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Study of Text, Chapter10: V. The Denial of God, P 13. 7-25-15

V. The Denial of God, P13
13 Do not perceive anything God did not create or you are denying Him. His is the only Fatherhood, and it is yours only because He has given it to you. Your gifts to yourself are meaningless, but your gifts to your creations are like His, because they are given in His Name. That is why your creations are as real as His. Yet the real Fatherhood must be acknowledged if the real Son is to be known. You believe that the sick things you have made are your real creations, because you believe that the sick images you perceive are the sons of God. Only if you accept the Fatherhood of `God will you have anything, because His Fatherhood gave you everything. That is why to deny Him is to deny yourself.

Journal
As I read this I wondered how I could perceive nothing God did not create, and then I realized I was thinking of perceive as “see.” I could not imagine how I could look around with my eyes and see only the real. Of course that makes no sense, because the eyes show me only the ephemeral and what is real is eternal. The eyes show me only illusions.

Obviously, Jesus is telling me not to believe what I see, not to believe it is real and valuable, and something I would long for and give to myself. I will still need a house and a car and money, or at least something that passes for these things, depending on my circumstances. But they are not gifts to myself. I used to long for a special car, a special house, a lot of money, and now I expect to receive all that I need. If I don’t have it I must not need it.

Jesus says that I believe the sick things I have made are my creations, and while this is true I will not remember my real creations. The thought given me as I read this passage is to return to Lesson 325,  “All things I think I see reflect ideas.” The world is filled with images of the ideas in my mind. I think I want something and I make an image of it and project it outward and value it.

This is where the idea of positive thinking and The Secret come from. We have made an image of a world and then we go another step and try to make an image from within that world. I think that as we recall some vague memory of how we made this world, we try to duplicate it, and we “discover” that what we want very much, we tend to get.

The problem with this idea is that we have many ideas in our mind. We have the idea of love and joy and happiness, and we also have the idea of guilt and fear, suffering and death. On both levels, as the maker of our experience, and as the conscious manipulator of that experience, we make images from a grab bag of beliefs and thoughts.

We don’t understand anything and we don’t know what anything is for. How could we be surprised at the resultant mess? It is at this point that we pretend it all just showed up and we don’t know where it came from. We pretend that we are just victims of circumstance and of unkind and sometimes vicious people. We give away our identity and with it our power and hide in the closet afraid to come out, afraid that the Creator of Reality is offended by our dream world.

We need not be afraid to acknowledge our Father. He is no more offended by our fanciful play than we are offended by our children as, when in play, they pretend to be something they are not. And we must acknowledge our Father if we are to remember who we are, if we are to reclaim the memory of our power and our place within Him.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: V. The Denial of God, P 12. 7-24-15

V. The Denial of God, P12
12 If God knows His children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to perceive them as guilty. If God knows His children as wholly without pain, it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows His children to be wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel depressed. All of these illusions, and the many other forms that blasphemy may take, are refusals to accept creation as it is. If God created His Son perfect, that is how you must learn to see him to learn of his reality. And as part of the Sonship, that is how you must see yourself to learn of yours.

Journal
I haven’t taken part in traditional religion in so long that I had to look up blasphemy to remember what is typically meant by the word. This is what I found.

Blasphemy is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God, to religious or holy persons or things, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable.

In this paragraph, Jesus is telling us what truly constitutes blasphemy. When we see anything that is not in alignment with what God creates, and believe what we see, this is blasphemy. While I was looking up the religious definition of blasphemy, I saw that some religions take this idea very seriously, indeed, even calling it a religious crime. Jesus tells us that it is blasphemy to deny God, but He does not tell us that we are guilty for doing so. We are just confused and our confusion is hurting us, so he wants us to see what we are doing so we can change our minds.

At first it seems the impossible is being asked of us. We are to see no suffering, no depression, neither in others or ourselves. How the heck are we supposed to do that? Everywhere you look someone is suffering. I remind myself that when Jesus says we are not to see, what he means is we are not to perceive. We are not to look at apparent suffering, believe what we see and thus strengthen the belief in suffering for all of us.

Sometimes this is easy to correct. I see in the news that people have died in a fire. I say a prayer that they will transition gently, and their loved ones will know the comfort and love of God in this difficult time. I know that it seems bad, especially to all involved, but I know it is all right, that everyone involved is innocent and deeply loved by God. I know that what is happening is not real. I know that when someone “dies” the only thing that has changed is that they have ceased to animate this body with their awareness and that it has been placed elsewhere.

When a friend or family member dies, it feels different to me. It is harder to remember the truth. I feel shock and grief. The truth did not cease to be the truth; it is just harder for me to remember the truth. The emotions seem to temporarily overwhelm what I know to be true. It helps sometimes to have others, who are not so directly involved, to remember the truth for me. This strengthens my own ability to remember.

Always, however I feel when I see and believe what is not truth, I ask for the Atonement. I ask that the Holy Spirit correct my thinking, that He give me a different way to see the situation. He never fails to fulfill his function, and even when I have to return again and again for correction, He is always there, always ready to heal at the slightest invitation from me.

