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Study of Text, C 14: II. The Happy Learner, P 7. 2-20-17

II. The Happy Learner, P 7

7 The happy learner meets the conditions of learning here, as he meets the conditions of knowledge in the Kingdom. All this lies in the Holy Spirit’s plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom for you. For truth is true. What else could ever be, or ever was? This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door that you believe is locked forever. You made this door of nothing, and behind it is nothing. The key is only the light that shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing. Accept this key to freedom from the hands of Christ Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light. For, like your brothers, you do not realize the light has come and freed you from the sleep of darkness.

Journal

Over and over Jesus is telling us that all the darkness that holds us prisoner is nothing. It doesn’t exist except in our minds. And even there it exists only in a past which itself does not exist. There is only truth and nothing else and the truth will surely set us free. The truth is that we are holy, we are safe, we are free, we are Gods. This truth is the key that sets us free, it is the light that shines away the dark forms that make up this experience we think is our lives.

When I got a earache last week, I did not for a moment believe it was real. It felt real and hurt as if it was real, but it was simply the effect of the belief in pain and suffering. It was the ego mind’s defense against God. The earache was meant to convince me that I am a frail and vulnerable body, and that the truth is not true at all. And here is all the proof. The ego mind says that all this pain is what is real, not the nonsense about holiness.

I felt the pain and I remembered that there is nothing my holiness cannot do. I was at war only within my split mind. The part that is clinging desperately to the idea of a separate and unique and very special self, would gladly suffer pain if pain would prove its existence. But, alas, the ego mind is doomed to lose this battle. My awareness has moved slowly but steadily from the ego part of the mind to its true home, the part of the mind where the Holy Spirit resides.

There are many such skirmishes in my mind, but most are very brief and sometimes over before I have time to give it much thought. There are, however, ego strongholds that I still must stand against. I am never alone though, as the Holy Spirit is ever present in my awareness and ever at my side, answering my slightest desire for healing.

It is funny really. All this effort and all this distress, and it is already done. I have been freed from my sleep of darkness. It was done by Jesus, and in that accomplishment it was done for me as well. I fight shadows only, and all that is required of me is that I accept my brother’s gift. Dear God, please, wake me up. I long to know my freedom.

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

Study of Text, C 14: II. The Happy Learner, P 6. 2-17-17

II. The Happy Learner, P 6

6 If you would be a happy learner, you must give everything you have learned to the Holy Spirit, to be unlearned for you. And then begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly on the firm foundation that truth is true. For what is builded there is true, and built on truth. The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity. With truth before you, you will not look back.

Journal

“…you must give everything you have learned to the Holy Spirit, to be unlearned for you.”

In my experience, this is the key to salvation. If I want to be saved or released from my former decision for separation, then this is the path I must take. It has worked very well so far. I learned to vigilant for my thoughts and to release each ego thought as I noticed it to the Holy Spirit for correction.

The more I did this the easier it became. As my mind got clearer, I was able to hear guidance that helped me along the way to discern the ego thoughts that before were confusing to me. I learned to recognize guilt and fear when it showed up in subtle ways. I was guided to helpful processes like the Rules for Decision.

Now I that I have accepted his help in unlearning, I am beginning to receive the joyous lessons. I am beginning to understand and accept the lessons that before were not meaningful to me, or at least that the meaning was only partially seen, and now I am seeing with a lot more clarity. For instance, the holiness lessons have taken on a power they never had before. I am learning the happy truth of who I really am. I could not accept that until I let go of a lot of who I am not.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, C 14: II. The Happy Learner, P 5. 2-16-17

II. The Happy Learner, P 5

5 When you teach anyone that truth is true, you learn it with him. And so you learn that what seemed hardest was the easiest. Learn to be a happy learner. You will never learn how to make nothing everything. Yet see that this has been your goal, and recognize how foolish it has been. Be glad it is undone, for when you look at it in simple honesty, it is undone. I said before, “Be not content with nothing,” for you have believed that nothing could content you. It is not so.

