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Gentle Healing Lesson 167, Text, Manual for Teachers. 9-30-19

LESSON 167
There is one life, and that I share with God.

“There is no death because what God created shares His Life. There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist. There is no death because the Father and the Son are one.”

“Death cannot come from life. Ideas remain united to their source.”

What all this is telling me so far is that death in all its forms cannot be real because I have not separated from my Source and I cannot be different than my Source. So, if I think I am sick or suffering in any way, I must be dreaming because it cannot happen. The solution to death and the effects of believing in death, is to remember who I am and where I exist. Once again, all ideas of suffering are the result of not believing that I am as I was created. God is Life and therefore so am I and Life cannot be death. As Jesus says, “As they were born, so will they then give birth. And where they come from, there will they return.”

“The mind can think it sleeps, but that is all. It cannot change what is its waking state. It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body. What is alien to the mind does not exist, because it has no source. For mind creates all things that are, and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state. It cannot make the physical. What seems to die is but the sign of mind asleep.”

This paragraph is very important. It is from reading this that I realized that not only am I not this body, I am not in this body. I am dreaming of bodies. This changes everything. It is the reason that very often now I can be at peace even when the dream has taken on a nightmarish quality. I can often watch while people I love seem to suffer and not be afraid for them. They are safe because they are among the Sons of God and danger does not exist in them. Yes, I am still a mind asleep and sometimes I get caught in the dream and forget the truth, but I also have periods of time now when the dream is lucid and I understand what is happening. Jesus says that mind is mind, awake or sleeping. I am not what I seem to make while I believe I sleep.

“God creates only mind awake.”

What this means is that I cannot create a mind asleep because I can only create as God creates. He did not give me mind asleep and so I cannot create mind asleep. He did not create death and so I cannot die or live death thoughts. I can only dream these things. And then Jesus says something else interesting. He says:

“Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly, but yet within themselves, for they are everywhere.”

This give me an inkling of what we are. I am among the Thoughts of God. I have the power to extend forever changelessly. I am everywhere. Holy cow! When something like this comes into my awareness, I feel my heart expand and love overcome me. Sometimes it leaks out of me as tears of joy and I think I remember something of this though I cannot envision it. But it also scares me just a little and the fear closes off my heart. It’s OK, though, because it always comes back.

“It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was.”

And this passage evokes tears of relief and gratitude and I know this is true. I don’t remember it but I have absolutely no doubt that it is true and I long to return to that awakened state.

Regina’s Tips
Today’s workbook lesson defines death as an idea, and nothing more. It says this idea “underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy.” That is because happiness is a natural characteristic of life aware of itself. Whenever we are not supremely happy, our attention is distracted from our truth as life.

Let’s practice in this way today. Whenever you notice that you are not happy, take these steps:
1 – Look briefly to get some clarity regarding the specific feeling of unhappiness. (e.g., In the example above, the unhappiness was specifically a feeling of loss.)

2 – Look at the specific feeling, and notice it is a form of the wish for something different. You might ask yourself, “Do I think I would be happier if this was different than it is?” If the answer is yes, it is the wish for something different.

3 – Shift your attention to notice and appreciate awareness-life-presence for a few moments. During this time, let go of your thoughts about the situation related to your unhappiness. Give full, restful attention to noticing awareness-life-presence as it is.

4 – Next, look with reason to see if the specific feeling of unhappiness is a fact that was noticed in awareness-life-presence or just a thought in the mind. (For example, if the feeling is rejection, is there any rejection found in awareness-life-presence or is awareness-life-presence the same as it always is? If the specific feeling is guilt, is there any guilt found in awareness-life-presence? Etcetera.)

5 – With the recognition that there was no affect on awareness-life-presence, say to yourself, “There is one life, and that I share with God.”

Text
X. the Time of Rebirth, P 5
T-15.X.5. It is not necessary to follow fear through all the circuitous routes by which it burrows underground and hides in darkness, to emerge in forms quite different from what it is. 2 Yet it is necessary to examine each one as long as you would retain the principle that governs all of them. 3 When you are willing to regard them, not as separate, but as different manifestations of the same idea, and one you do not want, they go together. 4 The idea is simply this: You believe it is possible to be host to the ego or hostage to God. 5 This is the choice you think you have, and the decision you believe that you must make. 6 You see no other alternatives, for you cannot accept the fact that sacrifice gets nothing. 7 Sacrifice is so essential to your thought system that salvation apart from sacrifice means nothing to you. 8 Your confusion of sacrifice and love is so profound that you cannot conceive of love without sacrifice. 9 And it is this that you must look upon; sacrifice is attack, not love. 10 If you would accept but this one idea, your fear of love would vanish. 11 Guilt cannot last when the idea of sacrifice has been removed. 12 For if there is sacrifice, someone must pay and someone must get. 13 And the only question that remains is how much is the price, and for getting what.

