Together, We Light the Way

Click link to go to:
Together We Light the Way Index

Study of the Text 2-8-13

2-8-13
A. Special Principles of Miracle Workers
11 The miracle abolishes the need for lower-order concerns. Since it is an out-of-pattern time interval, the ordinary considerations of time and space do not apply. When you perform a miracle, I will arrange both time and space to adjust to it.

I love that Jesus just said that time and space are lower order concerns. ~smile~ I have never really thought of it just that way, but of course it must be true. Time and space are just part of the illusion and have no reality. I think I will remind myself of this by meeting any concerns I have about time and space with the thought that they are just lower order concerns and not rigid and inflexible.

I have proven this to myself in the past, but I see now that I act like those moments were “special” and that there is a limit on the number of miracles I can expect so I should use them sparingly, and not waste them on little things. I see the error in that kind of attitude. The more I expect time and space to bend to my needs, the less I will believe in it. I have frequently seen time expand to accommodate my writing in the morning.

I will need to finish at a certain time and even though it doesn’t seem possible, I will do so and with no stress or concern about passing time. In fact, when I write with Spirit I often experience it as if it is a meditation and time and space disappear for me. The first time this happened it was quite startling, and I excitedly told everyone about it. Now I do it without the surprise, but with the same gratitude.

Another way I experience time and space yielding to the miracle is when I forgive a person or situation after it has happened. I can be in the middle of an argument, for example, and if I become aware of what I am doing, I can stop, forgive it, and return to peace. Sometimes, though, I am too deep into ego and I continue.

Later, when I return to sanity I will probably feel miserable about the whole thing, regretful and anxious. I simply stop, forgive it and return to peace. I expect that, having given it to the Holy Spirit and asked that my mind be healed, that He will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision.

It does not matter how long ago this happened. I have forgiven retroactively things that happened when I was a child. I wrote about some of these in a book I recorded for Pathways of Light called Healing Family Relationships. It is remarkable how perfectly forgiveness works and how little time and space matter.

I have had this experience with grievances that I have held for years, grievances against others or myself that are so painful or so shameful that I could hardly stand to think of them. And yet, after the forgiveness process I am free of the pain and can speak and write of them easily. They lose their sting and become just good examples of how forgiveness works. What a miracle that is!

I am going to add an excerpt from my audio book, Healing Family Relationships, as an example of this kind of retroactive forgiveness. In this example I was able to forgive my mom and in forgiving her, I forgave myself. Years of regret and recriminations fell away as if they had never happened. This happened after my mom had Alzheimer’s and was unavailable to me in the normal way.

At one time I would have lived in regret that I did not do this while she and I could still communicate, but by this time I understood that speaking with words, face to face, is the lesser kind of communication. I also understood that the miracle was not curtailed by time and space. Even knowing that, it was awesome to experience the healing.

From Healing Family Relationships.

Forgiving Mom
At some point I decided that I needed to forgive the grievance I was holding against Mom. It took a few tries because in forgiving the situation I was going to have to give up using Mom as the scapegoat for my sins, which meant I would have to take full responsibility for my life. This was very scary for me because it was my inability to be a “good” mother that caused me the most guilt and pain in my life. What would I do if I had no one else to share the blame? I felt like I would drown in it.

What made the difference for me was that I wanted to be free more than I wanted to be the innocent victim. So eventually I was able to ask with complete sincerity for help to see differently. I asked the Holy Spirit to look at this situation with me. This meant that I had to look with total honesty. I had to look at the rage I felt at my mother for the part I saw her playing in this. It is not a pretty thing to see my darker side and I resisted this for quite awhile. Who wants to face their own murderous desires? I think it is particularly hard when it is a parent because our parents are our stand- in for God. So it feels just like the original error being replayed again.

I had to look at my part in the situation and see that I wanted to set this up to make someone else guilty and to make myself appear innocent. That was not any easier. I really had to get naked here, take off my spiritual cloak and see my underlying desire to set up a situation to prove my innocence at my mom’s expense and then to cover it all in denial so that I could pretend I had nothing to do with it.