Journal

Jesus is telling me that the world I see is nothing and not worth my effort. It will never content me. I can try to manipulate it and control it, learn enough to overcome it, and it is all wasted effort. This is not a sad or depressing thing to learn, it is good news! I can give up all that wasted effort and turn it toward what will actually bring me joy and peace.

Here is what I have learned so far about this. When the world seems to be the problem, I turn my attention to my mind. It is the mind that makes the world and so it is the mind that must be changed if I want the world to change. I used to be confused about this. I came to accept that the mind was the cause of all I see, but if all I see is an illusion, then why change anything? Why do I care? Why do I want to change anything in the world?

Now I see that changing the world is not my goal, but in changing my mind, the world seems to change as well. This only makes sense. If the world as I see it now is a reflection of the state of my mind, then the healed mind will show me a healed world. I will have a much happier dream and that is good. I am the Son of God. I am not meant to live in poverty, chaos and despair. I am meant for love, joy and peace.

As I change my mind about the world, as I begin to accept my true nature and release the separation thoughts, the world I see will witness to this change. I have seen this happen and I know it is true. It is like the world is a perfect mirror of my mind and so I look at it to see how I am doing. Does it still reflect a desire to attack and defend? Then there are thoughts in my mind that are not healed. Is the body in pain or sick? Then there are still beliefs that need to be undone.

Because the Sonship is one whole and indivisible creation, this transformation must be inclusive. I have come to believe that it is my function to save the world through saving myself. But salvation cannot occur if any are left out. It would be like saving the body but not including certain organs because I don’t find them worthy. The body will not function and so will not be saved. I see the body of Christ in the same way. It must all be included, no part left out or it will not be saved.

So this defines my function. This perfect mirror that I think of as my life and my world will allow me to know my own salvation in relationship to the salvation I offer all parts of the Sonship. Here is an example. When my ex-husband showed up in our life recently and in a way that was uncomfortable for us all, I felt resentful. I tried to avoid him. I tried not to think about the situation when I didn’t have to. My reaction to him was like cutting the heart out of the body and then wondering why it was no longer functioning.

In trying to cut this man out of our life, it was like I was trying to cut him out of the body of Christ. Then I was trying to act as if I was still whole and functioning when I was actually limping along, and feeling the effect of my foolishness. I lost the sense of love and joy and peace that is mine when I meet its conditions, and really, there is only one condition. I must love unconditionally and universally. Excluding someone from that love is not unconditional and universal love.

When I was tired of this miserable dream, I invited the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the belief I needed to deny love to this one integral part of Self, or even that he needed to meet certain demands to receive welcome in my heart. I stopped thinking he was the problem and amputation was the answer. I stopped thinking I knew anything at all. Instead I welcomed him into my circle of love and I began to take him and the entire situation to the altar. There I allow my holiness to do its work without my input or my interference.

Will my world change because of this decision? It already has. I am at peace and that is my goal. Will the situation shift? Yes it will. I don’t know what that will look like, but I know it will be in the best interest of everyone concerned, because the Holy Spirit answers for all, not knowing us in parts. I can’t see how this will happen, but I don’t need to. I trust the process. I trust the Holy Spirit to know what I cannot know.

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

Study of Text, C 14: II. The Happy Learner, P 4. 2-15-17

II. The Happy Learner, P 4

4 Like you, the Holy Spirit did not make truth. Like God, He knows it to be true. He brings the light of truth into the darkness, and lets it shine on you. And as it shines your brothers see it, and realizing that this light is not what you have made, they see in you more than you see. They will be happy learners of the lesson this light brings to them, because it teaches them release from nothing and from all the works of nothing. The heavy chains that seem to bind them to despair they do not see as nothing, until you bring the light to them. And then they see the chains have disappeared, and so they must have been nothing. And you will see it with them. Because you taught them gladness and release, they will become your teachers in release and gladness.

Journal

I know this is true but I asked Holy Spirit how to talk about it. I asked for an example and He reminded me of a time when I was dating a man I was going to later marry. He and I had a very serious disagreement on the way to play volleyball with friends. When we got there I was still reeling from our argument and I couldn’t get into the game.

