A New Way to See

Story for Mom

I had the following thoughts come to me after reading the day’s lesson.
The ego is constantly planning for the future, for it’s protection. But this is a lie, for Love cannot attack, and Love has no plan for vengeance on me. What is forever untrue cannot be made true by sick dreams and ghost images.

I need only forgive my dreams that make an alien will appear real. I can forgive the idea of a will separate from God’s. I can forgive the idea that I am alone and homeless in a vicious world. I can forgive the idea that I have contaminated myself and made myself unfit to be in Love’s presence. I can forgive every unloving thought by taking it to H.S. If I see such an idea in my world, I can be certain it is coming from my mind, and can give it to H.S. for sure correction. I cannot do this on my own, but by telling Him I am willing and want a change of mind it is done. As I am willing to choose for Love, this is where my true power lies.

“Forgiveness is the only gift I give because it is the only gift I want.” [Lesson 297]
Everything I give I give to myself.
This idea is ignored by the ego system. Whatever I have lost or appear to lack in myself—is a lie. I can take theses ideas to H.S. too.

What comes to mind is the childhood I experienced. My parents were not expressive or demonstrative in affection. In my dream I made up situations that would “prove” that the idea I was not lovable were correct.
I learned that it was not appropriate to express feelings. If I would have come out and asked my mother why she did not love me, I’m sure she would have been shocked. Of course she loved me and my brother, but that was something that you didn’t talk about.

Thankfully, with my study of ACIM, I realized I held a grudge against my mother. I prayed for help to forgive the mistaken beliefs I had made up about her. After a month or so, I had a night dream that made the shift in my mind. Spirit showed me the truth. The next time that I talked with my mom over the phone, I asked Spirit to give me peace in place of impatience that I usually felt when she told me of happenings that I had no interest in. And peace I did receive. As the conversation ended, I told my mom that I loved her. There was a short silence—she was surprised by this expression of love—and she responded that she loved me too.

Spirit supplied the truth in a way that I could accept, and I am forever grateful for that healing. It became a blessing to tell my mom that I loved her. I would tell her silently as well as spoken aloud. I am grateful that I could express the thought, give her a hug, letting her mind know that she was innocent. In my mind, her mistakes were undone.  Thank you Spirit, thank you Mom.

 

 

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Fear Is Not Here

When I feel “badly” after noticing some ego thought popping up in my mind, even the slightest discomfort, is just more ego guilt. The ego trying to remind me that I am doing “it” wrong, because I am not following ACIM absolutely to the T.  The ego’s only option is to keep guilt and fear going, otherwise its gig is up, its tactics are revealed, and its cover is blown.

Some days I fall right back into the groove of the ego stories, other days are “better” when I give up some false idea to Holy Spirit for correction.
Some days as I open to Spirit’s insight I receive thoughts like the following:

Fear is not here unless I bring it with me. It is this I do when I cling to my past. For the ego system uses the past to define its justification for pain, attack and guilt. Then it proclaims that the future must be like the past, and makes the future full of fear. Is this what I want to teach and learn?

Holy Spirit would show me that the only time there is is Now. He will take my mistaken picture of myself and the world, and turn it around. Only my sick thoughts hold the past and bring it to the present. These are not thoughts that help or heal. These are not thoughts that I would keep.

I offer my desire to see things differently to Holy Spirit. I give up my meaning and make room in my mind for the truth that He gives. The seeming injustices of my life will fall away when I recognize they are meaningless. I will recognize that nothing was “done to me.”

I make a choice, and if necessary, choose again and again. I choose to let my past go. I choose to let Spirit show me what is real, giving up what is unreal. My dream is not valuable, but with the Guidance from Spirit this dream can serve a new purpose. A purpose to undo the dream of fear, and let the dream of forgiveness blossom in minds that appear to sleep. I am willing to have a dream of forgiveness replace my loveless dreams.  I am willing to see a happy dream.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Senseless Judging

What I am learning from ACIM, seems to come in thoughts like the following:

Whenever I have a judging thought about anyone, it is really a judging thought I hold about myself. It is a condemning thought, hurled outwards in the attempt to be “innocent” because I already think that I’m guilty. So any judging thought is a useless attempt to rid myself of guilt. If I understood that the guilt is not real, because I never left God, then there would be no more projection and no reason to hold onto guilt.

It is only the false mind that maintains guilt is real and cannot be ignored. If I choose to see my brothers as guiltless, then I will learn that I must be guiltless too. My brothers show me the way home, if I will let the Right Mind guide me through the illusions I have made. The illusions will never protect me or buy me salvation. The illusions are really nothing but my belief in them has made them seem solid and very real. I must choose to let go of what I think is true. I must choose to let everything be redefined for me, by the Voice for Love. This One Teacher holds the truth for me, and will always share it with me when I truly lay down my definitions, or thinking that I know what anything means.

