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Manual for Teachers, Open-Mindedness. P 1. 4-28-20

X. Open-Mindedness
1 The centrality of open-mindedness, perhaps the last of the attributes the teacher of God acquires, is easily understood when its relation to forgiveness is recognized. Open-mindedness comes with lack of judgment. As judgment shuts the mind against God’s Teacher, so open-mindedness invites Him to come in. As condemnation judges the Son of God as evil, so open-mindedness permits him to be judged by the Voice for God on His behalf. As the projection of guilt upon him would send him to hell, so open-mindedness lets Christ’s image be extended to him. Only the open-minded can be at peace, for they alone see reason for it. 

My mind is closed if I listen to the ego. The ego has an agenda and it is for separation, for guilt, and for death. It isn’t interested in anything else. Those who listen to the ego must judge and judge harshly in order to uphold its agenda. But as we judge another, we have judged ourselves and we suffer for it because it separates us from each other and from God.

But when the mind is open to the truth, the Holy Spirit judges each person as wholly innocent. It is the Holy Spirit’s agenda to show us our Selves as we really are, to bring happiness and peace to the Sonship and to bring us back to our rightful place in the Kingdom.

We can’t see ourselves in God if we are holding grievances and the Sonship is not whole until all are seen within it. The only way I was able to become open-minded was to accept that there is never a justification for judgment, never a reason to hold a grievance. I learned to distrust the ego in every situation and to trust the Holy Spirit’s interpretation without exception.

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Miracle Workers Extend Love’s Being

Miracle Workers Extend Love’s Being

This is something I wrote while studying 920: Being a Miracle Worker
Something shifted for me recently. To put it into words doesn’t do it justice because it sounds like what I have always said and what the Course says, but now it feels real to me. I understand now that all I need to do is to be in a state of love all the time. That’s it. Just love. If I am in a state of love, otherwise known as being what I am, I love everything as it happens. I love everyone no matter what they say or do.

If I slip out of that state and start living from the split mind, I then have to make an effort to extend love. But if I just stay in love, what I am extends naturally to everyone and into every situation. From the state of love, I am available for miracles to work through me and so that is the added benefit. There is a sentence in our booklet that says selfishness is trying to keep Love for ourselves. I get what they are saying, but at the same time, if I am trying to keep Love for myself I no longer have the experience of love because Love is not selfish. Trying to hold onto Love would be like trying to hold onto air. Love flows. And Love is my Identity.

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Hidden Thoughts. 4-21-20

I had the perfect symbol of thinking that I am alone. I had a problem with the air conditioning ducts in my attic. They were damaged and a little at a time the condensation leaked into the ceiling and water logged it. This weekend it fell down. I was ok with it. I wasn’t sure how to go about getting it fixed and the timing as far as money goes was not good since I am going to that workshop next week. But even so, I wasn’t worried about it. I figured it would all work out, and it did. Perfectly, actually.

Here is what is interesting, though. I had a hidden fear and that is that I am alone and on my own. This is a fear that arose from the TMI, that I am abandoned by God and on my own and not doing that well. I was unaware of this fear at first. Here is how it was uncovered for me. After the ceiling fell but before repairs began, I got a call from a student who had a lot of things happen at once and was feeling alone in her life. She was aware that the ego mind wanted someone to be with her and help her. We looked at these thoughts together and then looked at alternatives. Then we looked at processes and when the call was over she felt better.

Next, I did my Rules For Decision plan for the day and in the middle of doing it, I felt something trying to come up. I felt like I was going to cry but I had no idea why. I decided that I would just open my heart to whatever needed to be seen and go from there.

The next piece of the puzzle showed up as a phone call from my son. I was telling him about the situation and I mentioned that my daughter helped me with part of it that I couldn’t do. He suggested that I be careful about claiming that I am not too old to do certain things. He said that while this was sometimes true it is not something I want to make a habit of. He also suggested that I start exercising to get more strength and maybe do yoga. I felt a lump in my throat and it was all I could do not to cry. I thanked him for his help and told him he was right. When we hung up I sat there and cried not knowing why it was happening.

