Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated, or in need of ANYTHING, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God's Son. You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate, and damning him to hell. Yet this is writ in hell and NOT in Heaven, where you are BEYOND attack, and prove his INNOCENCE. The picture of yourself you offer him you show YOURSELF, and give it all your faith. The Holy Spirit offers you, to give to him, a picture of yourself in which there is NO pain and NO reproach at all. And what was martyred to his guilt becomes the perfect witness to his innocence.
The power of witness is beyond belief, because it brings conviction in its wake. The witness is believed BECAUSE he points beyond himself, to what he REPRESENTS. A sick and suffering you but represents your brother's guilt; the witness which you send, lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never will escape. This sick and sorry picture YOU accept, if only it can serve to punish him. The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins.
Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved. Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS.
Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true.
It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world. Its ONLY purpose is TO PROVE GUILT REAL. No worldly thought or act or feeling has a motivation other than this one. These are the witnesses that are called forth to be believed, and lend conviction to the system they speak for and represent. And each has many voices, speaking to your brother and yourself in different tongues. And yet to both the message is the same. Adornment of the body seeks to show how lovely are the witnesses for guilt. Concerns about the body demonstrate how frail and vulnerable is your life; how easily destroyed is what you love. Depression speaks of death and vanity of real concern with anything at all.
The strongest witness to futility, which bolsters all the rest and helps them paint the picture in which sin is justified, is sickness in whatever form it takes. The sick have reason for each one of their unnatural desires and strange needs. For who could live a life so soon cut short, and NOT esteem the worth of passing joys? What pleasures COULD there be that will endure? Are not the frail ENTITLED to believe that every stolen scrap of pleasure is their righteous payment for their little lives? Their death will pay the price for all of them, if they enjoy the benefits or not. The end of life must come, whatever way that life be spent. And so take pleasure in the quickly passing and ephemeral.
These are NOT sins, but witnesses unto the strange belief that sin and death are real, and innocence and sin will end alike, within the termination of the grave. If this were true, there WOULD be reason to remain content to seek for passing joys, and cherish little pleasures where you can. But in this picture is the body NOT perceived as neutral and WITHOUT a goal inherent in itself. For it becomes the symbol of reproach, the sign of guilt whose consequences still are there to see, so that the cause can NEVER be denied. Your function is to PROVE to him that sin can HAVE no cause. How futile MUST it be to see yourself a picture of the proof that what your function IS can never be.
The Holy Spirit's picture changes not the body into something it is not. It only takes away from it ALL signs of accusation and of blamefulness. Pictured WITHOUT a purpose, it is seen as neither sick nor well, nor bad nor good. No grounds are offered that it may be judged in ANY way at all. It has no life, but neither is it dead. It stands apart from ALL experience of fear OR love. For now it witnesses to NOTHING yet, its purpose being open, and the mind made free again to choose what it is FOR. Now it is not condemned, but waiting for a purpose to be GIVEN, that it may fulfill the function that it will receive.
Into this empty space, from which the GOAL of sin has been removed, is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."
The simple way to let this be achieved is merely this; to let the body have no purpose from the past, when you were sure you KNEW its purpose was to foster guilt. For this insists your crippled picture is a lasting sign of what it represents. This leaves no space in which a DIFFERENT view, ANOTHER purpose, can be given it. You do NOT know its purpose. You but gave ILLUSIONS of a purpose to a thing you made to hide your function from yourself. This thing WITHOUT a purpose CANNOT hide the function that the Holy Spirit gave. Let, then, ITS purpose and YOUR function both be reconciled at last, and seen as one.
It IS in your power, IN TIME, to delay the perfect union of the Father and the Son. For in this world, the attraction of guilt DOES stand between them. Neither time nor season means anything in eternity. But here, it is the Holy Spirit's function to use them both, NOT as the ego uses them. This is the season when you would celebrate my birth into this world. Yet you know not how to do it. Let the Holy Spirit teach you, and let ME celebrate YOUR birth through Him. The only gift I can accept of you, is the gift I GAVE you. Release ME, as I willed YOUR release. The time of Christ we celebrate TOGETHER. For it HAS no meaning, if we are apart.
The holy instant is truly the time of Christ. For, in this liberating instant, no guilt is laid upon the Son of God, and his unlimited power is thus restored to him. What OTHER gift can you offer me, when ONLY THIS I will to offer YOU? And to see me, is to see me in everyone, and offer everyone the gift you offer me. I am incapable of receiving sacrifice as God is. And every sacrifice you ask of YOURSELF, you ask of me. Learn NOW that sacrifice, of ANY kind, is nothing but a LIMITATION IMPOSED ON GIVING. And, BY this limitation, you have limited YOUR acceptance of the gift I offer YOU.
We who are one, cannot give separately. When you are willing to accept OUR relationship AS REAL, guilt will hold NO attraction for you. For, in OUR union, you will accept ALL of our brothers. The gift of union is the only gift that I was born to give. Give it to ME, that YOU may have it. The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone. And, by YOUR acceptance of it, you have offered it TO everyone. It IS in your power to make this season holy. For it is in your power to make the time of Christ be NOW.
It is possible to do this all at once, because there is but ONE shift in perception that is necessary. For you made but ONE mistake. It SEEMS like many, but it is all the same. For, though the ego takes many forms, it is ALWAYS the same idea. What is NOT love is always fear, and nothing else. It is not necessary to follow fear through all the circuitous routes by which it burrows underground, and hides in darkness, to emerge in FORMS quite different from what it IS. It IS necessary to examine each one, as long as you would retain the PRINCIPLE which governs all of them. But when you are willing to regard them, NOT as separate, but as DIFFERENT MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SAME IDEA, and ONE YOU DO NOT WANT, they go together.
The idea is simply this; you believe that it is possible to be host to the ego, or hostage to God. This is the choice you think you have, and the decision that you believe that you must make. You see no other alternatives. For you can NOT accept the fact that SACRIFICE GETS NOTHING. Sacrifice is so essential to your thought-system, that salvation, APART from sacrifice, means NOTHING to you. Your confusion of sacrifice and love is so profound that you cannot conceive of love WITHOUT sacrifice. And it is THIS that you must look at; SACRIFICE IS ATTACK, NOT LOVE. If you would accept but this ONE idea, your fear of love would vanish.
