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Study of the Text, The Lessons of Love: Introduction, Paragraph 2. 10-21-13

The Lessons of Love: Introduction, Paragraph 2
2 You have been asked to take me as your model for learning, since an extreme example is a particularly helpful learning device. Everyone teaches, and teaches all the time. This is a responsibility you inevitably assume the moment you accept any premise at all, and no one can organize his life without some thought system. Once you have developed a thought system of any kind, you live by it and teach it. Your capacity for allegiance to a thought system may be misplaced, but it is still a form of faith and can be redirected.

This is the sentence that stands out for me: Everyone teaches, and teaches all the time. Understanding that this is true, I want to always teach for God, but since I teach all the time, the only way to always teach for God is to always think only the thoughts that I think with God. If I am thinking about how angry I am with someone, or if I am blaming someone for something, this is what I am teaching. I am teaching anger and blame. If I am worrying about money or running out of time, I am teaching lack and loss.

I stay aware of my emotions and my thoughts and this lets me know what I believe. I can say the words that I am responsible for my world, but if I am angry that my neighbors trash blew into my yard, then I know that I am not taking responsibility for my world no matter what I think I say or what I think I believe. My anger tells me that I am upset and assigning the reason for the upset to my neighbor tells me that I think that neighbor is the cause of my upset.

If I bring the problem with the neighbor to my ego mind, it will prove to me that I am right to be angry. It will offer to protect me by having a discussion with my neighbor. Since I have a spiritual ego, it will think of words to make my neighbor feel guilty that sound “nice.” But the anger and blame are there and that is what I will be teaching.

Even if I chose to pick up the trash and not confront the neighbor in any way, I would still be teaching anger and blame if those beliefs are in my mind. I would be teaching it to myself. I will be reinforcing a wrong-minded thought and making it even more real, and so harder to let go. The only way not to teach anger and blame is to accept the Atonement for the belief that someone is guilty. From a healed mind I will hear the Holy Spirit’s guidance about what to say, if anything. And with my mind healed of the belief that I am victim to my neighbor, I will be at peace.

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Study of the Text Chapter 6: The Lessons of Love, Introduction

Chapter 6: THE LESSONS OF LOVE
Introduction
1 The relationship of anger to attack is obvious, but the relationship of anger to fear is not always so apparent. Anger always involves projection of separation, which must ultimately be accepted as one’s own responsibility, rather than being blamed on others. Anger cannot occur unless you believe that you have been attacked, that your attack is justified in return, and that you are in no way responsible for it. Given these three wholly irrational premises, the equally irrational conclusion that a brother is worthy of attack rather than of love must follow. What can be expected from insane premises except an insane conclusion? The way to undo an insane conclusion is to consider the sanity of the premises on which it rests. You cannot be attacked, attack has no justification, and you are responsible for what you believe.

I’ve got this one down. I never get confused about where my urge to attack comes from. If I feel like attacking someone it is always because I am afraid. I am afraid because I think I am vulnerable to attack and I am justified in defending myself. My attacks these days seldom get past the thought phase because I am good at catching them, realizing my fear is baseless, or at least being willing to be taught that, once again, my fear is baseless.

Here is an example. I went past a turn-off that would take me to a customer of mine. I didn’t take it because he was not on my schedule for that day, but I noticed a pang of resentment toward him, and then I had one of those mental conversations that I sometimes indulge in. Everything he said to me was an attack and everything I said to him was a defense (which is an attack). All of this was in response to a story I made up in my mind about a phone call he did not return.

Giving this to the Holy Spirit, I understand that I perceived his failure to return my call as an attack. Maybe he is talking to my competitor and is thinking of switching suppliers, in which case he becomes my enemy, someone to overcome. I must convince him that I am valuable to him, but because he is now a threat to my income stream, I resent him and anything I say to him will come from fear and not from love. How do I appear valuable to him when I come with sword and shield in hand?

The ego mind is fixated on fear, fear of loss and lack. Maybe I will lose a customer and my boss will value me less. I could lose money and not have enough for all I think I need. I fear not being valued. The ego solution to being afraid is to fight back through whatever means, but always it is some kind of attack and defend strategy in which I am separate from this other person. I see us with different goals and to achieve my goal, the other must relinquish his. Now I am enemy to my customer as well as to my competitor. I feel as if I am surrounded by the enemy.

Of course none of this has actually happened except that he failed to return my call. But as I allowed the scenario to play out in my mind I could see how the ego works to keep separation in place. I feel a pang of discomfort and the ego weaves it into a story in which I am surrounded by the enemy. The ego offers to protect me by giving me ways to defend myself. Now I am making everyone separate and am attacking my brother and so the underlying feeling is that I am guilty, and don’t deserve to win. The ego lies about being able to protect me.

