Together, We Light the Way

Click link to go to:
Together We Light the Way Index

Manual for Teachers 3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING? P 4- 10-12-17

3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING? P 4

4 Each teaching-learning situation is maximal in the sense that each person involved will learn the most that he can from the other person at that time. In this sense, and in this sense only, we can speak of levels of teaching. Using the term in this way, the second level of teaching is a more sustained relationship, in which, for a time, two people enter into a fairly intense teaching-learning situation and then appear to separate. As with the first level, these meetings are not accidental, nor is what appears to be the end of the relationship a real end. Again, each has learned the most he can at the time. Yet all who meet will someday meet again, for it is the destiny of all relationships to become holy. God is not mistaken in His Son.

Journal
The reason we have levels of teaching is that not everyone is ready for a holy relationship at the same time. We have those brief encounters that Jesus talked about in the last paragraph, in which two people encounter each other in passing. They are not unimportant, in fact, that situation affords the two people an opportunity to learn as much as they can at that time and so the learning-teaching situation is maximal. He tells us that it is in this sense only that we speak of levels of teaching.

The second level is the more sustained relationship. This relationship lasts longer and is fairly intense, then, the two separate. I was thinking of my first two marriages. ~smile~ They didn’t last long, but they were definitely intense. I also see that we learned from each other as much as we could. It is not to say that no more could be learned from them, but it was the most that could be done by us at that time.

Even my third marriage would fit into this category. It lasted longer but it did end. However, by this time I had enough understanding to realize that it could still be healed even though we were not together and so I worked at it until that was done. This is a good thing because Jesus tells us that all who meet will someday meet again, for it is the destiny of all relationships to become holy. God is not mistaken in His Son.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this post.

Printable Page

Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 15: The End of Doubt, P 2, 10-11-17

II. The End of Doubt, P 2
2 Do not be concerned with time, and fear not the instant of holiness that will remove all fear. For the instant of peace is eternal because it is without fear. It will come, being the lesson God gives you, through the Teacher He has appointed to translate time into eternity. Blessed is God’s Teacher, Whose joy it is to teach God’s holy Son his holiness. His joy is not contained in time. His teaching is for you because His joy is yours. Through Him you stand before God’s altar, where He gently translates hell into Heaven. For it is only in Heaven that God would have you be.

Journal
I cannot, in my present state, understand eternity. That’s OK. I don’t have to understand it. It is not my part to understand eternity, nor is it my part to end time. The Holy Spirit, God’s Teacher, will translate time into eternity for me. The way I understand what is being said here is that in an instant, a very holy instant, fear will fall away with all doubt, all conflict, all uncertainty, and I will know peace.

It is interesting that Jesus says not to fear the instant of holiness that will remove all fear. Why would I be afraid of the holy instant? It offers me everything I say I want. I don’t understand this, but I accept it. I think this is why we must spend some time letting go of the false beliefs before the holy instant comes. For some time now I have been letting go of guilt and I have discovered that this false belief is deeply rooted in my consciousness.

This morning, I was doing a guided meditation on love and it began by saying that meditation takes us within. I want to go within and so I was happy to think of that, but I discovered a guilty thought guarding that door. It was an old parental guilt that I would have thought would be weak and powerless from having been looked at so many times. Yet, there it was, barring my way.

So I let the meditation have me as I offered love to that thought. It didn’t seem to be doing anything at the time, and I actually thought that this encounter prevented the meditation from being effective. But now, as I sit here writing about it, I discover that I can’t find the details of the guilty thought that just moments ago was torturing me. Maybe love dissolved it.

The mind has many thoughts of guilt and these thoughts cause us to fear the holy instant. Guilty thoughts make us feel unworthy of such blissful joy as comes with Awakening, and we become afraid to approach it. I think I am impatient for that moment, but perhaps I should be grateful for the slow process of undoing that comes before it. I don’t need to be impatient or concerned that it has not yet come. I am assured that it will.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this post.

Printable Page

Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Manual for Teachers 3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING? P 3- 10-10-17

3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING? P 3
3 It is difficult to understand that levels of teaching the universal course is a concept as meaningless in reality as is time. The illusion of one permits the illusion of the other. In time, the teacher of God seems to begin to change his mind about the world with a single decision, and then learns more and more about the new direction as he teaches it. We have covered the illusion of time already, but the illusion of levels of teaching seems to be something different. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate that these levels cannot exist is simply to say that any level of the teaching-learning situation is part of God’s plan for Atonement, and His plan can have no levels, being a reflection of His Will. Salvation is always ready and always there. God’s teachers work at different levels, but the result is always the same.

Journal
At first glance, this paragraph doesn’t seem to say anything to me. As I sit with it, I glean at least this much; levels of teaching is like time in that neither exists except in the illusion. Because I believe in time and therefore experience time, it seems that I learn and teach or teach and learn and then I learn more and finally, something happens and I wake up altogether. It seems like this all started with a decision and then unfolds over time from there.

