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Study of Text, Chapter 9, III. The Correction of Error, P6. 1-27-15

III. The Correction of Error, P 6
6 You cannot correct yourself. Is it possible, then, for you to correct another? Yet you can see him truly, because it is possible for you to see yourself truly. It is not up to you to change your brother, but merely to accept him as he is. His errors do not come from the truth that is in him, and only this truth is yours. His errors cannot change this, and can have no effect at all on the truth in you. To perceive errors in anyone, and to react to them as if they were real, is to make them real to you. You will not escape paying the price for this, not because you are being punished for it, but because you are following the wrong guide and will therefore lose your way.

I was spending some time with a friend who was upset that she had gained weight. I know how this feels, this gaining weight when you think you shouldn’t, and when you think it means something. I know very well because I still become confused about that. I wanted to commiserate, and to suggest solutions. Mostly I just listened. I talked a little about guilt as the real culprit rather than food, but mostly I just let her talk.

But I kept thinking about it and I noticed my stomach tightening a little as I thought about it. Yep, this is still an issue for me. I wanted to send her a note this morning telling her I know how she feels and talking about it in a positive way. But as I noticed my reaction, this “need” to help, I realized that I can’t help. I am totally identified with the problem and from that place I can only add to the confusion.

I want to help because I love this person, but I think she needs help (correction) because I think she has a real problem. I want to help because it makes me uncomfortable to see her error. I see her error and my stomach tightens because it mirrors a problem in my mind that I don’t want to acknowledge. So this morning, instead of giving advice or commiserating, I did something helpful. I asked that my mind be healed. I remembered that above all else I want to see.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, III. The Correction of Error, P5. 1-26-15

III. The Correction of Error, P 5
5 When a brother behaves insanely, you can heal him only by perceiving the sanity in him. If you perceive his errors and accept them, you are accepting yours. If you want to give yours over to the Holy Spirit, you must do this with his. Unless this becomes the one way in which you handle all errors, you cannot understand how all errors are undone. How is this different from telling you that what you teach you learn? Your brother is as right as you are, and if you think he is wrong you are condemning yourself.

This paragraph tells me both why I must not accept my perception of my bothers insane behavior, and what to do with that perception. First, if I accept my perception that my bother is acting insanely, I cannot heal him because I heal through my certainty of health, and if I believe what I am trying to heal is real I have no certainty.

This gets worse, because if I believe my brother can be in error, I believe in the error and so in believing in the error, I have now opened the possibility, (no, the probability) that I too am in error or will be in error. I have taught myself that error is real for everyone. The ego mind insists that this is true and anyone can see that it is true.

Here is what I say to the ego “proof” that I can see my brother is in error and that I often am in error, as well. I see the insane behavior for what it is, an ego reaction to fear. It is an ego reaction to an ego emotion. What has that got to do with reality? God did not create ego nor its effect, fear. Neither is real or true. I am seeing an illusion. An illusion can appear very real, but it cannot be real.

Now this is how I get free of both the belief in my own insanity and that of my brother. I stop using this ego behavior to separate myself from my holy Self. Instead, wherever I see insane behavior or when I experience insane thinking in my own mind, I give my perception to the Holy Spirit to heal for me.

I notice my brother’s insane behavior and see it for what it is, but I do not mistake it for reality. If I do, momentarily, believe in it, I recognize what I have done. I have become as insane as I think my brother is. So I give that belief to the Holy Spirit to be corrected. From this healed place, I know the truth. I am as God created me and my brother is as God created him. No matter how confused my brother is about that, I know the truth and the light that is in my mind will extend to his and heal him.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, III. The Correction of Error, P 4. 1-22-15

III. The Correction of Error, P 4

4 When you react at all to errors, you are not listening to the Holy Spirit. He has merely disregarded them, and if you attend to them you are not hearing Him. If you do not hear Him, you are listening to your ego and making as little sense as the brother whose errors you perceive. This cannot be correction. Yet it is more than merely a lack of correction for him. It is the giving up of correction in yourself.

Journal
First I notice that Jesus is telling me that if I react to my brothers errors I am not listening to Holy Spirit. Sometimes my brother is speaking from the ego and I am aware of that, but if I react to it, it means that I am giving it credence. I believe his words have meaning, and they do not. If I were listening to Holy Spirit, I would disregard the ego words of my brother, because that is what the Holy Spirit does. He doesn’t believe my wrong minded words and then forgive them. The Holy Spirit sees them as meaningless and simply disregards them.

