Why would you not perceive it as RELEASE from suffering to learn that you are free? Why would you not ACCLAIM the truth, instead of looking on it as an enemy? Why does an EASY path, so clearly marked it is impossible to lose the way seem thorny, rough, and far too difficult for you to follow? Is it not because you see it as the road to hell, instead of looking on it as a simple way, without a sacrifice or ANY loss, to find yourself in Heaven and in God? Until you realize you give up NOTHING; until you understand there IS no loss; you will have some regrets about the way that you have chosen. And you will NOT see the many gains your choice has offered you.
Yet, though you do not see them, they are there. Their CAUSE has been effected, and they MUST be present were their cause has entered in. You have accepted healing's Cause, and so it MUST be you are healed. And, being healed, the power to heal must ALSO now be yours. The miracle is not a separate thing that happens suddenly, as an effect without a cause, nor is it, in itself, a cause. But where its Cause is MUST it be. Now IS it caused, though not as yet perceived. And its effects are THERE, though not yet seen. Look inward now, and you will not behold a reason for regret, but cause indeed for glad rejoicing and for hope of peace.
It HAS been hopeless to attempt to find the hope of peace upon a battleground. It HAS been futile to demand escape from sin and pain of what was made to serve the function of RETAINING sin and pain. For pain and sin are ONE illusion, as are hate and fear, attack and guilt but one. Where they are causeless, their effects ARE gone, and love MUST come wherever they are not. Why are you not rejoicing? You ARE free of pain and sickness, misery and loss, and ALL effects of hatred and attack. No more is pain your friend and guilt your god, and you should WELCOME the effects of love.
Your Guest HAS come. You asked Him and He came. You did not hear Him enter, for you did not wholly welcome Him. And yet His gifts came with Him. He has laid them at your feet, and asks you now that you will look on them, and take them for your own. He NEEDS your help in giving them to all who walk apart, believing they are separate and alone. They WILL be healed when you accept your gifts, because your Guest will welcome everyone whose feet have touched the holy ground whereon you stand, and where His gifts for them are laid.
You do not see how much you now can GIVE, because of everything you have received. Yet He Who entered in but waits for YOU to come where you invited HIM to be. There is no other place where He can find His host, nor where His host can meet with Him. And nowhere else His gifts of peace and joy, and all the happiness His Presence brings can be obtained. For they are where He is that brought them with Him, that they might be yours. You can not see your Guest, but you CAN see the gifts He brought. And when you LOOK on them, you will believe His Presence MUST be there. For what you now can do could not BE done without the love and grace His Presence holds.
Such is the promise of the living God; His Son have life, and every living thing is part of him, and nothing else has life. What YOU have "given" life is NOT alive, and symbolizes but your wish to be alive APART from life, alive in death, with death perceived as life, and living, death. Confusion follows on confusion here, for ON confusion has this world been based, and there is nothing else it rests upon. Its basis does not change, although it SEEMS to be in constant change. But what is that except the state confusion really MEANS? Stability to those who are confused is meaningless. And shift and change become the law on which they predicate their lives.
The body does not change. It represents the larger dream that change is POSSIBLE. To change is to attain a state unlike the one in which you found yourself before. There IS no change in immortality, and Heaven knows it not. Yet here on earth, it has a double purpose, for it can be made to teach opposing things. And they reflect the teacher who is teaching them. The body can APPEAR to change with time, with sickness or with health, and with events that seem to alter it. And this but means the mind remains unchanged in its belief of what the PURPOSE of the body is.
Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not. Its NOTHINGNESS is guarantee that it can NOT be sick. In your demand that it be MORE than this lies the idea of sickness. For it asks that God be LESS than all He really is. What, then, becomes of YOU, for it IS you of whom the sacrifice is asked? For He is told that part of him BELONGS to Him no longer. He must sacrifice your self, and in His sacrifice are YOU made more, and He is lessened by the loss of you. And what is GONE from Him becomes your god, PROTECTING you from being part of Him.
The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its nothingness has not been recognized. And so it seems to be a thing with power IN ITSELF. As something, it CAN be perceived, and thought to feel and act, and hold you in its grasp as prisoner to itself. And it CAN fail to be what you demanded it to be. And you WILL hate it for its littleness, unmindful that the failure does not lie in that it is not MORE than it should be, but ONLY in YOUR failure to perceive that it is nothing. Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from which you would flee.
