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Study of Text, Chapter10: THE IDOLS OF SICKNESS, Introduction P 3. 5-5-15

Introduction P3
3 God does not change His Mind about you, for He is not uncertain of Himself. And what He knows can be known, because He does not know it only for Himself. He created you for Himself, but He gave you the power to create for yourself so you would be like Him. That is why your mind is holy. Can anything exceed the Love of God? Can anything, then, exceed your will? Nothing can reach you from beyond it because, being in God, you encompass everything. Believe this, and you will realize how much is up to you. When anything threatens your peace of mind, ask yourself, “Has God changed His Mind about me?” Then accept His decision, for it is indeed changeless, and refuse to change your mind about yourself. God will never decide against you, or He would be deciding against Himself.

Journal
I, as Myron, cannot actually wrap my mind around the idea that I am like God, and part of God. But I, the I that is not the ego, is beginning to accept this. No matter how much sense this paragraph makes, the thinking mind can only understand the concept, but cannot know it. I am beginning to know it because I open my heart to it. I step back as a thinker and I allow the Holy Spirit to awaken me. I am beginning to remember.

I still fall back into the ego. In fact, I feel like I jump back and forth all the time. But I know something monumental is happening. I read a paragraph like this and I believe what it says and I feel joy rising up in me. I go into the world and I fail to live it, but I am aware of it and that awareness changes everything. I get angry, but only briefly. I get worried or upset, and then I laugh at myself. So I know the healing is taking place.

I love the idea that today I am going to question anything that I allow to rob me of peace. “Has God changed His Mind about me?” That is all I need to do, I just question and choose to be wrong about whatever it is I brought into my life that threatens my peace of mind. Because I know now that I am the cause of all that happens in my world, I know that I am the one that chooses against it. Then the Holy Spirit can then undo what I have done.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: THE IDOLS OF SICKNESS, Introduction P 2. 5-4-15

Introduction P 2
2 God created nothing beside you and nothing beside you exists, for you are part of Him. What except Him can exist? Nothing beyond Him can happen, because nothing except Him is real. Your creations add to Him as you do, but nothing is added that is different because everything has always been. What can upset you except the ephemeral, and how can the ephemeral be real if you are God’s only creation and He created you eternal? Your holy mind establishes everything that happens to you. Every response you make to everything you perceive is up to you, because your mind determines your perception of it.

Journal
I am as God created me, and I am this eternally without exception. I am like God because God created me like Him. Nothing that is unlike God exists. “Nothing beyond Him can happen, because nothing except Him is real.” So all the things I see and do and believe cannot be real if they are unlike God. I must be dreaming, living an illusion.

Because of what I am as God’s Son, I can choose to experience even that which is not real. If I am experiencing something, it is because I chose to do so.  My holy mind establishes everything that happens to me. My responses to what happens to me are determined by my perceptions and my perceptions are determined by my mind. I am completely responsible in every way for all that I see and how I see it.

Perhaps at one time this would have felt oppressive. I do remember feeling overwhelmed at times and asking Holy Spirit to help me. Two things happened that helped me to see it all differently, and to accept the responsibility that is clearly mine. The first was that I realized I am responsible for the world I see, but I am not guilty for it.

The only reason I was running from the responsibility, trying to project it onto others is because I thought I was guilty. It was the guilt that was oppressing me, not the responsibility. Once I realized that I could not be guilty, and could accept at least to some degree that I am the completely free Son of God and can have any experience I want, I felt the burden of guilt lift and I could breathe again.

Once I was not afraid of my responsibility I could see that this knowledge was my salvation. If I am responsible for everything that means I can change my mind and undo what has been done. If my holy mind established everything I presently see, it can establish that which I now prefer to see. I do this through the Holy Spirit in my mind.

And that brings me to the second really important understanding. I do not heal my mind; the Holy Spirit does that on my behalf. I have an essential role to play, and that is to understand I need healing and then to desire and accept that healing. The rest is accomplished without my help. I think of this as setting aside all thinking, all active participation. I sit quietly in God and invite healing to take place. I open to healing and I allow it to happen.

