is in us. We cannot lose ourselves, but can only lose the awareness of our Self. This reality can go nowhere and can not be changed. It remains as it was created. But to not know it is to suffer.

This is why we are here where we are now, studying A Course in Miracles, following our path Home. We are awakening to this truth, to reality. Every day when I pick up the Course and read my paragraph, I ask within for guidance. I ask for clarity. I ask that I be led Home through these words and through the experience of these words.

I am looking at a book, but it is a book we wrote with Jesus, and as I read it, I am not asking anyone else what it means. I am looking within to the Truth that is in my mind, the Truth that was placed there for this purpose. As I hear the Voice for God, the memory of my Self returns to me.

Sometimes I find a dark unexplored corner in my mind and briefly I am afraid. I wonder if the truth is true or if I am crazy to believe this stuff I read in the Course, but what I cannot deny, what is indisputable is the Voice that speaks to me. That Voice is always there, gentle but convincing.

It gives me Its thoughts, thoughts I cannot find in the ego thinking mind. I hear that Voice and I hear it within me, and I know I am not the ego self. I know I am part of the Christ Mind. And if Christ is in me, then God, Which is in Christ, is also in me. I can rest in that knowledge and be at peace. That is the reality, the only reality.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 127, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-17-19

LESSON 127
There is no love but God’s.

“Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergences and no distinctions.”

“And thus he thinks that he can love at times, and hate at other times. He also thinks that love can be bestowed on one, and yet remain itself although it is withheld from others. To believe these things of love is not to understand it.”

“Love cannot judge.”

“Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds Them both forever as the same.”

“Love’s meaning is your own, and shared by God Himself. For what you are is what He is.”

What I understand from the first part of this lesson is that God is Love and there is nothing else. If it is not Love it does not exist. The world as I see it with my eyes and experience it through this body is not love and so does not exist. I am not that. I am not here. Me and here are thoughts in my mind and only that.

What I think of as love in this dream is not love at all. How could it be? At its best, it is a pale shadow of love. At its worst, it would be love’s opposite if an opposite of love were possible. In this world the thing we call love is different for different people, things, and situations. It can be bestowed or withheld according to how these things are judged.But love is not that. It does not judge, it does not vary from person to person or change in any way. It is not here but not there.

Even as I begin to understand love, and even as I open my mind and heart to love, I am far from knowing love. Practicing the Loving All Method makes more and more sense as I continue these lessons. And yet, how can it be that I don’t know love? I am love. I am love because my Creator is Love and He created me as part of Himself. So how can I be love and yet not know love? When I sit in quiet and ask to know my Self, I am asking to know Love, to know God. I can do this and will do this because I am asking for what is already mine and is me.

“Seek not within the world to find your Self. Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear love’s Voice.”

Jesus says that we only need to give some time to escape from every law in which we now believe. He says I can escape from this world if I do not hold it dear. What law am I holding onto as if it is my salvation? I remember what Regina told me about my son when I was worried. She said that if I remember my Self I will know his Self and then I would not believe his choices could hurt him.

There is a thought in the mind that we have to hold onto what we fear, that we can’t let it go. Even as I surrender my son to God, I feel a frisson of fear, as if there is a law that says my worry is what protects him. That is crazy even to my ego mind. Worry is not love. I have been practicing releasing that insane law.

“Call to your Father, certain that His Voice will answer. He Himself has promised this.”

I say that I am practicing letting go of the law that says I have to worry and be afraid because every time I am certain it is done, I notice fear rising up again. But it is working because the fear is not so intense and each time it is easier to release. I call to God to replace my laws for His and His Voice does answer me. I accept the answer as I can and then I call on Him again and He answers again and I accept more.

“…we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our Self.”

Since worry is not love, when I worry about my son, I am not loving him and I am not seeing him as the love that he is. How I see him is how I will see myself. As I change my mind and choose to see know my son as the perfect creation he is, I will know my Self. So, it works both ways, I think. I can know my Self and so know his Self, or I can know his Self and so know my Self.

“I bless you, brother, with the Love of God, which I would share with you. For I would learn the joyous lesson that there is no love but God’s and yours and mine and everyone’s.”

Regina’s Tips
I remember the first time I read this lesson. I DID think “there is a kind of love for this, a kind for that; a way of loving one, another way of loving still another.” Back then, if a mother had told me that she loves a bug in the same way she loves her daughter, I would have either been appalled or simply unable to imagine it. But today, I am that mother.

