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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-28-12

Day 118
3 How is this quiet found? No one can fail to find it who but seeks out its conditions. God’s peace can never come where anger is, for anger must deny that peace exists. Who sees anger as justified in any way or any circumstance proclaims that peace is meaningless, and must believe that it cannot exist. In this condition, peace cannot be found. Therefore, forgiveness is the necessary condition for finding the peace of God. More than this, given forgiveness there must be peace. For what except attack will lead to war? And what but peace is opposite to war? Here the initial contrast stands out clear and apparent. Yet when peace is found, the war is meaningless. And it is conflict now that is perceived as nonexistent and unreal.

I completely get this! The more often I let go of conflict, the more meaningless it becomes to me. I do still find meaning in conflict but because I no longer believe in it the way I used to, I quickly choose forgiveness because it is the only thing that makes sense.

When I was having trouble forgiving “Johnny” recently, and forgiving myself for not forgiving him, I was miserable. The contrast between holding a grievance and being at peace that was so stark I wanted very much to forgive. It was incredible to me that I held on to the anger as long as I did. I have no explanation for that other than I was listening to the ego thoughts rather than to the Holy Spirit.

Regina posted a message from the Holy Spirit some time ago and I printed it out and taped it to my mirror. It said in part:

When you listen to Me,
You know peace.
When you listen only to Me,
Peace is uninterrupted.

When there is a war being waged in my mind it is because I am not listening to the Holy Spirit. I am listening to the ego. It is always that simple because there are only two voices in my mind and I am always listening to one or the other.

My experience has always been that all I need to do is decide on a thing and that thing is mine. If I need to do anything to prepare for the change, then I will be guided to what I need, or I will be told directly. I want the peace of God. Something that Ken Wapnick said helped me very much. He said that before we can have the peace of God we first have to understand how much we don’t want it.

This is the preparatory work I must do in this case. I have to become aware of and decide against the hidden rage in my mind before I can let it go and choose peace instead. As uncomfortable as it was to look at the anger I had toward Johnny, it was absolutely important that I do so, and I am grateful that I had that opportunity.

It is like I said, “I want the peace of God.” And then the Universe said, “Are you sure? Here, look at this anger? Are you ready to give that up so that you can have the peace of God?” And then I got a chance to decide what it was I really wanted. God really does not ever force happiness on me. ~smile~ I always get to decide what I really want.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-27-12

Day 117
20. WHAT IS THE PEACE OF GOD?
1 It has been said that there is a kind of peace that is not of this world. How is it recognized? How is it found? And being found, how can it be retained? Let us consider each of these questions separately, for each reflects a different step along the way.

2 First, how can the peace of God be recognized? God’s peace is recognized at first by just one thing; in every way it is totally unlike all previous experiences. It calls to mind nothing that went before. It brings with it no past associations. It is a new thing entirely. There is a contrast, yes, between this thing and all the past. But strangely, it is not a contrast of true differences. The past just slips away, and in its place is everlasting quiet. Only that. The contrast first perceived has merely gone. Quiet has reached to cover everything.

I don’t know what to say about this. I am so much more peaceful than I used to be and I am grateful for that. I know what I did to get to this place in my life, the practices I used, the true Heart’s desire that keeps me on that path. But I am not peaceful in the way that Jesus describes it here. There is not unending peace, not everlasting quiet. So I can’t really talk about what it is like to have the peace of God. I will leave that to someone who has reached that place.

When I was ready the Holy Spirit sent me to The Teachings of Inner Ramana. This little book that was received by Regina Dawn Akers helped me to begin the process of letting go of thinking. I have had less than stellar results, but what small success I have experienced has made a world of difference. My mind is not quiet, but it is quieter and more peaceful than before I began.

Right at the beginning of the book it says that stepping away from the mind is as simple as losing interest in it and that the mind chatters because I am listening to it. As soon as I read that I knew it was true. Now when I notice that my mind is busy I remember that it will slow down if I quit paying attention to the chatter. It will stop if I have no interest in what it has to say.

This is not easy for me to do. I do stop listening, then before you know it I am back to allowing myself to be entertained by the chatter of the mind. Its not even stuff that’s interesting, and often it is thoughts that are upsetting and almost never are the thoughts useful in any way. And yet, I listen. The encouraging thing is that I eventually notice, and I ask the Holy Spirit for His Words instead and this leads to quiet and to peace.

