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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: The Last Step, Paragraph 3 continued. 2-18-14

I. The Last Step, Paragraph 3

3 Your creations belong in you, as you belong in God. You are part of God, as your sons are part of His Sons. To create is to love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being limitless it does not stop. It creates forever, but not in time. God’s creations have always been, because He has always been. Your creations have always been, because you can create only as God creates. Eternity is yours, because He created you eternal.

Oh my God! I am eternal. I am like God. I am a creator and my creations are eternal and create as I create. Creation cannot be contained; it is endless and limitless and eternal. Creation is love and extends outward always. I am That. How could I ever have mistaken myself for this small, fragile and limited being in this body? And now that I have, how do I shift my awareness to that which I truly am?

I can’t stop crying. I don’t know if I am crying because of the promise these words hold, or because I don’t seem to be able to step fully into that promise. I am very grateful for the Course and for the daily lessons. “God is the strength in which I trust.” “There is nothing to fear.” Of myself, that is, of my little ego imaginary self, I can do nothing. But I am not left alone and forsaken. There is a place in me where nothing is impossible.

I live and move and have my being in you, God. I want to go home. Oh my God, please wake me up! I want to be what I am. I trust that I will be guided step by step. I trust that while I am lost here in this story of me, You have not left me bereft and the way is being made clear for my return.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: The Last Step, Paragraph 2 continued. 2-17-14

I. The Last Step, Paragraph 2
2 If you created God and He created you, the Kingdom could not increase through its own creative thought. Creation would therefore be limited, and you would not be co-creators with God. As God’s creative Thought proceeds from Him to you, so must your creative thought proceed from you to your creations. Only in this way can all creative power extend outward. God’s accomplishments are not yours, but yours are like His. He created the Sonship and you increase it. You have the power to add to the Kingdom, though not to add to the Creator of the Kingdom. You claim this power when you become vigilant only for God and His Kingdom. By accepting this power as yours you have learned to remember what you are.

I was guided to look at this paragraph again.

I remember the first time I read something in the Course about my creations. I was astounded at the thought. I was titillated, curious and fascinated. I try to imagine what that is. What does it look like, my creations? I cannot even begin to guess, and yet I continue to create, to extend the Kingdom of God, even while I imagine myself in time. The memory of my creations is in my mind alongside the thoughts I think with God. Maybe they are the thoughts I think with God.

At this point in my awakening I think it is helpful for me to remind myself that I am a creator, that I create like God, and that this is ongoing. I remind myself of this because my experience is so different right now, and so narrowly focused, that I cannot remember any of this. I am ready to claim my power and so I am vigilant for God and His Kingdom. I am not vigilant only for God yet, but I get closer to that every day.

I was asking Jesus if there was anything else he wanted me to see concerning this paragraph and as I sat here my mind seemed to wander to someone I know who is sick. I thought about how his actions seemed to have brought on the sickness and that this is a pattern for him and maybe that is his lesson in this lifetime. Maybe he is learning that self will does not bring him happiness and peace.

Then Jesus gently turned my mind in another direction. I understood that it is not my job to discern his lessons, nor is it my job to judge him. It is funny really, because everything I thought about this friend of mine is exactly true of me. I bring on my own sickness through the wrong-
minded thoughts in my mind. This is a pattern for me too, and maybe that is one of my lessons for this lifetime as I accept that self-will and a need to control are not making me happy. They are not bringing me home.

How might I be vigilant only for the God and His Kingdom in this case? How do I accept my power and remember what I am? The answer I received is that I am to turn my face from the ego appearance and the ego desire to assign blame. Instead I am to remember the Will of God. What is God’s Will for His Son? It is not God’s Will that His Son be condemned for his errors, and it is not God’s Will that His Son be punished for them.

It is God’s Will that His Son be only as he was created. And it is my job to know this is true. It is true for my friend, and it is true for me. My eyes show me the appearance of a sickly body when I look at my friend. But my eyes are blind. They don’t see what is before them. Their only use is to report to me what I want to believe. As I accept only that the truth is true, I am empowered with vision.

Today I choose to disregard appearances. Appearances are only the shadows of my mistaken beliefs. They are meaningless. Today I commit to allowing my mind to see what is actually there. I commit to this sacred purpose. “Holy Spirit, I open my mind to You and invite You to correct my thinking. Keep me vigilant only for God and His Kingdom. Thank you.”

