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Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 4. 2-28-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 4

4 Each day, each hour and minute, even each second, you are deciding between the crucifixion and the resurrection; between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego is the choice for guilt; the Holy Spirit the choice for guiltlessness. The power of decision is all that is yours. What you can decide between is fixed, because there are no alternatives except truth and illusion. And there is no overlap between them, because they are opposites which cannot be reconciled and cannot both be true. You are guilty or guiltless, bound or free, unhappy or happy.

Journal

Very clearly, our belief in guilt is our problem, the reason we are bound to the illusion and the reason we are unhappy. We can be free of the illusion and free to remember who we are and where we are. We are free to remember the thoughts we think with God. All of this is ours simply by giving up guilt. Jesus tells us two very important things to help us do this.

First he tells us that guilt is a choice. We choose either ego (guilt) or Holy Spirit (guiltlessness) and we do this moment to moment. In chapter 30 he is going to give us a set of rules to help us make this decision. In it he tells us, as he does here, that we make decisions continuously. This means we are always, in every second, deciding on Heaven or hell.

Just as he does here, he also tells us that our alternatives are fixed. There are only two, truth and illusion. He also tells us in Chapter 30 that all decisions are made in union so we must decide whom we will make that decision with. There are only two choices. We will choose either Holy Spirit or ego. How merciful is this necessary limit. How simple it makes our choosing.

There is nothing in between. We cannot choose alone, and we cannot choose something besides the truth or illusion. We cannot choose a little of both. We think we can and that is why we are still dreaming. We think we can love everyone except… fill in the blank here. We think that we are innocent of everything except that one really bad sin. We think the little stuff doesn’t matter, but the little stuff is just symbolic of the one thing. We think we can join with Spirit most of the time or when it is really important, and keep the other decisions for ourselves.

None of this will work. It is an all or nothing choice. Choose God and you choose happiness, love, joy, peace; choose God and you choose Heaven. Choose ego in any way or for any reason and you choose the hell of believing you are separate from God. You choose the effects, which are anger, fear, guilt, depression, jealousy, and every other unhappy effect you can imagine. Your choice will smother you in pain, suffering and finally death.

You have the power of decision. In every second you are making this choice. What will it be, guilt, or guiltlessness?

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Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 3. 2-28-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 3

3 There is no compromise that you can make with guilt, and escape the pain that only guiltlessness allays. Learning is living here, as creating is being in Heaven. Whenever the pain of guilt seems to attract you, remember that if you yield to it, you are deciding against your happiness, and will not learn how to be happy. Say therefore, to yourself, gently, but with the conviction born of the Love of God and of His Son,

What I experience I will make manifest.

If I am guiltless, I have nothing to fear.

I choose to testify to my acceptance of the Atonement, not to its rejection.

I would accept my guiltlessness by making it manifest and sharing it.

Let me bring peace to God’s Son from his Father.

Journal

I want to be happy and I cannot be happy if I think I am guilty or anyone else is guilty. It is not true and can never be true and there is no compromise in this. As I began to realize how destructive is the belief in guilt, I began to ask the Holy Spirit to remove that belief from my mind. What happened is the Holy Spirit helped me to see the many ways that guilt shows up in my mind. By that I mean I began to become aware of guilt in all its guises.

I realized that any time I judged anyone that was guilt. Anytime I wished someone was different that was guilt. I began to notice these conversations I was having with people, not aloud, but in my head. For instance, I have a friend who gets drunk and inevitably gets into trouble. I become concerned for him and in my head I am saying things like, “Don’t you see how self destructive you are? Have you talked to your therapist about the root cause of this desire to hurt yourself?” I may as well be saying, “Do you know how guilty you are?”

