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Study of Text, Chapter 9,VI.The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 4. 3-12-15

VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother
4 God is more than you only because He created you, but not even this would He keep from you. Therefore you can create as He did, and your dissociation will not alter this. Neither God’s light nor yours is dimmed because you do not see. Because the Sonship must create as one, you remember creation whenever you recognize part of creation. Each part you remember adds to your wholeness because each part is whole. Wholeness is indivisible, but you cannot learn of your wholeness until you see it everywhere. You can know yourself only as God knows His Son, for knowledge is shared with God. When you awake in Him you will know your magnitude by accepting His limitlessness as yours. But meanwhile you will judge it as you judge your brother’s, and will accept it as you accept his.

Journal
This section is harder for me than the others have been. It is hard for the thinking mind to grasp what is being said. Jesus says that I am like God in every way but one; God created me, and I didn’t create Him. Even that ability, He gives me. I, too, am a creator, with as much power as God. Nothing has changed because I have closed my eyes to reality. “Neither God’s light nor yours is dimmed because you do not see.” I continue to create.

I do not create alone, though. The Sonship as a whole creates. Just as God sees us as a whole, we must learn to see ourselves as part of a whole along with our brothers. “Wholeness is indivisible, but you cannot learn of your wholeness until you see it everywhere.” I practice this all the time now. I do this at random. When I am checking out at the store, I will look at the cashier with my heart open to see we are indivisible.

When I notice a casual judgment of someone, I will do the same. I’m asking Jesus to help me with this. It is absolutely essential that I remember and accept my oneness with my brothers if I am to remember that my mind is part of God’s. I cannot be part of God alone, because God does not know “alone.” He knows us as One, indivisible, whole.

“When you awake in Him you will know your magnitude by accepting His limitlessness as yours.” All through the Course, Jesus talks to us about our true nature. As one, we are magnificent, beautiful, unlimited, free, powerful, holy, brilliant, complete, whole. As one we are creators. We are the Son of God. But our true nature is one of wholeness, so I cannot feel this because I still choose specialness over wholeness. But I am making new choices and will continue to do so until I recognize there is only one choice and I make it. Then I will know my Self as I am.

Dear God, the next time I think the cashier is too slow, or I feel resentment toward the hotel clerk who doesn’t give me the room I want; when I look with envy on someone who has what I don’t, or when I think I would be happy if only someone would change; when I read the paper and think how sad this happened, how tragic that, how guilty the perpetrator; dear, dear, God, please remind me of the sacrifice I make in order to see myself separate from these splintered parts of my Self. Holy Spirit, heal my mind, restore me to our Self.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9,VI.The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 3. 3-11-15

VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother
3 If your brothers are part of you, will you accept them? Only they can teach you what you are, for your learning is the result of what you taught them. What you call upon in them you call upon in yourself. And as you call upon it in them it becomes real to you. God has but one Son, knowing them all as one. Only God Himself is more than they but they are not less than He is. Would you know what this means? If what you do to my brother you do to me, and if you do everything for yourself because we are part of you, everything we do belongs to you as well. Everyone God created is part of you and shares His glory with you. His Glory belongs to Him, but it is equally yours. You cannot, then, be less glorious than He is.

Journal
In this paragraph Jesus explains our relationship to each other and to God. We are one with each other, part of each other. We don’t see that in the illusion, because of course, that is the purpose of the illusion. We wanted to experience not oneness, and so we made images of separateness. We made different bodies and different personalities with different problems and different experiences. We made different things with which to surround ourselves. It makes for a very believable experience, but it changes nothing. God knows us as His one Son and therefore, we are that.

I am learning to see my brother as one with me. I can’t do this very well, yet, but my willingness to do so is giving me a different experience. I never think that what I do affects only me. I never think that my brother’s feelings are his problem and not my concern. I never think that my thoughts are for me alone. Well, let’s say that I am never far from this understanding. I forget this is true, but then I remember.

