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Study of the Text 12-27-12

12-27-12
3 You can defend truth as well as error. The means are easier to understand after the value of the goal is firmly established. It is a question of what it is for. Everyone defends his treasure, and will do so automatically. The real questions are, what do you treasure, and how much do you treasure it? Once you have learned to consider these questions and to bring them into all your actions, you will have little difficulty in clarifying the means. The means are available whenever you ask. You can, however, save time if you do not protract this step unduly. The correct focus will shorten it immeasurably.

In this paragraph I am being encouraged to set my goal and give it my attention. This will save time and that is what I ultimately want to do. In fact, I want to end time. Here is how I am doing this. I began like most people just hoping to find a way to live that was not so painful. A Course in Miracles seemed to help me do that.

I discovered through the Course and Course related books like, Inner Healing by Dan Joseph, simple but effective ways to watch my mind and allow my perception to be corrected and brought nearer the truth. Then in books like NTI and Teachings of the Inner Ramana, I learned more about turning away from the chatter of the ego mind.

While this was happening, I made a significant change. I realized that when Jesus talked about defending my treasure, he meant that I would defend the thoughts that mean the most to me. It seems I would have noticed that a lot sooner since he talks about it right here in Chapter 2, but I guess I was not ready to see this for a while. But once I did see it, and realized I wanted it, I asked myself what exactly it was that I treasure, and if my present treasure was going to get me what I really want.

It was easy to see that I treasured a lot of things that were not bringing me peace. I would defend my right to be happy and that was not working for me. I would defend my right to decide for myself, and to make plans on my own. These treasures were not making me happy either. Sometimes I would defend against the ego, but sometimes I would defend against God. It was like shuffling in place, only once in a while taking a step forward.

I saw that I needed a goal, a purpose, something that would be a guiding force in my life. I began to pay special attention to the lessons about my function. In Lesson 61, Jesus says this. How holy are you who have the power to bring peace to every mind! He then says: You are indeed the light of the world with such a function. What is he talking about, this lofty function? He says that it is my forgiveness that does this. And he encourages me to accept no trivial purpose in its place.

When I watch my mind for ego thoughts and ask that they be corrected and the mind be healed, this is what I am doing. I am remembering that my function is forgiveness. I forgive the beliefs I have held dear but that have hurt me. I did this in the beginning for Myron so that she would have a happier life, but I soon realized that the purpose is to save the world. Each time I do this, I bring peace to every mind.

This is a treasure worth defending. I defend it by choosing forgiveness every chance I get. Because I have decided on my one goal, which is to awaken from the dream of separation, which is the same thing as forgiving the world I made, it has become easy to choose what I would defend. Now I simply notice if the choice I am considering is going to bring me closer to my one goal, or bring me deeper into the illusion.

How to do the forgiveness work is not something I have ever had to figure out. I choose forgiveness as my one function and the means are provided, just as Jesus said they would be. As I make that choice, the Holy Spirit places before me everything I need to make it possible. I find, without effort, every book, every teacher, every inspirational word that will help me. I am directed by the Voice within what to do next, where to go, what to say.

An objection the ego has is that forgiving the world one thought at a time doesn’t feel very lofty. The ego doesn’t feel like a super hero. Saving the world seems to the ego like it ought to have more of a pay-off, that being savior of the world should add to its sense of specialness and this is not what is happening. In fact, it doesn’t feel like much is happening for long stretches of time, and when it does change, the ego notices a loss of specialness instead of an increase in what it most craves.

Later in the Text, Jesus will help us understand that the ego doesn’t know the difference between pain and pleasure. For instance, the ego thinks that specialness is pleasure, when really it is a source of pain. This is why there was confusion for me at first, when I thought nothing much was coming of all this work. But I trusted Jesus and kept at it, remembering my one goal, remembering my one function, and I began to have a peace filled life.

Now I lose my peace at times, but not often and not for long. Now I know that peace is what I want and I know that nothing else comes close, so the means to regain that peace are available to me as soon as I am ready to return to peace. I also understand that I share one mind with all my brothers and so as I choose peace for myself, I am choosing it for us all.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 12-26-12

12-26-12
2 True denial is a powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is not a concealment but a correction. Your right mind depends on it. Denial of error is a strong defense of truth, but denial of truth results in miscreation, the projections of the ego. In the service of the right mind the denial of error frees the mind, and re-establishes the freedom of the will. When the will is really free it cannot miscreate, because it recognizes only truth.

