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Gentle Healing Lesson 124, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-12-19

LESSON 124
Let me remember I am one with God.

How holy are our minds! And everything we see reflects the holiness within the mind at one with God and with itself.

No miracle can ever be denied to those who know that they are one with God. No thought of theirs but has the power to heal all forms of suffering in anyone, in times gone by and times as yet to come, as easily as in the ones who walk beside them now.

Peace be to you today. Secure your peace by practicing awareness you are one with your Creator, as He is with you. Sometime today, whenever it seems best, devote a half an hour to the thought that you are one with God. This is our first attempt at an extended period for which we give no rules nor special words to guide your meditation. We will trust God’s Voice to speak as He sees fit today, certain He will not fail. Abide with Him this half an hour. He will do the rest.

Let me remember I am one with God, at one with all my brothers and my Self, in everlasting holiness and peace.

Oh my gosh! What an extraordinary lesson! How holy we are, not the little ego self, but the mind that knows itself as one with God.  There are two things I am going to do today. I am going to give the thirty minutes to allow the Holy Spirit to work in my mind. The message that I will receive will not likely be in words, but in healing. Who knows, maybe a revelation. I am also going to give myself little breaks in which I sit for moments or minutes at a time allowing more purification. I have seen how powerful this is and I want to continue doing it.

The other thing I am going to do is to keep this lesson in my awareness. I can be aware of the truth or the illusion but not both. So by choosing to keep the truth in my awareness, I automatically exclude the ego. It is important to direct my awareness according to my highest and most heartfelt desire as much as I can. This is still something of a practice for me, and I will be gentle and compassionate with myself as I learn to make this as consistent as are my other practices.

Regina’s Tips

What if we were to realize that our awakening is in progress? And then with trust in that fact, what if we continue to follow instructions so that spiritual progress can continue?

When Michael Langford was teaching me to meditate, he shared some quotes with me. These are the quotes:

“Don’t look for quick results; there may be none within your noticing.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Don’t waste energy on thinking or evaluating how well or how badly you are doing in your meditation.” ~ Annamalai Swami

“Don’t be discouraged by the length of the journey, and don’t slacken in your efforts to get home.” ~ Annamalai Swami

“The practice is the progress.” ~ The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss

My Thoughts

This is good advice! I will keep in mind since meditation is not easy for me.

Manual for Teachers
“It is necessary for the teacher of God to realize, not that he should not judge, but that he cannot.”

This is one of my favorite passages from ACIM because it changed forever and for the better the way I live my life. Now, more often than not, I ask the Holy Spirit to decide for me. I am a wanderer, lost in a land not my own. I don’t know where I am or what anything here means. For the longest time, I have been like Moses wandering in the desert. For the longest time, I had no destination, only wanting the journey to be as safe and productive as I could make it, but not knowing how to do that, and often failing.

It is different now. I have discovered that I have a Guide who knows everything! This guide knows where I am going and how to get there. He knows how to help me avoid the perils and to extract myself from the pitfalls when I ignore His help. He decides for me whatever needs to be done. All I have to do is turn to Him and ask for help. He is ever with me, ready to help me as much as I will let Him, and to wait patiently when I fail to call on Him.

I often ask these questions now. What does this mean? What would You have me know about this? What is this for? What would you have me say and to whom? Where would you have me go? I ask Him to show me another way to perceive each uncomfortable situation. Instead of judging for myself, I wait and allow His judgment to come through me. I am grateful because He is never distracted by appearances and always shows me my innate innocence and that of everyone else.

Attack
The desire to attack and the belief I can be attacked by someone or something outside of me, is an error that must be undone if I want peace of mind and happiness. Attack can be physical or it can be with words, even thoughts. It is an attack on my brother if I judge him. It is an attack on myself if I judge myself.

I first learned to recognize all forms of attack, then to realize that it was hurting me and everyone else, then I chose to decide for God instead of attack. I released those attack thoughts as I noticed them. I made amends for the ones that made it past my filter. Nowadays, what desire or belief in attack is in my mind is mostly very subtle. So I ask the Holy Spirit to keep me mindful of those subtle forms of attack so I can release them as well.

 

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Gentle Healing Lesson 123, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-11-19

Lesson 123
I thank my Father for His gifts to me.

“Give thanks that He has not abandoned you, and that His Love forever will remain shining on you, forever without change. Give thanks as well that you are changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself. Be grateful you are saved. Be glad you have a function in salvation to fulfil. Be thankful that your value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom God established as His Son.”

“Thanks be to you who heard, for you become the messenger who brings His Voice with you, and lets It echo round and round the world. Receive the thanks of God today, as you give thanks to Him. For He would offer you the thanks you give, since He receives your gifts in loving gratitude, and gives them back a thousand and a hundred thousand more than they were given. He will bless your gifts by sharing them with you. And so they grow in power and in strength, until they fill the world with gladness and with gratitude.”

“Receive His thanks, and you will understand how lovingly He holds you in His Mind, how deep and limitless His care for you, how perfect is His gratitude to you. Remember hourly to think of Him, and give Him thanks for everything He gave His Son, that he might rise above the world, remembering his Father and his Self.”

This is a day dedicated to giving and receiving thanks and I do feel genuinely grateful for all that has been done in and through me. I feel emptier is the only way I can think to phrase it. Most of the fear and guilt I have struggled with seems to be gone. And if any of it comes back, I now know that it can be released and so I don’t need to be concerned about it, just give it over again in confidence that it will be undone for me.

