Fear not to recognize as SOLELY OF YOUR MAKING the whole idea of sacrifice. And seek not safety by attempting to PROTECT yourself from where it is NOT. Your brothers and your Father have become VERY fearful to you, and you would bargain with them for a few special relationships, in which you think you see some scraps of safety. Do not try longer to KEEP APART your thoughts and the Thought that has been GIVEN you. When they are brought together, and perceived WHERE THEY ARE, the choice BETWEEN them is nothing more than a gentle awakening, and as simple as opening your eyes to daylight, when you have no more need of sleep.
The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not OUTSIDE of yourself, but as shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come. He comes demanding NOTHING. No sacrifice of ANY kind, of ANYONE, is asked by Him. In His Presence, the whole IDEA of sacrifice loses ALL meaning. For He is Host to God. And you need but invite Him in Who is there ALREADY, by recognizing that His Host is One. And no thought ALIEN to His Oneness can abide with Him there. Love MUST be total to give Him welcome, for the Presence of holiness CREATES the holiness which surrounds It. No fear can touch the Host Who cradles God in the time of Christ. For the Host is as holy as the Perfect Innocence that He protects, and Whose Power protects HIM.
This Christmas, give the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING that would hurt you. LET yourself be healed completely, that you may JOIN with Him in healing. And let us celebrate our release together, by releasing everyone WITH us. Leave nothing behind, for release is TOTAL. And when you have accepted it WITH me, you will GIVE it with me. All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in OUR relationship, which is as innocent as our relationship with our Father, and as powerful. Pain will be brought to us, and disappear in our presence. And, WITHOUT pain, there can BE no sacrifice. And WITHOUT SACRIFICE, there love MUST be.
You who believe that sacrifice IS love, must learn that sacrifice is separation FROM love. For sacrifice brings guilt, as surely as love brings peace. Guilt is the CONDITION of sacrifice, as peace is the condition for the awareness of your relationship with God. For through guilt, you EXCLUDE your Father and your brothers FROM yourself. And through peace, you will invite them back, and realize they are where your invitation bids them be. What you excluded from yourself seems fearful, for you ENDOWED it with fear, and tried to CAST IT OUT, though it was part of you. Who can perceive part of himself as loathsome, and live within himself in peace? And who can try to resolve the perceived conflict of Heaven and hell IN HIM by casting Heaven out, and GIVING IT the attributes of hell, WITHOUT experiencing himself as incomplete and lonely?
As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a VICTIM OF SACRIFICE, JUSTIFIED in sacrificing others. For who could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside, WITHOUT a sense of sacrifice and loss? And who can suffer sacrifice and loss, without attempting to RESTORE himself? Yet how could you accomplish this yourselves, when the basis of your attempts is the belief in the REALITY OF THE DEPRIVATION? For deprivation breeds attack, BEING the belief that attack IS justified. And, as long as you would RETAIN the deprivation, attack becomes salvation, and sacrifice becomes love.
So is it that, in all your seeking for love, YOU SEEK FOR SACRIFICE, and FIND it. Yet you find NOT love. For it is impossible to DENY what love IS, and still RECOGNIZE it. The meaning of love lies in what you have cast OUTSIDE yourself, and it HAS no meaning at all, APART from you. It is what you preferred to KEEP, that has no meaning. While all that you would KEEP AWAY holds all the meaning of the universe, and holds the universe together in its meaning. For, unless the universe were joined in YOU, it would be APART FROM God, and to be without Him IS to be without meaning.
In the holy instant, the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the body's INTERFERENCE, and where there is communication, there is peace. The Prince of Peace was born to re-establish the CONDITION of love, by teaching that communication remains unbroken, even if the body is destroyed, PROVIDED THAT you see NOT the body as the necessary means of communication. And if you UNDERSTAND this lesson, you will realize that, to sacrifice the BODY, is to SACRIFICE NOTHING. And communication, which MUST be of the mind, CANNOT be sacrificed. Where, then, is sacrifice?
The lesson I was born to teach, and still would teach to all my brothers, is that sacrifice is nowhere and love is everywhere. For communication EMBRACES EVERYTHING, and in the peace it re-establishes, love comes of itself. Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas, for the time of Christ is meaningless APART from joy. Let us join in celebrating peace by demanding no sacrifice of anyone, for so will you offer me the love I offer you. What can be more joyous than to perceive WE ARE DEPRIVED OF NOTHING? Such is the message of the time of Christ, which I give you, that YOU may give it, and return it to the Father, Who gave it to me.
For in the time of Christ, communication with Him is restored, and He joins us in the celebration of His Son's Creation. God offers thanks to the holy host who would receive Him, and let Him enter, and abide where He would be. And BY your welcome, does HE welcome you into Himself. For what is contained in you who welcome Him is RETURNED to Him. And we but celebrate HIS Wholeness, as we welcome Him into ourselves. Those who receive the Father are one with Him, being host to Him Who created them. And by allowing Him to enter, the remembrance of the Father enters with Him, and with Him they remember the only relationship they ever had, and ever want to have.
This is the week-end in which a new year will be born from the time of Christ. I have perfect faith in you, to do all that you would accomplish. Nothing will be lacking, and you will MAKE COMPLETE, and NOT destroy. Say and UNDERSTAND this:
I give you to the Holy Spirit, as part of myself.
I know that you will be released, UNLESS I WANT TO
USE YOU TO IMPRISON MYSELF.
In the name of MY freedom, I WILL your release,
Because I recognize that we will be released TOGETHER.
So will the year begin in joy and freedom. There is much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept the holy instant as this year is born, and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this year different, by making it ALL THE SAME. And let ALL your relationships be made holy FOR you. This is OUR will.
Amen.
Let us review the meaning of "forgive," for it is apt to be distorted and to be perceived as something which entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. In such a view, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appears to rest salvation on a whim.
This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected when you can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. It must be limited to what is false. It is irrelevant to everything except illusions. Truth is God's creation, and to pardon this is meaningless. All truth belongs to Him, reflects His laws and radiates His Love. Does this need pardon? How can you forgive the sinless and eternally benign?
The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is that you still believe you must forgive the truth and not illusions. You conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to overlook the truth in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true. This twisted viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet upon your mind as you regard yourself.
Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception. For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness is a lie. Thus is forgiveness really but a sin, like all the rest. It says the truth is false, and smiles on the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as white as snow. It is delusional in what it thinks it can accomplish. It would see as right the plainly wrong; the loathsome as the good.
Pardon is no escape in such a view. It merely is a further sign that sin is unforgivable, at best to be concealed, denied, or called another name, for pardon is a treachery to truth. Guilt can not be forgiven. If you sin, your guilt is everlasting. Those who are forgiven from the view their sins are real are pitifully mocked and twice condemned; first by themselves for what they think they did, and once again by those who pardon them.
It is sin's unreality which makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. It does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and gently lays them at the feet of truth. And there they disappear entirely.
Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth."
The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth. It is because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies, the great restorer of the simple truth. By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth, which had been blocked by dreams of guilt. Now are you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to you. For if one brother has received this gift of you, the door is open to yourself.
