Realizing God's Will Is Oneness

Only Love Is Real

Sometimes there are parts of life that seem bleak.  Of course, there are those times we all don’t feel loved or appreciated.  There are times when we don’t seem to have it all together and even small problems seem daunting, things just aren’t going our way.  These times seem different from others when we feel happy and life is smooth sailing.  Why do some days we wake up happy and some days sort of feeling off-kilter from which we can’t seem to recover?  For some the days of feeling all is not well stretch into a period of time which seems to grow bleak and unbearable, and that is primarily what they focus on.  For some, the unbearable life is ended.

Yesterday at my weekly prayer group, someone mentioned a nearby high school where a sophomore cheerleader had very recently commited suicide.  Someone’s daughter knew the cheerleader’s younger sister.  We prayed and sent love and light to all involved.  The mention of her suicide brought to mind the funeral I had attended last spring for my sister-in-law’s nephew, a nineteen year old’s suicide.

What impressed me so much at that time was the minister’s message to all the young people present.  The parents’ minister from their church would not officiate at the funeral because of the suicide.  The “fill-in” minister spoke to the hearts of the young people, offering a beautiful message of hope, understanding and encouragement to go beyond grief to healing and looking at the purpose of life - which is love.  He was very wise.  Afterward I told him how much he had helped the family and all the young people present by his inspired message about the importance of remembering love.  He had focused on the love of the young man’s life, family and friends, not the tragedy.

The young people seemed so hungry to make sense of their friend’s death.  It was unexpected and puzzling to them.  But, some of us make the ego so real and feel so tormented by it that we simply can’t stand it and want out.  Now!  Right now!  Some remain living in body but feel dead when they have lost hope, and feel only sorrow.  What difference about whether the body moves or not, rages or not, arms itself with weapons to kill or carries flowers of grief.  What is real?  Not all the coffins and flowers at funeral homes crowded with mourners, not the feelings of despair, grief, abandonment and guilt, and not the questions that seem to have no answers.  What is real?  Only the love present is real.

In the face of seeming tragedies, the product of despair, what can we affirm as real?  Only love.  That is all.  The only thing real about the young man’s life and funeral was the love of all the teens and twenty-somethings for their friend who died so suddently.  The love of his parents, brother, family, and friends.  And the love for them.  As the family and friends of the young man were led to remembr love instead of despair, their lives were forever changed.  I know the family has been compelled to face their own beliefs of the meaning of life.  No doubt the young man’s death compelled many young people to look at the meaning of life and the meaning of love.  The young man helped many to remember to open their minds to God’s presence.  Instead of being condemned that day, his life was honored, his love remembered.

As I and others spoke words of encouragement and comfort to all the family I know so well, and as I watched the procession of young people pay their respects, listened to the eulogies and minister, I was taken with the awareness of Love’s Presence in the room.  It was powerfully affecting.  It was healing.  As I look back at the event, I always look at the reality of the love present.  I do not remember the grief and tears as much as the overwhelming presence of love and appreciation of love.  I had spent holiday dinners with this young man.  He was loving and loved.  His presence of love made a difference.  Sometimes we cannot understand these bleak times of ego despair.  Perhaps he heard the Call of Love so strongly he felt he had to go.  I cannot understand and there is no need to try.  I content myself with knowing and remembering only love.

I send the same remembering to all my brothers and sisters, young and old, who attack the body/ego for the last time of their body life.  As I remember the love in one, I remember it in all.  I remember their true Identity with them now.  We are one in Love.  That is all that is important.  And I know that my remembering love helps, extending love helps.  Extending love always helps.

I write this to honor every life.  No matter the circumstances or events, every life is filled with love.  In remembering only the love, we honor our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We can honor those departed and the living in body equally.  No matter what illusion of sorrow or despair seems present, let us honor every life by remembering that only the love about them is real.  All are one in God.  Today I am called to remember to honor oneness of love in all true living things.  Please join with me in honoring the oneness we share with true life.

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

Holy Spirit - The Healer of All Illusion

Recently I had quite a case of the flu in my little dream world.  As I lay in my bed, I wondered which part of my mind made this story and for what reason, but I let go of this wondering as it didn’t seem important somehow.  The dream of sickness just was and I surrendered to it.  Even during some of the more violent symptoms, I kept telling myself that they weren’t real even though in the illusion they seemed to be.  The illusion is always with us as long as we are in a body.  There is no escape from it, nor need we think of escape because there is nothing to escape from.  As the days stretched on into over a week of illness, I found myself looking at the illusion of the world in quite a different way than I had before.

