You may not realize that the ego has set up a plan for salvation in opposition to God's. It is this plan in which you believe. Since it is the opposite of God's, you also believe that to accept God's plan in place of the ego's is to be damned. This sounds preposterous, of course. Yet after we have considered just what the ego's plan is, perhaps you will realize that, however preposterous it may be, you do believe in it.
The ego's plan for salvation centers around holding grievances. It maintains that if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved. Thus the source of salvation is constantly perceived as outside yourself. Each grievance you hold is a declaration, and an assertion in which you believe, that says, "If this were different, I would be saved." The change of mind that is necessary for salvation is thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself.
The role assigned to your own mind in this plan, then, is simply to determine what other than itself must change if you are to be saved. According to this insane plan, any perceived source of salvation is acceptable, provided that it will not work. This ensures that the fruitless search will continue, for the illusion that, although this hope has failed, there is still grounds for hope in other places and in other things, persists. Another person will yet serve better; another situation will yet offer success.
Such is the ego's plan for your salvation. Surely you can see how it is in strict accord with the ego's basic doctrine, "Seek but do not find?" For what could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to channelize all your efforts in searching for it where it is not?
God's plan for salvation works simply because, by following His direction, you seek for salvation where it is. But if you are to succeed, as God promises you will, you must be willing to seek there only. Otherwise your purpose is divided, and you will attempt to follow two plans for salvation which are diametrically opposed in all ways. The result can only bring confusion, misery, and a deep sense of failure and despair.
How can you escape all this? Very simply. The idea for today is the answer. Only God's plan for salvation will work. There can be no real conflict about this, because there is no possible alternative to God's plan that will save you. His is the only plan that is certain in its outcome. His is the only plan that must succeed. Let us practice recognizing this certainty today. And let us rejoice that there is an answer to what seems to be a conflict with no resolution possible. All things are possible to God. Salvation must be yours because of His plan, which cannot fail.
Begin the two longer practice periods for today by thinking about today's idea, and realizing that it contains two parts, each making equal contribution to the whole. God's plan for your salvation will work, and other plans will not. Do not allow yourself to become depressed or angry at the second part; it is inherent in the first. And in the first is your full release from all your own insane attempts and mad proposals to free yourself. They have led to depression and anger, but God's plan will succeed. It will lead to release and joy.
Remembering this, let us devote the remainder of the extended practice period to asking God to reveal His plan to us. Ask Him very specifically:
"What would you have me do?"
Where would You have me go?
What would You have me say, and to whom?"
Give Him full charge of the rest of the practice period, and let Him tell you what needs to be done by you in His plan for your salvation. He will answer you in proportion to your willingness to hear His Voice. Refuse not to hear. The very fact that you are doing the exercises proves that you have some willingness to listen. This is enough to establish your claim to God's answer.
In the shorter practice periods tell yourself often that God's plan for salvation, and only His, will work. Be alert to all temptation to hold grievances today, and respond to them with this form of today's idea:
"Holding grievances is the opposite of God's plan for salvation.
And only His plan will work."
Try to remember the idea for today some six or seven times an hour. There could be no better way to spend a half minute or less than to remember the Source of your salvation, and to see It where It is.
It CANNOT be that it is hard to do the task that Christ appointed you to do, since it is HE that does it. And, in the DOING of it, will you learn the body merely SEEMS to be the means to do it. For the Mind is HIS. And so it MUST be yours. HIS holiness directs the body THROUGH the mind at one with Him. And YOU are manifest unto your holy brother, as he to you. Here is the meeting of the holy Christ unto Himself. Nor ANY differences perceived to stand between the aspects of His holiness, which meet and join, and raise Him to His Father, whole and pure, and worthy of His Everlasting Love.
