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.
Be not afraid to look upon the special hate relationship, for freedom lies here. It would be impossible NOT to know the meaning of love, EXCEPT FOR THIS. For the special love relationship, IN WHICH THE MEANING OF LOVE IS LOST, is undertaken SOLELY to OFFSET this, but NOT to LET IT GO. Your salvation will rise clearly before your open eyes, as you look on this. YOU CANNOT LIMIT HATE. The special love relationship will NOT offset it, but will merely DRIVE IT UNDERGROUND, and out of sight. It is essential to bring it INTO sight, and to make NO attempt to hide it. For it is the attempt to BALANCE hate with love that makes love meaningless to you.
The extent of the split that lies in this you do NOT realize. And until you do, the split will remain unrecognized, AND THEREFORE UNHEALED. The symbols of hate against the symbols of love play out a conflict that does not exist. For symbols stand for something else, and the SYMBOL of love IS without meaning, if love is everything. You will go through this last undoing quite unharmed, and will emerge AS YOURSELF. This is the last step in the readiness for God. Be not unwilling now, you are too near, and you WILL cross the bridge in perfect safety, translated quietly from war to peace. For the ILLUSION of love will NEVER satisfy you. But its REALITY, which awaits you on the other side, WILL give you everything.
The special love relationship is an attempt to limit the destructive EFFECTS of hate, by finding a haven in the storm of guilt. It makes NO attempt to RISE ABOVE the storm, into the sunlight. On the contrary, it EMPHASIZES guilt OUTSIDE the haven, by attempting to build barricades AGAINST it, and keep WITHIN them. The special love relationship is NOT perceived as of value IN ITSELF, but as a place of safety, from which hatred is split off, and KEPT APART. The special love partner is acceptable ONLY as long as he serves this purpose. Hatred can enter, and, indeed, is WELCOME in some ASPECTS of the relationship, but it is still held together by the illusion of love. If the illusion goes, the relationship is broken or becomes unsatisfying, on the grounds of DISillusionment.
LOVE IS NOT AN ILLUSION. It is a FACT. Where DISillusionment is possible, there was NOT love, but HATE. For hate IS an illusion, and what can change was NEVER love. It is certain that those who select certain ones as partners in ANY aspect of living, and use them for ANY purpose which they would NOT share with others, are trying to LIVE WITH guilt rather than DIE OF it. This is the choice they see. And love to them is only AN ESCAPE FROM DEATH. They seek it desperately, NOT in the peace in which it would gladly come quietly TO them. And when they find the fear of death is still upon them, the "love" relationship loses the illusion that it IS what it is NOT. For, when the barricades against it are broken, fear rushes in and hatred triumphs.
There are no triumphs of love. Only hate is concerned with the triumph of love at all. The ILLUSION of love CAN triumph over the illusion of hate, but ALWAYS at the price of MAKING BOTH ILLUSIONS. As long as the illusion of hatred lasts, so long WILL love be an illusion to you. And then the ONLY choice that remains possible, is which illusion you PREFER. There IS no conflict in the choice between truth and illusion. Seen in these terms, NO-ONE would hesitate. But conflict enters the instant the choice seems to be one BETWEEN ILLUSIONS, for this choice does NOT matter. Where one choice IS as dangerous as the other, the decision MUST be one of despair.
Your task is NOT to seek for love, but merely to seek and FIND all of the barriers WITHIN YOURSELF that you have built AGAINST it. It is NOT necessary to seek for what is true, but it IS necessary to seek for what is FALSE. Every illusion is one of fear, WHATEVER form it takes. And the attempt to escape from one illusion INTO ANOTHER, MUST fail. If you seek love OUTSIDE yourself, you can be certain that you perceive hatred within, AND ARE AFRAID OF IT. Yet peace will never come from the ILLUSION of love, but ONLY from its reality.
Recognize this, for it is true, and truth MUST be recognized, if it is to be distinguished from illusion: the special love relationship is an attempt TO BRING LOVE INTO SEPARATION. And, as such, it is nothing more than an attempt to bring love into fear, and MAKE IT REAL IN FEAR. In fundamental violation of love's one condition, the special love relationship would thus ACCOMPLISH THE IMPOSSIBLE. How but in illusion COULD this be done? It is essential that we look VERY closely at exactly what it is you THINK you can do, to solve a dilemma which seems very real to you, but which does not exist. You have come very close to truth. And only this stands between you and the bridge that leads you into it. Heaven waits silently, and your creations are holding out their hands to help you cross, and welcome them.
