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Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 13. 3-15-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 13
13 The One Who knows the plan of God that God would have you follow can teach you what it is. Only His wisdom is capable of guiding you to follow it. Every decision you undertake alone but signifies that you would define what salvation is, and what you would be saved from. The Holy Spirit knows that all salvation is escape from guilt. You have no other “enemy,” and against this strange distortion of the purity of the Son of God the Holy Spirit is your only Friend. He is the strong protector of the innocence that sets you free. And it is His decision to undo everything that would obscure your innocence from your unclouded mind.

Journal
Here is what stood out for me. God has a plan to guide me Home and He gave that plan to the Holy Spirit. It is the only plan that will work and only the Holy Spirit has the wisdom capable of guiding me to follow it. When I try to make decisions on my own, I am choosing my own plan for salvation and taking myself out of God’s perfect plan. The Holy Spirit does not try to overcome my stubbornness but only waits patiently for me to change my mind.

For most of my life I didn’t understand what I was trying to save myself from, but now I see that the only thing I must be saved from is guilt. Guilt is my only enemy and the Holy Spirit is my only Friend. As I practice making all decisions with the Holy Spirit rather than ego, I will be set free from my belief in guilt and I will know my innocence. Simply put, guilt has obscured the truth of my innocence and God has given the Holy Spirit a plan to free me. I am accepting that plan as I make my decisions with Holy Spirit rather than ego. That is all that is going on here.

Yesterday an old fear came up in my mind. I could see the obscuring impressions of guilt all around it, making it feel real and threatening. I worked with it but I could tell that I was merely putting it away for the night rather than releasing it entirely. I woke up this morning from strange and vaguely disturbing dreams, and I know that this is because I made a decision with ego to keep my old fear.

Suddenly the dream remnants from last night start to make sense in a symbolic way. There was a child who has a terrible injury on his back. I know we must call an ambulance but all sorts of stuff is happening instead and all around him as he lays there. I periodically realize I am ignoring the main problem and think again I have to do something about the injured child. I never do. I try to fix every other problem around him, but I don’t fix the main problem, the real problem. That is the story of me and this fear I have been walking around, thinking I must do something about, but working on everything else, anything else, ignoring the cause of my only real problem.

The lesson from this morning reminds me there is no will but God’s and so it must be that my will is the same as God’s Will. It cannot be that fear and guilt are God’s Will so the fear and guilt I feel must be something I made up, something that happened because I chose to believe in another will. Believing in another will makes it real in my dream, but not in reality. This means that I can break free of it when I decide to. I must be choosing to suffer. I am ready to stop tying to fix the world around my problem and allow Holy Spirit to correct this fear and guilt belief in my mind. Holy Spirit help me now as I decide with You rather than ego.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 12. 3-14-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 12
12 Would you deny the truth of God’s decision, and place your pitiful appraisal of yourself in place of His calm and unswerving value of His Son? Nothing can shake God’s conviction of the perfect purity of everything that He created, for it is wholly pure. Do not decide against it, for being of Him it must be true. Peace abides in every mind that quietly accepts the plan God set for its Atonement, relinquishing its own. You know not of salvation, for you do not understand it. Make no decisions about what it is or where it lies, but ask the Holy Spirit everything, and leave all decisions to His gentle counsel.

Journal
I am the only thing standing between salvation and me. God knows who I am and knows my perfection. He doesn’t judge me and He is not disappointed in me. Jesus put the Atonement plan in action and is in charge of it. He is helping me in many ways, always holding my hand as I navigate the darkened mind of ego. God’s Holy Spirit is in my mind guiding and directing me every step of the way. I cannot fail.

The only thing that is required of me is my desire for salvation and my willingness to release everything that blocks my awareness of loves presence in my mind. I am getting better at this, more willing, and my motivation grows stronger as I do my part and experience the happy effects of having done so. The ego mind has been my go-to guy for longer than I can know, so I still hear that cranky little voice, but I am more likely to dismiss it now.

Yesterday while I was brushing my teeth I remembered that I have a dental appointment. I started thinking about my dentist and wondering if I should find another one. Before I could even finish brushing my teeth I had built a case against him. Suddenly I noticed what I was doing and realized I had attacked him. I realized that I had a grievance against him and that grievance was standing between my salvation and me. I talked to Holy Spirit about it and I released it to Him.

This morning I thought about a loved one and I became worried about him. I wondered if it was too early for me to call him and see if he was ok. I realized immediately that this is an attack. I was assuming that because he has made bad choices in the past that he might do it again. I was seeing him as vulnerable and weak and needing my help. What is that but an attack on God’s Son?

