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Gentle Healing Lesson 172, Text, Manual for Teachers. 10-30-19

LESSON 172
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1 (153) In my defenselessness my safety lies.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2 (154) I am among the ministers of God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

I practice defenselessness all the time and have been for years now. I don’t often feel defensive anymore, but when I do, I catch it right away. I used to feel defensive when my kids would say something to me that I perceived as critical. At some point, I must have practiced enough that this stopped bothering me. Now when they do say something like that to me, I usually just laugh and agree that they probably have a point.

And the cool thing about that is that I mean it. I have evidently mostly stopped thinking that my human self has to be perfect and I have stopped identifying so much with that part of me so I don’t take it personally anymore. Occasionally, something will be said that actually triggers some unworthiness and that’s OK. It is just a chance to really master the decision to see this differently.

This newfound freedom is helpful in being a teacher of God. If I showed my child a hurt face, this would infer that he/she was guilty and guilt is what we are here to undo. I want to teach my children they are innocent. I want to do this with everyone. I am definitely becoming a better teacher of God through learning and practicing what I read in the Course.

Manual for Teachers
2. WHO ARE THEIR PUPILS? P 2, 3
2 In order to understand the teaching-learning plan of salvation, it is necessary to grasp the concept of time that the course sets forth. Atonement corrects illusions, not truth. Therefore, it corrects what never was. Further, the plan for this correction was established and completed simultaneously, for the Will of God is entirely apart from time. So is all reality, being of Him. The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God’s Son, in that same instant was God’s Answer given. In time this happened very long ago. In reality it never happened at all. 

3 The world of time is the world of illusion. What happened long ago seems to be happening now. Choices made long since appear to be open; yet to be made. What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach. Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there. As the course emphasizes, you are not free to choose the curriculum, or even the form in which you will learn it. You are free, however, to decide when you want to learn it. And as you accept it, it is already learned. 

There are two important ideas about time that I take from these paragraphs. The first is that time is not real; it is part of the illusion. We are eternal. Here is a definition of eternity: a state to which time has no application; timelessness. We, as we were created, have nothing to do with time. We stand outside time, which doesn’t actually exist anyway.

The next thing I sort of understand is that while in the experience of a world we are having a linear experience in which time seems to be happening. So, it seems that we are making choices and we are experiencing the effects of those choices now. But what is really happening is that we are experiencing something that has already happened because in eternity everything happens at once or not at all. It seems that the world we know never happened because it starts and stops and changes, so it is an illusion.

Well, now that that’s crystal clear… What we can know is that within the story we are apparently living, which is an illusion, we are given the task of discovering what we already know. We look at our thoughts and allow them to be corrected where they are not true and this is what the Course calls accepting the Atonement. Eventually, our mind becomes clear enough that we know this is an illusion (called awakening) and we are on our way to returning to our true state.

Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there.

We are also told that the path home is already chosen but we are free to choose when we want to learn it. My path is A Course in Miracles. It looked like I found it by happenstance and that I decided to read it and to practice it all these years. But that this would happen was a done deal and my only part was to decide if it would be this lifetime in which I decided on it. And then Jesus says, And as you accept it, it is already learned.  My assumption here is that I cannot fail to learn it because I have already done so.

Chapter 16: The Forgiveness of Illusions
I. True Empathy
T-16.I.1. To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand. 2 That is the ego’s interpretation of empathy, and is always used to form a special relationship in which the suffering is shared. 3 The capacity to empathize is very useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let Him use it in His way. 4 His way is very different. 5 He does not understand suffering, and would have you teach it is not understandable. 6 When He relates through you, He does not relate through your ego to another ego. 7 He does not join in pain, understanding that healing pain is not accomplished by delusional attempts to enter into it, and lighten it by sharing the delusion.

Journal
I used to think that empathy was to relate to the problem and to express that to the person who had the problem. For instance, if someone lost a loved one, I would agree with them how very hard this is and I would cry with them because their grief triggered my fear of loss.  I catch myself doing this very thing sometimes even now that I know better. I am always surprised at myself when I choose to form a special relationship through shared suffering. In doing this, I would be strengthening the belief in suffering for both of us. That is just plain crazy.

The question becomes, how do I relate to someone who is suffering? It would seem cruel not to respond at all and I’m not foolish enough to believe this is the time and place to talk to them about illusions. The solution is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in my mind and will give me the words to say if I ask and then pause long enough to receive them. I sometimes do funerals and, of course, I go to funerals, more of them than before now that I am older. So, it is important to me that I follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

When I am talking to a Course student, it is a little different. My assumption when a fellow student comes to me with a problem, they are hoping to receive some guidance from the Holy Spirit through me. I will speak to them differently than I do with someone else but, again, I ask first so that what I share will be helpful. I do feel empathy in both cases because I have both grieved and been confused.