I used to be in denial about a lot of stuff. When I did something regrettable I would push away the guilt I felt. I would push it out of my conscious awareness, or I would push it on to someone else, making it seem, on the surface, to be her or his fault. I might push it onto the circumstance, convincing myself what I did was unavoidable considering what happened, or maybe considering the way I was raised or things that happened to me in the past.

Of course this doesn’t work. What ever I push away or down is still there. Guilt experienced out of my awareness is still guilt. Guilt given away is still with me because what I give is now more mine than before. In fact it is made worse because now I have guilt for the original idea and guilt for trying to foist it on someone else, and I have reinforced the belief in guilt.

Regardless of how I choose to experience guilt, it is destructive. Judgment, which always comes before guilt is the building block of the illusion and guilt, which always follows judgment, is the glue that holds the illusion in place. The illusion is the place I hide my guilt from God, and returning to God is my goal, so this kind of denial is counterproductive.

There is, however, a useful form of denial. When I notice that I feel guilty or fearful, or angry, jealous, sad, uncertain or doubtful, anything but joyous, I can deny this. I don’t deny I feel it. In fact I allow the feeling, sitting in it for a moment, looking at it with the Holy Spirit. What I deny is that the feeling has a true cause. As I deny the authenticity of the feeling, I ask that my mind be healed of the false belief that triggered this feeling.

I was having some lower back and leg pain yesterday and I noticed that the mind was thinking of reasons for this pain. I overdid shopping, cooking, cleaning and entertaining. I need to turn my mattress. This happens periodically and it means it is time to see a chiropractor. I shouldn’t have lifted that heavy box. These ideas are the wrong use of denial. So then I used denial correctly and denied that any of these things causes physical pain.

These things are just where I project the cause using one or more of them to blame for my pain, and that used to work for me. In this way I was trying to convince myself I was not responsible for what happens to me. I was a victim of circumstances, or people who demanded too much of me. The problem is, this does not really work, but only seems to for awhile.

The truth is in my mind, though I deny it and pretend I don’t know that I but do this to myself. Because it is in my mind, I am left with a sense of anxiety that I don’t consciously identify, but that is discomforting. If I don’t allow myself to become fully aware, I have no way to correct the problem.

Yesterday, what I did instead was to deny the mind’s projections. I know that nothing is outside my mind. This body is not outside my mind. The idea of pain is not outside my mind. The body is an image and the pain is a concept and all of it was of my own design. I am fully responsible for the belief in body and in pain and I accept that responsibility without guilt. Now that I am fully aware, I can ask the Holy Spirit to come into my mind and undo what I have done.

This is as applicable to financial problems, relationship problems or anything else that I have previously used as a way to express the hidden, unconscious guilt that is in my mind. It is so simple that I can hardly believe it has taken this long to accept the truth. Jesus says in simple and easy to understand words that there is nothing outside my mind.

He says that the world I see is an illusion. He says that I but do this to myself. He says that I am not a body. He says that the Holy Spirit in my mind can easily undo all of these beliefs when I am ready, and asks me to allow this healing. He says I can do anything he asks of me. This is all just an error and he says that I can deny any belief that error can hurt me, and this is what I choose to do now.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 12-24-12

12-24-12
I. The Atonement as Defense
1 You can do anything I ask. I have asked you to perform miracles, and have made it clear that miracles are natural, corrective, healing and universal. There is nothing they cannot do, but they cannot be performed in the spirit of doubt or fear. When you are afraid of anything, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you. Remember that where your heart is, there is your treasure also. You believe in what you value. If you are afraid, you will inevitably value wrongly, and by endowing all thoughts with equal power will inevitably destroy peace. That is why the Bible speaks of “the peace of God which passeth understanding.” This peace is totally incapable of being shaken by errors of any kind. It denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you. This is the proper use of denial. It is not used to hide anything, but to correct error. It brings all error into the light, and since error and darkness are the same, it corrects error automatically.

The first sentence in this paragraph sends chills down my spine. I can do anything Jesus asks of me. That statement is unequivocal. Jesus has said that I can perform miracles and he has made it clear that they are important. This is a statement that I don’t want to forget. I will remind myself of this as we go along in this study.