It sounds so easy, and it is easy. Yet, I still see lots of resistance. I see the ego mind trying to take a bigger part. I see fear that nothing this easy could be valuable. I see myself choosing to stay in the story, find a solution there, being the one who succeeds. But I also see myself returning, over and over, to that quiet place in my mind, inviting the truth to join me there.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 11. 4-29-15

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 11
11 Yet if truth is indivisible, your evaluation of yourself must be God’s. You did not establish your value and it needs no defense. Nothing can attack it nor prevail over it. It does not vary. It merely is. Ask the Holy Spirit what it is and He will tell you, but do not be afraid of His answer, because it comes from God. It is an exalted answer because of its Source, but the Source is true and so is its answer. Listen and do not question what you hear, for God does not deceive. He would have you replace the ego’s belief in littleness with His Own exalted Answer to what you are, so that you can cease to question it and know it for what it is.
Journal
I don’t know what to say about this. Jesus wants me to ask the Holy Spirit what I am and to believe His answer rather than my own. I cried as I read this. I cried because I want the answer. I want to know what I am. I cry that I am not the little self that the ego wants me to believe in. In fact, I am something else altogether, something very different. Mostly I cry because I am afraid to ask. What if I don’t hear anything at all?

Jesus told me to ask anyway, and suggested I simply allow the answer to come as it will and when it will. He said to open my heart to the answer and then step away from both question and answer. Step away and trust. I trust that the answer will be exalted because of its Source and that it will be true, because of its Source. I trust that I will receive an answer because it is my true desire to know my Self.

I see the wisdom in stepping aside now that the question has been asked. It is still too easy for me to slip back into the ego thinking mind and that is not going to bring me an answer. It will only interfere with it as the ego adds its own confused thoughts. I know the concept of what I am, but what I want is a true knowing, not just an idea I am willing to embrace, but a knowing that goes all the way to the Heart, to the center of my being. I gladly release the personal self I made so that the Self can take its place. I am willing, and where my will is not strong, I am willing to be willing

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 10. 4-28-15

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 10
10 You are altogether irreplaceable in the Mind of God. No one else can fill your part in it, and while you leave your part of it empty your eternal place merely waits for your return. God, through His Voice, reminds you of it, and God Himself keeps your extensions safe within it. Yet you do not know them until you return to them. You cannot replace the Kingdom, and you cannot replace yourself. God, Who knows your value, would not have it so, and so it is not so. Your value is in God’s Mind, and therefore not in yours alone. To accept yourself as God created you cannot be arrogance, because it is the denial of arrogance. To accept your littleness is arrogant, because it means that you believe your evaluation of yourself is truer than God’s.

Journal
I think this paragraph is the clearest yet. Jesus tells us that it is not arrogance to accept myself as God created me. Quite the opposite, actually. True arrogance is insisting that I have changed Reality. I have made myself different than God created me. I used to think that this was possible because God gave me free will.

Now I understand that I am free to have any experience I want, but I am not free to change the unchangeable.  I think of it like this. I am free to break the law, but I am not free to change the law. I am free to jump off a mountain, but I am not free to suspend gravity. In the same way, I am free to play the part of a separate body in a world of separation, but I am not free to change God.

Jesus is helping us to remember that God is whole and indivisible. He is eternal and unchangeable. We are so accustomed to the shifting changing nature of the world we made, that it is hard for us to grasp the unchangeable, but this is the nature of Reality. We are part of God, and there is nothing that can alter that. We are irreplaceable in the mind of God. The Voice for God reminds us of this truth.

Our extensions are held safe in the Mind of God as well. They wait for our return. Do you begin to understand what you are as you read this? Do you get just a tiny taste of your grandeur? I sit here in the quiet and peace of early morning and I contemplate my grandeur. It seems odd to think of myself this way, but if this is God’s Will for me then it must be true.