The ego mind is frantic about all this. It is trying to use the old hooks to bring my attention back to past dramas but I am not only uninterested, but unafraid. I notice the thoughts that I am tempted to follow and calmly release them to the Holy Spirit. Just a bit of housekeeping, sweeping away the cobwebs.

I listened to A Course in Miracles last night as I slept and that is helpful, too, and another thing I am grateful for. Here is one thing I heard from C 8, The Gift of Freedom.

“My mission was simply to unite the will of the Sonship with the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father’s Will myself. This is the awareness I came to give you, and your problem in accepting it is the problem of this world. Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I am the salvation of the world. The world must therefore despise and reject me, because the world is the belief that love is impossible.”

I have to smile because the practice of the loving all method makes even more sense. If the world is the belief that love is impossible, the way to undo this is to think only of love regardless of the images of pain and suffering that are manifest in it. I also remember another sentence though I don’t remember it exactly and don’t know from where in the Course.

The basic idea was that to be in the Kingdom I must think only of the Kingdom. This must be my only desire and my only focus. I think that vigilance for my thoughts and a growing willingness to release the thoughts that tether me to the world is what makes it possible for me to keep my mind on the Kingdom. I am so very grateful for the Inner Guidance that has directed my every step and has brought me this far and will bring me all the way.

Regina’s Tips
NTI Luke, Chapter 17 says that gratitude “nurses your willingness to full health. Do not hold back on gratitude. Take time to sit in quiet and know your gratitude.”

NTI Hebrews, Chapter 12 says, “Worship in reverence and awe the true desire of the Heart by giving your gratitude to it. Through gratitude, [true] desire is increased.”

My Thoughts
NTI is filled with references to gratitude and the good it does us to practice gratitude. So is A Course in Miracles. Grateful is mentioned about 22 times and gratitude 99 times. I am letting myself feel gratitude, I am thinking about how grateful I am and I am being still each time the idea comes into my mind, being still and quiet and letting the Holy Spirit do His work in my mind. Gratitude is an aspect of Self and will help me know my Self.

Manual for Teachers
“As the teacher of God advances in his training, he learns one lesson with increasing thoroughness. He does not make his own decisions; he asks his Teacher for His answer, and it is this he follows as his guide for action. This becomes easier and easier, as the teacher of God learns to give up his own judgment.”

I cannot judge anything because I do not have the information necessary to do so. All I know is what I have learned from the past or from others and none of this is reliable. Even if all my information was reliable, I am very limited in what I can know. If I think I should do a certain thing, I might ask myself if I really know enough to make that judgment. Do I know all the possible outcomes of my decision? Do I know how it will affect me in the future, or how it will affect everyone touched by that decision now and in the future?

Of course, I do not have that information. I would feel frozen in indecision if I tried to work all that out, but I don’t need to guess, and guessing is what I am doing when I judge on my own. I can be given knowledge. If I stop trying to make decisions on my own, I can simply ask to be guided. That is a function of the Holy Spirit and it will be done for me as I request it. I will know what to do in any situation as long as I ask the Holy Spirit to decide for me.

The Holy Spirit has brought to my attention my resistance in asking Him at times. If fear enters into the situation, I can feel the resistance to letting go. This is absolutely insane. Knowing what I know now, how is it that I think I must keep control of the situation? How can I believe that I ever really had control? Fear makes us all insane. As I notice these thoughts in my mind, I ask the Holy Spirit to help me as I let them go. I am asking Him to add His strength to my wavering desire to be helped.

It is this consistent strengthening of my desire to see things differently and my willingness to be led that has brought me more clarity. I see now that the world we have made is not the world I want to keep in memory. It doesn’t make sense and the more we tinker with it, the less sense it makes. It is painful to see, but look I must. All of this is made by a mind that wanted to experience something outside of Knowledge. I’m done with it. I want only to lay aside my foolish notions of what needs to happen and accept what I receive through the Holy Spirit.

Text
VII. Looking Within, P3
3 The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results of His Presence, and through them you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly not of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond all of them. Perceiving His results, you will understand where He must be, and finally know what He is.

Journal

When people experience their awakening, they say that they see the world entirely differently.  Fear falls away and they no longer see guilt, but only love.  That is surely a miracle! I have not yet experienced that miracle. However, I have witnessed the results of the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life.

I have experienced pain disappear because the Holy Spirit healed my mind at my request. I have seen injuries heal quickly and without pain, and I am sure it would have been instantaneous if I had been ready for that. I have watched as time slowed down because I needed it to do so and called on Jesus to adjust time for me. I have witnessed anger, fear, and guilt dissolve so completely that I could not remember what they felt like.

I have read about miracles in the lives of others. Anita Moorjani talks about her miraculous experience in Dying to Be Me. It is a well documented story and is the work of the Holy Spirit making clear His presence. Jan Frazier shares her story of fear falling away in such a dramatic way that we cannot miss the miracle of it. I have talked to several people who witnessed the dead returning to life at a workshop given by Nouk Sanchez. And she has shared healing miracles that occurred to her personally.