If I feel more than empathy, if I feel sympathy or a desire to share their suffering, I give it to the Holy Spirit and then I ask for words to share with the one in front of me. If I need to revisit the issue later, I do that when I am alone. One of the things I have noticed is that with grief, sometimes all that is required of me is a hug. And with other problems sometimes all that is needed from me is a listening ear. The important thing for me to remember is that my part is to be there, to be open and receptive. Knowing what to say or do is the Holy Spirit’s part.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 171, Text, Manual for Teachers. 10-24-19

Lesson 171
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1 (151) All things are echoes of the Voice for God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2 (152) The power of decision is my own.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

I was guided to look at the power of decision again and was further guided to review how it is I make decisions. This is from Rules for Decisions in Chapter 30.

Paragraph 14 on page 628 of the Text popped out at me. It says, ” We said you can begin a happy day with the determination not to make decisions by yourself. This seems to be a real decision in itself. And yet, you cannot make decisions by yourself. The only question really is with what you choose to make them. That is really all. The first rule, then, is not coercion, but a simple statement of a simple fact. You will not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For they are made with idols or with God. And you ask help of anti-Christ or Christ, and which you choose will join you and tell you what to do.”

And paragraph 16 on page 628 popped out at me too. It says, “The second rule as well is but a fact. For you and your advisor must agree on what you want before it can occur. It is but this agreement that permits all things to happen. Nothing can be caused without some form of union, be it with a dream of judgment or the Voice for God. Decisions cause results because they are not made in isolation. They are made by you and your adviser, for yourself and for the world as well. The day you want you offer to the world, for it will be what you have asked for, and will reinforce the rule of your adviser in the world. Whose kingdom is the world for you today? What kind of day will you decide to have?”

The lesson tells us in no uncertain terms and with no comprise that whatever is in our lives is there because we decided on it. In the Text he is explaining how we make the decision. We make it in union, either with the ego or the Holy Spirit. There is no other option. We do not make decisions on our own no matter what we tell ourselves to the contrary.

Here is an example. How is it that loss shows up in my life? Who would want that? Who would decide for loss? We did. We decided to show up as bodies that die. We then decided that when someone’s body dies, it means they die and we will suffer their loss. On two levels we made that decision, on the level of manifestation and on the level of interpretation. Neither death nor loss are in God, so we must have made those decisions with the ego.

Text
X. the Time of Rebirth, P 9
9 You will not succeed in being partial hostage to the ego, for it keeps no bargains and would leave you nothing. Nor can you be partial host to it. You must choose between total freedom and total bondage, for there are no alternatives but these. You have tried many compromises in the attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision you must make. And yet it is the recognition of the decision, just as it is, that makes the decision so easy. Salvation is simple, being of God, and therefore very easy to understand. Do not try to project it from you and see it outside yourself. In you are both the question and the answer; the demand for sacrifice and the peace of God.

Journal
This decision to be part ego and a part spirit has never worked and is not ever going to work. We live an illusion of a life and we suffer. We tell ourselves that when we die, then we will be spirit but then we wind up back here trying again and suffering again. We try all sorts of compromises. We become religious and at least once a week for an hour or so we give ourselves to God. Or spiritual, and we spend at least some of our time as seekers without ever really becoming a finder. All to keep from making a decision for God. But nothing we do brings us perfect joy or unending peace, and we wind up suffering after all.

What are we clinging to? What is so valuable that we cannot bear to give it up? What are we so afraid of? I think there is nothing to be afraid of but it is the fear that this is not true that keeps us sitting on this uncomfortable fence. We say we are afraid of God, but I wonder about that. Perhaps the real fear is in giving up what we made to take His place. We have convinced ourselves that this separate self with its endless stories is what we are and that to give it up would be annihilation.

We are afraid that we would be asked to give up our very life and everything that makes us what we are. But what we would actually be giving up is what we are not, so that we could embrace what We are. We are going to have to eventually get off that fence and choose reality. Why not sooner than later? Why continue to suffer when we could be living in continuous bliss? There is no compromise in this. We must choose and we will, in the end, choose God. So, again, why wait?

Manual for Teachers
2. WHO ARE THEIR PUPILS?

1 Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God’s teachers, and they will begin to look for him as soon as he has answered the Call. They were chosen for him because the form of the universal curriculum that he will teach is best for them in view of their level of understanding. His pupils have been waiting for him, for his coming is certain. Again, it is only a matter of time. Once he has chosen to fulfill his role, they are ready to fulfill theirs. Time waits on his choice, but not on whom he will serve. When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him. 

