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Teacher in Training

Teacher in Training

I have been working on 916: Teacher of God. As I am training to be a teacher of God, I am learning to listen closely to the Voice for God.  I quickly discovered that I am not always aware of which voice I am listening to, and so I made awareness my first priority. It is really not hard to do this. There are only two voices. I am either listening to the ego’s voice, or I am listening to the Voice for God. It is always my choice as to which voice I listen to.

I recently experienced a perfect example of choosing which voice I want to listen to. I was talking to a friend about something concerning her, and suddenly she became very angry with me. Her voice got louder and higher with each word and her face became red and blotched. I tried to reason with her, but I quickly realized that it wasn?t going to work. Then I tried to calm her down with gentle words. That wasn?t helping either. Finally, I let her vent, and then watched in helplessness as she stomped out. I was completely dazed after the experience. I couldn?t figure out what I had done to bring on that outburst.

The more I thought about it, the more upset I became. I would be heartbroken for a moment as I thought about maybe losing a friend, and then I would become angrier and angrier as I thought about how unfair the attack was. I felt helpless. This is something that would affect me profoundly and yet, it seemed to be so completely out of my hands. As I think back over the incident, I can see that my ego couldn?t decide if I was a victim of someone?s unfair attack, or if I was guilty party, somehow causing my friend to be so upset.

My success at controlling my own actions varies wildly, and certainly I can?t control others, so there will be times when I am faced with situations like the one I just described. The question is, what will I choose to do about it? How will I choose to respond? Or, more accurately, what voice will I follow? It took me awhile to sort out the voices because my first reaction was very emotional. As I thought about it, I couldn?t see any way it was my fault or that I had done anything to bring it on. I couldn?t see anything I could have done to prevent it. It was just so darned unfair. I felt justified in being angry with my friend. I felt like a victim of her unfair rage and blame.

Unfortunately, while this felt right to me, it didn?t make me feel any better. I was still distraught. I needed to forgive, but it is not possible to forgive as long as I was seeing her as wrong. But how could I see it any differently? It was just so obviously her fault. Do you hear the ego?s voice in there, egging me on, trying to place blame; trying to make someone wrong? As long as I kept listening to the ego?s voice, I was going to stay in this conundrum. I finally tired of my misery and took a few moments to surrender my view of the situation to the Holy Spirit. I told Him how I was seeing this, and asked Him to look at it with me because, clearly, I didn?t know what any of it meant.

I felt immediately more peaceful and waited patiently for a new understanding. What I got was that I had been taking this personally. I was seeing what my friend did as an assault on me and on our long standing friendship. I was simultaneously blaming her, and accepting blame. I was feeling a need to fix it with no earthly idea how to do that. The Holy Spirit showed me that what happened didn?t actually have anything to do with me. He showed me that I was like a person who stepped in front of a runaway car. The car wasn?t out to get me; I was just in the way. My friend was like that car. She was in the grip of runaway emotions, and I got run down because I was there, not really because of anything I did.

It reminded me of times when I yelled at my husband or my child about some minor offense and afterward realized my anger had nothing to do with their action. I was upset about something entirely different, but they got caught in the cross fire. This was much the same. As I received this message from the Holy Spirit, I became calmer. It wasn?t my fault; I didn?t need to feel guilty. It was not my responsibility to fix anything. Whew! It was good thing to know this, because I was feeling a lot of pressure to do something that seemed impossible. It felt good to know I was relieved of that need.

Holy Spirit helped me to see that the pain wasn?t mine, but hers. I did not need to blame her for anything, because I did not need to feel threatened. I was able to see my friend as the child of God that she is. I began to feel love for her. I began to see that listening to the Voice for God was showing me there really was a different way to see this. I had received the gift of peace, and prayed that she would also. Soon, she came back over and sheepishly apologized for flying off the handle. She had been having a really bad day, and just took it out on me. I was so glad to see her and to know we were still friends. In this instance, I was a teacher of God. I taught her that as a child of God, I am unassailable and if I am unassailable, so is she.

I shudder to think how this would have ended if I had continued listening to the ego?s voice instead. I would have had no interest in forgiving, and would have felt justified in returning the attack. Maybe then, I would have considered ?forgiving? her, but it would not have been true forgiveness. It would have been a pale shadow of forgiveness in which I would have decided I was big enough to overlook her bad behavior, and her personal attack on me. I would have been making myself better than her and giving her a gift she didn?t deserve. That is not forgiveness. I would have been teaching her that she had indeed attacked me, and hurt me and that she deserved the same treatment. That would have been the ego?s sad lesson.

It is clear that making a decision to choose the Voice for God is the way to be a teacher of God. I am always teaching; in that I have no choice.  I exercise my choice when I decide what I want to teach. I am so grateful that, in this instance at least, I chose well.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Which Voice Will I Listen To?

