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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-12-12

6-12-12
7 Teacher of God, your one assignment could be stated thus: Accept no compromise in which death plays a part. Do not believe in cruelty, nor let attack conceal the truth from you. What seems to die has but been misperceived and carried to illusion. Now it becomes your task to let the illusion be carried to the truth. Be steadfast but in this; be not deceived by the “reality” of any changing form. Truth neither moves nor wavers nor sinks down to death and dissolution. And what is the end of death? Nothing but this; the realization that the Son of God is guiltless now and forever. Nothing but this. But do not let yourself forget it is not less than this.

When I pray that my mind be healed of a false belief, I always remind myself to disregard appearances. This is an important step for me because I tend to forget that what I see is simply a reflection of my beliefs and has no reality apart from that. I think, it appears as if it were outside me, I pretend that I had nothing to do with its appearance and take the appearance as proof that what I think must certainly be real. I mean, there it is, right?

I cannot trust anything the body’s eyes show me because they were made for the purpose of proving a falsehood to be true. They are a tool we use to help us make the illusion, and to make it possible for us to believe in the illusion. Now that I have decided to wake up from the dream of separation, I have to remind myself frequently that I cannot trust what I see.

I see bodies apparently die and I say to myself, “See, there is death. Obviously, there is death, I just saw that body die.” Actually, that body appeared to die because I want to believe in death. My belief in death is projected outward and appears in front of me like an incredibly realistic hologram.

Think Star Trek, The Next Generation. Captain Picard wants to re-experience a romantic moment with an old girlfriend so he goes to the Holodeck and calls it up from his thoughts about it. It all appears around him, the setting, the music, the people, just as he envisions it in his mind.

He has an incredibly vivid experience of it as he holds his lover and dances with her. He kisses her and feels the same responses he always did. But no matter how real it feels and looks, it is an illusion as becomes clear when he gets a call to duty and shuts the deck down. It all disappears as if it were never there.

When he calls up a fight scene he experiences it as if it were real. He fights and struggles with his opponent. He sweats and gets a workout, and hones his skills, and when he wins, his opponent seems to die. All appears to be very real, but again, it is just a Holodeck where one’s wishes are created from the thoughts in the mind.

The Holodeck mimics “life” as we seem to experience it, because that is exactly what is happening here, now at this very moment. What are you doing? Look around you at the hologram you created from the beliefs and wishes in your mind. When someone in your life seems to die, it is no different than the Captain’s opponent on the Holodeck. It appears very real. Do not be deceived by appearances.

This does not mean that I will stop being compassionate to those who have forgotten it’s a Holodeck. I will still hold them and let them cry. I will still send my condolences. I will still say, “I’m so sorry.” I will still go to the funeral because it is a comfort to my brothers whose minds are still clouded.

What about when people I love die? I don’t know. When my mom died, I did her funeral myself. I felt moments of intense loss. I went through periods of releasing guilt and allowing final healing of the relationships. I miss talking to her and being with her. Mom symbolized unconditional love for me, and I miss that in my life. But maybe these feelings are part of what we asked to experience when we asked for separation. None of the grief and sense of loss has been as intense or as extended as I expected, and I guess that’s because I had already begun to realize there is no death.

My acid test is when I think of one of my children dying. I cannot imagine anything more painful. I absolutely don’t believe my child can die, but I know that the story would go on without that child and that would hurt a lot. But no matter what, I know there is no death. 

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-11-12

6-11-12
6 “And the last to be overcome will be death.” Of course! Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation’s final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God and still can die? The inconsistencies, the compromises and the rituals the world fosters in its vain attempts to cling to death and yet to think love real are mindless magic, ineffectual and meaningless. God is, and in Him all created things must be eternal. Do you not see that otherwise He has an opposite, and fear would be as real as love? 

The last two sentences got me. What God creates must be eternal. How can death exist if God does? It is not possible. God is Life, God is Love, and it is not possible that God could have an opposite. The belief in an opposite of God is the ego and the ego is not real. It is the belief in the ego that we are here to undo.

Belief in death is just another form of attack. This morning I woke up before I was ready to get out of bed. I lay there for a few moments debating what to do. If I got up so early I would probably not feel energetic during the day. If I got up early I could get my writing done and still get to work on time, and maybe get some more work done on my website. Or maybe I would get up only to discover that I wasn’t really ready to wake up, and was too sleepy to really do anything.

I asked Holy Spirit what He would have me do. I turned my iPod to a Byron Katie meditation that I find calming and often lulls me into sleep. I went to that place halfway between sleep and wakefulness and it was there that Holy Spirit revealed to that I live in a constant state of war.

