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Gentle Healing Lesson 128, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-18-19

LESSON 128
The world I see holds nothing that I want.

“All things you seek to make your value greater in your sight limit you further.”

“Let nothing that relates to body thoughts delay your progress to salvation,”

“letting go all thought of values we have given to the world”

“We hold it purposeless within our minds”

I think I agree that the world holds nothing I want and yet, here I am. So what is it that I still want from the world? I am given clues throughout this lesson. When I try to do something that gives me greater value in the world. This could be how I look. Or it could be how people view me and how I view myself as a teacher, a minister, a parent. So much of that I have released. Some I still cling to but I loosen my hold on it every day.

What body thoughts am I interested in? I want to be healthy, slim -  well, slimmish. I want certain bodies in my life and others not to be there. I think that it is better to have one of those bodies near me than not, as if I could ever be alone when I am one with all that exists. That I can understand this concept but not feel it means that I am more identified with the body than with the spirit. I am willing for this to not be true anymore.

What values and what purpose have I given the world? I don’t know, really. I sometimes think about how I would feel if I had a sudden heart attack and lay there dying. What would I miss? What would I wish to experience one more time? The answer to those questions would help me to know the value and purpose I have given the world.

I think I would long to see and touch my children one more time. I would long to say I love you to them, to hug them. I would regret not seeing my grandchildren smile at me. I might give a thought to wishing I had taken the time to put my thoughts into a book I could leave behind. I don’t have a beloved pet, nor do I care much for nature. I have no interest in fame or wealth. So nothing to regret there.

I notice that now I am getting older and closer to saying goodbye to this world, I do feel a pang of regret for never again, in this life at least, experiencing the love of a man. That kind of surprised me. I thought of past relationships and of the happy moments in them and felt sad not to do that again, not sad enough to go for it, but just a little grief for lost opportunity.

As I look at this writing, I think that I don’t have a lot to release before I can say that the world holds nothing that I want. I think that not needing much from the world makes what I do have even better because there is no clinginess to it. Without need, there is no fear of loss so there is only pleasure in the moment and then moving onto the next moment.

Regina’s Tips

One way to let go of our value in the world and increase our desire for awakening is to let tragedy strike so that we are disillusioned by the world. However, today’s workbook lesson offers a gentler solution:

“Pause and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world, when you release your mind from chains and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home.”

I told you that spiritual practice itself motivates me to spiritual practice. That is the gentler method that is recommended by the Course. Practice awareness-watching-awareness anyway, even if you do not think you are ready to let go of the world, and the practice itself will prepare you for awakening.

My Thoughts
This is the method I want, to be still and let my mind be healed by the Holy Spirit. I am determined to do this. I know that the Self is going to bring me to awakening and it will do so by whatever means are necessary. I prefer to choose the gentle way rather than relying on tragedy to impel me toward awakening.

Regina also quotes Michael Langford as saying that ultimately all things disappear, the world, the universe, the galaxies. I noticed that there was a reaction in me. Is Infinite-Eternal-Awareness-Love-Bliss enough? What will we do? That is the ego in my mind worrying about being bored with nothing to do, nothing to see. I’m not too concerned about that. By the time I get to this part, I will have discovered what being has to offer. Right now, I will concern myself with letting go of the belief that my body size and shape matter. ~smile~

Manual for Teachers
In releasing the judgmental thought, I am teaching myself that I want to let go of the desire to judge.

Today, I am asking the Holy Spirit to bring these judgments to my attention, and when He does so, I am fully committed to accepting correction for my errors. I don’t want to add to the misery we suffer as we keep these thoughts in our mind. I want to do this with enthusiasm and with joy knowing that I am helping us all awaken through my efforts. Letting go of the desire to judge will bring us all to the peace of God. It might seem like work to be vigilant, but the most important element in this decision is the unequivocal desire for freedom from the burden of judging. As Jesus says, “Can it be difficult to want but this?”