When our minds are healed we experience the presence of the Holy Spirit and we know that It is real. The Holy Spirit is an invisible power but a very real power, and that power is made manifest in the world through our acceptance of the Atonement. We can’t see gravity, but we know it is there because we stay grounded to the earth. We can’t see love but we know it is real when we look at our children. We don’t see the Holy Spirit, but we know He exists because He enables us to transcend the laws of the world.

The world is an illusion, but it doesn’t seem like an illusion. It feels very real to us. Its laws seem immutable. It may not, in reality, matter what happens in this illusion, it is important, I think, to allow the miracle to express within the illusion. It is in this way we make visible the invisible, and we become convinced that the Holy Spirit in us exists. It is not a miracle that the world changes, the miracle is the change of mind that creates the appearance of change. The change itself is merely the manifestation of the miracle, but it is a powerful effect as it witnesses to the existence of your power being used for healing.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 122, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-10-19

Lesson 122
Forgiveness offers everything I want.

11 Sink into happiness as you begin these practice periods, for they hold out the sure rewards of questions answered and what your acceptance of the answer brings.

12 Before the light you will receive today the world will fade until it disappears, and you will see another world arise you have no words to picture. Now we walk directly into light, and we receive the gifts that have been held in store for us since time began, kept waiting for today.

13 Forgiveness offers everything you want.

14 Be tempted not to let your gifts slip by and drift into forgetfulness, but hold them firmly in your mind by your attempts to think of them at least a minute as each quarter of an hour passes by.

Forgiveness offers everything I want.
Today I have accepted this as true.
Today I have received the gifts of God.

These are the ideas that I am focused on. I fully understand the importance of forgiveness. I don’t need to be convinced that forgiveness offers me everything I want. I know what forgiveness is. It is the realization that I and I alone are responsible for my script so there is no one or nothing to forgive. I forgive what has not been done to me. Forgiveness is the realization that these images that represent separation, the world of time and space, the many bodies, are not real, but are illusions. I forgive the world for what I thought it was.

Now I am mastering my decision to forgive the world. Little things come up showing me what yet needs to be healed. I release them to the Holy Spirit and He heals me. Sometimes it takes but a second or two and sometimes an hour or two, but never do I ever believe it is something I want to keep. I know beyond a doubt that when a grievance enters my mind, I will not keep it. So, today I choose to remember my purpose and to stay in awareness of forgiveness and the effect of forgiveness. If I should drift into forgetfulness, I will stop long enough to restore my mind to this holy place.

Here is an example of how this works for me. I had the thought this morning that I haven’t actually spoken to my son in a few days and he is not participating in our group texts right now. This was followed by fear that he is not OK. So, I went into stillness and I looked at this with the Holy Spirit.

I received the knowing that this thought was tethering me to the world, so I released it to the Holy Spirit so that He could heal my mind and restore it to peace. I don’t want that thought back. It may show up again, but by forgiving it, I no longer need to cast my attention on it and follow it to fear and suffering. This is how I use forgiveness to lift the veil.

Afterward, I noticed that I still have a lump in my throat. That represents a part of the thought I did not give to the Holy Spirit. I looked again with Him and He showed me that there is still a belief in my mind that suffering with my son is how I love him. Of course, that is an old thought,  a crazy thought, and so I gave that to Him as well and now I feel the lump dissolving.

Regina’s Tips

Are we ready to let go of trying to get what we want? Are we ready to let the universe bring what it will? Are we ready to embrace anything and everything that comes while letting go of all dissenting chatter that arises in our minds?

Are we ready?

My thoughts

For a while now, I have been questioning my wants. As soon as I think I want something, I look at it with the Holy Spirit and then I let it go to Him. I have been wrong so many times when I thought I knew what I wanted that I have given up on making those decisions on my own. From Attainment of the Real World:

12 Only the Holy Spirit knows what you need. For He will give you all things that do not block the way to light. And what else could you need? In time, He gives you all the things that you need have, and will renew them as long as you have need of them. He will take nothing from you as long as you have any need of it. And yet He knows that everything you need is temporary, and will but last until you step aside from all your needs and realize that all of them have been fulfilled. Therefore He has no investment in the things that He supplies, except to make certain that you will not use them on behalf of lingering in time. He knows that you are not at home there, and He wills no delay to wait upon your joyous homecoming.

13 Leave, then, your needs to Him. He will supply them with no emphasis at all upon them. What comes to you of Him comes safely, for He will ensure it never can become a dark spot, hidden in your mind and kept to hurt you. Under His guidance you will travel light and journey lightly, for His sight is ever on the journey’s end, which is His goal. God’s Son is not a traveler through outer worlds. However holy his perception may become, no world outside himself holds his inheritance. Within himself he has no needs, for light needs nothing but to shine in peace, and from itself to let the rays extend in quiet to infinity.

Manual for Teachers
“Changes are required in the minds of God’s teachers. This may or may not involve changes in the external situation”

I am very settled where I am and I wouldn’t want to leave my family. But, if I felt strong guidance to do so, then I would. Most of the time this doesn’t happen. Regina was guided to move. Robert and Mary were guided to move several times. But for most of us, right where we are with the challenges facing us is exactly where we need to be. There is, after all, no need to travel anywhere to find God because He is already in us and we are in Him.

What has been necessary is that I follow the training program given me for the purpose of healing my mind. I am completely dedicated to that. I want to correct as many mistakes as I can. I welcome the situations that trigger my thinking errors because it is now that I undo what was done in the past. These situations arise in my mind for that purpose alone.