Journal
What I understand now about fear is that no matter what form it takes, it is just the belief in fear. I still look at the forms as they show up in my life, but I don’t try to figure anything out. I used to try to see where that fear started. Was it when I was a child or maybe in a past life something happened that planted that fear in my mind? But now, I know that doesn’t matter.

The only time the belief in fear can be healed is right now and it is not done through therapy or understanding of the fear. It is done as I realize that fear is not real and is just a sensation in my body that occurs with the belief in it. Situations might trigger fear, but the fear was already there or there would be nothing to trigger. I have to decide to believe the truth, and that truth is that no matter what happens in the story, I am safe because I am innocent. I am as God created me.

4 The idea is simply this: You believe it is possible to be host to the ego or hostage to God.
This is why we don’t feel safe. We believe that God is not on our side, that he wants sacrifice from us. I can remember as a child trying to bargain with God. I would make outlandish promises to him if he would do some good thing for me. I believed that he did not particularly want me to have a good thing, either because he was not especially interested in my wellbeing or because I was not deserving of it.

Perhaps that is why I started studying the Course. Maybe there was still some of that frightened little girl in me that thought all this work was the sacrifice God wants of me in order to give me a good and happy life. But to be happy I had to grow up. I had to realize that the study of the Course was not to placate an uncaring or angry God; it was to mature my mind and to show me how I was hurting myself so I could stop. God has never wanted my sacrifice.

7 Sacrifice is so essential to your thought system that salvation apart from sacrifice means nothing to you. 8 Your confusion of sacrifice and love is so profound that you cannot conceive of love without sacrifice.
I could read that God loves me all day but if I believe that love and sacrifice go together, I would never be able to trust God because I could not trust love and God is Love. I grew up with this confusion as did we all. I experienced it in Catholic school and I experienced it at home. The implication I got in both environments was that sacrifice was a commodity that I could trade for love.

My parents often used either fear or guilt to control my behavior. If I was a good girl, I was loved. I understand that kind of parenting. It comes from fear, but fear teaches fear and guilt teaches guilt and it all calls for sacrifice. When I was married sacrifice was an assumption of love. I did things he liked and he loved me. He did things I liked and I loved him.

We each had to sacrifice what we wanted in order to please the other. If the balance was disturbed so was the relationship. This kind of relationship is fear-based and this kind of tradeoff is not love. It is attack. 10 If you would accept but this one idea, your fear of love would vanish.

How can we love one another when there is so much sacrifice, fear, and guilt in our relationships? How can we even know what love is when we have added these unnecessary beliefs to love? We must let these ideas die a natural death as we do our forgiveness work and learn to give love for love’s sake instead of using our relationships as a way to get.

12 For if there is sacrifice, someone must pay and someone must get. 13 And the only question that remains is how much is the price, and for getting what.

Manual for Teachers
Introduction, Paragraph 4

4 This is inevitable. There is no escape from it. How could it be otherwise? Everyone who follows the world’s curriculum, and everyone here does follow it until he changes his mind, teaches solely to convince himself that he is what he is not. Herein is the purpose of the world. What else, then, would its curriculum be? Into this hopeless and closed learning situation, which teaches nothing but despair and death, God sends His teachers. And as they teach His lessons of joy and hope, their learning finally becomes complete.

What a relief it is to read in paragraph 4 that there is a way to break the cycle of teaching what is the cause of our suffering.
Into this hopeless and closed learning situation, which teaches nothing but despair and death, God sends His teachers.
Helen, through her willingness to do the work given her and thereby bringing A Course in Miracles into the world, is an outstanding example of this. Regina Dawn Akers, Nouk Sanchez, and others are examples of this. As I have studied and practiced the Course, I have accepted that my role is one of teacher, and so I am an example of this.

We all are teachers of God as we allow our mind to be healed, and to the degree to which we allow that healing. All of us reading this are at least sometimes teaching for God because our mind is at least partially healed through our practice and our willingness. And as we teach, in whatever way our curriculum leads us, our healing becomes more and more complete.

I want to be a more consistent teacher for God and so I am going to keep my reminder handy: My every word, thought and deed is teaching me and everyone else. Is this what I want to teach? I am going to be especially vigilant to notice what I am actually teaching others and myself.
It is not really hard to do this. Are my words and my thoughts congruent? Am I saying that I am at peace while I try to smother the anxiety I feel as I think time is slipping away from me? (I’m laughing because I couldn’t immediately think of an example or how to say this and so I asked
Holy Spirit for something, and I was surprised by that last sentence. Evidently, I had been hiding this from myself.)

So, let me rephrase that. Are my words and thoughts and feelings congruent? My feelings will often help me become aware of the belief that is the source of the thoughts, words, and actions. My words are not always the measure of what I am teaching myself. Holy Spirit, please help me stay aware of the beliefs that are driving my life so that I can ask for healing where needed.

I will remember my gratitude today that as I teach my lessons of joy and hope my learning is becoming complete. Thank you, God.

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