Text
Christ is in me, and where He is God must be, for Christ is part of Him. 9.I: 14

God’s Will is already possible. We don’t have to do anything to make that true; it simply is. All we have to do to experience reality is to accept it. We accept reality when we stop trying to make it something else. We distort reality when we believe the ego thoughts in our mind. When we forgive those thoughts we reveal the truth and know reality.

When we believe the ego thoughts we suffer because when we distort reality, we feel like we are trying to make ourselves unreal. This sense of unreality leads to depression, anxiety and ultimately panic. Jesus says when this happens we should not look beyond ourselves for truth, but to look within. He doesn’t mean to look within at the ego thoughts to make sense of things, but to look within for the Christ, for God. That is where we find reality.

In our confusion it is hard to believe that Christ is in us and that if Christ is in us, God must also be in us. But this is what Jesus is telling us. Our true nature, our reality is that we are in God and God is in us. We cannot lose ourselves, but can only lose the awareness of our Self. This reality can go nowhere and can not be changed. It remains as it was created. But to not know it is to suffer.

This is why we are here where we are now, studying A Course in Miracles, following our path Home. We are awakening to this truth, to reality. Every day when I pick up the Course and read my paragraph, I ask within for guidance. I ask for clarity. I ask that I be led Home through these words and through the experience of these words.

I am looking at a book, but it is a book we wrote with Jesus, and as I read it, I am not asking anyone else what it means. I am looking within to the Truth that is in my mind, the Truth that was placed there for this purpose. As I hear the Voice for God, the memory of my Self returns to me.

Sometimes I find a dark unexplored corner in my mind and briefly I am afraid. I wonder if the truth is true or if I am crazy to believe this stuff I read in the Course, but what I cannot deny, what is indisputable is the Voice that speaks to me. That Voice is always there, gentle but convincing.

It gives me Its thoughts, thoughts I cannot find in the ego thinking mind. I hear that Voice and I hear it within me, and I know I am not the ego self. I know I am part of the Christ Mind. And if Christ is in me, then God, Which is in Christ, is also in me. I can rest in that knowledge and be at peace. That is the reality, the only reality.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Gentle Healing Lesson 127, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-17-19

LESSON 127
There is no love but God’s.

“Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergences and no distinctions.”

“And thus he thinks that he can love at times, and hate at other times. He also thinks that love can be bestowed on one, and yet remain itself although it is withheld from others. To believe these things of love is not to understand it.”

“Love cannot judge.”

“Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds Them both forever as the same.”

“Love’s meaning is your own, and shared by God Himself. For what you are is what He is.”

What I understand from the first part of this lesson is that God is Love and there is nothing else. If it is not Love it does not exist. The world as I see it with my eyes and experience it through this body is not love and so does not exist. I am not that. I am not here. Me and here are thoughts in my mind and only that.

What I think of as love in this dream is not love at all. How could it be? At its best, it is a pale shadow of love. At its worst, it would be love’s opposite if an opposite of love were possible. In this world the thing we call love is different for different people, things, and situations. It can be bestowed or withheld according to how these things are judged.But love is not that. It does not judge, it does not vary from person to person or change in any way. It is not here but not there.

Even as I begin to understand love, and even as I open my mind and heart to love, I am far from knowing love. Practicing the Loving All Method makes more and more sense as I continue these lessons. And yet, how can it be that I don’t know love? I am love. I am love because my Creator is Love and He created me as part of Himself. So how can I be love and yet not know love? When I sit in quiet and ask to know my Self, I am asking to know Love, to know God. I can do this and will do this because I am asking for what is already mine and is me.

“Seek not within the world to find your Self. Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear love’s Voice.”

Jesus says that we only need to give some time to escape from every law in which we now believe. He says I can escape from this world if I do not hold it dear. What law am I holding onto as if it is my salvation? I remember what Regina told me about my son when I was worried. She said that if I remember my Self I will know his Self and then I would not believe his choices could hurt him.

