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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VII. The Two Evaluations, P 4. 3-25-15

VII. The Two Evaluations, P 4
4 You, then, have two conflicting evaluations of yourself in your mind, and they cannot both be true. You do not yet realize how completely different these evaluations are, because you do not understand how lofty the Holy Spirit’s perception of you really is. He is not deceived by anything you do, because He never forgets what you are. The ego is deceived by everything you do, especially when you respond to the Holy Spirit, because at such times its confusion increases. The ego is, therefore, particularly likely to attack you when you react lovingly, because it has evaluated you as unloving and you are going against its judgment. The ego will attack your motives as soon as they become clearly out of accord with its perception of you. This is when it will shift abruptly from suspiciousness to viciousness, since its uncertainty is increased. Yet it is surely pointless to attack in return. What can this mean except that you are agreeing with the ego’s evaluation of what you are?

Journal
I am beginning to see myself from the Holy Spirit’s point of view. My mind is still conflicted, because when the ego responds, and as Jesus says, some of those responses are vicious, I still find myself believing the ego. My actions and words and thoughts seem to justify the ego viewpoint of me as unloving.

On the other hand, I am also becoming aware that I am not what the ego insists I am. It is hard to put into words because there is still some confusion around the issue. But I will speak to someone, or react to someone and realize that this is not the “me” I used to think I was. I am just not what the ego says I am.

I do feel connected and I do feel forgiving and loving. I see neediness instead of love and I see myself gravitating toward special love, and yet, I feel genuine love, real love that is not just for some people and I feel love that asks for nothing in return. I am becoming aware of both evaluations, and often I am choosing to believe the Holy Spirit’s evaluation, if not completely, at least enough to see how different this feels.

In the meantime, I am learning to open my heart to what I do not yet know completely. I am learning to step back in a way I have not done so in the past. I step back from understanding with my mind, and allow understanding to flood my heart. I trust it even if I don’t experience it in a way that is familiar. I seem to “know” that something just happened, and with time I see the change unfold within me. I see it in my actions and reactions and in my feelings.

First there was a little willingness that grew. Then lots of practice and great vigilance. Finally, I began to allow and accept. And now, this opening of the heart which is a deeper allowance and acceptance, something that happens without the thinking mind being involved at all. It is still new and I ask Jesus for help with it because it is so unfamiliar, but I like this.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VII. The Two Evaluations P 3. 3-24-15

VII. The Two Evaluations, P 3
3 It is perfectly obvious that if the Holy Spirit looks with love on all He perceives, He looks with love on you. His evaluation of you is based on His knowledge of what you are, and so He evaluates you truly. And this evaluation must be in your mind, because He is. The ego is also in your mind, because you have accepted it there. Its evaluation of you, however, is the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit’s, because the ego does not love you. It is unaware of what you are, and wholly mistrustful of everything it perceives because its perceptions are so shifting. The ego is therefore capable of suspiciousness at best and viciousness at worst. That is its range. It cannot exceed it because of its uncertainty. And it can never go beyond it because it can never be certain.

Journal
Now that I have spent some years observing this phenomenon it seems very clear to me which voice I listen to at any one time. I am aware of thoughts in my mind that are clearly ego based and thoughts that I know come from my holy Self. I also have thoughts that I am unsure of as I am sure many people do. Thoughts that are not clearly ego or Spirit. It is especially confusing if I have a horse in the race, that is, if I want a particular thing to be true.

One thing that I am certain of is that I can gain clarity if I really want it. I ask Holy Spirit for His interpretation and then I quiet my mind a moment in preparation for receiving it. If I don’t feel an answer right away, I simply wait for it. The answer will show up. Sometimes it comes through someone else or through a book. Sometimes it just bubbles up at a perfect time. I have a thought and I know that thought is the truth and that it did not come from the ego mind.

I have also experienced the ego at its most vicious. There are two times this seems to happen. Sometimes I will start paying attention to the ego and before you know it, I am drowning in ego thoughts and I don’t know which way is up. This is when the ego can get vicious. It has my full attention and I feel vulnerable to its worse thoughts.