Convincing myself to be honest was the hardest part. Once I made that decision to be willing to see differently it was not as painful as I had anticipated. I did experience strong feelings of self hatred and guilt, but I knew I was not alone and that the Holy Spirit was looking with me. I became willing to turn my mind from the idea that my mom’s demands caused this disturbing situation; I remembered that I am the source of my experience. This is always, wholly, and completely the truth; under no circumstances is it not true. I am the source of all I experience.

Through my willingness to forgive, I was able to feel compassion for the young and frightened mother I was rather than feeling guilt and contempt for myself. I saw then that with this healing, there was no guilt within me to project onto my mom, and I felt compassion for her, too. She was only doing the best she could, just as I was doing the best I could. Rather than berating myself for my mistakes and blaming my mom for how I had turned out, I was able to see that she and I had much the same issues and that we spent this lifetime working on them together.

I finally began to feel deep gratitude and love for my mom and now I can’t wait to have a good laugh with her over all the years I held onto that silly grievance. I didn’t talk myself into this attitude, or reason myself into it. I just made room for the truth with my willingness to be wrong and to accept the Holy Spirit’s help. 

We have looked at the idea that we are completely responsible for everything that we experience. We see that we chose our parents and that we deliberately choose to set up our own victim stories. We see that the reason for this is so that we can keep our ego intact, and thus keep our separated, unique, individual self identity. We see that separation promotes guilt, fear, hatred, and depression. I wonder why I hold onto to it like I do. It hardly seems worth it.

We also see that the way to correct the situation is through forgiveness. It is necessary that we forgive ourselves for choosing the ego, and that we forgive others for the projection of this separation choice that we place on them. The easiest way I know to do this is to simply notice the effects of separation when they show up in my life, then look at it with the Holy Spirit.

I am willing to forgive myself for the error and so the Holy Spirit gives me a new way to look at it. I can then look at the one who mirrored this for me and forgive my projection onto them. I will be able to see this person differently if I do this, to see this person as innocent. Seeing the innocence of whoever I am working with at the moment will remind me that I am innocent as well. What a lovely circle of forgiveness and healing this is.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text 2-7-13

2-7-13
10 Charity is a way of looking at another as if he had already gone far beyond his actual accomplishments in time. Since his own thinking is faulty he cannot see the Atonement for himself, or he would have no need of charity. The charity that is accorded him is both an acknowledgement that he needs help, and a recognition that he will accept it. Both of these perceptions clearly imply their dependence on time, making it apparent that charity still lies within the limitations of this world. I said before that only revelation transcends time. The miracle, as an expression of charity, can only shorten it. It must be understood, however, that whenever you offer a miracle to another, you are shortening the suffering of both of you. This corrects retroactively as well as progressively.

I have a student that I have seen as accomplished far beyond what she has done here in time. I have seen her this way from the start and I have had no doubt that she would catch up to my vision of her. We have been working together long enough that I have seen this happen. It was easy to do this and my certainty seldom wavered, and when it did, I just asked for healing in my own mind. I didn’t have to talk myself into this, it was just that way.

With some people this is not so easy. I have to ask for help to see more clearly. I honestly don’t know why this is so, other than I am distracted by what I see with my eyes and so overlook the truth that lies behind the illusion. But I have noticed that, over time, I more often look with charity. Here is what this looks like to me.

A student comes to me with a lot of confusion in their mind. The student may be angry or fearful. He may be unable to accept the basic precepts of the Course. His relationships might be in shambles, or he may be experiencing physical or financial problems. What I see is the light in the mind that draws him to the truth in spite of the challenges in his life. No matter what he says or does, I see the light.

I know that we are together because I can see that light and I know that the light will grow in brightness until it overshadows the darkness. Sometimes my vision is so clear that it is hard for me to believe that he doesn’t see it. But I have done this enough now, and had my own experience of it, so I am not discouraged by anyone’s lack of vision. I am patient because I know that, in the end, it will all unfold perfectly. This will happen whether I get to see it or not.

