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Study of the Text 10-31-12

10-31-12
  3 Awe should be reserved for revelation, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is not appropriate for miracles because a state of awe is worshipful, implying that one of a lesser order stands before his Creator. You are a perfect creation, and should experience awe only in the presence of the Creator of perfection. The miracle is therefore a sign of love among equals. Equals should not be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality. It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. An elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love because he is a brother, and to devotion if he is devoted. It is only my devotion that entitles me to yours. There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else. This leaves me in a state which is only potential in you. 

There are a couple of things in this paragraph that jump out at me. Jesus explains that only our Creator deserves our awe. I used to be pretty awe struck by many of the teachers. They seemed to know so much more than me and to be so much closer to awakening. I could barely imagine being where they were. And people who could channel Jeshua, or take down whole books of information they didn’t know before it came to them, seemed pretty awesome to me. I thought they were special, and I was awed. And certainly I thought Jesus was the most awesome of all.

Now I see that we are all just brothers and sisters, part of the same whole. Some of us are a bit further along than others, but we are all headed in the same direction and we will all get there (and evidently already have). When that happens (we each become aware of it) the apparent differences will disappear. I will see no difference between any of us, only more of the same. I will feel only love for my Divine Siblings.

Our Creator is awesome and it is appropriate to feel awe in His presence. I don’t think I will have any problem in working up some awe in that case. I wonder what God is like. Shoot, I don’t even know what I am like. I am still too identified with form to imagine formlessness in any real way, especially as it applies to me. I still have too much that is not love to imagine Love as my identity.

To think of God and to know that He is pure Love and nothing else, well, that really is awesome. To truly appreciate God, though, I have to let go completely, the idea that there is something in God that is not love. Something that is resentful of my wanderings, something that believes punishment is an appropriate response to error and so I have reason to expect punishment from God. I cannot truly love that of which I am afraid. When I think of God as pure Love, awe means wonder to me. When I think of Him as punishing, awe means fear to me.

Using the idea of Jesus, the appropriate response is not awe, but love and appreciation. I imagine standing before Jesus and I feel those things, and also gratitude that is so intense it makes me cry even as I think of it now. I’m pretty awestruck that he was able to awaken without A Course in Miracles, but that’s not the same kind of awe that is reserved for God. I am doing my level best to be obedient because I want what he has. I am absolutely devoted. If he were standing in front of me I would hug him. A long time. And with a lot of fervor. Grateful. Really grateful.

The last two sentences say it all.

I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else. This leaves me in a state which is only potential in you. 

Jesus and I are the same, we are both a part of God and a part of each other. The difference between us . . . the temporary difference, is that I still have all this other stuff in my head that blocks my awareness of our wholeness and blocks my awareness of my purity. What this means is that my true nature is mostly not real to me, but is something I believe in because Jesus tells me that it is real.

I do the work because I trust Jesus. As I do the work, my mind becomes more and more clear and there is less to block my true self. Soon I will join Jesus in the sweet clarity of my mind and absolutely know my true identity. What was potential will be actuality.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 10-30-12

10-30-12
2 Revelation is intensely personal and cannot be meaningfully translated. That is why any attempt to describe it in words is impossible. Revelation induces only experience. Miracles, on the other hand, induce action. They are more useful now because of their interpersonal nature. In this phase of learning, working miracles is important because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you. Revelation is literally unspeakable because it is an experience of unspeakable love.

A revelation is something revealed and we see in this paragraph that the something is love, but it is a love that is different from anything we know. In fact it is unspeakable, there are no words to describe it. I understand now why my friend said that he could not imagine living in that state it was so intense. I would like to experience revelation but this is not something that can be attained through my own efforts or earned in some way. I will experience it if that would be helpful to my awakening and when I should. I accept that.

While revelation is an experience, miracles induce action. They are brother-to-brother and so more useful to us.  They bring us together; they help us remember our wholeness. It is important that we work miracles so that we learn who we are. Jesus says that freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon us, and as we learn to work miracles we learn we have nothing to fear.

