Now a review again, this time aware we are preparing for the second part of learning how the truth can be applied. Today we will begin to concentrate on readiness for what will follow next. Such is our aim for this review and for the lessons following. Thus we review the recent lessons and their central thoughts in such a way as will facilitate the readiness which we would now achieve.
There is a central theme that unifies each step in the review we undertake, which can be simply stated in these words:
"My mind holds only what I think with God."
This is a fact and represents the truth of What you are and What your Father is. It is this Thought by Which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself. It is this Thought Which fully guarantees salvation to the Son, for in his mind no thoughts can dwell but those his Father shares. Lack of forgiveness blocks this Thought from his awareness. Yet It is forever true.
Let us begin our preparation with some understanding of the many forms in which the lack of true forgiveness may be carefully concealed. Because they are illusions, they are not perceived to be but what they are; defenses which protect your unforgiving thoughts from being seen and recognized. Their purpose is to show you something else, and hold correction off through self-deceptions made to take its place.
And yet your mind holds only what you think with God. Your self-deceptions cannot take the place of truth. No more than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides, the warming of the water by the sun, the silver of the moon on it at night. So do we start each practice period in this review with readying our minds to understand the lessons that we read, and see the meaning which they offer us.
Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in freedom and in peace. Open your mind and clear it of all thoughts that would deceive, and let this Thought alone engage it fully and remove the rest:
"My mind holds only what I think with God."
Five minutes with this Thought will be enough to set the day along the lines which God appointed, and to place His Mind in charge of all the thoughts you will receive that day. They will not come from you alone, for they will all be shared with Him. And so each one will bring the message of His Love to you, returning messages of yours to Him. So will communion with the Lord of Hosts be yours, as He Himself has willed it be. And as His Own completion joins with Him, so will He join with you who are complete as you unite with Him and He with you.
After your preparation, merely read each of the two ideas assigned to you to be reviewed that day. Then close your eyes and say them slowly to yourself. There is no hurry now, for you are using time for its intended purpose. Let each word shine with the meaning God has given it as it was given to you through His Voice. Let each idea that you review that day give you the gift which He has laid in it for you to have of Him. And we will use no format for our practicing but this:
Each hour of the day bring to your mind the Thought with which the day began, and spend a quiet moment with It. Then repeat the two ideas you practice for the day unhurriedly, with time enough to see the gifts which they contain for you, and let them be received where they were meant to be.
We add no other thoughts, but let them be the messages they are. We need no more than that to give us happiness and rest and endless quiet, perfect certainty, and all our Father wills that we receive as the inheritance we have of Him.
Each day of practicing, as we review, we close as we began, repeating first the Thought that made the day a special time of blessing and of happiness for us; and through our faithfulness restored the world from darkness to the light, from grief to joy, from pain to peace, from sin to holiness. God offers thanks to you who practice thus the keeping of His Word. And as you give your mind to the ideas for the day again before you sleep, His gratitude surrounds you in the peace wherein He wills you be forever, and are learning now to claim again as your inheritance.
Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you? In no fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely. Nothing you see here, sleeping or waking, comes near to such loveliness, and nothing will you value like unto this, nor hold so dear. Nothing that you remember, that made your heart seem to sing with joy, has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. FOR YOU WILL SEE THE SON OF GOD. You will behold the beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and that He thanks the Father for. He was created to see this FOR YOU, until you learned to see it for yourself. And all His teaching leads to seeing it and giving thanks with Him.
This loveliness is NOT a fantasy. It is the real world, bright, and clean and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here, for everything has BEEN forgiven, and there ARE no fantasies to hide the truth. The bridge between that world and this is SO little and SO easy to cross that you could not believe it is the meeting-place of worlds so different. Yet this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world at all. This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time into eternity, and beyond all ugliness, into beauty that will enchant you, and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection.
This step, the smallest ever taken by anything, is still the greatest accomplishment of all, in God's plan of Atonement. All else is learned, but THIS is GIVEN, complete and wholly perfect. No-one but Him Who PLANNED salvation could complete it thus. The real world, in its loveliness, YOU learn to reach. Fantasies are all undone, no-one and nothing remains still bound by them, and, by YOUR OWN forgiveness, you are FREE TO SEE. And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it. And, with this final blessing of God's Son UPON HIMSELF, the REAL perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.
