 Hi everyone, I was just realizing we have an online retreat coming up here in early April. Looks like April 6th, Friday April 6th through the 8th, and the topic is going to be healing through relationships, transforming with the Holy Spirit's help from special relationships to holy relationships. So for those of you that are interested in knowing a little bit more about how this transformation takes place, and whether it's in the context of family relationships or a partnership, whether it's a significant other, or whether it's a business partnership, or a friendship, or living in a community, a spiritual community, or in your neighborhood, so on and so forth, what is the dynamic that's underneath the healing of relationships? So today I thought I would just pop open a Course in Miracles and use a section of the Course to go into this dynamic, because we all know that that relationships involve mirroring, and that this mirroring helps us get in touch with what is believed and what these thoughts are that have been generated from the ego. And these thoughts, we could call them judgments or attack thoughts, are what limits our experience of relationships. And when we learn to be accepting and open-minded and giving and loving from our heart, then these relationships become reflections of the divine love that is in us, and that wants to always shine through us, and can shine through us when we have raised the darkness to the light, and we've exposed all these ego judgments and attack thoughts. When we have exposed them and released them, then we are indeed free of them. So today I'm going to swing back to the back of a Course in Miracles to the manual for teachers, and we're going to go to the section that's numbered 17 in the manual for teachers, and the question at the top of the page says how do God's teachers deal with magic thoughts? Magic thoughts are our thoughts that are of the ego that still involve the belief that form is causative. These are basically wrong-minded thoughts, and as you advance in opening up to a function of being a miracle worker or teacher of God, then this is a very important topic. How do God's teachers deal with magic thoughts? So let's take a look at this section, because I think this can be very, very helpful for us. It says this is a crucial question for both teacher and pupil. If this issue is mishandled, the teacher of God has hurt himself and has also attacked his pupil. This strengthens fear and makes the magic seem quite real to both of them. How to deal with magic thus becomes a major lesson for the teacher of God to master. His first responsibility in this is not to attack it. If a magic thought arouses anger in any form, God's teacher can be sure that he is strengthening his own belief in sin and has condemned himself. He can be sure as well that he has asked for depression, pain, fear, and disaster to come to him. Let him remember then it is not this that he would teach, because it is not this that he would learn. So basically when you're in a situation that involves a perceived relationship, whether it's teacher pupil or your partner, your friend, your parent, your child, your neighbor, your co-worker, somebody that you've just met on the street, it doesn't really matter what the form of the relationship is. When these magic thoughts rise up into awareness, these are the ego's thoughts. And how you deal with these magic thoughts is, as we've just read, is a very central lesson. It's a major lesson for the teacher of God to master. So, being aware of these thoughts and not just reacting to them, I mean, these thoughts also bring with them an interpretation of the situation, an interpretation of the relationship. And then if you react with anger to the interpretation, then you've just bought the bait of dispiriting yourself, of opening yourself up to anger in any form, or, as he mentioned, depression, pain, fear, disaster, you're just opening the door for hell by reacting to these thoughts as if they're real. So there has to be a mind training that's involved. It's starting to just see these thoughts and observe them, but not react to them, not identify with them, and not buy into the bait of any judgments or interpretations that are part of these thoughts. Okay, the second paragraph, there is, however, a temptation to respond to magic in a way that reinforces it. Nor is this always obvious. It can, in fact, be easily concealed beneath a wish to help. A wish to help. Okay, this is talking about how subtle these defense mechanisms can be. You have some thoughts of attack or suffering and lack, and you perceive that it's this person that's across from you that you're perceiving that is lacking and that is need of help. And so you may have a wish to be helpful, not realizing that these thoughts are arising in the mind to be released. And as long as you have this wish to help and you use this as a, like a defense, as a kind of a reaction to, oh, I see the problem is outside of me and I must now offer help. It is not going to be helpful in releasing these thoughts because they're not realized as magic thoughts. There seem to be as external problems or external people with problems or an external world with problems. So it goes on to say it is this double wish that makes the help of little value and must lead to undesired outcomes. Nor should it be forgotten that the outcome that results will always come to teacher and to pupil alike. How many times has it been emphasized that you give but to yourself and where could this be better shown than in the kinds of help the teacher of God gives to those who need his aid. Here is his gift most clearly given him for he will give only what he has chosen for