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Study of Text, C 15: The Two Uses of Time, P 2, 8-30-17

I. The Two Uses of Time, P 2
2 One source of perceived discouragement from which you may suffer is your belief that this takes time, and that the results of the Holy Spirit’s teaching are far in the future. This is not so. For the Holy Spirit uses time in His Own way, and is not bound by it. Time is His friend in teaching. It does not waste Him, as it does you. And all the waste that time seems to bring with it is due but to your identification with the ego, which uses time to support its belief in destruction. The ego, like the Holy Spirit, uses time to convince you of the inevitability of the goal and end of teaching. To the ego, the goal is death, which is its end. But to the Holy Spirit, the goal is life, which has no end.

Journal
I am glad that Jesus is talking to us about the idea that awakening takes time. I have believed this myself. Recently, I have considered the idea that this might not be true, that it could happen in any moment, in the blink of an eye. It has not seemed that way to me in the past and if I look at the past to define the future, then I will be waiting a long time yet.

But what if I just believe what Jesus is telling me here? Maybe the reason it has taken so long up to now is that I have clung to the ego identification. That is the only thing standing between me and Awakening. I think that I am spirit, but I also think that part of me is ego, which I am defining here as body and personality, that is, concepts that make me special and separate from others.

I have come a long way with letting these concepts go. I used to think I had to be good at what I did, whatever that was, and excelling at it defined me. Sometimes, failing at it defined me. At one time, I used the success of my children to define me as a good mother. Earning money, nice car, good clothes, all of these were defining elements of my life.

Most of that has fallen away. Occasionally, I see some of those thoughts make a brief appearance, but I don’t care about them so they have no power. But there are other elements of my “self” that I still believe in. I treasure them and Jesus says that we defend what we treasure. If I defend anything that I think of as “me,” I am letting time waste me. I cannot know my true self until I let go of the self I made to take its place.

There are days when I am certain that this lifetime will not be enough time to get the job done. Yes, a lot has been accomplished so far, but there are so many little ways in which I see that I still value my self. I just had my 68th birthday. How many more do I have left? Is there enough time to accomplish my goal? If I were responsible for this, then I would have something to worry about.

But the Holy Spirit uses time in His Own way. Time is His friend in teaching, and I am listening to the Holy Spirit more and more. I am surrendered more than I am not. I am dedicated and I learning not to compromise. My Awakening will happen when it does and when is not my business. The Holy Spirit is my Teacher and my Guide, and the Holy Spirit knows how to use time. My part is to give my heart to this process and to follow my guidance. I will do that. I no longer seek death, but life.

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Study of Text, C 15: The Two Uses of Time, P 1, 8-28-17

We are starting a new chapter today. I am almost sorry to leave Chapter 14. It is one of my favorite chapters, but I am sure we will find some wonderful instruction in this chapter as well.

Chapter 15: THE HOLY INSTANT
I. The Two Uses of Time, P 1
1 Can you imagine what it means to have no cares, no worries, no anxieties, but merely to be perfectly calm and quiet all the time? Yet that is what time is for; to learn just that and nothing more. God’s Teacher cannot be satisfied with His teaching until it constitutes all your learning. He has not fulfilled His teaching function until you have become such a consistent learner that you learn only of Him. When this has happened, you will no longer need a teacher or time in which to learn.

Journal

So that is what I am here for? I am here to learn how to be carefree, calm and quiet all the time. That would mean that once my learning is complete, I can be in the middle of a hurricane I won’t be worried. I will be calm and quiet. When Jesus tells me things like this, I understand that he means I will learn from the Holy Spirit how to be carefree and calm and it will be natural, and honest.

He doesn’t mean I am supposed to try to be calm. My only part in this process is to want it, to listen to the Holy Spirit for instruction, and to practice what I am given to do. It is absolutely not my part to heal my own mind or to try to be the things I am promised I am. What I try to do is to listen for guidance and follow it.

I have access to God’s Teacher for as long as I need Him. His function is to teach me until I become such a consistent learner that I learn only from Him. I am pleased to report that this is truer for me than it used to be, though not complete, yet. I listen to the Holy Spirit far more often than I do the ego, but I still turn to the ego sometimes. I generally catch it pretty fast, and I change my mind as soon as I can, so Holy Spirit is doing a good job as my instructor. Way to go, Holy Spirit!

As for my part, I am doing what I can as often as I can. I forgive myself for my errors and I move on, leaving any guilt behind. I am a far better learner if I don’t allow guilt to be part of the process. I am not guilty because I give into fear or anger. I am successful when I notice that I did and choose again. Guilt slows the process. It is like taking three steps forward when I notice an error with a willingness to be corrected, and then taking two steps back when I feel guilty for my error. That is not efficient learning, and I have learned not to do it. So, yay for me!

