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Study of Text, Chapter 13: III.The Fear of Redemption, P 6. 6-29-16

III. THE FEAR OF REDEMPTION, P 6
6 You must look upon your illusions and not keep them hidden, because they do not rest on their own foundation. In concealment they appear to do so, and thus they seem to be self-sustained. This is the fundamental illusion on which the others rest. For beneath them, and concealed as long as they are hidden, is the loving mind that thought it made them in anger. And the pain in this mind is so apparent, when it is uncovered, that its need of healing cannot be denied. Not all the tricks and games you offer it can heal it, for here is the real crucifixion of God’s Son.

Journal
The first thing I note is that I must look upon my illusions and not keep the hidden. What comes to mind is that I must look at the world and accept that it is an illusion, and the world includes this body and this separate self. It includes all the concepts within the world I made up, anger, hatred, guilt, suffering of any kind and death. I must look at it all and know it for the illusion it is.

I also think of it in terms of thought, because really, the world is thought taken form. Release the thought and the form is gone with it. So I look at my thoughts and my beliefs and know them for the illusion they are. I get to this knowing by asking the Holy Spirit to correct my thoughts. Jesus tells us that first we will see our thoughts purified, and our projections (our world) will be seen differently. It will be experienced without the effects of guilt and fear, therefore, it will be seen happily. Then after a time, time will disappear as will the world. All will disappear into God.

But right now, my focus is on allowing the wrong minded thoughts to rise up in my mind, to be seen clearly and without any attempt to hide them or hide from them. I will see them with the Holy Spirit and He will heal my mind. I can do this. It is simple and easy to do. When it seems otherwise, it is only because I have found a thought I would keep. And even then, I can change my mind, perhaps using the Rules for Decision.

Then Jesus says they do not rest on their own foundation. If I think that someone’s words hurt my feelings, that can feel very real to me. I might think it is hard for me to forgive it because it really happened and there were real effects. So I think my grievance rests on its on foundation, a foundation of rules that govern my world and dictate how I act and react. But Jesus says, no. He says that there is no real foundation for the world I made. The foundation is as illusory as the rest.

I have seen how true this is. I have been very upset over something said or done and experienced the stress and unhappiness that comes with the grievance. And when the discomfort becomes too great to bear, I finally surrender it to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to show me another way to see it. All of the effects of the belief I was holding disappear as I let go of the belief. I become light and free and happy.

If there were really a firm foundation under these beliefs, they could not be so easily discarded. They could not shift and change as they do. I can believe something for a long time, and then believe something totally opposite. This is the way of the world because there is nothing real or true about it. On the other hand, if I allow the world I made to be reinterpreted for me, I will find that there is something real supporting this new interpretation. There is a loving mind.

Where it went all wrong, is that the loving mind that made the world thought it made the illusion in anger. That was an interesting way to state this. It thought it made them in anger. So I think I have something to fear to be guilty about. This mind is in pain and will be until these false ideas are laid to rest. They are laid to rest as they are exposed to the light of truth. This is why I look and look and look, even when it is unpleasant or even when it is frightening. I look with the Holy Spirit and then I release what I see to Him.

I have a favorite song by the Agape Choir that says:

I release. And I let go. I let the Spirit run my life.
And my heart is open wide. Yes I am only here for God.

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Study of Text, Chapter 13:III. The Fear of Redemption, P 5. 6-28-16

III. The Fear of Redemption, P 5

5 You can accept insanity because you made it, but you cannot accept love because you did not. You would rather be a slave of the crucifixion than a Son of God in redemption. Your individual death seems more valuable than your living oneness, for what is given you is not so dear as what you made. You are more afraid of God than of the ego, and love cannot enter where it is not welcome. But hatred can, for it enters of its own volition and cares not for yours.

Journal
What Jesus is telling us here is pretty clear. We made the ego so we treasure it above what God made. We will suffer and die rather than give up what we made. Ego imposes its beliefs, but Love cannot enter where it is not welcome. I see that and I accept it. It is amazing to me that I still choose crucifixion over redemption. And yet I see it in its subtlety, and in its brazenness alike.

