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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-14-12

6-14-12
2 The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell. Love is no longer feared, but gladly welcomed. Idols have disappeared, and the remembrance of God shines unimpeded across the world. Christ’s face is seen in every living thing, and nothing is held in darkness, apart from the light of forgiveness. There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it.

The resurrection as described here refers to the awakening of the mind from its long dream. Jesus talks about the thinking of the world being reversed, and the remembrance of God shining across the world. It says that there is no sorrow upon the earth. My part in bringing this transformation about is to becoming entirely willing for my heart to be transformed.

When I want this and nothing else, it will be done, and my transformation will bring light into other minds, and theirs will be transformed as well, and spread light to others. A strong chain of Atonement will be welded as we each follow our inner guidance as we heal. We will be led unerringly to those who are ready for our gift, and will be guided to say or do whatever will be most helpful to that person.

What I have discovered is that it seems easy to let go of the belief in death as a concept, but harder to let go of specific beliefs and desires that represent death. For instance, attack thoughts, judgments, guilt, fear, and depression are all thoughts of death. The desire for anything the world has to offer is a desire for death. The belief that letting these thoughts and desires go is a sacrifice, is the belief in death.

If someone judges me and I accept their judgment as true and respond by attacking myself or them, I have chosen death over life. If I realize what I have done and feel guilty for my error, I have chosen death. If I project the guilt and feel it is their fault that I feel guilty or feel bad about myself, I have chosen death.

These feelings are so pervasive in the mind that it seems impossible to be free of them, and yet, Jesus did, and he says that we can too. Others have accomplished what Jesus accomplished, and so proven that Jesus is not special, but simply the first to do this. He is the way-shower and we are meant to follow, and therefore can.

I don’t worry about the end result and how hard it is or how long it takes. I have been given all the help I need and simple processes to use to strengthen my willingness and my state of readiness. I am told that the actual healing will be done for me and that has been my experience.

One moment I am suffering because of my beliefs, I realize that I don’t want these beliefs anymore and that they hold no value for me, and the next moment my mind is free. The only thing I did was to desire healing more than I did the drama of the moment, desire healing more than the belief I had held to for so long.

Sometimes it feels really hard to let go. I used to be plagued with doubts when this happened. I thought maybe this whole Course was wrong. I thought maybe I was the exception to the rule that everyone can do this and no one can fail. I was afraid that my sins were unforgivable. Or I would think that while everyone could and would do this, maybe I just wasn’t ready.

Because I continued in spite of my fears, I watched my mind be healed over and over in ways I could not have done on my own, and so my faith grew with each miracle. Now, I still experience great resistance to letting go of some beliefs, but I never doubt it will be done.

I just keep handing it over to the Holy Spirit. I am nothing if not persistent and my persistence always pays off. If I let go sooner, I suffer less, but regardless of the timing, I always eventually, let go, and allow the miracle of healing to occur. This is my part in bringing time to an end and resurrection to the world.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-13-12

6-13-12
28. WHAT IS THE RESURRECTION?

1 Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a re-awakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the world. It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the world’s purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself. It is the end of dreams of misery, and the glad awareness of the Holy Spirit’s final dream. It is the recognition of the gifts of God. It is the dream in which the body functions perfectly, having no function except communication. It is the lesson in which learning ends, for it is consummated and surpassed with this. It is the invitation to God to take His final step. It is the relinquishment of all other purposes, all other interests, all other wishes and all other concerns. It is the single desire of the Son for the Father.

It seems that the resurrection is still part of the dream, but is a happier dream, one in which the ego belief system has been looked at, forgiven, and set aside. It is in this phase that all striving is done, all confusion about purpose is over. There is one desire and that is to know God. It is the invitation to God to take His final step.

We will all reach this phase in our awakening. It is inevitable. But each step must be taken in turn. The step itself may be protracted, or it may take only a moment, but it must be done. When A Course in Miracles says that we “need do nothing,” it is referring to the healing of the mind. That is done for us. In fact, you could say it is already done because nothing changed when we fell asleep other than our dream. So there really is nothing for us to do to be the Son of God we were created.