I recognized I had been feeling conflicted and lacking in time and energy before Christmas.  I actually didn’t mind laying in bed, although the pain was not welcome.  Certainly I made the sickness of body, but I felt no blame or guilt.  I accepted the sickness as just part of the illusion and gave it to Holy Spirit to sort out.  I felt there was nothing to fix and no need to ask for physical healing of any sort because the sickness wasn’t real.  I didn’t struggle with it at all, but rather believed it was happening for my benefit because the Holy Spirit could use it for my greater healing.

Over the course of time I came to some powerful realizations about walking through the illusion with greater ease no matter whether there is pain in the body, illness, or any other part of life that could be described as unpleasant.  I really learned that these moments are no different than others in which the body feels comfort or pleasure.  The illusion is the illusion.  There is only of God in my mind in truth.  There is always the place of peace in my mind.  This is all that is real.  Everything in body life is illusion and unreal.  There is nothing in body life to fix.

As I apply this to my whole life, I feel a great burden has been lifted.  I feel more relaxed about life.  There is nothing to fix in my life, nor in anyone elses.  The illusion will always be there, but I can walk through it without giving it a lot of attention or feeling that I ought to do something to make it better or change its appearance because of guilt.  That is a foolish waste of my time, along with feeling any guilt or blame for how the dream appears.  The dream appears from the subconscious mind as well as the conscious mind.  Some of the dream seems mysterious in nature, but all is used for great purpose by Holy Spirit.  Even then, it is not real.  Holy Spirit does not make the illusion real even though He uses it to good purpose for my healing.  I can walk through what my mind has made and presented to me as real without blame or guilt because that is not the appropriate response to what I see.  The appropriate response is just to see illusion as illusion.

As I let go of feeling any need to fix whatever I see, I can ask Holy Spfirit if there is anything I can do to be helpful.  If there is nothing truly helpful, I continue to walk on recognizing the unreality but not trying to change it.  When there is something truly helpful, Holy Spirit will stop me and show me what that is.  He is only too happy to do so.  What an incredible burden is lifted from me I proceed in life this way.  No need to fret over disasters, medical conditions, attitudes, habits, lifestyles, or any seeming problem in the dream, in myself or anyone else.  How can I fix what isn’t real?  Why should I try?  Why even bother paying much attention to all of it unless I am guided to something truly helpful?  Rather than thinking this is unfeeling or uncaring, I am finding this quite freeing.  I can truly trust Holy Spirit to provide the really helpful.

In every moment I have a choice to focus on the unreality of body life or the reality that there is only of God and nothing else.  And just because I choose for a moment to focus on body life doesn’t change the reality that everything is of God and that is all that’s real and it needs no fixing.  As I look at every person, circumstance or event, that is my response - there is nothing in front of me that needs fixing.  The Son of God does not require fixing.  The helpful thing is always to affirm for my brother that he is capable of listening to Holy Spirit and that he does already (although we could all listen more) and encourage him to continue.  There is nothing else I can do unless Holy Spirit tells me what that might be.  Ego attitudes do not need to change or be worked on for that is like trying to understand conflict that Jesus advises us not to do because conflict is not understandable.  The ego is not understandable, the dream is not understandable, because its not real.

It is unworthy of the Son of God to label him as a broken ego or body that requires fixing.  My brother is not this and neither am I.  The body stories make no difference, no difference at all, big ones or little ones are all the same, meaningless in reality.  This insight brings me such peace and release and healing from the dis-ease of perfectionism or trying to make body life conform to certain standards or ideals of circumstance of behavior defined as sufficiently good.  There is no ease in living according to ego or body expectations.  All such expectations are false, but there is no need to condemn ourselves for falling prey to them.  There is no need to fix them.  There is only the letting go of them, of giving them any importance.

As I withdraw from the importance of ego ideas and body life, that doesn’t mean it disappears - at least not right away!  There it still is.  I learned this while I had the flu.  The body symptoms remained for a time, but is was okay somehow.  I merely accepted them as part of the dream I walked through and returned again to the importance of the truth.  I don’t have to make the body life disappear to reflect on truth.  It is not necessary to have a pain-free or problem-free life to reflect on truth. 