The only reason it would be difficult to understand how a mother can love a bug in the same way she loves her daughter is because one has a misunderstanding about what love is. Don’t get me wrong. I have a more intimate relationship with my daughter, a longer-lasting relationship with my daughter, and a human-to-human relationship with my daughter. All of that is different than my relationship with a passing bug. But the love is the same.

My Thoughts
Ha ha. I was having trouble with the idea of loving other children as I loved my children and here Regina takes it to the next level. Can I love my children in the same way I love a bug? But that is the wrong way to ask the question. I love them in different ways but the love is the same. As Regina pointed out, the relationship with my child is different than the relationship with the bug. But the love is the same because all love is the same or it is not love. Again, I am reminded of the Loving All Method. Before I started that practice, I would not have thought of loving a bug and so I would have been even further from knowing love as it exists.

Regina also says this about love.
How does one describe love? Love is openness. It could be described as embracing, accepting or allowing. It is joyous or compassionate, depending on the response that is pulled forth from it by the appearance. It has no lack in it, no need. One could say it is patient, although that is simply an aspect of its openness and allowance. Judgment is an impossibility for it.

My thoughts
That is a good, succinct description and one that calls for contemplation to fully understand and accept. I am particularly drawn to the idea that love has no need in it. I have often said that neediness is not the same thing as love and until neediness is gone from a relationship, I cannot know love. When I need my son to be healthy, I am not loving him.

Manual for Teachers

“Therefore lay judgment down, not with regret but with a sigh of gratitude.”
Now that we know we cannot judge, why not lay judgment aside? It is a staggering load. I ask Holy Spirit for guidance in all things. In the Rules for Decision we learned this: “2 For you and your adviser must agree on what you want before it can occur. 3 It is but this agreement that permits all things to happen. 4 Nothing can be caused without some form of union, be it with a dream of judgment or the Voice for God. 5 Decisions cause results because they are not made in isolation. 6 They are made by you and your adviser, for yourself and for the world as well. “

Also, in the Song of Prayer it says, “You have been told to ask the Holy Spirit for the answer to any specific problem, and that you will receive a specific answer if such is your need. ...There are decisions to make here, and they must be made whether they be illusions or not.” So I do my best to make no decisions with the ego. That means I must ask the Holy Spirit to be my advisor in every decision.

It is easy enough to tell when I have slipped up and asked the ego for help. I know I have judged when I feel separate from my brother, when I hold a grievance, when I am angry or fearful, when I feel guilty. These are all signs I have picked up the heavy mantel of judgment and am turning to the ego for advice. Those painful reactions are like road signs telling you the path has gotten rocky and impassable and I need to turn around and go the other way, something I am happy to do. When I turn to the Holy Spirit for guidance, my load is light and my way smooth.

Text
“What am I?” is the question I ask the Holy Spirit frequently. I ask it whenever it comes into my mind. I especially ask this question when I feel trapped in my own beliefs. I have experienced some major shifts recently, and the ego response has been very strong. It can be discouraging to move forward only to meet that wall of resistance.

The ego mind will fight against awakening. If I identify too closely to the ego, I will forget that its thoughts and feelings are not mine. Then I would become confused. Of course, I would become confused! It is like being two people at once, and the two people are completely opposed. I wake up with the thought that I give this day to Holy Spirit, and that thought might be immediately followed by a feeling of anxiety for the coming day.

I reject the second feeling as being ego resistance to surrender. It is the ego demanding its right to make plans and decisions and to decide what everything means. But “I” seem to be having the thoughts and the feelings and that used to be confusing. Now, I understand that I am not my thoughts and that I can choose the thoughts that I want to believe. I give my attention to the true thoughts and remove my attention from the ego thoughts.

How is it that I can do this? The answer to this is the answer to the question, “Who am I?” As Jesus tells us in Lesson 236, the mind is our kingdom and we rule it. Do we want to rule it with the ego as our advisor or with the Holy Spirit as our advisor? The choice we make will determine how happy we are and how quickly we evolve spiritually. I am of the Family of God, part of His Creation. That is the “I” that decides, the “I” that is ruler of the mind, I and the Holy Spirit together rule my mind.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 126, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-16-19

LESSON 126
All that I give is given to myself.

2 Let us consider what you do believe, in place of this idea. It seems to you that other people are apart from you, and able to behave in ways which have no bearing on your thoughts, nor theirs on yours. Therefore, your attitudes have no effect on them, and their appeals for help are not in any way related to your own. You further think that they can sin without affecting your perception of yourself, while you can judge their sin, and yet remain apart from condemnation and at peace.