How can you manifest the Christ in you, EXCEPT you look on holiness, and see Him there? Perception tells you YOU are manifest in what you see. Behold the body, and you WILL believe that you are there. And every body that you look upon reminds you of yourself; YOUR sinfulness, YOUR evil, and, above all YOUR death. And would you not despise the one who tells you this, and seek HIS death instead? The message and the messenger ARE one. And you MUST see your brother as yourself. Framed in his body you will see YOUR sinfulness, wherein YOU stand condemned. Set in his holiness, the Christ in him proclaims HIMSELF as you.
Perception is a choice of what you want YOURSELF to be; the world you WANT to live in, and the state in which you think your mind will be content and satisfied. It chooses where you think your safety lies, AT YOUR DECISION. It reveals yourself to you, as YOU would have you be. And ALWAYS is it faithful to your purpose, from which it never separates, nor gives the slightest witness unto anything the purpose IN YOUR MIND upholdeth not. Perception is a PART of what it is your purpose to behold, for means and end are NEVER separate. And thus you learn what SEEMS to have a life APART has none.
YOU are the means for God. NOT separate, nor with a life apart from His. HIS Life is manifest in you who are His Son. Each aspect of Himself is framed in holiness and perfect purity, in love celestial and so complete It wishes ONLY that It may release ALL that It looks upon unto Itself. Its radiance shines through each body that It looks upon, and brushes ALL its darkness into light merely by looking PAST it TO the Light. The veil is lifted through Its gentleness, and NOTHING hides the face of Christ from its beholders. And BOTH of you stand there before Him now, to let HIM draw aside the veil that SEEMS to keep you separate and apart.
Since you believe that YOU are separate, Heaven presents itself to you as separate, too. NOT that it is the truth, but that the link that has been given you to JOIN the truth may reach to you through what you understand. Father and Son and Holy Spirit are as One, as all your brothers join as one in truth. Christ and His Father NEVER have been separate, and Christ abides within your understanding, in the part of you that SHARES His Father's Will. The Holy Spirit links the other part, the tiny, mad desire to be separate, different, and special, TO the Christ, to make the Oneness clear to what is REALLY One. In this world, this is not understood, but CAN be taught.
The Holy Spirit serves Christ's purpose in your mind, so that the aim of specialness CAN be corrected where the error lies. Because His purpose still is One with both the Father AND the Son, He KNOWS the Will of God, and what you REALLY will. But this is understood by mind PERCEIVED as one, AWARE that it is one, AND SO EXPERIENCED. It is the Holy Spirit's function to teach you HOW this Oneness is experienced; WHAT you must do that it can BE experienced; and WHERE you should go to do it. All this takes note of time and place AS IF they were discrete, for while YOU think that part of YOU is separate, the concept of a Oneness JOINED as one is meaningless.
It is apparent that a mind so split could NEVER be the teacher of the Oneness Which unites ALL things within Itself. And so what IS within this mind, and DOES unite all things together MUST be its teacher. Yet must It use the language which this mind can understand in the condition which it THINKS it is. And It must use all learning to transfer illusions TO the truth, taking all FALSE ideas of what you are, and leading you BEYOND them to the truth that IS beyond them. All this can very simply be reduced to this: What is the same can NOT be different, and what is One can NOT have separate parts.
The process of psychotherapy, then, can be defined simply as forgiveness, for no healing can be anything else. The unforgiving are sick, believing they are unforgiven. The hanging-on to guilt, its hugging-close and sheltering, its loving protection and alert defense, -- all this is but the grim refusal to forgive. "God may not enter here" the sick repeat, over and over, while they mourn their loss and yet rejoice in it. Healing occurs as a patient begins to hear the dirge he sings, and questions its validity. Until he hears it, he cannot understand that it is he who sings it to himself. To hear it is the first step in recovery. To question it must then become his choice.
There is a tendency, and it is very strong, to hear this song of death an instant, and then dismiss it uncorrected. These fleeting awarenesses represent the many opportunities given us literally "to change our tune." The sound of healing can be heard instead. But first the willingness to question the "truth" of the song of condemnation must arise. The strange distortions woven inextricably into the self-concept, itself but a "pseudo-creation," make this ugly sound seem truly beautiful. "The rhythm of the universe," "the herald angel's song," all these and more are heard instead of loud discordant shrieks.