There is a thought in the mind that we have to hold onto what we fear, that we can’t let it go. Even as I surrender my son to God, I feel a frisson of fear, as if there is a law that says my worry is what protects him. That is crazy even to my ego mind. Worry is not love. I have been practicing releasing that insane law.

“Call to your Father, certain that His Voice will answer. He Himself has promised this.”

I say that I am practicing letting go of the law that says I have to worry and be afraid because every time I am certain it is done, I notice fear rising up again. But it is working because the fear is not so intense and each time it is easier to release. I call to God to replace my laws for His and His Voice does answer me. I accept the answer as I can and then I call on Him again and He answers again and I accept more.

“…we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our Self.”

Since worry is not love, when I worry about my son, I am not loving him and I am not seeing him as the love that he is. How I see him is how I will see myself. As I change my mind and choose to see know my son as the perfect creation he is, I will know my Self. So, it works both ways, I think. I can know my Self and so know his Self, or I can know his Self and so know my Self.

“I bless you, brother, with the Love of God, which I would share with you. For I would learn the joyous lesson that there is no love but God’s and yours and mine and everyone’s.”

Regina’s Tips
I remember the first time I read this lesson. I DID think “there is a kind of love for this, a kind for that; a way of loving one, another way of loving still another.” Back then, if a mother had told me that she loves a bug in the same way she loves her daughter, I would have either been appalled or simply unable to imagine it. But today, I am that mother.

The only reason it would be difficult to understand how a mother can love a bug in the same way she loves her daughter is because one has a misunderstanding about what love is. Don’t get me wrong. I have a more intimate relationship with my daughter, a longer-lasting relationship with my daughter, and a human-to-human relationship with my daughter. All of that is different than my relationship with a passing bug. But the love is the same.

My Thoughts
Ha ha. I was having trouble with the idea of loving other children as I loved my children and here Regina takes it to the next level. Can I love my children in the same way I love a bug? But that is the wrong way to ask the question. I love them in different ways but the love is the same. As Regina pointed out, the relationship with my child is different than the relationship with the bug. But the love is the same because all love is the same or it is not love. Again, I am reminded of the Loving All Method. Before I started that practice, I would not have thought of loving a bug and so I would have been even further from knowing love as it exists.

Regina also says this about love.
How does one describe love? Love is openness. It could be described as embracing, accepting or allowing. It is joyous or compassionate, depending on the response that is pulled forth from it by the appearance. It has no lack in it, no need. One could say it is patient, although that is simply an aspect of its openness and allowance. Judgment is an impossibility for it.

My thoughts
That is a good, succinct description and one that calls for contemplation to fully understand and accept. I am particularly drawn to the idea that love has no need in it. I have often said that neediness is not the same thing as love and until neediness is gone from a relationship, I cannot know love. When I need my son to be healthy, I am not loving him.

Manual for Teachers

“Therefore lay judgment down, not with regret but with a sigh of gratitude.”
Now that we know we cannot judge, why not lay judgment aside? It is a staggering load. I ask Holy Spirit for guidance in all things. In the Rules for Decision we learned this: “2 For you and your adviser must agree on what you want before it can occur. 3 It is but this agreement that permits all things to happen. 4 Nothing can be caused without some form of union, be it with a dream of judgment or the Voice for God. 5 Decisions cause results because they are not made in isolation. 6 They are made by you and your adviser, for yourself and for the world as well. “

Also, in the Song of Prayer it says, “You have been told to ask the Holy Spirit for the answer to any specific problem, and that you will receive a specific answer if such is your need. ...There are decisions to make here, and they must be made whether they be illusions or not.” So I do my best to make no decisions with the ego. That means I must ask the Holy Spirit to be my advisor in every decision.

It is easy enough to tell when I have slipped up and asked the ego for help. I know I have judged when I feel separate from my brother, when I hold a grievance, when I am angry or fearful, when I feel guilty. These are all signs I have picked up the heavy mantel of judgment and am turning to the ego for advice. Those painful reactions are like road signs telling you the path has gotten rocky and impassable and I need to turn around and go the other way, something I am happy to do. When I turn to the Holy Spirit for guidance, my load is light and my way smooth.

