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Study of the Text III. The Relinquishment of Attack, Paragraph 2 12-9-13

III. The Relinquishment of Attack, Paragraph 2

2 That is why you must teach only one lesson. If you are to be conflict-free yourself, you must learn only from the Holy Spirit and teach only by Him. You are only love, but when you deny this, you make what you are something you must learn to remember. I said before that the message of the crucifixion was, “Teach only love, for that is what you are.” This is the one lesson that is perfectly unified, because it is the only lesson that is one. Only by teaching it can you learn it. “As you teach so will you learn.” If that is true, and it is true indeed, do not forget that what you teach is teaching you. And what you project or extend you believe.

The reason Jesus reminds us to teach only love is because in teaching only love we teach what we are. This is important because we have denied our Self and must therefore re-learn what we are. In the world we go to an expert to learn what we don’t know. We go to a teacher on the subject, or a book explaining it, or dig out the instruction manual.

To remember who we are in reality, we turn to the only teacher that remembers, the Holy Spirit.  We read books that awaken the truth we have hidden from ourselves. We dig out an instruction manual such as A Course in Miracles. We follow the directions and the mind will begin to awaken. We teach what we are learning to remember and the memory becomes stronger and clearer.

This would be a short and to the point course if we paid attention only to that. What seems to happen, though, is that we experience some resistance to waking up and that resistance sidetracks us. We learn what we teach and that can serve our awakening, but if we teach separation, we reinforce that, instead.

It can be frustrating when I slip back into ego, but it is understandable.  Here is an experience I have had and maybe you, too, have had a similar experience. Someone is introduced to me and I hear his name wrong. “Hi, Myron. Let me introduce my friend, Saul.” My ears hear the name Saul, but my mind makes an automatic connection to Paul because of the Bible story from my youth. In my mind his name becomes Paul. Now maybe I will be corrected soon, but the idea is stuck in my mind and so I keep thinking of him and calling him Saul until I deliberately replace the name Saul with Paul and relearn his name.

This is what happens with the separation idea. I have listened to the ego for many years because I believed it was me, and I believed what it had to say to me. Even though the Holy Spirit has corrected me, and I know that I am not the ego and I know the ego does not actually exist, I have a very long standing false assumption that does not go away without the effort of deliberately replacing the old story with the truth.

The most efficient and fastest way to re-learn what I already know is to stick to the teacher that knows, asking for help and correction, listening to only that teacher. As I learn from the Holy Spirit, I teach what I am learning to reinforce it and to encourage that belief in others, which reinforces the truth within the mind and makes my awakening easier. The more I stick with the plan the more smoothly the awakening unfolds.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, III. The Relinquishment of Attack, Paragraph 1. 12-6-13

III. The Relinquishment of Attack, Paragraph 1
1 As we have already emphasized, every idea begins in the mind of the thinker. Therefore, what extends from the mind is still in it, and from what it extends it knows itself. The word “knows” is correct here, because the Holy Spirit still holds knowledge safe in your mind through His impartial perception. By attacking nothing, He presents no barrier to the communication of God. Therefore, being is never threatened. Your Godlike mind can never be defiled. The ego never was and never will be part of it, but through the ego you can hear and teach and learn what is not true. You have taught yourself to believe that you are not what you are. You cannot teach what you have not learned, and what you teach you strengthen in yourself because you are sharing it. Every lesson you teach you are learning.

I am happy to be reminded that my true Godlike mind can never be defiled. The ego cannot really touch me. My being is never threatened. I am as God created me and nothing will ever change that. I am His perfect creation, and I am that right now!

So what the heck is going on? What is it that is happening that makes it seem like I am so much less than that? In my absolute freedom I chose to have an experience that was different. In A Course in Miracles, we call that experience ego. The ego has never been part of my true mind, but it is part of my experience. It is a choice I made and one I continue to make as I continue to teach myself that the truth is not true.

When I think attack thoughts I project attack into my life and thus teach myself that I am endangered. This is an absurd lesson because as the Son of God I could never be in danger. However, through my projection of self as a fragile body with feelings easily hurt, I convinced myself that I am in need of constant defense. To defend myself I attack and the cycle continues. I have built up layers and layers of belief through this unbroken cycle of defense and attack, and I have taught myself that I am what I could never be.