One can reflect on truth no matter what the circumstances or events.  Holy Spirit can work through them all quite effectively.  If seeming physical sickness or problems do not immeditately disappear, this does not mean we are doing something wrong, thinking incorrectly, or not getting the program.  It simply means the illusion is the illusion.  The illusion does not have to change in order to see truth.  One looks through the illusion to see truth, the appearance of the illusion makes no difference.  Body sickness or wellness makes no difference.  It is the mind that is well when it rests in Holy Spirit’s awareness of the peace of God.  This is all that is important.  The illusion doesn’t need fixing.  I just let it be what it is without struggle because it’s unimportant and then let Holy Spirit guide my actions.

Right now, I feel grateful that I had this illness episode because what I learned is so valuable to me.  We truly cannot know what is valuable and valueless without Holy Spirit’s help.  He is truly the Teacher as we walk in the world of illusion.  He is the Navigator Who helps us as we stumble along seeking the way.  He shows us the pathway to truth as we invite Him to do so.  He sorts it all out and lights the way to wellness in the mind.  This is true healing - the only kind worth having.  He is the Healer of all illusion, not the changer of illusion.  His healing work is truly helpful, let ours be as well.

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

Trust and Hope in Holy Spirit

There is no great mystery in healing minds.  I am doing it all the time.  It may seem a mystery to you, but it is not to Me.  It is quite simple really.  You may trust Me to get it right on the first try.  I know exactly what you need and what would be most helpful.  And this is what I always give you.  When you are receptive and accepting of what I offer you, healing is always present.

Sometimes you believe that My Voice is mysterious, there one minute and gone the next, or not clear enough to be understood.  This is due only to your belief that this is possible, and also your fear of hearing what My Voice offers you.  I ask only for your attention and your kind listening.  I do not ask you to change your beliefs for that is My job.  I only ask for your willingness to listen to another perspective than the one you have formed in your own thought system that brings you confusion.  There is no confusion when you carefully listen to Me.

In your willingness to listen to Me, you recognize that hope is yours.  You hope for the answer that solves all dilemmas and misunderstandings.  You hope for peace of mind and a calm quiet confidence that all is well.  You hope the answer comes soon.  You hope your trust in Me is justified.  All your hopes are met in Me, for there I am with you in every moment, patiently awaiting your willingness.

You have but to merely have the desire for My help, and there I am.  No words need form on your lips but I am already there with peace and love to help you.  The answer is present always for your acknowledgement.  There is no other way than this.  When you fret that My Voice seems obscure to you, it is obscure to you.  When you trust and hope that My Voice is clear, My Voice is clear.  It is really that simple.  Are you trusting and hopeful, or are you not?

Your trust and hope are never left unmet by Me.  I treasure these for they are signs that you are ready to see another way, the way of God and not of illusion.  I trust these signs of your willingness to heal as you place your trust in Me.  As you trust in your healing, I trust in it as well.  As you hope for greater peace in your life, I hope you receive what is truly yours, the peace of God, for this is what I offer.  We trust and hope in each other, giving and receiving what is ours together.  In this there is only blessing and joy for we recognize each other in Oneness.

At this time in your life, I ask you to trust and hope in Me.  I will not fail you.  How could I?  To fail you would be to fail Myself, and this I am not willing to do.  I am willing only for your healing, for this is My joy and delight.  In this God is served, and that is My joy and delight.  There I am at every turn you make to turn you back again to the path of peace.  Place all your trust and hope in Me and healing is yours.  There is no mystery in this.  There is only My love for you which knows no bounds.  That is all.  But in this there is everything you hope for.

I never forget you.  Do not forget Me.  Remember when you can to ask for help.  It will not make a difference for Me, but it will for you.  It will seem as if I have poured a soothing ointment onto your mind.  Would you not want this now?  Just be a little willing and trust, hoping for the best, and there I am.  It is My gift of love to you.

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

Opening to Releasing Secret Fears with Holy Spirit

Some time back I sat with Holy Spirit because I was experiencing a period where I scratched my skin while I was sleeping, and thought it might be repressed memories, feelings or something.  I have spoken about my experience with several people and they all suggested I share it in this column.  So I am.  The following is what I received from Holy Spirit.

“Do not deny there are hidden anxieties in your mind.  Why do this?  There is no reason.  There is nothing to fear.  Release your mind to Me.  I will show you what is there.  Do not try to hide what you think is dark, not in line with the Course, not in line with what you think sounds nice.  This is Me you’re sharing it with.  No one else.  There is nothing to fear.  Let thoughts come to your mind, if they do, about judgments and concerns, and then give them to Me.  I know what to do with them and you do not.

