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Study of Text, Chapter 9, III. The Correction of Error, P 1. 1-16-15

III. The Correction of Error
1 The alertness of the ego to the errors of other egos is not the kind of vigilance the Holy Spirit would have you maintain. Egos are critical in terms of the kind of “sense” they stand for. They understand this kind of sense, because it is sensible to them. To the Holy Spirit it makes no sense at all.

Journal
The Holy Spirit has encouraged me to be vigilant for the thoughts in my mind and to ask for correction when they are not in alignment with the thoughts I think with God. I ask Him to help me to use words that are in alignment with Truth. I agree to step back and let Him lead the way. I do this to the best of my ability. What I am not asked to do is to be vigilant for my brother’s thoughts and words.

Under no circumstance is it my job to keep an eye on anyone else and to judge the sense of what they say. It is not my job to correct them or set them straight. It doesn’t matter how “gently” I correct. It doesn’t matter how many of the right sounding words I use. It doesn’t matter how right it feels to me to do this. If I am watching someone else, judging the correctness of their words, whether I say anything to them or not, this is my error and it is my mind that needs correction.

When I used to do this it was most obvious on social media. There were just so many opportunities. I would read through the postings looking for the ones that were “right” and the ones that just didn’t quite hit the mark. Sometimes I would even tell them what was wrong with their posting. Of course I would use my spiritual ego to do this so that it sounded spiritual. I told myself that I was helping. None of that was true. I was just using the ego to decide what made sense to it.

Now I always try to respond only to a direct question. If it is appropriate I might add my own experience. But I am vigilant for my motive because my spiritual ego is alive and well. I can indulge it, or I can disregard it. My choice. In all my groups, the guidelines are to share from our experience and to never correct another. I try always to live this. When I fail to do so, I forgive myself and try again.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, II. The Answer to Prayer, P 12. 1-15-15

II. The Answer to Prayer, P 12

12 You can ask of the Holy Spirit, then, only by giving to Him, and you can give to Him only where you recognize Him. If you recognize Him in everyone, consider how much you will be asking of Him, and how much you will receive. He will deny you nothing because you have denied Him nothing, and so you can share everything. This is the way, and the only way to have His answer, because His answer is all you can ask for and want. Say, then, to everyone

Because I will to know myself, I see you as God’s Son and my brother.

Journal
This is exciting to think about! I see three things in this short paragraph that I want to think about. First, we now understand the nature of giving and receiving. If we give to get, we have lost. But if we realize that through giving we receive, there is never loss and only joy in the exchange. So we know how to give and we know that to receive we only have to accept with open hands.

The second thing I am thinking about is that the Holy Spirit is the Answer to every question and since giving is receiving, I can ask of Him only by giving to Him. I give to Him my trust and my willingness to set aside what I think I know and to accept what He says. I give him my desire to acknowledge Him everywhere I see Him.

As it says here, “If you recognize Him in everyone, consider how much you will be asking of Him, and how much you will receive.” This is the most exciting part! Everyone has the Holy Spirit and so I can recognize the Holy Spirit in each person and receive His Answer from each person! I am so rich!

Let this be a day of seeing my brother anew. I will ask to see the Divinity in each person I meet and so hear the Word of God from each one. I could not do that on my own. My ego mind will hear only ego words and meaning. But I can, and I want to, learn to see and hear truly. I am willing to make this my practice today, all day. I am excited to make this practice today!

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, II. The Answer to Prayer, P 11. 1-14-15

II. The Answer to Prayer, P 11
11 Never forget, then, that you set the value on what you receive, and price it by what you give. To believe that it is possible to get much for little is to believe that you can bargain with God. God’s laws are always fair and perfectly consistent. By giving you receive. But to receive is to accept, not to get. It is impossible not to have, but it is possible not to know you have. The recognition of having is the willingness for giving, and only by this willingness can you recognize what you have. What you give is therefore the value you put on what you have, being the exact measure of the value you put upon it. And this, in turn, is the measure of how much you want it.

Journal
Well, he used a lot of words to get there, but basically it seems that Jesus is telling me that I have everything, but I limit my awareness of that when I am unwilling to give. Giving is how I know I have. I limit my awareness of my complete abundance when I don’t accept. He also points out that accepting and getting are not the same thing.

