Together, We Light the Way

Click link to go to:
Together We Light the Way Index

Gentle Healing Journal Day 36. 10-28-18

Journal for Day 36
LESSON 36

My holiness envelops everything I see.

“If your mind is part of God’s you must be sinless, or a part of His Mind would be sinful. Your sight is related to His Holiness, not to your ego, and therefore not to your body.”

If my mind is very holy, then what I see is very holy. And since my mind is part of God’s Mind, my mind must be holy. So why is it that I do not see holiness when I look around. To the contrary, I see division, anger, frustration, jealousy, and all sorts of emotional reactions from those around me. That happens when I am looking from my ego mind through the body’s eyes.

I have been learning to see differently, though. Sometimes I do first see through the ego mind, but usually, I very quickly shift my sight to vision. I see the holiness before me. I see that these holy beings are confused and lost in their confusion, but no less holy for that. I know what it feels like to be confused and afraid, so I pray for them, which means I envelop them in my holiness. My holiness sees the holiness in them and knows it to be the truth.

This is not to be confused with the ego attempt at prayer and forgiveness. I am not seeing them as if they were less than me and then trying to raise them up. I am seeing that they are the same as me, and I am rejoicing in that we are both blessed with the grace of God. There is nothing that can change that in any way. I know this and will not be influenced by whatever story they are lost in at this moment.

This lesson is the practice I used to get to this holier perception that I now experience. It is not perfect yet and occasionally it takes me a little time to shift from ego mind/body sight to true vision. Sometimes, I jumpstart the process by praying that this one is open and receptive to his highest self. I see him at peace. And what I pray for another is my prayer for myself and generally, this does it for me, and my vision shifts.

At first, this felt like work because it required my full attention and it also required that I relinquish my judgments. Sometimes I didn’t want to do that. But as I continued the practice, it got easier and now it feels natural and when I don’t do it, I feel very uncomfortable. I am diligent in this exercise because I want to feel the joy of true vision all the time.

So what does this have to do with the rug and the wall and the pen and the body? For vision to be true it must be true for all forms of separation. It must be the undoing of separation. It must be an experience of union. God is in everything I see because God is in my mind. God must, therefore, be in that pencil and in that rug and in this body I seem to inhabit. I cannot see anything apart from God and truly see it. When I see with vision, I don’t see just a pencil and just a rug or even just a body. I perceive holiness and wholeness. I perceive the union of all things, the place where all is one.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Gentle Healing Journal Day 35 10-25-18

Journal for Day 35
LESSON 35

My mind is part of God’s. I am very holy.

I so love the holiness lessons. They make my heart sing! This is because I know that I am holy and I know that one day I will know only that. Right now, I know I am holy and from the split mind, I believe I am less than that. But even though the split mind believes it is the body in a world of separation, and even though I seem to exist as that, and even though I get lost in one story or another temporarily, I never forget that I am very holy. Part of my mind never forgets and I am in touch with that part.

“2 You will believe that you are part of where you think you are. That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want. And you want it to protect the image of yourself that you have made. The image is part of this environment. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. This is not vision. Images cannot see.”

The split mind that we call ego made an image to represent itself and this image is in the split mind as the world, our bodies, and our personalities. The bodies were given eyes to see what it needed to see in order to protect the image it made of itself. So we use an image (the eyes of a body) to prove to us that images exist. I exist, but the image made in order to experience separation does not.

It’s all a matter of identity. Do I choose to identify with the body, in which case I see myself in a world that doesn’t exist? Or do I identify with my holy mind, in which case I see myself as the Divine Being that I am, forever perfect, forever formless? Even in this illusion, I can identify with my true self and can live in the world without being of the world.

Here is a way that I chose to be in the world but not of it, that is to identify with my holiness rather than with my ego.  Yesterday, I became worried about a problem I was having with my phone. Lots of worry thoughts came into my mind about how inconvenient this was going to be and how much trouble and time it would take to get it straightened out.

Then I realized that these were just thoughts. Thoughts are meaningless unless I pay attention to them and choose to believe them. These thoughts were upsetting because I paid attention to them, so I decided to ignore them.

