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Study of Text, C 14: VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 7. 5-31-17

VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 7

7 Joining with Him in seeing is the way in which you learn to share with Him the interpretation of perception that leads to knowledge. You cannot see alone. Sharing perception with Him Whom God has given you teaches you how to recognize what you see. It is the recognition that nothing you see means anything alone. Seeing with Him will show you that all meaning, including yours, comes not from double vision, but from the gentle fusing of everything into one meaning, one emotion and one purpose. God has one purpose which He shares with you. The single vision which the Holy Spirit offers you will bring this oneness to your mind with clarity and brightness so intense you could not wish, for all the world, not to accept what God would have you have. Behold your will, accepting it as His, with all His Love as yours. All honor to you through Him, and through Him unto God.

Journal
Cate Grieves has awakened to the truth and her perception is true. She often says that though her eyes continue to show her what we all see, her mind sees only God. My lesson for today says that all things are echoes of the Voice for God. As our minds are healed we will see only God, and we will hear only the Voice for God.

I am not yet awakened, but I have done this at least; I have begun to see one purpose in all things. The purpose is to see everything come together in perfect oneness. It is the lesson that nothing I see means anything alone, that meaning comes from seeing together. How does this work? Here is an example from my life.

For the last few days, I have been asking sincerely that my mind be healed of all grievances. As a result, many of them that I didn’t even know I was holding have come into my conscious mind for me to look at with the Holy Spirit and to have them healed for me. It is not always pleasant work, this looking and feeling, but it meets my purpose. I have learned that while the grievances seem to be different, their shared purpose of healing the mind makes them all the same.

In the past, I thought the grievances were about assaults on a personal self.  I now see the grievances in whatever form they may take as having one purpose, one meaning, and one emotion as I use them to see that I have no personal self to save. My salvation lies in this discovery. All things are the Voice for God as He uses them to show me that I am one with all.

I join with the Holy Spirit as we look at my mind together and experience my emotions together. As I do this over and over with the same wonderful results, that is, my mind is healing of the belief in separation, I realize that all things are a lesson in joining. And I come to know that there is no separation. Joining with the Holy Spirit teaches me that I am joined with all things and that all things are one with God. I have not quite reached the happy conclusion of my practice, but I see it. It is a light at the end of a short tunnel.

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Study of Text, C 14: VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 6. 5-29-17

VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 6
6 The Holy Spirit asks of you but this; bring to Him every secret you have locked away from Him. Open every door to Him, and bid Him enter the darkness and lighten it away. At your request He enters gladly. He brings the light to darkness if you make the darkness open to Him. But what you hide He cannot look upon. He sees for you, and unless you look with Him He cannot see. The vision of Christ is not for Him alone, but for Him with you. Bring, therefore, all your dark and secret thoughts to Him, and look upon them with Him. He holds the light, and you the darkness. They cannot coexist when both of you together look on them. His judgment must prevail, and He will give it to you as you join your perception to His.

Journal
Clearly, if we would like to have a healed mind there are only two things we need to do. We need to expose all our dark thoughts to the Holy Spirit, hiding nothing from Him. And we must look at them with Him. This is all. It seems our part in this process is very limited. If we are willing to do this without exception, we will experience true perception, and true perception will allow us to awaken to a happy dream and to help others awaken as well.

When I think about this it seems like I am willing to surrender all dark thoughts and to do it now! And I am, but every once in a while I come across thoughts that seem so confused I cannot look with Holy Spirit. I can’t seem to unravel my thinking enough to do this simple step. Each time this happens, I work through the issue, asking Holy Spirit for greater clarity. Each time, what I discover is that I was hiding the truth because I didn’t want to give it up.

When this happens it is always because I think there is some value in holding onto a particular belief. For instance, sometimes I think I need a guilt thought because I need someone besides me to be guilty. Guilt confuses and frightens, and so keeps the mind clouded. The ego could not long hold my attention if my mind were clear. That is why my work now is to allow Holy Spirit to clear my mind. The light of Heaven will shine away the darkness of the ego’s confused thinking.

