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Study of Text, Chapter 11: VIII: The Problem and the Answer, P 12. 12-14-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 12

12 If you perceive offense in a brother pluck the offense from your mind, for you are offended by Christ and are deceived in Him. Heal in Christ and be not offended by Him, for there is no offense in Him. If what you perceive offends you, you are offended in yourself and are condemning God’s Son whom God condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove all offenses of God’s Son against himself and perceive no one but through His guidance, for He would save you from all condemnation. Accept His healing power and use it for all He sends you, for He wills to heal the Son of God, in whom He is not deceived

Journal
If my brother offends me it can only be that I believe in the illusion I see rather than in his reality, and that I am interpreting that illusion according to my own skewed beliefs. My solution is to allow my own mind to be healed. Then I will see differently and I will interpret according to the Holy Spirit. I will recognize the Christ in my brother and in so doing I will heal both him and myself.

No matter what I do or think or say, the Holy Spirit knows the truth of my nature. He knows I was created by God, like God, and that this cannot be altered, not even by the seemingly endless dreams of separation. I can wrack up lifetime after lifetime of unreal experiences, but nothing changes. I am still holy, still perfect innocence.

The Holy Spirit, through His unwavering certainty, saves me, and all of us, from all condemnation. I accept His healing power as He sends it to me, and I offer it to my brothers in place of my offense. As I allow the Holy Spirit to remove all offenses from my mind, I am free to offer this healing to everyone sent to me for that purpose. I am a link in the chain of forgiveness that frees us all.

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Study of Text, Chapter 11: VIII: The Problem and the Answer, P 11. 12-11-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 11

11 Do not accept your brother’s variable perception of himself for his split mind is yours, and you will not accept your healing without his. For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing is yours. To love yourself is to heal yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your goal. Brother, we heal together as we live together and love together. Be not deceived in God’s Son, for he is one with himself and one with his Father. Love him who is beloved of his Father, and you will learn of the Father’s Love for you.

Journal
I am deceived in my brother if I believe anything about him that is not the truth, anything that is not what God created. I can see the ego behavior, but if I believe that he is his behavior, then I am deceived in him, and will be deceived in myself, and God as well, since we are one. I was reading an earlier entry in my journal this morning and came across this.

This is what I want. I want to see each person with the same vision I see my children. No matter what my children do or say, I know they are wonderful. I know they are perfect beneath their behavior. Their behavior is an illusion based on false beliefs and has nothing to do with who they are. It is insignificant next to their reality.

If they behave badly, I disregard it, and continue to see only the love that they are. Now that I have become very good at this, I am learning to see others in the same way. This is one of the ways that I am removing the blocks that keep me from remembering God and remembering my Self.

What I had written about how I see my children is an example of seeing with Christ Vision, and it is the way I want to see everyone. In seeing others in this way, I am healing them and healing myself. Healing does not require that anything be changed, only that we learn to choose to see what is actually there rather than the illusion we see when we judge.

Jesus tells us this very often throughout the Course. I don’t always do this. Sometimes I choose to believe my judgments, and when this happens forgiveness is needed. I need to forgive what I see and what I think so that we might both experience healing. This is the way healing occurs, and it is a miracle.

For this to be successful, I must accept that there are to be no exceptions in my life. Everyone, regardless of their behavior, and regardless of my ego interpretations of their behavior, is a perfect and holy Son of God. I must be willing to accept, without compromise, the healing of my mind that the Holy Spirit offers me. I must learn that I want this by asking for it and accepting it.

Jesus says that I must learn to love myself and that I cannot love myself if I don’t love my brother. I have noticed that it is impossible to love my brother if I don’t love myself. If I am feeling bad about myself, guilty or afraid, I project onto my brother and attack him for my feelings. So what do I do when I am caught in this cycle?

Actually, it is simple. I just jump in wherever I notice the error. I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of whatever error I notice, and I accept His healing as quickly as I can. I trust that all will be undone, my judgment against myself and my judgment against my brother, because they are the same thing, really.

And here is my favorite sentence in this paragraph. “Brother, we heal together as we live together and love together.” I recognize this as both necessary and beautiful. I want this to be my reality all the time, so I am going to use it as a sweet reminder whenever I am tempted to be deceived in my brother.

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Study of Text, Chapter 11, VIII.The Problem and the Answer, P 10. 10-9-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 10

10 In the real world there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division. Only loving thoughts are recognized, and because no one is without your help, the Help of God goes with you everywhere. As you become willing to accept this Help by asking for It, you will give It because you want It. Nothing will be beyond your healing power, because nothing will be denied your simple request. What problems will not disappear in the Presence of God’s Answer? Ask, then, to learn of the reality of your brother, because this is what you will perceive in him, and you will see your beauty reflected in his.