Guilt CANNOT last, when the idea of sacrifice has been removed. For, if there MUST be sacrifice, as you are convinced, someone must pay, and someone must get. And the ONLY question that remains to BE decided is HOW MUCH is the price, for getting WHAT. As host to the ego, you believe that you can give ALL your guilt away, WHATEVER you think, and purchase peace. For the payment DOES NOT SEEM TO BE YOURS. While it is obvious that the ego DOES demand payment, it NEVER seems to be demanding it OF YOU. For you are unwilling to recognize that the ego, which you INVITED, is treacherous only to those who think they are its host.
The ego will NEVER let you perceive this, for this recognition WILL make it homeless. For, when this recognition dawns clearly, you will NOT be deceived by ANY form the ego takes, to protect itself FROM your sight. Each form will be recognized as but a cover, for the one idea that hides behind them all. That love demands sacrifice, and is therefore INSEPARABLE from attack and fear. And that GUILT IS THE PRICE OF LOVE, which MUST be paid BY fear. How fearful, then, has God become to you, and how great a sacrifice do you believe His Love demands! For total love would demand total sacrifice. And so the ego seems to demand LESS of you than God, and of the two is judged as the LESSER of two evils, one to be feared a little, but the Other TO BE DESTROYED.
For you see love AS DESTRUCTIVE, and your only question is WHO is to be destroyed, you or another? You seek to answer this question in your special relationships, in which you are both destroyer and destroyed IN PART, but with the idea of being able to be neither completely. And this you think SAVES YOU FROM GOD, whose TOTAL Love would COMPLETELY destroy you. You think that everyone OUTSIDE yourself demands your sacrifice, but you do NOT see that ONLY you demand sacrifice, and ONLY of yourself. Yet the demand of sacrifice is so savage and so fearful, that you CANNOT accept it WHERE IT IS. But the REAL price of NOT accepting this has been so great, that you have GIVEN GOD AWAY, rather than look at it.
For, if GOD would demand total sacrifice of you, you thought it safer to project Him outward and AWAY from you, and NOT be host to Him. For to Him you ascribed the EGO's treachery, inviting it to take His place, and PROTECT you FROM Him. And you do not recognize that it is WHAT YOU INVITED IN that would destroy you, and DOES demand total sacrifice of you. No partial sacrifice will appease this savage guest, for it is an invader who but SEEMS to offer kindness, but ALWAYS to MAKE THE SACRIFICE COMPLETE. You will NOT succeed in being PARTIAL hostage to the ego, for it keeps NO bargains, and would leave you NOTHING. Nor can you be partial HOST to it.
You will have to choose between TOTAL freedom and TOTAL bondage, for there are no alternatives but these. You have tried many compromises, in the attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision that MUST be made. And yet, it is the RECOGNITION of the decision, JUST AS IT IS, that makes the decision so easy! Salvation is simple, being of God, and therefore VERY easy to understand. But do not try to project it FROM you, and see it OUTSIDE yourself. In YOU are both the question and the Answer; the demand for sacrifice and the peace of God.
Strictly speaking the answer is no. How could a separate profession be one in which everyone is engaged? And how could any limits be laid on an interaction in which everyone is both patient and therapist in every relationship into which he enters? Yet practically speaking, it can still be said that there are those who devote themselves primarily to healing of one sort or another as their chief function. And it is to them that a large number of others turn for help. That, in effect, is the practice of therapy. These are therefore "officially" helpers. They are devoted to certain kinds of needs in their professional activities, although they may be far more able teachers outside of them. These people need no special rules, of course, but they may be called upon to use special applications of the general principles of healing.
First, the professional therapist is in an excellent position to demonstrate that there is no order of difficulty in healing. For this, however, he needs special training, because the curriculum by which he became a therapist probably taught him little or nothing about the real principles of healing. In fact, it probably tried to teach him how to make healing impossible. Most of the world's training follows a curriculum in judgment, with the aim of making the therapist a judge.
Even this the Holy Spirit can use, and will use, given the slightest invitation. The unhealed healer may be arrogant, selfish, unconcerned, and actually dishonest. He may be disinterested and unconcerned with healing as his major goal. Yet something happened to him, however slight it may have been, when he chose to be a healer, however misguided the direction he may have chosen. That "something" is enough. Sooner or later that something will rise in awareness and grow; a patient will touch his heart, and the therapist will silently ask him for help. He has himself found a therapist. He has asked the Holy Spirit to enter the relationship and heal it. He has accepted the Atonement for himself.
God is said to have looked on all He created and pronounced it good. No, He declared it perfect, and so it was. And since His creations do not change and last forever, so it is now. Yet neither a perfect therapist nor a perfect patient can possibly exist. Both must have denied their perfection, for their very need for each other implies a sense of lack. A one-to-one relationship is not one Relationship. Yet it is the means of return; the way God chose for the return of His Son. In that strange dream a strange correction must enter, for only that is the call to awake. And what else should therapy be? Awake and be glad, for all your sins have been forgiven you. This is the only message that any two should ever give each other.
Something good must come from every meeting of patient and therapist. And that good is saved for both, against the day when they can recognize that only that was real in their relationship. At that moment it is returned to them, blessed by the Holy Spirit as a gift from their Creator as a sign of His Love. For the therapeutic relationship must become like the relationship of the Father and the Son. There is no other, for there is nothing else. The therapists of this world do not expect this outcome, and many of their patients would not be able to accept help from them if they did. Yet no therapist really sets the goal for the relationships of which he is a part. His understanding begins with recognizing this, and then goes on from there.
It is in the instant that the therapist forgets to judge the patient that healing occurs. In some relationships this point is never reached, although both patient and therapist may arrive at different dreams in the process. Yet it will not be the same dream for both of them, and so it is not the dream of forgiveness in which both will someday wake. The good is saved; indeed is cherished. But only little time is saved and the new dreams will lose their temporary appeal and turn to dreams of fear, which is the content of all dreams. Yet no patient can accept more than he is ready to receive, and no therapist can offer more than he believes he has. And so there is a place for all relationships in this world, and they will bring as much good as each can accept and use.