As something, is the body asked to be God's enemy, replacing what He is with littleness and limit and despair. It is HIS loss you celebrate when you behold the body as a thing you love, or look upon it as a thing you hate. For if He be the sum of everything, then what is NOT in Him does not exist. And His completion IS its nothingness. Your Savior is NOT dead, nor does he dwell in what was built as temple unto death. He lives in God, and it is this that makes him Savior unto YOU, and ONLY this. His body's nothingness releases yours from sickness and from death. For what is yours cannot be more NOR less than what is his.
It is surely obvious that if you can be attacked you are not invulnerable. You see attack as a real threat. That is because you believe that you can really attack. And what would have effects through you must also have effects on you. It is this law that will ultimately save you. But you are misusing it now. You must therefore learn how it can be used for your own best interests, rather than against them.
Because your attack thoughts will be projected, you will fear attack. And if you fear attack, you must believe that you are not invulnerable. Attack thoughts therefore make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are. Attack thoughts and invulnerability cannot be accepted together. They contradict each other.
The idea for today introduces the thought that you always attack yourself first. If attack thoughts must entail the belief that you are vulnerable, their effect is to weaken you in your own eyes. Thus they have attacked your perception of yourself. And because you believe in them, you can no longer believe in yourself. A false image of yourself has come to take the place of what you are.
Practice with today's idea will help you to understand that vulnerability or invulnerability is the result of your own thoughts. Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so.
Six practice periods are required in applying today's idea. A full two minutes should be attempted for each of them, although the time may be reduced to a minute if the discomfort is too great. Do not reduce it further.
The practice period should begin with repeating the idea for today, then closing your eyes and reviewing the unresolved situations whose outcomes are causing you concern. The concern may take the form of depression, worry, anger, a sense of imposition, fear, foreboding, or preoccupation. Any problem as yet unsettled which tends to recur in your thoughts during the day is a suitable subject. You will not be able to use very many for one practice period, because a longer time than usual should be spent with each one. Today's idea should be applied as follows:
First, name the situation:
"I am concerned about _____."
Then go over every possible outcome which has occurred to you in that connection and which has caused you concern, referring to each one quite specifically, saying:
"I am afraid ____ will happen."
If you are doing the exercises properly, you should have some five or six distressing possibilities available for each situation you use, and quite possibly more. It is much more helpful to cover a few situations thoroughly than to touch on a larger number.
As the list of anticipated outcomes for each situation continues, you will probably find some of them, especially those which occur to you toward the end, less acceptable to you. Try, however, to treat them all alike to whatever extent you can.
After you have named each outcome of which you are afraid, tell yourself:
"That thought is an attack upon myself."
Conclude each practice period by repeating today's idea once more.
The one remaining problem that you have is that you see an interval between the TIME when you forgive, and will receive the benefits of trust. This but reflects the little you would keep between YOURSELVES, that you might be a LITTLE separate. For time and space are ONE illusion, which takes different forms. If it has been projected BEYOND your minds, you think of it as time. The nearer it is brought to where it IS, the more you think of it in terms of space. There is a DISTANCE you would keep apart from one another. And this space you see as time, because you still believe you are EXTERNAL to each other. This makes trust impossible. And you can NOT believe that trust would settle every problem NOW.
Thus do you think it SAFER to remain a LITTLE careful and a LITTLE watchful of interests perceived as separate. From this perception, you can not conceive of gaining what forgiveness offers NOW. The interval you think lies in between the giving and receiving of the gift SEEMS to be one in which you sacrifice, and suffer loss. You see EVENTUAL salvation; not IMMEDIATE results. Salvation IS immediate. Unless you so perceive it, you WILL be afraid of it, believing that the risk of loss is great between the time its PURPOSE is made yours, and its EFFECTS will come to you. In this form is the error still obscured that is the SOURCE of fear. Salvation WOULD wipe out the space you see between you still, and let you INSTANTLY become as one. And it is HERE you fear the loss would lie.
Do not project this fear to time, for time is NOT the enemy that you perceive. Time is as neutral as the body is, except in terms of what you see it FOR. If you would keep a little SPACE between you still, you want a little TIME in which forgiveness is withheld a little while. This makes the interval BETWEEN the time in which forgiveness is withheld and given seem dangerous, with terror justified. But SPACE between you is apparent NOW, and cannot BE perceived in future time. No more can it be OVERLOOKED, except within the present. FUTURE loss is not your fear. But PRESENT joining IS your dread.