FOR IT IS THEY YOU SEEK. You seek but for your own COMPLETION, and it is they who render you complete. The special love relationship is but a shabby substitute for what makes you whole IN TRUTH, NOT in illusion. Your relationship with them IS without guilt, and THIS enables you to look on all your brothers with gratitude, because your creations were created in union WITH them. Acceptance of your creations IS the acceptance of the oneness of creation, without which you would never BE complete. No specialness can offer you what God has given, and what YOU are joined WITH Him in giving. Across the bridge IS your completion, for you will be WHOLLY in God, willing for NOTHING special, but only to be wholly like unto Him, completing Him by your completion.
Fear not to cross to the abode of peace and perfect holiness. Only there is the completion of God and of His Son established forever. Seek not for this in the bleak world of illusion, where nothing is certain, and where everything fails to satisfy. And, in the Name of God, be wholly willing to abandon ALL illusion. In any relationship in which you are wholly willing to accept completion, and ONLY this, there is God completed, and His Son WITH Him. The bridge that leads to union IN YOURSELF, MUST lead to knowledge, for it was built with God beside you. And will lead you straight to Him, where YOUR completion rests, WHOLLY compatible with His.
Every illusion which you accept into your mind, BY JUDGING IT TO BE ATTAINABLE, removes your own sense of completion, and thus denies the Wholeness of your Father. Every fantasy, be it of love OR hate, DEPRIVES you of knowledge. For fantasies ARE the veil behind which truth is hidden. To lift the veil, which seems so dark and heavy, it is only needful to VALUE truth beyond ALL fantasy, and to be entirely UNwilling to settle for illusion IN PLACE of truth. Would you not go THROUGH fear to Love? For such the journey SEEMS to be. Love calls, though hate would bid you stay.
Hear not the call of hate, and see no fantasies. For your completion lies in truth, and NOWHERE ELSE. See in the call of hate, and in every fantasy that rises to delay you, but the call for help, that rises ceaselessly from you to your Creator. Would He not answer you; whose completion is His? He loves you, wholly WITHOUT illusion, as you must love. For love IS wholly without illusion, and therefore wholly WITHOUT FEAR. Whom God remembers, MUST be whole. And God has NEVER forgotten what makes HIM whole. In YOUR completion lies the memory of HIS wholeness, and His gratitude to you for His completion.
In His link with you lie both His INABILITY to forget, and YOUR ability to remember. In Him are joined your WILLINGNESS to love, and all the love of God, Who forgot you not. Your Father can no more forget the truth in you, than you can fail to remember it. The Holy Spirit is the bridge to Him, made from your willingness to UNITE with Him, and created by His joy, in union WITH you. The journey that SEEMED to be endless is ALMOST complete, for what IS endless is very near. YOU HAVE ALMOST RECOGNIZED IT. Turn with me firmly away from ALL illusion NOW, and let nothing stand in the way of truth. We will take the last foolish journey AWAY FROM truth together. And then TOGETHER we go straight to God, in joyous answer to His call for His completion.
If special relationships of ANY kind would HINDER God's completion, CAN they have any value TO YOU? What would interfere with God, MUST interfere with you. Only in time does interference in God's completion SEEM to be possible. The bridge that He would carry you across, lifts you FROM time into eternity. Waken from time, and answer fearlessly the call of Him Who gave eternity to you in your creation. On this side of the bridge to timelessness, you understand nothing. But, as you step lightly across it, upheld BY Timelessness, you are directed straight to the heart of knowledge. At Its center, and ONLY there, you are safe forever, BECAUSE YOU ARE COMPLETE FOREVER. There is no veil the love of God in us together CANNOT lift. The way to Truth is open. Follow it with me.
You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the "gifts" it merely lends to take away again, attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.
The world gives rise but to defensiveness. For threat brings anger, anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet is defensiveness a double threat. For it attests to weakness, and sets up a system of defense which cannot work. Now are the weak still further undermined, for there is treachery without and still a greater treachery within. The mind is now confused, and knows not where to turn to find escape from its imaginings.
It is as if a circle held it fast, wherein another circle bound it, and another in that one, until escape no longer can be hoped for nor obtained. Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days which bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again. There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of imprisonment upon the mind.
Defenses are the costliest of all the prices which the ego would exact. In them lies madness in a form so grim that hope of sanity seems but to be an idle dream, beyond the possible. The sense of threat the world encourages is so much deeper and so far beyond the frenzy and intensity of which you can conceive that you have no idea of all the devastation it has wrought. You are it's slave. You know not what you do in fear of it. You do not understand how much you have been made to sacrifice who feel its iron grip upon your heart.
You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defensiveness. For you behold the Son of God as but a victim to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions he has made; yet helpless in their presence, needful only of defense by still more fantasies and dreams, by which illusions of his safety comfort him.
Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Perhaps you will recall the course maintains that choice is always made between His strength and your own weakness seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants.
Defensiveness is weakness. It proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear His Father's anger. What can save you now from your delusion of an angry god whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend you now, when it is but illusions which you fight?
We will not play such childish games today, for our true purpose is to save the world, and we would not exchange for foolishness the endless joy our function offers us. We would not let our happiness slip by because a senseless fragment of a dream happened to cross our minds, and we mistook the figures in it for the Son of God; its tiny instant for eternity.
We look past dreams today, and recognize that we need no defense because we are created unassailable, without all thought or wish or dream in which attack has any meaning. Now we cannot fear, for we have left all fearful thoughts behind. And in defenselessness we stand secure, serenely certain of our safety now, sure of salvation; sure we will fulfill our chosen purpose as our ministry extends its holy blessing through the world.
Be still a moment, and in silence think how holy is your purpose, how secure you rest, untouchable within its light. God's ministers have chosen that the truth be with them. Who is holier than they? Who could be surer that his happiness is fully guaranteed? And who could be more mightily protected? What defense could possibly be needed by the ones who are among the chosen ones of God by His election and their own as well?
It is the function of God's ministers to help their brothers choose as they have done. God has elected all, but few have come to realize His Will is but their own. And while you fail to teach what you have learned salvation waits, and darkness holds the world in grim imprisonment. Nor will you learn that light has come to you, and your escape has been accomplished. For you will not see the light until you offer it to all your brothers. As they take it from your hands, so will you recognize it as your own.
Salvation can be thought of as a game that happy children play. It was designed by One Who loves His children, and Who would replace their fearful toys with joyous games, which teach them that the game of fear is gone. His game instructs in happiness because there is no loser. Everyone who plays must win, and in his winning is the gain to everyone ensured. The game of fear is gladly laid aside when children come to see the benefits salvation brings.
You who have played that you are lost to hope, abandoned by your Father, left alone in terror in a fearful world made mad by sin and guilt, be happy now. That game is over. Now a quiet time has come in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of Heaven's children and the Son of God.
We pause but for a moment more, to play our final happy game upon this earth. And then we go to take our rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless. So is the story ended. Let this day bring the last chapter closer to the world, that everyone may learn the tale he reads of terrifying destiny, defeat of all his hopes, his pitiful defense against a vengeance he can not escape, was but his own deluded fantasy. God's ministers have come to waken him from the dark dreams this story has evoked in his confused, bewildered memory of this distorted tale. God's Son can smile at last, on learning that it is not true.
Today we practice in a form we will maintain for quite a while. We will begin each day by giving our attention to the daily thought as long as possible. Five minutes now becomes the least we give to preparation for a day in which salvation is the only goal we have. Ten would be better; fifteen better still. And as distraction ceases to arise to turn us from our purpose, we will find that half an hour is too short a time to spend with God. Nor will we willingly give less at night in gratitude and joy.
Each hour adds to our increasing peace, as we remember to be faithful to the Will we share with God. At times, perhaps, a minute, even less, will be the most that we can offer as the hour strikes. Sometimes we will forget. At other times the business of the world will close on us, and we will be unable to withdraw a little while and turn our thoughts to God.
Yet when we can, we will observe our trust as ministers of God in hourly remembrance of our mission and His Love. And we will quietly sit by and wait on Him and listen to His Voice, and learn what He would have us do the hour that is yet to come; while thanking Him for the gifts He gave us in the one gone by.
In time, with practice, you will never cease to think of Him, and hear His loving Voice guiding your footsteps into quiet ways, where you will walk in true defenselessness, for you will know that Heaven goes with you. Nor would you keep your mind away from Him a moment, even though your time is spent in offering salvation to the world. Think you He will not make this possible for you who chose to carry out His plan for the salvation of the world and yours?
Today our theme is our defenselessness. We clothe ourselves in it as we prepare to meet the day. We rise up strong in Christ, and let our weakness disappear, as we remember that His strength abides in us. We will remind ourselves that He remains beside us through the day, and never leaves our weakness unsupported by His strength. We call upon His strength each time we feel the threat of our defenses undermine our certainty of purpose. We will pause a moment, as He tells us "I am here."
Our practicing will now begin to take the earnestness of love to help you keep your mind from wandering from its intent. Be not afraid nor timid. There can be no doubt that you will reach your final goal. The ministers of God can never fail, because the love and strength and peace that shine from them to all their brothers come from Him. These are His gifts to you. Defenselessness is all you need to give Him in return. You lay aside but what was never real, to look on Christ and see His sinlessness.