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Study of Text, Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 5. 2-29-16

Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 5
5 You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense. There are areas in your learning skills that are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a Teacher Who can transcend your limited resources. He becomes your Resource because of yourself you cannot learn. The learning situation in which you placed yourself is impossible, and in this situation you clearly require a special Teacher and a special curriculum. Poor learners are not good choices as teachers, either for themselves or for anyone else. You would hardly turn to them to establish the curriculum by which they can escape from their limitations. If they understood what is beyond them, they would not be handicapped.

Journal
If you have a problem with math, don’t come to me. I can add and subtract and multiply, but beyond that, I have few skills. I would be a poor teacher of math. If you don’t understand algebra or geometry, you need a special teacher with a specific curriculum. And I assure you, if you are as lost in higher mathematics as I am, without a math teacher and without a curriculum designed for this special thing, you are going to be lost. You would not be able to teach yourself.

I did so badly in algebra when I was in school, that one time after I was grown, I decided to try it again. I went to the library and checked out a book written for math simpletons, like me. I did better with this special curriculum than I did in school, but without the right teacher, there was only so far I could go with it.

When it comes to love, I need a special teacher, even more so than I do in math. I have little understanding of what love really is. A Course in Miracles has provided me with a special curriculum, and the Holy Spirit is my Teacher. With this help I am beginning to recognize what is not love, and that is the foundation I was missing.

Here are a couple things that I have learned that help me recognize what love is not. It is not love when I yearn to be with someone because I feel empty. That is using the person, not loving them. It is not love when think that I am incomplete, that is neediness and it too leads to using. It is not love when I comfort someone who is grieving because that person’s grief makes me uncomfortable.

Here is something I have learned about love through my Teacher. Love isn’t something I find in someone else, and it is not something I can lose. I have learned that Love is what I am and so I don’t need someone else to provide it, nor can I lose it. And something else I learned is that in order to know the love that I am, I must share it. It is not something I get, but it is something I give, and it is something I recognize in the giving.

ACIM is a good curriculum, and the Holy Spirit is a good and faithful Teacher. I understand that I can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, and I get this direction from Him. I choose to follow His Guidance and not turn to the ego mind that knows nothing. I have learned that much at least.

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Study of Text, Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 4. 2-26-16

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 4
4 The Holy Spirit’s Love is your strength, for yours is divided and therefore not real. You cannot trust your own love when you attack it. You cannot learn of perfect love with a split mind, because a split mind has made itself a poor learner. You tried to make the separation eternal, because you wanted to retain the characteristics of creation, but with your own content. Yet creation is not of you, and poor learners do need special teaching.

Journal
Now that I am ready to wake up, the idea of making separation eternal is insane, thus I am given a sane curriculum to study. I made this world I see and so I believe in it. I will not be able to teach myself how to let it go. For this I need another teacher; I need the Holy Spirit’s help. I tried to retain the characteristics of creation but with my own content. Well that has not worked out so well.

I need special teaching and I am ready for that. I am committed to this Course and I will do the work I need to do in order to accept that I need do nothing. This Holy Spirit’s curriculum is not complicated or hard, but it does require vigilance and consistency. In the Course we are given a simple three step process of looking with the Holy Spirit at our thoughts, choosing to let Him correct them, and accepting His correction. As I do this, my mind is healed and made whole.

Only my attraction to guilt and the fear of God keep me from fully accepting the Atonement right now, and this is something I am learning through the Holy Spirit’s sane curriculum to let go. I do it a step at a time as I notice guilt and fear being expressed in the classroom of my life, and ask the Holy Spirit to undo them for me. It seemed I had to do this often to get where I am now, more prepared to let the whole idea of guilt and fear go.

It seemed an impossible task and would be if it were not so heavily reinforced. I am surrounded by His angels, guided by masters who have gone before me, fully supported by a host of helpers. And the Holy Spirit has a home in my mind and so I am never alone and never without my Teacher. I cannot fail to learn because it is not my strength on which I lean, but the Holy Spirit’s Love.