Who can feel desolation except NOW? A FUTURE cause as yet HAS no effects. And therefore MUST it be that, if you fear, there is a PRESENT cause. And it is THIS that needs correction, NOT a future state. The plans YOU make for safety all are laid within the future, where you CANNOT plan. No purpose has been GIVEN it as yet, and what WILL happen has as yet no cause. Who can predict effects without a cause? And who could fear effects UNLESS he thought they had BEEN caused and judged disastrous NOW? Belief in sin arouses fear, and like its cause, is looking forward; looking back, but OVERLOOKING what is here and now.
Yet only here and now its cause must be, if its effects ALREADY have been judged as fearful. And, in overlooking THIS, is it protected and kept separate from healing. For a miracle is NOW. It stands ALREADY there, in present grace, within the only interval of time which sin and fear have overlooked, but which is all there IS to time. The working out of ALL correction takes no time at all. But the ACCEPTANCE of the working out can SEEM to take forever. The change of purpose the Holy Spirit brought to your relationship has IN it all effects that you will see. They can be looked at NOW. Why wait 'til they unfold in time, and fear they may NOT come, although already THERE?
You have been told that everything brings good that comes from God. And yet it SEEMS as if this is not so. Good in disaster's form is difficult to credit in advance. Nor is there really SENSE in this idea. Why SHOULD the good appear in evil's form? And is this not deception if it does? Its CAUSE is here, if it appears at all. Why are not its effects apparent, then? Why in the future? And you seek to be content with sighing, and with "reasoning," you do not understand it now, but WILL some day. And THEN its meaning will be clear. This is NOT reason, for it is unjust, and clearly hints at punishment until the time of liberation is at hand.
Given a change of purpose for the good, there is NO reason for an interval in which disaster strikes, to be perceived as good some day, but now in form of pain. This is a SACRIFICE of now, which COULD not be the cost the Holy Spirit asks for what he gave WITHOUT a cost at all. Yet this illusion has a cause which, though untrue, must be ALREADY in your mind. And THIS illusion is but one effect which it engenders, and one form in which its outcome is perceived. This interval in time, when retribution is perceived to be the form in which the good appears, is but one aspect of the little space that lies between you, unforgiven still.
Be not content with future happiness. It has NO meaning, and is NOT your just reward. For you have cause for freedom NOW. What profits freedom in a prisoner's form? Why SHOULD deliverance be disguised as death? Delay is senseless, and the reason that would maintain effects of PRESENT cause must be delayed until a FUTURE time is merely a denial of the fact that consequence and cause MUST come as one. Look not to time, but to the little space between you still, to be delivered FROM. And do not let it be DISGUISED as time, and so preserved BECAUSE its form is changed, and what it IS cannot be recognized. The Holy Spirit's purpose NOW is yours. Should not His happiness be yours as well?
What waits in perfect certainty BEYOND salvation is not our concern. For you have barely started to allow your first, uncertain steps to be directed up the ladder separation led you down. The miracle alone is your concern at present. Here is where we must BEGIN. And, having started, will the way be made serene and simple in the rising up to waking and the ending of the dream. When you accept a miracle, you do not ADD your dream of fear to one that is ALREADY being dreamed. Without SUPPORT the dream will fade away, without effects. For it is your SUPPORT that strengthens it. No mind is sick until another mind AGREES that they are separate. And thus, it is their JOINT decision to be sick.
If you WITHHOLD agreement, and accept the part YOU play in making sickness real, the other mind cannot project its guilt without your aid in LETTING it perceive itself as separate and apart from YOU. Thus is the body NOT perceived as sick by BOTH your minds, from SEPARATE points of view. UNITING with a brother's mind prevents the CAUSE of sickness, and perceived effects. Healing is the effect of minds that join, as sickness comes from minds that separate. The miracle does nothing just because the minds ARE joined, and CANNOT separate. Yet, in the dreaming, has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which ARE separated, and which cannot JOIN.
Do not allow your brother to be sick, for if he is, have YOU abandoned him to his own dream, by SHARING it with him. He has not seen the cause of sickness where it is, and YOU have overlooked the gap between you, where the sickness has been bred. Thus are you JOINED in sickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherished, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to Him. Fight not His coming with illusions, for it is His coming that you WANT above all things that seem to glisten in the dream. The end of dreaming is the end of FEAR, and love was NEVER in the world of dreams.
