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Study of Manual for Teachers 9-6-12

9-6-12
16 Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating it is as blessed to give as to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver.

Miracles are teaching devices. I almost missed the importance of that first statement. Miracles are not a way to get well quick, or supply some other imagined need, though the effect of the miracle often seems to do just this. If miracles were for the sole purpose of making an illusion better, they would be just another part of the illusion, another ego manipulation of something that doesn’t exist.

No, the purpose of miracles is not to encourage the idea that the illusion is real and has some value, but to teach us that the illusion does nothing. Through miracles, which are a change of mind, a new way of thinking, and, ultimately, reveal our supremacy over the world, the miracle teaches us of who we truly are. Each miracle reminds us that we are not of the world, that we are not affected by the world, that the world does not do anything to us.

We are the makers of the world. The world is of us, the world is affected by us, and we do to the world what is done. Thus what has no innate value becomes a valuable teaching aid as the miracle reminds us of our true nature, and we begin to awaken to that glorious truth.

Through miracles we also learn that giving is receiving. This has been a slow transformation in my mind. I liked the idea; I thought the idea had merit; I thought I believed the idea; and at some point I realized that I knew that giving is receiving. Miracles had opened my eyes to that simple truth that I cannot give anything of true value without receiving, and I cannot receive without giving.

This understanding changes everything, of course. I hear my student express doubt and uncertainty and I smile to myself knowing this is just a temporary confusion on his part, knowing with absolute certainty and no doubt that this confusion will be blown away like smoke in a breeze and the Divinity he is will be exposed. My belief in him heals his mind and strengthens that belief in my own mind. In the miracle of healing we are both healed and both strengthened.

Does this change the illusion, change our stories? Oh yes! In many ways the story changes as our perception changes, as we bring into our story elements that reflect the change in mind. Time is collapsed and what is no longer needed to accomplish our goals for this lifetime fall away. What would once have brought up fear or anger will be seen as nothing and will be accepted fully and without resistance, and so will pass easily and quickly.

The story of the world, instead of being deadly serious, becomes our playground, a place to express our creative nature, fun and interesting, but certainly not anything to take seriously. Miracles become a way of life, an everyday occurrence as they are meant to be. The world will show itself as the happy dream it was intended to be before guilt and fear distorted it. Through our use of miracles we will join and join until we no longer see any separation between us, and as full memory of our true nature returns to us, we will remember to laugh at this tiny mad idea. 

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 9-5-12

9-5-12
15 Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to enable you to learn how to use time constructively. It is thus a teaching device and a means to an end. Time will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning.

I admit that for a long time A Course in Miracles was a part-time pursuit for me. I studied it for years, but the study was inconsistent and the practice even more so. It took a very long time for me to realize its value to me to the degree that I wanted a daily study. It all began to change at the same time I discovered Pathways of Light and began their courses to be a minister.

Looking back on it, when I turned fifty it was like a switch had been thrown, like I had been sleepwalking and someone suddenly woke me up and I began to walk with purpose. I don’t for a moment think this just happened, or that there was anything in my life that caused it to happen. It was simply time for me to accelerate my spiritual journey and so I did. I made up stories to explain each step of the way, but that was after the fact and is just what the ego does. The stories were meaningless.

Now everyday is devoted to miracles. This is a constructive use of my time, the only constructive use of my time. It doesn’t matter what I seem to be doing miracles are the purpose. Whether I am selling chemicals to my customers or chatting with my daughter, I am devoted to miracles. I am ever vigilant for my thoughts so I notice quickly if I have fallen back into ego or am entertaining myself with ego chatter.

I am always aware of myself as existing outside time and space even though I feel like a body, and feel what bodies feel. I am cognizant of my actions and reactions and always willing for healing of my mind. I am in gratitude often, and when I am not in gratitude I am asking for gratitude to return to my mind. I start every single day with the Holy Spirit. I call on His help all day long.

I am happy and can’t remember the last time I was depressed even though I spent most of my life in a depressed state. I sometimes still see others as separate from me, but only temporarily, and I am glad to notice that error so it can be corrected. I forgive myself, I forgive others, I forgive whatever is in front of me whether it seems to be mine or not. My life is a miracle.