The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him.
The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception will undertake WITH you the careful searching of the mind that MADE this world, and uncover TO YOU the SEEMING reasons for your making it. In the light of the REAL reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will SHOW you that there is NO reason here at all. Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release.
All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing all illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there, he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there in peace.
Even salvation will become a dream, and vanish from his mind. For salvation IS the end of dreams, and, with the closing of the dream, will have no meaning. Who, awake in Heaven, COULD dream that there could ever be NEED of salvation? How much do you WANT salvation? It will GIVE you the real world, trembling with readiness to BE given you. The eagerness of the Holy Spirit to give you this, is so intense He would not wait, although He waits in patience. MEET His patience with your IMpatience at delay in meeting Him. Go out in gladness to meet with your Redeemer, and walk with Him, in trust, out of this world, and into the real world of beauty and forgiveness.
If sickness is separation, the will to heal and BE HEALED is the first step toward RECOGNIZING WHAT YOU TRULY WANT. Every ATTACK is a step AWAY from this, and every healing thought brings it closer. The Son of God HAS both Father and Son because he IS both Father and Son.
To unite having and being is only to unite your will with His, for He wills you HIMSELF. And you will yourself to HIM, because in your perfect understanding of Him, you KNOW there IS but One Will. But when you attack ANY part of God and His Kingdom, your understanding is NOT perfect, and what YOU will is therefore lost to you.
Healing thus becomes A LESSON IN UNDERSTANDING, and the more you practice it, the better teacher AND LEARNER you become. If you have DENIED truth, what better witnesses to its reality could you have, than those who have been healed BY it? But be sure to count yourself among them, for in your willingness to JOIN them is YOUR healing accomplished.
Every miracle which you accomplish speaks to you of the Fatherhood of God. Every healing thought which you ACCEPT, either FROM your brother or in your OWN mind, teaches you that you are God's Son. But in every hurtful thought you hold, wherever you perceive it, lies the denial of God's Fatherhood and your Sonship. And denial IS as total as love. You cannot deny PART of yourself, simply because the remainder will seem to be unintegrated, and therefore without meaning. And being without meaning TO YOU, you will not understand it. To deny meaning MUST be to fail to understand.
You can only heal yourself, for only God's Son NEEDS healing. He needs it because he does not understand himself, and therefore knows not what he does. Having forgotten his will, he does not know what he WANTS. Healing is a sign that HE WANTS TO MAKE WHOLE. And this willingness opens his OWN ears to the Voice of the Holy Spirit, Whose message IS wholeness. He will enable you to go far beyond the healing YOU would undertake, for beside your small willingness to make whole He will lay His Own COMPLETE Will and make YOURS whole. What can the Son of God NOT accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him?
And yet the invitation must come from you, for you have surely learned that whom you invite as your guest WILL abide with you. The Holy Spirit cannot speak to an unwelcoming host, BECAUSE HE WILL NOT BE HEARD. The Eternal Guest remains, but His Voice grows faint in alien company. He needs your protection, but only because your care is a sign that you WANT Him. Think like Him ever so slightly, and the little spark becomes a blazing light that fills your mind so that He becomes your only Guest.
Whenever you ask the ego to enter, you lessen His welcome. HE will remain, but YOU have allied yourself AGAINST Him. Whatever journey you choose to take, He will go with you, waiting. You can safely trust His patience, for He CANNOT leave a part of God. But you will far more than patience. You will never rest until you know your function AND FULFILL IT, for only in this can your will and your Father's be wholly joined. To HAVE Him is to be LIKE Him, and He has GIVEN Himself to you.
You who have God MUST be as God, for HIS function became YOURS with His gift. Invite this knowledge back into your minds, and let nothing that will obscure it enter. The Guest whom God sent you will teach you how to do this, if you but recognize the little spark, and are WILLING TO LET IT GROW. YOUR willingness need not be perfect, because His IS. If you will merely offer Him a little place, He will lighten it so much, that you will gladly extend it. And by THIS extending, you will begin to remember Creation.
Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only whom YOU invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest, and how long he shall remain with you. But this is not REAL freedom, for it depends on how you see it. For the Holy Spirit is THERE, although He cannot help you without your invitation, and the ego is nothing, whether you invite it in or not. Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real. Know, then, Who abides with you, merely by recognizing WHAT IS ALREADY THERE, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you.