Because my true mind is unassailable, I can stop this crazy thinking and return to sanity. The Holy Spirit is in my mind for that purpose. I can make a different choice by allowing the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the belief that attack is my only option. When I am ready to wake up the Holy Spirit will show me how love is my true strength.

I have been letting go of this belief that I am separate and under siege and the ego mind is all in a panic about this. Sometimes its desire to continue as the maker of my world appears as an all out assault on my peace. It will generate thoughts of disaster and these will be projected as stories of pain and suffering, like my son being sick or guilt over something I did or something I failed to do.

Other times it will try to shore up its position through a running commentary of past errors and future dangers. This mind chatter has been part of my experience for so long that I hardly notice it and yet, through these thoughts, I am teaching myself that I have reason to be afraid and reason to protect myself.

This morning while I was getting dressed this chatter was going on. Suddenly I realized what was happening. I was thinking about a mistake someone at work had made and the repercussions that error could have on my financial situation. I began to feel very angry and resentful of that person. This is something that happened months ago and whatever repercussions occurred were so minor that I can’t even track them.

But the ego found fertile ground in my mind to sow some seeds of fear and doubt. I saw myself as separate from this man and saw him as the enemy. I wanted to see him reprimanded at the very least, and maybe fired so that he couldn’t do this awful thing again. All this was passing through my mind almost casually.

I imagined the ego quietly going about its devious work, sowing seeds of fear and anger while I wasn’t paying attention, making sure that it kept me involved in its plans of defense and attack. Its real goal is to keep me from remembering who I am, because then it ends. Encouraging me to look on others as separate from me and seeing myself as vulnerable is the way the ego accomplishes this.

When I noticed the ego at work in my mind, I halted the flow of attack thoughts. This is not what I want. I don’t want to attack that man. I want to see him as my brother, as my self. We are one Self, he and I and I would not attack myself. I don’t want to see him just as “not guilty,” I want to see him as he is in truth.

I want to see his holy Self. I want to see myself as that one as well. I can’t have one without the other because what I teach myself about him, I learn. If I believe he is less than holy, I learn that I am less than holy. As I teach separation, fear and guilt, I cut myself off from my real mind, and thus disrupt communication with my Father. Allowing untrue thoughts to go unquestioned in my mind is how I continue to choose ego. Questioning those thoughts and asking for correction is how I choose to awaken.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 13. 12-5-13

II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 13
13 The Holy Spirit was given you with perfect impartiality, and only by recognizing Him impartially can you recognize Him at all. The ego is legion, but the Holy Spirit is one. No darkness abides anywhere in the Kingdom, but your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your own mind. This alignment with light is unlimited, because it is in alignment with the light of the world. Each of us is the light of the world, and by joining our minds in this light we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and as one.

What we are being told in this section, over and over in many ways, is that in the Kingdom of God there is only light and there is only one. As we begin to awaken to the truth we will find ourselves in this Kingdom, and obviously we cannot bring our thoughts of separation and darkness with us. This is our job now, the way we awaken. We are to let go of those beliefs that keep us in the dark.

Holy Spirit is one. I cannot recognize Spirit if I want to see It only where I choose. Yesterday I wanted to see the hotel personnel outside Holy Spirit. I wanted them to be guilty and wrong. My thoughts were dark. My job was to recognize the error and to allow my mind to be healed of the belief that they could be anything but holy. Today I am only grateful for my room and for the people who provide it. I did my job when I changed my mind about what I wanted to be true, and Holy Spirit did His job when He answered my prayer and healed my mind.

Sometimes I read about some awful crime or see someone who seems very deeply into the ego. I wonder how we are ever going to awaken. I know someone who is very religious and who thinks that the greatest expression of his belief in God is his fear of God. He would be afraid not to be afraid of God.

I am sure I must have felt that way before, and maybe some of that is still left, buried deep in my mind. I don’t know because none of it is conscious. But the degree of his fear and his belief that this is what God wants from him is so intense; I look at it and wonder how we are going to awaken from this. And I know he is a part of myself, a representative of the mind that we are, and he is just expressing the part of our mind that believes this. So this belief is alive and well in the mind and must be healed before we return our mind to the Kingdom. 

As I wonder how many eons it will take I become discouraged. Jesus is telling me not to worry about that. He says that my job is to allow no darkness to abide in my own mind. I’m glad that is my only job because it keeps me plenty busy. I am reminded that I am awake, that this is only a journey of remembering. 