To understand just how much of a miracle it is you would have had to have known me before I found A Course in Miracles. I can’t tell you much about that person because I hardly remember her, but I remember she was selfish and thoughtless and unhappy. She thought of others only as how they impacted her. She felt no unity with anyone else and love was just a way to gain what she did not have, and she didn’t consider what the other lost to create her gain. I don’t miss her at all.

The reason she no longer exists is because I give my time to miracles. I am aware now that this is the proper use of time, and I have seen why this is true. My life bears witness to this truth. Using time constructively will continue my progress and when we no longer need time to wake up, time will cease to exist. Time is just another of those made up things we did when we decided to fool around with the separation idea. What the ego makes, the Holy Spirit uses for our good if that is our desire. So time, which we made to help create the illusion of separation, is used by Holy Spirit for miracles. You go, Holy Spirit!

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 9-4-12

9-4-12
14 Miracles bear witness to truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless and therefore destructive; or rather, the uncreative use of mind.

I understand that Miracles bear witness to the truth. They prove the truth to me, and remove all doubt and uncertainty. They shut down the ego thoughts and establish the truth in my mind. I love the sentence that says they are convincing because they arise from conviction. I looked up the word conviction in a thesaurus and these are the words they gave me: confidence, certainty, assurance, sincerity, passion, faith. Miracles are convincing because I am confident and certain in them. When I don’t see (with the ego mind) how they could unfold, I have faith in them.

Without conviction, without my confidence and certainty, without faith, they deteriorate into magic. Magic is the uncreative use of the mind. The mind is still very powerful and does amazing things even when it is being uncreative. Just look around at the world, look at your life, look at all we have done. 

This world is an awesome work of magic, unbelievable in its complexity and its ability to absorb our attention so completely that we forget where it came from. But no matter how real the world seems it is not a creation. It is not eternal, thank God, but will end when we lose interest in it. It does not have the attributes of God so it cannot be real. It is simply a wish fulfilled.

My purpose now is to reclaim my truth, and to remember who I am. I am doing that from within the world I made as I bring my uncreative thoughts to the Holy Spirit and ask Him what they mean, and what I should do with them.  I ask Him to correct them and put me back on the right track.

As I do this and experience success more and more often, I become more confident and certain. I am regaining my memory of being a creator. I am still working in the world and from a belief in separation, but because I am receiving guidance outside of this closed thought system, I am able to use my present circumstances to recognize their unreality. This is allowing me to return my mind to God and to true creativity.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 9-3-12

9-3-12
13 Miracles are both beginnings and endings, and so they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future.

I saw this miracle most clearly in my relationship with my mom. When I was younger I held a lot of grievances against Mom. I kept a tally of all her errors and went over it periodically. It was a very useful list when I felt guilty for something. I could always find the cause of my bad behavior to be something my mom did to make me the way I was. I even found a therapist to say this was true, thus making it official. Its funny now to realize how much I bought into this idea, but at the time it seemed true to me and very natural. After all, most people I knew agreed with this way of thinking.

I got older and had kids of my own. I began to make mistakes raising them, and some of my mistakes seemed a whole lot worse than anything on the list of my mom’s errors. I began to see Mom differently. I began to feel like I judged her too harshly because I didn’t understand how easy it is to make bad choices as a parent. I still had my list and I still felt like she was the reason for my errors, but I didn’t hold it against her so much. After I began the study of the Course I started seeing our relationship differently, but I was a long way from giving up the idea of projection and Mom was still a handy scapegoat a lot of time.

By the time I really began to absorb what the Course was telling me about projection and began to accept it as true in every case, my mom was much older and she had Alzheimer’s. Our communication was severely limited. At one time I wrote an article about my love and admiration for her, and when I went to the nursing home to see her I read it to her. She was not able to talk to me by this time, but I could tell she was happy to hear it. She paid attention to me, and though she didn’t seems to know who we were to each other, she could understand me, and she enjoyed hearing about this mother who was appreciated.

I read that article to her more than once because it was the only time I could tell that she was with me, really hearing me. It seemed to make her happy. Slowly she retreated into herself more and more as the disease took her brain function and it became harder and harder for me to be with her. I was also sorry that I had lost all chance to tell her how wrong I had been to judge her and how much I loved her and respected her. I felt so awful when I saw her in that condition and so guilty for my past behavior and for waking up to that behavior too late. It became excruciatingly painful to visit her and so I went less and less often, which just increased the guilt.