There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and perceive it open wide in welcome. When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for this is self-deception. Ask instead, "Should I accuse myself of doing this?"
Thus will you see alternatives for choice in terms which render choosing meaningful, and keep your mind as free of guilt and pain as God Himself intended it to be, and as it is in truth. It is but lies which would condemn. In truth is innocence the only thing there is. Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth, between the world you see and that which lies beyond, between the hell of guilt and Heaven's gate.
Across this bridge, as powerful as Love Which laid Its blessing on it, are all dreams of evil and of hatred and attack brought silently to truth. They are not kept to swell and bluster and to terrify the foolish dreamer who believes in them. He has been gently wakened from his dream by understanding what he thought he saw was never there. And now he cannot feel that all escape has been denied to him.
He does not have to fight to save himself. He does not have to kill the dragons which he thought pursued him. Nor need he erect the heavy walls of stone and iron doors he thought would make him safe. He can remove the ponderous and useless armor made to chain his mind to fear and misery. His step is light, and as he lifts his foot to stride ahead, a star is left behind to point the way to those who follow him.
Forgiveness must be practiced for the world cannot perceive its meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence. There is no thought in all the world which leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought which it reflects. It is as alien to the world as is your own reality. And yet it joins your mind with the reality in you.
Today we practice true forgiveness that the time of joining be no more delayed. For we would meet with our Reality in freedom and in peace. Our practicing becomes the footsteps lightening up the way for all our brothers, who will follow us to the Reality we share with them.
That this may be accomplished, let us give a quarter of an hour twice today, and spend it with the Guide Who understands the meaning of forgiveness, and was sent to us to teach it. Let us ask of Him:
"Let me perceive forgiveness as it is."
Then choose one brother as He will direct, and catalogue his "sins" as one by one they cross your mind. Be certain not to dwell on any one of them, but realize that you are using his "offenses" but to save the world from all ideas of sin. Briefly consider all the evil things you thought of him, and each time ask yourself "Would I condemn myself for doing this?"
Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. And now you are prepared for freedom. If you have been practicing thus far in willingness and honesty, you will begin to sense a lifting up, a lightening of weight across your chest, a deep and certain feeling of relief. The time remaining should be given to experiencing the escape from all the heavy chains you sought to lay upon your brother, which were laid upon yourself.
Forgiveness should be practiced through the day, for there will be so many times when you forget its meaning, and attack yourself. When this occurs, allow your mind to see through this illusion as you tell yourself:
"Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
Would I accuse myself of doing this?
I will not lay this chain upon myself."
In everything you do remember this:
No one is crucified alone, and yet,
No one can enter Heaven by himself.
Idols are quite specific. But your will is universal, being limitless. And so it has NO form, nor is content for its expression in the terms of form. Idols are LIMITS; they are the belief that there are FORMS which will bring happiness, and that, BY limiting, is all attained. It is as if you said, "I have no need of everything. This LITTLE thing I want, and it will BE as everything to me." And this MUST fail to satisfy, because it IS your will that everything be yours. Decide for idols, and you ask for LOSS. Decide for truth, and everything IS yours.
IT IS NOT FORM YOU SEEK. What form can be a substitute for God the Father's Love? What form can take the place of all the love in the divinity of God the Son? What idol can make two of what IS one? And CAN the limitless be limited? You do not WANT an idol. It is NOT your will to have one. It will NOT bestow on you the gift you seek. When you decide upon the FORM of what you want, you LOSE the understanding of its purpose. So you see YOUR will within the idol, thus reducing it to a SPECIFIC form. But this could never BE your will, because what shares in all creation CANNOT be content with SMALL ideas and LITTLE things.
Behind the search for EVERY idol lies the yearning for completion. Wholeness has no form BECAUSE it is unlimited. To seek a special person or a thing to ADD to you to make yourself complete, can ONLY mean that you believe some FORM is missing. And, by finding THIS, you will achieve completion in a FORM you like. This is the purpose of an idol; that you will not look BEYOND it, to the source of your belief that you ARE incomplete. ONLY if you had sinned could this be so. For sin is the IDEA you are alone, and separated OFF from what is whole. And thus it WOULD be necessary for the search for wholeness to be made BEYOND the boundaries of limits on yourself.
It NEVER is the idol that you want. But what you think it OFFERS you, you want indeed, and have the RIGHT to ask for. Nor could it be POSSIBLE it be denied. Your will to be complete IS but God's will, and this is given you BY being His. God knows not form. He CANNOT answer you in terms which have no meaning. And YOUR will could not BE satisfied with empty forms, made but to fill a gap which is not there. It is not this you WANT. Creation gives no SEPARATE person and no SEPARATE thing the power to complete the Son of God. What idol CAN be called upon to give the Son of God what he already HAS?
Completion is the FUNCTION of God's Son. He has no need to SEEK for it at all. Beyond ALL idols stands his holy will to be but what he IS. For MORE than whole is meaningless. If there were change in him; if he could be reduced to ANY form and limited to what is NOT in him, he would not BE as God created him. What idol CAN he need to be himself? For CAN he give a part of him away? What is not whole cannot MAKE whole. But what is REALLY asked for CANNOT be denied. Your will IS granted. NOT in any form that would content you not, but in the whole, completely lovely Thought God holds of you.
Nothing that God knows not exists. And what He knows exists forever, changelessly. For thoughts endure as long as does the mind that thought of them, and in the Mind of God there is no ending, nor a time in which His Thoughts were absent, or could suffer change. Thoughts are not born and cannot die. They share the attributes of their creator, nor have they a separate life, apart from him. The thoughts YOU think are in your mind, as you are in the Mind Which thought of you. And so there ARE no separate parts in what exists within God's Mind. It is forever One, eternally united and at peace.
Thoughts SEEM to come and go. But all this means is that you are sometimes AWARE of them, and sometimes not. An unremembered thought is born again to YOU when it returns to your awareness. Yet it did not die when you forgot it. It was ALWAYS there, but YOU were unaware of it. The Thought God holds of you is perfectly unchanged by your forgetting. It will ALWAYS be exactly as it was before the time when you forgot, and will be just the same when you remember. And it is the same WITHIN the interval when you forgot. The Thoughts of God are FAR beyond all change, and shine forever. They await not birth. They wait for welcome and remembering.
The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there. But still and white and lovely will it shine through all eternity. There was no time it was not there. No instant when its light grew dimmer or less perfect ever was. Who knows the Father knows this light, for He is the eternal sky which holds it safe, forever lifted up and anchored sure. Its perfect purity does not depend on whether it is seen on earth or not. The sky embraces it, and softly holds it in its perfect place, which is as far from earth as earth from Heaven. It is not the distance nor the time which keeps this star invisible to earth. But those who seek for idols CANNOT know this star is there.
