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Study of the Text, II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 12. 10-17-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 12
10-17-13
12 I have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same Mind to do this. This Mind is the Holy Spirit, Whose Will is for God always. He teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and to behave like me as a result. The power of our joint motivation is beyond belief, but not beyond accomplishment. What we can accomplish together has no limits, because the Call for God is the Call to the unlimited. Child of God, my message is for you, to hear and give away as you answer the Holy Spirit within you.

I often make a mistake that I think is common to many of us. I notice that my behavior is not like Jesus’ behavior and I feel guilty for it and try to change it. The harder I try the more frustrated and anxious I become. Jesus says right here that I should behave as he behaved. The thing I forget is that he goes on to say that the way to do this is to let the Holy Spirit teach me how to think like Jesus and then my behavior will automatically be like Jesus. “What would Jesus do?” should be “What would Jesus think?”

Anytime I become upset or discouraged with myself it is always because I have put the horse before the cart. I have tried to drive my life through the behavior and that is backwards. This part is absolutely simple. I notice the thoughts that need to be changed, looking at them with the Holy Spirit and accepting His correction. Easy peasy.

If it is not easy, it is because I have, once again, become confused about my part. If I am anxious about my behavior I must believe that I should control it and am not doing so. Otherwise, I would simply be happy to see an effect of an unhealed mind because this means I have an opportunity to accept the Atonement for us. I think that right now in my life this is my most frequent mistake. I still sometimes look at my behavior and judge myself rather than seeing my behavior as an opportunity.

When I compare how I feel when I do this as to when I remember my function, it is clear that my happiness lies in forgiveness, not judgment. As I forgive myself for my errors, realizing that nothing is really happening because the entire illusion is nothing, I know I cannot be guilty. Now it is just a matter of allowing the Holy Spirit to heal my mind.

It is a matter of trust. I trust Jesus, I trust the Holy Spirit, and so I am learning to trust myself. I anticipate a peaceful mind as I do this more and more. But even more exciting is the promise Jesus makes that what we can accomplish together has no limits. Holy Spirit, please heal my mind today. I will trust you to do that according to my desire. I step back and allow you to do your part.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 11, 10-16-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 11
10-16-13
11 When you are tempted by the wrong voice, call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my decision and making it stronger. As we share this goal, we increase its power to attract the whole Sonship, and to bring it back into the oneness in which it was created. Remember that “yoke” means “join together,” and “burden” means “message.” Let us restate “My yoke is easy and my burden light” in this way; “Let us join together, for my message is light.”

I have often called on Jesus to help me remember how to heal. The average day is sure to have many times when I will first see things from the ego perspective, realize my mistake, and ask for healing. The wrong voice tempted me, but now my goal is oneness, and I seek to make that goal stronger and stronger, so I seldom miss an opportunity to change my mind. I change my mind about what I want, and the Holy Spirit changes my mind. We are a team.

I spent a couple of days watching myself as I experienced my body as if it were sick. I know that this cannot be true. The body does not feel, so how can it feel sick? The mind was sick and needed healing. By the middle of the day yesterday I was feeling better, and by 5:00PM I was well enough to enjoy a movie. The body seemed to be getting well. That was the appearance, but it was the mind that being healed, and so projected that effect, just as it had projected the effect of sickness.

I noticed this morning that I woke up looking for symptoms and some part of me was hoping to find some. I think I wanted another day at home. I wanted some mild symptoms that would give me an excuse to stay home but not so serious that my day was spoiled. That is one of the ways that sickness is valuable to me. Another way is that I have believed that sickness proves I am not really waking up, that I am not worthy of God. It is, as the Lesson tells us, a defense against God.

I am willing to be healed of both those beliefs. If I want to stay home, I am just going to take a vacation day. I’m not going to give sickness value in my mind. If I feel unworthy, I am going to notice that thought in my mind and ask the Holy Spirit to change my mind, to correct my thinking and heal my mind. In other words, I ask for the Atonement and accept it.