Journal
“In the real world there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division.” So sickness is caused by separation and division, and in the real world, the world we attain as we awaken, there is no thought of separation or division and so there is no sickness. Sickness takes many forms. For instance there are sick relationships, relationships that are special, that are dysfunctional, that are “giving to get” relationships.

There are sick finances, the idea that lack is real and that one is so guilty that one deserves lack and loss. If we believe in lack and loss, then it will take form in the world and sometimes that will look like financial poverty, and sometimes it will look like a poverty of love, or of health. All these are just different forms of the belief in separation, the belief we could be separate from and different from our Creator.

As we allow these false thoughts to be corrected, we wake up from these beliefs and we see the world differently. What used to look like attack now seems to be merely the effect of a confused mind, and behind that confusion is perfect innocence. This is an indication, I think, that the world is shifting from sickness to a healed world, a happy world, a real world. It all happens within the mind because that is where everything exists.

“As you become willing to accept this Help by asking for It, you will give It because you want It.” All help comes through the Holy Spirit in our mind, and to receive that Help we need only ask for It. We can and are encouraged to ask all the time in every circumstance. Because I pay attention and am vigilant for the thoughts of ego that show up in my mind, I see them all the time. It can feel discouraging unless I turn to the Holy Spirit for It’s Help.

Sometimes I need to stop for just a moment and sit in silence as I wait for the healing I desire. I’m not good at silence, my mind is still too unruly for that, but evidently it doesn’t take the Holy Spirit long to do Its job. I accept the Help, and my mind becomes healed of some aspect of wrong minded thinking, and I am free until I notice another thought that still has meaning for me. When I value anything I am attracted to it and my belief in it makes it real for me. That is why I need help to release it, and all I need to do is want the help, want the release, and then accept it when it is offered.

“Nothing will be beyond your healing power, because nothing will be denied your simple request. What problems will not disappear in the Presence of God’s Answer?” There are no exceptions to God’s healing through His Answer, so I make no exceptions in what I ask. All errors are to be healed, no compromise in this.
I understand that the problem is the thought and belief behind the problem, the belief that is the cause of the effect I experience in my life. So as I become aware of the problem through paying attention to my feelings, I follow that problem to the belief that sourced it. For instance, if I am angry at someone, I ask the Holy Spirit for clarity about this, and He shows me my judgment which helps me to see the belief.

Or I become aware of what it is that this feeling triggers in me. Maybe I feel neglected or unfairly treated. Then I know that the feeling that I wanted to experience is of being neglected or abandoned, or unfairly treated. Once I know what it is that I want, I see the belief that caused it, the belief in unfairness, neglect, abandonment, which is just the belief that I am separate from God and His Creation, and then I can ask for God’s Answer to undo this.

“Ask, then, to learn of the reality of your brother, because this is what you will perceive in him, and you will see your beauty reflected in his.” Always, always, we come to this. To be healed, I must desire healing for all. I am never healed alone. The healing of the mind reveals my beauty but it must be revealed in my brother or I will remain unaware of it in myself.

My anger or frustration, any emotion that indicates I have judged my brother, is an indication that my mind needs to be healed. I am fully cognizant that it is never about him no matter how much proof I come up with to justify my judgment. The same thing applies to seeing my brother sick or poor or heartbroken. If I believe these things are him, I will block my own freedom.

I am learning that “caring” about my brother’s condition is not love. It is hate. It is sickness on my part. It is a sign that my mind remains sick and needs God’s Answer to heal it. When my mind looks on a sick brother and sees only a confused mind, I know that I am getting better. I know that my mind is healing.

When I look past his confusion and see only the beauty and magnificence that is his true nature, I know my mind is healed. I have had moments of this and am speaking from experience. I have not yet been able to hold onto this or see clearly in every case, so I know that I am not done. But I am willing, and so I continue to practice. I continue to ask for His Answer and to accept It as I can.

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Study of Text, Chapter 11: VIII: The Problem and the Answer, P 9. 12-8-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 9

9 Ask anything of God’s Son and his Father will answer you, for Christ is not deceived in His Father and His Father is not deceived in Him. Do not, then, be deceived in your brother, and see only his loving thoughts as his reality, for by denying that his mind is split you will heal yours. Accept him as his Father accepts him and heal him unto Christ, for Christ is his healing and yours. Christ is the Son of God Who is in no way separate from His Father, Whose every thought is as loving as the Thought of His Father by which He was created. Be not deceived in God’s Son, for thereby you must be deceived in yourself. And being deceived in yourself you are deceived in your Father, in Whom no deceit is possible.