There is no room in my mind for grievances or attack thoughts or judgments. When I see evidence of defensiveness on my part, I immediately sit with the Holy Spirit until I feel that I have left it with Him. I do my best to heal all relationships and it is a joy to do this. Sometimes I think it would take a miracle to heal a relationship and that is very exciting because through the Love that is God within me, I have access to just such a miracle.

Text
“You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense. There are areas in your learning skills that are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a Teacher Who can transcend your limited resources.” T12.V

A Course in Miracles has provided me with a special curriculum, and the Holy Spirit is my Teacher. It is here that I am learning about love. Mostly, I am learning what is not love.

Here are a couple things that I have learned that help me recognize what love is not. Here are some examples of the ego’s idea of love. It is not love when I yearn to be with someone because I feel empty. That is using the person, not loving them. It is not love when I think that I am incomplete, that is neediness and it too leads to using. It is not love when I comfort someone who is grieving because that person’s grief makes me uncomfortable.

Here is something else I have learned about love through my Teacher. Love isn’t something I find in someone else, and it is not something I can lose. I have learned that Love is what I am and so I don’t need someone else to provide it, nor can I lose it. And something else I learned is that in order to know the love that I am, I must share it. It is not something I get, but it is something I give, and it is something I recognize in the giving.

ACIM is a good curriculum, and the Holy Spirit is a good and faithful Teacher. I understand that I can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, and I get this direction from Him. I choose to follow His Guidance and not turn to the ego mind that knows nothing about love.

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Gentle Healing Lesson 121, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-9-19

LESSON 121
Forgiveness is the key to happiness

6 Forgiveness is acquired. It is not inherent in the mind, which cannot sin. As sin is an idea you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but from a Teacher other than yourself, Who represents the other Self in you. Through Him you learn how to forgive the self you think you made, and let it disappear. Thus you return your mind as one to Him Who is your Self, and Who can never sin.

The unforgiving mind must learn through your forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. And as you teach salvation, you will learn. Yet all your teaching and your learning will be not of you, but of the Teacher Who was given you to show the way to you.

The unforgiving mind does not believe that giving and receiving are the same.

I know that the unforgiving mind has made a living hell out of life. In the moment we had the tiny mad idea and imaged a world of separation, this unhappy world unfolded. We forgot our true identity which is of God and believed in the one we made which is the opposite of Love. This is where guilt and fear were born and it is here that they must be forgiven if we are to return to our natural state of being, our true Self.

Jesus reminds us that we have the key to happiness in forgiveness and he reminds us that to give is to receive. The exercise for this lesson is to reimagine someone we do not presently like and to see the spark of divinity in them, to focus on that spark until it is all we see. Then we imagine someone we do like and let the light from the two of them combine and in their brilliance to encompass our self. This is an exercise in forgiveness and in reinforcing the belief that to give is to receive.

When I did the exercise, I was wondering who I would choose. I couldn’t think of anyone I had a problem with. I thought my mind was wandering around in ego land thinking about a group I am part of, and I tried to pull it back to the task at hand. This one person kept getting in the way of my meditation until suddenly, my mind snapped to the realization that she was the one I was to use. Sometimes my mind is a little slow on the uptake. ~smile~

The ego doesn’t hate her but on the other hand, didn’t want to forgive her either. Evidently, my ego mind wanted to keep her as an annoyance. I had a hard time settling on her as the one to see differently. Finally, I asked the Holy Spirit to help me make this meditation a valuable experience. I then begin to see her as spirit rather than the personality/body I knew. I let that light spread until I was no longer aware of the personality traits my ego didn’t like about her ego.

The one I like came immediately to mind, surprising me in its choice. This one presents an ego equally imperfect but for some reason, I have no trouble seeing her as her Self.  In my mind, her ego personification fell away quickly. As her light glowed brighter it combined with the light of the one who was my “enemy” and the two of those bright Lights blessed me with forgiveness and we were one brilliant Light.

Even as I was writing about my experience, there was, and is, a silence in my mind beneath the words and I am confident that the Holy Spirit is healing my mind of the idea of enemies and the idea that any of these bodies is separate from me. He is healing my mind of the belief that it is possible to lose when giving. I wrote the words I need to remember every hour on a card that I can take with me.

Regina’s Tips

Today’s workbook lesson says of the ego mind, “It does not ask, because it thinks it knows. It does not question, certain it is right.” The lesson also says that we learn forgiveness “from a Teacher other than yourself, Who represents the other Self in you.”

It is time for us to begin asking within for understanding and guidance. If we are to find freedom, we need to let the teacher who knows the way take the lead.

The ego mind does not ask, because it thinks it knows. Therefore, we will ask. We will not come from ego. We will accept that we do not know, and we will ask. I encourage you to take time at least 1-3 times a week to sit quietly and ask within for whatever you need to see or realize now. Leave the question open, and let the genuine answer come.

My Thoughts

This is a practice I am willing to embrace. I know how to ask and I know how to listen. Sometimes I am given words and sometimes just a knowing that I translate into words. I can do this and do so already to some extent. This conscious and deliberate yield greater results so I will try it.

Manual for Teachers

“The body’s eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. ...The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. The one answer to all illusions is truth.”

