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Study of the Text 8-8-13

IV. This Need Not Be, Paragraph
8-9-13

7 The habit of engaging with God and His creations is easily made if you actively refuse to let your mind slip away. The problem is not one of concentration; it is the belief that no one, including yourself, is worth consistent effort. Side with me consistently against this deception, and do not permit this shabby belief to pull you back. The disheartened are useless to themselves and to me, but only the ego can be disheartened.

I remember what it feels like to be disheartened, and I remember it because occasionally my mind goes back to that state. I have a hard time letting go of some grievance, and after trying a few times and failing I begin to feel disheartened. I begin to feel like I can’t do this and there is a part of mind, familiar with this feeling, that says its no use. This is the part of my mind that used to believe I wasn’t worth the trouble.

I approached a customer about buying a new product that he needs for his water system and I am pretty sure that I failed to explain myself clearly. I sense that I did not gain his confidence and that he may not buy it or may buy it from someone else who inspires his confidence. Every time I think about this I feel guilty and fearful. I did not do a good job for my company or my customer. I feel like I have been doing this job for a long time now, and I should not have made this error. I feel bad about myself.

I knew that I was not thinking clearly and that my thinking was not in alignment with God’s Will. I knew this from the very beginning, but knowing this didn’t seem to help me let go of the thought that I was guilty for my failure. I have tried and failed to forgive myself. I feel like I have failed both as a sales person and as a spiritual student. This morning, I noticed the feeling is still popping up, but I noticed two other things.

I noticed that while I feel frustrated, and while the ego wants me to feel disheartened, and to give up, that is not happening. Instead, I am following those feelings and noticing the thoughts that create them. In so doing, I have realized that I became confused about what I was forgiving. The fact is that I might have failed to do my job in the way I thought I should. That is the only fact in this story and I am not sure that it is true. It is too early to tell.

Everything else about the story is something I made up. It is the ego interpretation of what the situation means. The ego says that if I did fail to make the sale it means I am unworthy and guilty. This interpretation is not in alignment with the Will of God. And it is this interpretation that I forgive. I accept the Atonement instead. I allow the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the belief that convincing my customer to buy from me is what makes me worthy and failing to do this makes me unworthy.

The same is true about the feeling that taking days to come to this conclusion makes me an unworthy student of the Course. If it took me the rest of my life to let this go and accept the truth in its place, my reality would remain unaffected by that. I would still be innocent. I would still be exactly as God created me. In other words, and this is the second thing I realized, only the ego can feel disheartened and I am not the ego.

I stand outside these feelings that come and go and are based on mistaken beliefs, and am untouched by them. I see that the ego is disheartened and I realize that there are beliefs in the mind that need to be healed, but I also see that I am not the ego and I have nothing to fear because I belong to God. As my mind clears of its confusion, I am filled with gratitude. I am grateful I stuck with it and did not allow myself to succumb to the ego desire to give up. I am grateful for the clarity. I am grateful to let this craziness be undone for me and for all of us.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 8-7-13

IV. This Need Not Be, Paragraph 6
8-7-13
6 Watch your mind for the temptations of the ego, and do not be deceived by it. It offers you nothing. When you have given up this voluntary dis-spiriting, you will see how your mind can focus and rise above fatigue and heal. Yet you are not sufficiently vigilant against the demands of the ego to disengage yourself. This need not be.

Over time I have been vigilant for the ego beliefs I still hold in my mind, and I am becoming more and more willing to let them go realizing they cannot be true. This has been quite a job! I keep finding layers and layers of belief. For instance, I have learned that I can do this writing in the mornings without worrying about the time. Jesus said he will take care of time for me and so I allow him to do so. It is such a relief not to be constantly watching the clock and worrying about time. The ego keeps trying to drag me back into the fear of time passing too quickly, but I remind myself that Jesus has got this.

Recently, I was worried about time because I was moving too slowly getting ready for work, getting distracted by things, many unimportant. I had the thought that I could give time to Jesus in this case as well, but didn’t do it. I felt that gentle tap on my shoulder and stopped to question my decision. Why not give all my time to Jesus and trust that it will be manipulated to my advantage?

As I watched my mind I saw that I felt like it would be wrong, because I could take care of this by myself if I just tried. I felt like I didn’t deserve help because I was goofing off. I felt like I deserved help while doing my writing because the work itself made me worthy. I questioned these thoughts and opened my mind to the Holy Spirit. He reminded me that I am not worthy because I do something and I am not unworthy because I do something else.

He asked me to imagine a world where I drifted through life without concern because I knew I belonged to God. I try to imagine that. I try to see myself looking at the clock and instead of being afraid, simply knowing that everything will work perfectly for me, not because I did something to deserve it, but because it is God’s Will that I be perfectly protected at all times. Could it be that I never have anything to fear unless I choose to believe in fear? Truly, am I volunteering to live in fear?

