Together, We Light the Way

Click link to go to:
Together We Light the Way Index

Study of Manual for Teachers 3-27-12

Day 87
2 Is this your judgment on yourself, teacher of God? Do you believe that this is wholly true? No; not yet, not yet. But this is still your goal; why you are here. It is your function to prepare yourself to hear this judgment and to recognize that it is true. One instant of complete belief in this, and you will go beyond belief to Certainty. One instant out of time can bring time’s end. Judge not, for you but judge yourself, and thus delay this Final Judgment. What is your judgment of the world, teacher of God? Have you yet learned to stand aside and hear the Voice of Judgment in yourself? Or do you still attempt to take His role from Him? Learn to be quiet, for His Voice is heard in stillness. And His Judgment comes to all who stand aside in quiet listening, and wait for Him.

And so I see that the Day of Judgment isn’t a specific day in time, but is the day I accept the truth that is always being spoken in my Heart. It is the day I stand aside from my own judgments so that I can hear the Voice for God declare me innocent. What seems to be happening right now is that I am looking at various projections of the guilt I still hold in my mind, and allowing the Holy Spirit to show me that I am not guilty for these, and neither is anyone else.

By doing this, by helping me to see that I am innocent of the sins I imagine, He is bringing me to the core of the guilt. I am learning to accept that all guilt, regardless of the form it takes, is really guilt for what has been called the original sin. When I imagined I could separate myself from God, I felt fear and guilt of a magnitude that I could not endure and so I pretended it wasn’t there. And ever since then I have been making stories to explain a guilt I refuse to acknowledge.

The Course has been telling me over and over in so many ways that I have never done anything wrong. God is not mad at me. I am completely loved. I am innocent. These words have begun to penetrate. I am open now to hearing them, and so I am being given more help in the form of books, teachers, and teaching opportunities.

I open my email, and there is a message from a teacher with exactly the next step which follows from the one before which came from a book I’d never heard of until I was directed to it. More help comes in my dreams. The entire universe is conspiring to help me awaken to the truth that I am innocent.

The closer I get to the truth, the harder the fear and guilt push against it, but instead of being a dense wall it is now a bank of clouds. I can see through it! I think of how perfectly I am being guided, step by step, and of the synchronicities that make this happen, and I have a moment of giddy delight, then the clouds and its dark again, but never as dark as it used to be. The clouds are so much thinner now.

I am fulfilling my function of preparing myself to hear God’s Final Judgment. I am listening to His Voice. I am looking at what I need to look at. I am watching my thoughts and asking for correction. I am reading the books, hearing the messages, delighting in the synchronicities. If you are looking at my life you would never guess the miracle that is taking place within. It looks much the same as it looked yesterday and the day before, but everything is changing.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Manual for Teachers 3-26-12

Day 86
15. IS EACH ONE TO BE JUDGED IN THE END?
1 Indeed, yes! No one can escape God’s Final Judgment. Who could flee forever from the truth? But the Final Judgment will not come until it is no longer associated with fear. One day each one will welcome it, and on that very day it will be given him. He will hear his sinlessness proclaimed around and around the world, setting it free as God’s Final Judgment on him is received. This is the Judgment in which salvation lies. This is the Judgment that will set him free. This is the Judgment in which all things are freed with him. Time pauses as eternity comes near, and silence lies across the world that everyone may hear this Judgment of the Son of God:

Holy are you, eternal, free and whole, at peace forever in the Heart of God. Where is the world, and where is sorrow now?

Jesus is describing a day of judgment that is very different than the one I learned about in church. He assures us that this day will come for each one of us, but it will not come until we are ready for it. It will not come until we can face it without fear.

It seems odd that we would have to let go of fear and prepare to be judged holy, eternal, free, whole, at peace and forever in the Heart of God. And yet, that is exactly what must happen. There is in us a deeply hidden reservoir of guilt, which expresses as anger, loss, depression, sickness, and death. This guilt and the fear that is part of it, prevent us from hearing, understanding and accepting God’s Final Judgment.

Sometimes I think about what will happen when I am unable to work. How will I live? Will my children be burdened by my care? Sometimes I feel fuzzy headed and then I wonder if I am going to get Alzheimer’s like my mom did. Is this how it started for her? I hear an ambulance and have a stab of fear as I wonder where my kids are.

These fears are the effect of not knowing that I am holy. I have been told that I am. The Course tells me over and over that I am very holy. It tells me that I am loved by God. It tells me that even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. It is obvious from my life that I don’t believe these things. When Jesus tells me that I am the ruler of my mind, of my world, of my destiny, it feels more like a threat than a promise.

