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Study of the Text 7-13-13

7-17-13
III. Love Without Conflict, Paragraph 2

2 This is written in the form of a prayer because it is useful in moments of temptation. It is a declaration of independence. You will find it very helpful if you understand it fully. The reason you need my help is because you have denied your own Guide and therefore need guidance. My role is to separate the true from the false, so truth can break through the barriers the ego has set up and can shine into your mind. Against our united strength the ego cannot prevail.

I depend on that promise of help. I know just enough to know I don’t know anything. If in any situation I accept I don’t know, I can step back and allow Jesus to help me. He will sort through my thoughts, showing me what is true and what is just ego nonsense. Earlier he said he would substitute for my ego if I would let him and I readily agreed to that arrangement.

I notice during the day when I have let the ego take over and I remember that I have entrusted this to Jesus. It is a great help and has made for a much more peaceful day. Jesus says he teaches through contrast, and I see that those moments when I depend on ego thinking to make decisions seem so much more painful than they did before. The contrast is striking, and motivates me to be vigilant for my tendency to return to ego as my guide.

The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will not prevail against it. Amen.

When Jesus offered to substitute for the ego in my mind I knew this would be very helpful, but didn’t realize that it was more than just help with sorting through my thoughts. When Jesus and I join in this manner the Kingdom is perfectly united. For awhile now I have recognized how important joining is. Every lesson, every healing is magnified when I join with another.

This is what Jesus has been trying to tell me all through the Course. We have the idea of separation in our mind, and to undo it we need to join. We join every time we set aside the ego thought of separate interests. For instance, I might think I need my boss to recognize my value to the company. I want him to see me and what I do for him and realize I am more valuable to him than the other employees are.

Then I realize that what I really want is to be happy, peaceful, safe and loved. This is what he wants, too. This is what the other employees want. Before that realization, we each had separate interests and I had to be sure mine was met, which meant that theirs was not. After I realized that what I really wanted was the same thing that we all wanted, I no longer saw us as separate and in competition. I saw us as all joined in this same interest.

This is just one example of life as I learn to join rather than to separate. It seems like we join in this moment and then in another moment, for one specific thing or another specific thing. But it is more important than any specific problem, or any specific healing. These moments of joining are undoing the idea of separation. They are reminding us of our unity, awakening us from the dream of separation.

Joining with Jesus in this way, asking him to sort the through the thoughts in my mind and show me the ones that are true, is more than just helpful. It is uniting to protect the Kingdom, and the power of that uniting perfectly protects the Kingdom, and guarantees the ego will not prevail against it.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 7-16-13

7-16-13
Chapter 4: THE ILLUSIONS OF THE EGO
III. Love Without Conflict, Paragraph 1
1 It is hard to understand what “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” really means. This is because it is not understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if something outside is inside, and this does not mean anything. The word “within” is unnecessary. The Kingdom of Heaven is you. What else but you did the Creator create, and what else but you is His Kingdom? This is the whole message of the Atonement; a message which in its totality transcends the sum of its parts. You, too, have a Kingdom that your spirit created. It has not ceased to create because of the ego’s illusions. Your creations are no more fatherless than you are. Your ego and your spirit will never be co-creators, but your spirit and your Creator will always be. Be confident that your creations are as safe as you are.
The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will not prevail against it. Amen.

The Kingdom of Heaven is me. I don’t remember the experience of this, but I accept that it must be true. Just as in the section The Obstacles to Peace, Jesus says of peace: You are the center from which it radiates outward, to call the others in. I am the center of peace? I don’t feel like I am peace, but rather I have to seek peace, and yet Jesus says otherwise. He says that I am peace and I don’t know it because I have placed obstacles to it and now must remove them.

Here he has said that the Kingdom of Heaven is me. I am peace. I am the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the reason I cannot fail! I don’t seek to be someplace else or to become something different. I seek to remove obstacles I placed in my mind to, obstacles to what I already am. How hard could this be? It does feel hard, but only because at times I remain conflicted about what I want.

First Jesus tells me that I am God’s Kingdom and then he tells me that I have a Kingdom that I (my spirit, not my ego self) created. I have fathered creations! I don’t even know what to think about this. I know that I am part of God, created like Him and therefore must also be a creator, but thinking about this in such specifics just leaves me stunned.

I cannot imagine what that must look like which makes me want to cry, because if I can forget my own creations it just underscores just how deeply lost in my dream I am. Jesus must have anticipated this reaction because he goes on to assure me that my creations are no more fatherless than I am, and that I can be confident that my creations are as safe as I am. I am not fatherless and I am safe, and this extends to my creations.

Also in The Obstacles to Peace Jesus calls our present dream like state, the great amnesia in which the memory of God seems quite forgotten. We have self-inflicted amnesia, and an agreement to pretend that we don’t remember who we are, and that we don’t remember our existence in God. It is forgotten, not lost, and we are beginning to waken from that dream.