Yet it is when judgment ceases that healing occurs, because only then it can be understood that there is no order of difficulty in healing. This is a necessary understanding for the healed healer. He has learned that it is no harder to wake a brother from one dream than from another. No professional therapist can hold this understanding consistently in his mind, offering it to all who come to him. There are some in this world who have come very close, but they have not accepted the gift entirely in order to stay and let their understanding remain on earth until the closing of time. They could hardly be called professional therapists. They are the Saints of God. They are the Saviors of the world. Their image remains, because they have chosen that it be so. They take the place of other images, and help with kindly dreams.
Once the professional therapist has realized that minds are joined, he can also recognize that order of difficulty in healing is meaningless. Yet well before he reaches this in time he can go toward it. Many holy instants can be his along the way. A goal marks the end of a journey, not the beginning, and as each goal is reached another can be dimly seen ahead. Most professional therapists are still at the very start of the beginning stage of the first journey. Even those who have begun to understand what they must do may still oppose the setting-out. Yet all the laws of healing can be theirs in just an instant. The journey is not long except in dreams.
The professional therapist has one advantage that can save enormous time if it is properly used. He has chosen a road on which there is great temptation to misuse his role. This enables him to pass by many obstacles to peace quite quickly, if he escapes the temptation to assume a function that has not been given him. To understand there is no order of difficulty in healing, he must also recognize the equality of himself and the patient. There is no halfway point in this. Either they are equal or not. The attempts of therapists to compromise in this respect are strange indeed. Some utilize the relationship merely to collect bodies to worship at their shrine, and this they regard as healing. Many patients, too, consider this strange procedure as salvation. Yet at each meeting there is One Who says, "My brother, choose again."
Do not forget that any form of specialness must be defended, and will be. The defenseless therapist has the strength of God with him, but the defensive therapist has lost sight of the Source of his salvation. He does not see and he does not hear. How, then, can he teach? Because it is the Will of God that he take his place in the plan for salvation. Because it is the Will of God that his patients be helped to join with him there. Because his inability to see and hear does not limit the Holy Spirit in any way. Except in time. In time there can be a great lag between the offering and the acceptance of healing. This is the veil across the Face of Christ. Yet it can be but an illusion, because time does not exist and the Will of God has always been exactly as it is.
Like any good teacher, He DOES know more than you know NOW, but He teaches only to make you equals. This is because you had ALREADY taught wrong, having believed what was not true. YOU DID NOT BELIEVE IN YOUR OWN PERFECTION. Could God teach you that you had made a split mind when He knows your mind only as whole?
What God DOES know is that His communication channels are not open to Him, so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His Children are wholly joyous. This is an ongoing process, not in time, but in eternity. God's extending outward, though not His completeness, was blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one. So He thought, "My Children sleep, and must be awakened."
How can you wake children better and more kindly than with a gentle Voice that will not frighten them, but will merely remind them that the night is over and the Light has come? You do not inform them that the nightmares which frightened them so badly were not real, because children BELIEVE in magic. You merely reassure them that they are safe NOW. Then you train them to RECOGNIZE THE DIFFERENCE between sleeping and waking, so that THEY will understand they need not be afraid of dreams. Then when bad dreams come, they will call on the Light THEMSELVES to dispel them.
A wise teacher teaches through approach, NOT avoidance. He does not emphasize what you must avoid to escape from harm as much as what you need to learn to have joy. This is true even of the world's teachers. Consider the confusion that a child would experience if he were told, "Do not do THIS because it might hurt you and make you unsafe, but if you do THAT you will escape from harm and be safe, and then you will not be afraid." All of this could be included in only three words: "Do only that." That simple statement is perfectly clear, easily understood, and very easily remembered.
The Holy Spirit NEVER itemizes errors, because He does not frighten children, and those who lack wisdom ARE children. But He ALWAYS answers their call, and His dependability makes THEM more certain. Children DO confuse fantasy and reality, and they ARE frightened because they do not know the difference.
The Holy Spirit makes NO distinction among dreams. He merely shines them away. His light is ALWAYS the call to awake, WHATEVER you may have been dreaming. Nothing lasting lies in dreams, and the Holy Spirit, shining with the light from God Himself, speaks only for what lasts forever.
When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that YOU will last forever. Many think that this is accomplished through death, but NOTHING is accomplished through death because death is nothing. EVERYTHING is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the Mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who ARE life. If we share the same mind, YOU CAN OVERCOME DEATH BECAUSE I DID. Death is an attempt to resolve conflict by not willing at all. Like any other impossible solution which the ego attempts, IT WILL NOT WORK.
God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist. The Holy Spirit, as always, takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device FOR you. Again, as always, it re-interprets what the ego uses as an argument FOR separation into an argument AGAINST it.
If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind MUST BE STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this. We have said that the Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracles. This is because He ALWAYS tells you that ONLY the mind is real, because only the mind CAN BE SHARED. The body IS separate, and therefore CANNOT be part of you. To be of one mind is meaningful, but to be of one body is meaningless. By the laws of mind, then, the body IS meaningless.
To the Holy Spirit THERE IS NO ORDER OF DIFFICULTY IN MIRACLES. This is FAMILIAR enough to you by now, but it has not yet become believable. Therefore, you do not understand it and cannot USE it. We have too much to accomplish on behalf of the Kingdom to let this crucial concept slip away. It is a real foundation stone of the thought system I teach and want YOU to teach. You cannot perform miracles without believing it, because it is a belief in perfect equality.
Only one equal gift CAN be offered to the equal Sons of God, and that is FULL APPRECIATION. Nothing more and nothing less. Without a range, order of difficulty IS meaningless, and there must BE no range in what you offer to each other. The Holy Spirit, which leads to God, translates communication into being, just as He ultimately translates perception into knowledge.
You DO NOT LOSE WHAT YOU COMMUNICATE. The ego uses the body for attack, for pleasure, and for pride. The insanity of this perception makes it a fearful one. The Holy Spirit sees it only as a means of COMMUNICATION. And because communicating IS sharing, it becomes communion. You might argue that fear as well as love can be communicated, and therefore can be shared. But this is not so real as it sounds. Those who communicate fear are promoting attack, and attack always BREAKS communication, and therefore makes communion impossible.
