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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy, Paragraph 4. 6-13-14

X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy, Paragraph 4
4 That is why you need to demonstrate the obvious to yourself. It is not obvious to you. You believe that doing the opposite of God’s Will can be better for you. You also believe that it is possible to do the opposite of God’s Will. Therefore, you believe that an impossible choice is open to you, and one which is both fearful and desirable. Yet God wills. He does not wish. Your will is as powerful as His because it is His. The ego’s wishes do not mean anything, because the ego wishes for the impossible. You can wish for the impossible, but you can will only with God. This is the ego’s weakness and your strength.

I wish for lots of things. Right now this moment I wish I could stay home from work. I wish I could have slept longer. I wish I weighed less. I wish I were retired. I wish I could win the lottery. That is just a quick list of the thoughts in my mind under the heading of things I wish. What is so impossible about them? I may never win the lottery, but it is possible. I can’t get up later today, but I could tomorrow. Otherwise, all of them seem possible to me.

When I look at these things closer what I see is that I want to be happy. I want to be happy and I think the way to do it is to have more time for myself with more money to spend and a smaller body to do these things. It is impossible that I get these things and then find I am happy. That is the impossible part. I could have them and discover that there are other things I want and so I am not happy. I know this would happen because it has before… actually, all my life.

Nothing I get really makes me happy. I might be happy for a little bit, but then I discover something else is needed to keep me happy. No thing I buy and no change in circumstances brings perfect happiness. If I get something spectacular, such as when I had my children, all of whom still bring me happiness, they came with problems and fears as I realized how unprepared I was to be a mother and as I anticipated problems. So even in that perfect moment, I was not happy.

In the world of time where we find ourselves at this moment, there is no happiness. There is only fear and guilt and moments of less fear and guilt. I have thought that my wishes fulfilled would bring me joy, and each time I got my wish, I discovered I was wrong. Obviously, I don’t know the difference between pain and joy, because I keep asking for things that I think will bring me joy and I wind up in pain.

When I ask for ego wishes to be fulfilled, I ask for pain. Now that I understand this, I can ask for something different. What if I asked Holy Spirit for joy? What if I asked Him to teach me the difference between pain and joy, and to show me how to ask for joy? Rearranging my story isn’t doing the trick; that is just more wishing. How do I get in touch with my will, the one I share with God? This is what I want. This will bring me joy.

I am being reminded of the times I do this, the times I will instead of wish, the times my will is in alignment with God’s Will. I think of how peaceful I feel and how joyful. This can happen in the middle of whatever ego stuff is hitting the fan. I just suddenly remember truth and I am the clock in the storm, ticking away, completely unaffected by what is happening around me. Calm. Peaceful. Happy.

Holy Spirit, thank you for reminding me that I can do this and what it feels like. Help me remember this today. I woke up thinking how crazy the day is going to be as I try to fit too many things into too short a time. I don’t wish to go back to bed or for today to meet my expectations. What I will is that God’s Will be done and that I relax into that Will. I ask that I not miss this opportunity to surrender into perfection and allow it to sweep me into joy.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7:X.The Confusion of Pain and Joy, Paragraph 3. 6-12-14

X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy, Paragraph 3
3 The Holy Spirit will direct you only so as to avoid pain. Surely no one would object to this goal if he recognized it. The problem is not whether what the Holy Spirit says is true, but whether you want to listen to what He says. You no more recognize what is painful than you know what is joyful, and are, in fact, very apt to confuse the two. The Holy Spirit’s main function is to teach you to tell them apart. What is joyful to you is painful to the ego, and as long as you are in doubt about what you are, you will be confused about joy and pain. This confusion is the cause of the whole idea of sacrifice. Obey the Holy Spirit, and you will be giving up the ego. But you will be sacrificing nothing. On the contrary, you will be gaining everything. If you believed this, there would be no conflict.

I know someone who thinks that what makes her happy is to decide for herself about everything. She thinks she knows what is best for her and even when she knows she doesn’t know what is best, she thinks that she should decide what she is going to do. She is obstinate about making decisions on her own even when they fly in the face of common sense.

She thinks that being the one that decides is what makes her happy. There is underlying belief that this is what makes her safe, even though she sees this is not always true. Doing what she wants to do is more important to her than living. Even though she may not say this to herself, it is more important to her than Awakening.

I’m looking at this behavior in her because it is so clearly unreasonable that I can use it to understand what Jesus is telling me in this paragraph. This woman will not give up the “right” to direct her life in the way she wants, even though the directions she has been given are for her own good and to keep her body alive. Obviously, she believes that to follow guidance rather than decide for herself would be a sacrifice so great that she would rather die than do it.

