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I Am Not the Victim of the World I See

I am not a victim of the world I see is a familiar lesson. I have been studying this lesson for a very long time. Over the years I have peeled that onion until I am nearly to its core. I understand that I call to me everything that makes up my life. There is no one to blame and I waste my time looking for the guilty party. I also understand that my experience of my life is a choice. Never is the experience of it outside my ability to choose. There are no exceptions to either one of these facts.

I have also been practicing this lesson so I am generally willing to be fully aware of what I am choosing. Victimization is so pervasive in the ego thought system that I have not yet been able to move completely out of it, but I tend to notice when I am in it. I can then give my willingness to seeing the situation differently and so become stronger in my belief that I am never a victim of the world.

Sometimes victimization is not so obvious and I have to be very alert to its more subtle forms. Once I begin to look, however, it shows itself. For instance, this morning I checked my bank account to see if my commission check was in it yet. Since I get paid commissions on my accounts and they vary from month to month, I never know how much money I will make. Generally it is within a certain range, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. About once a year it is much lower than usual because it is affected by the seasons as well as other things.

This month turned out to be a small commission month. It is always a shock to see such a small check deposited in my account, and it brings up for me my fears of not being able to support myself, my belief in lack. At first I just felt the unease and move on since it is not going to devastate me, but then I realized that not to look at this with the Holy Spirit would be a lost opportunity. So once again I am able to look at my belief that I am a victim of the world I see. I think I can only be happy if I make a certain amount of money so I believe my happiness is dependent on my paycheck. I think I am safe only if I am financially secure and so am victim to the world of finances. I think that I am worthy only if I am successful in my job and the measure of success is the size of my commission check, and so when it is small I feel less than.

Whew! It is amazing how thoroughly I still believe in victimization. No matter how much I reason with myself that this is just one month out of twelve and that I still have enough money and will not starve or even be truly uncomfortable, I still feel like a victim. And my ego mind starts frantically searching for the responsible party. I notice uncharitable thoughts about my competitors and customers who quit buying. I notice thoughts about my boss and my company that are wild attempts to find them responsible. I even notice angry thoughts toward the people I owe money to as if my discomfort is their fault for wanting their money. In my fearful mind I see mother nature as working against me. I sell chemicals for water treatment and this rainy month has meant far less water used and so far less chemicals used.

At one time I would have felt the panic, looked for someone to blame and focused my attention there. Now I just notice what is going on in the ego mind. I notice the fear, the blame, projections, and anything else that pops up. I notice it and ask the Holy Spirit to show me another way to see. I notice and become willing to allow all of it. I notice and am willing to accept the situation just as it is. This is a very different way to be.

It is as if the thoughts and feelings wash over me and then drain away. I feel the emotions, but at the same time, I am watching and witnessing and that part of my mind is not involved in the emotional reaction. That part of my mind knows that I called to myself with my beliefs and desires exactly the circumstances I am experiencing. It also knows that seeing the situation as a problem and fearful was just a decision I made and is not the only decision available to me. The witness knows that this is a neutral event and that all of those emotions stem from my decision to give value to certain ideas and beliefs, including the belief that I protect myself when I make someone else to blame or when I give my energy to controlling the situation.

I get to decide how I want to be in this situation. I can stay in fear and see myself as victim to the world, or I can use this moment to remember the truth. And in fact, just noticing what is happening is helping me to wake up to the truth. This noticing is breaking the old cycle of thinking, and allowing new thought patterns to emerge. My day is filled with opportunities to do this and each one is a blessing if I care to use it as such.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Healing the Past

Here is something interesting that happened yesterday. I started the day by spending a couple hours on the phone with my mind healing partner, Loretta and she gave me an idea. She was talking about how time is an illusion and that everything is happening at once. I know this is true and is the reason why it does not matter when we forgive. I have often “gone back in time” to forgive. I had a wonderful experience doing this with my mother. She has Alzheimer and doesn’t know me anymore, but mind to mind we had a forgiveness session about something that happened when I was a thoughtless young woman. I felt the release of the past and it was a beautiful thing.

So why not expand this process? I have been thinking about my children a lot because of writing my book on the subject of raising children. This is what I did. I started with my oldest son, Scott. I remembered myself carrying him in my womb and I returned my attention to how I felt at that time. I then allowed the Love that is God to flow through me to that child in my womb. I had no plan as to what was supposed to happen when I did this because, as Loretta pointed out, Love knows what to do. It knows what is needed.