I let helpful ideas take their place and everything worked out just fine. If I had listened to these worry thoughts things would have eventually worked out but I would have had a very unpleasant experience while it did. I’ve learned to question my thoughts. My first response is to remind myself that it’s just a thought. I’m free to ignore it.

If I was simply living in the world and believing I was part of this world experience and that was all I was, the story yesterday would have played out quite differently. But I don’t do that anymore. The ego thoughts and the things happening around me still distract me, but I also know what I am and I know that my mind is very holy. Using my holy mind, worries fall away and solutions become obvious.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Gentle Healing Journal Day 34 10-24-18

Journal for Day 34
LESSON 34

I could see peace instead of this.

“I could see peace in this situation instead of what I now see in it.”

What a good reminder. Yesterday, my daughter and I went to Sam’s to buy me a new phone. My kids had pitched in to pay for most of it as a birthday present. It was a little hectic. The sales person I got was in training and had to repeat the process several times because she kept making mistakes. If I had been alone, I would not have cared, but my granddaughter is 19 months old and has limited patience when she gets bored. I started feeling the stress, which showed up as a headache.

Because we needed to speed this along for my granddaughter’s sake, I had them do just the bare minimum. After we left, I began the process of setting it up and I made a mistake that I didn’t know how to undo. I started to get stressed about that but remembered that stress is a self-imposed discomfort. I stopped for a moment and just rested in God. I knew that this would all work out in the end and that I could see peace instead of this and it would work out more quickly and painlessly.

All the tension fell away and I tried a few more things. Then I decided to go back to Sam’s and get them to help me straighten it out. The young man who was there this time was knowledgeable and friendly. He is one of those people who sincerely like to help. Because I did not have all my passwords with me, he could not fix it right on the spot, but he showed me how to do it once I got home. He also gave me his cell number and told me to call him if I had any problems at all.

When I got home it took a few different tries, but I was able to get it done and remain peaceful throughout. I still have a problem but I know that the answer will reveal itself. I joke that just as I have a wonderful parking angel, I also have an electronics angel. I seem to just stumble onto whatever it is that I need, the answer showing up in the most surprising ways. The only thing that interferes is anxiety. Once I let go of the stress and call on the peace that is always within me, everything falls into place.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Gentle Healing Journal Day 33 10-23-18

Journal for Day 33
LESSON 33

There is another way of looking at the world.

“There is another way of looking at this.”

When I heard on the news that Donald Trump was our elected president, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it. I tried to tell myself that the damage he could do was limited and that it would be OK, but with the passage of time, I was to discover that it was worse than I imagined. Children being torn from their parents were the worst so far and my constant struggle to release the anger and resentment, and let me be honest, the growing hatred I felt toward him, got trampled under this new outrage.

Even so, I knew that how I felt had to change. I was hurting myself, and all of the Sonship with my attitude. I was reinforcing rage, hatred, disdain, and disgust; I was reinforcing separation, fear, and guilt. My thoughts and beliefs affect all of my life because they are not discreet and they are not discreet to my personal story; they affect all of us. I was polluting consciousness with these beliefs and these runaway emotions.

So what I did was to ask for another way of looking at this. I realized that the only thing happening in my mind, and in my mind is where my business is, the only thing happening there is that I made a judgment. It was really that simple. I made a judgment and that judgment fueled everything else that came after. We make judgments all the time and we change our minds all the time so this should be simple and easy, I thought. But as it turned out, simple as it was, it was not so easy.

The reason it was not easy is that having made the judgment, I now believed it and when I went to the Holy Spirit, I was asking for help but asking amiss. I was asking how to forgive this terrible man because that was my judgment and so my belief about him. The Holy Spirit was answering me but I wasn’t hearing the answer because it didn’t make sense according to what I thought I knew. That is why Jesus tells us not to make a decision and then ask for help. But he knew we would and so he gave us a process to use to turn it all around. (See T 30, The Rules for Decision.)