The ear translates; it does not hear. The eye reproduces; it does not see. Their task is to make agreeable whatever is called on, however disagreeable it may be. They answer the decisions of the mind, reproducing its desires and translating them into acceptable and pleasant forms. Sometimes the thought behind the form breaks through, but only very briefly, and the mind grows fearful and begins to doubt its sanity. Yet it will not permit its slaves to change the forms they look upon; the sounds they hear. These are its "remedies"; its "safeguards" from insanity.
These testimonies which the senses bring have but one purpose; to justify attack and thus keep unforgiveness unrecognized for what it is. Seen undisguised it is intolerable. Without protection it could not endure. Here is all sickness cherished, but without the recognition that this is so. For when an unforgiveness is not recognized, the form it takes seems to be something else. And now it is the "something else" that seems to terrify. But it is not the "something else" that can be healed. It is not sick, and needs no remedy. To concentrate your healing efforts here is but futility. Who can cure what cannot be sick and make it well?
Sickness takes many forms, and so does unforgiveness. The forms of one but reproduce the forms of the other, for they are the same illusion. So closely is one translated into the other, that a careful study of the form a sickness takes will point quite clearly to the form of unforgiveness that it represents. Yet seeing this will not effect a cure. That is achieved by only one recognition; that only forgiveness heals an unforgiveness, and only an unforgiveness can possibly give rise to sickness of any kind.
This realization is the final goal of psychotherapy. How is it reached? The therapist sees in the patient all that he has not forgiven in himself, and is thus given another chance to look at it, open it to re-evaluation and forgive it. When this occurs, he sees his sins as gone into a past that is no longer here. Until he does this, he must think of evil as besetting him here and now. The patient is his screen for the projection of his sins, enabling him to let them go. Let him retain one spot of sin in what he looks upon, and his release is partial and will not be sure.
No-one is healed alone. This is the joyous song salvation sings to all who hear its Voice. This statement cannot be too often remembered by all who see themselves as therapists. Their patients can but be seen as the bringers of forgiveness, for it is they who come to demonstrate their sinlessness to eyes that still believe that sin is there to look upon. Yet will the proof of sinlessness, seen in the patient and accepted in the therapist, offer the mind of both a covenant in which they meet and join and are as one.
Forgiveness-for-salvation has one form, and only one. It does not ask for proof of innocence, nor pay of any kind. It does not argue, nor evaluate the errors that it wants to overlook. It does not offer gifts in treachery, nor promise freedom while it asks for death. Would God deceive you? He but asks for trust and willingness to learn how to be free. He gives His Teacher to whoever asks, and seeks to understand the Will of God. His readiness to give lies far beyond your understanding and your simple grasp. Yet He has willed you learn the way to Him, and in His willing there is certainty.
You Child of God, the gifts of God are yours, not by your plans but by His holy Will. His Voice will teach you what forgiveness is, and how to give it as He wills it be. Do not, then, seek to understand what is beyond you yet, but let it be a way to draw you up to where the sight of Christ becomes the eyes you choose. Give up all else, for there IS nothing else. When someone calls for help in any form, He is the One to answer for you. All that you need do is to step back and not to interfere. Forgiveness-for-salvation is His task, and it is He Who will respond for you.
Do not establish what the form should be that His forgiveness takes. He knows the way to make of every call a help to you, as you arise in haste to go at last unto your Father's house. He will direct your footsteps surely, and your words sincere; not with your own sincerity, but with His Own. Let Him take charge of how you would forgive, and each occasion then will be to you another step to Heaven and to peace.
Are you not weary of imprisonment? God did not choose this sorry path for you. What you have chosen still can be undone, for prayer is merciful and God is just. His is a justice He can understand, but you cannot as yet. Yet will He give the means to you to learn of Him, and know at last that condemnation is not real and makes illusions in its evil name. And yet it matters not the form that dreams may seem to take. Illusions are untrue. God's Will is truth, and you are one with Him in Will and purpose. Here all dreams are done.