Now here is a difference between the dreaming we seem to do at night, and the dream of being separate from God. At night when I sleep and I dream, my waking story is on hold. I am in the bed and I am doing nothing else in my life while I lay there. But with the ego’s dream of life, it is different. I dream of all sorts of meaningless things (just as happens to Myron in her night dreams) but in the meantime, my spirit goes on as if nothing is happening (which is appropriate I suppose, since nothing is happening). My real life continues uninterrupted into eternity, and I, as spirit, continue to create even while I dream the ego dream of life.

Yesterday I had two experiences of being outside my self, and I take hope from those experiences that I am closer now to accepting the Atonement. I say this to you because they were so very brief and it would be easy for the ego to discount them as the memory fades, but I want to remember, and I keep only what I share. The ego will not prevail against the Kingdom. Thank you, God, for that. And thank you, sweet brother, for bringing into the dream this reassurance from Heaven.

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Study of the Text 7-15-13

II The Ego and False Autonomy, paragraph 11
7-15-13
11 It cannot be emphasized too often that correcting perception is merely a temporary expedient. It is necessary only because misperception is a block to knowledge, while accurate perception is a stepping-stone towards it. The whole value of right perception lies in the inevitable realization that all perception is unnecessary. This removes the block entirely. You may ask how this is possible as long as you appear to be living in this world. That is a reasonable question. You must be careful, however, that you really understand it. Who is the “you” who are living in this world? Spirit is immortal, and immortality is a constant state. It is as true now as it ever was or ever will be, because it implies no change at all. It is not a continuum, nor is it understood by being compared to an opposite. Knowledge never involves comparisons. That is its main difference from everything else the mind can grasp.

For the most part, my mind is focused solely on correcting my misperceptions. I know that my aim is to undo the ego, or to put it another way, to remove the blocks to Love’s presence. I seldom think past that because it is for me, still an all-consuming job. Well, perhaps not so all-consuming as it used to be, but still, there is much to be done. But Jesus doesn’t want us to lose sight of the end game. Yes, we are to allow our perceptions to be corrected, but ultimately, all perception becomes unnecessary.

As I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind (correct my perceptions) I am building a bridge. My right perceptions will bring me to a point that I am ready for all perception to be released. In my mind, I have seen this as me being taught the truth, then when I have enough clarity to want more, being led to something else. But as I read this paragraph I see that I do not really grasp the truth of this. I am still looking at it from the standpoint of Myron when I think like this. In other words, I am asking as if I am the character I made up for this story.

This is why I know I still have more work to do, more undoing of the ego. I sometimes feel my true nature, but often I slip right back into character, and though never as completely as before, I still am easily confused. When the mind is completely healed of all misperception, I will know me and there will be no confusion about who I am. I won’t be a better Myron. I won’t be Myron with clarity. I will know myself as Spirit, and I will know all there is to know and perception will become inconceivable.

I have to stop once in a while and remind myself what perception really is.  The dictionary defines it as a neurological process of observation and interpretation. Interpretation implies that it could be more than one meaning depending on how I see it. Once ego is undone, there will be no more interpretation. All will be known and the known will never change. I am so accustomed to variation and comparison that I hardly know how to describe certainty, but I understand it just enough to want it.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 7-12-13

II THE EGO AND FALSE AUTONAMY, Paragraph 10
7-12-13
10 Salvation is nothing more than “right-mindedness,” which is not the One-mindedness of the Holy Spirit, but which must be achieved before One-mindedness is restored. Right-mindedness leads to the next step automatically, because right perception is uniformly without attack, and therefore wrong-mindedness is obliterated. The ego cannot survive without judgment, and is laid aside accordingly. The mind then has only one direction in which it can move. Its direction is always automatic, because it cannot but be dictated by the thought system to which it adheres.

In this paragraph Jesus de-mystifies salvation and makes it simple for us to understand. Salvation is nothing more than “right-mindedness,” he tells us. This is why our job is to undo the ego or allow the Holy Spirit to correct our thinking, or to use the term Jesus uses, accept the Atonement. Through our desire for God and with the Holy Spirit’s help, all we are doing is letting go of the wrong-minded belief in separation. The mind will then, automatically go in the direction of One-mindedness. Without the ego thought of separation, there will be no other direction to go.

Jesus said something else that is essential to our process of letting go. He said that the ego cannot survive without judgment. You may want to think about that for a moment: The ego cannot survive without judgment. As we let go of judgment the whole ego thought system comes unglued and falls apart on its own. I am learning to watch my mind for judgment thoughts.

Ego judgments can be subtle sometimes, especially now that I look for them but I am training myself to recognize judgment in all its forms. Jesus has told us in an earlier paragraph that he will substitute for our ego if we want him to. So when I notice I am judging I remember that Jesus is now substituting for my ego and he will judge for me, and his judgment is always that I am innocent.