I find it very comforting to know that as a teacher of God, my students are being sent to me. I need do nothing to find them. It’s not up to me to decide if they are ready for what I offer. I don’t have to worry that I won’t have what they need. If they have been sent to me, I can be sure that we are perfectly matched for a learning/teaching situation.

Again, Jesus reminds us that as we teach we learn when he says, “When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him.”  My experience has proven this to me. I am very grateful to each and every teaching/learning opportunity that is given to me.

Since I was ordained, I have had numerous students and opportunities to teach, but Holy Spirit began sending me students before I even knew I had answered a call or even that there was a call to answer. They would come right out of the blue.

My spiritual life had slowly begun to expand outside the perimeters of traditional religion. Holy Spirit started me off slowly by sending some simple books my way. One of the first I read was a book about Edgar Cayce. That was pretty radical stuff for me back then. It was important because it was a gentle way for me to begin to consider that things are not always what they seem.

Then a book about life after life came my way and I opened to even more to possibilities. I had just finished reading this book when I received my first teaching opportunity, or at least the first one that I was aware of. I was driving a taxicab in Houston, Texas at the time. When my fare got into the cab that morning he was at first quiet, then struck up a conversation, and immediately began telling me about a near-death experience he had. It was strange, almost like he was just waiting for the chance to tell me about this.

This man, whose name I never got, had surgery some time back and “died” on the table. They revived him and he had a very vivid memory of his death experience. When he finished telling me about it, he confessed that he had never shared this experience with anyone because he was afraid of being judged. There was only one book out about this kind of thing at that time and it was not as accepted as it is now. He asked me what I thought about what happened to him and what did I think it meant.

I told him about the book I had just finished and suggested he get hold of a copy. I told him I believed him and I don’t know if I said much of anything else, but he left my cab more relieved than when he got in, and he now had a resource that could help him learn more if he wanted to. I was just a bit astounded by the whole thing. Why did he tell me that? How was it that I was one of the few people he would speak to that day that would understand?

At the time this happened, I didn’t know about the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know about being a teacher of God, or that once we put our foot on this path opportunities would unfold before us without our effort. I did feel wonder that it happened and gratitude that somehow, I managed to be helpful. I felt a deep satisfaction that only in retrospect did I understand. It seemed a small teaching, but he needed the only thing I could give him, and so it was perfect.

The second teaching opportunity came within a year or so, and I had joined a Unity church by this time and was a tiny bit less clueless than before. I was working in an ad agency and a man came in to look over our stock and started a conversation with me. He quickly began telling me things about his life and I knew he wanted me to help him figure it out.

I didn’t have a clue what to say, but something in me caused me to ask God for words. I think I was very helpful to him. If he was surprised, I was even more surprised. I had never had the experience of teaching myself as I taught someone else. I didn’t know where the words came from, well, from God of course, but I didn’t know, up until that moment, that this could happen.

We don’t need to think about how we are going to be used and we don’t need to understand anything that happens. We just need to show up with a willingness to be used by the Holy Spirit.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 170, Text, Manual for Teachers. 10-20-19

LESSON 170
There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

Jesus begins by telling us that attack is an attempt to hurt and this is always true, whatever our justifications. We tell ourselves that we are just defending against harm when we attack, but Jesus says that this is cruelty and thus we believe that to be cruel is to be safe. I thought of an example to test this idea. I have attacked in the past. I will use my ex-husband as an example.

I didn’t feel like he put his family first, and so I felt unsafe with him. I would defend myself by using guilt and shame to change his behavior thinking that if he understood the harm he was doing to us and ultimately to himself, then he would change. Because I was so caught up in my story of victimhood, I failed to see that he was not the problem and that I could simply change my perception of the situation and restore peace to my mind.

I really believed that he was the problem and the solution was to attack him. I did not see that I had made changing him my salvation, the idol I was worshipping. It was a cruel and relentless god that I was bowing to and nothing good came from it. I only felt guiltier myself and he became more stubborn in his determination to live as he chose to live.

Attacking him and making him my enemy left me feeling afraid and vulnerable because who can attack can also be attacked. It increased my belief that I could both love and hate and this is not possible. Either love is real or hate is real. They cannot both be true and these opposing ideas were a continuing war in my mind. My failure to forgive demanded constant justification and so the war escalated. And having an enemy seemed to prove separation was real. The lack of peace in my home was a reflection of the lack of peace in my mind.

“For fear becomes your safety and protector of your peace, to which you turn for solace and escape from doubts about your strength, and hope of rest in dreamless quiet.”

The way this was manifested in my marriage was that I projected onto our relationship this belief that fear is my salvation and attack is my defense. Now my husband was my enemy and I had to protect myself through attack. It seemed that to lower my defenses in the name of love was to bare my neck to the sword, so to speak. If love demanded this of me, then love must be my enemy.