Journal
Jesus says that when I believe something about our brother that is not true, then I believe the same about myself, and I am deceived in my Father as well. If I look at a sick brother and believe in his sickness, then I am deceived in him. If I hear him say something that seems misguided and believe in his confusion, then I am deceived in him. He is the Son of God and thus he has the truth in him and all else is an illusion. Let me see the truth rather than the illusion.

What I see in my brother I will see in myself. If I believe in sickness, for instance, it is inevitable that I will experience sickness because what I believe, is true for myself. If I think that someone attacks me, I believe in attack. I will then defend myself, and inevitably attack others. This is how we maintain the illusion, by believing in it.

Since I am created by God and thus forever a part of God, when I see something in my brother or myself that is not God, this is perceived in my mind as an attack on God. It feels like I am pulling myself out of God all over again. Or it feels like I redefining God, making Him something I want him to be, it feels like I am making myself creator of God. This necessarily triggers fear and guilt.

What a perfect reading for me this morning. I read a posting on Facebook that I strongly disagreed with. It felt like an attack on me because I saw it as an attack on my beliefs. Even as these thoughts were appearing in my mind, I knew they were nonsense. First, I saw that I had a strong personal opinion that I was defending as a truth. I saw the error in that. I don’t really know anything, and my assumptions are not the truth, so why would I want to defend them?

Second, I am not my beliefs, so why was I seeing this seeming attack on my beliefs as an attack on me? Obviously, I really do believe I am my beliefs. I let myself feel this reaction fully without trying to cover it up with the spiritual truths that I have learned. I noticed how fiercely I defended myself and how much rage was hiding behind the veil my spiritual ego uses to pretend it is a nice ego, too nice to be enraged.

I tried to push the attack thoughts aside. I tried to say that now that I see them, I can reject them and they will be gone. But they just kept popping up in words that sounded different, but were equally deceptive. This felt scary to me because what was I to do if I couldn’t let this go? Reading this paragraph helped a lot. I don’t want to be deceived in my brother, in myself or in God. I don’t want to believe that deception is in my brother or me and I certainly don’t want to believe it is in God.

I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind. I accepted the Atonement in this situation. Another way to say it is that I forgave myself and my error. I forgave my brother and my fear that in my ignorance I had offended God. The Holy Spirit wiped my mind clear of the offense. The facts are still there. I read what this person wrote, but there is no need for it to be different. There is nothing in me that wants to respond or correct or convince. In this situation, I am not deceived in my brother. As it turned out, the error was in my mind, not his, and it has been undone. I am free.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 11, VIII.The Problem and the Answer, P 8. 12-4-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 8

8 Beautiful child of God, you are asking only for what I promised you. Do you believe I would deceive you? The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. Believe that the truth is in me, for I know that it is in you. God’s Sons have nothing they do not share. Ask for truth of any Son of God, and you have asked it of me. Not one of us but has the answer in him, to give to anyone who asks it of him.

Journal
Sometimes I wonder how it is that I can ask for an answer to a problem and seem not to receive an answer. Jesus says that this cannot happen, so I think it is that I am asking the wrong question or that I don’t want the answer, or maybe I have decided how the answer must come and in what form.

When I was having so much trouble seeing my co-workers with Christ Vision, I kept asking for help. I said that I wanted my mind to be healed. I asked for my mind to be healed because I understood that the problem was in my mind, not in the workplace. But I still wanted them to be different. I wanted them to change to people I could like and enjoy working with.

So you see, the hold-up in getting the answer was my confusion about what I wanted. Eventually, I was able to let go of the confusion and to simply desire a healed mind. Miraculously, I began to enjoy my co-workers. They were just the kind of people I like to work with. And of course they are. They, as I know them, are just an illusion and an illusion I called forward. When I released that illusion, I experienced them in a new way.

Here is another example. I have a friend who drinks a lot. I think that she is on the edge, teetering between being a heavy drinker and being an alcoholic. It worries me, and it also makes me uncomfortable. Having lived with and around alcoholics I know how destructive this behavior is. It also brings up unpleasant memories for me.

My prayer for this situation was that her mind be healed. Ha ha. But I really did believe that the problem was out there in her behavior. I am not ever totally insane anymore so I asked the Holy Spirit to clarify this for me. I saw that the problem I have is twofold. First I don’t want all that unhealed and unforgiven past coming up to haunt me again. It is not healed because I don’t want to forgive it.

The second part is that I see her has having a problem, as being unhealed. This may be true in the story, but in my mind there was no distinction. She was my friend the alcoholic, or something near it. I saw her as damaged and possibly on her way to ruination. So, in essence, my prayer was something like this. “God, here is your alcoholic child. Heal her.” I wanted God to agree with my assessment of my friend and then do something about it.

