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Wake Up! Wake Up!

Wake Up! Wake Up!

I’ve been reading the writings of Anthony De Mello with his emphasis on waking up. He says, over and over, “Wake up!”. He says that most people are asleep and don’t know it. They are born asleep, live asleep and die in their sleep without ever waking up. To those of us who are students of the Course, this concept will sound very familiar. Through our study of A Course in Miracles, we are learning that we are asleep, we are dreaming. We are learning that we don’t have to stay asleep; we can wake up and that there will be great joy in waking up. We are learning that the Holy Spirit will gently bring us out of our long sleep if we want Him to.

I had a dream the other night and it was so vivid that when I woke up I was disoriented. For a few moments I didn’t realize I was now awake and that I had been dreaming. Later, I couldn’t figure out if something really happened to me or if it was part of my dream of the night before and had to ask the person involved before I could be certain. I found my night dream and my day dream blending into each other. It was disconcerting, but at the same time, enlightening. I am learning that my day “life” is just another dream. I go to sleep and dream and I wake up and dream.

The Holy Spirit has been very gentle with me as He has been helping me to really wake up, to wake up from both my night dream and my day dream. I didn’t always realize what was happening, but now that I look back on it I can see the slow,gentle progression. I think another big step forward was when I started being aware I was dreaming at night. I would be in the middle of a dream and decide I didn’t like the direction it was taking and deliberately change the dream, knowing that it was my dream and that I could change it if I wanted to. The first time it happened, I woke up absolutely stunned! I couldn’t believe I had control of my dreams. I had always thought I was helpless in my dreams, that they just took me where they would.

The same thing has happened in my day life. The Holy Spirit has slowly (the slow part is probably my idea) brought to my awareness that I have control of my life. I can change the direction it takes as easily as I can change the direction of my dreams. Through A Course in Miracles I am learning that I can do this and how to do it. Through the Pathways courses I am getting more help; I’m being provided with clarification and some strategies to help me move in that direction more easily. The book, “The Disappearance of the Universe” is helping me too. There are movies that seem to be instructing me as well;movies like Vanilla Sky that use visuals and interesting story lines to get across to us that we need to wake up. We need to see that we are not really living, we are just dreaming. We use everything in this world to distract us from reality, but if we want Him to, the Holy Spirit will use these same things to guide us to our real life.

Could it really be that simple? Is that all I need to do, just be willing? Well, yes. It would seem so. I find that the more consistently I am willing to see my life differently, the more opportunites the Holy Spirit provides to make this obvious to me. Of course, I am attached to my some of my dreams and find myself unwilling to release all of them. So, my progress isn’t as steady as it could be. I understand, though, that I can’t keep some of my dreams if I want to wake up. I can’t keep any of my dreams, not even one of them, if I want to wake up. Have you ever had a night dream that was so pleasant, you found yourself trying to stay asleep so you could remain in the dream? You would bring that dream with you into your “waking life” if you could, but it is impossible. For you to “wake up” you have to quit dreaming. Well, this is true in both the night dream and the day dream that is my illusion. If I want to be truly awake, if I want to trade the illusion for my real life as God’s holy Son, then I am going to have to leave behind all of the dreams, even the seemingly pleasant ones; even the ones I am attached to. How can I think that would be a loss? Amazing isn’t it, the way we delude ourselves?

This life I think I am living isn’t me. It isn’t the life God meant for me. It isn’t the life I want for me. God and I are in perfect agreement on that, so I know I will wake up. How can I fail? Sometimes I tell myself that it is hard to wake up, but that isn’t true. It is not hard. It is the easiest thing in the world to do. Holding onto the dream state I have been living in is the hard part! Now that I have glimpsed the truth of who I am and what is waiting for me when I wake up, it takes all my ego can do to keep me asleep. But, I am not anything if not stubbornly persistent. So I take my mistaken ego beliefs, one at a time,  to the Holy Spirit for healing. I am waking up!

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Learning to See My Body Differently

Learning to See My Body Differently

I’m using the Course to learn that all the special forms I love (and hate) and that fill my time so completely are just barriers I have put in place to keep me in this world, tied to these illusions. I have made them real and essential to my existence. This is a belief I am changing my mind about because I want to know that these forms are not real.When I am successful in removing these barriers, I will see that God is on the other side and nothing at all is here. This is my life purpose; to use the Course to see my world as the illusion it is, to use the simple steps and processes it offers to release me from my belief in these illusions and to then cross the bridge into reality.

In thinking about my special relationships with forms, I realize that I most identify myself with my body. It is very hard to see myself without my body and to imagine who I would be without it. I think of my body as my chief learning device. What an excellent distraction it is! I spend endless amounts of time decorating it, dressing it, pampering it. I must really love this form.

Well, maybe not. In fact, I would say that this is a true love/hate relationship. I am never happy with this body and yet I carefully guard and look after it. Not only am I spending ridiculous amounts of time in the care of this body, I am using it as a repository for guilt. I also use it as a weapon to attack my brother. Well indeed, my body is an excellent distraction, a barrier I use to keep me from Heaven.

Another favorite distraction is food. This is another love/hate relationship. It doesn’t matter if I am in the love phase (sinking my teeth into a rich delicious chocolate candy) or the hate phase (stepping on the scales after the candy) I spend much time thinking about food. I think some foods are necessary to save me from illness, while some foods contribute to illness. I have a diet I believe will save me from having to buy a whole new wardrobe, a size up. I love the diet for what I believe it does for me, I hate it for what I think it deprives me of. There is plenty of fodder for guilt, fear, anger in the whole food thing. Another excellent distraction. Another barrier to Heaven.

