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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, Paragraph 1 9-30-14

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication
1 Attack is always physical. When attack in any form enters your mind you are equating yourself with a body, since this is the ego’s interpretation of the body. You do not have to attack physically to accept this interpretation. You are accepting it simply by the belief that attack can get you something you want. If you did not believe this, the idea of attack would have no appeal for you. When you equate yourself with a body you will always experience depression. When a child of God thinks of himself in this way he is belittling himself, and seeing his brothers as similarly belittled. Since he can find himself only in them, he has cut himself off from salvation.

At first I wondered if this could be true, that attack is always about the body. Then I realized that yes, it is. I had attack thoughts yesterday. I thought my coworkers were being too loud and interfering with my concentration. I was equating myself with a body, right? I felt tired and distracted. Body again. I felt like I needed to hurry that I wasn’t going to get through. Need a body for that. I resented everyone who interrupted me. Again, some bodies come into play.

I had trouble focusing and my mind wandered. Isn’t that about the mind? What I noticed is that I had this problem because the body was tired. I also noticed the distractions were always about other bodies and that had a lot to do with loss of focus. Anything that stems from the idea of separation is about bodies, is about others.

We obviously have bodies here, but it is when we equate ourselves with these bodies that we have problems. When I identify with my ego self, the body and personality of Myron, I get all wrapped up in her story. It is a natural consequence of ego identity that I perceive attack and defend myself. The idea of separate selves, unconnected with each other creates an atmosphere of comparison and contrast and competition.

Time is part of the separation story. I have to get this body moving and get to this other space in a timely manner. Otherwise some other body is going to be unhappy with me. All these other bodies seem to be determined to keep me from doing what I absolutely have to do. It is all their fault. Life becomes a war that I feel I have to win and everyone is my enemy, just obstacles to my plans. Well, except for a few “special” bodies designated as “loved ones.” And even they get booted into the enemy camp sometimes.

I have discovered that I can live in a body without identifying with the body as self. I have not succeeded in doing this all the time, but having done it at all, I know I will succeed. In the Course, Jesus tells us that we can learn to listen to only the Voice for God, even here. The more often I choose that Voice, the less I think of myself as this body. I more often now identify self as spirit.

When I think of myself as spirit, I feel expansive about life and toward my brothers and sisters. They no longer seem to infringe on my space because I have no space that is not their space, too. I don’t blame them for whatever is going on with me because as spirit I know that I choose my life and everything that happens to me in this body. My brothers and sisters are playing at life with me, not fighting against me.

When I identify closely with spirit rather than with ego, everything feels different. I feel close to everyone. I feel like they are working on my behalf, that the world is for me rather than against me. I see little or no gap between us. Yes we are playing in bodies, pretending to be this one and that one, but I can’t believe in the separation and I don’t take the game too seriously. I certainly don’t get mad at someone else for living their story. It becomes more interesting than obstructing.

Sometimes it feels like I have a split personality. I will be the happy someone who finds life fascinating and feels treasured by others and by the universe itself. Other times, I feel like my whole day is devoted to defending myself from everyone who shows up for my story. After one of those days, I am exhausted and generally by the next morning, I am feeling ridiculous and regretful. I look back on how I felt and reacted and I can’t believe I attacked so often during the day.

Today’s Lesson says the stillness of the peace of God is mine. It doesn’t say it could be mine, but that it is mine. I can keep the regret for yesterday if I prefer regret, but the peace of God is mine so I can choose that instead if I want. I can laugh at yesterday and at my choice to see bodies and identify with this body.

I wasn’t able to choose peace yesterday, but I am able to see what I did and how that feels, and today, make a different choice. Yesterday wasn’t a wasted day because today I know that I don’t want to attack or be attacked. Yesterday taught me that I want to return my mind to God and to the peace of God.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VI. The Treasure of God, Paragraph 10 9-29-14

VI. The Treasure of God, P 10
10 What God has willed for you is yours. He has given His Will to His treasure, whose treasure it is. Your heart lies where your treasure is, as His does. You who are beloved of God are wholly blessed. Learn this of me, and free the holy will of all those who are as blessed as you are.