I love how simple Jesus makes this. In sorting what we see there are only two categories, real and unreal. When my eyes show me a sick body, the ego mind makes a series of decisions to determine that it knows something about that person. What is the sickness, how sick are they, is it contagious, who is guilty, and other things. It uses these categories to decide if the person can be or even should be healed.

When my mind is healed my eyes still show me a sick body but the mind ignores that. It doesn’t acknowledge any distinctions in form or severity. The healed mind decides it is not true and therefore sees only God’s unchanging creation. The healed mind sees only the Will of God. As I am able to do that, I consider it a prayer. If I am completely unaffected by the ego image of a sick body, then the light in my mind can ignite the light in the other person’s mind and a miracle is given.

Text
II. The Way to Remember God, P 7
7 A little while and you will see me, for I am not hidden because you are hiding. I will awaken you as surely as I awakened myself, for I awoke for you. In my resurrection is your release. Our mission is to escape from crucifixion, not from redemption. Trust in my help, for I did not walk alone, and I will walk with you as our Father walked with me. Do you not know that I walked with Him in peace? And does not that mean that peace goes with us on the journey?

Could Jesus be any clearer? He is with us on this journey. He will awaken us as surely as he was awakened himself. I take great comfort in that and I feel so much love and appreciation for my brother that it brings tears to my eyes. I am much closer to awakening now than I used to be.

There are many ego ideas I no longer believe. My faith is stronger, my desire for awakening more heartfelt. But I still have difficult moments in which I doubt and so that is why this paragraph is so important to me. It reminds me of Lesson 70 in which he says, “If it helps you, think of me holding your hand and leading you. And I assure you this will be no idle fantasy.”

Our brother is truly with us, helping us, reassuring us, bringing us home. All he asks of us is to trust him. And when even this small thing is too much for us, he understands and helps us to build our trust. No wonder I cry in appreciation and love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 120, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-5-19

Lesson 120
(109) I rest in God.
(110) I am as God created me.

It is very comforting to know that I am not the one who has to wake me up, that God is working in me and through me. My only part is to rest in Him and that seems to me to mean that I cast my attention on only the thoughts that are loving and peaceful. I am also asked to be perfectly certain that I am being healed. I think that for the first time ever, I am perfectly certain of that. My awareness is being brought back to the remembrance of my Self.

I am as God created me, I am His Son is also more meaningful to me now than ever before. I gladly put aside all sick illusions of myself and I am going to be alert to old thoughts of illusions that catch my attention so that I can change my mind. I want to be available to God as He works through me. I want to hear Him as He tells me Who I am.

Regina’s Tips

In summary, here are the keys to contemplation.

• When you contemplate the written word, read slowly and repeatedly with long silent pauses.

• Toss out your beliefs, preferences and all prior knowledge as you enter the sacred ground of contemplation.

• Listen or feel inwardly for some stirring that might be the birth of insight.

• Be like an explorer and follow what comes to see where it goes.

• Use inquiry to invite wisdom. Even “What does this mean for me?” can invite powerful personal insights.

• Reserve judgment and let the value of the contemplative experience reveal itself in its own time.

• Receive your daily bread with gratitude no matter how simple it may appear to be. Review it and practice it throughout the day. It is a step on your own personal stairway to heaven.

Manual for Teachers
“There can be no order of difficulty in healing merely because all sickness is illusion.”

This makes so much sense. An illusion is an illusion regardless of the form it takes and so healing is simply choosing to disregard the appearance of the illusion and to insist on the truth being made manifest. Maybe, like this: There is no headache, just the appearance of a headache, and I’m not interested. There is only Love and Love doesn’t hurt. Love is joyful and peaceful and that is all that is really going on right now and all I care to have in my awareness.

So if it is so simple and so easy, why does healing often feel so hard? Why is pain, physical and emotional, so persistent? I have let go of the belief in a number of different pains and after I worked my way through the first one, just being vigilant and persistent in what I knew must be true, the rest have been a lot easier. But, sometimes, I can’t do it. Why is that?

Here are some of the reasons that I have noticed.
I do believe that some hallucinations are harder to dispel.
I still identify with the body to such a degree that I can’t quite believe that the pain is not there, that the pain is actually in my mind as a belief in pain.
Sometimes I still value the sickness. I think the sickness has something to offer me.
The belief I am guilty and guilt calls for punishment.

It is helpful to note those beliefs that block healing. They are all just false ideas that the ego mind clings to and can be dispelled as I lose interest in them. Having owned up to them, I can look at each one with the Holy Spirit and let them be undone in my mind and thus weakened in the entire Sonship. Some of these ideas are very deeply rooted in the mind and thus take time to undo. I have gone back over them multiple times and will continue to do so until I have completely released them.

One thing I have discovered is that the whole process is easier if I don’t allow guilt to enter into it. I am not guilty for ego thoughts. That is just part of the human experience. I have also discovered that they weaken as I continue to release them. For instance, I still notice that I value sickness sometimes for what it can get me, but now the idea is just a vague thought in my mind and easily released.

The belief I am guilty and deserve punishment is a more subtle thought and I deal with that in many ways all the time. Eventually, the belief in guilt will be undone completely and then all the rest will go with it, I think. I have let go of so much guilt that this belief is becoming weaker now, but it still shows up either as a memory of something I did that I regret or as a projection on someone else. It is happening less often and I catch it more quickly now. It is good to see progress.