The gap IS little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill, because it is a WISH to keep apart, and NOT to join. And thus it seems to give a CAUSE to sickness which is NOT its cause. The PURPOSE of the gap is all the cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you separated in a body which you see as if it were the CAUSE of pain. The cause of pain is separation, NOT the body, which is only its EFFECT. Yet separation is but empty space, enclosing nothing, doing nothing, and as unsubstantial as the vacant place between the ripples that a ship has made in passing by. And covered just as fast, as water rushes in to close the gap, and as the waves, in joining, cover it.
Where is the gap BETWEEN the waves, when they have joined, and covered up the space which seemed to keep them separate for a little while?Where is the grounds for sickness, when the minds have joined to close the gap BETWEEN them, where the weeds of sickness seemed to grow? God builds the bridge, but only in the space left clean and vacant by the miracle. The seeds of sickness and the shame of sin He CANNOT bridge, for He cannot destroy the alien will that He created not. Let its effects be gone, and clutch them not with eager hands, to keep them for yourself. The miracle will brush them all aside, and thus make room for Him Who wills to come, and bridge His Son's returning to Himself.
Count, then, the silver miracles and golden dreams of happiness as all the treasures you would keep within the storehouse of the world. The door is open, NOT to thieves, but to your starving brothers, who mistook for gold a shining pebble, and who stored away a heap of snow that shone like silver. They have nothing left behind the open door. What is the world except a little gap, perceived to tear eternity apart, and break it into days and months and years? And what are YOU who live within the world, except a picture of the Son of God in broken pieces, each concealed within a separate and uncertain bit of clay?
Be not afraid, but let your world be lit with miracles. And where the gap was seen to stand BETWEEN you, join your brother there. And sickness will be seen WITHOUT a cause. The dream of healing in forgiveness lies, and gently shows you YOU have never sinned. The miracle would leave NO proof of guilt, to bring you witness to what never WAS. And, in your storehouse, it will make a place of welcome for your Father and your Self. The door is open, that all those may come who would no longer starve, and would enjoy the feast of plenty set before them there. And they will meet with your invited Guests the miracle has asked to come to you.
This is a feast unlike indeed to those the dreaming of the world has shown. For here, the more that anyone receives, the more is left for all the rest to share. The Guests have brought unlimited supply with Them. And no-one is deprived, or can deprive. Here is a feast the Father lays before His Son, AND shares it equally with him. And in Their sharing there can BE no gap, in - which abundance falters and grows thin. Here can the lean years enter not, for time waits not upon this feast, which HAS no end. For Love has set Its table in the space that seemed to keep your Guests APART from you.
75) "The light has come."
In choosing salvation rather than attack I merely choose to recognize what is already there. Salvation is a decision made already. Attack and grievances are not there to choose. That is why I always choose between truth and illusion; between what is there and what is not. The light has come. I can but choose the light, for it has no alternative. It has replaced the darkness, and the dark is gone.
These would prove useful forms for specific applications of this idea:
"This cannot show me darkness, for the light has come."
"The light in you is all that I would see, (name)"
"I would see in this only what is there."
76) "I am under no laws but God's."
Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God's. I am constantly tempted to make up other laws, and give them power over me. I suffer only because of my belief in them. They have no real effect on me at all. I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's. And His are the laws of freedom.
For specific forms in applying this idea, these would be useful:
"My perception of this shows me I believe in laws which do not exist."
"I see only the laws of God at work in this."
"Let me allow God's laws to work in this, and not my own."
16) "I have no neutral thoughts."
Neutral thoughts are impossible because all thoughts have power. They will either make a false world or lead me to the real one. But thoughts cannot be without effects. As the world I see arises from my thinking errors, so will the real world rise before my eyes as I let my errors be corrected. My thoughts cannot be neither true nor false. They must be one or the other. What I see shows me which they are.
17) "I see no neutral things."
What I see witnesses to what I think. If I did not think I would not exist, because life is thought. Let me look on the world as the representation of my own state of mind. I know that my state of mind can change. And so I also know that the world I see can change as well.
18) "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing."
If I have no private thoughts, I cannot see a private world. Even the mad idea of separation had to be shared before it could form the basis of the world I see. Yet that sharing was a sharing of nothing. I can also call upon my real thoughts, which share everything with everybody. As my thoughts of separation call to the separation thoughts of others, so my real thoughts awaken the real thoughts in them. And the world my real thoughts show me will dawn on their sight as well as mine.
19) "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts."
I am alone in nothing. Everything I think or say or do touches all the universe. A Son of God cannot think or speak or act in vain. He cannot be alone in anything. It is therefore in my power to change every mind along with mine, for mine is the power of God.
20) "I am determined to see."
