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A dialog with Remember - Hearing the Holy Spirit

Regina,

I am not sure if you have answered this once before
and, I am not exactly sure how I would find that out either
as I am new to these message boards.  My question is
how did you learn to hear the Holy Spirit?  Do you remember
when and how it started?  Do you have any recommendations?

I have concerns (fears) about listening to the ego
for direction.  I have a tendency to try 'too hard' and
study 'too hard' and so I am 'trying' to get out of my
own way without trying too hard!  LOL

Gently yet consistently trying to,

Remember.

Dear Remember,

June 30, 2004

Today, I experienced the Holy Spirit communicating with me.

Actually, it’s a communication that’s been in the works for a few days, but it all culminated into an experience today.

Ok, let me try to explain this experience in a way that another person can appreciate it. I’ve been studying A Course in Miracles at a pretty good pace since picking it up again in April of this year. I’ve been doing the Workbook exercises consistently since I started them on our Disney Magic cruise. My understanding of what I am reading is deepening, and with it, I have started experiencing a feeling of peace that I haven't known before. Although I am really happy for this feeling, I also wonder if I'm not just making it up in my mind. I mean, how do I know that I am not just psyching myself out with all this spiritual stuff.  I asked the Holy Spirit to please answer my question about this experience in a way that I could hear the answer. I may have even said, “Please meet me where I am.”

He did.

In a prayer a couple of days ago, I asked the Holy Spirit to help me select a good book to read on my trip to Myrtle Beach. I recognized that the Course is a little too heavy to read while lying around the pool, but I didn’t want to waste time reading something meaningless.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from David Hoffmeister. He mentioned that he has been traveling with Gary Renard who “wrote a good book about the Course.” I immediately found the book David mentioned on Amazon.com, but we are leaving for Myrtle Beach this Saturday. I was concerned it wouldn’t come in on time. So, I wrote down the title (The Disappearance of the Universe) so I could call the book store from work today.

This afternoon, I called the Acton bookstore. They didn’t have it. So, I called Barnes and Noble in Leominster. They had it! I decided to leave work early and pick it up.

Well, when I left work to pick up the book, I felt a spontaneous curiosity to listen to NPR public news radio (even though I never listen to NPR anymore). I turned it on and they were talking about how Palestinian suicide bombers are recruited. The commentators described the scene in heaven that these young martyrs are promised. They described the gruesome, violent bombs these men & women wear onto buses and into small pizza places. One thing in particular caught my attention: The recruiters tell the martyrs (suicide bombers), “Enter with peace and tranquility because you are one step away from going to paradise; you are about to carry out God’s mission.” The commentators talked about reports of big smiles on the suicide bombers faces just before hitting the switch. Then, they went on to say, “One can imagine that if you really submit to the ideology, you may well convince yourself that you are about to take the trip of your life.”

That brought back the question I've had in my mind lately. Am I just psyching myself up when I think that I am feeling the peace of God?

When I got to Barnes & Noble, I was excited to get the book, but I must confess, I was also a bit skeptical. The back cover begins with, “What would you do if you were sitting quietly in your living room when two mysterious strangers appeared from out of nowhere – and then told you they were ‘ascended masters’ who had come to reveal some shocking secrets of existence and teach you the miraculous powers of advanced forgiveness? . . . When two such teachers appeared before Gary Renard in 1992, he chose to listen to them (and ask a lot of impertinent questions.)”

Ok. I’m only on lesson 74 of the workbook. This seemed a little far-fetched to me, and I was feeling quite skeptical about Gary and his book. I bought the book anyway.

As soon as I got back to the car after buying the book, I opened up the sunroof, did my assigned brief meditation from lesson 74, then read the Publisher’s Foreword to the book. Through reading it, I gained confidence that this book wasn’t a bunch of hogwash. The mystic teachers were legitimate and so was the book. It would compliment the Course and make great reading for my vacation.

But, I couldn’t wait to start. So I opened the book randomly to page 233 and was amazed at the first two sentences I read. It said, “What about people who don’t seem to have any fear when they commit horrendous acts? There are people who strap bombs to their bodies and kill themselves along with many other victims, believing that martyrdom will guarantee them a place in Heaven.”

I knew then that I was experiencing guidance from the Holy Spirit.

In the book, the “ascended master” named Pursah answered Gary Renard’s question about suicide bombers by saying, “That’s a decent question . . .We’ve already said that the Course teaches that the direction of the mind cannot help but be determined by the thought system to which it adheres. The thought system of the Holy Spirit is guided by love; the thought system of the ego is guided by fear and hatred and will always eventually result in some kind of destruction . . . The appearance of peace is not always true inner peace . . .The delusional thought system of the ego . . . requires that people see their enemy – or the perceived cause of their problem – as being [projected] outside of them.”