At first, I changed my behavior. I started being kinder and more thoughtful, knowing that this was a step in the right direction and that it was my way of making a commitment to see differently. If this person in front of me was actually another aspect of myself, then it only made sense to treat them the way I would want to be treated.

Over time, I began to believe that the person in front of me was an aspect of my self, and I didn’t need to change my behavior, my behavior changed because my mind had changed. I still fall back into ego behavior when I start thinking through the ego mind, but I see it and I realize what has happened. I love that this is becoming so natural that I know my mind is being healed of the desire to be separate.

Jesus is also explaining that God is more than I am, but that I am all that God is. For some reason, that makes perfect sense to me. ~smile~ I think this is a sign of the mind being healed of separation thinking, too. I can’t really explain why I feel comfortable with this explanation and why I don’t need to understand it more completely, but it just feels right to me. I don’t even feel strange saying that I am holy, and that I am glorious as God is glorious. I believe it even when I don’t feel it. This is equally true of all my brothers regardless of our stories in the illusion. 

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, V.I The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 1. 3-9-15

VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother

2 It seems to you that the Holy Spirit does not produce joy consistently in you only because you do not consistently arouse joy in others. Their reactions to you are your evaluations of His consistency. When you are inconsistent you will not always give rise to joy, and so you will not always recognize His consistency. What you offer to your brother you offer to Him, because He cannot go beyond your offering in His giving. This is not because He limits His giving, but simply because you have limited your receiving. The decision to receive is the decision to accept.

The reason I don’t think the Holy Spirit produces joy in me consistently is that I don’t always see the effects of it in others. I don’t always arouse joy in other people. Instead of questioning the Holy Spirit, I might look to myself. Am I receiving what the Holy Spirit would give me? The Holy Spirit is always giving, but I block His gifts if I am unwilling to accept them.

If I block the Holy Spirit and do not allow Him to inspire joy in me, I won’t inspire joy in others and then take this as proof the Holy Spirit is inconsistent. I have finally learned that this is never true. I no longer question the Holy Spirit, but understand that He is always giving and it can only be me who is allowing the ego mind to block what He would give.

There was a time when I treasured my bad moods and defended them from anything that threatened to lift them. I defended my identity of one who is depressed. As my mind opened more and more to healing, I released that to the Holy Spirit. I used to treasure my identity as one who was unpredictably angry and whose tongue was sharp, whose words were weapons. I thought it was the way I defended myself against the world. As I learned to release my fear to the Holy Spirit, I no longer needed my defenses, and instead, I extended the joy and the love I received from the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit consistently extends love because that is what He is. He extends it to me because He knows that is what I am. As I lay down more and more of my defenses, I am learning to receive the love that is coming my way. As I receive it, I give it as naturally as does the Holy Spirit. I am becoming more consistent in opening to love and so I am becoming more consistent in inspiring joy.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, V.I The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 1. 3-6-15

VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother
1 How can you become increasingly aware of the Holy Spirit in you except by His effects? You cannot see Him with your eyes nor hear Him with your ears. How, then, can you perceive Him at all? If you inspire joy and others react to you with joy, even though you are not experiencing joy yourself there must be something in you that is capable of producing it. If it is in you and can produce joy, and if you see that it does produce joy in others, you must be dissociating it in yourself.

Journal
When I think of the Holy Spirit’s effects in me, I tend to think of a healed mind manifesting as a healed life. I notice that I feel better physically, and emotionally. I have less worry and less fear. I see that while I am aware of ego thoughts, I don’t believe them like I used to. I am more aware of any desire to run and hide, or to defend and attack, and not as interested in that as I used to be.

I was surprised when I read this paragraph because I did not think of it in terms of joy. I am aware of the Holy Spirit in me as I notice that I inspire joy, even if I am not experiencing joy. This phenomena must be produced by something, and it is clearly not me. The ego certainly does not produce joy in anyone, so it must be the Holy Spirit.