The reason we have been brought together is because he needs my vision of him, that is he needs me to accept the Atonement for him until he is ready to do this for himself. I need the gifts that he brings to me. I will gain from the relationship in some way. That is the dance of life and Jesus arranges our dance cards because he knows exactly who to bring together for the most gain for both.

The dance continues for as long as it is beneficial. Sometimes the student moves on to someone else who has the next part. Sometimes the student moves on to take on students of his own. Sometimes, to my delight, the student becomes the teacher and I the student. It’s always a surprise however it unfolds. Because I understand my part, I am not concerned about the ending.

When I first started taking students, I felt a lot of stress because I did not always seem to be doing my part. It would seem like I had failed because I could not see with charity or because the student seemed unwilling to accept my vision. That happened because my mind was still confused and I was still looking at this through the ego where failure and success were reasonable concepts. But I kept working with Spirit and the tangled mess that was my mind began to unravel and I let go of the judgment that had me in such confusion.

Now I operate on trust. I trust that I am where I am supposed to be and each of my relationships is perfect for our next step. I trust that if I have doubts, those doubts will fade into nothing as my mind is healed. Of course it is not always as smooth and seamless as it appears when I write about it here. Sometimes it feels frustrating as I waver between sight and vision, but I trust that light in my own mind to strengthen eventually and I will be able to see again.

Looking back on my life I see what Jesus means when he says that whenever I offer a miracle to another, I am shortening the suffering of both of us. I didn’t start off with the certainty and the patience that I have now. But each time I chose to give what I could, the next time I had more to give. In joining with my brother I was teaching myself that we are one. As I closed my eyes to appearances, my Inner Eye opened and showed me the truth. This is what shortens the suffering of both. The more often I see clearly, the easier and more natural it becomes.

Jesus says that this corrects retroactively as well as progressively. The best way that I can understand this is to remember that time is not real. I think of time as running before and behind me and this is just not true. Actually, there is no time and all things happen at once. Since I am stuck here in time for a bit, the way it appears to me is that as my mind is healed now, it affects what came before and after.

I might understand this better one day or have better words to explain what I do understand, but while here I will never really get it. Whether or not I understand it, I am delighted to think that time as I know it does not really exist and so I am not stuck in my errors. Otherwise, I would spend eternity dragging around the past and so nothing would really be undone.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text 2-6-13

2-6-13
9 Healing is an ability that developed after the separation, before which it was unnecessary. Like all aspects of the belief in space and time, it is temporary. However, as long as time persists, healing is needed as a means of protection. This is because healing rests on charity, and charity is a way of perceiving the perfection of another even if you cannot perceive it in yourself. Most of the loftier concepts of which you are capable now are time-dependent. Charity is really a weaker reflection of a much more powerful love-encompassment that is far beyond any form of charity you can conceive of as yet. Charity is essential to right-mindedness in the limited sense in which it can now be attained.

I am intrigued by the sentence that says, in part,
… charity is a way of perceiving the perfection of another even if you cannot perceive it in yourself.
My first reaction was surprise. How could this be? How could I perceive someone as perfect if I were unable to perceive my own perfection? But thinking about it, I realized that I do this. I probably do this nearly every time I pray for someone else. My prayer is not words so much as it is a certainty that this person is perfect as God created her and therefore she cannot be limited in the way she believes she is.

I am not just saying those words, I know those words are true. I feel them to the very core of me. And this is true even if I am in crisis. In my prayer for this person, I step out of my self, and allow truth to flow through me. It may be only temporary, and depending on the depth of my own personal fear, I may go back to my own crisis after the prayer. Or sitting in the truth for that moment may be enough to wake me up from my own nightmare.

I think it can happen like this because when I am in crisis I have temporary amnesia. The truth hasn’t gone anyplace and is still in my mind. The need for it brings it forward in my mind. My desire to be helpful clears my mind enough to allow Spirit to work through me. If I am in a lot of fear at the time, the fear may roll back over the truth but it may not.