Beyond all idols is the Thought God holds of you. Completely unaffected by the turmoil and the terror of the world, the dreams of birth and death that here are dreamed, the myriad of forms that fear can take, quite undisturbed, the Thought God holds of you remains EXACTLY as It always was. Surrounded by a stillness so complete no sound of battle comes remotely near, It rests in certainty and perfect peace. Here is your ONE reality kept safe, completely unaware of all the world that worships idols, and that knows not God. In perfect sureness of Its changelessness and of Its rest in Its eternal home, the Thought God holds of you has never left the Mind of Its Creator, Whom It knows as Its Creator knows that It is there.
Where could the Thought God holds of you EXIST but where you are? Is your reality a thing APART from you, and in a world which your reality knows NOTHING of? Outside you there IS no eternal sky, no changeless star, and NO reality. The Mind of Heaven's Son in Heaven is, for there the Mind of Father and of Son joined in creation which can HAVE no end. You have not two realities, but One. Nor can you be AWARE of more than one. An idol OR the Thought God holds of you is your reality. Forget not, then, that idols MUST keep hidden what you are, NOT from the Mind of God, but from your own. The star shines still; the sky has never changed. But you, the holy Son of God Himself, are unaware of your reality.
The slave of idols is a WILLING slave. For willing he MUST be, to let himself bow down in worship to what has no life, and seek for power in the powerless. What happened to the holy Son of God, that this could BE his wish; to let himself fall lower than the stones upon the ground, and look to idols that they raise him up? Hear, then, your story in the dream you made, and ask yourself if it be not the truth that you believe that it is NOT a dream. A dream of judgment came into the mind that God created perfect as Himself. And in that dream was Heaven changed to hell, and God made enemy unto His Son.
How can His Son AWAKEN from the dream? It is a dream of judgment. So must he judge NOT, and he WILL waken. For the dream will seem to last while he is PART of it. Judge not, for he who judges WILL have need of idols, which will hold the judgment off from resting on himself. Nor CAN he know the Self he has condemned. Judge not, because you make yourself a PART of evil dreams, where idols are your "true" identity, and your salvation from the judgment laid, in terror and in guilt, upon yourself. All figures in the dream are idols, made to save you FROM the dream. Yet they are PART of what they have been made to save you FROM.
Thus does an idol KEEP the dream alive and terrible. For who would wish for one UNLESS he were in terror and despair? And this the idol REPRESENTS, and so its worship IS the worship of despair and terror, and the dream from which they come. Judgment is an INjustice to God's Son, and it IS justice that who judges HIM will not escape the penalty he laid upon HIMSELF within the dream he made. God knows of justice; NOT of penalty. But in the dream of judgment, you attack and ARE condemned. And WISH to be the slave of idols, who are interposed BETWEEN your judgment and the penalty it brings.
There CAN be no salvation in the dream, as YOU are dreaming it. For idols MUST be part of it, to save you from what you believe you have accomplished, and have done to make you sinful, and put out the Light within you. Little children, It is there. You do but dream, and idols are the toys you dream you play with. Who has need of toys but children? They pretend they rule the world, and give their toys the power to move about, and talk and think and feel, and speak for them. Yet everything their toys appear to do is in the minds of those who play with them. But they are eager to forget that they made up the dream in which their toys are real, and recognize their wishes are their own.
Nightmares are childish dreams. Their toys have turned against the child who thought he made them real. Yet CAN a dream attack? Or CAN a toy grow large and dangerous and fierce and wild? This does the child believe BECAUSE he fears his thoughts, and gives them to his toys instead. And their reality becomes his own, because they seem to SAVE him from his thoughts. Yet do they KEEP his thoughts alive and real, but seen OUTSIDE himself, where they can turn against him for his treachery to them. He thinks he NEEDS them that he may escape his thoughts, because he thinks the THOUGHTS are real. And so he makes of ANYTHING a toy, to make his world remain outside himself, and play that HE is but a part of it.
There is a time when childhood should be passed and gone forever. Seek not to retain the toys of children. Put them all away, for you have need of them no more. The dream of judgment is a children's game, in which the child becomes the father, powerful, but with the little wisdom of the child. What hurts him is destroyed; what helps him, blessed. Except he judges this as does a child, who does not KNOW what hurts and what will heal. And bad things seem to happen, and he is afraid of all the chaos in a world he thinks is governed by the laws he made. Yet is the real world unaffected by the world he thinks is real. Nor have its laws been changed because he did not understand.
The real world still is but a dream. Except the figures have been changed. They are not seen as idols which betray. It is a dream in which no-one is used to substitute for something else, or interposed between the thoughts the mind conceives and what it sees. No-one is used for something he is not, for childish things have all been put away. And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into a dream where all is joy, because that is the PURPOSE that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love.
Forgiving dreams have little need to last. They are not made to separate the mind from what it thinks. They do not seek to prove the dream is being dreamed by someone ELSE. And in these dreams a melody is heard which everyone remembers, though he has not heard it since before all time began. Forgiveness, once complete, brings timelessness so close the song of Heaven can be heard, not with the ears, but with the holiness that never left the altar which abides forever deep within the Son of God. And when he hears this song again, he knows he NEVER heard it not. And where IS time, when dreams of judgment have been put away?
Whenever you feel fear in any form, - and you ARE fearful if you do not feel a deep content, a certainty of help, a calm assurance Heaven goes with you, - be sure you made an idol, and believe it will betray you. For, beneath your hope that it will save you, lie the guilt and pain of self-betrayal and uncertainty, so deep and bitter that the dream can not conceal completely all your sense of doom. Your self-betrayal MUST result in fear, and fear IS judgment, leading surely to the frantic search for idols and for death. Forgiving dreams remind you that you live in safety, and have NOT attacked yourself.
So do your childish terrors melt away, and dreams become a sign that you have made a new beginning, NOT another try to worship idols, and to KEEP attack. Forgiving dreams are kind to everyone who figures in the dream. And so they bring the dreamer full release from dreams of fear. He does not fear his judgment, for he has judged no-one, nor has sought to be released THROUGH judgment from what judgment MUST impose. And all the while he is remembering what he forgot when judgment seemed to be the way to SAVE him from its penalty.
It is possible even in this world to hear ONLY that voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God's Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Souls. The voice of the Holy Spirit IS the call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed, there will be no call to return, but what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless THEIR creations and keep them in the light of joy.
You ARE the Kingdom of Heaven, but you have let the belief in darkness enter your minds, and so you need a new light. The Holy Spirit is the radiance that you must let to banish the idea of darkness. His is the glory before which dissociation falls away, and the Kingdom of Heaven breaks through into its own.
Before the separation you did not need guidance. You KNEW as you will know again, but you do not know now. God does not guide, because He can share only PERFECT KNOWLEDGE. Guidance is EVALUATIVE, because it implies that there is a RIGHT way and also a WRONG way, one to be chosen and the other avoided. By choosing one, you give up the other. This IS a conflict state. It MEANS that knowledge has been lost, because knowledge is SURE.
God is not in you; YOU are part of HIM. When you willed to leave Him, He gave you a voice to speak FOR Him, because He could no longer share His knowledge with you without hindrance. Direct communication was broken, because you had made another voice through another will. The Holy Spirit calls you both to remember and forget. You have chosen to be in a state of opposition, in which opposites are possible. As a result, there ARE choices which you must make. In the holy state, the will is free in the sense that its CREATIVE power is unlimited, but choice itself is meaningless.