The couple who lived at the house where the game was taking place were not playing either and when I went in to use their restroom, we introduced ourselves and struck up a conversation. It was a bit of a struggle for me to be friendly at first because I was still upset, but the conversation somehow turned to my study of A Course in Miracles.

This was not something I talked about casually and I cannot remember how it even came into the conversation, but they were interested and so we talked about it for a good while. They began to study it themselves, and though they soon moved away and I did not have the pleasure of joining them in the study, I felt very blessed to have been given the opportunity to introduce them to this path.

This was early in my own study and I was not accustomed to this. It made a strong impression on me, though. For one thing, once we started talking about the Course, all upset fell away as if it was nothing. Up to that point, the argument seemed like the only thing that mattered, and suddenly it lost its hold on me.

Another reason it was important is that I saw how uplifting it is to share what I am given, and how the act of sharing automatically brought me out of my ego thinking and into Spirit’s influence. I was teaching them what I had been taught, and in the process, I was learning it again, having what I knew reinforced in my mind. This is something that would be repeated many times until I knew without doubt that what I teach, I learn.

And I have often, since then, had the experience of being uplifted as I allowed the Holy Spirit to work through me. This would happen even when, or maybe especially when, the ego mind was bringing me down. I would, sometimes reluctantly, step out of myself long enough for the Holy Spirit to help me remember that the ego is not myself. I would see this happen when the words simply came and they hit their mark, and this at a time when I could not seem to help myself, much less someone else. And suddenly we are both receiving the help we need.

“And you will see it with them. Because you taught them gladness and release, they will become your teachers in release and gladness.”

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, C 14: II. The Happy Learner, P 3. 2-14-17

II. The Happy Learner, P 3

3 All this the Holy Spirit sees, and teaches, simply, that all this is not true. To those unhappy learners who would teach themselves nothing, and delude themselves into believing that it is not nothing, the Holy Spirit says, with steadfast quietness:

The truth is true. Nothing else matters, nothing else is real, and everything beside it is not there. Let Me make the one distinction for you that you cannot make, but need to learn. Your faith in nothing is deceiving you. Offer your faith to Me, and I will place it gently in the holy place where it belongs. You will find no deception there, but only the simple truth. And you will love it because you will understand it.

Journal

There should be an asterisk or something beside this paragraph, some special statement that says, “Pay attention now, you are about to learn the secret to life eternal.” A Course in Miracles turns the illusion we think of as life right on its head. It pulls the rug from under us. And yet, it does it so gently that it takes awhile to truly sink in.

What we are remembering as we do this work is that truth is true and what we are experiencing here is not that! The truth is true and our present experience of life is not true. It is not real and it is not actually happening. He then tells us that we cannot on our own distinguish the truth from the experience, but that the Holy Spirit can do that for us, and we can learn from Him. All He needs is our faith in Him.

Jesus also reassures us that this will be a happy event. He says that where we are being taken is into our true mind and it is very holy and that it is there we will find the simple truth. He also says that we will love it because we will understand it. The Holy Spirit speaks the truth to us consistently and constantly, and sometimes we let ourselves hear it. As we listen more often, the mind is healed of its insanity.

In lesson 45, Jesus says this.

“You think with the Mind of God. Therefore you share your thoughts with Him, as He shares His with you. They are the same thoughts, because they are thought by the same Mind.”

I read this and all I can think is to ask Jesus, “What am I?” I cannot be anything I ever identified with in the past, at least in the past experience of this life. And yet, he tells us over and over how very holy we are, how powerful, how beautiful. He tells us that we are in the Mind of God and that God is in our mind, that we think with the same Mind. How can I read this without crying? I can’t. How can I know this is true without His help? I can’t. But with His help I can learn it.

In the past and sometimes even now I tell Him that I am a body in pain, that I am sad, that I feel beleaguered by all around me and the circumstances of this life. I tell Him I am afraid and oh so very guilty. He, in turn, understands I believe this but simply knows it is not true. He answers each fear, each mistaken belief with the same steadfast reminder that the truth is true and only the truth is true, and what I believe is not true. He keeps turning my attention to my holiness, to my glorious reality.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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