Together, We Light the Way

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

Study of the Text 10-26-12

10-26-12
50 The miracle compares what you have made with creation, accepting what is in accord with it as true, and rejecting what is out of accord as false.

This is my favorite principle, I think. It is so simple and so clear. I feel that process in my own mind. This is what happened when I was working on the idea of pain. I said to Spirit that I was in pain and that I was ready to have my perception corrected. So each time I felt pain I brought that belief to Him. I still do this every single time no matter what form the pain takes, physical, or emotional. I ask for the truth and I know that pain is not real. God did not create pain so it is not the truth.

I feel grief and I bring it to the Holy Spirit, for the miracle. God did not create grief or loss and so it cannot be so. Again, this is something I made up and so it’s not real. I am released as my perception is corrected. I feel lonely or fearful or bitter, it doesn’t matter the story that seems to be the cause, because what is not real cannot be made real with a story no matter how compelling the story.

When I first began reading the Course and doing the lessons it created a crack in my mind that let in just a little light, and I began to doubt what I thought I knew. It took a long time practicing what I was learning before I was able to accept the healings being offered me. I was fooled at first when these teachings started making sense, because I thought that meant I had changed my mind.

I thought that just because I could see the sense of it I was no longer under the sway of ego beliefs. It became obvious to me that was not the case. That was a confusing and frustrating time for me. I was trying to use the ego mind to heal the ego mind and it wasn’t working. All that was really happening is that I was convincing myself that there was another way and that I wanted it. Next I had to practice what I was learning.

The actual healing, the miracle itself, arises from the mind that is made ready for it. As it says in principle 7, “Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.” Bringing my thoughts to the Holy Spirit for healing and choosing that healing over anything else I think I might want seems to be the way of purification.

The whole process seems to revolve around desire. What is it I desire? Do I desire a pure mind, free of ego thoughts? That is not always as simple as it seems just reading the words on the page. I notice that I sometimes still place value where there is none, such as holding onto fear. If I place value on something that is not a creation of God my mind is not pure, and this is why I cannot ask for a miracle from a place of fear.

My son had a reaction to medical procedure and was in excruciating pain. There was potential for damage and even for death depending on the cause of the reaction. My first reaction was fear and all I wanted to do was pray that he be saved from pain and that I be saved from loss. I wanted that miracle. I wanted to tell him to get up and walk because he was healed.

I did recognize that I was praying, not out of conviction but out of fear, and I knew this was not right. I became open to true healing a bit at a time as I was able. I asked others to stand with me on this. As number 19 says, “Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation, because the Sonship is the sum of all that God created.”

At one time I could not have done this. I could not have stepped out of my fear. Later I could have done so after the fact, after circumstances had changed enough for me to see more clearly. Even later after more practice of the Course, I could eventually see through my fear even while it was happening, but it would take some time, and it was not certain. This time it was different. Even in the midst of my confusion, I was absolutely certain I wanted a healed mind.

My friends helped me with their unwavering support and by being the strength I leaned on. They sent me words to point the way back to truth. Overnight my prayer became that my mind be healed in the belief in pain, sickness, and suffering. What else is there to heal, after all, but the mind. Accepting the atonement for myself is my only function.

As my mind began to clear I realized that I do trust Spirit. I trust my script and my son’s script to provide only and all that is needed for our awakening. I went with him to his next procedure and the pain was really awful, and the doctor did not instill confidence. When I felt fear rising in me I acknowledged it and then I remembered to ask the Holy Spirit for help to see clearly. When I felt fear it was as if a fog encased me and kept me from the truth, but I knew what I wanted and I refused to believe in the fog and so it went away. I did this each time fear came.

It seems like it is a body that needs healing and the more desperate our fear the more this seems to be true. But it is always the mind that needs correction. We made fear and pain. We made sickness and suffering. We made death. Now it is time for us to compare these things with creation and to reject what is out of accord with it. I see that fear is the first of these. When I let go of fear and embrace truth instead, all the rest follows. I give my complete willingness to healing and the miracle is the result.

© 2012, 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 10-24-12

10-25-12
49 The miracle makes no distinction among degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception correction, effective quite apart from either the degree or the direction of the error. This is its true indiscriminateness.

Perception is either true, or it isn’t. All errors are simply errors, not bigger errors or worse. One is not harder to correct than another. If I have an experience of cancer it is the same error I experience when I have a headache. Each of these experiences is the result of believing in pain, suffering and death.