I was at war when I woke up. Get up, go back to sleep. Gain this, but lose that. What if I can’t go back to sleep? What if I shouldn’t go back to sleep? Uncertainty, doubt, stress. This is my boss’s fault. He is the one who suddenly decided we need to be at work early on Monday’s for a sales meeting, and now I’m pressured to get everything done on time. The discomfort of uncertainty leads to projection. The world is attacking me and I am defending myself through projection.

I hear in the background Katie’s soothing voice reminding me that Reality (her word for God) supports me. I have heard her say this innumerable times, but now I HEAR it. I am God’s own holy and beloved child. Everything loves me. Everything is for me. It was only my fevered imaginings born of unfounded guilt that led me to believe the world is attacking me.

The Holy Spirit showed me many other instances in which I saw myself as attacked. In my defenselessness my safety lies. If I stop projecting blame and trying to outsmart the “enemy” and simply lay my weapons down, I will be shown the Love that upholds me, surrounds and comforts me.

When my son was just a toddler he was experiencing a very frustrating moment. We were visiting at a home of a single couple. Nothing was child proofed. It seemed to him that he was thwarted at every turn as he just tried to do what came naturally to him, and everyone kept saying no, stop, don’t do that, don’t touch that. He became so frustrated that he lashed out in anger.

I understood and held him and tried to soothe him. He mistook my love and support as simply another limitation, another attempt to imprison him, this time with my arms, and he tried to fight his way free. I am like that. I imagine that I am being imprisoned and attacked at every turn and I defend myself, and the battle seems never to cease. But I am fighting an imaginary battle, and imaginary enemies. I am Love, I am loved. I am God’s Son and without enemies. I have simply misunderstood, and the Holy Spirit is reinterpreting for me.

I came fully awake to the reality that I have not been battling an enemy, but God. I realized that the ego mind was like my toddler son and in its fear and confusion was afraid to let go of the fight. I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the belief in attack. I really don’t want to hold onto this ineffective and unnecessary defense. I was invigorated and ready to start my day. So much energy is wasted on attack and defense. It’s a wonder that any of us has the energy to get through the day.

Death is just another imagined attack. I have tried to protect myself against it. I have tried to out-maneuver it. I have projected blame onto innocent people and innocent circumstances. I imagined death and then blamed God as the cause. Then I defended God with all sorts of convoluted reasoning because the belief that God was attacking me was too painfully fearful to bear. I have been fighting an illusion, a mirage, a thought form. Nothing is there. I am the Son of God, I am eternal, and death is just another false idea borne of unfounded guilt.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-10-12

6-10-12
5 The “reality” of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God’s Son is a body. And if God created bodies, death would indeed be real. But God would not be loving. There is no point at which the contrast between the perception of the real world and that of the world of illusions becomes more sharply evident. Death is indeed the death of God, if He is Love. And now His Own creation must stand in fear of Him. He is not Father, but destroyer. He is not Creator, but avenger. Terrible His Thoughts and fearful His image. To look on His creations is to die.

Letting go of the belief in death is letting go of the belief in a cruel and punishing God. It is to let go of the desire to overcome and destroy Love (God) by making it something it is not. Have I been so determined to prove I am right to fear God that I would literally “die” to make my point? Evidently so. The surprise is that once seen for the sham it is, the belief in death can be easily laid aside.

Death is always going to be about the body. In order for me to believe in death I must believe in the body. I believe in an experience of a body, but I do not believe the experience is real and so do not believe in the body, therefore I don’t believe in death.

I still get caught up in the story of the body and become so involved that I might as well believe in it because I am so affected by it, but now I never completely lose my perspective. There is always a light in my mind and it draws me back to truth. My forays into forgetfulness are much shorter and less intense than they used to be.

Everyone withdraws his or her attention from the story at some point, but no one dies because there is no such thing as death. I still feel loss when someone disappears from my story. I still believe that communication ends when the body is no longer with me, and that is what causes the feeling of loss.

Well, I don’t believe that is true, that communication must end when the body is no longer maintained, but my experience of communication outside of bodies is so limited that I don’t fully believe in it either. I believe in the concept, but since my experience is limited, I still think there is a wall or some kind of block between myself and the one who is no longer expressing as a body.

That does not make sense, but that is my feeling. So I guess I still believe in death of a sort, at least death of communication. I suppose it is death as separation. If I believe I am lost, even temporarily, from someone who is not embodied, then I still believe in separation and separation is death. Holy Spirit, I am willing to let go of this belief. Please heal my mind.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-9-12

6-9-12
4 The curious belief that there is part of dying things that may go on apart from what will die, does not proclaim a loving God nor re-establish any grounds for trust. If death is real for anything, there is no life. Death denies life. But if there is reality in life, death is denied. No compromise in this is possible. There is either a god of fear or One of Love. The world attempts a thousand compromises, and will attempt a thousand more. Not one can be acceptable to God’s teachers, because not one could be acceptable to God. He did not make death because He did not make fear. Both are equally meaningless to Him. 