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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: The Gifts of the Kingdom, Paragraph 1,2. 2-14-14

Chapter 7: THE GIFTS OF THE KINGDOM

I. The Last Step
1 The creative power of God and His creations is limitless, but they are not in reciprocal relationship. You communicate fully with God, as He does with you. This is an ongoing process in which you share, and because you share it, you are inspired to create like God. Yet in creation you are not in a reciprocal relation to God, since He created you but you did not create Him. I have already told you that only in this respect your creative power differs from His. Even in this world there is a parallel. Parents give birth to children, but children do not give birth to parents. They do, however, give birth to their children, and thus give birth as their parents do.

Just as is with God, our creative power is without limit. We are not, in time, creating. We are making. Thus I did not create the world I see, but I did make it and it is absolutely astounding in depth and detail. This is because the same power we use to create, we also use to make. The Course tells us that outside of time and as our true Self we are still creating.

Our creations go in only one direction. God created us and we continue to create. We cannot turn the process around and change our selves through a different creation, nor can we change God, or create Him anew. Though in time, we act as if both are possible.

2 If you created God and He created you, the Kingdom could not increase through its own creative thought. Creation would therefore be limited, and you would not be co-creators with God. As God’s creative Thought proceeds from Him to you, so must your creative thought proceed from you to your creations. Only in this way can all creative power extend outward. God’s accomplishments are not yours, but yours are like His. He created the Sonship and you increase it. You have the power to add to the Kingdom, though not to add to the Creator of the Kingdom. You claim this power when you become vigilant only for God and His Kingdom. By accepting this power as yours you have learned to remember what you are.

I remember the first time I read something in the Course about my creations. I was astounded at the thought. I was titillated, curious and fascinated. I try to imagine what that is. What does it look like, my creations? I cannot even begin to guess, and yet I continue to create, to extend the Kingdom of God, even while I imagine myself in time. The memory of my creations is in my mind alongside the thoughts I think with God. Maybe they are the thoughts I think with God.

At this point in my awakening I think it is helpful for me to remind myself that I am a creator, that I create like God, and that this is ongoing. I remind myself of this because my experience is so different right now, and so narrowly focused, that I cannot remember any of this. I am ready to claim my power and so I am vigilant for God and His Kingdom. I am not vigilant only for God yet, but I get closer to that every day.

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Study of the Text, C. Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom, Paragraph 10. 2-13-14

C. Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom, Paragraph 10
10 The third step, then, is a statement of what you want to believe, and entails a willingness to relinquish everything else. The Holy Spirit will enable you to take this step, if you follow Him. Your vigilance is the sign that you want Him to guide you. Vigilance does require effort, but only until you learn that effort itself is unnecessary. You have exerted great effort to preserve what you made because it was not true. Therefore, you must now turn your effort against it. Only this can cancel out the need for effort, and call upon the being which you both have and are. This recognition is wholly without effort since it is already true and needs no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God. Therefore, inclusion is total and creation is without limit.

Jesus sums it up in this paragraph and reminds us that what we have and are is unassailable and does not need either our effort or our protection. Since we are not there yet, vigilance is still important. We know that we can be vigilant and that we can expend great effort to protect our thought system. We do this constantly to keep the separation idea in place. Now our job is to turn that effort and that vigilance to our true thought system. The Holy Spirit will enable us to do this if we simply follow Him.

I had slightly disturbing dreams right before I woke up, and that affected my mood. I lay there for a few minutes wishing I could just go back to sleep. When I got up and started moving around I noticed a vague uneasiness. I didn’t feel awful or anything, just not happy. Suddenly I remembered that this is just a choice. I can return to happiness at any time. So I did.

This is actually my job, to be happy. I experienced a significant shift recently and happiness seems to have occurred. I don’t know how this happened really, but there it is, and I like it. Even so, I have to remain vigilant for my happiness. The ego will try to assert itself and try to create a mood that seems more appropriate to the circumstances. Since this has been the way of things for as long as I can remember, I have to remain highly vigilant to stop myself from following the ego mind.

The other day I answered the ego’s call to fear and afterwards was stunned at how quickly and completely the ego mind asserted itself. At another time I would have been discouraged and fearful that I had set myself back, or maybe that I just can’t do this. It was different this time. I just looked at what had happened with the Holy Spirit.

I told Him that I didn’t know what to do with this, but He did and I was willing to hand it over to Him. These fearful stories still show up and sometimes it seems I am still attracted to them, but that is not what I want. I want to be happy. I want to remember who I am. I want to wake up. I have the means to do this through the Holy Spirit.