With that, I was hooked on this book. My question had been answered. I was given a measure that helped me to see that the peace I am learning to experience is not delusional; it’s real. The book also quoted the course as saying, “A tranquil mind is not a little gift,” which reminded me to be thankful for what little I’ve achieved in these 74 days. From there, the book went on to explain the process of forgiveness. I found this very interesting and helpful reading for several pages. 

After this, I felt inclined to skip over a few pages. And I found an answer to another question that had been on my mind. I randomly skipped to page 254, which answered, "How long will it take to be enlightened and will I ever get there?" After all, the Course keeps saying “now,” but I don’t feel anywhere near enlightened now. Am I a failure?

Pursah answers, “How enlightened will you be X number of years from now if you don’t practice the Holy Spirit’s forgiveness? . . .The Course is a process. It’s that way for everyone, unless you’re a spiritual genius who is practically enlightened already, and there are only about twenty of them in the world. The bad news is that for everyone else, including you, this is a process that takes time and work. . .it’s is a lifelong spiritual path. There are numerous rewards along the way . . . but they happen within a difficult process.”

I cried and giggled with gratitude today when I realized that I am on the right path and the Course is taking me where I want to go. When will I awaken from the dream? In Pursah’s words (on page 241), “Let’s just say it will be a hell of a lot faster than it would have been if you weren’t prepared to accept the Course.”

Yahoo!

May 16, 2005

This weekend I ran into a challenge of the mind. I went to North Carolina to buy a house. This house will have three purposes, listed in no specific order:

1) This will be the home where Jasmine is raised.

2) This will be the home base for The Foundation of the Awakening Mind.

3) This will be a place where I will provide myself with more time to open up to and realize my true Self.

I cannot think of another purpose for the house.

During the time that I was waiting for the trip to North Carolina, I noticed a struggle within myself about how to let go of the house buying process.  I did spend 30 minutes to an hour a week looking at houses on Realtor.com and I maintained a list of possibilities based on my needs and preferences. By the time I made my trip to North Carolina this weekend, I had sent a realtor a list of 8 homes I wanted to see. 

When I started looking at these houses with the realtor, I began to notice preferences in my mind as I told myself to remember to pay attention to certain things within each house that I saw. For example, I wanted to make sure that the bathtub had a comfortable slope to it; I wanted two sinks in the kitchen instead of one; I wanted plenty of counter-space in the kitchen; I wanted a good neighborhood for Jasmine on a low traffic street with other kids around; I wanted a quiet area where I could stand outside and hear peace; I wanted a place where Kirsten and I would be able to take long peaceful walks; I wanted a good school district; I wanted a home where the view was peaceful and somewhat secluded; I didn’t want a house with maintenance problems, etc.

But, house after house that we looked at did not meet these preferences. As this pattern continued and the list of houses dwindled to nothing, I found myself lost in fear. I felt confused. Do I really have to put Jasmine in a school district with children from “the hood” in order to demonstrate faith in God?

When the short list of houses ran dry, I gave the realtor a second list for the next day. For the second night in a row, I got very little sleep. Fear rolled over me time and time again as I continually reminded myself that fear cannot hurt me. It seemed to hurt. I couldn’t eat much.

When I called my boyfriend and described the houses I'd seen, he said he didn't think they sounded good. This is when panic set in. After all, I really did agree with him and now it was mid-afternoon on Saturday, the realtor had gone home and we were flying back to Massachusetts the next morning. I had nothing! I had already sold my house in Massachusetts and closing is in six weeks. I’d already told my boss that I am leaving my job and she had already shared that with her boss. I’d already given up Jasmine’s slots for summer camp, Gates school and after school day care. I was about six weeks away from being homeless. I shook with fear as I spiraled down this thought process. What had I done? My closeness to Spirit was lost to me. I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t even imagine it. I couldn’t believe I’d given up everything in my life when it was so good for some spiritual fantasy. How had I duped myself into believing the spiritual thoughts I’d believed?

This was the bottom of the fear for me. It was intense, but under all of the ego thoughts, I also heard thoughts that came from Spirit within. I remembered Peace Pilgrim saying that the ego knew the weakest spots in our armor, and I knew that was what was happening for me. A weakness had been exposed. I reminded myself that I am the Son of God and not a victim of the world I see. I reminded myself that I am not on this journey for me alone. I wanted to come back from the painful insanity to the sanity of hearing Spirit’s words and knowing Spirit’s guidance. I picked up the Course. I asked Spirit to please let me open the book and read exactly what I needed to read. I opened the Course randomly to these words:

“Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so. Not because it has the power to hurt, but just because you have denied it is but an illusion, and made it real. And it is real to you. It is not nothing. And through its perceived reality has entered all the world of sick illusions. All belief in sin, in power of attack, in hurt and harm, in sacrifice and death, has come to you. For no one can make one illusion real, and still escape the rest. For who can choose to keep the ones that he prefers, and find the safety that the truth alone can give? Who can believe illusions are the same, and still maintain that even one is best? . . .

