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Gentle Healing Lesson 160, Manual for Teachers, Text.  8-24-19

LESSON 160
I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.

“This is my home. Here I belong, and will not leave because a madman says I must.”

God created me as an extension of Himself and thus I remain. The ego (fear), which is the opposite in every way to what I am, is made by me and yet, claims it is me. It is the madman who seems to have stolen my identity. Sigh. Let’s be real here, and admit that nothing was stolen; I willingly set aside my true identity and let fear take up residency in my mind.

“There is no home can shelter love and fear. They cannot coexist. If you are real, then fear must be illusion. And if fear is real, then you do not exist at all.”

We have convinced ourselves that we are ego and that fear is real and justified. We believe this so completely that it will take a miracle to get rid of this stranger. “The miracle will come. For in his home his Self remains. It asked no stranger in, and took no alien thought to be Itself. And It will call Its Own unto Itself in recognition of what is Its Own.” The only confusion about our identity is in our minds because God knows us and He holds our identity safe within Himself.

I thought about what Kenneth Wapnick said in his commentary on this lesson. He talked about how Jesus tells us we don’t ask for too much but for too little. He said the too little was asking for relief from fear rather than for its complete elimination. I used to do this. Fear was so strong in my mind, that when I was in fear I could only think about relief. This was a helpful message I received from Spirit one time when working on this lesson.

Holy Spirit: “Precious child, you see more clearly now your motivation for remaining in fear, but you also see how senseless it is. Be aware of choices today. Notice them without guilt or judgment. Just see what you are doing. This exercise will be helpful to you. You will be tempted to allow activities to distract you, but this is also a choice. You can remain active without becoming unconscious. You don’t need to do anything when you notice yourself choosing fear; just see that this is what you are doing. You have invited me to heal your mind, and so I will do the rest.“Today we offer thanks that Christ has come to search the world for what belongs to Him.”

We cannot know our Self without knowing everyone is part of that Self. Christ’s vision sees us as we are, knows us for who we are and gives us this vision of each other so that we will recognize our Self. “Who denies his brother is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home remembered and salvation come.”

Regina’s Tips
In her tips (it would be helpful to read them in full) Regina points us to two ways of using this lesson. One is Self-Inquiry and the other is self-Inquiry. These are to help us achieve the goal of this lesson which is to realize that we are not the ego (self) and that we are actually the Self.

Self-Inquiry is looking within for our true Self. As Jesus says in the lesson, “For in his home his Self remains.” This is why I do the daily meditation in which I express the desire to know my Self and then I sink below the thoughts of the ego mind. I let my awareness linger there in the quiet stillness for as long as I can. I am getting better as I practice. My Self is there, I know it is.

Regina says that today we will shift our focus.

Today, we are going to shift to self-inquiry. That’s questioning the false self in order to recognize that it isn’t our truth. It isn’t what we are. It is merely the effect of attention attracted to thought.

Today’s lesson asks us to question fear. Fear takes many forms. Sometimes it is easily recognized, like when we are afraid of not being safe, but at other times we may not recognize fear as fear. For example, I could feel angry and think I am angry because another person has done something unreasonable. However, if I look deeply into my anger by asking why am I angry, I might find that I am afraid that person’s action is making me look bad. This is an example of when fear takes the form of anger.

Regina then points out that if we identify with the fear in our mind, we won’t know the truth about ourselves. She explains this.

“Attention is an aspect of awareness. I often call it the arm of awareness, since it can reach out and experience different things. When our attention is engrossed in fear thoughts, we are presently asking “this stranger” to appear as our self. In that way, we simultaneously deny our true Self.”

So, Regina is telling me that I first recognize the fear in my mind, not just that I have fear but get right to the root fear. Once I am aware of these thoughts, I shift my attention to realize something is looking at these thoughts. What is that?

Regina says “Once I have the experience of noticing these two (thoughts and looker), I ask, “Which am I?” This leads me to see that I am the looker, life-presence-awareness. It is clear the thoughts are the stranger here. They are not me.”