Text

“First, you believe that what God created can be changed by your own mind.

Second, you believe that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect or lacking.

Third, you believe that you can distort the creations of God, including yourself.

Fourth, you believe that you can create yourself, and that the direction of your own creation is up to you.

These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the separation, or the “detour into fear.” None of this existed before the separation, nor does it actually exist now. Everything God created is like Him.”

I like the way Jesus phrases our present experience. He calls it the separation and the detour into fear, and later he calls it the tiny mad idea. I am relieved Jesus doesn’t call it the unforgivable sin or the betrayal of God, or the last straw. However he describes it, he reminds us that in spite of how real it feels to us, it is only an illusion and never actually happened. He says this over and over in very clear and direct terms. It’s amazing really that we can read it over and over and still think it must mean something else.

I certainly spent a lot of time reading right over those words. Maybe I didn’t want to embarrass Jesus by pointing out his obvious error. ~smile~ I continued to look at the seeming proof that my story of pain and suffering was reality and that Jesus was delusional. Happy to say that my apparent mental confusion is a temporary illness and I seem to be recovering. I have not flung God from His throne, and reality has not abdicated to fantasy.

No matter how long I sit huddled within myself, quaking in fear and planning my defenses, God is still love, and nothing else exists except in my fevered imagination. I detoured into fear, but I have an internal guide to direct me to the straight and narrow path Home. Thus forward when I speak of being afraid or of anger and guilt, and when I am uncertain or doubtful, when I shake at the thought of death, could one of you give me a gentle shake? I still tend to fall back to sleep now and again.

When my mind is clear, I know I am the Son of God, the Son of Love. I know that only Love exists and so I must be Love as well. I know that I am whole, complete, and lacking nothing. I know that I have never left this state and that there is nowhere for me to go, nothing I need do, and no effort is needed to be me. Does an apple try to be an apple? God help me to obtain the clarity of an apple.

In spite of the clarity that I have gained, periodically my mind clouds and for a bit I think Reality has been set on its head by my imaginings, and momentarily I become confused and frightened again. The lovely thing is, once the awakening begins, the forays into darkness are shorter and less frightening because the light I have uncovered never completely dims and I see my way back so much more quickly.

Holy Spirit, I know I am the one wandering off the path, but I am also the one calling for salvation. When I become confused, please give me clarity. When I become afraid, please help me to see there could never be anything to fear. When I feel anger or disappointment at someone or something, point me inward. When I forget that eternal life is the only truth and I feel loss, comfort me and help me regain my vision.

Now that I have opened my eyes and see the words you gave me, Jesus, I can never again be entirely blind. I see, if only dimly, and the joy of that vision will not be denied. God created me and creation moves in one continuous line. I am like my creator and my creations. When my mind is healed, my creations are like my Father’s creations.

There does not in all of creation exist anything that is not Love. Whatever I see or think I see can be easily categorized as real or not real. No other description need concern me. No other action needs my attention. “Here it is, Holy Spirit, this belief, this seeming thing, or person or situation. Is it true? If not, please heal my vision.” How free I am! Thank you, God. I love you, God.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 119, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-4-19

Lesson 119
(107) Truth will correct all errors in my mind.
(108) To give and to receive are one in truth.

I have thought that I am in danger nearly all the time. Every time I get in a car, I could be in a wreck. I could have a sudden heart attack or maybe that mole on my back is cancer. But I am mistaken that I could be hurt because the only thing that can be hurt is this body and I am not that. I think my feelings can be hurt or that my heart could be broken, but I am mistaken about that as well since this kind of suffering can occur only to what can be separated and I am not that either even if I pretend I am. My safety and my happiness are dependent on the truth and truth will correct these ideas in my mind as I am ready for it to be done. Without the false beliefs in my mind, I will no longer dream of danger.

Today, I will forgive all things. I will forgive the ideas in my mind and forgive their manifestations in the world, and do so as quickly as they come to my attention. In so doing, I will make room for the truth that sets me free. I will remember that I am sinless because I will no longer be dreaming of sin. I will remember that I am in God because I will no longer believe in the idea there is anywhere else to be. As I give up the ideas of separation and bodies and a world that exists outside of God, I will remember that I am His Son.

Every time I do a root cause inquiry it takes me to one of two places. Either I believe that I am unworthy and therefore unlovable, or I believe that I am not safe. Both of these false thoughts are the effect of believing in separation. I forgive the idea of separation, the idea that I still want that experience, and I forgive the idea of something less than perfect safety and the idea of unworthiness and a state in which love is unavailable. They are all mad ideas that lead only to suffering.

Regina’s Tips
The words are no more than signposts. That to which they point is not to be found within the realm of thought, but a dimension within yourself that is deeper and infinitely vaster than thought. A vibrantly alive peace is one of the characteristics of that dimension, so whenever you feel inner peace arising as you read, the [written word] is doing its work fulfilling its function as your teacher; it is reminding you of who you are and pointing the way back home. … Allow [it] to do its work, to awaken you from the old grooves of your repetitive and conditioned thinking. ~ Eckhart Tolle

My Thoughts
Even though words are necessary in the dream, and even though I use a lot of words, I am so tired of them. They never paint the picture I have in my mind. They never really express the idea I want to impart. This is why I have to be quiet sometimes and let the Holy Spirit do Its wordless work on me. The ego resists this so strenuously that I have to take this healing in small bits. The ego loves words and hates silence because there are no words. I have for a long time now realized that the words are hardly important at all and that the real healing takes place within me without my help or my wordy clarifications. My only part it seems is to want the healing.