Text
“What am I?” is the question I ask the Holy Spirit frequently. I ask it whenever it comes into my mind. I especially ask this question when I feel trapped in my own beliefs. I have experienced some major shifts recently, and the ego response has been very strong. It can be discouraging to move forward only to meet that wall of resistance.

The ego mind will fight against awakening. If I identify too closely to the ego, I will forget that its thoughts and feelings are not mine. Then I would become confused. Of course, I would become confused! It is like being two people at once, and the two people are completely opposed. I wake up with the thought that I give this day to Holy Spirit, and that thought might be immediately followed by a feeling of anxiety for the coming day.

I reject the second feeling as being ego resistance to surrender. It is the ego demanding its right to make plans and decisions and to decide what everything means. But “I” seem to be having the thoughts and the feelings and that used to be confusing. Now, I understand that I am not my thoughts and that I can choose the thoughts that I want to believe. I give my attention to the true thoughts and remove my attention from the ego thoughts.

How is it that I can do this? The answer to this is the answer to the question, “Who am I?” As Jesus tells us in Lesson 236, the mind is our kingdom and we rule it. Do we want to rule it with the ego as our advisor or with the Holy Spirit as our advisor? The choice we make will determine how happy we are and how quickly we evolve spiritually. I am of the Family of God, part of His Creation. That is the “I” that decides, the “I” that is ruler of the mind, I and the Holy Spirit together rule my mind.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Gentle Healing Lesson 126, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-16-19

LESSON 126
All that I give is given to myself.

2 Let us consider what you do believe, in place of this idea. It seems to you that other people are apart from you, and able to behave in ways which have no bearing on your thoughts, nor theirs on yours. Therefore, your attitudes have no effect on them, and their appeals for help are not in any way related to your own. You further think that they can sin without affecting your perception of yourself, while you can judge their sin, and yet remain apart from condemnation and at peace.

I completely understand this and I no longer believe it and I almost never live it. When I first began to understand that all I give is given to myself, I became aware of how I treat people who serve me. For instance, I used to try on clothes in the store and leave them in the room when I was through, sometimes scattered about on the floor.

I probably figured that picking up after me was her job if I thought about it at all. I did not value her as a child of God. Because I did not see her value, and I was giving myself the same thing, lack of value. If I did not recognize my value would I be likely to believe that I deserved forgiveness and love? I can tell you that I did not. The less value I placed in myself, the less I valued others. It was a vicious cycle and the way the ego maintains its existence.

In becoming aware of this careless behavior and the deeper meaning it has, the far reach of its effects, I changed the way I interacted with people. I paid them more attention. I look the clerk who serves me in the eye when I sincerely wish them a good day. I recognize their innate value. I try to remember to treat each person as if it is Jesus serving me because their value is the same as his value.

I am not perfect at seeing the value in everyone, and when I am paying attention to my own chattering mind, I forget. But the cycle has been broken for me, and so I generally remember and when I forget, I quickly realize my error and if it is too late for in-person correction, I give my blessing in my mind, at least.

This practice now includes all areas of my life, all my brothers and sisters. If I am impatient with someone for being slow to understand what I am saying, or to incorporate new ideas, then impatience is what I give myself. It is another way of failing to value the other and thus to fail to value myself. The Holy Spirit is patient with me, and I want to give as He gives. If I notice that I am impatient, I silently ask for correction and for another way to express the idea.

All that I give is given to myself. The Help I need to learn that this is true is with me now. And I will trust in Him.

Then spend a quiet moment, opening your mind to His correction and His Love. And what you hear of Him you will believe, for what He gives will be received by you.

This part of the lesson is of particular interest to me. It is a continuation of the practice of sitting in quiet and asking for His Word. This morning, I asked that He bring to my attention anything in my behavior that indicates I am giving what I would prefer not to receive. I also asked that He heal my mind of the beliefs that are the cause of such behavior. Then I listened. And then, I received.