Do I see others reacting to me with joy? Yes, thinking of it, sometimes I do. I hope it happens a lot whether I notice or not. I have had times when I was absolutely not feeling joyful, but when called to minister, something within me responded in such a way as to inspire comfort and peace and joy. I wasn’t feeling those things when called, so where did the response come from? This is the way I know the Holy Spirit. I know Him from my experience of Him moving through me.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, V. The Unhealed Healer, P 9. 3-2-15

V. The Unhealed Healer P 9
9 This course offers a very direct and a very simple learning situation, and provides the Guide Who tells you what to do. If you do it, you will see that it works. Its results are more convincing than its words. They will convince you that the words are true. By following the right Guide, you will learn the simplest of all lessons:
By their fruits ye shall know them, and they shall know themselves.

Journal
My experience of the Course has been that the results have proven the words, just as Jesus says. I started studying the Course in 1981 if I remember right, or maybe 1982. The first thing I noticed is that it felt right even though I could not explain why. Actually, common sense would have me totally reject it because it was so strange to me. At that time there were not a lot of people doing the Course and so I couldn’t say that many others agreed that this was right. But I still did it because I still felt something, a stirring within, I think.

As I became immersed in it, especially as I tried to apply it to my life, do the lessons, I began to feel the resistance. I still believed it must be true, that seemed undeniable to me, but I had a hard time accepting it on a personal level. It took a long time for me to do the lessons all the way through. I kept bumping into my walls of resistance.

But even so, I was slowly beginning to heal and to feel that healing. Like a snowball rolling down hill, it started small but got bigger and picked up momentum, and that was because as I gave what willingness I had, I began to experience my life and my self differently. What I thought must be true was proven to me as true as I used the Course. Each proof motivated me to seek more.

Now I have no doubt whatsoever, that everything the Course says is true. More importantly, I have no doubt that I will accept it all and live it all. Even in the moments when it seems most unlikely, when my resistance seems strongest, I do not doubt. I feel frustration, but I don’t doubt. This is the path home, I want to go home, I can go home. This is what I know, and I know it even if I have not yet fully achieved it.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, V. The Unhealed Healer, P 8. 3-2-15

V. The Unhealed Healer P 8
8 A therapist does not heal; he lets healing be. He can point to darkness but he cannot bring light of himself, for light is not of him. Yet, being for him, it must also be for his patient. The Holy Spirit is the only Therapist. He makes healing clear in any situation in which He is the Guide. You can only let Him fulfill His function. He needs no help for this. He will tell you exactly what to do to help anyone He sends to you for help, and will speak to him through you if you do not interfere. Remember that you choose the guide for helping, and the wrong choice will not help. But remember also that the right one will. Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God. As you awaken other minds to the Holy Spirit through Him, and not yourself, you will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world. But the laws you are obeying work. “The good is what works” is a sound though insufficient statement. Only the good can work. Nothing else works at all.


Journal
This is a very clear paragraph with no explanation needed. I cannot help anyone on my own, that is, through the ego mind. I can help anyone sent my way through listening to the Holy Spirit. He is the Therapist and if I listen to Him, just get out of the way and let Him work through me, I can be of help. And this is the only way I can be of help.

I have done this in several ways. The best way of all is to help the other person to access the Holy Spirit and receive his own personal wisdom. I learned a process to do this at Pathways of Light as part of my ministerial program. I use a very specific script to help the person go into a deep meditative state, and then guide him or her to become aware of the problem, and to hear the answer directly from his or her own Inner Guidance. I act as scribe, writing down what they are told, and I hold that space for them. It is an act of joining between the person I am working with, me, and the Holy Spirit, and it is an act of listening rather than thinking.

Another way I do this is when I counsel. Someone calls or writes and asks for help. I listen. There are times when this is the most helpful part of what I do. Often when a person actively joins with another and talks it out, the person finds his or her own answer. I think the joining, being in union, two or more gathered, is what opens the heart to the truth. When I listen, I do so, not with my ego mind, but with my open heart. I ask the Holy Spirit to listen with me, to give me words if they are needed, to prompt my silence when that is needed.