I completely understand this and I no longer believe it and I almost never live it. When I first began to understand that all I give is given to myself, I became aware of how I treat people who serve me. For instance, I used to try on clothes in the store and leave them in the room when I was through, sometimes scattered about on the floor.

I probably figured that picking up after me was her job if I thought about it at all. I did not value her as a child of God. Because I did not see her value, and I was giving myself the same thing, lack of value. If I did not recognize my value would I be likely to believe that I deserved forgiveness and love? I can tell you that I did not. The less value I placed in myself, the less I valued others. It was a vicious cycle and the way the ego maintains its existence.

In becoming aware of this careless behavior and the deeper meaning it has, the far reach of its effects, I changed the way I interacted with people. I paid them more attention. I look the clerk who serves me in the eye when I sincerely wish them a good day. I recognize their innate value. I try to remember to treat each person as if it is Jesus serving me because their value is the same as his value.

I am not perfect at seeing the value in everyone, and when I am paying attention to my own chattering mind, I forget. But the cycle has been broken for me, and so I generally remember and when I forget, I quickly realize my error and if it is too late for in-person correction, I give my blessing in my mind, at least.

This practice now includes all areas of my life, all my brothers and sisters. If I am impatient with someone for being slow to understand what I am saying, or to incorporate new ideas, then impatience is what I give myself. It is another way of failing to value the other and thus to fail to value myself. The Holy Spirit is patient with me, and I want to give as He gives. If I notice that I am impatient, I silently ask for correction and for another way to express the idea.

All that I give is given to myself. The Help I need to learn that this is true is with me now. And I will trust in Him.

Then spend a quiet moment, opening your mind to His correction and His Love. And what you hear of Him you will believe, for what He gives will be received by you.

This part of the lesson is of particular interest to me. It is a continuation of the practice of sitting in quiet and asking for His Word. This morning, I asked that He bring to my attention anything in my behavior that indicates I am giving what I would prefer not to receive. I also asked that He heal my mind of the beliefs that are the cause of such behavior. Then I listened. And then, I received.

Regina’s Tips

Well, the day I came to understand the concept of ‘giving and receiving as one’, I understood forgiveness, and I became a very eager practitioner of forgiveness.

I learned ‘giving and receiving are one’ from scribing NTI Ephesians. It was further emphasized in ‘the Code.’ It is summarized by this:

What I think, I see.
What I see, I experience.
What I experience, I think.

How do you feel when you judge a person or situation? How do you feel when you reject a person or a situation? How do you feel when you genuinely accept what is? How do you feel when you love what is? Can you see that you directly experience your own decision to judge, reject, accept or love? Can you see that it is never different; you always experience your own decision?

Giving and receiving are one. Therefore, to have peace, be peace. To know love, be love. And to do that, let go of any thought that does not make you happy. Just let it go. That is forgiveness.

My Thoughts
I love the way Regina can express things in a way that makes them instantly understandable. I am especially drawn to the idea that to have peace, be peace and to have love, be love. I do this by letting go of thoughts that do not make me happy. See. It is simple. This is forgiveness. If I forgive myself and I am happy, then I will treat everyone in such a way as to encourage the same thing in them.

Manual for Teachers
“Remember how many times you thought you knew all the “facts” you needed for judgment, and how wrong you were!”

I really get this. I agree that I don’t have all the facts, not ever, and so I have no way to judge accurately anything. I accept that I do have the Holy Spirit right here in my mind and He does know everything and will judge for me. I have had that experience and often. I know how to become still and let Him remove what is not true from my mind. I know how to relinquish my own judgments and surrender to Him. I do it a lot.

I would say at this point in my life, judgment is just a bad habit, and one I am working to break. I am asking the Holy Spirit to help me be aware of any judgmental thoughts in my mind today. I ask that He show me judgment in whatever forms it might take. I know that sometimes I judge myself more harshly than I ever would anyone else. I know that sometimes judgment sounds like an attack thought, and sometimes it sounds like fear.

I want to be aware of these judgments so that I can allow them to be removed and I can be free of them. This produces an emptiness into which the Holy Spirit can reveal the truth. Since I am having to ask for this help even in being aware of the desire to judge, I suspect that in addition to habitual thinking that there must be some belief left in my mind that judging is a valuable right that I don’t want to give up. Holy Spirit, please remove that belief from my mind. It doesn’t even make sense.