I asked the HS what was going on and what I needed to know. Then the pieces came together and I saw that, like my student, I had a fear of being on my own. This situation gave me the chance to look at that fear but I didn’t see it at first. I was hiding this from myself. Now that I agreed to look at it, what I needed to do that showed up. I have had to take this back to the HS three times so far. Maybe three is the magic number and I will be willing to let it go.

Another student told me about a Mooji video she watched. He was talking about letting go of thoughts. He used an analogy from his own early life. He was cleaning out his closet going through clothes. When he was through sorting them, he took a pile to a store for used clothes. Later he began to second guess himself and even went into the store to look at the clothes he had given them. At one point, he even bought back a couple of the shirts.

I had to laugh at this. That is how it is with my thoughts of being alone. I give them away and then I worry I made a mistake and will need them again so I buy them back. But at what cost? It cost me my peace of mind. It cost me my identity as a Son of God. It’s crazy. I will succeed, though, because I want to.

And I did!

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Manual for Teachers, Faithfulness. 4-16-20

IX. Faithfulness
1 The extent of the teacher of God’s faithfulness is the measure of his advancement in the curriculum. Does he still select some aspects of his life to bring to his learning, while keeping others apart? If so, his advancement is limited, and his trust not yet firmly established. Faithfulness is the teacher of God’s trust in the Word of God to set all things right; not some, but all. Generally, his faithfulness begins by resting on just some problems, remaining carefully limited for a time. To give up all problems to one Answer is to reverse the thinking of the world entirely. And that alone is faithfulness. Nothing but that really deserves the name. Yet each degree, however small, is worth achieving. Readiness, as the text notes, is not mastery. 

2 True faithfulness, however, does not deviate. Being consistent, it is wholly honest. Being unswerving, it is full of trust. Being based on fearlessness, it is gentle. Being certain, it is joyous. And being confident, it is tolerant. Faithfulness, then, combines in itself the other attributes of God’s teachers. It implies acceptance of the Word of God and His definition of His Son. It is to Them that faithfulness in the true sense is always directed. Toward Them it looks, seeking until it finds. And having found, it rests in quiet certainty on that alone to which all faithfulness is due.

Does he still select some aspects of his life to bring to his learning, while keeping others apart?
I have reached the point where I no longer deliberately hold anything back from the Holy Spirit. Those things that I have unconsciously held back are being brought to my attention one at a time, and I am gladly doing the work when I see them. My faithfulness has become true and doesn’t deviate.

But it was not always like that for me. My faithfulness grew slowly, taking one problem at a time to the Holy Spirit, and with each achievement, the joy and peace that I experienced encouraged me to continue. I slowly came to see what surrender looked like as Jesus gently guided me through the words in A Course in Miracles. He told me not to plan on my own and to make no decisions with the ego. He told me that it is in my defenselessness that my safety lies.

He assured me that everything is in my best interest. He asked me what could I not accept, if I but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is my good? And he assured me this is true, and then proved it to me over and over again until finally, I accepted it. Jesus offered to take my body and my ego and it took until now for me to take him up on this. It took this long for me to accept that he was not asking me to sacrifice anything of value. Now I am confident in both of us to each do our part without fail.

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From Specialness to Holiness 4-16-20

This is my answer to a process in a Pathways of Light course on relationships.

From Specialness to Holiness

I don’t have much left in my bag of specialness. It is being emptied pretty thoroughly. Sometimes I see stuff, like sickness and look at that with the Holy Spirit. My ego says that it means I am not enough yet. The Holy Spirit says that it isn’t real and cannot stain my true self. He says, just recognize its unrealness. The body us neutral; sickness is a mistaken thought projected to appear on the body as if that is where it was born. Not true.

I found a belief in my son’s story there and the ego foretold scary stuff. It warned me of terrible consequences and encouraged me to fix this before these things happened. And then it insisted there was nothing I could do so I was doomed to suffer with my son.

The Holy Spirit told me that I am the Son of God and I decide what it is I want in my mind, these ego thoughts or the Thoughts of God. He reminded me that I have the power of choice and invited me to remember my function as the light of the world and so I forgave myself and forgave the belief in those thoughts and my mind was healed.

