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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VII.The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 7. 5-9-14

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 7

7 One child of God is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach another. One Teacher is in all minds and He teaches the same lesson to all. He always teaches you the inestimable worth of every Son of God, teaching it with infinite patience born of the infinite Love for which He speaks. Every attack is a call for His patience, since His patience can translate attack into blessing. Those who attack do not know they are blessed. They attack because they believe they are deprived. Give, therefore, of your abundance, and teach your brothers theirs. Do not share their illusions of scarcity, or you will perceive yourself as lacking.

If my brother attacks because he feels deprived, then it must be that I defend myself because I feel vulnerable. This is a cycle that I am ready to break. It is unworthy of God’s Son. It keeps me in hell when I could be in the Kingdom. Jesus shows us the simple way to end this sad state of affairs.

When my brother attacks me I have a choice about how I respond. The choice I make depends on my vision of myself. The Holy Spirit will correct my thinking and clear my vision if I ask Him to. Here is an example of how this is working for me right now. A person at work has persistently caused me problems because he won’t listen. He thinks he already knows and so he ignores what he is told.

My first response to his latest error was anger and frustration. I cannot get him to listen to me and his own judgment is flawed. I am the one who suffers for his errors and so I resented him and wanted him to change. He seemed to be the problem and I don’t have influence over him and so there seemed to be no solution.

I want to wake up. I want to wake up more than I want to solve this problem. I know that waking up depends on forgiveness, so I want to forgive him, the situation, and myself. I want to accept the Atonement in this situation because that is the only thing that will bring me closer to God. My way of handling it in the past has only brought me more deeply into the ego illusion. I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind.

In healing my mind He showed me a picture of two children. The little boy wants to win the game. He wants to be the hero and in his mind the hero makes all the decisions himself and they are right decisions. It’s hard to be the hero because he doesn’t have all the tools yet to make those decisions, but it is really important to him that he does so. He needs to appear the hero so he stubbornly persists in doing whatever he needs to so that he maintains this image of himself.

The little girl has an end goal in mind for her game. She has decided what needs to be done to win and since she has played this game often, she is certain she knows the steps to take to win. Winning is important to her because losing would be scary. She sees losing the game as losing everything she values. So when the little boy takes chances with the game and stubbornly fights against her plan, her fear turns into rage.

Seeing us as frightened and stubborn children helped me to diffuse the situation. There are things that must be done, and one of those things is to convince this fellow to do his job differently. I don’t know how to do this or even if I should step into it. Maybe it will be done by someone else in the work place. But, what I feel now is different than it was before.

I feel more understanding and compassionate to both players, both myself and this co-worker. I have invited Holy Spirit into the situation and I trust that He will direct it, so I am not afraid anymore. This opens me to love, which feels more natural. I am reminded that everyone is innocent. I am reminded that my purpose is forgiveness. My only function is to accept the Atonement for myself. I know what I am supposed to be doing and I do it. I am at peace about the whole thing.

I wonder how the story will unfold now.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VII.The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 6. 5-8-14

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 6
6 Only honor is a fitting gift for those whom God Himself created worthy of honor, and whom He honors. Give them the appreciation God accords them always, because they are His beloved Sons in whom He is well pleased. You cannot be apart from them because you are not apart from Him. Rest in His Love and protect your rest by loving. But love everything He created, of which you are a part, or you cannot learn of His peace and accept His gift for yourself and as yourself. You cannot know your own perfection until you have honored all those who were created like you.

I don’t know why it took me so long to understand that I am one with everyone, that we are worthy and that God loves us without exception and unconditionally. It should be evident since this is what the Course is teaching us. But we won’t know this other than as a concept unless we honor each other and love each other in the same way that God does. This means that our love must be universal.

Universal love flows to everyone equally, blessing none less than another. There must be no boundaries. My love cannot stop at one body, and skip over another. It must have no conditions, no secret bargains in which love is given in the hopes that in return the other will fill some perceived need. I must love all without exception if I am to know myself as love.

