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Study of the Text 3-29-13

3-29-13
8 The innocence of God is the true state of the mind of His Son. In this state your mind knows God, for God is not symbolic; He is Fact. Knowing His Son as he is, you realize that the Atonement, not sacrifice, is the only appropriate gift for God’s altar, where nothing except perfection belongs. The understanding of the innocent is truth. That is why their altars are truly radiant.

I am innocent because God is innocent. As I begin to believe in my innocence, I know God. Often I say that my true desire is to know God, so here is the way it happens. I know myself as innocent and then I know God. I am really drawn to the next part of the sentence. …God is not symbolic; He is Fact. I don’t have anything to say about that, I just feel good when I think about it.

The thing I am happy to know as I read this paragraph is that I am innocent, that God does not want my sacrifice and that what He does want instead, is that I accept the Atonement. This is so simple and so possible that I feel elated when I think about it. I am happy at the thought that all day today, I am going to watch for the opportunity to accept the Atonement in whatever situations arise.

I do realize that there is a part of my mind that simply does not believe in my innocence. This part of the mind (the ego) is convinced that I am very guilty and that my only chance of survival is to avoid God. When my focus is on this part of the mind, I believe in my guilt and it can be hard to let that belief go. In a weird circular way, it seems like my guilt is the only thing protecting me from an angry, vengeful God. If I don’t feel guilty, the ego says, I will foolishly turn to God and He will destroy me.

If the ego would only use these words, I would easily turn from the guilt because it makes no sense. But that’s not the way it happens. I feel a surge of anger when someone offends me in some way. I feel guilty for the anger and I feel guilty that I felt offense in the first place. The whole situation makes me feel guilty and so the ego confirms my guilt.

As I continue to take these thoughts and situations to the Holy Spirit and become willing to accept the Atonement, my mind clears. I realize that guilt is in my mind and is then projected outward as a story of Myron being offended and feeling righteous anger. I feel all of the anger and guilt melt away and I know that nothing really happened.

Guilt, which does not exist, was projected onto a world that does not exist. The person I accused is innocent. I am innocent. We are innocent because nothing happened. Nothing could happen because we are innocent. We are innocent because God is innocent and He created us like Himself. This is where the Atonement brings me every time.

I have been writing about how I am learning that pain is not real and neither are suffering and death. This is still an idea that I am working with. I accept the Atonement each time I feel pain or suffer or believe in death. I keep placing these beliefs on the altar. I keep asking for the Atonement and accepting it to the degree I am able to do so at this time. I am chipping away at the belief and I am watching it crumble.

A few days ago it occurred to me that I can apply this same process to another stubborn belief. I have spent most of my adult life trying to control my weight. Just reading that sentence tells me where the problem lies. I am trying to control the body as if I were it’s victim and as if the body had a mind of it’s own that was in opposition to mine. Well that’s pretty funny, but I still believe it. I know I believe it because I wrote that sentence.

I told the Holy Spirit that I was willing to accept the Atonement in this situation. I am willing to let go of the belief that I am a victim to this problem, and I am willing to let go of the idea there is a problem to begin with. I want to end this war with the body. I want to be healed. I approached this in the same way I do any false idea. I begin by accepting that I do not know what any of this means. I don’t know how it will unfold and what it should look like.

Then I pay close attention to my thoughts about it. I notice which thoughts are not true. (Most of them as it turns out) I ask for the Atonement. I ask that Love come into my mind and heal every error there. I give all the willingness I have to accept that healing. And so I chip away at a belief that has hardened in my mind over a life time. It is giving way.

The surprises: I have so much guilt around the idea of body weight and seem to be willing to believe this guilt is real. I believe that God will ask for a sacrifice for this healing, that he will ask me to give up my hope for a slim body. I bargain with him as I agree to a bigger but not biggest body. Jeez. I have to be honest. I am not only surprised, but somewhat discouraged to find these thoughts in my mind.

Another very stubborn false belief is that food, which doesn’t really exist, can affect the body, which doesn’t really exist, in ways that the mind does not want, and that the mind has little control over the choices being made. Really? The mind is victim to the body’s appetites? I cannot control the mind’s decisions about food choices? Who is this “I” and how could it be that “I” have no control over my choices? This is so crazy I can hardly believe that I believe these things, and yet as I watch my mind, I see that it is true.

The ego says that this is just too confusing and too hard. It counsels me to just let it all go and return to dieting. I have a really good handle on dieting after all these years and I should stick with what works. But I am not listening to the ego. This is not confusing and it is not hard. The only thing that is happening is that I am believing a bunch of untrue thoughts. The solution is the Atonement. I have accepted the Atonement before and I know how to do this and am convinced that it works. I feel so happy and so free when I accept the Atonement that I am highly motivated. In fact, I am excited for another opportunity to remember my innocence.

