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Study of the Text, Chapter 9, I. The Acceptance of the Atonement, P 1. 11-26-14

Chapter 9: THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE ATONEMENT

I. The Acceptance of Reality
1 Fear of the Will of God is one of the strangest beliefs the human mind has ever made. It could not possibly have occurred unless the mind were already profoundly split, making it possible for it to be afraid of what it really is. Reality cannot “threaten” anything except illusions, since reality can only uphold truth. The very fact that the Will of God, which is what you are, is perceived as fearful, demonstrates that you are afraid of what you are. It is not, then, the Will of God of which you are afraid, but yours.

The words here are very clear. I am the will of God and so to be afraid of the Will of God is really to be afraid of my own will. The confusion occurs because I still identify with ego, and the ego mind would rather incur what it thinks of as the wrath of God than to relinquish its hold on the idea of a separate will. It recognizes that to know what it truly is would end its tenuous hold on this illusory separate will.

While there is still some identity with ego, I am awakening to my true self. I am remembering what I am. My desire for that memory is growing stronger each day. It is the craziest thing to have these two voices in my mind and to be fully aware of both. When this first started happening I experienced the conflict more acutely than when I didn’t know what was going on, and it seemed things were getting worse. Over time I learned to trust the process. I then moved through the conflict to greater awareness of the truth and so to a more peaceful place.

I stayed there for awhile, and then I began to feel like I had lost it all. What seems to be happening is that I am returning to the confused mind to allow more unconscious guilt and fear to be uncovered and undone. It is not as hard now because I understand what is happening, though sometimes I get caught up in the ego story and temporarily lose my detachment. Then I become discouraged by what looks like a loss of what I had gained, but I always receive help when I ask.

It appears to be very important now that I am open to the true thoughts in my mind, and that I allow my focus to remain there as much as possible. I am not afraid of the ego thoughts I find in my mind, but I notice the tendency to be discouraged and to feel like giving up. That’s laughable when I think about it.

What would I give up, to? How would I not know the truth now that I know it? It is a ridiculous notion and so I know it is just another ego strategy to maintain the separate will. When I start feeling frustrated, I ask the question, “What am I?” This question tends to break the circular thinking of the ego. Sometimes I receive thoughts from Holy Spirit when I ask this and sometimes I receive the peace of God. But however it comes, I am reassured that I am the Will of God and there is nothing else I could be. This is true in spite of what my confusion seems to tell me.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 8, IX. Healing as Corrected Perception P 9,11-24-14

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 9
9 The unification of purpose, then, is the Holy Spirit’s only way of healing. This is because it is the only level at which healing means anything. The re-establishing of meaning in a chaotic thought system is the way to heal it. Your task is only to meet the conditions for meaning, since meaning itself is of God. Yet your return to meaning is essential to His, because your meaning is part of His. Your healing, then, is part of His health, since it is part of His Wholeness. He cannot lose this, but you can not know it. Yet it is still His Will for you, and His Will must stand forever and in all things.

I have a chaotic thought system because my thoughts are always conflicted. There is very little that I want wholly. I want to wake up, but I also want to dream. I want to be happy, but I also want my drama. I want to be right more than I want to be happy. Now, I am moving toward a single purpose, but I have not fully accepted that this is what I want, and it is absolutely necessary that I do so. I cannot have a healed mind unless I choose a single purpose.

There really is not any question about the purpose I choose. No one can choose only ego, because reality is in my mind. In fact, the only thing in the mind that is real is God, and in spite of our desire to experience something else, we have never lost what is true. We remain as we were created, part of His Wholeness.

The healing that occurs is the release of all that we dreamed and the acceptance of all that is Reality. I am beginning to dream of a mind without conflict. Can you imagine? I know this is possible because it is what God created and it is His Will for me. Over and over I choose peace over conflict, I choose a single purpose.

How do I do this? I have spent the weekend with my brother and his wife. Mike had surgery and Rebecca has MS. He didn’t want Rebecca to be alone at night while he was in the hospital so I stayed with them. Being at the hospital with him during the day offered many opportunities to look at my belief in the body, and my belief that something outside the body could actually be cause.