If thoughts of fear are not me then ego is not me. I am the one that notices the thoughts. Regina says this: This clarity is what today’s lesson calls a miracle. It says, “The miracle will come. For in his home his Self remains. It asked no stranger in, and took no alien thought to be Itself.”

Manual for Teachers
The miracle of a healed mind is worth anything. The right to judge is certainly a small price to pay when in return I receive a profound sense of peace and happiness. And really, how could I judge anyway? In the Manual for Teachers here is what Jesus says about judgment.

M-10.3. The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world’s learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. 2 This is not an opinion but a fact. 3 In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. 4 One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. 5 And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. 6 Who is in a position to do this? 7 Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself?

I don’t need to attempt to judge, I only need to turn my mind to the Holy Spirit and He will judge for me. This is why I so often asked Him what is this for? What does it mean? How would you have me see it? Show me another way to see this. This dedication to allowing the Holy Spirit to purify my mind of judgments is the reason I have trouble finding a judgmental thought to use as an example this morning.

When I asked the Holy Spirit to help me find any judgmental thoughts hiding in my mind, He reminded me that to think something should be different is to have judged it inadequate as it is. Ah, I have done that. He also reminded me that to feel a spike of fear is to have judged a situation as unacceptable. I know that while this doesn’t happen very often, sometimes it does. Fortunately, I have practiced releasing judgment so many times, that I know how to do this easily and quickly.

Text
When I have a challenge, I ask for a miracle. Mostly, that involves a change of mind. I am helped to see a situation differently, or I express a sincere desire for healing my mind and forgiveness happens. It’s a miracle. Sometimes I need something in form. I had a problem with a gas leak on my stove and I was uncertain what to do about it. I asked and received inspiration. I followed the guidance I received and all is well.

When I am sick, which is something that happened to me recently, my request is twofold. I ask what it is for and I ask for mind healing. I forgive the errors in my mind. I also expect that the form of the sickness, the projection of the wrong-minded thinking, will fade away as quickly as possible.
First, in every case, whether it be physical, emotional, or have to do with relationships or financial difficulties - first, the mind must be addressed. There is something that needs the miracle of forgiveness. That is the real miracle. Then, I have every expectation of the form the error took being corrected as well.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 159, Manual for Teachers, Text.  8-20-19

LESSON 159
I give the miracles I have received.

“To give is how to recognize you have received. It is the proof that what you have is yours.”

“You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. You recognize your brother as yourself, and thus do you perceive that you are whole.”

Throughout the Course, and very much in this lesson, it is emphasized that we must see our brother as he was created, not as he appears in his story. This is essential for our salvation. We cannot go home without him. Within our mind are all miracles and we are to give them in order to receive them. Clearly, from this lesson we can see that giving and receiving are simultaneous.

“Christ’s vision is a miracle.”
Here is what Jesus tells us about Christ’s vision.

It reflects eternal love and the rebirth of the love that has been obscured.

It is like Heaven and can be mirrored here.

It pictures Heaven’s innocence.

It is the miracle in which all miracles are born, being their source.

It is the bond that unites giver and receiver.

It sees no sin and it sees the sinless as one.

It is the bridge between the worlds.

It is the Holy Spirit’s single gift.

It seems to me that Christ’s vision is merely seeing what is perhaps not Reality, but what represents reality while still here in time. This is possible for all of us. When I read the following, I was reminded of Cate Grieves relating to me exactly this as her experience. “And in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them.”

“Christ’s vision is the holy ground in which the lilies of forgiveness set their roots.”
Again, in these words I am reminded of what Cate told me of her awakening. She knew little of teachers and various paths to understand awakening. What she knew was that forgiveness was essential. All grievances had to be forgiven and so this is what she did. We all have within us the capacity to forgive, and forgiveness is the way we give and receive miracles. The miracle is the gift of Christ to the world and they are rooted in forgiveness.

“Behold the store of miracles set out for you to give. Are you not worth the gift, when God appointed it be given you? Judge not God’s Son, but follow in the way He has established. Christ has dreamed the dream of a forgiven world. It is His gift, whereby a sweet transition can be made from death to life; from hopelessness to hope. Let us an instant dream with Him. His dream awakens us to truth. His vision gives the means for a return to our unlost and everlasting sanctity in God.”

