Realizing God's Will Is Oneness

Let Us Be Candles For One Another

Sometimes I am so caught up seeing my projections and forgiving them, that I don’t always remember to see the Love Light shining for my encouragement.  However, there is so much inspiration, so many miracles, to be shared from the One Mind that it cannot all be given to one human mind.  So let us be candles for one another and see the gift of Light in persons around us when all we may really want to do is sit alone in front of a candle and pray for an answer from Holy Spirit.  The answer may present itself in quite unusual ways of shared experience. 

Sometimes at my ACIM discussion group, members have wonderful experiences to share.  Certainly, on this Pathways of Light forum there is sharing of great wisdom to encourage all readers to continue walking the path toward awakening.  Many times synchronistic events occur that show us great clues to our subconscious thinking process that needs to be healed.  When we share our inspiration and miracles with others, we can be candles of Light for them.  When we with humililty take the time to listen carefully to the Holy Spirit speaking through our brother or sister, we allow them to be candles of Light for us.  This is a great gift that we give each other because we are acknowledging our One Mind and One Presence.  There is great healing in this because we are reminded to keep ourselves miracle- minded, or in a constant state of willingness to see miracles.

All we have to do is be willling and ready to see and hear, and Holy Spirit will grant us vision and understanding.  This is unmistakable.  It is more than a promise - it our right as a Son of God.  When one of us experiences a miracle, we all share in it.  We can be candles for each other, sharing and reflecting the Light we see, encouraging each other to keep at our Course work everyday.  We must practice seeing with Holy Spirit eyes every day to overcome ego vision.  Every once in awhile, because we are miracle-ready, miracles will be seen.  After all, this is a course in miracles, isn’t it?  I now believe in miracles in a different way.  I see their greater reality as encouragers to continue walking the path toward awakening because it is really happening.  The concepts and lessons of ACIM aren’t just presenting us with a happier more peaceful life.  Although that’s great in itself, many other paths can achieve that same result.  ACIM is helping us to awaken in a direct and certain way and awakening to reality is everything.

Miracles seem to open port holes of awareness in the mind to new and higher levels of understanding, different levels of reality.  We see everything in a new way.  We practice our lessons in a new way.  We see more and are more aware and are much quicker to come to forgiveness.  We know the Christ Light lives and that it encourages us with its loving reality.  When something real happens to one us us, it happens to all of us.  Not only are we encouraged to remain miracle-ready, but we are also healed by its presence.  This is especially notable when the experience is shared.

Sometimes we are reluctant to share personal miracles, for whatever reason, and there are many.  However, in the sharing of our Light experiences, we are all guided and encouraged by the Holy Spirit.  That is, if we are willing to see and hear the wisdom that is shared.  Maybe that is why many are reluctant to share, because they feel no one will really listen and see the beauty of the experience.  But miracles are meant to be shared because they are symbols of living wholeness.

And so, today, let us share our experience of Holy Spirit at work in the world and in our lives.  Let us be happy for one another that such experiences happen.  Instead of wondering if someone else is trying harder or further along the spiritual path because they speak of such experiences, let us rejoice that they are possible.  Let us share in the healing and see a bigger picture at work.  And if we are experiencing miracles in our lives, don’t let ego fear hold us back from sharing what was meant for all because it came from the All. 

In gratitude that all things are possible and that we can share these possibilities, let us be candles of Love and Light for one another.

© 2004-2011, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Finding the Meaning with Holy Spirit

Have you ever lost anything you thought was important or special?  Well, I have lost some things that brought painful memories to me.

When I graduated from law school I had a party for my family.  I had returned to college at age 40 to complete my undergraduate degree because I had dropped out of college at 19, after my first year.  Completing college took me 5 years, then I spent 3 years at law school.  Naturally, a party was in order.  My husband gave me a wonderful gift - a pair of pearl and diamond earrings.  It was a gift of love and pride in my hard work and accomplishment.  I treasured them for sentimental reasons and, of course, they were beautiful.

One day several years later, after a business trip, I thought I had placed them in my jewelry box, but I hadn’t.  Somehow they were lost at my office, where I had stopped on my way home.    I don’t know how or where exactly it happened, but the earrings were lost I felt devastated and I didn’t know how to tell my husband, Mike, but I did.  When he told me how much he had paid for them, I felt really bad.  I felt more than grief, I felt guilt.

In coming to terms with this loss over these many years later, I believed it was simply a lesson in letting go of attachment to material posssessions or special relationships.  Whenever the memory of the earrings came into my mind I would focus on the idea that things are not important and that it was a reminder to me to focus on this lesson.  However, I still felt grief at the loss because I still had a sentimental attachment to the gift and I still felt a little guilty about that.  Looking at the memory was always painful, but when it came to mind I always tried to focus on the lesson of non-attachment.