Recognizing the shared nature of my thoughts, I am determined to see. I would look upon the witnesses that show me the thinking of the world has been changed. I would behold the proof that what has been done through me has enabled love to replace fear, laughter to replace weeping, and abundance to replace loss. I would look upon the real world, and let it teach me that my will and the Will of God are one.
Accepting the Atonement for yourself means NOT to give support to someone's dream of sickness and of death. It means that you share NOT his wish to separate, and let him turn illusions on himself. Nor do you wish that they be turned instead on YOU. Thus have they NO effects. And YOU are free of dreams of pain because you let HIM be. UNLESS you help him, YOU will suffer pain with him because that is your wish. And you become a figure in HIS dream of pain, as he in YOURS. So do you BOTH become illusions, and without identity. You could be anyone or anything, depending on whose evil dream you share. You can be sure of just ONE thing; that you are evil, for you share in dreams of fear.
There is a way of finding certainty RIGHT HERE AND NOW. Refuse to be a part of fearful dreams, WHATEVER form they take. For you will lose identity in them. You FIND yourself by NOT accepting them as causing you, and GIVING you effects. You stand apart from them, but NOT apart from him who dreams them. Thus you separate the dreamer from the dream, and join with ONE, but let the OTHER go. The dream is but illusion in the mind. And with the MIND you WOULD unite, but NEVER with the dream. It is the DREAM you fear, and NOT the mind. You see them as the same, because you think that YOU are but a dream. And what is real and what is but illusion IN YOURSELF you do not know and cannot tell apart.
Like you, your brother thinks HE is a dream. Share not in his illusion of himself. For YOUR identity depends on his reality. Think, rather, of him as a mind in which illusions still persist, but as a mind which brother is to you. He is not brother made by what he DREAMS, nor is his body, "hero" of the dream, your brother. It is his REALITY that is your brother, as is yours to him. Your mind and his ARE joined in brotherhood. His body and his dreams but SEEM to make a little gap, where yours have joined with his. And yet, between your MINDS there IS no gap. To join his dreams is thus to meet him NOT, because his dreams would SEPARATE from you.
Therefore release him, merely by your claim on brotherhood, and NOT on dreams of fear. Let him acknowledge who he IS, by not supporting his illusions by your faith, for if you do, you will have faith in YOURS. With faith in yours, HE will not be released, and YOU are kept in bondage to his dreams. And dreams of fear will haunt the little gap, inhabited but by illusions which you have SUPPORTED in each other's minds. Be certain, if you do YOUR part, he will do his, for he will JOIN you where YOU stand. Call not to him to meet you in the gap BETWEEN you, or you MUST believe that it is YOUR reality, as well as his. You CANNOT do his part, but this you DO when you become a passive figure in his dream INSTEAD of dreamer of your own.
Identity in dreams is meaningless BECAUSE the dreamer and the dream are one. Who shares a dream must BE the dream he shares, because, BY sharing, is a cause produced. You share confusion, and you ARE confused, for in the gap no stable self exists. What is the same seems different, because what IS the same appears to be unlike. His dreams are yours, because you LET them be. But, if you took your OWN away, would he be free of them, and of his own as well. Your dreams are witnesses to his, and his attest the truth of yours. But if you see there IS no truth in yours, his dreams will disappear before his eyes, and he will understand what MADE the dream.
The Holy Spirit is in BOTH your minds, and He IS One, because there is no gap that separates His Oneness from Itself. The gap between your bodies matters not, for what is joined in Him is ALWAYS one. No-one is sick, if someone ELSE accepts his union WITH him. His desire to be a sick and separated mind can NOT remain without a witness or a cause. And both ARE gone, if someone wills to be united with him. He has dreamed that he was separated from his brother, who, by sharing NOT his dream, has left the space between them vacant. And the Father comes to join His Son the Holy Spirit joined.
The Holy Spirit's Function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God, and put the pieces into place again. This holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture IN ITSELF. To each he offers his identity, which the WHOLE picture represents, instead of just a little, broken bit, which he insisted was himself. And when he sees THIS picture, he will RECOGNIZE himself. If you share not your brother's evil dreams, this IS the picture that the miracle will place within the little gap, left clean of all the seeds of sickness and of sin. And here the Father will receive His Son, because His Son was gracious to himself.
I thank you, Father, knowing you will come to close each little gap that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. Your Holiness, complete and perfect, lies in every one of them. And they ARE joined, because what is in one IS in them all. How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is recognized as being part of the completed picture of God's Son. The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. For the Whole is in each one. And every aspect of the Son of God is just the same as every other part. Join not your brother's dream, but join with HIM, and where you join His Son, the Father IS.