I am touched by that last paragraph and feel an urge to join Christ in His vision. I want to spend today dreaming of a forgiven world. As soon as I felt this desire, I was aware of the ego’s objections. How could I even dream of a healed world where there is so much divisiveness, so much cruelty, where the news was everyday a litany of man’s selfishness and hatred? And yet, I know that this world is the illusion and Christ’s vision is the way we awaken to truth. I am willing to ask for His vision each time I am confronted with the dark stories of the separated mind.

Manual for Teachers
5. How Is Healing Accomplished?

M-5 what is meaningful to me in this section
The most important thing I learned from this section is that if I am sick it is because I have chosen sickness. Sickness shows me that I have chosen to believe in guilt and that I think punishment follows guilt. I see that I believe that in choosing to punish myself through sickness that I have proven my strength by overcoming the Will of God, which is always health.

Further, “5 If he is healed, he is responsible for his thoughts. 6 And if he is responsible for his thoughts, he will be killed to prove to him how weak and pitiful he is. 7 But if he chooses death himself, his weakness is his strength.”
I see how in a weird and sick way, the ego-mind sees this as reasonable and logical. But it is based on the belief that guilt is real and that I am separate from God and that have a will separate from God’s Will, and that we exist in competition with each other. The premise is wrong so the logic is wrong. In order to heal, I must accept this.

When I recognize the insanity of the ego perspective, I can begin to think differently. I will no longer see value in sickness once I accept my union with God and so recognize that my will must be the same as His. In fact, the idea of me and God doesn’t even make sense. How could there be two of us if we are one with each other and since we are One, there is no reason for guilt to exist and so there is no reason that sickness would exist. If I continue to experience sickness in the body or in my relationships or anywhere else in this story of Myron it would mean that I still resist union with God and there is more healing that needs to occur.

Of course, I must also accept that the body is neutral and is not a decision-maker. For me to experience anything I must make a decision for it and so sickness in the body is not about the body at all, but about what I want. Sickness comes from the mind wherever it is showing up. This is a hard thing to accept for new students of the Course and even once the concept is accepted, there can remain a lot of resistance even if it is not acknowledged. How does one know there is still resistance in the mind to the truth? If there is sickness in the body there is resistance to this concept. It may have been understood but it has not been fully accepted. Isn’t the body a handy mirror to the mind?

How about once illness has manifested in the body? What then? What I have done is to accept that I still think there is some value in sickness, that it is somehow a show of strength against God, even if it is to assume what I think is God’s prerogative and punish myself before He can. It’s hard for me to even write this it is so unreasonable. If there is sickness in the body it is because there is guilt in the mind. And so, the first thing I would do is to release the belief in guilt. If I can’t find guilt in my mind, I would become willing to find it if it is there. I would ask the Holy Spirit to show me the belief in guilt.

Since the mind is responsible for the sickness and so the mind is what needs to be healed, does that mean I should not take medicine? Would taking medicine prevent me from doing the mind healing work? My experience is that it does not affect my mind healing and maybe that is because I know that the only reason medicine works is because I choose it as a way of expressing my desire to heal.

We must not forget how very powerful our mind is. As is emphasized throughout the Course, particularly in Lesson 152, nothing occurs that is not our wish and nothing is absent from our life that we want. I take medicine if that is what I need now. I also know that it is a bit of magic I allow myself until I no longer need it. As it says in this section: “12 The patient could merely rise up without their aid and say, “I have no use for this.” 13 There is no form of sickness that would not be cured at once.” Of course, to say this without believing it to be true is not going to give the expected result.

