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Study of the Text 2-19-13

18 You can do much on behalf of your own healing and that of others if, in a situation calling for help, you think of it this way:
I am here only to be truly helpful.
I am here to represent Him Who sent me.
I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me.
I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.
I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.

I am here only to be truly helpful. When is this true? When I teach, when I counsel, when I do a wedding or funeral, when I facilitate a student through their ministerial courses, this is true. I don’t want to be right, or good, or memorable; I just want to be truly helpful. I will earn money doing most of these things, but that is not why I am there. I am there to be truly helpful. I am not there to save anyone, only to be truly helpful.

These are the times when I am most aware that I am here only to be truly helpful, but these are not the only times. Whenever I am with a brother or thinking of a brother, I am there only to be truly helpful. When my brother said his wife was not doing well, I could think fearful thoughts, or I could be truly helpful and remember who she is and that she is an eternal being with nothing to fear.

When others at work are gossiping and I feel myself drawn in to the conversion, I can join them or I can be truly helpful and walk away, literally or mentally. When I notice I have judged them, I can be truly helpful and accept the Atonement for myself. When someone attacks me, I can let go of the desire to defend and be truly helpful as I forgive the belief that I can be attacked.

When I am asked for help or advice I can ask for help and advice from Spirit before I answer, rather than believing I know the way to help. In this way I am sure to be truly helpful. It seems that I am here to be truly helpful in every circumstance, formal or casual, when I am to say something or when I am to simply hold the truth in my mind. I am to be truly helpful as I speak words given to me or when I am to forgive my projections onto someone. This is a prayer for all occasions.

I am here to represent Him Who sent me. When I think about this, I feel like every encounter is a holy one. I am here to represent God. When the young woman quickly slipped into the parking place I was clearly planning to take, I was there to represent Him who sent me. Could it be that I was not there by chance, but had been sent?

Yes, that is exactly what is meant here. I was sent here to this parking lot at this time to encounter this woman. I was sent to notice my reaction and to forgive my belief in attack. I was sent to bless her and love her. I was sent to represent Him Who sent me. How differently I see everything when I remember this. How holy is each moment of my life.

And should I feel overwhelmed by my responsibility, or think that I cannot fill this role, I am reassured as I say the next line of this prayer. I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me. 
I know this is true because I have experienced it over and over again. It was true even before I understood that any of this was happening.

Before I studied A Course in Miracles or had any concept of being a messenger for God, I experienced this. I remember being faced with a need for the right words and wanting to be helpful and when I opened my mouth I was astounded to hear those words come from me. I wondered, even then, how that happened. Where did the right words come from? Just a desire to be helpful was all the invitation the Holy Spirit needed. Even then, when I knew so little, I knew enough to be grateful and not proud. I knew it didn’t come from my self.

I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me. I have been in denial about this one, and I have been accepting of it. Accepting is better. How do I know that I am in the right place at the right time? I know because here I am. Now, I choose, in full confidence, to be truly helpful. I am confident because I know there are no mistakes and no coincidences. I am confident because I am not alone; I know that He goes there with me.

I am practicing remembering this now. When I think I should not be exactly where I am, when I think it would be so much better to be someplace else, I remember that I am content to be wherever He wishes. Sometimes I still have times when I think I should not be working at my job, when I think my time would be better used if I spent it teaching and writing.

This can’t be true, though, because if it were, then that is where He would have me. I am learning that I do not know where I am needed or what I should be doing. I am learning to accept that He does know and that though I know my purpose, I don’t always understand what it will look like in form, but He does. I am learning to be willing to trust the Holy Spirit to do His job without my input on the subject.

I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal. This morning as I write this, I am given an opportunity to experience it in real time. My grandson came into my room in something of a panic. He is sick to his stomach and throwing up and he has a test this morning. He wants something to stop the nausea. I find him some nausea medicine and tell him I hope this passes quickly. I get him some medicine because that is what he thinks he needs from me. I am meeting him where he is. I tell him I hope it passes quickly because I want him to believe in this idea. I want to plant the idea that it could pass quickly.