Who punishes the body is insane. For here the little gap is SEEN, and yet it is NOT here. It has not judged ITSELF, nor made itself to be what it is not. IT does not seek to make of pain a joy, and look for lasting pleasure in the dust. It does not TELL you what its purpose is, and CANNOT understand what it is for. IT DOES NOT VICTIMIZE, because it has no will, no preferences, and NO DOUBTS. It does not wonder what it is. And so it has no NEED to be competitive. It CAN be victimized, but CANNOT feel itself as victim. It accepts no role, but does what it is told, WITHOUT attack.
It is indeed a senseless point of view to hold responsible for sight a thing that cannot see, and blame it for the sounds you do not like, although it cannot hear. IT suffers not the punishment you give, because it HAS no feeling. It behaves in ways you want, but NEVER makes the choice. It is not born and does not die. It can but follow aimlessly the path on which it has been set. And if that path is changed, it walks as easily another way. It takes no sides, and judges not the road it travels. It perceives no gap because IT DOES NOT HATE. It can be USED for hate, but it cannot be hateful MADE thereby.
The thing you hate and fear and loathe and WANT, the body does not know. You send it forth to SEEK for separation and BE separate. And THEN you hate it, NOT for what it is, but for the uses you have MADE of it. You shrink from what IT sees and what IT hears, and hate its frailty and its littleness. And you despise its acts, but NOT your own. It sees and acts for YOU. It hears YOUR voice. And it is frail and little by YOUR wish. It SEEMS to punish you, and thus DESERVE your hatred for the limitations which it brings to you. Yet you have made of it a symbol of the limitations which you want your MIND to have and see and KEEP.
The body REPRESENTS the gap between the little bit of mind you call your own, and all the rest of what is REALLY yours. You hate it, yet you think it IS your self, and that, WITHOUT it, would your self be lost. This is the secret vow that you have made with every brother who would walk apart. This is the secret oath you take again whenever you perceive yourself attacked. No-one can suffer if he does NOT see himself attacked, AND LOSING BY ATTACK. Unstated and unheard in consciousness is every pledge to sickness. Yet it is a promise to another to be hurt by him, and to attack him in return.
Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that IT will suffer pain. It is the obvious effect of what was made in secret, IN AGREEMENT with another's secret wish to be apart from you, as you would be apart from him. Unless you BOTH agree this is your wish, it CAN have no effects. Whoever says, "There IS no gap between my mind and yours," has kept GOD's promise, NOT his tiny oath to be forever faithful unto death. And by his healing IS his brother healed. Let THIS be your agreement with each one; that you be one with him and NOT apart. And he will keep the promise that you make with him, because it is the one which he has made to God, as God has made to him.
God keeps His promises; His Son keeps his. In his creation did his Father say, "You are beloved of Me and I of you forever. Be you perfect as Myself, for you can never be apart from Me." His Son remembers not that he replied "I will," though in that promise he was born. Yet God reminds him of it every time he does not share a promise to be sick, but lets his mind be healed and unified. His secret vows are powerless before the Will of God, Whose promises he shares. And what he substitutes is NOT his will, who has made promise of himself to God.
Appearances deceive BUT CAN BE CHANGED. Reality is changeless. It does not deceive at all. And if you fail to see BEYOND appearances, you ARE deceived. For everything you see will change, and yet you thought it real before, and now you think it real again. Reality is thus reduced to form, and CAPABLE of change. Reality is changeless. It is this that MAKES it real, and KEEPS it separate from all appearances. It MUST transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change. The miracle is means to demonstrate that ALL appearances can change BECAUSE they are appearances, and CANNOT have the changelessness reality entails. The miracle attests salvation FROM appearances by SHOWING they can change.
Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception both. It is obscured by changing views of him which you PERCEIVE as his reality. The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from disaster of all kinds. The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form BECAUSE IT CAN SO EASILY BE CHANGED. This demonstrates that it was never real, and COULD not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change.
What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? It does not SEEM to be the wish that NO reality be so. But it IS an assertion that some FORMS of idols have a powerful appeal which makes them HARDER to resist than those you would not WANT to have reality. Temptation, then, is nothing more than this; - a prayer the miracle touch not some dreams, but KEEP their unreality obscure, and GIVE to them reality instead. And Heaven gives no answer to the prayer, nor CAN the miracle be given you to heal appearances you do not like. YOU HAVE ESTABLISHED LIMITS. What you ask IS given you, but not of God Who knows no limits. YOU have limited YOURSELF.
