Section 7 - Grandeur versus Grandiosity

Grandeur is of God, and ONLY of Him. Therefore, it is in you. Whenever you become aware of it, however dimly, you abandon the ego automatically, because in the presence of the grandeur of God, the meaninglessness of the ego becomes perfectly apparent. Though it does not understand this, the ego believes that its "enemy" has struck, and attempts to offer gifts to induce you to return to its protection. SELF-inflation is the only offering it can make. The grandiosity of the ego is its alternative to the grandeur of God. Which will you choose?

Grandiosity is ALWAYS a cover for despair. It is without hope, because it is not real. It is an attempt to COUNTERACT your littleness, based on the belief THAT THE LITTLENESS IS REAL. WITHOUT this belief, the grandiosity is meaningless, and you could not possibly WANT it. The essence of grandiosity is competitiveness, because it ALWAYS involves ATTACK. It is a delusional attempt to OUTDO, but NOT to UNdo. We said before that the ego vacillates between suspiciousness and viciousness. It remains suspicious as long as you DESPAIR of yourself. It shifts to viciousness whenever you will not tolerate self-debasement, and seek relief. Then it offers you the delusion of ATTACK as a solution.

The ego is immobilized in the presence of God's grandeur, because HIS grandeur establishes YOUR freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because of the complete lack of investment in it. Grandeur is totally WITHOUT illusion, and because it is real, it is compellingly convincing. But the conviction of reality will not REMAIN with you, UNLESS YOU DO NOT ALLOW THE EGO TO ATTACK IT.

The ego will make every effort to recover, and mobilize its energies AGAINST your release. It will tell you that you are insane, and argue that grandeur CANNOT be a real part of you, because of the littleness in which IT believes. But your grandeur is NOT delusional, BECAUSE YOU DID NOT MAKE IT. YOU have made grandiosity, and are afraid of it, because it is a form of ATTACK. But your grandeur is of God, who created it out of His love. From your grandeur you can only bless, because your grandeur is your ABUNDANCE. By blessing you hold it in your minds, protecting it from illusions, and keeping yourself in the Mind of God.

Remember always that you cannot be anywhere EXCEPT in the Mind of God. When you FORGET this, you WILL despair, and you WILL attack. The ego depends SOLELY on your willingness to tolerate it. But if you are willing to look upon your grandeur, you CANNOT despair, and therefore you CANNOT want the ego. Your grandeur is God's ANSWER to the ego, because it is true. Littleness and grandeur cannot co-exist, nor is it possible for them to alternate in your awareness. Littleness and grandiosity can and MUST, since both are untrue, and therefore on the same level. Being the level of shift, it is experienced as shifting, and extremes are its essential characteristic.

But truth and littleness are DENIALS of each other, and grandeur IS truth. Truth does not vacillate; it is ALWAYS true. When grandeur slips away from you, YOU HAVE REPLACED IT WITH SOMETHING YOU HAVE MADE. Perhaps it is the belief in littleness; perhaps it is the belief in grandiosity. But it MUST be insane, because it is NOT TRUE. Your grandeur will NEVER deceive you, but your illusions ALWAYS will. Illusions ARE deceptions.

You CANNOT triumph, but you ARE exalted. And in your exalted state, you seek others like you, and rejoice with them. It is easy to distinguish grandeur from grandiosity, simply because love is returned, but pride is not. Pride will not produce miracles, and therefore will deprive you of the true witnesses to your reality. Truth is not obscure nor hidden, but its obviousness to YOU lies in the joy you bring to its witnesses, WHO SHOW IT TO YOU. They attest to your grandeur, but they cannot attest to pride because pride is not shared.

God WANTS you to behold what He created, because it is HIS joy. Can your grandeur be arrogant, when God HIMSELF witnesses to it? And what can be real that has NO witnesses? What good can come of it? And if no good can come of it, the Holy Spirit cannot use it. What He cannot TRANSFORM to the Will of God does not exist at all. Grandiosity is delusional because it is used to REPLACE your grandeur. Yet what God has created cannot BE replaced.

God is incomplete without you, simply because His grandeur is total, and you cannot BE missing from it. You are altogether irreplaceable in the Mind of God. No one else can fill your part of it, and while you leave your part of it empty, your eternal place merely waits for your return. God, through His Voice, reminds you of it, and God Himself keeps your extensions safe within it. But YOU do not know them, until you return TO them.

You CANNOT replace the Kingdom, and you cannot replace yourself. God, Who KNOWS your value, would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. Your value is in GOD's Mind, and therefore NOT in yours alone. To accept yourself as He created you CANNOT be arrogant, because it is the DENIAL of arrogance. To accept your littleness IS arrogant, because it means that you believe that YOUR evaluation of yourself is TRUER THAN GOD's. But if truth is indivisible, then YOUR evaluation of yourself MUST BE GOD's.

You did not ESTABLISH your value, and it needs no defense. NOTHING can attack it, or prevail over it. It does not vary. It merely IS. Ask the Holy Spirit WHAT it is, and He will tell you. But do not be afraid of His Answer, for it comes from God. It IS an exalted answer, because of its Source. But the Source is true, and so is its answer. Listen and do not question what you hear, for God does not deceive. He would have you replace the ego's belief in littleness with His own exalted answer to the question of your being, so that you can cease to question it, and KNOW it for what it IS.

Chapter 31 - The Simplicity of Salvation

Section 1 - Introduction

How simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be. The impossible has NOT occurred, and CAN have no effects. And that is all. Can this BE hard to learn by anyone who WANTS it to be true? ONLY unwillingness to learn it could make such an easy lesson difficult. How hard is it to see that what is false can not be true, and what is true can not be false? You can no longer say that you perceive no differences in false and true. You have been told EXACTLY how to tell one from the other, and just what to do if you become confused. Why, then, do you persist in learning NOT such simple things?

There IS a reason. But confuse it not with difficulty in the simple things salvation asks you learn. It teaches but the very obvious. It merely goes from one apparent lesson to the next, in easy steps which lead you gently from one to another, with no strain at all. This CANNOT be confusing, yet you ARE confused. For somehow you believe that what is TOTALLY confused is easier to learn and understand. What you have taught yourselves is such a giant learning feat it is indeed incredible. But you accomplished it because you wanted to, and did not pause in diligence to judge it hard to learn, or too complex to grasp.

No-one who understands what you have learned, how carefully you learned it, and the pains to which you went to practice and repeat the lessons endlessly, in every form you could conceive of them, could EVER doubt the power of your learning skill. There is no greater power in the world. The world was MADE by it, and even now depends on nothing else. The lessons you have taught yourselves have been so overlearned and fixed they rise like heavy curtains, to obscure the simple and the obvious. Say not you cannot learn them. For your power to learn is strong enough to teach you that your will is NOT your own; your thoughts do NOT belong to you; and even YOU are someone else.

Who could maintain that lessons such as these are easy? Yet you have learned more than this. You have continued, taking every step, however difficult, without complaint, until a world was built that suited you. And every lesson that makes up the world arises from the first accomplishment of learning; an enormity so great the Holy Spirit's Voice seems small and still before its magnitude. The world began with one strange lesson, powerful enough to render God forgotten, and His Son an alien to himself, in exile from the home where God Himself established him. You who have taught yourselves the Son of God is guilty, say not that you cannot learn the simple things salvation teaches you.

