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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: II. The Difference Between Imprisonment, P 1. 7-11-14

II. The Difference Between Imprisonment and Freedom
1 There is a rationale for choice. Only one Teacher knows what your reality is. If learning to remove the obstacles to that knowledge is the purpose of the curriculum, you must learn it of Him. The ego does not know what it is trying to teach. It is trying to teach you what you are without knowing what you are. It is expert only in confusion. It does not understand anything else. As a teacher, then, the ego is totally confused and totally confusing. Even if you could disregard the Holy Spirit entirely, which is impossible, you could still learn nothing from the ego, because the ego knows nothing.

Every time I think that I know what to do and so don’t check in with my Inner Guide, I have chosen to ask ego. It took me awhile to figure that out. It was as if there was a third choice, as if there was the Holy Spirit, ego and me. That was a mistake. There is only ego and Spirit. Before ACIM, I was almost completely identified with ego. I did believe in my soul, but I believed that I (ego/body) had a soul, not that I was my soul. Now I am more identified with spirit and so listen more to Holy Spirit than to ego.

Holy Spirit is the Voice for God, the memory of all that is true. The ego is confused and confusing and knows nothing. When I ask ego I become confused as well, and the more I turn to ego the more I become identified with ego. In my confusion I think I am ego, or to put it more clearly, I think that I am the one who is this body and this personality, and that this is my life. I think I live and move and have my being in this body and this world.

Not only does this take me further away from my true self and my real life in God, it leaves me uncertain of everything and doubtful of my very existence. I cannot be happy if I choose to learn from the ego because the ego doesn’t know anything about happiness. It only knows to offer me endless choices without regard to the actual outcome.

The ego will say that I am unhappy because I am lonely. I make arrangements to be with people. Then the ego says I am unhappy because these are the wrong people. In the next breath it says I am unhappy because I am with people and I prefer to be alone. All its advice is like this. The more attention I pay to the ego chatter in my mind, the more obvious it becomes that there is nothing but contradictory and unhelpful information there.

If I am lonely and I ask Holy Spirit what He wants me to know about this, I will be given thoughts that are helpful. I will remember, or be directed to something that helps me to remember, that loneliness is impossible because I am part of everything. How could I be lonely? Remembering this, I ask Holy Spirit to correct my perception, because obviously I am thinking with the wrong mind.

As my perception is corrected, my mind is healed of the belief in loneliness and the feeling of loneliness is gone. There is no confusion in this, no contradiction. The truth of the matter is revealed and with my acceptance of it, the problem is resolved for me. This is a very different outcome. The ego wants me to try this and try that and it wants the trying to be endless so that I never get around to questioning the legitimacy of the ego as teacher. The Holy Spirit wants only to heal so that I will be happy.

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Study of the Text, Revisiting: Chapter 5: IV. Teaching and Healing, P 7, 7-10-14

Revisiting a previous chapter:
IV. Teaching and Healing, Paragraph 7
7 The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the power to create is of God. Therefore, those who have been forgiven must devote themselves first to healing because, having received the idea of healing, they must give it to hold it. The full power of creation cannot be expressed as long as any of God’s ideas is withheld from the Kingdom. The joint will of the Sonship is the only creator that can create like the Father, because only the complete can think completely, and the thinking of God lacks nothing. Everything you think that is not through the Holy Spirit is lacking.

As one, we, the Son of God create as God creates. While we are choosing separation, we do not create, but we can heal. That is the closest we can be to our true nature. And in healing, we again become one. As we forgive we accept the Atonement and now we have received the idea of healing. We then give healing in order to hold onto the idea of healing, because as Jesus tells us as we give we receive.

In order to return the mind to its natural state of oneness, there can be no one left out. We must be complete to be what we are. That is an idea that I live by. I still casually separate myself from another through some careless attack thought, but as soon as I notice I have done it, I retract that thought. I usually say to myself, “I cannot enter God’s Presence if I attack his son.” I make no exceptions to this.

