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Study of Text, C 14: XI. The Test of Truth, P 5. 8-8-17

XI. The Test of Truth, P 5
5 You have one test, as sure as God, by which to recognize if what you learned is true. If you are wholly free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet or even think of you share in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned God’s lesson, and not your own. Unless all this is true, there are dark lessons in your mind that hurt and hinder you, and everyone around you. The absence of perfect peace means but one thing: You think you do not will for God’s Son what his Father wills for him. Every dark lesson teaches this, in one form or another. And each bright lesson with which the Holy Spirit will replace the dark ones you do not accept, teaches you that you will with the Father and His Son.

Journal
The way I understand what Jesus is telling us here is that if I do not have perfect peace, I have chosen a will that is not my own and not God’s. That only leaves one option. I have chosen to align myself with the ego mind and to use the separate will as if it is mine. There is no way I can ever be comfortable with this choice. Even if I bury my anxiety under layers of denial, it is still there and I project it as disturbing stories in my life.

So when my child is angry with me or my friend is in trouble, when I don’t have enough money or I am sick, these are all projections of the anxiety and guilt I feel because I have denied my Self and I have denied God. That is what the world is for. It is a place where we pretend to have a will that is not our own and experience guilt for that choice.

It is a world that offers us the punishment we think we deserve for our betrayal. “The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt.” T 13: Intro. This is a world of pain, punishment, and death. This is what it will continue to represent until we change our mind about who we want for a teacher, and which lessons are meaningful until we accept our true will, which is God’s Will.

How do I know if I have learned the lesson the Holy Spirit offers me? I will have no fear. Jesus says in another place in the Course, “Before you choose to do anything, ask me if your choice is in accord with mine. If you are sure that it is, there will be no fear.” T 2: VI. My choice will be in accord with his if my will is in accord with God’s Will.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 14: XI. The Test of Truth, P 4. 8-7-17

XI. The Test of Truth, P 4

4 You who have not yet brought all of the darkness you have taught yourself into the light in you, can hardly judge the truth and value of this course. Yet God did not abandon you. And so you have another lesson sent from Him, already learned for every child of light by Him to Whom God gave it. This lesson shines with God’s glory, for in it lies His power, which He shares so gladly with His Son. Learn of His happiness, which is yours. But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons must be brought willingly to truth, and joyously laid down by hands open to receive, not closed to take. Every dark lesson that you bring to Him Who teaches light He will accept from you, because you do not want it. And He will gladly exchange each one for the bright lesson He has learned for you. Never believe that any lesson you have learned apart from Him means anything.

Journal
A Course in Miracles is a lesson we are to learn, but if we have not brought all our dark lessons to the light within us, we will need more help. We are given this help as the Holy Spirit. We can bring those dark lessons to Him. It is His function to take from us what we do not want. He exchanges these dark lessons for bright lessons.

This is the part that fascinates me. Jesus says that He gives to us each bright lesson He has learned for us. Interesting that it is phrased in that way. So clearly, Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit. He says: “And so you have another lesson sent from Him, already learned for every child of light by Him to Whom God gave it.” So this seems to say that the Holy Spirit has learned the lessons for us. No wonder Jesus says in another place in the Course that the Holy Spirit is hard to understand. Just as I think I have pinned down an idea of what the Holy Spirit is, I see that I don’t really know.

The important part for me to know, however, is that the lessons I am trying to learn have already been accomplished and through the Holy Spirit, I can simply accept them. In fact, anything I learn on my own is useless, and only what I accept from the Holy Spirit is real. Once again I am surprised by the simplicity of salvation. Somehow, the ego mind has trouble believing that something simple can also be powerful.

Once again I see that my only part in this is to accept that I want His lesson instead of mine. The other day, I realized that I was not happy. I wasn’t really sad, but it was like I had a dampening field around me that prevented me from feeling joy. With this realization came the desire to feel otherwise, and from that desire came the answer. I received a clear thought that all I needed to do was to believe what Jesus was telling me about myself.

I had fallen into the habit of looking at all I have failed to accomplish rather than being in gratitude for all that I have accomplished. I had started comparing myself to others and thinking that I was not the teacher they were, or that I was not the light they were. I started thinking about how many times I had to learn the same lesson before I stopped slipping back into the ego. I saw that slowly many of those thoughts had slipped into my mind and stolen my joy.