The reason that sometimes it seems I cannot perform a miracle is made clear when he says they cannot be performed in doubt or fear. When I see that a physical healing is needed and I wonder if I am supposed to do this, or if I just cannot believe that this can be healed, at least by me, this blocks the healing.

Yesterday I got the chance to witness what happens when fear is removed. I have talked about the house I bought and the work being done. I also talked about the roofing materials being stolen. I had to buy them all over again. I did not go into fear about this and I trusted that all would work out exactly as it should.

Since I was not fearful, my mind was clear when it came to the thieves. I did not feel angry or resentful of them, and instead, realizing how painful it must be to live with such fear of lack that you think your survival depends on taking what others have, I pray for their healing. Their healing is my healing because healing spreads throughout the mind. If I were fearful about the loss myself, fear would block love and defensiveness would make the belief in separation stronger within the mind.

Yesterday I realized I was out of money and I still have a lot to be done. When I saw the numbers I felt a moment of panic. Not only was I short of money to finish the project, but also I didn’t have enough money to pay for what was done already. In spite of the panicky feeling, I also felt that current of truth that flows unchanged and unimpeded by ego. I knew that the panic was not the true thought in my mind and when I asked for help, the Holy Spirit reminded me that there were other thoughts in the mind and I could look at those.

So I turned my attention to those thoughts. I remembered that this script is written and my job is to see it with Christ Vision. The only purpose of the story is to show me where there is still a need to heal my mind. Other true thoughts were there, and the panic quickly faded away. I wanted to know how I could use this situation to heal our mind. I also needed to know how to deal with it in the story.

As I sat there in peace I remembered that I have some money in a vacation account that I could use. Then I remembered another way I could get some money. During the day, money began to flow into my life in the most unexpected and remarkable ways. I didn’t do anything to create most of this flow; it just came into my life. I don’t know if it will be enough, but I trust that flow. Why should it stop before the project is complete?

One of the things I was to learn from this situation is that fear blocks the flow of love, and removing fear allows it to move into my life in whatever way I think I need it. In this situation, the most useful way for love to show up was as money and so that is what happened. I will use the money to finish the project because that is what’s needed in this story of Myron’s life, but what I felt was love washing over me simply because I allowed it. It was a wonderful feeling.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 12-21-12

12-21-12
5 Whatever lies you may believe are of no concern to the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease. It makes no distinctions among misperceptions. Its sole concern is to distinguish between truth on the one hand, and error on the other. Some miracles may seem to be of greater magnitude than others. But remember the first principle in this course; there is no order of difficulty in miracles. In reality you are perfectly unaffected by all expressions of lack of love. These can be from yourself and others, from yourself to others, or from others to you. Peace is an attribute in you. You cannot find it outside. Illness is some form of external searching. Health is inner peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without and capable, through your acceptance of miracles, of correcting the conditions proceeding from lack of love in others.

I just love that first sentence! It doesn’t matter what form an untruth takes, or how big or complicated it seems. The miracle is unaffected. It simply is true or it is not. This really simplifies things, doesn’t it? I see now that the reason it seems like some miracles feel different than others is that I believe in some falsehoods more than others.

When looking for a parking place I call on my parking angel. My parking angel really rocks! She’s the best parking angel ever. I’m never surprised anymore when I go straight to an excellent parking place even in holiday shopping crowds. This feels like a tiny miracle and hardly worth mentioning, and even a little embarrassing. The kind of thing you tell someone and then laugh, like it’s a joke. But really, why should I expect my life to be difficult, as if expecting a convenient parking place would put a strain on the universe.

In the past I have asked for healing of some sort and the mind would come up with reasons why I should not ask, or question if good would be the most helpful response. For instance, I would ask for ease in dealing with a difficult person and the thought would be that maybe having to deal with adversity was what I really needed. I would ask for someone else’s healing and would question if that was the best prayer. Maybe they are supposed to go through this sickness.

And of course, I have had the thought that I can’t believe something can be healed. It just doesn’t seem possible because it is so awful, or so real in some other way that it is too difficult for me to imagine it being simply gone or changed. All of these objections to miracles are the result of me believing in the lie more than I believed in the miracle. It is also the result of believing that all of these effects are outside the mind.

When I believe that the body is outside the mind, I think it is separate and out of my sphere of direct influence. It then seems as if there is the body and separate from that is my mind that will now have to affect something not part of itself. Now that separation is established in my mind with that thought, I see everything as separate.