As I think about this, I realize that this has always been true, even before I had any understanding of it, even when my faith was weak. I am sure that this is because the truth does not need my understanding. All that is required of me is that I want the miracle for the one I pray for, and that my desire for the miracle be strong in that moment. I don’t think it has anything to do with my “abilities” at all. In fact I don’t think it has anything to do with “me” at all. In prayer, or miracles, I willingly step back and allow it to flow through without help or hindrance.

Something else I notice is that doing this for others increased my willingness to be the healer, as it increased my willingness to be healed.

Healing and miracles are temporary help and will no longer be necessary when we wake up. Charity is a bit of Love, not the whole thing, a kind of shadow of the real thing. When we are no longer believe in time and space we will no longer need healing or miracles, and we will experience Charity differently, but right now they are an essential part of our awakening process.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text 2-5-13

Paragraph 8 continued
8 The fear of healing arises in the end from an unwillingness to accept unequivocally that healing is necessary. What the physical eye sees is not corrective, nor can error be corrected by any device that can be seen physically. As long as you believe in what your physical sight tells you, your attempts at correction will be misdirected. The real vision is obscured, because you cannot endure to see your own defiled altar. But since the altar has been defiled, your state becomes doubly dangerous unless it is perceived.

I am still reading this paragraph.  Yesterday my attention was drawn to the idea that we are afraid of healing because we don’t really accept that healing is necessary. I looked at the fear of God as the source of this confusion. I recognized that I spent many years being afraid to look at my defiled altar because I was afraid to see what I had done, and afraid I would be condemned for my error. Thank God, (quite literally) that I am undoing that belief as I consistently look at the mistaken beliefs with a willingness to see differently.

And yesterday I thought about how the healing actually takes place. I accept the Atonement and my mind is healed, then I project this healed vision on my world. Now that I have accepted that healing is necessary, I want to look more closely at the actual healing. Just as I was once confused about how the healing translated in the world, I was also confused about asking for healing and asking for healing of others.

When I use the word healing it covers anything that proceeds from a wrong-minded thought, anything that is born of a separation thought. This applies equally to all thought errors whatever form they might take. I don’t see any difference in lack of physical health or lack of money or lack of friendship or a strained relationship. Guilt over past behaviors, fear of heights, expressions of unworthiness, grievances and projections, blame, anger and indifference, all are the same error. And all of them are a call for healing.

I am mostly using physical healings as examples right now because this is what Spirit is helping me with at this time. He seems to want me to fully accept the unreality of the body and so this is what He is showing me in many ways. This is why He offered me the opportunity to let go of sleep aids and pain pills. He wants me to observe that I can use magic solutions to deal with these problems or I can use His power to do the same thing. In accepting his solution I am learning that the pills are as illusional as the body.

I noticed that using the pills pulled me deeper into the dream. Using them kept me focused on the body, when to take them, how often, how I felt when I did and didn’t use these magical solutions. It began to seem like the world revolved around my body and its need for sleep and freedom from pain. Everything I did was scheduled around my need for sleep and how it would affect the pain in my body.

I have followed Holy Spirit’s guidance and am learning to see pain differently and now am learning to see sleep differently. I feel like a person who has suddenly been released from a life sentence. I don’t make social plans based on how it will interfere with my sleep. I don’t schedule customer visits so that I can be sure I have had the “right” amount of sleep. I don’t allow for extra time in my schedule to take frequent breaks to relieve the stiffness and pain. I’m free! Woohoo!

The most important thing that happened, though, is that when I followed Spirit’s guidance, I stopped digging the hole any deeper. That is, I stopped going deeper into the illusion and, instead, began breaking its hold on me. Holy Spirit helped me to understand that nothing I could see would cure me. Ambien helps me sleep only because I decided it would. As I was making the transition, I would suddenly decide I really do need the Ambien and there were a few times when I would take one and nothing would happen. “Very funny, Holy Spirit. But I got your point.”

