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Study of the Text IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 9 12-31-13

IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 10
10 You are in an impossible situation only because you think it is possible to be in one. You would be in an impossible situation if God showed you your perfection, and proved to you that you were wrong. This would demonstrate that the perfect are inadequate to bring themselves to an awareness of their perfection, and thus side with the belief that those who have everything need help and are therefore helpless. This is the kind of “reasoning” in which the ego engages. God, Who knows that His creations are perfect, does not affront them. This would be as impossible as the ego’s notion that it has affronted Him.

God created me perfect and He does not doubt Himself, so He does not doubt me. He trusts me to bring myself to an awareness of my perfection and His trust is perfect. I doubt myself but I trust God, so I too trust that I will wake up. I will wake myself up. I have all the help I need. As Jesus said in the previous paragraph, I have a Guide and a model.

Now he tells me that I am perfect and can bring myself to that awareness. And that is all that happens when I wake up. I shift my awareness from the illusion to the truth, to my perfect wholeness. The Holy Spirit can guide me and comfort me, but He cannot wake me up, only I can do that.

Yesterday I was watching a video by John Mark Stroud. He described our situation like this. He said that we sit in a closet with the lock and key on our side. It is up to us to unlock the door and come out. That visual made a real impact on me and I see that this is what Jesus is telling me now.

The Holy Spirit can’t get me out of the closet because the key is on my side of the door. The Holy Spirit can help me to see that this is true. He can heal my mind, but only if I ask and really want Him to. I am the one with the key. Jesus found the lock and then found the key. He let himself out and because we are of one mind, he did this for all of us. He is now waiting for us to follow suit and is being as helpful as we will allow. He is our model, but he is not our rescuer either. God will not yank me out of the closet, nor will He rescue me. He knows I don’t need to be rescued. He knows I can and will rescue myself.

Jesus ends the paragraph with a zinger. He tells us that God does not affront His creations and that would be as impossible as the ego’s notion it has affronted Him. Thanks, Jesus, for the reminder that in making the ego we have not really affronted God and so we have nothing to be guilty for and no reason to stay hidden in our little closet. It is safe to come out.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 8 12-27-13

IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 9
9 Abilities must be developed before you can use them. This is not true of anything that God created, but it is the kindest solution possible for what you made. In an impossible situation, you can develop your abilities to the point where they can get you out of it. You have a Guide to how to develop them, but you have no commander except yourself. This leaves you in charge of the Kingdom, with both a Guide to find it and a means to keep it. You have a model to follow who will strengthen your command, and never detract from it in any way. You therefore retain the central place in your imagined enslavement, which in itself demonstrates that you are not enslaved.

What an incredible job we have done in making an impossible world where we, the Son of God, can experience our selves enslaved to a set of beliefs we made up. Let me look at the proof that I can awake from this dream any time I want to.

I have a Guide to help me develop my ability to undo what I have done.
I am the commander of the project.
I am in charge of the Kingdom.
I have a model to follow.
My model will strengthen my command and never detract from it.

Does this sound like I am a victim? Does this sound like I can never get out of my illusion? I am pretending to be enslaved, but if I am at the center of the enslavement, the maker of the enslavement, and with everything I need to escape, then how could I be enslaved?

When I feel like I can’t get free of my imagined enslavement it is because I am listening to that voice in my head spouting out the beliefs that make up the world of illusion. They are just beliefs, not jails, not chains. They have no power outside the power I accord them. You see, once again I admit that I am in charge of my own enslavement. I give all meaning and all power to my jailer, and my jailer is just a set of beliefs that I made up.

Jesus, as I think about this I see that it makes sense and I want very much to wake up from the dream. Sometimes I feel so close to awakening. I never ever completely believe in the dream anymore. Even this past week with Toby when I was as close to being lost in the dream as I have been in a long time, I still knew I was dreaming. Even though the fear was paralyzing, I still knew I was dreaming.