A separate entity, the doctor, must be called upon. Separate medicines must be used and I can only hope the right one is available and works for me, because I am separate and unique from other people. Because we are different, it might work on them but not me. A separate, and unreliable God can be prayed to, but since He is mad at me for being separate I don’t always feel deserving of His help so my supplications are tentative.

It gets even more complicated if I see someone else suffering and want to help, or if someone seems to be a threat to me in some way. I have to deal with the insurance people today and this feels like a threat, with them wanting one thing and me another. If I think they are outside my mind, and thus separate from me, I feel confused about how to pray. Would it be right to pray that I influence them or would that be unfair to them? What if I influence them to see things my way and then they get in trouble and lose their job? What would be the right prayer?

Here is what I did instead. I realized that I don’t know the right outcome for myself or anyone else when it comes to healing of the body or the insurance situation so I ask for the right outcome without any attachment to what that might look like. I also realize that I am meant to be free and joyful and at peace and that there is no reason for me to experience anything else, nor is there any reason for anyone else to have a different experience. I am innocent and I am loved. Everyone else is innocent and loved.

All of the world, everyone in it and every dream we are having is in the mind. Jesus says there is nothing outside the mind and that was an unequivocal statement. I accept that and believe that. Since the body and the insurance people and the situations I am dealing with are all in my mind, I ask that my mind be healed of any mistaken thought that the outcome should be less than loving, joyful and peaceful for all involved.

When I notice a thought in my mind that does not feel loving, peaceful or joyful, I know that this is not a true thought. That is as far as I need to go with it. The form the thought takes is not of concern. It is either true or it is not true. I give the thought to Holy Spirit in full expectation of the miracle. I have every right and reason to expect a healed mind. As my mind is healed, my dream shifts and takes on a happy aspect.

Because I know this to be true, I am not disturbed by anything in the dream that is taking time to shift. My certainty allows me to wait in happy anticipation to see how life works itself out. Sometimes I have been delighted to see that all I needed to be happy was the acceptance of what was happening. I didn’t actually need the picture to change at all. Sometimes I have laughed as the scene before me dissolved into something else.

Without the stress of doubt and uncertainty life is simply interesting. If I become confused and forget what is real and what isn’t, if I start seeing the story as if it is happening “out there” the stress returns. I feel anxious and panicky. I make the mistake of thinking that one mistaken thought was more powerful than another and so some things can be fixed and some not. But now that I know why this happens, I can just take a moment to give these thoughts to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to undo what I have done.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 12-20-12

12-20-12
4 All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that you have the ability to usurp the power of God. Of course, you neither can nor have been able to do this. Here is the real basis for your escape from fear. The escape is brought about by your acceptance of the Atonement, which enables you to realize that your errors never really occurred. Only after the deep sleep fell upon Adam could he experience nightmares. If a light is suddenly turned on while someone is dreaming a fearful dream, he may initially interpret the light itself as part of his dream and be afraid of it. However, when he awakens, the light is correctly perceived as the release from the dream, which is then no longer accorded reality. This release does not depend on illusions. The knowledge that illuminates not only sets you free, but also shows you clearly that you are free.

I am innocent. I am innocent. I am innocent, and nothing is happening. I am dreaming and sometimes that dream is a nightmare. There is nothing to be afraid of because nothing is happening. I am not guilty of misusing my creative powers because I cannot create amiss. All that I have done, though it is truly amazing to see, is nothing. The whole world and everything that has ever happened . . . hasn’t happened.

There is a part of my mind that knows this. There is also a part of my mind that is still afraid. It still looks at the world as if it is real and feels both pleasure and pain. I still become distracted by and drawn into the illusion. The difference now is that I never quite believe it, and even when it feels its most real, the world begins to recede again as I ask for help. “Holy Spirit, please come into my mind and undo what I have done.”

I make this jump into illusion and out again dozens of times during the day. Most of the time it’s just little things that barely affect me. I think about something that happened in the past and feel a sense of shame or guilt and then remember I am innocent. It happened as it was meant to happen. It could not have happened any other way. It didn’t happen at all in reality. Sometimes I am a little giddy as I let that truth set in a bit more.

Sometimes the jump feels really big, like when I was wrapped up in Toby’s story of pain and suffering. Times like that the world feels very real and it is so hard to remember the world is not real, and yet, my mind never let go of the truth. I knew I was wrong even while I was believing in what I saw with my eyes. I continued to say my prayer even as my heart was breaking and my emotions were sweeping me away.