Text
“Any attempt to deny what is must be fearful, and if the attempt is strong it will induce panic. ...You are devoting your mind to what you do not want.” 9. I. 12

Jesus says that to deny what is must be fearful. When I deny what I am, I deny what is. I was reading from the Daily Lessons the section called “What am I?” This is a beautiful section and I am going to read it frequently now because I believe it most of the time and I want to believe it all of the time. Among other things, it says that we are the holy messengers of God who speak for Him, and carrying it to everyone whom He has sent to us, we learn that it is written on our hearts.

When I feel afraid or sick, when I am in pain, or angry, when I succumb to guilt and doubt, I deny what is. When I treat anyone badly, I am not being messenger for God and thus I am not learning what is written on my heart. I deny both of us the truth that brings us to the awareness of Heaven. This includes the clerk at the store, the fellow shopper who is blocking the aisle, the driver who won’t use her turn signal.

In this world of separation with its levels and its orders of difficulty, it seems like some errors are big or important and other things hardly matter. But that is not so. It is the same error that I feel anger and resentment toward a friend, as it is that I was impatient with the store clerk who was moving slowly and talking to a fellow clerk while I was running late. They are the same thing because the only thing is happening is that I am either devoted to God or to ego, devoted to what is, or devoted to nothing.

My function is to remember my true devotion, to be a messenger of God, teaching love, teaching everyone what they are, and so learning what I am. And when I forget, when I get caught up in the illusion, my function is to forgive myself as soon as I notice that I am devoting myself to nothing. When I think of this, I get excited! Today is not just another day. It is a day of remembering and a day of teaching. Today I am God’s messenger.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 125, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-15-19

LESSON 125
In quiet I receive God’s Word today.

8 It is your voice to which you listen as He speaks to you. It is your Word He speaks. It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son. In quiet listen to your Self today, and let Him tell you God has never left His Son, and you have never left your Self.

9 Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this, to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body’s eyes. Only be still and listen. You will hear the word in which the Will of God the Son joins in his Father’s Will, at one with it, with no illusions interposed between the wholly indivisible and true. As every hour passes by today, be still a moment and remind yourself you have a special purpose for this day; in quiet to receive the Word of God.

His Voice awaits your silence, for His Word can not be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled. Await His Word in quiet.

This is what I have been practicing this week, this being still, quieting my mind and listening for His Word. It needs me to be quiet and still, and somehow, I knew this must be true. Things are happening in me. Some long held beliefs have fallen away as if they were never there. I had not been asking for this, nor even thinking about it. I just noticed that I can’t find those beliefs anymore.

I did the meditation before I started writing and while I did notice thoughts and the mind’s desire to follow those thoughts, I was also aware of a strong desire to be here now with Self. Without any desire to direct the Self, I knew my mind was being purified and I still feel like part of me is still in meditation.

Regina’s Tips
Today’s lesson tells us that God/Spirit has not waited for our return to it to give its word to us. I think it is really important for us to realize that inner wisdom has always been there; we just haven’t always been listening. In fact, often we have purposefully chosen the opposite of inner wisdom.

To the degree that we are unhappy or suffering, that is to the degree that we choose the opposite of inner wisdom.

The fact above can be painful for some people to look at with absolute honesty. Some of you who are reading this today will avoid accepting that statement as true, even though it would be really helpful if you did accept it as true. That is okay. As today’s lesson says, you are not “led by force, but only love. … not judged, but only sanctified.” However, you will find happiness sooner if you can accept the statement above.

Many people think it is hard to hear the voice of wisdom. I don’t think that is true. I think we simply need to begin to listen to it instead of wanting to do things our own way. When today’s lesson asks us to be still, quiet, silent, so the voice can speak, it really means we need to put our mind’s will aside and be willing to follow that intuitive voice like Katie does. The more we do that, the clearer the voice becomes.

My Thoughts
I love the idea of surrender. To the degree that I have surrendered, I have become more peaceful and happier and I feel so much closer to my Self and to my Creator. Even though I understand surrender have discovered the benefits of surrender, I still cling stubbornly to some degree of independence from my Self and from God.

That’s crazy, isn’t it? I don’t understand it either. I seldom do it deliberately, but I know I do it because I am not supremely happy at all times and choosing to listen to the ego mind is the only reason I would not be happy. This daily meditation in which I sit in stillness and quiet the mind as much as I can is deepening my desire for surrender. It is healing my mind and my only part seems to be that I am receptive to that healing.

Manual for Teachers
10. HOW IS JUDGMENT RELINQUISHED? P 3
3 The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world’s learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. This is not an opinion but a fact. In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself?