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Manual for Teachers, Generosity. 4-7-20

VII. Generosity
1 The term generosity has special meaning to the teacher of God. It is not the usual meaning of the word; in fact, it is a meaning that must be learned and learned very carefully. Like all the other attributes of God’s teachers this one rests ultimately on trust, for without trust no one can be generous in the true sense. To the world, generosity means “giving away” in the sense of “giving up.” To the teachers of God, it means giving away in order to keep. This has been emphasized throughout the text and the workbook, but it is perhaps more alien to the thinking of the world than many other ideas in our curriculum. Its greater strangeness lies merely in the obviousness of its reversal of the world’s thinking. In the clearest way possible, and at the simplest of levels, the word means the exact opposite to the teachers of God and to the world. 

2 The teacher of God is generous out of Self interest. This does not refer, however, to the self of which the world speaks. The teacher of God does not want anything he cannot give away, because he realizes it would be valueless to him by definition. What would he want it for? He could only lose because of it. He could not gain. Therefore he does not seek what only he could keep, because that is a guarantee of loss. He does not want to suffer. Why should he ensure himself pain? But he does want to keep for himself all things that are of God, and therefore for His Son. These are the things that belong to him. These he can give away in true generosity, protecting them forever for himself.

The teacher of God does not want anything he cannot give away, because he realizes it would be valueless to him by definition.

Most of us have spent our entire lives seeking and protecting that which is ours alone. We take care of the body, save money, buy things, preserve special relationships. None of this has any value at all and the concern for it will bring us suffering. I’ve done it both ways, valuing the valueless and valuing only what is real. More and more, I experience the truth in what Jesus tells us here.

When I was striving to get the things the world said were of great value, I was always anxious. It was so ‘normal’ for me that I didn’t realize it was happening unless there was an overt threat to something I valued and then the anxiety became stronger. I didn’t realize I was living like that until I stopped. Now, sometimes I just laugh out loud to realize how peaceful it is in my mind.

It takes trust to stop striving for the valueless. We are so very certain that our happiness depends on having the symbols of safety that we find it hard to look away from them. My experience has been that once I let go of striving, everything I needed came to me, and what I didn’t need I didn’t miss. I’m deeply grateful for this new way to live.

In what ways do I generously give? I forgive. I am kind. I am patient. I am loving. Usually these are easy choices and the value is obvious. Sometimes it seems to go against all reason as the world sees it, and I have to ask for help to change my mind. Either way these are true gifts, of great value because they are of God, and as I give them, I gain them. My generosity is to Self.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Manual for Teachers, Defenselessness. 4-2-20

VI. Defenselessness
1 God’s teachers have learned how to be simple. They have no dreams that need defense against the truth. They do not try to make themselves. Their joy comes from their understanding Who created them. And does what God created need defense? No one can become an advanced teacher of God until he fully understands that defenses are but foolish guardians of mad illusions. The more grotesque the dream, the fiercer and more powerful its defenses seem to be. Yet when the teacher of God finally agrees to look past them, he finds that nothing was there. Slowly at first he lets himself be undeceived. But he learns faster as his trust increases. It is not danger that comes when defenses are laid down. It is safety. It is peace. It is joy. And it is God.

I am being told that a teacher of God does not defend his illusions, but rather looks past them to the truth. I have often done this with others. I see their behavior, recognize it is not who they are and that it doesn’t ultimately matter. It certainly doesn’t make them guilty or prove they are not what God created.

I used to find this harder to do with myself. I tended to judge my own behavior and to believe it defined me. I was very vigilant for this and asked for correction when I saw it. I asked Holy Spirit to speak to me about this, which He did. This is the message He gave me and this message helped me to see differently.

Holy Spirit: You have been doing this, Myron. You could not see your brother as innocent if you could not see yourself in that way. Just as you sometimes judge others, you still sometimes judge yourself. Do not overlook your healing simply because you notice that there is still healing to be done.

Continue to ask what it is you are. This is helpful, because you are becoming willing to know. Ask what you are through asking what your brother is. When you see a brother and notice his behavior and notice that you want to judge it, ask instead, “What is my brother?” If you do this you will be putting aside what you think you know so that you can be taught. When you know what your brother is, you will know what you are.

Since that time, I have stopped trying to make myself and I have stopped trying to defend what I made. I belong to God and I am grateful to know that. Life is so much easier now and my everyday experience is so very different. I never realized before how much distress I felt even when nothing was really happening to cause it. It seems I had to be free of it in order to realize how much I had been suffering all along.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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