I notice my stomach rolls in sympathy. Though it has not happened to me in a long time, I remember how it feels and I have the thought that maybe he has the flu and maybe I will catch it. I am no longer helpful so I ask Jesus to help me remember the truth. My grandson’s body is not creative. It did not create a stomach upset of any kind. The body is an illusion, a thought form that is projected from the mind. The sickness is a thought projected onto the body. I cannot catch a thought unless I want to.

Thanks, Jesus. Those wrong-minded thoughts are still there right below the surface of the true thoughts I am learning from you. They pop up and I get a chance to decide if I want to choose them, or choose the thoughts I think with God. I appreciate the help in making the choice that is truly helpful.

I know that I am exactly where I am needed. I know that I am here only to be truly helpful, and that I am not alone and will be guided as to what to say and do. I know that I am not here to join Julian in believing in pain and suffering. I know that I am not here to witness the ego’s projection of pain, but rather I am to witness the truth. I want to be a miracle worker this morning. I want to be a healer. I want to heal my grandson through accepting the Atonement for myself. Holy Spirit, please heal my mind.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 2-18-13

2-18-13
17 The injunction “Be of one mind” is the statement for revelation-readiness. My request “Do this in remembrance of me” is the appeal for cooperation from miracle workers. The two statements are not in the same order of reality. Only the latter involves an awareness of time, since to remember is to recall the past in the present. Time is under my direction, but timelessness belongs to God. In time we exist for and with each other. In timelessness we coexist with God.

My eye is drawn to the sentence that says time is under Jesus’ direction. I have been at war with time all my life, it seems. Every day I wake up looking at the clock to see if I have enough time to do my meditation and journaling. All day I look at the clock to see if I am going to be late to see a customer. At night, I keep an eye on the clock to see if I can do a few more things and still get to sleep in time to wake up early enough to start all over and have time to do everything. Do you see the anxiety that runs beneath all this clock watching?

As I have learned that time is not real and that Jesus can adjust time for me, I have called on him for this at times when I absolutely had to. But I have reserved those times for emergencies. And even then I listened to and believed the ego voice telling me that I should have not wasted my time and then called on Jesus to fix things for me. I mean, it just can’t be right that I fiddled around on Facebook too long and now I’m racing against the clock to get my writing done and get it posted. Do you see the guilt and unworthiness running beneath this?

Lately Jesus has invited me to look at this differently. He has shown me that time is malleable in his hands. He has shown me that what I do today, at this time, affects the past as well as the future. He has shown me that forgiveness reaches across, around, and through time and space as if they were not real. And so he is bringing me to the remembrance that, indeed, they are not real and that we made up both time and space.

Most recently, he wants me to look at my race against time. He is showing me that time is indeed nothing, just a concept useful in organizing my illusion. It has no power over me and if I put my trust in Jesus, he can easily manipulate it for me. Looking at my reaction to this idea has been enlightening. I see that there are many beliefs in my mind that are in error and that I can bring to Spirit for healing.

When I think that time rules me, I feel very small and vulnerable, a victim to the world I see. How can this be true? I made the world I see, how can I be victim to it? I am a Son of God, how can I be ruled by a concept that I made up? How can the Son of God be victim to anything? My reluctance to ask Jesus for help and the guilt I feel for needing his help are just ego separation thoughts made to keep me in this belief in limitation.

I see that Jesus is always ready and willing to adjust time for me, but I must be ready and willing to accept his help. I must be willing to let go of the idea that time is real and that I am ruled by it. I must be willing to let go of the belief that I am unworthy and must constantly do things to establish my worth. I see that my wrong-minded thinking is blocking Jesus from helping me.