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Study of Text, Chapter 12, II.The Sane Curriculum, P 3. 2-25-16

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 3

3 You will never realize the utter uselessness of attack except by recognizing that your attack on yourself has no effects. For others do react to attack if they perceive it, and if you are trying to attack them you will be unable to avoid interpreting this as reinforcement. The only place you can cancel out all reinforcement is in yourself. For you are always the first point of your attack, and if this has never been, it has no consequences.

Journal
When I attack myself I have always, in the past, projected that attack outward onto the situation or someone else. I do this less than I used to, but I still do it. The reason I am quick to project is that I believe in my own attack. I believe that I deserve attack, that I can hurt myself, that I am vulnerable. The result of this, besides making myself miserable and possibly creating more problems, is that I reinforce the idea that attack is real and a solution.

I cannot undo attack by defending myself against someone else’s attack, and I cannot undo attack by finding solutions in the world. The world is an effect of attack, not the source of attack. The source of attack is always in my mind and nowhere else so it is my mind that must be healed of the belief in attack as a possibility and as a viable solution to problems.

I used attack in my mind twice yesterday. First, one of my customers told me about my competitor coming by and trying to woo them away. I felt a twinge of concern that didn’t get worse because he assured me they were not interested. That twinge was an attack even if it never bloomed into something bigger. He then told me that a neighboring system, one of mine, did switch to my competitor. Ok, now the bloom is getting bigger, but not full blown yet.

I went to see that customer right away, and all this time I am noticing the feelings of concern trying to grow into panic. I am asking that my mind be healed of this desire to attack and defend. For instance, I would think of things that were done wrong with this customer and feel resentment toward our driver who one time made a mistake. I would think of all the many things I do for these guys to make their work easier and then feel resentment toward them.

This is pretty typical ego thinking, but I notice each one and ask for the Atonement. This is good stuff when viewed from the perspective of purpose. My purpose is to awaken and I do that by undoing the ego in the mind. This situation is providing me with opportunity to see what yet needs to be undone. These attack thoughts seem to be about the situation, but the situation is just an image I have made of the belief that I am unworthy and sinful because I left God. That is the original attack and the one that keeps appearing as images in the world of my making.

When I got there I found out they had indeed agreed to go with the other company, but probably because my constant communication with Spirit has kept me calm and not so self-absorbed, I am able to talk them back to us. I never fell down that rabbit hole, just circled it some. ~smile~ Here is one of the things Spirit asked me while this was going on; “What are you defending?” I could answer truthfully that I was defending the little self, and I could honestly say I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to know that there is no little self to defend.

I had another situation later that night that was more difficult. The competitor that was the problem earlier was at the same meeting as me. I had to face him for over an hour and look at my thoughts about him. As soon as I saw him I asked Holy Spirit to remind me of who he really is. It was tough going, but good practice. I woke up this morning feeling bad that I spent this time attacking, but I also realized I did much better than I would have even a short time ago.

Each of those attacks began in me. I attacked myself, then I projected it outward. In both cases, it was only my mind that needed my attention. Yes there were things to be done, but I could do them in peace and from love if I stopped the attack thoughts in my mind. Especially in the first case, I feel like by the time I reached my customer, my mind was pretty clear. I said what needed to be said, and I did not project attack thoughts. I did not do a victory dance. I am very grateful for the healing. Later that night I had an opportunity to do more work, peel that onion some more. I hope to be done with this one soon.

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Study of Text, Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 2. 2-23-16

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 2
2 That is why the recognition of your own invulnerability is so important to the restoration of your sanity. For if you accept your invulnerability, you are recognizing that attack has no effect. Although you have attacked yourself, you will be demonstrating that nothing really happened. Therefore, by attacking you have not done anything. Once you realize this you will no longer see any sense in attack, for it manifestly does not work and cannot protect you. Yet the recognition of your invulnerability has more than negative value. If your attacks on yourself have failed to weaken you, you are still strong. You therefore have no need to “equalise” the situation to establish your strength.

Journal
How is it that I know myself as invulnerable? This certainly doesn’t seem the case if I look at my life. I see myself vulnerable to the economy, my body, sickness, other people’s opinion; I even imagine I am vulnerable to my own thoughts over which I seem to have so little control. And yet, at times I have proven to myself that none of this is true. It is a very ingrained belief, though, and I too easily slip back into it.