"What should I do for this, Your holy Son?" should be the only thing you ever ask when help is needed and forgiveness sought. The form the seeking takes you need not judge. But let it not be you who sets the form in which forgiveness comes to save God's Son. The light of Christ in him is his release, and it is this that answers to his call. Forgive him as the Christ decides you should, and be His eyes through which you look on him, and speak for Him as well. He knows the need; the question and the answer. He will say exactly what to do in words that you can understand and you can also use. Do not confuse His function with your own. He is the Answer; you the one who hears.
And what is it He speaks to you about? About salvation and the gift of peace. About the end of sin and guilt and death. About the role forgiveness has in Him. Do you but listen, for He will be heard by anyone who calls upon His Name, and places his forgiveness in His hands. Forgiveness has been given Him to teach, to save it from destruction and to make the means for separation, sin and death become again the holy gift of love. Prayer is His Own right hand, made free to save as true forgiveness is allowed to come from His eternal vigilance and Love.
Listen and learn, and do not judge. It is to God you turn to hear what you should do. His Answer will be clear as morning, nor is His forgiveness what you think it is. Still does He know, and that should be enough. Forgiveness has a Teacher Who will fail in nothing. Rest a while in this; do not attempt to judge forgiveness, nor to set it in an earthly frame. Let it arise to Christ, Who welcomes it as gift to Him. He will not leave you comfortless, nor fail to send His angels down to answer you in His Own Name. He stands beside the door to which forgiveness is the only key. Give it to Him to use instead of you, and you will see the door swing silently open upon the shining face of Christ. Behold your brother there beyond the door; the Son of God as He created him.
Today's idea takes another step toward quick salvation, and a giant stride it is indeed! So great the distance is that it encompasses, it sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal in sight and obstacles behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to Heaven's gate; the quiet place of peace where you await with certainty the final step of God. How far are we progressing now from earth! How close are we approaching to our goal! How short the journey still to be pursued!
Accept today's idea, and you have passed all anxiety, all pits of hell, all blackness of depression, thoughts of sin, and devastation brought about by guilt. Accept today's idea, and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that locked the door to freedom on it. You are saved, and your salvation thus becomes the gift you give the world because you have received.
In no one instant is depression felt, or pain experienced, or loss perceived. In no one instant sorrow can be set upon a throne and worshipped faithfully. In no one instant can one even die. And so each instant given unto God in passing, with the next one given Him already, is a time of your release from sadness, pain, and even death itself.
God holds your future as He holds your past and present. They are one to Him, and so they should be one to you. Yet in this world the temporal progression still seems real. And so you are not asked to understand the lack of sequence really found in time. You are but asked to let the future go, and place it in God's hands. And you will see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in His hands as well, because the past will punish you no more, and future dread will now be meaningless.
Release the future. For the past is gone, and what is present, freed from its bequest of grief and misery, of pain and loss, becomes the instant in which time escapes the bondage of illusions where it runs its pitiless, inevitable course. Then is each instant, which was slave to time, transformed into a holy instant when the light that was kept hidden in God's Son is freed to bless the world. Now is he free, and all his glory shines upon a world made free with him, to share his holiness.
If you can see the lesson for today as the deliverance it really is, you will not hesitate to give as much consistent effort as you can to make it be a part of you. As it becomes a thought which rules your mind, a habit in your problem-solving repertoire, a way of quick reaction to temptation, you extend your learning to the world. And as you learn to see salvation in all things, so will the world perceive that it is saved.
What worry can beset the one who gives his future to the loving hands of God? What can he suffer? What can cause him pain, or bring experience of loss to him? What can he fear? And what can he regard except with love? For he who has escaped all fear of future pain has found his way to present peace, and certainty of care the world can never threaten. He is sure that his perception may be faulty, but will never lack correction. He is free to choose again when he has been deceived; to change his mind when he has made mistakes.