I might as well be saying, “Myron, do you know how guilty you are?” I am teaching myself that I am guilty of judging him and being afraid for him and not trusting him. The ego mind calls it concern and caring. The ego mind thinks this is love. But it hurts. The more I think about his behavior, the more frightening it appears to be and the worse I feel. Love is not painful or frightening. Love doesn’t hurt. This is not love, it is guilt, and in finding him guilty of self destructive behavior, I am myself being self destructive. I am destroying my peace and my happiness.

So I asked the Holy Spirit for a different way to see this. How do I see the situation without judging it and without using it to increase the belief in guilt? Here is what I heard.

Holy Spirit: I choose to testify to my acceptance of the Atonement, not to its rejection. Accept the Atonement for this situation. I have said that Atonement is undoing. Accept your innocence and you will accept innocence everywhere. Accept innocence here and you will accept it for yourself. Guilt is the rejection of the Atonement. Love and devotion are the acceptance of it. Love and devotion will undo the belief in guilt, and innocence will assert itself. Being afraid for your beloved friend will increase guilt and will not help.

Me: How do I do this? It seems so clear that this person is going down the wrong road and is hurting himself and others. How do I not see this?

Holy Spirit: While you are focused on the problem you will be lost in the problem. Give your loving attention to the truth, to his reality, to his innocence. Give your attention to your innocence because there is nothing your innocence cannot do. Did you think that you found Nouk’s article this morning by happenstance? Have I not told you that your journey through this experience is not random? Use her words, her practice as your own and this will help you take your mind off the problem and put it on the solution.

You found your devotion and felt the joy of it. Now use it in order to keep it in your awareness. Devote yourself to the truth and to love and do this indiscriminately and universally. There is no circumstance in which love is not the answer. Your beloved friend does not need your psychoanalysis, and certainly he does not need your fear. Love and devotion do not flourish in guilt and fear. Make manifest your love and devotion by turning your attention from guilt and fear and placing it on the truth. Bring peace to your brother and you will have peace.

Here is the process I was led to this morning. It is from an article by Nouk Sanchez and the link to the full article follows.

For this exercise only, I have adapted the following review lessons in A Course in Miracles to reflect the deeper meaning within the word “holiness.” Please join me and Jesus in opening our one heart to a whole new depth of Love through first accepting and then extending our incorruptible Innocence.

This is not an intellectual exercise. This is to be a deeply tender and “felt” practice; one that is lovingly seen, accepted and expressed with great reverence and gratitude. The Holy Instant of innocence awaits us. It is ultimately realized through heartfelt acceptance of our (and others) guiltlessness which translates to our unchanging and uninterrupted state of incorruptible Innocence. This is our Holiness. This is our literal immunity from all pain, all sickness, all conflict, all loss and suffering of any kind. This is the Will of God.

W-58.1.          (36) My incorruptible Innocence envelops everything I see.

From my innocence does the perception of the real world come. Having forgiven, I no longer see myself as guilty. I can accept the innocence that is the truth about me. Seen through understanding eyes, the innocence of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself.

W-58.2.          (37) My incorruptible Innocence blesses the world.

The perception of my innocence does not bless me alone. Everyone and everything I see in its light shares in the joy it brings to me. There is nothing that is apart from this joy, because there is nothing that does not share my innocence. As I recognize my innocence, so does the innocence of the world shine forth for everyone to see.

W-58.3.          (38) There is nothing my incorruptible Innocence cannot do.

My innocence is unlimited in its power to heal, because it is unlimited in its power to save. What is there to be saved from except illusions? And what are all illusions except false ideas about myself? My innocence undoes them all by asserting the truth about me. In the presence of my innocence, which I share with God Himself, all idols vanish.

W-58.4.          (39) My innocence is my salvation. Since my incorruptible innocence saves me from all guilt, recognizing my innocence is recognizing my salvation. It is also recognizing the salvation of the world. Once I have accepted my innocence, nothing can make me afraid. And because I am unafraid, everyone must share in my understanding, which is the gift of God to me and to the world.

W-58.5.          (40) I am blessed as a Son of God.