When someone is suffering, if I see their suffering as real and as justified I am not helping them. I am just making it worse for all of us as I make it real within the mind. But if I see that they are suffering without believing in their suffering or in the reality of the situation, I can be helpful. I can strengthen the light within their mind, with the light in my mind.

Just because the woes of the world have no reality, doesn’t mean we should fail to respond to a need. I send my condolences, I give a hug, I cry with my friend, I become the quiet listener. I can ask Holy Spirit if there is some way I can be helpful. He might ask me to do something, or to say something that encourages and lets them know they are loved and cared for. I could even be the answer to their prayer.

Taking these actions doesn’t mean that I am joining them in the error of believing in the problem. It means that I have compassion for their confusion because I have suffered the same confusion. It means I love them and care for them, just as God loves and cares for me even though He does not believe in my problems.

Today, Holy Spirit, help me to be aware of what I am giving my faith to. I want the peace of God and I cannot have that if I perceive suffering to be real. I open my mind to You, and ask that You remove those thoughts that justify the belief in what could never be true because it stands outside creation. Help me to do that for myself and for everyone else you send my way. Thank you.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 10: IV. The Denial of God, P 11.7-23-15

V. The Denial of God, P 11
11 Out of your gifts to Him the Kingdom will be restored to His Son. His Son removed himself from His gift by refusing to accept what had been created for him, and what he had created in the Name of his Father. Heaven waits for his return, for it was created as the dwelling place of God’s Son. You are not at home anywhere else, or in any other condition. Do not deny yourself the joy that was created for you for the misery you have made for yourself. God has given you the means for undoing what you have made. Listen, and you will learn how to remember what you are.

Journal
The way I am learning to remember what I am right now is by becoming more aware of the attack thoughts in my mind, and asking the Holy Spirit to remove them for me. It is amazing how many they are and how many forms they take. I see that I have attack thoughts directed to others. For instance, I might feel sorry for someone and that is an attack thought. It says that they stand outside the Kingdom.

If I think I need to correct someone or give them advice, that is an attack thought that says they are not capable of finding their own path, which is not true. I was listening to Byron Katie this morning. She was saying that she never gives advice, and for this very reason. When her kids ask her what they should do, she tells them she doesn’t know. She might tell them what she has done in similar circumstances. But she trusts them to find their path, just as she did.

Of course sometimes my attack is more overt. I become angry and defensive and this is an attack. I feel like someone is treating me unfairly and this is an attack on them, too. It is an attack on myself as well. When I think I am a victim to someone else, I have attacked myself. I attack myself every time I feel unworthy or fearful or guilty. I have made the choice to see myself outside the Kingdom all over again, just as I did in that tiny mad moment in which I detoured into fear in guilt and dreamed up this bit of hell I call the world.

It can be very uncomfortable looking at these attack thoughts and taking responsibility for them. It is tiring and sometimes discouraging, but it is what we must all do if we want to be free of them. Yesterday, I did the work and sometimes I cried in sheer frustration that I cling so tightly to these defenses. But I did the work. Today, I will continue it. I want a clear mind, a free mind, a happy mind. I am happy to face what my attack thoughts try to hide, to see that I am not a victim and I am never unfairly treated. I am ready to accept the Atonement for this. It is worth all the effort that is required of me to do this.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: V. The Denial of God, P 10. 7-21-15

V. The Denial of God, P 10
10 You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God, in His Love, would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with you, because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with you would be to attack Himself, and God is not insane. When you deny Him you are insane. Would you have Him share your insanity? God will never cease to love His Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son’s creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave Himself to you in your creation, and His gifts are eternal. Would you deny yourself to Him?

Journal
I used to think that if God really loved me, He would just wake me up, pull me from this dream and take me home. This thought was a fear thought, fear that I was trapped here and couldn’t get out on my own. I was frustrated and feeling like a victim of the world I made, and even a victim of my own stubborn denial. It seemed cruel that He would leave me stuck here when it would be so easy for Him to save me.

I can see how I used to mirror that thought in my behavior with other people. I would see them acting in a way that was self-destructive and I would try to save them from themselves. I used to think A Course in Miracles was for everyone and for them right now, and I would try to make them see this was true… for their own good. ~smile~ My behavior was just a reflection of my own fear that I couldn’t wake up on my own, and I needed someone (God) to do it for me. Maybe I was showing God how He should be waking me up.

When I tried to fix others I was saying that I didn’t trust them and didn’t believe in them, and that they are not free. And this was a reflection of how I felt about myself. God does not interfere in us because we are free. He does believe in us and He does trust us. He knows we are trustworthy and free because He created us like Himself. To think we are less than free, less than perfect, would be to think He is less than free and perfect and that would mean God is insane. He is not. We, however, are.

It is insane for a Divine being such as we are, to think we are helplessly trapped in an illusion of our own making. The mind that made this elaborate illusion is capable of using that same power to disentangle from it. God is not afraid for us, and so we should not be afraid either. God does want us to remain as He created us and so we will, and that means we are perfectly safe.

