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Study of the Text 10-24-12

10-25-12
49 The miracle makes no distinction among degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception correction, effective quite apart from either the degree or the direction of the error. This is its true indiscriminateness.

Perception is either true, or it isn’t. All errors are simply errors, not bigger errors or worse. One is not harder to correct than another. If I have an experience of cancer it is the same error I experience when I have a headache. Each of these experiences is the result of believing in pain, suffering and death.

There is no such thing as pain. Pain cannot be real because if it were then pain would be part of God. If that is true I may as well stay in the dream. God is Love and Love is not pain. The same is true for all forms of suffering. So if I suffer from physical pain, emotional pain, the belief in lack and loss, it is all the same error.

When the error is corrected, and I understand the impossibility of pain and suffering, none of the causes will be meaningful to me. Pain and fear of cancer disappears with the same ease as does the pain from a headache and the fear of poverty. When I absolutely know that death cannot exist because Life is all encompassing and has no opposite, there is no grief. What is there to grieve when I realize there is no death, no where to go, no state other than Wholeness, other than than God.

All that changes is a belief. An untrue belief is replaced with a true belief. How could one belief be bigger or harder than another, and yet it certainly feels so. It was hard for me to even write the words, the death of a child. That feels big, enormous, awful, and impossible to face, but that is because I still believe in death and loss.

I don’t believe that anything happens to us when we die other than we let go of the idea of a body, but I believe that the person who does so is out of my reach, and so I suffer from a sense of loss when someone dies. That, too, is just a thought, just an idea and can be healed. This is what the miracle is for. I ask for perception correction in this area. I ask for a miracle.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text 10-24-12

10-24-12
48 The miracle is the only device at your immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation transcends it, having nothing to do with time at all.

How does the miracle control time? The Course tells us that the script is written but it also tells us that we do have choice. Our choice is how we will see the script. We are told that the first split in the mind occurring after separation was consciousness, the receptive mechanism which receives messages from both Spirit and ego. When we receive a message from ego we can believe it or not believe it. We can also learn to recognize the messages that are from Spirit.

So let’s say that I hurt my neck and am having a lot of pain because of it. I did not bring this accident into manifestation through my ego thoughts which are not creative. This damaged neck is part of the script that comes from my Spirit. The script has me going through this problem and experiencing a number of consequences. Maybe I will lose my job because I had to take so much time off, and this leads to other consequences. This is fine. There are lots of lessons that can be learned in this script.

However, let’s say at about the same time as I hurt my neck I also had the opportunity to deepen my understanding of the Course. I gained more understanding about the way these things occur and why. I became more willing to be receptive to the Holy Spirit and more willing to set aside my thoughts so that I could be more open to truth. Consciousness is not creative, but rather it is a perceiver and as such it can never have knowledge, but it can be trained to true perception, and that is what’s happening. I am learning to perceive more truly than before.

Perhaps it went something like this.
First: My neck hurts and I feel guilty because it must mean that I am doing something wrong. I am not being a good Course student.
Then: I can heal my neck if I figure out my error. I can learn the right words to say and remember to say them often.
Then: I can heal my neck if I ask for healing and really mean it.
Then: I can heal my neck if I change my thinking.
Then: I can heal my neck if I stay faithful to the belief I am not a body. I can do this by not going to the doctor or taking medicine because then that would mean I believe in the body. But my neck hurts. This is hard. And painful.
Then: I can heal my neck if I accept correction of my thoughts.
Then: I am angry, frustrated and scared, but still determined to gain the understanding I need.
Then: I stop resisting the pain in my neck.
I realize my Spirit gives me (a script) that is exactly all and only what I need to wake us up.
I trust my Spirit. (I trust the script.)
I ask Spirit what it is I am to learn from this, what I am to do, to understand, to know. I ask how it is I am to see this. I ask for the blessing.