In today’s lesson, (54) Jesus says this about our thoughts: What I see witnesses to what I think. If I did not think I would not exist, because life is thought. Let me look on the world I see as the representation of my own state of mind. I know that my state of mind can change. And so I also know the world I see can change as well.

It is clear that my thoughts make the world I see and when I change my thoughts, I change my world. So if I want to see myself as invulnerable I must break the cycle of thinking that shows me a dangerous world from which I must be defended. I have too long thought that the world is dangerous and so I am vulnerable, but that is not true. I think I am vulnerable, and so the world feels dangerous to me.

I make this change as I am vigilant for my thoughts and am willing to accept the Atonement for the ones that imagine I could be vulnerable. In this way I undo the idea of vulnerability in my mind and at the same time, I undo it in the Sonship. This is the way I know myself as invulnerable. This is the way I change the world from a dangerous place to one that fully supports and loves me. It doesn’t happen in the world, it happens in my mind. Then I see it reflected in the world.

Another thing that I have been doing lately is this. As I become aware that I feel vulnerable, I stop and notice my thoughts. Then I let myself move beneath those thoughts to silence. From that more centered space, I let myself remember that I am still as God created me, and that means even now I rest in God in complete invulnerability. I let trust carry me to certainty. This is the same thing as my earlier process, but it is more abstract, and it is a more complete surrender. I do nothing and trust that everything is being done for me.

I will mention here, that the ego doesn’t sit still for this. It tries relentlessly to pull me back into the drama of the moment. But if I engage in this process for even the briefest time, I have made a crack in my defenses and the light pours in. I have so much gratitude for that light! Sometimes I can go from distress to peace almost instantly, with so very little effort on my part, just a desire to change and a willingness to allow it.

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Study of Text, Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 1. 2-22-16

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 1
1 Only love is strong because it is undivided. The strong do not attack because they see no need to do so. Before the idea of attack can enter your mind, you must have perceived yourself as weak. Because you attacked yourself and believed that the attack was effective, you behold yourself as weakened. No longer perceiving yourself and your brothers as equal, and regarding yourself as weaker, you attempt to “equalize” the situation you made. You use attack to do so because you believe that attack was successful in weakening you.

Journal
The idea of equalizing the situation really brought the problem of attack and defend into focus for me. I attack myself and so feel weak, and so have taught myself that attack makes weak. Now my brother and I are no longer equal, and I want us to be equal. I know that attack makes weak because I proved it when I attacked myself, so I attack the other in an effort to equalize the situation.  And of course, I reinforce the idea that attack is a viable tool.

So what does this look like in my life? Here is something that used to happen at work all the time. I never felt like I was enough, that I worked hard enough, that I did enough, that I did it well enough. I felt like my boss was a constant threat to me, because he could affect my salary and even my job itself. He seemed to have all the power. In an effort to equalize the situation I was always finding fault with him. At least in my mind, and sometimes in conversation, I would point out all his flaws.

In fact, none of this was true. I did a good job and I worked hard. He appreciated me and he was a good man. The company had many excellent policies and was generous in their pay. There was nothing to equalize and my attacks on him and the company were not warranted. Sure, he had his moments in which he reacted from his own fear, and so did I, but he was not against me. It was all a war of my own making that came from the untrue thoughts in my mind.

Here is what changed. I began to undo the idea of guilt. I stopped making myself guilty all the time. (Still a work in progress.) Without these guilt attacks on myself I stopped feeling less than. I began to understand that God is my Source in all things, that I am sustained, not by man, not by my job, not by my boss, but by God. 

