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Gentle Healing Lesson 171, Text, Manual for Teachers. 10-24-19

Lesson 171
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1 (151) All things are echoes of the Voice for God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

I was guided to look at the power of decision again and was further guided to review how it is I make decisions. This is from Rules for Decisions in Chapter 30.

Paragraph 14 on page 628 of the Text popped out at me. It says, ” We said you can begin a happy day with the determination not to make decisions by yourself. This seems to be a real decision in itself. And yet, you cannot make decisions by yourself. The only question really is with what you choose to make them. That is really all. The first rule, then, is not coercion, but a simple statement of a simple fact. You will not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For they are made with idols or with God. And you ask help of anti-Christ or Christ, and which you choose will join you and tell you what to do.”

And paragraph 16 on page 628 popped out at me too. It says, “The second rule as well is but a fact. For you and your advisor must agree on what you want before it can occur. It is but this agreement that permits all things to happen. Nothing can be caused without some form of union, be it with a dream of judgment or the Voice for God. Decisions cause results because they are not made in isolation. They are made by you and your adviser, for yourself and for the world as well. The day you want you offer to the world, for it will be what you have asked for, and will reinforce the rule of your adviser in the world. Whose kingdom is the world for you today? What kind of day will you decide to have?”

The lesson tells us in no uncertain terms and with no comprise that whatever is in our lives is there because we decided on it. In the Text he is explaining how we make the decision. We make it in union, either with the ego or the Holy Spirit. There is no other option. We do not make decisions on our own no matter what we tell ourselves to the contrary.

Here is an example. How is it that loss shows up in my life? Who would want that? Who would decide for loss? We did. We decided to show up as bodies that die. We then decided that when someone’s body dies, it means they die and we will suffer their loss. On two levels we made that decision, on the level of manifestation and on the level of interpretation. Neither death nor loss are in God, so we must have made those decisions with the ego.

Text
X. the Time of Rebirth, P 9
9 You will not succeed in being partial hostage to the ego, for it keeps no bargains and would leave you nothing. Nor can you be partial host to it. You must choose between total freedom and total bondage, for there are no alternatives but these. You have tried many compromises in the attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision you must make. And yet it is the recognition of the decision, just as it is, that makes the decision so easy. Salvation is simple, being of God, and therefore very easy to understand. Do not try to project it from you and see it outside yourself. In you are both the question and the answer; the demand for sacrifice and the peace of God.

Journal
This decision to be part ego and a part spirit has never worked and is not ever going to work. We live an illusion of a life and we suffer. We tell ourselves that when we die, then we will be spirit but then we wind up back here trying again and suffering again. We try all sorts of compromises. We become religious and at least once a week for an hour or so we give ourselves to God. Or spiritual, and we spend at least some of our time as seekers without ever really becoming a finder. All to keep from making a decision for God. But nothing we do brings us perfect joy or unending peace, and we wind up suffering after all.

What are we clinging to? What is so valuable that we cannot bear to give it up? What are we so afraid of? I think there is nothing to be afraid of but it is the fear that this is not true that keeps us sitting on this uncomfortable fence. We say we are afraid of God, but I wonder about that. Perhaps the real fear is in giving up what we made to take His place. We have convinced ourselves that this separate self with its endless stories is what we are and that to give it up would be annihilation.

We are afraid that we would be asked to give up our very life and everything that makes us what we are. But what we would actually be giving up is what we are not, so that we could embrace what We are. We are going to have to eventually get off that fence and choose reality. Why not sooner than later? Why continue to suffer when we could be living in continuous bliss? There is no compromise in this. We must choose and we will, in the end, choose God. So, again, why wait?

Manual for Teachers
2. WHO ARE THEIR PUPILS?

1 Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God’s teachers, and they will begin to look for him as soon as he has answered the Call. They were chosen for him because the form of the universal curriculum that he will teach is best for them in view of their level of understanding. His pupils have been waiting for him, for his coming is certain. Again, it is only a matter of time. Once he has chosen to fulfill his role, they are ready to fulfill theirs. Time waits on his choice, but not on whom he will serve. When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him. 

I find it very comforting to know that as a teacher of God, my students are being sent to me. I need do nothing to find them. It’s not up to me to decide if they are ready for what I offer. I don’t have to worry that I won’t have what they need. If they have been sent to me, I can be sure that we are perfectly matched for a learning/teaching situation.

Again, Jesus reminds us that as we teach we learn when he says, “When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him.”  My experience has proven this to me. I am very grateful to each and every teaching/learning opportunity that is given to me.

Since I was ordained, I have had numerous students and opportunities to teach, but Holy Spirit began sending me students before I even knew I had answered a call or even that there was a call to answer. They would come right out of the blue.

My spiritual life had slowly begun to expand outside the perimeters of traditional religion. Holy Spirit started me off slowly by sending some simple books my way. One of the first I read was a book about Edgar Cayce. That was pretty radical stuff for me back then. It was important because it was a gentle way for me to begin to consider that things are not always what they seem.

Then a book about life after life came my way and I opened to even more to possibilities. I had just finished reading this book when I received my first teaching opportunity, or at least the first one that I was aware of. I was driving a taxicab in Houston, Texas at the time. When my fare got into the cab that morning he was at first quiet, then struck up a conversation, and immediately began telling me about a near-death experience he had. It was strange, almost like he was just waiting for the chance to tell me about this.

This man, whose name I never got, had surgery some time back and “died” on the table. They revived him and he had a very vivid memory of his death experience. When he finished telling me about it, he confessed that he had never shared this experience with anyone because he was afraid of being judged. There was only one book out about this kind of thing at that time and it was not as accepted as it is now. He asked me what I thought about what happened to him and what did I think it meant.

I told him about the book I had just finished and suggested he get hold of a copy. I told him I believed him and I don’t know if I said much of anything else, but he left my cab more relieved than when he got in, and he now had a resource that could help him learn more if he wanted to. I was just a bit astounded by the whole thing. Why did he tell me that? How was it that I was one of the few people he would speak to that day that would understand?

At the time this happened, I didn’t know about the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know about being a teacher of God, or that once we put our foot on this path opportunities would unfold before us without our effort. I did feel wonder that it happened and gratitude that somehow, I managed to be helpful. I felt a deep satisfaction that only in retrospect did I understand. It seemed a small teaching, but he needed the only thing I could give him, and so it was perfect.

The second teaching opportunity came within a year or so, and I had joined a Unity church by this time and was a tiny bit less clueless than before. I was working in an ad agency and a man came in to look over our stock and started a conversation with me. He quickly began telling me things about his life and I knew he wanted me to help him figure it out.

I didn’t have a clue what to say, but something in me caused me to ask God for words. I think I was very helpful to him. If he was surprised, I was even more surprised. I had never had the experience of teaching myself as I taught someone else. I didn’t know where the words came from, well, from God of course, but I didn’t know, up until that moment, that this could happen.

We don’t need to think about how we are going to be used and we don’t need to understand anything that happens. We just need to show up with a willingness to be used by the Holy Spirit.

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