Reality is changeless. Miracles but show what you have interposed BETWEEN reality and your awareness is unreal, and does not interfere at all. The cost of the belief there must be some appearances BEYOND the hope of change is that the miracle cannot come forth from you consistently. For you have ASKED it be withheld from power to heal all dreams. There is no miracle you cannot have when you DESIRE healing. But there is no miracle that CAN be given you UNLESS you want it. CHOOSE what you would heal, and He Who gives all miracles has not been given freedom to bestow His gifts upon God's Son. When he is tempted, he DENIES reality. And he becomes the willing slave of what he chose instead.
BECAUSE reality is changeless is a miracle already there to heal all things that change, and offer them to you to see in happy form, devoid of fear. It WILL be given you to look upon your brother thus. But NOT while you would have it otherwise in some respects. For this but means you would not have him healed and whole. The Christ in him is perfect. Is it this that you would look upon? Then let there be no dreams about him that you would PREFER to seeing this. And you WILL see the Christ in him because you LET Him come to you. And when He has appeared to you, you will be certain you are like Him, for He is the changeless in your brother AND in you.
This will you look upon, when you decide there is not one appearance you would hold in place of what your brother really IS. Let no temptation to prefer a dream allow uncertainty to enter here. Be not made guilty and afraid when you are tempted by a dream of what he is. But do not give it power to REPLACE the changeless in him in your sight of him. There is no false appearance but will fade, if you request a miracle instead. There is no pain from which he is not free, if you would have him be but what he is. Why should you fear to see the Christ in him? You but behold yourself in what you see. As he is healed are YOU made free of guilt, and his appearance IS your own to you.
You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the REAL source of your guilt, and KEEP from your awareness the full perception THAT IT IS INSANE. Displacement ALWAYS is maintained by the illusion that the source, from which attention is diverted, MUST BE TRUE. And MUST BE FEARFUL, or you would not have displaced the guilt onto what you believed to be LESS fearful. You are therefore willing, with little opposition, to look upon all sorts of "sources" underneath awareness, provided that they are not the deeper source, to which they bear no real relationship at all. Insane ideas HAVE no real relationships, for that is why they ARE insane.
No real relationship can rest on guilt, or even hold one spot of it, to mar its purity. For all relationships which guilt has touched, are used but to avoid the person AND the guilt. What strange relationships you have made for this strange purpose! And you forgot that real relationships are holy, and cannot be used by YOU at all. They are used ONLY by the Holy Spirit, and it is that that MAKES them pure. If you displace YOUR guilt upon them, the Holy Spirit cannot use them. For, by pre-empting FOR YOUR OWN ends what you should have given HIM, he cannot use them unto YOUR release. No-one who would unite in ANY way, with ANYONE, for his OWN salvation will find it in that strange relationship. It is not shared, and so it is not real.
In any union with a brother, in which you seek to lay YOUR guilt upon him, or share it WITH him, or perceive his own, YOU WILL FEEL GUILTY. Nor will you find satisfaction and peace with him, because your union with him IS NOT REAL. You will see guilt in that relationship, BECAUSE YOU PUT IT THERE. It is inevitable that those who suffer guilt WILL attempt to displace it, because they DO believe in it. Yet, though they suffer, they will not look within, AND LET IT GO. They cannot know they love, and cannot understand WHAT LOVING IS. Their main concern is to perceive the source of guilt OUTSIDE themselves, BEYOND their own control.
When you maintain that YOU are guilty, but the source LIES IN THE PAST, you are NOT looking inward. The past is NOT in you. Your weird associations to it HAVE no meaning in the present. Yet you let them stand BETWEEN you and your brothers, with whom you find no REAL relationships at all. Can you EXPECT to use your brothers as a means to solve the past, and still to see them as they really ARE? Salvation is not found by those who use their brothers to resolve problems WHICH ARE NOT THERE. You wanted not salvation in the past. Would you impose your idle wishes on the present, and hope to find salvation NOW?