She is not guilty for this. It is simply the part she came to learn and teach. This stubbornness has been part of her personality all of her life and so it seems that it is a core issue for her. I’m looking at this from outside, so to speak, so I may be wrong as far as what it means to her, but I can use it for my own understanding regardless.

From my point of view her life is a lesson in the value of surrender. I look at her and I see what not surrendering costs and I am strongly motivated to look at what I hold onto. What do I value above God? What in my life do I think is so important that I would hold onto it even if it meant staying in the illusion?

I see that I still cling to certain special relationships. I have a hard time simply surrendering them to Spirit and letting Him sort them out. I seem to believe that a sacrifice would be asked of me, that putting my relationships in His hands would be like Abraham putting his son on the altar, thinking he had to sacrifice his son’s life to God.

According to the Bible story, Abraham’s hand was stayed at the last moment. What if I trust my special relationships to God and there is no stay of execution? I don’t really believe this, but part of my mind does. I know it does because I haven’t surrendered fully. I, like this woman in my life, believe that I know what is good for me. I believe that deciding what to do with my relationships is better than surrendering them to Holy Spirit and letting Him heal them.

I have surrendered many beliefs to the Holy Spirit, and always I have been rewarded with the joy of a healed mind. Today, I give my willingness to let my special relationships go into His hands. I will let Him direct me. I have enough trust now to do this, not as a sacrifice, but in trust that the Holy Spirit knows better than me what I need.  I now believe that deciding for myself is pain and letting Holy Spirit direct me is joy.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: X.The Confusion of Pain and Joy, Paragraph 2. 6-11-14

X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy, Paragraph 2
2 It is surely clear that you can both accept into your mind what is not there, and deny what is. Yet the function God Himself gave your mind through His you may deny, but you cannot prevent. It is the logical outcome of what you are. The ability to see a logical outcome depends on the willingness to see it, but its truth has nothing to do with your willingness. Truth is God’s Will. Share His Will and you share what He knows. Deny His Will as yours, and you are denying His Kingdom and yours.

I have the Kingdom of God and am in the Kingdom of God and nothing can change this because I am that I am. This is not up for debate, nor is it possible to alter it. However, if I choose not to acknowledge my reality, it is as if I am not that. I will seem to be something different, and somewhere different. But seeming and being is hardly the same thing.

If it is my will I can prevent myself from being aware of the truth. I simply refuse to accept it. It is possible for me to do this through my unlimited freedom as God’s Son. However, though I am free to disregard truth, I cannot prevent truth from being true and so it remains in my mind even though I deny its presence. It simply is. Because what I am is always available to me, all I need to do to know my Self again is to decide not to block it from my memory. I do this through the Holy Spirit, Which is also in my mind.

Not only am I hiding my truth from myself and refusing to accept what is in my mind, I am accepting something else instead. I accept all sorts of impossibilities as if they were gospel truth. I accept that I am separate from God, as if that could ever happen. I accept that I am separate from my brothers and from every living thing.

I accept that I am guilty and afraid. I accept the idea that projection will save me from my imagined fears, and that I can save myself by throwing my brothers under the bus. “Here, God, you angry and scary guy, here is someone who is guiltier than me. Take him.” I accept all sorts of insane thoughts into mind. I think I am a body, or at the least, imprisoned in this flesh. I think the body can be affected by something outside my mind. The list of insanity just goes on and on.

What I accept as true is true for me, but only in my dream of being something I am not. The truth remains, and is quite unaffected by my imaginings. In the meantime, since what I believe is true for me, and I believe I suffer, that seems to be true. I think I am suffering. I feel like I am suffering. I believe that this body is real and is me and is afflicted by all sorts of outside forces and so this is the experience I have. I think I get sick and die. I think I lose the ones I love. I think I can be impoverished.

I suffer through my own decisions, and for me, while I suffer it seems of little consequence that it is not really happening. So now that I know suffering is not inevitable, and I am told, not even real, I am motivated to allow the Holy Spirit to heal the only part of me that is sick and needs healing, my mind. I open to the truth by doing my part. I gladly and enthusiastically hand over the false beliefs that are blocking my Self from my awareness. “Holy Spirit, I ask for the Atonement and I accept and receive it. Amen.”

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy, Paragraph 1. 6-10-14

X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy
1 The Kingdom is the result of premises, just as this world is. You may have carried the ego’s reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is total confusion about everything. If you really saw this result you could not want it. The only reason you could possibly want any part of it is because you do not see the whole of it. You are willing to look at the ego’s premises, but not at their logical outcome. Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? Your creations are the logical outcome of His premises. His thinking has established them for you. They are exactly where they belong. They belong in your mind as part of your identification with His, but your state of mind and your recognition of what is in it depend on what you believe about your mind. Whatever these beliefs may be, they are the premises that will determine what you accept into your mind.