I imagined myself a clear conduit that simply allows Love to flow through it unencumbered by egoic needs. It was a very lovely experience. Then I thought about a time when he was very young. We were visiting with a friend of mine who had children. All the kids were playing and we adults were talking. I decided to go to the store for something and got in the car to leave.

As I was driving away, I glanced at the rear view mirror and saw that child running as hard as he could to catch up with me. I felt a flash of guilt and then immediately projected it onto him. I thought, “Couldn’t I even go to the store without that child?” I stopped for him and told him that I was coming right back and he could stay and play but, of course, he wouldn’t let go of me. My guilt could not let me look at how badly I had scared him, so I became angry.

My idea was to send Love to Scott at this time in his life to heal what I was unable to cope with as a young woman. What I discovered is that I could not do it because I was still so caught up in the guilt of the moment. I had never forgiven myself for that moment and so my guilt and need to be forgiven was clogging up the conduit. So instead of directing Love to Scott, I directed it to that young inexperienced mom that I used to be. At first I didn’t feel anything, and when I asked Holy Spirit what to do, He gave me the idea that I needed to return in feeling to that moment.

I really didn’t want to do that. It was not my best moment and I felt ashamed. But the idea of being able to forgive and to heal both Scott and myself motivated me to do this. I went right back to that time and felt everything as if it were happening right now. The difference is that I was also the compassionate watcher.

I felt all the emotions, the fear of not knowing how to be a mom, the guilt at doing so badly at the job, and I saw the moment when I chose the ego solution of projection. I felt all the anger and frustration of being a mother and saw it as the child’s fault. I sent Love to that young woman and in sending Love, I forgave her in my mind. The shame I felt before was replaced by compassion. It was a very emotional moment.

Once I had cleared that old grievance against myself I was able to direct Love to Scott. It flowed freely and this time the tears were tears of joy. I continued doing this process for awhile using different times in Scott’s life when memory suggested it would be appropriate. It makes a great five minute Christ meditation. Healing in this way feels like expressing myself as Christ. I did a lot of self forgiveness as well, a lot of releasing of the past. I am going to do more.

I wondered if it made any difference to the Scott I know now, and once that would have been a big thing to me because of the guilt I was carrying around about how I raised him. But without that guilt which had melted away with the forgiveness I was able to hear the Holy Spirit assure me that the gift of healing was waiting for Scott. He would accept it when he was ready.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Denial

Yesterday I was studying The Way of Mastery with a friend and we were talking about denial. So many times as Course students we fall into the trap of denying what we know is not ultimate truth. I know that personality is not ultimately real and who I am so when someone is talking about a book on personality types I shy away thinking it is just reinforcing the ego thought system. This is really just the ego joining me in my spiritual study bringing fear into it. But I like most students have done this sort of thing. I get sick and I say I can’t really be sick because I am not a body and Course students don’t believe in sickness. Well, ultimately I am not a body but right now I am having the experience of a body and that body might be sick. Anyway, I woke up with some clarity about that this morning and sent my friend an email with my thoughts. I am pasting that email here.

Thinking about our talk yesterday I wanted to add that there is a distinct difference in being aware of the personality that I have chosen to experience, and believing that I am that personality. Tom Hanks played a mob killer and he did it very well because he allowed himself to get into the role. He felt the way a killer feels, he acted like one, for awhile he immersed himself in the role and became that killer. But when he was through with the role, he shrugged all those feeling off and went on as himself until he took up another role. If he had felt guilty for playing that role and refused to fully be the killer he would not be a good actor. And acting like a killer did not make him a killer.

This is precisely what is happening to me. I am immersed in the character, Myron. I am doing this because I want to. I chose this character out of my perfect freedom. I am not afraid of playing this character and not in denial about the personality or anything else about the character including having a body with all the experiences that come with having a body. If the body is sick I am not going to feel guilty for being sick. If Myron is experiencing emotional upset I am not going to feel guilty or deny the emotional upset but go through the feelings.

I am learning something from this experience of being a personality or of being sick.I am learning what it means to be separate and I am deciding if I want to continue in this state. I would rob myself of this learning situation if I denied I was having it. When I am through with this part I will remove my attention from the character and like a soap opera character, Myron will be killed off or pass away in some suitably dramatic means. And I will go on as I was created, probably choosing another character to play or maybe watching myself in a repeat performance if I need to.