God gave me His Will and so it is mine. I cannot lose it or be without it, not even temporarily. God’s Will is my will. I can pretend not to know this and pretend to have a different will, and it will seem very real to me because of the power of my mind. But even then, even while I am choosing to believe in a different will, God’s Will is my will. It is mine eternally because God’s gifts are eternal.

I have imprisoned my holy will and I am now making a different choice. Here I am, God. I open my mind and my heart to You. I choose to turn from the illusion of separate wills and to embrace the gift of Your Will. I am so grateful to find it still there where you put it, in my heart. It is my treasure. I desire to keep it in my awareness by giving it. Help me to do this. How would you have me bless my brothers and sisters?

I am almost afraid to claim my inheritance like this because I have recently experienced an ego backlash and still feel the sting. But, I feel the desire to return home drawing me toward You, Father. It is irresistible. I feel so close and yet, I also feel fear. Even as I say this I hear the answer in my mind; We are the Sons of God. There is no fear in us.

The fear that I feel must be in the ego mind, and I am not the ego. It cannot be in me because I am God’s Holy Son and there is no fear in me. I am created by God and in my creation, I was given all that God is. There is no fear in God so there is no fear in me. The more I allow these thoughts to fill my mind, the more peaceful I am. It feels so freeing.

Guide me today, Father, and help me to be the Son You created. I am so ready to throw off the illusion of separation and accept Your Will as my will. I give You my total dedication and I devote myself joyfully to this purpose. Please work in me and through me to awaken myself and my brothers. I am Yours.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VI. The Treasure of God, Paragraph 9 9-26-14

VI. The Treasure of God, P 9
9 I share with God the knowledge of the value He puts upon you. My devotion to you is of Him, being born of my knowledge of myself and Him. We cannot be separated. Whom God has joined cannot be separated, and God has joined all His Sons with Himself. Can you be separated from your life and your being? The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described and it cannot be explained. I can make you aware of the conditions of truth, but the experience is of God. Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn upon you of itself.

Jesus is helping me to clear away the cobwebs of forgetfulness, and to release the wrong minded thinking that has kept me from awakening. He is not teaching me what love and truth are. He is only helping me to meet the conditions that will allow truth to reveal itself to me. That is why we are on a journey with no distance. There is nowhere to go to reach the Kingdom; we are the Kingdom.

I cannot know truth because I have accepted the ego story of separation as my truth. In my determination to believe I am something I am not, I block the truth of what I am. Truth will not force itself on me. I must welcome it, and I welcome it as I make a space for it in my mind. I make that space as I let go of the thoughts I made to take its place.

This is where Jesus helps me. He gave me A Course in Miracles to help me recognize the ego when I hear its voice and to help me realize that there is another Voice I could listen to instead. Through the words in this book, and especially the practice of what I am reading, I am learning that I want to hear only the Voice for God, and that this is possible.

I will know what I am as I let go of what I think I am. That’s the whole of it. This is not hard to do. I watch my thoughts. I allow my mind to be healed of the ones that are not true. All that is left is the glorious truth of my being. The only thing keeping me from that truth is my desire for something else, and together, Jesus and I are working to undo that misguided desire.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8, VI. The Treasure of God P 9. 9-25-14

VI. The Treasure of God, P 8
8 There is no question but one you should ever ask of yourself;-“Do I want to know my Father’s Will for me?” He will not hide it. He has revealed it to me because I asked it of Him, and learned of what He had already given. Our function is to work together, because apart from each other we cannot function at all. The whole power of God’s Son lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone. God would not have us be alone because He does not will to be alone. That is why He created His Son, and gave him the power to create with Him. Our creations are as holy as we are, and we are the Sons of God Himself, as holy as He is. Through our creations we extend our love, and thus increase the joy of the Holy Trinity. You do not understand this, because you who are God’s Own treasure do not regard yourself as valuable. Given this belief, you cannot understand anything.

Oh my, this is such a different vision of me than I had this morning. I had a very strong ego backlash last night and I felt anything other than God’s own treasure. This morning I had an ego hangover and that didn’t help. I didn’t waste my time trying to figure out why I felt like that. Any story I came up with would be an effect of a belief, not the cause of my reaction.