Place, then, your future in the hands of God. For thus you call the memory of Him to come again, replacing all your thoughts of sin and evil with the truth of love. Think you the world could fail to gain thereby, and every living creature not respond with healed perception? Who entrusts himself to God has also placed the world within the Hands to which he has himself appealed for comfort and security. He lays aside the sick illusions of the world along with his, and offers peace to both.
Now are we saved indeed. For in God's hands we rest untroubled, sure that only good can come to us. If we forget, we will be gently reassured. If we accept an unforgiving thought, it will be seen replaced by love's reflection. And if we are tempted to attack, we will appeal to Him Who guards our rest to make the choice for us that leaves temptation far behind. No longer is the world our enemy, for we have chosen that we be its friends.
It is your Father's holy Will that you complete Himself and that your Self shall be His sacred Son, forever pure as He, of love created and in love preserved, extending love, creating in its Name, forever one with God and with your Self. Yet what can such a function mean within a world of envy, hatred and attack?
Therefore you have a function in the world in its own terms. For who can understand a language far beyond his simple grasp? Forgiveness represents your function here. It is not God's creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone. And who would pardon Heaven? Yet on earth you need the means to let illusion go. Creation merely waits for your return to be acknowledged, not to be complete.
Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-borne, it has no form at all. Yet God created One Who has the power to translate into form the wholly formless. What He makes are dreams, but of a kind so close to waking that the light of day already shines in them, and eyes already opening behold the joyful sights their offerings contain.
Forgiveness gently looks upon all things unknown in Heaven, sees them disappear, and leaves the world a clean and unmarked slate on which the Word of God can now replace the senseless symbols written there before. Forgiveness is the means by which the fear of death is overcome because it holds no fierce attraction now, and guilt is gone. Forgiveness lets the body be perceived as what it is; a simple teaching aid to be laid by when learning is complete, but hardly changing him who learns at all.
The mind without the body cannot make mistakes. It cannot think that it will die, nor be the prey of merciless attack. Anger becomes impossible, and where is terror then? What fears could still assail those who have lost the source of all attack; the core of anguish and the seat of fear? Only forgiveness can relieve the mind of thinking that the body is its home. Only forgiveness can restore the peace that God intended for His holy Son. Only forgiveness can persuade the Son to look again upon his holiness.
With anger gone, you will indeed perceive that for Christ's vision and the gift of sight no sacrifice was asked, and only pain was lifted from a sick and tortured mind. Is this unwelcome? Is it to be feared? Or is it to be hoped for, met with thanks and joyously accepted? We are one, and therefore give up nothing, for we have indeed been given everything by God.
Yet do we need forgiveness to perceive that this is so. Without its kindly light we grope in darkness, using reason but to justify our rage and our attack. Our understanding is so limited that what we think we understand is but confusion born of error. We are lost in mists of shifting dreams and fearful thoughts, our eyes shut tight against the light; our minds engaged in worshipping what is not there.
Who can be born again in Christ but him who has forgiven everyone he sees or thinks of or imagines? Who could be set free while he imprisons anyone? A jailor is not free, for he is bound together with his prisoner. He must be sure that he does not escape, and so he spends his time in keeping watch on him. The bars which limit him become the world in which the jailor lives, along with him. And it is on his freedom that the way to liberty depends for both of them.
Therefore hold no one prisoner. Release instead of bind, for thus are you made free. The way is simple. Every time you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head. And it will fall or be averted as you choose to be condemned or free. Thus does each one who seems to tempt you to be angry represent your Savior from the prison-house of death. And so you owe him thanks instead of pain.
Be merciful today. The Son of God deserves your mercy. It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. Deny him not. His Father's Love for him belongs to you. Your function here on earth is only to forgive him, that you may accept him back as your identity. He is as God created him. And you are what he is. Forgive him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him.
Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you? In no fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely. Nothing you see here, sleeping or waking, comes near to such loveliness, and nothing will you value like unto this, nor hold so dear. Nothing that you remember, that made your heart seem to sing with joy, has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. FOR YOU WILL SEE THE SON OF GOD. You will behold the beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and that He thanks the Father for. He was created to see this FOR YOU, until you learned to see it for yourself. And all His teaching leads to seeing it and giving thanks with Him.
This loveliness is NOT a fantasy. It is the real world, bright, and clean and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here, for everything has BEEN forgiven, and there ARE no fantasies to hide the truth. The bridge between that world and this is SO little and SO easy to cross that you could not believe it is the meeting-place of worlds so different. Yet this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world at all. This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time into eternity, and beyond all ugliness, into beauty that will enchant you, and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection.
This step, the smallest ever taken by anything, is still the greatest accomplishment of all, in God's plan of Atonement. All else is learned, but THIS is GIVEN, complete and wholly perfect. No-one but Him Who PLANNED salvation could complete it thus. The real world, in its loveliness, YOU learn to reach. Fantasies are all undone, no-one and nothing remains still bound by them, and, by YOUR OWN forgiveness, you are FREE TO SEE. And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it. And, with this final blessing of God's Son UPON HIMSELF, the REAL perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.
The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him.
The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception will undertake WITH you the careful searching of the mind that MADE this world, and uncover TO YOU the SEEMING reasons for your making it. In the light of the REAL reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will SHOW you that there is NO reason here at all. Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release.
All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing all illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there, he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there in peace.
Even salvation will become a dream, and vanish from his mind. For salvation IS the end of dreams, and, with the closing of the dream, will have no meaning. Who, awake in Heaven, COULD dream that there could ever be NEED of salvation? How much do you WANT salvation? It will GIVE you the real world, trembling with readiness to BE given you. The eagerness of the Holy Spirit to give you this, is so intense He would not wait, although He waits in patience. MEET His patience with your IMpatience at delay in meeting Him. Go out in gladness to meet with your Redeemer, and walk with Him, in trust, out of this world, and into the real world of beauty and forgiveness.
(Aside to Helen Schucman. You were both wise and devoted (two words which are literally interchangeable in the sense that they truly bring on the exchange of one another.) in claiming your scribal functions and working so late. You HAD committed a serious error against your brother, and one who had asked for your help. A devoted priestess does not do this. The Bible says you should go WITH a brother twice as far as he asks. It certainly DOES NOT suggest that you set him BACK on his journey.
Devotion to a brother CANNOT set YOU back either. It can ONLY lead to mutual progress. The result of genuine devotion is inspiration, a word which, properly understood is the OPPOSITE of fatigue. To be fatigued is to be DIS-spirited, but to be inspired is to be IN the spirit. To be egocentric IS to be dispirited. But to be self-centered in the RIGHT sense is to be inspired, or in the Soul. The truly inspired are enlightened, and cannot abide in darkness.
Do not attempt to break God's copyright, because His Authorship alone CAN copy right. Your own right authorship does NOT lie in remaking His copies, but in creating LIKE Him.
Embarrassment is ALWAYS an expression of egocentricity, an association which has been made before. (Made, NOT created. This kind of association is ALWAYS man-made). Both of you have completed the SCT stem: When I was called on to speak - with - "I became embarrassed and COULD NOT SPEAK."This should be corrected to "Recognized my Authorship."
Tell Bill that he cannot be embarrassed by his own words unless he believes that HE is responsible for them. We have already corrected "word" to "thought," and he IS free to allocate the authorship for his thoughts as he elects. He can speak from his Soul or from his ego, precisely as he chooses. If he speaks from his Soul, he has chosen to "be still and know that I am God." These words are inspired, because they come from KNOWLEDGE. If he speaks from his ego, he is DISCLAIMING knowledge instead of AFFIRMING it, and is thus dis-spiriting himself.