The timing on this was impeccable though. By the time this began to happen to me, I noticed that my mind had been healed enough that there was no longer any fear about the pill not working. I just shrugged my shoulders and assumed I either didn’t need the pill or didn’t need the sleep. And so he taught me that both were true. But what I was learning at the same time is that I didn’t need the pill or the sleep because the body is not the cause of the problem and so the problem is not solved through the body.

The body is not creative. It cannot create sleep disorders. This situation occurred in the mind and was then projected onto the body (which itself is a projection from mind.) Obviously, the solution would have to begin in the mind. As the mind is healed, the projection changes as well. Always it is the mind that is healed. The body and everything about the body is a projection that comes either from a healed mind, or a sick mind.

In the past when I was sick, I would ask that the body be healed. Then after I started studying the Course, I realized that this was not right, but I didn’t really understand why because my mind was not clear yet. I didn’t think that I am meant to suffer, but had enough understanding to know that repairing body is not the aim of healing. I just could not reconcile the two thoughts, and so I was confused. I didn’t know how to pray.

Eventually I began to fully embrace the metaphysics of the Course and to accept that I am not the body, and that the body is as much illusion as everything else in form. When I realized that, I understood prayer for healing better. I began to realize that the body was receiving the projections of my beliefs, so it was my beliefs that needed to be healed. It was only one small step from there to realize that when the mind is healed it can only project a healed body. Ah, now I see that I am not meant to suffer, and I see how it works. I am so grateful.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text 2-4-13

2-4-13
8 The fear of healing arises in the end from an unwillingness to accept unequivocally that healing is necessary. What the physical eye sees is not corrective, nor can error be corrected by any device that can be seen physically. As long as you believe in what your physical sight tells you, your attempts at correction will be misdirected. The real vision is obscured, because you cannot endure to see your own defiled altar. But since the altar has been defiled, your state becomes doubly dangerous unless it is perceived.

There is a reason it is so important that I look at the mistaken thoughts in my mind with the Holy Spirit in order for them to be healed. Jesus explains here in this paragraph that I don’t fully accept that healing is necessary. I don’t want to see how badly I have defiled the altar so I refuse to look at my mind, but not looking does not mean the altar is not defiled and so I remain unhealed.

At first I hid from my mistaken thoughts by projecting blame onto everyone and everything else. This seemed perfectly normal to me. In fact when I first became aware of this, it was hard for me to see how the cause could be anything but outside me. It just seemed so obvious to me that it was my husband’s fault that I was miserable. Jeez, anyone who would just look at his behavior could see why I was miserable.

I wanted to believe what I read in the Course, but it just seemed so obvious that the cause of my unhappiness lay in the world. What I did see clearly was that if the Course was wrong and I was right, then I was doomed because there was no hope. I could not change other people and I could not control the world. My hope lay in seeing things differently so I gave more willingness to that, and I stayed vigilant in looking at my mistaken thoughts instead of looking for people to blame.

At first looking at the defiled altar was hard and I was resistant because of the fear that God would condemn me for what I found there. It’s funny when I think about it. It seems that I believed that if I didn’t look at what was in my mind, and if I didn’t take responsibility for it, then I was safe from God. I was miserable, but at least God would not know what I had done. If I couldn’t see it, then God couldn’t see it, seemed to be my strange logic.

Because of consistent practice, I have become nearly fearless in looking for mistaken thoughts. I see now that instead of being condemned for them as I had thought before, just the opposite is happening. I am being healed. This is wonderful motivation for going further and looking more deeply. When the body is in pain, I realize that it could only happen because I believe in pain. This must be a mistaken belief because Jesus says that pain is not real.

So I ask that my mind be healed of this belief and the Holy Spirit shows me other beliefs in my mind that are related to this one. I see that I am using sickness to defend against God. I am, in effect, saying that because I feel pain, and pain is not of God, then I must be separate from God. Maybe God does not even exist. Through my pain, I have protected myself from God by denying His existence, and the proof is in my suffering.