Egos DO join together in temporary allegiance, but always for WHAT EACH ONE CAN GET SEPARATELY. The Holy Spirit communicates only WHAT EACH ONE CAN GIVE TO ALL. He never takes ANYTHING back, because He wants YOU to keep it. Therefore, His teaching begins with the lesson: To HAVE, GIVE all TO all.
This is a very preliminary step, and THE ONLY ONE YOU MUST TAKE YOURSELF. It is not even necessary that you COMPLETE the step yourself, but it IS necessary that you turn in that direction. Having willed to go that way, you place YOURSELF in charge of the journey, where you and ONLY you must remain.
This step APPEARS to exacerbate conflict rather than resolve it, because it is the BEGINNING step in reversing your perception and turning it right side up. This conflicts with the upside down perception which you have not yet abandoned, or the change in direction would not have been necessary. Some people remain at this step for a very long time, experiencing VERY acute conflict. Many try to accept the CONFLICT, rather than to take the next step toward its resolution. But having taken the first step, they WILL be helped. Having willed what they CANNOT complete alone, THEY ARE NO LONGER ALONE.
You, Helen, had taken this step, and because you believed in it, you taught it to Bill, who still believed in the solution of sleep. You were not consistent in teaching it, but you did so often enough to enable him to learn it. Once HE learned it, he could teach YOU how to become more consistently awake, and thus begin to waken HIMSELF. This placed him, too, in command of the journey. His recognition of the direction it must take was perfectly stated when he INSISTED ON COLLABORATION.
You, H., had taken a giant step INTO conflict, but Bill turned you both forwards TOWARD THE WAY OUT. The more he teaches this, the more he will learn it.
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.
Healing involves an understanding of what the illusion of sickness is for. Healing is impossible without this.
Healing is accomplished the instant the sufferer no longer sees any value in pain. Who would choose suffering unless he thought it brought him something, and something of value to him? He must think it is a small price to pay for something of greater worth. For sickness is an election; a decision. It is the choice of weakness, in the mistaken conviction that it is strength. When this occurs, real strength is seen as threat and health as danger. Sickness is a method, conceived in madness, for placing God's Son on his Father's throne. God is seen as outside, fierce and powerful, eager to keep all power for Himself. Only by his death can He be conquered by His Son.
And what, in this insane conviction, does healing stand for? It symbolizes the defeat of God's Son and the triumph of his Father over him. It represents the ultimate defiance in a direct form which the Son of God is forced to recognize. It stands for all that he would hide from himself to protect his life. If he is healed, he is responsible for his thoughts. And if he is responsible for his thoughts he will be killed, to prove to him how weak and pitiful he is. But if he chooses death himself, his weakness is his strength. Now has he given himself what God would give to him, and thus entirely usurped the throne of his Creator.
Healing must occur in exact proportion in which the valuelessness of sickness is recognized. One need but say, "There is no gain at all to me in this," and he is healed. But to say this one must first recognize certain facts. First, it is obvious that decisions are of the mind, not of the body. If sickness is but a faulty problem-solving approach, it is a decision. And if it is a decision, it is the mind and not the body that makes it. The resistance to recognizing this is enormous, because the existence of the world as we perceive it depends on the body being the decision-maker. Terms like "instincts," "reflexes" and the like represent attempts to endow the body with non-mental motivators. Actually, such terms merely state or describe the problem. They do not answer it.
The acceptance of sickness as a decision of the mind, for a purpose for which it would use the body, is the basis of healing. And this is so for healing in all forms. A patient decides that this is so, and he recovers. If he decides against recovery he will not be healed. Who is the physician? Only the mind of the patient himself. The outcome is what he decides that it is. Special agents seem to be ministering to him, yet they but give form to his own choice. He chooses them to bring tangible form to his desires. And it is this they do, and nothing else. They are not actually needed at all. The patient could merely rise up without their aid and say, "I have no use for this." There is no form of sickness that would not be cured at once.
What is the single requisite for this shift in perception? It is simply this; the recognition that sickness is of the mind, and has nothing to do with the body. What does this recognition "cost"? It costs the world we see, for the world will never again appear to rule the mind. For with this recognition is responsibility placed where it belongs; not with the world, but on him who looks on the world and sees it as it is not. He looks on what he chooses to see. No more and no less. The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did. Nor does he do anything to the world, because he was mistaken about what it was. Herein is the release from guilt and sickness both, for they are one. Yet to accept this release, the insignificance of the body must be an acceptable idea.
With this idea is pain forever gone. But with this idea goes also all confusion about creation. Does not this follow of necessity? Place cause and effect in their true sequence in one respect, and the learning will generalize and transform the world. The transfer value of one true idea has no end nor limit. The final outcome of this lesson is the remembrance of God. What do guilt and sickness, pain, disaster and all suffering mean now? Having no purpose, they are gone. And with them also go all the effects they seemed to cause. Cause and effect but replicate creation. Seen in their proper perspective, without distortion and without fear, they re-establish Heaven.
If the patient must change his mind in order to be healed, what does the teacher of God do? Can he change the patient's mind for him? Certainly not. For those already willing to change their mind he has no function except to rejoice with them, for they have become teachers of God with him. He has, however, a more specific function for those who do not understand what healing is. These patients do not realize they have chosen sickness. On the contrary, they believe that sickness has chosen them. Nor are they open-minded on this point. The body tells them what to do and they obey. They have no idea how insane this concept is. If they even suspected it they would be healed. Yet they suspect nothing. To them the separation is quite real.
To them God's teachers come to represent another choice which they had forgotten. The simple presence of a teacher of God is a reminder. Their thoughts ask for the right to question what the patient has accepted is true. As God's messengers, they are the symbols of salvation. They ask the patient for forgiveness for God's Son in his own Name. They stand for the Alternative. With God's Word in their minds they come in benediction, not to heal the sick but to remind them of the remedy God has already given them. It is not their hands that heal. It is not their voice that speaks the Word of God. They merely give what has been given them. Very gently they call to their brothers to turn away from death. Behold, you Son of God, what life can offer you. Would you choose sickness in place of this?