When I discovered that something had gone wrong with my son’s medical procedure, I called him. He was in such excruciating pain that he literally could not talk. We didn’t know if there was permanent damage or if this would pass. It wasn’t supposed to happen in the first place so who knew what it meant. For awhile my mind froze up. I couldn’t think outside the ego mind, which was frozen in fear.

After awhile, as I asked the Holy Spirit for help, my mind began to clear and I could hear the Voice for God. I went back and forth for a few days as I got sucked into the ego voice of fear, remembered this could not be true and listened again to Spirit. I sent a message to some friends asking for their prayerful support. I got messages back, and the blessing was that not one of them said anything about how sad or scary this was. Each message was a message of truth. God bless my friends.

During these few days I have had to remain vigilant for the truth. It has been a long time since I have gone through something like this where I was overwhelmed with doubt and fear and I am reminded to be compassionate when others are confused and afraid. The truth is simple but when the ego has your attention it doesn’t always feel simple.

Now that I have returned to sanity I remember the truth.
• There is nothing outside my mind, and that includes Toby and his injury.
• I am not sick and cannot die, but I can confuse myself with things that do, and that is true for Toby as well.
• I remember that Toby and I are not two separate beings; we are one. When I am afraid for Toby, I am in my mind separating us. I am ok, but Toby is not.
• When I think Toby needs to be healed, I have forgotten there is but one mind. I am in that moment an unhealed healer. As I am healed, I withdraw my projection and ask that my mind be healed of the belief in pain and suffering.
• My Spirit provides exactly what I need to support me. I trust my Spirit and this is equally true for Toby.
• No matter what seems to be happening, no matter how much proof I seem to have to the contrary, nothing is happening. Both Toby and I are safe in God. We are dreaming of fear and pain and that is all.

This is the way to the miracle. I hear the Voice for God and I heed that voice rather than the ego. I remember the truth for Toby while he may not be able to do so, just as my friends did for me. I ask that my mind be healed of whatever it is that is causing the situation with Toby in the understanding that I am responsible for everything in my life. I wait in happy anticipation to see how the miracle will show up in our story.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 10-29-12

II. Revelation, Time and Miracles

1 Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear. It reflects the original form of communication between God and His creations, involving the extremely personal sense of creation sometimes sought in physical relationships. Physical closeness cannot achieve it. Miracles, however, are genuinely interpersonal, and result in true closeness to others. Revelation unites you directly with God. Miracles unite you directly with your brother. Neither emanates from consciousness, but both are experienced there. Consciousness is the state that induces action, though it does not inspire it. You are free to believe what you choose, and what you do attests to what you believe.

Revelation is communication from God to us, or at least a reflection of that original communication. I can say very little about it because it has never happened for me. I have spoken to people who have had that experience and am told it is truly unspeakable. My friend told me that the love he felt was so overwhelming he could not imagine being able to sustain it while in the body.

I try to imagine what it is like to have a complete suspension of all doubt and fear even if it is temporary, and I cannot. Mostly, I’m not aware of a lot of doubt and fear, and yet, it is always there just beneath the surface. When my son had a reaction to a procedure and was in nearly unbearable pain, I got the chance to see just how near the surface that doubt and fear were. I got to see how intense that doubt and fear can be.

I’m buying a house and when a problem cropped up I saw how quickly fear rose up in me, and this is a situation that is not that close to my heart. If I don’t get the house, I’ll just look for another but I still experienced fear when the sale was threatened. Fear and doubt are in my mind and as long as they are, I will project stories to explain them away. “See, it is the house sale that’s causing my fear. As soon as the sale goes through, I’ll be happy again.”

Recognizing that kind of thinking, and genuinely asking for correction is the way we awaken. I notice that this has been an easy practice during the house purchase. I also saw that when my son was in pain I was frozen in my fear and lost all sense of the truth. All I wanted was my son to be ok. All the right words would pass through my mind but it was like they were wrapped in a thick fog and I could not catch their meaning. I saw guilt just under the fear and doubt, vast and awful. What a wonderful thing it will be when I am completely free of doubt and fear. How wonderful to know only love.