This is true for my confused friend as well, and true for those who lash out in their fear and confusion and believe that they must hurt others. The light is in all our minds because it is in the mind. All we are doing is deciding we want to remember that we want to be awake. The plan is in place and it is perfect. When I question it and doubt it, I am the one confused and this is a bit of darkness I can give to Spirit in gratitude for my healing.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 12. 12-4-13

II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 12

12 The difference between the ego’s projection and the Holy Spirit’s extension is very simple. The ego projects to exclude, and therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit extends by recognizing Himself in every mind, and thus perceives them as one. Nothing conflicts in this perception, because what the Holy Spirit perceives is all the same. Wherever He looks He sees Himself, and because He is united He offers the whole Kingdom always. This is the one message God gave to Him and for which He must speak, because that is what He is. The peace of God lies in that message, and so the peace of God lies in you. The great peace of the Kingdom shines in your mind forever, but it must shine outward to make you aware of it.

Here is what I understand from reading this paragraph. The Holy Spirit extends through recognizing Himself in everyone He sees, thus offering us a vision of wholeness, and so the peace of God. Through looking with the Holy Spirit we see that we are one because we see what He sees. This is the Holy Spirit’s purpose, what He was created for and therefore what He is.

Because He is in our mind, the peace of God is always available to us. If we are not in God’s peace it is not because His peace is not available to us. It is because we have made a deliberate choice to look through the ego perception rather than through the Holy Spirit’s Vision. Understanding that this is the problem, the reason we are not at peace, we can choose again. Looking through the shattered lens of ego we will always see separation and this will show us war. Looking through the single lens of Spirit we will always see One and this will show us peace.

Here is a simple example that happened to me yesterday. I got to my favorite hotel to discover they are in the middle of construction and so had limited in rooms available. I was given a room upstairs and on the outside. I usually stay downstairs and always on the inside. As it turns out, it seems my preference about rooms is very important to me. I was immediately upset.

Since I was out of peace I watched my thoughts to see what happened. I saw that I resented being in a place I didn’t like and that I blamed the hotel staff for my unhappiness. I looked at these people through the shattered lens of ego and saw them as separate from me. I saw that I had an objective and that was to be in the room I wanted, and they had a different objective and that was to put me in the room they had available. This put us at war and one of us was going to win and it wasn’t going to be me.

I allowed the ego mind to run with this and I saw that it took me from mild disappointment to rage at not getting my way. All kinds of vengeful thoughts came up as I continued to project blame for my upset on them. My behavior changed to reflect the feelings I was choosing to have and I didn’t smile and joke with the employees. Most of this was in my mind only, and I doubt anyone but me noticed. I am not so insane that I believe my thoughts, but I was very aware of them and chose to change them because I don’t want to lose my peace.

It took some effort on my part. This is where my work comes in. I set my intention to return my mind to God. I asked Holy Spirit to show me how He sees this. He gently showed me the belief in my mind that this situation was the fault of the hotel, and then asked me how this could possibly have anything to do with them. I write my own story and the script is drawn from the beliefs I hold to and defend. If I seem to be a victim in this story of the hotel it can only be because I still treasure my victim story and through projecting blame I continue to defend it from the healing power of the Christ Mind.

Seeing this so clearly, it was easy enough for me to change my mind. It still took a little effort as the ego continued to try to interest me in finding someone else to blame. But who could I blame? The hotel is not the author of my story. I am the one who put this into play. I used a prayer that I find simple and effective. I surrendered my story and my beliefs to Spirit and accepted His healing grace. He showed me that even after the fact I still was not without choices. I could allow a new vision of the written story. As soon as I made that choice the way I felt about the room changed.

I realized that the stairs were a rare opportunity for exercise. I saw that the outside rooms are under an awning and so protected from weather which we are supposed to have tomorrow. I laughed as I saw that I had a full refrigerator instead of a little hotel fridge and wondered if I wanted to go by some groceries. Well, maybe not, but I do have to take samples that need to be kept cold and this refrigerator would provide plenty of room for that.