This is some pretty lofty stuff. How do we do this? My path has been one of noticing when I do the opposite and recognizing that it is not making me happy, and not waking me up. Then I ask the Holy Spirit to heal me. I ask for the Atonement, I accept the Atonement, I receive the Atonement. Love then flows to and through me on its own without my further assistance.

I want to know who I am. I want to know myself as perfect love. So I continue to love as perfectly as I can and I give my willingness to be taught how to love more perfectly.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VII.The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 5. 5-7-14

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 5
5 The gift of life is yours to give, because it was given you. You are unaware of your gift because you do not give it. You cannot make nothing live, since nothing cannot be enlivened. Therefore, you are not extending the gift you both have and are, and so you do not know your being. All confusion comes from not extending life, because that is not the Will of your Creator. You can do nothing apart from Him, and you do do nothing apart from Him. Keep His way to remember yourself, and teach His way lest you forget yourself. Give only honor to the Sons of the living God, and count yourself among them gladly.

Whatever is not of God is not life. This thing I call my life is nothing because it is unlike God in every way, and so, though I made it, I cannot enliven it. This is why I am not joyful and at peace. It is why I live with a sense of loss and why I believe I can suffer and die. In my deepest heart I know that I am not what I seem, and I feel that lack. I feel like something is wrong, even though I have done all this to hide that fact from myself. To enliven is my true will because it is God’s Will and not to extend life is painful.

How do I amend this error? First I recognize that I am not actually creating anything at all. I am only pretending to create. Next, I recognize that what I call creativity is just a shadow of what I do when I acknowledge my true nature. The world with its bodies and its wonders seem amazing to me, so amazing I can hardly believe I have anything to do with it, and yet, it is nothing. I did, indeed, with my brothers make this world, and yet, it pales into nothingness when seen next to my true creations. And since it was made outside creation it is nothing.

All of the depression, rage, suffering and death that we know as our lives is the result of not allowing the memory of our Selves to surface in our minds. We miss who we are. We long to be with our Creator and our creations. We long to enliven as God enlivens because it is our nature. We seem to rage against the world but we are really raging against our self-imposed limitations because they are not natural to us.

When I read in the Course that I am among the Sons of the living God, it never fails to bring tears to my eyes. These tears are partly because I am so happy to be reminded, but they are also tears of frustration and grief because I don’t remember what that is like. I am told the way to remember, though, and in remembering I will naturally turn away from the illusion.

Jesus says this: “Give only honor to the Sons of the living God, and count yourself among them gladly.” I will remember to honor my brothers for what they are today, because this is how I return myself to reality and know myself as the Son of the living God. I look forward to the many opportunities to honor each of us.

“Holy Spirit, please help me to remember this when I am tempted to judge, and when I let my mind wander to illusions. When I look at a brother and see only a body I don’t know and don’t care about, help me remember who it is that stands before me, so that I might honor this Son of the living God. When I am tempted to see my transgressions in time as if they could change me in defiance of my Creator, help me to surrender to the Truth, to my holy Self as defined by God.”

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VII.The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 4. 5-6-14

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 4

4 Illusions are investments. They will last as long as you value them. Values are relative, but they are powerful because they are mental judgments. The only way to dispel illusions is to withdraw all investment from them, and they will have no life for you because you will have put them out of your mind. While you include them in it, you are giving life to them. Except there is nothing there to receive your gift.

Jesus, I think I understand this, but it would help if you could clarify it for me. I do notice that you said mental judgments are powerful and I had never thought of that. I tend to think of judgment in terms of something I shouldn’t be doing, but I had not thought of them as powerful. But I guess anything that keeps me in the illusion and that holds the illusion in place is powerful.

Jesus: Yes, your mental judgments are powerful even when you are using your ego mind. And when you turn from ego judgments and ask the Holy Spirit to judge for you, you are agreeing to join your self with your Self, and this is powerful beyond anything you experience with your separate small will.

