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Study of the Text 9-13-12

9-13-12
22 Miracles are associated with fear only because of the belief that darkness can hide. You believe that what your physical eyes cannot see does not exist. This leads to a denial of spiritual sight.

It’s hard to believe that we would be afraid of miracles but I know that this is true. Miracles completely turn our world view upside down. Miracles stand outside the laws we made to govern our little kingdom. An occasional miracle is pretty interesting and exciting stuff, but what if miracles started happening all the time, everywhere? They would disprove the laws we have in place to keep our kingdom intact and we would have to face the fact that our kingdom must not be real. Not everyone is ready for that.

Our eyes don’t show us what is in front of us. They were made to report back to us what it is we want to see. In this way we could make a world that suits our purposes and not be distracted by truth. Imagine it this way. Everything in front of you is light. When you want to see a living room with furniture your eyes show you the living room, down to the tiniest detail.

Your eyes are also showing you many other things when it shows you that living room. Is your view of the world one of poverty and lack? Then it will show you a shabby living room. Is your world view depressing, limiting and oppressive? Then it might show you a dimly lit and colorless living room. Whatever your eyes show you will support the view you have of the world.

In reality it is all just light. It takes form according to our desires and our beliefs. There is nothing solid or real or permanent in the universe. Form appears and disappears according to our wishes. While our eyes show us nothing real, they report back to us a perfect picture of our desires. I rented a house last year that seems perfect for my needs. I love the yard and everything else about it is perfectly satisfactory.

It is larger than my old house and needs more furniture so it is kind of empty in places. Occasionally I look around and think I should buy a little table for that corner and put this lamp on it. Something like that. But I never do it. I have pictures that I have never hung. I have some boxes I have never emptied. My daughter once commented that my house looks like a hotel. I put it down to being too busy.

The other day I received guidance to buy a house. I was surprised because I have always said I didn’t want to do that. As a single woman I didn’t think I wanted the responsibility of keeping a house in repair. Also I didn’t have the kind of down payment you need to buy a house so I thought it was out of the question. But the guidance seemed clear so I knew it would happen and sure enough things have fallen into place in ways I would never have foreseen.

When I moved into that rent house my only regret was that being a rent house I might have to move again someday but I hoped it would be a long way off. But that was my thoughts, my ego mind judging and making decisions. It still does that; I just don’t pay that much attention to it. When I looked at this house my eyes showed me what my heart knew; a temporary dwelling, a stopping off place. I didn’t try to change that because a permanent home was not my true desire at that time. This was all unconscious and it is only in retrospect that I see it.

The truth is none of it is real. It is all light taking form as is my will. If I believe only what my eyes show me I will fail to see what lies beneath the form. I will believe that what I see is immutable and that I am victim to it. I will feel imprisoned by what I see all the time, blind to myself as jailor, and therefore hopelessly trapped. Even if I imagined beauty all around me, if I failed to the see the source of the beauty I would be trapped by my blindness, still be trapped by my ignorance. It would just be a prettier trap.

I see that there is something real behind the form my thoughts take. That is my spiritual sight. It is not associated with my eyes in any way. It is true vision. It led me to dwell temporarily in this nice house and it led me to let it go. Vision led me see form differently, to see through the illusion of bodies, the belief in pain and suffering.

Sometimes my vision blurs and I experience all of this as real and so it takes form according to my temporary belief, and I feel as if I am Myron and this body is real and it hurts. But no matter how convincing the illusion I can never completely believe in it, because once you know something you can’t un-know it. Everything that seems real and solid and important in this world is an opportunity to remember the truth. I feel pain and I remember that pain is not real. I feel angry and I remember that anger is not real. The same for fear and guilt. Everything becomes a way I set aside sight and embrace vision.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 9-12-12

9-12-12
21 Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God’s forgiveness by extending it to others.

Later in the Text I am told that God does not forgive because God never condemns. So what is God’s forgiveness? It is the certainty that I have done nothing for which to be forgiven. I don’t need to be forgiven, but for this to be meaningful to me I must believe that I am innocent. I will never believe in my innocence if I believe in anyone else’s guilt.

It took me many years to understand and accept this. I kept looking at each instance in which I felt guilty or thought someone was guilty and tried to see the innocence. I tried to see how I could be innocent this time, or how that person could be innocent when they were so clearly guilty. Eventually, after giving my willingness to be wrong about that time and to be wrong about the next time, over and over again, I finally understood. I am not innocent of this or that, I am simply innocent.

In order to truly believe I am forgiven I had to give up the idea of guilt. Before the idea of separation there was no such thing as guilt, and since separation is an illusion, so is guilt. What is not in God does not exist. There is no guilt in God so there can be none in me or anyone else. Let me say that again; because there is no guilt in God, there can be no guilt. I am innocent. So are you. It is simply a fact.