Manual for Teachers
“It is in the sorting out and categorizing activities of the mind that errors in perception enter.”

It is so easy to fall into the ego’s trap of categorizing and sorting. I have a tendency toward the left in my politics. I have all sorts of reasons for this choice and even try to justify it through my spiritual beliefs. The problem with sorting ideas in this way is that in doing so I do not allow the Holy Spirit to guide me in this area. I think I know what is in my best interests when I go to the polls to vote, or when I encourage others to see it my way.

Another thing that happens is that I tend to think in terms of them and us when it comes to politics. This will reinforce the separation idea and make it stronger in the mind. If the difference in opinion is strong as it has been lately, I find myself demonizing the other side. I remind myself of one of my favorite and often quoted passages from the Course. I cannot enter the presence of God if I attack His Son. I can’t afford grievances.

Here is what I am discovering as I watch my mind during this political climate. There is still a strong desire in my mind to decide what things mean and what they are for. On the other hand, there is a stronger desire in my mind to stop thinking with the ego mind and to allow the Holy Spirit to inform me.

Another thing that I have discovered is that once I release the need for others to agree with me, and once I let the Holy Spirit correct my thinking, I can look at the issues involved without judging them or the people involved. Without judgment, I can look at the facts of the issues without attachment, so I am no longer outraged and no longer projecting onto others.

Another thing we can do is to notice how we feel when we see political posts. Does it make us feel angry, outraged even? Do we feel separate from those who designed them? Do they make us feel angry at the “other side”? This is a chance to allow the mind to be corrected, to choose love rather than fear.

Do we feel reluctant to give up our anger or do we justify our right to argue our point? Do we still feel like someone is guilty? Do we feel resistance to the idea of not following the posts we agree with? This is just another opportunity to be healed. All these things we want are just a matter of faulty categorizing and they are costing us our peace of mind. Instead, we can decide that being right is not worth it. We can stop keeping this dark place in our mind away from the Holy Spirit and give it to Him to heal, instead. Then we will be free to follow His guidance instead of being slave to our ego thinking.

Regardless of what is going on in the world, my purpose is clear now. I am to choose between love and fear in every situation and allow the Holy Spirit to do the sorting and categorizing. He has only two categories and they are not right and wrong. He sees only that it is either true or is it false.

For a little while I became inflamed by the situation, then I asked for healing. Now, I feel differently. I am no longer categorizing with the ego and so I have stopped looking for who is right and who is wrong. I will not try to influence the outcome through manipulation of emotions or arguing, but through accepting the Atonement for myself in this situation and thus strengthening the choice for God within the mind. This will lead to the peace of God, which will not be affected by what happens in the world. Once there is enough healing within the mind, the world itself will be at peace and we will experience the real world that is promised us.

Text
“There is nothing they (miracles) cannot do, but they cannot be performed in the spirit of doubt or fear.”

I was reading this in my journal from a few years ago. I had forgotten about this and it was nice to revisit it.

When Jesus says miracles cannot be performed in doubt or fear, I understand the reason that sometimes it seems I cannot perform them. When I see that physical healing is needed and I wonder if I am supposed to do this, or if I just cannot believe that this can be healed, at least by me, this blocks the healing.

Yesterday, I got the chance to witness what happens when fear is removed. I have talked about the house I bought and the work being done. As I mentioned in before, the roofing materials were stolen, so I had to buy them all over again. I did not go into fear about this, and I trusted that all would work out exactly as it should.

Since I was not fearful, my mind was clear when it came to the thieves. I did not feel angry or resentful of them, and instead, I realized how painful it must be to live with such fear of lack that you think your survival depends on taking what others have. I pray for their healing as I pray that my mind be healed of any such beliefs. Their healing is my healing because healing spreads throughout the mind. If I were fearful about the loss myself, fear would block love and defensiveness would make the belief in separation stronger within the mind.

Yesterday, I realized I was out of money, and I still have a lot to be done. When I saw the numbers, I felt a moment of panic. Not only was I short of money to finish the project, but also I didn’t have enough money to pay for what was done already. In spite of the panicky feeling, I also felt that current of truth that flows unchanged and unimpeded by ego. I knew that the panic was not the true thought in my mind, and when I asked for help, the Holy Spirit reminded me that there were other thoughts in the mind that I could look at.

So I turned my attention to those thoughts. I remembered that this script is written and my job is to see it with Christ Vision. The only purpose of the story is to show me where there is still a need to heal my mind. Other true thoughts were there, and the panic quickly faded away. I wanted to know how I could use this situation to heal our mind. I also needed to know how to deal with it in the story.

As I sat there in peace, I remembered that I have some money in a vacation account that I could use. Then I remembered another way I could get some money. During the day, money began to flow into my life in the most unexpected and remarkable ways. I didn’t do anything to create most of this flow; it just came into my life. I don’t know if it will be enough, but I trust that flow. Why should it stop before the project is complete?