Regina’s Tips

Well, the day I came to understand the concept of ‘giving and receiving as one’, I understood forgiveness, and I became a very eager practitioner of forgiveness.

I learned ‘giving and receiving are one’ from scribing NTI Ephesians. It was further emphasized in ‘the Code.’ It is summarized by this:

What I think, I see.
What I see, I experience.
What I experience, I think.

How do you feel when you judge a person or situation? How do you feel when you reject a person or a situation? How do you feel when you genuinely accept what is? How do you feel when you love what is? Can you see that you directly experience your own decision to judge, reject, accept or love? Can you see that it is never different; you always experience your own decision?

Giving and receiving are one. Therefore, to have peace, be peace. To know love, be love. And to do that, let go of any thought that does not make you happy. Just let it go. That is forgiveness.

My Thoughts
I love the way Regina can express things in a way that makes them instantly understandable. I am especially drawn to the idea that to have peace, be peace and to have love, be love. I do this by letting go of thoughts that do not make me happy. See. It is simple. This is forgiveness. If I forgive myself and I am happy, then I will treat everyone in such a way as to encourage the same thing in them.

Manual for Teachers
“Remember how many times you thought you knew all the “facts” you needed for judgment, and how wrong you were!”

I really get this. I agree that I don’t have all the facts, not ever, and so I have no way to judge accurately anything. I accept that I do have the Holy Spirit right here in my mind and He does know everything and will judge for me. I have had that experience and often. I know how to become still and let Him remove what is not true from my mind. I know how to relinquish my own judgments and surrender to Him. I do it a lot.

I would say at this point in my life, judgment is just a bad habit, and one I am working to break. I am asking the Holy Spirit to help me be aware of any judgmental thoughts in my mind today. I ask that He show me judgment in whatever forms it might take. I know that sometimes I judge myself more harshly than I ever would anyone else. I know that sometimes judgment sounds like an attack thought, and sometimes it sounds like fear.

I want to be aware of these judgments so that I can allow them to be removed and I can be free of them. This produces an emptiness into which the Holy Spirit can reveal the truth. Since I am having to ask for this help even in being aware of the desire to judge, I suspect that in addition to habitual thinking that there must be some belief left in my mind that judging is a valuable right that I don’t want to give up. Holy Spirit, please remove that belief from my mind. It doesn’t even make sense.

Text
“Any attempt to deny what is must be fearful, and if the attempt is strong it will induce panic. ...You are devoting your mind to what you do not want.” 9. I. 12

Jesus says that to deny what is must be fearful. When I deny what I am, I deny what is. I was reading from the Daily Lessons the section called “What am I?” This is a beautiful section and I am going to read it frequently now because I believe it most of the time and I want to believe it all of the time. Among other things, it says that we are the holy messengers of God who speak for Him, and carrying it to everyone whom He has sent to us, we learn that it is written on our hearts.

When I feel afraid or sick, when I am in pain, or angry, when I succumb to guilt and doubt, I deny what is. When I treat anyone badly, I am not being messenger for God and thus I am not learning what is written on my heart. I deny both of us the truth that brings us to the awareness of Heaven. This includes the clerk at the store, the fellow shopper who is blocking the aisle, the driver who won’t use her turn signal.

In this world of separation with its levels and its orders of difficulty, it seems like some errors are big or important and other things hardly matter. But that is not so. It is the same error that I feel anger and resentment toward a friend, as it is that I was impatient with the store clerk who was moving slowly and talking to a fellow clerk while I was running late. They are the same thing because the only thing is happening is that I am either devoted to God or to ego, devoted to what is, or devoted to nothing.