The important thing for me to remember is that I am not the character, Myron, and am unaffected by this brief performance. I remain as I was created. When I choose to remember this all the time, I will be an awakened Christ. I can choose to walk the earth as an awakened Christ, perfectly aware of my true identity and aware of everyone else’s. Then I won’t be fooled by all the other players. When they play the part of jerk, it won’t make me angry because I will know they are just playing a part and doing the same thing I did; using it to wake up. Won’t that be cool!

I was a little out of it yesterday and couldn’t get my mind around what I wanted to say. Probably because I was distracted by the plumbers and I realized later that day that I had forgotten to take my estrogen. My lead character is very dependent on magical means to stay sane. This is a helpful bit because I get to see what that form of separation creates and the evidence against separation piles up. It’s all rather funny when I think about it. Then I get caught up in the story again and forget it is funny.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Holding it Loosely

I’ve been studying ACIM for a long time, 25 years or so. Now I am beginning to see that the joke is on me. How can something so simple require 25 years of study?  It all seems to boil down to a few simple things. I am not what I seem. I am still as God created me. So is everyone else. We are all innocent. I forgive the world for what I thought it was, I forgive you for what you did not do, I forgive myself.

Now it did require 25 years and counting of practice. But now that I understand the simplicity of it I can practice without so much anxiety and without the guilt I imposed on myself in the past. I just notice my errors, realize they do not make me guilty, just mistaken. I am still innocent and I am still as God created me. And, the more I notice these errors the less they show up in my life. Who would have thought it could be this simple?

What I am also becoming aware of is that there is not a certain way to do this. It is sooo ego the way many of us grab hold of a certain way of studying the Course and declare everyone else as wrong. This person sees himself as a Robert Perry student, and that one as a Kenneth Wapnick student. One person sees the world through David Hoffmeister’s eyes and someone else thinks that Gary Renard has all the answers. This group only reads the first edition and that group sticks with the Urtext, and many think their version is the only “legitimate” one. This is pretty funny when you think about it. Jesus sent us a book to help us realize that there is only wholeness and unity and so in typical fashion we divide up into opposing groups to study it.

I think a problem I had is that I wanted every word to be mathematically correct. I wanted to study each word until I had squeezed the truth out of it. I wanted to think my way through the Course. But more and more I am understanding that I was wrong. I am learning to put aside my ego thinking and just allow the truth to make itself known to me. I cannot think my way to the truth. I can’t figure it out or find a formula that gets me there. I left the Catholic church because of its rules and its smothering structure, and then I tried to turn the Course into its replacement; different form, same objections.

I look at how my fellow students go about their own awakening process and each one is valid even though it is different. I don’t really believe you need any book or any special process to do this. I found it helpful, but it isn’t a requirement.  Now I am reading and listening to The Way of Mastery. It isn’t important that I do so and I don’t need anyone else to read it in order to validate my experience. Thank you God for that sign of growth! I don’t need to read it or practice it in the way Jeshua suggests, but I do it because it simply makes my heart sing.

I don’t have any reason for writing this except that I am learning to hold it all very loosely and it feels good. I just wanted to share.

 

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Forgiveness is the Only Gift I Give.

The more I do these lessons the more I see that each one offers me salvation if I choose to fully accept it. This one reminds me that forgiveness is all that I want and I can have it by giving it. If I did only this on a consistent basis, I would awaken from the dream. How could I not? It took me twenty six years to really understand what forgiveness is. Not because it is so hard to understand, but because I didn’t want it to be true. To understand that forgiveness undoes the idea that someone else is responsible and to blame, and that always I am only forgiving myself, was not a welcome realization.

Now that I am willing to be completely responsible for everything in my life, now that I am willing to let everyone and everything off the hook and see the world and my brothers as innocent, it all seems so simple and self evident that I cannot kid myself about it being a difficult concept to understand. It was just a hard concept to accept as true. Now that I have I am greatly relieved because I see the infinite value of being responsible. I see the power that it takes to create the illusion that the Son of God is powerless, so I know I hold the power within my mind to undo the belief and so undo its effects.

I no longer sit in my victimhood praying for someone to rescue me from what others have done to me. Now I find the whole idea of doing so completely insane. Thank you, God, for that clarity! It is not like discovering some great elusive truth so much as it is like suddenly opening my eyes and seeing what was always right before me. That I receive what I give has been the same journey. I accepted the idea as being true, but it was meaningless to me for such a long time. Sure I understood the words and understood the meaning of each individual word, but when you put it together into a sentence, you lost me.

