Together, We Light the Way

Click link to go to:
Together We Light the Way Index

Study of the Text V. The Lessons of the Holy Spirit. Paragraph 2   1-6-14

V. The Lessons of the Holy Spirit, Paragraph 2
2 How can you wake children in a more kindly way than by a gentle Voice that will not frighten them, but will merely remind them that the night is over and the light has come? You do not inform them that the nightmares that frightened them so badly are not real, because children believe in magic. You merely reassure them that they are safe now. Then you train them to recognize the difference between sleeping and waking, so they will understand they need not be afraid of dreams. And so when bad dreams come, they will themselves call on the light to dispel them.

This one makes me smile to read it. My Father is making sure I know that I am only dreaming of bad stuff, and that I am safe right now even while I dream. He is making sure it is done gently. I am learning to recognize the difference between sleeping and waking. I am learning to call on the light to dispel my dreams.

I am taking Lisa Natoli’s 40 day course and I posted part of my writing from my journal because it applied to day 5. I also wrote part of it for my teaching on Awakening Together. So it came from what I am learning through Lisa’s course, Chapter 14, and Chapter 6. More and more I am seeing how everything I am learning from the many sources provided to me is all the same. Jesus has found many ways to help me see that I am dreaming, that I am safe, and that I can call on the light to wake up.

This is what happened. I have felt very drawn to the idea of awakening. This is why we are here and this is what we are to do, so I have to wonder why it is that I resist the idea even as I feel its draw? I was talking to Jesus about it, and asking him what to do about this. I told him I just don’t know how to awaken from the dream of separation. I know how to work toward it, removing blocks, changing my mind, but how do I take that step of letting go of the story of separation altogether.

This is the message he gave me. “Here is a tip Sister. Don’t believe in your story of not being able to wake up. You are waking up. Nothing can change that. If you have a story of not waking up and don’t like that story, you can make up a different one.”

Ha! I didn’t know if he meant that or if he was just teasing me. But then I realized that he meant me to do it. I saw what I had not embraced before. My life, my thoughts and the beliefs that generate them are not the deadly serious stuff I had always assumed they were. They are just stories and I wrote them. Ha! Can I just write new ones? Why not?

I’m trying that. I’m not consistent yet, but I’m working at forming a new habit. When I have the thought that maybe I’m nuts for thinking I’m waking up and that story begins to spin out in my mind, I start writing the story over from the perspective of someone who is awakening. I’m trying this now to see how it works.

I’m doing this for other stories, too. Yesterday after I made my commitment to stand with God and surrender self, I experienced an ego backlash. It was subtle at first and I didn’t realize what was happening until it was out of control. Now, I seldom watch much TV, maybe a show or two at the end of the day. Yesterday, right in the middle of the day I watched a show. I thought it was odd even while I did it and then I watched another. I wound up doing this until bedtime. This never happens. I just don’t do that.

There was a little voice in my head that was trying to clue me in on what was happening, and there was another voice that was trying to encourage me to feel guilty for wasting time. I felt enervated, very lethargic. It was like my mind was mired in molasses as I tried to ignore both voices.  Now I know it doesn’t matter if I watched TV, or did the work I had planned to do, but what did matter was the underlying reason I did it and the story I was telling myself about being guilty for doing so.

This is such an old story for me, the one of telling myself that I am guilty. Sometimes it is difficult to wrench my attention away from my guilt stories. This happened last night. It started as an ego backlash from my strong commitment to be lived, to trust and to surrender. I couldn’t write another version of the story because I was stuck in the belief I really was guilty.

Then I flashed on our second day of lessons. I remembered what Lisa said. Undoing is nothing more than the willingness to stand still and let God be God. So that’s what I did. I said, “Here I am God.” And I stood there with the expectation that he would do his thing, and He did. “Thank you, God.” At that point it was easy to weave a new story.

I can always do this. I can ask myself, what would this story look like if I knew guilt is not real? And I start thinking about it from that perspective. Two things are happening. One, it pulls me out of the guilt and reminds me of the truth, and two, it helps me to realize that I have a choice about the stories I tell myself, Also, it helps me see they are just stories, not the truth and not to be taken seriously.