Living by the ego’s dictates is dispiriting. It wears me out and leaves me limp and listless at the end of the day, and that end comes earlier and earlier. I am willing to know that this need not be. As I wrote this the Holy Spirit spoke to me about another layer I had missed.

Holy Spirit: Dear one, you have heard Me when I spoke to you about fatigue and its cause. You understand that you become tired, not because the body wears out or because of lack of sleep, but because the mind engaged with ego beliefs and fears drains you of joy and robs you of peace. You have been very vigilant for the many opportunities to see this in your life, and you have taken advantage of these opportunities to let go of many of these beliefs.

What you have not seen is that you still believe that the failure to do this perfectly means you must accept the consequences of being dispirited and fatigued. This is not so. Could it ever be the Will of your Father that you suffer? You have glimpsed what I am saying to you, because you have asked me to help you see this differently, but then you allow the ego to persuade you to guilt and fall back into exhaustion. You but do this to yourself, my friend.

Let me tell you clearly, this need not be. When your day begins to wind down and you start to feel tiredness and discouragement in your mind, ask Me to intervene. I will undo this feeling for you if that is your choice. Already you have begun to see this differently and now you sometimes make a deliberate choice to focus on gratitude instead of fear and guilt.

Listen closely to what I say to you right now. You can do this every time. You can choose healing, gratitude, and joy every single day. At no time is it necessary that you indulge the ego and fall listlessly into your chair or enter sleep in a discouraged state. Joy is not something you earn. It is your right and nothing you do or fail to do can strip you of that right. Joy is yours simply for the asking. Ask Me to heal your mind when you think otherwise. It is My delight to do so.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 8-6-13

IV. This Need Not Be Paragraph 5
8-6-13

5 When you feel guilty, remember that the ego has indeed violated the laws of God, but you have not. Leave the “sins” of the ego to me. That is what Atonement is for. But until you change your mind about those whom your ego has hurt, the Atonement cannot release you. While you feel guilty your ego is in command, because only the ego can experience guilt. This need not be.

Earlier in the Text, Jesus said that I could entrust my ego to him, and now he is telling me to leave the “sins” of the ego to him. This is why he made the Atonement, to wipe out the sins of the ego. I’m reminded of when I was Catholic and every week I would go to confession. The idea of confession is that you tell the priest what you did wrong, he gives you a little punishment to Atone for your wrong doing, and after its complete you leave knowing you are alright with God again.

The Atonement process is a little different though. I tell the Holy Spirit what it is that I think I did wrong and He tells me nothing happened and that I am still innocent. As I become open to forgiveness without blame, guilt or punishment, and as I begin to truly want to change my mind about this, it is done.

I’ll make a little confession now. I hated going to confession. Even though they were relatively minor in nature, I dreaded laying out all my sins to the priest. I hated being judged and I felt small and sinful every time. I felt so much relief at it being over that I gladly did my penance, and I did feel some relief to know that I was once again sinless. The priest always ended the session with the words, “Go and sin no more,” and I felt guilty because I knew I would sin again, and hopeless because I would never live up to that admonition. I felt like a fraud accepting my forgiveness.

That is where the Atonement is different. I am not going to the Holy Spirit with a behavior and telling Him I am sorry I did it and want to be forgiven for my sin. I am talking to Him about my behavior and asking Him to show me what it is I believe that caused me to act like that. Then I am asking Him to correct my thinking and heal my mind so that the incorrect thought will no longer inform my behavior.

The Holy Spirit offers me the healing I want. If I want the grievance more than I want to be at peace, more than I want to awaken, that desire creates a block that prevents the correction from taking place. If I don’t really want the healing yet, it waits for me until I change my mind. There is no sense of being judged and there is no penance because I was already innocent when I called on His help. The ego does sin, but I am not the ego and that is what I am ultimately learning through this healing process. That is why the Atonement doesn’t correct behavior but heals the mind that thinks it is that behavior.

The Holy Spirit is not wiping out my sins, He is wiping out the belief I could sin. I cannot accept this correction if I am attached to my grievance. As long as I still project onto the one I have a grievance against, the Holy Spirit cannot show me I am guiltless. My desire to make the other guilty holds the belief in guilt in place and keeps me from believing in the truth of innocence. As long as I feel guilty I know that I have not accepted the Atonement, but I also know that it is mine when I am ready for it.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 8-5-13

IV. This Need Not Be Paragraphs 3,4
8-5-13
3 When you are sad, know this need not be. Depression comes from a sense of being deprived of something you want and do not have. Remember that you are deprived of nothing except by your own decisions, and then decide otherwise.