We are, however, suffering from the belief that we are not safe, that we are not wholly perfect and perfectly free. And as Jesus has pointed out, what we believe is true for us. Not true in reality, but true in our mind, so in our mind we suffer. God would not have us suffer, and so He calls us to Him. He calls us out of our insanity. We are reminded that, “God will never cease to love His Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son’s creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God.” I will remember this today, and I will return to sanity.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: V. The Denial of God, P 9. 7-20-15

V. The Denial of God, P 9
9 Only the eternal can be loved, for love does not die. What is of God is His forever, and you are of God. Would He allow Himself to suffer? And would He offer His Son anything that is not acceptable to Him? If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. Yet to do this you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgement of your Father is the acknowledgement of yourself as you are. Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him you bring sin, pain and suffering into your own mind because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also deny what it creates because it is free.

Journal
When I read the sentence that says what is of God is His forever, and you are of God, I just cried. I cried from relief and from joy. I am His forever. I cannot suffer or be in pain. I cannot die. I cannot be or do or feel what is foreign to God. It’s kind of funny to think this is possible. I think of my child being born as a horse or an orange tree. Not possible, right? I cannot be anything unlike God because I am of Him.

So where did this story of Myron come from? Here I am in a body, feeling body things, experiencing separation. None of these things are what I must be and what I am. One thing that I am is powerful, because my Father is powerful. So with this power I dream of things that cannot be, and I imagine I am in this dream. But the same power that made this possible also makes it possible for me to wake up from the dream.

How do I stay in the dream? I continue to use my power to make stories that are different than God. I pretend they are real and so I become my own creator. At least in my mind, I am my own creator, and I am in charge of what I see, what I experience. I even give myself un-super powers and become small and weak, fragile and destined to death. Pretty interesting choices for an all-powerful, eternal being.

How do I wake up from the dream? I lose interest in it. I stop playing around with un-creation, and I acknowledge my Father as my Creator. When I feel small and weak, I remember God does not create small and weak. I must be dreaming. When I feel sick I remember that God does not create sickness. When I think of death, I remember God creates only the eternal. This is how I wake up. This is how I return to using my power for true creation.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: V. The Denial of God, P 8. 7-17-15

V. The Denial of God, P 8
8 Do not look to the god of sickness for healing but only to the God of love, for healing is the acknowledgement of Him. When you acknowledge Him you will know that He has never ceased to acknowledge you, and that in His acknowledgement of you lies your being. You are not sick and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do. Remember, though, that to do this is blasphemy, for it means that you are looking without love on God and His creation, from which He cannot be separated.

Journal
This paragraph has a passage that I keep on my remember board and that I use often.

“You are not sick and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do.”

When I feel sick, I remind myself that Jesus says I am not sick; I am just confused about what I am. When I forget my true nature and think I am sick, lonely, afraid, or guilty, I am turning my back on God. When I think that my brother is guilty, I am turning my back on God. When I turn from the reality of creation, I am turning from God.

Jesus has told us that sickness is a defense against God. When I am sick in body, in relationships, in finances, in emotions or in any area of my life, I have made a deliberate choice to defend against God. I am using sickness to keep out my awareness of God’s love for me and my love for Him. Through A Course in Miracles, I am remembering that I chose this, and deciding that I don’t want it anymore. I am learning how to ask for and accept healing.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: V. The Denial of God, P 7. 7-15-15

V. The Denial of God, P 7
7 Your Father has not denied you. He does not retaliate, but He does call to you to return. When you think He has not answered your call, you have not answered His. He calls to you from every part of the Sonship, because of His Love for His Son. If you hear His message He has answered you, and you will learn of Him if you hear aright. The Love of God is in everything He created, for His Son is everywhere. Look with peace upon your brothers, and God will come rushing into your heart in gratitude for your gift to Him.

Journal
God has not denied me, and He isn’t upset that I used denial of Him in my game of separation. He just wants me to come home now, and I am learning that this is what I want, too. His Voice speaks to me all through the day and I listen and sometimes I don’t. That I am not listening does not mean He has failed to answer. His answer will always be some form of love that I can understand. Over time, I have learned that this does not have to be in some concrete experience, though often it is. I am learning to recognize and accept love that is not attached to anything.

While I still need form in order to understand His Answer, it is given to me, because God wants me to recognize His Love. Jesus tells us that the Love of God is in everything He created, for His Son is everywhere.  All I need to do to receive this love is to look with peace upon my brothers. I have an unlimited number of opportunities to do this, from smiling at a stranger, to pausing in traffic to let someone merge in front of me, to overlooking an attack and recognizing it as a call for love.

When I am at peace with my brothers, I experience the love of God to the degree I am able to accept it. Guilt is a wall that I have erected between myself and love, but in being at peace with my brothers, I am relinquishing the belief in guilt and so relinquishing the need for that wall. As it comes down I am bathed in the love of God. It puts a whole other perspective on the desire to judge my brothers.  The high cost of judgment is seen when I realize what I give up when I do this.

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