That was a very scary thought and while I had read about it in the Course some time ago, I have only recently been willing to accept that this was my plan all along. Once I was willing to really look, to accept responsibility for the plan, I became willing to let it go, and my mind was healed.

This is a very big part of ego’s plan to remain separate from God and so I seem to be doing this in layers. I look at the thought and ask for healing and I see proof of the healing, but then I pick it up again, perhaps in some new form, and it seems like I have to start all over. But not really. What I notice is that the next time, there is not so much reluctance to look and letting it go is easier. Each time I do this I move through the process more quickly and with less resistance.

So my first step was to become aware that I was hiding from God behind my pain and suffering. Then I had to become willing to look at the hiding places in my mind, the thoughts and beliefs that were the barriers against God, and be willing to give them up. I had to step out of hiding and stand before God, naked of my protections. Once I did this and saw that I was not punished or condemned for my error, it was just a matter of practice as I chipped away at the ego’s defenses.

What I then noticed is that the ego mind was getting sneakier. It was making exceptions to the rule, holding out certain areas in my life saying that these areas are special, and the rules do not apply. There were areas in my life that I was willing to see differently, and where I did choose differently, my experience changed.

For instance, I could pretty easily see that I was projecting my self-loathing onto others when I experienced them as rejecting me. I was willing to see that unconscious guilt was the true source of my feelings of unworthiness, and not the other person. As I became willing to let that be healed, I began to notice that people no longer reject me. I was no longer rejectable in my own mind, and so I did not have that experience in my life.

I began to see that when I experienced sadness that I was doing it to myself. I could see that the sadness was in my mind, and then took form in the world. I was sad because I missed God, and sad because I was living as if God was not my Source, but then that thought would lead me directly to the fear of God that I spend my life trying to avoid. So it was better to project that sadness as circumstances which explained it away and proved that I was not the wrong-doer (that I had not rejected God) but the victim. Better to be the victim than the target of an angry God, seemed to be my logic.

Once I became willing to look at my thoughts about this and then to see it differently, I was willing to let this be healed. There were many thoughts like this, each one coming into my awareness through the circumstances of my life. As each one was looked at unflinchingly, it was let go and since the thought was no longer there and so there was no longer a need to hide it, the projection disappeared as well, and my life became happier and more peaceful. That only makes sense.

Here is where the ego got really sneaky. As I was studying the Course, the ego was studying right along with me. The ego learned the language and uses it to confuse the situation. I bet most Course students have noticed this. I said that there were certain areas in my life that the ego would make special, idols that were untouchable. The way this was done was through using the spiritual language of the Course to confuse the mind.

An example is healing of the body. Nouk Sanchez, in an excerpt from her new book, The End of Death, talked about this, and I highly recommend it. This excerpt can be read on her web site. This is the link: http://undoing-the-ego.org/noukblog/?p=359. I’m not going to go into this too deeply right now, but here is how it played out for me. I would get sick and would be willing to look at the belief in sickness in my mind. I could even accept that this belief was just another defense against God. After all, how could God be real if pain and suffering are real?

Where the ego confused me was in seeing the effects of the mind healed of this belief. The ego would say that the body is not real so I should not be concerned with it, and to do so would be to make it more real. I should have caught on to this much sooner, but the words sounded right, and there is still fear of God in my mind, so I went along with the ego for a long time.

But eventually, the Holy Spirit found a work-around for me. He helped me to by-pass the ego thinking through guiding me to specific Lessons and to a study of the Manual for Teachers, and also a study of The Song of Prayer, and now a slow and careful study of the Text. Slowly, I began to see that my thinking was screwed up and that excluding the body (and certain other areas) from the miracle just didn’t make sense no matter how you dressed it up with spiritual language.

If the mind is sick it will project a sick world. If the mind is healed it will project a healed world. There are no exceptions to this and to make false exceptions is just another ego attempt to make separation real. By convincing me that the body should be excluded from the miracle, the ego was ensuring that I reserve some part of the illusion, and even one small thing held onto keeps imprisoned in my illusions. God is whole and I cannot know Wholeness if I still cling to separation.