Holy Spirit, in accepting these thoughts of limitation without questioning them, I have convinced myself that I am victim to time and that my guilt makes me unworthy of anything else. I have done this to myself, but now I see that I was wrong. Please heal my mind. I am ready to see differently.

Please help me to know that my worth was established by God, and so unworthiness is not possible. Please help me to know that I don’t have to “do” anything to deserve help. Please heal my mind of the belief that I ask for too much and that I should do, some of this at least, on my own before I ask for help. Help me to release all limits I place on Jesus’ help. Holy Spirit, please help me to remember who I am. Please help me to know that I am deeply and forever loved.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 2-15-13

2-15-13
16 Miracle-minded forgiveness is only correction. It has no element of judgment at all. The statement “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” in no way evaluates what they do. It is an appeal to God to heal their minds. There is no reference to the outcome of the error. That does not matter.

I don’t watch the news or read the paper very much. However, I do have an app on my phone that gives the headlines and a very short paragraph, and sometimes a picture of local news items. Since I work out of town during the week, it keeps me updated on major happenings back home. This morning I noticed another person being arrested for yet another sex crime against a child. As I looked at his picture I noticed how judgmental I felt about him.

I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the judgment, but I also noticed that I was resistant to the healing. In other words, a part of my mind wanted to be healed and a part of my mind believed this man was guilty and deserved my condemnation. Then I remembered a dream I had last night.

I was at a party and all sorts of party things were happening. I heard someone talking about an infant being healed. I started listening and the person was saying that the baby had tumors in its brain and that Jesus healed the child. I was riveted and wanted to know how this one done. Then Jesus sat across from me and told me how he did it.

I don’t remember all he said or his exact words (I wish I did) but he basically told me that he looked at only what was real about the baby. He didn’t see the tumors. As I started to understand the import of what he was saying, I began to cry. There was a lovely young woman sitting on the other side of me and every time I would begin to cry again, she would reach up with a gentle finger and touch my face. I woke up very happy and excited about the dream knowing something important had happened.

As I remembered the dream I thought about the man in the news item and understood that this person’s sick attraction to children was no different than the baby’s brain tumor. Both were just reflections of a mind that needs to be healed and the way to heal is to know only the truth about them. I would never judge the sick child because he was born with a tumor, and I don’t want to judge the man with the sick mind either.

I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind so that I could be a miracle worker like Jesus. I asked him to help me to see sickness as the nothing it is the way Jesus explained it in my dream. Help me to disregard the outcome because it does not matter, and to know only the unchanging truth matters.

“Father forgive us for our stories, all of them, whatever form they might take. We don’t know what we do, and we have forgotten that they are just stories from a sick mind and have no reality at all and are meaningless. Teach us that they are all the same error that they are all healed as we are willing to give them to You. Heal our minds and bring us back to reality.”

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 2-14-13

2-14-13
15 The level-adjustment power of the miracle induces the right perception for healing. Until this has occurred healing cannot be understood. Forgiveness is an empty gesture unless it entails correction. Without this it is essentially judgmental, rather than healing.

I have mentioned my son when writing. He hurt his back and has spent the last several years in constant, unrelenting pain. It is very depressing for him and sometimes when he talks to me about it I lose focus. I start living from the lower levels. I believe in his pain and I become very afraid for him. How long can someone suffer that kind of pain without giving up? What if he gives in and gets the surgery which he has been told could be very dangerous to him? The pain drives him to greater and greater amounts of medication. What if he over doses himself?

When I am experiencing this situation from the purely ego perspective, seeing it as if the world and the stories in it are real, I lose sight of the truth. When this happens, I join the world in its stories of pain, suffering and death. The good news is that I never completely lose sight of the truth anymore. No matter how sad, angry or fearful I am, I can still sense the truth. It is there right beneath the fear.

