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Gentle Healing Lesson 152, Manual for Teachers, Text.  6-28-19

LESSON 152
The power of decision is my own.

“Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is.”

This is one of my favorite lessons, one I refer to frequently because it is the answer to why I am having any particular experience. Jesus is completely uncompromising in his words in this lesson. If something is in my life, it is there because I made a decision for it. Nothing is exempt from this. And if there is something missing, it is because I chose to omit it. The responsibility for my life lies in my decisions, the choices I make.

When I first started using this lesson, I turned it on myself. I saw my error and I felt guilty for it. I learned to think of this differently, though, and to realize that I am 100% responsible but 0% guilty. This freed me up to make good use of this lesson. Understanding that I am responsible for everything in my life means that if I don’t like my life, all I have to do is change my mind about what I have decided. I can always choose differently. What is not to like about this lesson!

“Salvation is the recognition that the truth is true, and nothing else is true.”

It is essential that we accept the second part of this sentence if the first part is to be true. This is where we tend to go astray in our thinking. In order for this to be true we must accept that we are exactly as God created us. Nothing has changed about that. What I am is a Thought in the Mind of God. I am not subject to sickness, to suffering, to death. If any of these things occur and they do occur in the illusion, I have chosen to experience them. They could not happen otherwise because God did not create them therefore, they cannot be part of anything He did create.

Even if we believe this there is a tendency to deny responsibility for certain things that occur in life. The ego response is to look outward for a cause and to project blame for the event on what we find there. I have had situations in my life that I could swear were caused by others. There was a time when I was betrayed by someone close to me and I could not, for the life of me, see how that was my doing. And yet, when I chose to forgive the whole situation, I began to see it differently, and what I saw was not betrayal at all. Even if someone wanted to betray me and believed they had done so, I cannot be betrayed if I don’t believe in betrayal.

“You but accuse Him of insanity, to think He made a world where such things seem to have reality.”

We made this world for the very purpose of experiencing duality. We wanted to have opposites so that is what we have. In this world we made there is good and bad, happiness and sadness, sickness and health, etc. But in God there is only God and God is Love, God is Life. This is how we know that God could not have created the world. There are no opposites in God. If my experience is not one of love, joy, health, life, and other attributes of God, then I know that I must have made it. God creates through extension of Himself. He does not create what does not exist within Himself. He is not insane. We are.

I’m looking forward to delving into this Lesson further tomorrow.

Regina’s Tips
Here are few examples of the types of decisions you may see yourself make as you watch for the decisions that shape your experience.
I don’t want to do this.
I hate … (traffic, this heat, mean people, stupid people, myself, etc.)
I will never be able to …
I don’t have enough …
I’m tired of this.
He/she is … (annoying, wrong, stupid, lazy, etc.)
I’m so … (stupid, lazy, ugly, etc.)
I have too much to do.
They think … about me.
This situation is unacceptable.
I’ll be happy when I get …
I’ll be safe when I get …
I won’t ever … (understand this, be able to do this, get to go there, etc.)
No one ever pays attention to me.
This always happens to me.
This is too good; something bad is going to happen next.
This isn’t fair.

As you watch for the decisions you make, notice both the decisions and how those decisions affect your experience. Ask yourself, “If I made a different decision about this, how would my experience be different?” Look both at the circumstance and your emotional experience to see if you can find at least one way your experience would be different if you made a different decision.

My Thoughts
As I read that list of decisions that people commonly make and that affect their experience, I saw some that sometimes apply to me. On the other hand, I saw many that used to apply to me but that I have stopped doing because I didn’t like the effects. This is why my life is so much happier than it used to be. I’ve learned to make better decisions. I continue to watch my mind for those decisions that have not yet been changed.

Gentle Healing Lesson 152 Day 2
“The power of decision is my own. This day I will accept myself as what my Father’s Will created me to be.”

“Then will we wait in silence, giving up all self-deceptions, as we humbly ask our Self that He reveal Himself to us.”

Does it sound arrogant to think of yourself as the Son of God? Arrogance is of the ego that thinks it is its own creator, that it can usurp God and distort what He made. Humility is laying all we made aside and accepting our true nature, accepting our self as God created us. This means that we must lay aside all self concepts. Those self concepts are every little thing we think of our selves after we say I am. The only descriptive words that apply to us are those that apply to God.