At a work conference this week, I would see people that I have had a grievance with in the past, sometimes a competitor, or a customer I lost, or one I just can’t seem to sell. Sometimes it would just be someone I don’t enjoy talking to. Then I would remember that I cannot enter God’s presence if I attack this person. My choice to attack, and anything that separates me from my brother is an attack, now seems very unimportant. I quickly and sincerely choose healing.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: I.The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph 6. 7-9-14

I. The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph 6
6 The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully recognized before a real change in direction becomes possible. You cannot learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in total disagreement about everything. Their joint curriculum presents an impossible learning task. They are teaching you entirely different things in entirely different ways, which might be possible except that both are teaching you about yourself. Your reality is unaffected by both, but if you listen to both, your mind will be split about what your reality is.

I have times when I am clear that I am not really this body, and this story of Myron is not my life. I know that I am here to heal the mind and save the world. When I think of this it doesn’t give my ego a thrill of specialness. Actually it is very humbling to realize that I am waking up and that I am learning to allow myself to be lived by something greater than my ego. As I listen to my Teacher, I realize that for the first time in my present memory, I am free. I became free through my full surrender to Spirit.

At other times I am so embroiled in my story that my mind clouds over in confusion. It is at these times that I am listening to ego instead of Spirit. Ego has an entirely different curriculum. Spirit leads me to joy and peace and fulfillment. Ego, on the other hand, leads me to drama, strong emotion, willfulness and loss. Ego teaches me that guilt and fear are my saviors. The outcome when learning from ego will be pain and suffering. Its final destination will always be death.

In any day, I will be led by Spirit to overlook the ego actions and words of others and to overlook my own as well. Spirit leads me to see only the truth in every circumstance and every person. This is very peaceful and the effect is a happy life. In contrast, ego says that everyone is an enemy at times, even the ones I love the most. Ego says that I must defend myself, and when not defending I must prepare for defense. It says I must listen closely to what others say, carefully looking in case offense was offered. It is a harsh and exhausting job following ego.

Holy Spirit has been very patient with me, allowing me to see the contrast between curriculums. No matter how many times I choose ego, Holy Spirit remains steadfastly certain of me, and so I am learning to trust myself, too. As I use Holy Spirit as my model, I am learning to extend this trust to my brothers, and in doing so my lesson in self-trust is reinforced.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: I.The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph 5. 7-8-14

I. The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph 5
5 The curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum you have established for yourself, but so is its outcome. If the outcome of yours has made you unhappy, and if you want a different one, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary. The first change to be introduced is a change in direction. A meaningful curriculum cannot be inconsistent. If it is planned by two teachers, each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it cannot be integrated. If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously, each one merely interferes with the other. This leads to fluctuation, but not to change. The volatile have no direction. They cannot choose one because they cannot relinquish the other, even if it does not exist. Their conflicted curriculum teaches them that all directions exist, and gives them no rationale for choice.

I have established that my previous curriculum (the ego’s curriculum) has made me unhappy. Even what I perceived as happiness, I now see was just a temporary absence of unhappiness. The moments I thought of as my most precious were tainted by the fear of loss because that was the pattern established by ego.

Now I am ready to establish my new curriculum permanently. I have already chosen a new direction and have experienced moments of true happiness, but it has not been lasting. I see the reason as I read this paragraph. My curriculum is not meaningful yet, because I still have two teachers with diametrically opposed systems. They interfere with each other.

My mind becomes muddled as I try to listen to both, choosing to follow one and then the other. I laugh to myself as I imagine my GPS running two programs at once. One program takes me on an easterly path and the other chooses one that goes west. One turns me left and the other turns me right. My GPS would be, in effect, saying that all directions will take me to where I want to go, and that could not be true. I would experience frustration and unhappiness, and I would be a very long time getting to my destination, if I ever got there at all.

Fortunately, my Garmin has only one voice, only one director. It takes me surely and quickly to my destination as long as I follow its directions. This is as it can be for my path through life. I have a choice between two voices and I can follow either. It seems that I can also choose to follow both, but with the same dissatisfying results I would have if my GPS had two voices. I have already proven to myself that the Voice for God is consistent and that it takes me where I truly want to go.

