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Gentle Healing Journal Day 32 10-22-18

Journal for Day 32
LESSON 32
I have invented the world I see.

“I have invented this situation as I see it.”

If my mind should stray to the ego thought that I am a victim, I remind myself of the truth that I have invented this situation as I see it. I am the scriptwriter of my story. I have an appointment at a hospital in Houston next week. They will be running some tests and then the next day I will see the doctor to talk about surgery.

If all of this were taking place here in the area where I live, it would be no big deal to me. But driving to and in Houston, the expense of staying at a hotel for at least two nights, maneuvering through this huge hospital, well, I find I am dreading all of this. I could see myself as a victim but then I remember that I have invented this situation as I see it.

I, as part of the Sonship, made this world, and I decided to participate in it. I come to a particular incarnation with a specific purpose that will help me to awaken and thus help the Sonship to awaken. So regardless of whether the story seems to be interesting or happy or painful, whether I seem to be following my heart or letting the ego make my decisions, I am accomplishing my purpose.

Within the story, which at this time includes this trip to the hospital, I have another decision to make. How will I choose to perceive this situation? Will I decide that I hate the whole idea and that I am a victim? If that is the case, I will learn from it but it will be pretty uncomfortable for me.

Or will I accept this part of the story with the same enthusiasm I accept other parts that are more to my liking? In that case I will still learn from it, but I will do so without suffering, and I will learn more quickly the lesson it contains because I will not be conflicted in my purpose. Either way, it is my choice and no one is making me feel what I feel.

The only thing that could make it feel like a victim is my decision to feel like that. I’m glad that I no longer see value in being a victim so that I don’t hold onto those feelings anymore. The moment I decided that this is going to be interesting and maybe fun, any feeling of victimhood just fell away. See, I invent the situation as I experience it by how I choose to see it and it is just that easy.

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Gentle Healing Journal Day 31 10-19-18

Journal for Day 31
LESSON 31
I am not the victim of the world I see.

“Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world.”

Thinking of myself as a victim is maybe the only thing in the Course that I have completely released. Yes, the thoughts of victimhood show up at times, but there is no moment in which I believe it. The first time I read this lesson, I recognized it as the lesson I could not afford to overlook. I recognized that it was the lesson that I came here to learn. There would be others, of course, but I knew this one was for me, was a great part of my purpose in this incarnation.

I began the process of letting it go right away. It took years of vigilance before it was thoroughly accepted. Now, the very idea that I could be a victim feels absurd to me. I am the creator of my little personal story here. If something is in it, or someone is in it, I am responsible for that appearance. How could I also be a victim to it? See Lesson 152: The power of decision is my own.

“No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is.”

Where is the victimhood in that? When something occurs that doesn’t add to my joy and my peace, I don’t look for who is guilty. I just look at my reaction to it and look for the root cause of that reaction. Then, I let that belief go. It is sometimes almost instantaneous, this healing. Sometimes it takes a little while, but mostly the belief that someone is guilty slides right on through my mind like it was coated with Teflon. That is the way it is when you give up a belief.
Victim? I don’t see no stinkin’ victim. ~smile~

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Gentle Healing Journal Day 30 10-18-18

Journal for Day 30
LESSON 30

God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.

“Today we are trying to use a new kind of “projection.” We are not attempting to get rid of what we do not like by seeing it outside. Instead, we are trying to see in the world what is in our minds, and what we want to recognize is there. Thus, we are trying to join with what we see, rather than keeping it apart from us. That is the fundamental difference between vision and the way you see.”

Our mind is split, that’s for sure. We have in our mind the idea of separation that we call ego. We think we want to be special in a way that is different from God and from each other. We think we want something God has not given us. On the other hand, we don’t want the inevitable results of that thought, the anger, and fear, the guilt, the pain and suffering, and death. We think to solve this problem by projecting the unwanted parts of our separation idea and see them as being outside our mind where we pretend they have nothing to do with us. This projection is the world we see.

We made the body’s eyes for the purpose of obscuring the truth. We use them to make images of the untrue thoughts in our mind and then “seeing” them projected outward, we can convince ourselves that this ugliness is not in us but in others, in the world. We have done this for so long that we now believe our eyes so completely that we never question what they show us. We simply believe it because we see it. But just because we have believed something to be true for a long time does not make it true. It just makes us deluded.

We would be trapped in this hell of our own making if that were the only thing in our mind, but it is not. We have another Idea in our mind. It is the Idea of God and as we do this study and this practice, this Idea grows brighter and stronger and begins to make itself known because it is our will that this happen. Now we begin to see images that represent this Idea being projected outward, not to be rid of It, but to see It. It is our growing will to see that part of our mind in order to encourage recognition that God is in our mind.