This paragraph is so important to me that I quote it in its entirety.
M-5.II.3. “What is the single requisite for this shift in perception? 2 It is simply this; the recognition that sickness is of the mind, and has nothing to do with the body. 3 What does this recognition “cost”? 4 It costs the whole world you see, for the world will never again appear to rule the mind. 5 For with this recognition is responsibility placed where it belongs; not with the world, but on him who looks on the world and sees it as it is not. 6 He looks on what he chooses to see. 7 No more and no less. 8 The world does nothing to him. 9 He only thought it did. 10 Nor does he do anything to the world, because he was mistaken about what it is. 11 Herein is the release from guilt and sickness both, for they are one. 12 Yet to accept this release, the insignificance of the body must be an acceptable idea.”

I have talked about sickness being of the mind. Now let me talk about what it cost me to accept that this is true. I will have to give up the idea of being a victim of the world. No more blaming germs or viruses, or bad genes for sickness. I have to let God off the hook, too. I have to accept that I but do it to myself. I have to accept the power of my mind and accept that through that power I make the world as I see it.

There is another way to see the world, another world to see. It is a forgiven world, what Jesus calls the real world. I cannot see it if I continue to project hate and jealousy and fear and guilt on the world. If I want to be free of suffering of every kind, I must give this up. In other words, I must give up everything I have ever believed and I must accept the truth in its place. I must withdraw my projections and accept full responsibility for the world as I made it and as I see it. I must accept that the world does nothing to me and I must accept that what I believe, even if that belief is in error, is real to me.

Now I see creation differently. I understand God and my Self differently. Everything changes once I give up the belief in guilt and withdraw my projections from the world. “6 The final outcome of this lesson is the remembrance of God.” I am not at the final outcome, but I have released enough confusion from my mind that I see things differently than I ever have before. As I continue to grow into and past this first level of awakening, more confusion falls away. I wonder how this will express in the world?

When there is no value seen in sickness, suffering and death, they must cease to exist. Of course, that will happen. “7 What do guilt and sickness, pain, disaster and all suffering mean now? 8 Having no purpose, they are gone. 9 And with them also go all the effects they seemed to cause. “Jesus says that cause and effect replicate creation and so when there is no belief in guilt there will be no effects of guilt. I wonder what it is in my mind that I am still holding onto? I am excited to be shown.

So, what is my part as a teacher of God? Of course, the healing of my own mind is paramount. But when it comes to being the teacher it is not my responsibility to change the patient’s mind for him. When I first began my work with some very sick people, it was hard on me. I thought it was my job to heal them, mind and body, but when I realized the error in that belief, it all became easy and rewarding. My whole job is to represent a different choice. This is why my first responsibility is to my own healing. As Jesus says, my only function is to accept the Atonement for myself. Then I will have something to offer. I will represent a different choice.

“7 With God’s Word in their minds they come in benediction, not to heal the sick but to remind them of the remedy God has already given them.” This is what I do to the best of my ability at this time. I just remind people of the truth. I show them with my life what it is like to live in the truth. See how easy and joyful it is now that I understand my responsibility? It doesn’t matter what disease they have or how ‘serious’ it seems to be.

Its purpose is the same whether it is a headache or a brain tumor, and purpose is everything. So, one disease is the same as another for the purposes of healing. The job of the teacher is to help the patient remember he did not create himself and so he cannot change himself. He must remain as God created Him. Anything not of God is an illusion and illusions cannot affect reality.

6 The truth in their minds reaches out to the truth in the minds of their brothers, so that illusions are not reinforced. 7 They are thus brought to truth; truth is not brought to them. 8 So are they dispelled, not by the will of another, but by the union of the one Will with itself. 9 And this is the function of God’s teachers; to see no will as separate from their own, nor theirs as separate from God’s.

What I understand now is that healing the body is not my function, but healing the mind that believes in sickness is my function. What has been healed can no longer manifest the unhealed. If a cause is gone so are the effects. Sometimes the sickness in the body shows us that our mind is in need of healing and so we do that. When we had a fever, we realized it meant we were sick and so we did what was necessary with doctors and medicine. Now we may still do that, but we also realize that more is needed if we want to truly heal. Now we need to heal the source of the problem, our mind. It might be that we have to get to the point that suffering is so intense that we are motivated to do the mind healing work needed. Either way, the work will eventually get done. Why not do it before the suffering intensifies? Why not do it for the sake of Love?