Learning is an ability you made, and gave yourselves. It was NOT made to do the Will of God, but to uphold a wish that It COULD be opposed, and that a will APART from It was yet more real than It. And this has learning sought to demonstrate, and you HAVE learned what it was made to teach. Now does your ancient overlearning stand implacable before the Voice of Truth, and teach you that Its lessons are not true; too hard to learn, too difficult to see, and too opposed to what is REALLY true. Yet you WILL learn them, for their learning is the ONLY purpose for your learning skill the Holy Spirit sees in all the world.

His simple lessons in forgiveness have a power mightier than yours, because they call from God and from your Self to you. Is this a LITTLE Voice, so small and still It cannot rise above the senseless noise of sounds which have no meaning? God willed not His Son forget Him. And the power of His Will is in the Voice That speaks for Him. Which lesson will you learn? Which outcome is inevitable, sure as God, and far beyond all doubts or question? CAN it be your little learning, strange in outcome, and incredible in difficulty, will withstand the simple lessons being taught to you in every moment of each day, since time began and learning had been made?

The lessons to be learned are only two. Each has its outcome in a different world. And each world follows surely from its source. The certain outcome of the lesson that God's Son is guilty is the world you see. It IS a world of terror and despair. Nor IS there hope of happiness in it. There IS no plan for safety you can make that ever will succeed. There IS no joy that you can seek for here, and hope to find. But this is NOT the only outcome which your learning can produce. However much you may have overlearned your chosen task, the lesson which reflects the Love of God is stronger still. And you WILL learn God's Son is innocent, and see ANOTHER world.

The outcome of the lesson that God's Son is guiltless is a world in which there is no fear, and everything is lit with hope, and sparkles with a gentle friendliness. Nothing but calls to you in soft appeal to be your friend, and let it join with you. And never does a call remain unheard, misunderstood, or left unanswered in the language in which the call itself was made. And you will understand it was THIS call that everyone and everything within the world has ALWAYS made. But YOU had not perceived it as it was. And now you see YOU were mistaken. You had been deceived by forms the call was hidden in. And so you did not hear it, and had lost a friend who ALWAYS wanted to be part of you.

The soft, eternal calling of each part of God's creation to the whole is heard throughout the world this second lesson brings. There is no living thing which does not share the universal will that it be whole, and that you do not leave its call unheard. Without your answer is it left to die, as it is saved from death when you have heard its calling as the ancient call to life, and understood that it is but your own. The Christ in you remembers God with all the certainty with which He knows His Love. But ONLY if His Son is innocent can He BE Love. For God were fear indeed, if he whom He created innocent could be a slave to guilt. God's perfect Son remembers his creation. But in guilt he has forgotten what he really is.

The fear of God results as surely from the lesson that His Son is guilty as God's Love must be remembered when he LEARNS his innocence. For hate must father fear, and look upon its father as itself. How wrong are you who fail to hear the call that echoes past each seeming call to death, that sings behind each murderous attack, and pleads that love restore the dying world! You do not understand Who calls to you beyond each form of hate, each call to war. But you will recognize Him as you give Him answer in the language that He calls. He will appear when you have answered Him, and you will know in Him that God is Love.

What is temptation but a wish to make the wrong decision on what you would learn, and have an outcome which you do not want? It is the RECOGNITION that it is a state of mind UNWANTED that becomes the means whereby the choice is reassessed; another outcome seen to be preferred. You are deceived if you believe you want disaster and disunity and pain. Hear not the call for this within yourself, but listen, rather, to the deeper call beyond it, that appeals for peace and joy. And all the world will GIVE you joy and peace. For as you hear you answer, and behold! - your answer is the proof of what you learned. Its outcome is the world you look upon.

Section 3 - Thorns and Lilies

Look upon all the trinkets made to hang upon the body or cover it, or for its use. See all the useless things made for its eyes to see. Think on the many offerings made for its pleasure, and remember all these were made to make seem lovely what you hate. Would you employ this hated thing to draw your brother to you, and to attract HIS body's eyes? Learn you but offer him a crown of thorns, not recognizing it for what it is, and trying to justify your OWN interpretation of its value by HIS acceptance. Yet still the gift proclaims his worthlessness to YOU, as his acceptance and delight acknowledges the lack of value HE places on himself.

Gifts are not made through bodies, if they be truly given and received. For bodies can neither offer nor accept; hold out or take. Only the mind can value, and only the mind decides on what it would receive and give. And every gift it offers depends on what it WANTS. It will adorn its chosen home most carefully, making it ready to RECEIVE the gifts it wants, by offering them to those who come unto its home, or those it would ATTRACT to it. And there they will exchange their gifts, offering and receiving what their minds judge to be worthy of them.

I have great need for lilies, for the Son of God has not forgiven me. And can I offer HIM forgiveness, when he offers thorns to me? For he who offers thorns to anyone is against me still, and who is whole WITHOUT him? Be you his Friend for me, that I may be forgiven, and you may look upon the Son of God as whole. But look you first upon the altar in your chosen home, and see what you have laid upon it, to offer me. If it be thorns, whose points gleam sharply in a blood-red light, the body is your chosen home, and it is separation that you offer me.

And yet the thorns are gone. Look you still closer at them now, and you will see your altar is no longer what it was. You look still with the body's eyes. And they CAN see but thorns. But you have asked for AND RECEIVED another sight. Those who accept the Holy Spirit's purpose as their own, share also in His vision. And what enables Him to SEE His purpose shine forth from every altar, now is yours as well as His. He sees NO strangers only dearly loved and loving Friends. He sees no thorns, but only lilies, gleaming in the gentle glow of peace that shines on everything He looks upon and loves.

This Easter, look with DIFFERENT eyes upon each other. You HAVE forgiven me. And yet, I cannot USE your gift of lilies, while you see them not. Nor can YOU use what I have given, unless you SHARE it. The Holy Spirit's vision is no idle gift, no plaything to be tossed about a while and laid aside. Listen and hear this carefully, nor think it but a dream; -- a careless thought to play with, or a toy you would pick up from time to time and then put by. For if you do, so will it be to you. You have the vision to look past ALL illusions. It has been given you to see no thorns, no strangers, and NO obstacles to peace.

The fear of God is NOTHING to you now. Who is afraid to look upon illusions, KNOWING his Savior stands beside him? WITH him, your vision has become the greatest power for the UNDOING of illusion that God Himself could give. For what God gave the Holy Spirit, YOU have received. The Son of God looks unto YOU for his release. For you have asked for AND BEEN GIVEN the strength to look upon this final obstacle, and see no thorns nor nails to crucify the Son of God, and crown him king of death. Your chosen home is on the other side, BEYOND the veil. It has been carefully prepared for you, and it is ready to receive you now.

You will not see it with the body's eyes. But all you need, you have. Your home has called to you since time began, nor have you ever failed entirely to hear. You heard, but knew not HOW to look, nor WHERE. And now you KNOW. In you the knowledge lies, ready to be unveiled and freed from all the terror that kept it hidden. There IS no fear in love. The song of Easter is the glad refrain the Son of God was NEVER crucified. Let us lift up our eyes together, not in fear, but FAITH. And there WILL be no fear in us, for in our vision will be NO illusions. Only a pathway to the open door of Heaven, the home we share in quietness, and where we live in gentleness and peace, as One together.