Life as I experience it through the character of Myron is just a story played out on the biggest and most spectacular 3D screen ever. What happens in this story is not real and the characters are not real. Who is there to be guilty? What could they be guilty for? Within my story I am in charge of everything that happens. Everyone who shows up for my little production of the Life of Myron, does so at my invitation. They play the part I assigned them and read the lines I gave them. How could they be guilty of anything?

Every good story has a theme, a purpose, something to be accomplished. My story is no different. My theme has been one of victimhood and the purpose has been to discover that this is not possible. So early on, right from the beginning I set up her story so that she would feel like a victim in many little ways and some big ones. How could victimization be proven impossible if no one played the victim?

So all these characters, the main characters, the bit characters and the extras helped Myron feel like a victim so she could finally learn she wasn’t. The actors who played her parents began the process of teaching her she was a victim and many others joined in to add to the idea. Each one did his or her part exactly as directed and did it to support me in my decision to learn that no one is a victim of the world they see.

There were also those who helped her learn that she was not a victim by leaving clues or through encouraging and supporting her. They wrote books for her to discover and read; they loved her even when she was acting out her victim behavior, such as blaming and projecting onto them. They too, did this at my direction and for the purpose of helping me learn that no one can be a victim.

There is no difference between the two groups of people. They were all here in the story of Myron to support me in my quest for the truth. So who is there to forgive? What is there to forgive? The quest is coming to an end, as within the story Myron has begun to realize this and she reacts differently to the other actors.

When someone treats her as if she is a victim she no longer obliges with that behavior but she also no longer blames them for playing their part. She sees them as not, guilty, but only confused. In her heart she knows they are innocent and finally it is not that she refuses to see them as guilty, she simply cannot see them guilty.

Guilt is becoming meaningless to her. This certainty, this conviction that guilt is not real and no one is guilty built slowly throughout the entire production as she began to accept her own innocence through extending God’s forgiveness to others. This is a miracle story.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 9-11-12

9-11-12
20 Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle.

Sometimes I get bad headaches and when that happens my first thought is, “What triggered this headache?” I wonder if it could be something I ate or sitting for too long at the computer. I used to try to figure it out and would keep a journal of what I had been doing when it occurred. I was making the body the altar of truth, looking to the body for the cause and for the solution, looking to the body to tell me the truth. What a joke I was playing on myself! As if the body, which is an illusion, could be the cause of anything.

Now when I have a headache, I might still, out of habit, wonder what caused it but I quickly pop back into reality. I caused it. I remember the power of decision. I know that I decided on this.

No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. L 152

I am now aware that spirit is the altar of truth.

Lesson 190 says that pain is not real and one day I decided that this must be true. It only makes sense that if it is not part of God then it cannot exist. I began to practice this idea every time I experienced pain. Eventually my practice led to greater conviction and I began to realize that long term pain that I had experienced for years was no longer there.

As I had been doing my practice, I would ask the Holy Spirit to come into my mind (join with me) and heal it, or undo the ego belief there. Because I really want this, the prayer is answered and as I became ready it began to manifest in my human experience and became apparent even there. While still in the middle of the process I would take medication that I had given the power to relieve the pain, but that did not heal me.

Even if there were a cure for headaches they would only be a way of allowing a frightened mind to accept the miracle, because medicine does not heal without our permission. It is only at the level of spirit that healing occurs. I have experienced the miracle and I will never again be able to believe in the body as the altar of truth.

I still get headaches occasionally, or other pain because I have not completely let go of the value I have placed in sickness, but I also never believe it has anything to do with the body except that the body is the screen onto which I project that belief. The body is never again going to be the altar of truth for me. This is good because as the lesson says, “This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle.”

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 9-10-12

9-10-12
18 A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service you can render to another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. You recognize your own and your neighbor’s worth simultaneously.

When I was deciding what I wanted to take in college I thought about nursing, but only for a second because I knew that I could not do that. I thought about teaching and thought that was something I could do so I studied to be a teacher. Toward the end I realized that I didn’t want to be a teacher and so I quit. But always I wanted to be of service, even back then when I was mostly self-centered, I felt drawn to serve. That was my true Self moving me gently toward my life purpose.

I would never have been open to the idea of miracles at that time, and if I had the impulse, it would have been subverted by the ego because I needed purification first. I could not have imagined where my story would take me or even that there was something outside me guiding me to this place in my life. But in retrospect I see that this was happening. I am meant to serve and it seems that miracles are the service I am meant to perform.

I cannot know what that means in terms of what I am to do, what miracle I am to perform, and when, and that’s ok because it is not my job to make that decision. Jesus is in charge of this project and I only need to be open and willing and everything will be done through me. I don’t even need to know it happened. Through my willingness love moves through me to my neighbor and in doing so we are both uplifted and healed. Could anything be simpler?