Before I got sick and for awhile during the sickness I got caught up in feeling like the ego instead of just watching the ego. I think that this happens when I judge myself and others. Usually, I watch my “life” from at least some detachment, then other times I am fully in the story. When that happens I suffer and if it happens long enough the ego projects it; the ego tries to throw the suffering in the mind out onto the world, sometimes onto my body and I think I am sick.

I will tell you the truth, I am amazed that I can still get so caught up in the story as to forget the truth, even for a short time, much less for several days. When I am sane, I can’t imagine doing this, but when I forget my self and get hooked by the story, I am right back there. The difference, though, is that I am not completely there, not ever.

All the time it is happening, I am asking for healing. When I am less insane, I watch myself being lost and asking for help. When I am very insane, I just feel lost and ask for help. I will be glad when I wake up completely. I am tired of the conflicted mind syndrome. I am happy, though, to do my part in healing the mind. I am willing to do it with less suffering is all I am saying. I know it is not a necessary part of awakening for it to be painful, so I ask for the Atonement for that.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 10, 10-15-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 10
10-15-13
10 I have assured you that the Mind that decided for me is also in you, and that you can let it change you just as it changed me. This Mind is unequivocal, because it hears only one Voice and answers in only one way. You are the light of the world with me. Rest does not come from sleeping but from waking. The Holy Spirit is the Call to awaken and be glad. The world is very tired, because it is the idea of weariness. Our task is the joyous one of waking it to the Call for God. Everyone will answer the Call of the Holy Spirit, or the Sonship cannot be as one. What better vocation could there be for any part of the Kingdom than to restore it to the perfect integration that can make it whole? Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and teach your brothers to listen as I am teaching you.

I am reassured by that first sentence. The Mind that decided for Jesus is in me and it will decide for me, too. I will change as Jesus changed and all that is needed for this to happen is my decision for it. I just have to want the change. I will make this decision because it is through my choice to heal that the Sonship will once again be as one. If I make that decision now, I will no longer suffer.

Right now I have a persistent headache and pain in my stomach. I am told it is probably some kind of virus. The ego mind says it might be this or that. It was caused by something I ate or someone I was with. It says that maybe it is something worse, a symptom of something fatal. The ego recommends medicines that have worse side effects than the discomfort I now suffer. The ego also says that I am guilty for being sick and in pain. The ego mind offers very little that I value, and yet, here I am, suffering and in pain.

There was a time when I had no place to go except the ego. I believed everything I thought. This is no longer true. Now I question the ego thoughts in my mind. I show them to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to heal the sick thoughts. I know I have sick thoughts because they are projected on the body and appear as pain and suffering. Even though I ask for healing, I don’t always accept it right away or fully. I know this is crazy, and yet, here I am suffering and in pain, and rejecting the healing that is mine when I want it. All I have to do is value the healing more than I value the pain and suffering.

I know the healing is possible because I have chosen a healed mind and have seen the effects as the pain and suffering disappeared, sometimes disappearing so quickly that I was left laughing in wonder. I have listened to the Holy Spirit and I have listened to the ego. When I listen to the ego I am uncertain and doubtful. I am afraid and guilty. I suffer. When I listen to the Holy Spirit, I always hear only one thing. I am innocent. I am still as God created me. I don’t know why I still listen to the ego sometimes, but I am learning to be patient with myself and use each opportunity to experience more healing.

Jesus says that I am to teach my brothers to listen as he is teaching me. I do this in every way that I can. I teach what I have learned, but I also teach what I am learning. If someone asks I tell them that I am confused about what I really want and that I still find value in pain and suffering, but that I know that I can choose again.

It might be helpful to know that they are not the only ones who still listen to ego, and it might be helpful to know how I deal with it. I tell them that I am patient with myself and forgiving of my choices. I tell them that I just use the pain and suffering as another chance to choose God, and I do it without guilt and each time with more confidence. Our temporary setbacks are not failures and are not something to be ashamed of. In fact they can be good teaching tools.