Here is the way I experience this. Last night I felt so much pain for my son that I just sat and cried. I asked Jesus to sit with me and give me comfort while I felt this. Eventually, I remembered the truth of it. I envision Toby and I sitting quite apart from this story and watching it. He is not in pain and I am not sad for him because we know it is just a story and we are both perfectly safe. Then I pray with all my heart that I have that right. And then I cry for myself that I waver between love and fear, and I ask for the strength to see clearly.

I am so grateful that, while my attention may be pulled away, I never completely lose sight of the truth, and I am always drawn back to it. After I cry and after I am comforted, I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the belief in pain, suffering and death. Then I remember that awakening is my purpose and my only purpose and in spite of what ego says about that, remembering my purpose does not mean I am abandoning my son in his pain. Quite the opposite.

As my mind returns to peace, I realize that once again I have experienced a miracle. Nothing in the world changed, and yet everything changed. Through the miracle of a changed mind, I now see this on a higher level, one outside of form. What do I care about how it seems to the body’s eyes? Nothing can stand against the power of Truth. The miracle is available to us all in every circumstance. “Holy Spirit, be with me today, and when I begin to sink into the murky and dense level of form, lift me up. Thank you, God. I love You, God.”

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 2-13-13

2-13-13
(4) The miracle is always a denial of this error and an affirmation of the truth. Only right-mindedness can correct in a way that has any real effect. Pragmatically, what has no real effect has no real existence. Its effect, then, is emptiness. Being without substantial content, it lends itself to projection.

With my new house being half unpacked and work being done in it all around me, I feel very disorganized. I don’t know where anything is and I will put something down and not be able to remember where I put it because there is not yet a place for everything. For instance, when I received the invitation for the Mardi Gras Ball I put it someplace but then later couldn’t remember where. Normally, I would know exactly where it was, but with everything in disarray there was just no telling where I put it. I had to look all over the place until I found it.

Not only is my home life out of order and so harder to keep up with, but work has changed. I recently started sharing duties with another person and that is good, but now I have to get used to doing things differently. After working at the same job, with the same duties for over 16 years, suddenly I have to figure out a new way to do things. I feel ungrounded and vaguely anxious because I am concerned that things are not getting done in a timely manner.

I began to notice that the mind was obsessing with things like where I put something and would I be able to find it, and did I see a particular customer and was it time to return. Worry thoughts would go round and round in my mind and this is not peaceful. I asked for help with the mind chatter and the worry, and the thought I was given is that I can allow Spirit to be in charge.

I can ask that my day be guided by Spirit. I felt relaxed when I thought of this because I have done this often enough that I know it works and that it is, all around, a better choice. It is a good practice to ask Spirit for guidance rather than allowing ego to run the show. I am always listening to one voice or another. Why deliberately choose to listen to ego when I could so easily choose Spirit?

This is what I am doing now. I made my schedule for work Monday, asking for guidance. I am following that general plan, but leaving my mind open for guidance during the day. When worry thoughts about work come into my mind, it is easier to let them go because I know that I am not making plans on my own.

When I realized Tuesday morning that I didn’t know where some things were that I needed to pack to go out of town, I relaxed and asked for help. What I didn’t find I decided I didn’t need, or I could use something else instead. I remembered that what happens, finding what I need, leaving on time, organizing my work day, all of this is just what I do. It is not my purpose.

Remembering not to make plans on my own, letting go of the obsessive mind chatter, extending love wherever I go, stepping back and putting Spirit in charge… this is my purpose. Often during the day I ask, “What would you have me do now?” This is so much more effective and peaceful that making the decisions on my own and worrying that I am forgetting something. And this is how I go from wrong-minded to right-minded thinking, from stress to peace. This is how I accept the Atonement for myself. I allow my thinking to be corrected and the resultant peace is a miracle.

Before I asked for help and when I was anxious and worried about things, my mind was clouded. Jesus says that only right-minded thinking actually corrects. When I was trying to fix the world in the world, that is when I tried to fix my anxiety through obsessively worrying and organizing things differently, nothing was actually being fixed.