I can imagine this life of Myron as a story unfolding in my mind. I can participate in the story while remembering that it is not a true story, just imagination. Then I get up from my desk to get dressed. I realize I can’t wear my favorite pants because I gained weight, and I feel like an idiot for eating every desert in front of me. I wonder what is wrong with me that I think life isn’t worth living without ice cream.

And once again I have embraced my littleness, forgetting all about my grandeur, which now seems like a faraway dream of something impossible. I opened a document at random earlier this morning, and this is what I read.

“I looked in the mirror and instead of thinking, “This is my body,” I thought, “This is an image I have made.” Then I followed it back to the source of the image. “This is an out picturing of a desire I have.” I had a desire and I made an image of that desire and I projected the image as the body of Myron. Looking again at the image I made, I had to ask myself a different question; “What was I thinking!”

I giggled at that thought, but it is a good question and the key to my second way of using this lesson. (Lesson 325) What was I thinking? If I look around at my world I can ask myself this question about each image. Is the image I made a reflection of the Love that I am? Is it worthy of the Son of God?

It is perfectly ok for me to project a body, but the body I project tells me something about the beliefs I am holding. If I want a slimmer, healthier body and that is not the image I have made there must be a disconnect someplace. Do I think I am not worthy of the body I want? Do I think I am too guilty to have that body?

Evidently I still need to be convinced of what I am. I am the holy Son of God. I am perfect in every way because this is how I was created. In my creation God gave Himself to me, so I must be worthy. Guilt cannot be real because it is not what God gave me as Himself; it is not part of God. So it must be an artifact of the separation idea, and therefore I am free to let that idea go. It is a false idea that I have been renting space to in my mind. It is a bad tenant and its time to evict it.

Now when I look in the mirror if I am not happy with the image I made, I know that there is a belief in my mind that is obscuring my reality. I know that it is guilt that must be undone. This is the same thing I knew before. I have been looking at guilt thoughts and asking for healing for a while, but now that I understand how all things I see reflect ideas in my mind, I can see in some of these images the guilt that colored them. “

That was pretty good guidance to read this particular writing today, Holy Spirit. Thanks.  I need to think about these things to remind me that what I look on is not reality. It is just an idea in my mind. What I am is an eternal, divine being. I am part of God. I am irreplaceable in the Mind of God. What could that body in the mirror be but a strange idea I thought to experience. As I watch it play out I invite the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, to gently wake me up from this dreamy experience I am having.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 9. 4-24-15

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 9
9 Can your grandeur be arrogant when God Himself witnesses to it? And what can be real that has no witnesses? What good can come of it? And if no good can come of it the Holy Spirit cannot use it. What He cannot transform to the Will of God does not exist at all. Grandiosity is delusional, because it is used to replace your grandeur. Yet what God has created cannot be replaced. God is incomplete without you because His grandeur is total, and you cannot be missing from it.

Journal
Jesus is going to a lot trouble to convince me that it is ok for me to claim my grandeur. He must know that I will be uncertain about that. I have been taught that it is arrogant to think of myself in those terms, even sacrilegious. If I see myself as the Son of God; if I claim my holiness and use that holiness; if I accept that I am, indeed, the savior of the world, will I be slapped down and put into my place?

Will I be taking a huge chance in drawing attention to myself? After all, I have spent all of time hiding from God, keeping a low profile so I won’t be noticed. I have pointed to my brother as the guilty one. Now I suddenly stand up straight and claim my inheritance. That is quite a difference, and the ego is warning me against this. But Jesus says that not only is this acceptable, it is my function. I am to be the light of the world. By fulfilling my function I am saving not only myself but all of the Sonship with me.

I am irreplaceable in the Mind of God. I am loved forever. I begin to remember this is true as I allow my mind to be healed and as I allow my brother’s grandeur to be revealed to me. As I see my brother in all his glory, I finally accept my own grandeur. I return my awareness to the Mind of God where I truly exist.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 8. 4-23-15

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P8
8 It is easy to distinguish grandeur from grandiosity, because love is returned and pride is not. Pride will not produce miracles, and will therefore deprive you of the true witnesses to your reality. Truth is not obscure nor hidden, but its obviousness to you lies in the joy you bring to its witnesses, who show it to you. They attest to your grandeur, but they cannot attest to pride because pride is not shared. God wants you to behold what He created because it is His joy.