More important than my ease with the room, my vision cleared and I saw my own Divine Mind at work within the story and so I saw everyone else in the same way. Christ sees only Christ. Oneness restores peace. Even if the room were a mess I would still have seen the perfection within the mess, because a healed mind sees only perfection and only the movement of Spirit in everything. It is a wonderful thing to be aware of the Christ within, but the only way to do that is to allow it to shine outward and show me the Christ in everyone else.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 10 12-2-13

II. The Alternative to Projection
10 The Holy Spirit uses time, but does not believe in it. Coming from God He uses everything for good, but He does not believe in what is not true. Since the Holy Spirit is in your mind, your mind can also believe only what is true. The Holy Spirit can speak only for this, because He speaks for God. He tells you to return your whole mind to God, because it has never left Him. If it has never left Him, you need only perceive it as it is to be returned. The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the separation never occurred. The ego cannot prevail against this because it is an explicit statement that the ego never occurred.

I am in God and there is a place in my mind that knows this is true. To find that truth and stay with it is to return home. What seems to be happening now is that I find the truth in my mind, but then I become diverted by the story, which is also in my mind. I always bring myself back to the truth, though, and usually very quickly. I write this and I realize what it means and I get chills up and down my spine. I am waking up.

Every time I turn to the Holy Spirit, He tells me, in some way, to return my mind to God where it has never left. I am not returning to God, really, I am already there. Since I am already there the separation never occurred and the ego does not exist. “It is not possible for me to fail, is it Jesus?” When I think of this I smile and laugh and cry. I don’t know what to do with myself.

Just a short time ago I would notice judgmental thoughts or grievances in my mind and I would know that this was not good. I would try to look at them with the Holy Spirit but would have trouble understanding how they could not be true. The story would seem so real it was hard to see the truth behind the story.

Sometimes, I would ask for my mind to be healed, but my heart wasn’t on board with the words. I would want to be healed, but I would also want to keep my grievance. This conflict was very painful and very confusing and it would scare me. I thought it meant I couldn’t do this. I didn’t know how to resolve it and I felt guilty that I was in this position.

Now what happens is that sometimes I find a grievance or a judgment in my mind and I know that I don’t want it, because this grievance or judgment stands between me and God. It might take a little while to decide I want only God, but I no longer doubt myself. I know what my choice will be. Yesterday I had an experience of judgment while I was with someone. This person lacks some basic hygiene skills and smells very bad. It was hard for me to be with her.

The Virgo personality I have chosen for this story really hates that kind of thing. Because I want to wake up more than I want to judge, the situation in which I found myself, (and which should have been short-lived), went on for hours, so I had plenty of time to watch my mind and make a choice for love. I went back and forth with it for the longest time, and this is what I noticed; I am OK with myself, I can take all the time I need and it doesn’t make me guilty.

It took longer than usual for me to overcome my judgment and to make a new decision and that’s all right. I was patient with myself because I know the outcome is inevitable. I have no fear that my judgment will condemn me, and no fear that I will not choose love. If not now then later, but always, I will choose love.

In fact I was able to laugh at myself even while it was happening. The ego tried to engage me in a little fear and guilt, but I wasn’t interested. I was able to remember that my belief this person should be clean is just an opinion and not truth. I had decided yesterday that I was through with defending my beliefs, and, lo and behold, right away I got a chance to see this decision in action. Now tell me if that isn’t both cool and funny!

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Study of the Text II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 9 11-29-13

II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 9
9 Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker, from which they reach outward. This is as true of God’s Thinking as it is of yours. Because your mind is split, you can perceive as well as think. Yet perception cannot escape the basic laws of mind. You perceive from your mind and project your perceptions outward. Although perception of any kind is unreal, you made it and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. He can inspire perception and lead it toward God. This convergence seems to be far in the future only because your mind is not in perfect alignment with the idea, and therefore does not want it now.

This first sentence explains how we made the world we see. First we thought of it, then the thoughts took form. This is the way God made us as well. We know from the previous paragraph that God’s Thoughts remain in His mind, and so we know that this is true of our thoughts as well. What we made as the world is in our mind, just as we are in God’s Mind.

Because our mind is split we both think and perceive, and perception follows the same rules as does thinking. The world we made is a perceived world. It is not real because it is not created, but made up of impossible thoughts. Still, because we made it, the Holy Spirit can use it. The way He uses it is to help bring our thinking into alignment with truth. He inspires our perceptions and therefore turns them toward God.