I have someone in my life who is very competitive and who challenges me constantly. When I am in my right mind, I know this for the fear that it is. But I am not always in my right mind, and on those occasions I want to defend myself. I want to return the attack and at the very least, I think attack thoughts at her. I have been using the Rules for Decision to shift this in my mind, and I am certain that I will do so. In the meantime I am in this little private hell that I made with my beliefs. I am so enamored with my own “creation” that I cling to it even as it hurts me. Crazy.

It is just this kind of thing that Jesus is talking about. We begin with the belief that it would be interesting to experience separation, to be alone in mind. And from that idea, the world of illusion unfolds, and separation thoughts explode from the decision to experience separation. These ideas take form for our viewing pleasure, and through the power of our mind, we imagine we are having a real experience of it. We feel, and sense in every way, a world of our own making based on our own laws. And we love it. It is ours.

Now it is time for me and for you to leave behind this strange and limiting idea, and to return to our Divinity. This is possible because it is only a dream and so we choose to wake up and we do. It seems that we must not shock ourselves with a sudden awakening, that we must back out of our little kingdom slowly, and that is what the Course is for. It is helping us to let go of the illusion and to remember the truth of our being.

So when I notice that I feel angry toward this contrary person in my life, I recognize that I must have been using the ego mind to experience her. Using the simple steps in the Rules for Decision, I change my mind. I start listening to the Truth in my mind, to the Holy Spirit, and as I am ready, my angry separation thoughts give way to love. I have taken a step toward Awakening.

This step feels so much better that I want to take another. So I watch my mind for opportunities, and when I see fear or guilt, anger or depression, any of the separation reactions, I begin the process again. Each step enlightens my mind a little more, and so there is less darkness and I see more clearly. I am walking Home as I make these new choices and the more often I make them, the faster I walk. One of these days I am going to run into Love, throw myself into It with abandon! Oh yes!

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Study of Text, Chapter 13:III. The Fear of Redemption, P 4. 6-27-16

III. The Fear of Redemption, P 4

4 You have built your whole insane belief system because you think you would be helpless in God’s Presence, and you would save yourself from His Love because you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid it would sweep you away from yourself and make you little, because you believe that magnitude lies in defiance, and that attack is grandeur. You think you have made a world God would destroy; and by loving Him, which you do, you would throw this world away, which you would. Therefore, you have used the world to cover your love, and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego’s foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you.

Journal
Reading this I see that the whole problem is very simple. I love God and my love for Him is so big, so intense, so complete, that if I let myself remember that love, I would rush to Him, and into Him. My fear is that this would leave me helpless, crushed, obliterated. I would be nothing. I would cease to exist, is the fear I have. So I defend myself against God.

I attack His memory and then I run deeper into the darkness of the ego, to hide from His wrath. I believe that this attack and defend strategy is my strength. And all this is happening only in my mind. I attack what I am, and I hide from my Self. And nothing is happening because none of this is possible. God cannot be attacked and I cannot defend against Love.

I dream and dream and dream. I dream of suffering and loss and pain. Mostly, I dream of fear. I am afraid to come out of the dream and I am afraid to go more deeply into it. I am afraid of God and of my Self, afraid that I have hidden myself away, and afraid I have not hidden well enough. In my mind, I have made this self, this body, this world, and I have given it value and now I think I must defend it against Love. And all the time, I love God and He loves me, and I cannot hide from Love. I can only pretend to do so.

“and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego’s foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you.”

And this is the essence of our resistance to doing the work. We are afraid of looking at our ego thoughts because we are afraid of finding the Love that is hidden there. I have been vigilant for my thoughts and have been taking them to Spirit for correction for years now, and yet I still resist at time. Recently, I have noticed myself pushing some of these thoughts down and away. Holy Spirit told me to stop doing that, to look at them with Him. I have nothing to fear in looking, because ultimately I will find only Love, and Love will not destroy me; it will fulfill me.

