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Something I Learned at the ACIM Conference

Before we get back to our study of the Text, I want to tell you a bit about the conference. First, I have attended a number of these conferences, six, I think. This is the best one I have ever gone to. There was a sense of family and a feeling of love that is beyond any I have experienced before. That alone made it well worth the trip.

I presented at the conference and I always enjoy that. I like telling people about my experiences with the Course and I like hearing about theirs. I love the feeling of a family reunion as I meet up with people I only see at the conference, and the surprise of seeing in person my virtual friends. It is really neat how close I feel to my Facebook and Yahoo Group friends.

I attended some of the presentations. Each year I go, I try to attend the ones I have never seen before. The one that was most helpful to me this time was Diederik Wolsak’s. He had an interesting story beginning with being born in a concentration camp. Diederik has a healing place in Costa Rico called, Choose Again.

I learned in that class a six step process designed to help me find the problem in its original form, and to finally forgive it so that it doesn’t keep popping up in my life over and over. And it absolutely will reappear until it has been forgiven. I have certain beliefs that wind up being projected into my life in different forms; the same belief, that is the same content, just being imaged in different forms.

After I heard Diederik talk, and saw him work with his process with a volunteer, I had a chance to try it on myself. I was in the bookstore at my table peddling my book. ~smile~ A friend came by and got a copy. She gave me the price of the book and extra. I was very grateful for the loving gesture, but after she left, I realized that I should not have let her do it that way. Rev Tony buys the books himself and I receive a commission from the publisher. To take money for the book would be like stealing from CMC.

This was no problem because I could walk across the room and rectify the situation easily. But here is what happened. I happened to glance over at the next table and Regina Dawn Akers was sitting there and watching what happened. I suddenly felt awful. I felt upset that Regina might think I am a thief. I was so anxious about this that I couldn’t wait to get to the register and turn in the money.

I kept wanting to go to Regina and tell her that I would never steal anything. Instead I sat with that feeling and waited for Spirit to help me see it differently. This went on for awhile and finally I was aware of the thought that I should use Diederik’s process. So I did that.

The first thing it tells me to do is to recognize I am in conflict and the situation has purpose and will lead to joining if resolved. This part is easy for me because it has been my practice for a long time. I have to admit, though, that my first and strongest desire was simply to feel better. I had to remind myself that there was more to it, that healing the belief behind the upset was very important.

The second step is to remember that it is all about me. I am not upset because my friend caused a problem for me, or because Regina would judge me (which she wouldn’t). This is not about anyone except me. I am the one that decided to be upset, the one with the issue to be resolved, and the one who will ultimately decide to accept the solution or keep the problem. This was easy for me, too. I practice this all the time. I hear the ego objections and desire to project, but I always know it is about me.

Step three is to feel the feeling. This can be a little harder for me. I hid from my emotions for so long that sometimes I have a hard time identifying them, and I still want to avoid them. But as Diederik says, this is where honesty is essential. My own work has shown me that I must allow the feeling to take it past the concept and into an honest desire for healing. As it happens in this situation the feeling was obvious. I felt anxiety and guilt, and this was true even though I did not intentionally do anything wrong.

Now step four is new to me. I have never done this before. It says to remember when I have felt this way before. How is the feeling familiar? I am looking for the source of the feeling, the first time I felt that way. As soon as I heard about this step, I saw why it was important. If I hold something against myself, if I establish a belief about myself and fail to question that belief, I will continue to make images of it, which I then project outward as my life. I have seen this happen many times, but never put it together in quite this way.

So I asked within for the first time I felt this anxiety and guilt and felt judged as a thief. I was in first grade and I stole a bracelet from someone at school. Its funny, as I think about this from that little girl’s standpoint, I didn’t think of it as stealing. It was pretty and I wanted it so I took it. Later in the day the nuns went from room to room instilling guilt and shame and demanding the thief come forward.

That was when I recognized I was a thief and I was guilty for it. I was too ashamed to confess. I was afraid I would no longer be loved or accepted, especially by the nuns who were so important to me. They would be so disappointed in me. I took it home and put it away and never looked at it again, until my mom found it and confronted me and then there was more shame.