19 Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation, because the Sonship is the sum of all that God created. Miracles therefore reflect the laws of eternity, not of time. 

Miracles occur on the level of mind, and so are outside time and space and bodies. The miracle brings our awareness back to reality and so through the miracle we remember that we are one in God. A student and I were discussing her work and suddenly I suggested something she might do to bring about a healing. I had no idea I was going to do that or what I was going to say until I said it. The impulse did not come from me but through me.

I had no idea that the suggestion was important or meaningful to the student. I discovered how important and how healing it was later. This is a miracle. It happened on the level of mind and the true gift is the joining at that level my student and I experienced. Neither one of us will ever again be able to think of our minds as separate.

We only seem to be separate and to have separate thoughts, but there is a place where our seemingly separate minds meet and are not separate. It is here that love flows unimpeded one to another. Love takes whatever form is helpful at that moment, and in a way that is recognizable to both.

This kind of thing happens all the time now because I am a more open and willing channel that I used to be.  I become willing to be lived and to get my self out of the way. That means I ignore the ego impulse to decide on my own, to make my own decisions and make my own plans, and the miracle of love moving through the Mind we are becomes very clear, and my conviction grows. It grows for the one I have joined with as well. It is a very humbling experience. 

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 9-7-12

9-7-12
17 Miracles transcend the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from the bodily level. That is why they heal.

Nothing happens within the illusion. Nothing is improved, nothing is made worse, nothing is done at all. This is just a script being played out. There is no Myron outside this story. I am not that. What I am is the writer of this interesting story.  We can learn to step back in our minds and experience our self watching the story, and I think, learning from it, maybe enjoying it.

My experience, so far, is that I both feel the story taking place as if I were in it, and sometimes I also feel myself watching the story taking place. Even without that shift in awareness I don’t ever completely forget what is actually happening. I wonder if the miracle will transform that experience further?

The miracle heals because it occurs outside the world and the body. It comes from our true self, not from within the illusion. This means the miracle happens in reality and so has actual affects. It is easy to believe that we are all movers and shakers here in our pretend world, but that’s not happening. We are movers and shakers and incredibly powerful Beings, but who we are is in that invisibility, that “place” that is away from the bodily level. To experience the miracle we need only agree to it, to choose it.

From within the body and the worldly experience that is our job. The more I can stand back and allow myself to be lived rather than trying to control life, the happier and more peaceful I am. But I am like a puppet with a mind of its own that keeps trying to walk off and do its own thing independent of the puppeteer. All I do is tangle up the strings and trip all over myself. I get up determined to pretend that I am in control and do it all over again. Really, all I need to do to succeed in getting where I want to go is to stop resisting the puppeteer, but I have convinced myself that I can work my own strings without help. Silly puppet.

It is not a matter of trying to make the illusion better, but rather it is about remembering who I am so that I will experience the illusion differently. Yes, the illusion seems to respond to this quickening of my more awakened self, but the minute I start thinking, “OK, now I am going to increase my profits or heal this body,” I fall headlong back into the illusion and I am no longer in the realm of miracles, but back in la la land trying to convince myself that my Avatar is my real self and it is in control and making things happen.

It’s the difference between wishing and willing. From within the illusion if I decide I want something to be different, I am wishing and sometimes my wishes come true. I live a story to explain the process, doing this and doing that and then taking credit for the result. Sometimes, no matter what I do the wish is not fulfilled because … well, because it is just a wish and a wish has no power.

If I recognize that what is happening in the story cannot be part of truth and I desire truth, not to change the illusion, but for the sake of truth, and for love’s sake, that desire is answered with a miracle. This is willing and it proceeds from conviction and so is always answered, and always creates true change. The illusion may or may not change, but the mind has changed and this makes all the difference, and is all that matters.

I’ve noticed that I still become fixated on the illusion sometimes and want desperately to fix it, but that won’t work because change does not come from within the system. What is it that holds the illusion together, that is the glue that keeps the whole thing from falling apart? It’s judgment, right? So if I think there is something wrong with what is happening in the world, then I have just applied more judgment glue to the illusion and that is clearly not the way to undo it, and undoing the ego is the only solution to the problem.

From outside the system there is no belief in the illusion so why would there be a desire to fix it. It is the confusion within the mind that needs to be fixed. Yes, I still take my eye off the ball and get distracted thinking that the illusion needs my attention and that I could be happy here if I just fix this or that, but then I stop wasting my time and return my attention to the only thing that needs changing; that is my mind.

That is something that is done simply by asking, and then accepting the answer. As the confusion is cleared, the mind is healed, the ego is undone, and life is seen as the game it is until we tire of it, and then off we go to do whatever unlimited powerful and creative Beings like us do.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 9-6-12

9-6-12
16 Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating it is as blessed to give as to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver.

