Together, We Light the Way

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Study of Manual for Teachers 5-3-12

Day 123
2 As symbols, words have quite specific references. Even when they seem most abstract, the picture that comes to mind is apt to be very concrete. Unless a specific referent does occur to the mind in conjunction with the word, the word has little or no practical meaning, and thus cannot help the healing process. The prayer of the heart does not really ask for concrete things. It always requests some kind of experience, the specific things asked for being the bringers of the desired experience in the opinion of the asker. The words, then, are symbols for the things asked for, but the things themselves but stand for the experiences that are hoped for.

I took a day off from work yesterday. I used that time to work on my website which I am re-doing, and it was a lot a fun. The morning weather was nice and so I enjoyed that. I enjoyed a leisurely walk around my yard admiring the roses and inhaling the heady scent of the jasmines now in bloom. I enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee and I enjoyed journaling without a deadline since I didn’t have to finish quickly so I could get to work.

I have wanted to try my hand at making a short video and posting it on you tube and then putting it on my website. This is something that required me to stretch my computer skills and I needed time to work it all out. Yesterday, I did it! Wow! I’m a star! I even enjoyed breaking up my day of computer work with bits of housework. I enjoyed the sensation of having no pressure to finish one thing and begin another. Everything got done because my agenda was short and my time abundant, and I loved everything I was doing.

As the day came to an end I found myself longing for another day like this one. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have time to do all the things I have been putting off for so long because of work demands? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have more time to write, more time for students, for weddings, for all the things I love to do? Every thought is a prayer so this was my prayer. It was my prayer as I understood it.

Jesus is explaining to us in this paragraph that there is a difference between the words and the intent of the prayer. My words were a concrete picture of an experience. I saw myself somehow having enough money to quit work and devote myself to my ministry and to enjoy my day without as much structure and with the leisure of few time constraints. That was from my head.

What was my heart asking for? I think it was asking for freedom. It was asking to be free from time constraints, from the pressure of a deadline. It was asking to hear His Voice and to write what I hear. It was asking to be of service, to teach, to minister. These things make my heart sing with joy. I am asking for joy. Simply put in the most abstract way I can relate, my heart was asking for freedom and joy. Everything else was my mind’s interpretation of what that meant, how it would have to look in the world to accomplish that.

It is important for me to realize the prayer of the heart, the experience I am longing to have, the true prayer. Otherwise, I will receive the answer to my prayer and fail to recognize I have received it. I will interpret the answer incorrectly and it will be as if there was not an answer.

For instance, freedom from time constraints is probably my most longed for desire. The Holy Spirit is telling me that I have overlooked many answers to this prayer. Because I was expecting a different package, I failed to open the one received. Because I have not fully accepted the gift given, I keep trying to manipulate time myself and so feel stressed even though I am blessed.

I begin my day with God and then I read and journal. Then I post. If I have time I answer emails. If I really have time, I read a few updates on face book, check out a few groups I belong to. Then I rush around getting dressed and planning who to see first and reminding myself of what needs to be done. I make a schedule and hope nothing throws it off. All the time I am doing these tasks I am stressed to get each one done in a timely manner so nothing gets left out.

The stress starts the night before as I lay in bed reviewing what didn’t get done that day and how I will get it back in my schedule. I worry that something will go undone. I plan everything about my evening around the idea of getting to bed earlier so I can get up earlier so I can get more done. I especially stress something will interfere with those early hours when I can listen to Holy Spirit and share what I hear.

The next morning I wake and immediately the mind begins to plan every move, and also immediately begins to worry that its plans are in vain. I love those moments in quiet peace when I hear His Voice, but I don’t fully enjoy it because I am also thinking, “Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.” Even though I don’t say those words, that is the experience I am having. And so it goes for the rest of the day. Making plans. Worrying they won’t work. No wonder I am too tired to do anything else by the end of the work day.

The Holy Spirit is reminding me that I have been given ample time to listen and write. He reminds me that time is not real and is easily manipulated by Him to the degree I will accept that manipulation. He reminds me I have been given many opportunities to serve, to teach, to join all during the day, and if I will let go of what I think that should look like, I will enjoy these opportunities.

