Tracing Back a Belief
Instrument for Peace
Posted by aplecompte on March 2nd, 2009
The Instrument for Peace was made by David Hoffmeister to help Course students trace their lack of peace back to its singular cause in the mind so healing may occur.
When I think about this past event (A) I was the new manager of a social services program. An employee called me at home Sunday night saying he had to take Monday through Wednesday off to renew his driver’s license. I said there was no coverage and that he would have to do his job Monday and Tuesday until coverage was available on Wednesday. On Monday and Tuesday he did not show for work, so I followed procedure bycompleting a written warning form and informed the boss. Later the boss called us into his office and listened to the employee, an old friend of his, say the renewal of the driver’s license had been urgent. It appeared to me that the employee was making this up so I asked him to show his driver’s license. He wouldn’t. The boss did not reprimand the employee but reprimanded me for essentially calling the employee “a liar.” Not long after that the boss fired me for “poor communication.”
I feel (B) angry
because I think that (C) the boss was to blame.
2. (A), (B), (C) prove that I am right about (D) being unfairly treated (my belief in lack, taking the form of an image of self/other/the world). I do not like how I feel now, so I am ready to consider the possibility that the way I am perceiving this is not the way it really is. As part of the healing process, I am willing to look beyond my perception of this upset (the meaning I have given it) and look within my mind.
3. I want to learn that there is a way that I can, without guilt, see the part I play in thinking (A) I was fired unfairly, in feeling (B) angry and in blaming (C) the boss.
4. I release my wanting to be right about my perception of all of this: (A), (B), (C), (D). I want instead to be happy. Through the ego (distorted thinking/seeing), I perceive the cause of my upset and its resolution as outside my mind. This projection seems very real; its purpose is to distract my mind from looking inward.
5. If the cause of my upset and its resolution were outside my mind, I would, in fact, be powerless to change it. My use of projection (seeing outside what I don't want to see within) is why I seem powerless, why (C) the boss seem(s) to be the cause of my upset.
6. Thinking (A), feeling (B) and blaming (C) result from my belief in lack (taking the form of an image of self/other/the world) (D) me being treated unfairly.
7. I am only upset at someone or something when they/it mirror(s) back to my mind a belief which I have denied from awareness. When I blame/fear something in the world, it is to avoid seeing the upset and resolution as they really are (a decision in my mind) and to instead maintain an image of self/other/the world as I wish. This mind trick seems to displace guilt and fear, but actually maintains feelings of upset. To blame or fear an image of self/other/the world requires that I believe I am limited to a body and world of bodies and denies the spiritual abstract reality of my being. As a first step in letting go of all upset, I want to see in my mind what I thought was outside it. Being upset about (A) being fired is only another attempt to make (C) the boss the cause of my guilt and fear.
8. Upset seems valuable and justifiable when (A) runs counter to what I wanted. What I wanted and expected is (E) for the boss to support me rather than the employee. I still believe in some form of lack (D) that I am a person who can be unfairly treated so I think I need (E) to be happy, complete, and at peace. Is this belief in lack and the resulting expectation more important to me than peace of mind?
9. Everything in the world works together for my good. What I think is the cause of my upset is not the cause at all. The choice to be upset is a choice not to see the cause, my belief in separation/lack, as a present decision in my mind. It's an attempt to see the cause in the past/future and the present as its effect.
So I rise above the battleground with the Holy Spirit. I am not a body; I am mind. The employee and the boss are merely images in my mind that I have invested with meaning and projected.
I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve.
And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked. T-21.II.2
I made up this particular dream event because I believe I separated from God; then I wanted God to give reality to my dream. That was not possible. So I got angry feeling that God treated me unfairly.
10. What I want RIGHT NOW, above all else, is peace. I question my belief (D) that I am a person who can be unfairly treated and I voluntarily let go of what I wanted/expected (E) for the boss to support me rather than the employee in order to reconnect with my one goal: peace.
11. Peace of mind is a present decision which I gratefully choose RIGHT NOW! Guilt and fear of consequences only seemed possible because I was determined to hold on to a belief in past/future cause. I let go of the meaning I gave to the past/future and open my mind to the present, absolved and innocent.
12. I am grateful for the realization that the cause of my upset, which I thought was in the world, was actually only an unquestioned belief and decision in my mind; I have decided anew for my PEACE OF MIND.
Another Instument for Peace example
Tags: Ego, Forgiveness