Because of my judgment, I was suffering. This motivated me to do what needed to be done regardless of how impossible it seemed to me. I accepted that I don’t know what anything is for and that I don’t want to make decision on my own (with the ego). I willingly let go of my judgment and I asked the Holy Spirit to show me another way of looking at this. I did this because I remembered my function, my one goal and my purpose, which is the peace of God.

My anger began to fall away. It did this in jumps and starts for a while, but pretty quickly, I was feeling quite neutral about the whole thing, so that was good, but not enough. I needed to feel only love toward Donald Trump and that still seemed impossible. But in God, nothing is impossible and so I went back to the Holy Spirit and asked for a different way to see this. Again, I put aside my judgment that I could not love this man, and I opened my mind and heart to another way to see.

A true miracle occurred at that point. All separation thoughts fell away and I was filled with love when I thought of Donald, my dear brother and part of my Self. I began to pray for him every day. I prayed that he would be open and receptive to his highest guidance. I prayed for his happiness and for his peace of mind. This doesn’t mean that I agree with his policies or that I would ever vote for him, but I don’t wish him any ill will, and I love and appreciate him.

That was an attitude that I felt but didn’t understand, even myself, but there it was. Since then, I have come to see the whole situation differently. I see his part in our story as essential. He represents a part of our shared mind. He tweets his outrage at someone disagreeing with him, and I see my outrage that he didn’t agree with me, or I remember my outrage that my boss blamed me for something I didn’t do. I mean, who has not felt outrage when they felt threatened.

I have been accepting the gift of detachment lately, and this has allowed me to see things on different levels. I see how situations affect the story of Myron and how they appear on the world stage and how different they look when seen from the imagined distance of the effects on the awakening Sonship. I see my part. I see how I affect all of us through my choices.

This detachment helps me to recognize that there is always another way of looking at the world, a way that is encouraging and helpful and loving and that I can see it if I choose to. I can see through fear or I can see through love and this is true in every circumstance. How I choose to see is going to help lift us all out of suffering or it will bring us all deeper into the illusion. It is a big responsibility, but it is simple and easy to make the right choice.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Gentle Healing Journal Day 32 10-22-18

Journal for Day 32
LESSON 32
I have invented the world I see.

“I have invented this situation as I see it.”

If my mind should stray to the ego thought that I am a victim, I remind myself of the truth that I have invented this situation as I see it. I am the scriptwriter of my story. I have an appointment at a hospital in Houston next week. They will be running some tests and then the next day I will see the doctor to talk about surgery.

If all of this were taking place here in the area where I live, it would be no big deal to me. But driving to and in Houston, the expense of staying at a hotel for at least two nights, maneuvering through this huge hospital, well, I find I am dreading all of this. I could see myself as a victim but then I remember that I have invented this situation as I see it.

I, as part of the Sonship, made this world, and I decided to participate in it. I come to a particular incarnation with a specific purpose that will help me to awaken and thus help the Sonship to awaken. So regardless of whether the story seems to be interesting or happy or painful, whether I seem to be following my heart or letting the ego make my decisions, I am accomplishing my purpose.

Within the story, which at this time includes this trip to the hospital, I have another decision to make. How will I choose to perceive this situation? Will I decide that I hate the whole idea and that I am a victim? If that is the case, I will learn from it but it will be pretty uncomfortable for me.

Or will I accept this part of the story with the same enthusiasm I accept other parts that are more to my liking? In that case I will still learn from it, but I will do so without suffering, and I will learn more quickly the lesson it contains because I will not be conflicted in my purpose. Either way, it is my choice and no one is making me feel what I feel.

The only thing that could make it feel like a victim is my decision to feel like that. I’m glad that I no longer see value in being a victim so that I don’t hold onto those feelings anymore. The moment I decided that this is going to be interesting and maybe fun, any feeling of victimhood just fell away. See, I invent the situation as I experience it by how I choose to see it and it is just that easy.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Gentle Healing Journal Day 31 10-19-18

Journal for Day 31
LESSON 31
I am not the victim of the world I see.

“Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world.”

Thinking of myself as a victim is maybe the only thing in the Course that I have completely released. Yes, the thoughts of victimhood show up at times, but there is no moment in which I believe it. The first time I read this lesson, I recognized it as the lesson I could not afford to overlook. I recognized that it was the lesson that I came here to learn. There would be others, of course, but I knew this one was for me, was a great part of my purpose in this incarnation.