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Study of the Text 3-28-13

3-28-13
7 The Atonement itself radiates nothing but truth. It therefore epitomizes harmlessness and sheds only blessing. It could not do this if it arose from anything but perfect innocence. Innocence is wisdom because it is unaware of evil, and evil does not exist. It is, however, perfectly aware of everything that is true. The resurrection demonstrated that nothing can destroy truth. Good can withstand any form of evil, as light abolishes forms of darkness. The Atonement is therefore the perfect lesson. It is the final demonstration that all the other lessons I taught are true. If you can accept this one generalization now, there will be no need to learn from many smaller lessons. You are released from all errors if you believe this.

Something is happening as I practice accepting the Atonement. It began with the day I truly surrendered to the Atonement. I stood with arms outstretched and welcomed Love into my heart and asked it to heal all it found there. Gently, but steadily, the feeling I experienced at that moment has deepened. Now when I invite that healing power I cry, sometimes uncontrollably. I don’t know what that means exactly, but I suppose it will be revealed in it perfect timing as always.

The Atonement is truth and innocence. It is the only thing here that is real, and it is unaffected by our illusions. It doesn’t acknowledge anything that is not real and so it is like a light being switched on in a dark room. All that is not light simply is not there anymore. And this is exactly what it feels like when I accept the Atonement in a particular situation. A light goes on and all my dark thoughts are gone.

For a couple of days now I have had judgmental thoughts about someone. I went through the usual nonsense of pushing the thoughts away, trying not to notice them. Then when this did not work, I asked for healing, but the problem didn’t seem that urgent as no one was being affected by my unexpressed thoughts. Well, no one but me, but I was pretending that wasn’t happening.

Finally, this morning when I sat down to do today’s study, I asked Jesus to be with me, to tell me what he wanted me to know from this paragraph. He pointed me toward that judgmental thought I had been trying to ignore. Once again I made a half-hearted attempt to let it go, that is I tried to let it go through my own efforts. I saw that this was not working. (Big surprise, there.) So I told Jesus that I could not do this myself and needed help.

I said, “Here I am God. I think this person is guilty. I open my heart to you. Please send Your Love into my heart and heal the guilt that is there.” I noticed that as I envisioned the person I was projecting guilt onto, I felt a heavy sadness to see what I was doing to this dear brother. Once again, I cried as the light shown away the dark thoughts of guilt. It was instant and complete.

When I notice a thought that is not true I try to trivialize it if possible, pretending that it is a small unimportant matter. Then I try to bat it away, to bury it more deeply in my mind where I won’t notice it, or to throw it out of my mind onto someone else so it will seem as if it is no longer mine. But there is no violence in the Atonement. It does not fight back evil. It simply radiates truth and innocence, and it is mine for the asking. Well, actually, it is mine for the acceptance.

First I notice the Atonement is needed. Then I ask for the Atonement. But then, I must accept it. Sometimes I take the first two steps, call it a day and walk away from it. Then I wonder why this problem keeps coming back. ~smile~ This practice of accepting the Atonement is leading me to total acceptance. Jesus says this:

If you can accept this one generalization now, there will be no need to learn from many smaller lessons.

So the daily practice is helping me to generalize the lesson. I am learning that the Atonement is the solution provided by Jesus so that we can all join him in awakening. Through using the Atonement every chance I get I am learning that it works and nothing else does. I am being awakened to the memory of peace and love and joy. At some point, the lesson will be generalized and when this happens, it is done. There will be no more small lessons because I will be released from all errors.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 3-27-13

3-27-13
6 Innocence is incapable of sacrificing anything, because the innocent mind has everything and strives only to protect its wholeness. It cannot project. It can only honor other minds, because honor is the natural greeting of the truly loved to others who are like them. The lamb “taketh away the sins of the world” in the sense that the state of innocence, or grace, is one in which the meaning of the Atonement is perfectly apparent. The Atonement is entirely unambiguous. It is perfectly clear because it exists in light. Only the attempts to shroud it in darkness have made it inaccessible to those who do not choose to see.

This morning as I began this meditative experience, Jesus showed me how pervasive guilt is in my mind. I felt really tired last night and I overslept this morning. When I woke up I was concerned about getting this meditation done and posting it, and still getting to work at a reasonable time. I remembered that time is no more real than anything else and that Jesus knows how to manipulate time, so I gave it to him.