Because I have become receptive to a more helpful way of experiencing this pain in the neck, I now have a truer perception of this situation. The result is that certain effects are no longer going to be experienced. Perhaps the neck will heal itself, or if it stays a bit longer I will not experience it in the same way. Maybe I will learn to breathe through the pain, maybe I will be guided to a doctor who will have a solution on the physical level.

Perhaps because of this kind of change I won’t miss as much work and so won’t lose my job. Because I am not making the pain worse through the stress caused by frustration and fear, I won’t be so hard to get along with and won’t damage a relationship. The more receptive I am to guidance, the faster I learn the lesson the pain came to bring me and the shorter the path to awakening. It becomes shorter because the script took a sharp turn and I avoided a lot of the effects that I would have had to experience if I had stayed with the ego thinking.

Think of the script not as a straight road, but as a road with many twists and turns and lots of ways to get to the same place. Some of those roads take you on the scenic route and are more time consuming. But if you listen closely to your Navigation System you can avoid them when you are tired of the scenery and just want to go Home.

This is how we lessen time through the miracle. The change in my thinking (the miracle) elevated my perception to something closer to truth. I no longer needed certain lessons and those are now in some other form of the script, but not in the one I am on. True perception helped me avoid certain ego pitfalls so I lost that time as well.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text 10-23-12

10-23-12
47 The miracle is a learning device that lessens the need for time. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval not under the usual laws of time. In this sense it is timeless.

When I feel like someone has attacked me it is possible I will feel the need to defend myself and always, that defense is an attack. This creates a cycle into which no healing can come. It is like a war that has no end. The soldier on one side shoots a soldier on the other side and then that side shoots a soldier on the other side and it goes on and on. The war cannot end because the rule is, defend when you are attacked.

Suppose the soldiers notice that if this continues then soon there will be only one left standing. Maybe that means his side wins, but at what cost? Who will care except maybe that last soldier? But what can be done to stop the killing? Usually, someone outside the battle ground begins negotiations for peace.

For many years of my life I was in a war with everyone. No one died from my attacks and they did not kill me, but there was much suffering. Even when there was a truce, no one could relax because we all had to be on the look-out for the next volley of attacks, and you never knew where they would come from. It could easily be someone you thought was a friend, even a loved one.

But just as in a war between armies, there was a limit to the pain and destruction I could take. I decided there must be a better way and I found that way through A Course in Miracles. Now when I notice that I have again entered the battlefield, I ask for a miracle. I ask that I might learn another way, something that is not painful, something that doesn’t just delay the attack, but that corrects the belief that created the need for attack. I don’t just want another truce, I want war to end. The miracle comes from outside the closed cycle so it can bring a different solution.

When I ask for the mind to be healed and accept that healing, I save thousands of years of suffering. There are many, many battles that will not be fought, many attacks that will not be answered. The light that shines away the darkness in my mind, spreads throughout the Sonship. When anyone accepts the miracle we all owe him a debt of gratitude because he accepts it for all of us.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text 10-22-12

10-22-12
46 The Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium. Miracles do not involve this type of communication, because they are temporary communication devices. When you return to your original form of communication with God by direct revelation, the need for miracles is over.

I have to figure this one out. Communication medium would be a way to communicate. Conversation would be one type of communication medium, as would writing. Television would be a communication medium I suppose and movies as well. All of those types of communication mediums require the use of words which limits understanding.

My experience with the Holy Spirit is that I often do use words when I communicate with Him, but that is for my benefit. Using words helps clarify the question in my own mind. The Holy Spirit does not need words from me or to me. When I ask for a healing I may use words, but most often no words are involved when I receive that healing. I may put words to it later in order to share the experience, but the healing itself simply occurs. My mind becomes clear and I am returned to peace.

Perhaps this helps explain why the Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium. Words are but symbols of symbols and thus twice removed from reality. Any communication that involves words is going to be limited. Another thought that occurs to me is that He knows exactly how to get an answer to me.