I began the process of letting it go right away. It took years of vigilance before it was thoroughly accepted. Now, the very idea that I could be a victim feels absurd to me. I am the creator of my little personal story here. If something is in it, or someone is in it, I am responsible for that appearance. How could I also be a victim to it? See Lesson 152: The power of decision is my own.

“No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is.”

Where is the victimhood in that? When something occurs that doesn’t add to my joy and my peace, I don’t look for who is guilty. I just look at my reaction to it and look for the root cause of that reaction. Then, I let that belief go. It is sometimes almost instantaneous, this healing. Sometimes it takes a little while, but mostly the belief that someone is guilty slides right on through my mind like it was coated with Teflon. That is the way it is when you give up a belief.
Victim? I don’t see no stinkin’ victim. ~smile~

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Gentle Healing Journal Day 30 10-18-18

Journal for Day 30
LESSON 30

God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.

“Today we are trying to use a new kind of “projection.” We are not attempting to get rid of what we do not like by seeing it outside. Instead, we are trying to see in the world what is in our minds, and what we want to recognize is there. Thus, we are trying to join with what we see, rather than keeping it apart from us. That is the fundamental difference between vision and the way you see.”

Our mind is split, that’s for sure. We have in our mind the idea of separation that we call ego. We think we want to be special in a way that is different from God and from each other. We think we want something God has not given us. On the other hand, we don’t want the inevitable results of that thought, the anger, and fear, the guilt, the pain and suffering, and death. We think to solve this problem by projecting the unwanted parts of our separation idea and see them as being outside our mind where we pretend they have nothing to do with us. This projection is the world we see.

We made the body’s eyes for the purpose of obscuring the truth. We use them to make images of the untrue thoughts in our mind and then “seeing” them projected outward, we can convince ourselves that this ugliness is not in us but in others, in the world. We have done this for so long that we now believe our eyes so completely that we never question what they show us. We simply believe it because we see it. But just because we have believed something to be true for a long time does not make it true. It just makes us deluded.

We would be trapped in this hell of our own making if that were the only thing in our mind, but it is not. We have another Idea in our mind. It is the Idea of God and as we do this study and this practice, this Idea grows brighter and stronger and begins to make itself known because it is our will that this happen. Now we begin to see images that represent this Idea being projected outward, not to be rid of It, but to see It. It is our growing will to see that part of our mind in order to encourage recognition that God is in our mind.

We have buried the truth under illusions for so long we can barely recall the real thing.  All this work that we do, all the lessons and the practice and the processes are uncovering our true nature, and as we project what we find there we experience vision. This is a seeing that does not involve the eyes, though we do see images more representative of this thinking. It is a knowing that is not found in the brain though we may process the knowing in that way so it is understandable to us while we are here. What we inevitably come to accept is that the whole world we see with our eyes does not exist at all.

We have been very slowly evolving in this direction, but with the celestial speed-up that is occurring at this time, some of us have begun to consciously undo the world we made. We do this as we look at specific images and question them. We question that suffering and death are inevitable. We question that attack is necessary and effective. We question that fear protects us and that grievances are unavoidable. We question it with the Holy Spirit and then we let these thoughts go. We are uncovering our true self, and as we do so, we project what we find and see how that looks.

My experience of this has turned the world upside down. At first, it was disconcerting and I wasn’t sure this whole thing was a good idea. But I was compelled to continue and now when I look back on the world as I used to see it, I can hardly believe the difference. I used to live in a very scary world, a world without many redeeming qualities, and a world that was crushing the joy right out of me. That world is mostly gone now, not all together yet, but enough of it is gone that I have peace and joy more than not. God is not in everything I see yet, but It will be because now I never doubt that God is in my mind and what I see and experience comes from my mind.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Page 40 of 269 pages ‹ First  < 38 39 40 41 42 >  Last ›

<< Back to main page of Together, We Light the Way

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution to support this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution with a credit/debit card, click here.
Click here to donate from your PayPal account.
Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.