Do not hide.  First, you cannot hide.  Second, you only hurt yourself and cut yourself off from help.  Third, if is OK if people think you are ordinary or not a good Course student.  It is perfectly OK.  Is their opinion more important than Mine?  I am, after all, The Teacher.  Gifted teachers others may be, and much you can learn from them, but I am The Teacher.

I speak to you in many ways, and yes through others at times.  In fact, quite frequently.  But in the still of your mind is where you most often find My Voice for you, where the healing of your mind takes place.  This requires time and quiet, and willingness to open the doors of cupboards with “hidden” fears and anxieties that you have locked away.  We cannot there speak to the journey of others regarding this, but as to yours, we can speak clearly.  Open the doors wide.  Let’s take a look at what we find there.  Lets examine whatever that is together.  I will help you.  Repressed thoughts do “sneak” out.  Do not be afraid here.  There is an answer.  Of course, the bottom answer is always fear of separation from God.  This is covered with other layers that sometimes must be gone through first.  Denying their existence does not help.  Give your mind to Me now.”

There followed a long meditation in which I looked at many possible scenarios of victim/perpetrator stories.  I saw a cupboard marked secret.  I walked toward it with Holy Spirit.  I had the key in a little zipper purse in my pocket.  I took it out, unlocked the cupboard and opened the doors.  Inside were little boxes with labels.  I took them out one by one, read the label, saw some story, then looked inside the box.  The boxes were black and the lid slid off sideways.  Each time I found the box was empty inside.  There was nothing there. 

This went on for some time.  No matter what the label was, the result was the same.  The box was empty.  There was no harm and no lasting consequences.  No difference if victim or perpetrator.  At last the cupboard was empty.  Then Holy Spirit gave it a wash with a hose that had light running from it.  He washed the cupboard clean.  It was light inside.  Then we tipped the cupboard over so it lay flat and I could walk over it toward the future unemcumbered by the past.  There is nothing under the labels of the past that separates me from God.  There is no story I made up that denies me my true identity.  I felt incredible relief as I saw the pile of empty boxes that I left behind.

I then asked Holy Spirit to wash my mind.  He took the same hose of liquid light and washed my mind.  I saw any remaining darkness wash away like a dirty film dissolving in water.  Muddy streaks at first, then washed clean.  All the while Holy Spirit was with me, showing me and telling me not to be afraid.  There is nothing to be afraid of, not even the fear of doing or being part of something unforgivable.  My secret boxes were empty.  The secret cupboard was empty.  There was nothing that separated me from the light.  There never was, and there never will be.  No matter how horrid I had judged the label, separation from God just wasn’t so.

I had tried to eliminate these hidden fears by burying them deep in a secret place in my mind.  I was afraid that if anyone saw these horrid thoughts, they would know I wasn’t good.  They were reminders to me that I identified with a body form, and if I did this, I must be separate from the light.  I tried to deny I did this.  As I had taken each box from the cupboard and looked at possibilities, I had thought to myself, “Is that all?”  I could forgive others readily if I was victim.  It was a little more difficult when I was perpetrator, but Holy Spirit kept showing me empty boxes.  I could forgive myself for any made up story.  I could see and feel most clearly that there was nothing to hide, nothing was hidden in truth.

I don’t need to know if any box contained a “past life” story.  It is enough for me just to look at any possibility.  No doubt we have done it all, as they say, over eons of time, every scurrilous thing the ego thought system can conceive, every nasty thing there is to do, always trying to eliminate by attack of every sort.  Every bit just a story, many themes but just one story, that we are dark and dirty and guilty, that we are apart from God and live dirty shameful lives that we must keep hidden from ourselves and others, but most of all God.  We are afraid to look at what we have made because we think the nasty business is stuck to us forever.

In the mind wash of Holy Spirit, we can see that no matter what label we give the story, what theme of degradation, murder, mayhem, torture or abuse, no matter what, the story just is not true.  The box is empty.  There is nothing real in it.  There are no consequences in truth because there is no harm.  There is only light in the mind.  We think we can only have light if we hide the dark boxes of stories, but the opposite is true.  If we look at the stories and see them empty, we know there is nothing that prevents us from being our true identity of light.  There is nothing in truth that separates us from God.

