A New Way to See

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The Bottom Line

These thoughts came to me after reviewing the daliy lesson of “I seek a future different from the past.”

The bottom line is that in my insanity I’m trying to make separation real. This endeavor puts my mind in conflict, trying to use 2 opposing belief systems. There is only one Will, and my true will is in accord with the Will of Love. In my insanity I think that my will can be different then God’s Will. I mistake my insane thoughts for truth. I think that separation happened, so I am condemned by a vengeful god. The insane mind scrambles to try and keep itself intact. It tries to direct every thought, belief, and action; it grasps tightly to its dream images. What a sorry picture this is! This mind, filled with delusions can do nothing. Only my belief in this mind gives it existence.

Without turning each meaningless thought over to H.S. for correction, I will be preoccupied with the images I have made. This is not the present, but the past layered on the present moment. Without willingness to accept correction, I am lost in my illusions. Do I really prefer to see insane images in place of Christ’s innocence? Christ’s innocence is all there is to see. His voice is all there is to hear.

My only escape from dreams of guilt is my willingness to turn each insane thought over to Holy Spirit. He will show me that insane thoughts are not real. My guilt dream is not real at all. I must be willing to give up my self made dream. I must be willing allow new thoughts to replace insane wishes. To accept H.S.‘s help and healing is to know peace and joy beyond anything I have ever made in my dream. Do I really want to continue holding onto what is not real? Do I want to think that pain will “save” me? Only Love heals.  Love is undefiled, indivisible. Nothing can change Love.

To know the benefits of letting Holy Spirit help me, I must quiet the chatter of my mind. I must be still and simply listen, making room for Spirit to enter.
Each moment that I practice listening to this true Voice, I give room for the truth of Love, I invite Love in. My innocence is guaranteed by God, so is every other mind that dreams of exile. My holiness is safe and secure because dreams do not change the truth. I have not left my Father.
Let me teach only that God’s Son is guiltless, that is my only purpose here.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Mary Manke.

Story for Mom

I had the following thoughts come to me after reading the day’s lesson.
The ego is constantly planning for the future, for it’s protection. But this is a lie, for Love cannot attack, and Love has no plan for vengeance on me. What is forever untrue cannot be made true by sick dreams and ghost images.

I need only forgive my dreams that make an alien will appear real. I can forgive the idea of a will separate from God’s. I can forgive the idea that I am alone and homeless in a vicious world. I can forgive the idea that I have contaminated myself and made myself unfit to be in Love’s presence. I can forgive every unloving thought by taking it to H.S. If I see such an idea in my world, I can be certain it is coming from my mind, and can give it to H.S. for sure correction. I cannot do this on my own, but by telling Him I am willing and want a change of mind it is done. As I am willing to choose for Love, this is where my true power lies.

“Forgiveness is the only gift I give because it is the only gift I want.” [Lesson 297]
Everything I give I give to myself.
This idea is ignored by the ego system. Whatever I have lost or appear to lack in myself—is a lie. I can take theses ideas to H.S. too.

What comes to mind is the childhood I experienced. My parents were not expressive or demonstrative in affection. In my dream I made up situations that would “prove” that the idea I was not lovable were correct.
I learned that it was not appropriate to express feelings. If I would have come out and asked my mother why she did not love me, I’m sure she would have been shocked. Of course she loved me and my brother, but that was something that you didn’t talk about.

Thankfully, with my study of ACIM, I realized I held a grudge against my mother. I prayed for help to forgive the mistaken beliefs I had made up about her. After a month or so, I had a night dream that made the shift in my mind. Spirit showed me the truth. The next time that I talked with my mom over the phone, I asked Spirit to give me peace in place of impatience that I usually felt when she told me of happenings that I had no interest in. And peace I did receive. As the conversation ended, I told my mom that I loved her. There was a short silence—she was surprised by this expression of love—and she responded that she loved me too.

Spirit supplied the truth in a way that I could accept, and I am forever grateful for that healing. It became a blessing to tell my mom that I loved her. I would tell her silently as well as spoken aloud. I am grateful that I could express the thought, give her a hug, letting her mind know that she was innocent. In my mind, her mistakes were undone.  Thank you Spirit, thank you Mom.

 

 

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Mary Manke.

Fear Is Not Here

When I feel “badly” after noticing some ego thought popping up in my mind, even the slightest discomfort, is just more ego guilt. The ego trying to remind me that I am doing “it” wrong, because I am not following ACIM absolutely to the T.  The ego’s only option is to keep guilt and fear going, otherwise its gig is up, its tactics are revealed, and its cover is blown.

Some days I fall right back into the groove of the ego stories, other days are “better” when I give up some false idea to Holy Spirit for correction.
Some days as I open to Spirit’s insight I receive thoughts like the following:

Fear is not here unless I bring it with me. It is this I do when I cling to my past. For the ego system uses the past to define its justification for pain, attack and guilt. Then it proclaims that the future must be like the past, and makes the future full of fear. Is this what I want to teach and learn?