I can and will experience the peace of God. This is a given, so no worries there. It is just a matter of deciding that this is what I want, this and only this, and it will happen. Evidently I have not made that decision. I forgive myself for that.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-26-12

 
Day 116
5 Pray for God’s justice, and do not confuse His mercy with your own insanity. Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see. Remember this. In this lies either Heaven or hell, as you elect. God’s justice points to Heaven just because it is entirely impartial. It accepts all evidence that is brought before it, omitting nothing and assessing nothing as separate and apart from, all the rest. From this one standpoint does it judge, and this alone. Here all attack and condemnation becomes meaningless and indefensible. Perception rests, the mind is still, and light returns again. Vision is now restored. What had been lost has now been found. The peace of God descends on all the world, and we can see. And we can see!

This one sentence is the answer to all injustice, to all judgment of every kind.

Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see.

I create my life through my perceptions. I perceive myself as a victim of the world and this is the life I live, victimized at every turn. I perceive myself as treated unjustly, and this is what life brings me. I perceive myself as guilt-ridden and it seems that everything I do brings shame to me. If I see myself as unworthy, I go through life with my head bowed and my eyes averted and it seems that everyone treats me as if I deserve to be ignored. My life will reflect whatever perception I have about myself.

I used to think that I saw myself as a victim because circumstances proved this to be true. I was born into a dysfunctional family and was a victim of that childhood. I was sexually abused as a young girl and was a victim of the damage that causes. We moved from place to place as I grew up and I was a victim of the sense of instability this caused. My childhood seemed to create a pattern of victimization that continued all my life and none of it was my fault. How could I be responsible for what happened to me as a small child? It must be true that I am a victim of the world I see. My whole life has proven this is true.

But, if my life reflects whatever perception I have about myself, then the perception came first. I am not this body, this personality, this life, not even the baby born innocent of separation beliefs. If I were then I would truly be a victim of the world. Everything I have ever thought I knew about myself was so wrong. I have the life that I asked for. I asked for victim stories and guilt stories. I believed in unworthiness and so I have life stories that reflect that belief.

When I first realized that I do not begin with my birth and that I am 100% responsible for everything and so had nothing or no one to blame for my life, I thought my life was a punishment. I had wrong minded thoughts and so I had a hard life. It was a “made my bed and now I have to lie in it” kind of attitude. But that belief was just another wrong perception which needed correction. My life is not my punishment for having untrue beliefs. It is my opportunity to heal the mind of these beliefs. I have all the stories I need to undo those beliefs. My life is everything I need to help me wake up. It is my pathway Home.

As I have allowed my perception to be corrected, I am able to observe the contrast between right-minded thinking and wrong-minded thinking without so much distress. I am not completely healed of this so I do still feel distress sometimes, but not nearly as often and not to the same degree as before. For instance, yesterday I looked at judgment and suffered the effects of believing my judgment. But I was not lost in the effects like I would have been in the past.

I was aware of what was happening so even though it was painful, I understood what was happening and I knew I would absolutely accept healing at some point. I hated the way I felt and I had the feelings that come with that kind of thinking, but I also remembered my purpose and knew that even this situation would be used for that purpose.

I love that I am using my life in this way. I am allowing the Holy Spirit to change my perception. My changed perception is bringing me peace and I will be able to truly see.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-25-12

Day 115
3 All concepts of your brothers and yourself; all fears of future states and all concerns about the past, stem from injustice. Here is the lens which, held before the body’s eyes, distorts perception and brings witness of the distorted world back to the mind that made the lens and holds it very dear. Selectively and arbitrarily is every concept of the world built up in just this way. “Sins” are perceived and justified by careful selectivity in which all thought of wholeness must be lost. Forgiveness has no place in such a scheme, for not one “sin” but seems forever true.
4 Salvation is God’s justice. It restores to your awareness the wholeness of the fragments you perceive as broken off and separate. And it is this that overcomes the fear of death. For separate fragments must decay and die, but wholeness is immortal. It remains forever and forever like its Creator, being one with Him. God’s Judgment is His justice. Onto this,-a Judgment wholly lacking in condemnation; an evaluation based entirely on love,-you have projected your injustice, giving God the lens of warped perception through which you look. Now it belongs to Him and not to you. You are afraid of Him, and do not see you hate and fear your Self as enemy.

I asked the Holy Spirit what He would have me know about this paragraph and He brought to my mind the thought of “Johnny.” This is a man I have separated from all others and have branded as bad and unworthy. I justify my judgment by recounting his many unforgivable faults as I perceive them.