This is when the miracle occurred. I began to talk to mom in my mind. I told her all the things I wished I could tell her. I reviewed the list of grievances and I let the memories of those circumstances come to me. I was able to look at them with new eyes, with the eyes of forgiveness. These were not planned episodes, but simply happened from time to time. I would be driving along and suddenly would be knocked flat by a vivid memory of what happened. I would then, with the Holy Spirit’s help, forgive the whole thing and let it fade away.

By the time Mom died I had withdrawn those projections and was so clear of any anger or resentment that I was able to conduct her funeral. I had very little feelings of grief and was free to remember her fondly and to express my love and admiration for her while still laughing at her foibles. I love thinking about that funeral because it was proof of how much healing had occurred.

While the healing itself was taking place I realized that I did not have to be communicating body to body with my mom. When I had moments like the one in my car I knew that this communication was as real as any we had when we were together talking to each other. In fact it was more honest and real than our past communication. I held nothing back there were no words to limit our communication. That was a revelation.

The second thing that I got to experience is this principle of miracles. We used the present to undo the past and thus released the future. I cannot say what it meant to mom, but those moments of forgiveness healed the guilt in my mind and set me free. They also led me to this present moment when I would begin to realize that guilt is not real. Each moment of guilt that I allowed to be healed was teaching me this one lesson. I could let go of guilt because I made it. I made guilt up and so I could turn away from it knowing it was not real.

After Mom died I had moments of intense grief that lasted for about a year. Something would trigger a thought of mom and I would see another memory in my mind, but this time, instead of being a memory of a grievance I held against Mom, it would be a memory of something I did to Mom that I had never forgiven myself for doing. One time I saw a woman eating alone in a restaurant. She kind of looked like my mom and she seemed very lonely eating all by herself, and kind of sad. Suddenly I was flooded with memories of not being there for mom, of times when she called me and I didn’t have time for her. 

The shame and regret were so intense I had to leave the restaurant. I didn’t make it to the hotel before I had to pull over and just cry and cry. I absolutely had to call on the Holy Spirit to look with me because it was too intense and too painful to look alone, and I knew I had to look if I ever wanted to be healed, to forgive myself. These moments happened a number of times before I was able to let them all go and to accept full forgiveness. 

I thought I was grieving my mom, and surely I regretted not having her with me anymore, but the grief was really guilt looking for release. As painful as they were, I am grateful for those moments because again I was able to experience the miracle of forgiveness as in the present moment the past was undone and the future was released. Now that all is forgiven I am free, and free to love without needing anything from Mom, which is really the only way to experience love.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 8-31-12

8-31-12
10 The use of miracles as spectacles to induce belief is a misunderstanding of their purpose.

I used to believe that miracles were absolutely supposed to wow everyone and make them true believers. It never occurred to me that this was not their purpose until I read this. So what is the purpose of miracles? I think that they are supposed to show me that I am not this limited being that I thought I was. They are supposed to show me that I stand outside time, space, and all limitations. They seem extraordinary at first because I have lived in the dark for so long, but the more I use them the more I understand that miracles are supposed to be the way I live my life.

11 Prayer is the medium of miracles. It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed. 

Prayer is the way we communicate with God. It is love being given and received. The Song of Prayer begins by saying:

Prayer is the greatest gift with which God blessed His Son in his creation. It was then what it is to become, the single voice Creator and creation share; the song the Son sings to the Father, Who returns the thanks it offers Him unto the Son.

It goes on to tell us that that while we are in time we use prayer differently. We use it to suit our need, which is to recognize our oneness. It is through miraculous living that we do this. Through prayer (communication with our Creator) we receive love, and through miracles we express that love in whatever way is most helpful at the time.

12 Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual.

Another thing we learn in A Song of Prayer is that every thought is a prayer. We continuously create through thought. It seems that we (as individual body beings) are doing this but that is not who we are. These selves we continually confuse ourselves with are the effects of the thoughts our true self has.

I know. It’s hard to keep it untangled at first, and until the truth becomes self evident and simple it is probably more helpful to work on this level and just keep in mind that it is not the truth. We are not that. Then as we live a more miraculous life, the confusion will simply fall away on its own, and we will know our self as Self. However you see yourself, thoughts are very important.