This environment is built around just that concept, and as we sat there and watched the nurses and doctors and as our own stories of pain and suffering were triggered, I saw that my mind was conflicted and I had more than one purpose. At one time, my mind would have looked like a pin ball machine, with the ball bouncing all over the place leaving me confused and anxious. But through the healing of the mind I was able to do this differently.

I simply watched. I watched my desire to join in the one up-man-ship as each person told their story. I watched all the old stories in my mind that seemed to prove sickness comes from something in the world. I watched the memories of feeling frail and vulnerable. I watched all this and I was not altogether surprised at what came up, but I was also pleased to see that I also saw the truth. I gave the dark thoughts to the light. I remembered that I have one purpose and I was able to let everything else go.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 8, IX. Healing as Corrected Perception P 8,11-20-14

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 8
8 You have surely begun to realize that this is a very practical course, and one that means exactly what it says. I would not ask you to do things you cannot do, and it is impossible that I could do things you cannot do. Given this, and given this quite literally, nothing can prevent you from doing exactly what I ask, and everything argues for your doing it. I give you no limits because God lays none upon you. When you limit yourself we are not of one mind, and that is sickness. Yet sickness is not of the body, but of the mind. All forms of sickness are signs that the mind is split, and does not accept a unified purpose.

I have to admit that sometimes it feels like I am being asked to do more than I can do. But when I think about it, I know that can’t be true. Jesus asks me to do only what he has done, and if he can do it, so can I. He is looking at it from the other side, from a point of completion, so he knows far better than I what it is that I need to do and I do trust that. Common sense, if nothing else, tells me that this is true.

When I think that I cannot do something he asks of me, I limit myself. That limit is a sickness and that sickness expresses through the body, through my relationships, my finances, all facets of this story of mine. It is the result of a mind split. It is the reason we waste our time when we try to heal the body, repair the relationship, earn more money. The sickness is not in the world, it is in the mind.

Heal the mind of the belief that it has a dual purpose, and all else is healed. I have one purpose and that is to awaken from the dream of separation and return my full mind to God. Everything that happens in my life is for that use. I become confused when I think it has another use. For instance, if I have a grievance against someone, I have a choice about how I see that grievance, that is, what purpose I give it.

If I think that the purpose of the grievance is to defend myself against this person that is one purpose. It is not in alignment with God and with my good. I also want to wake up and know only what I think with God. So my mind is split. I want two completely opposed results from this situation. I want to be free while holding this one imprisoned in the guilt I imagine is true for him. I want to be one with God while holding this guilty one outside God.

“You cannot stand in the presence of God if you attack His Son.”

This split in the mind, the attempt to hold two opposing purposes at the same time, creates enormous conflict, or sickness. This sickness is then projected outward onto my world. To heal the sickness in whatever form it takes requires that I hold only one purpose. I cannot be without my true purpose because that is fixed in my mind by God. The other purposes must go if I am to be healed. I must do this and I can do this. That is a fact. I give my faith and my trust to this fact. I am asked to do it and therefore I can do it.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 8, IX. Healing as Corrected Perception P 7,11-19-14

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 7
7 The Bible enjoins you to be perfect, to heal all errors, to take no thought of the body as separate and to accomplish all things in my name. This is not my name alone, for ours is a shared identification. The Name of God’s Son is one, and you are enjoined to do the works of love because we share this Oneness. Our minds are whole because they are one. If you are sick you are withdrawing from me. Yet you cannot withdraw from me alone. You can only withdraw from yourself and me.

This is a very powerful paragraph as it reminds me that I and Jesus are one. We share the same identification and that identification is God’s Son. We are so much one that when I withdraw from him, I withdraw from my self. There is only one Son of God dreaming that It is many. So Myron is a dream in the mind of the Son as are all the other characters in this strange play, I am the Son of God dreaming I am Myron and every one else. This is hard to take in since I cannot imagine the vastness of the mind that can do this, and yet it is my Mind. Thus when I, as Myron, withdraw from Jesus, or from anyone else, I withdraw from my Self.