Would you not have your holy brother lead you there? His innocence will light your way, offering you its guiding light and sure protection, and shining from the holy altar within him, where you laid the lilies of forgiveness. Let him be to you the Savior from illusions, and look on him with the new vision that looks upon the lilies, and brings YOU joy. We go beyond the veil of fear, lighting each other's way. The holiness that leads us is WITHIN us, as is our home. So will we find what we were MEANT to find, by Him Who leads us.

This is the way to Heaven and to the peace of Easter, in which we join in glad awareness that the Son of God is risen from the past, and has awakened to the present. Now is he free, unlimited in his communion with all that is within him. Now are the lilies of his innocence untouched by guilt, and perfectly protected from the cold chill of fear and withering blight of sin alike. Your gift has saved him from the thorns and nails, and his strong arm is free to guide you safely through them, and BEYOND. Walk with him now rejoicing, for the Savior from illusions has come to greet you, and lead you home with HIM.

Here is your Savior and your Friend, RELEASED from crucifixion through YOUR vision, and free to lead you now where HE would be. He will not leave you, nor forsake the Savior from HIS pain. And gladly will you walk the way of innocence together, singing as you behold the open door of Heaven, and RECOGNIZE the home that called to you. Give joyously to one another the freedom and the strength to lead you there. And come before each other's holy altar, where the strength and freedom wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness that leads you home. The lamp is lit in both of you, for one another. And by the hands that GAVE it to each other, shall both of you be led past fear to Love.

Lesson 136 "Sickness is a defense against the truth."

No one can heal unless he understands what purpose sickness seems to serve. For then he understands as well its purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. When this is seen, healing is automatic. It dispels this meaningless illusion by the same approach which carries all of them to truth, and merely leaves them there to disappear.

Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self deception. And like all the rest its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself.

Defenses are not unintentional, nor are they made without awareness. They are secret magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you would believe. They seem to be unconscious but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. In that second, even less, in which the choice is made, you recognize exactly what you would attempt to do, and then proceed to think that it is done.

Who but yourself evaluates a threat, decides escape is necessary, and sets up a series of defenses to reduce the threat that has been judged as real? All this cannot be done unconsciously. But afterwards your plan requires that you must forget you made it, so it seems to be external to your own intent; a happening beyond your state of mind, an outcome with a real effect on you, instead of one effected by your self.

It is this quick forgetting of the part you play in making your "reality" which makes defenses seem to be beyond your own control. But what you have forgot can be remembered, given willingness to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by oblivion. Your not remembering is but the sign that this decision still remains in force, as far as your desires are concerned. Mistake this not for fact. Defenses must make facts unrecognizable. They aim at doing this, and this they seem to do.

Every defense takes fragments of the whole, assembles them without regard to all their true relationships, and thus constructs illusions of a whole which is not there. It is this process which imposes threat, and not whatever outcome may result. When parts are wrested from the whole and seen as separate and as wholes within themselves, they become symbols standing for attack upon the whole, successful in effect, and never to be seen as whole again. And yet you have forgotten that they stand but for your own decision of what should be real, to take the place of what is real.

Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay when, for an instant, truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick, that truth may go away, and threaten your establishments no more. How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth? Because it proves the body is not separate from you, and so you must be separate from the truth.

You suffer pain because the body does, and in this pain are you made one with it. Thus is your "true" identity preserved, and the strange, haunting thought that you might be something beyond this little pile of dust silenced and stilled. For see, this dust can make you suffer, twist your limbs and stop your heart, commanding you to die and cease to be.

Thus is the body stronger than the truth, which asks you live but cannot overcome your choice to die. And so the body is more powerful than Everlasting Life, Heaven more frail than hell, and God's design for the salvation of His Son opposed by a decision stronger than His Will. His Son is dust, the Father incomplete, and chaos sits in triumph on His throne.

Such is your planning for your own defense. And you believe that Heaven quails before such mad attacks as these, with God made blind by your illusions, truth turned into lies, and all the universe made slaves to laws which your defenses would impose on it. Yet who believes illusions but the one who made them up? Who else can see them and react to them as if they were the truth?

God knows not of your plans to change His Will. The universe remains unheeding of the laws by which you thought to govern it. And Heaven has not bowed to hell, nor life to death. You can but choose to think you die, or suffer sickness or distort the truth in any way. What is created is apart from all of this. Defenses are plans to defeat what cannot be attacked. What is unalterable cannot change. And what is wholly sinless cannot sin.

Such is the simple truth. It does not make appeal to might nor triumph. It does not command obedience, nor seek to prove how pitiful and futile your attempts to plan defenses which would alter it. It merely wants to give you happiness, for such its purpose is. Perhaps it sighs a little when you throw away its gifts, and yet it knows with perfect certainty that what God wills for you must be received.

It is this fact which demonstrates that time is an illusion. For it lets you think what God has given you is not the truth right now, as it must be. The Thoughts of God are quite apart from time. For time is but another meaningless defense you made against the truth. Yet what God wills is here, and you remain as He created you.

Truth has a power far beyond defense, for no illusions can remain where it has been allowed to enter. And it comes to any mind that would lay down its arms and cease to play with folly. It is found at any time; today, if you will choose to practice giving welcome to the truth.

This is our aim today. And we will give a quarter of an hour twice to ask the truth to come to us and set us free. And truth will come, for it has never been apart from us. It merely waits for just this invitation which we give today. We introduce it with a healing prayer to help us rise above defensiveness, and let the truth be as it has always been:

"Sickness is a defense against the truth.

I will accept the truth of what I am,

And let my mind be wholly healed today."

Healing will flash across your open mind as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. There will be no dark corners sickness can conceal and keep defended from the light of truth. There will be no dim figures from your dreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes insanely sought, remaining in your mind. It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey.

Now is the body healed because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. And you will recognize you practiced well by this; the body should not feel at all. If you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, of pain or pleasure. No response at all is in the mind to what the body does. Its usefulness remains, and nothing more.

Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is fully guaranteed because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible.

Section 6 - Therapy and Teaching

You must have noticed how often I have used your own ideas to help YOU. Bill is right is saying that you have learned to be a loving, wise, and very understanding therapist, except for yourself. That exception has given you more than perception for others because of what you saw in them, but less than knowledge of your real relationships TO them because you did NOT make them part OF you. Understanding IS beyond perception, because it introduces meaning. But it is below knowledge, even though it can grow TOWARD it. It is possible, with great effort, to understand someone else and to be helpful to him, but the effort is misdirected. The misdirection is quite apparent. It is directed AWAY from you.

This does NOT mean that it is lost to you, but it DOES mean that you are not aware of it. I have saved all of your kindnesses and every loving thought you have had, and I assure you, you have had many. I have purified them of errors which hid their light, and have kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within YOU, and we know that what God creates is eternal.

Bill once spoke of the Kingdom in this way, because he yearns for what he has repressed. You are much more afraid of it, because dissociation is more fearful. B's better contact has allowed him the strength to retain the fear in awareness, and to resort to displacement, which he is learning to overcome with YOUR help. That is because you do not perceive HIM as dissociated, and can help him with his repression, which does not frighten you. He, on the other hand, has no difficulty in seeing YOU dissociate, and does not have to deal with repression in you, which WOULD produce fear in him.

