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Manual for Teachers, Shift in Perception. P 2 6-12-20

II. The Shift in Perception, P 2
2 The acceptance of sickness as a decision of the mind, for a purpose for which it would use the body, is the basis of healing. And this is so for healing in all forms. A patient decides that this is so, and he recovers. If he decides against recovery, he will not be healed. Who is the physician? Only the mind of the patient himself. The outcome is what he decides that it is. Special agents seem to be ministering to him, yet they but give form to his own choice. He chooses them in order to bring tangible form to his desires. And it is this they do, and nothing else. They are not actually needed at all. The patient could merely rise up without their aid and say, “I have no use for this.” There is no form of sickness that would not be cured at once.

We have looked at some of the ways in which we use sickness of the body and it is absolutely necessary that we accept the responsibility for sickness if we want to be healed. This is equally true for healing in all forms, for instance, the healing of relationships, of loss and lack of every kind, and for suffering of any kind. We must accept that these things do not just happen to us and we are not acted on by anything outside our own minds.

Jesus emphasizes our responsibility for both sickness and recovery when he tells us it is our decision to remain sick or to recover. We are actually the physician. I like my doctor very much. I tell him if I am concerned about a symptom and he might tell me not to worry about it, I’m fine. Or he might send me for a test if it is needed, or prescribe medicine if he things that would help. But we are the ultimate decision maker. If the medicine works, it is because we decided we want to be healed and this is the way we choose to make that happen. However, if we still see value in the sickness, we will keep the illness and nothing the doctor does will help.

Jesus says these special agents we use are not actually needed at all. He says that we could decide that we have no use for this and we would be healed immediately. I wonder why we don’t always do this? Well, that is besides the need we have for sickness as a defense against God. But once we make a decision for healing, why go to the trouble of using outside agents to affect this when we could just be done with it? Evidently, healing can be as threatening as sickness to the unhealed mind.

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This Morning With the Holy Spirit

As we are experiencing the pandemic, there are a lot of fear thoughts in our collective mind and when I join with anyone, the first thing we do is to expose those thoughts. By sharing with each other, we are allowing the light of truth to disperse at least some of the darkness if not all of it. I keep my own mind as healed as possible. I do this by watching my thoughts and feelings as always and by accepting the Holy Spirit’s healing. I also do this by deliberately moving my mind from the darkness to the light.

This morning, I asked the Holy Spirit to help me with this and one of the things he told me was to count my blessings, to focus on gratitude rather than on the bad news the media offers. Obsessing about possible outcomes is not helpful at all. It doesn’t change anything and only makes the experience worse. Focusing on gratitude, however, actually does make things better, if not in the illusion itself, certainly in how I experience it. It helps everyone because in focusing on gratitude, I am putting gratitude into the collective mind rather than fear.

I could worry about my son who lives in a city that is turning into the next New York. He is in a high-risk group. I could think about how devastating it would be to me if something happened to him. Or, I could remember what it was like the last time we visited and I saw past his image to his reality. I saw his beauty and perfection. I saw with Christ Vision. My eyes fill with tears of wonder when I think of it. That vision is what is real. His body and his story of being my son are the illusion. I choose to see him rather than his image. I choose to let the story of his life as Toby unfold as it must and keep my eye on his awakening soul knowing that everything is in his best interest.

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Manual for Teachers, Shift in Perception. P 1. 6-6-20

II. The Shift in Perception, P 1
1 Healing must occur in exact proportion to which the valuelessness of sickness is recognized. One need but say, “There is no gain at all to me in this” and he is healed. But to say this, one first must recognize certain facts. First, it is obvious that decisions are of the mind, not of the body. If sickness is but a faulty problem-solving approach, it is a decision. And if it is a decision, it is the mind and not the body that makes it. The resistance to recognizing this is enormous, because the existence of the world as you perceive it depends on the body being the decision-maker. Terms like “instincts,” “reflexes” and the like represent attempts to endow the body with non-mental motivators. Actually, such terms merely state or describe the problem. They do not answer it. 

I am open to letting go of any value that I have in the idea of sickness. If it holds no value to me, I will not want this idea and without the idea sickness will be impossible. As I stated yesterday, I see that we find value in sickness in two ways. Within the story, it can garner sympathy and a show of affection as well as be a way to avoid certain people or situations. It allows us to feel like victims and to feel unfairly treated.

