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Study of Text, Chapter 11,IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son, P 4. 9-24-15

IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 4
4 Only you can deprive yourself of anything. Do not oppose this realization, for it is truly the beginning of the dawn of light. Remember also that the denial of this simple fact takes many forms, and these you must learn to recognize and to oppose steadfastly, without exception. This is a crucial step in the reawakening. The beginning phases of this reversal are often quite painful, for as blame is withdrawn from without, there is a strong tendency to harbor it within. It is difficult at first to realize that this is exactly the same thing, for there is no distinction between within and without.

Journal
I absolutely accept that I am responsible for everything. I but do it to myself! And yet, I still notice a tendency to want to place blame. For instance, yesterday I got a call from a customer asking why he had not received his report on his water system. My first thought was that someone should have gotten this report to him and I felt anger. The ego always speaks first, but I don’t always listen, thank goodness. I let that thought go.

I looked his information up and saw that he had a problem. I felt frustrated again and felt like the new sales coordinator was never going to be as good as the old one who would have told me about this. Another attack thought. Another attempt to displace blame and deny responsibility. This one was a little stronger which means I liked that idea and was interested in it. But only for a moment, and then I let it go as well.

The truth is, the world I see is one of my own making. I began with a belief that I am a victim and that I am always besieged from without and unfairly treated. From that belief I made an image that represented these ideas, adding some guilt and fear as well. This would be the story of my customer blaming me for what someone else did, and maybe losing that customer as a result of their incompetence. Then I projected the story outward where I pretend that I don’t know where it came from, but certainly it is handy to have it here. I tell myself that things go wrong and it’s not my fault, but, by golly, someone is guilty!

I let that thought go, too, and went to see the customer to reassure him as well as to find the source of the problem. It turned out to be a fruitful visit. I was calm and confident and at peace when I visited him because I had seen my projected image and chosen against it rather than defending it. I chose peace instead and so I gave peace.

I explained the delay in the report and I found his problem and all of it was done quickly and well. He thinks better of me now than he would have if the error had never occurred. Had I held onto the anger and blame, I am sure there would have been a different ending to this story, one where we both would likely have been out of peace and so looking for someone to blame.

As Jesus predicted, when I first began to understand this and started withdrawing my projections, I was dismayed at the resulting self-attacks. I felt so guilty and so hopeless about the whole thing. The more work I did in the Course, the worse I felt. But I kept doing the work and as my mind healed of the belief in guilt, I stopped projecting the guilt onto myself as well as letting others off the hook. Now I am happy to see the error and allow God’s Light to shine it away. I am the Son of God and cannot be guilty, cannot even know guilt. That’s the truth.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 11,IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son, P 3. 9-23-15

IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 3

3 Your peace lies in its limitlessness. Limit the peace you share, and your Self must be unknown to you. Every altar to God is part of you, because the light He created is one with Him. Would you cut off a brother from the light that is yours? You would not do so if you realized that you can darken only your own mind. As you bring him back, so will you return. That is the law of God, for the protection of the Wholeness of His Son.

Journal
Oh my gosh! I think of the lady at the office that I keep demonizing, and I realize what I am doing to my own mind and I am dismayed. In making her the guilty party I am limiting peace and leaving myself in darkness. I cannot deny a brother light and not experience the darkness myself because we are created whole. If I could do this, I would destroy the Wholeness of God’s Son and so destroy God. Because I am trying to do this I feel like I have destroyed the Son and the Father, and that is why I am afraid of God and why I stay here in the story even though I want to return home.

God has protected His creation, though, by giving me a way out of my dilemma. I made a choice to experience separation and I retain the power of choice. I can choose to bring each brother I have cast into darkness back into light. I do this as I withdraw my projections and accept the Atonement for my belief that I need him to be guilty. I do this through the help of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the solution to all suffering. He is the undoer of the ego and the restorer of peace. And all He needs to do this is my permission.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 11: IV: The Inheritance of God’s Son, P 2. 9-22-15

IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 2
2 Could you try to make God homeless and know that you are at home? Can the Son deny the Father without believing that the Father has denied him? God’s laws hold only for your protection, and they never hold in vain. What you experience when you deny your Father is still for your protection, for the power of your will cannot be lessened without the intervention of God against it, and any limitation on your power is not the Will of God. Therefore, look only to the power that God gave to save you, remembering that it is yours because it is His, and join with your brothers in His peace.