It has taken me a long time, but I am beginning to see exactly where the ego will lead us if we follow it to its logical conclusion, and it is not a pretty thing. I have been able to hold onto the ego so far because I have looked at it in only bits and pieces. I have tried to keep the parts I value while letting go of the parts that are clearly painful. I have tried to have some ego and some God. I have discovered that this won’t work. I am so confused that I cannot even tell what is valuable and what is not, what is pain and what is pleasure.

I was once married to a paranoid schizophrenic. His condition when full blown was an example of nearly total confusion. He could not tell what was real and what wasn’t. He couldn’t tell friend from foe, and so everyone was an enemy or potential enemy, even those he loved and who loved him. His fear was complete because there was no trust; he could not even trust himself.

After I discovered A Course in Miracles and thought about Charlie, I realized that this is what it is like to be very deeply identified with ego. Charlie was in and out of this state, but never completely free of it. Imagine, though, if the ego premise was carried to its logical conclusion and this was the state that everyone endured, and endured without respite. Imagine what a nightmare life would be.

If the ego’s premise taken to it’s logical conclusion is total confusion, where will God’s premise take us in Its logical conclusion? Would it be crystal clarity? Would it be absolute certainty and complete stability? If God created me through extending Himself, does that mean I am crystal clear, certain, stable? Does it mean I am unlimited and unchanging? If the premise is that I am created by and of God, and that God is good, doesn’t that mean that I am good?

Does it not also follow that I create as God creates? Ideas leave not their source and so I am in the Mind of God, therefore my creations are in my mind. Since I am in the Mind of God, confusion is an illusion because the Mind of God is crystal clear, and being in it, I am crystal clear. The confusion of ego cannot be there or the Mind would not be what It is.

The Mind is eternal and I am in the Mind so I am eternal. The body, which is mortal, must be an illusion. God is Life and so nothing that dies can be in God. I am in God, therefore I cannot die. God is Love and therefore I am Love. There is only God, so there is only Love. There is nothing to oppose because All is One. There is nothing but Love so there is perfect peace.

Because God is only Love, there is no guilt, pain, fear or suffering in the Mind, so these things cannot be real and cannot be in me either. If I think they are, I must be dreaming. To the extent I believe what must logically be true, I will accept only what is God in my mind. If I want something else, I will believe in something else, and that is what I will accept into my mind.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: IX.The Extension of the Kingdom, A Final Thought. 6-9-14

Chapter 7, Section IX: A final thought.

Reading this section of the Text has shifted me to another place in my mind. I have heard the ego voice this morning as it warned me to hurry or I would be late, but there is a calmness in my mind that answers this warning. How can I have anything to fear? I am the Son of God. I am under no laws but God’s. What is time to me?

What has Jesus told us that has made such a difference to me. Let me review this. He has said that only I can limit my creative power, but God wills to release it. I limit my power when I think it is bound by the ego laws I set up to make a separation story. God would have that power released so that I create as He creates. 

Even here, in this world of illusion, I am free to use my creative power with wild abandon! I can make a happy world instead of an ego limited world of suffering. He does not will that this be possible only when I am a better ego. He wills this for me now because He knows me as perfect and worthy in this moment. God would deny me nothing.

Jesus says that everything He created is given all His power. This means that I have been given all the power that is God. That is why I can make a happy dream as easily as I can make a painful dream. He gave me that power in my creation and that power remains as it was given, so it is available to me now. The power of God is in me because I am in God.

As I accept that all of this is true for all of my brothers as well, I can begin to use the power in the way God wills me to use it. It is only my desire that I be special that clouds my mind. This is why I deny every guilt thought that enters my mind. No matter what I perceive in my brother, I know he is not guilty. I cannot afford the sacrifice of seeing him as guilty because to do so is to deny the Kingdom to all of us.

Jesus says that the ego’s whole thought system blocks extension, and thus blocks my only function. I want to undo the ego so that my function can be fulfilled because I understand that fulfilling my function is my happiness. It is the way I know my Self and remember my creations and open my mind to full communication with my Creator. This is what I long for. So my prayer is always that the Holy Spirit heal my mind and undo what I have done.

Jesus says that a split mind cannot perceive its fullness, and needs the miracle of its wholeness to dawn upon it and heal it. My mind is split as long as I still value any part of the idea of separation. I willingly relinquish the self image I have made. I willingly relinquish the desire to be special. I relinquish the idea that I am separate from my brothers and from God.