Revelation would be an extraordinary gift, but right now miracles might be more helpful. While revelation unites us with God, miracles unite us with our brother, and uniting with our brothers is the first step to returning home. Home is Wholeness, Oneness, and so cannot be experienced while we still yearn to be separate and unique individuals.

As long as we still value our separation we will be unable to let go of the illusion. When there was a problem with the sale of the house the first thing I did was decide if it was the realtor’s fault or the banks fault. How quickly I made use of separation! Obviously it still has great value to me. I still think I need someplace to put the blame when things go wrong. How can I truly join with my brother when I think that any minute I may need him to be my scapegoat? When I think of how easily I fall back into this kind of thinking, I realize the value of the miracle.

Both miracles and revelation occur in consciousness, but they do not originate there. Though we experience them within our story, they are inspired from outside the illusion. This reminds me that I cannot cause either revelation or miracles. I can do the work that prepares me to accept them, but I cannot make them happen.

The last sentence is helpful to me as I look at the evidence of doubt and fear in my mind. My first reaction is guilt that I have not done a better job of mind healing. I’m not surprised that ego goes straight to guilt, and I know that what comes from ego is never truth, but as I look at my life it seems to offer so much proof that I am guilty. But Jesus tells me that no matter what I see in my life, I am not guilty for it. I remain innocent.

In my perfect freedom as God’s Son, I am can choose to believe anything I want to believe, and what I believe will manifest as my life. How handy, right? I don’t have to wonder how my life got into its present state.  It is a reflection of the beliefs I hold in my mind. Why do I act as I do? I act according to my beliefs. This makes the solution clear. Choose different beliefs, experience a different life.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 10-26-12

10-26-12
50 The miracle compares what you have made with creation, accepting what is in accord with it as true, and rejecting what is out of accord as false.

This is my favorite principle, I think. It is so simple and so clear. I feel that process in my own mind. This is what happened when I was working on the idea of pain. I said to Spirit that I was in pain and that I was ready to have my perception corrected. So each time I felt pain I brought that belief to Him. I still do this every single time no matter what form the pain takes, physical, or emotional. I ask for the truth and I know that pain is not real. God did not create pain so it is not the truth.

I feel grief and I bring it to the Holy Spirit, for the miracle. God did not create grief or loss and so it cannot be so. Again, this is something I made up and so it’s not real. I am released as my perception is corrected. I feel lonely or fearful or bitter, it doesn’t matter the story that seems to be the cause, because what is not real cannot be made real with a story no matter how compelling the story.

When I first began reading the Course and doing the lessons it created a crack in my mind that let in just a little light, and I began to doubt what I thought I knew. It took a long time practicing what I was learning before I was able to accept the healings being offered me. I was fooled at first when these teachings started making sense, because I thought that meant I had changed my mind.

I thought that just because I could see the sense of it I was no longer under the sway of ego beliefs. It became obvious to me that was not the case. That was a confusing and frustrating time for me. I was trying to use the ego mind to heal the ego mind and it wasn’t working. All that was really happening is that I was convincing myself that there was another way and that I wanted it. Next I had to practice what I was learning.

The actual healing, the miracle itself, arises from the mind that is made ready for it. As it says in principle 7, “Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.” Bringing my thoughts to the Holy Spirit for healing and choosing that healing over anything else I think I might want seems to be the way of purification.

The whole process seems to revolve around desire. What is it I desire? Do I desire a pure mind, free of ego thoughts? That is not always as simple as it seems just reading the words on the page. I notice that I sometimes still place value where there is none, such as holding onto fear. If I place value on something that is not a creation of God my mind is not pure, and this is why I cannot ask for a miracle from a place of fear.

My son had a reaction to medical procedure and was in excruciating pain. There was potential for damage and even for death depending on the cause of the reaction. My first reaction was fear and all I wanted to do was pray that he be saved from pain and that I be saved from loss. I wanted that miracle. I wanted to tell him to get up and walk because he was healed.

I did recognize that I was praying, not out of conviction but out of fear, and I knew this was not right. I became open to true healing a bit at a time as I was able. I asked others to stand with me on this. As number 19 says, “Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation, because the Sonship is the sum of all that God created.”