I have to laugh at myself now that I have finally accepted the obvious truth. There is only one Son of God, and we are It. I give only to myself because there is no one else to give to. What is so hard to understand about that? Obviously I did not want to accept that I am not special. I needed you to be different from me because that was the only way I could appear special. How could I be special if we were all the same? And if we are different, separate, then it is impossible to understand that as I give to you, I give to myself. This is why for so long, I stubbornly refused to open my eyes and see what was right in front of me.

Now that I have seen the truth I first feel like crying at the wasted time (thank God I am eternal and so that doesn’t matter, and anyway time is an illusion). Then I feel like laughing in joy to see that I am not surrounded by strangers, but by my beloved brothers all of whom are part of my One Self. These are the same ones who just recently were seen as enemy and competitor and cause of all my grief, but no longer. It is a simple and natural thing to think first, “How can I be helpful?” when I recognize my brother is myself and my Love.

So what is left to do? As I sit here in the solitude of this hotel room all is calm and peaceful. When I leave, the world we have created to distract us from the truth begins its job and I get distracted! I start off with the idea that the one before me is my brother/my self, and before you know it, the ego part of my mind is insisting this guy is trying to steal my peace. And for a little while I am again warring with my brother, completely forgetting I war only with myself. But wait! It is different now because I know something I didn’t know before, and soon I am asking the Holy Spirit to help me see this differently.

This is what is left for me to do. I need to practice the truth. I need to forgive and forgive and forgive until I no longer choose anything but the truth. When I first accepted the truth I was so disappointed to find out that there was more to do. I just couldn’t believe how easily I gave up my peace as soon as I let my guard down, and I went through a period of real depression because I didn’t see how I was ever going to do this. Everyone and everything seemed to elicit a reaction from me and that elicited guilt which just made it all the worse. But I kept at it and now, instead of being upset that I have temporarily forgotten my identity, I am glad for the opportunity to look at and forgive error once more, knowing that this practice brings us closer to our truth. Now even my mistakes have gained great value for me as I see they are not sins but merely opportunities for remembering.

Thank you, Holy Spirit, for being the ever present Voice for God within me. Thank you, Jesus, my brother, for overcoming the world so that I could know it can be done. And thank you for not abandoning what you started and for being with me always. Thank You for creating me holy, and perfect and unassailable. Thank you for extending Yourself and so making me like You. Thank You for loving me always.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Self Imprisonment

I have been upset about something happening in my life. The details are not important because I really do see they are just symbolic of all the little dramas that I participate in. One drama is truly no different from the next one except in form. Sometimes, a drama comes along and I watch it for a few minutes, give it to Holy Spirit and go on as if nothing had happened which is exactly true; nothing happened. But sometimes, like now, I hold onto the drama and suffer awhile. After it is over and I have finally released it, I wonder why I did that. But while it is going on, I can’t remember how to get free of it, or seem unable to make that decision to do so. This used to be frightening to me because I thought it meant that somehow, maybe I really could not let go. If it was up to me and yet I was the one resisting, I was doomed. Circular ego thinking would keep me trapped longer. But over time, after watching this happen many times, I now understand that eventually I will come around to sane thinking because I can only stand so much pain.

I was talking to the Holy Spirit about this particular drama this morning and asking Him why I could not get lose from this, and what I needed to do. In my mind I saw myself standing behind bars, clutching them in a white knuckled grip, longing to be on the other side. The Holy Spirit told me to look to the right, and I saw the bars ended within a few feet. He told me to look to the left, and again the bars ended. They were connected to nothing above or below. The only way they remained upright was that I was holding them in place. The reason I was holding on so tightly was to keep the bars in place. As long as I looked straight ahead at my drama, and did not glance in any other direction, I was able to keep the illusion of being a victim in place.

I asked the Holy Spirit why I do this. He reminded me that just this morning He had guided me to read something that He had given Regina. It said:

You may ask why you would choose the pain of resistance when you could experience peace. The answer is simple and one I am sure you have not overlooked. You choose resistance because you choose not to know fully that which you are. Resistance serves your choice to know yourself not as you are.

Even now, I seem reluctant to let the bars go, and the Holy Spirit gave me a thought that I have invested a lot of time in this victim stance. I have gotten pretty comfortable in my suffering. But I remain both prisoner and jailer so it is up to me to make a new choice.

As I sat in silence listening to the Voice for God, I received another reminder; I am the ruler of my kingdom, I created this situation and it is good. It has brought me right to this moment that shows me what it is like to experience imprisonment, and it allows me to see that as easily as I did that, I can experience freedom. Both are in the kingdom of my mind. Which do I choose? I am the maker of all that I experience.