Jesus says we need to look at this dynamic and that it might seem fearful to us to do so, but it will also be our time of release. I did do this finally and having waited until I was divorced to do so, made it a little easier. I had some distance to give the illusion of safety, and there was not the constant reinforcement of the perceived need to defend.

Because we worked at the same job, there was just enough interaction to help me see the mistaken thoughts in my mind without overwhelming me. Probably now, with this success and others, I would be able to heal without divorcing myself from the problem, but at that time, it was a necessary component of healing.

My marriage and my divorce were only symbols of the one problem, as are all facets of the illusion. The deeper meaning the marriage symbolized was my war with God. God, Who is Love, is seen as enemy and is feared. All fear in the world is a reflection of the fear of God. We have the belief that fear protects from what would hurt us and so fear becomes salvation in our mind, and love which would strip us of the protection is now seen as the enemy.

But just as I learned that I could see my relationship with Greg differently and come to love him without fear of that love, so can I do the same with God. I think I have divorced God just as I divorced Greg even though ideas cannot actually leave their source. I pretend I am separate from God just as I pretended that the idea of relationship with Greg would be separate from me through divorce, and that I could make separation real through assigning error to an other I see as outside me.

I was able to overcome the belief I could sever my relationship with Greg simply by moving my body away from his body. And so I will overcome that same belief in my relationship with God, that pretending to be in a body that exists outside God actually accomplishes separation. Ideas leave not their source and love is not fear. These are truth, and there are no opposites to truth.

Text
X. the Time of Rebirth, P 8
8 You think that everyone outside yourself demands your sacrifice, but you do not see that only you demand sacrifice, and only of yourself. Yet the demand of sacrifice is so savage and so fearful that you cannot accept it where it is. The real price of not accepting this has been so great that you have given God away rather than look at it. For if God would demand total sacrifice of you, it seems safer to project Him outward and away from you, and not be host to Him. To Him you ascribed the ego’s treachery, inviting it to take His place to protect you from Him. And you do not recognize that it is what you invited in that would destroy you, and does demand total sacrifice of you. No partial sacrifice will appease this savage guest, for it is an invader who but seems to offer kindness, but always to make the sacrifice complete.

Journal
You think that everyone outside yourself demands your sacrifice, but you do not see that only you demand sacrifice, and only of yourself.

What is the sacrifice I demand of myself? I demand the sacrifice of God and of Self. In choosing this experience of separation and clinging to the ego mind, I sacrifice the memory of What I am and of my relationship to my Creator. Within the story, I sacrifice happiness, and health. My efforts to place the blame elsewhere only succeed in causing further self-sacrifice.

For if God would demand total sacrifice of you, it seems safer to project Him outward and away from you, and not be host to Him.

The ego does, indeed, demand total sacrifice. It would leave you without recourse to suffering and death. But in our confused state, we think that it is God that demands total sacrifice of us. No wonder there is such a strong fear of God and no wonder we try to push Him away and see Him as separate and outside of us. We are holding the real enemy close and pushing away Love.

I’m trying to think how all of this applies to my life. When I awakened, any belief in the world I had left was gone. I know, no think or believe, but know that this world and the experience of the world that I seem to be involved with is an illusion. It is imagination. I know for a fact that it feels real only because we decided to make it feel real.

I also discovered that this shift did not cost me anything. I didn’t sacrifice anything to God in order to be where I am now in my experience. The ego is a stalker, though. Like a boyfriend who will not accept that the relationship is over, the ego follows me around trying to entice me back into some of our old behaviors.

For instance, the ego says I should worry about someone I love. It says that worry is a sign of love and not to worry is weird. I see myself looking at that idea but I can’t go back there. I know too much, now. This is the kind of ego belief I had to sacrifice in order to be happy.

I had to give up making decisions with the ego and I had to relinquish making others guilty, even making myself guilty had to be sacrificed. The ego insists that I need these things and that they are being taken away from me. The ego says that I will miss them. But thus far, I haven’t found that to be true.

I like the trade-off. Instead of fear and guilt, I have peace and happiness. Instead of death, I have Life. Instead of competition and loneliness, I have love. That doesn’t feel like a sacrifice to me. And the Holy Spirit is helping me to see the bits that I have not released yet so that I can be entirely free.

WHO ARE GOD’S TEACHERS? P3 & 4
3 There is a course for every teacher of God. The form of the course varies greatly. So do the particular teaching aids involved. But the content of the course never changes. Its central theme is always, “God’s Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation.” It can be taught by actions or thoughts; in words or soundlessly; in any language or in no language; in any place or time or manner. It does not matter who the teacher was before he heard the Call. He has become a savior by his answering. He has seen someone else as himself. He has therefore found his own salvation and the salvation of the world. In his rebirth is the world reborn.