Freedom to choose is the same POWER as freedom to create, but its APPLICATION is different. Choosing MEANS divided will. The Holy Spirit is one way of choosing. This way is in you BECAUSE there is also another way. God did not leave His Children comfortless, even though they left Him. The voice they put in their minds was NOT the voice of His Will, for which the Holy Spirit speaks. The call to return is stronger than the call to depart, but it speaks in a different way.
The voice of the Holy Spirit does not command, because it is incapable of arrogance. It does not demand, because it does not seek control. It does not overcome, because it does not attack. It merely REMINDS. It is compelling only because of what it reminds you OF. It brings to your mind the OTHER way, remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you have made for yourselves. The voice for God is always quiet, because it speaks of peace. Yet peace is stronger than war, because it heals. War is DIVISION, not increase. No-one gains from strife.
"What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?" This means that if he listens to the wrong voice, he has LOST SIGHT of his Soul. He CANNOT lose it, but he CAN not know it. It is therefore LOST TO HIM, until he chooses right. The Holy Spirit is your guide in choosing. He is the part of your mind which ALWAYS speaks for the right choice, because he speaks for God. He is your remaining communication with God, which you can interrupt, but cannot destroy.
The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and Earth are in YOU, because the call of both are in your wills, and therefore in your minds. The voice for God comes from your own altars to Him. These altars are not THINGS. They are DEVOTIONS. But you have other devotions now. Your divided devotion has given you the two voices, and you must choose at which altar you will to serve. The call you answer now IS an evaluation, because it is a DECISION. The decision itself is very simple. It is made on the basis of which call is worth more to you.
My mind will always be like yours, because we were created as equals. It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in Heaven and earth. My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision FOR YOURSELF. The will for this decision is the will to SHARE it, because the decision itself IS the decision to share. It is MADE BY GIVING, and is therefore the one act of mind that resembles true creation.
You understand the role of models in the learning process, and the importance of the models you value and choose to follow in determining what you will to learn. I am your model for decision. By deciding for God, I showed you that this decision CAN be made, and that YOU can make it. I promised you that the mind that made the decision for me is also in YOU, and that you can let it change you just as it changed me. This mind is unequivocal, because it hears only ONE VOICE, and answers in ONE WAY.
You are the light of the world with me. Rest does not come from sleeping, but from waking. The Holy Spirit is the call to awake and be glad. The world is very tired, because it is the IDEA of weariness. Our task is the joyous one of waking it to the call for God. Everyone will answer the call of the Holy Spirit, or the Sonship cannot be as one. What better vocation could there be for any part of the Kingdom than to restore it to the perfect integration that can make it whole?
Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and teach your brothers to listen as I am teaching you. When you are tempted by the wrong voice, call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my decision and MAKING IT STRONGER. As we share this goal, we increase its power to attract the whole Sonship, and to bring it back into the Oneness in which it was created.
Remember that "Yoke" means "join together," and "burden" means message. Let us reconsider the biblical statement "my yoke is easy and my burden light" in this way. Let us join together, for my message is Light. I came to your minds because you had grown vaguely aware of the fact that there is another way, or another voice. Having given this invitation to the Holy Spirit, I could come to provide the model for HOW TO THINK.
Psychology has become the study of BEHAVIOR, but no-one denies the basic law that behavior is a response to MOTIVATION, and motivation is will. I have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same mind to do this. This mind is the Holy Spirit, whose will is for God always. It teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and behave like me as a result.
The power of our joint motivation is beyond belief, but NOT beyond accomplishment. What we can accomplish together has no limits, because the call for God IS the call to the unlimited. Child of God, my message is for YOU, to hear and give away as you answer the Holy Spirit within you.
The Holy Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is there. But this is NOT a memory of past events, but ONLY of a PRESENT state.
You are so long accustomed to believe that memory holds only what is past, that it is hard for you to realize it is a skill that CAN remember NOW. The limitations on remembering the world imposes on it are as vast as those you let the world impose on YOU. There IS no link of memory to the past. If YOU would have it there, then there it IS. But ONLY your desire made the link, and ONLY you have held it to a part of time where guilt appears to linger still. The Holy Spirit's use of memory is quite APART from time. He does NOT seek to use it as a means to KEEP the past, but rather as a way TO LET IT GO.
Memory holds a message it receives, and does what it is GIVEN it to do. It does NOT write the message, nor appoint what it is FOR. Like to the body, it is purposeless within itself. And if it seems to serve to cherish ancient hate, and offer you the pictures of injustices and hurts that you were saving, this is what you asked its message BE, and this is what it IS. Committed to its vaults, the history of all the body's past is hidden there. All of the strange associations made to keep the past alive, the present dead, are stored within it, waiting your command that they be brought to you, and lived again. And thus do their effects appear to be INCREASED by time, which TOOK AWAY their cause.
Yet time is but another phase of what DOES NOTHING. It works hand in hand with all the other attributes with which you sought to keep concealed the truth about yourself. Time neither takes away, nor can restore. And yet you make strange use of it, as if the past had CAUSED the present, which is but a CONSEQUENCE, in which no change can be made possible, because its cause has GONE. And change must have a cause that will endure, or else it will not last. No change can be made in the present, if its cause is PAST. ONLY the past is held in memory, as you make use of it, and so it is a way to hold the past AGAINST the now.
Remember NOTHING that you taught yourself, for you were badly taught. Who would keep a senseless lesson in his mind, when he can learn and can preserve a BETTER one? When ancient memories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone. And so you CANNOT understand what they are FOR. Let not the cause that you would give them NOW be what it was that made them what they were, or seemed to be. Be GLAD that it is gone, for this is what you would be pardoned FROM. And see, instead, the NEW effects of cause accepted NOW, with consequences HERE.
They will surprise you with their loveliness. The ancient NEW ideas they bring will be the happy consequences of a cause so ancient that it FAR exceeds the span of memory that your perception sees. This is the Cause the Holy Spirit has remembered FOR you, when you would forget. It is NOT past, because He let it not be unremembered. It has never changed, because there never was a time in which He did not keep it safely in your mind. Its consequences will indeed SEEM new, because you thought that you remembered not their Cause. Yet, was It NEVER absent from your mind, for it was NOT your Father's Will that He be unremembered by His only Son.
What YOU remember never WAS. It came from causelessness which you CONFUSED with cause. It CAN deserve but laughter, when you learn you have remembered consequences which were causeless, and could never BE effects. The miracle reminds you of a Cause forever present, perfectly untouched by time and interference. NEVER changed from what It IS. And YOU are Its effects, as changeless and as perfect as Itself. Its memory does NOT lie in the past, nor waits the future. It is NOT revealed in miracles. They but remind you that It has not gone. When you forgive It for YOUR sins, It will no longer BE denied.