This withdrawal is no small thing. I have been given the function of saving the world. When I identify with Myron as my self, this seems like an impossible job. It seems absurd. How can I save the world when I cannot even save myself? That is why I must accept the truth of my being. I must accept that I am an eternal, Divine Being, that I am Christ, playing at being Myron. This seems mildly ridiculous to me when I am in my confused state of believing in Myron, and it seems downright scary when I am in fear. But, Jesus is telling me here, right now, that this is so. He and I are one whole, and he needs me to accept this because we have a lot of work to do.

I sit here as this body I think of as Myron, and I accept that this is an illusion. I accept that I am actually Christ and that I am the light of the world. I accept that I am perfect, and that today I heal all errors. I accept that I am one with Jesus and that our true Self must accomplish all that we are asked to do. When I get up from this writing and I go about my day, I ask that my mind be healed of the doubt that already wants to creep into the mind. I ask that the Holy Spirit, the truth in my mind, choose for God for me.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 8, IX. Healing as Corrected Perception P 6. 11-18-14

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 6
6 The ego, which always wants to weaken the mind, tries to separate it from the body in an attempt to destroy it. Yet the ego actually believes that it is protecting it. This is because the ego believes that mind is dangerous, and that to make mindless is to heal. But to make mindless is impossible, since it would mean to make nothing out of what God created. The ego despises weakness, even though it makes every effort to induce it. The ego wants only what it hates. To the ego this is perfectly sensible. Believing in the power of attack, the ego wants attack.

The ego believes that there is power in attack. This is why when I feel endangered in any way my first thought is to defend myself through attack. Sometimes I even act on this thought before I stop to consider that ego always speaks first and loudest. An example is when a coworker failed to complete a task that affects me. I asked him for the rest of the information and he said that he wasn’t supposed to do that part. I felt endangered because this was my customer and so my income was threatened.

At first I was frustrated that he was arguing the point with me and I argued back. I could hear the attack in my voice as I am sure he did, and he just became more defensive. I stopped myself and told him I would get the information he needed to finish the task. I was more frustrated with myself than with him at this point. I keep reacting to this person and I keep forgiving it and then I do it again.

The ego thinks that this person is a threat to me, and that the only way to defend myself from him is to attack him. The ego always feels like attack is power and so it always wants to attack. I see that and I also see that attack makes me feel anxious and afraid. If I need to attack it seems that I must truly be imperiled. If I am imperiled then I must not be the eternal, divine being that I am learning to identify with.

This conflict in my mind makes me feel weaker still, and confused about what I am. It seemed like a moment at work, a brief, though unpleasant, encounter with a coworker. But the effect of choosing conflict and choosing attack is not inconsequential, and the effort to make it seem so is the ego attempt to hide from the truth. The ego is always either attacking or hiding.

I have learned that I want to do neither. I have learned to look at my thoughts and feelings and to allow them to be corrected. Looking without guilt is painless and effective. If I feel guilt when I notice the attack thoughts, I realize that is just another belief to be released. Belief in guilt is just further attack, and attack does not protect me. Quite the opposite, it increases my fear and creates doubt as to my true identity.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 8: IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 5 11-17-14

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 5
5 Healing is release from the fear of waking and the substitution of the decision to wake. The decision to wake is the reflection of the will to love, since all healing involves replacing fear with love. The Holy Spirit cannot distinguish among degrees of error, for if He taught that one form of sickness is more serious than another, He would be teaching that one error can be more real than another. His function is to distinguish only between the false and the true, replacing the false with the true.

What stands out to me is that all healing involves replacing fear with love. I was thinking about feeling sick, and it doesn’t matter “how” sick. Headache or cancer, it is all the same. Sickness is scary because it triggers the fear that I am just this frail body and subject to pain, suffering and death. It may only be a headache today, but maybe it will be a brain tumor tomorrow. This is the fear inherent in sickness and the reason they are all the same. Sickness says that I am endangered and I am not eternal.

When I ask the Holy Spirit to decide for me what this headache means, I understand that sickness is not true because it is not God’s Will. He reminds me that God is Love and therefore cannot be sickness. I am in God and like God therefore I am safe. I rest in the truth of what I am. I have done this and I have proven to myself that if I accept the truth in place of the false, the fear is replaced by love and what I have done is undone. I have seen that I will not have what I don’t believe in.