As far as your investment in your illusions, you often hide that from yourself. You hide it behind the images that you call real. Think of your sister in law who you keep saying is dying. Why are you so invested in her body being sick and dying? Death is an illusion. Where have you invested your trust? Is it in the power of God, or is it in the illusion of death?

You hide that you are investing in death behind the illusion of a very sick body. In this way you can say that there is no hope for that body and you can make up stories about why it is better that she let it go, and there is a reason for death in this case, and that somehow either the illusion is stronger than the Will of God, or the Will of God is that suffering and death be real. I assure you neither is true, but as long as you continue to find value in the illusion of death, you keep it in place.

Me: Yes, at first I simply accepted the inevitability of her death. I followed the illusion blindly, not questioning its reality, and not even considering its value to me. Now when I think of Brinda, instead of imagining her death, I imagine that she and I join our will to the Will of God, which is always Life.

But now I have a different fear. What if she dies anyway (something the ego mind insists will happen) and then I will feel afraid because it will mean the truth is not true. It seems when I write this out, that I would rather sacrifice Brinda than prove to myself that the truth is not true. The alternate fear is that she will die anyway and I will have failed to believe enough and let her die in the wake of my weak will.

Jesus: The only thing you are letting die is your investment in the illusion of death. You do that for both yourself and for Brinda. You do it for the entire Sonship. You let it die when you stop feeding it with your fear. You do it when you release your false beliefs to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to heal your mind. You withdraw the value you have placed in this illusion when you ask for and accept the Atonement in this situation. 

It is easy for you to see the illusion as the problem and something to be fixed. I would ask that you look at your thoughts and beliefs and allow them to be fixed for you. I would ask you to give up this iron grip you have on the fear of death, and equally that death really is only an illusion.

You don’t realize it yet, but you fear both and they are the same fear. And the fear of death is the same as the fear that you cannot do this, and the fear that you will succeed. The fear of death is the same thing as the fear I am lying to you, and the fear that maybe this whole path is a lie. You are fiercely invested in the belief in death which encompasses all of those things.

Me: I see that this is true. All of those fear thoughts have been racing through my mind. It is hard to believe that I am afraid of success in this, but that I cling to all the fear thoughts must mean that I would rather look at death than to look at the possibility of its dissolution in my mind. Would I be willing to let go of the illusion of death completely and for all time? I cannot even imagine what that would mean, but could I? How about just this one time? Could I let go of my investment in Brinda’s death?

Jesus: You are doing this now. You have already begun to look away from the images of death, even though you will be tempted to look at the illusion and believe what you see must be true. Do not be concerned about that, and just remember that the illusion is an image of a false belief, not proof the false is true. When tempted to believe in the image, turn to me and give me your doubts and uncertainties. I know what to do with them.

Let this be your part; place your trust in Life rather than in death. You see how strong your trust is; now simply shift it from the illusion to the truth. This is very simple to do. Use the same practice that is familiar to you. When you notice that you are placing your belief in death, ask the Holy Spirit to correct your thinking. Accept and receive this correction. That is all I ask of you at this time. You have done this many times and you know you can do it now. Here is the reminder I would like you to use: “There is no death. There is only God.”

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VII.The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 3. 5-5-14

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 3

3 You do not need God’s blessing because that you have forever, but you do need yours. The ego’s picture of you is deprived, unloving and vulnerable. You cannot love this. Yet you can very easily escape from this image by leaving it behind. You are not there and that is not you. Do not see this picture in anyone, or you have accepted it as you. All illusions about the Sonship are dispelled together as they were made together. Teach no one that he is what you would not want to be. Your brother is the mirror in which you see the image of yourself as long as perception lasts. And perception will last until the Sonship knows itself as whole. You made perception and it must last as long as you want it.

