The betrayal of the Son of God lies only in illusions, and all his "sins" are but his own imagining. His REALITY is forever sinless. He need not be forgiven but AWAKENED. In his dreams he HAS betrayed himself, his brothers and his God. Yet what is done in dreams has not been REALLY done. It is impossible to convince the DREAMER that this is so, for dreams are what they are BECAUSE of their illusion of reality. Only in waking is the full release from them, for only then does it become PERFECTLY apparent that they had no effect on reality at all, AND DID NOT CHANGE IT.
FANTASIES CHANGE REALITY. That is their purpose. They CANNOT do so IN reality, but they CAN do so in the mind that would HAVE REALITY DIFFERENT. It is, then, only your WISH to change reality that is fearful, because, by your wish you think you have ACCOMPLISHED what you wish. This strange position, in a sense, ACKNOWLEDGES your power, yet by DISTORTING it, and devoting it to 'evil,' it also MAKES IT UNREAL. You cannot be faithful to two masters, who ask of you conflicting things. What you use in fantasy, you DENY to truth. But what you GIVE to truth, to use FOR you, is SAFE from fantasy.
Can you imagine what it means to have no cares, no worries, no anxieties, but merely to be perfectly calm and quiet all the time? Yet that is what time is for; to learn just that, and nothing more. God's Teacher cannot be satisfied with His teaching, until it constitutes ALL your learning. He has not fulfilled His teaching function until you have become such consistent learners THAT YOU LEARN ONLY OF HIM. When this has happened, you will no longer need a teacher, or time in which to learn.
One of the sources of perceived discouragement from which you suffer, is your belief that THIS TAKES TIME, and that the results of the Holy Spirit's teaching are far in the future. This is not so. For the Holy Spirit USES time in His OWN way, and is NOT bound to it. Time is His friend in teaching. It does not waste Him, as it does you. But all the waste that time seems to bring with it, is due but to your identification with the ego, who uses time to support ITS belief in destruction. The ego, like the Holy Spirit, uses time to convince you of the inevitability of the goal and end of learning. To the ego, the goal is death, which IS its end. But to the Holy Spirit, the goal is life, which HAS no end.
You have been told not to make error real, and the way to do this is very simple. If you WANT to believe in error, you would HAVE to make it real, because it is not true. But TRUTH is real in its OWN right, and to believe in truth, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO ANYTHING. Understand that you do not respond to stimuli, but to STIMULI AS YOU INTERPRET THEM. Your interpretation thus becomes the JUSTIFICATION for the response. That is why analyzing the motives of others is hazardous to YOU. If you decide that someone is REALLY trying to attack you, or desert you or enslave you, you will respond as if he had actually DONE so, BECAUSE you have made his error REAL to you. To interpret error is to GIVE IT POWER, and, having done this, you WILL overlook truth.
The analysis of ego motivation is very complicated, very obscuring, and NEVER without the risk of your own ego involvement. The whole process represents a clear-cut attempt to demonstrate YOUR OWN ability to understand what you perceive. This is demonstrated by the fact that you REACT to your interpretations as if they WERE correct, and control your reactions behaviorally, BUT NOT EMOTIONALLY. This is quite evidently a mental split, in which you have attacked the integrity of your mind, and pitted one level within it against another.
Either God or the ego is insane. If you will examine the evidence ON BOTH SIDES fairly, you will realize that this MUST be true. Neither God nor the ego proposes a partial thought system. Each is internally consistent, but they are diametrically opposed in all respects, so that partial allegiance is impossible. But remember that their results are as different as their foundations, and their fundamentally irreconcilable natures CANNOT be resolved by YOUR vacillations. Nothing alive is fatherless, for life is creation. Therefore, your decision is always an answer to the question, "Who is my father?" And you WILL be faithful to the father you choose.
Yet what would you say to someone who REALLY believed this question involves conflict? If YOU made the ego, how can the ego have made YOU? The authority problem remains the ONLY source of perceived conflict, because the ego was MADE out of the wish of God's Son to father HIM. The ego, then, is nothing more than a delusional system in which YOU MADE YOUR OWN FATHER. Make no mistake about this. It sounds insane when it is stated with perfect honesty, but the ego never looks upon what it does with perfect honesty. Yet that IS its insane premise, which is carefully hidden in the dark cornerstone of its thought system. And either the ego, which you made, IS your father, or its whole thought system will not stand.
The wish to be unfairly treated is a compromise attempt that would COMBINE attack and innocence. Who can combine the wholly incompatible, and make a unity of what can NEVER join? Walk you the gentle way, and you will fear no evil and no shadows in the night. But place no terror symbols on the path, or you will weave a crown of thorns from which your brother and yourself will NOT escape. You CANNOT crucify yourself alone. And if you are unfairly treated, he MUST suffer the unfairness that you see. You CANNOT sacrifice yourself alone. For sacrifice is total. If it could occur at all, it would entail the whole of God's creation, and the Father with the sacrifice of his beloved Son.
In your RELEASE from sacrifice is HIS made manifest, and shown to be his own. But every pain you suffer do you see as proof that HE is guilty of attack. Thus would you make yourself to be the sign that he has LOST his innocence, and need but look on you to realize that HE has been condemned. And what to YOU has been unfair will come to HIM in righteousness. The unjust vengeance that you suffer now belongs to HIM, and when it RESTS on him, are YOU set free. Wish not to make yourself a living symbol of his guilt, for you will NOT escape the death you make for him, and in HIS innocence you find your own.