The other time it happens is when I have been doing really well, studying the Course, practicing what I study, really living it. I am consciously and deliberately turning from the ego and focusing my attention on the Voice for God. Then I suddenly feel depressed, or enraged, or I get sick. It is the ego response to the loss of my attention. The ego is the part of the mind that does not want to awaken from the dream, and it will throw up roadblocks to keep me involved. If the ego feels threatened by my spiritual growth, those are the times it is most vicious in its response.

An advantage I have is that I have seen it all before. I have been doing this for a long time and while I can become temporarily confused and even temporarily afraid of my confusion, I never completely believe it anymore. So I am much calmer about it now, and that helps me to reach clarity again much faster.

I understand now that the ego has no power over me. The ego did not make me; I made it. It cannot prevail against me. I used to think that sometimes I would fall into an ego storm, but now I realize that it takes my active corporation. I generally hide that from myself, but the truth is, I don’t slip unawares into ego, I jump into the storm. Coming to my senses, I simply step out of it.

I do this by asking the Holy Spirit to help me see. For instance, yesterday I became frustrated about work. It seemed that time was getting away from me and I couldn’t see how to get everything done. I felt my peace and happiness slipping away. So I stopped and asked Holy Spirit to help me see it differently.

I remembered that there is only one problem and that one problem isn’t a lack of time. The one problem is the belief that I am separate from God. That problem has been solved. This seeming problem with time is just an echo of the past belief that there are many problems that I must solve.

I remembered that the world with all its problems is just an image I have made. I no longer have a problem because it has been solved and so I there is no longer a need for me to make these images. They are no longer valid. I sat while this truth penetrated my heart and felt peace return. I allowed my mind to hear the Holy Spirit’s evaluation of me. I am whole and complete and need nothing. I am God’s holy Son, His beloved Son. I am not ego. I am, with my brothers, the Christ.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VII. The Two Evaluations P 2. 3-23-15

VII. The Two Evaluations, P 2
2 Consider, then, that in this joint will you are all united, and in this only. There may be disagreement on anything else, but not on this. This, then, is where peace abides. And you abide in peace when you so decide. Yet you cannot abide in peace unless you accept the Atonement, because the Atonement is the way to peace. The reason is very simple, and so obvious that it is often overlooked. The ego is afraid of the obvious, since obviousness is the essential characteristic of reality. Yet you cannot overlook it unless you are not looking.

Journal
I want to be happy and you want to be happy. On this we can agree. We may feel unworthy of happiness at times, but we still want it. In our agreement, peace abides and we can abide there, too. All it takes is a decision to do so. In that decision, we choose to accept the Atonement. We choose to allow the ego to be undone for us, because there is no other way to be at peace, and no other way to be happy.

This section is going to help us look at what should be obvious, but what we have overlooked since we make the world we see and all that is part of it. We are going to look at the two evaluations, the Holy Spirit’s evaluation of us, and the ego’s evaluation. What we want to remember is that we are always agreeing with one or the other.

There is no third choice, no neutral ground. And which we agree with is a matter of decision. Our decision changes nothing in reality, because what God created cannot be changed. But our choice is important because choosing to agree with the ego prolongs our suffering. We have closed our eyes to the truth long enough. We have suffered long enough.

Let us look with eyes wide open at the two evaluations that Jesus is presenting to us. Today, I make a commitment to see what is obvious. As I read this section, I open my mind to what Jesus is telling us. I commit to staying aware during the day so that I will see how this applies in my life, how I have been accepting the ego’s evaluation. I commit to opening my heart so that I can fully receive the Holy Spirit’s evaluation instead.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VII. The Two Evaluations P 1. 3-20-15

VII. The Two Evaluations
1 God’s Will is your salvation. Would He not have given you the means to find it? If He wills you to have it, He must have made it possible and easy to obtain it. Your brothers are everywhere. You do not have to seek far for salvation. Every minute and every second gives you a chance to save yourself. Do not lose these chances, not because they will not return, but because delay of joy is needless. God wills you perfect happiness now. Is it possible that this is not also your will? And is it possible that this is not also the will of your brothers?

God’s Will is my salvation so of course it is both possible and easy to obtain. The problem is separation so the answer is union.  Not that we have to achieve union, but that we must stop resisting union and accept it as a fact. We are joined. We are one. Denying union is the way we reject salvation. Pretending we are separate is the way we delay our happiness.