Journal
I used to believe the ego when it told me I was less than others. This was the lie most familiar to me and the one I found easiest to believe. So when the ego offered me grandiosity, it was a nice change and so I would readily accept it. It was harder for me to believe so I would look for proof to sustain the belief. When I would receive compliments I would see this as the proof I needed, and when none came I would be devastated.

In order to accept grandiosity, I had to see someone else as less than and that is an attack on that one, and also on me because I had to believe we were separate in order to do this.  Here is an example. When I first started teaching I would ask Spirit to speak through me and the student would like what he heard. He would remark on how helpful I was, and I would feel pride.

I would be relieved because I was so unsure of myself and I compared myself to other teachers who seemed so much better than me. So this offering of grandiosity felt like a real boon to me, but it was always followed by the ego’s other offering, littleness. I would realize that I had taken the Holy Spirit’s credit, even if it were only in my mind. I would feel guilty for that and afraid.

I would feel bad because my need to be “better than” was an attack on every other teacher. It was like I was standing on them in order to appear bigger. I felt depressed because I was teaching myself that separation is real and that the only way to succeed in the world is to hurt others, or at least to be seen as better than others. I wasn’t allowing myself to be aware of all this, but I knew it. We always know what is happening even as we hide that knowledge from ourselves.  As with all ego gifts, the grandiosity came with a high price tag.

I kept doing the work though, and my mind was healed more and more. Now when I teach and I receive compliments, I know that Holy Spirit came through me clearly. I am so grateful for that, and so pleased to be doing my part. I don’t need to be better than anyone else. I just need to do what I am guided to do, and each other teacher does what they are guided to do. Together we offer what is needed. One person needs to hear what I allowed through, and someone else needs to hear what another teacher offered. All the parts come together as a whole.

I am not afraid to say that I sometimes channel fairly clearly what is given. I don’t feel proud, I feel joyous. It is not grandiosity because it is not of the little ego me. I am simply stepping out of the way as much as I can to allow something to come through. That is my grandeur. I am God’s Son, His holy child. I am part of the Christ Mind. I am the light of the world and it is my function to save the world. The ego thinks this is grandiosity, but it is simple truth.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 7. 4-22-15

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 7
7 Truth and littleness are denials of each other because grandeur is truth. Truth does not vacillate; it is always true. When grandeur slips away from you, you have replaced it with something you have made. Perhaps it is the belief in littleness; perhaps it is the belief in grandiosity. Yet it must be insane because it is not true. Your grandeur will never deceive you, but your illusions always will. Illusions are deceptions. You cannot triumph, but you are exalted. And in your exalted state you seek others like you and rejoice with them.

Journal
I felt exalted at the conference, and I surrounded myself with others like me. And we certainly celebrated! We celebrated the Family that is Christ, that is us. We celebrated the Love that we are and that we are all about. Was there some grandiosity and some littleness in there? Probably. It is hard to avoid completely while there is still some confusion about who we are. The mind returns to the familiar ego thinking when we become careless, at least for awhile. I think when we wake up and live from that awakened state, that surely we don’t keep sliding back and forth.

I made the self that wants to be grand and that is afraid it is little and I can release that self anytime I want. I don’t need to fight the ego because to do so would be to say the ego is real and a worthy opponent. It is neither.  Awakening is a matter of wanting to return home more than I want to remain here. It is a matter of desire that is single minded rather than the wishing and hoping of the split mind. Today’s paragraph and today’s lesson go well together. The following is a commitment I made for today when I did my lesson.

Today I will remind myself of the truth. I will think about my true nature as the perfect child of a perfect God. I will think about being Love and about how much my Father loves me. I will think about how much I miss my real Life and how much I want to be Home. I will think how blessed I am that I am eternal and unalterable and I will be glad.

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