Another way I teach is to see the truth in other people. Just as I am learning to see my own ego without judgment, I practice seeing their ego without judgment. When I do this for either of us, I see through the egos and to the truth of our being. The Course says that we are not sick and we cannot die, but we can confuse ourselves with things that do.

By realizing that my ego can see his ego, but that neither ego is real but just a confusion of the mind, I teach the truth whether I ever say anything or not. My ego thinks it is sick today, but I am not my ego. Remembering this is a way to teach. Remembering it when you are sick is also a way to teach. We can teach each other. Whichever of us is saner at the moment can be the teacher.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 9, 10-14-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 9
10-14-13
9 My mind will always be like yours, because we were created as equals. It was only my decision that gave me all power in Heaven and earth. My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision. This decision is the choice to share it, because the decision itself is the decision to share. It is made by giving, and is therefore the one choice that resembles true creation. I am your model for decision. By deciding for God I showed you that this decision can be made, and that you can make it.

In every moment of the day I make a decision. I make a decision for ego, that is, for separation, weakness, loss, and death. Or I make a decision for God, for love, for all power in Heaven and earth. I can make the decision for God continuously. I know I can because Jesus did it and proved to me it can be done. I long to make that decision because I long for love. Love is universally the strongest drive of man because deep down in our core we have an ancient memory of our creation, and we know that we are an extension of love Itself. We are Love playing at being human. Every fiber of our being longs for union with Itself.

The desire for love becomes distorted as it passes through the ego filters in our mind and becomes something closer to neediness seeking, always seeking, something to fulfill it. It is hardly recognizable as love and yet it is still the highest calling we know within the illusion because it is the closest we can come to our true nature. But through the Holy Spirit in our mind we can become healed and our nature stretches, the neediness dissolves, our little attempts at love grow and are purified. We become what we always were, or close enough to it that ascension becomes possible.

O my, can you imagine that? Can you imagine Love ascending into Love and joining with Love, never to imagine Itself separated again. I imagine it . . . but of course, I can’t really. I try to think what it would be like, what it is like. It must be absolute freedom and vastness. When I think of it, I feel claustrophobic in this body. I feel like crying. I imagine living without the limits imposed by humanness and the limits imposed by separation. I would never experience loneliness or loss again. Grief and pain would be such a distant memory I couldn’t grasp it in my mind. Smallness would no longer be a concept I could hold onto. Would we wonder at the idea of guilt and fear, barely able to describe it much less feel it?

Holy Spirit I want to remember the truth. I want to remember my Self and my God. I’m doing my best to choose God over ego. Please help me today as I continue my practice. Help me to be as loving as it is possible for me to be in this moment. I accept the Atonement. Please heal the part of my mind that resists the Atonement. It knows not what it does.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 8, 10-11-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 8
10-11-13
8 The Holy Spirit is your Guide in choosing. He is in the part of your mind that always speaks for the right choice, because He speaks for God. He is your remaining communication with God, which you can interrupt but cannot destroy. The Holy Spirit is the way in which God’s Will is done on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and earth are in you, because the call of both is in your mind. The Voice for God comes from your own altars to Him. These altars are not things; they are devotions. Yet you have other devotions now. Your divided devotion has given you the two voices, and you must choose at which altar you want to serve. The call you answer now is an evaluation because it is a decision. The decision is very simple. It is made on the basis of which call is worth more to you.

Jesus is helping us to understand what the Holy Spirit is to us. He is the Truth that is in our minds. He is the Voice that speaks that truth. He is the Healer that corrects our thinking and so brings our will back into alignment with God’s Will and so His Will is done on earth as it is in Heaven. The Holy Spirit is completely safe from our illusions and while we can refuse to listen we can’t destroy Him.

Jesus also defines altars as he uses the term, at least to the degree that he explains that the altars are not things, but devotions. He says the Holy Spirit comes from my own altars to Him, but that I also have other altars now. So it seems that I am devoted to the Holy Spirit, but within this illusory experience of separation, I am also devoted to other things. This would help explain why I am so conflicted and uncertain in my life.