You who have sought to lay a judgment on your own Creator, cannot understand it is NOT He Who laid a judgment on His Son. You would DENY Him His effects, yet have they never BEEN denied. There WAS no time in which His Son could be condemned for what was causeless, and AGAINST His Will. What YOUR remembering would witness to, is but the fear of God. He has not DONE the thing you fear. No more have YOU. And so your innocence has NOT been lost. You need NO healing to be healed. In quietness, see in the miracle a lesson in allowing Cause to have Its OWN effects, and doing NOTHING that would interfere.
The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant, and is still. It reaches gently from that quiet time, and from the mind it healed in quiet then, to other minds to SHARE its quietness. And they will JOIN in doing nothing to prevent its radiant extension back into the Mind that caused ALL minds to be. Born out of sharing, there can BE no pause in time to cause the miracle delay in hastening to all unquiet minds, and bringing them an instant's stillness, when the memory of God returns to them. Their OWN remembering is quiet now, and what has come to take its place will not be wholly unremembered afterwards.
He to Whom time is given offers thanks for every quiet instant given Him. For in that instant is His memory allowed to offer all its treasures to the Son of God, for whom they have been kept. How gladly does He offer them unto the one for whom He has been given them! And His Creator SHARES His thanks, because He would not be deprived of His effects. The instant's silence that His Son accepts gives welcome to eternity and Him, and lets them enter where they would abide. For in that instant does the Son of God do NOTHING that would make himself afraid.
How instantly the memory of God arises in the mind that has no fear to keep the memory away. Its own remembering has gone. There IS no past to keep its fearful image in the way of glad awakening to present peace. The trumpets of eternity resound throughout the stillness, yet disturb it not. And what is NOW remembered is not fear, but rather is the Cause that fear was made to render unremembered and undone. The stillness speaks in gentle sounds of love the Son of God remembers from BEFORE his own remembering came IN BETWEEN the present and the past, to shut them out.
Now is the Son of God at last aware of PRESENT Cause and Its benign effects. Now does he understand what he has made is causeless, making NO effects at all. He HAS done nothing. And, in seeing THIS, he understands he never had a NEED for doing ANYTHING, and never did. His Cause IS Its effects. There never WAS a cause besides It, that could generate a DIFFERENT past or future. ITS effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin entirely. What has been lost to see the causeless NOT? And where is sacrifice, when memory of God has come to TAKE THE PLACE of loss?
What better way to close the little gap between illusions and reality than to allow the memory of God to flow ACROSS it, making it a bridge an instant will suffice to reach beyond? For God has closed it with Himself. His memory has NOT gone by, and left a stranded Son forever on a shore where he can glimpse ANOTHER shore which he can never reach. His Father wills that he be lifted up, and gently carried over. HE has built the bridge, and it is He Who will transport His Son across it. Have no fear that He will fail in what He wills. Nor that you be excluded from the Will that IS for you.
Do you not see that all your misery comes from the strange belief that you are powerless? BEING HELPLESS IS THE COST OF SIN. Helplessness is sin's CONDITION; the ONE requirement that it demands, to be believed. Only the helpless COULD believe in it. Enormity has no appeal, save to the little. And only those who FIRST believe that they are little, could SEE attraction there. Treachery to the Son of God is the defense of those who do NOT identify with him. And you are FOR him or AGAINST him; either you love him or attack him; protect his unity, or see him shattered and slain by your attack.
No-one believes the Son of God is powerless. And those who see themselves as helpless MUST believe that they are NOT the Son of God. What can they BE, except his enemy? And what can they do but ENVY him his power, and BY their envy, make themselves AFRAID of it? These are the dark ones, silent and afraid, alone and not communicating, fearful the power of the Son of God will strike them dead, and raising up their helplessness AGAINST him. They join the army of the powerless, to wage their war of vengeance, bitterness, and spite on him, to make him one with THEM.
Because they do not know that they are one with HIM, they know not WHOM they hate. They are indeed a sorry army, each one as likely to attack his brother or turn upon himself, as to remember they THOUGHT they had a common cause. Frantic and loud and strong the dark ones SEEM to be. Yet they know not their enemy, EXCEPT THEY HATE HIM. In hatred they HAVE come together, but have NOT joined EACH OTHER. For, had they done so, hatred would be impossible. The army of the powerless MUST be disbanded in the presence of STRENGTH.
Those who are strong are NEVER treacherous, because they have no need to DREAM of power, and to act out their dream. How would an army ACT in dreams? Any way at all. They could be seen attacking ANYONE, with ANYTHING. Dreams have no REASON in them. A flower turns into a poisoned spear, a child becomes a giant, and a mouse roars like a lion. And LOVE IS TURNED TO HATE as easily. This is no army, but a madhouse. What SEEMS to be a planned attack is bedlam. The army of the powerless is weak indeed. It has no weapons, and it has no enemy.
Yes, it can overrun the world, and SEEK an enemy. But it can never FIND what is not there. Yes, it can DREAM it found an enemy, but this will shift even as it attacks, so that it runs at once to find another, and never comes to rest in victory. And, as it runs, it turns against itself, thinking it caught a glimpse of the great enemy that always eludes its murderous attack by turning into someone else. How treacherous does this enemy appear, who changes so, it is impossible even to RECOGNIZE him! Yet hate MUST have a target. There can BE no faith in sin without an enemy.
Who that believes in sin would DARE believe he has NO enemy? COULD he admit that no-one MADE him powerless? Reason would surely bid him seek no longer what is NOT THERE to find. Yet first he must be WILLING to perceive a world where it is NOT. It is NOT necessary that he understand HOW he can see it. Nor should he try. For, if he focuses on what he CANNOT understand, he will but EMPHASIZE his helplessness, and let sin tell him his enemy must be HIMSELF. But let him only ask himself these questions, which he MUST decide to have it done FOR him:
"Do I DESIRE a world I rule, instead of one where I AM ruled?
Do I DESIRE a world where I am powerful, instead of helpless?
Do I DESIRE a world in which I have NO enemies, and CANNOT sin?
And do I WANT to see what I denied, BECAUSE it is the truth?"
You have ALREADY answered the first three questions, but not yet the last. For this one still seems fearful, and UNLIKE the others. Yet reason would assure you they are all the SAME. We said this year would emphasize the sameness of things that ARE the same. This final question which is indeed the last you need decide, still seems to hold a threat the rest have lost for you. And this imagined difference attests to your belief that TRUTH may be the enemy you yet may find. Here, then, would seem to be the last remaining hope of finding sin, and NOT accepting power.
Forget not that the choice of truth or sin, power or helplessness, IS the choice of whether to attack or HEAL. For healing comes of POWER, and ATTACK of helplessness. Whom you attack, you CANNOT want to heal. And whom you would have healed, MUST be the one you chose to be PROTECTED from attack. And what IS this decision, but the choice whether to see him through the body's eyes, or let him be REVEALED to you through vision? HOW this decision leads to its effects is NOT your problem. But what you WANT to see, MUST be your choice. This is a course in CAUSE, and NOT effect.