In the past when I got to this part I would feel uneasy. I was afraid to ask, afraid that it wouldn’t happen and what that might mean about me and about the truth. Then later, I was afraid because I didn’t expect it to happen, the past proved it wouldn’t happen and I felt guilty for my lack of faith. Now, I just wonder if today I will know my Self. Maybe I will. I prepare my mind to accept this as I release what I think I know and what I think I need and as I apply the power of decision toward this goal. Then I wait and let Him do what must be done, the part that is not mine. I trust my Self to know the right time.

Manual for Teachers
Why it is healing should never be repeated.
When we heal a patient, the only reason we would repeat it is if we looked at the patient and decided that the outward appearance indicates a failure to heal. This is lack of trust and lack of trust is an attack. I bet that everyone has had this experience at one time or another. I know that when my friend was drinking, I asked for healing for him and it seemed like nothing was happening except more drinking, more trips to the emergency room, more near-death experiences.

I lacked trust because I believed what my eyes showed me. I forgot that the eyes show us only the illusion. Eventually, I was able to disregard what I saw with my eyes and to trust that Love heals. It took me a while because I let fear distract me from the truth and so I had to accept healing for myself first, then I could offer healing. This is just an error and not a sin. An error can be corrected and it was. That is why Jesus tells us that our function is to accept the Atonement for ourselves. We can’t give what we don’t have.

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Thinking about reality and limits
I have been thinking a lot about the world not being real. I have been paying attention to how it shifts according to my beliefs and my thoughts. Sometimes it is quite remarkable to see this. I have even experimented with controlling bodily things that should be out of my control. Because, after all, if the body is just a projection of an idea, then I should be able to change it at will.

So what are the arbitrary limits I am placing on myself? I think that some pain and some injuries are not real and I watch them disappear. But some pain and some injuries seem real to me, too real for me to control. This doesn’t make sense, but there you are. I believe that I will always have the money and the things I need even though I can’t tell you where it will come from. But I put a limit on that. For instance, I would like to go to Hawaii, but I don’t seriously plan it because my imagination doesn’t stretch my budget that far. However, it is not a strict limit. I can imagine that somehow it could happen. Who knows?

I want to wake up and I think I can accept that, but so far, no go. Maybe I have a limit there. Maybe I can be close and almost there, but not all the way. I don’t know. I also believe it could happen. Maybe it has and I just forgot to notice. LOL.

I want never again to experience guilt, but when I look in my mind, I see that I must be limiting that as well, but it is easier to let it go when I do find it and it doesn’t show up as much as it used to. I think it is a good idea to check in with myself and see where I have placed limits. Does it matter that this character, Myron, has limits? Not really, but her life is a good classroom in which to work at removing the limits I have arbitrarily chosen to believe in.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 151, Manual for Teachers, Text.  6-18-19

LESSON 151
All things are echoes of the Voice for God.

“You cannot judge. You merely can believe the ego’s judgments, all of which are false.”

I read this lesson then stopped to do my meditation. I began the meditation by asking to be enlightened to how this lesson helps me to know my Self. This is how I begin all my meditations, with a request to know my Self. I used a guided meditation to lead me into the process. This meditation guided me to rest and was very effective in doing so.

When I was fully rested, it was pointed out that this is my natural state and is my presence that I was experiencing. From there I sat in silence for a while. At one point, a disturbing thought crossed my mind and I felt myself contracting. Because I had been at rest, this contraction was apparent in a way that I might not have immediately noticed otherwise. I let the thought go and I went back into rest. This showed me how different it is to experience the ego as opposed to the presence.

Jesus begins this lesson by pointing out that we judge on partial evidence which is not really judgment and that we protect this judgment because we know it is wrong. The Bible has told us that we must not judge and now we know why. We cannot judge. We don’t have complete information on which to judge. What is actually happening is that we are asking the ego for an interpretation of what seems to be happening and then we believe the ego’s judgment, all of which are false.

The ego has an agenda and its agenda is to prove that we are sinful, helpless and afraid. It uses the body senses to convince us that this is true. And in spite of the fact that we have ample evidence that this proof is unreliable, we just keep believing it. Again, we believe it because we have this underlying doubt and are afraid of this doubt. There is a memory of something else in our mind and that memory, though nearly hidden is what sources the doubt. It is the Voice for God.