My function is to remember my true devotion, to be a messenger of God, teaching love, teaching everyone what they are, and so learning what I am. And when I forget, when I get caught up in the illusion, my function is to forgive myself as soon as I notice that I am devoting myself to nothing. When I think of this, I get excited! Today is not just another day. It is a day of remembering and a day of teaching. Today I am God’s messenger.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Gentle Healing Lesson 125, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-15-19

LESSON 125
In quiet I receive God’s Word today.

8 It is your voice to which you listen as He speaks to you. It is your Word He speaks. It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son. In quiet listen to your Self today, and let Him tell you God has never left His Son, and you have never left your Self.

9 Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this, to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body’s eyes. Only be still and listen. You will hear the word in which the Will of God the Son joins in his Father’s Will, at one with it, with no illusions interposed between the wholly indivisible and true. As every hour passes by today, be still a moment and remind yourself you have a special purpose for this day; in quiet to receive the Word of God.

His Voice awaits your silence, for His Word can not be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled. Await His Word in quiet.

This is what I have been practicing this week, this being still, quieting my mind and listening for His Word. It needs me to be quiet and still, and somehow, I knew this must be true. Things are happening in me. Some long held beliefs have fallen away as if they were never there. I had not been asking for this, nor even thinking about it. I just noticed that I can’t find those beliefs anymore.

I did the meditation before I started writing and while I did notice thoughts and the mind’s desire to follow those thoughts, I was also aware of a strong desire to be here now with Self. Without any desire to direct the Self, I knew my mind was being purified and I still feel like part of me is still in meditation.

Regina’s Tips
Today’s lesson tells us that God/Spirit has not waited for our return to it to give its word to us. I think it is really important for us to realize that inner wisdom has always been there; we just haven’t always been listening. In fact, often we have purposefully chosen the opposite of inner wisdom.

To the degree that we are unhappy or suffering, that is to the degree that we choose the opposite of inner wisdom.

The fact above can be painful for some people to look at with absolute honesty. Some of you who are reading this today will avoid accepting that statement as true, even though it would be really helpful if you did accept it as true. That is okay. As today’s lesson says, you are not “led by force, but only love. … not judged, but only sanctified.” However, you will find happiness sooner if you can accept the statement above.

Many people think it is hard to hear the voice of wisdom. I don’t think that is true. I think we simply need to begin to listen to it instead of wanting to do things our own way. When today’s lesson asks us to be still, quiet, silent, so the voice can speak, it really means we need to put our mind’s will aside and be willing to follow that intuitive voice like Katie does. The more we do that, the clearer the voice becomes.

My Thoughts
I love the idea of surrender. To the degree that I have surrendered, I have become more peaceful and happier and I feel so much closer to my Self and to my Creator. Even though I understand surrender have discovered the benefits of surrender, I still cling stubbornly to some degree of independence from my Self and from God.

That’s crazy, isn’t it? I don’t understand it either. I seldom do it deliberately, but I know I do it because I am not supremely happy at all times and choosing to listen to the ego mind is the only reason I would not be happy. This daily meditation in which I sit in stillness and quiet the mind as much as I can is deepening my desire for surrender. It is healing my mind and my only part seems to be that I am receptive to that healing.

Manual for Teachers
10. HOW IS JUDGMENT RELINQUISHED? P 3
3 The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world’s learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. This is not an opinion but a fact. In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself?

Journal
This is the paragraph that made all the difference in my life. When I read this paragraph, I understood that I have no business judging anything, not that I shouldn’t but that I can’t. I didn’t stop judging immediately, but I did start noticing when I was judging; I became willing not to judge. It felt strange to me at first, and I felt the ego’s objections very strongly. After all, how could I navigate the world without judging? Just crossing the street required a judgment of timing for safety’s sake.

So what I did was to take it in steps. My first step was to look at the judgments that seemed most obvious and with the most potential for harm. I asked the Holy Spirit to guide me in this, to point me to the ones He wanted me to look at, and then to correct my thinking about them. I began to notice when I was angry with someone, or resentful toward them, and realized I must have judged him. I would bring this judgment to the Holy Spirit and let Him reinterpret it for me.