As my mind healed, my self worth was no longer in question and my self attacks ended (or lessened a great deal) and so there was no need to equalize the situation. Also, as my mind healed, I stopped thinking of attack as a viable tool, and began to see love as the healing balm that soothed all upsets.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 11, IV.Seeking and Finding, P 7. 2-18-16

IV. Seeking and Finding, P 7
7 The Atonement is not the price of your wholeness, but it is the price of your awareness of your wholeness. For what you chose to “sell” had to be kept for you, since you could not “buy” it back. Yet you must invest in it, not with money but with spirit. For spirit is will, and will is the “price” of the Kingdom. Your inheritance awaits only the recognition that you have been redeemed. The Holy Spirit guides you into life eternal, but you must relinquish your investment in death, or you will not see life though it is all around you.

Journal
I understand the price I have paid to embrace death. I understand it perfectly. I see what it looks like in my life. I know what it costs me to let it go and why I want to do this. I stand in utter astonishment at my own stubborn insistence on holding onto the little self I made. Sometimes I scare myself with my stubbornness. What if I never let it go? What if I can’t? What if I am completely wrong about everything? This is the fear that the truth is not true.

When I became aware of what I was doing to myself and when I started letting go of the blocks to the truth, the ego pulled out the big guns. The ego voice shouted at me about doubt and fear, insisting that this was just not possible and that I obviously cannot, will not, succeed. Probably, the ego says, because it is all nonsense. Just ask anyone … anyone not in the same ridiculous spiritual quest as I am in.

These thoughts used to terrify me, but I went through them and discovered they only have power as I give them meaning. When I go through them without slowing down to stew in them, nothing happens and I continue on my way to the truth. Sometimes, though, thoughts that the truth is not true find a place in my mind to take root, and I am temporarily shaken by them. Fortunately, I am no longer interested in feeding them so the roots are shallow and the thoughts are easily uprooted.

Today, I am listening to the Voice for God tell me about life everlasting, about love without conditions, about union and joy and peace. This Voice speaks to me all through the day and every day. Today, I am listening. The ego keeps trying to pull my attention away from that Voice, but I am enthralled with the Voice for God and its sweet promises. The ego is having no luck.

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Study of Text, Chapter 12: !V. Seeking and Finding, P 6. 2-17-16

IV. Seeking and Finding, P 6
6 Behold the Guide your Father gave you, that you might learn you have eternal life. For death is not your Father’s Will nor yours, and whatever is true is the Will of the Father. You pay no price for life for that was given you, but you do pay a price for death, and a very heavy one. If death is your treasure, you will sell everything else to purchase it. And you will believe that you have purchased it, because you have sold everything else. Yet you cannot sell the Kingdom of Heaven. Your inheritance can neither be bought nor sold. There can be no disinherited parts of the Sonship, for God is whole and all His extensions are like Him.


Journal
My first thought on reading this was to wonder what I am selling to get death? How does this work? Obviously I am selling my wholeness, but how do I do this? I asked Holy Spirit to help me understand and to alert me when I am actually doing it. Here are some things He showed me.

I have a friend in financial need. Before I decide if I can give to her I think about other people I give to and I categorize them according to importance to me. How does this buy me death? Separating out those who are important and worthy of my help is a way I make separate, and only those who know their wholeness know eternal life.

I remember last night thinking about my body as a communication device. I wondered how it is that I use it for something else, and what came into my mind is a life-time of dieting, of trying to make the body look attractive to others in many little ways. I have wanted people to look at me and think I look good, to be impressed with me.

This is not communication because it is limited in what is being communicated and to whom. I want others to know a certain version of myself, and I want to use this to keep us separate, divided in groups according to their size, shape and general attractiveness. I am willing to sell out my wholeness for the very temporary approval of others. Again, without an awareness of wholeness, there is not life.

Another one that came to me is how I might use people to meet my own perceived special needs. I might call on a friend to spend time with me because I am lonely rather than because I want to share love. I might give to my children so that they will give me something in return, such as appreciation, rather than giving from the shear joy of giving. I might be nice to a customer to gain their loyalty rather than being nice because I know them as one with me.

Giving to get is just another way to sell out my wholeness. And what do I get from all of this? I get death, because living as a separate self with all these unfulfilled needs is not life. God is Life and He gave me life in my creation. I still have it, but to know I have it, I must let go of these symbols of death, even unto the strongest symbol, the death of the body itself. You would think I would understand this since even this body death turns out to be a joke.

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