This sad being that the ego shows us as ourselves is really just the ego itself. We are not the ego. That is a fact and that fact, when we accept it, undoes all the ego tries to project onto us. The ego continues to convince us that it is us and we keep falling for it, but that does not have to continue. We can learn to recognize our Self, to remember and know our Self and this is why every day now I ask to know my Self.

This lesson is to be done for two days so I am going to stop here and look at it again tomorrow. In the meantime, I will look at Regina’s tips.

Regina’s Tips
Regina said that she read some paragraphs from Chapter 14 of “The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss.” Part of that reading was a story about a planet where people are born and raised in a movie theatre, and they never question if the movie on the screen is reality; they simply assume it is. The story tells the different reactions to this and to the first person to bravely find the projector. It’s a good story.

After relating the whole story she says this:

“You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body’s eyes. Nor do you ask why you believe it …”

We do well to contemplate Michael Langford’s analogy of the movie theatre and today’s Course lesson together. Isn’t it true that ever since we can remember our attention has been focused outward on thought and the world? Isn’t that like the people in the movie theatre who were born and raised with their attention on the movie screen? Isn’t it true that, just as they did not question the reality of the movie, we have not questioned the reality of our thoughts and perceptions? Isn’t it at least possible that what we have always believed to be reality is not reality? Doesn’t this possibility deserve genuine investigation? Isn’t it worth our time to find out what is true?

My Thoughts
I understand why Regina wants us to do this lesson for two days. This is the crux of the Course. We have listened to the ego for eons and believed everything it said to us and even believed it when it said the voice in our head was our own when really it was the ego. Now it is time to remember the truth. We are not the voice in our head and we are not the body with its senses that lie to us.

It is time to remember that the body is no more real than anything else in the world of form, so we are using an illusion to convince our self that illusions are real. It is time to wake up and look around for the “projector” that has a convinced us of the reality of illusions.

We can begin by questioning the ego voice and by meditating on our Self to help bring it into our awareness. We can practice placing our attention on what we truly want rather than on where the ego mind says we should place it. It is time for a rebellion, time to throw off the chains that we have allowed to imprison our minds.

Manual for Teachers
Key points in Section 6

We are assured that all healing is accomplished when it is given and it is accomplished in both giver and receiver. So what does it mean when we have prayed for healing in another and yet nothing seems to have happened. The ego says that healing is a lie or that the patient is guilty of not accepting the gift of healing. In this section, we are assured that neither is the case.

Healing is always certain, however, if healing would be seen as a curse, then it waits until the patient is able to see it as a blessing. I can imagine how this could happen. If someone feels unworthy and guilty, a sudden healing would be frightening since in his mind this would leave him open to a worse punishment from God. Or if a person doesn’t believe in healing or believe in God, sudden proof he is wrong might turn his life upside down and leave him so confused and upset he might opt for death.

This seems extreme but as Jesus has told us before, we cannot be suddenly awakened. It would be too frightening for us. I know that when I have a student who is new to the Course, I can offer him a shortcut to get straight to where he wants to go, but this is useless. He will choose not to understand or he will not hear what I am saying. I have seen this many times. He, like me, must take this a step at a time. One step leads naturally to the next step and understanding dawns gradually. So, if someone is sick and they don’t believe in healing, it cannot be forced on them. Who knows, their suffering might be just the motivation they need to open their minds to the next step.

We have been told that healing is a shift in perception and that we can help facilitate that in another by knowing the truth about the patient. If we try to judge how well we have done by what we see in the world, we have made an error. “It is not the function of God’s teachers to evaluate the outcome of their gifts.” Trust is an essential part of giving and if we are going to hang around judging whether or not our gift has been received, this is a limitation on the giving itself and neither the giver nor the receiver would have the gift.

It is the relinquishing of all concern about the gift that makes it truly given. 2 And it is trust that makes true giving possible.

Our job is to know the truth and hold to that vision regardless of what seems to be happening in the world. It is not our job to accomplish the healing. That is the Holy Spirit’s job. We are just the channel. Why on earth would we doubt the Holy Spirit? That doesn’t even make sense. Sometimes a healing requires time for reasons we can’t know, but we can be absolutely sure that if we offered the gift of healing, then that healing is done.

The Holy Spirit is not confused about His part. The healing will show up when it is time. It will be accepted when it is time. I also like to remember that the real healing is the perception that is the cause of the problem. Generally, as the perception is corrected, the body shifts to reflect that correction, but if it does not, there is a reason for it. And I know that the change in perception is what matters. 