I still felt kind of tired and so I was moving slowly, and I was easily distracted. I took time to read about the Supreme Court considerations of gay marriage and checked out Facebook. Suddenly I realized that it was really late and I had a moment of panic. I read the paragraph for today which talks about guilt.

I wanted to accept Jesus’ help with the time thing because I really was behind now, but I noticed that I hesitated. When I looked at the hesitation, I saw that I felt guilty for getting distracted and wasting time. My guilt said that I did not deserve help because I goofed off instead of getting right to work. And yet, I cannot be guilty, can I? So I asked for the Atonement and suddenly, my asking was very emotional.

I started crying as I asked that my heart be cleaned of the ugly stain of guilt. I know it is of my own making, that God has never called me guilty. It seems like such a little thing, but feeling guilty for spending too much time on Facebook is just a small expression of a huge fear. It is guilt itself leaving a little tiny footprint.

I am not actually asking that the footprint be wiped cleaned. I am asking for the Atonement for guilt itself. My willingness allowed me to see the footprints guilt left behind all day yesterday and I saw the many ways I projected that guilt and fear onto others. No wonder I was so exhausted when I went to bed, and no wonder I woke up tired. I had failed to acknowledge the guilt and fear, and so did not ask for healing.

When I accepted the Atonement this morning, the reason I cried was because I suddenly saw how I had darkened the beauty of my soul with guilt. I did it when I claimed guilt for myself and when I projected guilt onto others. It felt incredibly sad to me in that moment. It also feels like some of the tears are tears of relief because I am not without help.

I cried from gratitude as I realized that Jesus is with me, very literally, and answers me when I call. I can make myself feel guilty and look guilty, but I cannot change my reality. I am innocent. Through the Atonement, the Lamb took away my “sins” so that I could feel my innocence.

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Study of the Text 3-26-13

3-26-13

5 I have been correctly referred to as “the lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world,” but those who represent the lamb as blood-stained do not understand the meaning of the symbol. Correctly understood, it is a very simple symbol that speaks of my innocence. The lion and the lamb lying down together symbolize that strength and innocence are not in conflict, but naturally live in peace. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” is another way of saying the same thing. A pure mind knows the truth and this is its strength. It does not confuse destruction with innocence because it associates innocence with strength, not with weakness.

This idea that strength and innocence are not in conflict took me a long time to understand and accept. I used to keep a picture of the lion and lamb lying together because I wanted that to be true and I wanted to believe it. But my mind was steeped in fear and I could not let go of the idea that if the lamb was going to hang out with the lion he had better get some body armor and a good sharp sword.

I finally understand now that it is the belief that I am guilty and not innocent that makes me think I am weak and need protection. As I have been learning to allow the guilty beliefs to be healed, I have also let go of the need to defend myself. Here is an example of this. Sometimes when I am doing this writing, something comes through that is not at my level of understanding I feel afraid and defenseless.

In other words, Jesus tells me something I didn’t get from my current understanding of the Course and I am afraid to write it. I do write it down because I have come to trust the Voice within, but I feel a little thrill of fear each time. This is because I am afraid of getting it wrong. I am afraid of being called out on it. It is not a strong fear anymore, but just a shadow of an old fear that used to be strong. In fact it is just a whisper of a fear now, but I still hear the warning voice in my head.

When I used to be very afraid, I felt like I was the metaphoric lamb and the other students of the Course represented the lion. I felt like they would read what I wrote and would “eat me alive” as the lion would the lamb. Or more realistically, would think or say that I was wrong, arrogant, a failed Course student, all the things I sometimes thought about myself. (Projection, right?)

Because of my fear, I would sometimes spend a lot of time trying to find passages in the Course that supported what I said. I would worry over it and argue with myself about posting it. I would doubt myself and think I should just delete the part I didn’t get through my study, but was just given to me. All these things were the weapons of defense I thought I needed because I was guilty and would be found out and attacked for my guilt.

Now, I simply write what I get and enjoy the surprise. It might be that I don’t always get it exactly right, but that’s ok. I am not the sage with all the answers, but the student sharing with fellow students and learning right along with them. I might be criticized or doubted by some and that’s ok, too. It brings up all sorts of useful forgiveness lessons and this is something I welcome for all of us.

I can now lie with the lions and feel peaceful because I don’t feel guilty and don’t expect attack. If attack comes I know that it is a reflection of someone else’s fear and guilt and I know how that feels. If I do feel attacked and react to that attack, I am glad to know that there is something within my own mind that still needs healing. I cannot ask for healing if I don’t know the error is there. It’s all good.