As long as I turn from my Self, and pretend that I cannot be that One, I will be afraid to accept God’s judgment, and God will not give me what I do not want.  So God’s Final Judgment waits on me to prepare myself to hear it.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Manual for Teachers 3-25-12

Day 85
5 The world will end in joy, because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace, because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter, because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. In blessing it departs, for it will not end as it began. To turn hell into Heaven is the function of God’s teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is reflected. And now sit down in true humility, and realize that all God would have you do you can do. Do not be arrogant and say you cannot learn His Own curriculum. His Word says otherwise. His Will be done. It cannot be otherwise. And be you thankful it is so.

It is our job to turn hell into Heaven. The world as we know it will end and will be replaced by a paradise where there is no sorrow, no war, no sadness at all. Jesus is being pretty firm with us here when he ends this section by basically telling us to sit down and think about what he is saying to us. We have a job to do and it is sheer arrogance on our part to say that we can’t do it. True humility is to accept our function as God has given it to us recognizing that He cannot be wrong about us or about the curriculum he has given us.

How do we accomplish our function? Through forgiveness. We forgive our beliefs that are not in alignment with this curriculum and all that is not truth will simply cease to exist. This is not hard. All we are doing is changing our minds about what we have decided to believe. We change our minds all the time. If it is hard to do, then it is because we don’t want to.

I have been thinking about what stands in my way of forgiveness. What is it that makes this change feel hard? One thing is that I think I am guilty. This makes me unworthy of happiness. Guilt also makes me think I am unworthy of God and of my true Self. So guilt is something that I must forgive. It is like a wall standing between me and Heaven. My modus operandi in the past has been to project the guilt onto someone else, but since I am now very aware that there is no one else, that will no longer work. I must forgive guilt where ever it appears.

The second block to my awareness of love’s presence is fear. Because I have all that guilt, I am afraid of God. I am afraid of giving up my self. Gary Renard used to do a guided meditation which ended with us disappearing into God, and that scared me to death. I found teachings that allowed me to believe that I didn’t really disappear, that my self retained its individualism even though it was part of something bigger, because I just couldn’t face Myron ceasing to exist.

I don’t know what it will be like to let go of self, but I do recognize there is still some fear of that happening. The fear is not as great as it used to be, but it is not completely gone. My mind is still split, one part believing in and protecting the individual self, and the other part knowing that there is no individual. I dwell more often now in the truth, but I hold onto the individual, just in case.

It’s like my closet. I lost weight and now wear a smaller size. I got rid of most of the older, larger clothes, but I held onto some of them, just in case. I am not fully committed to being a smaller size, so I am keeping my options open. This seems to be where I am with salvation. I’m mostly convinced that I want to return to God, but I’m holding onto my self, just in case. Keeping my options open just in case I need to scurry back into self.

Well, this won’t work. I know too much. I see too much. I can no longer hide my intentions from myself. It is time to make a full commitment. It is time to sit down and look at this. God has given me a curriculum. He has given me a function and a purpose. He has given me a way Home. It is simple and easy to do. All I have to do is put one foot in front of the other, and I have a dedicated Guide to keep my steps on the path.

When I am through writing this, I am going to my closet and tossing all the clothes that don’t fit. Holy Spirit, help me to be aware of every opportunity to practice forgiveness, and help me to see when my commitment flags so that I can renew it and strengthen it with your help.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Manual for Teachers 3-24-12

Day 84
4 The world will end when its thought system has been completely reversed. Until then, bits and pieces of its thinking will still seem sensible. The final lesson, which brings the ending of the world, cannot be grasped by those not yet prepared to leave the world and go beyond its tiny reach. What, then, is the function of the teacher of God in this concluding lesson? He need merely learn how to approach it; to be willing to go in its direction. He need merely trust that, if God’s Voice tells him it is a lesson he can learn, he can learn it. He does not judge it either as hard or easy. His Teacher points to it, and he trusts that He will show him how to learn it. 

I am becoming aware of how I still hold onto the bits and pieces of the illusion.  I am also aware of how the Holy Spirit is holding these parts up for me to see and is giving me a chance to make a different choice. Life is very exciting right now as I am meeting my lessons with less fear and more confidence that the Holy Spirit will direct me to lessons that I am ready to learn.

A couple of days ago I read about a book. I read about a lot of books and people often recommend certain books. Most of the time I never get around to them, but this time I immediately bought the book and began reading it. Its called, Dying to Be Me. Its about a woman’s struggle with cancer, her near death experience, and what she learned from that. It is an extraordinary book and one that Holy Spirit is using to bring me to my next lesson.

There are a number of truly helpful and encouraging things in that book, but the one that I am working with right now is letting go of fear. This was an important lesson for Anita, and the main reason she returned to life was to share this message. Since I have been reading her book I have become more aware of how much my life is driven by fear.