Which Voice Will I Listen To?

Everything I do is teaching myself, and teaching others as well. I can’t stop teaching. What I can do is exercise control over what I teach. I do this by choosing the voice I want to listen to. If I listen the the ego’s voice, I will teach that we are vulnerable, fearful and guilty. If I listen to the Holy Spirit’s Voice, I will teach something entirely different. Which voice will I choose? The first thing I had to learn how to do was recognize which voice I was listening to. At first I was at a loss, but soon I started to see that the Voice for God is always gentle, loving and patient. This clearly separated it from the ego?s voice, which is always loud and strident. 

My son, Toby, tells me that not only are he and his girlfriend going to Europe this summer, but when he gets back, he is going sky diving! Knowing that they are traveling to Europe alone, was a little worrisome, but I?ve got to tell you, when he told me about his sky diving plans, I brought worry to a whole new level! It would be accurate to say that God?s Voice was not the first voice I heard. Boy, did my ego have a field day with this one. I heard the ego?s voice proclaiming loudly that this was crazy, crazy and recklessly dangerous. My ego wanted to know what kind of mom would go along with a stunt like this. It showed me pictures of my son stepping out of a plane and falling like a rock. It warned me of parachutes that don?t open.

If I listen to the ego?s voice, I will be afraid and fear is what I will teach. Even if I kept my comments to myself, I would express my fear in other ways. I will be teaching fear because I will be a fearful person. It is not God?s Will that I live in fear, nor is it His Will that I teach fear. After the initial shock wore off, I was able to tune out the loud, discordant voice of the ego and listen for the quiet, certain Voice of Love.

God?s Voice assured me that I was not created in fear and am not meant to live in fear. I do not want to teach fear because fear is not of God. My ego points out all sorts of scary stuff; war, personal strife, dangers small and great. The ego reminds me of sickness I have suffered and asks me how I could be like God if all of this is true. Behind this voice of fear is God?s Voice gently reminding me that there is nothing outside of God, and so if I think I can suffer I must be mistaken.

I hear the Voice for God and I hear its unassailable logic and yet I am seduced by what my body?s eyes and my body?s senses tell me. Looking at what I see in this world I have to ask, how can I be as God created me, and yet, how can I not be as God created me? This is why it is essential that I always choose to hear the Voice for God. This is the reason God gave me His Voice. Jesus assured us that he would be with us always and he meant this in a very literal sense. We are also assured that God would send His comforter, and He did.

I have all of this help, but I must agree to accept it for it to do me any good. The Holy Spirit is always whispering in my heart what I need to know, but I hear Him only if I choose to. Sometimes I will wallow around in misery for awhile before I decide that this kind of life is unworthy of a child of God. Then, I will call on God for help. The first thing I have to do is to surrender my own interpretation of what is happening. This clears the way for another way to see it. There is a prayer I learned while taking a Pathways course that starts like this: I open my mind to You Holy Spirit. I will not decide what anything means on my own.

In saying this prayer, I have invited the Holy Spirit into my mind to heal my thoughts. This is an important step because the Holy Spirit does not force His way in; He always waits for an invitation. I have also made a place in my mind for a new way to see things as I confessed to not knowing what anything means. I am very excited now, because I am going to experience my life change for the better. I have shown my willingness through this invitation. Willingness is my only job; the rest is up to God. In fact, if I tried to fix it myself, I would just be in the way. It would make no sense to come to God for help and to bring the proposed answer with me (though often, I confess, I am guilty of doing just that).

As usually happens, the first voice I heard was the ego’s voice, but I recognized it for what it was and, as I listened more closely, I began to hear the Voice for God. There are only those two voices. I chose the one I wanted to follow. If I had chosen the ego’s voice I would have taken a detour into fear. I have been down this road many times and I didn’t want to go there. By choosing to listen to the Voice for God, I have chosen to teach myself that I am God’s Holy Son. This is also the lesson I am teaching Toby. I am an imperfect teacher of God, but I am a willing learner and it is the Holy Spirit?s joy to teach me.

 

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

Healing Dreams

Yet the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep, and can use dreams on behalf of waking if you let Him.  T-8.IX.3

The Course suggests that we give our dreams to the Holy Spirit so that He can use that time to teach us. I do that often, and most of the time I have to assume it is happening because I really can?t tell. Occasionally though, I am aware of and remember the lesson a dream offers me. This happened to me the other night. At least, I remembered the dream, and was aware that there was a lesson in it for me. Discerning that lesson was not as easy.

I dreamed of babies. There were triplets and though I can?t remember that part of the dream well, I do remember that the babies were stolen from the mother and I felt sad for her, in the way you feel when you hear a stranger?s sad story. Then, in my dream, I started remembering that I lost my child in the same way; someone took this child from me. Immediately, I felt guilty thinking,? ?how could I had forgotten this?? Then the horror of what had happened began to take hold, and I was overwhelmed with grief. I understood why I had chosen to forget. The grief and anguish were truly terrible and I felt it as strongly as if it were actually happening to me at that moment. When I woke up, I found that I was unable to shake the dream off. The sadness and grief stayed with me.