Herein lies my claim to all good and only good. I am blessed as a Son of God. All good things are mine, because God intended them for me. I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of Who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son.

takemetotruth.org/nouks-blog/a-profound-lesson-in-innocence/

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Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 2. 2-24-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 2

2 Perhaps you are accustomed to using guiltlessness merely to offset the pain of guilt, and do not look upon it as having value in itself. You believe that guilt and guiltlessness are both of value, each representing an escape from what the other does not offer you. You do not want either alone, for without both you do not see yourself as whole and therefore happy. Yet you are whole only in your guiltlessness, and only in your guiltlessness can you be happy. There is no conflict here. To wish for guilt in any way, in any form, will lose appreciation of the value of your guiltlessness, and push it from your sight.

Journal
This was an interesting paragraph when I first read it, because it had never occurred to me that I was deliberately choosing to use both guilt and guiltlessness and that I found value only in having both at my disposal. I believed that they each offered me something that I needed and so I needed to keep both. I am learning that this is not true. And I see that I cannot live with only guilt, and since I must choose only one, it is guiltlessness I choose to value.

I discovered that guilt is a surprisingly stubborn belief for something that is so painful. First I had to look at the reasons I think guilt has value to me. I asked the Holy Spirit to clarify this for me and over a period of time He pointed out my perceived need for guilt. For instance, I would get angry with my son for his behavior and think he should do better. This was me making him guilty. What was really happening is that I was afraid for him and I didn’t know what to do with my fear so I projected it onto him as guilt. This made my peace his responsibility

For a long time I didn’t know another way to deal with my fear. I just kept trying to throw it out onto someone else. Another time I saw this happen was at work. I would be concerned about losing a customer and this would make me afraid. So then I would think how ungrateful that customer was, because after all, I had done so much for him. Or I would worry about my boss’s reaction and think how ungrateful he was that he would get mad at me for something I couldn’t prevent, because after all, I had been such a good employee.

Now when I see these ideas in my mind, it is really obvious to me what I was doing as I tried to rid myself of my fear, but at the time, it wasn’t so clear. The fear clouded my mind and made a different choice difficult. It really did seem that guilt was valuable. Otherwise, what would I do with all that responsibility? I would just turn the guilt inward and that would be crushing. I couldn’t see a world with no guilt at all.

There was an underlying reason for the guilt, one that I was oblivious to for a long time. The ego mind wants to continue to exist. That part of my mind likes the stories and likes the idea of being a separate individual with separate goals and separate needs. It likes the idea of competition, of winners and losers. It likes the idea of being its own god. And this desire to play around in the separation idea, which seems to be in defiance of God, creates a lot of unconscious guilt.

The ego mind deals with this guilt through projection. It makes up guilty stories about the self or others that seem to explain away the guilt. Anything I could do, any guilty act would be more acceptable than thinking that I am guilty of defying God. Even better is if I could find someone else to blame for the guilt, but either way, projecting the guilt as a story in the life of Myron seems essential to the ego. Giving up the idea of guilt is not an option to the ego mind because guilt is the glue that holds the whole illusion in place. Ending guilt would end the ego.

The solution to guilt in whatever form it takes is simple. When I notice that I am indulging in guilt, however that might look, I ask the Holy Spirit to show me another way to see it. I ask for mind healing. After doing this for a while now, it seems the more natural response and I do it all the time. I no longer have to work at it, trying to talk myself into it. I just want peace of mind and guiltlessness will give that to me. It requires only vigilance and trust, and it requires that I choose only guiltlessness and forever give up guilt. I am willing.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, C 14: III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 1. 2-23-17

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness, P 1
1 The happy learner cannot feel guilty about learning. This is so essential to learning that it should never be forgotten. The guiltless learner learns easily because his thoughts are free. Yet this entails the recognition that guilt is interference, not salvation, and serves no useful function at all.