Joining in Atonement, which I have repeatedly asked you to do, is ALWAYS a way OUT of fear. This does not mean that you can safely fail to acknowledge anything that is true, but the Holy Spirit will not fail to help you re-interpret EVERYTHING that you perceive as fearful, and teach you ONLY what is loving IS true. It is beyond your ability to destroy, but entirely within your grasp. It BELONGS to you because YOU created it. It is yours because it is part of you, just as you are part of God, because He created you.

The Atonement is the GUARANTEE of the safety of the Kingdom. Nothing good is lost, because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the voice for Creation. Nothing that is not good was ever created, and therefore CANNOT be protected. What the ego makes it KEEPS TO ITSELF, and so it is without strength. Its unshared existence does not die. It was merely never born. Real birth is not a beginning; it is a CONTINUING. Everything that CAN continue has already BEEN born. But it can INCREASE as you are willing to return the part of your mind that needs healing to the higher part, and thus render your creating (creation) undivided.

You yourself always told your patients that the real difference between neurotic and 'healthy' guilt feelings was that neurotic guilt feelings DO NOT HELP ANYONE. This distinction was very wise, though incomplete. Let us make the distinction a little sharper now. Neurotic guilt feelings are a device of the ego for "atoning" without sharing, and for asking for pardon without change. The ego NEVER calls for real atonement, and cannot tolerate real forgiveness, which IS change.

Your concept of "healthy guilt feelings" has great merit, but without the concept of the Atonement it lacked the healing potential it held. YOU make the distinction in terms of feelings which led to a decision not to REPEAT the error, which is only PART of healing. Your concept therefore lacked the idea of UNDOING it. What you were really advocating, then, was adopting a policy of sharing without a real FOUNDATION.

I have come to give you the foundation, so your own thoughts can make you REALLY free. You have carried the burden of the ideas you did NOT share, and which were therefore too weak to increase, but you did NOT recognize how to UNDO their existence because you HAD made them. You CANNOT cancel out your past errors alone. They will NOT disappear from your mind without remedy. The remedy is NOT of your making, any more than YOU are.

The Atonement cannot be understood except as a PURE ACT OF SHARING. That is what is meant when we said that it is possible even in this world to listen to ONE voice. If you are part of God, and the Sonship is one, you CANNOT be limited to the self the ego sees. Every loving thought held in ANY part (of the Sonship) belongs to every part. It is shared BECAUSE it is loving. Sharing is God's way of creating, and also YOURS. Your ego can keep you in exile FROM the Kingdom but in the Kingdom itself it has no power.

You have become willing to receive my messages as I give them, without interference by the ego, so we can clarify an earlier point which was mentioned before. We said that you will one day teach as much as you learn, and that will keep you in balance. The time is now, because you have let it be now. You cannot learn EXCEPT by teaching. I heard one voice because I had learned that learning is attained BY teaching. I understood that I COULD NOT ATONE FOR MYSELF ALONE.

Listening to one voice MEANS the will to share the voice to hear it yourself. The mind that was in me is still irresistibly drawn to every mind created by God, because God's wholeness IS the wholeness of his Son. Turning the other cheek does NOT mean that you should submit to violence without protest. It means that you cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness. Show him that he CANNOT hurt you, and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself.

Teaching is done in many ways, by formal means, by guidance, and above all BY EXAMPLE. If you will to learn, you MUST will to teach. Teaching is therapy because it means the sharing of ideas, and the awareness that to share them is to strengthen them. The union of the Sonship IS its protection. The ego cannot prevail against the Kingdom BECAUSE it is united, and the ego fades away and is undone in the presence of the attraction of the parts of the Sonship which hear the call of the Holy Spirit to be as One.

I cannot forget my need to teach what I have learned which arose in me BECAUSE I learned it. I call upon you to teach what you have learned, because by so doing YOU can depend on it. Make it dependable in my name, because my name is the name of God's Son. What I learned I give you freely, and the mind which was in me rejoices as YOU will to hear it. The Holy Spirit atones in all of us by UNDOING, and thus lifts the burden you have placed in your mind. By following Him, He leads you back to God where you belong. And how can you find this way except by taking your brother with you?

My part in the Atonement is not complete until YOU join it, and give it away. As you teach, so shall you learn. I will never leave you or forsake you, because to forsake you would be to forsake myself and God who created me. You will forsake yourselves and your God if you forsake any of YOUR brothers. You are more than your brother's keeper. In fact, you do not WANT to keep him. You must learn to see him as he is, and KNOW that he belongs to God, as you do. How could you treat your brother better than by rendering unto God the things which are God's?

Ideas do not LEAVE the mind which thought them in order to have separate being. Nor do separate thoughts conflict with one another in space, because they do not occupy space at all. HUMAN ideas can conflict in content, because they occur at different levels, and include opposite thoughts at the SAME level. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SHARE OPPOSING THOUGHTS. The Holy Spirit does not LET you forsake your brothers. Therefore, you can really share only the parts of your thoughts which are of Him, which He also keeps for YOU. And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. All the rest remains with you until He has re-interpreted them in the light of the Kingdom, making them, too, worthy of being shared. When they have been sufficiently purified, He lets you give them away. The will to share them IS their purification.

The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the power to create is of God. Therefore, those who have been forgiven must devote themselves first to healing, because having RECEIVED the idea of healing they MUST give it to hold it. The full power of creation (creating) cannot be expressed as long as any of God's ideas are withholding it from the Kingdom. The joint will of ALL the Sonship is the only creator that can create like the Father. That is because only the complete can think completely, and the thinking of God lacks nothing. Everything YOU think that is not through the Holy Spirit IS lacking.

Section 9 - The "Hero" of the Dream

The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There IS no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream, in which it acts as if it were a person, to be seen and be believed. It takes the central place in every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by OTHER bodies, born into the world OUTSIDE the body, lives a little while, and dies, to be united in the dust with other bodies, dying like itself. In the brief time allotted it to live, it seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies. Its safety is its main concern. Its comfort is its guiding rule. It tries to look for pleasure, and avoid the things that would be hurtful. Above all, it tries to teach itself its pains and joys are different, and CAN be told apart.

The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to PROVE it is autonomous and real. It puts things on itself that it has bought with little metal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and good. It works to get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless things it does not NEED, and does not even WANT. It hires OTHER bodies, that they may protect it, and collect more senseless things that it can call its own. It looks about for special bodies which can SHARE its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is a conqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But in some phases of the dream, it is the slave of bodies which would hurt and torture it.

The body's serial adventures, from the time of birth to dying is the theme of every dream the world has ever had. The "hero" of this dream will never change, nor will its purpose. Though the dream itself takes many forms, and SEEMS to show a great variety of places and events wherein its "hero" finds itself, the dream has but ONE purpose, taught in many ways. This single lesson does it try to teach again, and still again, and yet once more; - that it is CAUSE and NOT effect. And YOU are ITS effect, and CANNOT be its cause. Thus are you NOT the dreamer, but the DREAM. And so you wander idly in and out of places and events that IT contrives.

That this is all the BODY does, is true. For it IS but a figure in a dream. But who REACTS to figures in a dream, UNLESS he sees them as if they were real?

