Together, We Light the Way

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I rule my mind, which I alone must rule.

This is one of the first lessons that I typed out and posted on my wall. I looked at it frequently because recognizing that my thoughts are the source of all that I think I am and that I have control over those thoughts was new to me at that time. It was the most liberating thing that I had ever learned, but took a lot of practice to make it part of my mindset. I still fall back into the habit of thinking that someone or something else sourced my discomfort, and must remind myself that only my thoughts do that. It is absolutely essential that I take responsibility for my thoughts, otherwise how can I give my mind to God? I can’t give what I don’t believe is mine.

I practice this in many ways. I had an interesting experience yesterday. I was driving on a road next to a beautiful lake and admiring the lovely homes built beside it. I began to wonder how the people got to the homes as I could see no driveways from the road. Then I realized that the driveways were there, but you could not see them from the roadway because the drop off was so steep. I have a problem with this. I have learned to live with heights, but have never gotten over my discomfort with them. I am particularly uncomfortable with steep drop offs where you can’t see where you are going. This is the kind of thing that really messes with a control freak.

Lately I have asked the Holy Spirit to help me look at every fear in my mind and so when I realized the driveways went straight down and nearly to the lake (my other unresolved fear is water) I felt the fear coming up. I was tempted to push it down. After all, who wants to go from a great day to a scary day? But I remembered my purpose and let it come over me fully. The fear was very strong. I had not realized how frightened I was because I had learned to control the feelings, but of course that doesn’t make them go away.

It really took my breath away as I thought about turning onto one of those driveways and driving straight down toward the water, protected from a sure and horrible death by height and drowning, only by unreliable car brakes.   I told the Holy Spirit that I was willing to be wrong about this. I was willing to be free of the fear of heights and water. I was at least willing to drive by this lake without experiencing fear. Though, I admitted, I didn’t know how to go about changing these thoughts, I knew that He had the answer.

Well, later in the day I needed to get from a very out of the way place to the road home and my customer told me I could save time by taking the ferry across the river. This is not my favorite thing to do, but I had learned to overcome my fear about ferries because it would make my travel almost impossible if I didn’t. I had never been on this ferry but I was tired and wanted to get home so I followed his directions.

Just getting to the ferry was a little strange, in a scary movie kind of way. It was a small windy road next to a levy which holds back enough water to wash away the state. I don’t enjoy knowing that much water is right next to me. There is absolutely no one else on this windy out of the way road that gets smaller and smaller until it is just a gravel road. So I was feeling vaguely uneasy when I got to the turn off for the ferry, which by the way, wasn’t even marked. I guess you just have to know it is there if you want to use it.

As soon as I turned onto the road I knew I was in trouble. It goes up at an angle and then drops off into nothingness at which point I assume is the water that has been held back by the levy all these miles. I parked my car partway up to the drop off and walked gingerly toward it. Yep, I was right; straight down into the river. Oh boy! I could only wonder if it was too late to take back my decision to change my mind about my fears of heights and water!

Too late, here comes the ferry which crosses only when it sees a car waiting. So I sat there and talked to Holy Spirit. I told Him that I was still willing to do this without fear and asked Him to show me how to do it. He has a great since of humor because He reminded me that only this morning I had decided to not only release fear thoughts, but to accept joy and to live my life with a sense of fun and adventure.

Was He kidding?! I was supposed to drive down that steep drop off straight toward the water and hope I didn’t miss the ferry and plunge into a watery death? And, I was supposed to have fun doing it? Not only that but I was looking at the oldest most rickety ferry I had ever seen. Well, the only thing to do was to be willing to release my fear thoughts. They are my thoughts and I can keep them or I can choose a different Teacher, and I had made that choice.

The thought that I was given was to practice being completely present. This is the opposite of what I usually do in these situations. Generally, I put my mind someplace else when I am uncomfortable. But my guidance was clearly to be present. I am glad I have been practicing this because it made it easier. I noticed that I am experiencing myself in a body and that body is sitting in a car on a boat in a large body of water. I felt my weight against the car seat. I noticed how it felt to be moving on the water and the water splashing up against the side of the ferry. I noticed my feelings and was surprised to find that I was enjoying myself! Well, maybe the Holy Spirit knows what He is doing after all.

I am ever amazed at how beautifully my life unfolds as I walk steadily onward toward truth. I am given everything I need to take the next step. Each experience is an opportunity to go home. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for showing me the way.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Lesson 235

As I read the last paragraph of this lesson which says that I have no sin in me because there is none in God, it is perfectly clear why I am safe and could never be harmed. But that is not my experience so it must be that I don’t really believe this. I thought I did believe that God created me as part of Himself forever, therefore I can have nothing in me that He does not have in Him. Holy Spirit could you help me to understand why my experience does not match my belief.