He tells me that I love the beauty of my yard, and yet I overlook the beauty all around me, and laughs as He points out that this is beauty I don’t have to pay for or work at. No yard person required, no weeding or watering. Its just there for me to look at, and when I leave that spot, I am given a new one. It never gets boring because every moment it is different.

The Holy Spirit suggests I lay aside the expectations created by the thinking mind and receive my gifts. Enjoy the experience. He reminds me that the pressure I feel comes from making my own plans, making decisions on my own, closing my eyes to my gifts. He suggests that I relax into Him and allow myself the joy of being guided, lifted and carried through the world, throughout my day.

As I feel this is complete, I hear the word, trust. All else rests on that one word. Trust. Trust in His plans. Trust in His answers. Trust in His love. Trust in His desire for me to be happy and fulfilled. Trust in my Self to open my eyes to His answers.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 5-2-12

Day 122
21. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF WORDS IN HEALING?

1 Strictly speaking, words play no part at all in healing. The motivating factor is prayer, or asking. What you ask for you receive. But this refers to the prayer of the heart, not to the words you use in praying. Sometimes the words and the prayer are contradictory; sometimes they agree. It does not matter. God does not understand words, for they were made by separated minds to keep them in the illusion of separation. Words can be helpful, particularly for the beginner, in helping concentration and facilitating the exclusion, or at least the control, of extraneous thoughts. Let us not forget, however, that words are but symbols of symbols. They are thus twice removed from reality.

Many times I have heard people say that God always answers prayers, but   sometimes the answer is no. I understand why they say this. They pray certain words and they do not seem to be answered. This paragraph explains why that is so. God does not hear our words. He hears only what we are really asking for, and one way that this causes confusion is that we don’t always acknowledge, even to ourselves, what it is we really want. So we don’t recognize the answer when we get it.

I have seen that sometimes I really want the opposite of what I ask for. In Chapter 8 of the Text, it says:

Yet you are not asked to dispel your hallucinations alone. You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results to you. If you do not want them on the basis of loss of peace, they will be removed from your mind for you.

And certainly this has been my practice for a long time now and so I know that it works. Yet sometimes what I say I want is incongruent with what I really want. I notice that I am not at peace. I fully realize that peace is not restored by a change in circumstances, but in a change of mind. I am not confused about this part. So I ask that the belief behind my lack of peace be healed. The incongruence occurs because while I do want to be peaceful, I don’t want to give up the belief that has created a loss of peace. When this is the case I am not really asking for healing even though my words say that I am.

An example of this is occurred with the story of “Johnny” that I talked about before. I was judging Johnny as evil, and because this is not the truth and not the Will of God, I was miserable. I cannot judge and be at peace and I really wanted my peace back. But at the same time, I could not, for a long time, bring myself to forgive him or the situation or even myself for my judgments.

I knew that I was supposed to see him as innocent, but I kept looking at his actions and believing them and so I saw only guilt. I would ask that my thinking be corrected, but in my heart I still wanted him to be guilty. God did not hear my words that said that I was ready to have my false belief removed. He heard only my heart that said I wanted to keep my judgment for now.

The very moment that I wanted to be at peace more than I wanted to find Johnny guilty, my heart prayer was answered. The anger I had felt just moments before was gone. The judgments I had made were no longer of interest to me. They were seen as the call for love that they are. Dear God, what on earth makes me ever cling to judgment when I can have this blessed peace anytime I choose? Well, each time this happens the contrast in what I think I want and what I really want motivates me to decide more quickly than before. 

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 5-1-12

Day 121
6 What is the peace of God? No more than this; the simple understanding that His Will is wholly without opposite. There is no thought that contradicts His Will, yet can be true. The contrast between His Will and yours but seemed to be reality. In truth there was no conflict, for His Will is yours. Now is the mighty Will of God Himself His gift to you. He does not seek to keep it for Himself. Why would you seek to keep your tiny frail imaginings apart from Him? The Will of God is One and all there is. This is your heritage. The universe beyond the sun and stars, and all the thoughts of which you can conceive, belong to you. God’s peace is the condition for His Will. Attain His peace, and you remember Him. 

I pray daily that my willingness to know that there is no will but the Will of God. I pray for healing, for clarity as I so often believe in another will. I want the peace of God. I want that the peace of God is all I want. Except when I want something different. ~smile~ But I know that when I want something different, I am only confused, and I am willing to see differently.