I let go of the need to garner sympathy and affection by letting my mind be healed of the belief that I am unworthy of love. I notice the ego jumping in with that idea still, but I am not interested and if I feel the least bit interested, I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of such nonsense. I let go of the need to avoid saying no when I don’t want to by pleading sickness by recognizing that this is another example of the perhaps hidden belief in unworthiness. Now I just say no when I mean no and there is no need for an excuse.

The other use for sickness is as a defense against God. There is, first, a belief that God is angry with us for splitting off from Him and going our own way. This is not possible to do since God is all there is, so He cannot be angry with us for doing it. Then there is the reality that God is Love and Love is not anger. So, there is no reason to defend against God.
Another part of the defense against God is that we fear merging into Him and thus losing our sense of individuality. This feels like the ultimate sacrifice. Once we reach a certain level of healing, the idea of existing as our Higher Self feels good. By this time, we have learned to love peace and joy and to find drama distasteful.

But then there is the idea of giving up the Higher Self for the God Self and that feels scary because we can’t remember what it is like to be the Divine. We have felt separate for so long and have come to value individuality so deeply that we think it is the ultimate achievement with nothing more treasured than this. The idea of surrendering completely, letting go of this final illusion and merging into God is scary indeed.

Sickness feels like a small price to pay for the survival of the self. I think this is why Jesus puts such a strong emphasis on God’s Love and care for us. He says we are God’s own treasure, that God gave all of Himself to us in our creation. We are reminded over and over of our holiness and our perfection as part of God. Here is what he says in section 14. What Am I?

W-pII.14.1. I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. 2 In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. 3 In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. 4 I am the holy home of God Himself. 5 I am the Heaven where His Love resides. 6 I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own.

And in the beautiful Lesson 326, he says this.
W-pII.326.1. Father, I was created in Your Mind, a holy Thought that never left its home. 2 I am forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause. 3 As You created me I have remained. 4 Where You established me I still abide. 5 And all Your attributes abide in me, because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable. 6 Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. 7 And as it is in Heaven, so on earth. 8 Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will vanish, and all separate thoughts unite in glory as the Son of God.

W-pII.326.2. Let us today behold earth disappear, at first transformed, and then, forgiven, fade entirely into God’s holy Will.

These are the kinds of things I read from the Course to relieve the fear of change and to help me as I let go of any desire to be something I am not. Who on earth would treasure the frail and vulnerable body-self when God-hood is the alternative? It is only the ego mind that clings to the body as if it were a treasure. I am not the ego and I am completely willing to be purged of such ego thoughts. I long for my real life.

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Self-Identity

T 8: VI. 4, 2 This son of a loving father left his home and thought he had squandered everything for nothing of any value, although he had not understood its worthlessness at the time.

Lesson 166. 5, 3-4 But he will not look at what is given him. He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees about him everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but dwindles, as he goes ahead to nowhere.

L 166. 6, 3 Yet is he really tragic, when you see that he is following the way he chose, and need but realize Who walks with him and open up his treasures to be free?

While working on a Pathways of Light course, I was thinking about ways that we hold onto a limited self-identity when we could be free instead. Here is something I wrote two years ago and it was helpful to me.

I am doing more work on my 4th step with my Al-Anon sponsor and the topic is finances. I have been putting it off because I feel hopeless when it comes to finances. I spend money without thinking it through. I do save, but not enough nor consistently. I can’t look at my expenses vs my income and tell you much about it. Investments are beyond my ability to process and make choices.

All of these things have been true for me for all of my life and I take them for granted. But really, they are true for me because I believe they are. These beliefs are part of the way I identify myself. I could say that I am one who is not good with finances. That is a declaration of identity. When I think about letting that go, I feel uneasy. I feel like I am being asked to become something else and I don’t know how to do that.

However, when I think of it, a lot of things have changed around this idea of finances. I used to be afraid all the time about money because I “knew” I was inept with my finances. I was always afraid of not having enough or losing what I had. But as I began to study ACIM and as I learned that the Holy Spirit would remove unwanted beliefs from my mind, I let go of the belief that there is not enough and that I could lose what I have. Those thoughts come back up sometimes, but I have little interest in them and so they flow out of my mind as quickly as they come into it.

I know something now that I didn’t know before. I know that I am Love as is God. I know that Love will take care of all things if that is my choice, so I ask Love to provide what I need and I trust that it is done. Occasionally, I forget and I pick up that load again, but I let it go pretty quickly because why would I want that responsibility back?