So I shifted my thinking. Right that moment I made a decision to accept the Holy Spirit’s bright lesson rather than the dark lesson the ego had been teaching me. I started focusing on the truth about myself. I am the light of the world. I completely disregarded any ego “proof” that I was something else. I placed my awareness on my holy mind, rather than my ego mind.

I guess the ego mind realized I was serious about this shift and so tried to join me in it. I saw thoughts to prove that I am good and smart and helpful. But I ignored this, too. Anything I teach myself (that comes from the ego mind) is meaningless. If I look to proof found in my story that I am what I was created to be, then I would also find proof there that I am not. I simply accept that I am still as God created me and that is a brilliant and perfect Thought in His Mind.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 14: XI. The Test of Truth, P 3. 8-4-17

XI. The Test of Truth, P 3
3 Atonement teaches you how to escape forever from everything that you have taught yourself in the past, by showing you only what you are now. Learning has been accomplished before its effects are manifest. Learning is therefore in the past, but its influence determines the present by giving it whatever meaning it holds for you. Your learning gives the present no meaning at all. Nothing you have ever learned can help you understand the present, or teach you how to undo the past. Your past is what you have taught yourself. Let it all go. Do not attempt to understand any event or anything or anyone in its “light,” for the darkness in which you try to see can only obscure. Put no confidence at all in darkness to illuminate your understanding, for if you do you contradict the light, and thereby think you see the darkness. Yet darkness cannot be seen, for it is nothing more than a condition in which seeing becomes impossible.

Journal
I think that Jesus is telling me that I have taught myself badly in the past and that I need to let that all go. I didn’t learn anything then that will help me eliminate the darkness in my mind. I have to agree that this is true. It is different now. I have learned that I have a Teacher and He will show me what the problem is, and then He will show me the answer.

In the past, if I had a problem, I would try to figure out how to fix it. I would think about what seemed to work in the past and what didn’t work. I might read a book by an expert or ask someone who should know. Using the thinking mind to work things out is the same thing as asking the ego what the situation means and how to manipulate it to give me the results I am looking for in light of my understanding of the problem.

The reason this doesn’t work most of the time is that I asked the ego to define the problem. Now I might be working on the right problem, but the chances are I am not. For instance, my ex-husband is an alcoholic. He would make decisions while in a drunken state which led to problems. I asked the ego (or as I thought of it then, I used common sense) to figure out what the problem was and what to do about it.

Based on this ‘common sense’, it seemed obvious to me that his drinking was the reason I was so upset, so fearful and angry, and the solution was that he should stop. I worked out in my mind how to get him to do that. I used reason, and threats, and pleading, and of course, guilt. Nothing worked, and eventually, I left him thinking that this was the final solution. It wasn’t. We had a son together and so our lives are still interconnected and I had to revisit the whole problem again recently.

This time when I had to deal with him and with his alcoholism, it was very different. He was drinking at a very inappropriate time, and in a way that could be harmful to others. Because of our connection through our son, it was now in my life. At first, I was appalled and angry by his actions. But that didn’t last long, only a few minutes, really.

The reason I didn’t stay angry is that I realized that I had judged him, and this happened because I fell back on old methods of dealing with problems, probably because this was an old problem. But as soon as I saw what was happening, I changed my mind. I stopped asking the ego what the situation meant, and I asked the Holy Spirit instead.

It became very clear and obvious to me that I had no reason to expect anything else from him. He is living the story of an alcoholic and unless the alcoholic has managed their disease, then the alcoholic drinks. I realized that there was no reason for me to be angry and upset about it. I didn’t feel like judging him, and I never mentioned anything about it. My daughter and I figured out what to do about the situation to make it better and we did it.

There was only one reason the two situations were so different. In the first, I was confused about the problem. I was upset and afraid and I used the ego thinking mind to come to the conclusion that my husband was the problem. In the second, I was upset and afraid and I used the Holy Spirit to come to the conclusion that my reaction to this situation was a choice I was making, and I was the problem.