Miracles are teaching devices. I almost missed the importance of that first statement. Miracles are not a way to get well quick, or supply some other imagined need, though the effect of the miracle often seems to do just this. If miracles were for the sole purpose of making an illusion better, they would be just another part of the illusion, another ego manipulation of something that doesn’t exist.

No, the purpose of miracles is not to encourage the idea that the illusion is real and has some value, but to teach us that the illusion does nothing. Through miracles, which are a change of mind, a new way of thinking, and, ultimately, reveal our supremacy over the world, the miracle teaches us of who we truly are. Each miracle reminds us that we are not of the world, that we are not affected by the world, that the world does not do anything to us.

We are the makers of the world. The world is of us, the world is affected by us, and we do to the world what is done. Thus what has no innate value becomes a valuable teaching aid as the miracle reminds us of our true nature, and we begin to awaken to that glorious truth.

Through miracles we also learn that giving is receiving. This has been a slow transformation in my mind. I liked the idea; I thought the idea had merit; I thought I believed the idea; and at some point I realized that I knew that giving is receiving. Miracles had opened my eyes to that simple truth that I cannot give anything of true value without receiving, and I cannot receive without giving.

This understanding changes everything, of course. I hear my student express doubt and uncertainty and I smile to myself knowing this is just a temporary confusion on his part, knowing with absolute certainty and no doubt that this confusion will be blown away like smoke in a breeze and the Divinity he is will be exposed. My belief in him heals his mind and strengthens that belief in my own mind. In the miracle of healing we are both healed and both strengthened.

Does this change the illusion, change our stories? Oh yes! In many ways the story changes as our perception changes, as we bring into our story elements that reflect the change in mind. Time is collapsed and what is no longer needed to accomplish our goals for this lifetime fall away. What would once have brought up fear or anger will be seen as nothing and will be accepted fully and without resistance, and so will pass easily and quickly.

The story of the world, instead of being deadly serious, becomes our playground, a place to express our creative nature, fun and interesting, but certainly not anything to take seriously. Miracles become a way of life, an everyday occurrence as they are meant to be. The world will show itself as the happy dream it was intended to be before guilt and fear distorted it. Through our use of miracles we will join and join until we no longer see any separation between us, and as full memory of our true nature returns to us, we will remember to laugh at this tiny mad idea. 

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 9-5-12

9-5-12
15 Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to enable you to learn how to use time constructively. It is thus a teaching device and a means to an end. Time will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning.

I admit that for a long time A Course in Miracles was a part-time pursuit for me. I studied it for years, but the study was inconsistent and the practice even more so. It took a very long time for me to realize its value to me to the degree that I wanted a daily study. It all began to change at the same time I discovered Pathways of Light and began their courses to be a minister.

Looking back on it, when I turned fifty it was like a switch had been thrown, like I had been sleepwalking and someone suddenly woke me up and I began to walk with purpose. I don’t for a moment think this just happened, or that there was anything in my life that caused it to happen. It was simply time for me to accelerate my spiritual journey and so I did. I made up stories to explain each step of the way, but that was after the fact and is just what the ego does. The stories were meaningless.

Now everyday is devoted to miracles. This is a constructive use of my time, the only constructive use of my time. It doesn’t matter what I seem to be doing miracles are the purpose. Whether I am selling chemicals to my customers or chatting with my daughter, I am devoted to miracles. I am ever vigilant for my thoughts so I notice quickly if I have fallen back into ego or am entertaining myself with ego chatter.

I am always aware of myself as existing outside time and space even though I feel like a body, and feel what bodies feel. I am cognizant of my actions and reactions and always willing for healing of my mind. I am in gratitude often, and when I am not in gratitude I am asking for gratitude to return to my mind. I start every single day with the Holy Spirit. I call on His help all day long.

I am happy and can’t remember the last time I was depressed even though I spent most of my life in a depressed state. I sometimes still see others as separate from me, but only temporarily, and I am glad to notice that error so it can be corrected. I forgive myself, I forgive others, I forgive whatever is in front of me whether it seems to be mine or not. My life is a miracle.

To understand just how much of a miracle it is you would have had to have known me before I found A Course in Miracles. I can’t tell you much about that person because I hardly remember her, but I remember she was selfish and thoughtless and unhappy. She thought of others only as how they impacted her. She felt no unity with anyone else and love was just a way to gain what she did not have, and she didn’t consider what the other lost to create her gain. I don’t miss her at all.

The reason she no longer exists is because I give my time to miracles. I am aware now that this is the proper use of time, and I have seen why this is true. My life bears witness to this truth. Using time constructively will continue my progress and when we no longer need time to wake up, time will cease to exist. Time is just another of those made up things we did when we decided to fool around with the separation idea. What the ego makes, the Holy Spirit uses for our good if that is our desire. So time, which we made to help create the illusion of separation, is used by Holy Spirit for miracles. You go, Holy Spirit!

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