The INSTANT that he sees them as they ARE, they HAVE no more effects on him BECAUSE he understands he GAVE them their effects BY CAUSING THEM, and MAKING them seem real. How willing are you to ESCAPE effects of all the dreams the world has ever had? Is it your wish to let NO dream appear to be the cause of what it is YOU do? Then let us merely look upon the dream's beginning, for the part you see is but the SECOND part, whose CAUSE lies in the first.

No-one asleep and dreaming in the world remembers his attack upon himself. No-one believes there really was a time when he knew nothing of a body, and could never have conceived this world as real. He would have seen at once that these ideas are one illusion, too ridiculous for anything but to be laughed away. How serious they now appear to be! And no-one can remember when they would have met with laughter and with disbelief. We CAN remember this, if we but look directly at their CAUSE. And we will see the grounds for laughter, NOT a cause for fear. Let us return the dream he gave away unto the dreamer, who perceives the dream as SEPARATE from himself, and done to him.

Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them BOTH away, and understand that time can NOT intrude upon eternity. It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time. A timelessness in which is time made real; a Part of God Which can attack Itself; a separate brother as an enemy; a mind WITHIN a body; all are forms of circularity, whose ending starts at its beginning, ending at its cause.

The world you see depicts EXACTLY what you thought YOU did. Except that NOW you think that what you did is being done to YOU. The guilt for what YOU thought is being placed OUTSIDE yourself, and on a guilty world which dreams your dreams, and thinks your thoughts INSTEAD of you. It brings ITS vengeance, not your own. IT keeps you narrowly confined within a body, which it punishes because of all the sinful things the body does within ITS dream. You have NO power to make the body stop its evil deeds, because you did NOT make it, and can NOT control its actions, or its purpose, or its fate.

The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; - you WILL believe that others do to you EXACTLY what you think you did to them. But, once deluded into blaming THEM, you will not see the CAUSE of what they do BECAUSE you want the guilt to rest on them. How childish is this petulant device to keep your innocence by pushing guilt OUTSIDE yourself, but NEVER letting go! It is not easy to perceive the jest, when all around you do your eyes behold its heavy consequences, but WITHOUT their trifling cause. Without the cause do its effects seem serious and sad indeed. Yet they but follow. And it is their CAUSE which follows nothing, and is but a jest.

The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes.

The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."

Bring, then, all forms of suffering to Him Who knows that every one is like the rest. He sees NO differences where none exist, and He will teach you how each one is CAUSED. None has a DIFFERENT cause from all the rest, and ALL of them are easily undone by but a SINGLE lesson truly learned. Salvation is a secret you have kept but from yourself. The universe proclaims it so. But, to its witnesses, you pay no heed at all. For they attest the thing you do not WANT to know. They seem to keep it secret FROM you. Yet you need but learn you choose but NOT to listen, NOT to see.

How differently will you perceive the world, when this is recognized! When you forgive the world YOUR guilt, YOU will be free of it. Its innocence does NOT demand your guilt, nor does YOUR guiltlessness rest on ITS sins. This is the obvious, a secret kept from no-one but yourself. And it is this that has maintained you SEPARATE from the world, and kept your brother SEPARATE from you. Now need you but to learn that BOTH of you are innocent OR guilty. The one thing that is impossible is that you be UNLIKE each other; that they BOTH be true. This is the only secret yet to learn. And it will be NO secret you are healed.

Section 6 - The Little Hindrance

A little hindrance can seem large indeed to those who do not understand that miracles are all the same. But teaching that is what this course is FOR. That is its only purpose, for only that is all there is to learn. And you can learn it many different ways. All learning is a help or hindrance to the gate of Heaven. Nothing in between is possible. There are TWO teachers only, who point in different ways. And you will go along the way your chosen teacher leads. There are but TWO directions you can take, while time remains and choice is meaningful. For never will another road be made, except the way to Heaven. You but choose whether to go TOWARD Heaven, or away to nowhere. There is nothing else to choose.

Nothing is ever lost but time, which, in the end, IS nothing. It is but a little hindrance to eternity, quite meaningless to the real Teacher of the world. But since you DO believe in its reality, why should you waste it going nowhere, when it CAN be used to reach a goal as high as learning can achieve? Think not the way to Heaven's gate is difficult at all. Nothing you undertake with certain purpose and high resolve and happy confidence, holding each other's hand and keeping step to Heaven's song, is difficult to do. But it IS hard indeed to wander off, alone and miserable, down a road which leads to nothing, and which HAS no purpose.

God gave His Teacher to REPLACE the one you made, NOT to CONFLICT with it. And what He would replace HAS BEEN replaced. Time lasted but an instant in your mind, with NO effect upon eternity. And so is ALL time past, and everything EXACTLY as it was before the way to nothingness was made. The tiny tick of time, in which the first mistake was made, and ALL of them within that ONE mistake, held also the Correction for that one, and ALL of them that came within the first. And in that tiny instant time was gone, for that was all it ever was. What God gave Answer to IS answered, and IS gone.

To you who still believe you live in time, and know not it is gone, the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze you still perceive in time, though it has long since gone. You think you live in what is past. Each thing you look upon you saw but for an instant, long ago, before its unreality gave way to truth. Not one illusion still remains unanswered in your mind. Uncertainty was brought to Certainty so long ago that it is hard indeed to hold it to your heart, as if it were before you still. The tiny instant you would keep, and make eternal, passed away in Heaven too soon for anything to notice it had come.

Forgiveness is the great release from time. It is the key to learning that the past is over. Madness speaks no more. There IS no OTHER teacher and no OTHER way. For what has been undone no longer is. And who can stand upon a distant shore, and dream himself across an ocean, to a place and time that have long since gone by? How REAL a hindrance can this dream be to where he really IS? For this is fact, and does NOT change whatever dreams he has. Yet can he still IMAGINE he is elsewhere, and in another time. In the extreme, he can delude himself that this is true, and pass from mere imagining into belief and into madness, quite convinced that where he would prefer to be, he IS.

Is this a HINDRANCE to the place whereon he stands? Is any echo from the past that he may hear a fact in what is there to hear where he is now? And how much can his own delusions about time and place affect a change in where he REALLY is? The unforgiven is a voice that calls from out a past forever more gone by. And everything which points to it as real is but a wish that what is gone could be made real again, and seen as here and now, in place of what is REALLY now and here. Is this a HINDRANCE to the truth the past has gone, and CANNOT be returned to you? And do you WANT that fearful instant kept, when Heaven seemed to disappear, and God was feared and made a symbol of your hate?

Forget the time of terror that has been so long ago corrected and undone. Can sin withstand the Will of God? Can it be up to you to see the past, and put it in the present? You can NOT go back. And everything that points the way in the direction of the past but sets you on a mission whose accomplishment can ONLY be unreal. Such is the justice your ever loving Father has ensured MUST come to you. And from your own unfairness unto yourself has He protected you. You CANNOT lose your way, because there is no Way but His, and nowhere CAN you go, except to Him. Would He allow His Son to lose his way along a road long since a distant memory of a time gone by?