I have been reading The Disappearance of the Universe, a book by Gary Renard that many of you know about.  It has really helped me to think about Course principles in a new way and understand them better.  In my wake-up prayer this morning, those earrings came to mind.  Only this time I could see that these earrings were a projection of my story about separation from God.  I made up a story that a prized and loved thing of beauty was lost forever and no amount of longing could bring it back home.  In essence, I made up a story about what ego thinks about itself being lost and projected it into this life of Barbara.  On top of of the ego story about being lost forever, there was guilt.  The guilt I felt at having lost them forever, and the guilt I projected onto my husband.  For you see, after losing those earrings, he has only given me costume jewelry since then.  I had some resentment about this.  I projected onto him that part of the ego story that God punishes those that think they are lost.

How I could have not seen this before astounds me.  It all seems so simple now.  I can forgive myself for this projection and see the ego story for what it is, simply another device to keep me feeling separated.  Thinking about non-attachment to a material object was helpful, but that idea was not truly healing.  Now that I have opened my mind to the meaning of Holy Spirit, I believe the healing really begins.  Now there is no more guilt.  Now there is only forgiveness for myself and for my husband.  The whole circumstance was just a story, just an obstacle to the awareness of Love.  There weren’t any earrings to lose. 

Healing the mind comes one circumstance at a time.  It makes no difference if the story involves something of greater or lesser value.  If the earrings had been very inexpensive, I probably would have forgotten their loss long ago, but because they were pricey it added to the guilt.  Sometimes we write the story so that the memory gets our attention with a jolt.  These are the stories that we most need to look at even though they may be the most painful.  And maybe because they are the most painful, we can gain even greater relief from looking at them with Holy Spirit to receive a higher perspective.  Holy Spirit’s perspective brings peace, the ego explanation only brings more pain.

Why does insight come on one day and not another, I can’t say.  It just does.  Maybe some days we listen better and are more ready to hear and understand; maybe some days we aren’t.  It seems that our obligation is just to trust and be as open as we can to looking at seemingly painful memories without the judgment we have given it previously, to let them come naked, without meaning, and look at them.  Yes, it takes trust that some better understanding will come.  Holy Spirit is always ready to give that better understanding to us when we are exactly ready.  We help ourselves be ready by being open to seeing our projection stories in a new way, and forgiving ourselves for having them.

This healing has helped me to trust more and to be more aware that the story of loss is the same no matter what is thought to be lost.  The truth is that there is nothing to be lost.  Everything is found in God and my story cannot change that no matter how I write it.  Now when seeming loss occurs, it will be for me an opportunity to reaffirm that I am not lost and never have been, so guilt is a silly response to a silly story.  I am whole in God and I cannot lose parts of Self.  In my story I lost something of great material value, but I have found a meaning with Holy Spirt that is invaluable to me.  In gratitude I share this healing with those whom it may help to see their ego story of loss as just one more illusion to lose with Holy Spirit.

© 2004-2011, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Sleepless in Wisconsin

Another sleepless night.  My body seems to run in cycles of sleep, sometimes I sleep, sometimes sleep doesn’t come.  There is a part of my mind that complains and whines about the insomnia; this part feel sorry for itself and compares levels of sleep with others who sleep every night.  This part wants to place great importance on the body and its meaasure of tiredness.  If I pay attention to this voice too long I feel guilty for not sleeping, knowing that its my split mind that causes this, and I feel even more tired.  How tiresome!

Its times like these that I return to the first and basic ACIM lessons about meaning.  I don’t know the meaning of anything.  Everything has the meaning I give it.  I need to let go of applying meaning from the ego mind.  I have learned to rely on a Pathways of Light statement in the Opening Preparation we read before focusing on any course work, which in essence says that I am willing to look at circumstances and events in my life as showing me where there is still a need to heal my mind.  I turn it over to Holy Spirit.

I surely know that of myself I can do nothing to help this situation.  God knows I have tried to fix this at times and angrily not tried at other times.  I am in a process of learning to let go of it and forgive myself for having it.  It sometimes does little good to say that there really is no groggy body, no headache, no tiredness, that it is really nothing.  After all, it seems so real, and it continues.  Sometimes, some situation require turning to Holy Spirit over and over, letting go of attachment to what I think would be best.  I am learning to accept what is.  Sometimes we just don’t understand the meaning of chronic body conditions, whether it seems to be disease, pain, cravings, or whatever the body seems to be demanding.  Sometimes its hard not of obsess or attach great significance to bodily discomfort.  But obsessing never helps and keeps us focused on wrong-mindedness, that part of mind that thinks its separate from God.