I love that this is true. I never have to apologize to God for my errors. He doesn’t give them any meaning and so they have none. He disregards my errors as if they didn’t exist. This is what I want to do, too. I want to learn through the Holy Spirit’s instruction, to disregard my own errors as if they did not exist. This is what it means to be guiltless. I haven’t achieved this yet. I sometimes still experience guilt when I am in error and even when I remember a past error. I do recognize when I do it, and I ask for correction, so I know that I am learning to disregard error.

The other thing Jesus is telling us in this paragraph is that I must disregard my brother’s errors as well, and not just for his sake. I do this because if I correct my brother, I am making as little sense as he is. In my correction I am in error, too, and this is setting up one of those endless cycles that the ego depends on to keep us engaged in the illusion. If I correct my brother I teach myself to believe in error, and so I will believe in my own error as well.

Yes, my ego can be in error, and probably is, but I am not my ego. My brother is not his ego. There is a vast difference between recognizing that I have spoken in error and believing I am guilty of speaking in error. A friend sent me a message recently, and in her words I heard where she got off course. I saw the error in her thinking. My first (ego) response was to point this out to her.

Then sanity prevailed and I heard the Holy Spirit gently remind me that I am the messenger, not the writer of the message. So I waited for instructions and when none came, I did nothing. Later, she saw her own error and wrote about that. It was a more powerful lesson for her to receive instruction from within than it would have been to receive it from me.

I was happy to see that I did not have to argue with myself to resist correcting her. I was simply grateful to have heard the Holy Spirit in my mind. That was not always true, so I see I have grown. There was not the belief in my mind that her error was important or that it in any way defined her. That was growth for me also, because I used to think errors were meaningful, and I might have thought that knowing what she didn’t know meant I was better than or higher than her. It’s a relief to not be burdened with that mistaken thought. I hope it is completely healed and gone forever.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, III. The Correction of Error, P 3. 1-20-15

III. The Correction of Error, P 3
3 If you point out the errors of your brother’s ego you must be seeing through yours, because the Holy Spirit does not perceive his errors. This must be true, since there is no communication between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego makes no sense, and the Holy Spirit does not attempt to understand anything that arises from it. Since He does not understand it, He does not judge it, knowing that nothing the ego makes means anything.

I long to reach the point that I see as the Holy Spirit sees. I want to learn to disregard errors of every kind as if they did not exist. And surely that is the truth. Errors are not truth and so they are meaningless. Why do I pay attention to them as if they were reality? Only what God created is reality and he did not create errors.

Really, when I give my attention to errors, mine or someone else’s, I am giving my attention to nothing. It would not matter at all except that as I focus on the error, I suffer. I cannot enter into God’s presence if I attack His Son. Being unaware of God’s presence is the very definition of suffering.

Today I am asking the Holy Spirit to bring to my attention those moments when I am staring mesmerized at the error. Help me to “snap out of it,” Holy Spirit. I know this is always about healing my own mind. If I see error it can only be that I am seeing through the error in my mind. I am seeing the error in another because I believe in error, I think it is real, and I think it matters. That is the error in my mind. So no matter where I see error, my only function is to accept the Atonement for myself. That part, at least, is clear and easy for me to understand.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 9, III. The Correction of Error, P 2 1-19-15

III. The Correction of Error, P 2
2 To the ego it is kind and right and good to point out errors and “correct” them. This makes perfect sense to the ego, which is unaware of what errors are and what correction is. Errors are of the ego, and correction of errors lies in the relinquishment of the ego. When you correct a brother, you are telling him that he is wrong. He may be making no sense at the time, and it is certain that, if he is speaking from the ego, he will not be making sense. But your task is still to tell him he is right. You do not tell him this verbally, if he is speaking foolishly. He needs correction at another level, because his error is at another level. He is still right, because he is a Son of God. His ego is always wrong, no matter what it says or does.