One of the things I was to learn from this situation is that fear blocks the flow of love, and removing fear allows it to move into my life in whatever way I think I need it. In this situation, the most useful way for love to show up was as money, and so that is what happened. I will use the money to finish the project because that is what’s needed in this story of Myron’s life, but what I felt was love washing over me just because I allowed it. It was an incredible feeling.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gentle Healing Lesson 118, Manual for Teachers, Text.  4-2-19

Lesson 118

(105) God’s peace and joy are mine.
(106) Let me be still and listen to the truth.

Again, I am reminded that peace and joy are mine and all I have to do is accept them in exchange for what I chose instead. So, just as I have been doing for years now, I notice what I have chosen to believe that is opposite to the beliefs in peace and joy. I then choose to let those beliefs go and instead to accept new beliefs, beliefs that are true rather than false.

As I read this and contemplate it, I am drawn to the realization that I made substitutes for happiness and peace. This infers a deliberate act and I choose to own that decision so that I can decide again with confidence that my decisions have power and they affect me in profound ways.

I do not have an abundance of choices. Either I decide for God or I decide for the ego. When I decide for God, I receive all that is attributable to God, love, peace, and joy because they are also attributable to me. They are mine and I claim them now.

I am forming a helpful habit of stopping in the midst of my day of doing to just be. I stop the ego voices in my head and simply rest in God for a moment or two. This gives the Holy Spirit a chance to get a word in edgewise. Its message is always some form of reassurance that I am God the Son and I am perfect just as I am.

I am still and I listen to this truth and apply it as my day goes on. Sometimes it shows up as a reminder that I can choose happiness right now. Sometimes it is a reminder that I am loved and that it is safe for me to love in return. It is truly a might Voice for Truth and it is mine.

Regina’s Tips

~ When nothing was coming right away, the thought would be, “I’m not going to get anything out of this quote. It’s too straightforward. There’s nothing more to be had here.” Or maybe the thought would be, “I don’t understand this quote at all.

How am I supposed to get something out of this?” (How is what I am thinking now helping to block contemplation and serve the ego illusion?)

~ When something came very quickly, the thought would be, “That came too fast. That’s just me, not wisdom.” (How is what I am thinking now helping to block contemplation and serve the ego illusion?)

~ When flowery poetic language came, the thought would be, “I’m just writing this to impress others. It’s not genuine.” (How is what I am thinking now helping to block contemplation and serve the ego illusion?)

~ When plain and simple language came, the thought would be, “This isn’t anything. I’m just not good enough to receive something real.” (How is what I am thinking now helping to block contemplation and serve the ego illusion?)

~ When something came through feeling or a silent knowing, and I came up with the words to describe it, the thought would be, “I should hear words.” (How is what I am thinking now helping to block contemplation and serve the ego illusion?)

Etc.

You get the point. In order to allow contemplation, you need to be able to ignore the ego’s attempts to block contemplation, regardless of what those attempts look like.

My Thoughts

I sometimes wonder if I am listening to a higher voice than my ego, but I just stop for a moment to reestablish my intent to hear the Voice for God and then I go on.

Manual for Teachers
As my eyes show me the world, I see nothing but differences. For instance, people are different colors. But what does that mean? It could mean anything or nothing. It could mean that I find it delightful to see these various shades of color, much in the way I love planting different flowers of many colors. Someone else might see different skin tones as threatening, not like them and so that person might be uncomfortable around so much variety. Someone else could have no feelings about it at all.

What it means is up to the one looking. We decide with our mind what it means and then the world seems to show it to us according to our desire. I think it would be a very distressing way to live if I felt threatened by everything that wasn’t like me. I also think that I would find the proof I was looking for if I believed that people of different color or cultures or countries were threatening. I would find that proof, not because it was inherently true, but because I put it there.

I put it there with my beliefs. The eyes don’t really see at all, they simply report to us what we want to be there. Things in the world do not have meaning except as we give it meaning. Our mind evaluates the message and so only the mind is responsible for seeing. I can change my mind about what I want to see and I will start seeing differently. I wonder what it would be like to see through the eyes of Christ, to see what is truly there. Of course, the eyes can’t show me this, but my mind can.

Text
8:III “If you want understanding and enlightenment you will learn it, because your decision to learn it is the decision to listen to the Teacher Who knows of light, and can therefore teach it to you.”

I was telling a friend recently, that sometimes I know what I am. And then sometimes, I feel like Myron, this body, this personality, and when that happens, I feel like a beginner. I feel like I am in first grade and will never get to second grade. But how could that be true? No matter what I feel like I must be as God created me. I must be what God Wills for me.”

What I see is that the only difference between the two states, feeling like I am the Will of God and feeling like I am my ego self, is the teacher I am listening to. When I feel lost or hopeless the only thing wrong with me is that I am listening to and believing the ego thoughts in my mind. The truth doesn’t go anywhere just because I am not paying attention to it.

I will have enlightenment if enlightenment is what I want. I will have it because it is always there waiting for me and because I have the Holy Spirit Who was made for this. He teaches perfectly and continuously because it is His function. He teaches joyously and I can learn joyously, as well. As I remind myself of the truth and turn my face toward the light, the very idea of failure becomes ludicrous. I remember to ask that my perception be corrected, and I see that was the only problem, my perception was out of alignment with the truth.

It requires practice to learn to ignore the thinking mind, but it can be done. I practice every day. To the degree I am successful, I am happy and peaceful. Don’t believe your ego thoughts!

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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