Who seeks for substitutes, when he perceives HE HAS LOST NOTHING? Who would WANT to have the "benefits" of sickness, when he has received the simple happiness of health? What God has given cannot BE a loss, and what is not of Him has NO effects. What, then, would you perceive within the gap? The seeds of sickness come from the belief that there is JOY in separation, and its giving up WOULD BE A SACRIFICE. But miracles are the result, when you do not insist on seeing in the gap what is not there. Your willingness to LET illusions go is all the Healer of God's Son requires. He will place the miracle of healing where the seeds of sickness were. And there will be NO loss, but ONLY gain.
You live by symbols. You have made up names for everything you see. Each one becomes a separate entity, identified by its own name. By this you carve it out of unity. By this you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it. This space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings in terms of place and time; all bodies which are greeted with a name.
This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world's perception is achieved. You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will.
What are these names by which the world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept apart and holding bits of mind as separate awarenesses? You gave these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have perception be. The nameless things were given names, and thus reality was given them as well. For what is named is given meaning, and will then be seen as meaningful, a cause of true effects, with consequence inherent in itself.
This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth. Its enemy is wholeness. It conceives of little things, and looks upon them. And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision which sees differently become the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny.
Yet does this other vision still remain a natural direction for the mind to channel its perception. It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names and thousands more. Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved and concepts can be meaningfully shared.
This is the sum of the inheritance the world bestows. And everyone who learns to think that it is so accepts the signs and symbols which assert the world is real. It is for this they stand. They leave no doubt that what is named is there. It can be seen, as is anticipated. What denies that it is true is but illusion, for it is the ultimate reality. To question it is madness; to accept its presence is the proof of sanity.
Such is the teaching of the world. It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through. But the sooner he perceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises, how doubtful its results, the sooner does he question its effects. Learning which stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning. In its proper place, it serves but as a starting point from which another kind of learning can begin, a new perception can be gained, and all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn as they are raised to doubt.
Think not you made the world. Illusions, yes! But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming. When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. His true identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is. His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own. And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his.
It would indeed be strange if you were asked to go beyond all symbols of the world, forgetting them forever; yet were asked to take a teaching function. You have need to use the symbols of the world a while. But be you not deceived by them as well. They do not stand for anything at all, and in your practicing it is this thought which will release you from them. They become but means by which you can communicate in ways the world can understand, but which you recognize is not the unity where true communication can be found.
Thus what you need are intervals each day in which the learning of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go into the sunlight and forget the darkness. Here you understand the Word, the Name Which God has given you; the One Identity Which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true. And then step back to darkness, not because you think it real, but only to proclaim its unreality in terms which still have meaning in the world which darkness rules.
Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness. Yet accept them not as your reality. The Holy Spirit uses all of them, but He does not forget creation has One Name, One Meaning and a single Source Which unifies all things within Itself. Use all the names the world bestows on them but for convenience, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with you.
God has no name. And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson does all learning end. All names are unified; all space is filled with truth's reflection. Every gap is closed, and separation healed. The Name of God is the inheritance He gave to those who chose the teaching of the world to take the place of Heaven. In our practicing, our purpose is to let our minds accept what He has given as the answer to the pitiful inheritance you made as fitting tribute to the Son He loves.
No one can fail who seeks the meaning of the Name of God. Experience must come to supplement the Word. But first you must accept One Name for all reality, and realize the many names you gave its aspects have distorted what you see but have not interfered with truth at all. One Name we bring into our practicing. One Name we use to unify our sight.
And though we use a different name for each awareness of an aspect of God's Son, we understand that they have but One Name Which He has given them. It is this Name we use in practicing. And through Its use, all foolish separations disappear which kept us blind. And we are given strength to see beyond them. Now our sight is blessed with blessings we can give as we receive.
"Father, our Name is Yours. In It we are united with all living things, and You Who are their One Creator. What we made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your Own Reality. And we are glad and thankful we were wrong. All our mistakes we give to you, that we may be absolved of all effects our errors seemed to have. And we accept the truth You give in place of every one of them. Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made. Your Name unites us in the Oneness which is our inheritance and peace. Amen."