I have just a glimpse of the truth that I only seemed to make that decision and my awakening process only seems to take place a step at a time. In actuality, there is no time and nothing of God happens gradually and at levels. It is simply done because it is His Will that it be done. My mind stretches it out and I experience it as if it is a gradual process over a period of time. How really strange this feels to a mind that is firmly attached to time and to levels.

I think the reason this is important for me to know is that it encourages me to accept that I cannot fail because I have already succeeded. It is the light at the end of this dark and confusing tunnel, and it keeps me on a straighter and narrower path than I would have taken otherwise. It also helps me to understand that my part is one of simple acceptance of what is done. Otherwise, it takes a lot longer as I try to use the ego mind to do what it is not my function to do.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this post.

Printable Page

Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Text, C 15: The Two Uses of Time, P 15, 10-9-17

I skipped this last paragraph in The Two Uses of Time, so I am going back to it today. We will take up in the Section II, P 2 the next time.

I. The Two Uses of Time, P 15
15 Time is your friend, if you leave it to the Holy Spirit to use. He needs but very little to restore God’s whole power to you. He Who transcends time for you understands what time is for. Holiness lies not in time, but in eternity. There never was an instant in which God’s Son could lose his purity. His changeless state is beyond time, for his purity remains forever beyond attack and without variability. Time stands still in his holiness, and changes not. And so it is no longer time at all. For caught in the single instant of the eternal sanctity of God’s creation, it is transformed into forever. Give the eternal instant, that eternity may be remembered for you, in that shining instant of perfect release. Offer the miracle of the holy instant through the Holy Spirit, and leave His giving it to you to Him.

Journal
We are in this hypnotic trance in which we think we are bodies existing in time and that we eventually die in time. It takes a lot of effort on our part to hold the truth in our mind that this is not reality. We are not in time at all but exist in eternity. To remember that this is true, we must give up the idea of the body as reality. It is only an illusion as is the rest of the world. We exist outside time and outside form.
Since we mostly believe in the body and since most of us cannot comprehend timelessness, the Holy Spirit uses what we believe in to awaken us from this surreal dream. We give Him our thinking errors and He uses time to undo them for us. The Holy Spirit isn’t making us holy; we are already holy. He is only awakening us to our holiness. There has never existed an instant in which we were not holy. We will know this when we are no longer imagining that we are in time.
We cannot wake ourselves up. We need the Holy Spirit for this. What we can do is follow His guidance, using the processes given us in A Course in Miracles to help ourselves accept what He is doing for us. We can practice the truth, and once it begins to dawn in our minds, we can protect it through daily meditation and study. One of the ways I am practicing remembering I am not a body is to deliberately take a mental step back and observing the body with detachment.
I will say to myself I am not chopping vegetables; the body/personality is doing that. I am not worried about how this body looks; the body personality is worried. My feelings are not hurt by those harsh words; the body/personality is hurt. I am unaffected by anything that is happening in the illusion. After a while, I began to achieve that sense of detachment, not just think about it. I have found this very helpful. The world is an illusion. I am not. May I always allow the Holy Spirit to use time on my behalf so that I wake up to see that there never was any time, only eternity.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this post.

Printable Page

Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Manual for Teachers 3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING? P 2. 9-26-17

3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING? P 2
2 The simplest level of teaching appears to be quite superficial. It consists of what seem to be very casual encounters; a “chance” meeting of two apparent strangers in an elevator, a child who is not looking where he is going running into an adult “by chance,” two students “happening” to walk home together. These are not chance encounters. Each of them has the potential for becoming a teaching-learning situation. Perhaps the seeming strangers in the elevator will smile to one another; perhaps the adult will not scold the child for bumping into him; perhaps the students will become friends. Even at the level of the most casual encounter, it is possible for two people to lose sight of separate interests, if only for a moment. That moment will be enough. Salvation has come.

Journal
This paragraph has made such an impact on me. I used to treat casual strangers as if they did not exist. I looked away from them. When they were waiting on me, I acted like they were machines performing a function. After reading this paragraph, I saw what I was doing and it changed everything.

I still get wrapped up in my little story sometimes and fail to notice an opportunity for salvation, but I make a point to not do that. I have started thinking of everyone in my life as a potential for a holy encounter, a chance to put aside my separate interests, if even for a moment, and acknowledge our oneness with at least a smile.

At first, it was just a thing I did, but as my mind healed more and more, it has become a blessing that I bestow and receive. It is not just a gesture, but a real connection. When I fail to take advantage of that chance encounter, I regret the lost opportunity. I understand now, that it just seemed like a chance encounter. It was really a gift that I either accepted or rejected.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this post.

Printable Page

Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Page 3 of 4 pages  < 1 2 3 4 > 

<< Back to main page of Together, We Light the Way

Featured Store Items

Spiritual Counselor Training — based on principles of A Course in Miracles, including ordination. More….

24 ACIM Practitioner courses including 50-page study guide, CD's or MP3s, with facilitator. More….

Healing Inner Child 8-week program will help you nurture your inner child, connect with your Higher Self and heal relationships.

Listen & Receive 30-Day Home Study Learn to receive insight for your life in a form that is perfect for you …heal fears, find joy & peace. Learn more.