Step five is to establish my judgment of myself in that moment. I thought I was a thief and I was ashamed and afraid. I felt very guilty. I thought that I would never be loved again. And mostly, I felt like I deserved to be shunned, because I really did it, and to make matters worse, I didn’t confess like a good little Catholic should. I felt like a bad person.

Step six is the best step at all. It is in this step that I establish the truth about myself. All of my life I have held onto the belief that I am a bad person, and in spite of all the work I have done so far, there was this deeply held belief that I could never be enough, because, after all, I am guilty. This incident, and the self-judgment, that others reinforced, has affected me all this time. Now that I saw this, I was able to forgive myself.

I reminded myself that I am a creation of a powerful Force of Love. I was created in His image and cannot be anything else. I was created eternally perfect and this cannot ever be altered by anyone or anything, including me or my actions. I said to myself; I forgive myself for believing that I am unlovable, bad, and shameful. Afterwards, I felt innocent and free! It was wonderful!

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Body, Food, and Healing

I am at the conference now and don’t know how much time I will have to write, so except for the Daily Lessons, this is going to be hit and miss. However, I was “thinking on paper” this morning, and so I would like to share this with you.

Sometimes when I eat certain foods I get heartburn and this happened at the airport. I think as we get closer and closer to awakening, what we eat will no longer affect us. Nook Sanchez used to be sensitive to many different foods and when hosting her as a speaker it was an issue because if she ate the wrong things, she would get sick. But now she can eat anything without effect.

This makes sense when you realize the body is an illusion created by the mind. We make the illusion and we control the illusion. However, it does no good to use the ego mind to try to deny the illusion we have made. It doesn’t work that way. So as long as I have foods I can’t eat and as long as I suffer sickness and pain, I will do what I can do and be grateful for the magical solutions.

In the meantime, I will continue to allow my mind to be healed. So that means when I avoid a food, at the same time I give as much willingness as I have to the Holy Spirit to have my mind healed of the belief that I am a victim to food. I used to be allergic to peanuts and wheat and corn, potatoes, and a slew of other foods. I suffered terribly from these food allergies and many environmental allergies. Now I don’t. I became tired of suffering and got serious about healing.

I couldn’t find a doctor who believed I could be healed of all these allergies so I received my healing through an alternative healer, but it was a miracle I found this man and that it worked so well. Some others who went to him did not benefit so much. Sometimes we want to be free of our pain, but don’t truly want to be healed. If this is so, nothing will heal us. So even when we have to use outside agents to heal us or relieve our pain, it is only through our permission that this happens.

The more I wake up, the more astounded I become at our true nature, and I haven’t come close to experiencing that nature completely. We are all-powerful and what a joke we play on ourselves as we pretend to be so helpless before the body and the world we made. I have not been able to affect the body and the world with my ego mind except in small and undependable ways even though my thinking mind understands these concepts. To truly affect what we made, we must do so through the mind that made them, and with the Holy Spirit’s help.

So I continue to ask for the healing of the mind that made it all and as the Holy Spirit heals me in perfect timing, much falls away. The ego mind wants more to do than ask and receive and objects to its little part, but that is the only thing that works and any other action just gets in the way.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 6. 4-14-15

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 6
6 The ego depends solely on your willingness to tolerate it. If you are willing to look upon your grandeur you cannot despair, and therefore you cannot want the ego. Your grandeur is God’s answer to the ego, because it is true. Littleness and grandeur cannot coexist, nor is it possible for them to alternate. Littleness and grandiosity can and must alternate, since both are untrue and are therefore on the same level. Being the level of shift, it is experienced as shifting and extremes are its essential characteristic.

Journal
I am so encouraged when I read something like that first line. “The ego depends solely on your willingness to tolerate it.” I am free to stop listening to the ego thinking, and to listen to Holy Spirit instead. I am free to finally stop thinking the ego at all, and without my desire for it, the ego will cease to exist. When I believe the thoughts in my mind it seems like separation is very real, but it is not. That is why I question my thoughts. The Holy Spirit is the arbitrator in this questioning and His judgment is final.

The other thing in this paragraph that caught my attention is that littleness and grandiosity alternate. Yeah, no kidding! They alternate wildly sometimes. It has become more obvious to me lately because I have been paying attention. The ego does not care if I feel arrogant or if I despair at my worthlessness, as long as I see myself as separate and special.