I have noticed that as I allow my mind to be healed, I tend to experience the effects of my beliefs more quickly and clearly. I think that this is because I am open to seeing this now, and I want to be healed so I am shown what needs healing, and I see it without delay. It seems to be all about the level of my willingness. I get what I want and to the degree I want it.

For the last couple of weeks I have experienced a lot of inner conflict. I have felt like I’ve been walking backwards on this path, and that I cannot seem to turn myself around. It has been very frustrating. I never go all the way back. In other words, I might be judgmental, but I never think that the judgment is justified. But after being mostly free of the desire to judge for awhile now, it feels depressing to pick that back up even though I know this is just some ego stuff coming back up so that I can master my desire to let go of judgment.

I have been asking Holy Spirit to help me see the source of this problem and this morning as I read our paragraph of the day, I realized that I have been judging someone in my life without realizing that I was doing so. I judge this person, and since judgment is not discreet, I judge others and I judge myself. Judgment is like a virus. It spreads quickly and indiscriminately.

I didn’t realize I was judging at first because it was not obvious. I seemed to be simply noticing something that was true about her. Then this morning Holy Spirit helped me to see that this could not be true about her because it is not true about God, so I was judging her as less than God, or something other than God. The effect of this judgment is that I began to see myself in this way. I see her has sick and I see myself as sick, because I cannot believe about myself what I am unwilling to believe about my sister.

Suddenly it is very clear to me that I have been judging my perception as true. My perception is just a way of seeing. Because my perception is projected as images into the world, I seem to be right. The proof seems to be right in front of my eyes and so my perception appears to prove itself to me. I have another option, though. Now that I remember that what I see represents a perception that I chose to believe, I could now ask for and receive a healed perception from Holy Spirit.

One of the blocks to my acceptance has been the ego thought that no matter how I choose to see this problem, it is unlikely to change. This morning, I see that my reasoning is faulty. My part in this is to remember the truth. I can do this whether I see a change in the images or not. What is not God is not true. This is all I need to remember.

Sickness, fear, anger, guilt, suffering, and death are not true and never will be regardless of appearances. I cannot make them true, but as long as I believe in them, my life will reflect them as if they are true. And if I believe these things about someone else, I will not be able to see myself free of them. 

I am ready to turn around now. The world will remain a reflection of faulty perception as long as I value that perception. And perception will last as long as I want perception. My job right this moment is to allow my perception to be healed. The next step of giving up perception all together will unfold in perfect timing according to our willingness. For today, I am willing to know the truth rather than to believe in the images of faulty perception. I feel lighter and freer already.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VII.The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 2. 5-2-14

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 2

2 When a brother acts insanely, he is offering you an opportunity to bless him. His need is yours. You need the blessing you can offer him. There is no way for you to have it except by giving it. This is the law of God, and it has no exceptions. What you deny you lack, not because it is lacking, but because you have denied it in another and are therefore not aware of it in yourself. Every response you make is determined by what you think you are, and what you want to be is what you think you are. What you want to be, then, must determine every response you make.

I love the clear and easy stuff from the Course, which is what we have here. When my brother acts insanely (attacks) I have an opportunity to bless him. I need to bless him because I need the blessing myself, and giving it is the only way I can receive it. That is so clear and so unequivocal. He emphasizes that by saying: “This is the law of God, and it has no exceptions.”

No matter what my brother does or says, he is asking for my blessing whether he understands this or not, and he probably doesn’t. If he is attacking it is because he is afraid and feeling defensive. He thinks he must protect himself, and asking for a blessing is the furthest thing from his mind. Therefore, it is up to me, being the saner one at the time, to understand what he needs and give it to him. 

How do I bless him? What does that look like? The form changes according to circumstances, but the content remains love. It can be as simple as a smile, or a nod of understanding. I can say to an angry brother that I can see how upset he is. I can give him my attention. When someone is grieving, I can hug her and offer my condolences.