In my mind, I connect getting with taking, grasping, getting more than I am willing to give. Accepting feels like my hands are open to receive what is put there, and they remain open to give as freely as I received. I imagine things coming into my life as I need them, then going to someone else when they need them, only to be replaced with whatever I might need now.

I had a nifty pair of boots that I liked very much. I paid way too much for something I wore maybe once a year, but I wasn’t sorry. One day a friend asked me if she could have them. At first I was so surprised that she asked for them that it took me a moment to realize she thought that because I don’t wear them often that I don’t really want them, or that they were just going to waste and, evidently she really liked them, too. So I gave them to her.

I could hear the little voice in my head saying that I just suffered a loss, but I wasn’t listening. It felt really good to give them away. It’s funny how the ego mind simply cannot grasp that giving is receiving and that there is no loss. This happened two years ago and every time I think of the boots I feel both gratified and sad, depending on which part of the mind I listen to. It makes me laugh.

Things are just symbols of thoughts in our mind, and the boots are meaningless of themselves. It is what they symbolize that is important. If I had listened to the ego which wants to hold onto and keep, I would have told my friend that I still had need of the boots, and I would have taught myself that the world is a small and limited place and that I must guard against loss all the time. I would have taught myself that, and I would have taught my friend that.

I have within my mind the fear that there is never enough and that I must hoard what I have or suffer loss. But I also have within my mind the certainty that I am an open channel for All That Is, and that whatever I need passes through me, staying for as long as I need it, then moving away, returning if I want it again. I know I am fully abundant in every way.

Which of those two thoughts will feel true for me is up to me. The other day I wore an outfit that seemed to need those boots and I reached for them. Then I remembered they were no longer in my closet. For an instant, I felt the loss of them, but that can’t be right. I cannot experience loss. Only the ego can. I easily let that feeling go and when I did, I felt happy thinking of my friend wearing them, and I reached for a different pair of shoes. They looked good with my outfit.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 9, II. The Answer to Prayer, P 10 1-12-15

II. The Answer to Prayer, P 10
10 If paying is equated with getting, you will set the price low but demand a high return. You will have forgotten, however, that to price is to value, so that your return is in proportion to your judgment of worth. If paying is associated with giving it cannot be perceived as loss, and the reciprocal relationship of giving and receiving will be recognized. The price will then be set high, because of the value of the return. The price for getting is to lose sight of value, making it inevitable that you will not value what you receive. Valuing it little, you will not appreciate it and you will not want it.

This paragraph feels confusing to me and I keep getting up to go do other things. This is the fourth time I have sat down to consider it again. I am asking Jesus to help me understand this and to know how he wants me to use it.

“If paying is equated with getting, you will set the price low but demand a high return.” Here is an example. I want my children to want to be with me, or at least to think of me and love me. That is the high return I want. What am I willing to pay for this? I notice that I want proof of their affection, but I am not willing to give a lot of time toward that. I put a premium on my time and I am jealous of it, sharing it in small bits.

I am willing to give some of my time but I am unwilling to give it fully and without demands of any kind. To be honest, what I want is that they all become interested in what I am interested in so that I can feel better about spending actual time with them. On the other hand, I am not willing to share their lives where they do not intersect with mine.

It seems that I am saying that I am not willing to become interested in what they are interested in so that our time together will be a joy for them. Wow. So I will afford some small measure of respect for their interests and in return they must prove their love by immersing themselves into what matters to me. This is an example of giving to get, where I set a low price but expect a high return. Gosh, do you think they are lining up for this opportunity?

“You will have forgotten, however, that to price is to value, so that your return is in proportion to your judgment of worth.” Because I am willing to give only a little and to respect only somewhat, I have set a low value. Therefore, I will judge my return as being of little value. I can see that this is often what happens.

I was thinking that my daughter hasn’t spent much time with me lately, in person or by phone. I feel sad when that happens and doubt her love and care for me. I was sorting through some papers in preparation for doing my taxes. I found a piece of paper with a message from this daughter in which she expressed her deep and abiding love for me in the most beautiful way.