Text
This is from the Obstacles to Peace section of the Course.
“The dedication to death and to its sovereignty is but the solemn vow, the promise made in secret to the ego never to lift this veil, not to approach it nor even to suspect it is there. This is the secret bargain made with the ego to keep what lies beyond the veil forever blotted out and unremembered. Here is your promise never to allow union to call you out of separation; the great amnesia in which the memory of God seems quite forgotten; the cleavage of you Self from you;-the fear of God, the final step in your dissociation.”

Well, we are breaking that contract, aren’t we? We who are studying the Course and who have dedicated our lives to undoing the ego, have taken the first step, and maybe many steps toward lifting the veil. The way we are doing this is through forgiveness. It is the only way to do it. The lifting of the veil must be done in union and union cannot occur where there is fear and guilt.

“But first, lift up your eyes and look on your brother in innocence born of complete forgiveness of his illusions, and through the eyes of faith that sees the not.”

He tells us that we fear God because we fear our brother, and that no one reaches love with fear beside him. He says this:
“Brother, you need forgiveness of your brother, for you will share in madness or in Heaven together. And you will raise your eyes in faith together, or not at all.”

The course I am taking right now is called Remembering to Choose Peace, and one of the things it says in summary of this section is this:
“Jesus wants us to understand that we will receive the gift of innocence we give our brother. When we join together with our brother instead of separating, we are able to go beyond the darkest veil – the fear of God. We are asked to watch very carefully how we are seeing our brother – through the eyes of guilt or innocence, because we will always give as we receive and receive as we give.”

I sometimes have a brief moment in which I feel affected by someone’s words or actions. But that passes quickly because I am fully accepting of forgiveness. Forgiveness is always justified. I don’t really care why it is justified, I just know it is. I suppose that if I had to give a reason it would be that none of this is real and that everyone is living a specific script for a specific reason.

I can’t judge their script because I don’t know why it is what it is, and I’m not interested in judging it. I don’t walk out of a movie angry with a character who acted a certain way, and this experience I am having now is absolutely no different than a movie I watch on the screen. It just makes no sense to judge a movie even if I imagine myself in it. I don’t know why I chose the script for this lifetime for myself and so I am no longer judging myself for my part in it. That is quite a relief.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 158, Manual for Teachers, Text.  8-10-19

Lesson 158
Today I learn to give as I receive.

What we are, mind in Mind, sinless, created out of love and will always be this is not something we learn. It is knowledge that is in our mind and is in all minds. Therefore, this is not something that we give. And the revelation that we are one with God cannot be given and must come to each of us in time.

This time is determined by the mind itself, not taught, and the time is set already. It seems like we are living this life for the first time, but that is not true. Time seems to go in but one direction but that is not true either and this journey we are taking is already over we just don’t remember that.

“Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. The script is written. When experience will come to end your doubting has been set. For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by.”

For a long time, I thought this was the most perplexing paragraphs in the Text. And I argued with it even as I began to understand it. Now, I am still not certain, but I don’t worry about it much. Knowing what this paragraph actually means is not going to help me wake up. Forgiving will, so that is what I give my attention to.

“Yet there is a vision which the Holy Spirit sees because the Mind of Christ beholds it too.”

What is Christ Vision?

“Christ’s vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created.”

This means that when I am with anyone or thinking of anyone, I don’t judge their appearance or behavior or past. I know that we are sharing an experience of being bodies, but I know it isn’t true, that we are pure spirit, pure thought, that we are an Idea in the Mind of God. I might also express that as being Love, so I see them as Love and I feel love when I see them.

“And this you give today: See no one as a body. Greet him as the Son of God he is, acknowledging that he is one with you in holiness.”

Christ Vision is the way we forgive. I forgive the idea that my brother could be guilty of anything and instead see his perfect innocence and this is Christ Vision. And when I use Christ Vision to forgive his sins they are no more. “And all effects they seemed to have are gone with them, undone and never to be done.” And because in my brother I see myself, then forgiving him is how I forgive myself and understand that I have been forgiven.