Determine, then, to be NOT as you were. Use no relationship to hold you to the past, but with each one, each day, be born again. A minute, even less, will be enough to free you from the past, and give your mind in peace over to the Atonement. When everyone is welcome to you as you would have YOURSELF be welcome to your Father, you will see no guilt in you. For you will have ACCEPTED the Atonement, which shone within you all the while you dreamed of guilt, and would not look within and SEE it.
As long as you believe that guilt is justified in ANY way, in ANYONE, WHATEVER he may do, you will not look within, where you would ALWAYS find Atonement. The end of guilt will never come as long as you believe THERE IS A REASON FOR IT. For you must learn that guilt is ALWAYS totally insane, and HAS no reason. The Holy Spirit seeks not to dispel REALITY. If GUILT were real, ATONEMENT would not be. The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, NOT to establish them as real, and THEN forgive them. The Holy Spirit does not KEEP illusions in your mind to frighten you, and show them to you fearfully, to demonstrate what He has saved you FROM.
WHAT HE HAS SAVED YOU FROM IS GONE. Give NO reality to guilt, and see NO reason for it. The Holy Spirit does what God would have Him do, and has ALWAYS done so. He has SEEN separation, but KNOWS of union. He TEACHES healing, but He also KNOWS of creation. He would have you see and teach as He does, and through Him. But what He knows, you do NOT know, though it is yours. NOW it is given you to heal and teach, to make what WILL BE, now. As yet it is NOT now. The Son of God believes that he is lost in guilt, alone in a dark world, where pain is pressing everywhere upon him, FROM WITHOUT. When he has looked within, and seen the radiance there, he will remember how much his Father loves him. And it will seem incredible that he had ever thought his Father loved him not, and looked upon him as condemned.
The moment that you realize GUILT IS INSANE, WHOLLY unjustified, and WHOLLY without reason, you will NOT fear to look upon Atonement, and ACCEPT IT WHOLLY. You who have been unmerciful unto yourselves, do not remember your Father's love. And, looking without mercy upon your brothers, you do not remember how much YOU love HIM. Yet it is forever true. In shining peace within you, is the perfect purity in which you were created. Fear not to look upon the lovely truth in you. Look THROUGH the cloud of guilt that dims your vision, and look PAST darkness, to the holy place where you will see the light.
The altar to your Father is as pure as He Who raised it to Himself. Nothing can keep FROM you what Christ would have you see. His will is like His Father's, and He offers mercy to every Child of God, as He would have YOU do. RELEASE from guilt, as you would BE released. There is no other way to look within, and see the light of love shining as steadily, and as surely, as God Himself has always loved His Son. AND AS HIS SON LOVES HIM. There is no fear in love, for love is guiltless. You who have ALWAYS loved your Father can have no fear, for ANY reason, to look within, and see your holiness.
You CANNOT be as you believed you WERE. Your guilt is without reason, because it is not in the Mind of God, where YOU are. And this IS reason, which the Holy Spirit would RESTORE to you. He would remove ONLY illusions. All else He would have you see. And in Christ's vision He would show you the perfect purity that is forever within God's Son. You cannot enter into REAL relationship with ANY of God's Sons, unless you love them all, and EQUALLY. Love is not special. If you single out PART of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on ALL your relationships, and MAKING them unreal.
You can love ONLY as God loves. Seek not to love UNLIKE Him, for there IS no love apart from His. Until you recognize that this is true, you will have no idea WHAT LOVE IS LIKE. No-one who condemns a brother, can see HIMSELF as guiltless in the peace of God. If he IS guiltless and in peace, AND SEES IT NOT, he IS delusional, and has NOT looked upon himself. To him I say, "Behold the Son of God, and look upon his purity, and be still. In quiet, look upon his holiness, and offer thanks unto his Father, that no guilt has ever touched him."
No illusion that you have ever held against him, has touched his innocence in any way. His shining purity, wholly untouched by guilt, and wholly loving, is bright within you. Let us look upon him together, and love him. For in our love of him IS your guiltlessness. But look upon yourself, and gladness and appreciation for what you will see, will banish guilt forever. I thank You, Father, for the purity of Your most holy Son, whom Thou hast created guiltless forever.