 

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 3-25-13

3-25
4 Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God. It arises solely from fear, and frightened people can be vicious. Sacrificing in any way is a violation of my injunction that you should be merciful even as your Father in Heaven is merciful. It has been hard for many Christians to realize that this applies to themselves. Good teachers never terrorize their students. To terrorize is to attack, and this results in rejection of what the teacher offers. The result is learning failure.

God does not want our sacrifice. He doesn’t even know what sacrifice is. Here are some examples of ways that I have believed in sacrifice.

I want to pray that my friend recover from her sickness but then I question that. Maybe she has a lesson to learn and is supposed to be sick. When I ask Jesus about it I receive a thought questioning why I would think that God wants her pain and suffering. Sanity returns to my mind and I pray that her mind (along with mine) to be healed knowing that a healed mind projects a healed life.

It is not always so direct. My life is an expression of my wishes. When my body is in pain or is sick this is an expression of the need to suffer. I sacrifice through pain now so that later God will not hold my evil deeds against me. Suffering is a way of pushing away from God because I am afraid of Him. I say I am not afraid of God, but my life shows me otherwise.

I suffer when I feel unloved or unaccepted. I suffer when I perceive someone I love as endangered. I suffer when I worry about money. All of these forms of suffering represent an effort to appease an angry God. As I write this I want to argue against it, but I cannot come up with another reason that I would have these things in my life if this were not true. In several places in the Course Jesus says that we choose everything in our life.

• Remember always that you see what you seek, for what you seek you will find.
• As you look in, you choose the guide for seeing. And then you look out and behold its witnesses.
• No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes he wants. And no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all its details. Here is its whole reality for you.
• You made this up. It is a picture of what you think you are; of how you see yourself.
• “This is salvation’s keynote: What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one’s own.”
• You but do this to yourself.
• “From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him and find the way to Heaven and to God.”
• All forms of sickness, even unto death are physical expression of the fear of awakening.

My life, my whole world, is a projection of the beliefs in my mind. If my body or my relationships or my finances are in disarray then it can only be so because this is what I have secretly asked for. (It’s a secret because I am not so insane that I will admit I want pain so I pretend it happens because of someone or something else.)

The only reason to ask for things that hurt me and to populate my world with them is because I think I deserve punishment. My self-imposed guilt has me convinced that I must punish myself in the hopes of appeasing an angry God. Through my life I am basically saying to God, “Look how I suffer for you. Please don’t do anything worse. I have suffered enough, don’t you think?”

Here is the simple truth. God loves us. He does not see us as sinners. He does not believe in our illusions. He does not hold anything against us and does not want our sacrifice to make up for anything. God wants only our happiness. He wants only to love us. We have nothing to fear from God. When we know these things are true we will have banished fear from our minds and there will be nothing left to project except love.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 3-22-13

3-22-12
3 The statement “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” is a misperception by which one assigns his own “evil” past to God. The “evil” past has nothing to do with God. He did not create it and He does not maintain it. God does not believe in retribution. His Mind does not create that way. He does not hold your “evil” deeds against you. Is it likely that He would hold them against me? Be very sure that you recognize how utterly impossible this assumption is, and how entirely it arises from projection. This kind of error is responsible for a host of related errors, including the belief that God rejected Adam and forced him out of the Garden of Eden. It is also why you may believe from time to time that I am misdirecting you. I have made every effort to use words that are almost impossible to distort, but it is always possible to twist symbols around if you wish.

First I want to address the fact that Jesus is so clear in this paragraph that it is really impossible to misunderstand, and yet, I remember reading it the first time and doing just that. I was, of course, relieved to know that God does not hold my evil deeds against me, but I continued to believe he did. I continued to feel guilty for them. As it turns out it is not easy to let go of the old way of thinking. Guilt is such a persistent belief.

I wonder how many people on earth do not have at least an occasional thought that someone is guilty, either himself or herself or someone else. Who reads in the paper about some atrocity and doesn’t have a visceral reaction? If not that, who among us does not react to a personal attack as if it really is an attack and someone is guilty for it. My most persistent form of guilt has been for my own past actions.

Every fear I have of God is a projection from my own mind. It is not real because God is Love and nothing else. God cannot also be vengeful because Love is not vengeful. I hold the past against myself and others and then I project that feeling onto God in the assumption that God is like this illusion I think of as “me”. I pray, sincerely, to be healed of this mistaken idea. Let me remember that it is insane that God become like me, but rather that I am like God. Any thought, word, or action that seems to refute this must be an illusion.