I am noticing how often I make decisions based on my fears, how often I set aside my joy and self-love out of fear. My Heart will guide me in a direction, then my head will warn me to deny that desire. The head is always saying, in one form or another, “Be afraid.”

I want to buy something, and the ego warns me that I will run out of money if I waste it. I have a pain in my leg, and the ego wonders if I have a blood clot, and if it will break loose and wind up blocking something and kill me. The mind doesn’t have all the details but remembers reading about this danger and so grabs hold of it and if I pay attention, soon the mind will have me at death’s door.

I want to go home and rest after a long week of work, but someone asks me to do something for them and I feel obligated. I do the favor, not out of love, but out of fear of being a bad person if I don’t. The Holy Spirit helps me to see that even as I ask Him for guidance that sometimes I do it with an attitude of martyrdom. I am asking with the fear that I will be asked to suffer, but I will do it because that is the right thing to do. There seems to be no part of my life that is entirely free of fear.

The mind sees this as scary too. It reasons that I can never be free of fear because it is all about me, and too much a part of me. It is afraid that I cannot do this and will just feel guilty for not succeeding. But this morning I am not influenced by the mind. I am listening to the Heart, which is joyful and knows that I am led only where I am ready to go. I don’t have to know how this pervasive sense of fear can be overcome. I only have to give my willingness, and my willingness is strong.

Today I have been given two things to do. The first is the allow myself to become aware of things that make me happy. I have been so focused on what I thought I should be doing for so long, that I can’t remember what it is that I want to be doing. The Holy Spirit is asking me to just allow this. He says to check in with my gut feeling rather than asking my mind.

The second thing I received is that I am to focus on the truth when fear arises. If I don’t feed fear with my attention it will starve to death. So that’s my job today. I am to be happy and not pay any attention to the thoughts that suggest things to be afraid of. I’m pretty sure I can do this.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Manual for Teachers 3-23-12

Day 83
3 Certainly this seems to be a long, long while away. “When not one thought of sin remains” appears to be a long-range goal indeed. But time stands still, and waits on the goal of God’s teachers. Not one thought of sin will remain the instant any one of them accepts Atonement for himself. It is not easier to forgive one sin than to forgive all of them. The illusion of orders of difficulty is an obstacle the teacher of God must learn to pass by and leave behind. One sin perfectly forgiven by one teacher of God can make salvation complete. Can you understand this? No; it is meaningless to anyone here. Yet it is the final lesson in which unity is restored. It goes against all the thinking of the world, but so does Heaven.

I am bending over in my little patch of garden pulling weeds and planting seeds. My focus is on looking at and letting go of wrong minded thinking as it occurs to me. I see this person or that who seems to be guilty. My job is to bring this belief to the truth and let it be corrected. It seems that I will never get to the end of it because just as I rejoice at a sudden and massive shift in my thinking, I see that it is not complete, as I notice that guilt appears in a different story. There is more work to be done.

“When not one thought of sin remains” appears to be a long-range goal indeed.

Really? Is Jesus trying to be funny? It appears to be a long-range goal? How about completely out of reach? I can’t seem to go a single hour without another thought of sin popping up in my mind. When all the “big” ones are gone, I begin to notice the smaller, more subtle ways which show me I still believe in guilt. And yet, I am told that it is possible and that it is accomplished and only waiting on my acceptance. He says that time stands still and waits on me.

Jesus also says that there is no order of difficulty in forgiveness. I can forgive all wrong minded thoughts as easily as any one mistaken thought. It is hard for me to understand this because I have more trouble with some grievances than others. I know that this is because I want some of them more than I want others but that is a difference that gets lost to me when I am angry and fearful.

So if I have created an order of difficulty in my grievances, how am I going to make the leap that, one sin perfectly forgiven by one teacher of God can make salvation complete? And when I ask, the Holy Spirit reminds me that the truth does not need my understanding, only my acceptance. I will give my willingness to pass by and leave behind the belief in order of difficulty in miracles. I will rest in the certainty that what Jesus tells me is true no matter how it appears to me while I am still in the grip of the illusion.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Manual for Teachers 3-22-12

Day 82
2 Until forgiveness is complete, the world does have a purpose. It becomes the home in which forgiveness is born, and where it grows and becomes stronger and more all-embracing. Here is it nourished, for here it is needed. A gentle savior, born where sin was made and guilt seemed real. Here is His home, for here there is need of Him indeed. He brings the ending of the world with Him. It is His Call God’s teachers answer, turning to Him in silence to receive His Word. The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment. The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be.

I love the way this paragraph begins.

Until forgiveness is complete, the world does have a purpose. It becomes the home in which forgiveness is born, and where it grows and becomes stronger and more all-embracing.