I began to do this when I was unhappy about a situation. I would realize that I must have judged it, and so I would ask the Holy Spirit to take that judgment from my mind and to give me a correct judgment. Really, the only reason I decided it was bad was that I asked the ego what it meant. Do I really want the ego mind making decisions for me? So it wasn’t that hard to change my mind. The Holy Spirit knows everything and so can make a decision for me that will help and not harm.

This all sounds so simple and straight forward as I write about it, but while I was developing this new way of making decisions it was pretty messy. I would vacillate between judging with the ego and accepting the Holy Spirit’s judgment. I would balk at times, insisting I knew the right judgment. I would sometimes feel resentful to have lost this “right” to judge. But I trust Jesus and so I kept at it and the excellent results of giving judgment to the Holy Spirit convinced me this was the way to go.

At some point, I began to open more completely to the Holy Spirit, asking for guidance in all things. I began the process of learning to fully surrender to the One Who Knows. I went through the same messy process as I made this shift as well, but it wasn’t as hard because the Holy Spirit had already proved Itself to me. I had tasted the freedom of giving up a job that I was unprepared to do and letting it be done for me. Now, I was just extending that surrender and gaining more freedom.

I am still mastering this decision. I make mistakes and sometimes get pulled back into the old way of fumbling through the world without a clue. But there has been another shift for me even if it is not completely accepted yet. It is harder for me to explain. My trust is so much greater now that I have surrendered on a deeper level. I trust the Holy Spirit to decide for me most things, and I no longer think about each judgment.

In fact, the only time I notice judgment is when I have tried to do it on my own again. I change my mind as quickly as I can because I don’t want to go back to that insane way of living. I want to move forward, surrendering more and more of the ego until I am no longer struggling to live, but am being lived. That is not my experience yet, but it is closer to it than ever before.

The ego hates this idea of not being in charge of my life and recognizes its eventual demise if this keeps up and so it throws up objections and blocks, but this is a done deal. Now it is all just details. I practice surrender of that part of the mind and I experience living from my holy mind, and the ego begins to recede into background noise. Then something gets triggered and it’s loud and obnoxious again until I bring it to the Holy Spirit. Eventually, though, this will end. There is no doubt in my mind that the ego is on its way out because that is my truest desire.

Text

“You do not recognize the enormous waste of energy you expend in denying truth.” 9.1.11

I almost never get angry with anyone these days but I was reading my journal from a couple of years ago when I saw this entry. It seems I was angry with someone and I had spent two days arguing for my anger, insisting that he be wrong and that his actions were hurting me. In my mind I was insisting that the only way I could be happy is if he sacrificed his perceived needs on my behalf. It took nearly two days for me to get past this idea, to move my hands from in front of my eyes so that I could see. What a waste of energy that was.

How could my happiness depend on what another person does or does not do? How could my happiness depend on getting my way at the expense of another? How could my happiness depend on what happens in a dream? Would God put my happiness out of my reach? Would he make happiness something elusive, something that is only sometimes possible?

Here is what I discovered when I finally remembered that I wanted to see. I decided that all of my previous goals that involved a need to have something happen were unimportant compared with the goal of knowing God. I let it all go to the Holy Spirit for purification. I let Him heal my mind. I stopped interfering with love and accepted it. Happiness happened.

The situation itself remains unresolved for a while longer and the ego mind wanted to revive the issue bringing love into question at times, but I was not interested. I was aware of those thoughts and when one snagged my attention I asked that the Holy Spirit to remove it from my mind. There is a song I listen to every night as I go to sleep.

It repeats over and over the words, “thank you,” and, “your love is pouring down.” As the song repeats these words, I imagine that His love is pouring down on me, washing away the doubts and uncertainties that may have plagued me during the day, healing all that is not truth in my mind. I am filled with gratitude.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 124, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-12-19

LESSON 124
Let me remember I am one with God.

How holy are our minds! And everything we see reflects the holiness within the mind at one with God and with itself.