Ways we compromise in coming to terms with our belief that God is Love and yet God is a taker of life: Good things have already come from his dying. He has gone to a better place. At least she is with her beloved aunt now. You have your memories of him. God needed him. Only his body is dead, his soul is with God.

Oh my, Jesus, are you saying that even that last one is just another attempt to compromise on the truth?  That was my hold out, the way I held onto the belief in death without giving up the hope that God is good.

I have talked about pain before. For some reason, a readiness on my part, I suppose, when I read Lesson 190 this time I really understood it. In this lesson, Jesus tells us that pain is but witness to the Son’s mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed. He explains that pain is not real, and that it is something we made up to keep the truth at bay. Ever since I read that I have been denying the reality of pain. Each time I feel physical or emotional pain, I remind myself that, If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God.

I use every pain as a reminder of the truth, and a remarkable thing has happened. I had been suffering really bad pain and now I am not. No doctors, medicines or treatments were used. All I did was deny the reality of pain. I realized that pain is not real, that what I think of as pain with a cause outside my mind, is after all, just a thought in that mind.

The other day I was given another thought. I was noticing that so much pain had simply vanished, and yet, I still have pain. The ego was calling me an ingrate, but I persisted along the lines of the thought I had been given. Why do I have any pain? If pain is not real then a little pain is still not real.

Lesson 190 says that my thoughts alone can cause me pain, so I am deliberately holding onto some pain, not enough to warrant attention, just enough to defend against a total capitulation to God. It is a compromise I make with myself. I will do this Course stuff since I can’t seem to stop, but I will hold onto my self in this little way. Yeah, I too, noticed this was crazy.

I think that death is the same as pain. I think that death is just another thing I made up to prove God is the evil one and I am His innocent victim. And if I know what’s good for me I better stay where I am in this illusory world where God has no reality except as I allow. I think that death is no more real than pain. I think that I could read lesson 190 and insert the word death where it says pain and it would be equally true.

The body doesn’t die because the body doesn’t exist. I don’t die because I am not a body. A part of me does not go on living because I have no parts. I am only spirit, mind, light, whatever I want to call it, but that is all I am. I am going to call it Awareness. I don’t die, I simply become aware of something other than this “Life of Myron” program I have been watching. There is nothing of me that can die, could ever die, because there is no such thing as death.

Thank you for that, Holy Spirit. I am going to sit with it awhile.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-8-12

6-8-12
3 Death is the symbol of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds it from awareness like a shield held up to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot coexist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is “laid to rest” in devastation’s arms, where worms wait to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature’s “law of life.” God is insane, and fear alone is real.

If I believe in death I am never going to be free of fear. Even if I were afraid of nothing else, if I had no fear of financial ruin or loss of relationships, if I no longer had a fear of heights, or sickness, or failure of any kind, if I still fear death, then fear will still be in my mind. If fear is in my mind I don’t know who I am. I don’t know God. I have only an awful distorted idea of a cruel and merciless Creator to call Father.

If fear is still in my mind I am separated from all things in the world, and all things are my enemy because they bring with them the threat of death. That person might kill me, on purpose or by accident. She might give me a sickness that lays me low. He might run me over with his car or careen into mine and kill me. That tree might fall on me in a storm, that lightning might strike me.

The spider might bite me or the mosquito might give me West Nile disease. The doctor might misdiagnose me or make a wrong cut in surgery. The world teems with unseen dangers, bacteria and viruses that threaten me everyday and how do I defend against all of them when I cannot even see them? If nothing else kills me, my body will, in the end betray me, and will die anyway.

All of life (as we experience life) is about death. For me to live I must eat and so something must die. No matter how lightly I walk on the planet, my very existence damages or destroys something. Death makes all things an enemy, and me enemy to all things. It fills all circumstances with an underlying sense of dread. Death mocks the love I have for my Father for where there is fear there cannot be love. And who could truly love a God Who wants your life in payment for His love.

As I study this section I am beginning to understand something. It is not fear of death that I must lay aside, it is the belief in death that must be undone if I am to know God.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-7-12

6-7-12

2 In this perception of the universe as God created it, it would be impossible to think of Him as loving. For who has decreed that all things pass away, ending in dust and disappointment and despair, can but be feared. He holds your little life in his hand but by a thread, ready to break it off without regret or care, perhaps today. Or if he waits, yet is the ending certain. Who loves such a god knows not of love, because he has denied that life is real. Death has become life’s symbol. His world is now a battleground, where contradiction reigns and opposites make endless war. Where there is death is peace impossible.