When I offer it to the Holy Spirit for interpretation He reminds me that my customer and my competitor are innocent, just as I am. We are none of us guilty for our thoughts or our actions. He reminds me that we have one common goal and that is to feel safe and happy and we achieve this through forgiveness. As I regain my equilibrium and remember the truth, I remember that this is my function and my only function.

The feeling of being less than, attacked, of loss and lack, all of these are just different forms of believing I am separate from God, and thus cannot be true. All of this is turned around as I accepted responsibility for my thoughts and beliefs rather than seeking someone else to blame. I was afraid because of the meaning I gave a call not returned, not because of anything else.

Even if I was right about the failure to return the call and I did lose that customer, I am the one who decides what that means. No matter what seems to be happening in my story, I give it all the meaning it has for me, and I am free to remember that forgiveness is my only function. When I remember my function and focus on my forgiveness work, I trust the rest to work out as it will. The ego says I must be forever on guard but the ego is such a liar. I am perfectly loved and perfectly protected. When I remember this I am perfectly at peace with whatever is occurring.

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Study of the Text, II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 12. 10-17-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 12
10-17-13
12 I have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same Mind to do this. This Mind is the Holy Spirit, Whose Will is for God always. He teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and to behave like me as a result. The power of our joint motivation is beyond belief, but not beyond accomplishment. What we can accomplish together has no limits, because the Call for God is the Call to the unlimited. Child of God, my message is for you, to hear and give away as you answer the Holy Spirit within you.

I often make a mistake that I think is common to many of us. I notice that my behavior is not like Jesus’ behavior and I feel guilty for it and try to change it. The harder I try the more frustrated and anxious I become. Jesus says right here that I should behave as he behaved. The thing I forget is that he goes on to say that the way to do this is to let the Holy Spirit teach me how to think like Jesus and then my behavior will automatically be like Jesus. “What would Jesus do?” should be “What would Jesus think?”

Anytime I become upset or discouraged with myself it is always because I have put the horse before the cart. I have tried to drive my life through the behavior and that is backwards. This part is absolutely simple. I notice the thoughts that need to be changed, looking at them with the Holy Spirit and accepting His correction. Easy peasy.

If it is not easy, it is because I have, once again, become confused about my part. If I am anxious about my behavior I must believe that I should control it and am not doing so. Otherwise, I would simply be happy to see an effect of an unhealed mind because this means I have an opportunity to accept the Atonement for us. I think that right now in my life this is my most frequent mistake. I still sometimes look at my behavior and judge myself rather than seeing my behavior as an opportunity.

When I compare how I feel when I do this as to when I remember my function, it is clear that my happiness lies in forgiveness, not judgment. As I forgive myself for my errors, realizing that nothing is really happening because the entire illusion is nothing, I know I cannot be guilty. Now it is just a matter of allowing the Holy Spirit to heal my mind.

It is a matter of trust. I trust Jesus, I trust the Holy Spirit, and so I am learning to trust myself. I anticipate a peaceful mind as I do this more and more. But even more exciting is the promise Jesus makes that what we can accomplish together has no limits. Holy Spirit, please heal my mind today. I will trust you to do that according to my desire. I step back and allow you to do your part.

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Study of the Text II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 11, 10-16-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 11
10-16-13
11 When you are tempted by the wrong voice, call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my decision and making it stronger. As we share this goal, we increase its power to attract the whole Sonship, and to bring it back into the oneness in which it was created. Remember that “yoke” means “join together,” and “burden” means “message.” Let us restate “My yoke is easy and my burden light” in this way; “Let us join together, for my message is light.”

I have often called on Jesus to help me remember how to heal. The average day is sure to have many times when I will first see things from the ego perspective, realize my mistake, and ask for healing. The wrong voice tempted me, but now my goal is oneness, and I seek to make that goal stronger and stronger, so I seldom miss an opportunity to change my mind. I change my mind about what I want, and the Holy Spirit changes my mind. We are a team.

I spent a couple of days watching myself as I experienced my body as if it were sick. I know that this cannot be true. The body does not feel, so how can it feel sick? The mind was sick and needed healing. By the middle of the day yesterday I was feeling better, and by 5:00PM I was well enough to enjoy a movie. The body seemed to be getting well. That was the appearance, but it was the mind that being healed, and so projected that effect, just as it had projected the effect of sickness.

I noticed this morning that I woke up looking for symptoms and some part of me was hoping to find some. I think I wanted another day at home. I wanted some mild symptoms that would give me an excuse to stay home but not so serious that my day was spoiled. That is one of the ways that sickness is valuable to me. Another way is that I have believed that sickness proves I am not really waking up, that I am not worthy of God. It is, as the Lesson tells us, a defense against God.