I have been doing the grievance lessons and it has made me very conscious of the grievances I hold. In these lessons, Jesus says that grievances keep me from knowing God. He says that those who hold grievances will suffer guilt, that they will forget who they are. He says I am the light of the world, but that my grievances hide that light. He also says that the ego’s plan for salvation centers around holding grievances.

In Lesson 71, he says: “Holding grievances is the opposite of God’s plan for salvation. And only His plan will work.” I want salvation. I want to awaken and remember my Self. I want to remember my creations. I want to feel my union with God, and to do that I must first accept my union with my brothers. I can do that only through releasing all grievances.

Noticing that I still have many grievances was discouraging. I really didn’t realize that was true. But as I think of it, I realize that if I believe in guilt, I will project that guilt onto someone else. That is how grievances are born. The encouraging part of this is that I don’t actually have to undo every individual grievance. I can use the grievances I am aware of to remind me that there is healing that needs to be done. I can use them to practice releasing grievances and to experience the relief and joy that comes as I release them, and so motivate myself to accept salvation.

What I understand from doing these lessons is that the shortcut to salvation is to understand that my grievances not only stand between me and salvation, but they are completely unnecessary. I am not guilty. I have nothing to project. It is all a ridiculous misunderstanding. Separation is not a sin because it is not real. I did nothing, and therefore I did nothing wrong. I am merely pretending to do the impossible.

Since I am not guilty there is no need to project, and without projection there is no grievance. Without guilt, projection and grievances, there is no need to prolong the dream of separation. I am innocent and God welcomes me Home. I have nothing to fear and so I gladly return Home. Each time I notice a grievance, big or small, I open my heart to my brother. I invite him in and envelope him in our holiness. Maybe I still have grievances and maybe it is more than I realized, but each one is a chance to save myself, and my brother with me.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 7. 3-18-15

VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 7
7 Eternity is one time, its only dimension being “always.” This cannot mean anything to you until you remember God’s open Arms, and finally know His open Mind. Like Him, you are “always”; in His Mind and with a mind like His. In your open mind are your creations, in perfect communication born of perfect understanding. Could you but accept one of them you would not want anything the world has to offer. Everything else would be totally meaningless. God’s meaning is incomplete without you, and you are incomplete without your creations. Accept your brother in this world and accept nothing else, for in him you will find your creations because he created them with you. You will never know that you are co-creator with God until you learn that your brother is co-creator with you.

Journal
Oh my gosh! I am always. Not always as I will be what I am in the future, because in reality there is no future and no past. There is only always. I cannot even grab onto this as a concept; I can only accept it. What breaks my heart wide open is that I will know God’s open Arms, His open Mind. I will know this because I am like Him, in His Mind and with a mind like His. I am that! It makes me cry to read this because I don’t feel it right now. I cry tears of grief but also tears of joy, grief for what I have given up, and joy that it is not lost, just forgotten.

Here, more than anywhere else, Jesus talks about my creations. They are created from my open mind and this means that we, the Christ, the Sonship create them. My creations love me and complete me, and next to even one of them, nothing else has meaning. To know my creations I must know my brother, because he is co-creator with me. I must know my co-creators to know that I am co-creator with God. Is this motivation to release all grievances, to let them die on my tongue before my complaint leaves my mouth, to let them whither in my mind before they take form?

It is a long held belief that I need my brothers to hold my guilt and so I have misused them for eons of time. I have seen them as separate from me and pretended that projecting my guilt onto them, I was free of it. It is hard to believe that I ever thought this would work, and that it was a good idea.

Now that I am withdrawing those projections so they can be healed, and now that I am remembering my union with my brothers, I notice the ego trying harder than ever to encourage projection. The ego would have me use these brothers, these parts of my holy Self for this awful purpose. Holy Spirit, help me remember today that I am that I am, but I cannot know this unless I know it for everyone else, too. Everyone. Without exception.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, V.I The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 6. 3-16-15

VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 6
6 Miracles have no place in eternity, because they are reparative. Yet while you still need healing, your miracles are the only witnesses to your reality that you can recognize. You cannot perform a miracle for yourself, because miracles are a way of giving acceptance and receiving it. In time the giving comes first, though they are simultaneous in eternity, where they cannot be separated. When you have learned they are the same, the need for time is over.