Even if the attack is directed at me, I can be defenseless and I can ask the Holy Spirit what response is most loving in this situation. Here is an example. I wrote something and shared it on a forum. Someone reading it attacked the content. I felt the attack as if it were personal and asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind.

From that place of clarity I realized that my words had triggered something in the other person and I felt compassion because I know how that feels. I thanked the person for sharing her thoughts and feelings. Sometimes it might be more appropriate to just let it be. What is never helpful is to argue or become defensive.

What I give, I receive and I don’t need to teach myself defensiveness. I already know that posture too well. What I want is to teach forgiveness and innocence because that is what I most need to learn. I let what I want to be determine my response.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 7: VII.The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 1,Continued. 5-1-14

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, Paragraph 1 Continued
1 Whenever you deny a blessing to a brother you will feel deprived, because denial is as total as love. It is as impossible to deny part of the Sonship as it is to love it in part. Nor is it possible to love it totally at times. You cannot be totally committed sometimes. Denial has no power in itself, but you can give it the power of your mind, whose power is without limit. If you use it to deny reality, reality is gone for you. Reality cannot be partly appreciated. That is why denying any part of it means you have lost the awareness of all of it. Yet denial is a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as well as negatively. Used negatively it will be destructive, because it will be used for attack. But in the service of the Holy Spirit, it can help you recognize part of reality, and thus appreciate all of it. Mind is too powerful to be subject to exclusion. You will never be able to exclude yourself from your thoughts.

This is what I want to contemplate today:

“Denial has no power in itself, but you can give it the power of your mind, whose power is without limit. If you use it to deny reality, reality is gone for you.”

Again and again in the Course Jesus reminds us of the power of our mind. Here he says it is unlimited. This is so hard for us to comprehend. We have denied this power so thoroughly that we can’t say no to chocolate, or we procrastinate to the point we cause our self grief and think there is nothing we can do about it. We fall in and out of love and hurt each other and it seems just to happen to us. We feel like we have no power over our lives at all. And yet, Jesus says we have unlimited power. So we must be doing this to ourselves.

We are talking about the power of denial, specifically. We are told that denial has no power of itself, but the unlimited power of our mind lends it power, so much so that what we deny is no longer true for us. If we deny reality, then reality is gone. At least it is gone from our awareness, just as we desired. That is why we can live as if we have no control over what we eat, that we cannot help being addicts, that we just stumble into and out of relationships and don’t know how it happened.

We do all of this to ourselves and then we deny any knowledge of how it happened and through the power of our minds we believe the lie. It becomes true for us and we are left helpless victims of circumstance. It’s the craziest thing! As insane as this is, backing out of it is no simple thing. We must overcome our own desire and choose to see differently.

We must first understand how it could have happened and then accept that, weak as we seem, we must actually be powerful beyond limit. We must put aside our fear of this power and embrace the idea as something we love and want. That is all we have to do because the rest is done for us, but lord knows, that’s enough.

This would be impossible if we did not have so much help. We accomplish this one step at a time, and I find it very helpful to take the step of realizing that, “Reality cannot be partly appreciated.” Knowing this I have stopped believing that I can love some and hate others and still know Reality. I no longer believe that I can forgive some and hold others imprisoned in my grievances, or that I can hurt someone without hurting myself.

Knowing this one thing helped me to see that awakening is possible after all. There is nothing to decide other than that all of God’s creation belongs to Him. If I want to remember the Kingdom and know myself beside Him there, I must appreciate, equally, all that He created. Nothing can be left out, nothing can be seen as less than, and nothing can be seen as condemned. All must be forgiven and accepted. You cannot get any simpler than that.

I don’t give my blessing begrudgingly anymore. I want my brothers to be innocent, because I understand now that I am only as innocent as they are. I wholeheartedly want them forgiven because their forgiveness is my forgiveness. I am learning to use the unlimited power of my mind to return myself to sanity and to make myself ready for our return to God.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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