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T12-IV. Seeking and Finding
4 Do you realize that the ego must set you on a journey which cannot but lead to a sense of futility and depression? To seek and not to find is hardly joyous.

Perhaps like me, you thought you could not really depend on the Bible quote, “Seek and ye shall find.” Years of seeking had brought me very little in the way of peace and happiness. I didn’t see where it brought me any closer to God, either. Now I know why. It was because I was asking the ego to show me the way. I was seeking happiness through the ego, and the ego’s directive is to seek and do not find.

Once I began to study the Course, all of that turned around. I was seeking through the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit loves me with the Love of the Father. The Holy Spirit wants me to find and so makes it possible for me to do so, actually assures that I will do so. Through the study of the Course, I learned how to ask and was given the process that would bring me the peace and happiness I longed for.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 150, Manual for Teachers, Text.  6-12-19

LESSON 150
My mind holds only what I think with God.

(139) I will accept Atonement for myself.

(140) Only salvation can be said to cure.

There is only one way out of this virtual reality, and that is to know the Self. That is salvation and that is accepting the Atonement. I cannot do this for anyone else, only for myself. However, in doing it for myself, I affect all others through the one mind. I continue to remain open to the Self, the Holy Spirit that I am. In doing so, there is a change, subtle at the moment, but definitely a change occurring in my mind.

In doing this, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances in my life, something little, something insignificant, something that seems big and important. It’s all the same, and anyway, it is never about what it seems to be about. Each circumstance is only an image of a belief in the mind. If someone in my life seems to disapprove of me, that is just an image of the belief that I am not worthy and that sense of unworthiness is the effect of feeling separate from God.

If I accept the Atonement for the situation in which I seemed to have been dissed by a friend and recognize that there is nothing to forgive because nothing happened, I am accepting the Atonement for the belief that I could be other than God and someplace outside God. I accept the Atonement for both beliefs because they are the same belief. My Self has no belief in unworthiness, cannot imagine unworthiness. Accepting the Atonement is knowing that I am my Self and knowing nothing but worthiness.

One of the challenges of the body I made for this foray into the virtual reality of time and space is that I seemed to have programmed into it a tendency to gain weight. This tendency has created many opportunities for me to evolve spiritually as I learned to see the body differently and to recognize through the body issues my hidden desires such as to be a victim. It continues to be a teaching device.

One of the most upsetting things about the relationship I have developed with this body is that it seems at times to be in charge. Here is what that looks like. I seem to get a craving for something sweet and even though I tell myself I am not giving in to those cravings, I often do.

Then I am left feeling like I am weak and vulnerable to my body desires and that I can’t do anything about it. This feels frightening. If I cannot even control my sugar addiction how can I expect to succeed at anything else? It is an ego story that I must love because I tell it all the time. I tell it to others and I tell it to myself.

When I decided to act as if I am my Self even when I don’t feel like I know my Self, I ran up against this old story. So, I am watching TV and I decide I want something to eat, something sweet if I can find it in my house. I can’t, so I eat something salty. But it’s not satisfying, so then I find myself on my feet going back to the kitchen. I watch this behavior a couple of more times as it repeats itself. I place my awareness on it and on the thoughts that drive it. I look with interest and with curiosity.

I am aware that I can say no to feeding the ego appetites in all its forms. I am also aware that I don’t want to say no. After watching it a while, I realize that I no longer want to eat anything. I also notice that at first when this eating desire and fulfillment occurred, I felt like I was giving in to something out of my control and so I felt uneasy.

Later as I merely observed what I was choosing to do without concern about the choice, the uneasiness was gone. It was like watching someone else making choices. It was not someone else exactly. It was my ego construct. My excellent discovery is that this construct is still mine and I still make choices for it and I can choose from my higher Self if I want to.

I am not a victim and I am not out of control. I am controlling it all the time. It is just that sometimes I make the choice with my higher mind and sometimes my lower mind and thus sometimes I am satisfied with my choice and sometimes I regret it. Always, my choices have something to teach me if I care to learn.

Choosing to eat for some reason other than to nourish the body doesn’t seem like a big deal in the scheme of things, but within everything, there is an opportunity for salvation, an opportunity to accept the Atonement and to awaken more fully to my Self. This experiment with placing my awareness where I wanted it and doing so without judgment wasn’t really about whether or not to eat. It was the opportunity to come a step closer to knowing my Self as Awareness.