I was temporarily making a difference but the real error went untouched and so the anxiety returned. The effects of my efforts were not real and so nothing was actually done. I was busy so it looked like something was happening, but not really. Jesus says that without substantial content, the situation lends itself to projection. I had never noticed this before, but now, looking back on it, I see how true that is.

I notice that the anxiety in my mind was projected as a stiff neck and a headache. When my efforts to relieve the anxiety with more ineffective rearranging of the situation didn’t really work, I began to project blame. I felt like the contractor was not working fast enough and that I was not getting the support at work I needed.

To go from worry, anxiety, headaches and being angry and resentful with the people around me, to being peaceful and happy with only a change of mind, is absolutely a miracle. I didn’t affect the change, I only desired it. I wanted peace and I wanted to follow Holy Spirit more than I wanted to be in charge. I wanted to remember my purpose. Because this is what I truly wanted, my mind was healed and I returned to right-minded thinking which facilitates the miracle.

In other words, I didn’t make myself stop my wrong-minded thinking; I just wanted to stop and this desire invited the Holy Spirit into my mind to undo what I had done. I am always amazed that when I am caught up in wrong-minded thinking everything seems so complicated and out of control. Then when I change my mind it is so simple and effortless. It all just turns on a dime. From crazy to sane, just like that. ~smile~

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 2-12-13

2-12-13
13 Never confuse right- and wrong-mindedness. Responding to any form of error with anything except a desire to heal is an expression of this confusion.

Jesus is clear on this. First he tells us to never confuse right and wrong-mindedness, which means we probably do that all the time. How do we know when we make that mistake? If we respond to any form of error with anything except a desire to heal, we know that we have confused right- and wrong mindedness.

My grandson is wandering around the house looking for his phone. He is afraid he has lost it and is upset. He asks me for help, then gets annoyed if I ask him questions about it. My first thought is that he was the one who asks for help and who interrupted my morning meditation to do so. Now that I am trying to help, he gets short with me. I feel stressful about this and worry that he really has lost it and now it will have to be replaced. I feel resentment. This is wrong-mindedness.

I reconsider and ask Spirit to help me see this differently. I feel peaceful about the whole thing. I hear him rummaging around as he looks. I sense his fear and frustration in the sharp way he moves things, and the hopelessness he feels in the deep sighs. Just a moment ago I felt like getting up and looking with him. I wanted to fix this situation and make things right for him. Now I don’t.

I suggest he go to bed and sleep. Later he may find it. I know that he will find it, or he won’t. Either way is perfect. This is right-mindedness. My calmness and certainty is healing. I remember the truth that we are always exactly where we need to be. I remember that whatever problem we think we have has the potential to wake us up if we are ready for that, or to move us a little bit closer to awakening if that is what we are ready for.

There are no bad or good things going on in our lives, just potential. What will we do with it? Will we use it to move out of the illusion, or go deeper into it? How exciting each moment is as we make this decision, over and over. My grandson does not know this. He thinks that his world revolves around finding his phone. Momentarily I agreed with him, but I remembered something. I remembered who we are and what we are doing here. I remembered our purpose. This is right-minded thinking, and this is healing.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 2-11-13

2-11-13
12 A clear distinction between what is created and what is made is essential. All forms of healing rest on this fundamental correction in level perception.

What is made? When I wonder if something is real, if it is created instead of made, I ask if it is eternal. Is this something that changes, or is this something that dies? These things are made. If it is eternal and if it is love then it is created. The ego mind cannot conceive of this. It appears to the ego as if I am saying that nothing exists, because the ego doesn’t really believe in anything it cannot see and it believes most strongly in that which it fears and hates and defends against. So to the ego mind, the idea of letting go of the belief in what is not real feels dangerous. It feels like annihilation.