Last night when my daughter was getting ready to leave the house I asked her if she remembered her phone. She tends to forget things. She said she had it and drove off. I found her phone on the kitchen table. I expressed out loud to those still at the house that this girl tests my faith. Every time she leaves I worry because she seems to be so unaware. I meant it as a joke, but it didn’t feel funny to me when I said it out loud. I immediately regretted my words.

Here is how the Holy Spirit inspires my perceptions and turns them toward God.

The Holy Spirit showed me that the reason I felt bad about what I said is that it is an attack on my daughter. I see her as less than what she is. I overlook her holiness and see her behavior instead. When I asked for help the Holy Spirit inspired my perception, and I was able to see my daughter as the brilliant being she is. What is her story of forgetfulness next to the truth of her holy Self?

Then the Holy Spirit helped me to see my guilty feelings differently as well. I saw that I did not ever mean to attack my daughter. The attack was a projection of my fear for her. We looked at the fear together and I was reminded that fear is not real, but something we made up through our faulty perceptions.

This helped turn my perceptions away from the darkness to the light. The Holy Spirit gave me a vision of my daughter and I sitting together enjoying the story of Susan and Mom. This story is better than anything on TV, and just as unreal.  We are not guilty because nothing is really happening. Our stories cannot alter what God created.

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Study of the Text, II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 8. 11-27-13

II. The Alternative to Projection, Paragraph 8
8 God created His Sons by extending His Thought, and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other. The Holy Spirit enables you to perceive this wholeness now. God created you to create. You cannot extend His Kingdom until you know of its wholeness.

Very clearly we cannot be apart from or different from, God. He created us by extending His Thought, that is, He created us by extending Himself and, therefore, we are like God. We are powerful creators just as is God. This powerful creative ability is what allows us to make the world we see in all its complexity. Because we did not create in the way of Creation (through extending our Thought) what we made is not truly created, but in making it, we used the same power that we would use in creation.

When God created us He extended His Thought, but He also held His Thought within His Mind. This is why we can never truly be separate from God. We are not only like God, we are in God. Being in God, we are perfectly protected and are in no danger from our illusions. We can dream of being separate and in danger, but clearly that cannot actually happen. Because we are in God, it is clearly possible and perfectly safe to awaken from this dream.

Our made world is a world of separation where we each seem to be discrete, and unconnected, and yet, that is obviously not possible. We are part of each other and part of God and still within God, One Whole Self. The belief that we are separated from each other and from God is the only thing holding us in our illusion and holding our illusion together.

Let go of that thought and we wake up to our true Self and know ourselves in God. We return home to discover we never really left, we were just dreaming of being separate. We wake up to our Father and to our true creations. It really is that simple. We imagine we are in this world of pain and sorrow and that it is worth all the suffering because it keeps us safe from a vengeful God.

And yet, we are all the time in God. If He were truly vengeful we would already be destroyed. We are like children afraid of the monsters in the dark. We sit with our eyes tightly closed and imagine that we are safe because we don’t see the monster. All the time, there is no monster, just the imagined shadows of our fear.

Do I truly believe that I am safe at home in God, and that I only imagine this world? I asked myself that as I wrote what came to me this morning, and I heard only whispers of dissent. The ego is afraid, but I am not the ego and its voice is fading from my mind.  Then the ego asks if I believe my son is not real, and reminds me of his upcoming surgery.

Will I be so certain he is not real when he is under the knife and in danger? I ask the Holy Spirit about this, and He reminds me that my son is very real and he is with me in God. It is the story of his suffering that is the illusion. I ask that my mind be healed of the lingering belief in the illusion.

I imagine myself in that situation, sitting in the waiting room with my son’s fiancée and I feel the fear in the clinching of my stomach and the tightening in my chest. I feel it moving up my throat and making a lump there that I can barely breathe around. I feel the fear melting out of me as tears.

I watch this happen knowing that this is exactly what needs to be healed. It comes up so that the Holy Spirit and I can look together, and together, agree that this cannot be. How can a Thought of God be endangered? I used to ask for help then put up a wall against that help. It seemed so wrong, so disloyal, to not be afraid for my son.

I look at that wall with the Holy Spirit and together we agree that it is unnecessary, and that Love is not fear. I watch as the wall crumbles before my eyes. The ego tries to worm its way into this moment with Holy Spirit, asking what we are to do next to achieve this healing, and I am told that my part is done. The Holy Spirit will do the rest. I am to rest in Trust and allow it to happen.

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