You do hold in your mind the thought that you are created by Love as Love. You are able to understand logically that this means you are like God and therefore could not be sinful or suffer the effects of sin. However, that is not the only belief you hold in your mind. You also hold the belief that you did indeed sin against God, and that you deserve punishment. Therefore sin is born anew in your mind each time that idea is brought into awareness. You don’t notice that this is what is happening because the thought seems to take other forms.

Yesterday you allowed a memory to come up for healing. You thought about a time when you were younger and you were very unkind to your mother. Do you remember how you felt when you reviewed the incident in your mind? You said just thinking about your unloving behavior made you feel like throwing up. You felt very strong guilt, and it seemed to be about your behavior toward your mom, but this is just the mind replaying the sin of betraying God. All of the relationships in your life are opportunities to choose again to decide for ego or for God.

You were holding guilt so intense that the thought of it made you feel physically ill. That guilt seemed to be about your mom but that was just the form it took. The content is always the same; you think you sinned and so you think you are no longer part of God. This is the source of your guilt, your anger, your fear and all things that seem to hurt you. Now I want you to look at something else. There is a voice in your mind that tells you God is the source of your guilt, that it is God who is angry with you and disappointed in you. This voice says that you hurt God with your behavior and that he is going to punish you. In your mind, God becomes the source of all your fears.

Consider this instead: God has no part in any of this convoluted thinking on the part of egoic mind. God did not accuse you of anything. God does not care that the body of Myron was mean to the body of Mom. God does not even know the dreams of this illusion. He created His Son perfectly free and if His Son wants to play in a dream world and pretend to live and die and have dramas in between, God says yes, play away! But He does not become delusional about the dreams; God does not believe in them. Why then would He call you sinful because you dreamed an unkind drama with your mom?

Who then is the source of your fear?  It can only be yourself. You source all that happens to you. Please consider this thought carefully: You source all that happens to you. If you feel guilty it can only be you who made yourself feel guilty, and therefore it can only be you who forgives. That is why the forgiveness of yourself is the first step in forgiving someone or something else. Forgive yourself for your projections onto others. Just as you have projected the guilty thoughts in your mind onto your loving Father, you are also projecting them onto the other dream figures in your illusion. Forgive yourself for doing this and there is nothing within you to project.

My dear child, you have no idea the beauty of God’s son without your projections to darken your view of them! As you continue your practice of allowing guilty thoughts to rise into your awareness and then forgiving yourself for your projections, you will begin to see a different world, and you will wonder how you could ever have thought your brother sinful. And as you allow your thoughts to be forgiven, you will be astounded at your own beauty as well. You are created in the image of God. Did you think you could be anything but beautiful?

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Forgiveness

Forgiveness

Yesterday I spent the day with one of those customers that you cannot please no matter what you do for them. I recognized that I was judging and that I was resentful toward her. I used a forgiveness process and thought that I had done my work. But then I noticed that I was still having judgmental thoughts about her. I searched my mind for those thoughts and asked for another way to see. Again I thought I was through. Then when I got ready for bed and was putting the day to rest, I noticed that I felt very uncomfortable about this issue. Now not only was I unforgiving toward her, but I was unforgiving toward myself as I felt guilty for holding onto the grievance.

I thought about it and decided that this was one of those blessings in disguise. There was something within myself that needed healing and I just wasn’t getting it. So I asked the Holy Spirit to work with me in my sleep where I might be less resistant. This morning I saw that I was at the Forgiveness page in the workbook and thought how appropriate that was. And I am sure that it was no coincidence that the CD I was listening to yesterday was on forgiveness. Once we commit to awakening, what we need to awaken is provided. This customer is a perfect example of that, and the fact that what I needed to deal with it was right there at hand is another example.

I love Jesus’ discourse on forgiveness. I have read it with different ears at different times in my life, each time bringing me a little deeper into the meaning. This morning it was perfect for my forgiveness lesson. I read: Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. I have read that many, many times over the years. At first it was meaningless to me, then as I became more open to hearing it, I began to understand. It has opened to me as a rose, each petal offering a awareness that is perfect for my immediate need and ability to understand. As I grow another petal unfolds bringing me deeper into the meaning.

Yesterday, I was hung up on the idea that my customer really was wrong. I kept trying to forgive her for something she clearly did. I don’t know why I couldn’t see that while it was happening. I guess I just didn’t want to be the one responsible for my anger. I didn’t even want to admit I was angry. I found it so easy to find evidence that she was wrong. She was acting selfish and self centered. She cared only about herself. She was unappreciative. I attributed my “annoyance” with the heat, and lord knows it was hot! I was dehydrated and exhausted. I was frustrated in not being able to fix her problem. I had so many reasons for how I felt and so much proof that she was wrong.