There are two kinds of thoughts; the ones that represent our bodily level of experience, and the ones that represent our spiritual level of experience. The first kind is how we make the body and everything to do with time and space.  Here is a good time to be reminded that we are not guilty for making the world.

It could be considered a playground made for the purpose of experience outside reality. Guilt entered into it as a result of the thought that we shouldn’t have, but there is nothing that we shouldn’t have done. We are unlimited beings and there are no boundaries we should not cross. We will be happier as we learn to drop the “shoulds” from our mind.

While we still live in fear of what we have done we limit our experience and it is an unfortunate cycle of desire stunted by guilt. We are trying to create a better world from within the world and it won’t work because the world is an expression of limitation. As we begin to awaken to this fact, we remember that we are not the self in the world, but the maker of the world, and then we see that we operate from outside these artificial boundaries.

Here is how I see this. My friend is sick and from inside time and from the point of view of being Myron I want to help. I look on the internet for possible solutions. I pray to a God I don’t really know using words hoping He will have pity and give us a miracle. Even if I have learned that this is wrong-minded thinking, I still do the same thing, really. I just use more accurate language, but until I know my Self, I don’t know God. Until I trust my Self, I cannot trust God.

The miracle I ask for is that the body be healed even though it doesn’t seem to be possible.  I believe I am Myron and I believe my friend is that sick body. I believe that when the body dies I lose my friend. My focus is on making a better world from within the world.

As I begin to see myself as being outside time and space and begin to see myself as the maker of the dream rather than the avatar I use for this experience, I see my part in the miracle differently than before. I realize that while the story is not real and nothing is actually happening, it is the story I have chosen to experience.

Within that story is an opportunity to lose myself or find myself. I find myself through expressing love. I find myself through joining with my other self, my friend, and knowing our oneness. I find myself through knowing that sickness is not real, by knowing that she is not limited by the laws of the world, by knowing who she really is while she is temporarily confused about that.

Spiritual thoughts are not thoughts of the world as real, but through spiritual thoughts the world is reconfigured to reflect truth more closely. This seems, in the world, to be a miracle of a healed body, but it is actually the miracle of a healed mind. It is a mind healed of a false belief, a mind that laughs at the idea of limitations and restrictions as absurd ideas that could not possibly be true. How could pain, suffering and death actually exist? They would have to be in God and that is just ridiculous. Miraculous thinking is not bound by the rules of the world, and miraculous thinking is reflected as a healed world.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 8-30-12

8-30-12
9 Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are always miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws. They bring more love both to the giver and the receiver.

In the world when something is given there is loss for the giver. If you are in financial straits and I give you money then you gain the money and I lose it. If you have had a hard break-up and I visit you and cheer you up, I lose that time and energy. Because “love” in the world more resembles a bargain than anything else, giving love is costly. I give my time and loyalty and expect my partner to give me something in return, perhaps some bit of his freedom.

Even if we are able to maintain this delicate balance of giving to receive, everything in the world ends, so this kind of love is always tinged with fear. The cost of even the most successful love in the world is loss of peace of mind, a kind of underlying anxiety as we wait for the other shoe to drop with some finality.

But when I give myself as a channel for the Holy Spirit, give my hands, my feet, my tongue for His use, the result can be a true miracle. The mind of the one receiving can experience a shift in understanding, or relief from suffering, or God’s love and comfort. In exchange, I receive love, certainty, joy. I cannot really find a word that describes it.

It feels so right, knowing that I am doing what I am guided to do, what we all came here to do, help each other wake up. The greatest gain is that as I allow their gift to pass from Spirit through me, it is my gift as well. In the giving, I receive. And the cost is. . . well, nothing. There is no loss at all.

If I were just giving from the ego, telling what I think I know, I might say something helpful. I might use the same language. I might help, but it would not be the miraculous exchange that occurs when Spirit is the giver and I am the channel. When I speak from ego I often feel drained of energy, and feel like the whole process was difficult and unsatisfying.

When I “give” through the ego, I feel like I gave and received nothing. I feel uncertain and wonder if I made things better or worse. If there is any satisfaction it is to the ego self, which for moment feels “better than” and this is short-lived because the ego gives only to get and takes away more than is given. Uncertainty and doubt take away even the little I think I earned.