When I woke up I felt invigorated and ready to get busy, but I also felt concerned that I had wasted so much time yesterday that I could never get everything done, and I didn’t even know where to start. This is just another way to say I am guilty and am being punished for my sin of wasting time.

As I began to sink into guilt again, I remembered that if I don’t like my story I could tell another one. Telling the story from a more healed mind, I remembered that Jesus said that he would arrange time for me if I gave it to him. This is what I did. And I asked the Holy Spirit what He would have me do, no planning on my own. I was certain that I would have a productive day and what needed to be done would be done. Isn’t that a better story? It is a story from an awakening mind.

So now I have two very helpful tools. If I get stuck in the guilt and can’t see my way out I know what to do. I can stand in God and allow Him to heal me. And when I am telling myself a sad or angry story, any story that is not true, I can write a new story. I can tell this story as if I know who I am and I am joyful in that remembrance. I’m going to make a practice of telling new stories, truer stories, so that it becomes second nature to do this.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text V. The Lessons of the Holy Spirit. Paragraph 1   1-3-14

V. The Lessons of the Holy Spirit
1 Like any good teacher, the Holy Spirit knows more than you do now, but He teaches only to make you equal with Him. You had already taught yourself wrongly, having believed what was not true. You did not believe in your own perfection. Would God teach you that you had made a split mind, when He knows your mind only as whole? What God does know is that His communication channels are not open to Him, so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His children are wholly joyous. Giving His joy is an ongoing process, not in time but in eternity. God’s extending outward, though not His completeness, is blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one. So He thought, “My children sleep and must be awakened.”

When my kids were little they would play pretend. I knew their games were not real. They didn’t become the cop because they played that part, any more than they would become the robber because it was their turn to take that part. I would not sit them down and tell them there was something wrong with them because they were pretending to be something they were not.

After a time I would call them in and sometimes one or the other would still be attached to the game she was playing, and when I tried to talk to her she would stay in her role. It made it impossible to communicate. I would have missed her and want to cuddle and ask about her day, but, she would try to arrest me for robbing the bank. I would have to break the hold her imagination had on her before we could communicate with each other.

My relationship with God is not a whole lot different.  I’m pretending to be something I’m not, and lost in my role as I am, communication with my Father is blocked. Nothing is harmed, not me or God or our relationship. The blocks are not permanent and are being removed now. It is God’s desire to extend Himself as Joy and Love and our imaginative play keeps us from receiving as fully as He gives.

We are asleep to our reality, and dream of illusions in which there exists a gap between us. God communicates oneness and love, but we fail to recognize it because we dream of fear, guilt and defenses. We have gotten lost in our role, but God knows who we are and He knows how to awaken us from our dreamy play. We are learning that it is our truest desire to remember. That is our part. So simple.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 11   1-1-14

IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 11
11 That is why the Holy Spirit never commands. To command is to assume inequality, which the Holy Spirit demonstrates does not exist. Fidelity to premises is a law of mind, and everything God created is faithful to His laws. Fidelity to other laws is also possible, however, not because the laws are true, but because you made them. What would be gained if God proved to you that you have thought insanely? Can God lose His Own certainty? I have frequently said that what you teach you are. Would you have God teach you that you have sinned? If He confronted the self you made with the truth He created for you, what could you be but afraid? You would doubt your right mind, which is the only place where you can find the sanity He gave you.

I wonder if there has ever existed a Course student that at one time did not have the wish that God would just wake her up. I certainly did. I just wanted it to be done and didn’t think I ever would be able to do this myself. I questioned why it had to be so hard. Why couldn’t God just pull me out of this illusion? In this paragraph Jesus explains why this cannot happen.

God created us by extending Himself which means we are just like Him. If He came into our dream of something unlike Himself, then what we made would be like Him. He could not do that unless He was as insane and God is not insane. If He were to fix us He would, in effect, be saying that we need fixing and that is not true.