This seems to be the way of it for now. I am not concerned about any of the apparent “failures” or how long it takes to fully awaken. As the Manual for Teachers says, the teacher of God is not perfect, but teaches perfection over and over until she learns it. So I look at whatever is in front of me and I ask Spirit what I am to do with this. What am I to learn? What am I to say and to whom? Where am I to go next? Then I write about the experience and whatever understanding Spirit gives me, and I share it with anyone who is ready to hear it. This is the process I have been given to wake up.

But the awakening is not about the story. The illusion does not wake us up. The illusion does not indicate the depth of the sleep. The illusion is just an illusion. It is meaningless until we give it meaning. The meaning I am choosing is to see it as a useful way to see what needs healing within the mind and that is all.

I have been in a deep sleep, but now I am awakening from that sleep, and if I doze off again once in awhile, I am not worried about it. I know that I am sleeping and that makes all the difference in the world. The story, and my continued part in it, doesn’t mean I am not awakening. It has, as I have allowed healing, become a tool for the awakening. And, I know what to do to continue the slow awakening. Thank you, God, for that.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 12-19-12

12-19-12
3 The Garden of Eden, or the pre-separation condition, was a state of mind in which nothing was needed. When Adam listened to the “lies of the serpent,” all he heard was untruth. You do not have to continue to believe what is not true unless you choose to do so. All that can literally disappear in the twinkling of an eye because it is merely a misperception. What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. Yet the Bible says that a deep sleep fell upon Adam, and nowhere is there reference to his waking up. The world has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening or rebirth. Such a rebirth is impossible as long as you continue to project or miscreate. It still remains within you, however, to extend as God extended His Spirit to you. In reality this is your only choice, because your free will was given you for your joy in creating the perfect.

Every time I listen to the thoughts of the ego mind and believe what I hear, I am Adam listening to the lies of the serpent. What the ego says to me over and over again is that I should be worried. I should be afraid. I am guilty. Then it says that it’s not my fault. It is his fault or her fault. The ego says that the world is real, my body is real and it is separate from every other body and every other thing. It says that not only am I separate from God, but that God is a threat and something to be avoided.

The ego says these things over and over in a thousand different ways every waking moment, and then it dreams of them all night. If I continue to believe these lies I will live in fear and regret. I will never let go of separation because I will believe I need my brother and the world to be separate so I can have someplace to project my guilt. I will never move toward God because I will be afraid of God. I will never create because I am so busy miscreating so that I can cover my tracks.

Do you wonder how to stop believing the lies when they seem so real, when you seem to have so much proof that they are real? Are you waiting for a sign? Are you looking for confirmation that the truth is true and nothing else is true? Are you asking the ego to show you this? Of course the ego will not, and if you are looking at the world for proof you are looking to the ego. The world is your proof against God. Do not look there for proof of God.

There was an Indiana Jones movie in which he desperately needed to cross a chasm. There seemed to be no way and the bad guys were fast approaching. His mind showed him that he was on one side and there was nothing but air and a long deadly fall between him and the other side. But he also had reason to believe that there was a path in spite of the emptiness his eyes were showing him. The only way to find out was to step out into the apparent emptiness.

It was a delicious moment of spine tingling suspense when he just closed his eyes and disregarded appearances. He stepped out into nothingness and put his foot down on a column rising from the floor of the cavern. It had not been visible to him until his foot touched it. He hesitated again and then stepped out on faith and as he put his foot down the next one appeared.

Again he hesitated, but as he was rewarded with another column to support him, his faith took him swiftly across. Each time his foot left the column it disappeared and when the bad guys caught up they were dumbfounded to see him on the other side with no apparent way to reach it.

This is it! This is the way it is done! I look at the world and I am so convinced that it is true, but the Course and the lessons in it have opened my mind to something else. I have allowed myself to believe in the “other side” and now I am putting my trust in what I cannot see to take me there. I am putting my foot forward and trusting that there is something to put it on. This is the only way to awaken. The proof that the truth is true comes from believing it, not from staring at the lie and waiting for it to reveal something else.

When the ego is desperate to regain my attention, the body becomes its fallback plan. Pain and sickness are good ways to make the world seem very real. But putting my foot out into apparent emptiness, I remember that Lesson 190 says that there is no pain. And if there is no pain, there is no sickness. I turn to that simple statement even as pain and sickness dog my heels. I turn to it even in the face of apparent proof.