There is no such thing as pain. Pain cannot be real because if it were then pain would be part of God. If that is true I may as well stay in the dream. God is Love and Love is not pain. The same is true for all forms of suffering. So if I suffer from physical pain, emotional pain, the belief in lack and loss, it is all the same error.

When the error is corrected, and I understand the impossibility of pain and suffering, none of the causes will be meaningful to me. Pain and fear of cancer disappears with the same ease as does the pain from a headache and the fear of poverty. When I absolutely know that death cannot exist because Life is all encompassing and has no opposite, there is no grief. What is there to grieve when I realize there is no death, no where to go, no state other than Wholeness, other than than God.

All that changes is a belief. An untrue belief is replaced with a true belief. How could one belief be bigger or harder than another, and yet it certainly feels so. It was hard for me to even write the words, the death of a child. That feels big, enormous, awful, and impossible to face, but that is because I still believe in death and loss. 

I don’t believe that anything happens to us when we die other than we let go of the idea of a body, but I believe that the person who does so is out of my reach, and so I suffer from a sense of loss when someone dies. That, too, is just a thought, just an idea and can be healed. This is what the miracle is for. I ask for perception correction in this area. I ask for a miracle.

© 2012, 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 10-24-12

10-24-12
48 The miracle is the only device at your immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation transcends it, having nothing to do with time at all.

How does the miracle control time? The Course tells us that the script is written but it also tells us that we do have choice. Our choice is how we will see the script.  We are told that the first split in the mind occurring after separation was consciousness, the receptive mechanism which receives messages from both Spirit and ego.  When we receive a message from ego we can believe it or not believe it. We can also learn to recognize the messages that are from Spirit.

So let’s say that I hurt my neck and am having a lot of pain because of it. I did not bring this accident into manifestation through my ego thoughts which are not creative. This damaged neck is part of the script that comes from my Spirit. The script has me going through this problem and experiencing a number of consequences. Maybe I will lose my job because I had to take so much time off, and this leads to other consequences. This is fine. There are lots of lessons that can be learned in this script.

However, let’s say at about the same time as I hurt my neck I also had the opportunity to deepen my understanding of the Course. I gained more understanding about the way these things occur and why. I became more willing to be receptive to the Holy Spirit and more willing to set aside my thoughts so that I could be more open to truth. Consciousness is not creative, but rather it is a perceiver and as such it can never have knowledge, but it can be trained to true perception, and that is what’s happening. I am learning to perceive more truly than before.

Perhaps it went something like this.
First: My neck hurts and I feel guilty because it must mean that I am doing something wrong. I am not being a good Course student.
Then: I can heal my neck if I figure out my error. I can learn the right words to say and remember to say them often.
Then: I can heal my neck if I ask for healing and really mean it.
Then: I can heal my neck if I change my thinking.
Then: I can heal my neck if I stay faithful to the belief I am not a body. I can do this by not going to the doctor or taking medicine because then that would mean I believe in the body. But my neck hurts. This is hard. And painful.
Then: I can heal my neck if I accept correction of my thoughts.
Then: I am angry, frustrated and scared, but still determined to gain the understanding I need.
Then: I stop resisting the pain in my neck.
I realize my Spirit gives me (a script) that is exactly all and only what I need to wake us up.
I trust my Spirit. (I trust the script.)
I ask Spirit what it is I am to learn from this, what I am to do, to understand, to know. I ask how it is I am to see this. I ask for the blessing.

Because I have become receptive to a more helpful way of experiencing this pain in the neck, I now have a truer perception of this situation. The result is that certain effects are no longer going to be experienced. Perhaps the neck will heal itself, or if it stays a bit longer I will not experience it in the same way. Maybe I will learn to breathe through the pain, maybe I will be guided to a doctor who will have a solution on the physical level.

Perhaps because of this kind of change I won’t miss as much work and so won’t lose my job. Because I am not making the pain worse through the stress caused by frustration and fear, I won’t be so hard to get along with and won’t damage a relationship. The more receptive I am to guidance, the faster I learn the lesson the pain came to bring me and the shorter the path to awakening. It becomes shorter because the script took a sharp turn and I avoided a lot of the effects that I would have had to experience if I had stayed with the ego thinking.