We are told that we cannot serve two masters. I must make a decision about who I will serve, or at which altar I will devote myself. I choose the Holy Spirit right now, and even if it seems during the day that I have chosen some other devotion, my true devotion is to God. I am fully willing to become aware of any mistaken belief that there is something else to which I could be devoted. I am fully willing to release my devotion from any of those false altars and am happy to do so as I become aware of them.

I have been aware of my devotion to specialness. I choose certain people to be special to me and expect them to treat me as if I am special to them. When it doesn’t happen, or I don’t see enough signs that they think I am special, I become unhappy. I feel unworthy and then project and make them guilty. This is an altar I have been devoted to all my life, and there is a part of me that is afraid to give it up.

The ego mind really believes that if no one sees me special, that does mean I am unworthy. This is an altar I am ready to let go of. It is not possible that God’s creation could be unworthy. Holy Spirit, I give this belief to you and ask that you heal my mind. I gladly accept the Atonement for this. I desire only one altar in my mind, and that this altar be You.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 7. 10-10-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 7
10-10-13
7 The Voice of the Holy Spirit does not command, because it is incapable of arrogance. It does not demand, because It does not seek control. It does not overcome, because It does not attack. It merely reminds. It is compelling only because of what it reminds you of. It brings to your mind the other way, remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you may make. The Voice for God is always quiet, because It speaks of peace. Peace is stronger than war because it heals. War is division, not increase. No one gains from strife. What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? If you listen to the wrong voice you have lost sight of your soul. You cannot lose it, but you can not know it. It is therefore “lost” to you until you choose right.

This is the Holy Spirit I know; It is gentle, peaceful, loving, kind, quiet, respectful, patient, undemanding, available, utterly trustworthy. I call on the Holy Spirit for help and It answers. I ask for healing and It heals, but It answers the request of my heart and so heals only to the degree I truly desire that healing. It sometimes answers in unexpected ways.

Here is an example. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me let go of the belief in guilt, not just the belief that I am guilty for this thing or that thing, but the belief in guilt altogether. Guilt is not of God so it cannot be real, and while I understand that concept, I still feel guilty for various “sins” that I commit, so I must still believe in it. I feel ready to let that go and so I asked for help.

The Course tells us that the way to do this is to look at my thoughts and beliefs with the Holy Spirit, and deciding against them, ask for the Atonement (healing). So naturally, lots of guilty thoughts are coming forward so that I can see the many uses I have for guilt and make another choice. After awhile I feel overwhelmed with this and even a little confused as I lose my detachment and start to forget why I am looking at guilt. Then I simply feel guilty and this is depressing. I recover, but I am making it a more painful process than it needs to be. Realizing this I asked for help.

A couple of days ago, I was walking from my car to see a customer and I had the thought that even as I walk in this parking lot, I am being healed. It was a little revelation, that. It brought to mind that the important stuff happens without my help. The healing of the mind requires only my sincere desire. The healing itself does not need my help.

Later that day I was worrying about a customer, concerned that I had remembered everything I needed to do for him, and the thought came into my mind that even as I worry, my mind is being healed. I laughed out loud. Yes, my mind is being healed and what I do or say or even think does not prevent that healing. I sincerely asked for healing and so the healing is taking place.

This happened several more times when I was concerned about something or feeling guilty about something. I had a memory of something I said and it triggered the guilt in my mind. I was feeling bad about it and the thought came; even as I sit here in this guilt, my mind is being healed. I was awash in relief to remember that there is nothing to worry about. I am being healed. I am waking up. Nothing I say or do is stopping that.

After awhile I realized that this was a gift from Holy Spirit, the answer to my prayer for help to do the work on guilt without suffering while I did it. I began to notice that often when I paused for that reminder, I felt a sense of removal from the problem, as if I were not part of it, but simply watching it. Such blessings, such grace, and only because I asked for it!

This paragraph also talks about the strength of peace. Before the Course I didn’t understand the idea of peace as strength because my mind was steeped in the idea of attack as defense. I have since learned that in my defenselessness my safety lies. No one gains from strife. I know this because I have proven it to myself in my own life.