Consider carefully your answer to the last question you have left unanswered still. And let your reason tell you that it MUST be answered, and IS answered in the other three. And then it WILL be clear to you that, as you look on the EFFECTS of sin, in ANY form, all you need do is simply ask yourself, "Is this what I WOULD see?" Do I WANT this?" This is your one decision; this the CONDITION for what occurs. It IS irrelevant to HOW it happens, but NOT to WHY. You HAVE control of this. And if you CHOOSE to see a world WITHOUT an enemy, in which you are NOT helpless, the MEANS to see it WILL be given you.
Why is the final question so important? Reason will tell you why. It IS the same as are the other three, EXCEPT IN TIME. The others are decisions which can be made, and then UNmade, and made again. But truth is CONSTANT, and implies a state where vacillations are impossible. You can desire a world you rule, which rules you not, and CHANGE your mind. You can desire to exchange your helplessness for power, and LOSE this same desire as a little glint of sin attracts you. And you can want to see a sinless world, and let an "enemy" tempt you to use the body's eyes, and CHANGE what you desire.
In CONTENT all the questions ARE the same. For each one asks if you are willing to exchange the world of sin for what the Holy Spirit sees. For it IS this the world of sin denies. And therefore those who look on sin ARE seeing the DENIAL of the real world. Yet the last question adds the WISH FOR CONSTANCY in your desire to see the real world, so the desire becomes the ONLY one you have. By answering the final question "yes," you add SINCERITY to the decisions you have ALREADY made to all the rest. For only then have you RENOUNCED the option to change your mind AGAIN. When it is THIS you do NOT want, the rest are really answered.
Why do you think you are unsure the others HAVE been answered? COULD it be necessary they be ASKED so often, if they HAD? Until the last decision has been made, the answer IS both yes and no. For you HAVE answered "yes," without perceiving that yes MUST mean NOT NO. No-one decides AGAINST his happiness. But he MAY do so, if he does not know he DOES it. And, if he sees his happiness as ever-changing, now this, now that, and now an elusive shadow attached to nothing, he DOES decide against it.
Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing forms that shift with time and place, is an illusion that has no meaning. Happiness MUST be constant, because it is ATTAINED by GIVING UP the wish for the INconstant. Joy cannot BE perceived, EXCEPT through constant vision. And constant vision can be given only those who WISH for constancy. The power of the Son of God's desire remains the proof that he is wrong who sees himself as helpless. Desire what you will, and you shall look on it, and think it real. No thought but has the power to release or kill. And none can leave the thinker's mind, or leave him unaffected.
The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with his Creator. If it were elsewhere, it WOULD rest upon contingency. But there IS nothing else. And this is wholly loving and forever. Yet has the Son of God invented an unholy relationship between him and his Father. His REAL relationship is one of perfect union, and unbroken continuity. The one he made is partial, self-centered, broken into fragments and full of fear. The one created by his Father is wholly self-encompassing and self-EXTENDING. The one he made is wholly self-DESTRUCTIVE and self-LIMITING.
Nothing can show the contrast better than the experience of both a holy and an unholy relationship. The first is based on love, and rests on it serene and undisturbed. THE BODY DOES NOT INTRUDE UPON IT. Any relationship in which the body enters is based, NOT on love, but on idolatry. Love wishes to be known, COMPLETELY understood, and shared. IT HAS NO SECRETS; nothing that it would keep apart and hide. It walks in sunlight, open-eyed and calm, in smiling welcome, and in sincerity so simple and so obvious it cannot BE misunderstood.
But idols do not share. Idols ACCEPT, but never make return. They can BE loved, but cannot love. They do not understand what they are offered, and any relationship in which they enter, has LOST its meaning. The love of THEM has MADE love meaningless. They live in secrecy, hating the sunlight, and happy in the body's darkness, where they can hide, and keep their secrets hidden, along with them. And they have NO relationships, for no-one else is welcome there. They smile on no-one, and those who smile on them they do not see.
Love has no darkened temples, where mysteries are kept obscure and hidden from the sun. IT DOES NOT SEEK FOR POWER, but for RELATIONSHIPS. The body is the ego's chosen weapon for seeking power THROUGH relationships. And its relationships MUST be unholy, for what they ARE, it does not even SEE. It wants them solely for the offerings on which its idols thrive. The rest it merely throws away, for all that IT could offer, is seen as valueless. Homeless, the ego seeks as many bodies as it can collect, to place its idols in, and so establish them as temples to itself.
The Holy Spirit's temple is NOT a body, but a RELATIONSHIP. The body is an isolated speck of darkness; a hidden secret room, a tiny spot of senseless mystery, a meaningless enclosure carefully protected, yet hiding nothing. Here, the unholy relationship escapes reality, and seeks for crumbs to keep itself alive. Here it would drag its brothers, holding them here in its idolatry. Here it is "safe," for here love CANNOT enter. The Holy Spirit does not build His temples where love can never be. Would He Who SEES the face of Christ choose as His home the only place in all the universe where it can NOT be seen?
You CANNOT make the body the Holy Spirit's temple, and it will NEVER be the seat of love. It is the home of the idolater, and of love's CONDEMNATION. For here is love made fearful, and hope abandoned. Even the idols that are worshipped here are shrouded deep in mystery, and kept APART from those who worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no relationships, and no return. Here is the "mystery" of separation perceived in awe and held in reverence. What God would have NOT be, is here kept "safe" from Him. But what you do NOT realize is what you fear within your brother, and would not SEE in HIM, is what makes God seem fearful and kept unknown.
Idolaters will ALWAYS be afraid of love. For nothing so severely threatens them as love's approach. Let love draw near them and OVERLOOK the body, as it will surely do, and they retreat in fear, feeling the seeming firm foundation of their temple begin to shake and loosen. Brothers, you tremble with them. But what you fear is but the herald of escape. This place of darkness is NOT your home. Your temple is NOT threatened. You are idolaters no longer. The Holy Spirit's purpose lies safe in your RELATIONSHIP, and NOT your bodies. You have ESCAPED the body. Where you are now, the BODY cannot enter, for the Holy Spirit has set HIS temple there.
There is no order in relationships. They either ARE, or not. An unholy relationship is NO relationship. It is a state of isolation, which SEEMS to be what it is NOT. No more than that. The instant that the mad idea of making your relationship with God unholy seemed to be possible, ALL relationships were made meaningless. In that unholy instant time was born, and bodies made to house the mad idea, and give it the ILLUSION of reality. And so it SEEMED to have a home, that held together for a little while in time, and vanished. For what could house this mad idea AGAINST reality, but for an instant?
Idols MUST disappear, and leave no trace behind their going. The unholy instant of their seeming power is frail as is a snowflake, but without its loveliness. Is this the substitute you WANT, for the eternal blessing of the holy instant, and its unlimited beneficence? Is the malevolence of the unholy relationship, so seeming powerful and so bitterly misunderstood, and so invested in FALSE attraction, your preference to the holy instant, which offers peace and understanding? Then lay aside the body and quietly TRANSCEND it, rising to welcome what you REALLY want. And from His holy temple look you not back on what you have awakened FROM. For no illusions CAN attract the minds that have TRANSCENDED them, and left them far behind.