himself. And in this gift is his judgment upon the Holy Son of God. So if you're going to offer miracles you have to be able to see the false is false. You have to be detached from attack thoughts. You have to actually to heal in mind. You have to see the impossibility of attack thoughts. They're always dualistic. They're always involved two or more. A victim, a victimizer. The ones who are taking advantage of and the ones who are being taken advantage of. You know the victims and the victimizers. This is this dualistic thought system of the ego and when you offer a gift of the spirit you're basically letting the spirit come through you overlooking the magic thoughts and offering what is really called for which is an answer to a call for love. So when you answer a call for love you answer with love and then this is clearly the gift that you give to yourself. When you offer love you are giving love to yourself. This is a reflection of of the workbook lesson all that I give is given to myself. And this is also your judgment upon the Holy Son of God. If the Holy Son of God is innocent perfectly deserving of love and of care and of kindness then that is the gift that you receive to yourself and then that's a mechanism of starting to see yourself not as a body not as a person not as a dream figure but as the Holy Son of God as the living Christ. So this is part of the conversion and we're looking at it today in the context of dealing with magic thoughts because this is something that you'll face day in day out seemingly for many years until you become so fully in your function of miracle working that that you transcend the whole belief in attack and therefore you transcend the attack thoughts. So let's continue on with the third paragraph. It is easiest to let error be corrected where it is most apparent and errors can be recognized by their results. A lesson truly taught can lead to nothing but release for teacher and pupil who have shared in one intent. Attack can only enter if perception of separate goals has entered and this must indeed have been the case if the result is anything but joy. The single aim of the teacher turns the divided goal of the pupil into one direction with the call for help becoming his one appeal. This then is easily responded to with just one answer and this answer will enter the teacher's mind unfailingly. From there it shines into his pupil's mind making it one with his. So basically if you have the same purpose with everything and everyone you're perceiving if you have a shared goal we could say a goal for the miracle or a goal for forgiveness or a goal to extend love. If you have that shared intent that shared purpose then the result will be joy and yet if there are different goals that are being offered or perceived this is what personality is about when you believe you're a person and you believe you have your own personal goals for your ambitions for the the world in general for your family or your partner or yourself as a person when there are these self-concept goals that are coming from the ego from the unconscious mind that's where the conflict arises because if you have personal goals you'll certainly have expectations and if you have expectations sometimes it will seem that those expectations are not met and it's easily then this next step is to project the fault or the blame for that onto your partner onto another person onto the government onto something in the world you know that's where this is heading so when you are willing to answer the call for love when you're willing to hold to this unified purpose of forgiveness then you will extend the love you will answer the call for love and and you will feel the peace and love and joy that comes from being in your function you'll be happy paragraph four perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no one can be angry at a fact it is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions regardless of their seeming justification by what appears as facts so what you perceive as the world and behavior can seem to be a fact seems to be happening in front of your eyes in front of you you seem to see it perceive it hear it actually a fact is divine love a fact is christ a fact is god these are all facts these are all eternal and what we call perception it's just really images and appearances that are not facts at all all images involve interpretation and of course we need to learn to call on the holy spirit for his forgiven interpretation or a forgiven perception of the world because that's where we return to a fact of who we are as divine love so as we continue on with the third sense regardless too of the intensity of the anger that is aroused it may be merely slight irritation perhaps too mild to be even clearly recognized or it may also take the form of intense rage accompanied by thoughts of violence fantasy to apparently act it out it does not matter all of these reactions are the same they obscure the truth and this can never be a matter of degree either truth is apparent or it is not it cannot be partially recognized who is unaware of truth must look upon illusions so this the rest of this paragraph is clearly reminding me of the idea from the course that that those who fail to forgive must judge because they must justify their failure to forgive another way of saying that is those who fail to forgive must interpret in a personal way because they must justify their failure to accept atonement or true forgiveness to see the nothingness of images to see the impossibility of error that's what forgiveness will show them but as long as they are holding on to a sense of partial perception the belief that there's order of difficulties the belief that