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Study of the Text, II.The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 7. 3-5-14

II. The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 7
7 What can the perfect consistency of the Kingdom mean to those who are confused? It is apparent that confusion interferes with meaning, and therefore prevents the learner from appreciating it. There is no confusion in the Kingdom, because there is only one meaning. This meaning comes from God and is God. Because it is also you, you share it and extend it as your Creator did. This needs no translation because it is perfectly understood, but it does need extension because it means extension. Communication is perfectly direct and perfectly united. It is totally free, because nothing discordant ever enters. That is why it is the Kingdom of God. It belongs to Him and is therefore like Him. That is its reality, and nothing can assail it.

Within the world there is confusion because there are meanings from which to choose. Because there are meanings we have preferences and so when we don’t get what we prefer we feel unhappy. For instance, I prefer an early bed time and a leisurely morning in which to do my writing before I go to work. When this happens I feel good, but when my plans are thwarted, I feel unhappy.

Because there are meanings we choose one and our brother chooses another and so our differences are further emphasized and instead of being in love, we are in competition. Even within the Course community there is a tendency to interpret A Course in Miracles differently and to defend the interpretation we choose. This leads to conflict and so to unhappiness.

The different meanings vie for our attention and distract and confuse. On every level we are given choices. We have fashion choices, political choices, and relationship choices. We choose what job we want and where we would go on vacation, what we will do with our free time and who we will do it with. It sounds interesting and exciting, but it is actually just distractions to keep us from noticing how unsatisfying and often painful and even tragic our life really is.

We either fight for our meaning or try to enlist other believers to fortify our choice. Whether it is the religion of choice or the political party we prefer, or the cause of the day, we are called to convince others and get them to support our side. If we are for one thing, that implies we are also against the other, which is just war cloaked in righteousness.

It becomes confusing because the more we support, even in our thoughts, one side or another, the more apparent it seems that we should do something. And I am not saying we shouldn’t do something. I am saying, though, that if we do something let it be from love, not from fear of what would happen if we did nothing. Let our actions be guided by One Who will direct us to the next link in the chain of Atonement, rather than by the ego that only wants to win at the expense of the loser.

In this world we think that the right to choose is worth fighting for. I have been making choices for 65 years and I have never made a choice that led to perfect peace. I give up. I surrender the ego’s “right” to choose, and ask the Holy Spirit to choose for me. I see now that I have always chosen one illusion over another and so nothing has actually happened, so why should I expect satisfaction. I see now that filling my mind with endless varieties of nothing is only confusing. Now I make the only choice that involves reality, the only choice for peace. I choose God over ego, and I wait in trust to see how that unfolds.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: II.The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 6. 3-4-14

II. The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 6

6 No one questions the connection of learning and memory. Learning is impossible without memory since it must be consistent to be remembered. That is why the Holy Spirit’s teaching is a lesson in remembering. I said before that He teaches remembering and forgetting, but the forgetting is only to make the remembering consistent. You forget in order to remember better. You will not understand His translations while you listen to two ways of interpreting them. Therefore you must forget or relinquish one to understand the other. This is the only way you can learn consistency, so that you can finally be consistent.

First I learned to recognize the ego thoughts when they showed up in my mind. Then I learned, through contrast, that these are not the thoughts that I want to believe. I then learned that the Holy Spirit will reinterpret for me if I wish, and that I can let my mind be healed. As I have gone through this process, learning to be very vigilant and very consistent, I have experienced more peace than I ever would have believed possible.

This process works very well until I become confused and listen to both voices. Last night this is what happened to me. I was reading from the Course one of the promises. I had the thought that I am never going to experience this, that if I haven’t succeeded by now it was never going to happen. It felt really discouraging to think about this.

I almost immediately heard the Voice for Truth reassure me that I can trust the words from Jesus and I wanted to believe that. But then the ego voice piped in with its “proof” that I am lost. It reminded me of how long I have been doing this and yet, am I awake? No. Even though I could hear Spirit quietly reassuring me, I could also hear the fear thoughts.