“It is impossible that one illusion be less amenable to truth than are the rest. But it is possible that some are given greater value, and less willingly offered to truth for healing and for help. No illusion has any truth in it. Yet it appears some are more true than others, although this clearly makes no sense at all. All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is preference, not reality. What relevance has preference to the truth? Illusions are illusions and are false. Your preference gives them no reality. Not one is true in any way, and all must yield with equal ease to what God gave as answer to them all. . . (Text 26.VI.1 and 26.VII.6)

I knew that what I was reading was true, but I didn’t think I could pull myself out of the hole I had gotten into. I had made this illusion of having the right home real, and I didn’t know how to make it not real. All I could do was ask for help. I may not have mustered a prayer beyond the word “help.”

I couldn’t read the Course any further, so I began walking around the house. I was shaking. My fear was obvious to others. They began to tell me that I still had time. Everything would work out. I wanted to believe that, but the fear was so intense. I went outside. I hoped a nap on the lawn would help. I hadn’t slept in two nights because of the fear.

Jasmine came outside. She wanted to spend time with me. She wanted me to tell her a story. I asked that the Spirit talk to me through the stories I told Jasmine, and I began telling stories intuitively. I found myself laughing at my own stories as I realized that I was putting myself in my own tizzy, and everything was going to work out.

A friend walked up to chat with me. I told him that I was afraid because I felt that I had given up a good life for an uncertain life. He told me that everything would be certain, just possibly not on my timeline. I knew he was right. I can see that even more clearly now. I believe my mistake was in believing that things were uncertain. I didn’t have the faith that things were certain and in Spirit’s hands, because I couldn’t see it. I wanted to see it and know it for myself.

Between the stories with Jasmine and the words of wisdom from my friend, I was feeling better. I wasn’t consumed with fear anymore. My brother had to go pick up his son at baseball practice. I went with him. He said he wanted to drive me by several houses that weren’t on my list that he thought would work well for me. I didn't really expect to find anything this weekend, but I now had faith that it would all work out, even though I didn’t have the answer with me right then.

The kids were getting bored in the back seat. We were heading back home when my brother decided to pull into one last neighborhood. Immediately, this street that felt good to me. Then we saw a brick house for sale. It looked nice. We called the realtor immediately. I got the answering machine, but half-way through my message, the realtor picked up. She’d just walked in the house. Within 30 minutes she returned my call and had set up an appointment at the house for 7 p.m.

All I can say is that this house felt good. I didn’t find myself judging this house as I had others. I just noticed that it felt good. I had a quick thought in my mind that I could make an offer on this house and somehow the money would work itself out, so even though it was above what I thought my top dollar was, I made an offer on the spot. I stood right there in the den 10 minutes after having walked in the house and made an offer above what I had decided I could afford, and it felt good. I was at peace and happy the entire time we filled out the paperwork.

After returning to Massachusetts, I asked the Holy Spirit to share with me regarding the experience from this weekend. This is what I heard:

Love is the energy that makes the world go round. When you close your eyes to Love, you seem to starve yourself and the hunger pains are great, but you are never starving. You cannot starve, for Love is the energy that makes the world go round. As long as you have any awareness at all, no matter what that awareness may seem to be, you are being held up by Love whether you are cognizant of it or not. You cannot be abandoned. That is impossible. And you cannot abandon me. That is equally impossible, because you are me and I am you. We are one always, inseparable even in time.

Relax and trust in me even when you cannot see. I am there loving you, caring for you and making sure that you are all right always. You have asked for my guidance and you are receiving it. Follow along joyfully. There is nothing to worry about, not even your level of trust. It will increase naturally as you stay with me, and you cannot be without me. (Here lies my basis for certainty.)

I see now that I wanted things to work out a certain way this past weekend so that I could feel confident I have chosen the right path. When things didn’t seem to work out as I had expected, I let fear in. Although my faith was strong enough to pull me out of the fear, I did not let it be strong enough to keep me from falling into fear in the first place. I forgot to trust the Holy Spirit and trust that the situation was playing out as it was supposed to.

Now, my goal is to strengthen my faith and to trust and stay with peace in all things. I ask for help and guidance in this lesson that I choose to learn. Amen.