Not once do the advanced teachers of God consider the forms of sickness in which their brother believes. To do this is to forget that all of them have the same purpose and therefore are not really different. They seek for God's Voice in this brother who would so deceive himself as to believe God's Son can suffer. And they remind him that he has not made himself, and must remain as God created him. They recognize illusions can have no effect. The truth in their minds reaches out to the truth in the minds of their brothers, so that illusions are not reinforced. They are thus brought to truth, and truth is not brought to them. So are they dispelled, not by the will of another, but by the union of the One Will with Itself. And this is the function of God's teachers; to see no will as separate from their own, nor theirs as separate from God's.
The holy instant is the Holy Spirit's most useful learning device for teaching you love's meaning. For its purpose is to SUSPEND JUDGMENT ENTIRELY. Judgment ALWAYS rests on the past, for PAST experience is the basis on which you judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the past, for WITHOUT it you do NOT understand anything. You would make no ATTEMPT to judge, because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not know WHAT ANYTHING MEANS. You are afraid of this, because you believe that, WITHOUT THE EGO, all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that, without the ego, ALL WOULD BE LOVE.
The past is the EGO's chief learning device, for it is in the past that you learned to define your OWN needs, and acquired methods for meeting them ON YOUR OWN TERMS. We said before that, to limit love to PART of the Sonship, is to bring guilt into your relationships, and thus MAKE THEM UNREAL. If you seek to separate out certain ASPECTS of the totality, and look TO THEM to meet your imagined needs, you are attempting to USE SEPARATION TO SAVE YOU. How, then, could guilt NOT enter? For separation IS the source of guilt, and to APPEAL to it for salvation IS TO BELIEVE YOU ARE ALONE.
To be alone IS to be guilty. For to experience yourself AS alone, is to deny the Oneness of the Father and His Son, and thus to ATTACK REALITY. You cannot love PARTS of reality, and understand what love MEANS. If you would love UNlike to God, Who KNOWS no special love, how CAN you understand it? To believe that SPECIAL relationships, with SPECIAL love, can offer you salvation, IS the belief that separation is salvation. For it is the COMPLETE EQUALITY of the Atonement, in which salvation lies. How can YOU decide that special aspects of the Sonship CAN GIVE YOU MORE THAN OTHERS? The past HAS taught you this. But the holy instant teaches you IT IS NOT SO.
Because of guilt, ALL special relationships have some elements of fear in them. And this is why they shift and change so frequently. They are NOT based on changeless love alone. And love, where fear has entered, CANNOT be depended on, because it is NOT perfect. In His function as Interpreter of what you have made, the Holy Spirit USES special relationships, which YOU have chosen to support the ego, as a learning experience which points to truth. Under His teaching, EVERY relationship becomes a lesson in love.
The Holy Spirit knows NO-ONE IS SPECIAL. But He also perceives that you have MADE special relationships, which He would purify, and NOT let YOU destroy. However UNholy the reason why you made them may be, He can TRANSLATE them into holiness, by removing AS MUCH FEAR AS YOU WILL LET HIM. You can place ANY relationship under His care, and be sure that it will NOT result in pain, if you offer Him your willingness TO HAVE IT SERVE NO NEED BUT HIS. All the guilt in it arises from YOUR use of it. All the love, from His. Do not, then, be AFRAID to let your IMAGINED need, which would DESTROY the relationship, go. Your ONLY need IS His.
Any relationship which you would SUBSTITUTE FOR ANOTHER, has not been offered to the Holy Spirit, for His use. There IS no substitute for love. If you would attempt to substitute ONE aspect of love for ANOTHER, you have placed LESS value on one, and MORE on another. You have not only SEPARATED them, but have also JUDGED AGAINST BOTH. Yet you had judged against yourself FIRST, or you would never have imagined that you needed them AS THEY WERE NOT. Unless you had seen yourself as WITHOUT love, you COULD not have judged them to be LIKE you in lack.
The ego's use of relationships is so fragmented, that it frequently goes even further; one PART of one aspect suits its purposes, while it prefers DIFFERENT parts of another. Thus does it ASSEMBLE reality to its own capricious liking, offering for YOUR seeking, a picture whose likeness DOES NOT EXIST. For there is nothing in Heaven OR earth that it resembles, and so, however much you seek for its reality, you CANNOT find it, because it is NOT real.
Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and, although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here. In the holy instant, no-one is special, for your PERSONAL needs INTRUDE on no-one, to MAKE them different. Without the values from the past you WOULD see them all the same, and LIKE YOURSELF. Nor would you see ANY separation between yourself and them. In the holy instant, you see, in each relationship, what it WILL be, when you perceive ONLY the present.
God knows you NOW. He remembers NOTHING, having ALWAYS known you exactly as He knows you now. The holy instant PARALLELS His knowing, by bringing ALL perception OUT of the past, thus removing the frame of reference you have built, by which to JUDGE your brothers. Once this is gone, the Holy Spirit substitutes His frame of reference FOR it. His frame of reference is simply God. The Holy Spirit's timelessness lies simply here. For in the holy instant, FREE of the past, you see that LOVE IS IN YOU, and you HAVE no need to look WITHOUT, and snatch it guiltily from where you THOUGHT it was.
ALL your relationships are blessed in the holy instant, BECAUSE THE BLESSING IS NOT LIMITED. In the holy instant, the Sonship gains AS ONE. And, UNITED in your blessing, it BECOMES one TO YOU. The meaning of love is the meaning God GAVE to it. Give to it ANY meaning APART from His, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to understand it. Every brother God loves as He loves you; neither less nor more. HE NEEDS THEM ALL EQUALLY, and so do YOU. In time, you have been told to offer miracles as Christ directs, and let the Holy Spirit bring to you those who are seeking you. But in the holy instant, you unite DIRECTLY with God, and ALL your brothers join in Christ.