Holy Spirit would show me that the only time there is is Now. He will take my mistaken picture of myself and the world, and turn it around. Only my sick thoughts hold the past and bring it to the present. These are not thoughts that help or heal. These are not thoughts that I would keep.

I offer my desire to see things differently to Holy Spirit. I give up my meaning and make room in my mind for the truth that He gives. The seeming injustices of my life will fall away when I recognize they are meaningless. I will recognize that nothing was “done to me.”

I make a choice, and if necessary, choose again and again. I choose to let my past go. I choose to let Spirit show me what is real, giving up what is unreal. My dream is not valuable, but with the Guidance from Spirit this dream can serve a new purpose. A purpose to undo the dream of fear, and let the dream of forgiveness blossom in minds that appear to sleep. I am willing to have a dream of forgiveness replace my loveless dreams.  I am willing to see a happy dream.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Mary Manke.

Senseless Judging

What I am learning from ACIM, seems to come in thoughts like the following:

Whenever I have a judging thought about anyone, it is really a judging thought I hold about myself. It is a condemning thought, hurled outwards in the attempt to be “innocent” because I already think that I’m guilty. So any judging thought is a useless attempt to rid myself of guilt. If I understood that the guilt is not real, because I never left God, then there would be no more projection and no reason to hold onto guilt.

It is only the false mind that maintains guilt is real and cannot be ignored. If I choose to see my brothers as guiltless, then I will learn that I must be guiltless too. My brothers show me the way home, if I will let the Right Mind guide me through the illusions I have made. The illusions will never protect me or buy me salvation. The illusions are really nothing but my belief in them has made them seem solid and very real. I must choose to let go of what I think is true. I must choose to let everything be redefined for me, by the Voice for Love. This One Teacher holds the truth for me, and will always share it with me when I truly lay down my definitions, or thinking that I know what anything means.

I concede that my dream does not make me happy—for I feel I’m in constant fear or conflict. I feel that I allow no room for peace into my day and scurry about trying to find solutions and making ends meet. This dream of conflict and fear only brings me feelings of tiredness, defeat, aloneness, lack, and despair. All this comes from the choice to follow the ego and make it’s world—it’s dream the way I move and think. The ego arose from a false thought and anything coming from it is only false as well.

The Course also teaches me that: Now it is my simple task to stop using the body as a defense against Love, against the extension of Love. And begin to use the body as an instrument for Love. It means to simply let go and accept a new way to look at the dream world, a way that is given me by the one Teacher. The one way that shows that every son is the guiltless Son of God. This way to see, is looking past the forms to see the holiness (wholeness) of Love’s Creation. To use the body for a new purpose of extending Love, is the way I will remember that guilt is never real, never justified and wholly without meaning. I ask the Holy Spirit to show me the truth in each brother. It is with His shining the Light, that I will be able to look past the forms, to the truth. It is in loving my brothers, that I will be loving my Father, and that is what my Heart longs for.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Mary Manke.

Morning Reflections

It is only my illusions that I “see.” To me, my illusions are real, so I “live” in a world where the body is real and needs feeding, protection, and a source of money to supply it’s perceived needs.
If I do not follow the instructions for doing the Work Book lessons, it is because of fear to truly relinquish the identity of the body. I have played this game so “long” that I do not remember the truth. I do not remember that I am far more than a body. I am not an ego nor a personality housed in a body. If I gave up the identity with this “self” then what would I be?

Only as I’m willing to drop the thoughts that protect separation, will truth be revealed. My thoughts of illusion hide the thoughts of truth in my mind. A Judy Collin’s song comes to mind, the lyrics being: “It’s only illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds; love; life at all.”

I am my own magician, making illusion after illusion. How can I really take anything seriously? Nothing is gained or lost in illusions. Images cannot affect me, unless I direct them to do so. It is the unconscious belief (hidden thought) that directs the illusion, my dream. I am allowing the sleeping mind run the dream, project the illusions. I am lost in picture after picture of a past that gets projected onto the screen. The good news is this can be undone.
It is undone as I am willing to see something different, or a new picture in place of the past images. I need only stop being the “master” magician.

Since it is only my illusions that I “see,” that is why only forgiveness will free me. It is my forgiving my illusions that frees me. Is is in accepting that illusions are not real, and only come from my mind, that will free me. Any pain, or the flip side of the coin, pleasure I experience seems to make the illusion real, but still it’s not real. The senses of the body only maintain the illusion but never show reality. What is real, lies behind all the illusions. A loving mind is really hidden behind the illusions.

My Inner Guide will show me the pictures that lead to a happy dream, the perception of a loving world. He gently reveals that mistaken pictures have no meaning at all. What can this bring, but simple relief? Simple peace?
How important are my illusions to me? Do they mean more than the peace and love that is my inheritance? Waking up is not hard to do—but it is a process, and my Guide is forever shining the Light, forever loving me, and leading me in the true direction of Home. He shows me that forgiveness is simple, it is my choice that sets me free

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

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Posted by Rev. Mary Manke.

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