There is, however, much to undo. It was for a purpose that we were given that big blue book, with its many words and 365 lessons. My experience with it has been that all the words, all the lessons, all the practices have been absolutely essential for me, and all have been to bring me to the point that I want to remember what I have obscured in my mind.

I can only speak from my own experience, so here is the story of Myron waking up. ~smile~ These are the steps I have gone through. First I had to notice something was wrong, and conceive of the idea that there might be a better way. Then I had to give a little willingness to change my mind. This was a very protracted state for me as I had to make this decision repeatedly until the decision became stronger.

Contrast was a very helpful teaching aid during this phase. Many times I made a decision for God and felt peace, only to slip back into the ego for long periods where I again sampled the drama and confusion until it became too painful to bear. Then I would choose God again.

Next came vigilance and for me this felt like hard work, but the previous step, though it seemed over long to me, paid off. My determination was much stronger. I knew that what I had for so long accepted as “normal” was actually just a form of hell, and more importantly, I had a had a taste of happiness and peace, so I knew there was something else and that I wanted it.

During all of this I have been examining my thoughts and asking for healing. I have been given many tools to work with; practices, teachers, books and more. There were a lot of times when I doubted and then became afraid. There were many times when I chose the ego’s defenses and then realizing that his has never worked, returned to choosing God. I have gone back and forth many, many times until my certainty grew stronger and my desire for awakening more single minded.

From where I stand now it is easy to look back and see the patterns and be aware of all this. Trying to describe where I am now is harder. It’s like standing in the middle of the forest and trying to describe the parameters. I can only see what I have walked through and what is in my line of vision, but without the perspective of how each piece fits into the whole pattern it is hard for me to really understand and describe, even to myself.

I know that I am not what I seem and I know that I am ready to set aside all that I have believed. I also know that there is still some resistance to some of this, some bits that I seem attached to, but I know that it is just a matter of time. I never lose site of the truth. I might choose against if briefly, but even then I am aware of what I am doing, and I just return to my practice. Also I don’t get upset about my temporary set-backs, nor do I judge myself for them and that makes everything easier.

I’ve learned that I am not in charge of my awakening. I don’t decide what to work on next or how to do it. I wait for guidance in this and do my best to follow it. I have let go of the “need” to know or the “need” to be there. That is a lot more comfortable, too. I am noticing some of the things Jesus talks about. Even my body is functioning better as I less often use it for attack and defense and other forms of non-communication. I am happier and more peaceful and I have so much gratitude.

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

6-12-12
7 Teacher of God, your one assignment could be stated thus: Accept no compromise in which death plays a part. Do not believe in cruelty, nor let attack conceal the truth from you. What seems to die has but been misperceived and carried to illusion. Now it becomes your task to let the illusion be carried to the truth. Be steadfast but in this; be not deceived by the “reality” of any changing form. Truth neither moves nor wavers nor sinks down to death and dissolution. And what is the end of death? Nothing but this; the realization that the Son of God is guiltless now and forever. Nothing but this. But do not let yourself forget it is not less than this.

When I pray that my mind be healed of a false belief, I always remind myself to disregard appearances. This is an important step for me because I tend to forget that what I see is simply a reflection of my beliefs and has no reality apart from that. I think, it appears as if it were outside me, I pretend that I had nothing to do with its appearance and take the appearance as proof that what I think must certainly be real. I mean, there it is, right?

I cannot trust anything the body’s eyes show me because they were made for the purpose of proving a falsehood to be true. They are a tool we use to help us make the illusion, and to make it possible for us to believe in the illusion. Now that I have decided to wake up from the dream of separation, I have to remind myself frequently that I cannot trust what I see.

I see bodies apparently die and I say to myself, “See, there is death. Obviously, there is death, I just saw that body die.” Actually, that body appeared to die because I want to believe in death. My belief in death is projected outward and appears in front of me like an incredibly realistic hologram.