Sometimes I become frustrated with myself because I still choose ego. I will hear myself say something catty about a fellow worker and cringe as it comes out of my mouth. I will feel regretful because I have taught what I don’t want to learn, and I have set my brother back on his path. This is judgment. I have judged myself as sinful, foolish, thoughtless or whatever other word I want to give it. Now I have a choice. I can accept the ego’s judgment, or I can remember that I don’t have to depend on the ego. I have entrusted my ego to Jesus and his judgment is the Holy Spirit’s judgment. I am innocent.

As soon as the thought of innocence enters my mind sanity begins to return. I remember to ask that my innocence be revealed to me. I ask that the other person’s innocence be revealed to me. As this is done I feel love for myself and for everyone involved. I am forgiven my lapse into judgment and I know I am innocent of any wrongdoing. My mind is returned to its natural state of peace and that peace automatically flows outward to envelope my brothers. It is all so simple and so perfect, and so brilliant.

All that is required of me is vigilant mind watching, and a willingness to be healed. At first the vigilance seemed like hard work, but after awhile, even the vigilance was easy and natural. The outcome of this undoing work is so elevating that I am highly motivated to continue it. The mind recognizes peace and joy and naturally turns to it if not deliberately moved to something else through wrong minded thinking.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 7-11-13

7-11-13
9 Myths and magic are closely associated, since myths are usually related to ego origins, and magic to the powers the ego ascribes to itself. Mythological systems generally include some account of “the creation,” and associate this with its particular form of magic. The so-called “battle for survival” is only the ego’s struggle to preserve itself, and its interpretation of its own beginning. This beginning is usually associated with physical birth, because it is hard to maintain that the ego existed before that point in time. The more “religiously” ego-oriented may believe that the soul existed before, and will continue to exist after a temporary lapse into ego life. Some even believe that the soul will be punished for this lapse. However, salvation does not apply to spirit, which is not in danger and does not need to be salvaged.

I can hardly believe that I ever mistook the mythological story of birth and death seriously, and it is beyond belief that I still fall for it. The myth holds that we are born of our parents, perhaps to thrive, perhaps not, but always to struggle. Since struggle seems inevitable we elevate the idea and congratulate ourselves when we do seem to survive. There are many variations on this same theme. When they are religious in nature we see God as the sometimes helper and sometimes judge, and always fearful in nature. No wonder we live in such confusion and fear when we believe we cannot even depend on our Creator myth.

None of this that we think of as life has any resemblance to reality. We don’t live at all. We dream of life, the ego’s life, which is only a myth, a fable, a fairytale. It is an ancient story, based on a false belief. How did we convince ourselves of something so absurd, so far from the truth that while life and Life run parallel, they can never meet. They will never reconcile, and so one must be relinquished in order to experience the other.

And even that is an unreal thought because how does one relinquish reality for an illusion? One can only dream of illusions, imagine them, pretend. One cannot actually undo reality in favor of the myth. We sleep and dream until we tire of our repetitious stories. Do you not tire of them now? It is our time to awaken, our time to turn from our mythological pretense and return to Reality. It is our time because we have made that decision.

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Study of the Text 7-10-13

II THE EGO AND FALSE AUTONAMY, Paragraph 8
7-10-13
8 The ego believes it is completely on its own, which is merely another way of describing how it thinks it originated. This is such a fearful state that it can only turn to other egos and try to unite with them in a feeble attempt at identification, or attack them in an equally feeble show of strength. It is not free, however, to open the premise to question, because the premise is its foundation. The ego is the mind’s belief that it is completely on its own. The ego’s ceaseless attempts to gain the spirit’s acknowledgement and thus establish its own existence are useless. Spirit in its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does not attack it; it merely cannot conceive of it at all. While the ego is equally unaware of spirit, it does perceive itself as being rejected by something greater than itself. This is why self-esteem in ego terms must be delusional. The creations of God do not create myths, although creative effort can be turned to mythology. It can do so, however, only under one condition; what it makes is then no longer creative. Myths are entirely perceptual, and so ambiguous in form and characteristically good-and-evil in nature that the most benevolent of them is not without fearful connotations.

Something that really jumped out at me in this paragraph is that Spirit is unaware of ego. Now he says it, I see that this must be true. The ego does not exist and its pretense is effective only if I believe in it. If Spirit knew the ego, the ego would be real because it was known. Here is a way I visualized this idea that Spirit does not know ego.

What if I imagined a life different than the one I live? What if I imagined that I was Myron in my daily life and as people knew me, but actually was a super hero, much like Clark Kent is to Superman? If I focused on the story of my alter-self, I could create quite a vivid mental experience of it. If I gave it enough attention it would seem very real, and if I lost my hold on Myron, I could get lost in the story and believe it was real and the Myron story was the illusion. I would probably be diagnosed if people noticed this, but assuming I maintained my illusion of “normalcy” I could engage in my imaginative story while continuing my life as Myron, mild mannered sales rep and minister.