As I am beginning to wake up, I am allowing my perception to be corrected. This is not as easy as it sounds. I spent years just getting to the place where I understood that special relationships are not actually love, and I am still in the process of allowing all of the many forms of specialness to be purified. It felt very frightening at first, and it is still an obstinate belief that I find hard to completely release. In the beginning it felt as if I were being asked to let go of love, but eventually I realized that in letting go of the belief in what I thought was love, I have made room for actual love.

Now I seem to be working on changing my perception of the body. This is not any easier. This too, this belief that I am my body, is a stubbornly persistent belief. I have done the lessons. I said that “I am not a body, I am free.” I have said it many times and practiced it in many ways, and yet I have not believed it. Now I am ready to look more closely at this belief in body, and I am ready to be healed.

This is what it feels like. It appears as if Jesus invites me to look at a layer of belief and to see that this is not true. It might take me months of looking at it as he shows me in many ways that this belief is false. Finally, I know that this belief is not true and it is as if the layer is peeled away. Then I get another invitation, and I begin to look at another belief that makes the body seem real.

I looked at pain through Lesson 190. I practiced it for months, using the pain I was in as many opportunities to practice the idea that pain could not be true because it is not of God. Eventually, my belief began to shift and I was able to experience this shift in form. Pain that had been pretty intense simply disappeared with no help from any magical solutions.

I did not change my circumstances. I did not find relief from medical intervention. I just began to believe that pain could not possibly be real and I did this through asking the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of this impossible belief. I saw many small but irrefutable proofs as I went through this process.

You would think after all that I would never experience pain again, but I do. Now, however, I absolutely know that I am doing this to myself and I ask that my mind be healed of any belief that it could be caused by something else. I know I did this, not through anything happening in the world, but through my thoughts and beliefs, and I ask the Holy Spirit to come into my mind and undo what I did. How long will it take before I stop doing this to myself? As long as it takes.

Recently, Jesus invited me to work with some of my magical solutions. The way he suggested we do this was to stop taking my Ambien when I couldn’t sleep and to not take pain pills when I experienced pain. He is helping me to let go of another layer of belief in the unbelievable. I am learning that the body does not create pain and insomnia. This happens in the mind, and by not reaching for the magical solution right away, I am allowing my mind to be healed of this belief.

Sometimes I will still take the medications, but even if I do, I realize that it is not the medication that makes the difference, but my belief in the medication that does the job. How very strange it feels to me now to take those medicines. It is almost a joke I play on myself and sometimes I laugh when I do it. So I know that the mind is being healed. Another layer is being peeled back.

Something else that happened recently is that a smoker sat near me and I had an old reaction. My eyes began to burn and itch and I wished I had some Visine AC to stop that feeling. It was so irritating that I decided to buy some. As I was getting in the car and while driving to the store, I was given the thought that it was not the cigarette smoke that caused the itching. I accepted that thought and more was revealed.

I saw that as the smoke had drifted to me, I had judged the smoker and felt resentment.  As soon as I realized that it was not anything outside me that caused the problem, but the thoughts in my mind that once again made the physical discomfort, the itching stopped. Changing the mind can be like a runner going full out and suddenly stopping. She does not just stop on a dime, but perhaps skids to a stop.

I let the realization that once again I had done this to myself roll around in my mind for awhile. I considered that maybe I was wrong and if I didn’t buy the Visine, it would start again. This is the ego mind arguing for its way. It wants to defend against the world and is adamant about that. I bought the Visine but by the time I got home I knew I didn’t need it. It has never been opened.

I see very clearly through these practices that it is essential that I understand that there is a difference in what is made and what is created. Anything that is made, the body for instance, has no creative ability. The body cannot make pain or disease, or discomfort, and since none of those things are creations, they are not real either.

The body nor the effects I experience in the body are real. They cannot be real because they are not part of creation. They are all the effects of a mind that has distorted reality to suit its purpose. Since the effects are not real, it can affect me only if I choose to believe in it. Now that I am accepting the Atonement, I am letting go of my perverse desire to twist reality into something unrecognizable as love. I am starting to see this healed perspective reflected in my world.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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