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Study of the Text 7-25-13

III. Love Without Conflict, Paragraph 7, Part 2
7-25-13
7 It has never really entered your mind to give up every idea you ever had that opposes knowledge. You retain thousands of little scraps of fear that prevent the Holy One from entering. Light cannot penetrate through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever unwilling to destroy what you have made. No one can see through a wall, but I can step around it. Watch your mind for the scraps of fear, or you will be unable to ask me to do so. I can help you only as our Father created us. I will love you and honour you and maintain complete respect for what you have made, but I will not uphold it unless it is true. I will never forsake you any more than God will, but I must wait as long as you choose to forsake yourself. Because I wait in love and not in impatience, you will surely ask me truly. I will come in response to a single unequivocal call.

I am continuing to look at this paragraph because there were a few things I wanted to allow myself to contemplate. I sat with this idea: Light cannot penetrate through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever unwilling to destroy what you have made. I don’t think my ego mind really grasps this idea.

What I seem to understand is that I put up a wall between myself and my Self. This wall consists of separation beliefs, and the foundation on which it is built is guilt. It prevents me from knowing the truth and yet, as Jesus tells me in the Course, the truth is in my mind. So I see the wall as splitting my mind. This wall can be undone for me if it is my desire to have it undone.

The way it happens is that I notice a thought I have learned is not true, I ask that the thought be corrected, and it is done for me. I envision this as a stone being removed from the wall. Now I have more light and I begin to know more of what is behind the wall, and so I am motivated to be even more vigilant for dark thoughts. In this way, the wall comes down and without the wall of false beliefs, there is only light and I see clearly.

Since doing a lot of this work, I am less identified with the dark side than I used to be, and more identified with my awakening self. But I get confused about how to see this and how to talk about it. The Course uses capitalization to help me differentiate between that which is Real and that which is not. For example, I have a self (ego/body/personality) and a Self. The Self represents my ultimate true undivided One with God, Self. I think.

But the Course also talks about spirit. It says I am not ego, but spirit and I notice that it is not capitalized. I see it is not ego, but it is evidently not Self either. Something in between? Maybe like we can be awake in the dream, in which case we experience the real world, and we can be awake from the dream in which case we are out of the dream altogether. So maybe spirit indicates a state that is like the real world; not my ultimate condition, but not asleep in ego either.

I don’t guess it really matters what words we give it, and I don’t sit around worrying that I can’t understand. After all, who doesn’t understand? It can only be the ego mind. But it occurred to me as I read that sentence because I am not sure exactly what is meant by the term, light.

Light cannot penetrate through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever unwilling to destroy what you have made.

Whatever the word light is intended to indicate here, I read this and I felt very loved. I think that Jesus is telling me that I am treasured, and that I am powerful. Dare I say it, that I am like my creator. I think he is telling me that nothing in the Universe can overcome my desire even when that desire is not in my best interest. Not even when I have made something unreal. I made it and so it stands for as long as that is what I want. This is a Self that is so different from the self I have made that I have trouble grasping this. Truly, I must ask myself, who am I?

Then Jesus says:

I will love you and honor you and maintain complete respect for what you have made, but I will not uphold it unless it is true.

Honestly, I am crying as I read this. Jesus loves me, just like the song says. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Course tells me so. (giggle) He loves me and he respects me and he honors me. Again, I must ask myself, who am I? I am not this ego self that I made and I never was. I never will be. When I read this paragraph I can hardly believe that I live such a small life and that at any moment I actually believe in it.

No matter how small I pretend to be, I am safe. I will never be forsaken. I am so treasured, so loved that no matter what stories I tell myself, I am still exactly as I was created. What a brother Jesus is! He found the way out for all of us and now he dedicates himself to bringing us with him. He is infinitely patient and he is only loving. He never loses sight of the truth no matter what crazy stories we make up.

He is the proof that I am not the self I made.  He is also the model for how I will live. The next time I feel like shaking some sense into someone I am going to remember the model Jesus has given me. I will love my brother and honor him and maintain complete respect for what he has made. I will not support the wrong minded thinking of my brother, but neither will I judge him or try to change him. I will know the truth and will hold that truth and wait patiently for him to find that truth himself. My knowing will make it easier for him to do that. My impatience would not.

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