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Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 12. 2-17-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 12
12 Behold, my child, reality is here. It belongs to you and me and God, and is perfectly satisfying to all of us. Only this awareness heals, because it is the awareness of truth.

Journal
In the end this is all that forgiveness does. It allows the truth to be true in our minds. We choose to be aware that there is only God and we are part of His Mind. I can choose to allow the sense of Oneness that we are all a part of, and when I do the world as I have known it falls away for the moment. This happens when I give myself to this writing in the quiet of the early morning. I feel the connection with Spirit, with Jesus.

It happens when I set aside all else and join with a student to do our course together. It is sharing from the heart, and joining in purpose that brings the truth into awareness, and with truth, joy. Sometimes it happens at random moments as I set aside whatever the ego mind was focused on and allow myself to join with… well, with anything, and in that joining, comes the sense of being one with everything.

In those moments, what have I forgiven? I have forgiven the belief that I could be alone, separate, not part of all that is. I have forgiven the very idea of separation in whatever form I imagine it. I have forgiven the idea that I could ever be separate from my Source. I don’t yet stay in this purified awareness, but each time I experience it, even for a brief time, I yearn for its return. It is my desire that brings it to me, but my desire is not always for peace.

It is astounding to me that I still choose the illusion at all, and yet I spend a lot of time there. I believe a fear thought and I am right back in the muck of separation beliefs. I become angry or frustrated over the smallest things, and I have lost the awareness of the presence of Love that had been mine just a moment before. These things don’t just happen. They require my active decision to place my awareness on them rather than on reality. This is what I forgive. And the return to peace is what forgiveness brings me.

I become angry about a situation, I place blame on a brother and hold a grievance, I become afraid of the future or regretful of the past. These are all ways in which I avoid reality. None of these behaviors or feelings in any way affects reality, but they affect my experience of it. Regardless of my experience, though, reality remains reality and is always available to me. Forgiveness has revealed to me my desire for reality. Now I am only learning to master this choice. I do so every time I realize I have chosen illusion over truth and choose again. 

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Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 11. 2-16-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 11
11 The impossible can happen only in fantasy. When you search for reality in fantasies you will not find it. The symbols of fantasy are of the ego, and of these you will find many. But do not look for meaning in them. They have no more meaning than the fantasies into which they are woven. Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful, but no one calls them true. Children may believe them, and so, for a while, the tales are true for them. Yet when reality dawns, the fantasies are gone. Reality has not gone in the meanwhile. The Second Coming is the awareness of reality, not its return.

Journal
It can be hard to remember that this experience we are having is a fantasy, an illusion, a dream. It is hardest to believe this when things are going badly. When we are afraid it can be very hard to pull the mind away from the story long enough to allow the Holy Spirit to purify our thoughts. But this is the time when it is most helpful to ask that the mind be healed. As we do this, we are remembering that the only thing that matters in this world is that we use the story to learn it is yust a story.

It can be very exciting to realize that we are at this moment a part of the second coming. This is what we are doing as we study the Course and put it into practice in our lives. For eons of time we have had the experience of being unreal, but reality did not cease simply because we ignored it. The second coming is the awareness of reality. We will stop ignoring reality as we remove our attention from the illusion.

This is no small thing that we do. As I go through the day I will have many false thoughts and many illusory experiences. I can indulge all of this, throw myself into the story, and pretend that it is reality. I can feel excitement, boredom, fear, love, depression, all the emotions that are fed by the story. I can live a life without purpose.

Or, I can remember today that I am ready to wake up. I am ready to truly seize the day, to use each opportunity to see differently. I can give my confused thoughts to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to show me a truer perception. Every time I do this I feel more like the eternal Divine Being that I am. Each time I do this, I heal the mind that we all share and each one of us comes closer to the moment of awakening. That is living a life of purpose. 

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 9. 2-12-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 9
9 The ego literally lives on borrowed time, and its days are numbered. Do not fear the Last Judgment, but welcome it and do not wait, for the ego’s time is “borrowed” from your eternity. This is the Second Coming that was made for you as the First was created. The Second Coming is merely the return of sense. Can this possibly be fearful?

Journal
I am ready for the last judgment, or at least I am ready to be ready. This is why I pay attention to my thoughts and to the world I have brought into manifestation. I want to see what it is that I still value in the world, and what it is in my mind that still needs to be healed. I am slowly forgiving myself for my projections, and in doing so I am releasing this tight grip I have on guilt. This is what I mean when I say that I accept the Atonement in a situation. I want to allow the belief in guilt to be removed from my mind, at least in a particular case, so that I can come that much closer to releasing the belief in guilt altogether, as that is my real goal.