This course will teach you ONLY what is now. A dreadful instant in a distant past, now perfectly corrected, is of no concern or value. Let the dead and gone be peacefully forgotten. Resurrection has come to take its place. And now you are a part of Resurrection, NOT of death. No past illusions have the power to keep you in a place of death, a vault God's Son entered an instant, to be instantly restored unto His Father's Perfect Love. And how can he be kept in chains long since removed, and gone forever from his mind? The Son that God created is as free as God created him. He was reborn the instant that he chose to die, instead of live. And will you not forgive him now, because he made an error in the past that God remembers not, and is not there?

Now are you shifting back and forth, between the past and present. Sometimes the past seems real, as if it WERE the present. Voices FROM the past are heard, and then are doubted. You are like to one who still hallucinates, but lacks conviction in what he perceives. This is the borderland between the worlds, the bridge between the past and present. Here the shadow of the past remains, but still a present Light is dimly recognized. Once it is seen, this Light can never be forgotten. It MUST draw you from the past into the present, where you really ARE. The shadow voices do not CHANGE the laws of time or of eternity. They come from what is past and gone, but hinder not the true existence of the here and now.

The real world is the second part of the hallucination time and death are real, and have existence which can be perceived. This terrible illusion was denied in but the time it took for God to give His Answer to illusion for ALL time and EVERY circumstance. And then it was no more, to be experienced as there. Each day, and every minute in each day, and every instant that each minute holds, you but relive the single instant when the time of terror was replaced by Love. And so you die each day to live again, until you cross the gap between the past and present, which is NOT a gap at all.

Such is each life; a seeming interval from birth to death, and on to life again, a repetition of an instant gone by long ago, which CANNOT be relived. And ALL of time is but the mad belief that what is over is still here and now. Forgive the past and let it go, for it IS gone. You stand no longer on the ground that lies between the worlds. You HAVE gone on, and reached the world that lies at Heaven's gate. There IS no hindrance to the Will of God, nor any need that you repeat again a journey that was over long ago. Look gently on each other, and behold the world in which perception of your hate has been transformed into a world of Love.

Section 6 - Finding the Present

To perceive truly is to be aware of ALL reality, through the awareness of your own. But for this, NO illusions can rise to meet your sight, for ALL reality leaves no room for ANY error. This means that you perceive a brother only AS YOU SEE HIM NOW. His past has NO reality in the present, and you CANNOT see it. Your past reactions TO him are also NOT THERE, and if it is to these that you react NOW, you see but an image of him that you made and cherish INSTEAD of him. In your questioning of delusions, ask yourself if it is REALLY sane to perceive WHAT WAS NOW. If you remember the PAST as you look upon him, you will be unable to perceive the reality that is NOW.

You consider it "natural" to use your PAST experience as the reference point from which to JUDGE the present. Yet this is UNnatural, because it is delusional. When you have learned to look upon everyone with NO REFERENCE AT ALL to the past, either his OR yours as you perceived it, you will be able to learn FROM WHAT YOU SEE NOW. For the past can cast no shadow to darken the present, UNLESS YOU ARE AFRAID OF LIGHT. And ONLY if you are, would you choose to bring this darkness WITH you, and by holding it in your minds, see it as a dark cloud that shrouds your brothers, and conceals their reality from your sight.

THIS DARKNESS IS IN YOU. The Christ revealed to you NOW has no past, for He is changeless. AND IN HIS CHANGELESSNESS LIES YOUR RELEASE. For if He is as He was created, there IS no guilt in Him. No cloud of guilt has risen to obscure Him, and He stands revealed in everyone you meet, because you see Him through HIMSELF. To be born again is to let the PAST go, and LOOK WITHOUT CONDEMNATION UPON THE PRESENT. For the cloud which obscures God's Son to you IS the past, and if you would have it past AND GONE, you must NOT SEE IT NOW. And if you see it now in your delusions, it has NOT gone from you, although it is not there.

Time can release as well as imprison, depending on whose interpretation of it you use. Past, present, and future are not continuous, UNLESS YOU FORCE CONTINUITY ON THEM. You can PERCEIVE them as continuous, and make them so FOR YOU. But do not be deceived, and then believe that this is how it IS, for to believe that reality is what you would HAVE it be, according to YOUR use for it, IS delusional. You would DESTROY time's continuity by breaking it into past, present, and future, FOR YOUR OWN PURPOSES. You would anticipate the future on the basis of your PAST experience and plan for it accordingly. And by so doing, you are ALIGNING past and future, and not allowing the miracles, which could intervene BETWEEN them, to free you to be born again.

Look lovingly upon the present, for it holds the ONLY things that are forever true. All healing lies within it, because ITS continuity is real. It extends to ALL aspects of consciousness AT THE SAME TIME, and thus enables them to REACH EACH OTHER. The present is before time WAS, and WILL BE when time is no more. In it is everything that is eternal, and they ARE one. THEIR continuity is timeless, and their communication is unbroken, for they are NOT SEPARATED by the past. Only the past CAN separate, and IT is nowhere.

The present offers you your brothers in the light that would unite you WITH them, and free YOU from the past. Would you, then, hold the past AGAINST them? For if you do, you are choosing to remain in the darkness THAT IS NOT THERE, and refusing to accept the light that is offered you. For the light of perfect vision is freely given, as it is freely received, and can be accepted only WITHOUT LIMIT. In this one, still dimension of time, which does not change, and where there is no sight of what you were, you look at Christ, and call His witnesses to shine on you, BECAUSE YOU CALLED THEM FORTH. And THEY will not deny the truth in you, because you looked for it in them, and FOUND it there.

Now is the time for salvation, for NOW is the release from time. Reach out to all your brothers, and touch them with the touch of Christ. In timeless union WITH them is YOUR continuity, unbroken because it is wholly shared. God's guiltless Son is ONLY light. There is no darkness in him ANYWHERE, for he is whole. Call all your brothers to witness to his wholeness, as I am calling you to join with me. Every voice has a part in the song of redemption, the hymn of gladness and thanksgiving for the light, to the Creator of Light. The holy light that shines forth from God's Son is the witness that his light is of his Father.

Shine on your brothers in remembrance of your Creator, and you WILL remember Him, as you call forth the witnesses to His creation. Those whom you heal bear witness to YOUR healing, for in THEIR wholeness you will see your own. And as your hymns of praise and gladness rise to your Creator, He will return your thanks, in His clear answer to your call. For it can never be that His Son called upon Him, and remained unanswered. His call to you is but your call to Him. And in Him you are answered by His peace.

Children of Light, you know not that the Light is in you. And you will find it through its witnesses. For having given light to them, THEY WILL RETURN IT. Everyone you see IN light brings YOUR light closer to your OWN awareness. Love always leads to love. The sick, who ASK for love, are grateful for it, and in their joy, they shine with holy thanks. And this they offer you, who GAVE them joy. They are your guides to joy, for having received it OF you, they would keep it. You have established them as guides to peace, for you have made it manifest in them. And SEEING it, its beauty calls you home.

There is a light which this world cannot give. Yet YOU can give it, as it was given YOU. And AS you give it, it shines forth to call you FROM the world, and follow it. For this light will attract you as nothing in this world can do. And you will lay aside the world and find another. This other world is bright with love WHICH YOU HAVE GIVEN IT. And here will everything remind you of your Father and his holy Son. Light is unlimited, and spreads across this world in quiet joy. All those you brought WITH you will shine on you, and you will shine on them in gratitude, because they brought you here. Your light will join with theirs, in power so compelling, that it will draw the others out of darkness as you look on them.