4 This is a manual for a special curriculum, intended for teachers of a special form of the universal course. There are many thousands of other forms, all with the same outcome. They merely save time. Yet it is time alone that winds on wearily, and the world is very tired now. It is old and worn and without hope. There was never a question of outcome, for what can change the Will of God? But time, with its illusions of change and death, wears out the world and all things in it. Yet time has an ending, and it is this that the teachers of God are appointed to bring about. For time is in their hands. Such was their choice, and it is given them.

Here is what I have learned so far about being a teacher of God.

His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else’s.

Everyone is called but few answer at this time though everyone will answer eventually.

There is a course for everyone and they vary greatly but this one teaching doesn’t change:  “God’s Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation.”

It doesn’t matter who the teacher was before his call.

We teach in many ways, with words or without words. The path for each person is very specific.

A Course in Miracles is a special form of a universal course. There are thousands of paths all designed to save time because the world is weary and we have caused ourselves much suffering.

There was never a question of outcome, for what can change the Will of God?

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Gentle Healing Lesson 169, Text, Manual for Teachers. 10-11-19

LESSON 169
By grace I live. By grace I am released.

Yesterday, I contemplated grace as a gift of God that is always available to me. Today, I am contemplating that grace is past learning and yet the goal of learning. It is in learning that I don’t want anything in my mind that threatens my choice for peace and in practicing releasing such thoughts that I prepare for grace and am able to accept it. Jesus says that grace not only comes to the mind thus prepared for it, he says that it becomes inevitable instantly.

I feel the rightness of the statement that grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. How else could we ever see this world as Love if it were not for the grace of God. My eyes certainly don’t show me the Love of God. My ego mind isn’t even interested in looking for the Love of God. But as I have released many mistaken ideas, I have learned to desire the peace of God above all else and in many little ways I am beginning to see something else, or at least the shadow of something else in this world.

I have opened my mind and heart to the call to waken and I am no longer shut tight against God’s Voice. I realize that no matter what I think I know about the world, about my spiritual nature, about God, I am wrong, and I am OK with that. In fact, I am quite comfortable with the I don’t know mind. I am given ideas that are helpful to me in the moment, and I hold those thoughts loosely knowing that they will shift and expand into something that is helpful in the next moment. Neither idea is right or wrong, just helpful until I am ready for something else.

I have always thought that when someone has their awakening moment and they are able to see the world differently, that is the result of grace. The learning and practicing made way for grace. Like Regina, my experience has been a slow and gradual movement toward awakening. But the moment the entire Sonship awakens, I think that is when God leans to us and takes the final step. And that is what grace is inevitably bringing us to.

I know the world is not ready for the final Awakening in which we experience the revelation of the Father and Son as one. But, from time to time, I questioned why it was that I had not experienced my personal awakening within the world. Jesus says this about the timing:

“We have perhaps appeared to contradict our statement that the revelation of the Father and the Son as one has been already set. But we have also said the mind determines when that time will be, and has determined it. And yet we urge you to bear witness to the Word of God to hasten the experience of truth, and speed its advent into every mind that recognizes truth’s effects on you.”

Did anyone find that helpful? Yeah, me either. Haha. Anyway, I think he is referring to the last step that is taken by God and not to our individual journeys.

The next several paragraphs in this lesson are so inspirational to me that I don’t know how to talk about them. I can’t say it any better than Jesus did. I think I know that God Is and all things are encompassed by God. This means, of course, that we are all encompassed by God right now, and it means that we are God, not as the ego human self we pretend to be, but we, in perfect union with each other and with God, are God.

This union of Father and Son is not part of what we are learning here. It isn’t about salvation, forgiveness, Christ’s Vision, or even awakening in the world. This final step is beyond any of that and it is beyond any experience we try to hasten. But, our awakening within this world through true forgiveness, this is something we evidently can hasten. At least, we can help each other awaken and we can relieve suffering while still in the dream state as we practice forgiveness.

Now, here is something interesting.
“All learning was already in His Mind, accomplished and complete. He recognized all that time holds, and gave it to all minds that each one might determine, from a point where time was ended, when it is released to revelation and eternity. We have repeated several times before that you but make a journey that is done.
For oneness must be here. Whatever time the mind has set for revelation is entirely irrelevant to what must be a constant state, forever as it always was; forever to remain as it is now. We merely take the part assigned long since, and fully recognized as perfectly fulfilled by Him Who wrote salvation’s script in His Creator’s Name, and in the Name of His Creator’s Son.”

Jesus says that we can’t really understand this and so there is no sense in talking about it further. All that it says to me is that nothing has really happened and that I am perfectly safe regardless of how I seem to suffer. I already accept that is script and all other scripts I have lived and may yet live are ancient history even though I seem to be living them now. It helps me to know this.