I concede that my dream does not make me happy—for I feel I’m in constant fear or conflict. I feel that I allow no room for peace into my day and scurry about trying to find solutions and making ends meet. This dream of conflict and fear only brings me feelings of tiredness, defeat, aloneness, lack, and despair. All this comes from the choice to follow the ego and make it’s world—it’s dream the way I move and think. The ego arose from a false thought and anything coming from it is only false as well.

The Course also teaches me that: Now it is my simple task to stop using the body as a defense against Love, against the extension of Love. And begin to use the body as an instrument for Love. It means to simply let go and accept a new way to look at the dream world, a way that is given me by the one Teacher. The one way that shows that every son is the guiltless Son of God. This way to see, is looking past the forms to see the holiness (wholeness) of Love’s Creation. To use the body for a new purpose of extending Love, is the way I will remember that guilt is never real, never justified and wholly without meaning. I ask the Holy Spirit to show me the truth in each brother. It is with His shining the Light, that I will be able to look past the forms, to the truth. It is in loving my brothers, that I will be loving my Father, and that is what my Heart longs for.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Morning Reflections

It is only my illusions that I “see.” To me, my illusions are real, so I “live” in a world where the body is real and needs feeding, protection, and a source of money to supply it’s perceived needs.
If I do not follow the instructions for doing the Work Book lessons, it is because of fear to truly relinquish the identity of the body. I have played this game so “long” that I do not remember the truth. I do not remember that I am far more than a body. I am not an ego nor a personality housed in a body. If I gave up the identity with this “self” then what would I be?

Only as I’m willing to drop the thoughts that protect separation, will truth be revealed. My thoughts of illusion hide the thoughts of truth in my mind. A Judy Collin’s song comes to mind, the lyrics being: “It’s only illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds; love; life at all.”

I am my own magician, making illusion after illusion. How can I really take anything seriously? Nothing is gained or lost in illusions. Images cannot affect me, unless I direct them to do so. It is the unconscious belief (hidden thought) that directs the illusion, my dream. I am allowing the sleeping mind run the dream, project the illusions. I am lost in picture after picture of a past that gets projected onto the screen. The good news is this can be undone.
It is undone as I am willing to see something different, or a new picture in place of the past images. I need only stop being the “master” magician.

Since it is only my illusions that I “see,” that is why only forgiveness will free me. It is my forgiving my illusions that frees me. Is is in accepting that illusions are not real, and only come from my mind, that will free me. Any pain, or the flip side of the coin, pleasure I experience seems to make the illusion real, but still it’s not real. The senses of the body only maintain the illusion but never show reality. What is real, lies behind all the illusions. A loving mind is really hidden behind the illusions.

My Inner Guide will show me the pictures that lead to a happy dream, the perception of a loving world. He gently reveals that mistaken pictures have no meaning at all. What can this bring, but simple relief? Simple peace?
How important are my illusions to me? Do they mean more than the peace and love that is my inheritance? Waking up is not hard to do—but it is a process, and my Guide is forever shining the Light, forever loving me, and leading me in the true direction of Home. He shows me that forgiveness is simple, it is my choice that sets me free

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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One Voice

I was fortunate to be able to attend the Miracles Studies course at POL. We were given a little
extra assignment to do on our own time. We were to take one of the qualities found in the Manual for Teachers, and ask Spirit for more insight on how to use that quality in our life.

I had “honesty,” and what stood out to me was in the first paragraph, and sentence 4 of the second paragraph. I then sat in silence, after asking how I could stop deceiving myself and being in conflict. I share the following response with you.

Spirit: To let go of conflict, is to listen to one Voice. The many voices of ego land keep you confused, feeling in submission, defeated. Conflicting advice can not be constructive. And the voices you choose between only bring peace or pain. One is true, the other false, a poor imitation of what Love really speaks.

So, to be honest, to be without conflict, means to practice listening to one Voice, one Teacher.
You are indeed the director, producer and actor in your chosen script and one choice can bring freedom to the mind caught in the many stages.
Recognize, when you feel the twinge of pain however small, that you have made a poor choice and you have the right to choose again. Choose to be still and listen in perfect ease, to the Voice that removes every cloud and purifies every thought. This is what you truly desire in your heart—and listening to one Voice removes the conflicting thoughts that lead to conflicting action and results.