But no matter what it looked like, I knew that I was kidding myself, and the energy of blame and accusation was so unpleasant that by this morning I was more than ready to get serious about forgiveness. In the end it was just so simple. I looked at the situation knowing, really KNOWING that my customer is completely innocent. The weather is completely innocent. Starting from that absolute and unassailable truth, I was able to look at the feelings the situation brought up for me, and ask myself why I recognize them.

I began this by thinking that she was selfish and self centered. How do I recognize selfishness? It could only happen if I have been selfish and self centered myself. I thought of times when I have acted in this way. I paid attention to how it made me feel when I thought of those instances in my life when I acted in a self centered way. It didn’t feel good. It felt heavy and dark; not at all like the joy and lightness I had been experiencing before this came up. I knew that I was willing to forgive myself for being selfish in the past, for being selfish now, and for any selfish behavior in the future.

I don’t know how to forgive, but I know that the Holy Spirit will step in and accomplish forgiveness if I come to Him with willingness. I have learned that it is not a matter of logic; it is not a job for the thinking mind. It is easy to read the lesson and know what it means intellectually. But those words are just pointing me in the right direction. They do not cause forgiveness. For forgiveness to happen, I must want it wholly. I cannot want forgiveness and also to be right about my grievance. If I expect to forgive and to reap the rewards of forgiveness then the way to have that is to want forgiveness above all things.

To forgive I must be willing to see that it is always myself I forgive. The more quickly I move out of the idea that someone or something outside of me is the cause of my discomfort, the more quickly I can allow forgiveness. I don’t have to do anything to make forgiveness happen, but only be fully willing for it to happen. Yesterday while I was distracted by my need to see my problems as caused by something outside me, I couldn’t forgive. I was trying to hold two completely opposing thoughts at the same time while I was trying to forgive and at the same time judge. This morning, all I wanted was forgiveness and suddenly I was laughing at my obstinacy of yesterday. What seemed impossible yesterday, today simply is.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Only My Condemnation Injures Me

Only my condemnation injures me.”

“My condemnation keeps my vision dark, and through my sightless eyes I cannot
see the vision of my glory. Yet today I can behold this glory and be glad.”

All of my life I have thought that the world is the cause of my injury. I have thought that if only this person would not treat me this way, or if that situation had not happened, then I could be happy. My bad behavior could be explained as a normal reaction to someone’s attack, or because a situation provoked me. Even though I now know this is never true, my first reaction is still often that it is not my fault but someone else’s.

The difference now is that I don’t stay there. I notice when I am projecting and placing blame, and with the Holy Spirit’s help I withdraw those projections as quickly as I am able. I am now very uncomfortable when I am blaming and placing guilt outside myself, and just as uncomfortable when I do it to myself. I quickly change my mind. Well, sometimes I resist awhile, and it seems to require a lag in time for me to accept a new way to see it. But always, I do it.

This lesson speaks of dark vision and sightless eyes and this is an excellent description of what it feels like to blame and condemn. It is like dark clouds have rolled in and blocked the light from my life. I completely lose sight of who I am and my awareness shifts from the glory of being God’s only Son. In condemnation I see myself as only a body in competition with other bodies, living in time and space. I feel heavy, dark, and utterly lost. It feels foreign and yet depressingly familiar.

I think of identifying with the ego as being stuck in quicksand. It seems to draw me relentlessly down into the muck of ego thinking. The only way to free myself is to remember that nothing draws me except by my own decision to allow it. The ego is nothing without my support. I created it, and it is sustained only by my belief. If I withdraw my awareness from it, it will cease to exist.

This thought is both exhilarating and frightening. The quicksand of ego thinking may be an entrapment, but it is one of my own making. It may be depressing, but it is familiar and it is my own choosing. I seem to be reluctant to entirely give it up. What if I need it later? What if someone does something so bad that I don’t want to forgive it? What if I don’t like being glorious and want to be small and insignificant again? What if I decide that I can’t handle being perfect and joyous and miss drama and excitement and chocolate? The ego tries to entice me into not quite letting go.

But I must choose; one or the other. I cannot be God’s Son and have a little ego thinking in reserve. God is Whole and there is no separation in Him. There is no little of this and little of that. There is only God. To know myself as existing in God, I must know myself as complete and whole. So I practice letting go of ego thinking. I practice turning my attention from ego to God. I practice tuning out the ego voice and listening only to the Voice for God. As I experience the utter peace and joy this brings me, and as I notice how this contrasts to life as an ego thought, as a body living in fear and condemnation, I am more and more willing to choose God.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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