I used to be depressed pretty much all the time, but A Course in Miracles changed that for me. The more I practiced the Course the less I experienced depression until one day I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I was depressed. Once in a while I will suddenly feel sad or mentally tired, but when I do I realize that I have made a choice for sadness and I ask for help.

Here is what I discovered about sadness. I don’t get rid of it by trying to not think sad thoughts. I get rid of it by realizing that I am deliberately choosing to think sad thoughts and then asking the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the belief that those thoughts could be true. The result is often immediate, and if it is not I know that I still find some value in my belief and I ask for clarity.

In every case I see that I feel deprived. I think I need something I don’t have. For instance, maybe I feel lonely and think I need someone to be with me. I am one with all there is. How could I feel alone? Alone is a word, a state of being, a feeling that I made up. It is not possible for me to be alone. To feel alone requires that I suspend reality. Loneliness is not something that just happens to me, it requires my active participation. In order to feel lonely, I must decide to feel lonely and then I must be vigilant against the truth in order to have that experience.

All that is required to stop feeling lonely is to no longer want that feeling. Having made that choice a number of times I am very familiar with the process and something I noticed is that the more I do it the more aware I am of the any resistance to letting it go. I have seen my mind argue for the loneliness. Now that I have seen my resistance I understand that I did, after all, make the choice for sadness. Once seen, it is easier to choose differently.

4 When you are anxious, realize that anxiety comes from the capriciousness of the ego, and know this need not be. You can be as vigilant against the ego’s dictates as for them.

Anxiety is a choice I still make, and more often than I do for sadness. But like sadness, anxiety requires my full cooperation. First I have to leave the present. Anxiety occurs when mentally I am in the past or in the future. If I am thinking about the past I go over my old stories and try to rewrite them. It is like the past wasn’t bad enough the first time and I have to go back and relive it. It’s like self-torture. This could only happen because I want it to.

When I dwell mentally in the future I imagine possible stories that I could write. It seems they all lead to anxiety, even when they start off as pleasant stories. For instance, I used to fantasize about winning the lottery and imagine what I would do with all that money. Inevitably I would run into trouble in my stories. I would become anxious about how I would divide it up and what if I squandered it or what if my wealth changed my relationships with my family. There was often an uncomfortable element to those fantasies.

I have a workshop to present in Arkansas later this month. Sometimes when I think about the workshop I feel anxious. What if I don’t do a good job? What if something goes wrong? The ego mind starts thinking of ways to prevent disaster. I should stop what I am doing and make plans, prepare talks, whatever it can think of to fix this problem. In actuality there is no problem, but if I stay with the ego thinking, I will believe in the problem and will be very uncomfortable no matter what I decide to do.

The ego mind is always going to create stories that bring us discomfort because its stories are always about separation so they are based on fear and fueled by guilt. But they are all just stories. Nothing is happening. Yet the ego cannot let the mind be still because it is afraid that in the stillness we will discover the truth about the ego and make that final choice for reality. So it keeps the stories coming. When I notice that I am feeling anxiety, I do the same thing I have done for sadness. I realize that I am choosing anxiety and make another choice. I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the beliefs that are driving the anxiety.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 8-2-13

IV. This Need Not Be Paragraph 2 Part 2
8-2-13
2 I have said that you cannot change your mind by changing your behavior, but I have also said, and many times, that you can change your mind. When your mood tells you that you have chosen wrongly, and this is so whenever you are not joyous, then know this need not be. In every case you have thought wrongly about some brother God created, and are perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass. Think honestly what you have thought that God would not have thought, and what you have not thought that God would have you think. Search sincerely for what you have done and left undone accordingly, and then change your mind to think with God’s. This may seem hard to do, but it is much easier than trying to think against it. Your mind is one with God’s. Denying this and thinking otherwise has held your ego together, but has literally split your mind. As a loving brother I am deeply concerned with your mind, and urge you to follow my example as you look at yourself and at your brother, and see in both the glorious creations of a glorious Father.

As Jesus has already told us, and will tell us many times in the Course, it is our mind that must be changed. He is really emphasizing this now, telling us that because he loves us he is deeply concerned with our mind. Another thing that he tells us all through the Course is that we must see both our self and our brother differently, and as one. We are all glorious creations!

Last night I spoke to a group of people who had a problem they wanted me to solve or to at least give them good advice on how to solve it. I felt very competent to do this and I knew that we both shared the same intent. As a sales person I used to think that my job was to convince people to buy my product and I measured success and failure against that scale. This is not true anymore. Now I know that my job is to be helpful in whatever way I can.

So when I got to the Board meeting I felt very happy to be there. They had a problem and they needed more information and I had information and wanted to help them solve their problem. It felt like joining. I understand that solving their problem will not help us wake up, but coming together with a shared intent, will. The answer to separation is joining and the form joining takes is irrelevant. 