Those who are joined in Christ are in no way separate. For Christ is the Self the Sonship shares, as God shares His Self with Christ. Think you that you can judge the Self of God? God has created It BEYOND judgment, out of HIS need to extend His love. With Love in you, you HAVE no need EXCEPT TO EXTEND IT. In the holy instant, there is no conflict of needs, for there is ONLY ONE. For the holy instant reaches to eternity, and to the Mind of God. And it is only there that love HAS meaning, and ONLY there CAN it be understood.
It is impossible to use one relationship AT THE EXPENSE of another, and NOT suffer guilt. And it is equally impossible to condemn PART of a relationship and find peace WITHIN it. Under the Holy Spirit's teaching, ALL relationships are seen as TOTAL commitments, yet they do not conflict with one another in ANY way. Perfect faith in each one, for its ability to satisfy you COMPLETELY, arises only from perfect faith in YOURSELF. And this you cannot have, while guilt remains. And there WILL be guilt, as long as you accept the possibility, AND CHERISH IT, that you can make a brother WHAT HE IS NOT, because YOU would have him so.
You have so little faith in yourself, because you are unwilling to accept the fact that perfect love is IN you. And so you seek WITHOUT for what you CANNOT find without. I offer you MY perfect faith in you, IN PLACE of all YOUR doubts. But forget not that my faith MUST be as perfect in ALL your brothers as it is in you, or it would be a limited gift to YOU. In the holy instant, we SHARE our faith in God's Son, because we recognize, together, that he is wholly worthy OF it, and, in our appreciation of his worth, we CANNOT doubt his holiness. And so we love him.
Look upon all the trinkets made to hang upon the body or cover it, or for its use. See all the useless things made for its eyes to see. Think on the many offerings made for its pleasure, and remember all these were made to make seem lovely what you hate. Would you employ this hated thing to draw your brother to you, and to attract HIS body's eyes? Learn you but offer him a crown of thorns, not recognizing it for what it is, and trying to justify your OWN interpretation of its value by HIS acceptance. Yet still the gift proclaims his worthlessness to YOU, as his acceptance and delight acknowledges the lack of value HE places on himself.
Gifts are not made through bodies, if they be truly given and received. For bodies can neither offer nor accept; hold out or take. Only the mind can value, and only the mind decides on what it would receive and give. And every gift it offers depends on what it WANTS. It will adorn its chosen home most carefully, making it ready to RECEIVE the gifts it wants, by offering them to those who come unto its home, or those it would ATTRACT to it. And there they will exchange their gifts, offering and receiving what their minds judge to be worthy of them.
Each gift is an EVALUATION of the receiver AND THE GIVER. No-one but sees his chosen home an altar to HIMSELF. No-one but seeks to DRAW to it the worshippers of what he placed UPON it, making it WORTHY of their devotion. And each has set a light upon his altar, that they may see what he has placed upon it, and take it for their own. Here is the value that you lay upon your brother, and on YOURSELF. Here is your gift to BOTH; your judgment upon the Son of God for what he is. Forget not that it is YOUR Savior to whom the gift is offered. Offer him thorns, and YOU are crucified. Offer him lilies, and it is YOURSELF you free.
I have great need for lilies, for the Son of God has not forgiven me. And can I offer HIM forgiveness, when he offers thorns to me? For he who offers thorns to anyone is against me still, and who is whole WITHOUT him? Be you his Friend for me, that I may be forgiven, and you may look upon the Son of God as whole. But look you first upon the altar in your chosen home, and see what you have laid upon it, to offer me. If it be thorns, whose points gleam sharply in a blood-red light, the body is your chosen home, and it is separation that you offer me.
And yet the thorns are gone. Look you still closer at them now, and you will see your altar is no longer what it was. You look still with the body's eyes. And they CAN see but thorns. But you have asked for AND RECEIVED another sight. Those who accept the Holy Spirit's purpose as their own, share also in His vision. And what enables Him to SEE His purpose shine forth from every altar, now is yours as well as His. He sees NO strangers only dearly loved and loving Friends. He sees no thorns, but only lilies, gleaming in the gentle glow of peace that shines on everything He looks upon and loves.
This Easter, look with DIFFERENT eyes upon each other. You HAVE forgiven me. And yet, I cannot USE your gift of lilies, while you see them not. Nor can YOU use what I have given, unless you SHARE it. The Holy Spirit's vision is no idle gift, no plaything to be tossed about a while and laid aside. Listen and hear this carefully, nor think it but a dream; -- a careless thought to play with, or a toy you would pick up from time to time and then put by. For if you do, so will it be to you. You have the vision to look past ALL illusions. It has been given you to see no thorns, no strangers, and NO obstacles to peace.
The fear of God is NOTHING to you now. Who is afraid to look upon illusions, KNOWING his Savior stands beside him? WITH him, your vision has become the greatest power for the UNDOING of illusion that God Himself could give. For what God gave the Holy Spirit, YOU have received. The Son of God looks unto YOU for his release. For you have asked for AND BEEN GIVEN the strength to look upon this final obstacle, and see no thorns nor nails to crucify the Son of God, and crown him king of death. Your chosen home is on the other side, BEYOND the veil. It has been carefully prepared for you, and it is ready to receive you now.
You will not see it with the body's eyes. But all you need, you have. Your home has called to you since time began, nor have you ever failed entirely to hear. You heard, but knew not HOW to look, nor WHERE. And now you KNOW. In you the knowledge lies, ready to be unveiled and freed from all the terror that kept it hidden. There IS no fear in love. The song of Easter is the glad refrain the Son of God was NEVER crucified. Let us lift up our eyes together, not in fear, but FAITH. And there WILL be no fear in us, for in our vision will be NO illusions. Only a pathway to the open door of Heaven, the home we share in quietness, and where we live in gentleness and peace, as One together.
Would you not have your holy brother lead you there? His innocence will light your way, offering you its guiding light and sure protection, and shining from the holy altar within him, where you laid the lilies of forgiveness. Let him be to you the Savior from illusions, and look on him with the new vision that looks upon the lilies, and brings YOU joy. We go beyond the veil of fear, lighting each other's way. The holiness that leads us is WITHIN us, as is our home. So will we find what we were MEANT to find, by Him Who leads us.