The more often I stand aside and allow Spirit to speak and act through me, the more joyful life becomes. It is still a dream, but miraculous living makes it a happy dream. When the ego brings me disturbing thoughts I am more likely to recognize them as meaningless, and even if I am drawn to them I much more quickly realize I don’t believe them. Without the desire to listen to the ego chatter, the mind is quieter and more peaceful. Things that used to feel frightening and depressing are seen as meaningless as well.

This is what I receive in exchange for what I give. This is the miracle from my side of it. My family sometimes worries because I work all week, and all weekend I teach and counsel. They think this is a burden and will wear me down, because they are thinking in terms of the physical laws of the world. But they are mistaken. Miraculous giving has no cost and the gift is renewed energy and greater happiness. As I give, I receive; what I give I receive.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 8-29-12

8-29-12
8 Miracles are healing because they supply a lack; they are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less.

Ultimately we lack nothing and it is the belief that we do lack that the miracle heals. I think I need more money or better health, or a special love. The miracle is for the purpose of answering our needs as we see them. The gift He would give us is a healed mind, but He would have His answer be understood so it will come in a form that is most helpful to us at the level we find ourselves.

I remember one time years ago my daughter got suddenly very sick. She got a fever and it shot up high. She was hallucinating and I was scared to death. I didn’t know about the Holy Spirit, or about healing the mind. What I did know is that my daughter was in danger and that I could call on God for help, which is what I did. I felt very alone and because I was alone in this I was more frightened, so I called the prayer line at Unity. A very calm and soothing voice on the other end of the line promised me a miracle, and I believed her. The fever faded away very quickly and my darling daughter slept peacefully. When she woke she was completely healed.

The miracle seemed to be the healing of my daughter that I prayed for, but it was greater than that. What I learned from that situation was that I could trust God, that the world’s laws could be superseded by God’s laws, and that if I joined in prayer with someone else the prayer was strong and I felt better. My mind was healed to the extent that I was willing to accept the healing and in a way that made the healing understandable to me. The person who answered the prayer line represented the one who temporarily had more. In form, she was my Holy Spirit. She saw that I believed I had a need and she responded to that need without believing that what I believed was true.

Right now there is a hurricane over New Orleans. It is not especially strong, but it is very large and it is not moving. There have already been people needing to be rescued in its wake. My son and his fiancé are in their little apartment in New Orleans and as my friend was telling me all this I could feel my heart start to race. So I sat still and watched my mind.

This is a very helpful process. It allows me to be in touch with my feelings, to watch my thoughts and yet, to be detached from them to the degree I am able. It helps me to remember that I am not the story, but the watcher of the story. The more personal I make the story, the harder it is to remember the truth. At times when I am unable to fully disengage from what seems to be happening it is helpful to ask someone who is certain of themselves to remember my certainty for me. If they temporarily have more certainty they can support me while I temporarily have less.

The truth is that I (and my son) are infinite beings and are never in any danger. We are experiencing a dream, a story with elements of danger and excitement, but we are doing so from a safe distance, you might say. It is such a compelling story that we get completely lost in it and forget that it’s not real. When that happens the scary parts get real scary and it’s helpful to have someone to tap me on the shoulder (through words, or simply through prayer) to call me back to reality. Later, I may do the same for them when our roles are reversed.

Remembering the truth is a miracle. Remembering who I am is a miracle. In the world if you get cancer you suffer and maybe die. In the world if you lose your job and your savings you suffer poverty unless you can regain your status. In the world if someone you love dies, they are gone and you suffer that loss. A miracle corrects that thinking. It sets aside the laws of the world and puts the law of God back into place in your mind. As the story beliefs are undone, the truth becomes obvious and your true identity is uncovered. That is the true miracle, the miracle we are ultimately receiving even when it seems to take physical form. The truth behind the physical healing, or the financial relief or relationship correction, is the miracle of awakening.
 
We help each other as we wake up. When my mind is clear and my intent is strong you call on me to know the truth for you. When I am confused and afraid and unable to remember the truth for myself, I call on you and ask you to pray for me and you remember the truth for me. Whoever is strong in the truth is the one offering the miracle. Not because they are holier or more advanced or in anyway different than the other one, but because they are not different or separate and right this moment they know it. Later, I will be the one who knows it, until one day, we all join in this knowing and it is so strong and clear in our mind that we laugh at that the thought we could ever forget who we are.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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