The thought given me is that what is happening in the body cannot be real because the body is not real. I am reminded that there is nothing outside my mind. If nothing is outside my mind, then neither is this body outside my mind. It is only a thought I am having. I must be thinking of illness or pain for the thought of the body to be sick or in pain. And further, I must think there is some value in pain and sickness or I would not be doing this to myself. The column appears under my foot as I set it down. I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of this obvious error in thinking.

The ego does not easily give up the belief in pain and sickness. This has always been its ace in the hole, the way it convinces me that the body is real. The ego mind warns me that if I stop believing in the body as real, I am giving up my hiding place and will soon find myself face to face with God and this will be deadly.

A Course in Miracles says that God loves me and that it is safe to return to Him. I decide to put my faith in these words instead of the ego story, and I put my foot down again and find I am still being supported. Crossing this chasm has been slow and tedious as I question and doubt each step, but there is nowhere to go but forward, and my perseverance has paid off. I move forward more certainly and more quickly now.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 12-18-12

12-18-12
2 These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the separation, or the “detour into fear.” None of this existed before the separation, nor does it actually exist now. Everything God created is like Him. Extension, as undertaken by God, is similar to the inner radiance that the children of the Father inherit from Him. Its real source is internal. This is as true of the Son as of the Father. In this sense the creation includes both the creation of the Son by God, and the Son’s creations when his mind is healed. This requires God’s endowment of the Son with free will, because all loving creation is freely given in one continuous line, in which all aspects are of the same order.

I like the way Jesus phrases our present experience. H calls it the separation, and the detour into fear, and later he calls it the tiny mad idea. I am relieved he doesn’t call it the unforgivable sin or the betrayal of God, or the last straw. However he describes it, he reminds us that in spite of how real it feels to us, it is only an illusion and never actually happened. He says this over and over in very clear and direct terms. Its amazing really, that we can read it over and over and still think it must mean something else.

I certainly spent a lot of time reading right over those words. Maybe I didn’t want to embarrass Jesus by pointing out his obvious error. ~smile~ I continued to look at the seeming proof that my story of pain and suffering was reality and that Jesus was delusional. Happy to say that my apparent mental confusion is a temporary illness and I seem to be recovering. I have not flung God from His throne, and reality has not abdicated to fantasy.

No matter how long I sit huddled within myself, quaking in fear and planning my defenses, God is still love and nothing else exists except in my fevered imagination. I detoured into fear, but I have an internal guide to direct me to the straight and narrow path Home. Thus forward when I speak of being afraid or of anger and guilt, and when I am uncertain or doubtful, when I shake at the thought of death, could one of you give me a gentle shake? I still tend to fall back to sleep now and again.

When my mind is clear I know I am the Son of God, the Son of Love. I know that only Love exists and so I must be Love as well. I know that I am whole, complete, and lacking nothing. I know that I have never left this state and that there is nowhere for me to go, nothing I need do, and no effort is needed to be me. Does an apple try to be an apple? God help me to obtain the clarity of an apple.

In spite of the clarity that I have gained, periodically my mind clouds and for a bit I think Reality has been set on its head by my imaginings, and momentarily I become confused and frightened again.  The lovely thing is, once the awakening begins, the forays into darkness are shorter and less frightening because the light I have uncovered never completely dims and I see my way back so much more easily.

Holy Spirit, I know I am the one wandering off the path, but I am also the one calling for salvation. When I become confused, please give me clarity. When I become afraid, please help me to see there could never be anything to fear. When I feel anger or disappointment at someone or something, point me inward. When I forget that eternal life is the only truth and I feel loss, comfort me and help me regain my vision.

Now that I have opened my eyes and see the words you gave me, Jesus, I can never again be fully blind. I see, if only dimly, and the joy of that vision will not be denied. God created me and creation moves in one continuous line. I am like my creator and my creations, when my mind is healed, are like my Father’s creations.

There does not in all of creation exist anything that is not Love. What ever I see or think I see can be easily categorized as real or not real. No other description need concern me. No other action needs my attention. “Here it is, Holy Spirit, this belief, this seeming thing, or person or situation. Is it true? If not, please heal my vision.” How free I am! Thank you, God. I love you God.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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