Think Star Trek, The Next Generation. Captain Picard wants to re-experience a romantic moment with an old girlfriend so he goes to the Holodeck and calls it up from his thoughts about it. It all appears around him, the setting, the music, the people, just as he envisions it in his mind.

He has an incredibly vivid experience of it as he holds his lover and dances with her. He kisses her and feels the same responses he always did. But no matter how real it feels and looks, it is an illusion as becomes clear when he gets a call to duty and shuts the deck down. It all disappears as if it were never there.

When he calls up a fight scene he experiences it as if it were real. He fights and struggles with his opponent. He sweats and gets a workout, and hones his skills, and when he wins, his opponent seems to die. All appears to be very real, but again, it is just a Holodeck where one’s wishes are created from the thoughts in the mind.

The Holodeck mimics “life” as we seem to experience it, because that is exactly what is happening here, now at this very moment. What are you doing? Look around you at the hologram you created from the beliefs and wishes in your mind. When someone in your life seems to die, it is no different than the Captain’s opponent on the Holodeck. It appears very real. Do not be deceived by appearances.

This does not mean that I will stop being compassionate to those who have forgotten it’s a Holodeck. I will still hold them and let them cry. I will still send my condolences. I will still say, “I’m so sorry.” I will still go to the funeral because it is a comfort to my brothers whose minds are still clouded.

What about when people I love die? I don’t know. When my mom died, I did her funeral myself. I felt moments of intense loss. I went through periods of releasing guilt and allowing final healing of the relationships. I miss talking to her and being with her. Mom symbolized unconditional love for me, and I miss that in my life. But maybe these feelings are part of what we asked to experience when we asked for separation. None of the grief and sense of loss has been as intense or as extended as I expected, and I guess that’s because I had already begun to realize there is no death.

My acid test is when I think of one of my children dying. I cannot imagine anything more painful. I absolutely don’t believe my child can die, but I know that the story would go on without that child and that would hurt a lot. But no matter what, I know there is no death. 

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-11-12

6-11-12
6 “And the last to be overcome will be death.” Of course! Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation’s final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God and still can die? The inconsistencies, the compromises and the rituals the world fosters in its vain attempts to cling to death and yet to think love real are mindless magic, ineffectual and meaningless. God is, and in Him all created things must be eternal. Do you not see that otherwise He has an opposite, and fear would be as real as love? 

The last two sentences got me. What God creates must be eternal. How can death exist if God does? It is not possible. God is Life, God is Love, and it is not possible that God could have an opposite. The belief in an opposite of God is the ego and the ego is not real. It is the belief in the ego that we are here to undo.

Belief in death is just another form of attack. This morning I woke up before I was ready to get out of bed. I lay there for a few moments debating what to do. If I got up so early I would probably not feel energetic during the day. If I got up early I could get my writing done and still get to work on time, and maybe get some more work done on my website. Or maybe I would get up only to discover that I wasn’t really ready to wake up, and was too sleepy to really do anything.

I asked Holy Spirit what He would have me do. I turned my iPod to a Byron Katie meditation that I find calming and often lulls me into sleep. I went to that place halfway between sleep and wakefulness and it was there that Holy Spirit revealed to that I live in a constant state of war.

I was at war when I woke up. Get up, go back to sleep. Gain this, but lose that. What if I can’t go back to sleep? What if I shouldn’t go back to sleep? Uncertainty, doubt, stress. This is my boss’s fault. He is the one who suddenly decided we need to be at work early on Monday’s for a sales meeting, and now I’m pressured to get everything done on time. The discomfort of uncertainty leads to projection. The world is attacking me and I am defending myself through projection.

I hear in the background Katie’s soothing voice reminding me that Reality (her word for God) supports me. I have heard her say this innumerable times, but now I HEAR it. I am God’s own holy and beloved child. Everything loves me. Everything is for me. It was only my fevered imaginings born of unfounded guilt that led me to believe the world is attacking me.

The Holy Spirit showed me many other instances in which I saw myself as attacked. In my defenselessness my safety lies. If I stop projecting blame and trying to outsmart the “enemy” and simply lay my weapons down, I will be shown the Love that upholds me, surrounds and comforts me.