There are ways I can tell that I am hiding something from myself and the Holy Spirit. Sickness is one of those ways. If I hold onto a dark thought long enough, I wind up projecting my unconscious guilt onto the image that is my body. Sometimes it is sadness, or anger, or fear that alert me, sometimes just a lump in my throat. When I see that I must be confused again, I do what it takes to get to the bottom of it.

Sometimes I use a Byron Katie worksheet to unravel my thinking. Sometimes I do root cause inquiry. Sometimes, I just tell Holy Spirit that I am willing to look at the problem with Him, and I want to do it now. I tell Him that the ego is afraid of this, but I am not the ego and I want this done. However, I do it, I always eventually do the work, and nowadays I do it quickly. I like a clear mind. I like being free of ego thinking.

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Study of Text, C 14: VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 5. 5-24-17

VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 5

5 Light cannot enter darkness when a mind believes in darkness, and will not let it go. Truth does not struggle against ignorance, and love does not attack fear. What needs no protection does not defend itself. Defense is of your making. God knows it not. The Holy Spirit uses defenses on behalf of truth only because you made them against it. His perception of them, according to His purpose, merely changes them into a call for what you have attacked with them. Defenses, like everything you made, must be gently turned to your own good, translated by the Holy Spirit from means of self-destruction to means of preservation and release. His task is mighty, but the power of God is with Him. Therefore, to Him it is so easy that it was accomplished the instant it was given Him for you. Do not delay in your return to peace by wondering how He can fulfill what God has given Him to do. Leave that to Him Who knows. You are not asked to do mighty tasks yourself. You are merely asked to do the little He suggests you do, trusting Him only to the small extent of believing that, if He asks it, you can do it. You will see how easily all that He asks can be accomplished.

Journal

The Holy Spirit uses all we made that hurts us. He turns it into something that will help return us to our right mind. The way we use defense it is destructive. It blocks our awareness of truth. Given to the Holy Spirit, it becomes protective of the truth. This shift is impossible for us to do, but easy for the Holy Spirit. In fact, it was done the moment the task was given Him. We do have a part in it, which is the willingness and desire to be healed. Acceptance is our part.

Even that little bit can seem difficult. We have put great value in our own little kingdom and there is a reluctance to relinquish it. We put great value in defense and it seems scary to lay down our arms. The part of the mind that enjoys the stories and that wants to keep the self- identity it made up, is adamant in resisting the Holy Spirit. But there is so much waiting for us outside this illusion. Our reality is glorious and living that reality is bliss.

It would seem a simple, self-evident choice. So why don’t we just make it? The problem is twofold. First, we don’t remember our reality and so it feels like we are asked to sacrifice what we are for something that is just a vague promise. We are asked to accept on blind faith what we don’t remember. The answer to this problem is in our mind. As we begin to surrender to the Holy Spirit and do the little asked of us, the truth that has never left us is revealed.

The second part of the problem is that we don’t think we can do this. It seems too hard, too scary. We are asked to let go of everything that we know and every defense we have in faith that we will be saved. It is like we are being asked to step off the cliff in the promise that we will not, after all, fall to our death.

Even as we begin to do what it is asked, dismantling the belief system that blocks the truth, it seems like an endless task. Every time we remove a brick from that wall there is another to be removed. The answer to this problem is simple. We work at the task of removing the bricks one at a time, and this gives the Holy Spirit permission to heal our mind. We can’t wake ourselves up, but we can signal our willingness to be awakened by doing the simple tasks asked of us. Holy Spirit does the hard work, and for Him, it is not hard.

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Study of Text, C 14: VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 4. 5-23-17

VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 4

4 Our emphasis has been on bringing what is undesirable to the desirable; what you do not want to what you do. You will realize that salvation must come to you this way, if you consider what dissociation is. Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking whereby two systems of belief which cannot coexist are both maintained. If they are brought together, their joint acceptance becomes impossible. But if one is kept in darkness from the other, their separation seems to keep them both alive and equal in their reality. Their joining thus becomes the source of fear, for if they meet, acceptance must be withdrawn from one of them. You cannot have them both, for each denies the other. Apart, this fact is lost from sight, for each in a separate place can be endowed with firm belief. Bring them together, and the fact of their complete incompatibility is instantly apparent. One will go, because the other is seen in the same place.