How can I be so close and yet not be able (willing?) to wake up? I feel discouraged. The voice of ego is very loud in my head insisting that I can never do this and that this whole idea is ridiculous. It insists that what I am experiencing is real and the idea of a Kingdom and power and love are the illusion, and that is why I cannot wake up. When I listen to the ego voice I feel so afraid and discouraged.

Well, this is interesting. As I wrote out exactly how I am feeling right now, I see that I don’t feel that way anymore. Writing and talking to you, Jesus, has helped me to step back from the thinking mind and look at it with detachment. It is like a little war is going on in there. I see the thought that I am deeply loved and perfectly created. I look over and see the thought that I am a fool to believe that and that all I have to do is look at my life to see the proof that I am not in the least lovable and hardly perfect.

But who am “I”? Who is it that is watching this verbal tennis match? Who is it that is watching Myron caught up in it and being confused and afraid? I am reminded that I do know who I am. Who I am is in my mind and can never be lost. Thank you, Jesus. I know you answered my questions without any words at all. I know this sudden clarity and this sense of peace enfolding me is my answer.

I remember what you just told me Saturday; that this past week is the answer to my prayer to awaken. I am looking at the thoughts I still believe to some degree so that I can let them go and allow my mind to be healed of the craziness that goes on there. That is all that happened. I have been looking at ego beliefs and deciding to reject them.

These are the kinds of abilities you are talking about. I am developing the ability to look with the Holy Spirit at the thoughts and beliefs in my mind and allow them to be corrected. I am developing the ability to step back and see with clarity what is happening, the ability to experience the story with some detachment. I see how these abilities are going to help me return my awareness to the Kingdom.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 8 12-27-13

IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 8
8 The introduction of abilities into being was the beginning of uncertainty, because abilities are potentials, not accomplishments. Your abilities are useless in the presence of God’s accomplishments, and also of yours. Accomplishments are results that have been achieved. When they are perfect, abilities are meaningless. It is curious that the perfect must now be perfected. In fact, it is impossible. Remember, however, that when you put yourself in an impossible situation you believe that the impossible is possible.

God created me perfect. He created me as part of Himself. There is no such thing as abilities in creation, because all is accomplished. With the introduction of the separation idea, abilities were needed because in separation there was now the illusion of imperfection and so there was the illusion that something needed to be done.

I am still perfect and still in God and I do not need to learn anything because in the Kingdom there is not even the idea of learning. However, since I do not believe I am in the Kingdom, since I believe I am separate from the Kingdom, I have placed myself in the truly bizarre position of needing to become perfect and so I need abilities and I need to develop them.

An example of an ability that I developed is listening to Holy Spirit. When I began this process it was pretty shaky. I tried different methods until I found what works for me, which is meditative writing. It sounds pretty cut and dried. Try this. No. Try that. No. Oh, Ok, this works. But it is never easy with ego because ego is questions, doubts and fears.

So I would try meditating in the usual way and would fail. I failed over and over. I watched everyone else succeed and report these wonderful results, and yet, I could not do it. I felt like a failure and I felt like I was the one who was unforgiven. In other words, I suffered. 

That’s the way it works with ego. Ego would have kept me in this process forever if it could, trying one method and then another, reading books on meditation, listening to meditation CDs, taking meditation classes. But I had a burning desire to hear that Voice and enough willingness to keep that desire alive.

Finally I turned from the ego and sought help from my Guide. I didn’t even know I had been trying to learn from the ego what the ego was determined I not learn. I didn’t know that I was finally turning to my true teacher. All I knew was that I still wanted it but that I gave up trying to give it to myself. Surrender is what allowed the Holy Spirit to help me. He can never take from us what we want to keep, or give to us what we are determined to give to ourselves. But the moment we truly want His help, it is done.

Once I discovered that I could speak to and listen to the Holy Spirit as I wrote, it only remained to develop this ability further. I did this through daily practice and even that felt like suffering at first. This is because the ego joined me in the practice, constantly criticizing and discouraging my attempts. But because I truly desire this communication, I learned how to become more fully surrendered to the process.