When my son was just a toddler he was experiencing a very frustrating moment. We were visiting at a home of a single couple. Nothing was child proofed. It seemed to him that he was thwarted at every turn as he just tried to do what came naturally to him, and everyone kept saying no, stop, don’t do that, don’t touch that. He became so frustrated that he lashed out in anger.

I understood and held him and tried to soothe him. He mistook my love and support as simply another limitation, another attempt to imprison him, this time with my arms, and he tried to fight his way free. I am like that. I imagine that I am being imprisoned and attacked at every turn and I defend myself, and the battle seems never to cease. But I am fighting an imaginary battle, and imaginary enemies. I am Love, I am loved. I am God’s Son and without enemies. I have simply misunderstood, and the Holy Spirit is reinterpreting for me.

I came fully awake to the reality that I have not been battling an enemy, but God. I realized that the ego mind was like my toddler son and in its fear and confusion was afraid to let go of the fight. I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the belief in attack. I really don’t want to hold onto this ineffective and unnecessary defense. I was invigorated and ready to start my day. So much energy is wasted on attack and defense. It’s a wonder that any of us has the energy to get through the day.

Death is just another imagined attack. I have tried to protect myself against it. I have tried to out-maneuver it. I have projected blame onto innocent people and innocent circumstances. I imagined death and then blamed God as the cause. Then I defended God with all sorts of convoluted reasoning because the belief that God was attacking me was too painfully fearful to bear. I have been fighting an illusion, a mirage, a thought form. Nothing is there. I am the Son of God, I am eternal, and death is just another false idea borne of unfounded guilt.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-10-12

6-10-12
5 The “reality” of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God’s Son is a body. And if God created bodies, death would indeed be real. But God would not be loving. There is no point at which the contrast between the perception of the real world and that of the world of illusions becomes more sharply evident. Death is indeed the death of God, if He is Love. And now His Own creation must stand in fear of Him. He is not Father, but destroyer. He is not Creator, but avenger. Terrible His Thoughts and fearful His image. To look on His creations is to die.

Letting go of the belief in death is letting go of the belief in a cruel and punishing God. It is to let go of the desire to overcome and destroy Love (God) by making it something it is not. Have I been so determined to prove I am right to fear God that I would literally “die” to make my point? Evidently so. The surprise is that once seen for the sham it is, the belief in death can be easily laid aside.

Death is always going to be about the body. In order for me to believe in death I must believe in the body. I believe in an experience of a body, but I do not believe the experience is real and so do not believe in the body, therefore I don’t believe in death.

I still get caught up in the story of the body and become so involved that I might as well believe in it because I am so affected by it, but now I never completely lose my perspective. There is always a light in my mind and it draws me back to truth. My forays into forgetfulness are much shorter and less intense than they used to be.

Everyone withdraws his or her attention from the story at some point, but no one dies because there is no such thing as death. I still feel loss when someone disappears from my story. I still believe that communication ends when the body is no longer with me, and that is what causes the feeling of loss.

Well, I don’t believe that is true, that communication must end when the body is no longer maintained, but my experience of communication outside of bodies is so limited that I don’t fully believe in it either. I believe in the concept, but since my experience is limited, I still think there is a wall or some kind of block between myself and the one who is no longer expressing as a body.

That does not make sense, but that is my feeling. So I guess I still believe in death of a sort, at least death of communication. I suppose it is death as separation. If I believe I am lost, even temporarily, from someone who is not embodied, then I still believe in separation and separation is death. Holy Spirit, I am willing to let go of this belief. Please heal my mind.

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

6-9-12
4 The curious belief that there is part of dying things that may go on apart from what will die, does not proclaim a loving God nor re-establish any grounds for trust. If death is real for anything, there is no life. Death denies life. But if there is reality in life, death is denied. No compromise in this is possible. There is either a god of fear or One of Love. The world attempts a thousand compromises, and will attempt a thousand more. Not one can be acceptable to God’s teachers, because not one could be acceptable to God. He did not make death because He did not make fear. Both are equally meaningless to Him. 