I don’t know what is best for me or anyone. I don’t know what might happen in the future and, therefore, how could I prepare for it? Each thing that happens in my life has a purpose if I care to use it that way and I cannot know how to use it to serve that purpose. But Love does know all these things and will arrange everything for me if I just step back. Sure, I will have to give up a layer of self-identity, but look at what I gain! I am quickly losing interest in a personal self and so I don’t need a self-identity.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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From Hopelessness to Peace 6-1-20

This morning I listened to the meditation, The Power to Work Miracles Belongs to You from 920: Being a Miracle Worker, I was helped by the sentence that says this: You refuse to make any of the illusionary stories founded on separation real. The reason this caught my attention is that I read something on Facebook by Rev Tony. He was arguing against social distancing. He talked about how it was hurting the most vulnerable people in our society, some of them already losing their jobs, their homes and even the ability to provide food for themselves and their families. He was arguing it would be better to end this now.

I began to feel anxious after reading this. It made sense. So did the idea of social distancing. So, I asked the Holy Spirit to help me see this differently. I asked for help to sort out what was really behind my anxiety. I saw right away that I am upset because I am confused about what to even think. I am concerned about the vast number of Americans who will suffer terribly from the loss in income, my oldest son being one of them since he was laid off on Good Friday. Am I causing this kind of suffering just so that I can keep this body alive?

When I let my mind focus on the story, I was sliding down the rabbit hole and I knew it. That is why I turned to the Holy Spirit right away. Seeing what was behind the fear in my mind helped me to remember that I am never upset for the reason I think. I was upset because I felt helpless and the more I looked at this helplessness, the more hopeless I felt. Then I remembered that the only way I could feel like this is if I believed in the story.

For this to occur in my mind, I must believe the story is real and happening now and that we are all truly suffering and that we are all going to suffer because we affect each other. What came to me when I asked for clarity is that this is not really happening now. We are putting an ancient memory before our eyes so that we can decide if we want to keep playing the game, keep watching past memories, keep trying to change the story, to direct it into something we prefer. That is all that’s happening.

Knowing this, I realize that the only helpful thing I can do is to stay in a state of love so that I can be a channel for miracles wherever they are needed. I don’t even have to figure out what miracle is needed by whom or how to perform that miracle. I just have to love and the rest is done without my effort. I can’t love if I am fearful. Where fear has entered love cannot operate. Where love has entered, fear cannot remain. So, I chose love and waited for the fear to evaporate and it did. This is all I can do but it is enough. It is my part.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Manual for Teachers, HOW IS HEALING ACCOMPLISHED. P 3. 6-1-20

5. HOW IS HEALING ACCOMPLISHED? P 1 and 2
1 Healing involves an understanding of what the illusion of sickness is for. Healing is impossible without this. 
I. The Perceived Purpose of Sickness
1 Healing is accomplished the instant the sufferer no longer sees any value in pain. Who would choose suffering unless he thought it brought him something, and something of value to him? He must think it is a small price to pay for something of greater worth. For sickness is an election; a decision. It is the choice of weakness, in the mistaken conviction that it is strength. When this occurs, real strength is seen as threat and health as danger. Sickness is a method, conceived in madness, for placing God’s Son on his Father’s throne. God is seen as outside, fierce and powerful, eager to keep all power for Himself. Only by His death can He be conquered by His Son.
2 And what, in this insane conviction, does healing stand for? It symbolizes the defeat of God’s Son and the triumph of his Father over him. It represents the ultimate defiance in a direct form which the Son of God is forced to recognize. It stands for all that he would hide from himself to protect his “life.” If he is healed, he is responsible for his thoughts. And if he is responsible for his thoughts, he will be killed to prove to him how weak and pitiful he is. But if he chooses death himself, his weakness is his strength. Now has he given himself what God would give to him, and thus entirely usurped the throne of his Creator.

I used to use sickness for my own purposes. For instance, I would call my kids to let them know I had a migraine so that they would express their concern and I would feel loved. I would call into work with this excuse so I didn’t have to show up. That kind of thing. When I was ready to release the illusion of migraines, I was shown this behavior and I let all that go. I don’t have migraines anymore.

But there is a deeper more subversive use for sickness. The ego decides on sickness as a way to prove it is stronger than God. The fear of God and the belief that God wants all power for Himself are the driving forces that cause us to choose sickness. In this way, sickness seems to make us more powerful than God. God is health and we are not so that makes our decision for sickness proof of our power and that we have overcome God.

Once when I was working with the lesson that says I am still as God created me, I had a revelatory experience of that. It was amazing! And within minutes I was sick. I had a fever and I was throwing up. I was also laughing because I saw the connection between giving into God and sickness. That experience convinced me that sickness is a decision and that it is a defense against God.

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