I imagined God smiling gently and waiting for me to ask a reasonable question so He could answer it. Eventually I did so. I asked that my mind be healed. I chose to accept the Atonement for my self, forgiving the past so that I could see the present more clearly. I asked for help to see my friend in all her beautiful glory instead of this dark image I had made. As for what I could do in the story, I asked to be given the direction and words that would be helpful should that moment ever occur.

God always answers. I must ask a clear, reasonable question and I must be willing to hear the answer.

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Study of Text, Chapter 11, VIII.The Problem and the Answer, P 7. 12-3-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 7

7 Little child of God, you do not understand your Father. You believe in a world that takes, because you believe that you can get by taking. And by that perception you have lost sight of the real world. You are afraid of the world as you see it, but the real world is still yours for the asking. Do not deny it to yourself, for it can only free you. Nothing of God will enslave His Son whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by His Being. Blessed are you who are willing to ask the truth of God without fear, for only thus can you learn that His answer is the release from fear.

Journal
I am teaching myself to ask for the truth without fear. I watch my mind as I ask for healing and I notice if the asking is coming from fear or from love. If I see that I am asking with fear, I stop and think about being that little child approaching her Father with absolute trust knowing He loves her and wants only her good. I pause long enough to get that feeling, the openness and acceptance, the trust and love both given and received, just in the way it was when I was very young.

When I was a little child I asked my parents for what I wanted never considering that maybe this was not an appropriate thing to ask for, or that they would not want to give to me. I never asked myself if I deserved to receive. It never occurred to me that I would have to “pay” in some way to receive what I asked for.

I didn’t wonder how they could give me what I wanted, how it would come to me; I just asked and trusted. There was no fear in my asking. This is the attitude and the feeling that I am recovering. I am learning how to become as a little child again, and approach my Father with child-like innocent expectation. In doing this fear of God is falling away and joy is taking its place.

The ego mind is very distrustful of this openness and wants to close off again in the old defensive posture. It remembers how the world taught it to be suspicious and wary of other’s motivations and wants to protect against this. But I know that the ego defended against ego, and that while the ego mind thinks of itself as savior, it is actually the cause of what it would save me from. I am willing to know that I need no defense against God and so I continue my practice and allow my mind to be healed as I do so.

Holy Spirit, please help me today to be as a little child, open, trusting and joyful.

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Study of Text, Chapter 11, VIII.The Problem and the Answer, P 6. 12-2-15

VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 6

6 The Holy Spirit will give you only what is yours, and will take nothing in return. For what is yours is everything, and you share it with God. That is its reality. Would the Holy Spirit, Who wills only to restore, be capable of misinterpreting the question you must ask to learn His answer? You have heard the answer, but you have misunderstood the question. You believe that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit is to ask for deprivation.

Journal
I am drawn to that last sentence. I believe that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit is to ask for deprivation. Could that be true? I remember when I first started working on special relationships, especially those with my children. It took a long time for me to accept that the Holy Spirit wasn’t asking me to give up love when He asked me for those relationships.

I felt like Abraham offering the sacrifice of his son on the altar. When I told Him about my fear, He told me that He just wanted to take the elements that were not love, such as neediness, and that He would give the relationship back to me purified. At first it was hard to accept because I didn’t know how to truly love, so I was afraid of what it would mean for the relationship to change.

I have asked for help with body issues and noticed thoughts that indicate I believed that He wanted me to sacrifice. Maybe this pain or this sickness is to help me in some way. Maybe I am to remain sick for some good I don’t understand, as if God would teach through pain. So I would look in the world for an answer, the right doctor or the right medicine.

Then there are the more subtle fears. If I ask the Holy Spirit for everything, where does that leave the self? What would the self that I have thought of as me do if it did not make decisions? Do I want to abandon this little self I made? Would that be the ultimate sacrifice? I am learning to let that idea go.

First I am learning that I don’t want to make plans or decisions on my own. I am learning to ask for guidance in all things, and to wait for that guidance. I practice this as often as I can, and in so doing, I am learning that doing all things with God is not a sacrifice. In fact, I am learning that I don’t even know what would make me happy, much less how to achieve it so I need help.

Ultimately, and I am beginning to understand this, I am learning that there is no “by myself.” How could I do anything by myself if I live in God, and if I am one with God? How could I make decisions on my own when there is nothing but God? So what is happening when I think I am deciding on my own? I am dreaming. That’s all, just dreaming.

Giving up the dream is no sacrifice. I am giving up an illusion of separateness in favor of my divinity. I am giving up nothing so that I can remember that I have everything. All these little forms of surrender are important only in that they remind me that I can trust God, and they remind me of my reality. As I surrender the little self, the Holy Spirit gives me everything in its place, but I won’t recognize it as everything if I cling to the notion that the ego is valuable to me. I’m letting that go.

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