Because of fear I have had trouble letting this one go, but this morning I quickly went to Holy Spirit to show Him what I was thinking and how dark the world is when I do this. I sought His wise and gentle counsel. I was reminded that it feels hard to relinquish these untrue thoughts only when I tried to do it alone.

I remembered that I am not alone, that it is not the ego’s strength that I am depending on but the strength of God in me. I remembered that it is God’s Mind in which I think. I remembered that there is nothing my holiness cannot do. I felt the darkness leave me and the light brightened my world through my willingness to forgive. This really is not hard to do.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 11. 3-13-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 11
11 It will never happen that you must make decisions for yourself. You are not bereft of help, and Help that knows the answer. Would you be content with little, which is all that you alone can offer yourself, when He Who gives you everything will simply offer it to you? He will never ask what you have done to make you worthy of the gift of God. Ask it not therefore of yourself. Instead, accept His answer, for He knows that you are worthy of everything God wills for you. Do not try to escape the gift of God He so freely and so gladly offers you. He offers you but what God gave Him for you. You need not decide whether or not you are deserving of it. God knows you are.

Journal
There was a time when I thought there were some decisions I should make on my own, like I was being lazy if I asked for help with every little decision. I would turn to God when I was backed into a corner; otherwise I did it on my own. There was a time, actually until fairly recently, when I thought that I could make decisions on my own, as if I could make them with God or with ego or just by myself. Now that seems ridiculous. Did I think there was a “me” separate from both ego and God?

I hope never to ask the ego for help in making decisions again. I have real Help. I have God’s Holy Spirit in my mind and I have complete access to that Divine Help. Why on earth would I not take it? Why would I ask the ego mind what to do next? When has it ever been in my best interest to consult with ego? When I use the ego mind to do my thinking it can only be because I still value the idea of an identity separate from God.

I am certain that is not a good idea, and yet, here I am in a body, behaving like a body is what I am rather than an image I am using to represent a separation idea. How do I know that I am identifying with this body image as if it was really who I am? I worry about the world. I know I am not supposed to so I don’t let myself dwell on it, but when I hear something disturbing I feel my stomach clench. Then I push it away. When I am firmly anchored in the truth, I pull it back up and look at it with Holy Spirit, and release it to Him. Otherwise I just let it go back into the dark until the next time.

Another way I see I am attacked to my separate identity is when I hear that someone I know is sick and I have that automatic response of wanting to stay away for awhile so I don’t catch it. I feel guilty for not wanting to be a help, and guilty for believing in “catching” sickness when I have learned that sickness is in my mind and then projected onto the body, so I don’t catch it, I decide on it. Oops, I must have joined with ego in that decision. Again, I will probably use this opportunity to let go of more belief that there is value in that separation idea, but maybe not. Maybe I will try to push it down out of sight, and if I do, like a balloon it will push its way back up and I will have to deal with it again.

There are other ways I identify with the illusion and it is never an accident. I identify with what I want. But I am not guilty for that, and each time I notice I am doing it, I have another chance to loosen that idea so that I will one day (soon?) be through with it. Today I will make no decisions on my own, that is, with ego. Today, Holy Spirit, I want your help in all decisions. Today I want no truck with ego at all. When ego tries to slip an idea past me, this is what I will remember: God is the Mind in which I think. The next time I feel hopelessly entangled with ego, I will remember that God is the strength in which I trust.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 10. 3-9-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 10
10 Those who accept the Atonement are invulnerable. But those who believe they are guilty will respond to guilt, because they think it is salvation, and will not refuse to see it and side with it. They believe that increasing guilt is self-protection. And they will fail to understand the simple fact that what they do not want must hurt them. All this arises because they do not believe that what they want is good. Yet will was given them because it is holy, and will bring to them all that they need, coming as naturally as peace that knows no limits. There is nothing their will fails to provide that offers them anything of value. Yet because they do not understand their will, the Holy Spirit quietly understands it for them, and gives them what they want without effort, strain, or the impossible burden of deciding what they want and need alone.

Journal
When we have accepted the Atonement we will know we are invulnerable. The reason we fail to know this now is that we are attracted to guilt. We believe in guilt and we believe it is our salvation. After all this time of working with the Course I notice that there is still the belief in my mind that guilt has some value and so I don’t give it up altogether.