What I did was put on the audio version of the Course and let myself fall asleep listening to the truth. This was my way of making a choice for the Voice I would listen to and believe. It was my way of forgetting the other voice, relinquishing it in favor of the Holy Spirit. I woke up several times during the night to the uplifting words from the Course. This morning one of the first things I did was visit a new group I joined. It is a study of the book, “40 Days with Jesus: Celebrating His Presence” It said, in part:

Concentrate on keeping in step with Me, instead of trying to anticipate My plans for you. If you trust that My plans are to prosper you and not to harm you, you can relax and enjoy the present moment.

And:

Sometimes I grant you glimpses of your glorious future, to encourage you and spur you on. But your main focus should be staying close to Me. I set the pace in keeping with your needs and My purposes.

This was such a perfect answer to my upsetting thoughts! First I cried because I needed to release the tension that was caused when I was at war in my own mind. I know the truth, but when I listened to both voices, and when I gave credence to both of them, I was necessarily confused.

Then I completely let go of the ego thoughts and having been given permission by my choice, the Holy Spirit healed my mind. There is no conflict now. The dark thoughts dissolved as my mind was illuminated. It was a certain and simple thing once my mind was focused on only the one Voice.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: II.The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 5. 3-3-14

II. The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 5

5 The Holy Spirit’s purpose in translating is exactly the opposite. He translates only to preserve the original meaning in all respects and in all languages. Therefore, He opposes the idea that differences in form are meaningful, emphasizing always that these differences do not matter. The meaning of His message is always the same; only the meaning matters. God’s law of creation does not involve the use of truth to convince His Sons of truth. The extension of truth, which is the law of the Kingdom, rests only on the knowledge of what truth is. This is your inheritance and requires no learning at all, but when you disinherited yourself you became a learner of necessity.

Truth is my inheritance and so nothing was required of me to have truth, and to be truth. But then I chose something else to believe and thus disinherited myself of truth. Now I must learn truth to have it again. This is why I was given A Course in Miracles to help me learn what I have forgotten.

It seems the ego wants only to judge me and condemn me, and then to blame it on my brothers. But ultimately, the ego wants me to be most afraid of the God of its own making, a God that mirrors its own faults. It is the fear of this judgmental and condemning God that keeps me hunkered down in the ego trying to avoid being found by Him. And all the time, God’s boundless love for me blinds Him to my faults. In me He sees only the perfection of His creation, the echo of the Love that He Is.

I think of my life and the ego rolls out the past with its undeniable proof of my faults and my shortcomings. If I can’t stand to look anymore, it gives me a preview of a dismal future in which I am condemned to repeat the past, which follows me with relentless determination that nothing will ever change.

I try to unravel the many problems and regrets and attempt to somehow atone for my sins in a useless attempt to avert the inevitable future the ego has shown me. I become entangled in the complexity of it all. Too many problems. Too much to take in. Too impossible to figure it all out and to somehow make it all right.

And yet, Jesus says that I can bring each of these thorny problems to the Holy Spirit and He will reinterpret them for me. I will then see that there really are not a lot of problems but only this one: I think that I am the ego and that the ego is separate from God, and that God is offended by this perceived separateness.

He reassures me that this cannot be true.  He reminds me that nothing has happened, I am innocent, and that God only knows how to love me. It doesn’t seem to matter how huge my sin or how enormous my fear, the answer never changes; I am innocent and God loves to love me.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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I am the Light.

I’m reading a really wonderful book, Tattoos on the Heart, by Gregory Boyle. He is a Jesuit priest who was pastor of a very poor church in the middle of the barrios in Los Angeles. His congregants are gang members and this book is stories about them, and about God. He buried a lot of these young people, and in one of my favorite stories he was looking for a biblical passage for a young man’s funeral. He decided on the gospel where Jesus says, “You are the light of the world.” This is what he says about it.

I like even more what Jesus doesn’t say. He does not say, “One day, if you are more perfect and try really hard, you’ll be light.” He doesn’t say “If you play by the rules, cross your T’s and dot your I’s, then maybe you’ll become light.” He says, straight out, “You are light.” It is the truth of who you are, waiting only for you to discover it. … No need to contort yourself to be anything other than who you are.