Forget not that the motivation for this course is the attainment and the KEEPING of the state of peace. Given this state, the mind is quiet, and the condition in which God is remembered is attained. It is not necessary to tell Him what to do. He will not fail. Where He can enter, there He is already. And can it be He can NOT enter where He wills to be? Peace will be yours BECAUSE it is His Will. Can you believe a shadow can hold back the Will that holds the universe secure? God does not wait upon illusions to let Him be Himself. No more His Son. They ARE. And what illusion that idly seems to drift between them has power to defeat what IS Their Will?
To learn this course requires willingness to question EVERY value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure, but it will jeopardize your learning. NO belief is neutral; every one has power to dictate each decision you make. For a decision is a CONCLUSION, based on EVERYTHING that you believe. It is the OUTCOME of belief, and follows it as surely as does suffering follow guilt, and freedom sinlessness. There IS no substitute for peace. What God creates has NO alternative. The truth arises from what He knows. And your decisions come from your beliefs as certainly as all creation rose in His Mind BECAUSE of what He knows.
Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that. But, though it is no MORE than that, it is NOT less. Therefore, to YOU, it IS important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the OUTSIDE picture of an INWARD condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the WORLD, but will to change your mind ABOUT the world. Perception is a RESULT, and NOT a cause. And that is WHY order of miracles is meaningless. EVERYTHING looked upon with vision is healed and holy. NOTHING perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos.
Damnation is your judgment on YOURSELF. And this you WILL project upon the world. See IT as damned, and all you see is what YOU did to hurt the Son of God. If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free. There is no choice that lies between these two decisions. And you will see the WITNESS to the choice you made, and learn from this to RECOGNIZE the one you made. The world you see but shows you how much joy YOU have allowed yourself to see in you, and to accept as YOURS. And, if this IS its meaning, then the power to GIVE it joy MUST lie WITHIN you.
This is the first idea we have had which is related to a major phase of the correction process; the reversal of the thinking of the world. It seems as if the world determines what you perceive. Today's idea introduces the concept that your thoughts determine the world you see. Be glad indeed to practice it in this initial form, for in this idea is your release made sure. The key to forgiveness lies in it.
The practice periods for today's idea are to be undertaken somewhat differently from the previous ones. Begin with eyes closed, and repeat the idea slowly to yourself. Then open your eyes and look about, near or far, up or down, -- anywhere. During the minute or so to be spent in using the idea, merely repeat it to yourself, being sure to do so without haste and with no sense of urgency or effort.
To do these exercises for maximum benefit, the eyes should move from one thing to another fairly rapidly, since they should not linger on anything in particular. The words, however, should be used in an unhurried, even leisurely fashion. The introduction to this idea should be practiced as casually as possible. It contains the foundation for the peace, relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve. On concluding the exercises, close your eyes and repeat the idea once more, slowly to yourself.
Three practice periods today will probably be sufficient. However, if there is little or no uneasiness and an inclination to do more, as many as five may be undertaken. More than this is not recommended.
We said before that, when a situation has been dedicated WHOLLY to truth, peace is inevitable. Its attainment is the criterion by which the wholeness of the dedication can be safely assumed. But we also said that peace without faith will NEVER be attained, for what is WHOLLY dedicated to truth as its ONLY goal is BROUGHT to truth by faith. This faith encompasses EVERYONE involved, for only thus the situation is perceived as meaningful and as a WHOLE. And everyone must BE involved in it, or else YOUR faith is limited, and your dedication incomplete.
Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal the Son of God. And he is healed BECAUSE you offered faith to him, giving him to the Holy Spirit and RELEASING him from every demand your ego would make of him. Thus do you SEE HIM FREE, and in this vision does the Holy Spirit SHARE. And since He SHARES it He HAS given it, and so He healed THROUGH YOU. It is this JOINING Him in a UNITED purpose that MAKES this purpose real, because YOU make it WHOLE. And this IS healing. The BODY is healed BECAUSE YOU CAME WITHOUT IT, and joined the Mind in which all healing rests.
The relationship of anger to attack is obvious, but the inevitable association of anger and FEAR is not always so clear. Anger ALWAYS involves PROJECTION OF SEPARATION, which must ultimately be accepted as entirely one's own responsibility. Anger cannot occur unless you believe that you have BEEN attacked; the attack was JUSTIFIED; and you are in no way responsible for it. Given these three wholly irrational premises, the equally irrational conclusion that a brother is worthy of attack rather than of love follows. What can be expected from insane premises EXCEPT an insane conclusion?
The way to undo an insane conclusion is always to consider the sanity of the premises on which it rests. You cannot BE attacked, attack HAS no justification, and you ARE responsible for what you believe. You have been asked to take me as your model for learning. And we have often said that an extreme example is a particularly helpful learning device. EVERYONE teaches, and teaches all the time. This is a responsibility which he assumes inevitably, the moment he has accepted any premises at all. And NO ONE can organize his life without ANY thought system. Once he has developed a thought system of any kind, he lives by it and TEACHES it.
You have been chosen to teach the Atonement precisely BECAUSE you have been EXTREME examples of allegiance to your thought systems, and therefore have developed the capacity FOR allegiance. It has indeed been misplaced. Bill had become an outstanding example of allegiance to apathy, and you have become a startling example of fidelity to variability. But this IS a form of faith, which you yourselves had grown willing to redirect. You cannot doubt the STRENGTH of your devotion when you consider how faithfully you observed it. It was quite evident that you had ALREADY developed the ability to follow a better model, if you could ACCEPT it.