When I have done something I regret and start to feel guilty for it, what I understand is that I am simply playing out a script and that script was written by us and that I am experiencing this because I want to do so. I volunteered for this experience. What this does for me is to take me above the battleground so that I can be aware of the lesson it holds for me rather than getting lost in the experience itself. This hastened my awakening within the world. I wanted this because it will ends my suffering while I remain and because it is preparing the Sonship for the grace of revelation.

Now Jesus is telling us something that is perfectly understandable and is relevant right now. He says,
“Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done. It does not matter. For your part is still what all the rest depends on. As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God.”

I get very emotional when I read things like that. I have a part to play and my part is essential and especially that last phrase that tells me my role is going to bring salvation nearer to each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God. That brings tears to my eyes and touches me deeply.

As has been true for me now for many years, I play my part by forgiving the world I see. And now I ask for the final gift, grace. Grace provides an experience that is between Heaven and time. This sentence was helpful to me: “What is the face of Christ but his who went a moment into timelessness, and brought a clear reflection of the unity he felt an instant back to bless the world?”  Alisha did that for me. So did Regina and Cate. Others have as well. I am eternally grateful to them because they showed me it could be done. If each person who awakened left the world at that point, who would witness to the truth for us who have not yet joined them?

Regina’s Tips
This is the part of Regina’s tips that I found especially helpful.

“Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done.”

What is our part? Preparing ourselves to accept awakening. Let that be our only concern. It is the ego that becomes over-concerned with finding ways to be helpful. Helpfulness occurs naturally as we prepare ourselves for awakening.

So then, our part is this:
~ self-inquiry, which is inquiring into the ego thought system in order to see its ideas are not true and in order to see we are not the false-self, which is made through identification with thought.
~ Self-inquiry, which is glimpsing awareness many times throughout the day & spending more concentrated time in awareness-watching-awareness meditation
~ surrender, which is discerning between intuition and ego, and then following intuition instead of ego.

Manual for Teachers
WHO ARE GOD’S TEACHERS? P2
2. They come from all over the world. They come from all religions and from no religion. They are the ones who have answered. The Call is universal. It goes on all the time everywhere. It calls for teachers to speak for It and redeem the world. Many hear It, but few will answer. Yet it is all a matter of time. Everyone will answer in the end, but the end can be a long, long way off. It is because of this that the plan of the teachers was established. Their function is to save time. Each one begins as a single light, but with the Call at its center it is a light that cannot be limited. And each one saves a thousand years of time as the world judges it. To the Call Itself time has no meaning.

There is a universal Call for the teachers of God. That means it goes out to all, not just to ACIM students. Everyone gets this call, but not many choose to answer at this time, though all will eventually answer. In the meantime, within the illusion (where we think we are), time drags on and with it, suffering. So, in order to speed things along and avoid some of this pain, we are given a plan for the teachers. Jesus is pretty clear about time saved. He says that each of us will save a thousand years.

I personally became tired of the world as I saw it. This is obviously true, or I would not have accepted the call. I became tired of conflict, tired of drama, and tired of suffering. I became very tired of the instability we experience in time. There is no permanence, nothing to depend on. No matter how happy I might be in any moment, there is the sure knowledge that soon, I will be unhappy. There is another way to experience the world and I became determined to find it.

This plan of Atonement is one of the things that makes A Course in Miracles different from other paths. It is designed as a time saver. A single light in a mind and a teacher of God begins her service to the Sonship. And because that light cannot be limited, that teacher extends the light to others and each of them extends the light to more of us and it goes on and on with many more being awakened. This is how we will make our way back to paradise, to the real world and then to God.

Text
T-15.X. the Time of Rebirth, P 7
7 How fearful, then, has God become to you, and how great a sacrifice do you believe His Love demands! For total love would demand total sacrifice. And so the ego seems to demand less of you than God, and of the two is judged as the lesser of two evils, one to be feared a little, perhaps, but the other to be destroyed. For you see love as destructive, and your only question is who is to be destroyed, you or another? You seek to answer this question in your special relationships, in which you seem to be both destroyer and destroyed in part, but able to be neither completely. And this you think saves you from God, Whose total Love would completely destroy you.

Journal
I see how true it is that through the perspective of the special relationship, love seems to ask for sacrifice. Even in the relationship with my children, I could see the demand for sacrifice from both parties. Sometimes my children ask me to sacrifice my time and my effort on their behalf, and do so in the expectation that because I love them, I will gladly give what they want. I see that I ask for their sacrifice as well. I expect them to give me their concern, their respect, and to do for me what I can’t do for myself.