I had an opportunity to do just that. I gave my peace away, recognized what I had done, and asked for healing. This is what happened.

My sister-in-law recently had a transplant of two lungs and a heart. I am her fill-in caregiver. We are supposed to be at the hospital and then with her at home for six months to a year. This weekend I went there for the first time. Brinda was in a lot of fear and what I noticed is that everyone else was “catching” this fear and it was feeding on itself as fear does.

When we became fearful we began looking at everything through the filter of that fear, and so we saw only fearful things. We saw only the mistakes the nurses made, the infrequency of the doctor’s visits, the failure of the respiratory technician to explain things fully.

When we looked at Brinda we did not see how good her color is, how able she is to move around so soon after the surgery, how strong she is. We saw only that she was weak, her breathing sounded bad, she was swollen and looked bad.

Our fear colored everything and made us fearful of our own position. The tendency, of course, was to project that fear and its buddy, guilt, and to see everyone else at fault, and as we saw them as guilty, we of course, felt that same guilt because that’s how it works. We were teaching guilt so learning guilt. What we give is what we receive, so giving guilt and fear, this is what we received.

Luckily, we began to wake up to what was happening, and to make a new choice. We began to realize that we needed to put the Holy Spirit in charge. We started talking to Brinda about affecting her recovery in a positive way by trusting God and so trusting that He was guiding everyone else, all of us and the nurses and the doctors. She responded to this. And we began watching our thoughts and our words, recognizing when we were reacting to fear so we could change our minds about that.

Here is what I am encouraging in our team of caregivers and in Brinda. I am suggesting beginning and ending the day with prayer that blesses everyone involved in her care, and that expresses our gratitude to everyone, and that expresses our desire to step back and allow the Holy Spirit to take the lead in everything we do and say.

I am also encouraging everyone to remember that what we want for others is what we expect to receive ourselves even though we may not realize it on a conscious level. When the nurses do not respond immediately, we bless the work they are doing with other people who are also in need, remembering that we are all one in this together and their well-being is as important as Brinda’s. If we notice fear in each other, including Brinda, we remind ourselves to ask for healing of our mind instead of projecting the fear and blaming someone else.

I am very grateful for my Study and practice of the Course. As soon as I remembered my purpose, I asked for healing and the mind-fog lifted. I was able to see so clearly what was going on with all of us, and when I asked for the action that would be most helpful He reminded me that our thoughts are prayers. He reminded me that my healed thoughts would express as healed relationships and healed bodies. He reminded me that “specialness” reinforces separation and that I don’t want that. I knew that everyone needed to be blessed with the same loving care as Brinda, the nursing staff, the doctors and the other patients.

As I listened to His guidance the peace of God settled over me, and I began to write what He had given me. He also gave me the prayer for this morning. This is the prayer I received and passed on to everyone else.

Morning prayer. Dear God, thank You for your love. Thank You for the rapid and complete healing of Brinda’s body. Thank You for the excellent staff who are working with us all to provide for Brinda’s care and to assist in the healing of her body. Thank You for guiding every decision made for Brinda, and for guiding our thoughts, words, and actions throughout the day. Thank You for the healing force of Your Love for everyone on our floor. Amen

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-30-12

Day 120
5 Living is joy, but death can only weep. You see in death escape from what you made. But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but illusion of an end. Death cannot be escape, because it is not life in which the problem lies. Life has no opposite, for it is God. Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life. Forgive the world, and you will understand that every thing that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real. In this one sentence is our course explained. In this one sentence is our practicing given its one direction. And in this one sentence is the Holy Spirit’s whole curriculum specified exactly as it is.

Death is not an escape from life, but I used to think it was. Back in the bad old days when I suffered a lot of depression I held onto the possibility of death as if it were a lover coming to embrace me, my savior who would rescue me from this hellish life when it finally became too hateful to be borne any longer. I thought of death as my way out, and I never let it stray too far from my thoughts, lest I be left in hell for longer than I could bear.

I kept a bottle of pills within easy reach, and would often go to the closet shelf to reassure myself that I did not have to tolerate more than I wanted to, that release was always in easy reach. Then I would shiver in another kind of fear, because what if death were not my release from hell, but my portal to an even worse hell, an eternal punishment for usurping God’s role one time too many?