Think of the script not as a straight road, but as a road with many twists and turns and lots of ways to get to the same place. Some of those roads take you on the scenic route and are more time consuming. But if you listen closely to your Navigation System you can avoid them when you are tired of the scenery and just want to go Home.

This is how we lessen time through the miracle. The change in my thinking (the miracle) elevated my perception to something closer to truth. I no longer needed certain lessons and those are now in some other form of the script, but not in the one I am on. True perception helped me avoid certain ego pitfalls so I lost that time as well.

© 2012, 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 10-23-12

10-23-12
47 The miracle is a learning device that lessens the need for time. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval not under the usual laws of time. In this sense it is timeless.

When I feel like someone has attacked me it is possible I will feel the need to defend myself and always, that defense is an attack. This creates a cycle into which no healing can come. It is like a war that has no end. The soldier on one side shoots a soldier on the other side and then that side shoots a soldier on the other side and it goes on and on. The war cannot end because the rule is, defend when you are attacked.

Suppose the soldiers notice that if this continues then soon there will be only one left standing. Maybe that means his side wins, but at what cost? Who will care except maybe that last soldier? But what can be done to stop the killing? Usually, someone outside the battle ground begins negotiations for peace.

For many years of my life I was in a war with everyone. No one died from my attacks and they did not kill me, but there was much suffering. Even when there was a truce, no one could relax because we all had to be on the look-out for the next volley of attacks, and you never knew where they would come from. It could easily be someone you thought was a friend, even a loved one.

But just as in a war between armies, there was a limit to the pain and destruction I could take. I decided there must be a better way and I found that way through A Course in Miracles. Now when I notice that I have again entered the battlefield, I ask for a miracle. I ask that I might learn another way, something that is not painful, something that doesn’t just delay the attack, but that corrects the belief that created the need for attack. I don’t just want another truce, I want war to end. The miracle comes from outside the closed cycle so it can bring a different solution.

When I ask for the mind to be healed and accept that healing, I save thousands of years of suffering. There are many, many battles that will not be fought, many attacks that will not be answered. The light that shines away the darkness in my mind, spreads throughout the Sonship. When anyone accepts the miracle we all owe him a debt of gratitude because he accepts it for all of us.

© 2012, 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 10-22-12

10-22-12
46 The Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium. Miracles do not involve this type of communication, because they are temporary communication devices. When you return to your original form of communication with God by direct revelation, the need for miracles is over.

I have to figure this one out. Communication medium would be a way to communicate. Conversation would be one type of communication medium, as would writing. Television would be a communication medium I suppose and movies as well. All of those types of communication mediums require the use of words which limits understanding.

My experience with the Holy Spirit is that I often do use words when I communicate with Him, but that is for my benefit. Using words helps clarify the question in my own mind. The Holy Spirit does not need words from me or to me. When I ask for a healing I may use words, but most often no words are involved when I receive that healing. I may put words to it later in order to share the experience, but the healing itself simply occurs. My mind becomes clear and I am returned to peace.

Perhaps this helps explain why the Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium. Words are but symbols of symbols and thus twice removed from reality. Any communication that involves words is going to be limited.  Another thought that occurs to me is that He knows exactly how to get an answer to me.

I’ve noticed that I am perceiving things differently than I have before. It felt absolutely right but because it was so different, and also because it is perhaps not typical, I was concerned. I asked the Holy Spirit to let me know if I am on my path or if I had veered off. He brought me all the way to Colorado for my answer and gave it to me in words from a teacher. Other times the answer comes as I write. Sometimes I don’t realize the question was there until it was answered.

But there is something else meant here when it says that the Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium because it also says that we don’t use this medium in miracles. It says they are temporary communication devices. This tells me that miracles are a communication device, too, but because they are needed only in the illusion , they are not true communication. I think of miracles and true perception as being similar in that way. Neither one is real, but both are necessary until they aren’t.

So there is another form of communication, and this is communication with God through direct revelation. Evidently, the Holy Spirit has some part in this, is the medium for this communication. I don’t know if this is right and I certainly don’t know what it means. I have no memory of communicating with God through direct revelation, though it must be in mind since this principle says that I will return to it, and that it is my original form of communication. When I do return to direct revelation it will be because the need for miracles is over.

PS: This one was hard for me to understand, so I looked it up in a book on the Miracle Principles by Ken Wapnick. He seems to be saying the reason the HS is the highest communication medium is that He communicates from God to us. When our minds are healed we no longer need that link to God, because there is no longer a split in the mind.