Now suppose you were a friend who interacted with me from time to time, or even every day. You would only know Myron. You would not be aware of my super hero identity. I could be living a rich and exciting inner life that I enjoyed way more than the Myron life, but you would not even know it existed. Well, in a way this is exactly what is happening.

I am living a pretend life, and I call this the life of Myron. I pretend to be happy or sad and I make up stories to accommodate these pretenses and to make them seem real to me. I pretend to be in pain and to suffer. Such drama! The story of Myron is actually an anti-hero story. In reality I am the hero playing at being so much less. That’s why I have to pretend to suffer. I can’t actually suffer. I’m like superman without even the single weakness of kryptonite so how could pain suffering and death even be possible to me?

Obviously, this story of Myron is a myth that I made up and then in my enthusiasm, fell for to the point of insanity. I have done such a good job of pretense, and of getting so deeply involved in my story that I have had something like a psychotic break with reality. I actually believe that I am the pretense. I believe that I am weak and vulnerable and often a victim. But believing it cannot make it true and I am beginning to shake off the story. It’s been fun guys, but pretty soon I’m going to be out of here!

In the meantime though, while I do still believe in my story, Spirit, (my true actual Self) does not know about this. It is like the friends in Myron’s life who are unaware of her pretend life. From the perspective of Spirit I am still as I always have been and Spirit would never conceive of it being different since what God creates is unalterable.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 7-9-13

7-9-13
The Ego and False Autonomy, paragraph 7
7 The ego literally lives by comparisons. Equality is beyond its grasp, and charity becomes impossible. The ego never gives out of abundance, because it was made as a substitute for it. That is why the concept of “getting” arose in the ego’s thought system. Appetites are “getting” mechanisms, representing the ego’s need to confirm itself. This is as true of body appetites as it is of the so-called “higher ego needs.” Body appetites are not physical in origin. The ego regards the body as its home, and tries to satisfy itself through the body. But the idea that this is possible is a decision of the mind, which has become completely confused about what is really possible.

I am continually amazed at my ability to ignore, confuse, and overlook the obvious when studying the Course. I have read this paragraph many times. I have noticed what it says about appetites and even been surprised by it. But there was a resistance in my mind to this idea and I obstinately refused to fully accept what I was reading. I mean, I said the words and repeated them. For heaven’s sake, I taught them, but I never really surrendered to them until now.

What are the body appetites and what am I trying to get through them? Sex is a body appetite and what it offers (falsely) is closeness and joining. Its lie is that it will alleviate the nagging feeling that we are alone and unloved because we are unlovable. It offers the promise of acceptance and desirability fulfilled, the assurance that we are wanted and treasured. It often disappoints because it is ego based and the ego is not about joining and love is not about the body, though when given to the Holy Spirit’s purpose love can be expressed through the body.

How about food appetites? We need food to fuel the body, but what about the cravings? Is the desire for chocolate really divine in nature? I am especially attuned to the appetites for foods as this is my favorite substitute for God’s Love. I can swoon over a perfectly baked coconut cake or creamy pie. I can be driven from my bed to seek out a sweet relief to my craving for some desert or other. What drives these appetites?

I used to think it must be genetic or something, and that my body just longed for sugar and I was victim to that longing. Now of course, I understand the body is just a tool, a way of expressing what is in the mind. Jesus is helping me to understand that my cravings are in my mind and then projected onto the body (which is in my mind). He is also helping me to see that, like sex, food has become, for me, a way to satisfy my deeper longings for love and acceptance, and primarily for the love of God.

Because appetites are ego based, they are guilt based, and so I delight my taste buds (create in my mind a sensation of tasting and pretend it is happening in my body) and feel guilty for it because I see it as further betrayal of God. I push this thought down far enough to keep it from my awareness, but while I can hide from the reason, I cannot hide from the guilt.

The guilt drives me to punish myself and so those sweetly delightful treats settle around my waist and in my hips and I fear to step on the scale. Like any addict, I promise myself I will stop this indulgence and of course, I don’t have any true intention of doing so. I am as addicted to the guilt and punishment as I pretend that my body is addicted to the sugar.

The body appetites are literally a substitute for God’s Love. They do not originate in the body, but in the mind, and so all attempts to control them through suppression or denial, through abstinence or dieting is useless. It is just playing into the ego’s game of guilt and sin. I give my appetites to the Holy Spirit and ask that He heal my mind of my false beliefs about them. I entrust my body and my ego to Jesus and let him teach me their unimportance. I continue to accept the Atonement and allowing my mind to be healed, I undo the ego.

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