I don’t really know how any of us remain even nominally sane considering how unstable a life based on separation is. I can be ridiculously proud of some completely unimportant accomplishment and think how much better I am than someone else, then in the next moment feel terribly guilty for that thought. The ego loves all this internal drama and it projects it outward and so life can feel like one drama after another.

Now that I am beginning to accept my reality, at least some of the time, the contrast is obvious. I can go for longer periods of time now, feeling more life my Self, and it is like being able to breathe freely after being short of breath for a long time. Or like the sun has come out after a lifetime of living in shadow. Perhaps it is a little scary because I still retreat into my littleness or grandiosity, but I think I could get used to my grandeur. ~smile~

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 5. 4-13-15

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 5
5 From your grandeur you can only bless, because your grandeur is your abundance. By blessing you hold it in your mind, protecting it from illusions and keeping yourself in the Mind of God. Remember always that you cannot be anywhere except in the Mind of God. When you forget this, you will despair and you will attack.

Journal
I remind myself that I am in the Mind of God. I do this often. Probably the reminder I use nearly every day is that My mind is part of God’s. I am very holy, and there is nothing my holiness cannot do. I bless others when I envelope them in my holiness. I use these reminders often because it is still easy for me to forget that I exist in the Mind of God.

Everything exists in the Mind of God or it doesn’t exist at all. If I see anything as existing outside the Mind of God, and I do this when I see guilt in anyone, I automatically eject myself from my Home. While I cannot actually do this, I can believe I do, and what I believe is real for me, and thus I suffer as if it were true.

The reason an absolute like this is easy for me to forget is because I chose to experience myself as outside the Mind of God, and then chose for the great amnesia to cover the truth. It makes for a very realistic experience, but it also makes it feel hard to recover my memories. I will be doing fine and then I will see something in the illusion that I am still attached to and, whoop! down the rabbit hole I go.

A Course in Miracles is my ladder out of the rabbit hole. When I am in despair, or when I am at war with myself or someone else, anytime I am not happy, I ask the Holy Spirit to correct my thinking, because I know that it is my thinking that attracted me to the rabbit hole to begin with. I will begin to remember what Jesus tells me through the Course, and with each true thought, I climb another rung until I am free of the insanity once more.

Sometimes, I just walk around that rabbit hole. One of these days I will stop peeking in to see if there is anything interesting there, and then I won’t slip in anymore. Soon, I hope. Every time I climb back out, I swear I am never going back in, and when my mind is clear, I can’t imagine choosing the ego again. I do see that I am not as attracted to what might be down that hole as I used to be and so don’t go there as often. I also see that it is easier to find the ladder than it used to be and that I am quicker to lose interest in ego thoughts, and that encourages me.

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

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 4. 4-10-15
4 The ego is immobilized in the presence of God’s grandeur, because His grandeur establishes your freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because you will give up all investment in it. Grandeur is totally without illusions, and because it is real it is compellingly convincing. Yet the conviction of reality will not remain with you unless you do not allow the ego to attack it. The ego will make every effort to recover and mobilize its energies against your release. It will tell you that you are insane, and argue that grandeur cannot be a real part of you because of the littleness in which it believes. Yet your grandeur is not delusional because you did not make it. You made grandiosity and are afraid of it because it is a form of attack, but your grandeur is of God, Who created it out of His Love.

Journal
Oh my gosh, Jesus has obviously been hanging out in my mind, looking at my thoughts. Or maybe we all have similar thoughts. My grandeur is real because I did not make it. It is mine simply because of who I am, simply because I was created in the image, as an extension of, my Father. It is mine because creation is eternal and unalterable, so I can only be what God created. If I were not grand, it would mean that God is not grand.  And yet, I hear compelling evidence from the ego that says this is pure arrogance on my part and is going to get me in big trouble if I don’t show some humility, and sometimes I listen and believe.