Journal

I have often wondered if other people have had as much trouble giving up guilt as I did. There is not a lot of belief in guilt left in my mind, but I still find some there. I did yesterday. My daughter comes to my house nearly every day right now and spends some time with me. We talk and enjoy each other’s company, and I take responsibility for the baby at least part of that time. It is a welcome relief for her.

Yesterday she was doing something with the baby and I took a few minutes to take care of some business on the computer. She came in while I was doing it, and told me she was leaving. I felt for a moment like I was guilty for making her feel less than welcome. I might have felt guilty because I was tired and wanted some alone time and it was like she read my mind. It was silly, but there it was. So I released it and went back to peace.

That is the difference now. When I see guilt, I am willing to let it go. I have been doing this study for a long time and mind watching is a big part of it. For a long time it was painful as I saw so many dark and ugly thoughts in my mind, thoughts I had never before allowed myself to acknowledge. It didn’t have to be painful. I could have looked at the thoughts like I do now, as simply something that is not true and needs to be released.

I did eventually come to realize they were not even personal, not “my” thoughts, simply thoughts within the mind that represented certain unquestioned beliefs. They looked like my thoughts because of the form they took, which seemed to apply to my particular story. They seemed like my thoughts because Myron was thinking them. As I let go of the personal aspect of the thought it became easier to let go of the guilt associated with them.

Now I no longer struggle with guilt thoughts like I used. I notice them but I don’t feel a sense of shame or fear. If any of that shows up, I realize it is just a shadow feeling, a memory of guilt. It is easier to use mind watching for healing now and I learn faster without guilt slowing me down.

The main reason I know there is still the belief in guilt in my mind is that I still think others are guilty. I will read some article in the paper or read a political statement on Facebook, and there will be a brief flirtation with guilt. No problem; I see it as an opportunity to ask the Holy Spirit to help me see differently. Accepting healing is so much easier without having to overcome the idea I am guilty for needing healing.

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Study of Text, C 14: II. The Happy Learner, P 8. 2-21-17

II. The Happy Learner, P 8

8 Behold your brothers in their freedom, and learn of them how to be free of darkness. The light in you will waken them, and they will not leave you asleep. The vision of Christ is given the very instant that it is perceived. Where everything is clear, it is all holy. The quietness of its simplicity is so compelling that you will realize it is impossible to deny the simple truth. For there is nothing else. God is everywhere, and His Son is in Him with everything. Can he sing the dirge of sorrow when this is true?

Journal

Just as Jesus tells us over and over that the darkness that seems to imprison us is nothing, he also tells us over and over that we find our release in our brother. How does that work? We release our brother and then we are released. We see in his freedom our own freedom. When we hold our brother hostage to our beliefs about him, we imprison our own mind and fail to see our own freedom.

Here is an example. I had an upsetting thought about my son yesterday. For awhile now I have been free from these kinds of thoughts. I gave them to the Holy Spirit over and over and finally left them there. But for some reason yesterday one of those negative thoughts found a sticking place in my mind. I had one unkind thought that had no basis in truth, not even in the shifting perceptions of the world. Just a stray thought, a memory of past transgressions and a “what if it is happening again” fear.

Suddenly I was right back there, judging and feeling anger and resentment and I lost the vision of my son. I traded it for the screwy perception of the ego mind. I was afraid, unhappy, sad and guilty. In other words, I saw darkness in him and I was suddenly standing in darkness and it felt awful. It only lasted a few minutes because I saw immediately what had happened and I let it go to the Holy Spirit. But for those few minutes I put him in hell and followed him there.

The opposite happens as well. Someone asked me for prayers. Their situation would seem impossible to the ego mind, but I see in that person something else, something not in trouble, not afraid, not guilty. I see them with a vision much closer to knowledge of who they really are. In that moment of clarity, I see myself with a vision much closer to knowledge of who I am. The words for this came later, but the feeling was happiness. I felt at peace and happy.