This is the way to Heaven and to the peace of Easter, in which we join in glad awareness that the Son of God is risen from the past, and has awakened to the present. Now is he free, unlimited in his communion with all that is within him. Now are the lilies of his innocence untouched by guilt, and perfectly protected from the cold chill of fear and withering blight of sin alike. Your gift has saved him from the thorns and nails, and his strong arm is free to guide you safely through them, and BEYOND. Walk with him now rejoicing, for the Savior from illusions has come to greet you, and lead you home with HIM.
Here is your Savior and your Friend, RELEASED from crucifixion through YOUR vision, and free to lead you now where HE would be. He will not leave you, nor forsake the Savior from HIS pain. And gladly will you walk the way of innocence together, singing as you behold the open door of Heaven, and RECOGNIZE the home that called to you. Give joyously to one another the freedom and the strength to lead you there. And come before each other's holy altar, where the strength and freedom wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness that leads you home. The lamp is lit in both of you, for one another. And by the hands that GAVE it to each other, shall both of you be led past fear to Love.
Without a cause there can be no effects, and yet, without effects, there is no CAUSE. The cause a cause is MADE by its effects; the Father IS a father by His Son. Effects do not CREATE their cause, but they ESTABLISH its causation. Thus the Son gives fatherhood to his Creator, and RECEIVES the gift that he has given Him. It is BECAUSE he is God's Son that he must ALSO be a father, who creates as God created him. The circle of creation has no end. Its starting and its ending are the same. But, in itself, it holds the universe of all creation, without beginning AND without an end.
Fatherhood is creation. Love MUST be extended. Purity is not confined. It is the NATURE of the innocent to be forever uncontained, without a barrier or limitation. Thus is purity NOT of the body. Nor can it be FOUND where limitation is. The body CAN be healed by its EFFECTS, which are as limitless as is itself. Yet must all healing come about because the mind is recognized as NOT within the body, and its innocence is quite APART from it, and where ALL healing IS. Where, then, is healing? ONLY where its cause is GIVEN its effects. For sickness is a meaningless attempt to give effects to causelessness, and MAKE it be a cause.
Always in sickness does the Son of God attempt to make himself his cause, and NOT allow himself to be his Father's Son. For this impossible desire, he does not believe that he is Love's EFFECTS, and must be cause BECAUSE of what he is. The cause of healing is the ONLY Cause of everything. It has but ONE effect. And, in that recognition, causelessness is GIVEN no effects, and none are SEEN. A mind within a body, and a world of other bodies, each with SEPARATE minds, are your "creations," you the "other" mind, creating with effects UNLIKE yourself. And, AS their father, you must be like them.
Nothing at all has happened, but that you have put yourself to sleep, and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself, and but a part of someone ELSE's dream. The miracle does not awaken you, but merely shows you who the DREAMER is. It teaches you there IS a choice of dreams while you are still asleep, depending on the PURPOSE of your dreaming. Do you wish for dreams of healing, or for dreams of death? A dream is like a memory, in that it pictures what you WANTED shown to you. An empty storehouse, with an open door, holds ALL your shreds of memories and dreams.
Yet, if you are the DREAMER, you perceive this much at least; that YOU have caused the dream, and can accept ANOTHER dream as well. But, for this change in content of the dream, it MUST be realized that it is YOU who dreamed the dreaming that you do not like. It is but an effect that YOU have caused, and you would not BE cause of this effect. In dreams of murder and attack are YOU the victim, in a dying body slain. But, in forgiving dreams, is NO-ONE asked to be the victim and the sufferer. These are the happy dreams the miracle exchanges for your own. It does NOT ask you make another. ONLY that you see you made the one you would EXCHANGE for this.
This world is CAUSELESS, as is every dream that anyone has dreamed within the world. No plans are possible, and no design exists that could be found and understood. What else could be EXPECTED from a thing that has no cause? But, if it HAS no cause, IT HAS NO PURPOSE. You may cause a dream, but never will you give it real EFFECTS. For that would change its CAUSE, and it is this you CANNOT do. The dreamer of a dream is NOT awake, but does NOT know he sleeps. He sees ILLUSIONS of himself as sick or well, depressed or happy, but without a stable cause with GUARANTEED effects.
The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No-one is AFRAID of them, when he perceives HE MADE THEM UP. The fear was held in place BECAUSE he did not see that he was AUTHOR of the dream, and not a figure IN the dream. He gives HIMSELF the consequences that he dreams he gave his brother. And it is but this the dream has put together and has offered him, to show him that his wishes have been done. Thus does he fear his OWN attack, but sees it at another's hands. As victim, he is suffering from its effects, but NOT their cause. He authored NOT his own attack, and he is innocent of what he caused.
The miracle does nothing but to show him that HE has done nothing. What he fears is cause WITHOUT the consequences which would MAKE it cause. And so it never was. The separation started with the dream the Father was deprived of His effects, and powerless to keep them, since He was no longer their Creator. In the dream, the dreamer made HIMSELF, but what he made had turned AGAINST him, taking on the role of its creator, as the dreamer had. And, as he hated HIS Creator, so the figures in the dream have hated HIM. His body is their slave, which they abuse because the motives HE has given it have THEY adopted as their own. And hate it for the vengeance IT would offer THEM.
It is THEIR vengeance on the body which appears to prove the dreamer COULD not be the maker of the dream. Effect and cause are first split off, and then REVERSED, so that effect becomes a cause; the cause, effect. This is the separation's final step, with which salvation, which proceeds to go the OTHER way, begins. This final step is an effect of what has gone before, APPEARING as a cause. The miracle is the first step in giving BACK to cause the function of causation, NOT effect. For THIS confusion has produced the dream, and, while it lasts, will wakening be feared. Nor will the Call to wakening be heard, because it SEEMS to be the call of fear.
Like EVERY lesson that the Holy Spirit requests you learn, the miracle is clear. It DEMONSTRATES what He would have you learn, and SHOWS you its effects are what you WANT. In its forgiving dream, are the EFFECTS of yours undone, and hated enemies perceived as friends, with merciful intent. Their enmity is seen as causeless now, BECAUSE they did not make it. And you can accept the role of maker of their hate BECAUSE you see that it has no effects. Now are you freed from this much of the dream; the world is neutral, and the bodies which still seem to move about as separate things NEED NOT BE FEARED. And so they are NOT sick.