Manual for Teachers
Through the study of Manual for Teachers I have been given clarity about death. What I understand now (and this is something I feel to my core) is that Jesus meant what he said, there is no death. How can death exist if God does? It is not possible. God is Life, God is Love, and it is not possible that God could have an opposite. The belief in an opposite of God is the ego at its essence and the ego is not real. It is the belief in the ego that we are here to undo. I will not be distracted by the imagined effects that we think of as our world and our life. The truth lies just beneath that, and the truth is, death has never occurred.

Death is just another imagined attack. I have tried to protect myself against it. I have tried to out-maneuver it. I have projected blame onto innocent people and innocent circumstances. I imagined death and then blamed God as the cause. Then I defended God with all sorts of convoluted reasoning because the belief that God was attacking me was too painfully fearful to bear. I have been fighting an illusion, a mirage, a thought form. Nothing is there. I am the Son of God, I am eternal, and death is just another false idea borne of unfounded guilt.

Text
The Course talks about the Father and son, and of the Will of the Father and the Son as being the same, and it speaks of a perfect creation of a Perfect Creator. I think of it this way. The Father creates through extending Himself, so the Son is an extension of the Father. The Son, in His turn, creates through extending Himself so that His creation is an extension of Himself and a further extension of God. It is Perfection creating more Perfection, which creates more Perfection, without end.

Now I see myself dreaming I am outside of this perfection. I see myself using my power of creation to make imperfect things rather than creating perfectly. I have placed limits on creation through my decision to experience something else. I have forgotten how to return to the flow of Perfection and even that I want to do so.

But Perfection does not leave a question unanswered, so the Holy Spirit was placed in my mind. Its function is to wait patiently for the son to ask for His Father, then It answers with Love and Peace and Comfort and guides us out of the wilderness of our imagination. As we answer our holy function, the perfection of Creation continues without interruption.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 149, Manual for Teachers, Text.  6-9-19

LESSON 149
My mind holds only what I think with God.

(137) When I am healed I am not healed alone.

(138) Heaven is the decision I must make.

This morning as I meditated, I began with a guided meditation in which I called on Spiritual help to discern my deepest desire and to ask for assistance in bringing that desire into manifestation. The desire that came to me is to think, act and speak from my highest Self, to do this as if I already remember my Self. I know this can happen because it does happen sometimes and it feels so right and so good when it does. I opened my heart and mind to this assistance and agreed to do whatever was needed on my part to bring it fully into manifestation.

After that, I sat in quiet as much as I could. When a thought came into my mind, I let it and I mostly chose not to follow it. When I noticed that I was caught up in a story again, I remembered that I had a choice as to where I would place my awareness and I brought it back to my silent presence and just enjoyed that until the next time I followed a thought to a story. I did this several times. This used to frustrate me but now I just think of it as good practice. Something I have noticed is that even when not meditating my mind can now be very quiet for periods of time.

I think when I am in the silence, I am closer to knowing what I think with God. It is confusing to the ego mind to think without words. Without words there are no concepts, no thinking as we are familiar with thinking. The mind doesn’t go into stories. Even when I am doing things, like writing words or talking to someone, there can be a silence in the mind, and that was an odd discovery.

I see that I can write and think about what I am writing or have random thoughts come into the mind while I write. Or I can write without the mind wandering, not thinking of anything else. At those times I am in the present moment and while I am focused on what I am doing and so thinking, it is not the same kind of thinking as is common in the mind. It is more like awareness than thinking. I am aware of what I am writing and my awareness is nowhere else.

This learning to consciously place my awareness where I want it is a form of healing, and it doesn’t just heal me, it heals the Sonship. Thus, as Jesus says, I am never healed alone. When I place my awareness within on the Presence that I am, that is healing as well and is healing the Sonship at the same time. I imagine others who are struggling with this challenge finding it just a little easier now because of my success, little as it is. I take heart that others are a little ahead of me and their success is helping mine. Then there are those ascended masters who are transmitting to me because I am open to receive and they are helping. We are not alone.

All of this requires that I make a decision. That is the most basic thing that I need to do. First, I make a decision that I want to awaken, then I make a decision to accept that I can and will awaken. I make a decision to do what is necessary in study and practice. I make a decision to accept all the help offered to me. This is how I return to Heaven even while I am still dreaming of separation and that I am in this body. Heaven is a decision I make.