The world I made to play at separation is of no value. It is nothing, just thought given temporary form. It is meaningless. It is not me, not this body or this life or any other life. Letting it go would have as much impact as does coming into the house after a day of play has for a child. This is all we are doing with the study of the Course. We are convincing ourselves to let the memory of Love overtake us. We are choosing to come out of the dark, to return to our Home after a moment of play. The solution to the only problem we have ever had is simple; surrender into God; surrender into Love. Return to my Self.

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Study of Text, Chapter 13: III.The Fear of Redemption, P 3. 6-22-16

III. The Fear of Redemption, P 3

3 In honesty, is it not harder for you to say “I love” than “I hate”? You associate love with weakness and hatred with strength, and your own real power seems to you as your real weakness. For you could not control your joyous response to the call of love if you heard it, and the whole world you thought you made would vanish. The Holy Spirit, then, seems to be attacking your fortress, for you would shut out God, and He does not will to be excluded.

Journal
Is it harder for me to say I love you than for me to say I hate you? I think that may be true. It has been shifting, and I say I love you more often, and I mean it. But I still feel resistance sometimes, especially if I feel attacked. I don’t use the word “hate” not out loud and not even in my mind. But I mean it. I even feel that way toward people I love at times.

Yesterday, I said something that triggered a response in my daughter. I apologized but she didn’t want to let it go and I started to feel guilty for my thoughtlessness. Instead of being loving, I was sarcastic. That sarcasm was just another way of saying, I hate you for making me feel bad. Then, of course, I felt worse. When I feel threatened at work, I respond with hateful thoughts. When I catch that, I ask for help to see differently, but I see that I choose defense first many times.

The idea that I need to protect this body, this image, this life, is what inspires the desire to attack and what provokes the hateful responses. As long as I keep defending and attacking, I will not be willing to hear the call to Love. When I defend myself against my brothers I defend against union, and so I defend myself against God because God is not division. My strength lies in God. In my defensiveness I am choosing weakness over my own power.

Another way to say this is that we know, deep within a hidden place in our mind, that the only way we can keep ourselves from responding joyfully and eagerly to God’s Call to Love, is to defend against it. We protect ourselves from this Call by convincing ourselves that guilt and fear are real, and that we must defend against them. So we have made a false association between hate and safety. In so doing, we have cut ourselves off from our true power which is love. Since we believe attack is our salvation, we have taught ourselves to see God as the enemy Who would destroy us with His love.

Understanding this, I feel more compassion for those who act out of fear. I can think of the man who killed all those people in Orlando and realize that he is unlike me only in that he acted on the fear and hate that is also in my mind. I can help us all if I ask that my mind be healed of hate, and that I open to love instead. Each time we see hate in our mind and allow it to be transformed by the Holy Spirit, we undo this insane thought system a bit more, and sanity becomes more attractive to us. We fear less and love more. We open to God a bit more and are more attracted to His love.

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Study of Text, Chapter 13: III.The Fear of Redemption, P 2. 6-21-16

III. The Fear of Redemption, P 2
2 Under the ego’s dark foundation is the memory of God, and it is of this that you are really afraid. For this memory would instantly restore you to your proper place, and it is this place that you have sought to leave. Your fear of attack is nothing compared to your fear of love. You would be willing to look even upon your savage wish to kill God’s Son, if you did not believe that it saves you from love. For this wish caused the separation, and you have protected it because you do not want the separation healed. You realize that, by removing the dark cloud that obscures it, your love for your Father would impel you to answer His call and leap into Heaven. You believe that attack is salvation because it would prevent you from this. For still deeper than the ego’s foundation, and much stronger than it will ever be, is your intense and burning love of God, and His for you. This is what you really want to hide.

Journal
Jesus says that we would kill God’s Son because we believe it would keep us from remembering our intense and burning love of God and His for us. We hide from love and defend against God, all so that we can keep dreaming these stories of independence and separation. There seems to be no limit to the suffering we are willing to endure in order to keep our separate identities. Jesus says I do not want the separation healed, and I would argue with that if I could. But really, how can I?