Acceptance of all that is, just as it is, allows all the resistance to melt away. I feel the knot in my stomach loosen; I feel the muscles in my jaw unclench. I no longer look at my creation (my drama) as something bad that I need to fight my way out of. It is perfect and brings me the gift of release. How can I release the energy of fear if I do not know I hold it, or why would I want to if I do not realize how painful it is? By experiencing it in a way that I can see and feel I recognize it as something that I do not want to choose again. And if I forget this lesson, I will set up another one to remind myself of what I no longer want. I could never be the victim of the world I see, but to know this is true, I must be willing to take full responsibility for everything that is happening in my life. And just on the other side of this acceptance is freedom.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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My Self is Ruler of the Universe.

While I may sometimes wish that my life is someone else’s fault, I know this is not true. And really, I only wish to abdicate responsibility briefly because I understand that I can do something about it if I am responsible. As always, the only solution to every seeming problem is to choose the Holy Spirit as my teacher. Holy Spirit, I feel like I understand this lesson and accept it. Is there anything you care to share with me about this?

Dear one, be very vigilant for the subtle ways the ego mind would have you place responsibility outside yourself. Be very vigilant for signs of guilt when you notice these moments. Guilt is not a helpful response. Notice your thoughts and release them. Think of guilt as holding tightly to what you don’t want.

The thing to remember always is that you are the source of your experience. This is always true and there are no exceptions. While your experience is comfortable for you it is easy to think about this. When you are feeling physically ill or when the bank account is low, or when the children are in trouble and you are feeling helpless to do anything, the ego will argue that you did not do this.

Ah Holy Spirit, I am thinking about last night when I was playing with the baby and thinking that it would be most inconvenient if I were to get her cold right now. That thought indicates it would be out of my control, that something outside me could be my cause.

Yes, those are the thoughts to watch for. There is nothing outside your holy mind, so how could something outside you give you anything. Remember that you are seeking to master your thoughts, not control your world. Watch closely as the world shows you a picture of your thoughts. Be always certain that if it is in your awareness it is your responsibility. If what you see is not a reflection of truth, acknowledge and release. I cannot take from you what you value and want to keep, but I will always purify those thoughts which you give to me.

Holy Spirit, where my mind balks is when I think of those things in my awareness but outside my immediate control, like what is happening in Iraq and when my child is having a problem. It is hard to understand what to do about any of that.

Precious child, the confusion you experience is caused from being uncertain who you are. It is so easy yet, for you to forget that you are the Christ, because you are not experiencing yourself as the Christ. You most often still feel like you are Myron, that you are a single body living among many other single separated bodies on a planet in a solar system. When you make this mistake, you feel very small and very helpless which is exactly what you want to feel when you identify with the ego. The ego is the thought of separation and separation is the thought of helplessness and hopelessness. But it is, in the end, only a thought, and it is a lie.

Within the thought of the body it is the delusion that you have control even over your immediate environment. Remember that control is a reaction to fear. It is not control that is the goal, nor is it the environment that is the problem. What is happening in Iraq is your responsibility because it mirrors the conflict in your mind. The same is true of what happens in the lives of your children. The ego would run around trying to influence politicians. The ego would be frantically seeking solutions to everyone’s problems. Of course this would ultimately fail and the ego would have proven the point that you are helpless and hopeless.

There is only one place that you can make a change because there is only one place where the problem exists. Look within your mind for the source of all things. The war in Iraq is simply showing you that you hold the energy of conflict within your mind. Forgive yourself for doing so. Forgive the idea of conflict and you will know it is a lie. Do not confuse that with making the war stop in Iraq. Your responsibility is to make it stop in your mind, and even in that is your responsibility limited to noticing the need to do so, being willing to release all value you have in conflict, and allowing me to heal your mind.

You may at first think it is a simple matter to release all value in conflict, but you are heavily invested in this idea.  However, if you make the decision to change your mind, the opportunities for looking at conflict will arise before you and you will be given a chance to see differently. Choose to be aware of them and not to push the thought aside. Each time you want to push the thought of conflict out of your awareness understand that this is your attempt to keep conflict. This is the result of placing value in conflict.

If you choose not to look at the conflict in your life it is because you still think you might need it one day. When you notice this happening, simply be aware. Do not allow your mind to succumb to the ego desire for guilt. Choosing not to look is just another thought and you can see this differently, too.

Thank you, Holy Spirit for helping me to see this. I am willing to release conflict. I am willing to take total responsibility for everything in my awareness. I trust that I will be given the opportunities that I am ready for and that will be most helpful to my awakening.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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