He made us like Himself so could we be incapable of anything; could we be broken? This could be true only if God is incapable and broken. God would not teach us that we are what we are not, which is what He would be doing if He forgave us. He would be teaching us that we sinned and if He did that it would be true. He would never teach us that we have done something wrong in imagining this ego world, because He would be teaching us to doubt our right mind.

Today when I was meditating I was asking Jesus for help and he reminded me not to come as a supplicant, but as an equal Son of God. It is very easy to forget this because in my confused dream of separation I do not seem like the Son of God. This paragraph reminds us that we are equal to the Holy Spirit. The difference is that the Holy Spirit remembers who we are, and we have temporarily forgotten. It reminds us that we can and will awaken.

We will not do this as the ego self, but we will use the ego story of self to undo what we have done. The story of Myron and the story of each of us is a mirror that reflects the beliefs that make up the ego. Through contrasting the effects of these beliefs to the promises of God, we are inspired to abandon our beliefs in favor of Knowledge, which takes their place. We begin to remember who we are.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 9 12-31-13

IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 10
10 You are in an impossible situation only because you think it is possible to be in one. You would be in an impossible situation if God showed you your perfection, and proved to you that you were wrong. This would demonstrate that the perfect are inadequate to bring themselves to an awareness of their perfection, and thus side with the belief that those who have everything need help and are therefore helpless. This is the kind of “reasoning” in which the ego engages. God, Who knows that His creations are perfect, does not affront them. This would be as impossible as the ego’s notion that it has affronted Him.

God created me perfect and He does not doubt Himself, so He does not doubt me. He trusts me to bring myself to an awareness of my perfection and His trust is perfect. I doubt myself but I trust God, so I too trust that I will wake up. I will wake myself up. I have all the help I need. As Jesus said in the previous paragraph, I have a Guide and a model.

Now he tells me that I am perfect and can bring myself to that awareness. And that is all that happens when I wake up. I shift my awareness from the illusion to the truth, to my perfect wholeness. The Holy Spirit can guide me and comfort me, but He cannot wake me up, only I can do that.

Yesterday I was watching a video by John Mark Stroud. He described our situation like this. He said that we sit in a closet with the lock and key on our side. It is up to us to unlock the door and come out. That visual made a real impact on me and I see that this is what Jesus is telling me now.

The Holy Spirit can’t get me out of the closet because the key is on my side of the door. The Holy Spirit can help me to see that this is true. He can heal my mind, but only if I ask and really want Him to. I am the one with the key. Jesus found the lock and then found the key. He let himself out and because we are of one mind, he did this for all of us. He is now waiting for us to follow suit and is being as helpful as we will allow. He is our model, but he is not our rescuer either. God will not yank me out of the closet, nor will He rescue me. He knows I don’t need to be rescued. He knows I can and will rescue myself.

Jesus ends the paragraph with a zinger. He tells us that God does not affront His creations and that would be as impossible as the ego’s notion it has affronted Him. Thanks, Jesus, for the reminder that in making the ego we have not really affronted God and so we have nothing to be guilty for and no reason to stay hidden in our little closet. It is safe to come out.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 8 12-27-13

IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 9
9 Abilities must be developed before you can use them. This is not true of anything that God created, but it is the kindest solution possible for what you made. In an impossible situation, you can develop your abilities to the point where they can get you out of it. You have a Guide to how to develop them, but you have no commander except yourself. This leaves you in charge of the Kingdom, with both a Guide to find it and a means to keep it. You have a model to follow who will strengthen your command, and never detract from it in any way. You therefore retain the central place in your imagined enslavement, which in itself demonstrates that you are not enslaved.

What an incredible job we have done in making an impossible world where we, the Son of God, can experience our selves enslaved to a set of beliefs we made up. Let me look at the proof that I can awake from this dream any time I want to.

I have a Guide to help me develop my ability to undo what I have done.
I am the commander of the project.
I am in charge of the Kingdom.
I have a model to follow.
My model will strengthen my command and never detract from it.