I keep it locked away for the most part, but every so often it escapes its confines and I see that I am angry or fearful and I know that I have been harboring guilt. Guilt likes to disguise itself as something else. I know someone who is self-destructive and I decide to point out his problems. I do this in the name of love, but really, I am just telling him how guilty he is, and at the same time, I am convincing myself that guilt is real and that I am guilty.

You see, what we teach we learn. Giving is the way we receive, and I sometimes give what I will regret receiving. So I look at it again and consider its value to me, and I realize that it is not helping me as I thought it was and it is not helping the other person either. Then I give it to the Holy Spirit. I show Him the thoughts I have about guilt. I show Him my fear and anger. Then I ask Him to purify my mind. Each time this happens I feel freer and happier and the next time I notice the idea of guilt it is easier to release it.

I have a powerful will that can undo the false beliefs that I told myself were true, but that will has been imprisoned by those very beliefs. That doesn’t mean I am lost. I have a Guide and He is a Healer and my Helper. I don’t remember how my will works but He does. He waits patiently for me to realize that guilt is hurting me and I don’t want it anymore. Then He gives me freedom from the belief in guilt. He gives me what I want, and I am able receive it without effort, strain, or the impossible burden of deciding on my own what it is that I want and need.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 9. 3-8-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 9
9 Whenever you choose to make decisions for yourself you are thinking destructively, and the decision will be wrong. It will hurt you because of the concept of decision that led to it. It is not true that you can make decisions by yourself or for yourself alone. No thought of God’s Son can be separate or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the whole Sonship, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of.

Journal

The reason we should not try to make decisions for ourselves alone is because the concept of alone is erroneous. We never decide for ourselves alone. Every decision is made for the whole Sonship. Every decision any of us makes influences all of us. This morning I made a decision that I know was guided by One Who understands this and Who knows the decision that will influence the Son toward awakening.

I was trying to do this morning’s lesson and could not focus even for a few moments. The lesson says Love created me like Itself. I tried a couple of the suggestions. I said that Love created me safe, but it felt like empty words in my mouth. I don’t feel safe. I thought of some things that feel dangerous to me. I sat with this for awhile and asked Holy Spirit to help me.

I thought of my feelings the last couple of days and I let the Holy Spirit lead me through my thoughts and feelings to get to the core of the problem. I saw that I didn’t trust the truth to be true. As soon as I realized this I felt better. That is an old story the ego drags out when I am getting too close to the truth. I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of that belief.

The Holy Spirit took me further into my thoughts and I realized that the reason I have been feeling unsafe is that I have been very focused on the stories in my life. With that kind of focus it becomes harder to disregard what the body’s eyes show me and to disregard the feelings that are triggered by these sights.

Then I was led to an insight that helped me. I realized that I have become almost obsessive about checking news updates on my phone. There is a phone app that allows me to do this easily and I started using it. With all the political upheaval we are experiencing right now, I was falling into the habit of looking at it every time I was not actively doing something else.

Then I noticed last night I was reading a news update while I was actually watching a show on TV. That is way too much ego input! I use the Lessons and what I read in the Text in the mornings as a way to keep my mind focused on the truth, but now I was using the news for the opposite purpose. It was the ego mind’s way of keeping me focused on the illusion.

I thought about how I was going to have to be hyper-vigilant for awhile as I broke myself of this habit. I knew it would be hard because the ego mind really believes it needs to know these things about its stories. It thinks it needs these “facts” so that it can make decisions for itself, decisions for Myron.

The Holy Spirit answered my concern right away. It said to delete the app from my phone. I could feel the ego trying to object to that but I had asked for help, so I accepted that help and immediately deleted the app. Keeping close tabs on the news was a decision I made for Myron, and as Jesus says, a decision made for me alone is flawed before it is even conceptualized, and will be wrong for that reason.

How could I, on my own, know what is the best thing for the whole Sonship? How could I know how it will affect even me, much less everyone else? There is another reason this does not work. I never really make decisions on my own. The decision to give so much attention to the world was made with ego. The decision to make a clean break from that was made with the Holy Spirit.

That is the only way decisions are made, that is, in union, and the only choices I have are these two. I decide with ego or I decide with Holy Spirit. And whichever I choose is going to influence the whole Sonship. This is a huge responsibility, and I take it as seriously as I should. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for your help this morning.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 8. 3-7-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 8

8 God is the only Cause, and guilt is not of Him. Teach no one he has hurt you, for if you do, you teach yourself that what is not of God has power over you. The causeless cannot be. Do not attest to it, and do not foster belief in it in any mind. Remember always that mind is one, and cause is one. You will learn communication with this oneness only when you learn to deny the causeless, and accept the Cause of God as yours. The power that God has given to His Son is his, and nothing else can His Son see or choose to look upon without imposing on himself the penalty of guilt, in place of all the happy teaching the Holy Spirit would gladly offer him.