Even after I had done enough forgiveness work that I no longer suffered depression I still thought of death as an escape of sorts. I thought of it as at least a temporary respite. I could escape into death for a bit even if I had to return from death to take up the fight again. I would think that I would maybe come back stronger and would do better. But my secret fear was that maybe it would be worse because I would be guilty of failure once more.

But really there is no death. Death is just another illusion we made up, another layer of confusion to keep us involved in the story but forever without a solution, a way out. The death fable is just another “seek but do not find” set up so typical of ego. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. But no one dies and there is nothing from which to escape because there is nothing holding us in the story of illusion except our desire to experience it, or maybe out fear of not experiencing it.

There is a way out of the confusion. Forgive the world rather than try to escape from it, or deeper into it. Forgive it. Forgive myself for my every error without regard to its seeming form. Forgive each person I see, each judgment I make, each situation I find myself embroiled in. I forgive whatever is in front in me in that moment, and eventually I start to see that while they all look different, really they are the same.

I was always forgiving an illusion, a belief; always forgiving the guilty thought that I could have separated from God. And now I see that I am not even forgiving anything personal. That too was an illusion. I am simply forgiving the one error of the one Self. And even that is accomplished and I suppose the only thing left to forgive is the belief it isn’t.

Forgive the world, and you will understand that every thing that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real.

This is it. It is the whole way out. Only what God created is real and nothing else is real. I cannot lose, not even for a moment, what God created. This means I cannot be, even for a moment, anything less than my glorious, magnificent, and limitless self. Not even in my craziest dreams can this change. This means that if I seem to be experiencing something else, I can only be dreaming. I forgive the dream as I realize it is nothing and so I am innocent of wrong doing. I don’t need to pretend to die. I am safe and I can just wake up to God.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-29-12

Day 119
4 How is the peace of God retained, once it is found? Returning anger, in whatever form, will drop the heavy curtain once again, and the belief that peace cannot exist will certainly return. War is again accepted as the one reality. Now must you once again lay down your sword, although you do not recognize that you have picked it up again. But you will learn, as you remember even faintly now that happiness was yours without it, that you must have taken it again as your defense. Stop for a moment now and think of this: Is conflict what you want, or is God’s peace the better choice? Which gives you more? A tranquil mind is not a little gift. Would you not rather live than choose to die?

So what we are being told here is that peace is a moment to moment choice. As soon as I return to conflicted thinking, I lose my peace. At one time in my life I was so confused I didn’t even know that consistent peace was an option. I woke up in the morning and my first thought would be, “I wonder what kind of day this will be?” And I would lie there checking to see if I was going to be depressed, or if this would be a happy day. As if I had nothing to do with it. And I believed this! Incredible.

I remember a time when I would be angry with someone and upset about that thing, worried about lots of stuff and didn’t even realize that I was miserable, much less that my thinking was causing the discomfort. Eventually, I must have had a thought that life had to be more than unhappiness with brief respites, and I found the Course and opened my mind to the possibility I was responsible for my life. Slowly, I began to watch my thinking and began to choose forgiveness. I learned that when I forgave I was happy and when I held grievances I wasn’t.

The more I did this the less willing I was to accept even small upsets. I have quickly become spoiled to happiness and peace and, mostly, I am unwilling to sell my peace so cheaply as I once did. Even so, I still surprise myself from time to time with a foolish stubbornness as I latch onto a judgment and decide I would rather have my way than to be happy. I know. Crazy, right?

When I choose God, I am so happy and my mind is so peaceful I can’t believe I would ever choose anything else. Then I make a judgment about something and get lost in my anger and it really is like a heavy curtain has dropped. Or like I am in a fog and can’t figure out how to get out. But having done this a lot now, I do remember that I want out and my desire to be free again blows the fog away.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-28-12

Day 118
3 How is this quiet found? No one can fail to find it who but seeks out its conditions. God’s peace can never come where anger is, for anger must deny that peace exists. Who sees anger as justified in any way or any circumstance proclaims that peace is meaningless, and must believe that it cannot exist. In this condition, peace cannot be found. Therefore, forgiveness is the necessary condition for finding the peace of God. More than this, given forgiveness there must be peace. For what except attack will lead to war? And what but peace is opposite to war? Here the initial contrast stands out clear and apparent. Yet when peace is found, the war is meaningless. And it is conflict now that is perceived as nonexistent and unreal.