Awaking unto Christ is following the laws of love OF YOUR FREE WILL, and out of quiet recognition of the truth in them. The attraction of light must draw you willingly, and willingness is signified by GIVING. Those who accept love OF you, become your willing witnesses to the love you gave them, and it is THEY who hold it out to YOU. In sleep you are alone, and your awareness is narrowed to yourself. And that is why the nightmares come. You dream of isolation, BECAUSE your eyes are closed. You do not SEE your brothers, and, in the darkness, you cannot look upon the light you GAVE to them.

And yet the laws of love are not suspended because you sleep. And you have followed them through all your nightmares, and have been faithful in your giving, for you were NOT alone. Even in sleep has Christ protected you, ensuring the real world FOR you when you wake. In YOUR name He has given FOR you, and given YOU the gifts He gave. God's Son is still as loving as his Father. Continuous WITH his Father, he has no past APART from Him. So he has never ceased to be his Father's witness, AND HIS OWN. Although he slept, CHRIST'S VISION DID NOT LEAVE HIM. And so it is that he can call unto himself the witnesses that teach him that he never slept.

Section 10 - Guiltlessness and Invulnerability

The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its powers decline if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.

If this were the real world, God WOULD be cruel. For no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation, and be loving. LOVE DOES NOT KILL TO SAVE. For if it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the ego's interpretation, NOT God's. Only the world of guilt could demand this, for only the guilty could CONCEIVE of it. Adam's "sin" could have touched none of you, had you not believed that it was the FATHER Who drove him out of Paradise. For it is in THAT belief that knowledge of the Father was lost, for it is only those who do not understand Him that COULD believe it.

This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son CANNOT be crucified, this is the world you will see. But you will NOT realize this, until you accept the eternal fact that GOD'S SON IS NOT GUILTY. He DESERVES only love, because he has GIVEN only love. He cannot be condemned, because he has never condemned. The Atonement is the final lesson he need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, HE HAS NO NEED OF SALVATION.

Long ago we said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers, whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary, by teaching their pupils all they know. The Holy Spirit wills ONLY this, for sharing the Father's love for His Son, He wills to remove all guilt from his mind, that he may remember his Father in peace. For peace and guilt are antithetical, and the Father can BE remembered ONLY in peace. Love and guilt cannot coexist, and to accept one is to DENY the other.

Guilt hides Christ from your sight, for it is the denial of the blamelessness of God's Son. In this strange world which you have made, the Son of God HAS sinned. How could you SEE him, then? By making HIM invisible, the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt which you accepted, and you hold it dear. For the blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was, and can never be. Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God's Son IS without guilt.

As you look upon yourselves and judge what you do honestly, as you have been asked to do, you may be tempted to wonder how you can be guiltless. But consider this. You are NOT guiltless in time, but IN ETERNITY. You HAVE "sinned" IN THE PAST, but there IS no past. Always has no direction. Time seems to go in one direction, but when you reach its end, it will roll up like a long carpet that has spread along the past behind you, and will disappear. As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty, you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless, for so it is.

The journey which the Son of God has set HIMSELF is foolish indeed. But the journey on which his Father sets him is one of release and joy. The Father is not cruel, and His Son CANNOT hurt himself. The retaliation which he fears, AND WHICH HE SEES, will never touch him, for although he BELIEVES in it, the Holy Spirit KNOWS it is not true. He stands at the end of time, where YOU must be, because He is WITH you. He has ALWAYS undone everything unworthy of the Son of God, for such was His mission, given BY God. And what God gives HAS always been.

You will see me as you learn the Son of God is guiltless. He has always sought his guiltlessness, and he has FOUND it. For everyone is seeking to escape from the prison he has made, and the way to find release is not denied him. Being IN him, he has found it. WHEN he finds it is only a matter of time, and time is but an illusion. For the Son of God is guiltless NOW, and the brightness of his purity shines untouched forever in God's Mind. God's Son will ALWAYS be as he was created. Deny YOUR world, and judge him not. For his eternal guiltlessness is in the mind of his Father, and protects him forever.

When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will realize that THERE IS NO GUILT IN GOD'S SON. And ONLY as you look upon him as guiltless, can you understand his Oneness. For the IDEA of guilt brings a belief of condemnation of one by another, projecting separation in place of unity. You can condemn only yourself, and by doing so, you cannot know that you are God's Son. For you have denied the condition of his Being, which is his perfect blamelessness. Out of Love he was created, and in Love he abides. Goodness and mercy have always followed him, for he has always extended the Love of his Father.

As you perceive the holy companions who travel with you, you will realize that there IS no journey, but only an awakening. The Son of God, who sleepeth not, has kept faith with his Father FOR you. There is no road to travel ON, and no time to travel THROUGH. For God waits not for His Son in time, being forever unwilling to be without him. And so it has always been. Let the holiness of God's Son shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens your mind, and by accepting his purity AS yours, learn of him that it IS yours.

You are invulnerable BECAUSE you are guiltless. You can hold on to the past ONLY through guilt. For guilt establishes that you WILL BE punished for what you have done, and thus depends on one-dimensional time, proceeding from past to future. No-one who believes this, can understand what ALWAYS means. And therefore guilt MUST deprive you of the appreciation of eternity. You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now. Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in your minds, to ensure the ego's continuity. For if what it HAS BEEN WILL BE punished, it's continuity WOULD be guaranteed.

But the guarantee of your continuity is God's, not the ego's. And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless. The future IN TIME is ALWAYS associated with expiation, and ONLY guilt could induce a sense of NEED for expiation. Accepting the guiltlessness of the Son of God AS YOURS is therefore God's way of reminding you of His Son, and what he is in truth. For God has never condemned His Son, and being guiltless, he IS eternal.

You cannot dispel guilt by making it real, and THEN atoning for it. For this is the ego's plan, which it offers INSTEAD of dispelling it. The ego believes in ATONEMENT THROUGH ATTACK, being fully committed to the insane notion that attack IS salvation. And YOU who cherish guilt must ALSO believe it, for how else but by identifying WITH the ego, could you hold dear what you do not want?

The ego teaches you to attack yourself BECAUSE you are guilty, and this MUST INCREASE the guilt, for guilt is the RESULT of attack. In the ego's teaching, then, there IS no escape from guilt. For attack MAKES GUILT REAL, and if it is real there IS no way to overcome it. The Holy Spirit dispels it simply through the calm recognition that it has never been. As He looks upon the guiltless Son of God, he KNOWS this is true. And being true for you, you CANNOT attack yourself, for WITHOUT guilt, attack is impossible. You, then, ARE saved BECAUSE God's Son is guiltless. And being wholly pure, you ARE invulnerable.

Section 7 - The Constant State

You may ask how this is possible as long as you appear to be living in this world. And since this is a sensible question, it has a sensible answer. But you must be careful that you really understand the question. What IS the you who are living in this world? Bill will probably have more trouble with this than you, but if he will try not to close his mind, he may decide that we are NOT engaging in denial after all.

To help him, it might be wise to review a number of the concepts with which he does not appear to have trouble, except at times. He liked the idea of invisibility, and was particularly open to the concept of different orders of reality. He also found the notion of varying densities of energy appealing. While he may yet agree that these are merely teaching aids, this is a good time to employ them.