Actually, looking back on it, I realize it was never hard to hear His Voice. It only seemed hard because I was trying to listen to two completely opposed Voices at the same time. When I finally chose the one Voice I wanted, it became easy and now I look forward to each morning sitting here with Him. While I was at the hospital with my son I was not able to give this time to Spirit and I missed it.

So this is an ability I developed. I learned to hear the Voice for God and to write what I heard. This is a ridiculous thing. How could I not hear that Voice? It is in me. It speaks to me all through the day. It is the only thing that is real. It is both God’s Will and my will. And yet, I had to develop the ability to hear clearly, and still I am further developing the ability to hear even more clearly. It is an insane situation made necessary through insane choices.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 7 12-20-13

IV. The only Answer, Paragraph 7
7 In the Kingdom, where you are and what you are is perfectly certain. There is no doubt, because the first question was never asked. Having finally been wholly answered, it has never been. Being alone lives in the Kingdom, where everything lives in God without question. The time spent on questioning in the dream has given way to creation and to its eternity. You are as certain as God because you are as true as He is, but what was once certain in your mind has become only the ability for certainty.

I long for the certainty that Jesus speaks of here. I am sure that I thought it would be interesting to make an illusory experience where there were questions to be asked and the answers were changeable. This illusion is the answer to the question, “What would it be like?” We asked and because of who we are as God’s Children, the answer unfolded. It has been answered, and now it is time to awaken from that dream of uncertainty.

What is it like to simply be? No questions, no doubts, nothing to fear. I had to forget that existence as a necessary part of experiencing its opposite. I am done. I am ready to return all of my mind, to certainty, to eternity, to God. What does it take to return? I must want it wholly, without exception. This business of watching my thoughts and asking for healing of all that is not truth is my way of reaching the desire for God that is in my mind. I am looking at what I chose instead of God, and deciding against it.

Once the question is answered and I return my full awareness to God, there will not be even a memory of anything other than God. God is whole, complete and without doubt or question. So once answered, the question no longer exists. I will return to perfect peace, to creation. Now interestingly enough, I have already done this. I am in God. Right now. I am creating in eternity, right now. That is why we call this experience an illusion or a dream. It is not actually happening. We are simply watching what happened when the answer to our question unfolded.

Are you tired of the dream? Are you ready to wake up? I am. The ego, the device I made to have this experience doesn’t want to awaken and clings to its sad and scary stories as if they mattered and as if they were valuable. But I am not the ego, but the maker of the ego and the ego does not rule my mind unless I choose that. I, the self that I truly am, have been uncovered to the degree that I am now aware of my desire to return fully to my Home and my Father.  I know how to do it and I am taking those steps. Thank you, God, that my foray into illusion has changed nothing.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 6. 12-19-13

IV. The only Answer, Paragraph 6
6 Hear, then, the one answer of the Holy Spirit to all the questions the ego raises: You are a child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, which He created as part of Him. Nothing else exists and only this is real. You have chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep is not real and God calls you to awake. There will be nothing left of your dream when you hear Him, because you will awaken. Your dreams contain many of the ego’s symbols and they have confused you. Yet that was only because you were asleep and did not know. When you wake you will see the truth around you and you will no longer believe in dreams, because they will have no reality for you. Yet the Kingdom and all that you have created there will have great reality for you, because they are beautiful and true.

Here is what happens each time I bring a grievance to the Holy Spirit. I sit with Him and tell Him all about it. I show Him why I believe the problem is real and has serious consequences. I let Him see my rage. Or I let Him see how frightened I am or how hurt. Then I ask Him to heal my mind and He says, “It’s OK, Honey. It’s just a bad dream. You are sleeping and in your sleep you dreamed this happened. It’s time to wake up now.”

I say, “But what about my finances? What if I lose my job or can’t pay my bills?” He says, “You are dreaming. You are safe. Your Father loves you and cares for you.” I say, What about my fear of heights?” He says, “It’s a dream. You are being called to awaken.” “Ok, I see that, but when I think of my precious son having surgery next week, it feels very real and the possible consequences feel so scary. I can afford to dismiss my problems, but I am afraid to ignore this one. I don’t know how to ignore it.” He says, “Your son is safe, too. He is just dreaming of pain and suffering. He is God’s beloved son, too, and nothing he dreams can change that.”