I’ve decided to forgive this story. I’ve decided over and over to forgive this story, then I pick it up again, and when I pick it up I act as if he is the story and it is he that I cannot forgive. If he is guilty for his story then I must be guilty for mine and so I hate him for that, and can’t stand to think about him. The more I hate him the more justification I must find to explain my failure to forgive. He never fails to provide that justification through his actions because in my need for him to be wrong, I see him only through the filter of his sins, which is, of course, the filter of my sins.

The solution is so simple. There is one Son of God and we are that. We imagine that we are many and that each of the many lives out some form of a separation story. When we tire of that story we throw it off and return to our pristine state. Johnny is not Johnny and he has never done anything wrong. He only imagines a story that provides opportunity to awaken, as am I, as are we all. That is all that’s happening.

Since I am part of his story or he is part of my story, however I want to see it, his story becomes an opportunity for me to forgive and to see the truth of who he is and who I am. I am not guilty because I keep allowing myself to be pulled back into the story, but I am suffering because of my choice.

Judgment is a burden, a painful burden. The only way to sustain my decision to keep him guilty is to remain in the dream. While I am in the dream I am unaware of being in God. This is the same thing as choosing pain, suffering, and death. I am ready to open my eyes. Holy Spirit please help me to see. I know that I can because there is nothing my holiness cannot do. I call on my holiness.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-24-12

Day 114
2 Justice, like its opposite, is an interpretation. It is, however, the one interpretation that leads to truth. This becomes possible because, while it is not true in itself, justice includes nothing that opposes truth. There is no inherent conflict between justice and truth; one is but the first small step in the direction of the other. The path becomes quite different as one goes along. Nor could all the magnificence, the grandeur of the scene and the enormous opening vistas that rise to meet one as the journey continues, be foretold from the outset. Yet even these, whose splendor reaches indescribable heights as one proceeds, fall short indeed of all that wait when the pathway ceases and time ends with it. But somewhere one must start. Justice is the beginning.

When I hear people say, “All I want is justice,” I notice that what they really want is some form of vengeance. They want someone to be guilty and to be punished for their guilt. They often want them to be punished now and even in their afterlife. They are saying, “I am in pain and it is your fault and I can only feel better if you hurt worse than I do.” This is, of course, an expression of separation.

True justice recognizes that the one seen as perpetrator is innocent. He may be confused and if he has caused harm in some way then he is confused. But confusion is not sin. It is a call to be healed, a call to be loved. The more horrific the harm, the more need for love. It may be necessary to take this person off the streets before he does more harm, but this too can be an act of love if that is the motivation.

A marriage ends badly with one partner cheating on the other. The wife wants the cheating husband punished, perhaps through the assets being divided in her favor. Maybe she will punish him through the children. All the time she excuses this behavior by calling it justice.

Justice knows only innocence. Love wants everyone to be happy, including the one who is leaving them. And love knows that this other person is not their source of happiness. As she lets go of her judgments and accepts Holy Spirit’s interpretation, there is no pain and no desire for vengeance. As she accepts that all others are simply expressions of her one self, vengeance on another is recognized as vengeance on self, and who would want that?

Justice recognizes that all are innocent, and all are still as God created them, and there are no exceptions to this.

Jesus ends this paragraph with a hint of the indescribable splendor we are to experience at the end of this journey home. I had just the tiniest taste of that experience and it is hard to believe something could be greater. Jesus then tells us that justice is the beginning of this journey. It is where we start. Holy Spirit, please help me today to become quickly aware of those thoughtless moments when I would condemn instead of bless. Please reinterpret each judgment I hold.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-23-12

Day 113
19. WHAT IS JUSTICE?
1 Justice is the divine correction for injustice. Injustice is the basis for all the judgments of the world. Justice corrects the interpretations to which injustice gives rise, and cancels them out. Neither justice nor injustice exists in Heaven, for error is impossible and correction meaningless. In this world, however, forgiveness depends on justice, since all attack can only be unjust. Justice is the Holy Spirit’s verdict upon the world. Except in His judgment justice is impossible, for no one in the world is capable of making only just interpretations and laying all injustices aside. If God’s Son were fairly judged, there would be no need for salvation. The thought of separation would have been forever inconceivable.

The ego is absolutely certain that life is unfair. I hear these thoughts that seem to prove injustice exists. Some of them I have believed myself.
  I work hard, and my lazy neighbor gets taken care of by my tax dollars.
  I was a good wife/husband and look what it got me.
  I suffered to bring that ungrateful child into the world.
  I didn’t do anything wrong and I got blamed anyway.
  I work and work on healing my mind and then this joker gets a spontaneous awakening for which he does nothing. How is that fair?