Regina’s Tip

Today’s lesson begins with, “What has been given you? The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, …” Mind is synonymous with consciousness, awareness or life-presence.

As you come across people today, regardless of whether you meet them in person, over the phone, on the Internet or you simply think of them, take a moment to acknowledge them as the same life that you are. Take a moment to appreciate the life that we are. Every person provides an opportunity to practice and extend this remembrance. Life is always present and available to be seen, regardless of … whatever.

My Thoughts

Regina suggests the simple practice of acknowledging each person as what they are in truth. I can see the value in this. This is the kind of thought I want to reinforce in myself and in all of the Sonship.

Manual for Teachers
“Any situation must be to you a chance to teach others what you are, and what they are to you.” So this tells me that everything in my life is used for this purpose. And teaching is a constant process.

These days I am very aware of this responsibility. Whatever I am doing, whatever seems to be going on in my life, I see it as a teaching/learning opportunity, and I do the best I can with it in that regard. So, I am teaching others what I am through my actions and words. I am also teaching myself what they are to me. Are they my dear brothers, part of my own Whole Self, or am I teaching myself they are separate from me, unimportant, my competitors for whatever it is I think I need to be happy? I am always either teaching us we are whole and one with each other, or I am teaching us both that we are separate and vulnerable in our separateness.

Text
T-13.III. 9: 2 2 But exempt no one from your love, or you will be hiding a dark place in your mind where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. 3 And thus you will exempt yourself from His healing power, for by not offering total love you will not be healed completely.
I found some dark place in my mind where I was hiding a judgment of someone. Because it was a ‘minor’ grievance, I thought it didn’t matter. But there are no minor grievances, there are just grievances. I can’t have that. I can’t have darkness in my mind. I gave that judgment to the Holy Spirit to remove from my mind. No grievance is worth holding onto because the cost is too steep. I will not exempt myself from the Holy Spirit’s healing power just so I can imagine my brother is less than perfect.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 157, Manual for Teachers, Text.  8-08-19

Lesson 157
Into His Presence would I enter now.

“This is a day of silence and of trust.”

“This is another crucial turning point in the curriculum.”

“Today it will be given you to feel a touch of Heaven, though you will return to paths of learning.”

“Nothing is needed but today’s idea to light your mind, and let it rest in still anticipation and in quiet joy, wherein you quickly leave the world behind.”

Jesus is telling us that we may still be in the learning stage, but that today is going to be special. Today we will get a touch of Heaven; we will walk in eternity for a while. He will direct our practicing and we will rise above the laws of the world and leave it behind. The ego-mind will doubt this and will choose otherwise, but surely, we know by now that we are not the ego. We have learned that we can listen to the ego, or not listen to it, believe it or not believe it.

Jesus is making some extraordinary statements in this lesson as he did in yesterday’s lesson. He says that from this day forth, your ministry takes on a genuine devotion. He says that your experience will so transform your mind that it becomes the touchstone for the holy Thoughts of God. Holy cow! And not just the mind, but the body is sanctified today because we will be using it for its true purpose. Soon we will have no use for a body and but for now, we will use it for its purpose and it will serve it well.

“Into Christ’s Presence will we enter now, serenely unaware of everything except His shining face and perfect Love. The vision of His face will stay with you, but there will be an instant which transcends all vision, even this, the holiest. This you will never teach, for you attained it not through learning. Yet the vision speaks of your remembrance of what you knew that instant, and will surely know again.”

I am hoping for a clear and transcendent experience today, but so far that has not occurred. I am feeling love and joy welling up in me and I feel peaceful even though there are circumstances today that might have pulled me into ego thinking at another time. We shall see. (Ha ha. I am reading what I wrote and clearly, I didn’t understand what transcendence means. Yes, my experience would deepen but feeling love and joy and peace in the face of the ego world and its circumstances is pretty sarn transcendent.)

Regina’s Tips
If one is to awaken to truth, it is important to let go of concepts, because concepts are not truth.