Does this sound like I am a victim? Does this sound like I can never get out of my illusion? I am pretending to be enslaved, but if I am at the center of the enslavement, the maker of the enslavement, and with everything I need to escape, then how could I be enslaved?

When I feel like I can’t get free of my imagined enslavement it is because I am listening to that voice in my head spouting out the beliefs that make up the world of illusion. They are just beliefs, not jails, not chains. They have no power outside the power I accord them. You see, once again I admit that I am in charge of my own enslavement. I give all meaning and all power to my jailer, and my jailer is just a set of beliefs that I made up.

Jesus, as I think about this I see that it makes sense and I want very much to wake up from the dream. Sometimes I feel so close to awakening. I never ever completely believe in the dream anymore. Even this past week with Toby when I was as close to being lost in the dream as I have been in a long time, I still knew I was dreaming. Even though the fear was paralyzing, I still knew I was dreaming.

How can I be so close and yet not be able (willing?) to wake up? I feel discouraged. The voice of ego is very loud in my head insisting that I can never do this and that this whole idea is ridiculous. It insists that what I am experiencing is real and the idea of a Kingdom and power and love are the illusion, and that is why I cannot wake up. When I listen to the ego voice I feel so afraid and discouraged.

Well, this is interesting. As I wrote out exactly how I am feeling right now, I see that I don’t feel that way anymore. Writing and talking to you, Jesus, has helped me to step back from the thinking mind and look at it with detachment. It is like a little war is going on in there. I see the thought that I am deeply loved and perfectly created. I look over and see the thought that I am a fool to believe that and that all I have to do is look at my life to see the proof that I am not in the least lovable and hardly perfect.

But who am “I”? Who is it that is watching this verbal tennis match? Who is it that is watching Myron caught up in it and being confused and afraid? I am reminded that I do know who I am. Who I am is in my mind and can never be lost. Thank you, Jesus. I know you answered my questions without any words at all. I know this sudden clarity and this sense of peace enfolding me is my answer.

I remember what you just told me Saturday; that this past week is the answer to my prayer to awaken. I am looking at the thoughts I still believe to some degree so that I can let them go and allow my mind to be healed of the craziness that goes on there. That is all that happened. I have been looking at ego beliefs and deciding to reject them.

These are the kinds of abilities you are talking about. I am developing the ability to look with the Holy Spirit at the thoughts and beliefs in my mind and allow them to be corrected. I am developing the ability to step back and see with clarity what is happening, the ability to experience the story with some detachment. I see how these abilities are going to help me return my awareness to the Kingdom.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 8 12-27-13

IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 8
8 The introduction of abilities into being was the beginning of uncertainty, because abilities are potentials, not accomplishments. Your abilities are useless in the presence of God’s accomplishments, and also of yours. Accomplishments are results that have been achieved. When they are perfect, abilities are meaningless. It is curious that the perfect must now be perfected. In fact, it is impossible. Remember, however, that when you put yourself in an impossible situation you believe that the impossible is possible.

God created me perfect. He created me as part of Himself. There is no such thing as abilities in creation, because all is accomplished. With the introduction of the separation idea, abilities were needed because in separation there was now the illusion of imperfection and so there was the illusion that something needed to be done.

I am still perfect and still in God and I do not need to learn anything because in the Kingdom there is not even the idea of learning. However, since I do not believe I am in the Kingdom, since I believe I am separate from the Kingdom, I have placed myself in the truly bizarre position of needing to become perfect and so I need abilities and I need to develop them.

An example of an ability that I developed is listening to Holy Spirit. When I began this process it was pretty shaky. I tried different methods until I found what works for me, which is meditative writing. It sounds pretty cut and dried. Try this. No. Try that. No. Oh, Ok, this works. But it is never easy with ego because ego is questions, doubts and fears.

So I would try meditating in the usual way and would fail. I failed over and over. I watched everyone else succeed and report these wonderful results, and yet, I could not do it. I felt like a failure and I felt like I was the one who was unforgiven. In other words, I suffered. 