We have buried the truth under illusions for so long we can barely recall the real thing.  All this work that we do, all the lessons and the practice and the processes are uncovering our true nature, and as we project what we find there we experience vision. This is a seeing that does not involve the eyes, though we do see images more representative of this thinking. It is a knowing that is not found in the brain though we may process the knowing in that way so it is understandable to us while we are here. What we inevitably come to accept is that the whole world we see with our eyes does not exist at all.

We have been very slowly evolving in this direction, but with the celestial speed-up that is occurring at this time, some of us have begun to consciously undo the world we made. We do this as we look at specific images and question them. We question that suffering and death are inevitable. We question that attack is necessary and effective. We question that fear protects us and that grievances are unavoidable. We question it with the Holy Spirit and then we let these thoughts go. We are uncovering our true self, and as we do so, we project what we find and see how that looks.

My experience of this has turned the world upside down. At first, it was disconcerting and I wasn’t sure this whole thing was a good idea. But I was compelled to continue and now when I look back on the world as I used to see it, I can hardly believe the difference. I used to live in a very scary world, a world without many redeeming qualities, and a world that was crushing the joy right out of me. That world is mostly gone now, not all together yet, but enough of it is gone that I have peace and joy more than not. God is not in everything I see yet, but It will be because now I never doubt that God is in my mind and what I see and experience comes from my mind.

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Gentle Healing Journal Day 29 10-17-18

Journal for Day 29
LESSON 29
God is in everything I see.

I really understand image making now. Since God is in everything I see, obviously, when I look with my eyes, I don’t see anything as it exists. Jesus tells us this often in the Course. He says that my thoughts are images I have made. He says that we didn’t give the eyes the function of seeing.  “It is image making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions.”

So I don’t see anything real with my eyes. I see images I make to represent the thoughts in my mind, the things I believe. I have this physical thing going on right now. What does this image of a malfunctioning body represent to me? Perhaps, it represents the belief that I am a body, or that I am destructible, vulnerable, fragile.

As I accept what Jesus has been telling us for the last 29 days, I can look at this situation differently. I understand that the body is just an image itself and that any experience it has must be a hallucination. Just part of the image that represents these beliefs and that the beliefs can be questioned.

If I drew a Picasso like image of my face with strange angles and colors, this would not mean I look like that. I would know that this was just an image that represented some thoughts in my mind. The world I see is no different. It is a strange image of strange and untrue beliefs. Doing these lessons is helping me to question what I see and thus to question the beliefs the images represent.

Ultimately, in my questioning, I am opening my mind to vision.  I repeat yesterday’s desire. Above all else, I want to see what is really there. As I allow my beliefs to be corrected and my mind to be purified, this will happen as it has happened to others like Regina and Cate and Byron Katie and John Mark Stroud and Michael Langford, and Alisha, and Jan Frazier and many others that I don’t know. If it can happen for anyone, it can happen for everyone because we are one.

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Gentle Healing Journal Day 28 10-16-18

Journal for Day 28
LESSON 28
Above all else I want to see things differently.

“You see a lot of separate things about you, which really means you are not seeing at all.”

Well, there’s a clue for you. Haha. I definitely see lots of different things, so clearly, I am not seeing at all. As Jesus says, I am only image making. My thoughts are images I have made. I have thought for a long time now that all is light or energy that coalesces until it is dense enough to appear as something that I want to see with my eyes.

I know this is just a concept, a thought in the mind that wants very much to actually see, but it is given some weight now by George yesterday. He said that he actually asked a Tibetan lama what an enlightened person sees when he looks at a cup. He said that the person would see “only energy.” So maybe I have been right about that, but I don’t want to be right, I want to see the essence of things, what is actually there. Above all else, I want to see.

And what does it mean to see? Will I see with this body’s eyes this keyboard as it actually is? Or will I see with my mind, with my spiritual eye, what it actually is? When I asked Cate Grieves about this, she said that she sees the world as we made it when she looks with her eyes, though even that sight is getting thinner. What she sees with her mind is something else altogether. She sees nothing as separate from anything else and everything as part of her. Oh, I really do want to see above all else. But of course, I don’t really or I would already. But I want to want this above all else.

So what I must do is withdraw my preconceived ideas about the keyboard. I must not bind its meaning to my tiny experience of this keyboard. I must not limit it to my little personal thoughts. I am so sure that I know about this keyboard. Can I let that all go? It seems impossible and yet, Jesus said he would not ask me to do anything I could not do. And what will I get for my effort? For one thing, “It has something to show you; something beautiful and clean and of infinite value, full of happiness and hope.” Oh my God, what a thought!