Here I am, in the middle of it, resisting love, resisting happiness. And I do this for the shallowest of reasons; I want to be right, I want to be me. I feel like a child playing at being the princess and stomping my feet and running away when my parents call me home. Even if the dragon is so near I feel its scorching breath on my neck, even if the prince never comes to rescue me, even if it turns out that being a princess is not so much fun, even still, I want to be right. I stubbornly cling to my story and resist the love and comfort of home.

I deny my right to happiness and peace and the love of God every time I judge, every time I blame, am angry, resentful, or jealous. I deny God’s love every time I am afraid or guilty, and every time I claim to be a victim and unfairly treated. These are the treasures of my pitiful little kingdom and I hide behind them, not so that God cannot find me, but so that I don’t remember His Love. Because if I remember God I know in my heart that I would run to Him, leaving it all behind.

But slowly, ever so slowly, I am turning toward the light. Each time that I allow a bit of love in, I want more, and the stories of separation lose some of their appeal. I remembered when there was nothing I liked better than a good cry. I would seek out sad stories and revel in the emotional response I felt. I loved to play with fear, watching horror movies and reading scary books. I would hide under my covers and shiver in fear, as if this was the most delicious feeling in the world. And, oh, how I love my righteous indignation when I had been wronged!

Well, I have since discovered peace and joy and I am drawn to that instead. The happiness I experience now is just a small taste, a shadow of the real thing, but it has drawn me in and I am losing interest in the ego emotional roller coaster. “Oh my God, I think of what it must be like to experience Your Love more directly, and imagination fails me. And maybe it scares me a little.”

I have a battle raging in my mind right now. I desperately want to return to peace, but the ego mind just as desperately wants to be right. It is frustrating and upsetting. It feels like I am being compelled against my will, but of course that cannot happen. It is my desire for a self and my desire for my Self and the conflict is intense.

My Self will prevail, of course, but it is incredibly tiring as the conflict continues. Here is what happens. I feel so distraught and the ego says it is because of what others are saying and doing. When I have a moment of sanity, I ask Holy Spirit what it means and He says it is because I am defended against love.

I can hardly believe I used to live like this all the time. I guess it seemed normal because I didn’t know anything else. Now that I have tasted of the peace of God it is painful to be without it. I remind myself that the peace of God is everything I want. I remind myself that I am conflicted only because I asked the ego what something meant, and then believed what it told me. I can undo that decision.

In the journaling of this morning’s lesson I was reminded of the reason I step back and let Him guide the way. “I do not know what anything, including this, means. And so I do not know how to respond to it. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me.” My desire to be at peace compels me to release all grievances and to look on my brothers as the holy Children of God that they are. “Father, walk with me today, hold my hand, keep me on the path of peace. This is my true will and my heart’s desire.”

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Study of Text, Chapter 13:III. The Fear of Redemption, P 1. 6-20-16

III. The Fear of Redemption

1 You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and realize its full extent. You may also think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and to dispel it without the need for you to raise it to awareness yourself. Yet there is one more obstacle you have interposed between yourself and the Atonement. We have said that no one will countenance fear if he recognizes it. Yet in your disordered state of mind you are not afraid of fear. You do not like it, but it is not your desire to attack that really frightens you. You are not seriously disturbed by your hostility. You keep it hidden because you are more afraid of what it covers. You could look even upon the ego’s darkest cornerstone without fear if you did not believe that, without the ego, you would find within yourself something you fear even more. You are not really afraid of crucifixion. Your real terror is of redemption.

Journal
I really hate it when Jesus talks about this. I accept that he must be right, but I don’t feel like I am afraid of redemption, and I don’t want to think that I am. So Ithought about it anyway. What am I afraid that redemption would take from me? Well, I wouldn’t have anyone to blame when I felt guilty. Of course, when redemption is complete I won’t feel guilty, but what about on the way to redemption?