When I left I felt good for both of us. I felt love for them and felt like I had been helpful. But the ego mind was all over the place. It kept replaying the meeting over and over and then it started critiquing it and making judgments. Soon it led to concerns and doubts and even fear. It all happened very quickly and while I saw it happening, I seemed helpless to stop it.

My joy and my peace were gone as soon as I started paying attention to the ego thinking. I brought my mind back to sanity over and over as I reminded myself that I had one purpose and that was to be helpful so I succeeded. I reminded myself that getting a sale is not my purpose and that waking up is. I asked myself what it is that I am thinking that God would not think, and what I was failing to think that God would think. I examined my thoughts carefully as I made this evaluation and it helped me to see more clearly.

These and other reminders helped but I had the thought that it should not be so hard to do this. I felt like I should be able to move out of this conflicted thinking more easily and with less suffering. It could not be God’s Will that I suffer in order to wake up, so I must be doing this with the ego. It was then that I had one of those remarkable moments when I was given a thought that clearly did not come from my own thinking mind. I was pointed to gratitude.

As soon as I accepted this direction gratitude welled up in me. I allowed myself to bathe in that feeling and to enjoy the gratitude. I encouraged the feeling of gratitude as I began thanking God for His help. As soon as I did this I noticed how good it felt and how peaceful I became. So every time the ego would try to distract me with more worry thoughts, I returned to gratitude. I fell asleep last night with a smile on my face.

It is up to me to change my mind, but I am never alone in this. I have help outside the closed system of ego thinking which will just run me in endless depressing circles if I let it. I decide that I don’t want to remain confused and I surrender to my Helper, and whatever I need to help me change my mind is provided. I don’t have to figure it out on my own or do something to deserve it. I just have to want it. I have to want to awaken more than I want anything else. 

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 8-1-13

IV. This Need Not Be Paragraph 2
8-1-13
2 I have said that you cannot change your mind by changing your behavior, but I have also said, and many times, that you can change your mind. When your mood tells you that you have chosen wrongly, and this is so whenever you are not joyous, then know this need not be. In every case you have thought wrongly about some brother God created, and are perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass. Think honestly what you have thought that God would not have thought, and what you have not thought that God would have you think. Search sincerely for what you have done and left undone accordingly, and then change your mind to think with God’s. This may seem hard to do, but it is much easier than trying to think against it. Your mind is one with God’s. Denying this and thinking otherwise has held your ego together, but has literally split your mind. As a loving brother I am deeply concerned with your mind, and urge you to follow my example as you look at yourself and at your brother, and see in both the glorious creations of a glorious Father.

Oh, there is lots of good stuff in this paragraph! Jesus has already established that it is not the world that we need to change but out mind. This is emphasized when he says we cannot change our mind by changing our behavior. Here is an example I can think of. Even after I divorced my husband he was still very much a part of my life as my children’s father and because we worked together at the same company. So I still had to deal with him and many of the same issues I had hoped to escape through the divorce.

I soon realized that you can divorce a partner, but not the relationship and I did eventually do the work to heal that relationship. In doing so, I tried treating him like the child of God he is, but inevitably, my true feelings would surface and an argument or harsh words would be the result. What happened to change this situation is that through doing the vigilant work of mind watching and asking for the Atonement in this situation, I eventually began to really want that healing and so accepted the Atonement.

I changed my mind about that man and realized that he is the Son of God. Now I was not acting like he was God’s child, but I knew he was that holy one, and there were no more slip ups. I knew this had to be done because I was not happy when I was around him and when I thought of him or remembered situations from the past. I would become angry or sad, and often guilty. Jesus says to watch our mood and when it is not joyous then know this need not be.

Jesus says that if I am experiencing feelings that are not joyous then I need to search my mind for dark thoughts about my brother. My experience has been that this means I have found someone guilty, and I believe my judgment. Sometimes it is me and sometimes it is someone else. At first I didn’t always recognize the dark thoughts for what they were. This happened when my sister in law was sick and I was worried.

Worrying about my sister in law when she was sick, at first glance, seems like love, but I learned that it is not really love, but an attack. I believed in her sickness which means I was attacking her invulnerability. This is a different way to think and has taken some practice on my part just to be aware of what I am doing. Now I see that she believes in her sickness and I still believe in it sometimes, but I also know that we can change our mind. I work on keeping an eye on my thoughts so that I will know when I need to ask for help. I accept the Atonement for myself in this situation, and I ask for the Atonement on her behalf as well.

I think I will come back to this paragraph tomorrow and ask for more clarity. I feel very grateful for what Jesus has given us and for Holy Spirit’s help in understanding.

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