I have had migraines that simply disappeared when I reminded myself of the truth. Pain is not God’s Will so it can’t be true. I let the belief in pain go to the Holy Spirit to be removed from my mind and there was nothing in my mind to project the headache onto my body. I have done the same thing with other sickness and pain.

Not every time does it work so easily. What prevents me from accepting the Holy Spirit’s healing? Sometimes I have use for the pain. Maybe the headache is preferable to what I would have to be doing instead. Maybe the pain or sickness has a significant hold on me, perhaps I believe in the sickness more than I believe in the cure. Maybe the sickness is a punishment for a perceived wrong, the antidote to guilt.

Regardless of the faulty reasoning, I can undo what I have done very simply if I will be willing to bring these dark thoughts to the light. Light always dissipates darkness. Love always replaces fear if that is my true desire. This is as true for other forms of error. If I become afraid about finances, the fear is overcome by love when I remember that lack is not God’s Will so it cannot be true. Special relationships are painful and there is much fear in them, and yet, when given to the Holy Spirit for healing, they become holy, loving and joyful, relationships.

In every case, the answer is the same. Is it true? Is it love? If not, it cannot be real and I can disregard the appearance of reality. If I see something that cannot be true, I must be looking at an illusion projected from a confused mind. It is the mind that needs correction, not the circumstances and I have within me the solution to this problem.

The Holy Spirit will respond to the slightest invitation to heal. He doesn’t look at the circumstances and decide how much effort it will take to undo it, He just knows that if it is not true and loving it is not God and therefore does not exist. As I accept His judgment I am healed.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 8, IX. Healing as Corrected Perception P 4,11-13-14

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 4
4 How you wake is the sign of how you have used sleep. To whom did you give it? Under which teacher did you place it? Whenever you wake dispiritedly, it was not given to the Holy Spirit. Only when you awaken joyously have you utilized sleep according to His purpose. You can indeed be “drugged” by sleep, if you have misused it on behalf of sickness. Sleep is no more a form of death than death is a form of unconsciousness. Complete unconsciousness is impossible. You can rest in peace only because you are awake.

I am very aware that I can give my sleep the Holy Spirit, and sometimes I do this and sometimes I don’t. It would seem that I often forget to do this little thing and I remember only when I wake up dispirited that I could have rested in peace. Of course, I am well aware that I don’t “accidentally” forget to ask. If I don’t ask it is because I am holding this bit of self in a little corner of my mind, this hospital for pain. Being reminded that Spirit has a different use for my sleep, right now I am asking Him to remind me to do this.

Jesus has brought up the idea of resting in peace twice now. We have this crazy idea that death is peace and that to have peace we must first die. Death brings us nothing, because death is nothing. It is as much of an illusion as the world we see and the bodies we think of as our selves. The only way we will rest in peace is to allow the mind to be healed or as Jesus puts it, to accept the Atonement for ourselves.

Accepting the Atonement is the way out of the dream and the way to awaken. It is the way we are healed from sickness in all its forms; the sick mind, the sick relationship, the sick bank account, the sick body. The Atonement corrects the wrong minded perception and all is healed. Jesus also talks about being conscious and says that we are never completely unconscious.

We deliberately choose to ignore the guilt we feel is too fearful, and we deliberately choose to ignore our true self so that we can have this experience, but we cannot go completely unconscious. We know the guilt we bury and at the same time, we know what we are and so we know there is no guilt. How amazingly clever we are and what powerful creators we are.

We cannot hold the belief in guilt and the knowledge of our Divinity at the same time, so we dissociate from our Self and we bury and project the guilt. In order to return our mind to wholeness we must accept the Atonement (forgive) the guilt and our Divine Self will become immediately apparent to us because it has gone nowhere.

For such a long time I have perceived myself as small and frail, weak and vulnerable. At the best of times I have seen myself as less small and weak. And yet, I am the creation of God and I am created in His image. In my creation He gave me everything that He is. I am a divine being, eternal, powerful, and I am love. How likely is it that I am also a frail, sickly body, guilt ridden and fearful?

I remind myself often that I am the Son of God. When I feel like the ego, I ask for the Atonement for that thought, and my perception is corrected and I am healed. Without the fear, I ask with conviction, “What am I?” Slowly, fear is falling away and I am remembering what I planned all along to remember.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.