Journal
My decision to be without God makes me feel homeless and my denial of God makes me feel like God is denying me. All of this can be undone in the moment I stop making that decision. I am powerful because I was created powerful, being an extension of God. I can end this sham any time I want to. I have been given the means to do so and created with the power to use the means. That I am still living a dream is the result of my desire to do so, and not because I can’t wake up.

Probably most Course students have had the thought that they just wish God would pluck them out of this nightmare; He is all powerful and certainly He could do this, so why doesn’t he? The answer to that question is that for God to intervene to get us out of something we chose to experience would be to lessen the power of our will. Jesus says that any limitation of our power is not God’s Will.

This does not leave us lost in our dreams because we do have the power to undo what we have done. We also have the means to do so because it is God’s Will that we have it. The means is in Him and so it is in us. That awakening is so simple causes us to doubt its effectiveness, because we are so accustomed to thinking with the ego mind that depends on complexity to hide its unreality. The truth is we only need to desire awakening to set in motion the means to awaken. From that desire flows the process of awareness of what is not God in our mind, and the release of the untrue beliefs to the Holy Spirit.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 11: III. From Darkness to Light, P 8. 9-17-15

III. From Darkness to Light P 8

8 In your mind you can accept the whole Sonship and bless it with the light your Father gave it. Then you will be worthy to dwell in the temple with Him, because it is your will not to be alone. God blessed His Son forever. If you will bless him in time, you will be in eternity. Time cannot separate you from God if you use it on behalf of the eternal.

Journal
Clearly, it is my goal while I am here in time to accept the whole Sonship. That means I must accept the politician I love to hate. I must accept him fully and completely and love him with all my heart. The same goes for all my coworkers, even the one who seem to be mean-spirited.

I must love the clerk at Walmart who was sullen and uncommunicative. I must love the pedophile, the murderer, the thief and the scam artist as fervently as I love my children. There must be no difference or degree in my love for these people because there is no difference between them. They are all of them part of me, and we are all part of God.

Can I love God if I hate parts of God? Can I be in God if hate separates me from part of God? Can I be part of Wholeness if hate means I must separate myself from some part of Wholeness? I cannot bring hate into God, because God is Love. I recognize and accept that dislike and annoyance, and fear are just other more acceptable words for hate. My goal is to desire only Love, and in so doing, I welcome the Holy Spirit’s healing presence into my mind.

“Shine away those dark and foolish thoughts, Holy Spirit!”

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, Chapter 11,III. From Darkness to Light, P 7. 9-16-15

III. From Darkness to Light P 7

7 Only God’s Comforter can comfort you. In the quiet of His temple, He waits to give you the peace that is yours. Give His peace, that you may enter the temple and find it waiting for you. But be holy in the Presence of God, or you will not know that you are there. For what is unlike God cannot enter His Mind, because it was not His Thought and therefore does not belong to Him. And your mind must be as pure as His, if you would know what belongs to you. Guard carefully His temple, for He Himself dwells there and abides in peace. You cannot enter God’s Presence with the dark companions beside you, but you also cannot enter alone. All your brothers must enter with you, for until you have accepted them you cannot enter. For you cannot understand wholeness unless you are whole, and no part of the Son can be excluded if he would know the Wholeness of his Father.

Journal
Jesus is telling us that we are in God’s temple right now but we will not be aware of this until we have allowed our minds to be healed of all the false ego thinking. We must leave behind our dark companions, because we cannot enter into His presence (know that we are in Him) with them beside us, just as he tells us in another part of the Text, we cannot enter into His presence if we attack His Son. In fact, in this paragraph Jesus elaborates on this when he tells us we cannot enter into His presence without our brothers. All of them.

When I was judging my coworker last week, I was not at peace. I had to bring this judgment to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to correct my thinking before I could accept the gift of peace. I was not being denied peace as some kind of punishment for disobedience. I simply could not know I was given the gift of peace while I was in judgment.