This will prepare me for the Last Judgment, because as long as I still see myself as guilty, I will be afraid of it. In doing this, I am learning that the Holy Spirit could only judge me as innocent, because, in spite of my fear, and in spite of appearances, I am innocent. There is nothing I can imagine that will change His judgment of me. In forgiving myself, I am not doing it so that I can stand spotless before God. I am already spotless. I am forgiving myself of the belief that I need forgiveness. If I cannot see my own innocence, I cannot see myself standing before Innocence, and will continue to put off the Last Judgment.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 8. 2-11-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 8

8 If you have no idea what is happening, how appropriately can you expect to react? You might ask yourself, regardless of how you may account for the reaction, whether its unpredictability places the ego in a sound position as your guide. Let me repeat that the ego’s qualifications as a guide are singularly unfortunate, and that it is a remarkably poor choice as a teacher of salvation. Anyone who elects a totally insane guide must be totally insane himself. Nor is it true that you do not realize the guide is insane. You realize it because I realize it, and you have judged it by the same standard I have.

Journal
I am convinced that the ego is a poor guide and I have learned to vigilant for the ego’s attempts to be the guide. I have learned to discern the difference between the ego’s guidance and the Holy Spirit’s guidance. I still hear the ego and I still follow ego sometimes, but I regret it when I do and I always change my mind. It came as a little surprise, however, when I read the last two sentences. I have always realized the ego was insane? I thought I just learned that. I guess I was hiding that from myself because I wanted to keep playing its game.

Actually, I guess the only reason I ever listen to ego even for a brief time is that I am being offered some bit of the game that still amuses me, or that still holds some value for me. Here is something I am noticing; the more I release the idea of guilt, the less interest I have in the ego thought system. What seems to follow naturally is that fear then begins to fall away. Let’s see, if I choose Holy Spirit as my guide, I will respond appropriately, teaching love and helping my brother to wake up, or at least certainly not holding him back.

If I choose Holy Spirit as my guide, I will live a happier life, free of regrets and disappointments. I will be peaceful and filled with joy regardless of what seems to be happening in the story. If I choose Holy Spirit as my guide, guilt will cease to attract me and fear will fall away. Or I can choose ego as my guide and keep the status quo. I can go on pretending to be master of my miserable little universe, making images that I pretend are creations, born of the twisted desires of an insane mind, and suffering the consequences, And all the while I can pretend I am the victim and this was done to me.

Hmm. Join God in unending blissful creation, or join ego in pain, suffering and death. Which one will I choose today?

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 8. 2-11-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 8

8 If you have no idea what is happening, how appropriately can you expect to react? You might ask yourself, regardless of how you may account for the reaction, whether its unpredictability places the ego in a sound position as your guide. Let me repeat that the ego’s qualifications as a guide are singularly unfortunate, and that it is a remarkably poor choice as a teacher of salvation. Anyone who elects a totally insane guide must be totally insane himself. Nor is it true that you do not realize the guide is insane. You realize it because I realize it, and you have judged it by the same standard I have.

Journal
I am convinced that the ego is a poor guide and I have learned to vigilant for the ego’s attempts to be the guide. I have learned to discern the difference between the ego’s guidance and the Holy Spirit’s guidance. I still hear the ego and I still follow ego sometimes, but I regret it when I do and I always change my mind. It came as a little surprise, however, when I read the last two sentences. I have always realized the ego was insane? I thought I just learned that. I guess I was hiding that from myself because I wanted to keep playing its game.

Actually, I guess the only reason I ever listen to ego even for a brief time is that I am being offered some bit of the game that still amuses me, or that still holds some value for me. Here is something I am noticing; the more I release the idea of guilt, the less interest I have in the ego thought system. What seems to follow naturally is that fear then begins to fall away. Let’s see, if I choose Holy Spirit as my guide, I will respond appropriately, teaching love and helping my brother to wake up, or at least certainly not holding him back.

If I choose Holy Spirit as my guide, I will live a happier life, free of regrets and disappointments. I will be peaceful and filled with joy regardless of what seems to be happening in the story. If I choose Holy Spirit as my guide, guilt will cease to attract me and fear will fall away. Or I can choose ego as my guide and keep the status quo. I can go on pretending to be master of my miserable little universe, making images that I pretend are creations, born of the twisted desires of an insane mind, and suffering the consequences, And all the while I can pretend I am the victim and this was done to me.

Hmm. Join God in unending blissful creation, or join ego in pain, suffering and death. Which one will I choose today?

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 7. 2-10-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 7
7 The confusion of functions is so typical of the ego that you should be quite familiar with it by now. The ego believes that all functions belong to it, even though it has no idea what they are. This is more than mere confusion. It is a particularly dangerous combination of grandiosity and confusion that makes the ego likely to attack anyone and anything for no reason at all. This is exactly what the ego does. It is unpredictable in its responses, because it has no idea of what it perceives.

Journal

Oh my goodness! Do I ever know this is true! The ego thinks its job is to forgive and all it winds up doing is hiding hate behind “kind” words, and creating feelings of resentment at the sacrifice made. It is no kind of forgiveness, really, and what winds up happening is that the anger buried behind the so-called forgiveness rears its ugly head again and catches me by surprise. I wind up saying something I regret, and the process starts all over. I would laugh at the foolishness of ego forgiveness, but sometimes the result is not very funny.

I usually catch this kind of thing quickly because I have learned to recognize the signs of when I have allowed the ego to take on a function that belongs to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes though, I fall prey to the ego desire to take all functions for itself. I think that when this happens it is because I don’t really want to forgive.