So, is it any surprise that we would think of God in terms of sacrifice since God is Love Itself, and how frightening this makes Him. When reading about the higher stages of awakening, we are told that ultimately we give up our very self and if one still values the self, this seems like the greatest sacrifice of all. Rather than thinking of it as a loss of self, I prefer to think of it as gaining God.

In reading The Path to No-Self by Bernadette Roberts she has this to say about her experience.

“The major change affected in this Night (Passive Night of the Spirit) is that our initial, deepest sense of being is replaced by the indescribable sense of God’s being, so that God and self are indistinguishable in our singular sense of being. We might describe this change as a movement from the I-thou consciousness to ta simple and singular We consciousness.”

This is the experience of a no-ego is quite amazing and wonderful, but it is not the end. Bernadette goes further and reaches the next state which is no-self. In giving up the self altogether, she says that before there was an I that saw with God, saw God; now “…wherein God is no longer known relative to the self, but instead is known as He is in Himself – known as He knows Himself.” Or put another way, “the Eye seeing Itself.” Can you imagine? Me either.

So, I use the information that Bernadette so generously shares with us to calm the disquiet the ego instills at the idea of its demise. Then I go back to doing what it is that I am to do right now, learning to live life from a place of love rather than fear. Those incredible heights that Bernadette Roberts reached were not her doing. These are steps that God takes on our behalf and we can be assured that when it happens we will be ready for it.

What I understand now in this place on the path where I find myself, is that I have nothing to fear from God. He is not the insane expression of ego-love that has left me wary and cautious. He is not going to ever ask me to sacrifice anything real. What I give up is nothing disguised as something.

That nothing is what I used to think of as my self. And, I still do but not as much as I used to. I no longer guard this self against God in the same way that I did in the past. And where I see myself doing so, I am willing and ready to accept the Atonement and release my hold on ego-self, and even on my higher Self when the time comes.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 168, Text, Manual for Teachers. 10-7-19

LESSON 168
Your grace is given me. I claim it now.

God loves us and will love us forever. He gives us His grace and it is ours as soon as we acknowledge it.

“And memory of Him awakens in the mind that asks the means of Him whereby its sleep is done.”

This is what we are doing as we study A Course in Miracles. We are asking how it is we can wake up. The Voice for God answers us through this Course and through any other path that we take. He answers us in our dreams and in our waking hours. We only have to ask. I think that sometimes I have failed to hear the answer because I was asking the wrong question and so I did not recognize the relevance of His answer. Sometimes I don’t recognize the answer because it was not the one I wanted to hear. Sometimes it is because I am listening to my thinking mind instead.

Today we ask of God the gift He has most carefully preserved within our hearts, waiting to be acknowledged. This the gift by which God leans to us and lifts us up, taking salvation’s final step Himself. All steps but this we learn, instructed by His Voice. But finally He comes Himself, and takes us in His Arms and sweeps away the cobwebs of our sleep. His gift of grace is more than just an answer. It restores all memories the sleeping mind forgot; all certainty of what Love’s meaning is.

The study and practice of A Course in Miracles is not going to awaken me, this is done through the Grace of God. What the study and practice of ACIM does for me is to prepare my mind for grace. It is to clear away the ego thinking enough so that I am fully willing to accept this precious gift of God. Grace offers us the complete restoration of our mind. There will be no more fear, no more guilt, no more confusion, pain, or suffering. We will know our Self and thus know our unity in God.

“Our faith lies in the Giver, not our own acceptance.”

This is very good news, indeed. Even my acceptance is fully supported. I used to think that it was going to take forever for me to wake up because I was inconsistent in my work and there just seemed to be so much within my mind that needed to be healed. I would ask for guidance and then I would not accept that guidance. How would I ever awaken? But Jesus says that I don’t have to my faith in myself. I can trust the Giver. I know that I have faith in the Holy Spirit. Now I will extend that trust to know that He will find means to give me what I need to lay down my mistakes and accept grace. I am reminded now of a line from a song by Bob Marley.

“Don’t worry about a thing, every little thing is gonna be alright”

Regina’s Tips
Regina shares an interview with Steve Ford in which he describes his awakening experience. You may want to read it. I know that not everyone has the same experience, but the point I got from it was there needs to be a sincere desire and then God leans to us and lifts us up. This is what the lesson is telling us.

Regina says: As Steve points out, it may not work if we ask today for God’s grace of awakening, because it may be the ego that is asking. If one feels completely ready for the death of the ego, the time is right. If the ego wants awakening for itself, the time is not right.

So, what do we do with today’s lesson? My recommendation is a day of deep contemplation and sincere prayer. …Get as deep into your sincere heart as you can today, and pray the prayers that are sincere for you.