Like you, my faith and my belief are centered on what I treasure. The difference is that I love ONLY what God loves WITH me, and, because of this, I treasure you beyond the value that you set on yourselves, even unto the worth that God has placed upon you. I love all that He created. And all my faith and my belief I offer unto it. My faith in you is strong as all the love I give my Father. My trust in you is without limit, and without the fear that you will hear me not. I thank the Father for your loveliness, and for the many gifts that you will let me offer to the Kingdom, in honor of its wholeness that is of God.
Praise be unto you, who make the Father One with His Own Son. Alone we are all lowly, but together, we shine with brightness so intense, that none of us alone can even think on it. Before the glorious radiance of the Kingdom, guilt melts away, and, transformed into kindness, will never more be what it was. Every reaction that you experience will be so purified, that it is fitting as a hymn of praise unto your Father. See only praise of Him in what He has created, for He will never cease His praise of YOU. United in this praise, we stand before the gates of Heaven, where we will surely enter, in our blamelessness. God loves you. Could I, then, lack faith in you, and love Him perfectly?
Forgetfulness and sleep, and even death, become the ego's best advice for how to deal with the perceived and harsh intrusion of guilt on peace. Yet no-one sees himself in conflict, and ravaged by a cruel war, unless he believes that BOTH "opponents" in the war are real. Believing this, he must escape, for such a war would surely end his peace of mind, and so destroy him. But if he could but realize the war is between forces that are real and UNREAL powers, he could look upon himself, and SEE his freedom. No-one finds himself ravaged and torn in endless battles, which he HIMSELF perceives as wholly without meaning.
God would not have His Son embattled, and so His Son's imagined "enemy," which he made, is TOTALLY unreal. You are but trying to escape a bitter war from which you HAVE escaped. The war is gone. For you have heard the hymn of freedom, rising unto Heaven. Gladness and joy belong to God for your release, because YOU made it not. But, as you made not freedom, so you made not a war that could ENDANGER freedom. Nothing destructive ever was, or will be. The war, the guilt, the past, are gone as one, into the unreality from whence they came.
Prayer is the greatest gift with which God blessed His Son at his creation. It was then what it is to become; the single Voice Creator and creation share; the song the Son sings to the Father, Who returns the thanks it offers Him unto the Son. Endless the harmony, and endless too the joyous concord of the Love They give forever to each other. And in this creation is extended. God gives thanks to His extension in His Son. His Son gives thanks for his creation, in the song of his creating in his Father's Name. The Love They share is what all prayer will be throughout eternity, when time is done. For such it was before time seemed to be.
To you who are in time a little while, prayer takes the form that best will suit your need. You have but one. What God created one must recognize its oneness, and rejoice that what illusions seemed to separate is one forever in the Mind of God. Prayer now must be the means by which God's Son leaves separate goals and separate interests by, and turns in holy gladness to the truth of union in his Father and himself.
Lay down your dreams, you holy Son of God, and rising up as God created you, dispense with idols and remember Him. Prayer will sustain you now, and bless you as you lift your hearts to Him in rising song that reaches higher and then higher still until both high and low have disappeared. Faith in your goal will grow and hold you up as you ascend the shining stairway to the lawns of Heaven and the gate of peace. For this is prayer, and here salvation is. This is the way. It is God's gift to you.
Asking is holy, and it is holy because it is a way of reaching God. He is the Answerer because you are in need of an Answer. No-one can ask for another and receive the Answer for him. But you can, and indeed you must, help him by offering your love and support that his answer be holy and his true need recognized. That is prayer; it is the same for yourself or for another. There is no difference. If you received the answers for another, there would be a difference.
This does not mean that you cannot get messages for another, if it is God Who chooses this way of reaching him. This will usually happen unexpectedly, generally in the form of a sudden feeling that you have something to tell him; a message to deliver. You have not been wrong in the past about how you have asked, but you are ready for a step ahead now. There are joint decisions in which unanimity of response is a good indication of authenticity. This should not be abandoned. But asking is a lesson in trust, and no-one can trust for another. He can only strengthen another's trust by offering it to him and having faith in his ability to hear for himself.
Asking is the way to God because it offers us His Will as He would have us hear it. We will have a series of lessons on asking because you have not understood it. But do not think because of that that you have been mistaken in your attempts. You have done well and will do better.