So now when I see someone behaving badly, or when I see someone depressed or angry, whenever I see someone who has forgotten who they are, I realize that is me over there. That is me expressing my untrue nature as if it is reality. That is my anger or depression being acted out by another part of the Sonship. I ask that my mind be healed of what I see in them. I ask for vision to see past the ego behaviors and to know who that is that I am looking at. And surely it is God, because God is everywhere and His Son is in Him with everything. And so It must also be in me.

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Study of Text, C 14: II. The Happy Learner, P 7. 2-20-17

II. The Happy Learner, P 7

7 The happy learner meets the conditions of learning here, as he meets the conditions of knowledge in the Kingdom. All this lies in the Holy Spirit’s plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom for you. For truth is true. What else could ever be, or ever was? This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door that you believe is locked forever. You made this door of nothing, and behind it is nothing. The key is only the light that shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing. Accept this key to freedom from the hands of Christ Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light. For, like your brothers, you do not realize the light has come and freed you from the sleep of darkness.

Journal

Over and over Jesus is telling us that all the darkness that holds us prisoner is nothing. It doesn’t exist except in our minds. And even there it exists only in a past which itself does not exist. There is only truth and nothing else and the truth will surely set us free. The truth is that we are holy, we are safe, we are free, we are Gods. This truth is the key that sets us free, it is the light that shines away the dark forms that make up this experience we think is our lives.

When I got a earache last week, I did not for a moment believe it was real. It felt real and hurt as if it was real, but it was simply the effect of the belief in pain and suffering. It was the ego mind’s defense against God. The earache was meant to convince me that I am a frail and vulnerable body, and that the truth is not true at all. And here is all the proof. The ego mind says that all this pain is what is real, not the nonsense about holiness.

I felt the pain and I remembered that there is nothing my holiness cannot do. I was at war only within my split mind. The part that is clinging desperately to the idea of a separate and unique and very special self, would gladly suffer pain if pain would prove its existence. But, alas, the ego mind is doomed to lose this battle. My awareness has moved slowly but steadily from the ego part of the mind to its true home, the part of the mind where the Holy Spirit resides.

There are many such skirmishes in my mind, but most are very brief and sometimes over before I have time to give it much thought. There are, however, ego strongholds that I still must stand against. I am never alone though, as the Holy Spirit is ever present in my awareness and ever at my side, answering my slightest desire for healing.

It is funny really. All this effort and all this distress, and it is already done. I have been freed from my sleep of darkness. It was done by Jesus, and in that accomplishment it was done for me as well. I fight shadows only, and all that is required of me is that I accept my brother’s gift. Dear God, please, wake me up. I long to know my freedom.

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Study of Text, C 14: II. The Happy Learner, P 6. 2-17-17

II. The Happy Learner, P 6

6 If you would be a happy learner, you must give everything you have learned to the Holy Spirit, to be unlearned for you. And then begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly on the firm foundation that truth is true. For what is builded there is true, and built on truth. The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity. With truth before you, you will not look back.

Journal

“…you must give everything you have learned to the Holy Spirit, to be unlearned for you.”

In my experience, this is the key to salvation. If I want to be saved or released from my former decision for separation, then this is the path I must take. It has worked very well so far. I learned to vigilant for my thoughts and to release each ego thought as I noticed it to the Holy Spirit for correction.

The more I did this the easier it became. As my mind got clearer, I was able to hear guidance that helped me along the way to discern the ego thoughts that before were confusing to me. I learned to recognize guilt and fear when it showed up in subtle ways. I was guided to helpful processes like the Rules for Decision.

Now I that I have accepted his help in unlearning, I am beginning to receive the joyous lessons. I am beginning to understand and accept the lessons that before were not meaningful to me, or at least that the meaning was only partially seen, and now I am seeing with a lot more clarity. For instance, the holiness lessons have taken on a power they never had before. I am learning the happy truth of who I really am. I could not accept that until I let go of a lot of who I am not.

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