truth is a matter of degree those are all the same error you know it's another way it's perceived as the belief that there's hierarchy of illusions when actually there is no such thing all illusions are false so paragraph five jumps in with anger in response to perceived magic thoughts is a basic cause of fear consider what this reaction means and its centrality in the world's thought system becomes apparent a magic thought by its mere presence acknowledges a separation from god it states in the clearest form possible that the mind which believes it has separate will that can oppose the will of god also believes it can succeed that this can hardly be a fact is obvious yet that it can be believed as fact is equally obvious and herein lies the birthplace of guilt who usurps the place of god and takes it for himself now has a deadly quote enemy and he must stand alone in his protection and make himself a shield to keep him safe from fury that can never be abated and vengeance that can never be satisfied so at the very end there it's almost like the projection of error or the projection of the belief in sin the belief that you can oppose the will of god and the belief that you are separate from god that will produce a projection of an external enemy and this is where the whole idea of punishment comes in the idea that somehow you've gone against the will of god and now you're going to get punished by a vengeful god or by vengeful circumstances and all this comes from holding on to the belief in magic thoughts so this is why it's so important to expose the magic thoughts and then release them because without exposing and releasing the magic thoughts then the fear will remain in the mind and so will the guilt number six how can this unfair battle be resolved its ending is inevitable for its outcome must be death how then can one believe in one's defenses magic again must help forget the battle accept it as a fact and then forget it do not remember the impossible odds against you do not remember the immensity of the quote enemy and do not think about your frailty in comparison accept your separation but do not remember how it came about this is the unconscious mind pushing it out of awareness repressing it out of awareness believe that you have won it but do not retain the slightest memory of who your great quote opponent really is projecting your quote forgetting on to him it seems to you he has forgotten too so this is all the authority problem of believing you can create yourself you can create a world has nothing to do with god a world of time and distinct situations a world of separation and then forget that you made it up and then projected on to god as if god created for you and you're at the mercy now of god and the world it's really this is the subtleness of the ego of projecting the cause as if it's not in the mind as if it's not thoughts in the mind and seeing as if it's all external so this section we've been reading is basically pointing to us that god has really nothing to do with these magic thoughts these are all generated from the ego and ultimately if you take this deep enough you must give way to the present moment you must give way to a presence in the mind that simply is it has no past it has no future there are no future goals with it there are no ambitions with it it is a total let go and accepting yourself in this moment which is the gateway to eternity it is a leaving behind of all the thoughts of personhood all the memories of personhood both good and bad and all the future goals and ambitions of personhood both good or or devious it doesn't really matter the direction of the error as long as your mind is holding on to a belief in linear time future thoughts and past thoughts then it has given itself over to to magic it has given itself over to the belief that that it is stuck in a world in which there is no escape and when the mind concedes and feels like uh i give up it's just too complex there's too much guilt there's too much fear involved i won't be able to overcome that once you give into that then it simply becomes a matter of following ego distractions to distract away from the pain and the suffering from the boredom from the the status quo of the projected world you know from from being human and and kind of trying to just make your way through this world of time and space the best that you can when actually you're being called to forgive it to release it to drop it to drop the act to be transparent to be authentic but not to walk through an act based on a bunch of beliefs about false identity so i hope you have enjoyed this this has been a little foray into the dealing of forgiveness in the mind and we used this section in the manual for teachers how do god's teachers deal with magic thoughts you can see that that if you harbor them and you try to interpret and react to the magic thoughts as if they're real you won't help you be free but if you join with the holy spirit and you ask what is really being called for here and you really tap into that call for love and let that love in your heart shine through you will offer yourself and your brother a gift the mind is being used as the bringer of light as the light of the world and that's what cleanses the mind of this illusion of darkness it clears away the unconscious beliefs its separation and brings you into direct connection with your source with god so i hope you've enjoyed this it's been a nice little splash for me into a course of miracles and i love you dearly and next time you have any magic thoughts come up don't attack don't react just watch them beware of them hand them over and then let the holy spirit answer the call through your mind i love you