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Study of Text, C 14: XI. The Test of Truth, P 15. 8-26-17

XI. The Test of Truth, P 15
15 The power of God, from which they both arise, is yours as surely as it is His. You think you know Him not, only because, alone, it is impossible to know Him. Yet see the mighty works that He will do through you, and you must be convinced you did them through Him. It is impossible to deny the Source of effects so powerful they could not be of you. Leave room for Him, and you will find yourself so filled with power that nothing will prevail against your peace. And this will be the test by which you recognize that you have understood.

Journal
“Yet see the mighty works that He will do through you, and you must be convinced you did them through Him.” I have helped people, uplifted people, brought people to a new understanding of God, even guided someone out of a suicide pact. I myself have risen from a hostile, fearful and depressed person to someone who is peaceful and happy more than not. And none of that could have possibly come from me. It could only have come through me, by a power not of me. There is nothing about me as Myron that could do any of that.

I sit here in the stillness asking for clarity and for words, and suddenly I am writing. Sometimes as I write, I gain the clarity I asked for. Sometimes it is in me in a flash. Sometimes I write something that is lovely. Nothing I wrote before I learned to listen was good, helpful or lovely. There was nothing noteworthy about it. Where did the words come from? Not from me, but from God through me. It makes me cry when I think about it.
I have had physical healings that defy logic as we know it. I have had emotional healings that occur in a blink of an eye, where I go from fear or intense guilt to complete and unfathomable peace. How did that happen? Where did it come from? Not from Myron, that’s for sure. It came through me from God. Jesus says this: “It is impossible to deny the Source of effects so powerful they could not be of you.” I see how true this is.

In spite of almost daily proof of God working through me, sometimes in quiet, barely discernable ways, and other times in startling ways, I still doubt myself and thus doubt my Creator, the Source of this power. There are times when I feel like a fraud because while all of this is true sometimes, other times I feel afraid and weak and vulnerable. I cringe to say that I am a channel for miracles. I hardly feel worthy. And I sigh to realize that I am far more comfortable playing small.

But then I read what Jesus wrote next. “Leave room for Him, and you will find yourself so filled with power that nothing will prevail against your peace.” I am stunned by this statement. All I have to do is leave room for Him. Leave room. This must surely be that I am to turn aside from the ego’s false humility and simply accept that I belong to God and that He wants me to understand and He wants perfect peace for me. It is through His power in me that I will know this peace.

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Study of Text, C 14: XI. The Test of Truth, P 14. 8-24-17

XI. The Test of Truth, P 14
14 If you want peace you must abandon the teacher of attack. The Teacher of peace will never abandon you. You can desert Him but He will never reciprocate, for His faith in you is His understanding. It is as firm as is His faith in His Creator, and He knows that faith in His Creator must encompass faith in His creation. In this consistency lies His holiness which He cannot abandon, for it is not His Will to do so. With your perfection ever in His sight, He gives the gift of peace to everyone who perceives the need for peace, and who would have it. Make way for peace, and it will come. For understanding is in you, and from it peace must come.

Journal
The ego is the teacher of attack. When you consider that defense is a form of attack, it is easy to see that most of us choose the teacher of attack often. If you wonder how defending yourself is an attack, consider this. If you defend yourself, who are you defending against? It must be someone else and this is an attack on your wholeness, on your holiness. Defense needs that little gap between parts of our self. Closing that gap is our purpose here and we won’t close it if we think we need it.

I am so very grateful to God for giving us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows we are confused, but sees only our holiness. There is nothing we can say, do, or think that will in any way affect the Holy Spirit’s faith in us. His faith in us is as strong and unwavering as His faith in God. He offers us peace, and the only cost is our unrestrained acceptance.

I want to be like the Holy Spirit. I want to see my brother’s confusion, but know that it is only confusion and not sin. I want to see past the body to the spirit within. I want to understand his error without believing in its reality. I want to express my wholehearted faith in him as he exists in God, not as he imagines himself in ego. I pray that I never confuse what I see in the world with what is real. In this way, I will make way for peace, and it will come.

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Study of Text, C 14: XI. The Test of Truth, P 13. 8-22-17

XI. The Test of Truth, P 13
13 Only those who recognize they cannot know unless the effects of understanding are with them, can really learn at all. For this it must be peace they want, and nothing else. Whenever you think you know, peace will depart from you, because you have abandoned the Teacher of peace. Whenever you fully realize that you know not, peace will return, for you will have invited Him to do so by abandoning the ego on behalf of Him. Call not upon the ego for anything; it is only this that you need do. The Holy Spirit will, of Himself, fill every mind that so makes room for Him.

Journal
This morning I experienced the effects of believing I know and the effects of not knowing all in the same meditation. This was helpful because it helped me to understand what Jesus is telling us here. Here is how it came about. I made a suggestion to someone and later began to doubt my helpfulness. I remembered having this little nudge to silence and ignoring it.