Today we will let go of our concepts about God. We will let go of the idea of a “Him” who seems different and separate from us. Although these terms will continue to be used, we will realize the truth. God is the life that we are.

Today’s workbook lesson says, “This day is holy, for it ushers in a new experience; a different kind of feeling and awareness. … Today you learn to feel the joy of life.”

My thoughts
Regina likes to remove the spiritual language, perhaps because of all the concepts we have picked up around terms like God, but I just don’t relate to the idea of Life as opposed to God. Life just doesn’t evoke in me the kind of loving, joyful feeling that God does. But, because it is used so much in this study and in other writings and meditations that I use, I am slowly letting my mind shift a bit to accept other ways of naming the Creator.

Manual for Teachers
M-5.II.3:8-11 The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did. Nor does he do anything to the world, because he was mistaken about what it is. Herein is the release from guilt and sickness both, for they are one. Yet to accept this release, the insignificance of the body must be an acceptable idea.

The Manual for Teachers explains why we choose sickness and assure us we can do something about it. In fact, the magical solutions we turn to only work because we decide they do. Sickness isn’t of the body at all, but of the mind and thus sickness can only be cured by the mind. Our medicines and procedures to help the body make temporary corrections, and that’s a blessing when we need it,  but because they don’t address the cause which is in the mind, nothing is really cured and will return in one form or another until the mind is healed. What is the cause of sickness? Jesus tells us in this sentence. “Herein is the release from guilt and sickness both, for they are one.”

This is why we have so many problems of the body and why it is sometimes so hard to get permanent relief. I am a pretty healthy person and always have been, but still, I have had occasional serious situations requiring medicine and surgery. As I get older, this is happening more. The problem isn’t the body, it’s the guilt. My mind was sick because I had poisoned it with guilt. What I finally came to understand is that guilt is not real. It doesn’t exist. It was made up when the separation idea came into manifestation. Because it is not real, I don’t have to believe in it. Why believe in something that doesn’t exist? Letting go of the idea that guilt is real releases us from the effects of that belief.

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We all experience doubt. This is such a long dream and it feels so real, and we can feel very alone in this since most people are not yet ready for awakening. To make it even harder, as long as we identify with the split mind, we will feel like we are fighting ourselves. Hang in there, though, because that false identity is slowly falling away and one day it will be a vague memory.

You can achieve freedom from doubt faster if you are consistent in your forgiveness work. There is a Voice in your mind that is constantly guiding you and it is up to you to choose to listen to that Voice rather than the ego voice. Choose the Voice for God consistently and awakening will come sooner. It is up to you.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 156, Manual for Teachers, Text.  8-02-19

Lesson 156
I walk with God in perfect holiness.

I realize that I really do believe that I am sinless. The ego, on the other hand, takes serious exception to that belief and is only too happy to remind me of my many errors. But it seems like I am beginning to understand that errors are not sins. In fact, maybe the things I thought were errors really were not. Maybe they were perfect in ways I cannot, with my limited vision, understand.

God did not cause guilt and so it cannot exist. Besides which, thoughts leave not their source and since I am a Thought in the Mind of God, I cannot be apart from God. No matter how vivid this dream of being separated from God, it cannot possibly be true. I cannot be apart from my Source.

As Jesus says: “He is what your life is. Where you are He is. There is one life. That life you share with Him. Nothing can be apart from Him and live.” I must be holy because God is holy. I must be innocent because He is innocent. I must be life because He is Life. When I see this written out and follow the logic of it, I see that I must be this.

Look at paragraph five.

“The light in you is what the universe longs to behold. All living things are still before you, for they recognize Who walks with you. The light you carry is their own. And thus they see in you their holiness, saluting you as savior and as God. Accept their reverence, for it is due to Holiness Itself, which walks with you, transforming in Its gentle light all things unto Its likeness and Its purity.”

I have to stop and contemplate this.

The above statement is true of Who I am. It feels weird to say this about myself only when I think of myself as Myron the body/personality mask I assume for this dreamy experience. Even if I think of myself without the body but still dreaming of being separate from God, I cannot believe what Jesus is saying here.