I have been listening to the ego voice for a long time and sometimes I still, out of habit, choose that voice now. But when I do, I not only become confused, but I wind up where I don’t want to be. The ego voice as not gone away for me yet, but the Voice for God is strong in my mind and I hear it even as I hear the ego. I am learning to tune out the ego more often than not. My path is straighter and my journey more peaceful.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: I.The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph4. 7-7-14

I. The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph 4
4 Your past learning must have taught you the wrong things, simply because it has not made you happy. On this basis alone its value should be questioned. If learning aims at change, and that is always its purpose, are you satisfied with the changes your learning has brought you? Dissatisfaction with learning outcomes is a sign of learning failure, since it means that you did not get what you wanted.

I laughed when I read this paragraph. It is so simple that you would think we would have thought of it ourselves. Well, I guess we did, because consciously or unconsciously we became open to finding another way. That is why the Course is part of our life now. But it is not enough to learn about another way, we need to put it into practice.

We don’t just say there must be another way, find that way, then go back to making the same mistakes as always and expect our life to change. What works for me is to look at each outcome, day-by-day, moment-by-moment, actually, and notice if it makes me happy. If I am not happy, then I make a decision to do it differently because I didn’t get what I wanted. That makes sense, right?

A simple example of this occurred over the weekend. I said something to a friend and then regretted saying it. I felt like it was a stupid thing to say, that my friend noticed how stupid it was and judged me for it. I kept having judgmental thoughts about myself and then I would feel bad. I know this is foolish and not helpful and I asked for correction, but I would notice the thought again, and I would become anxious about it.

When I woke up the next day, the thought was right there waiting for me. What I did then was ask the Holy Spirit to show me what I needed to learn from this experience, and to help me let it go. I had the thought that I was upset because I was afraid I was being judged by my friend and coming up short. Then I had the thought that I believed that I need my friend to approve of me.

The next thought I had was of the lesson I had done recently. This was the lesson that I practiced knowing the peace of God is all I want. In this lesson I learned that in order to have the peace of God I have to let go of other goals. I realized that by having the goal of needing approval, I could not have the peace of God. Each time I did not get approval I would be out of peace.

Ahh! Now I understood the problem, and I knew the solution. I was upset because I had put another goal before the only goal that would make me happy. I wanted this friend to approve of me and this goal is doomed to failure. At some point, my friend is bound to disapprove of something I did or said. Even if she didn’t, I would project my self-judgment onto her and it would appear as if she disapproved of me.

There is no way I could keep this goal and experience the peace of God. The solution is simple. Needing approval doesn’t make me happy. If it doesn’t make me happy, it has no value to me. I can easily let it go on that basis alone. Peace makes me happy, and so has value to me. It only makes sense to remember that my only goal is the peace of God. All the anxiety I had felt when I thought I needed approval just dissolved away instantly. When I looked at the whole situation from that peaceful place I could laugh at what a big deal I had made of nothing.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: I.The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph3. 7-4-14

I. The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph 3
3 Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war does deprive you of peace. Yet in this war there is no opponent. This is the reinterpretation of reality that you must make to secure peace, and the only one you need ever make. Those whom you perceive as opponents are part of your peace, which you are giving up by attacking them. How can you have what you give up? You share to have, but you do not give it up yourself. When you give up peace, you are excluding yourself from it. This is a condition so alien to the Kingdom that you cannot understand the state that prevails within it.

As I read this, I thought of my last marriage. Toward the end, I spent a lot of my time responding to ego thoughts in my mind and so it was more a war than a joining. It’s kind of funny when I think of it, but I divorced him because I wanted peace. It is kind of a metaphor for ego. The ego says if we want to be happy we must separate ourselves from God and from each other.