I know that I am waking up and the ego part of the mind wants to stay in the dream. That’s all that is happening, but even so, it is hard to hold onto the truth. I wasn’t going to do this work with Spirit this morning because I didn’t think I could, but of course, that is the most important time to work with Spirit, when I think I can’t.

An effect of ego resistance is often lethargy for me and I felt like going back to bed and going to sleep, but I had to get to work so I resisted. However, I felt very strongly to use a HemiSync meditation for sleep. It seemed crazy to me but I felt like I just had to do this. What happened is that as I completely relaxed and let go of everything, I opened to Spirit. I began by just saying the name of God knowing that when I do, the angels surround me.

In 30 minutes I felt to get up and was relieved to see that my mind was clear and I felt my normal happy self. It feels so comforting to know that I am not alone. When I need help, I receive it. All I have to do is open to the help. It is easier now for me to accept that I am not what I see in this world. This is an experience, not reality.

My reality is so different from this self that I am experiencing that I have to trust that what Jesus says is true. I don’t remember being holy. I don’t remember feeling like God’s holy Son. And I certainly don’t remember my creations. I don’t feel valuable. But I trust Jesus and there must be some memory in me, buried deeply, but still there. Otherwise why would I even trust that these words come from Jesus?

And yet, I do, and because I do, and because I practice what is given me to practice, I witness this incredible change as I awaken. This Course must be true because I have become a different person through doing it. Something fundamental is shifting in me and I am becoming aware of it. Maybe that is why the ego is pushing against it so hard. The part of the mind that thinks this world is a good idea must be seriously worried. It should be.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VI. The Treasure of God, Paragraph 7 9-24-14

VI. The Treasure of God, P 7
7 An “unwilling will” does not mean anything, being a contradiction in terms that actually means nothing. When you think you are unwilling to will with God, you are not thinking. God’s Will is Thought. It cannot be contradicted by thought. God does not contradict Himself, and His Sons, who are like Him, cannot contradict themselves or Him. Yet their thought is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of God’s Son, if they so choose. This choice does make the Son’s function unknown to him, but never to his Creator. And because it is not unknown to his Creator, it is forever knowable to him.

Here is what I understand from this paragraph. The chatter that goes on in my mind is not really thought. It is what I do instead; it is what takes the place of thought. I know it is not truly thought because it is not what I think with God. It is not His Thought. I have imprisoned my true thoughts, or have hidden from myself these thoughts, but they are not hidden from God. God knows my thoughts and so they are still available to me.

Because God’s Will is Thought, it cannot be contradicted by my made up thought. My made up thoughts can hide my real thought, but cannot change them. Because of the unchangeable nature of thought this means I cannot will apart from God. We share the same Will and nothing I imagine can change this.

I have nothing to be afraid of. I share the Thought of God and I share His Will. This is an absolute, and cannot be undone. This is true all the time, even when I am confused and try to think apart from God, even when I think I want an individual separate will. My Will and my Thought is preserved for me because that is God’s Will.

What does this mean to me right now where I think I am? I can take a deep breath and relax. I can let go of the buried fear and dread, the guilt that keeps me hiding out here in my illusion. All the generalized anxiety and the resultant projections are not necessary. There is nothing for me to fear and I am not guilty, because nothing has happened. The mind is very powerful and can project an image of nothing, and can even imprison itself in this image, but it cannot change God’s Will. I’m ok. God is not mad and I am not lost. I am safe.

I will continue to open my heart and mind to God. I will continue to look at my errors with the Holy Spirit and allow them to be undone for me. This doesn’t change, but what can change now is the uncertainty and doubt that has plagued me in the past. The idea that I can will against God’s Will and my true will is not true. My success is guaranteed. I will return to God because that is His Will.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VI. The Treasure of God, Paragraph 6. 9-23-14

VI. The Treasure of God, P 6
6 Your function is to add to God’s treasure by creating yours. His Will to you is His Will for you. He would not withhold creation from you because His joy is in it. You cannot find joy except as God does. His joy lay in creating you, and He extends His Fatherhood to you so that you can extend yourself as He did. You do not understand this because you do not understand Him. No one who does not accept his function can understand what it is, and no one can accept his function unless he knows what he is. Creation is the Will of God. His Will created you to create. Your will was not created separate from His, and so you must will as He wills.