Journal
I understand that miracles are for here where we need them. In eternity there is no need for miracles. I also understand that miracles are our only witness to our reality that we can recognize. In reality we are the Christ, the Son of God, whole and complete, powerful and eternal.  In the illusion we are little separate people, frail and vulnerable, destined to suffer and die. Through miracles we experience ourselves outside of time and space, and outside the laws of the world. In this way, we begin to remember what we really are.

One time I had a problem that was causing me excruciating pain and I needed the pain to go away while I attended a workshop. I gave my trust that this could happen. The world says that if we have a sickness or disease, there are steps to take. We need to see a doctor, get medicine, maybe have a procedure done. It all takes time, and sometimes it works, and sometimes not.

But I believe in miracles. I believe that it is God’s Will that I not suffer. At the time this happened, my belief was compromised by my doubt, but it was strong enough to ask for pain relief while I flew to this workshop, receive what I needed from it, and flew home. The pain immediately stopped, and didn’t start again until my plain touched down at my home airport.

It was a miracle. I might have allowed the problem to be healed completely, but as I said, my trust was not unopposed. But I will never ever completely believe that I am victim to sickness again. The miracle witnessed to my reality. Things like this have happened often since. Each time they do, my trust grows because I see that I am not what I thought I was.

I have had other experiences. I have been very afraid, or very angry, certain I was justified in my feelings, unable to pull myself out of it. I have asked for a miracle, and seen the feelings dispelled instantly, leaving barely a memory of their presence, and sometimes not even that. Where did those thoughts go? Where did those strong emotions go? Back into the nothingness from which they came. It was miraculous because that isn’t the way it happens in the world we made.

I didn’t need to wrestle with the thoughts and feelings. I didn’t need to let them play out. I didn’t need to change the circumstances or receive an apology, or change anything in the world. I didn’t need to use logic and positive thought or any of the other mental tricks I have learned over the years in order to experience peace. I didn’t need to understand. All I needed to do was to desire peace more than I desired the upsetting thoughts and the miracle occurred. All that upset me was simply gone and I was at peace. The peaceful mind was witness to my true reality.

The many miracles I experienced were done through me not by me. They required only that I desired them, and it was done according to my desire. Through the miracle I gave my acceptance and I received that which I desired. In eternity this is one step, not two. They occur simultaneously. Here, in time, I am learning to accept so that I can receive, and ultimately, that giving and receiving are the same thing. Maybe that moment of knowing is the ultimate miracle, and time ceases.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, V.I The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 5. 3-13-15

VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 5
5 You are not yet awake, but you can learn how to awaken. Very simply the Holy Spirit teaches you to awaken others. As you see them waken you will learn what waking means, and because you have chosen to wake them, their gratitude and their appreciation of what you have given them will teach you its value. They will become the witnesses to your reality, as you were created witnesses to God’s. Yet when the Sonship comes together and accepts its Oneness it will be known by its creations, who witness to its reality as the Son does to the Father.

Journal
I, because I was created as the Son of God, witness to the reality of the Father. My creations (of which I am unaware in this dimension, and yet which, never the less, still exist) witness to my reality. When I say, I, I mean “I” as the One Son of God. The “I” that I am more identified with at this time is a separated part of the Sonship. But, regardless of my misplaced identification, it is not what I am. When the Sonship comes together and is One again, it will be known by its creations, as God is known by His Son.

This is outside my limited knowledge at this time, but not outside my Mind, so it is not lost, and I am still as I was created. I am still dreaming, but I will awaken, and when I do, I will remember this. I will awaken through the Holy Spirit, as He teaches me to awaken others. Always, awakening and my happiness depend on my brothers. This is something I must absolutely, and without exception, accept as true and necessary. I cannot know my Self as less than whole and I cannot be whole if I continue to disavow my brothers.

When a grievance comes into my mind, I quickly and gladly release it to the Holy Spirit. I want to know my brother as myself and I cannot do that if I make him separate from me through assigning him to carry the guilt we all fear. I will, instead, withdraw my projections and release them to the Holy Spirit so they are healed for us all.

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