It is pointless to try to hide from Holy Spirit and ourselves what we think is dark.  He knows anyway, and we can’t eliminate from our mind what we are not willing to face.  We have little pockets of ego resistance that would keep certain thoughts or behaviors as too horrid for forgiveness.  Even the thought of it makes us cringe.  Yet if we go with Holy Spirit to the cupboard of “secrets,” surrendering our mind to Him, He can show us the truth of what is, not what we imagine it to be.  We imagine unforgiveness.  He shows us our innocence and purity, unspoiled by imagined faults and actions.

The secret cupboard can be laid to rest so that we may step over it and away from past labels to be the light we are.  We make the break from past condemnations and past labels with Holy Spirit.  We are washed in forgiveness of ourselves, not matter how we labeled our story.  There are no consequences in truth because it never was.  This is the day of light.  We go forward in light, our true identity to be who we are in truth. There is no hypocrisy in this, to leave behind what never was.  There is only freedom to be who we are without labels of any kind except Child of God, Light of God.

Holy Spirit says to everyone, “Don’t be afraid to look in your cupboard with Me.”

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

Giving Thanks for Miracles

When I let go of the past, I can come to forgiveness now.  How often the past wants to assert itself.  Here comes the memory of our failure to be open and giving.  Here comes the memory of our quiet resentment or anxiety.  Here comes the memory of our judgment against our brother, maybe it was unspoken verbally, but it was there in our attitude and actions.  We distanced ourselves from others.

I did this on Thanksgiving Day.  In all the hustle-bustle, I felt resentment at all the work of putting on the big dinner.  I felt judgment toward family members for their perceived failures.  I felt jangled when the turkey roasting pan sprung a leak in the oven.  I was not entirely peaceful.  Realizing that this was all about me, not about my family or the smoking oven that still needs to be cleaned, I am left with forgiving myself for my perceived failures.  In some ways I find this embarrasing to say to myself because as a Course student I think that my mind should never be in these petty thoughts.  I think I should be farther along by now on the path to perfect peace, but I find myself saying once again that I am still in need of major mind healing.

In order to come to true forgiveness of myself for not being ‘perfect’ in the happy dream world, I must let go of all thoughts of harm.  I must believe truly that no harm can occur from negative thoughts, even negative actions of complaining or distancing.  The only way to God is through forgiveness.  I must come to God in the appointed way because there is no other, and that means really coming to grasp the idea that sin remains impossible.

When I sit in the now moment, I feel forgiveness for myself and others.  But the ego brings memory of the instant where I failed to see the Christ in me and my brother, just like a little reliving of the moment I thought I separated from God.  Reliving the instant of the tiny mad idea over and over, the ego keeps bringing up the past and the idea of ‘what if’ harm really occurred.  It’s the same guilt recycled again and again in a different form, a different sounding ‘what if,’ but the same underneath.

There is no embarrasment in looking at our mistakes - looking at them straight on and admitting we believed bodies real for a time.  If I let the ego convince me that this keeps me from forgiveness, then I cherish the mistake and give it power.  I did cherish the mistake for a little while as I allowed the ego thought system to keep bringing the memory to me.  Today, God is my only goal.  I let go of these ego memories of an illusive past.  The thoughts weren’t real then and they are not real now.  I can replace the dream of guilt with the dream of forgiveness by letting go of the memories of the past.  I can only do this with the help of Holy Spirit.  I am dependent on Him for this healing.

Only letting go of the past brings us to the now moment where we experience the miracle of healing.  Only in letting go of the past can we come to true forgiveness of self for perceived shortcomings because it is only in the now moment that we can see they truly have no effect.  No harm was possible and no harm was done, not to anyone else, not to me.  All is well.  Silly thoughts remain silly thoughts - they cannot keep me from God if I choose God as my only goal.  Forgiveness is the way to return my mind to Him.  I forgive myself for thinking I am sinful and pretending to be.  Holy Spirit is right there with me, helping me to release the burden of the illusion.

What relief to let go of the past.  No need to struggle against ego memories or push them away.  I let go of the past by looking through the mistake to see the truth.  I look with forgiving eyes to see only the love that was present, is present now and always will be present.  I look with forgiving eyes and witness the sharing, the joy, the laughter, the giving of thanksgiving, the coming together in love.  The Christ was present at Thanksgiving.  I see Him now with Holy Spirit’s eyes.  That is all that is important really -  that I see Him now.  All else is a false past that never was.  The miracle of seeing is now.  I give thanks for miracles that come everyday I let go of what never was and accept the truth of love with the help of 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.

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