I’ve noticed that I am perceiving things differently than I have before. It felt absolutely right but because it was so different, and also because it is perhaps not typical, I was concerned. I asked the Holy Spirit to let me know if I am on my path or if I had veered off. He brought me all the way to Colorado for my answer and gave it to me in words from a teacher. Other times the answer comes as I write. Sometimes I don’t realize the question was there until it was answered.

But there is something else meant here when it says that the Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium because it also says that we don’t use this medium in miracles. It says they are temporary communication devices. This tells me that miracles are a communication device, too, but because they are needed only in the illusion , they are not true communication. I think of miracles and true perception as being similar in that way. Neither one is real, but both are necessary until they aren’t.

So there is another form of communication, and this is communication with God through direct revelation. Evidently, the Holy Spirit has some part in this, is the medium for this communication. I don’t know if this is right and I certainly don’t know what it means. I have no memory of communicating with God through direct revelation, though it must be in mind since this principle says that I will return to it, and that it is my original form of communication. When I do return to direct revelation it will be because the need for miracles is over.

PS: This one was hard for me to understand, so I looked it up in a book on the Miracle Principles by Ken Wapnick. He seems to be saying the reason the HS is the highest communication medium is that He communicates from God to us. When our minds are healed we no longer need that link to God, because there is no longer a split in the mind.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text 10-19-12

10-19-12
45 A miracle is never lost. It may touch many people you have not even met, and produce undreamed of changes in situations of which you are not even aware.

I write a lot and it is posted and reposted, and published in more than one place. Most of my writing teaches through describing my experiences. Sometimes I hear about a miracle that was triggered by my story, but most of the time I don’t know who is touched by something I wrote. The same is true of anything I might say. How do I know who might be affected or how.

I was caught in the trap of thinking someone’s thought error was the cause of my discomfort. A friend made a gentle but true statement and though it took me a few minutes, it started the healing process in my mind. Unless I told him about it he would not be aware of the miracle his words created.

I don’t judge the effectiveness of the miracle. I trust Jesus who is in charge of the Atonement, and trusting him, I don’t look for proof. In fact, there may not be any proof for me to find. Not all miracles manifest in form. I remind myself that miracles occur because the mind is healed. The healing of the mind is the miracle, and the appearance of a miraculous change in the world is a side effect and not important to the miracle.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text 10-12-12

10-12-12
44 The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and acceptance of His Atonement.

I used to be very confused about what this meant. I knew that Christ was my true identity, but mostly that was a learned response. I was not actually aware of it. I didn’t feel like Christ. And certainly, if I saw accepting his Atonement as having undone the ego, I didn’t qualify for that either. And yet, sometimes, and more and more often, I experienced the miracle of a healed mind, and slowly and then more frequently the effects of a healed mind.

So I gathered from this that when I was aware of Christ within and when I accepted His Atonement, I experienced miracles. Over a period of time, I began to realize that although I would slide back into forgetfulness, the miracle was not lost. Once my mind was healed it stayed healed. I never lost anything. It only seemed I had lost it because my attention was sidetracked from the truth to the ego. If I lost what I had gained each time, I would never wake up.

Jesus, what do you want me to know about this principle?

There is no moment when Christ is not your Self. There are only moments when you choose to be unaware of your Self. Don’t be concerned about this. It is unimportant, and changes nothing. Your practice is enlighting your mind and it will unfold perfectly. Allow yourself to be in each moment, and to feel what comes up to be felt. Trust the process. Trust Me.

The ego mind tries to reassert itself but this can never happen. You do not walk backwards on this path. What is happening is that unhealed thoughts are coming to your awareness and sometimes you experience moments of confusion. The ego tendency to guilt and fear arise and you momentarily turn toward that.

Look at this with Me when it happens so that I can teach you it is meaningless. Fear is a response you taught yourself; in God’s Kingdom it does not exist, so it does not exist. This is what you will learn as you continue to bring your thoughts to me for purification.