‘The Holy Spirit has had me looking at anger the last few days. This is different. I don’t usually get angry… I thought. Maybe I got angry and then set it aside really quickly. Maybe I got angry and called it something else. At any rate, I have seen the anger and while I have been surprised by it, am grateful to have this opportunity to heal. You can’t even ask for healing of something you have not acknowledged.

Maybe all that anger is just symbolic of the anger we have about death. For many years I held a secret grudge against God because I knew He could take my children any time He wanted to. It was a secret because if I acknowledged it maybe that would make God angry enough to do it. Then I began to learn that God doesn’t do that, but I noticed that He doesn’t prevent it either, and so He was still guilty in my eyes. I never told Him how I felt, of course. I never even told myself.

Many, many people hold this belief. At the funeral of a child someone said to the parents, “You must have done something really awful for God to punish you this way.” Where does a belief like this come from? It comes from that seemingly bottomless well of fear and guilt that keeps all the prodigal children from running back into their Father’s loving embrace.

This woman seemed cruel in her harsh words, but was really just afraid of God Whom she saw as terrifyingly omnipotent. This kind of thinking is simple projection, placing the fear of death onto someone else by making them guilty and therefore deserving of punishment. It gives a way out of heartbreak, for as long as the frightened person can be good enough, God will not visit them with tragedy. In her confused mind she dared not feel compassion for the grieving person or she would be opening up her life to the same pain.

The problem with giving God the credit for all the things in life we like and all the things that go right, is that we also must place blame for all the things we don’t like and that don’t go our way. A Course in Miracles helps us to unravel this confused thinking as we learn that life as we know it does not exist and is simply an illusion, a belief in the mind, a thought picture which we experience as being outside ourselves.

We are only experiencing the answer to an ancient question. We don’t die because there is nothing to do die from, there is nowhere to go. The idea of death is just another effect of the idea of separation, and separation is not reality, so death could not be reality. Separation is not real because it is not of God and so death is not of God. God is not cruel.

Now that I understand and accept the idea of death so differently, this morning I looked at those old thoughts of “what if death were imminent” to see what was in my mind. I didn’t find any fear about my own death. I don’t think of it as dying anymore. I think of it as waking up somewhere else. Maybe I would die to the illusion altogether and never again believe in it.

So I thought about one of my kids with a terminal illness or lying in the hospital on life support. How would I react? What would be my prayer at that time? Would I still pray for them to be saved? Would I still beg for mercy from a capricious God, bargain with promises of a life better lived, offer myself in my child’s place? I can’t imagine believing in that God again. I think I would pray for the strength to see through the appearances to the truth of that child’s being.

What I would dread would be the grief of separation, too many days stretching before me without that wonderful person in my life. I think that communication is meant to cross all barriers within the illusion. I don’t think it is necessary that we lose contact with any part of the Sonship just because that one is no longer appearing as a body, but evidently I have not reached that place where belief becomes certainty so I cannot see past the grief of loss at this time. As always, I open my mind and heart to you, Holy Spirit. Please heal my uncertainty. 

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-6-12

6-6-12
27. WHAT IS DEATH?

1 Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as “the way of nature,” not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the “natural” law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path,-all this is taken as the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this.

Lies about death: The only thing certain in life is death and taxes. Life sucks and then you die.

A Course in Miracles make a dramatic departure from the most accepted concept of them all; that what we experience here is life and the inevitable result is death. Everyone pretty much believes this, even many of us who are coming to doubt it hold onto the concept in one way or another.

My mother died a year ago. I know mom didn’t really go anywhere. She wasn’t here to begin with because there is no here. All of this that we think of as life is just a story in our mind. It has no existence outside of mind.

The way I think of it (and this is not real either, just a way to envision it) is that the story of mom was the focus of attention for awhile and now the attention is elsewhere. There was never a person in a body living a life, and there was never a death. And certainly, God had nothing to do with either of those things.

On the other hand, In the story of Myron her mom died and Myron misses her mom very much. I am very involved in the story of Myron, and I experience these things as if they are real. I seem to be able to know it isn’t real and yet to live it as if it is real, and so far there is not a total unwavering decision about this. Its like I’m sitting on a fence, leaning first one way then the other.

What I don’t waver on, what I am certain of, is that God is not involved in this. I look to the Holy Spirit in my mind to give me clarity about it, to comfort me, to direct me, but not to influence the outcome. To ask Him to influence the outcome would be to accept that God is the cause of death and so a very cruel God. Instead I ask that my mistaken thoughts about the nature of life and the existence of death be corrected.

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