Together, We Light the Way

Gentle Healing Lesson 128, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-18-19

LESSON 128
The world I see holds nothing that I want.


“All things you seek to make your value greater in your sight limit you further.”

“Let nothing that relates to body thoughts delay your progress to salvation,”

“letting go all thought of values we have given to the world”

“We hold it purposeless within our minds”

I think I agree that the world holds nothing I want and yet, here I am. So what is it that I still want from the world? I am given clues throughout this lesson. When I try to do something that gives me greater value in the world. This could be how I look. Or it could be how people view me and how I view myself as a teacher, a minister, a parent. So much of that I have released. Some I still cling to but I loosen my hold on it every day.

What body thoughts am I interested in? I want to be healthy, slim -  well, slimmish. I want certain bodies in my life and others not to be there. I think that it is better to have one of those bodies near me than not, as if I could ever be alone when I am one with all that exists. That I can understand this concept but not feel it means that I am more identified with the body than with the spirit. I am willing for this to not be true anymore.

What values and what purpose have I given the world? I don’t know, really. I sometimes think about how I would feel if I had a sudden heart attack and lay there dying. What would I miss? What would I wish to experience one more time? The answer to those questions would help me to know the value and purpose I have given the world.

I think I would long to see and touch my children one more time. I would long to say I love you to them, to hug them. I would regret not seeing my grandchildren smile at me. I might give a thought to wishing I had taken the time to put my thoughts into a book I could leave behind. I don’t have a beloved pet, nor do I care much for nature. I have no interest in fame or wealth. So nothing to regret there.

I notice that now I am getting older and closer to saying goodbye to this world, I do feel a pang of regret for never again, in this life at least, experiencing the love of a man. That kind of surprised me. I thought of past relationships and of the happy moments in them and felt sad not to do that again, not sad enough to go for it, but just a little grief for lost opportunity.

As I look at this writing, I think that I don’t have a lot to release before I can say that the world holds nothing that I want. I think that not needing much from the world makes what I do have even better because there is no clinginess to it. Without need, there is no fear of loss so there is only pleasure in the moment and then moving onto the next moment.

Regina’s Tips

One way to let go of our value in the world and increase our desire for awakening is to let tragedy strike so that we are disillusioned by the world. However, today’s workbook lesson offers a gentler solution:

“Pause and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world, when you release your mind from chains and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home.”

I told you that spiritual practice itself motivates me to spiritual practice. That is the gentler method that is recommended by the Course. Practice awareness-watching-awareness anyway, even if you do not think you are ready to let go of the world, and the practice itself will prepare you for awakening.

My Thoughts
This is the method I want, to be still and let my mind be healed by the Holy Spirit. I am determined to do this. I know that the Self is going to bring me to awakening and it will do so by whatever means are necessary. I prefer to choose the gentle way rather than relying on tragedy to impel me toward awakening.

Regina also quotes Michael Langford as saying that ultimately all things disappear, the world, the universe, the galaxies. I noticed that there was a reaction in me. Is Infinite-Eternal-Awareness-Love-Bliss enough? What will we do? That is the ego in my mind worrying about being bored with nothing to do, nothing to see. I’m not too concerned about that. By the time I get to this part, I will have discovered what being has to offer. Right now, I will concern myself with letting go of the belief that my body size and shape matter. ~smile~

Manual for Teachers
In releasing the judgmental thought, I am teaching myself that I want to let go of the desire to judge.

Today, I am asking the Holy Spirit to bring these judgments to my attention, and when He does so, I am fully committed to accepting correction for my errors. I don’t want to add to the misery we suffer as we keep these thoughts in our mind. I want to do this with enthusiasm and with joy knowing that I am helping us all awaken through my efforts. Letting go of the desire to judge will bring us all to the peace of God. It might seem like work to be vigilant, but the most important element in this decision is the unequivocal desire for freedom from the burden of judging. As Jesus says, “Can it be difficult to want but this?”

Text
Christ is in me, and where He is God must be, for Christ is part of Him. 9.I: 14

God’s Will is already possible. We don’t have to do anything to make that true; it simply is. All we have to do to experience reality is to accept it. We accept reality when we stop trying to make it something else. We distort reality when we believe the ego thoughts in our mind. When we forgive those thoughts we reveal the truth and know reality.

When we believe the ego thoughts we suffer because when we distort reality, we feel like we are trying to make ourselves unreal. This sense of unreality leads to depression, anxiety and ultimately panic. Jesus says when this happens we should not look beyond ourselves for truth, but to look within. He doesn’t mean to look within at the ego thoughts to make sense of things, but to look within for the Christ, for God. That is where we find reality.

In our confusion it is hard to believe that Christ is in us and that if Christ is in us, God must also be in us. But this is what Jesus is telling us. Our true nature, our reality is that we are in God and God is in us. We cannot lose ourselves, but can only lose the awareness of our Self. This reality can go nowhere and can not be changed. It remains as it was created. But to not know it is to suffer.

This is why we are here where we are now, studying A Course in Miracles, following our path Home. We are awakening to this truth, to reality. Every day when I pick up the Course and read my paragraph, I ask within for guidance. I ask for clarity. I ask that I be led Home through these words and through the experience of these words.

I am looking at a book, but it is a book we wrote with Jesus, and as I read it, I am not asking anyone else what it means. I am looking within to the Truth that is in my mind, the Truth that was placed there for this purpose. As I hear the Voice for God, the memory of my Self returns to me.

Sometimes I find a dark unexplored corner in my mind and briefly I am afraid. I wonder if the truth is true or if I am crazy to believe this stuff I read in the Course, but what I cannot deny, what is indisputable is the Voice that speaks to me. That Voice is always there, gentle but convincing.

It gives me Its thoughts, thoughts I cannot find in the ego thinking mind. I hear that Voice and I hear it within me, and I know I am not the ego self. I know I am part of the Christ Mind. And if Christ is in me, then God, Which is in Christ, is also in me. I can rest in that knowledge and be at peace. That is the reality, the only reality.

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