Journal

This paragraph is very helpful in understanding why we must look at our thoughts and bring them to the Holy Spirit. It also explains why we exist in a nearly constant state of mostly unacknowledged anxiety. We believe in two realities and these realities are in no way compatible, and yet, we try to maintain a firm belief in both. It is a wonder we can function in this insanity.

Imagine that you believe the sky is green. You also believe the sky is blue. You believe that 1+1=2, and your belief that 1+1=3 is just a firmly fixed in your mind. This is what is happening to us all the time. We believe in our Divinity, that we are love as is our Creator. We believe in our innocence and our perfection and our oneness. At the same time, we have an equally strong belief in our guilt, in fear and hatred. We believe we are limited and vulnerable. We believe in projection as defense. How can we believe in both of these pictures of our self at the same time?

We maintain the two visions through dissociation. We keep them apart. When we believe in our ego self, we keep our true self in the closet with the door firmly closed. Like most people, for most of my life dissociation was so thorough that I acknowledged my ego-self most of the time and ignored the true self. This did not obliterate my true self, but through dissociation, I kept the knowledge of my true self hidden. With A Course in Miracles, I began to acknowledge both and eventually, my true self began to take precedence in my mind.

I did this by deliberately bringing the two visions together and looking at them both. This forced me to see they were incompatible and forced me to decide between them. This is the purpose of looking at a belief and then asking the Holy Spirit for another way to see it. The other way is the vision I had ignored up until that time. When the Holy Spirit brought it out of hiding and showed it to me, I was able to see clearly that the ego choice was not ever going to make me happy. Thus the choice for truth was inevitable.

It sounds like it would be very simple and straightforward, and that I would choose the truth once and for all. But what I noticed right away is that I had given a great deal of value to the ego way of thinking. It was not always so straight-forward and not always clear, and a lot of time it was frightening to think of letting the old way go. That voice in my head kept warning me that defense was necessary, and all this talk of love and invulnerability was nonsense and was going to get me hurt. So it took awhile but now I am delighted to find the hidden false beliefs lurking around in my mind. I am happy to bring them to the truth so I can make a decision for God, which is a decision for my true self and for happiness.

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Study of Text, C 14: VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 3. 5-22-17

VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 3

3 It is not possible to convince the unknowing that they know. From their point of view it is not true. Yet it is true because God knows it. These are clearly opposite viewpoints on what the “unknowing” are. To God, unknowing is impossible. It is therefore not a point of view at all, but merely a belief in something that does not exist. It is only this belief that the unknowing have, and by it they are wrong about themselves. They have defined themselves as they were not created. Their creation was not a point of view, but rather a certainty. Uncertainty brought to certainty does not retain any conviction of reality.

Journal
I was once married to a man who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. In this delusional state of mind, he saw and heard things that no one else could see or hear. Think about that for a moment. What if you saw someone coming after you with a knife? It would be terrifying as he drew closer and closer to you. You would run for your life!

Now suppose I grabbed you and said, “Slow down! Why are you running? Why are you afraid? There is nothing chasing you.” You look behind you and the knife-wielding man is gaining on you. Would you stand there and think to yourself that this crazy person trying to hold you back probably has a point? Or would you throw him off, and take off running again?

Schizophrenia is a harsh path. Not being able to trust your own senses, and being afraid to trust anyone else’s. But, really, this is where we all are right now. We are looking out our eyes and letting them convince us of the craziest stuff, stuff that could not possibly be true. We have allowed ourselves to believe everything the eyes tell us even though the eyes themselves are part of the hallucination we call life.

What happened with my ex-husband is that over time we built up trust between us. He began to sometimes come to me to ask if what he was seeing was real. He brought his hallucinations to someone he could trust, and so was able to accept that there was another way to see the situation. This was not always true and after awhile it became necessary for us to go our separate ways, but when he was able to do this, it helped him navigate the world his misfiring brain showed him.

We are learning to bring our hallucinations to the Holy Spirit. It usually starts off slowly and the trust builds over time until we turn to Him all the time. The Holy Spirit knows what we see, but he also knows what is really there. He helps us reinterpret what the eyes are showing us. The more we do this, the more clarity we have.