Really, all I am being asked to do is to withdraw my judgment from this keyboard; but not just judgment as I usually think of judgment. This is judgment that goes beyond whether it is a good keyboard or a bad keyboard, a judgment of whether it is ascetically pleasing or if it is easy to use or has convenient options. No, this is judgment at its fundamental core.

I am judging its meaning and I am committing to withdraw that judgment; to admit I have no idea what this keyboard is any more than I know what anything is. Evidently, I still have a belief that I need this world I made to have meaning. But, I also have a belief that I am wrong about that. I have a belief that I no longer care about the world I see and that I want more than anything else to relinquish all value I have ever placed in it. I am willing for this and I will surrender to that desire.

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Gentle Healing Journal Day 27 10-15-18

Journal for Day 27
LESSON 27
Above all else I want to see.

Above all else I want to see what is real. I want to see what the world is made of and how we constructed it. I want to see what it was supposed to be like before the detour into fear and guilt. I want to see what bodies look like when seeing them without using the body’s eyes. I want to see what it looks like to be one within One.

Above all else, I want to see us as God’s perfect and beautiful creation. I want to see each person I meet without the taint of guilt. I want to see them as if they had just been created out of Godness, untouched by anything not God. I want to see every person as they truly are, and I want to perceive my own perfection as well.

Above all else, I want to see how guilt could never ever have touched me, not in any of my many lives. I want to see the pristine innocence of all of creation. I am not a body; I want to see what it is that I am. I want my perception of all that is to be clear and unmarred by an illusory past or a projected future.

Imagine! What am I, God? I want to remember. I want to see. I am determined to see. Above all else I want to see.
I took a chance today and talked to someone who is not familiar with these ideas. As part of an ongoing conversation, I suggested that what I seem to be is not what I am. I said that I am created by God like Himself. I think she was still with me so far. I said that God would not have created me to be so fallible, so weak and vulnerable, so mortal. She was still with me though her expression shifted a bit toward confusion, but in for a penny, in for a pound.

I told her that either this body and its story are not what God created, or God is insane. We both agreed that probably God is not insane. So, I told her, this body and its story must not be who I am. She is with me again now, seeing the logic. I then told her that my job is to shed everything about me that is not like God and then the real me will be revealed. Some of the confusion cleared and a little light came on behind her eyes. We both agreed that revealing our true nature was possible and a whole lot easier than having to somehow become like God. Above all else I am determined to see the real me, the me that is like God.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Journal Day 26 10-14-18

Journal for Day 26
LESSON 26
My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.

“And what would have effects through you must also have effects on you.”

All attack begins in my mind; it begins with the belief in attack. If I believe in attack as valuable, I will attack others in defense of myself. However, it is the belief in attack that makes me think I need defense, so even though it may appear as if the attack began outside me, it did not. It began in my mind that held the belief in attack and valued that belief.

“Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so.”

If I want to be free of attack, it is essential that I accept the premise that attack begins and ends in the mind. I remember a story about Byron Katie. She was asked to do The Work in a country that was considered unstable and dangerous. Her friends were afraid for her and tried to talk her out of going. Katie had no fear because she knew that there was no harm in her so no harm could come to her.

This is freedom. And it is possible for all of us because it is our natural state. However, nearly all of us have a strong sense of vulnerability. Even as I have come to believe what Jesus says about this, that the vulnerability is not a fact but something we taught ourselves to believe, I still have attack thoughts. It takes great vigilance and determination to undo this kind of thinking.

This morning, I am waiting for a call from my doctor about my lab reports. I wonder what they will say and what that will mean for me. So this is one of the ideas I am practicing with. I am afraid they will indicate the necessity for surgery. I am equally afraid they will be inconclusive and leave me without a solution.

To be clear, I am not frantic or obsessed with this, but the idea is in my mind and is attacking my sense of invulnerability. One of the results is that I notice a tendency to project my unease onto the doctor’s office. If they would get back to me as they should have already, the mystery would be solved and I would feel calmer about it.

And yet, are the lab results necessary to my peace of mind? As Katie might suggest, “I want the lab reports to give me peace of mind? Why not cut out the middleman and give it to myself. Peace of mind is not dependent on anything happening, but on my decision to have it. It becomes clear that my upset is in my mind and so is the solution.

If I don’t hear something today, I will call the doctor’s office in case someone dropped the ball. But the outcome, one way or another is not the point. The point is that I am attacking my invulnerability with my attack thoughts. Whether I am attacking my peace of mind or I am attacking the doctor, it is all the same. Attack leaves me feeling vulnerable.

Additional thoughts
I used this example not because there is anything wrong with taking care of the body, but that I have been anxious to hear what the tests showed, and anxiety is an attack on my invulnerability. It says that I am at risk, that I am not safe.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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