I completely get this! The more often I let go of conflict, the more meaningless it becomes to me. I do still find meaning in conflict but because I no longer believe in it the way I used to, I quickly choose forgiveness because it is the only thing that makes sense.

When I was having trouble forgiving “Johnny” recently, and forgiving myself for not forgiving him, I was miserable. The contrast between holding a grievance and being at peace that was so stark I wanted very much to forgive. It was incredible to me that I held on to the anger as long as I did. I have no explanation for that other than I was listening to the ego thoughts rather than to the Holy Spirit.

Regina posted a message from the Holy Spirit some time ago and I printed it out and taped it to my mirror. It said in part:

When you listen to Me,
You know peace.
When you listen only to Me,
Peace is uninterrupted.

When there is a war being waged in my mind it is because I am not listening to the Holy Spirit. I am listening to the ego. It is always that simple because there are only two voices in my mind and I am always listening to one or the other.

My experience has always been that all I need to do is decide on a thing and that thing is mine. If I need to do anything to prepare for the change, then I will be guided to what I need, or I will be told directly. I want the peace of God. Something that Ken Wapnick said helped me very much. He said that before we can have the peace of God we first have to understand how much we don’t want it.

This is the preparatory work I must do in this case. I have to become aware of and decide against the hidden rage in my mind before I can let it go and choose peace instead. As uncomfortable as it was to look at the anger I had toward Johnny, it was absolutely important that I do so, and I am grateful that I had that opportunity.

It is like I said, “I want the peace of God.” And then the Universe said, “Are you sure? Here, look at this anger? Are you ready to give that up so that you can have the peace of God?” And then I got a chance to decide what it was I really wanted. God really does not ever force happiness on me. ~smile~ I always get to decide what I really want.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-27-12

Day 117
20. WHAT IS THE PEACE OF GOD?
1 It has been said that there is a kind of peace that is not of this world. How is it recognized? How is it found? And being found, how can it be retained? Let us consider each of these questions separately, for each reflects a different step along the way.

2 First, how can the peace of God be recognized? God’s peace is recognized at first by just one thing; in every way it is totally unlike all previous experiences. It calls to mind nothing that went before. It brings with it no past associations. It is a new thing entirely. There is a contrast, yes, between this thing and all the past. But strangely, it is not a contrast of true differences. The past just slips away, and in its place is everlasting quiet. Only that. The contrast first perceived has merely gone. Quiet has reached to cover everything.

I don’t know what to say about this. I am so much more peaceful than I used to be and I am grateful for that. I know what I did to get to this place in my life, the practices I used, the true Heart’s desire that keeps me on that path. But I am not peaceful in the way that Jesus describes it here. There is not unending peace, not everlasting quiet. So I can’t really talk about what it is like to have the peace of God. I will leave that to someone who has reached that place.

When I was ready the Holy Spirit sent me to The Teachings of Inner Ramana. This little book that was received by Regina Dawn Akers helped me to begin the process of letting go of thinking. I have had less than stellar results, but what small success I have experienced has made a world of difference. My mind is not quiet, but it is quieter and more peaceful than before I began.

Right at the beginning of the book it says that stepping away from the mind is as simple as losing interest in it and that the mind chatters because I am listening to it. As soon as I read that I knew it was true. Now when I notice that my mind is busy I remember that it will slow down if I quit paying attention to the chatter. It will stop if I have no interest in what it has to say.

This is not easy for me to do. I do stop listening, then before you know it I am back to allowing myself to be entertained by the chatter of the mind. Its not even stuff that’s interesting, and often it is thoughts that are upsetting and almost never are the thoughts useful in any way. And yet, I listen. The encouraging thing is that I eventually notice, and I ask the Holy Spirit for His Words instead and this leads to quiet and to peace.

I can and will experience the peace of God. This is a given, so no worries there. It is just a matter of deciding that this is what I want, this and only this, and it will happen. Evidently I have not made that decision. I forgive myself for that.

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