As I am like God, it is impossible that I be vengeful except in my dream of separation, and even here it cannot really happen; I can only pretend it could happen. This is all that is going on in the world. I pretend to be something I could never be. Is God angry about this? Is He disappointed in me? He cannot be either of these things. He can only Love me because there is nothing in God except love.

Here is the way I am unlearning these crazy things I have taught myself. When I read about some people being shot in a drive-by, I watched the judgments in my mind. I didn’t try to undo the judgments or change my mind in any way. I just acknowledged them. Then I realized that they could not be true and I opened my mind and heart to Love. I asked that I be healed of these beliefs. I keep doing this every time I notice the opportunity.

As my mind heals of the belief in guilt, retribution, vengeance, and any other feelings arising from the belief in guilt will naturally fall away and love will be all that is left. There will be nothing to project onto God and so there will be nothing to fear from God. This is the path Home. It is an easy path, with many simple steps. It is well marked and our Guide never leaves our side. We have many mighty companions who help us each step of the way. We can wander away for a bit, we can stand in place, but we cannot go backward and we cannot lose our way, nor can we fail to reach the end.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 3-21-13

3-21-13

2 The best defense, as always, is not to attack another’s position, but rather to protect the truth. It is unwise to accept any concept if you have to invert a whole frame of reference in order to justify it. This procedure is painful in its minor applications and genuinely tragic on a wider scale. Persecution frequently results in an attempt to “justify” the terrible misperception that God Himself persecuted His Own Son on behalf of salvation. The very words are meaningless. It has been particularly difficult to overcome this because, although the error itself is no harder to correct than any other, many have been unwilling to give it up in view of its prominent value as a defense. In milder forms a parent says, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” and feels exonerated in beating a child. Can you believe our Father really thinks this way? It is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled that we must be sure that nothing of this kind remains in your mind. I was not “punished” because you were bad. The wholly benign lesson the Atonement teaches is lost if it is tainted with this kind of distortion in any form.

Everything in the Course teaches us that God is Love and so are we. It teaches us that God loves us and does not want us to suffer, and in fact wants only our happiness. It teaches us that we are one with each other and with God and that everything to the contrary is an illusion of our own making. The Course teaches us that to experience this we only need to let go of our illusion. It even tells us how to do this.

We can’t believe that Jesus was punished for our sins and still believe what he is telling us in A Course in Miracles. Either his death has been completely misunderstood or what he has told us in the Course is wrong. The desire to hold onto this idea of Jesus dying for our sins is representative of our desire to justify holding onto some of the illusion while letting the rest go, and is why we experience the process as hard.

Jesus gives the example of using his death as justification for beating a child. If our Heavenly Father killed His son to atone for our sins, then it makes perfect since to believe it’s alright to beat a misbehaving child. I see that this kind of thinking shows up in my life in many ways. I want to let go of the illusion of separation and return my mind to God, but it seems I want to retain my “right” to punish myself and others.

As I was writing about beating a child, I thought about an instance when I lost my temper and slapped my daughter. Just thinking about this I felt so guilty and so regretful that I cried. Even after all these years I had not allowed this guilt to be healed because I didn’t feel worthy of forgiveness. I have been holding onto the idea of condemnation and punishment for just these kinds of things.

I have learned to civilize my behavior so I seldom act on my angry thoughts, but the thoughts are still there sometimes. Any time I think someone should have acted differently, I have silently condemned them, and in my mind I have punished them. The punishment might even show up in our life. I might punish them by avoiding them, for instance.

In the scheme of things it doesn’t seem like much, but in judging this person and finding him guilty and deserving of punishment I have rejected everything the Course is teaching me. I have rejected my true Self, my Oneness, my unity with my brothers and with God. In short, I have said that I choose not to accept my self as Love because it would mean that I would have to be one with this person who just doesn’t meet my standards.

It would also mean that I cannot accept God Who is Love and Who knows nothing of condemnation or punishment. However, if I can say that God punished His Son with death, then this makes it easier to justify my own judgments. This is why Jesus says that we must get rid of any belief that we still hold about his death being a punishment.

To return to God, we must let go of the idea of guilt, blame and punishment; even of death. These are things we made up as part of the separation idea. They didn’t exist before we made them and they do not truly exist now. They have nothing to do with God and nothing to do with reality.

It is not that we have to forgive a guilty behavior, but that we have to forgive the very idea of guilt. Yes, we practice this by forgiving people, ourselves, and situations. We do this by forgiving one guilty thought at a time, because we must start someplace. But in doing this practice we are simply allowing our mind to adjust to the truth that guilt itself is unreal and so there is nothing to forgive.

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