Looking at appearances it seems apparent that life is unjust. And if I use my ego thinking mind to judge what I see I will always come down on the side of injustice. This is why I was given the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, which does not see separate people struggling against each other, but sees only one Son of God waking up, judges truly.

I was reading in NTI on this very thing. Here is a passage that helped me to grasp this idea more strongly.

  You may trust in your brothers’ perfection and lay your judgments aside, and that will be to accept my invitation. Or you may be distracted by your judgments and choose to trust them instead. It is your choice.

It is so simple, isn’t it? I have the thought that a circumstance is unjust. I ask to see this differently and the Holy Spirit reminds me that my brother is perfect as he was created by God, that my brother is innocent as am I. Immediately I feel better, because now I am resting in the truth that I am not split off, but whole.

But then I think about the situation again and become distracted by my judgments, and if I think, I will always judge because that is what thinking was made for. I can return to peace and to truth only by letting go of my thinking and welcoming knowledge. That is why Jesus tells us that only the Holy Spirit can show us justice. He says,

  … for no one in the world is capable of making only just interpretations and laying all injustices aside.

There is no reason to feel guilty for our interpretations, because as he says here, we are not capable of doing otherwise. What we can do is rightly discount the judgmental thoughts in our mind and ask for an interpretation of One Who can judge truly. And when we become distracted by the judgments, return once again to the truth. The one thing that is true is that we are all innocent, and there is no injustice, just the appearance of injustice.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 4-22-12

Day 112
4 In order to heal, it thus becomes essential for the teacher of God to let all his own mistakes be corrected. If he senses even the faintest hint of irritation in himself as he responds to anyone, let him instantly realize that he has made an interpretation that is not true. Then let him turn within to his Eternal Guide, and let Him judge what the response should be. So is he healed, and in his healing is his pupil healed with him. The sole responsibility of God’s teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself. Atonement means correction, or the undoing of errors. When this has been accomplished, the teacher of God becomes a miracle worker by definition. His sins have been forgiven him, and he no longer condemns himself. How can he then condemn anyone? And who is there whom his forgiveness can fail to heal?

I have one thing to do here, one responsibility, one purpose. I am to accept the Atonement for myself. The process is simple. I notice when I respond with a lack of peace and I ask the Holy Spirit for a corrected interpretation. This is so simple that the ego mind, which thrives on complexity, will over-look it. But it works. I have been doing this process for several years and I see how effective it is.

This is the way I am healed, and it is the way my pupil is healed with me. I accept the Atonement (the Holy Spirit’s correction) for myself and as my mind is healed, so is my pupil’s mind. I hear objections from the ego mind as I read this. First, it doesn’t accept that there is only one of us, one mind, but it is an old argument and I’m not interested. The ego sees separate bodies and cannot see past what the body’s eyes see, but I am not limited to the body’s senses anymore.

Then the ego complains that this is not how teaching works. A teacher is one who knows more and shares that knowledge with one who knows less. She does that with words, either speaking or writing. The student sits at her feet (metaphorically) and absorbs her wisdom. The ego really likes this definition of teaching. It has all the elements it is so fond of, separation, hierarchy, and perception and projection.

Instead, Jesus has a different form of teaching in mind. In any relationship, the teacher of God watches her thoughts as she interacts and if she notices even the slightest irritation toward her pupil, she asks for and receives correction. As her mind is healed, the student’s mind is healed. Perfect. The ego hates this. Too simple. Where is the hierarchy in this? Where is the blame and the guilt?

And if this is really how it works, then why do workshops, write books, teach classes and facilitate courses? Jesus has also told us that our hands, our feet, our tongues are needed, so this kind of teaching must have its place. Of course it is through the words and the interactions that we see we have thoughts that need healing, but I think it is also helpful in other ways.

If the teacher’s words are inspired, they can help awaken the memory of truth in another’s mind. This has happened for me when I studied with Regina, and with Nouk and Tomas. I felt a stirring within when I read NTI. I was helped when I read Carrie Triffit’s books, and I love the simple but profound stories from Karmic Eraser. The Way of Mastery moved me deeply and opened me to a more expanded view of myself. Paul West’s book of inspired writings delights me. Most recently, Dying to Be Me has facilitated another shift in my mind.

There are so many ways the Holy Spirit speaks to me. A Course in Miracles itself is full of words, and is precious to me as a written path Home. But no book, no workshop, no words can awaken me. They can only motivate me, and inspire me to willingness. It is only the Holy Spirit that heals, and it is only with my willingness to be healed that this is accomplished. And, the hardest of all pill for the ego to swallow, it is through my healing that my student is healed.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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