© 2012, 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 10-19-12

10-19-12
45 A miracle is never lost. It may touch many people you have not even met, and produce undreamed of changes in situations of which you are not even aware.

I write a lot and it is posted and reposted, and published in more than one place. Most of my writing teaches through describing my experiences. Sometimes I hear about a miracle that was triggered by my story, but most of the time I don’t know who is touched by something I wrote.  The same is true of anything I might say. How do I know who might be affected or how.

I was caught in the trap of thinking someone’s thought error was the cause of my discomfort. A friend made a gentle but true statement and though it took me a few minutes, it started the healing process in my mind. Unless I told him about it he would not be aware of the miracle his words created.

I don’t judge the effectiveness of the miracle. I trust Jesus who is in charge of the Atonement, and trusting him, I don’t look for proof. In fact, there may not be any proof for me to find. Not all miracles manifest in form. I remind myself that miracles occur because the mind is healed. The healing of the mind is the miracle, and the appearance of a miraculous change in the world is a side effect and not important to the miracle.

© 2012, 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 10-12-12

10-12-12
44 The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and acceptance of His Atonement.

I used to be very confused about what this meant. I knew that Christ was my true identity, but mostly that was a learned response. I was not actually aware of it. I didn’t feel like Christ. And certainly, if I saw accepting his Atonement as having undone the ego, I didn’t qualify for that either. And yet, sometimes, and more and more often, I experienced the miracle of a healed mind, and slowly and then more frequently the effects of a healed mind.

So I gathered from this that when I was aware of Christ within and when I accepted His Atonement, I experienced miracles. Over a period of time, I began to realize that although I would slide back into forgetfulness, the miracle was not lost. Once my mind was healed it stayed healed. I never lost anything. It only seemed I had lost it because my attention was sidetracked from the truth to the ego. If I lost what I had gained each time, I would never wake up.

Jesus, what do you want me to know about this principle?

There is no moment when Christ is not your Self. There are only moments when you choose to be unaware of your Self. Don’t be concerned about this. It is unimportant, and changes nothing. Your practice is enlighting your mind and it will unfold perfectly. Allow yourself to be in each moment, and to feel what comes up to be felt. Trust the process. Trust Me.

The ego mind tries to reassert itself but this can never happen. You do not walk backwards on this path. What is happening is that unhealed thoughts are coming to your awareness and sometimes you experience moments of confusion. The ego tendency to guilt and fear arise and you momentarily turn toward that.

Look at this with Me when it happens so that I can teach you it is meaningless. Fear is a response you taught yourself; in God’s Kingdom it does not exist, so it does not exist. This is what you will learn as you continue to bring your thoughts to me for purification.

Jesus, I notice that even when I am in this uncomfortable state of confusion I don’t believe in it. Behind the confusion is the certainty that it is not real and it will pass, that You will heal this, too. But I still have all the feelings of being lost, of being afraid or angry or whatever the situation brings up.

Yes, this is what happens when you believe the fear thoughts. Just as the miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and the acceptance of His Atonement, fear is an expression of identifying with ego and accepting its thought system of separation. You feel battered by these expressions of fear; anger, anxiety, frustration and all the others.

You feel this way because you have told yourself that you should not feel them, and yet they are inevitable when you experience yourself as separate. Your upset is the result of believing you have sinned. You have not, but because you believe you have and because you are afraid of seeing yourself this way, the ego mind creates a fog of confusion and you feel like you don’t know what is happening.

The way to break this cycle is to realize that anything you feel is acceptable. You cannot be guilty because you were not created guilty. You cannot be guilty any more than God could be guilty because you are His extension. Feel whatever you feel, and without guilt confusing the issue, you will quickly recognize it for what it is and move through it. You already have learned to laugh at your false beliefs once you remember your self. I am only telling you how to do it faster and with less discomfort. 

Yes, I can see what you mean, Jesus. I love you and appreciate you so much. I love my life now that I understand what it is for. I invite your help the next time I do this.

What you said makes perfect sense. It is not the negative emotions and the false beliefs that make me suffer, but rather the belief they should not be happening and the belief that having them means I am a sinner. I didn’t realize that this was the belief I was holding. I am happy to have that belief healed for me and for all of us.

© 2012, 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 207 of 264 pages ‹ First  < 205 206 207 208 209 >  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.