Journal
This is the paragraph that made all the difference in my life. When I read this paragraph, I understood that I have no business judging anything, not that I shouldn’t but that I can’t. I didn’t stop judging immediately, but I did start noticing when I was judging; I became willing not to judge. It felt strange to me at first, and I felt the ego’s objections very strongly. After all, how could I navigate the world without judging? Just crossing the street required a judgment of timing for safety’s sake.

So what I did was to take it in steps. My first step was to look at the judgments that seemed most obvious and with the most potential for harm. I asked the Holy Spirit to guide me in this, to point me to the ones He wanted me to look at, and then to correct my thinking about them. I began to notice when I was angry with someone, or resentful toward them, and realized I must have judged him. I would bring this judgment to the Holy Spirit and let Him reinterpret it for me.

I began to do this when I was unhappy about a situation. I would realize that I must have judged it, and so I would ask the Holy Spirit to take that judgment from my mind and to give me a correct judgment. Really, the only reason I decided it was bad was that I asked the ego what it meant. Do I really want the ego mind making decisions for me? So it wasn’t that hard to change my mind. The Holy Spirit knows everything and so can make a decision for me that will help and not harm.

This all sounds so simple and straight forward as I write about it, but while I was developing this new way of making decisions it was pretty messy. I would vacillate between judging with the ego and accepting the Holy Spirit’s judgment. I would balk at times, insisting I knew the right judgment. I would sometimes feel resentful to have lost this “right” to judge. But I trust Jesus and so I kept at it and the excellent results of giving judgment to the Holy Spirit convinced me this was the way to go.

At some point, I began to open more completely to the Holy Spirit, asking for guidance in all things. I began the process of learning to fully surrender to the One Who Knows. I went through the same messy process as I made this shift as well, but it wasn’t as hard because the Holy Spirit had already proved Itself to me. I had tasted the freedom of giving up a job that I was unprepared to do and letting it be done for me. Now, I was just extending that surrender and gaining more freedom.

I am still mastering this decision. I make mistakes and sometimes get pulled back into the old way of fumbling through the world without a clue. But there has been another shift for me even if it is not completely accepted yet. It is harder for me to explain. My trust is so much greater now that I have surrendered on a deeper level. I trust the Holy Spirit to decide for me most things, and I no longer think about each judgment.

In fact, the only time I notice judgment is when I have tried to do it on my own again. I change my mind as quickly as I can because I don’t want to go back to that insane way of living. I want to move forward, surrendering more and more of the ego until I am no longer struggling to live, but am being lived. That is not my experience yet, but it is closer to it than ever before.

The ego hates this idea of not being in charge of my life and recognizes its eventual demise if this keeps up and so it throws up objections and blocks, but this is a done deal. Now it is all just details. I practice surrender of that part of the mind and I experience living from my holy mind, and the ego begins to recede into background noise. Then something gets triggered and it’s loud and obnoxious again until I bring it to the Holy Spirit. Eventually, though, this will end. There is no doubt in my mind that the ego is on its way out because that is my truest desire.

Text

“You do not recognize the enormous waste of energy you expend in denying truth.” 9.1.11

I almost never get angry with anyone these days but I was reading my journal from a couple of years ago when I saw this entry. It seems I was angry with someone and I had spent two days arguing for my anger, insisting that he be wrong and that his actions were hurting me. In my mind I was insisting that the only way I could be happy is if he sacrificed his perceived needs on my behalf. It took nearly two days for me to get past this idea, to move my hands from in front of my eyes so that I could see. What a waste of energy that was.

How could my happiness depend on what another person does or does not do? How could my happiness depend on getting my way at the expense of another? How could my happiness depend on what happens in a dream? Would God put my happiness out of my reach? Would he make happiness something elusive, something that is only sometimes possible?

Here is what I discovered when I finally remembered that I wanted to see. I decided that all of my previous goals that involved a need to have something happen were unimportant compared with the goal of knowing God. I let it all go to the Holy Spirit for purification. I let Him heal my mind. I stopped interfering with love and accepted it. Happiness happened.

The situation itself remains unresolved for a while longer and the ego mind wanted to revive the issue bringing love into question at times, but I was not interested. I was aware of those thoughts and when one snagged my attention I asked that the Holy Spirit to remove it from my mind. There is a song I listen to every night as I go to sleep.

It repeats over and over the words, “thank you,” and, “your love is pouring down.” As the song repeats these words, I imagine that His love is pouring down on me, washing away the doubts and uncertainties that may have plagued me during the day, healing all that is not truth in my mind. I am filled with gratitude.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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