The dis-spirited have no choice BUT to be narcissistic, and to be narcissistic IS to place your faith in the unworthy. Your real worth IS your divine authorship, and your Soul is its acknowledgement. I cannot guide your egos EXCEPT as you associate them with your Souls.
Attacking misidentification errors is neither MY function nor YOURS. Destroying the devil is a meaningless undertaking. Cervantes wrote an excellent symbolic account of this procedure, though he did not understand his own symbolism. The REAL point of his writing was that his "hero" was a man who perceived himself as unworthy because he identified with his ego and perceived its weakness. He then set about to alter his perception, NOT by correcting his misidentification, but by behaving egotistically.
Chesterton wrote an excellent description of Cervantes and his perception of his "unheroic hero," a view of man which the ego tolerates all too frequently, but the Soul NEVER countenances:
"And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain."
Do not embark on foolish journeys because they are indeed in vain. The ego may will them because the ego IS both lean and foolish. But the Soul CANNOT embark on them because it is forever Unwilling to depart from its Foundation. The journey to the cross should be the LAST foolish journey for every mind. Do not dwell upon it, but dismiss it as accomplished. If you can accept that as YOUR OWN last foolish journey, you are free also to join My Resurrection. Human living has indeed been needlessly wasted in repetition compulsion. It re-enacts the Separation, the loss of power, the foolish journey of the ego in its attempt at reparation, and finally the crucifixion of the body, or death. Repetition compulsions can be endless, unless they are given up by an act of will, or, more properly as active creation. Do not make the pathetic human error of "clinging to the old rugged cross." The only message of the crucifixion is in respect for man's ability to OVERCOME the cross. Unless he does so, he is free to crucify himself as often as he chooses. But this was NOT the gospel I intended to offer him.
We have another journey to undertake, and I hope that, if both of you will read these notes carefully, they will help to prepare you to undertake it.
The answer to this question is much like the preceding one. There are, of course, no "unnatural" powers, and it is obviously merely an appeal to magic to make up a power that does not exist. It is equally obvious, however, that each individual has many abilities of which he is unaware. As his awareness increases, he may well develop abilities that seem quite startling to him. Yet nothing that he can do can compare even in the slightest with the glorious surprise of remembering Who he is. Let all his learning and all his effort be directed toward this one great final surprise, and he will not be content to be delayed by the little ones that may come to him on the way.
Certainly there are many "psychic" powers that are clearly in line with this course. Communication is not limited to the small range of channels the world recognizes. If it were there would be little point in trying to teach salvation. It would be impossible to do so. The limits the world places on communication is the chief barrier to direct experience of the Holy Spirit, Whose Presence is always there and Whose Voice is available but for the hearing. These limits are placed out of fear, for without them the walls that surround all the separate places of the world would fall at the holy sound of His Voice. Who transcends these limits in any way is merely becoming more natural. He is doing nothing special, and there is no magic in his accomplishments.
The seemingly new abilities that may be gathered on the way can be very helpful. Given to the Holy Spirit, and used under His direction, they are very valuable teaching aids. To this, the question of how they arise is irrelevant. The only important consideration is how they are used. Taken as ends in themselves, no matter how this is done, will delay progress. Nor does their value lie in proving anything; achievements from the past, unusual attunement with the "unseen," or special favors from God. God gives no special favors, and no-one has any powers that are not available to everyone. Only by tricks of magic are special powers "demonstrated."
Nothing that is genuine is used to deceive. The Holy Spirit is incapable of deception, and He can use only genuine abilities. What is used for magic is useless to Him, but what He uses cannot be used for magic. There is, however, a particular appeal in unusual abilities which can be curiously tempting. Here are strengths which the Holy Spirit wants and needs. Yet the ego sees in these same strengths an opportunity to glorify itself. Strengths turned to weakness are tragedy indeed. Yet what is not given to the Holy Spirit must be given to weakness, for what is withheld from love is given to fear, and will be fearful in consequence.