No miracle can ever be denied to those who know that they are one with God. No thought of theirs but has the power to heal all forms of suffering in anyone, in times gone by and times as yet to come, as easily as in the ones who walk beside them now.

Peace be to you today. Secure your peace by practicing awareness you are one with your Creator, as He is with you. Sometime today, whenever it seems best, devote a half an hour to the thought that you are one with God. This is our first attempt at an extended period for which we give no rules nor special words to guide your meditation. We will trust God’s Voice to speak as He sees fit today, certain He will not fail. Abide with Him this half an hour. He will do the rest.

Let me remember I am one with God, at one with all my brothers and my Self, in everlasting holiness and peace.

Oh my gosh! What an extraordinary lesson! How holy we are, not the little ego self, but the mind that knows itself as one with God.  There are two things I am going to do today. I am going to give the thirty minutes to allow the Holy Spirit to work in my mind. The message that I will receive will not likely be in words, but in healing. Who knows, maybe a revelation. I am also going to give myself little breaks in which I sit for moments or minutes at a time allowing more purification. I have seen how powerful this is and I want to continue doing it.

The other thing I am going to do is to keep this lesson in my awareness. I can be aware of the truth or the illusion but not both. So by choosing to keep the truth in my awareness, I automatically exclude the ego. It is important to direct my awareness according to my highest and most heartfelt desire as much as I can. This is still something of a practice for me, and I will be gentle and compassionate with myself as I learn to make this as consistent as are my other practices.

Regina’s Tips

What if we were to realize that our awakening is in progress? And then with trust in that fact, what if we continue to follow instructions so that spiritual progress can continue?

When Michael Langford was teaching me to meditate, he shared some quotes with me. These are the quotes:

“Don’t look for quick results; there may be none within your noticing.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Don’t waste energy on thinking or evaluating how well or how badly you are doing in your meditation.” ~ Annamalai Swami

“Don’t be discouraged by the length of the journey, and don’t slacken in your efforts to get home.” ~ Annamalai Swami

“The practice is the progress.” ~ The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss

My Thoughts

This is good advice! I will keep in mind since meditation is not easy for me.

Manual for Teachers
“It is necessary for the teacher of God to realize, not that he should not judge, but that he cannot.”

This is one of my favorite passages from ACIM because it changed forever and for the better the way I live my life. Now, more often than not, I ask the Holy Spirit to decide for me. I am a wanderer, lost in a land not my own. I don’t know where I am or what anything here means. For the longest time, I have been like Moses wandering in the desert. For the longest time, I had no destination, only wanting the journey to be as safe and productive as I could make it, but not knowing how to do that, and often failing.

It is different now. I have discovered that I have a Guide who knows everything! This guide knows where I am going and how to get there. He knows how to help me avoid the perils and to extract myself from the pitfalls when I ignore His help. He decides for me whatever needs to be done. All I have to do is turn to Him and ask for help. He is ever with me, ready to help me as much as I will let Him, and to wait patiently when I fail to call on Him.

I often ask these questions now. What does this mean? What would You have me know about this? What is this for? What would you have me say and to whom? Where would you have me go? I ask Him to show me another way to perceive each uncomfortable situation. Instead of judging for myself, I wait and allow His judgment to come through me. I am grateful because He is never distracted by appearances and always shows me my innate innocence and that of everyone else.

Attack
The desire to attack and the belief I can be attacked by someone or something outside of me, is an error that must be undone if I want peace of mind and happiness. Attack can be physical or it can be with words, even thoughts. It is an attack on my brother if I judge him. It is an attack on myself if I judge myself.

I first learned to recognize all forms of attack, then to realize that it was hurting me and everyone else, then I chose to decide for God instead of attack. I released those attack thoughts as I noticed them. I made amends for the ones that made it past my filter. Nowadays, what desire or belief in attack is in my mind is mostly very subtle. So I ask the Holy Spirit to keep me mindful of those subtle forms of attack so I can release them as well.

 

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