Ways we compromise in coming to terms with our belief that God is Love and yet God is a taker of life: Good things have already come from his dying. He has gone to a better place. At least she is with her beloved aunt now. You have your memories of him. God needed him. Only his body is dead, his soul is with God.

Oh my, Jesus, are you saying that even that last one is just another attempt to compromise on the truth?  That was my hold out, the way I held onto the belief in death without giving up the hope that God is good.

I have talked about pain before. For some reason, a readiness on my part, I suppose, when I read Lesson 190 this time I really understood it. In this lesson, Jesus tells us that pain is but witness to the Son’s mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed. He explains that pain is not real, and that it is something we made up to keep the truth at bay. Ever since I read that I have been denying the reality of pain. Each time I feel physical or emotional pain, I remind myself that, If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God.

I use every pain as a reminder of the truth, and a remarkable thing has happened. I had been suffering really bad pain and now I am not. No doctors, medicines or treatments were used. All I did was deny the reality of pain. I realized that pain is not real, that what I think of as pain with a cause outside my mind, is after all, just a thought in that mind.

The other day I was given another thought. I was noticing that so much pain had simply vanished, and yet, I still have pain. The ego was calling me an ingrate, but I persisted along the lines of the thought I had been given. Why do I have any pain? If pain is not real then a little pain is still not real.

Lesson 190 says that my thoughts alone can cause me pain, so I am deliberately holding onto some pain, not enough to warrant attention, just enough to defend against a total capitulation to God. It is a compromise I make with myself. I will do this Course stuff since I can’t seem to stop, but I will hold onto my self in this little way. Yeah, I too, noticed this was crazy.

I think that death is the same as pain. I think that death is just another thing I made up to prove God is the evil one and I am His innocent victim. And if I know what’s good for me I better stay where I am in this illusory world where God has no reality except as I allow. I think that death is no more real than pain. I think that I could read lesson 190 and insert the word death where it says pain and it would be equally true.

The body doesn’t die because the body doesn’t exist. I don’t die because I am not a body. A part of me does not go on living because I have no parts. I am only spirit, mind, light, whatever I want to call it, but that is all I am. I am going to call it Awareness. I don’t die, I simply become aware of something other than this “Life of Myron” program I have been watching. There is nothing of me that can die, could ever die, because there is no such thing as death.

Thank you for that, Holy Spirit. I am going to sit with it awhile.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-8-12

6-8-12
3 Death is the symbol of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds it from awareness like a shield held up to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot coexist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is “laid to rest” in devastation’s arms, where worms wait to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature’s “law of life.” God is insane, and fear alone is real.

If I believe in death I am never going to be free of fear. Even if I were afraid of nothing else, if I had no fear of financial ruin or loss of relationships, if I no longer had a fear of heights, or sickness, or failure of any kind, if I still fear death, then fear will still be in my mind. If fear is in my mind I don’t know who I am. I don’t know God. I have only an awful distorted idea of a cruel and merciless Creator to call Father.

If fear is still in my mind I am separated from all things in the world, and all things are my enemy because they bring with them the threat of death. That person might kill me, on purpose or by accident. She might give me a sickness that lays me low. He might run me over with his car or careen into mine and kill me. That tree might fall on me in a storm, that lightning might strike me.

The spider might bite me or the mosquito might give me West Nile disease. The doctor might misdiagnose me or make a wrong cut in surgery. The world teems with unseen dangers, bacteria and viruses that threaten me everyday and how do I defend against all of them when I cannot even see them? If nothing else kills me, my body will, in the end betray me, and will die anyway.

All of life (as we experience life) is about death. For me to live I must eat and so something must die. No matter how lightly I walk on the planet, my very existence damages or destroys something. Death makes all things an enemy, and me enemy to all things. It fills all circumstances with an underlying sense of dread. Death mocks the love I have for my Father for where there is fear there cannot be love. And who could truly love a God Who wants your life in payment for His love.

As I study this section I am beginning to understand something. It is not fear of death that I must lay aside, it is the belief in death that must be undone if I am to know God.

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