Regina’s Tips
When I am healed I am not healed alone. In Chapter 1 of A Course in Miracles, Jesus says, “I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else.” That is healing, having nothing but that which comes from God. I trust when I am healed, that healing helps others. However, my focus now must be on reaching that healed state, that permanence of “only what I think with God” and nothing else. This is my commitment to myself and everyone.

Heaven is the decision I must make. This decision is not made once, but repeatedly. It is made each day, and it is made throughout the day. Anything that reinforces this decision in me is helpful. Anything that weakens this decision in me needs to be looked at and questioned. A partial decision or a ‘sometimes’ decision is not a decision. Total unwavering commitment is the sign of true decision.

My Thoughts
What I enjoyed most in Regina’s tips is the emphasis on my decision being a minute to minute project. I absolutely agree with that. It is another reason I am so glad that I have learned to be vigilant for my thoughts. Catching these thoughts quickly makes it much easier to change my mind. I understand that a decision is not a decision if it has exceptions and if it wavers according to circumstances.

Manual for Teachers
14. HOW WILL THE WORLD END? P 5
5 The world will end in joy, because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace, because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter, because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. In blessing it departs, for it will not end as it began. To turn hell into Heaven is the function of God’s teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is reflected. And now sit down in true humility, and realize that all God would have you do you can do. Do not be arrogant and say you cannot learn His Own curriculum. His Word says otherwise. His Will be done. It cannot be otherwise. And be you thankful it is so.

Journal

“And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world.”

“And now sit down in true humility, and realize that all God would have you do you can do. Do not be arrogant and say you cannot learn His Own curriculum.”

For the longest time, I read and studied the Course and I tried to practice what I studied. I could not imagine how I would ever undo the ego that seemed so strong in my mind. I didn’t even aim for that. I just tried to undo the ego thoughts that were predominant in my mind at the moment. That seemed like the most I could hope for.

Actually, that was a better plan than I realized at the time. I still do that. I deal with whatever is in front of me. The thing that changed is that I began to succeed and with each success my trust in what Jesus wrote her and my ability to do what is asked of me increased. I never thought I would say this but now I can honestly say that I am grateful for the challenges because I know that each one met will bring me closer to ending the world. I also realize that what I thought was humility when I used to think I could not be that teacher of God he talked about was really arrogance. How could I not be what God wills that I be?

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I understand that peace is the condition of the Kingdom. As the Course tells us, if we want the Kingdom we must give up conflict for all time. There is no compromise in this. Since peace is the condition of the Kingdom, we cannot bring conflict into the Kingdom. Therefore if conflict is in the mind, we cannot be in the Kingdom. It makes perfect sense when I think of it like this.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 148, Manual for Teachers, Text.  6-8-19

LESSON 148
My mind holds only what I think with God.

(135) If I defend myself I am attacked.

(136) Sickness is a defense against the truth.

One day I was spending time with my family. Two things happened that were part of my lesson for the day. I was watching my older daughter cooking and she was trying to get cornbread out of the muffin pan and was having trouble. I knew a better way to do it and told her to let me do it for her. She just said, “Mom.”

In that one expressive word she was saying “let me do it myself” and “really, I’m 48 years old. I think I can do this without help.” Haha. I backed off remembering how often I tried to do things for my kids when it would have been better to let them learn from their efforts. Probably there was a time when I would have been hurt or embarrassed by her reaction, but this time I just smiled. I did not feel any desire to defend myself. A lot has changed for me over the last few years.

On the other hand, my son said something that felt unkind and disrespectful and I worried over that for most of the day, turning it over in my mind and wondering what it meant about our relationship. Finally, I released it to the Holy Spirit to be reinterpreted for me. Probably it didn’t mean anything, just his weird sense of humor.

But no matter what it meant, it was a problem for me only if I defended myself from it. When I do that, it feels frightening because there is really nothing to defend against and no way to defend myself against nothing that feels like something. In defending myself, even just in my mind, I was attacking my peace. In retrospect I realize that I am never upset for the reason I think and so it was doubly ridiculous for me to defend myself. I am not completely free of the belief I need to defend myself but I am free of the belief that it is a good idea.