Immortality is a constant state. It is as true now as it ever was or will be, because it implies NO CHANGE AT ALL. It is not a continuum, and it is NOT understood by comparing it with any opposite. Knowledge NEVER involves comparisons. That is its essential difference from everything else the mind can grasp.

"A little knowledge" is not dangerous except to the ego. Vaguely the ego senses threat, and, being unable to realize that "a little knowledge" is a meaningless phrase because "all" and "a little" in this context are the same, decides that since "all" is impossible, the fear does not lie in this. "A little," however, is a scarcity concept, and this the ego understands well. Regarding "all" as impossible, "a little" is perceived as the real threat.

The essential thing to remember always is that the ego DOES NOT RECOGNIZE the real source of its perceived threat. And if YOU associate yourself WITH the ego, YOU do not perceive the whole situation as it really is. Only your allegiance to it gives the ego ANY power over you. We have spoken of the ego as if it were a separate thing, acting on its own. This was necessary to persuade you that you cannot dismiss it lightly, and MUST realize how much of your thinking is ego-directed. But we cannot safely leave it at that, or you will regard yourselves as necessarily conflicted as long as you are here, or more properly, BELIEVE that you are here.

The ego is nothing more than a PART of your belief about yourselves. Your other life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will be totally unaffected by your attempts to dissociate. The ratio of repression and dissociation of truth varies with the individual ego-illusion (tell Bill that phrase is VERY good), but dissociation is always involved, or you would not believe that you ARE here.

When I told Bill to concentrate on the phrase "here I am, Lord," I did not mean "in this world" by "here." I wanted him to think of himself as a separate consciousness, capable of direct communication with the Creator of that consciousness. He, too, MUST begin to think of himself as a very powerful receiving and sending channel, a description I once gave you symbolically. Remember that HE understood it before you did, because you are more dissociative and less repressed.

Your great debt to each other is something you should never forget. It is exactly the same debt that you owe to me. Whenever you react egotistically toward each other, you are throwing away the graciousness of your indebtedness and the holy perception it would produce. The reason why the term "holy" can be used here is that, as you learn how much you ARE indebted to the whole Sonship which includes me, you come as close to knowledge as perception ever can. This gap is so small knowledge can easily flow across it and obliterate it forever.

You have very little trust in me as yet, but it will increase as you turn more and more often to me instead of to your egos for guidance. The results will convince you increasingly that your choice in turning to me is the only sane one you can make. No one who has learned from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs much conditioning. The ego cannot withstand the conditioning process, because the process itself DEMONSTRATES that there is another way.

The classic conditioning by rewards model has always been most effective. Howard Hunt made a very good point in this connection, even though he did not understand that the real reason why conditioning through pain is not the most efficient method is because pain itself is an ego-illusion, and can never induce more than a temporary effect.

The rewards of God are immediately recognized as eternal. Since this recognition is made by YOU and NOT by your ego, the recognition ITSELF establishes that you and your ego CANNOT be identical. You may believe that you have already accepted the difference, but you are by no means convinced as yet. The very fact that you are preoccupied with the idea of escaping FROM the ego shows this.

You cannot escape from the ego by humbling it, or controlling it, or punishing it. The ego and the Soul DO NOT KNOW each other. The separated mind cannot maintain the separation EXCEPT by dissociating. Having done this, it utilizes repression against all truly natural impulses, not because the EGO is a separate thing, but because you want to believe that YOU are. The ego is a device for maintaining this belief, but it is still only YOUR willingness to use the device that enables it to endure.

My trust in you is greater than yours in me at the moment, but it will not always be that way. Your mission is very simple. You have been chosen to live so as to demonstrate that You are NOT an ego. I repeat that I do not choose God's channels wrongly. The Holy One shares my trust and always approves my Atonement decisions, because my will is never out of accord with His.

I have told you several times that I am in charge of the whole Atonement. This is ONLY because I completed my part in it as a man, and can now complete it through other men. My chosen receiving and sending channels cannot fail, because I will lend them MY strength as long as theirs is wanting. I will go with you to the Holy One, and through MY perception HE can bridge the little gap. Your gratitude to each OTHER is the only gift I want. I will bring it to God for you, knowing that to know your brother IS to know God.

A little knowledge is an all-encompassing thing. If you are grateful to each other you are grateful to God for what He created. Through your gratitude you can come to know each other, and one moment of real recognition makes all men your brothers because they are all of your Father. Love does not conquer all things, but it DOES set all things right.

Because you are all the Kingdom of God, I can lead you back to your own creations, which you do not yet know. God has kept them very safe in HIS knowing while your attention has wandered. Bill gave you a very important idea when he told you that what has been dissociated IS STILL THERE. I am grateful to him for that, and I hope he will not decide that it is true only for you. Even though dissociation is much more apparent in you, and repression is much more evident in him, each of you utilizes both.

Wisdom always dictates that a therapist work through WEAKER defenses first. That is why I suggested to Bill that he persuade you to deal with REPRESSION first. We have only just about reached the point where dissociation means much to you, because it is so important to your misbeliefs. Bill might do well, - and you could help him here, - to concentrate more on HIS dissociative tendencies and not try to deal with repression yet.

I hinted at this when I remarked on his habit of disengaging himself, and when I spoke to him about distantiation. These are all forms of dissociation, and these weaker forms were always more evident in him than in you. That is because dissociation was so extreme in your case that you did not have to hide it because you were not aware that it was there. Bill, on the other hand, DOES dissociate more than he thinks, and that is why he cannot listen. He does not need to go through the same course in repression that you did, because he will give up his major misdefense AFTER he has rid himself of the lesser ones.

Do not disturb yourself about repression, Bill, but DO train yourself to be alert to any tendency to withdraw from your brothers. Withdrawal is frightening, and you do not recognize all the forms it takes in you. Helen is right that she will experience things that will cut across all her perceptions because of their stunning knowledge. You were right that this will occur when she learns to recognize what she ALREADY knows and has dissociated.

You, Bill, will learn somewhat differently, because you are afraid of all complete involvements, and believe that they lessen YOU. You have learned to be so much more clear-sighted about this that you should be ready to oppose it in yourself RELATIVELY easily. As you come closer to a brother, you DO approach me, and as you withdraw from him I become distant to you.

Your giant step forward was to INSIST on a collaborative venture. This does NOT go against the true spirit of meditation at all. It is inherent IN it. Meditation is a collaborative venture with GOD. It CANNOT be undertaken successfully by those who disengage themselves from the Sonship, because they are disengaging themselves from me. God will come to you only as you will give Him to your brothers. Learn first of them, and you will be ready to hear God as you hear them. That is because the function of love is One.

How can you teach someone the value of something he has thrown away deliberately? He must have thrown it away because he did NOT value it. You can only show him how miserable he is WITHOUT it, and bring it near very slowly, so he can learn how his misery lessens as he approaches it. This conditions him to associate his misery with its ABSENCE, and to associate the OPPOSITE of misery with its presence. It gradually becomes desirable, as he changes his mind about its worth.

I am conditioning you to associate misery with the ego, and joy with your Soul. You have conditioned yourself the other way around. But a far greater reward will break through any conditioning, if it is repeatedly offered when the old habit is broken. You are still free to choose. But can you really WANT the rewards of the ego in the presence of the rewards of God?