I read this yesterday and the words are still lifting me up. So many times during the day I judge myself. I try to contort myself into being the light of the world. I get on the scale and think I am an idiot for eating ice cream last night. I wonder what is wrong with me that I keep doing this. Then I remember. I am the light of the world. I am the light of the world when I weigh less and when I weigh more. I can lose weight if I want to or gain much more, but nothing I do will change what I already am. I am the light of the world.

I try to say the right thing, do the right thing. If I say or do something that doesn’t meet my definition of “right” I will even re-invent the past in my mind so that I sound and look more “right.” But I don’t need to go through these contortions to be right. I am right with God right now, just as I am, even when I don’t know it. The rightness of me is just waiting for me to discover it. It makes me cry when I think of it. I want to cry for the sweetness of it, and for the relief of it. I am the light of the world.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: II.The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 4. 3-1-14

II. The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 4

4 Laws must be communicated if they are to be helpful. In effect, they must be translated for those who speak different languages. Nevertheless, a good translator, although he must alter the form of what he translates, never changes the meaning. In fact, his whole purpose is to change the form so that the original meaning is retained. The Holy Spirit is the translator of the laws of God to those who do not understand them. You could not do this yourself because a conflicted mind cannot be faithful to one meaning, and will therefore change the meaning to preserve the form.

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

Jesus: You speak the language of confusion and complexity, and therefore, the Holy Spirit must translate for you the law, which is clear and simple. He will do this over and over as often as you will allow Him. As you bring to Him the endless variety of thoughts that stream through your mind, He will translate them. In this way, you will begin to see the underlying sameness.

Me: Ok, I understand now. I was thinking the following things, and they left me feeling discouraged.

  I wish I could lose some weight.
  I wonder how I am going to get that credit card paid off.
  I wish I had remembered Barry’s birthday.
  I don’t know why I can’t remember people’s names.
  I hope I don’t lose that customer.

When I noticed that I was suddenly feeling dispirited, and paid attention to the thoughts in my mind, I gave them all to Spirit and asked that He heal my mind. He did not have a different answer for each one. The thought He gave me is that I am deeply loved and cared for. I was given the thought to bring my mind back to the moment and bask in the love that is mine all the time.

When I looked at those thoughts I felt like I had so many problems and when I tried to consider them one at a time, they just got bigger and more complicated. When Holy Spirit looked at them He saw that I had forgotten who I am and He reminded me. There. It’s done. I am at peace.

When I looked at the problems I was looking at forms of the same problem and confusing it with content. While the forms of the problems varied, and they seemed to be about all sorts of things, the content remained that I was simply confused about my identity.

I continually become confused about the difference between content and form because I listen to two voices. When I do that, everything seems uncertain and overwhelming. The Holy Spirit is my interpreter of what I believe, and when I ask Him for help, He makes it all clear and simple.

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Study of the Text, II, The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 3. 2-27-14

II. The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 3
3 Outside the Kingdom, the law that prevails inside is adapted to “What you project you believe.” This is its teaching form, because outside the Kingdom learning is essential. This form implies that you will learn what you are from what you have projected onto others, and therefore believe they are. In the Kingdom there is no teaching or learning, because there is no belief. There is only certainty. God and His Sons, in the surety of being, know that what you extend you are. That form of the law is not adapted at all, being the law of creation. God Himself created the law by creating by it. And His Sons, who create like Him, follow it gladly, knowing that the increase of the Kingdom depends on it, just as their own creation did.

Jesus is helping us to see some basic differences between the world and the Kingdom. In the Kingdom teaching and learning have no place because there is only certainty. There is nothing to teach or to learn. Here in the world teaching and learning are essential because we have forgotten our certainty. I believe different things than you believe and even within my own mind, the things I believe vary according to my experiences.

This seems so normal and natural it is hard for me to imagine not having beliefs. But think how peaceful will be the world when we let go of our desire to choose the form “truth” will take for us, and we simply know what there is to know. Everyone will know the same thing because it will not be a belief, but will be Truth.