When you listen to one Voice, the problems that appeared as many are seen to be as one. When you listen to one Voice, the belief in sin (separation) is step by step cleared away. Listening to one Voice, you stop deceiving yourself with illusions and with fear stories. Self deception is seen for what it is, a block to Love’s Presence. You are never without the true Voice for Love—as you practice listening with consistency, you will not fear what this Voice will reveal to you. You are as Love created you.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Condemnation is…..

I recently had some thoughts around some Workbook lessons from ACIM. Thoughts that attempt to form a truth to replace the idle thoughts or sick thoughts in my mind.

“Only my condemnation injures me.”
Condemnation is an unforgiveness.
Condemnation is a judgment, a grievance, a grudge, a form of rage however it may be masked.
These are thoughts I have accepted from the ego, (that disguise the belief) that I am unworthy of Love, and the ego system says to be rid of the self hatred, I must throw it “out” onto another form. It still identifies the body as its home, yet still plans to make the body “die,” so it can reign supreme in its world. It does not see its own contradiction.
The opposite of condemnation is forgiveness. Condemnation injures me, keeps me in prison. Forgiveness heals and sets me free. Forgiveness heals the mind that thought it could sin.

Another workbook lesson offers the truth: “There is no condemnation in God and none in me.”

If I condemn my brother, I am condemning myself and keeping the belief that I am unworthy of Love—the belief that God does not hold me worthy because “I” attacked Him and left Him.
If I attack my brother, it is for any fear he reflects to me that are simply my own hidden fears. Fears of failure, fears of lack, fears of worthlessness, fears of abandonment, fears of retaliation.

The Holy Spirit would take my “special” relationship and show me the barriers I hold trying to deny Love. That’s all they are, and He would use the relationship as the means to help me release the unreal thoughts that hold the mind in prison. He would help me by giving me thoughts to shine away the dark shadows. He would lift me up, walking with me on the path I have chosen in the dream. He is always talking softly to me, ever patient for me to turn an ear to Him and receive His healing words or feelings.

I can look at my past and say: I did not know then, what I know now. Those mistakes I am willing to let go. Those pictures I am willing to let go. My true Self cannot be harmed—neither can my brother be harmed.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gift of Un-Limitation

My little mind has been going around and round with the question of returning to the state where I previously lived. I noticed that other day, how the ego must have some “dilemma” going on to keep it busy…. otherwise it makes up some other problem to keep my attention fixed on the outer world. Any deversion to keep my mind away from peace!

This morning I had a dream where I received unexpected gifts. To me, that symbolizes the abundance that is mine, though I may not be aware of it. These words then arrived from Jesus.
(Note: Jesus calls me ‘Sara’)  I invite you to read the words as though the Holy Spirit or Jesus were speaking to you.

“Don’t believe that you are limited, Sara. You are unlimited. You can do anything—for you were created without limits. If you feel limited, it shows you have listened to the ego voice, this need not be.

“You have no need to rush through the traffic lights—you can choose peace when you wait at the stop lights. You are always in the right place at the right time. If you choose to return to WI., it is because you are without limits; if you choose to stay, it will be without limits. There is no “wrong” choice—for the only true choice is between illusion and truth. In the dream you have duality and the seeming parade of decisions. In the dream you choose one place or another, one face or another, one body or another. These are choices between illusions, which have no meaning. Choosing to forgive or let go of an illusion makes room for truth to return. “This is “why” the ego would refuse your choice to forgive, for it would keep the illusion of choices, to keep itself alive. It loves comparison and analysis. It will judge every action you make, for it wants only to condemn you and keep guilt active and growing in your dream.

“Whatever you choose, you are unlimited. You will be in the right place at the right time. The only place you really are is in the Mind that created you. Thoughts leave not their Source, therefore you are still in the Mind that Thought of you. Being a Thought of Love, you have no limitation because God’s Love is limitless. His Love is real and without end, without restriction, without exclusion. His Love holds all, completely inclusive and without boundary, shape or size. You had mistakenly tried to forget the eternal Oneness of Love, but you cannot completely forget. You can choose to dream in place of Love’s reality, but dreams are nothing. Dreams can never replace Love. And so, you can choose to wake rather than dream.

“You dreamed you would be “safe” in a dream of separation, yet you are learning that the dream of such a world is not what you truly want. It is not independence with special love that you want. It is not a special home or person that want. Your true home awaits you—as you turn within you find His home. You discover you have never left, with every practice of forgiving the images you pretend to see. When you practice forgiving, you remember that you are loved the same as your brother. When you practice, you will feel the Love that is real, pour over you and through you, for you have never really left Love. With all the power and gifts of Love within you, there is nothing you cannot do.
Sara, you have no limits.”

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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