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Study of Manual for Teachers 7-30-12

7-30-12
8 O my brothers, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet Him where His altar is. Hallowed your Name and His, for they are joined here in this holy place. Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and to eternity; out of all fear and given back to love.

Obviously something has shifted for me. I see that Jesus is right when he tells us that we are innocent and that only what God created can be real. I see that guilt is not real, and neither is pain or fear or depression, shame, hate or any other of the effects of the belief in separation. This world is not real and the bodies with their personalities are not real. I see that I am not anything I thought I was, and that any word I use to describe me simply limits what I am. Suddenly I understand what it means to say, I am.

I am still aware of the ego thoughts in my mind. They are there when I wake up. I notice them throughout the day. They especially press in on me at the end of the day. Occasionally I am aware of a thought that I still believe. For instance, I talked about my fear of heights. So far I have not let that thought go. I have no idea why that is. My friend told me about her experience with that fear and how she was freed from it when she learned about a past life experience of falling to her death.

I wonder how this will unfold for me? The fear I feel when I think about being in high places is so intense that it is hard to believe it could ever just go away, and yet, fear is not real. I made it up. This means that it is only a thought away from ceasing to exist for me. A slight shift in perception and it disappears. For now I seem unwilling to allow that shift, but that’s all right. It will unfold as it must. I will be interested to see that happen.

Most of the thoughts that catch my attention do so only briefly. They are like old ideas that I have lost interest in coming back for another try. I will suddenly remember something mean I said to my mom when I was young and feel a twinge of guilt. I look at that guilt and it just fades away because I can’t sustain a belief in it. It’s not a matter of choosing not to be guilty for a certain thing, it is that guilt itself is an illusion. If there is no such thing as guilt then it cannot apply to anything said or done or thought. If it is not part of God then it cannot exist. God is not guilty.

The ego does not give up just because I see it for the charlatan it is. It keeps bringing me disturbing thoughts to see if I am interested in some of them.  It insists that I if I see a spiteful thought in my mind, this means I must be a spiteful person and so I must be guilty for that. That is so silly I cannot imagine why I used to believe it.

Thoughts don’t belong to me; they just exist in the mind until the idea of separation is let go. They do not reflect the truth about me or about anyone. These thoughts I lay on the altar for healing. Even if I feel no particular interest in them I bring them to Holy Spirit anyway. If a thought is in my awareness it is for me to heal.

The reason I was thinking about all this today is that my life is so much more peaceful and happy now. As I read today’s paragraph I can believe in it because I have experienced a significant shift in that direction and so I know it can happen, and I know how easy it is. In the past I would read these promises, these little glimpses into Heaven and they would be lovely words without a lot of impact. I simply could not imagine getting from here to there.

I felt too burdened by my accumulated guilt and the fear of the future. What must I do to atone for that guilty past? Surely I would be punished in some way and often. These beliefs pulled me so deeply into the illusion that I could not imagine ever clawing my way out of it. To be with God, a part of God? To be safe and perfectly peaceful and happy? It must be a trick to get me close enough to punish, the ego says. The ego doesn’t make sense, but it can be scary anyway.

Or if that one doesn’t work the ego says someday after enough hard work and endless hours of study; someday in another lifetime, I will wake up and things will be better. Read another book, travel to study with another teacher. Do another process. The reward is there, always just out of reach. Safely, out of reach. Because who wants to give up their self for something that may not even exist.

I believed all that and more. And yet, one day I saw it all for the nothing it is and everything changed. It all looks the same, but nothing is the same. I am innocent. I am still as God created me. I am one with my Creator. He loves me and will lean to me and lift me to Him. Oh my dear God, what that must be like!

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