The holy relationship reflects the TRUE relationship the Son of God has with his Father in reality. The Holy Spirit rests within it, in the certainty it will endure forever. Its firm foundation is eternally upheld by truth, and love shines on it with the gentle smile and tender blessing it offers to its own. Here the unholy instant is exchanged in gladness for the holy one of safe return. Here is the way to true relationships held gently open, through which you walk together, leaving the body thankfully behind, and resting in the Everlasting Arms. Love's arms are open to receive you, and give you peace forever.
The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master. And this unholy instant SEEMS to be life. An instant of despair, a tiny island of dry sand, bereft of water, and set uncertainly upon oblivion. Here does the Son of God stop briefly by, to offer his devotion to death's idols, and then pass on.
And here he is more dead than living. But it is also here he makes his choice again, between idolatry and love. Here it is given him to choose to spend this instant paying tribute to the body, or LET himself be given freedom from it. Here he can ACCEPT the holy instant, offered him to REPLACE the unholy one he chose before. And here can he learn relationships are his SALVATION, NOT his doom. You who ARE learning this may still be fearful, but you are NOT immobilized. The holy instant IS of greater value now to you than its unholy seeming counterpart, and you HAVE learned you REALLY want but one.
This is no time for sadness. Perhaps confusion, but hardly discouragement. YOU HAVE A REAL RELATIONSHIP. And it HAS meaning. It is as like your real relationship with God, as equal things are like themselves. Idolatry is past and meaningless. Perhaps you fear each other a little yet; perhaps a shadow of the fear of God remains with you. But what is that to those who have been given one TRUE relationship, BEYOND the body? Can they be long held back from looking on the face of Christ? And can they long withhold the memory of their relationship with their Father FROM themselves, and keep remembrance of His Love APART from their awareness?
The guiltless and the guilty are totally incapable of understanding one another. Each perceives the other AS LIKE HIMSELF, making them unable to communicate, because each sees the other UNLIKE the way he sees himself. God can communicate ONLY to the Holy Spirit in your mind, because only He shares the knowledge of what you are WITH God. And only the Holy Spirit can answer God for YOU, for only He knows what God IS. Everything ELSE, that YOU have placed within your mind, CANNOT exist, for what is not in communication with the Mind of God, has never been. Communication with God is Life. Nothing without it IS at all.
The only part of your mind that has reality, is the part that links you still with God. Would you have ALL of it transformed into a radiant message of God's Love, to share with all the lonely ones, who have denied Him with you? GOD MAKES THIS POSSIBLE. Would you deny His yearning to be known? You yearn for Him, as He for you. This is forever changeless. Accept, then, the immutable. Leave the world of death behind, and return quietly to Heaven. There is NOTHING of value here, and EVERYTHING of value there. Listen to the Holy Spirit, and to God through Him. He speaks of you to YOU. There IS no guilt in you, for God is blessed in His Son, as the Son is blessed in Him.
Each one of you has a special part to play in the Atonement, but the message given to each to share is always the same; GOD's SON IS GUILTLESS. Each one teaches the message differently, and learns it differently. But UNTIL he teaches it and learns it, he will suffer the pain of dim awareness, that his true function remains unfulfilled in him. The burden of guilt is heavy, but God would not have you bound by it. HIS plan for your awaking is as perfect as yours is fallible. You know not what you do, but He Who knows is with you. His gentleness is yours, and all the love you share with God, He holds in trust for you. He would teach you nothing except how to be happy.
Blessed Son of a wholly blessing Father, joy was created FOR you. Who can condemn whom God has blessed? There is nothing in the Mind of God that does not share his shining innocence. Creation is the natural extension of perfect purity. Your only calling here is to devote yourself, with active willingness, to the denial of guilt in ALL its forms. To accuse is NOT TO UNDERSTAND. The happy learners of the Atonement become the teachers of the innocence that is the RIGHT of all that God created. Deny them not what is their due, for you will not withhold it from them alone.
The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God's Son, given him in his creation. Do not try to steal it from him, or you will ASK for guilt and WILL experience it. PROTECT his purity from every thought that would steal it away, and keep it from his sight. BRING INNOCENCE TO LIGHT, in answer to the call of the Atonement. Never allow purity to remain hidden, but shine away the heavy veils of guilt, within which the Son of God has hidden himself from his own sight. We are all joined in the Atonement here, and nothing else can unite us in this world. So will the world of separation slip away, and full communication be restored between the Father and the Son.
The miracle acknowledges the guiltlessness which MUST have been denied, to produce NEED of healing. Do not withhold this glad acknowledgment, for hope of happiness, and release from suffering of every kind, lies in it. Who is there but wishes to be free of pain? He may not yet have learned HOW to exchange his guilt for innocence, nor realize that ONLY in this exchange can freedom from pain be his. But those who have failed to learn need TEACHING, NOT attack. To attack those who have need of teaching is to fail to learn FROM them.
Teachers of innocence, each in his own way, have joined together, taking their part in the unified curriculum of the Atonement. There is no unity of learning goals apart from this. There is no conflict in this curriculum, which has ONE aim, however it is taught. Each effort made on its behalf is offered to the single purpose of RELEASE from guilt, to the eternal glory of God and His creation. And every teaching that points to this points straight to Heaven, and to the peace of God. There is no pain, no trial, no fear, that teaching this can fail to overcome. The power of God Himself supports this teaching, and GUARANTEES its limitless results
Join your own efforts to the Power that cannot fail, and MUST result in peace. No-one can be untouched by teaching such as this. You will not see yourself BEYOND the power of God if you teach only this. You will NOT be exempt from the effect of this most holy lesson, which seeks but to restore what is the right of God's creation. From everyone whom you accord release from guilt, you will INEVITABLY learn YOUR innocence. The circle of Atonement HAS no end. And you will find ever-increasing confidence in your safe inclusion in what is for all, in everyone you bring within its safety and its perfect peace.
Peace, then, be unto everyone who becomes a teacher of peace. For peace is the acknowledgment of perfect purity, from which no-one is excluded. Within its holy circle, is everyone whom God created as His Son. Joy is its unifying attribute, with no-one left outside, to suffer guilt alone. The power of God draws everyone to its safe embrace of love and union. Stand quietly within this circle, and attract all tortured minds to join with you, in the safety of its peace and holiness. Abide with me within it, as teachers of Atonement, NOT of guilt.
Blessed are ye who teach with me. Our power comes not of us, but of our Father. In guiltlessness we know Him, as He knows us guiltless. I stand within the circle, calling YOU to peace. Teach peace with me, and stand with me on holy ground. Remember for everyone your Father's power, that He has given them. Believe not that you cannot teach His perfect peace. Stand not outside, but join with me within. Fail not the only purpose to which MY teaching calls you. Restore to God His Son, as He created him, by teaching him his innocence.