Humility, in the ego’s eyes, is the denial of truth. In God’s eyes, humility is stepping back from my own vision to accept His Vision. Humility is letting go of what I have believed about myself and accepting what I must be, that is, accepting my grandeur. I have done this and do it often, and yet, I still return to the false humility and to the grandiosity offered by ego. This is why Jesus tells us that the ego will react, and so we must protect our newfound understanding if we are to keep it. This is why I stay vigilant for ego attacks on my grandeur, and why I release those thoughts to the Holy Spirit every time I notice them.

In Lesson 100, I am being asked to accept happiness as my natural state. This is my function as I accept my part in God’s plan for salvation. I wrote about this in my journal, and it is also an example of protecting my grandeur. Here is what I wrote.

Today, my goal is to be happy. My happiness will heal the world. My smile will heal the world. This should be a goal that I eagerly embrace and I do, but not before I sat with this lesson for my first five minutes. I didn’t go to sleep happy, and I didn’t wake up happy. I have had some back pain and leg pain, the first time in a long time, and I have ignored the idea of healing.

My brother who is in prison is sick and has asked me to make calls to the prison on his behalf to get the treatment he needs. It has not been going smoothly. I have more to do at work than ever, and I have to get everything ready for the conference. This morning, I realized that I need to make plane reservations and other plans for a workshop I will be doing shortly after the conference.

A lot has changed at work and I am having to adjust to the changes. The most discouraging and upsetting of all is that I am aware that I have been resisting some of these lessons. I have been doing them, and I have received a lot of benefit, but I have also been resistant. I hate when this happens because it feels like I am at war with myself. How can I win if I am my own enemy?

The strongest resistance occurred the other day while doing one of the lessons. I had great success. I experienced something that was not an effect of the ego thinking, something the ego self could take no credit for. It was a small thing not lasting but a few moments, but it was wonderful, and it was important. It represented my desire to awaken. The ego mind went from suspicious to vicious in less than a minute.

That is when everything became a problem I couldn’t solve. Looking at it this morning after the meditation, I see that I brought into this story of Myron all sorts of problems and upsets and distractions. Anything that would stop this spiral toward awakening that was scaring the ego mind. So when the lesson said that my goal was to be happy today, I felt like it was the one more thing that was just too much and I couldn’t do it.

But I am not alone in this. I do have much Help. My Help whispered in my heart to just do the meditation as suggested, and not to worry about it. I sat there with my hand on my heart and I called for help. I poured out all my fears and disappointments and discouragements. And as I did so, I realized that I was sinking past these thoughts as I named them. I remembered that peace and joy are in me because God put them there, so how could I fail to find them?

Again, there were no bright flashes of lights or fanfares of any kind, but it was like the sun had come from behind a cloud and illuminated my thinking. I saw how all my problems were just thoughts in my mind, and that everything is fine. I saw the confusion in my mind unravel and everything became clear and simple.

Happy, happy, joy, joy! I can’t help but smile and laugh now. Nothing had really happened except that I let the ego mind lead me back into its darkness, into fear and guilt and doubt. And now I have returned to reality because it is my desire to take my part in God’s plan for salvation, and nothing can thwart the desire of a Son of God.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 3. 4-9-15

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P
3 The ego does not understand the difference between grandeur and grandiosity, because it sees no difference between miracle impulses and ego-alien beliefs of its own. I told you that the ego is aware of threat to its existence, but makes no distinctions between these two very different kinds of threat. Its profound sense of vulnerability renders it incapable of judgment except in terms of attack. When the ego experiences threat, its only decision is whether to attack now or to withdraw to attack later. If you accept its offer of grandiosity it will attack immediately. If you do not, it will wait.

Journal
This morning I am thinking about grandiosity as attack. Why are these two ideas connected? Is attack always associated with grandiosity? I thought about the idea that I am a very good sales person. I saw that just that thought is an attack on myself. As soon as I say it, I think of times when I haven’t succeeded in sales, and I feel a tinge of fear that it is not always true or that I will fail in the future. I have defined myself in a way that is not shifts and changes and so it will always produce fear.

Then there is also the attack on others. When I see myself as a good sales person it is a comparative judgment. I am good compared to someone who is not so good. That is a subtle attack, but attack always produces fear. What if someone better comes along, as inevitably happens? Then comparatively, I am not so good.