Recently I talked about having an ongoing forgiveness lesson with someone at work. The reason it was ongoing is because I continued to allow the ego to be in charge of the process. This will always fail because the ego doesn’t know anything about forgiveness. Looking at the situation through the ego I saw the other person as the other person. ~smile~ I couldn’t see our unity because the ego doesn’t accept unity as a possibility.

Seeing him as separate from me, I saw our interests as separate. From that point of view it became a matter of whose interests would be served, so there had to be a winner and a loser, and I sure didn’t want to be the loser. The ego then focused on how to win and still look spiritual. See how confused and hopeless is the ego version of forgiveness? Every time I let the ego be in charge of forgiveness with this person, I wound up with another grievance.

The way it played out is that I would say something I immediately regretted, and then would sit there wondering where those words came from. Then I would have to justify my failure to forgive and so I would think of all the ways he provoked me. I would then find myself talking to my boss about how hard it is to work with this man, hoping to get her on my team to help support my weak case for him being the cause of my unhappiness.

Immediately, I would feel regretful because the sane part of my mind would recognize what I was doing. I don’t want to teach hate. I don’t want to teach unforgiveness. I would then sit in my office and ask for help. I would ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind, and though I meant I wanted to be free of this conflict, I still didn’t want to let him off the hook. More evidence of ego arrogance and confusion. What kind of forgiveness is that?

I don’t know how many times I had to go back to my boss and try to undo the harm I had done. I would talk to her about my desire to let this go, and my desire to withdraw my projections and to accept responsibility for my own feelings.  If I could not show her perfect forgiveness, at least I could share my process as I moved in that direction.

Having asked for healing once again, and having done my penance by admitting my culpability, I would think it was finally done. Then it would happen again and I would realize that while I was truly regretful for my ego driven behavior, my apology was from my spiritual ego, not from a place of true forgiveness.

I don’t know exactly when I finally gave the function of healing to the Holy Spirit, but I know I did because the animosity is gone. I feel nothing but good will and kindness toward this man. I can’t even really remember the feeling of being at odds with him. I remember the circumstances and the facts of the story, but I can’t go there anymore. This is how the Holy Spirit functions.

Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit removes all offending thoughts from the mind and with the thoughts gone, the feelings of anger and resentment are gone as well, as if they had never existed. True forgiveness leaves me wondering what it was I thought I had to forgive. This is something the ego will never accomplish for me, because the ego doesn’t know what true forgiveness is, or how to achieve it.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 9, IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgivness, P 6. 2-9-15

IV. The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness, P 6
6 Follow the Holy Spirit’s teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness is His function and He knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what I meant when I said that miracles are natural, and when they do not occur something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow the Holy Spirit’s plan of salvation, recognizing that you do not understand what it is. His work is not your function, and unless you accept this you cannot learn what your function is.

Journal
When I think of living like this everything seems so simple. If I am experiencing anything except love, joy and peace then I am following the ego’s plan for salvation. Knowing this, I can choose again. I can choose to release the ego thoughts to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to do His work. He knows His function and will complete it if I don’t interfere, if I don’t try to do it myself.

The ego wants all functions for itself. This is what is happening when I think that I know what to do about a situation. When I got upset with a coworker, I knew that I wanted the situation resolved. I had thoughts about who was to blame. I had thoughts about letting my anger go even though the coworker was wrong, because being angry was not helping. I had thoughts of being guilty for my feelings, and then I would feel rage at the coworker.

The ego mind thinks this is helping. When I am looking at this from the ego mind, it seems like I must consider all angles of the situation, look closely at the story, deciding who is wrong and what I need to do about it to defend my position and protect myself. Sometimes I stumble over a useful idea and things seem to get better for awhile, but nothing is solved because the ego cannot heal. The best I can hope for is a temporary secession of conflict, knowing it will show up somewhere else, in some other form.

When I choose to release this to the Holy Spirit, the experience and the outcome is entirely different. I notice that I am angry and upset with my coworker. I realize that my thoughts about this situation are making me miserable and I show them to the Holy Spirit, asking Him to correct my thinking and heal my mind. He does this. Sometimes I stray back into the ego mind and pick up the problem again, but if I do, I just repeat the process with the Holy Spirit.

When I am looking at this situation with the Holy Spirit and handing it over to Him, it is all very simple and easy and the solution is permanent because a healing has occurred. All that I have to do is stay in my real mind and let Spirit complete His function. I have no part in that other than to not interfere.

I have noticed that not interfering is the only hard part for me. The ego mind wants to do the Holy Spirit’s job. It requires vigilance to be aware when I have strayed into a function that is not mine to fulfill. I remind myself that my job is to notice the ego thoughts, to realize I don’t want them and to release them to the Holy Spirit. Period. I am through. Now it is the Holy Spirit’s job to complete the forgiveness process.

What occurs when I do my part and stand back is a miracle. My mind is healed and from a healed mind, a healed world becomes manifest. If I follow this simple plan, doing only my part and allowing the Holy Spirit to do the rest, my life will be miraculous. The world’s laws will be meaningless as the miracle supersedes them. As I do this more and more, forgiveness becomes easier and more natural, and so does miraculous living.

© 2015, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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