July 3, 2004

I am on Lesson 77, “I am entitled to miracles.” In the last week or so, two long meditations have been a part of the daily practices. Although I haven’t allowed my experiences to stumble me, I have been disappointed in most of these longer meditations because I didn’t feel/get what the Course seemed to tell me to expect. For example, Lesson 69 asks us to think of our mind “as a vast circle, surrounded by a layer of heavy, dark clouds,” and then, “Determine to go past the clouds. Reach out and touch them in your mind. Brush them aside with your hand; feel them resting on your cheeks and forehead and eyelids as you go through them. Go on; clouds cannot stop you.”

The course described the successful outcome of this meditation as “you will begin to feel a sense of being lifted up and carried ahead.”

Well, I didn’t. I even felt extreme difficulty in conjuring up that image of the circle of clouds in my mind. I felt disappointed . . . maybe even as if I wasn’t good enough to receive these experiences.

But, today’s lesson tells me, “I am entitled to miracles.”

I am entitled to miracles because of who I Am!

Today’s lesson told me to think this thought confidently, and to wait quietly for the assurance that my request for miracles will be granted. The Course said, “You cannot fail to be assured in this.” A tiny, weak voice in my head asked, “But what if you do fail?”

There are two voices in my head. Today, I chose the Voice of Strength. I prayed confidently to the Holy Spirit before beginning this morning’s meditation and asked him to speak to me so that I could hear. I gave him permission to approach me without “the tinsel” of light episodes or loud, booming voices of God; I just wanted it to be in a way that I could hear and know that it was Him.

He answered immediately. As soon as I began my meditation, an image was provided for me. It was an image that had never been suggested to me by the Course or any other external source, so I know that it was being given to me as a gift from the Holy Spirit so that I would know that He was there talking directly to me.

I saw the image of a little girl, maybe four or five years old, hiding in a dark corner behind an open door. She was hiding in the shadow of the door, between the open door and the wall. It was just a sliver of darkness, just enough to cover her body, but the little girl was frightened. She was lost and confused, and she could not find her way out of the darkness to the light, even though the light was all around her. I was the little girl, but I was looking at her from the perspective of standing in the room of light, and I could see that she wasn’t actually in a frightening place – she wasn’t actually lost, she was in the same room as the rest of us, but she thought she was lost. My father (God) loved her very much and didn’t want her to be afraid, so he sent a caretaker (the Holy Spirit) to reach into the shadow and pull her gently into the light so that she could be happy again. When she came into the light, she would also be able to see the small shadow she had been lost in, and she would then realize there never had been anything to fear.

Then, my perspective changed. Instead of watching the little girl, I was the little girl in the shadow. And, I saw the hand of light reach in for me. The hand didn’t grab me and pull me from the shadow; that would have been very frightening. The hand simply lingered and waited for me to decide to reach out for it. Once I did, it gently and joyously pulled me from the shadow into the light.

I knew that the hand represented the miracles of the Holy Spirit. As the little girl, I was entitled to that hand that helped me out of the shadow; after all, my father sent the hand to get me. It was my natural right because I was my father’s daughter. All that was needed on my part was to reach out and take the hand.

Through the gift of this image, I know that I received full and unquestionable assurance that I am entitled to miracles. It was quick and easy, possibly because I needed quick and easy today. The Holy Spirit wanted to leave no room for doubt today. I am the Child of God lost in the shadow of an open door, and I am entitled to the gentle miracles that will pull me into the Light.

The meditation image ended with me and myriads of my brothers and sisters all holding on to the hand (which was much bigger now; hundreds of us could grasp one large finger) and being pulled gleefully from the shadow into the Light.

Thank you, Father, for sending the Holy Spirit to help us. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for being such a loving Guide, Care Taker and Teacher. Thank you for the Course.

I am entitled to miracles. It’s just my Father calling me Home.

Friend: Speaking of picture shows, what about that movie: A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE?  It even begins with a father and mother and brother telling the little girl that she is just having a bad dream.  What is happening in Hollywood?  Do these movie makers know what they are doing?

Holy Spirit: Yes and no.  They see themselves as artists.  They allow themselves to be communication devices.  They are like Bob Dylan.  They feel compelled to express what is coming through them even when they do not understand it. 

I learned that movies were more helpful to me when I let the Holy Spirit pick movies for me. I started the practice of saying a prayer before entering the video store. Then, instead of shopping for a movie I thought I would like, I felt for an intuition that told me which way to walk within the store, when to stop and what to grab. I watched a number of movies I would not have selected using my own judgment, and each movie seemed to provide a perfect message for me.

I am posting only two of many examples of hearing the Holy Spirit through movies. Both are given below.

With Love,
Regina

 Movie example, #1:

(Note: I felt strong guidance to go see this movie directly after receiving a calling to begin writing for the Holy Spirit.)

November 7, 2004