No matter what I bring to Spirit, no matter how extreme the circumstances seem, no matter how afraid I am, no matter how different the form the problems seem to take, the answer is always the same. I am dreaming. Am I guilty? Is the other person guilty? No. We are just dreaming of guilt. It makes me think of the movie, Inception. They had so many layers of the dream going, that they would become confused and would need a totem to let them know when they were still dreaming or when they were awake.

So how do I know if I am dreaming? Jesus says that the Holy Spirit always says, “You are a child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, which He created as part of Him. Nothing else exists and only this is real.” Do I imagine that God created fear and guilt, pain and suffering? I am a priceless part of His Kingdom, a part of God. I cannot experience what God does not experience.

That is my totem. I look at my thoughts and my experiences and I ask myself, “Could I be in God right now and still have this experience?” If the answer is no, then I am dreaming. But that I even questioned it must mean that I am being called to awaken. God is calling me to wake up and I hear His Voice.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text III. The Only Answer, Paragraph 5 12-18-13

IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 5
5 The ego uses the body to conspire against your mind, and because the ego realizes that its “enemy” can end them both merely by recognizing they are not part of you, they join in the attack together. This is perhaps the strangest perception of all, if you consider what it really involves. The ego, which is not real, attempts to persuade the mind, which is real, that the mind is the ego’s learning device; and further, that the body is more real than the mind is. No one in his right mind could possibly believe this, and no one in his right mind does believe it.

When I look at this situation with Jesus it is very clear. The mind is real, the body and the ego are not. The ego uses the body to try to convince me it is the other way around. Amazingly, this was news to me as it probably was to you the first time you read this or at least before you started your spiritual path. I have certainly spent most of my life firmly fixed on the body as who I am.

I felt like a body and acted like a body. I took care of the body and carefully clothed and decorated it. I exercised it and tried to make up for the way I often misused it. I tried to make it feel better and I used it to both attract and attack other bodies. Even now, a part of my day is spent worrying about and regretting body stuff. The only difference is I notice this behavior and ask for the Atonement. All of this concern and activity around the body occurs because I identified (and to a lesser extent still identify) with the body as self.

I also knew that I had a soul and that the soul was eternal. But that didn’t seem as real to me as the body did. And really, I thought of it like this: I am a body with a soul. Because I had that belief it was easy for the ego to use the body to keep me engrossed in the story and distracted from the Holy Spirit’s Voice. The body needs so much attention! And the body is so vulnerable, so fragile. How could I be God’s Son if I was so unlike God.

Understanding that the body I am most closely associated with, the body I think of as Myron, is only a vehicle to use in this story helps me see more clearly what Jesus is telling us through A Course in Miracles. I am not a body. I am still, in spite of my fantasies, just as God created me. I am spirit, not body.

The term mind is used to represent the activating agent of spirit, supplying its creative energy, and when capitalized, Mind is Spirit or Christ or can refer to the Mind of God. How could mind be schooled by ego or body? Our attempts to do so are laughable, really. Actually we only use the brain as a device to gather and organize information that we have ourselves projected in order to prove our point. The most we can do with the mind is to cloud it with our separation ideas. Once those are released, the mind returns to its true vocation and we see that nothing is lost.

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Study of the Text III. The Only Answer, Paragraph 4 12-17-13

IV. The Only Answer
4 The ego cannot hear the Holy Spirit, but it does believe that part of the mind that made it is against it. It interprets this as a justification for attacking its maker. It believes that the best defense is attack, and wants you to believe it. Unless you do believe it you will not side with it, and the ego feels badly in need of allies, though not of brothers. Perceiving something alien to itself in your mind, the ego turns to the body as its ally, because the body is not part of you. This makes the body the ego’s friend. It is an alliance frankly based on separation. If you side with this alliance you will be afraid, because you are siding with an alliance of fear.