There was no doubting her sincerity, but because I put a low price and high demand on our relationship, I failed to see what was right there in front of me. I saw her behavior in light of the value of my price and I missed its true value.

“If paying is associated with giving it cannot be perceived as loss, and the reciprocal relationship of giving and receiving will be recognized.” I don’t always give to get. Sometimes, even often I would say, I associate paying with giving. I often give without expectations or limits of any kind.

Generally, I accept my children’s behavior without judging it. They are not interested in spirituality, and specifically not interested in A Course in Miracles. I don’t judge that. I don’t think of them as less than me or lower on some imagined scale. I don’t love them less because we are on different paths. I give them my love and acceptance without regard to what I might get from it. And thus, “The price will then be set high, because of the value of the return.”

“The price for getting is to lose sight of value, making it inevitable that you will not value what you receive. Valuing it little, you will not appreciate it and you will not want it.” There are parts of the relationship with my children that are still tainted with specialness. These are the parts that I give to get such as needing to receive proof of love and respect. And even when I get what I want, I doubt it and fail to appreciate it.

But the love, the real love I feel for my children is steadfast. I require nothing from them and I give as fully and completely as I know how. I receive great joy and satisfaction when I love in this honest and open way. In this kind of giving the value is protected because I preserve the reciprocal nature of giving and receiving.

Jesus, for some reason this paragraph felt difficult to me, and I thank you for helping me read it. I also thank you for helping me see the contrast in the way I view my relationship with my kids, and how different the two experiences are. I truly want to allow the healing of my mind to be complete so that I always feel the expansive nature of real love. This neediness I sometimes feel is not love and feels nothing like love. I gladly ask for and accept correction when I choose to give to get, and when I think I need to get. Please help me as I seek to remember what I am.

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, II. The Answer to Prayer, P 10. 1-8-15

II. The Answer to Prayer, P 10
10 If paying is equated with getting, you will set the price low but demand a high return. You will have forgotten, however, that to price is to value, so that your return is in proportion to your judgment of worth. If paying is associated with giving it cannot be perceived as loss, and the reciprocal relationship of giving and receiving will be recognized. The price will then be set high, because of the value of the return. The price for getting is to lose sight of value, making it inevitable that you will not value what you receive. Valuing it little, you will not appreciate it and you will not want it.

Journal
I don’t know if it is just me, but I had a hard time with this paragraph. I asked Jesus to help me understand what it is he wants me to know about it and so it started to unravel for me. This is the example that came to my mind.

At work, I pay my time and effort and I expect to get a paycheck and benefits in return. I had not until now thought of it this way, but I want to give as little of my time and effort as possible and in return I want to receive as high a paycheck as I can. I also want my benefits to be good and get better with time. So I set the low price of little effort and time but demand a high return in pay and benefits.

Jesus reminds me that to price is to value so this means that in setting a low price (low amount of time and effort) I have set a low value on my time and effort. Yikes! Now here is an interesting thing. I used to be very excited about my job and enjoyed watching my commissions grow. I used to put a lot of effort into my work and I loved that my effort was making my company grow. But then I lost interest in the competitive nature of the job and so I stopped caring about this part of it.

I still do my job, but I also resent the time I put into it, and my focus is on retirement. What I have also noticed is that I have recently felt undervalued and underappreciated in a way that I never have before. I had never put the two things together until now. I thought that my value was being set by my company but it is actually being set by me. As I have often said, but failed to recognize in this case, is that it is never about someone else, but always a reflection of my own mind.

Jesus also is telling me that I can associate giving with receiving. How would that work at my job? Well, I have lost interest in the competitive nature of the job, but I can shift my desire from giving to get to giving for the sheer joy of it, giving because I know I always give to myself, giving because as I give I receive. From this place I will naturally place great value on giving and what I receive will be of great value.

I notice as I write this I feel resistance to the idea of shifting my way of thinking. Listening to the ego reasoning I have thoroughly bought into the idea that the solution to my problem lies in changing the world rather than changing my mind. But I also see that this is not working, and that actually my false logic is making the problem worse. So I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of this obviously flawed reasoning. I ask that my thinking be corrected and my mind healed.