Here is the way I use this information. If my brother is speaking from his ego, he is always mistaken, just as I am when I speak from the ego. But what I know is that no matter which part of the mind we are identifying with, both my brother and myself are the Son of God. We are perfect and wholly innocent. We may be confused about what we are, but that does not change what we are. I know that what someone says or does in no way defines what they are.

If the person I am speaking with asks me a direct question, then I will allow teaching to come through me. But even then, I am not in doubt about what my brother is, nor am I in doubt about what I am. I am the messenger, the teacher for God; I am just allowing information to be relayed through me to the best of my ability. The correction is not on the level of reality, but on the level of ego.

I think that when Jesus says that it is my task to tell my brother he is right, what he means is that it is my task to recognize the truth of him. In doing so, I recognize the truth of me, too, since there is only one mind shared by all of us. What is true of my brother is true of me. If I believe something that is not true of my brother, then I will believe it is the same for me. It is not true if it is from the ego, but what I believe will inform my thoughts, words, and actions, and will convince me that the untruth is true.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, III. The Correction of Error, P 1. 1-16-15

III. The Correction of Error
1 The alertness of the ego to the errors of other egos is not the kind of vigilance the Holy Spirit would have you maintain. Egos are critical in terms of the kind of “sense” they stand for. They understand this kind of sense, because it is sensible to them. To the Holy Spirit it makes no sense at all.

Journal
The Holy Spirit has encouraged me to be vigilant for the thoughts in my mind and to ask for correction when they are not in alignment with the thoughts I think with God. I ask Him to help me to use words that are in alignment with Truth. I agree to step back and let Him lead the way. I do this to the best of my ability. What I am not asked to do is to be vigilant for my brother’s thoughts and words.

Under no circumstance is it my job to keep an eye on anyone else and to judge the sense of what they say. It is not my job to correct them or set them straight. It doesn’t matter how “gently” I correct. It doesn’t matter how many of the right sounding words I use. It doesn’t matter how right it feels to me to do this. If I am watching someone else, judging the correctness of their words, whether I say anything to them or not, this is my error and it is my mind that needs correction.

When I used to do this it was most obvious on social media. There were just so many opportunities. I would read through the postings looking for the ones that were “right” and the ones that just didn’t quite hit the mark. Sometimes I would even tell them what was wrong with their posting. Of course I would use my spiritual ego to do this so that it sounded spiritual. I told myself that I was helping. None of that was true. I was just using the ego to decide what made sense to it.

Now I always try to respond only to a direct question. If it is appropriate I might add my own experience. But I am vigilant for my motive because my spiritual ego is alive and well. I can indulge it, or I can disregard it. My choice. In all my groups, the guidelines are to share from our experience and to never correct another. I try always to live this. When I fail to do so, I forgive myself and try again.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, II. The Answer to Prayer, P 12. 1-15-15

II. The Answer to Prayer, P 12

12 You can ask of the Holy Spirit, then, only by giving to Him, and you can give to Him only where you recognize Him. If you recognize Him in everyone, consider how much you will be asking of Him, and how much you will receive. He will deny you nothing because you have denied Him nothing, and so you can share everything. This is the way, and the only way to have His answer, because His answer is all you can ask for and want. Say, then, to everyone

Because I will to know myself, I see you as God’s Son and my brother.

Journal
This is exciting to think about! I see three things in this short paragraph that I want to think about. First, we now understand the nature of giving and receiving. If we give to get, we have lost. But if we realize that through giving we receive, there is never loss and only joy in the exchange. So we know how to give and we know that to receive we only have to accept with open hands.

The second thing I am thinking about is that the Holy Spirit is the Answer to every question and since giving is receiving, I can ask of Him only by giving to Him. I give to Him my trust and my willingness to set aside what I think I know and to accept what He says. I give him my desire to acknowledge Him everywhere I see Him.

As it says here, “If you recognize Him in everyone, consider how much you will be asking of Him, and how much you will receive.” This is the most exciting part! Everyone has the Holy Spirit and so I can recognize the Holy Spirit in each person and receive His Answer from each person! I am so rich!

Let this be a day of seeing my brother anew. I will ask to see the Divinity in each person I meet and so hear the Word of God from each one. I could not do that on my own. My ego mind will hear only ego words and meaning. But I can, and I want to, learn to see and hear truly. I am willing to make this my practice today, all day. I am excited to make this practice today!

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