Journal

Now I see why my last experience with fear was so difficult for me to clear. I was teaching guilt and therefore learning guilt. I could not make the other person guilty without feeling guilty and guilt is the cause of fear. I stayed in it for so long because I was in denial. I kept projecting the guilt until I actually believed the other person was guilty and the cause of my discomfort. I confused it further by convincing myself that my reaction was a result of loving the other person.

If I had described it in this way to myself, I would have snapped out of it a lot faster. But that is not the way I did it. I let fear overwhelm me until I was totally confused and believing everything the ego said. But His happy teachings were in my mind as well as the ego justifications, and eventually the pain was so intense that I had to make a different choice.

One of the ways that helped to bring me out of it was to use the Rules for Decision process. This resulted in a post I made to my Rules for Decision group. Here is what I said.

Today I will make no decisions by myself. As if I could. (I always make all decisions with ego or with Holy Spirit.)

Today I will to live fearlessly. I will to bless everyone I think of with miracles. I will to live this day in the peace of God.

Every thought and every word is either blessing someone with a miracle or cursing them with projection. What a difference it makes when I think of it this way. Sometimes it feels very hard to let go of fear thoughts, and yet, as I hold onto them I am cursing rather than blessing myself and others. Holy Spirit, I give You the belief that it is hard to release fear thoughts and I give You the belief that any child of God is truly vulnerable. I will to join with You and share Your Vision.

If I make no decisions with the ego, this is the day I will have. If I do make decisions with the ego, I will change my mind.

In this way I was able to monitor my new decision. If I experienced fear or guilt, if I failed to bless with miracles and if I cursed with projection, if I failed to be at peace, then I knew I had made a wrong turn and I could immediately look at my thoughts and ask for another way to see.

This was very helpful. I did not stay on track perfectly, but I did notice when I was projecting guilt, and I kept asking for help. Eventually, my mind cleared and I knew what I wanted. Then when I asked for healing, I really meant it. I didn’t want to project nor justify. I just wanted the peace of God and I wanted to return to love. This experience was a very strong reminder of the penalty of making guilty.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 7. 3-6-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 7

7 The way to teach this simple lesson is merely this: Guiltlessness is invulnerability. Therefore, make your invulnerability manifest to everyone. Teach him that, whatever he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can be harmed shows him that he is guiltless. He can do nothing that can hurt you, and by refusing to allow him to think he can, you teach him that the Atonement, which you have accepted for yourself, is also his. There is nothing to forgive. No one can hurt the Son of God. His guilt is wholly without cause, and being without cause, cannot exist.

Journal

This is such an important paragraph! I have been aware lately of the need to be in a state of universal and unconditional love and so of course I have experienced the ways in which I am not in that state. The most recent and the most difficult challenge was when someone I love very much was being self destructive. I fell right into his story and into fear. Fear is not love and is not helpful, but there I was.

Constantly my mind went to the idea of how I suffered from his choices. I was afraid, I was sad, I was grieving, and all because of him. I tried not to say any of this out loud, but it would trickle through in little ways. In so doing I was telling him that I didn’t believe in him, I didn’t trust him, and I was afraid for him and he should be, too. I was telling him how guilty he is.

Fear is so compelling. Once I let it take over my mind, it is very hard to extricate myself. It doesn’t happen very much anymore, but when it does, I feel like I am drowning in it and I can’t remember how to swim. Before I could stop teaching guilt, I had to stop giving into the fear. I kept going back to the Holy Spirit asking for help, asking for healing.

Fear kept saying that I couldn’t, that I daren’t let it go. But of course, eventually I did. I remembered that the peace of God is my only goal. I remembered that I could not be the miracle worker that I want to be unless I was free of fear. There was no way I could help if I needed help, and finally I broke free of the fear.

I wish I had not said a single word to this person that would add to his burden of guilt. But I am not without recourse. Time is not linear as we believe it is. What is done can be undone and not just going forward. Miracles Principle 25 says that Atonement works all the time and in all the dimensions of time.

And the first principle says that Miracles are both beginnings and endings, and so they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future. So there is no reason to feel guilty. I can ask for a miracle to undo the harm I have done.

This is from Chapter 5 and is a helpful prayer for just this kind of situation.

Your part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace. Say this to yourself as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.
 I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise. 
I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.
 I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him. 
I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.