I wonder how different our government would be if everyone in it understood this. Perhaps they are helping us all learn that strife is not strength as we watch them squabble and fight for dominance. Everyone has the option of joining them in their divisive behavior by taking sides and giving up their peace to this battle, or stepping back and letting peace guide their thoughts. We will learn the lesson we want to learn, and it won’t be a lesson in politics however it seems. We are all learning and teaching purpose. Am I here to create and promote strife, or peace?

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 6. 10-9-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 6
10-9-13
6 The Holy Spirit calls you both to remember and to forget. You have chosen to be in a state of opposition in which opposites are possible. As a result, there are choices you must make. In the holy state the will is free, so that its creative power is unlimited and choice is meaningless. Freedom to choose is the same power as freedom to create, but its application is different. Choosing depends on a split mind. The Holy Spirit is one way of choosing. God did not leave His children comfortless, even though they chose to leave Him. The voice they put in their minds was not the Voice for His Will, for which the Holy Spirit speaks.

Before the split mind choices were meaningless. This is because in our true state the will is free and our creative power is unlimited. But now, because of the split mind, there are opposites and we must make choices. We made a voice that was not real, and we believed that voice, so we were given another Voice. Now there are two voices and we must choose the one we would listen to.

The ego voice that we made and believed will lead us deeper into the illusion and further from Love. The Voice given us by God will help us wake up from the dream of separation and remind us of the truth of who we are. It will lead us to Heaven and restore the memory of True Self. There is no option to not make a choice. This choice must be made every moment of every day.

When I was depressed it was because I chose to believe the ego voice. When I made another choice, I didn’t even realize I was doing so. It is only in retrospect that I see clearly the moment I chose differently. I should say it was the moment I began to choose differently, because it required many choices to let go of the beliefs that made a world where depression is possible. I still make that choice every day.

My life began to change when I began to question my beliefs. Up until that point I just assumed that depression was unavoidable for me. It was my fate. I am sure that beneath that belief there was the belief that I was unworthy and being punished by God for my sins. But after I began to study the Course I learned to doubt the idea of a judgmental, punishing God. I began to doubt my unworthiness. Eventually, I began to doubt the inevitability of depression as a way of life.

I did not set out to rid myself of depression. I didn’t even believe that was possible. But as I questioned my beliefs about God and my nature, I realized that my mind was sick. I learned to ask that my mind be healed, and the miracle occurred. Just as a sick mind projected a sick brain, a healed mind projected a healed brain and the symptoms were gone.

The ego still offers me the option of being depressed. I can see the appeal now. I used to feel sorry for myself and expected others to be sorry for me, too, and that pity was the way I felt loved. When the depression was strong, I could opt out of life and I had that perfect excuse to do so. I was so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed, and no one expected me to. I was so special.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I loved my depression story. A friend had a huge bottle of pills that she kept for the moment the depression was too great to bear. That bottle of pills was her way out if she couldn’t stand life anymore. One day she gave them to me because she didn’t need them anymore. I took them with gratitude and kept them as my failsafe.

You would think that my first reaction would to be to beg her for her secret of getting out of the depression, but instead, I just took the pills and was happy to have them. I believed that death was my only escape and I wasn’t interested in healing as an escape. I loved that story of depression and I wasn’t giving it up. That should have clued me into how sick my mind was, but it would take more suffering for me to reach the point that I began to ask for a different way.

It took time for me to make a different choice, but always, even when I didn’t believe in the possibility of another choice, that other choice was waiting patiently for me. I have friends who chose the bottle of pills, or some other way out, who never made the choice for life. What about them? The cycle of birth and death will just spit them back into the illusion again, and they will have another chance to choose the Voice for God.

Failure is not an option. We are the Son’s of God. We cannot be destroyed, not even by our own hand. We can only dream of destruction. We can dream of suffering as long as we can stand it, but eventually we will dream of God, and then He will lift us up. He waits only for us to make that choice.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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