But if I simply accept as true that I am not separate from God nor different than He created me to be, then I must be a holy savior. I must be God. The one Who walks with me is my true Self. That Self is part of God. Ultimately, that Self is God because God is Whole and does not have parts. I am practicing simply accepting that what Jesus says about me is true, and everything I perceive is part of a dream I am having, a long con I am playing on myself.

And what is it that keeps me from reclaiming my birthright? It is only the belief in sin. This is why Jesus keeps reiterating that we are innocent and that we are sinless, and that guilt does not exist. I don’t have to undo every error I ever made or somehow make amends for them as the idea of karma suggests. Instead, what I need to do is to accept that I have never done anything that makes me guilty except in time and time doesn’t exist. I can know that I am God the Son if I simply step into that role, I think.

“Yet you have wasted many, many years on just this foolish thought. The past is gone, with all its fantasies. They keep you bound no longer. The approach to God is near. And in the little interval of doubt that still remains, you may perhaps lose sight of your Companion, and mistake Him for the senseless, ancient dream that now is past.”

So what must I do about the little interval of doubt? I continue to be aware of those doubts and to remind myself that I am innocent and I am holy and that I am the Self I have been trying to remember. I can believe everything that Jesus says about me and my belief will change everything because what we believe is true for us. I can do what Jesus suggests at the end of the lesson.

“Who walks with me?” This question should be asked a thousand times a day, till certainty has ended doubting and established peace. Today let doubting cease. God speaks for you in answering your question with these words:

I walk with God in perfect holiness. I light the world, I light my mind and all the minds which God created one with me.

Regina’s Tips
NTI Acts, Chapter 5 makes this point when it says, “God is Life, and you live, so Life must be within you. This means that God is within you also. … Right now, as you sit reading this, you live. So right now, you cannot be separate from God. Right now, God is in you and you are in God. There is no separation. Right now, your oneness with God is complete …”

Guilt and unworthiness are concepts. They are imagination. This is easy to see if you will look beyond your imagination to truth.

Life is always clean, untouched by what the body does or what the mind thinks, just as sunlight is untouched by the stained glass window that it shines through. And life is what you are, and what others are. This is what’s consistently true. When your eyes have learned to look at truth, everything else pales by comparison.

Today’s lesson says, “’Who walks with me?’ is a question that “should be asked a thousand times a day, till certainty has ended doubting and established peace.” When you ask this question, look. Is life here now? Does it go wherever you go? Is life what you are? Keep looking. Keep noticing until you have trained your eyes to look beyond everything temporary and focus themselves on life.

Manual for Teachers
Key Points for Section 7
This section is explaining 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 loved one 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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One day, Holy Spirit and I looked at some guilt in my mind. I thought this particular guilt was forgiven and the Atonement accepted – done! Evidently, I was still holding onto it. The experience of looking at it came as a total surprise to self as Myron. I sat down to do a meditation that I prefaced with, “Father, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give,” and began to cry. I, at first, tried to contain the feeling, then, having caught that impulse, let go and cried. I wondered what was going on.

It was then that the memory of what might have been an error came into the mind. I became totally immersed in the experience at that point. I felt the regret and guilt and fear over what was done in the past and though I wanted it to stop and thought about stopping it, I let it rush through me, flooding me with emotion. When it began to subside, I began the restorative. It took awhile because the experience of it lingered and the mind felt confused.

I talked to Jesus about it for a while off and on during the day. I told him that I see how I was holding onto the idea that, yes, I did this thing and yes, it had effects and, oh, how I wish I could undo them. And he talked to me about the unreality of the error and that only love is real. I finally saw how, in the moment of the error, I was being driven by fear and the fear blocked out everything else.

I hope never to experience that again, and that from now on, I will always stop and be still and let myself be guided. Now as I write this, I see that my prayer for absolution has been answered. The Holy Spirit has healed that self-inflicted wound in my heart. Jesus is reminding me that the effects can be undone, leaving everyone free of pain from my past. He suggests that I use the prayer at the end of Chapter 5 to help me accept this gift.

I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.
I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me.

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