God on the other hand is Wholeness. If we want to be happy we choose peace over war. We choose sharing rather than attacking. When I was married, I listened to the ego tell me that I needed to defend myself against my husband’s selfish behavior, that he was the cause of my unhappiness. And yet, peace is the condition of the Kingdom and in choosing to separate myself in order to gain peace, I was asking that the Kingdom be something it is not. I was asking that it be separation rather than Wholeness. It was a ridiculous request.

I’m not saying that I am guilty for choosing divorce or even that I wish I had chosen differently. I am just noticing that I was looking for peace where I could not find it. After the divorce I spent several years learning how to have the peace I did not achieve through divorce. I had to forgive myself and him, and that took awhile because I often hid from myself my true feelings and so they couldn’t be healed.

Eventually, I did look at it all and allow it to be healed. The final piece came when it was completely healed and I spontaneously apologized for my part without any sense of loss or any need to defend myself. I apologized without expectation or need for a response from him. I doubt he ever saw his part in it, but that is none of my business and does not affect me.

I am completely at peace with that relationship. That means I don’t think he is responsible for how I feel. I don’t blame him for anything he did or any effect his actions had on anyone. I freed him from my grievances and so I freed myself. Now I understand that the reason forgiving him freed us both is that we are each a part of the other’s peace. We are one and if we continued to separate through anger and blame, we would both suffer.

Was this hard to do? I had many compelling reasons to hold a grievance against him. And it took a long time to work my way to this point that I realized there was nothing to forgive. In spite of this, I know it was not hard. All I had to do was let it go, knowing that I wanted peace more than I wanted the grievance.

That it took so long, and that I felt like it was hard was testament to my desire to be right rather than happy. But, no, it wasn’t hard to do. It required only that I choose peace and that I recognize that my peace is dependent on my desire to hear the Voice of God Which speaks for Wholeness. I only need to answer that call, with the certainty that nothing else is more important.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: I.The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph 2. 7-3-14

I. The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph 2

2 The distractions of the ego may seem to interfere with your learning, but the ego bas no power to distract you unless you give it the power to do so. The ego’s voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect it to say “I am not real.” Yet you are not asked to dispel your hallucinations alone. You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results to you. If you do not want them on the basis of loss of peace, they will be removed from your mind for you.

For awhile now I have been experiencing major shifts in my understanding. My connection with Spirit has grown stronger and stronger. I am more peaceful, and happier. Frustrating periods of confusion, and sometimes, unnecessary suffering has preceded many of those shifts, as I looked at the false beliefs in my mind. But I am happy to do it, and it passes much more quickly now because my willingness is stronger than my resistance.

My part in this process is my willingness, my sincere desire to awaken. I do not dispel my illusions alone. The Holy Spirit undoes them for me as that becomes my desire. It happens slowly, a small step at a time when my willingness is weak. As it strengthens, the transformation is quick. There is a big difference for me now. I used to believe the ego had power over me. I used to doubt and become fearful when I seemed to temporarily fail.

Now I know that I made the ego; the ego did not make me. Therefore, the ego is powerless before me, and if it seems to rule me, it is only because I desire to keep it in place. I am no longer trying to lie to myself about this because I no longer feel guilty about it. Foolish, maybe, and frustrated with myself sometimes, but not guilty.

Recently while reading a past entry in my journal, I was reminded of this passage from The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament. It says:

“The choice you make will seem to be made many times in complete sincerity and truth of heart. And then you will seem to slip and forget the choice you have made. Do not let this distress you. Simply make the choice again.”

That really helped me to let go of the concerns I had about my seeming failures. In fact, reading this and accepting it was a turning point for me.

Evidently, I am also learning to evaluate everything on the basis of loss of peace. I notice that I am very sensitive now to loss of peace, and when it happens, I immediately look at my thoughts to see what precipitated the loss. When I see the thought I evaluate it. What is its value to me? Do I want this belief more than I want peace of mind?

Sometimes I become temporarily confused and think I need to make the thought go away, or somehow fix my ego with my ego. But as Jesus says: The ego’s voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect it to say “I am not real.” Eventually, I always come to my senses and allow Holy Spirit to do His job and my mind is corrected and my peace is restored.

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