I say I want to give up guilt forever, even the belief it could exist. But I notice that in the midst of an ego storm, I still run for cover under the leaky roof of guilt. I have been upset about changes at work, and what I see is that I keep telling stories about the guilty ones who are causing the changes. Sigh. At least I have begun to accept that this is happening. I am withdrawing blame and, using the Rules for Decision, I am undoing the mess I made of it by asking the ego what it meant.

Defense and attack find a place in my mind, still. I defend my image of Myron. I defend myself against love. I defend myself against too much closeness. I defend myself against lack and loss. I attack anyone or anything that seems to invade these areas of my life. I justify my attack however I need to. So I must treasure defense and attack more than I treasure redemption.

I would have to give up my sense of an individual self. I would have to let Myron go, and the things about her that make her unique, and with her, all the interesting stories of Myron. Would that be so bad? I talk to people like Cate Grieves who has done this and they seem very happy without their old self to hang onto. But I seem strangely attached to Myron in spite of her problems and her suffering. Weird.

I have also noticed the things that I used to think I couldn’t live without, only to discover that I don’t miss them now that I have let them go. I used to think I needed to be sick a lot. I used to think there was some value in anger and fear and I held tight to them … until I didn’t. I can vaguely remember jealousy as something to use, and I remember when hatred used to seem important to me. Some of all this comes back into my mind, and sometimes I respond to it. But I no longer believe that I want to keep any of this. So maybe that means I am not as afraid of redemption as I used to be. Of course I haven’t even looked at the fear of God.

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Study of Text, Chapter 13:The Guiltlessness Son of God P 9. 6-17-16

II. THE GUILTLESS SON OF GOD, P 9

9 Little child, this is not so. Your “guilty secret” is nothing, and if you will but bring it to the light, the light will dispel it. And then no dark cloud will remain between you and the remembrance of your Father, for you will remember His guiltless Son, who did not die because he is immortal. And you will see that you were redeemed with him, and have never been separated from him. In this understanding lies your remembering, for it is the recognition of love without fear. There will be great joy in Heaven on your homecoming, and the joy will be yours. For the redeemed son of man is the guiltless Son of God, and to recognize him is your redemption.

Journal
This “guilty secret”, the belief that I have undone the holiness of the Son of God, is nothing. It is not real and could never be real. It leads to an even greater fear. If I have made His Son into something He is not, then I must have undone God in order for this to happen. This is the source of all guilt I think. But it does not seem that I can forgive this of myself, at least not yet. So I work my way toward complete forgiveness and the remembrance of Heaven by forgiving guilt where I see it in my life.

I have had so much opportunity to do this the last few weeks. It seems that I am being bombarded with opportunity, but really it is simply the answer to the prayer that I awaken. When I remember the purpose of all these stories, then I feel calm and simply do what I came to do. But when I get embroiled in the stories, I forget their purpose and I start to feel overcome and emotional. This makes the process harder and more unpleasant.

I am using the Rules for Decision right now as the process that is very helpful in doing the forgiveness work, and also one that helps me to avoid some of the discomfort I would otherwise feel. Having used this process now every day for over a month, some things are becoming clear to me. The main thing I understand now is that there is only one reason I suffer. It is because I asked the ego to help me understand what is happening and what it is for. As soon as I change my mind about this and ask the Holy Spirit instead, I return to peace, and the peace of God is everything I want.

Because I have achieved some degree of peace through consistent forgiveness, when I do hold a grievance and see anyone as guilty, it is very distressing to me. That sudden and abrupt loss of peace is jarring, and if I hold onto it, it is painful. So I continue to bring my dark thoughts to the light and allow them to be dispelled. I want to remember God.

I want to remember that in choosing to experience separation, I did not kill the Son of God. He is immortal. He is me. I am immortal and I will remember this when I let go of the belief in guilt. As I choose to see my brother’s innocence, I will see my own, and then I will know I am one with him and with God. That’s the way it works. So holding a grievance is both foolish and painful, and completely unnecessary. A Course in Miracles has given me methods, practices that help me to return to sanity. I intend to make good use of them.

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