Suffering is an emphasis upon all that the world has done to injure YOU. Here is the world's demented version of salvation clearly shown. Like to a dream of punishment, in which the dreamer is unconscious of what brought on the attack against himself, he sees himself attacked unjustly, and by something NOT himself. HE is the victim of this "something else," a thing OUTSIDE himself for which he has no reason to be held responsible. He must be innocent BECAUSE he knows not what HE does, but what is done TO him. Yet is his own attack upon himself apparent still, for it is he who bears the suffering. And he can NOT escape BECAUSE its source is seen outside himself.
Now you are being shown you CAN escape. All that is needed is you look upon the problem as it IS, and NOT the way that you have set it up. How COULD there be another way to solve a problem which is VERY simple, but has been obscured by heavy clouds of complication, which were MADE to keep the problem unresolved? WITHOUT the clouds, the problem will emerge in all its primitive simplicity. The choice will NOT be difficult, because the problem is absurd when clearly seen. No-one has difficulty making up his mind to let a simple problem be resolved, if it is SEEN as hurting him, and also very easily removed.
The "reasoning" by which the world is made, on which it rests, by which it is maintained, is simply this: "YOU are the cause of what I do. Your presence JUSTIFIES my wrath, and you exist and think APART from me. While YOU attack, I MUST be innocent. And what I suffer from IS your attack." No-one who looks upon this "reasoning" EXACTLY as it is could fail to see it does NOT follow, and it makes NO sense. Yet it SEEMS sensible, because it LOOKS as if the world WERE hurting you. And so it seems as if there is no NEED to go beyond the obvious in terms of cause.
There is INDEED a need. The world's ESCAPE from condemnation is a need which those WITHIN the world are joined in sharing. Yet they do not recognize their common need. For each one thinks that, if he does his part, the condemnation of the world will rest on him. And it is this that he perceives to BE his part in its deliverance. Vengeance must have a focus. Otherwise, is the avenger's knife in his own hand, and pointed to himself. And he MUST see it in ANOTHER hand, if he would be a victim of attack he did NOT choose. And thus he suffers from the wounds a knife he does NOT hold has made upon himself.
This is the PURPOSE of the world he sees. And, LOOKED AT thus, the world provides the means by which this purpose SEEMS to be fulfilled. The means ATTEST the purpose, but are NOT themselves a cause. Nor will the CAUSE be changed by seeing it APART from its effects. The cause PRODUCES the effects, which then bear witness to the CAUSE, and NOT themselves. Look, then, BEYOND effects. It is NOT here the CAUSE of suffering and sin must lie. And dwell not on the suffering and sin, for they are but REFLECTIONS of their cause. The part you play in SALVAGING the world from condemnation IS your own escape.
Forget not that the witness to the world of evil cannot speak EXCEPT for what has seen a NEED for evil in the world. And this is where YOUR guilt was first beheld. In separation from your brother was the first attack upon yourself begun. And it is THIS the world bears witness to. Seek not another cause, nor look among the mighty legions of its witnesses for its undoing. They SUPPORT its claim on your allegiance. What CONCEALS the truth is not where you should look to FIND the truth. The witnesses to sin all stand within ONE little space. And it is HERE you find the CAUSE of your perspective on the world.
Once you were unaware of what the cause of everything the world appeared to thrust upon you, uninvited and unasked, must REALLY be. Of one thing you were sure; of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and suffering to you, your guilt was NOT among them. Nor did you, in ANY way, REQUEST them for yourself. This is how ALL illusions come about. The one who makes them does NOT see himself as making them, and their reality does NOT depend on him. Whatever cause they have is something quite APART from him, and what he sees is SEPARATE from his mind.
He CANNOT doubt his dreams' reality BECAUSE he does not see the part he plays in MAKING them, and MAKING them seem real. No-one can waken from a dream the world is dreaming FOR him. He becomes a part of someone ELSE's dream. He CANNOT choose to waken from a dream he did not make. Helpless he stands, a victim to a dream conceived and cherished by a SEPARATE mind. Careless indeed of him this mind must be, as thoughtless of his peace and happiness as is the weather, or the time of day. It loves him not, but casts him as it will, in any role that satisfies its dream.
So little is his worth that he is but a dancing shadow, leaping up and down, according to a senseless plot conceived within the idle dreaming of the world. This is the ONLY picture you can see, the ONE alternative that you can choose, the OTHER possibility of cause, if you be NOT the dreamer of your dreams. And this IS what you choose, if you deny the cause of suffering is in YOUR mind. Be glad indeed it is, for thus are YOU the ONE decider of your destiny in time. The choice IS yours to make between a sleeping death and dreams of evil, or a happy wakening and joy of life.