In the meantime, I wonder at the absurdity of arguing for a view point. Why would I give up my peace because someone did not agree with the meaning I gave something. I could change my mind about it at any moment, no matter what “it” is. I will find plenty of “proof” to support whatever concept I am in love with at the moment, but my proof is meaningless because it, too, is based on belief, not certainty. Would I really sacrifice Heaven for a belief?

It really makes me laugh when I hear people arguing for their personal understanding of a concept from the Course. I have even done that myself and it is just as funny to me when I notice I am doing it. When this is done, we are allowing our ego to convince us that we need to defend our beliefs even when the belief is about not having a personal, and about beliefs not being certainties.

Having studied the Course for over 30 years now, I have witnessed the shifts my understanding has taken and I expect these shifts will continue. And no matter how close I come to the truth, it is going to be a million miles away from the Truth. I only have words and concepts to work with so how close do I imagine I could come to something I cannot possibly understand from this ego framework from which I am working at this time? Why would I even care about my beliefs, or how someone else understands it?

The other thing I want to always remember is that my projection onto others is teaching me what I believe about myself. This is so basic and so essential to my growing understanding that I remind myself of it often. The world is literally, my mirror. The axiom, “you spot it, you got it,” could not be more true.

Whatever I think is true about someone else, however I see this person, I am only ever really seeing my self reflected there. If I see light then I am seeing my true self reflected in another. If I see darkness I am seeing my own dark thoughts reflected onto this one. When my vision of another is blurred by my projections of darkness, I know to go inward with the Holy Spirit to have my mind healed. I’m seldom confused about that anymore. When I use projection to teach myself, I am teaching what I don’t want to learn and will suffer for it.

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Study of the Text, II. The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 2. 2-26-14

II. The Law of the Kingdom, Paragraph 2
2 To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother and yourself by sharing the Holy Spirit with him. This places you both within the Kingdom, and restores its wholeness in your mind. This reflects creation, because it unifies by increasing and integrates by extending. What you project or extend is real for you. This is an immutable law of the mind in this world as well as in the Kingdom. However, the content is different in this world, because the thoughts it governs are very different from the Thoughts in the Kingdom. Laws must be adapted to circumstances if they are to maintain order. The outstanding characteristic of the laws of mind as they operate in this world is that by obeying them, and I assure you that you must obey them, you can arrive at diametrically opposed results. This is because the laws have been adapted to the circumstances of this world, in which diametrically opposed outcomes seem possible because you can respond to two conflicting voices.

We live by the same laws in this world as in the Kingdom. However, those laws have been adapted to the circumstances of this world. The law I am most interested in at this time is the one that says what we project or extend is real for us. In the Kingdom we extend Love because that is all there is to extend. In the world we project from the voice we are listening to and believe. So we can project from love or from fear.

My goal is to hear only the Voice of Love and so project only that. In this way, I can reflect the truth and come as close as possible, while here, to restoring wholeness to my mind and thus to my brother’s mind as well. This is a simple process if I desire it above all other things. If the voice I hear does not reflect love then it is the voice for fear and it is not real or meaningful. I can ignore it and ask for the Voice for Love instead.

If this is what I truly want, then this is what I will have. Since having and being is the same thing, listening only to the Holy Spirit I will be love and that is what I will give because I will have nothing else to give. If I value some form of fear then I will be inconsistent in what I believe and sometimes I will project love and sometimes fear. What I project I believe and so I remain unhealed and I experience separation even within myself. 

This is why I am vigilant for the thoughts in my mind that indicate I am listening to the voice of ego. I have learned to pay attention to my thoughts and to discern their source. I have seen that the outcome of listening to the ego voice is always going to lead to suffering, and listening to the Voice for God will always bring peace to my mind. In this way I am motivated to choose God more often than ego.

Obviously as I make the choice for peace more often I will cease to find value in choosing fear and so will eventually stop listening to ego altogether. This is all that is required of me: I pay attention to my thoughts and notice when they are not in alignment with love and then ask for and accept the Atonement (healing). To the degree I am ready to be healed it is done.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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