Another useless form of defense is sickness. It is a deliberate attempt at self-deception. When I am sick it is because I want to be. I use it to hide from the truth of what I am. If I am sick, my first question to myself is why did I do this? The answer is always the same; I did this so that I could go on pretending that I don’t know who I am. That is how I heal myself and the healing proceeds according to my desire to lay my defenses aside and accept the truth.

Regina’s Tips
My mind holds only what I think with God.

I have noticed since beginning this review that something is shifting in me. There is greater confidence than there was before in the efficiency of the direct path and in my desire and ability to remain focused on it. I feel as if I am learning now to “claim again” my inheritance.

My Thoughts
I feel the same way as Regina. I feel like this is happening for me as the result of this gentle healing process as well as a focus on meditating on accepting who I am. I am also receiving transmissions from my beloved brother, Jesus and this is helping as well. Add that to the work I do daily with students and some very helpful work I do with some Pathways of Light courses and it is all working together to help me wake up. And I feel the difference.

Manual for Teachers
14. HOW WILL THE WORLD END? P 4
4 The world will end when its thought system has been completely reversed. Until then, bits and pieces of its thinking will still seem sensible. The final lesson, which brings the ending of the world, cannot be grasped by those not yet prepared to leave the world and go beyond its tiny reach. What, then, is the function of the teacher of God in this concluding lesson? He need merely learn how to approach it; to be willing to go in its direction. He need merely trust that, if God’s Voice tells him it is a lesson he can learn, he can learn it. He does not judge it either as hard or easy. His Teacher points to it, and he trusts that He will show him how to learn it.

Journal
“What, then, is the function of the teacher of God in this concluding lesson? He need merely learn how to approach it; to be willing to go in its direction.”

This is how I approach each new lesson. I talk to Jesus about it, how I feel, my uncertainty, whatever is coming up in my mind about a current lesson. Then I tell him that I have no idea how to do this but that I trust that I will be guided. I had this opportunity recently when I was feeling annoyance with someone and seemed unable to let it go.

I turned to my Teacher in trust that it would be done because I want peace more than I want my way. He directed me to love the person and the situation as I have been taught to love all things. I didn’t know how to do that, but I knew I could because He said I could. My trust opened me to the miracle of a changed mind.

Text
III. Littleness versus Magnitude, P 1
1 Be not content with littleness. But be sure you understand what littleness is, and why you could never be content with it. Littleness is the offering you give yourself. You offer this in place of magnitude, and you accept it. Everything in this world is little because it is a world made out of littleness, in the strange belief that littleness can content you. When you strive for anything in this world in the belief that it will bring you peace, you are belittling yourself and blinding yourself to glory. Littleness and glory are the choices open to your striving and your vigilance. You will always choose one at the expense of the other.

Journal
We are an extension of God, and even here we are expressions of God, and we can reflect that if we choose to do so. It isn’t easy at first. We have the intention of doing this, of being a clear reflection of our divinity, but at our birth, we forget who we are and we forget our intention. We spend the rest of our lives striving to remember why we came. That true desire to live big gets twisted into striving for something in the world that mimics magnitude but keeps us small.

From the moment we decide for God, we receive all the help we need to live our intention. We find A Course in Miracles and the teachers that are meant for us. And in each experience, we find a lesson that brings us closer to our goal. But before we get to that help, we have already built an ego construct that we quickly come to identify as our self.

We are taught from birth who we are by people who don’t even know who they are. We gather layer after layer of identity and when we are ready to remember our true identity, we must first loosen our acquired identity. We must learn to turn aside from our learned preferences, from the distractions of the world, and from all that we have come to value, that which props up our construct.

Imagine how hard that must be for people who have constructed a powerful or famous or wealthy self-identity. So many of them are obviously not happy, they get sick just like the rest of us and they lose people they love; their carefully constructed identity cannot protect them from the inevitable effects of separation. Their efforts fail them if they are trying for magnitude through littleness. Everything of this world is little because nothing of this world is real.

It can be just as hard for those of us who live ordinary lives. We gather family so we feel loved and they disappoint us or die or leave. We get educations, but no matter what level of education we receive, what accolades are heaped on us for our efforts, we still feel that something is missing. We fall in love and out of love and into heartache. We get good jobs and lose them or regret them or squander our life on them.