Jesus, I notice that even when I am in this uncomfortable state of confusion I don’t believe in it. Behind the confusion is the certainty that it is not real and it will pass, that You will heal this, too. But I still have all the feelings of being lost, of being afraid or angry or whatever the situation brings up.

Yes, this is what happens when you believe the fear thoughts. Just as the miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and the acceptance of His Atonement, fear is an expression of identifying with ego and accepting its thought system of separation. You feel battered by these expressions of fear; anger, anxiety, frustration and all the others.

You feel this way because you have told yourself that you should not feel them, and yet they are inevitable when you experience yourself as separate. Your upset is the result of believing you have sinned. You have not, but because you believe you have and because you are afraid of seeing yourself this way, the ego mind creates a fog of confusion and you feel like you don’t know what is happening.

The way to break this cycle is to realize that anything you feel is acceptable. You cannot be guilty because you were not created guilty. You cannot be guilty any more than God could be guilty because you are His extension. Feel whatever you feel, and without guilt confusing the issue, you will quickly recognize it for what it is and move through it. You already have learned to laugh at your false beliefs once you remember your self. I am only telling you how to do it faster and with less discomfort.

Yes, I can see what you mean, Jesus. I love you and appreciate you so much. I love my life now that I understand what it is for. I invite your help the next time I do this.

What you said makes perfect sense. It is not the negative emotions and the false beliefs that make me suffer, but rather the belief they should not be happening and the belief that having them means I am a sinner. I didn’t realize that this was the belief I was holding. I am happy to have that belief healed for me and for all of us.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text 10-11-12

10-11-12
43 Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind, or a state of miracle-readiness.

Miracles are mine when I am ready for them. I prepare my mind by noticing what needs correction and asking the Holy Spirit for that correction. This goes on all day long. I don’t go mining for ego thoughts. This has never been necessary. I just pay attention and ask for healing when I notice a need.

If it is not something from my mind, there are plenty of examples in books, movies, conversations with friends, the news and, of course, politics. What a great year this is for cleaning out the mind! You can’t go an hour without being reminded that people believe they are separate and have separate goals. They often believe that the only way they can be happy if they win and do not often see that winning at the expense of others is not really winning. Election time is a perfect example of the separation idea.

I get to see what I believe in as I read or hear the election talk. Do I believe that I know what should happen and who should win the election? Do I believe in a world that hangs in the balance of an election? Do I believe my point of view is the right one and that I am somehow harmed if my imagined needs are not met, and my favored candidate does not win? I can talk a good talk, but do I notice my stomach knotting, my muscles tightening? Do I feel the urge to put my two cents in?

Even if I am not noticing any of those things, even if I see each candidate as a child of God, doing what they came here to do, playing the part we all need them to play in the grand scheme to experience separation and then awaken from that dream, even then, there is much for me to forgive. If someone else is having a bad dream about the election and I notice, it is my job to heal that thought in the mind.

I love that there is only one mind. How efficient it is that we can heal anything we notice. If you notice I am confused you can ask the Holy Spirit to heal your mind of that belief. It’s all the same. I have in my mind everything you have in your mind. We, each of us, have the responsibility and the opportunity to heal the mind that we are.

If I notice someone is confused and thinking with the ego, it is completely unnecessary for me to point this out to them and suggest they do something about it. I can just ask the Holy Spirit to heal that in my mind. It does not matter which direction the healing is coming from. If someone asks for help in seeing differently, I can offer words, but I will still ask that my mind be healed. If I am particularly attuned, my words will lead them to the Holy Spirit within and they can get the help they need.

No matter how I go about it, my job is to desire a healed mind and be willing to do my part. I notice what needs healing and ask for the healing. I really mean it. I want the healing more than I want the error. That’s it. That’s all I have to do. This is how the mind is purified, how it becomes ready for the miracle. It is so simple and so absolutely necessary if I want the miracle. I don’t have to do anything else because the miracle does not need my help. It simply arises from a mind that is ready for it.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.