That was the moment that I listened to ego telling me I knew something. Since that happened, I have been feeling some anxiety about it. And this morning when I sat down for my meditation, I began to cry and I knew something was going to come up for me to look at with Holy Spirit. As I cried, I waited to see what it would be and it was this incident of acting on my own rather than following direction.

I let the emotion play out and then I said, “Here I am, Lord.” I was ready to surrender to the “I don’t know.” How could I know what was best for anyone? Yes, I could have asked before I spoke, and the sane part of the mind was trying to nudge me in that direction but I thought I knew. I lost my peace and it was the loss of peace that alerted me that a correction was needed. I had already done this thing, but not all was lost.

I asked the Holy Spirit to undo what I had done. I stopped feeling guilty because I knew the Holy Spirit would undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I would let Him. And I wanted Him to do so. It is the most amazing thing that the effects of my error will be undone for me. I could not possibly do that without the Holy Spirit. Not that I don’t hear the ego suggesting that I can somehow fix this, but I am sane again and so I am ignoring the ego. I pray that I never call on the ego for anything again.

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Study of Text, C 14: XI. The Test of Truth, P 12. 8-21-17

XI. The Test of Truth, P 12
12 Those who remember always that they know nothing, and who have become willing to learn everything, will learn it. But whenever they trust themselves, they will not learn. They have destroyed their motivation for learning by thinking they already know. Think not you understand anything until you pass the test of perfect peace, for peace and understanding go together and never can be found alone. Each brings the other with it, for it is the law of God they be not separate. They are cause and effect, each to the other, so where one is absent the other cannot be.

Journal
Jesus says that we can’t be enlightened about something if we think we already understand it. It is like the cup that is filled. If you try to add more, it just spills over the top. Anyway, who is interested in learning if they think they already know? So, how do I know that I actually understand? Jesus says the test is perfect peace.

Peace and understanding go together. Understanding brings peace and peace brings understanding. I want to know how this works in my life and so I asked Holy Spirit for an example. This is what He gave me.
When I first started studying the Rules of Decision, I tried to use them to solve my problems. At first, I would only get partial success and so my peace was not perfect. This was because my understanding of the rules was not perfect. If I had been unwilling to accept that I did not fully understand this process, then I would have just given up.

Because the only thing I know for sure is that I don’t really know anything, I was willing to be taught. I would ask for clarity and then I would practice. When I still had not received perfect peace, I would go back over them asking for more clarity. I did this until doing the rules for decision with a problem, brought me to perfect peace.

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Study of Text, C 14: XI. The Test of Truth, P 11. 8-18-17

XI. The Test of Truth, P 11
11 God’s Son will always be indivisible. As we are held as one in God, so do we learn as one in Him. God’s Teacher is as like to His Creator as is His Son, and through His Teacher does God proclaim His Oneness and His Son’s. Listen in silence, and do not raise your voice against Him. For He teaches the miracle of oneness, and before His lesson division disappears. Teach like Him here, and you will remember that you have always created like your Father. The miracle of creation has never ceased, having the holy stamp of immortality upon it. This is the Will of God for all creation, and all creation joins in willing this.

Journal
We are always indivisible, always one with each other. I like the next part of that message. “We learn as one in Him”. As I learn, so do you. As you learn, so do I. When I think of us a pure Thought in the Mind of God, this is easy to understand, though of course, as pure Thought in the Mind of God, there is nothing to learn because all is known. But thinking of myself as Thought rather than flesh and bone, I can envision oneness and I can grasp the idea that we learn as one.

Not only are we all one with each other, we are one with God and this is what the Holy Spirit is teaching us. Here is another interesting sentence. “Listen in silence, and do not raise your voice against Him.” And so I quiet my mind from time to time during the day, letting Him teach me. And when I am confused, I wait in silence for clarification. But do I ever raise my voice against His?

I think of Rules for Decision. Something happens and I react to it. How do I know how to react? Very quickly, so quickly I am able to hide it from myself, I ask either Holy Spirit or ego what the situation means. Sometimes, I choose to hear the ego and this is when I raise “my” voice against His.

When this happens, I am acting from the ego mind and the voice I raise is my ego voice. If I am more sane than insane in the moment, I will quickly notice what happened and choose again and sanity is quickly restored. Sometimes, though, I believe what I hear from ego and let insanity run amuck for awhile, and then I have to take more steps to quiet the ego voice.

If I choose to listen to the Holy Spirit, He will teach me the miracle of oneness. It will always be some form of love, and this lesson learned will be what I teach. I will be a miracle worker here, and being a miracle worker, I will remember that I am a creator, always have been and still am that. We are creators with and like our Father. It is His Will and our will as well.

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