Any specific question involves a large number of assumptions which inevitably limit the answer. A specific question is actually a decision about the kind of answer that is acceptable. The purpose of words is to limit, and by limiting to make a vast area of experience more manageable. But that means manageable by YOU. For many aspects of living in this world that is necessary. But not for asking. God does not use words and does not answer in words. He can only "speak" to the Christ in you, Who translates His Answer into whatever language you can understand and accept. Sometimes words will limit fear; sometimes not. That is why some people hear words, some receive feelings of inner conviction, and some do not become aware of anything. Yet God has answered, and His Answer will reach you when you are ready.
Answers are not up to you. Any limit you place on them interferes with hearing. God's Voice is silent and speaks in silence. That means that you do not phrase the question and you do not restrict the answer.
Asking is prayer. It is not a demand. It is not questioning. It is not limitation. The only real request is for God's Answer. It needs the humility of trust, not the arrogance of false certainty. Trust cannot lie in idols, for that is merely faith in magic. Trust requires faith that God understands, knows, and will answer. It means a state of peace. For this you can safely ask. In fact, if you do not feel that you have it, asking for it is the only real request you can make.
Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal. And as you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead.
Today we go beyond the grievances, to look upon the miracle instead. We will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees. We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence, to behold the Son of God.
He waits for you behind your grievances, and as you lay them down he will appear in shining light where each one stood before. For every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts, you see the Son of God where he has always been. He stands in light, but you were in the dark. Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see. Today we will attempt to see God's Son. We will not let ourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our grievances. So is the seeing of the world reversed, as we look out toward truth, away from fear.
We will select one person you have used as target for your grievances, and lay the grievances aside, and look at him. Someone, perhaps, you fear and even hate; someone you think you love who angers you; someone you call a friend, but whom you see as difficult at times, or hard to please; demanding, irritating, or untrue to the ideal he should accept as his according to the role you set for him.
You know the one to choose; his name has crossed your mind already. He will be the one of whom we ask God's Son be shown to us. Through seeing him behind the grievances that we have held against him, you will learn that what lay hidden while you saw him not is there in everyone, and can be seen. He who was enemy is more than friend when he is freed to take the holy role the Holy Spirit has assigned to him. Let him be Savior unto you today. Such is his role in God your Father's plan.
Our longer practice periods today will see him in this role. We will attempt to hold him in our mind, first as you now consider him. We will review his faults, the difficulties you have had with him, the pain he caused you, his neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts he gave. We will regard his body with its flaws and better points as well, as we will think of his mistakes and even of his "sins."
Then let us ask of Him who knows this Son of God in his reality and truth, that we may look on him a different way, and see our Savior shining in the light of true forgiveness, given unto us. We ask Him in the Holy Name of God and of His Son, as holy as Himself:
"Let me behold my Savior in this one
You have appointed as the One for me
To ask to lead me to the holy light
In which he stands, that I may join with him."
The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances.
What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your Savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours. The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him will free you both. Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining Savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of him. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him, that you might be saved.
God thanks you for these quiet times today, in which you laid your images aside, and looked upon the miracle of love the Holy Spirit showed you in their place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for not one Thought of God but must rejoice as you are saved, and all the world with you.
We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us as part of God's salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we allow each one we meet to save us, and refuse to hide his light behind our grievances. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of, or remember from the past, allow the role of Savior to be given, that you may share it with them. For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:
"Let miracles replace all grievances."
Pain demonstrates the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring voice, whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness. Pain compels attention, drawing it away from Him, and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means TO MAKE THE BODY REAL. What shares a common function IS the same. This is the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself. Pleasure and pain are EQUALLY unreal, because their purpose CANNOT be achieved. Thus are they means for nothing, for they have a goal without a meaning. And they share the lack of meaning that their PURPOSE has.
Sin shifts from pain to pleasure, and again to pain. For EITHER witness is the same, and carries but one message, "You are here, WITHIN this body, and you CAN be hurt. You can have pleasure, too, but ONLY at the cost of pain." These witnesses are joined by many more. Each one SEEMS different, because it has a different NAME, and so it seems to answer to a different SOUND. Except for this, the witnesses of sin are all alike. Call pleasure "pain," and it will hurt. Call pain pleasure, and the pain BEHIND the pleasure will be felt no more. Sin's witnesses but shift from name to name, as one steps forward, and another, back. Yet which is foremost makes NO difference. Sin's witnesses hear but the call of death.