I enthusiastically relinquish the belief in guilt, in pain, in suffering, and in the ridiculous notion of death. I relinquish the idea that I am something, anything, that God did not create. I see all these ego beliefs as nonsense and I see them as the source of all suffering.

“Holy Spirit, I open my heart and mind to You. Please correct my wrong-minded thinking and bring me back to sanity and to the Kingdom where I belong.”

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: IX.The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 7. 6-6-14

IX. The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 7

7 Be confident that you have never lost your Identity and the extensions which maintain It in wholeness and peace. Miracles are an expression of this confidence. They are reflections of both your proper identification with your brothers, and of your awareness that your identification is maintained by extension. The miracle is a lesson in total perception. By including any part of totality in the lesson, you have included the whole.

It is easy to forget that my Identity is safe. I see evidence of separation all around me, and I see the ego acting out and I feel vulnerable and small. Who would think that this could be the Son of God? But I can be confident that my Identity remains safe and is never lost in spite of what I seem to be now. My extensions, that is, my creations, are safe as well. We are maintained in wholeness and peace.

Jesus reminds us that miracles are an expression of this confidence. Miracles are the natural result of our returning memory of our Identity. Some of the miracles I have performed have occurred on another level as a result of the healing of the mind, and I am not necessarily aware of them. But many miracles have occurred on this level, and while the miracle is always a healing of the mind, they often have visible effects. They occur as an expression of my confidence in my true Identity, but they also help build that confidence.

Another point that Jesus makes is that miracles are reflections of my proper identification with my brothers, which means that I know my brother and I are one. I know my brother and I share innocence. I know that I extend love to my brother rather than using him as a place to project guilt.

Jesus also says that the miracle is a reflection of my awareness that my identification is maintained by the extension of God’s Being, which is my only function. Obviously, I must remember who my brother is in order to do this, and I must let go of the ego thought system which blocks this extension.

This morning I did today’s lesson, Into His presence would I enter now. During this meditation what came to me were the faces of several people. It started with the face of a young man with whom I had a brief encounter yesterday. When I saw his face I realized there was something wrong, and that he was probably mentally deficient, but he was very friendly and pleasant to talk to. This morning when his face came into my mind, his true presence peaked out at me. This happened with several other people.

I recently watched Avatar again and this experience reminded me of my favorite line in that movie: “I see you.” In the meditation this morning each person showed me his real self. It was a remarkable experience and brought me to tears and laughter. I prayed that I would be able to maintain that vision throughout the day. This experience was a miracle because it changed forever the way I will see my brother. It was not just the words I learned from the Course, but it was the direct experience of those words.

Now I will probably see the effects of that change in my life. Those effects are the visible miracle. I don’t know how that will appear, but I am certain it will. Already I feel a lightness and joy as well as an expansive confidence that I did not feel when I woke up this morning. I was open to this miracle because I was willing to see differently. I was willing to see my brother differently and I was willing to extend God’s Being as well as I could. I look forward to continuing this extension as I am guided.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: IX.The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 6. 6-5-14

IX. The Extension of the Kingdom, Paragraph 6

6 You have not failed to increase the inheritance of the Sons of God, and thus have not failed to secure it for yourself. Since it was the Will of God to give it to you, He gave it forever. Since it was His Will that you have it forever, He gave you the means for keeping it. And you have done so. Disobeying God’s Will is meaningful only to the insane. In truth it is impossible. Your Self-fullness is as boundless as God’s. Like His, It extends forever and in perfect peace. Its radiance is so intense that It creates in perfect joy, and only the whole can be born of Its wholeness.

What a beautiful thing to read this morning. Today’s Lesson (156) assures me that I walk with God in perfect holiness. It reminds me that thoughts leave not their source and so as a Thought of God, I remain in God. And now as I read today’s paragraph, I am further assured that it is not possible that I disobey God’s Will. What He has given me is given forever, and I cannot lose it.

As I read this paragraph and take in what it says to me, I am overjoyed. My Self-fullness is as boundless as God’s, and it extends forever and in perfect peace. This is the truth, not the ego small self that I made to take the place of my Self-fullness. I intend to place my focus on the truth today. When I notice that my thoughts are wandering into ego again, I will remember my holiness and place my awareness on the truth instead.

I wonder if this is how we wake up? Do we simply choose to place our awareness on the truth each time we notice that we are focused on ego? After all, nothing is happening when we think our ego thoughts and watch our ego stories. The only thing that is actually happening is happening in God, where I am creating in perfect joy. If I keep shifting my attention back to reality, surely I will soon decide to remain there.

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