Text
X. the Time of Rebirth, P 6
6 As host to the ego, you believe that you can give all your guilt away whenever you want, and thereby purchase peace. And the payment does not seem to be yours. While it is obvious that the ego does demand payment it never seems to be demanding it of you. You are unwilling to recognize that the ego, which you invited, is treacherous only to those who think they are its host. The ego will never let you perceive this, since this recognition would make it homeless. For when the recognition dawns clearly, you will not be deceived by any form the ego takes to protect itself from your sight. Each form will be recognized as but a cover for the one idea that hides behind them all; that love demands sacrifice, and is therefore inseparable from attack and fear. And that guilt is the price of love, which must be paid by fear.


Journal

In the last paragraph, I looked at how we have entangled love with fear, guilt, and sacrifice. This paragraph is asking us to look at the ego as the cause of this confusion. We have guilt in our mind, both conscious and unconscious and the ego offers us a way to avoid looking at it. We project the guilt onto someone else and the ego mind insists this is a viable solution. It absolutely doesn’t want us to know this doesn’t work.

The ego wants us to think we need it because if we discover that it is unnecessary and even destructive to us, we will not continue to host it. We invited the ego into our minds and it is up to us to choose differently. The way we do this is to question the ego thoughts by looking at them with our right minds. It is really simple to do this. Everything is either love or fear and if the thought we have is not love we can look at it with the Holy Spirit and decide if we really want to keep it.

We have made it easy to look at our thoughts by making them images that are seen and felt. Remember Lesson 15?

My thoughts are images I have made.

It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. 2 You think you think them, and so you think you see them. 3 This is how your “seeing” was made. 4 This is the function you have given your body’s eyes. 5 It is not seeing. 6 It is image making. 7 It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions.

So, here are our thoughts, appearing as images so that we can look at them and see what it feels like to believe these thoughts and see the effects of our beliefs. Here is an example of how this worked for me in the past.

Toward the end of my marriage, I began to see my husband as the cause of my unhappiness. The ego part of my mind was always eager to project the cause of my misery onto him. When I looked with the ego at the relationship, I saw ample proof that he was the problem. It all seemed so obvious to me. It was right there in front of my eyes.

Later when I began to heal that relationship, I asked the Holy Spirit to look at it with me. I was reminded that what was before my eyes were illusions. These images were really a projection of my beliefs. If he seemed to attack me with his behavior, it was because I felt guilty and accepted the ego’s solution of projection. I wanted to see him as guilty to relieve my own guilt.

When I withdrew my projection and accepted correction, my image changed. I saw him as simply living his script as it was written and I recognized there is no guilt in this. I was doing the same thing. Our scripts are the images of the beliefs we came to undo. How could either of us be guilty for this? With no need to rid myself of guilt, there was no need to make him guilty.

Doing this with my thoughts for many years has healed my mind. I still have a few thoughts that try to return, and I deal with them as I have in the past. But I am no longer willing to host the ego. Sure, it is still there because I am still here, but I pay little attention to it other than to stay vigilant for beliefs that still hook me even momentarily. The ego is now my servant rather than the other way around.

Manual for Teachers
Chapter 1. WHO ARE GOD’S TEACHERS?
1 A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one. His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else’s. Once he has done that, his road is established and his direction is sure. A light has entered the darkness. It may be a single light, but that is enough. He has entered an agreement with God even if he does not yet believe in Him. He has become a bringer of salvation. He has become a teacher of God.

How interesting this is! To be a teacher of God, I only have to make a deliberate choice in which I don’t see my interests as apart from someone else’s. I don’t have to do this all the time nor do I even need to be aware of the choice. Just that I did it once, ignited the light in my mind. I think of this as being the spark of truth that lit up and made itself known in some small way. Or I could see this as the Holy Spirit Who is now alerted to my readiness to be guided Home.

Jesus also says that when this happened, I entered an agreement with God and this would be true even if I did not yet believe in Him. I have always believed in God so that part didn’t apply to me. I misunderstood Him and sometimes I was angry with Him, and always a bit afraid of Him, but I always believed. But I find myself wondering when was the first time that I made a deliberate choice in which I don’t see my interests as apart from someone else’s.

Whenever it was without knowing it in my conscious mind, I had placed my feet on the path to be a bringer of salvation. That idea when first read frightened me. What a responsibility that is! I didn’t feel like a good student much less a good teacher, and now I was to be a bringer of salvation? Well, the thing is, once a single light is ignited in the mind, it begins to burn ever brighter and with more light, there is less darkness and the ego fears and insecurities are burnt away. I realized at some point that this is not the little ego me Jesus talks about. The Holy Spirit did all the heavy lifting and in doing so awakened me. He only needed my permission and that moment of choice was the permission He was waiting for.

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