I am willing to be healed of both those beliefs. If I want to stay home, I am just going to take a vacation day. I’m not going to give sickness value in my mind. If I feel unworthy, I am going to notice that thought in my mind and ask the Holy Spirit to change my mind, to correct my thinking and heal my mind. In other words, I ask for the Atonement and accept it.

Before I got sick and for awhile during the sickness I got caught up in feeling like the ego instead of just watching the ego. I think that this happens when I judge myself and others. Usually, I watch my “life” from at least some detachment, then other times I am fully in the story. When that happens I suffer and if it happens long enough the ego projects it; the ego tries to throw the suffering in the mind out onto the world, sometimes onto my body and I think I am sick.

I will tell you the truth, I am amazed that I can still get so caught up in the story as to forget the truth, even for a short time, much less for several days. When I am sane, I can’t imagine doing this, but when I forget my self and get hooked by the story, I am right back there. The difference, though, is that I am not completely there, not ever.

All the time it is happening, I am asking for healing. When I am less insane, I watch myself being lost and asking for help. When I am very insane, I just feel lost and ask for help. I will be glad when I wake up completely. I am tired of the conflicted mind syndrome. I am happy, though, to do my part in healing the mind. I am willing to do it with less suffering is all I am saying. I know it is not a necessary part of awakening for it to be painful, so I ask for the Atonement for that.

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Study of the Text II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 10, 10-15-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 10
10-15-13
10 I have assured you that the Mind that decided for me is also in you, and that you can let it change you just as it changed me. This Mind is unequivocal, because it hears only one Voice and answers in only one way. You are the light of the world with me. Rest does not come from sleeping but from waking. The Holy Spirit is the Call to awaken and be glad. The world is very tired, because it is the idea of weariness. Our task is the joyous one of waking it to the Call for God. Everyone will answer the Call of the Holy Spirit, or the Sonship cannot be as one. What better vocation could there be for any part of the Kingdom than to restore it to the perfect integration that can make it whole? Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and teach your brothers to listen as I am teaching you.

I am reassured by that first sentence. The Mind that decided for Jesus is in me and it will decide for me, too. I will change as Jesus changed and all that is needed for this to happen is my decision for it. I just have to want the change. I will make this decision because it is through my choice to heal that the Sonship will once again be as one. If I make that decision now, I will no longer suffer.

Right now I have a persistent headache and pain in my stomach. I am told it is probably some kind of virus. The ego mind says it might be this or that. It was caused by something I ate or someone I was with. It says that maybe it is something worse, a symptom of something fatal. The ego recommends medicines that have worse side effects than the discomfort I now suffer. The ego also says that I am guilty for being sick and in pain. The ego mind offers very little that I value, and yet, here I am, suffering and in pain.

There was a time when I had no place to go except the ego. I believed everything I thought. This is no longer true. Now I question the ego thoughts in my mind. I show them to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to heal the sick thoughts. I know I have sick thoughts because they are projected on the body and appear as pain and suffering. Even though I ask for healing, I don’t always accept it right away or fully. I know this is crazy, and yet, here I am suffering and in pain, and rejecting the healing that is mine when I want it. All I have to do is value the healing more than I value the pain and suffering.

I know the healing is possible because I have chosen a healed mind and have seen the effects as the pain and suffering disappeared, sometimes disappearing so quickly that I was left laughing in wonder. I have listened to the Holy Spirit and I have listened to the ego. When I listen to the ego I am uncertain and doubtful. I am afraid and guilty. I suffer. When I listen to the Holy Spirit, I always hear only one thing. I am innocent. I am still as God created me. I don’t know why I still listen to the ego sometimes, but I am learning to be patient with myself and use each opportunity to experience more healing.

Jesus says that I am to teach my brothers to listen as he is teaching me. I do this in every way that I can. I teach what I have learned, but I also teach what I am learning. If someone asks I tell them that I am confused about what I really want and that I still find value in pain and suffering, but that I know that I can choose again.

It might be helpful to know that they are not the only ones who still listen to ego, and it might be helpful to know how I deal with it. I tell them that I am patient with myself and forgiving of my choices. I tell them that I just use the pain and suffering as another chance to choose God, and I do it without guilt and each time with more confidence. Our temporary setbacks are not failures and are not something to be ashamed of. In fact they can be good teaching tools.

Another way I teach is to see the truth in other people. Just as I am learning to see my own ego without judgment, I practice seeing their ego without judgment. When I do this for either of us, I see through the egos and to the truth of our being. The Course says that we are not sick and we cannot die, but we can confuse ourselves with things that do.