When the going gets rough for me, I know I can choose what to focus on.  I know I can choose to practice the lessons and principles in ACIM.  It is not always easy to practice these and to learn from them, to let go of the call from body over and over and focus on listening to the Voice for God.  Anyone who has seemed to live in chronic pain knows that turning it over is a constant practice.  We don’t know the meaning for we consciously wouldn’t choose pain.  Somewhere in the subconscious mind that thinks its separate from God, that part has chosen to project a body with certain conditions.  Just knowing this helps me.  I may or may not know the meaning.  But I do know that Holy Spirit knows the meaning and will speak to me in a way that I can understand right where I am.

All I need is my willingness to listen, and willingness to let go of what I think I see or feel.  And the Course says that I only need to be willing to do this for an instant.  I like to be in willingness because I know there is no further obligation on my part.  When I give it, whatever “it” is, to Holy Spirit I have done it all.  There is nothing else I need do.  I trust that all is as it should be.  I can rest.  I can be at peace regardless of what the body seems to be.  I can be at peace with seeming grogginess, tiredness, headache, knowing its not really me.  The sensation still seems to be there and I ‘m not required to say that I seem to feel differently or “better.”  I just let go of any meaning the body gives it.  The body cannot fix the body.  The ego mind cannot fix the body.  Holy Spirit shows me there is something more and that body is not so important after all because its nothing but a projection from my “sick” mind. 

ACIM promises me that I truly cannot be this “sick” mind.  I trust Holy Spirit to show me the way.  I have discovered that I can trust Holy Spirit through practicing the lessons of ACIM.  Discovering that trust made all the difference in my life.  I now trust that peace is possible in any circumstance or situation if I focus on Holy Spirit and not on body.  Today I choose to focus on Holy Spirit.

© 2004-2011, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Welcome

    As I begin this journal and welcome you, dear readers, I remember that I need do nothing.  If I think that I must do something grand, something pleasing to all, something inspiring, then I am thinking of the body as a source of strength.  Thinking this way always gets me into trouble because my body self is nothing.  I cannot rely on it in any way, and yet, of course, I do from time to time, when I forget that body is unimportant and make it very important.

And so, remembering that I need do nothing, I proceed under the guidance of Holy Spirit.  I have discovered this is very important.  Over the upcoming months, as I pour out part of my self in this journal, I will be unfllinchingly honest.  I am split minded.  I do not have all the answers to meaning and purpose for my life or any others.  I am in willingness to listen to Holy Spirit, and more willingness all the time, but I cannot say that I am in constant awareness.  I have learned much about going to God through difficult times and I will share my continuing journey.  As I come more and more to rely on “I need do nothing”(ACIM Text Ch18 Sec. VII), I let my life be open to the experience of Holy Spirit at work.  I do not know what this means all or even most of the time.  Occasionally I have instants of greater awareness, and I take comfort in these.

One thing is certain.  There is meaning and purpose at work in our lives whether we think we are in pain or happiness.  Our only salvation from the rough storms that seemingly come up in our lives is to let go and remember that we need do nothing.  This can be difficult, very difficult, but it can be done.  The ego mind wants to keep us in “doing.”  The Holy Spirit would have us come to that quiet center inside where Inner Guidance can show us the way to peace in the midst of what would seem to be worldly chaos.  As I come to rely on this more and more, I discover more peace in my life.

If you have ever asked yourself where you could turn when your life seems in turmoil. or knowing that you can turn to God for guidance but just couldn’t and feel guilty about it, or wonder just how and where you can find true peace, then this journal is meant for you.  I have felt like this at times in my life, full of confusion and doubt and anxiety, and can still have my moments.  I am still healing and forgiving myself, as is everyone on earth.  But the good news is that there is the promise of love and peace that we are and that we can discover.  I am beginning to discover what that means for me and I hope that by sharing my spiritual journey that it will help you discover what it means for you. 

And so, welcome and love to you, dear readers.  I will be posting entries as I feel inspired to do so, but at least once a week.  I am under the guidance of Spirit in this, and I am content to let this journal be what it will be.  Please feel free to add any comments or questions you have, and I will read and consider them in the Light with you.  In fact, I will hold all of you dear readers in the Light with me, those who are silent and those who respond, with the intent that Holy Spirit be experienced at work our lives.  More than this could not be wished for.

© 2004-2011, 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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