As my mind is healed, and I allow myself to give as I would receive, to place high value on giving and thus receiving high value in return, I can expect everything about my job to change. As Jesus says, “The price for getting is to lose sight of value, making it inevitable that you will not value what you receive. Valuing it little, you will not appreciate it and you will not want it.”

I have caused myself to lose sight of value in my one sided thinking. This is very much the ego way of thinking. The ego is all about giving in order to get and it always wants to win because it actually believes there is someone else to be in competition with. I have lost sight of true value as I did this, and I have experienced it reflected in my life as losing value to my company. I have valued my job little and lost appreciation for it and do not want it. I can easily turn this around and that is what I choose to do.

I choose to do this, not because the job is the issue, but because the job is showing me what it looks like to give in order to get. It is reflecting to me the effect of misplacing value. I am choosing to do this differently at work because I want a healed mind. I am using work as a way of gaining clarity as to what is going on in my mind, and to give myself an opportunity to choose healing.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 9, II. The Answer to Prayer, P 9. 1-7-15

II. The Answer to Prayer, P 9
9 To disbelieve is to side against, or to attack. To believe is to accept, and to side with. To believe is not to be credulous, but to accept and appreciate. What you do not believe you do not appreciate, and you cannot be grateful for what you do not value. There is a price you will pay for judgment, because judgment is the setting of a price. And as you set it you will pay it.

Jesus says that to disbelieve is to side against or to attack. I had never thought of it that way. I also never thought of it as a judgment, but of course it is. I had always thought that simply disbelieving someone was neutral unless I got upset about it or said something to him. Suddenly his words are starting to unfold in my mind and I see how this works.

I have a relative whose political beliefs are opposite of mine. I am not very political, but sometimes the politics of the issues touch on my philosophy of life. He is very vocal and very harsh in his judgments of people who he sees as different from him. I have often thought he was wrong in his opinion, and hurtful in the way he expressed it. However, I keep my opinions to myself, and I even act as mediator when he upsets someone else. His words do not change that he is my nephew and I don’t love him less.

In this particular case, I thought I was on the side of the angels. My opinions were more loving than his. I didn’t hold his errors against him. I even tried to keep the peace in the family by smoothing things over on his behalf. And as I write this, I have to laugh at myself. The spiritual ego was all over this situation.

I disbelieve my nephew, and judge him to be wrong so I have decided he is guilty. In my mind, if nowhere else, (and in my mind is the only place there is, so it definitely counts) I attack him. I have been upset with him for his judgments and his attacks, and as it turns out, I am judging and attacking. Judgment has a price and I pay that price.

If I judge anyone else, I will also judge myself, and so I will have no peace. If I believe in judgment I will teach judgment and so I am no longer a teacher of God, but a teacher of the ego. Judgment is an attack and a foolish one, being based on perception, which is notoriously unsound. And ultimately, I cannot enter God’s presence if I attack his Son.

So what do I do about this? How can I not have an opinion? Can I say I believe in some of his most obnoxious statements? Jesus says that to believe is not to be credulous, but to accept and appreciate. I don’t need to believe the unkind things he claims to believe, bit to accept and appreciate him in spite of his ego ranting. What I believe and accept is what he truly is, and he is not his ego with its fearful attacks on everyone.

As soon as I wrote these words, and knew that I want to see him as the Holy Spirit sees him, all desire to attack and judge fell away. I see the ego as it is expressing through him and I know that this does not change his own perfect self in any way. He is playing the part of the self that he is to play, but it is all play. He is innocent as am I.

The healing of my mind came through my desire to be healed. I did not get there by seeing the logic in this. Those are the words I used to describe the change, but they did not promote the change. The change in mind was done for me by the Holy Spirit. I did my part as I became willing to see differently.