By realizing that my ego can see his ego, but that neither ego is real but just a confusion of the mind, I teach the truth whether I ever say anything or not. My ego thinks it is sick today, but I am not my ego. Remembering this is a way to teach. Remembering it when you are sick is also a way to teach. We can teach each other. Whichever of us is saner at the moment can be the teacher.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 9, 10-14-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 9
10-14-13
9 My mind will always be like yours, because we were created as equals. It was only my decision that gave me all power in Heaven and earth. My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision. This decision is the choice to share it, because the decision itself is the decision to share. It is made by giving, and is therefore the one choice that resembles true creation. I am your model for decision. By deciding for God I showed you that this decision can be made, and that you can make it.

In every moment of the day I make a decision. I make a decision for ego, that is, for separation, weakness, loss, and death. Or I make a decision for God, for love, for all power in Heaven and earth. I can make the decision for God continuously. I know I can because Jesus did it and proved to me it can be done. I long to make that decision because I long for love. Love is universally the strongest drive of man because deep down in our core we have an ancient memory of our creation, and we know that we are an extension of love Itself. We are Love playing at being human. Every fiber of our being longs for union with Itself.

The desire for love becomes distorted as it passes through the ego filters in our mind and becomes something closer to neediness seeking, always seeking, something to fulfill it. It is hardly recognizable as love and yet it is still the highest calling we know within the illusion because it is the closest we can come to our true nature. But through the Holy Spirit in our mind we can become healed and our nature stretches, the neediness dissolves, our little attempts at love grow and are purified. We become what we always were, or close enough to it that ascension becomes possible.

O my, can you imagine that? Can you imagine Love ascending into Love and joining with Love, never to imagine Itself separated again. I imagine it . . . but of course, I can’t really. I try to think what it would be like, what it is like. It must be absolute freedom and vastness. When I think of it, I feel claustrophobic in this body. I feel like crying. I imagine living without the limits imposed by humanness and the limits imposed by separation. I would never experience loneliness or loss again. Grief and pain would be such a distant memory I couldn’t grasp it in my mind. Smallness would no longer be a concept I could hold onto. Would we wonder at the idea of guilt and fear, barely able to describe it much less feel it?

Holy Spirit I want to remember the truth. I want to remember my Self and my God. I’m doing my best to choose God over ego. Please help me today as I continue my practice. Help me to be as loving as it is possible for me to be in this moment. I accept the Atonement. Please heal the part of my mind that resists the Atonement. It knows not what it does.

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Study of the Text II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 8, 10-11-13

II. The Voice for God, Paragraph 8
10-11-13
8 The Holy Spirit is your Guide in choosing. He is in the part of your mind that always speaks for the right choice, because He speaks for God. He is your remaining communication with God, which you can interrupt but cannot destroy. The Holy Spirit is the way in which God’s Will is done on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and earth are in you, because the call of both is in your mind. The Voice for God comes from your own altars to Him. These altars are not things; they are devotions. Yet you have other devotions now. Your divided devotion has given you the two voices, and you must choose at which altar you want to serve. The call you answer now is an evaluation because it is a decision. The decision is very simple. It is made on the basis of which call is worth more to you.

Jesus is helping us to understand what the Holy Spirit is to us. He is the Truth that is in our minds. He is the Voice that speaks that truth. He is the Healer that corrects our thinking and so brings our will back into alignment with God’s Will and so His Will is done on earth as it is in Heaven. The Holy Spirit is completely safe from our illusions and while we can refuse to listen we can’t destroy Him.

Jesus also defines altars as he uses the term, at least to the degree that he explains that the altars are not things, but devotions. He says the Holy Spirit comes from my own altars to Him, but that I also have other altars now. So it seems that I am devoted to the Holy Spirit, but within this illusory experience of separation, I am also devoted to other things. This would help explain why I am so conflicted and uncertain in my life.

We are told that we cannot serve two masters. I must make a decision about who I will serve, or at which altar I will devote myself. I choose the Holy Spirit right now, and even if it seems during the day that I have chosen some other devotion, my true devotion is to God. I am fully willing to become aware of any mistaken belief that there is something else to which I could be devoted. I am fully willing to release my devotion from any of those false altars and am happy to do so as I become aware of them.

I have been aware of my devotion to specialness. I choose certain people to be special to me and expect them to treat me as if I am special to them. When it doesn’t happen, or I don’t see enough signs that they think I am special, I become unhappy. I feel unworthy and then project and make them guilty. This is an altar I have been devoted to all my life, and there is a part of me that is afraid to give it up.

The ego mind really believes that if no one sees me special, that does mean I am unworthy. This is an altar I am ready to let go of. It is not possible that God’s creation could be unworthy. Holy Spirit, I give this belief to you and ask that you heal my mind. I gladly accept the Atonement for this. I desire only one altar in my mind, and that this altar be You.

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