That’s the way it works with ego. Ego would have kept me in this process forever if it could, trying one method and then another, reading books on meditation, listening to meditation CDs, taking meditation classes. But I had a burning desire to hear that Voice and enough willingness to keep that desire alive.

Finally I turned from the ego and sought help from my Guide. I didn’t even know I had been trying to learn from the ego what the ego was determined I not learn. I didn’t know that I was finally turning to my true teacher. All I knew was that I still wanted it but that I gave up trying to give it to myself. Surrender is what allowed the Holy Spirit to help me. He can never take from us what we want to keep, or give to us what we are determined to give to ourselves. But the moment we truly want His help, it is done.

Once I discovered that I could speak to and listen to the Holy Spirit as I wrote, it only remained to develop this ability further. I did this through daily practice and even that felt like suffering at first. This is because the ego joined me in the practice, constantly criticizing and discouraging my attempts. But because I truly desire this communication, I learned how to become more fully surrendered to the process.

Actually, looking back on it, I realize it was never hard to hear His Voice. It only seemed hard because I was trying to listen to two completely opposed Voices at the same time. When I finally chose the one Voice I wanted, it became easy and now I look forward to each morning sitting here with Him. While I was at the hospital with my son I was not able to give this time to Spirit and I missed it.

So this is an ability I developed. I learned to hear the Voice for God and to write what I heard. This is a ridiculous thing. How could I not hear that Voice? It is in me. It speaks to me all through the day. It is the only thing that is real. It is both God’s Will and my will. And yet, I had to develop the ability to hear clearly, and still I am further developing the ability to hear even more clearly. It is an insane situation made necessary through insane choices.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Study of the Text IV. The Only Answer, Paragraph 7 12-20-13

IV. The only Answer, Paragraph 7
7 In the Kingdom, where you are and what you are is perfectly certain. There is no doubt, because the first question was never asked. Having finally been wholly answered, it has never been. Being alone lives in the Kingdom, where everything lives in God without question. The time spent on questioning in the dream has given way to creation and to its eternity. You are as certain as God because you are as true as He is, but what was once certain in your mind has become only the ability for certainty.

I long for the certainty that Jesus speaks of here. I am sure that I thought it would be interesting to make an illusory experience where there were questions to be asked and the answers were changeable. This illusion is the answer to the question, “What would it be like?” We asked and because of who we are as God’s Children, the answer unfolded. It has been answered, and now it is time to awaken from that dream of uncertainty.

What is it like to simply be? No questions, no doubts, nothing to fear. I had to forget that existence as a necessary part of experiencing its opposite. I am done. I am ready to return all of my mind, to certainty, to eternity, to God. What does it take to return? I must want it wholly, without exception. This business of watching my thoughts and asking for healing of all that is not truth is my way of reaching the desire for God that is in my mind. I am looking at what I chose instead of God, and deciding against it.

Once the question is answered and I return my full awareness to God, there will not be even a memory of anything other than God. God is whole, complete and without doubt or question. So once answered, the question no longer exists. I will return to perfect peace, to creation. Now interestingly enough, I have already done this. I am in God. Right now. I am creating in eternity, right now. That is why we call this experience an illusion or a dream. It is not actually happening. We are simply watching what happened when the answer to our question unfolded.

Are you tired of the dream? Are you ready to wake up? I am. The ego, the device I made to have this experience doesn’t want to awaken and clings to its sad and scary stories as if they mattered and as if they were valuable. But I am not the ego, but the maker of the ego and the ego does not rule my mind unless I choose that. I, the self that I truly am, have been uncovered to the degree that I am now aware of my desire to return fully to my Home and my Father.  I know how to do it and I am taking those steps. Thank you, God, that my foray into illusion has changed nothing.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Page 166 of 264 pages ‹ First  < 164 165 166 167 168 >  Last ›

<< Back to main page of Together, We Light the Way

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution to support this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution with a credit/debit card, click here.
Click here to donate from your PayPal account.
Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.