For the next two days I felt mildly depressed and then suddenly I would feel so grief stricken that I would start to cry. It was very strange. I have never had a dream affect me so strongly. I asked the Holy Spirit what I needed to understand from this dream, for surely, a dream this vivid must have a message for me. One thing I realized was that my youngest daughter, Susan, was associated (in my mind) with the stolen child for whom I grieved. This made sense, because I have lost her, in a way. She has a partner now and they spend all of their time together. Even though we have always been very close, now I don?t see her very often and miss that closeness acutely.

Feeling like I have lost the close relationship I used to have with Susan, and feeling regretful and sometimes angry about that is a situation I have taken to Holy Spirit often to ask for healing, so I thought this might be what the lesson is about. ?But then, Holy Spirit, what do you want me to learn from it?? I just couldn?t figure it out, but I kept asking for clarification because the emotions associated with the dream wouldn?t go away. Finally, on the third day I asked again what on earth is going on with me. Here I stand in the shower weeping over a child lost in a dream. I wondered how anyone could take someone?s child. How could someone deliberately cause another person so much grief? For that matter, how could I cause myself so much grief? Aha! Suddenly, I got it.

I have been grieving for a dream child; for a loss that never happened. I have been causing myself grief. Is this not what I do all the time? How often do I cause myself pain and grief over something that is happening in the illusion? This day dream world is no more real than my night dream world. Grieving for something in it makes no more sense than grieving for something in a night dream. And yet, I spend most of my waking moments experiencing the tug of one emotional attachment after another.

I started thinking about how much I would rather be writing or performing a wedding or delivering a sermon; yet, here I am, driving hundreds of miles each day, working in the heat, fighting off ants and mosquitoes so that I can earn a living. The more I thought about it, the more dissatisfied I became with my life circumstances. I wished I didn?t have to do this work, but I wasn?t willing to give up the money I earn doing it. I started to feel trapped and my anxiety level rose.

I thought about my dream. There is nothing wrong with my job. Many people would love to have it, and I enjoy it most of the time. The bottom line is that my job is neither good nor bad, it is just a job. I decide how I want to view it, and that decision determines how happy or how miserable I will be. As I was getting myself worked up about my dissatisfaction with the job, I stopped and asked myself why on earth I would choose to do this to myself. Why would I deliberately choose to feel frustrated, trapped, miserable and fearful? I decided right then and there to choose differently. I imagined myself sitting in front of a large box. I started placing all of my various dissatisfactions in the box. I looked at each one and thought that I didn?t want it anymore, and then I dropped it in the box. In went the frustration, then the fear went in next. I kept doing this until I couldn?t find anything else to put in the box.

I imagined myself carefully closing the box and taping it shut. Next, I wrapped it in paper and tied it with a bow. I then imagined myself bringing it to God and offering it as my gift to him. With that box, I knew I was giving him my need to think I was in control. It doesn?t seem like much of a gift since my sense of control is mostly in my head and has little effect in reality, but I have always clung to that illusion, and somehow thought it was important to my survival. It took some courage for me to give this gift. I had to acknowledge that God loves me and wants only what is best for me. I also had to acknowledge that He knows better than I do what is best for me. ?Duh?, you might say. ?Yeah, yeah, I know.? But still, my stomach quivers a bit as I hand it over. As I release my hold on this gift I say to myself, ?I relinquish the illusion of control which I have been hanging on to.?

I used this same process with my daughter. I sat down with the box. I put in my sense of loss as I acknowledged that loss is real only in the world of form and that world is an illusion. I put in my resentment at her partner for ?taking her away from me.? I put in my fear of being abandoned. As I prepared my gift to God, I asked that I might experience a Universal Love in place of this special relationship.

The world may seem to cause you pain. And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect, it cannot make effects. As an illusion, it is what you wish. Your idle wishes represent its pains. Lesson 190

Since I have completed this ritual, I have had some of those emotions pop up unexpectedly, but I recognize them for the insubstantial shadows that they are; just habits of thought, really. I return them to God and express my gratitude for the peace He gives me in return. The days following my dream were unpleasant and confusing, but I am so grateful for that dream. It was a real blessing as it caught my attention in a way my usual lessons had not. I had asked repeatedly to be released from the pain of the situation with my daughter, but had not looked at the thoughts that were causing it. When I think about it, I realize my dream was the answer to my prayer. It helped me to see the thoughts causing my discomfort and so gave me the chance to look at them with the Holy Spirit and to ask for healing.

He is free to choose again when he has been deceived; to change his mind when he has made mistakes.  Lesson 194

 

 

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