God created me to add to creation through creating as He does. This is joy. I can’t know my function without knowing myself. So I cannot create unless I know what I am, and thus it is that I cannot be in joy unless I know what I am. So the question, “What am I?” is a good one. It is the only question, really. Once I know what I am, everything else falls into place.

I know I am not this body living in time and space. I am not bad or even foolish. I am not lost or afraid. I am not sad, not angry, not guilty. I am not going to live and then die. I am not suffering or in pain. But what am I? I am Spirit, the holy Son of God. But what does that mean? What does that feel like? Until I know that, these are just words.

In reading the last sentence, I know that my will is the same as God’s Will. Jesus does not say that I used to share the Will of God and now I have my own separate will. He doesn’t say that someday I will share the Will of God. It says that God shares His Will with me, therefore I must will as He does. This means that what I am experiencing now, a will separate from God, must be an illusion. It can only be that I am dreaming of an individual separate will, because I share the Will of God.

This would seem to mean that I do know what I am. I have that memory, and in fact, I am living in joy, living in God, right now. I can stop dreaming any time I want. I can wake up to my true existence, my memory fully restored, because it never went anywhere. If I have amnesia, it is only because I chose to forget, and therefore, I can choose to remember. And how could it be hard when reality has not been suspended while I dream; I am as I always have been.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VI. The Treasure of God, Paragraph 5. 9-22-14

VI. The Treasure of God, P 5
5 God wants only His Son because His Son is His only treasure. You want your creations as He wants His. Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for your creation. They do not leave you any more than you left your Creator, but they extend your creation as God extended Himself to you. Can the creations of God Himself take joy in what is not real? And what is real except the creations of God and those that are created like His? Your creations love you as you love your Father for the gift of creation. There is no other gift that is eternal, and therefore there is no other gift that is true. How, then, can you accept anything else or give anything else, and expect joy in return? And what else but joy would you want? You made neither yourself nor your function. You made only the decision to be unworthy of both. Yet you cannot make yourself unworthy because you are the treasure of God, and what He values is valuable. There can be no question of its worth, because its value lies in God’s sharing Himself with it and establishing its value forever.

I don’t know what to say about this. I have creations as does God. They are true creations, that is, they are created as God creates. I long to remember my creations. I also realize that those times when I didn’t feel loved were just an illusion of not feeling loved. My Creator loves me and so do my creations. This love never ends, never changes and is always present. I don’t feel that love because I have chosen to feel something else in its place.

I have convinced myself I would rather keep the drama of the separation idea and that this drama is what I want. But it is not what I want. I want love and peace and joy. This is my true desire. Everything else I think I want is just part of the general confusion I am experiencing because of my choice to identify with what I am not.

The solution to this problem is simple. I notice the times when I think I want something other than God, and I ask that my mind be healed. In this way I lift the veil of confusion and the truth is revealed to me. This morning I felt weepy for no reason I can articulate. I can find a story to explain it, but what would be the point? The story is the effect of the problem, not the problem itself.

At first it was making me crazy and that is because I kept asking the ego mind for an answer and a solution. The ego says it is just a reaction, the pendulum swinging from the excitement and the joy of this weekend, being with others for the purpose of healing. The ego says that I miss my kids and need to visit them. It says that this weekend was fun and that I like having the day off and don’t want to go back to work and that is the problem. But I know that these are just stories I make up to explain something I don’t want responsibility for.

Finally, I just stopped fighting it. I accepted that I feel weepy and that I am willing to feel what I feel without inventing a story to explain it. I remembered that my feelings don’t hurt me. If I am suffering it is because I am at war with myself. I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind, and then let myself feel what I feel. The feeling disappeared. Haha. I stopped fighting it and it disappeared. There is a really good lesson in that experience.

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