Sometimes the attack is more overt as I try to make the other person look incompetent, so that I look better. When that happens I feel worse, but then project it onto the competition so that I can see it as someone else’s fault, which is just another way to attack. Regardless, I must always be trying harder so that I don’t lose my standing. My life will have a constant low level of stress even when things are going well.

More important than any of that is that competition increases the sense of separation that is the source of all attack. To be better than, I must be separate from, and this is painful even when I am not aware of the source of the pain. Separation in any form is separation from God and even though that is an impossibility, that feeling of being separate from God is the cause of all suffering. Clearly, anything that causes stress, anxiety, fear or suffering of any kind or degree is an attack. Anything, which increases my sense of separation, is an attack. Grandiosity does both things.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 2. 4-8-15

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 2
2 Grandiosity is always a cover for despair. It is without hope because it is not real. It is an attempt to counteract your littleness, based on the belief that the littleness is real. Without this belief grandiosity is meaningless, and you could not possibly want it. The essence of grandiosity is competitiveness, because it always involves attack. It is a delusional attempt to outdo, but not to undo. We said before that the ego vacillates between suspiciousness and viciousness. It remains suspicious as long as you despair of yourself. It shifts to viciousness when you decide not to tolerate self-abasement and seek relief. Then it offers you the illusion of attack as a “solution.”

Journal
I have really been reviewing some of my uses for grandiosity since yesterday. Memories of past behaviors and present day attempts to counteract my littleness just pop up in my awareness and I see what Jesus is talking about here. “Thank you, Brother, for this help.” Here is a memory that was perfect for understanding what happens with the grandiosity and why it happens. I truly saw that it was a cover for despair, despair that I was lost and didn’t know how to be found.

The memory was from many years ago, long before A Course in Miracles. I used to study astrology through the courses offered by the Rosicrucian’s.  I was good at the study part, but only so-so at the ability to discern the deeper meanings. But it kept me busy and I enjoyed it. I was showing my sister in law a chart I had made and was explaining what each placement indicated.

There was something in the chart I was having trouble interpreting and she said something that was very perceptive. I distinctly remember feeling attacked. How could she know more than me when she had never studied and when this was her first look at astrology. I brushed her off and closed the book. The image that I had made for myself as “the one who knows” was threatened by her desire to join with me in this pursuit.

Immediately, I felt ashamed and for a long time after felt that shame acutely whenever I thought about it. I also came to regret the opportunity lost to share this study with her. Later, through doing the Lessons and studying the Course, I understood why I reacted the way I did and I forgave myself. Now when I think of that time, I see it as a valuable learning opportunity. Today, it is a good example, a way to understand this paragraph.

I still have moments of grandiosity, but as I notice them, I also realize why I felt that way, what I was trying to cover up, and I know that the littleness I am afraid of is an illusion. I am able to allow healing so much faster now, and am even able most times to undo what I did if in my fear I actually spoke aloud. For instance, if that incident with my sister in law had happened now, I would have very quickly turned it around and asked her to tell me more. I would probably even tell her how impressed I am with her.

Another time I have seen grandiosity in myself is after giving a good talk. My adrenaline would be going and I would feel so successful that I had done a good job and people liked what I said. Often afterward I would say something that I would later regret because it came from the excited ego.

This doesn’t happen as much anymore because I have become clear that the only thing I can say that matters comes not from me, but through me. I ask what it is I am to say. I remind myself frequently to check in to be sure I am being an open channel and not adding from my ego. I might still feel the physical affect of adrenal in the body and I often feel joy that occurs from that close connection with Spirit. But the ego part is not there and that is such a relief.

When the ego is running the show I am in grandiosity rather than in my grandeur. I might do just fine during the talk because I always do put Spirit in charge of that, but it is afterward when someone says how much they enjoyed it and how much it helped them that the ego tries to slip in and take credit for it and that is not a pleasant feeling, and the results are often disappointing as well.

When I am allowing only Spirit to be in charge, I don’t care about how it is accepted. I am there only to be truly helpful and I trust that I have been. Even if someone were to dispute what I said it would only mean that it was helpful in a way neither that person nor I could discern at this time. Basically, what anyone thinks, good or bad, is none of my business. When I know this, there is no desire to defend anything. What happens then is that whatever is said to me I see as love, regardless of the words.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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