No matter what we do, what we buy, who we impress, we still are not satisfied because we are meant for so much more, and there is that secret knowing buried in our minds that we are not living up to our potential. There will come a time for each of us to remember, though. We are not meant for littleness. We did not come here to live small. We are magnificent beings, children of a magnificent God. When we decide to put aside our striving to make something of nothing, we will open our minds and hearts to the magnitude that we are meant for.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 147, Manual for Teachers, Text.  6-5-19

LESSON 147
My mind holds only what I think with God.

(133) I will not value what is valueless.

(134) Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

Once again, I remind myself that my mind holds only what I think with God. If my thoughts wander to thoughts unlike those I would think with God, it is because I am not truly thinking. I am reminded of an early lesson in which Jesus refers to “the thoughts we think we think” and this is all that is going on in my mind most of the time. Senseless, meaningless chatter, not my real thoughts.

My real thoughts can only be thoughts that are eternally true or they would not be what I think with God. It is helpful for me to remember that what I think with God does not mean I am “thinking” with words. I remember that words are but symbols and so God would not think in words. If they seem to have words it is only my mind trying to find a way to express the thought.

What has value? It can only be that which is eternal. What changes or ends is not worth anything. The things I used to value and some useless stuff I still value are forms that express desires and those desires, for the most part, come from my ego mind. Anything that is a want or a need is an expression of not having and so it is not eternal or I would have it already as it would have been given me in my creation. So, what do I value? Knowing my Self, the extension of love, peace, these are of value.

How do I return to the knowledge that I have these valuables? I forgive everything that is not of God. I forgive the idea of separation, the idea that God is a human with human frailties like anger, vengeance, the desire to punish. I forgive the belief in guilt, fear, the need to win, pain, suffering, and death. In other words, I forgive the world and with it, the idea of a separate needy self. When I do this, I will know that I have everything I ever desired or could desire.

Regina’s Tips
What good news yesterday’s lesson was. “No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.” And yet, one must be honest about her seeking. To say she seeks the truth, but to look to the world for happiness, is to be dishonest with her self. One who seeks the truth seeks inward, toward the great ocean of life-awareness, which is the true Self.

My Thoughts
I know the world is not going to bring me happiness. Happiness is my nature and thus it is a choice I make to be happy, that is, to be my Self. Every time I choose happiness rather than to react to the world, the memory of Self gains clarity for me. When I look to the world, I reinforce the untrue belief that I am something less than I was created.

Manual for Teachers
Psychic abilities are natural and available to anyone and these powers will become accessible to them as their awareness increases. Psychic abilities are forms of communication that supersede the barriers to communication made to keep the illusion in place. These abilities are useful to the degree that they are under the Holy Spirit’s direction. If not used for the purpose of true communication they will devolve into magic and simply strengthen the ego. I have been dissuaded of any idea I had that psychic abilities are not useful to the Holy Spirit and thus not worthwhile, as I read the last sentence in this section.

“The Holy Spirit needs these gifts, and those who offer them to Him and Him alone go with Christ’s gratitude upon their hearts, and His holy sight not far behind.”

Text
T-7.VII.7. One child of God is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach another. 2 One Teacher is in all minds and He teaches the same lesson to all. 3 He always teaches you the inestimable worth of every Son of God, teaching it with infinite patience born of the infinite Love for which He speaks. 4 Every attack is a call for His patience, since His patience can translate attack into blessing. 5 Those who attack do not know they are blessed. 6 They attack because they believe they are deprived. 7 Give, therefore, of your abundance, and teach your brothers theirs. 8 Do not share their illusions of scarcity, or you will perceive yourself as lacking.

I don’t get attacked very often. The few times that it happens, I might react at first, at least in my mind I do, but I always reconsider. I do understand that attack is just fear lashing out. I don’t want to teach anyone that they have something to fear so I don’t defend myself or return the attack.

I was touched by the phrase, “the inestimable worth of every Son of God.” Also, that the HS sees only the truth and is infinitely patient with the ego’s lies because He sees them as nothing. This is my model. It is what I want to do and be. I want to know the inestimable worth of every Son of God no matter what the ego image of that one does or says. I want to never be confused about that.

I was created in peace and therefore, peace is mine always and forever. Even here in this imaginary world of my split mind, I can experience uninterrupted peace. All that I need to do is to release all thoughts that block peace. I only need to release thoughts, not do anything to make peace occur. I can no longer tolerate grievances and attack thoughts in my own mind and when they show up, I release them as quickly as I can.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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