For a long time I have laughed at the preachers who warn that everyone is going to hell. I wanted to ask them where they thought they were. “This is hell, guys.” I felt this way (and sometimes still do) because I believe my thoughts that are constantly separating and condemning. I saw the world as hell because that is what my mind projected.

Now that I have begun to forgive, the world is beginning to seem like a different place. Instead of being the receptacle for my garbage thoughts, it is becoming the home of forgiveness, the place where I nourish forgiveness through my growing commitment and willingness. The world transforms through a changed purpose.

Holding this purpose in my mind is easier as I embrace this new vision of the world. I am motivated to a greater awareness of the need to forgive, and a stronger desire to see differently. I see the world as a vast garden that has been overrun with the weeds of guilt, and fear. I have been pulling them, but only haphazardly and with some reluctance. It has been a discouraging job because I saw no end to it.

But I stuck with it and now I am beginning to see what the weeds were hiding. I am beginning to see the flowers bloom. With the weeds gone, the light can reach them, and my continued forgiveness feeds them and they multiply and grow stronger and more vigorous. The fruit of my work encourages me and I feel less of a grim determination, and more of a happy anticipation. It is still work, but it is cheerful work.

Something I’ve noticed is that late in the day I sometimes feel discouraged and this is when I tend to judge myself and others. In the past I thought this was because I was tired. Now I see that it is because I am tired of pretending. The ego mind doesn’t really want to give up its judgments and will sometimes hide them, deny them, stuff them down. By the end of the day I’m tired of the effort and they rise to the surface.

I used to tell myself that I was too tired to deal with it and would distract with a book or something. Now with more light in my mind, I have seen this denial for what it is and have stopped pretending. I can look at my thoughts without judgment and allow them to be transformed at night just as easily as I can in the day. I see that it is not forgiveness that wears me out, but the failure to forgive that tires me. Thank you, Holy Spirit.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of Manual for Teachers 3-21-12

Day 81

14. HOW WILL THE WORLD END?

1 Can what has no beginning really end? The world will end in an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness, will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ends the world that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone. The father of illusions is the belief that they have a purpose; that they serve a need or gratify a want. Perceived as purposeless, they are no longer seen. Their uselessness is recognized, and they are gone. How but in this way are all illusions ended? They have been brought to truth, and truth saw them not. It merely overlooked the meaningless.

Everything I see and experience in this world is a reflection of guilt. It is an illusion because guilt is not part of God and so cannot be real. So what I need is an illusion that will end the illusion of guilt. The answer given me is forgiveness. When that illusion, that is forgiveness, is accepted completely by all, and with no exceptions, the world of guilt will disappear.

Why do we have illusions and why do we keep them? It is because they seem to have some purpose. We want them. As we question that purpose and that need, that is, as we bring the illusion to truth, we see that we were wrong. Our illusions have no purpose and we no longer want them. Yesterday I brought the grievance I held against my brother and the situation he was part of to the Holy Spirit.

I carefully explained why this man was guilty. I showed Him all the evidence against this man. No matter how high I stacked his sins, the Holy Spirit saw only his innocence. He gave me His Vision and I practiced the possibility that the Holy Spirit was right. All day when the man or any other guilty person or circumstance came to mind, I tried out the Holy Spirit’s Vision. I reminded myself that the Son of God in innocent.

Each time I did this I felt peaceful and happy. When I chose to return to my illusion, I felt contracted and anxious. I thought I needed that man to be guilty. I thought I needed that situation to be wrong. I could look in my story for reasons that I felt that need, but that would not be particularly helpful as the story is only the effect of my belief in guilt and unworthiness. My fear of God, the desire to be separate, these are the cause of the story, the reason I made the story to begin with. Forgiving the story is only useful because it stands as symbol of the true cause of my unhappiness; the belief that I am separate from God and guilty for this separation.

So I let go of the analyzing and just accepted that I felt the need to make this man guilty for my own purposes. I forgive that. I now accept that this man and the situation is innocent. I am innocent. This acceptance of innocence is limited. If you show me a different person or a different situation, I may believe for awhile that I have use of guilt again.

This is because I am not yet fully convinced that I am not guilty and have no reason to fear. But, if I could forgive the belief I needed that man and myself to be guilty yesterday, and if nothing awful happened as result of seeing us innocent, maybe I have nothing to fear after all. I am not yet convinced, but neither am I fully convicted in my belief in guilt and the necessity of projecting that guilt. Today I will again bring all guilt thoughts to truth. I am ready to practice forgiveness again.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Page 234 of 264 pages ‹ First  < 232 233 234 235 236 >  Last ›

<< Back to main page of Together, We Light the Way

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution to support this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution with a credit/debit card, click here.
Click here to donate from your PayPal account.
Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.