Every morning I wake up to coffee and Jesus. I read his words and I ask Him to join with me in this reading. I ask him to help me understand what he wants me to know about that morning’s reading. I write in my journal what I receive. Sometimes it simply clarifies. Sometimes the understanding I am given is unexpected and even startling. Sometimes it triggers a shift in my understanding that leaves me breathless.

The thoughts that are given may not seem extraordinary, but the healing that occurs as I hear/write them is a miracle. Then, whatever I write, I share. I post it in various places. I might talk about it to someone if appropriate. Always I share. I am not a perfect listener, but every time I do my best to step back and simply allow myself to be guided, I get better at it.

Perhaps the most useful form of helping is to be what I want to share. I walk the talk, so to speak. Failing that, I find my way back to the path and so even my temporary stumble becomes a teaching tool. All of God’s messengers are still learning. If they had it all down they wouldn’t be here. As it says in the Manual for Teachers, “…they teach perfection over and over, in many, many ways, until they have learned it.”

Whew! I am not perfect and that’s OK. I have moments of perfection and I teach that. I have moments of fumbling, and I teach from that. My life is a form of therapy, both for myself and for others, because I consistently put my faith in the Holy Spirit. I step back as much as I can. I listen to the Voice for God as well as I can. In so doing, I am learning to hear only that Voice.

These are the ways I allow the Holy Spirit to do Therapy through me. They are just forms and as such not important. I allow Holy Spirit to direct me to the form most helpful, and so any or all of them could change. The content, though, is love and that never changes. I try not to interfere. That’s my main job; step my ego back and allow the work to be done through me. What a blessing that is! And this is something anyone can do. All that is required is willingness. The payoff is out of this world! Literally.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, V. The Unhealed Healer, P 7. 2-27-15

Chapter 9, V. The Unhealed Healer P 7
7 Both forms of the ego’s approach, then, must arrive at an impasse; the characteristic “impossible situation” to which the ego always leads. It may help someone to point out where he is heading, but the point is lost unless he is also helped to change his direction. The unhealed healer cannot do this for him, since he cannot do it for himself. The only meaningful contribution the healer can make is to present an example of one whose direction has been changed for him, and who no longer believes in nightmares of any kind. The light in his mind will therefore answer the questioner, who must decide with God that there is light because he sees it. And by his acknowledgement the healer knows it is there. That is how perception ultimately is translated into knowledge. The miracle worker begins by perceiving light, and translates his perception into sureness by continually extending it and accepting its acknowledgement. Its effects assure him it is there.

Jesus makes it very simple and easy to understand. The healer heals by being healed. A true healer presents an example of one who does not believe in nightmares of any kind, and the light in his mind is perceived by the mind of the one who needs healing. Then he believes in the light because he sees it. The healer is further enlightened as his light is acknowledged and this translates his perception into sureness.

Here is how this feels to me in my own life. I am learning that nightmares are never true no matter how real they may appear to be in the world. Every time I believe in one, but remain open to healing, I discover that the dream is an illusion and I become more certain that all nightmares are just illusions.

When I teach or counsel I am doing so from the highest part of my self that I can access. That part of my mind can see the nightmare my student is having for what it is. I know the truth for the student and am not confused by her story. This certainty in my mind is a light that, on some level, can be perceived by the student. I translate it into words and we talk, but it is the certainty that heals.

I have had times when my mind would be all fogged in because I had been listening to ego. My personal self would be confused and unhappy. I would get a call from a student asking for help seeing a problem differently, and as I allowed the little self to step back and the Holy Spirit to move forward in my mind, I was perfectly clear and perfectly certain as my student and I spoke.

That never ceases to amaze me. It also has helped me to understand that the ego confusion is just a temporary condition and that the truth remains in my mind even when I am listening to the wrong voice. It is harder now for me to take the ego as seriously as before, because I have had proof that the truth is there all the time even when I am not noticing it. I have proof that my mind is part of God’s Mind all the time. As I shine that light for my student, I see it reflected back to me and this translates my perception into sureness.

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