At one time I could not have done this. I could not have stepped out of my fear. Later I could have done so after the fact, after circumstances had changed enough for me to see more clearly. Even later after more practice of the Course, I could eventually see through my fear even while it was happening, but it would take some time, and it was not certain. This time it was different. Even in the midst of my confusion, I was absolutely certain I wanted a healed mind.

My friends helped me with their unwavering support and by being the strength I leaned on. They sent me words to point the way back to truth. Overnight my prayer became that my mind be healed in the belief in pain, sickness, and suffering. What else is there to heal, after all, but the mind. Accepting the atonement for myself is my only function.

As my mind began to clear I realized that I do trust Spirit. I trust my script and my son’s script to provide only and all that is needed for our awakening. I went with him to his next procedure and the pain was really awful, and the doctor did not instill confidence. When I felt fear rising in me I acknowledged it and then I remembered to ask the Holy Spirit for help to see clearly. When I felt fear it was as if a fog encased me and kept me from the truth, but I knew what I wanted and I refused to believe in the fog and so it went away. I did this each time fear came.

It seems like it is a body that needs healing and the more desperate our fear the more this seems to be true. But it is always the mind that needs correction. We made fear and pain. We made sickness and suffering. We made death. Now it is time for us to compare these things with creation and to reject what is out of accord with it. I see that fear is the first of these. When I let go of fear and embrace truth instead, all the rest follows. I give my complete willingness to healing and the miracle is the result.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 10-24-12

10-25-12
49 The miracle makes no distinction among degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception correction, effective quite apart from either the degree or the direction of the error. This is its true indiscriminateness.

Perception is either true, or it isn’t. All errors are simply errors, not bigger errors or worse. One is not harder to correct than another. If I have an experience of cancer it is the same error I experience when I have a headache. Each of these experiences is the result of believing in pain, suffering and death.

There is no such thing as pain. Pain cannot be real because if it were then pain would be part of God. If that is true I may as well stay in the dream. God is Love and Love is not pain. The same is true for all forms of suffering. So if I suffer from physical pain, emotional pain, the belief in lack and loss, it is all the same error.

When the error is corrected, and I understand the impossibility of pain and suffering, none of the causes will be meaningful to me. Pain and fear of cancer disappears with the same ease as does the pain from a headache and the fear of poverty. When I absolutely know that death cannot exist because Life is all encompassing and has no opposite, there is no grief. What is there to grieve when I realize there is no death, no where to go, no state other than Wholeness, other than than God.

All that changes is a belief. An untrue belief is replaced with a true belief. How could one belief be bigger or harder than another, and yet it certainly feels so. It was hard for me to even write the words, the death of a child. That feels big, enormous, awful, and impossible to face, but that is because I still believe in death and loss. 

I don’t believe that anything happens to us when we die other than we let go of the idea of a body, but I believe that the person who does so is out of my reach, and so I suffer from a sense of loss when someone dies. That, too, is just a thought, just an idea and can be healed. This is what the miracle is for. I ask for perception correction in this area. I ask for a miracle.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 10-24-12

10-24-12
48 The miracle is the only device at your immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation transcends it, having nothing to do with time at all.

How does the miracle control time? The Course tells us that the script is written but it also tells us that we do have choice. Our choice is how we will see the script.  We are told that the first split in the mind occurring after separation was consciousness, the receptive mechanism which receives messages from both Spirit and ego.  When we receive a message from ego we can believe it or not believe it. We can also learn to recognize the messages that are from Spirit.

So let’s say that I hurt my neck and am having a lot of pain because of it. I did not bring this accident into manifestation through my ego thoughts which are not creative. This damaged neck is part of the script that comes from my Spirit. The script has me going through this problem and experiencing a number of consequences. Maybe I will lose my job because I had to take so much time off, and this leads to other consequences. This is fine. There are lots of lessons that can be learned in this script.

However, let’s say at about the same time as I hurt my neck I also had the opportunity to deepen my understanding of the Course. I gained more understanding about the way these things occur and why. I became more willing to be receptive to the Holy Spirit and more willing to set aside my thoughts so that I could be more open to truth. Consciousness is not creative, but rather it is a perceiver and as such it can never have knowledge, but it can be trained to true perception, and that is what’s happening. I am learning to perceive more truly than before.