Excluding the body from miracles also served to confuse me about the healing. I would feel peaceful when I turned the belief over to the Holy Spirit. I always feel peaceful when I do that. But then the body would be sick and I would be fearful that I had failed, or worse, that God had failed or that God didn’t really love me. Then I would see that thought and could not reconcile it with the Course and so decide that I was not supposed to include the body. But then I was making special and separate so how could that be right? You see how tangled the mind becomes when we allow the ego to join us on our spiritual path?

The cause of the world are the thoughts in my mind. Change these thoughts and the world changes. No exceptions. No special circumstances. If it is true for anything, it is true for all things. I choose not to make a false idol of sickness. As my mind heals sickness of the body becomes exposed for the fraud it is. If I slip back into false thinking again and this is projected onto the body, then it is just another opportunity to remember the truth for us all.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text 2-1-13

2-1-13
7 Corrective learning always begins with the awakening of spirit, and the turning away from the belief in physical sight. This often entails fear, because you are afraid of what your spiritual sight will show you. I said before that the Holy Spirit cannot see error, and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense of Atonement. There is no doubt that this may produce discomfort, yet the discomfort is not the final outcome of the perception. When the Holy Spirit is permitted to look upon the defilement of the altar, He also looks immediately toward the Atonement. Nothing He perceives can induce fear. Everything that results from spiritual awareness is merely channelized toward correction. Discomfort is aroused only to bring the need for correction into awareness.

I understand this. I have been studying the Course for over 30 years now, and for the first 20 years this was slow going and often so uncomfortable for me that I would have to stop for awhile. I was drowning in guilt and shame and fear. I knew, intellectually, that I could not actually hide anything from Spirit, but I could not bring myself to look at my guilt, much less invite Holy Spirit to look with me.

So I took it slow, and did the best I could. I would look at something from my past and I would feel even guiltier and more afraid, but I did it anyway, and then I would see that I survived it and even felt better afterward. I was encouraged to do it again. This went on for quite some time, and slowly my trust grew and the whole process sped up. I was no longer so afraid, and the peace that grew out of the process was a tremendous motivation to do more.

The last twelve years, I have been vigilant in this work, and now I look without flinching. I look with an eagerness borne of certainty that whatever discomfort I feel will pass quickly as the mind is healed. Looking at the errors in my mind is not the fearful work I used to think it was, but is my way out of pain and suffering. I have mostly stopped judging what I find there. Spirit has taught me that none of it is personal, and that doing this work is my purpose.

Here is something else that changed. In the past I would remember something I did that brought me shame or caused me to feel guilty when the memory rose in my mind. It was the act or the words that I thought of and that I felt bad about. I wanted to be forgiven for doing or saying this thing. Now I see the action or the words as symbols only. They represent a belief in my mind that needs to be looked at and then healed.

Seeing it from that perspective is very helpful. It makes it easier to do the work, but more importantly, I am learning that the world is not real and that this story is just a story and is not me. I am forgiven because nothing has happened. I am not here, living in this body, doing cruel or thoughtless things to other bodies. I am watching the thoughts that have taken form from the beliefs in the mind. I am watching them and learning that they are not true and that I don’t want them anymore. That is all that is happening.

I go back and forth on this still, sometimes watching the story with detachment, and sometimes watching myself fall into the story, and sometimes just lost in the story, completely involved and for awhile, unable to step back from it. But I know it is just a matter of time and practice before I will be able to remain the observer. The more often I do this, the harder it becomes to believe in the story.

In the meantime, I notice a wrong-minded thought and I look at it with the Holy Spirit. I give Him my willingness to let that belief go and He heals my mind. I am at peace. This is my process and it is the same one I have used consistently for the last twelve years or so. It works so I keep doing it.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Page 3 of 3 pages  < 1 2 3

<< Back to main page of Together, We Light the Way

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution to support this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution with a credit/debit card, click here.
Click here to donate from your PayPal account.
Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.