The crucifixion had no part in the Atonement. Only the Resurrection became my part in it. THAT is the symbol of the RELEASE from guilt, by guiltlessness. Whomever you perceive as guilty, you would crucify. But you RESTORE guiltlessness to whomever you SEE as guiltless. Crucifixion is ALWAYS the ego's aim. It SEES AS GUILTY, and BY its condemnation, IT WOULD KILL. The Holy Spirit sees only guiltlessness, and, in His gentleness, He would RELEASE from fear, and re-establish the reign of love. The power of love is in His gentleness, which is of God and therefore cannot crucify, nor suffer crucifixion. The temple you restore becomes YOUR altar, for it was re-built through YOU. And everything you give to God IS yours. Thus He creates, and thus must YOU restore.
Each one you see you place, within the holy circle of Atonement, or leave outside, judging him fit for crucifixion or redemption. If you bring him INTO the circle of purity, you will rest there WITH him. If you leave him without, you JOIN him there. Judge not, except in quietness which is NOT of you. Refuse to accept anyone as WITHOUT the blessing of Atonement, and bring him INTO it by blessing him. Holiness MUST be shared, for therein lies everything that makes it holy. Come gladly to the holy circle, and look out in peace on all who think they are outside. Cast no-one out, for this is what HE seeks along with you. Come, let us join him in the holy place of peace, which is for all of us, united as one, within the cause of peace.
If you cannot hear the voice of God, it is because you do not choose to listen. The fact that you DO listen to the voice of your ego is demonstrated by your attitudes, your feelings, and your behavior. Your attitudes are obviously conflicted; your feelings have a narrow range on the negative side, but are never purely joyous; and your behavior is either strained or unpredictable. Yet this IS what you want. This is what you are fighting to keep, and what you are vigilant to save. Your minds are filled with schemes to save the face of your egos, and you do not seek the Face of God.
The glass in which the ego seeks to see its face is dark indeed. How can it maintain the trick of its existence except with mirrors? But where you look to find yourself is up to you. We have said that you cannot change your mind by changing your behavior, but we have also said, and many times before, that you CAN change your mind.
When your mood tells you that you have willed wrongly, and this is so whenever you are not joyous, then KNOW this need not be.
In every case you have thought wrongly about some Soul that God created, and are perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass. Think honestly what you have thought that God would NOT have thought, and what you have NOT thought that God would have you think. Search sincerely for what you have done and left undone accordingly. And then change your minds to THINK WITH GOD's.
This may seem hard to you, but it is MUCH easier than trying to think AGAINST it. Your mind IS one with God's. Denying this and thinking otherwise has held your ego together, but has literally split your mind. As a loving brother, I am deeply concerned with your minds, and urge you to follow my example as you look at yourselves and at each other and see in both the glorious Creations of a glorious Father.
When you are sad, KNOW that this NEED NOT BE. Depression ALWAYS arises ultimately from a sense of being deprived of something you want and do not have. KNOW you are deprived of nothing, except by your own decisions, and then decide otherwise.
When you are anxious, KNOW that all anxiety comes from the capriciousness of the ego, and NEED NOT BE. You can be as vigilant AGAINST the ego's dictates as FOR them.
When you feel guilty, KNOW that your ego has indeed violated the laws of God, but YOU have not. Leave the sins of the ego to me. That is what the Atonement is for. But until you change your mind about those your ego has hurt, the Atonement cannot release you. As long as you feel guilty, your ego is in command, because only the ego CAN experience guilt. THIS NEED NOT BE.
You, Helen, have been more honest that Bill in really trying to see whom your ego has hurt, and also in trying to change your mind about them. (Helen Schucman doubtful whether this is accurate - written at a time when she was very angry.) I am not unmindful of your efforts, but you still have much too much energy invested in your ego. THIS NEED NOT BE. Watch your minds for the temptations of the ego, and do not be deceived by it. KNOW it offers you nothing.
You, B, have not made consistent efforts to change your mind except through applying old habit patterns to new ideas. But you have learned, and learned it better than H., (Helen Schucman doubtful about accuracy here) that your mind gains control over ITSELF when you direct it genuinely toward perceiving someone ELSE truly. Your lack of vitality is due to your former marked effort at solving your needless depression and anxiety through disinterest. Because your ego WAS protected by this unfortunate negative attribute, you are afraid to abandon it.
When you have given up this voluntary dis-spiriting, you have already seen how your mind can focus, and rise above fatigue, and heal. But you are not sufficiently vigilant against the demands of your ego that you disengage yourself. THIS NEED NOT BE. The habit of engaging WITH God and His Creations is easily made if you refuse actively to let your minds slip away. Your problem is not concentration: it is a belief that nobody, including yourself, is WORTH consistent effort.
Side with me CONSISTENTLY against this deception, as we have sided against it briefly already. Do not permit this shabby belief to pull you back. The disheartened are useless to themselves and to me, but only the ego can be disheartened.
Have you REALLY considered how many opportunities you have to gladden yourselves, and how many of them you have refused? There is no limit to the power of a Son of God, but he himself can limit the expression of his power as much as he wills. Your mind and mine can unite in shining your ego away, and releasing the strength of God into everything you think and will and do. Do not settle for ANYTHING less than this, and refuse to accept anything BUT this as your goal.
Watch your minds carefully for any beliefs that hinder its accomplishment, and step away from them. Judge how well you have done this by your own feelings, for this is the one RIGHT use of judgment. Judgment, like any other defense, can be used to attack or protect, to hurt or to heal. The ego SHOULD be brought to your own judgment and found wanting there. Without your own allegiance, protection, and love it cannot exist.
Judge your ego truly, and you MUST withdraw allegiance, protection, and love from it. You are mirrors of truth in which God Himself shines in perfect light. To the ego's dark glass you need but say, "I will not look there because I KNOW these images are not true."
Then let me the Holy One shine upon you in peace, knowing that this and only this MUST be! His Mind shone on you in your creation, and brought YOUR mind into being. His Mind still shines on you and MUST shine THROUGH you. Your ego cannot prevent HIM from shining on you, but it CAN prevent you from letting Him shine THROUGH you.
The first coming of Christ is just another name for the Creation, for Christ is the Son of God. The SECOND coming of Christ means nothing more than the end of the ego's rule over part of the minds of men, and the healing of the mind. I was created like you in the First, and I am reminding you that I have called you to join with me in the Second.
If you will think over your lives, you will see how carefully the preparations were made. I am in charge of the Second Coming as I have already told you, and my judgment, which is used only for its protection, cannot be wrong because it NEVER attacks. YOURS is so distorted that you believe that I was mistaken in choosing you. I assure you this is a mistake of your own egos. Do NOT mistake it for humility.
Your egos are trying to convince you that THEY are real, and I am not, because if I AM real, I am no more real than YOU are. That knowledge, and I assure you that it IS knowledge, means that Christ must come into your minds and heal them.
While I am not attacking your egos, I AM working with your higher mind whether you are asleep or awake, (just as your ego does with your lower mind.) I am your vigilance in this, because you are too confused to recognize your own hope.
I was not mistaken. Your minds WILL elect to join with mine, and together we are invincible. You two will yet come together in my name and your sanity will be restored. I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do you believe that it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles: YOU do. I have called and you will answer. I KNOW that miracles are natural, because they are expressions of love. My calling you is as natural as your answer and as inevitable.