When I am upset because I’ve gained weight, I have always blamed it on my body as if my mind had nothing to do with it, as if my body could act independently of my mind. The same with illness. I then feel rage against my body. I have even said in frustration, “I hate my body.” It is really amazing how I have managed to make my body guilty of every poor choice I make. If I am not making my body guilty, I am making someone elses body guilty.

I’m starting to see this differently now. I have started asking the Holy Spirit to look with me at my emotional response to my body and to heal the thoughts that cause this emotion. I have used my body as a distraction and as an anchor to keep me in the illusion, but the Holy Spirit can use it to bing me to the Light. Now that I am asking Him to heal my thoughts, I am starting to regard my body differently. Instead of feeling like it is my enemy, the cause of all my problems and the anchor which holds me here, I am starting to see it as the school room where I am learning that form is an illusion. What I have used to imprison myself, the Holy Spirit is using for my release.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing Love Over Fear

Choosing Love Over Fear

The world is so full of fear. The churches teach fear, our communities have become fearful places, entertainment is fear based, even our families are often unsupportive and judgmental. Where there is fear, there is not love. I cannot feel love if I am awash in fear. We are not listening to the message Jesus came to deliver. I want to change that, but how can I change the direction humanity has taken. I am just one person.  I think though, that Jesus would not have brought us a message that was not realistic. What, after all, would be the point.

If Jesus told us to love then that must be possible, though at times I have thought otherwise. And while I cannot change the world (I cannot even change one single other person in the world) I can change myself. If I change myself, perhaps someone else will see that and want it for themselves. How many people might I influence? How many will they influence? Think of the strong chain of forgiveness we are forging! Jesus speaks of the mind of Christ of which we are all a part. I cannot do or think anything that does not affect every one else.

It seems a pretty big job, doesn’t it? But Jesus assured us that he would be with us always. He meant that literally.  He also assured me he would send me a guide. In John 14:26-27, Jesus says, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

That is how I am going to achieve unconditional love. I am not going to wake up tomorrow and cause world peace. I am not even going to wake up tomorrow and find that I have achieved Myron peace! But, I can teach myself unconditional love through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I will do it one thought at a time. Each thought of fear, whatever form that fear takes, (anger, frustration, guilt, hate, distate, unkindness) I will take to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to look at it with me and then to heal it. It will take some courage to do this. I don’t like to look at the darkness in my heart. I would prefer to pretend that it is not in me. I would prefer
to think that my unhappiness is caused by someone else. But, by looking at it with the Holy Spirit as Jesus intended me to do, I find that it is not evil. It is just a mistake which I now allow the Holy Spirit to correct.

To paraphrase something Rev. Robert Stoelting said, “Here is the answer to every perceived problem. I will open my mind so that the healing voice of the Holy Spirit can be heard. I will be still and listen. He will teach me that attack thoughts are just foolish ideas. I begin to understand that I do not want to keep them. They do not protect me. To feel His blessing we just need to bring each fearful thought to Him. With loving compassion, He looks upon our ideas of limitation and to each one He gently says, “It is not so.” Where we perceive lack of love, He shows us the Love that shines upon us beyond the imaginary barriers we have built.”

And so, that is what I am doing in my life now. I am, with the help of the Holy Spirit, removing the barriers to love. I think of them as stones that form a dam which blocks the flow of love God created me to be. Each dark thought is a stone that I remove as I ask the Holy Spirit to heal it. When I thought of the teacher who told a child that gay is a dirty word, I felt angry and outraged. That emotion was the result of thinking that her words were harmful and would ultimately make my world a more dangerous and ugly place. Those thoughts were a stone placed in the path of love and I felt cut off from the peace of God. When I took those thoughts to the Holy Spirit and asked Him for another way to see it, He told me that the teacher involved was full of fear and doesn’t know what to do with it, so in her misery, she looks for someplace to put it. She only wants to be free of it and mistakenly thinks that seeing it outside of herself will free her from it. She doesn’t understand that giving it away is how she keeps it. Everytime she expresses her hate, she makes it more real for herself. She places one more stone in the dam that keeps her from feeling God’s love for her. Suddenly, I did not want to add to her pain. I saw that blaming her and hating her would only hurt myself, and ultimately hurt all of us.

So it is in this way, one mistaken thought at a time, that I am dismanteling the dam of fear I have constructed. And as I do this, God’s Love rushes in to fill me. I am not in any way learning the meaning of love, for as the Course says, that is beyond what can be taught. I am only removing the blocks to love and allowing myself to experience it. It is in this way that I am learning to live in unconditional love as Jesus came here to teach.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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About Rev. Myron Jones

I always wondered what I was going to be when I grew up. As I grew older it seemed that everyone else knew what they were supposed to be doing but I just did whatever came along. I felt something vital was missing from my life. If this is all there is, why am I here? Surely, I have some purpose.

I was 50 years old before I finally figured out that I wanted to be a minister when I grew up. I started working on it and though that ego voice was loud and strident as it demanded to know what I thought I was doing, suddenly deciding at such a late date that I want to be a minister,  I also heard this calm still Voice that assured me I was doing exactly what I was supposed to do.

I love being a minister of God. Finally, my life feels right. I am doing what I came here to do. I mention this because perhaps someone who reads this may find themselves at a crossroads and will be wondering if it is too late. They may wonder if they waited too long and now they are too old to start something new. In my moments of doubt, as ego I would find myself counting on my fingers; “Let’s see, if I finish my courses in three years, I will be be 53 years old and if I keep my senses for awhile and my health holds out that will give me 10 maybe 15 years. Can I do any good with such a little time?”

Well, the Holy Spirit assured me that I had all the time I need to do whatever needed to be done. I kept at it and now I am so glad and so joyful. So, I suggest that whether you think yourself young or old, take Spirit’s hand and follow His directions. Don’t waste another moment of your life following the wrong voice!

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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