The metamorphosis occurred through he Holy Spirit’s intervention. Then, I was given words that would help to understand and describe the change. It is important that I realize I did not heal my own mind or I will start trying to use the ego to do this. Healing the mind is the function of the Holy Spirit and He will do it to the degree I allow Him to do so.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 9, II. The Answer to Prayer, P 8. 1-6-15

II. The Answer to Prayer, P 8
8 Believe in your brothers because I believe in you, and you will learn that my belief in you is justified. Believe in me by believing in them, for the sake of what God gave them. They will answer you if you learn to ask only truth of them. Do not ask for blessings without blessing them, for only in this way can you learn how blessed you are. By following this way you are seeking the truth in you. This is not going beyond yourself but toward yourself. Hear only God’s Answer in His Sons, and you are answered.

Very simply, we are one Self appearing as many. This is a strange idea to us because we have chosen to experience separation and to do so with complete immersion. In other words, for the sake of the experience, we have chosen to forget the truth.  Luckily, understanding is not needed. However, acceptance is.

For the first time in all the years that I have studied the Course, I can say that I am Christ and that each of you are part of this same Christ Mind without my imagination picturing a whole bunch of us sitting around together in an some immense space. I can say it without automatically, trying to make it fit a definition in line with the separation idea. I can say that we are one and I can accept it fully as a concept. I am still working on making it my experience.

The way I do that is twofold. First I spend a lot of time remembering the truth, thinking about it, sitting in it, letting it flow over and through me. Second, I am vigilant to notice when I obviously don’t accept the truth of our oneness. I have been off work since Christmas Eve and am going back today. I will be with my coworkers all day long, interacting and possibly reacting. I will start the day sitting in a meeting, discussing what has been done while I was gone, and already I notice that I am expecting to discover that some things were not done.

Sitting here writing with Spirit about believing in my brother and asking them for their blessing, and I am preparing myself to doubt them and to attack them. The reality is that the people I am already judging are me. I attack the images I have made of them, and it is an attack on myself. Through this attack on this part of my self, I teach myself that I am untrustworthy. In attacking them, I attack myself and Jesus, too, because Jesus and I are the same mind, as are they.

This doesn’t make sense and I want to stop doing this. I can’t accomplish my goal of blessing rather than attacking by making myself feel guilty that I attack. I can’t change anything by projecting the blame outside myself. I can’t change anything by trying to change my behavior, pretending to love on the outside, while hating on the inside. I can’t change anything by using the ego will to think and act differently.

What I can do is be grateful that my willingness has invited the Holy Spirit to show me the thoughts in my mind that need to be healed. He and I look together at the desire to separate through defense and attack, and I talk to Him about it. I tell Him my feelings and how afraid I am that I will never overcome this, and how overwhelming it all seems to me.

As I give Him all these words, He continues to know me for what I am, as God created me. He never doubts me or judges me. He only knows what must be true forever, for it is the Will of God. The only thing He hears from me is the truth. I must seem like a little child to Him, talking nonsense words, lost in my fantasy play. If a little child told you about being a super hero and flying across the sky; if he expressed to you his fear of the villain who was close to catching him, would you get confused and begin to believe his story?

When you looked across at him would you start to see and believe in the persona of his imagination? Would you try to help him figure out how to get himself out of the imagined problem with the villain? Or would you ease him back into the safety of reality, reminding him of who he is, maybe offering him some cookies and milk, gently bringing him back into himself? It makes me giggle when I think of it this way. “Holy Spirit, do I seem like the little child lost in my fantasy of being separate from my Creator, at war with the aspects of my self that I dream are separate from me?”

The Holy Spirit will gently bring me back to reality as soon as I ask Him to do so. I do this slowly a step at a time until I am fully convinced I can trust the Holy Spirit. I do it a step at a time because I must. But I do it. I do it through the Holy Spirit. I extricate myself from the separation story simply by giving my permission for it to be done.

It is such a miracle, this. I can be completely lost in my fear and guilt, ask the Holy Spirit to remove these thoughts from my mind, and on a dime it all turns around. I don’t accomplish this by thinking it through, or with any form of logic. I don’t let myself be talked out of it. I just desire to be at peace, let go of the thoughts and they are removed for me. I go directly from anxiety to peace, just like that! Each time I am amazed all over again.

“Today, Holy Spirit, sit with me in the meeting. Show me the Christ that sits across the table from me. Help me to hear only the truth of our being no matter what is said. Help me to know myself through knowing my brother.”

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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