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Study of the Text, C. Be Vigilant Only For God and His Kingdom, Paragraph 9. 2-12-14

C. Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom, Paragraph 9

9 Truth is without illusions and therefore within the Kingdom. Everything outside the Kingdom is illusion. When you threw truth away you saw yourself as if you were without it. By making another kingdom that you valued, you did not keep only the Kingdom of God in your mind, and thus placed part of your mind outside it. What you made has imprisoned your will, and given you a sick mind that must be healed. Your vigilance against this sickness is the way to heal it. Once your mind is healed it radiates health, and thereby teaches healing. This establishes you as a teacher who teaches like me. Vigilance was required of me as much as of you, and those who choose to teach the same thing must be in agreement about what they believe.

There is the Kingdom of God that is made of only truth with no illusions. Then there is the kingdom I made outside of truth, the kingdom of illusions.  Now I have a split mind, split between Reality and illusions. Because I value my little kingdom a part of my mind is now imprisoned by these beliefs. I have the truth in my mind and I also have the illusions in my mind. I must choose what I want to believe, and to protect my choice I must be vigilant for it.

When I first started mind watching it seemed like a real chore. In fact, the first day I became truly devoted to watching my mind for ego thoughts and asking that my thinking be corrected, I was exhausted. I felt like I had taken a beating. That was because my mind was still very conflicted about what I wanted.

I wanted to wake up from the dream of separation. I wanted to relinquish my own little illusory kingdom in favor of my place in the Kingdom of God. But I also valued my own little world and wanted to keep it, too. Since it is not possible to have both, I had exhausted myself going back and forth, choosing first illusions then choosing to be healed, then back to illusions, over and over.

I have been vigilant in watching my mind for a number of years now and so it is not really chore anymore. I do it all the time and I do it without thinking about it. Noticing the ego thoughts and choosing again is just what I do, and I am no longer as conflicted about my desire to awaken as I used to be. Another change is that I no longer feel guilty for the thoughts I find, and that makes the process a lot easier. Noticing how much more peaceful I am now motivates me to continue.

I have been asked if we ever get finished with this process, if there is ever a time when we do not have to be vigilant anymore. My answer has always been that so far in my experience I have not seen an end to the need for vigilance. In this paragraph Jesus tells us that even he had to remain vigilant. Since vigilance has gotten easier and more joyful for me, I assume that by the time I reach the same level of healing as Jesus, it will be unnecessary, but evidently the need for vigilance remains at least for the time being.

Here is a link to the little book, Inner Healing, that changed my life. From this book I learned a simple little process to watch my mind and allow it to be healed. I will be forever grateful to Dan Joseph for writing it. http://www.amazon.com/Inner-Healing-Spiritual-Process-Practices/dp/0971626715

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, C. Be Vigilant Only For God and His Kingdom, Paragraph 8. 2-11-14

C. Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom, Paragraph 8

8 To teach the whole Sonship without exception demonstrates that you perceive its wholeness, and have learned that it is one. Now you must be vigilant to hold its oneness in your mind because, if you let doubt enter, you will lose awareness of its wholeness and will be unable to teach it. The wholeness of the Kingdom does not depend on your perception, but your awareness of its wholeness does. It is only your awareness that needs protection, since being cannot be assailed. Yet a real sense of being cannot be yours while you are doubtful of what you are. This is why vigilance is essential. Doubts about being must not enter your mind, or you cannot know what you are with certainty. Certainty is of God for you. Vigilance is not necessary for truth, but it is necessary against illusions.

I started my contemplation of this lesson by asking if there is someone in my life that I don’t want to think of as part of me, someone I don’t want to teach. A person was brought to mind and I was shown that I resist this person because he is very competitive and this triggers in me the competitive nature within myself that remains unhealed. I find it very unpleasant to be reminded of this in myself so I resent him for showing it to me.

Of course the ego’s solution is to avoid the one who triggers me. The ego will always want to fix the inner problem by seeing it outside me and fixing it there. The Holy Spirit’s solution is to heal the belief I am in competition with my brother, and that I need to win and winning means he loses. All I have to do to have this healing is to stop defending my belief, which in this case means stop hiding it from myself and pretending it isn’t there. The Holy Spirit says to bring it into the light and He will undo it for me.