Perhaps it went something like this.
First: My neck hurts and I feel guilty because it must mean that I am doing something wrong. I am not being a good Course student.
Then: I can heal my neck if I figure out my error. I can learn the right words to say and remember to say them often.
Then: I can heal my neck if I ask for healing and really mean it.
Then: I can heal my neck if I change my thinking.
Then: I can heal my neck if I stay faithful to the belief I am not a body. I can do this by not going to the doctor or taking medicine because then that would mean I believe in the body. But my neck hurts. This is hard. And painful.
Then: I can heal my neck if I accept correction of my thoughts.
Then: I am angry, frustrated and scared, but still determined to gain the understanding I need.
Then: I stop resisting the pain in my neck.
I realize my Spirit gives me (a script) that is exactly all and only what I need to wake us up.
I trust my Spirit. (I trust the script.)
I ask Spirit what it is I am to learn from this, what I am to do, to understand, to know. I ask how it is I am to see this. I ask for the blessing.

Because I have become receptive to a more helpful way of experiencing this pain in the neck, I now have a truer perception of this situation. The result is that certain effects are no longer going to be experienced. Perhaps the neck will heal itself, or if it stays a bit longer I will not experience it in the same way. Maybe I will learn to breathe through the pain, maybe I will be guided to a doctor who will have a solution on the physical level.

Perhaps because of this kind of change I won’t miss as much work and so won’t lose my job. Because I am not making the pain worse through the stress caused by frustration and fear, I won’t be so hard to get along with and won’t damage a relationship. The more receptive I am to guidance, the faster I learn the lesson the pain came to bring me and the shorter the path to awakening. It becomes shorter because the script took a sharp turn and I avoided a lot of the effects that I would have had to experience if I had stayed with the ego thinking.

Think of the script not as a straight road, but as a road with many twists and turns and lots of ways to get to the same place. Some of those roads take you on the scenic route and are more time consuming. But if you listen closely to your Navigation System you can avoid them when you are tired of the scenery and just want to go Home.

This is how we lessen time through the miracle. The change in my thinking (the miracle) elevated my perception to something closer to truth. I no longer needed certain lessons and those are now in some other form of the script, but not in the one I am on. True perception helped me avoid certain ego pitfalls so I lost that time as well.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 10-23-12

10-23-12
47 The miracle is a learning device that lessens the need for time. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval not under the usual laws of time. In this sense it is timeless.

When I feel like someone has attacked me it is possible I will feel the need to defend myself and always, that defense is an attack. This creates a cycle into which no healing can come. It is like a war that has no end. The soldier on one side shoots a soldier on the other side and then that side shoots a soldier on the other side and it goes on and on. The war cannot end because the rule is, defend when you are attacked.

Suppose the soldiers notice that if this continues then soon there will be only one left standing. Maybe that means his side wins, but at what cost? Who will care except maybe that last soldier? But what can be done to stop the killing? Usually, someone outside the battle ground begins negotiations for peace.

For many years of my life I was in a war with everyone. No one died from my attacks and they did not kill me, but there was much suffering. Even when there was a truce, no one could relax because we all had to be on the look-out for the next volley of attacks, and you never knew where they would come from. It could easily be someone you thought was a friend, even a loved one.

But just as in a war between armies, there was a limit to the pain and destruction I could take. I decided there must be a better way and I found that way through A Course in Miracles. Now when I notice that I have again entered the battlefield, I ask for a miracle. I ask that I might learn another way, something that is not painful, something that doesn’t just delay the attack, but that corrects the belief that created the need for attack. I don’t just want another truce, I want war to end. The miracle comes from outside the closed cycle so it can bring a different solution.

When I ask for the mind to be healed and accept that healing, I save thousands of years of suffering. There are many, many battles that will not be fought, many attacks that will not be answered. The light that shines away the darkness in my mind, spreads throughout the Sonship. When anyone accepts the miracle we all owe him a debt of gratitude because he accepts it for all of us.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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