There was no way that Charlie could have looked at the danger he seemed to be facing and convinced himself there was nothing chasing him. How could he? He could see the danger, but he couldn’t see what I saw. It took trust for him to accept help. In the same way, we cannot dismiss what we see and what we feel and hear unless we have help. We have to build trust and we do that by bringing our thoughts to the Holy Spirit over and over. Eventually, our trust pays off and we begin to see differently, too.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, C 14: VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 2. 5-18-17

VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 2
2 The search for truth is but the honest searching out of everything that interferes with truth. Truth is. It can neither be lost nor sought nor found. It is there, wherever you are, being within you. Yet it can be recognized or unrecognized, real or false to you. If you hide it, it becomes unreal to you because you hid it and surrounded it with fear. Under each cornerstone of fear on which you have erected your insane system of belief, the truth lies hidden. Yet you cannot know this, for by hiding truth in fear, you see no reason to believe that the more you look at fear the less you see it, and the clearer what it conceals becomes.

Journal
It is interesting to me that the lesson I am doing today (Lesson 138) says much the same thing. Truth is true and nothing else is true. We don’t really have to seek out truth, but merely uncover it, because truth is all there is. What interferes with truth is not real, simply something we believe.

My experience has been that once I decide I want to see the interference, it is completely obvious. When I don’t want to see it, everything is murky and confusing. Since it cannot be both obvious and murky, it must be that it appears as I want it to appear. Why is it that I would ever choose to be deliberately confused?

Jesus says that we hide it because we are afraid of the truth. I know a young girl who has lived a terrifying life. Now she is in a safe place where she is loved and protected, and yet, though she wants to be loved, she is afraid of love and resists it. When love is too overwhelming, she lashes out at the one loving her. She has been taught that she doesn’t deserve love and so when she receives it, her sense of unworthiness keeps her from accepting love, and it even triggers fear.

Watching her behavior, seeing her defend against love, helped me to understand that we all do the same thing. We all defend against the Love that is God. Who feels worthy of such unconditional, universal love? I think I can say that I feel worthy of this love, and yet, if I did then why would I hide from it? Why would I believe in guilt and fear if I knew that the truth is I am loved beyond measure by my Creator, that I am forgiven all things and that I am the only one who thinks I need forgiveness?

So I search honestly for everything that interferes with truth. I watch my mind for any thought that I am unworthy, that I am judged, that I am unforgiven.  When I find those thoughts, I give them to the Holy Spirit and allow them to be corrected. This is how I uncover the truth that is in me, and therefore could never actually be lost to me.

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Study of Text, C 14: VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 1. 5-17-17

VII. Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit, P 1

1 What do you want? Light or darkness, knowledge or ignorance are yours, but not both. Opposites must be brought together, not kept apart. For their separation is only in your mind, and they are reconciled by union, as you are. In union, everything that is not real must disappear, for truth is union. As darkness disappears in light, so ignorance fades away when knowledge dawns. Perception is the medium by which ignorance is brought to knowledge. Yet the perception must be without deceit, for otherwise it becomes the messenger of ignorance rather than a helper in the search for truth.

Journal

Even though perception is never truth, it can come very close and it is what we have to work with here in time. As a matter of fact, as long as we are in time it is essential. As Jesus tells us, it is the means by which ignorance is brought to knowledge.  And, ignorance must be brought to the truth. In keeping them apart, we keep ignorance in place and truth remains obscure to us.

If someone has done something unkind to me and I think they are guilty of doing it, this is an example of ignorance. If I hold onto that grievance, I will suffer. I might not connect the suffering with the grievance, but that will not prevent the misery. But if I realize that my unhappiness is caused by a belief in my mind, then I can ask for clarity and for healing.

This is how I bring the ignorance to knowledge, and knowledge reminds me that I but do this to myself and no one is guilty. Peace is restored to my mind and thus to my life. It is a simple, reliable process. On the other hand, if I hold the grievance away from the truth, it is equally certain that I will remain in a hell of my own making. It becomes a simple matter of deciding what I want, light or darkness.

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