It is really a simple concept for me to understand. God is wholeness. He is oneness. There is no thought of separation in the Mind of God. That is the nature of God. I cannot bring a foreign thought into God or it would change His nature, and then He would not be God anymore. Judgment is a foreign concept as is separation. So while I think that my sister is not me and while I think either of us is anything other than a perfect creation of God, I cannot enter into His presence. I must leave those dark thoughts behind if I would know myself as part of the Light.

Today, I dedicate myself to bringing peace to each one I meet. Holy Spirit, I ask that You purify my thoughts today, that I can be free of the dark thoughts I have allowed into my mind in the past. I cannot bring peace unless I am at peace. Help me to see my brother as my self. Vision is mine and I want to learn to use it more consistently. I am ready to awaken from this dream that I am separate from Love, and so I am ready to relinquish all thoughts that are not Love.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 11: II: From Darkness to Light, P 6. 9-14-15

III. From Darkness to Light P 6

6 The children of light cannot abide in darkness, for darkness is not in them. Do not be deceived by the dark comforters, and never let them enter the mind of God’s Son, for they have no place in His temple. When you are tempted to deny Him remember that there are no other gods to place before Him, and accept His Will for you in peace. For you cannot accept it otherwise.

Journal
I see that Jesus is stating a simple truth. “The children of light cannot abide in darkness, for darkness is not in them.” If I am in darkness, in hatred, in rage, in depression, fear, guilt, in suffering of any kind, it can only be that I don’t remember what I am. I am a child of light and I am only dreaming of darkness. This is all that is happening. In my dark dreams I seem to suffer, and so I am ready to awaken from the dream.

Dreamers do not succumb to their dreams. I am suffering, but I am safe. I will wake up when I choose to see. Vision has shown me the darkness and deceptiveness of ego and I will continue my vigilance to bar them from the mind of God’s Son. I understand now that this is not a personal quest to make a happier version of Myron’s story. I see that there is no personal. This is holy work. It is work done for the mind that we all are.

For the last couple of weeks I have been conflicted about my purpose. I have thought that my purpose was to achieve certain things, to defend and protect my little goals. But I have also known that this is not right. And so I have also been looking at my reactions to the world I made through my conflicted beliefs, and have been asking that the Holy Spirit heal my mind and restore my peace. I have been allowing my awareness to return to the truth that the only will I have is the will I share with God.

The period of conflict that I have been experiencing is unpleasant, but as I remember that my purpose, my one purpose, my only goal is the peace of God, conflict eases and then falls away. As the chaotic ego thinking is released, it is inevitable that the truth become clear to me that all my separate and personal goals were the false gods I made. As I let these illusory gods (goals) go my mind is more peaceful and in peace I remember that there is no other God, and that God’s Will is my will.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 11: III. From Darkness to Light, P 5.9-10-15

III. From Darkness to Light P 5
5 God hides nothing from His Son, even though His Son would hide himself. Yet the Son of God cannot hide his glory, for God wills him to be glorious, and gave him the light that shines in him. You will never lose your way, for God leads you. When you wander, you but undertake a journey that is not real. The dark companions, the dark way, are all illusions. Turn toward the light, for the little spark in you is part of a Light so great that it can sweep you out of all darkness forever. For your Father is your Creator, and you are like Him.

Journal
Jesus is just stating facts here. Regardless of appearances, regardless of the illusions I have made, certain things are immutable. They are true right now and will always be true. This is all the Course is trying to help me understand and accept. All the lessons, all the concepts, all the many, many words, are just bringing me to this one thing. I am as God created me. And He created me out of Himself and so that is what I am. I am Light. I am like God.

Last night I had the strangest dreams. I woke up thinking about them and wondering what they meant, if anything, then I forgot about them. But the one thing I can tell you is that while I dreamed of being something strange last night, my dream changed nothing. On awakening this morning, I was till what I was when I went to sleep. While I was dreaming that I was this strange being, I remained exactly what I am now. Even in the midst of the dream of being different, I was not.

This is the same in my waking dream experience. I dream of being a body and having all these strange experiences, but even in the midst of this dream, I haven’t changed. I remain what I have always been, the Son of God. Dreaming I am something else does not make me something else. When I wake up I will probably have the feelings that I had this morning, thinking, “What a strange dream that was.” Will I wonder what it all meant? Or will I simply allow the remnants of the dream to fade away.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.