In my mind is the truth of who I am. Also in my mind is an idea of separation we call the ego. The ego thinks it is autonomous. The part of my mind that thinks, I am this or I am that, is the ego. Everything it claims as self is attached to the body, which it claims as it’s own. The reason it claims the body is because it perceives something in the mind of its maker that is against it, so it sides with the body, which it knows is not part of its maker.

The ego believes that the best defense is attack and wants me to believe that, too. In the past when I was so completely identified with that part of the mind, I believed what the ego believed. If someone said something that threatened me, I immediately defended myself through attacking the person in some way. For instance, if my friend said something unkind about my husband, I might defend myself through attacking her ability to discern the truth. I might intimate in some way that she was no arbiter of character judging from her past relationships.

This conversation with my so-called friend would leave me feeling defensive and afraid. Maybe she was right and my husband wasn’t what I thought he was, and this would cause me to doubt myself. Maybe she was only pretending to be my friend and really she looked down on me and would leave my house to go talk about me to other friends. Maybe I was stupid and soon everyone would know it.

All of that from what might have been, and probably was, an offhand remark made by a friend. This is the way the ego works. It is always about defend and attack and when we side with that part of our mind, we, too, will be about that. This kind of thinking keeps us trapped in fear and doubt and guilt. In other words, it keeps the ego alive and well.

Jesus has said that because the ego doesn’t feel safe in the mind with our true self, it makes its home in the body and the body becomes its ally. It doesn’t like the body because it doesn’t feel the body is good enough for it, but it uses the body to keep our attention and to convince us that we are really here. It uses pain and sickness as well as bodily appetites to keep us convinced that we are the body or at least in the body.

We feel hungry and if we don’t have food we suffer. We feel sexual urges and if we don’t have those “needs” met we feel deprived and lonely. The ego’s gifts are unpredictable and can suddenly become destructive. Sometimes hunger goes awry and we deliberately starve ourselves or overfeed ourselves. Sometimes food makes us sick. Sometimes sexual urges become distorted and instead of being an urge they begin to drive the individual to actions that harm themselves or others.

We are not the body, but when we believe that we are, which is what the ego wants us to do, we live in fear. We are afraid the body will suffer in some way and we know the body will die, and seeing ourselves as the body, we think we will die with it. No wonder the ego doesn’t love the body, but it does use the body to trap us and keep us away from the truth. It cannot afford to let us notice the part of the mind that knows who it is. The body is perfect for this purpose.

Here is how the ego is using my body this morning in an attempt to keep me from remembering that I am the Son of God. I have a weird pain in my hip. I am hungry. I have been eating a lot of food lately, and food that I don’t normally eat so there is a nagging voice in my mind that says I am guilty and will be punished for that transgression with extra pounds. My attention goes to my hair that is too dry and has broken ends and has always been too thin and too fine, and is just a general problem.

And all of that is just the stuff that is directly related to the body. There are also issues of getting the body to work and every problem connected to that. It brings my attention to relationships with other bodies. I begin to think about my son’s body and what will or might happen when he gets surgery on that body. I can follow all these thoughts and wind up a bundle of anxiety, and each of these various problems calls for my attention and some form of defense.

At one time this effort on the part of the ego would have been successful. But now I know too much to allow the ego to use the body in this way. I still hear the annoying little voice, but I either don’t believe it, or if I do believe what it says, I know what to do with it. I am not this body, and this body does not exist anywhere but in my mind.

If I have a pain, the pain is not really in the body but in my mind. I cannot gain weight from food, but I can gain weight from guilt, so I notice the guilty thoughts and I ask the Holy Spirit for help. I remember that guilt cannot be real because it is not God’s Will. I’m tired of dreaming of guilt and am ready to wake up to innocence.

Each attempt the ego makes to keep my attention on the body is met with my desire to wake up. I don’t fight the ego, I just remember the truth. When I am confused, I ask for clarity. I don’t try to make anything happen, I just allow myself to be lived to the best of my ability. I forgive everything else.

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