This was good, because, while I cannot change him, I absolutely can change me. I did just that as I saw that I didn’t have to react in fear and anger. I reacted from love and acceptance instead. My mind was clear and I received inspiration on how to deal with it. This is why I don’t use the darkened mind to bring light to any situation. It can’t.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 14: XI. The Test of Truth, P 2. 8-3-17

XI. The Test of Truth, P 2
2 Be willing, then, for all of it to be undone, and be glad that you are not bound to it forever. For you have taught yourself how to imprison the Son of God, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even dream of it. Can God learn how not to be God? And can His Son, given all power by Him, learn to be powerless? What have you taught yourself that you can possibly prefer to keep, in place of what you have and what you are?

Journal
Jesus spends a lot of time in the Course helping us understand that it is not possible that we are what we think we have made of ourselves. He wants us to know that it is not possible we could be less than what God is. We are created like God in every way; that’s what it means to be an extension of God. To think we can be powerless is insane. We have been given all power, and even in dreams, we are not without that power however we might misuse it.

I have had an interesting life. Parts of it have been exciting and fun and parts have been dangerous, and other parts of it have been awful. I can’t say that I just glided through life, that’s for sure. I often wonder how I would have seen the rest of my life if I had not found A Course in Miracles. Honestly, I cannot imagine how people deal with life without it. I think I would have probably taken my own life had I not found it.

Right now I sometimes feel such joy and peace and sometimes I spend a lot of time crying. It’s all good. It’s all necessary. Our lives are not at random. We decide our path in every moment as we make decisions either with Holy Spirit or with ego. I don’t waste any of it. I love the happy peaceful moments and enjoy them fully.

I also fully experience the anger and fear and guilt when it comes up. I am learning not to block any of it, and, in doing so, I am choosing to make different decisions that lead to joy rather than to fear. This is my way out and I am glad I am not bound to this illusion forever. I’m so grateful that I am something that I did not make and I am ready to remember what that is.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 14: XI. The Test of Truth, P 1. 8-1-17

XI. The Test of Truth, P 1
1 Yet the essential thing is learning that you do not know. Knowledge is power, and all power is of God. You who have tried to keep power for yourself have “lost” it. You still have the power, but you have interposed so much between it and your awareness of it that you cannot use it. Everything you have taught yourself has made your power more and more obscure to you. You know not what it is, nor where. You have made a semblance of power and a show of strength so pitiful that it must fail you. For power is not a seeming strength, and truth is beyond semblance of any kind. Yet all that stands between you and the power of God in you is but your learning of the false, and of your attempts to undo the true.

Journal
I don’t know. I don’t know what anything is for and I don’t know what anything means, and I don’t want to try to figure it out for myself. That has been my problem in the past. I judge what things mean using only my ego mind and this judgment closes me off from any real knowledge. It is like all the information I have gathered with the thinking mind is stacked up like bricks making a wall. The power of God, true Knowledge, is on the other side of that wall, where it seems to be out of reach.

The only way to have Knowledge is to take down that wall of self-achievement. I begin by acknowledging that my hard won ‘knowledge’ is useless. It is meaningless and of very limited helpful. The ego strongly opposes this outlook, but not because these bits of information are actually useful, but because they represent the ego’s value to me. Without the belief that the ego has value, why would I want to keep it? When I lose interest in the ego, it is gone.

The ego argues that I need this information in order to survive here. But this isn’t true. I can actually do quite well without the ego knowledge I have accumulated. What I have discovered is that when I let go of the idea that I know, I become open to Holy Spirit and He guides me to what I need to know, to say and to do.

This view that I don’t need to find answers myself, but can simply receive whatever I need to know through open-hearted listening is radically different from what I have believed to be true. It is also far more valuable than anything the ego could offer. The only way to prove this to yourself is to do it.

It isn’t hard. Just put your day in His hands and ask Him what to do next, what to say, where to go. Then do what occurs to you to do. At first, you will make mistakes, listening to the ego rather than Holy Spirit. And you will probably experience some resistance to this, maybe a lot. But as you continue to practice surrender, you will experience an amazing lightness and freedom. I am reminded that Jesus advised us that before we do anything to ask him if our choice is in accord with his. If you are sure that it is, there will be no fear.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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