The miracle returns the CAUSE of fear to you who made it. But it ALSO shows that, HAVING no effects, it is NOT cause, because the function of causation is to HAVE effects. And where effects are gone, there IS no cause. Thus is the body healed by miracles BECAUSE they show the mind MADE sickness, and employed the body to be victim, or EFFECT, of what it made. But HALF the lesson will not teach the whole. The miracle is useless, if you learn but that the BODY can be healed, for this is NOT the lesson it was sent to teach. The lesson is the MIND was sick that thought the body COULD be sick; projecting OUT its guilt caused NOTHING, and had NO effects.
This world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream's ALTERNATIVE, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. They are the glad effects of taking back the consequence of sickness to its cause. The body is released, because the mind acknowledges "this is not DONE TO me, but I am doing this." And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead. Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder gone, and ALL the dreaming of the world undone.
No one can judge on partial evidence. That is not judgment. It is merely an opinion based on ignorance and doubt. Its seeming certainty is but a cloak for the uncertainty it would conceal. It needs irrational defense because it is irrational. And its defense seems strong, convincing, and without a doubt, because of all the doubting underneath.
You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body's eyes. Nor do you ask why you believe it, even though you learned a long while since your senses do deceive. That you believe them to the last detail which they report is even stranger when you pause to recollect how frequently they have been faulty witnesses indeed! Why would you trust them so implicitly? Why but because of underlying doubt which you would hide with show of certainty?
How can you judge? Your judgment rests upon the witness that your senses offer you. Yet witness never falser was than this. But how else do you judge the world you see? You place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report. You think your fingers touch reality and close upon the truth. This is awareness which you understand, and think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice of God Himself.
Can this be judgment? You have often been urged to refrain from judging, not because it is a right to be withheld from you. You cannot judge. You merely can believe the ego's judgments, all of which are false. It guides your senses carefully, to prove how weak you are; how helpless and afraid, how apprehensive of just punishment, how black with sin, how wretched in your guilt.
This thing it speaks of and would yet defend it tells you is yourself. And you believe that this is so with stubborn certainty. Yet underneath remains the hidden doubt that what it shows you as reality with such conviction it does not believe. It is itself alone that it condemns. It is within itself it sees the guilt. It is its own despair it sees in you.
Hear not its voice. The witnesses it sends to prove to you its evil is your own are false, and speak with certainty of what they do not know. Your faith in them is blind because you would not share the doubts their lord can not completely vanquish. You believe to doubt his vassals is to doubt yourself.
Yet you must learn to doubt their evidence will clear the way to recognize yourself, and let the Voice for God alone be Judge of what is worthy of your own belief. He will not tell you that your brother should be judged by what your eyes behold in him, nor what his body's mouth says to your ears, nor what your fingers' touch reports of him. He passes by such idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness to God's Son.
He recognizes only what God loves, and in the holy light of what He sees do all the ego's dreams of what you are vanish before the splendor He beholds. Let Him be Judge of what you are, for He has certainty in which there is no doubt because it rests on Certainty so great that doubt is meaningless before Its Face. Christ cannot doubt Himself. The Voice of God can only honor Him, rejoicing in His perfect, everlasting sinlessness.
Whom He has judged can only laugh at guilt, unwilling now to play with toys of sin, unheeding of the body's witnesses before the rapture of His holy Face. And thus He judges you. Accept His word of what you are, for He bears witness to your beautiful creation and the Mind Whose Thought created your reality.
What can the body mean to Him Who knows the glory of the Father and the Son? What whispers of the ego can He hear? What could convince Him that your sins are real? Let Him be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to you in this world. His lessons will enable you to bridge the gap between illusions and the truth.
He will remove all faith that you have placed in pain, disaster, suffering and loss. He gives you vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle Face of Christ in all of them. You will no longer doubt that only good can come to you who are beloved of God, for He will judge all happenings and teach the single lesson which they all contain.
He will select the elements in them that represent the truth, and disregard those aspects which reflect but idle dreams. And He will reinterpret all you see, and all occurrences, each circumstance, and every happening which seems to touch on you in any way from His one frame of reference, wholly unified and sure. And you will see the love beyond the hate, the constancy in change, the pure in sin, and only Heaven's blessing on the world.
Such is your resurrection, for your life is not a part of anything you see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as Itself. In everyone and everything His Voice would speak to you of nothing but your Self and your Creator, Who is One with Him. So will you see the holy Face of Christ in everything, and hear in everything no sound except the echo of God's Voice.
We practice wordlessly today, except at the beginning of the time you spend with God. We introduce these times with but a single, slow repeating of the thought with which the day begins. And then we watch our thoughts, appealing silently to Him Who sees the elements of truth in them. Let Him evaluate each thought that comes to mind, remove the elements of dreams, and give them back to you as clean ideas which do not contradict the Will of God.
Give Him your thoughts, and He will give them back as miracles which joyously proclaim the wholeness and the happiness God wills His Son as proof of His eternal Love. And as each thought is thus transformed, it takes on healing power from the Mind Which saw the truth in it, and failed to be deceived by what was falsely added. All the threads of fantasy are gone, and what remains is unified into a perfect Thought that offers Its perfection everywhere.
Spend fifteen minutes thus when you awake, and gladly give another fifteen more before you go to sleep. Your ministry begins as all your thoughts are purified. So are you taught to teach the Son of God the holy lesson of his sanctity. No one can fail to listen when you hear the Voice of God give honor to God's Son. And everyone will share the thoughts with you which He has retranslated in your mind.
Such is your Eastertide. And so you lay the gift of snow-white lilies on the world, replacing witnesses to sin and death. Through your transfiguration is the world redeemed and joyfully released from guilt. Now do we lift our resurrected minds in gladness and in gratitude to Him Who has restored our sanity to us.
And we will hourly remember Him Who is salvation and deliverance. As we give thanks, the world unites with us, and happily accepts our holy thoughts, which Heaven has corrected and made pure. Now has our ministry begun at last, to carry 'round the world the joyous news that truth has no illusions, and the peace of God, through us, belongs to everyone.