What COULD you choose between, but life or death, waking or sleeping, war or peace, your dream or your reality? But if the choice is REALLY given you, then you must see the causes of the things you choose BETWEEN exactly AS they are and WHERE they are. What choices can be made between two states, but ONE of which is clearly recognized? Who could be free to choose BETWEEN effects, when only ONE is seen as up to you? An honest choice could NEVER be perceived as one in which the choice is split between a tiny you and an enormous world, with DIFFERENT dreams about the truth in you.
The gap between reality and dreams lies not between the dreaming of the world and what you dream in secret. THEY are one. The dreaming of the world is but a part of your own dream you gave away, and saw as if it were its start and ending, both. Yet was it started by your SECRET dream, which you do NOT perceive, although it CAUSED the part you see and do not doubt is real. How COULD you doubt it, while you lie asleep, and dream in secret that its CAUSE is real? A brother SEPARATED from yourself, an ancient enemy, a murderer who stalks you in the night and plots your death, yet plans that it be lingering and slow, -
Of this you dream. And, UNDERNEATH this dream, is yet another, in which YOU become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and the destroyer of the brother and the world you fear alike. Here is the CAUSE of suffering, the space BETWEEN your dreams and your reality. The little gap you do not even see, the birthplace of illusions and of fear, the time of terror and of ancient hate, the instant of disaster; -- all are here. Here is the CAUSE of unreality. And it is here that it will be undone. YOU are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No OTHER cause it has, nor ever will.
Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God's Son, and made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made war upon himself. So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken to reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless a gentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed his calmer mind to welcome, NOT to fear, the Voice that called with love to waken him. A gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed, and where his brother was his friend. God willed he waken gently, and with joy. And GAVE him means to waken WITHOUT fear. Accept the dream He gave, INSTEAD of yours. It is NOT difficult to shift a dream, when once the dreamer has been recognized.
Rest in the Holy Spirit, and allow His gentle dreams to take the place of those you dreamed in terror, and in fear of death. He brings FORGIVING dreams, in which the choice is NOT who is the murderer, and who shall be the victim. In the dreams HE brings, there IS no murder, and there IS no death. The dream of guilt is fading from your sight, although your eyes are closed. A smile has come to lighten up your sleeping face. The sleep is peaceful now, for these are happy dreams. Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence. And, from THIS dream, the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His beloved Son.
Dream of your brother's kindnesses INSTEAD of dwelling in your dreams on his mistakes. Select his thoughtfulness to dream about, INSTEAD of counting up the hurts he gave. Forgive him his illusions, and give thanks to him for all the helpfulness he gave. And do not brush aside his many gifts, because he is not perfect in your dreams. He represents his Father, Whom you see as offering both life AND death to you. Brother, He gives BUT life, and what you see as gifts your brother offers REPRESENT the gifts you dream your Father gives to you. Let all your brother's gifts be seen in light of charity and kindness offered you. And let no pain disturb your dream of deep appreciation for his gifts to you.
Christ's Second Coming gives the Son of God the gift to hear the Voice for God proclaim that what is false is false, and what is true has never changed. And this the judgment is in which perception ends. At first you see a world which has accepted this as true, projected from a now corrected mind. And with this holy sight, perception gives a silent blessing and then disappears, its goal accomplished and its mission done.
The final judgment on the world contains no condemnation. For it sees the world as totally forgiven, without sin, and wholly purposeless. Without a cause, and now without a function in Christ's sight, it merely slips away to nothingness. There it was born, and there it ends as well. And all the figures in the dream in which the world began go with it. Bodies now are useless, and will therefore fade away, because the Son of God is limitless.
You who believed that God's Last Judgment would condemn the world to hell along with you, accept this holy truth: God's Judgment is the gift of the Correction He bestowed on all your errors, freeing you from them, and all effects they ever seemed to have. To fear God's saving grace is but to fear complete release from suffering, return to peace, security and happiness, and union with your own Identity.
God's Final Judgment is as merciful as every step in His appointed plan to bless His Son, and call Him to return to the eternal peace He shares with him. Be not afraid of Love. For It alone can heal all sorrow, wipe away all tears, and gently waken from his dreams of pain the Son whom God acknowledges as His. Be not afraid of this. Salvation asks you give it welcome. And the world awaits your glad acceptance, which will set it free.
This is God's Final Judgment: "You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever loved, as limitless as Your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure. Therefore awaken and return to Me. I am Your Father and you are My Son."