This body, purposeless within itself, holds all your memories and all your hopes. You use its eyes to see, its ears to hear, and let it TELL you what it is it feels. IT DOES NOT KNOW. It tells you but the NAMES you gave it to use, when YOU call forth the witnesses to its reality. You cannot choose AMONG them which are real, for any one you choose is like the rest. This name or that, but nothing more, you choose. You do not MAKE a witness true, because you called him by truth's NAME. The truth is found in him IF IT IS TRUTH HE REPRESENTS. And otherwise he lies, if you should call him by the Holy Name of God Himself.
God's Witness sees no witnesses AGAINST the body. Neither does He harken to the witnesses by OTHER names, which speak in OTHER ways for its reality. He KNOWS it is not real. For NOTHING could contain what you believe it holds within. Nor COULD it tell a Part of God Himself what It should feel, and what Its Function is. Yet must He love whatever YOU hold dear. And for each witness to the body's death, He sends a witness to your Life in Him Who knows no death. Each miracle He brings is witness that the body is NOT real. Its pains and pleasures does He heal alike, for ALL sin's witnesses do His replace.
The miracle makes NO distinctions in the names by which sin's witnesses are called. It merely proves that what they REPRESENT has no effects. And this it proves BECAUSE its own effects have come to take their place. It matters not the name by which you called your suffering. IT IS NO LONGER THERE. The One Who brings the miracle perceived them all as one, and called by name of "fear." As fear is witness unto death, so is the miracle the witness unto Life. It is a witness no-one can deny, for it is the EFFECTS of life it brings. The dying live, the dead arise, and pain has vanished. Yet a miracle speaks not but for itself, but what it REPRESENTS. Love, too, has symbols in a world of sin. The miracle forgives BECAUSE it stands for what is PAST forgiveness, and is TRUE.
How foolish and insane it is to think a miracle is BOUND by laws which it came solely to UNDO. The laws of SIN have different witnesses, with different strengths. And THEY attest to different suffering. Yet to the One Who sends forth miracles to bless the world, a tiny stab of pain, a little worldly pleasure, and the throes of death itself are but a single sound; a call for healing, and a plaintive cry for help within a world of misery. It is their SAMENESS that the miracle attests. It is their SAMENESS that it PROVES. The laws which call them DIFFERENT are dissolved, and SHOWN as powerless. The PURPOSE of a miracle is to accomplish this. And God Himself has GUARANTEED the strength of miracles for what they witness TO.
Be witnesses unto the miracle, and NOT the laws of sin. There is no NEED to suffer any more. But there IS need that you be healed, because the suffering of the world has made it deaf to its salvation and deliverance. The resurrection of the world awaits YOUR healing and YOUR happiness, that you may DEMONSTRATE the healing of the world. The holy instant will replace ALL sin, if you but carry its effects with you. And no-one will ELECT to suffer more. What better function COULD you serve than this? Be healed that you may heal, and suffer not the laws of sin to be applied to YOU. And Truth WILL be revealed to you who chose to let Love's symbols TAKE THE PLACE of sin.
Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Father's hatred of His Son, the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane desire for revenge and death.
Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false? Pain is but witness to the Son's mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love Which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love.
Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad and seen as traitor to Himself. If God is real there is no pain. If pain is real there is no God. For vengeance is not part of love, and fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain.
Peace to such foolishness! The time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. There is no need to think of them as savage crimes or secret sins with weighty consequence. Who but a madman could conceive of them as cause of anything? Their witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared than the insane illusions which it shields and tries to demonstrate must still be true.
It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.
My holy brothers, think of this awhile; the world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want. Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable forever and forever. And would you deny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain, a sickly place where living things must come at last to die?
The world may seem to cause you pain. And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects. As an illusion it is what you will. Your idle wishes represent its pains. Your strange desires bring it evil dreams. Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live.
Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. In pain is God denied the Son He loves. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery.
Lay down your arms and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven's peace holds all things still at last. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. Let no attack enter with you. Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness.
Here will you understand there is no pain. Here does the joy of God belong to you. This is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson which contains all of salvation's power. It is this: Pain is illusion; joy reality. Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening. Pain is deception; joy alone is truth.
And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven. Let our gratitude unto our Teacher fill our hearts as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world.