I don’t want this barrier between me and this brother of mine, nor do I want it to keep me from any other brother. As long as I hold onto to the belief that I am in competition with others, I will exclude parts of the Sonship and so will not teach Wholeness because I don’t believe in it. With all my heart I want this belief to be undone because I want to know who I am, not as a concept, but to know it, to be it. I ask for and accept the Atonement for this. I open my mind to seeing any exceptions that I make to Wholeness so that I can ask for healing.

The Sonship is One, it is Whole. Nothing I believe can change that. But my belief does affect me. What I believe is true for me. Jesus has convinced me that there is One. I don’t understand this and don’t know how this works, but I know it is true. But when I am not vigilant for the truth in my mind, the mind reverts to separation thinking again.

Then I start thinking that my brother is my enemy and I must defend myself against him. I can’t teach Wholeness if I think I am separate from him and what I teach I learn. This puts me right back into the endless cycle of separation thinking, and I have lost sight of the truth of my being. I am not being vigilant for the truth in order to keep the truth true, but I am being vigilant against the illusions so that I remember only the truth.

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Study of the Text, C.Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom, Paragraph 6. 2-6-14

C. Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom, Paragraph 6
6 You learn first that having rests on giving, and not on getting. Next you learn that you learn what you teach, and that you want to learn peace. This is the condition for identifying with the Kingdom, since it is the condition of the Kingdom. You have believed that you are without the Kingdom, and have therefore excluded yourself from it in your belief. It is therefore essential to teach you that you must be included, and that the belief that you are not is the only thing that you must exclude.

I believe that I have left the Kingdom of God and that is the only thing that has happened. I have a belief. My belief convinces me that something has happened and that I am guilty for it. I try to rid myself of the intolerable burden of this guilt by projecting it. The Garden of Eden story is my attempt to project it onto God. Every time I think blame thoughts in any form, it is my attempt to project it onto someone else or onto some situation. But it doesn’t work, of course, because what I give is mine. What I teach is what I learn.

Jesus is showing us the way out of this. He is the way out. I was reading something I wrote earlier about the crucifixion and resurrection which was his part in the awakening. This is, in part, what I said:

The useless journey, or the journey to the cross is death in its many forms. It is sickness, loss, lack, hatred, anger, fear, judgment, jealousy, and depression. All suffering is a form of death. Then, of course, there is the death of the body, the coup de gras, the final proof that I am not what God created, that I am indeed my own creation. The journey through suffering and finally to my death is my ultimate victory against God.

Jesus overcame death and in doing so it is done. All that is required of me is that I accept this gift and then it is done for me, too. His was meant to be the last useless journey, done for all of us and done for the last time. Instead, we have chosen sacrifice (a form of death). We have chosen to follow in his footsteps, endlessly reenacting the crucifixion while rejecting the resurrection which proved that death is not real and it proved that the ego/body/ cannot overcome God’s Will.

So this is done. Now we need only accept it as done. We must do our part which is to reject every form of death and in so doing we will be resurrected from this dream of separation and begin to truly live. We do this every time we notice untrue beliefs in our mind and ask for and accept the Atonement for those thoughts. We do it every time we stop trying to give away our guilt and simply allow it to be healed.

Each time we reject a wrong minded belief it is a little step toward the Kingdom. We will take this journey a step at a time until the mind has healed to the point that we are ready for resurrection and then ascension. The Kingdom has already been won. All we are doing is preparing ourselves to accept our place in it, and we do this by rejecting anything that is not part of the Kingdom.

I have had this crazy belief that I will be at peace when my children are. I will be at peace when I get my house and car paid off. I will be at peace when I am retired. When I have more time. When I have made amends for all my mistakes. When my body has healed. All of these conditions that I put on peace are barriers to the Kingdom of Heaven. I stand at the door with my heavy burden of needs and all I need to do to enter is lay that burden aside. Just lay it down and go on in. The way has been made.

I stand there with my grievances piled high. My dad was an alcoholic. I never knew a normal relationship with a father and that scarred me and kept me from forming healthy relationships with men. My ex husband was not the man I needed him to be. My friend betrayed me. My kids don’t give me what I think I need from them. The guy at work makes me mad.

My competitor took my customer by lying about me. People are unkind, and close minded and the cause of my misery. I stand at the gate with my list of grievances, the proof that these people are unworthy and should not be allowed entrance. And so, of course, I cannot enter either, because then who would bar the door?

All I need to do to enter the Kingdom is throw away my list of grievances. I cannot approach God with hate in my heart, not because I am guilty for my hate, but because hate is not in God. I am learning that to know my nature and to return to truth, I must reject all that is not God’s nature, because that is my nature, too.

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