Even those who no longer value the material things of the world may still be deceived by "psychic" powers. As investment has been withdrawn from the world's material gifts the ego has been seriously threatened. It may still be strong enough to rally under this new temptation to win back strength by guile. Many have not seen through the ego's defenses here, although they are not particularly subtle. Yet, given a remaining wish to be deceived, deception is made easy. Now the "power" is no longer a genuine ability, and cannot be used dependably. It is almost inevitable that, unless the individual changes his mind about its purpose, he will bolster its uncertainties with increasing deception.
Any ability that anyone develops has the potentiality for good. To this there is no exception. And the more unusual and unexpected the power, the greater its potential usefulness. Salvation has need of all abilities, for what the world would destroy the Holy Spirit would restore. "Psychic" abilities have been used to call upon the devil, which merely means to strengthen the ego. Yet here is also a great channel of hope and healing in the Holy Spirit's service. Those who have developed "psychic" powers have merely let some of the limitations they laid upon their minds be lifted. It can be but greater limitations they lay upon themselves if they utilize their increased freedom for further imprisonment. The Holy Spirit needs these gifts, and those who offer them to Him and Him alone go with Christ's gratitude upon their hearts, and His holy sight not far behind.
No one can give what he has not received. To give a thing requires first you have it in your own possession. Here the laws of Heaven and the world agree. But here they also separate. The world believes that to possess a thing it must be kept. Salvation teaches otherwise. To give is how to recognize you have received. It is the proof that what you have is yours.
You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. You recognize your brother as yourself, and thus do you perceive that you are whole. There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away.
Christ's vision is a miracle. It comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects Eternal Love and the rebirth of love which never dies, but has been kept obscure. Christ's vision pictures Heaven, for it sees a world so like to Heaven that what God created perfect can be mirrored there. The darkened glass the world presents can show but twisted images in broken parts. The real world pictures Heaven's innocence.
Christ's vision is the miracle in which all miracles are born. It is their source, remaining with each miracle you give, and yet remaining yours. It is the bond by which the giver and receiver are united in extension here on earth as they are one in Heaven. Christ beholds no sin in anyone, and in His sight the sinless are as one. Their holiness was given by His Father and Himself.
Christ's vision is the bridge between the worlds, and in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there, transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them. Holiness has been restored to vision, and the blind can see.
This is the Holy Spirit's single gift; the treasure house to which you can appeal with perfect certainty for everything that can contribute to your happiness. All are laid here already. All can be received but for the asking. Here the door is never locked, and no one is denied his least request or his most urgent need. There is no sickness not already healed. No lack unsatisfied, no need unmet, within this golden treasury of Christ.
Here does the world remember what was lost when it was made. For here it is repaired, made new again but in a different light. What was to be the home of sin becomes the center of redemption and the hearth of mercy, where the suffering are healed and welcome. No one will be turned away from this new home, where his salvation waits. No one is stranger to him. No one asks for anything of him except the gift of his acceptance of his welcoming
Christ's vision is the holy ground in which the lilies of forgiveness set their roots. This is their home. They can be brought from here back to the world, but they can never grow in its unnourishing and shallow soil. They need the light and warmth and kindly care Christ's charity provides. They need the love with which He looks on them. And they become His messengers which give as they received.
Take from His storehouse, that its treasures may increase. His lilies do not leave their home when they are carried back into the world. Their roots remain. They do not leave their source, but carry its beneficence with them, and turn the world into a garden like the one they came from, and to which they go again with added fragrance. Now are they twice blessed. The messages they brought from Christ have been delivered and returned to them. And they return them gladly unto Him.
Behold the store of miracles set out for you to give. Are you not worth the gift, when God appointed it be given you? Judge not God's Son, but follow in the way He has established. Christ has dreamed the dream of a forgiven world. It is His gift whereby a sweet transition can be made from death to life, from hopelessness to hope. Let us an instant dream with Him. His dream awakens us to truth. His vision gives the means for a return to our unlost and everlasting sanctity in God.