Lesson 190 "I choose the joy of God instead of pain."

Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Father's hatred of His Son, the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane desire for revenge and death.

Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false? Pain is but witness to the Son's mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love Which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love.

Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad and seen as traitor to Himself. If God is real there is no pain. If pain is real there is no God. For vengeance is not part of love, and fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain.

Peace to such foolishness! The time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. There is no need to think of them as savage crimes or secret sins with weighty consequence. Who but a madman could conceive of them as cause of anything? Their witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared than the insane illusions which it shields and tries to demonstrate must still be true.

It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.

My holy brothers, think of this awhile; the world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want. Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable forever and forever. And would you deny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain, a sickly place where living things must come at last to die?

The world may seem to cause you pain. And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects. As an illusion it is what you will. Your idle wishes represent its pains. Your strange desires bring it evil dreams. Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live.

Lay down your arms and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven's peace holds all things still at last. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. Let no attack enter with you. Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness.

Here will you understand there is no pain. Here does the joy of God belong to you. This is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson which contains all of salvation's power. It is this: Pain is illusion; joy reality. Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening. Pain is deception; joy alone is truth.

And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven. Let our gratitude unto our Teacher fill our hearts as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world.

Section 3 - The Rationale for Choice

There IS a rationale for choice. Only ONE teacher KNOWS what your reality is. If learning that is the PURPOSE of the curriculum, you MUST learn it of Him. The ego does NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS TRYING TO TEACH. It is trying to teach you what you are WITHOUT KNOWING IT. The ego is expert ONLY in confusion. It does not understand ANYTHING ELSE. As a teacher, then, it is totally confused and TOTALLY CONFUSING.

Even if you could disregard the Holy Spirit entirely, which is quite impossible, you could learn nothing from the ego, because the ego KNOWS nothing. Is there ANY possible reason for choosing a teacher such as this? Does the TOTAL disregard of ANYTHING it teaches make anything BUT sense? Is THIS the teacher to whom a Son of God should turn to find HIMSELF? The ego has never given you a sensible answer to anything. Simply on the grounds of your own experience with the ego's teaching, should not this alone disqualify it as your future teacher?

But the ego has done more harm to your learning than this alone. Learning is joyful if it leads you along your natural path, and facilitates the development of WHAT YOU HAVE. But when you are taught AGAINST your nature, you will lose by your learning, because your learning will IMPRISON you. Your will is IN your nature, and therefore CANNOT go AGAINST it. The ego cannot teach you anything as long as your will is free, because you WILL NOT LISTEN TO IT. It is NOT your will to be imprisoned, BECAUSE your will is free.

That is why the ego IS the denial of free will. It is NEVER God Who coerces you, because He SHARES His Will WITH you. His voice teaches ONLY His Will, but that is not the Holy Spirit's lesson, because that is what you ARE. The LESSON is that your will and God's CANNOT be out of accord because they ARE one. This is the UNdoing of EVERYTHING the ego tries to teach. It is not, then, only the DIRECTION (of the curriculum?) which must be unconflicted, but also the CONTENT.

The ego wants to teach you that you want to OPPOSE God's Will. This unnatural lesson CANNOT be learned, but the ATTEMPT to learn it is a violation of your own freedom, and makes you AFRAID of your will BECAUSE it is free. The Holy Spirit opposes ANY imprisoning of the will of a Son of God, KNOWING that the will of the Son IS the Father's. He leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond EVERYTHING that would hold you back.

We said before that the Holy Spirit teaches you the difference between pain and joy. That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom. YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS DISTINCTION WITHOUT HIM. That is because you have taught YOURSELF that imprisonment IS freedom. Believing them to be the same, how can you tell them apart? Can you ask the part of your mind that taught you to believe they ARE the same to teach you the DIFFERENCE?

The Holy Spirit's teaching takes only one direction, and has only one goal. His direction is freedom, and His goal is God. But He cannot conceive of God without YOU, because it was not God's Will to BE without you. When you have learned that your will IS God's, you could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without YOU. This IS freedom and this IS joy. Deny YOURSELF this, and you ARE denying God His Kingdom, because He created you FOR this.

When we said, "all power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His," this is what we meant: The Will of God is without limit, and all power and glory lie within it. It is boundless in strength and in love and in peace. It has no boundaries because its extension is unlimited, and it encompasses all things because it CREATED all things. By CREATING all things, it made them PART OF ITSELF. YOU are the Will of God, because this is how you were created. Because your Creator creates only like Himself, you ARE like Him.

Section 8 - The Need for Faith

There is NO problem in ANY situation that faith will not solve. There is no SHIFT in any ASPECT of the problem, but will make SOLUTION IMPOSSIBLE. For if you shift PART of a problem elsewhere, the meaning of the problem MUST be lost, and the SOLUTION to the problem is INHERENT in its meaning. Is it not possible that ALL your problems HAVE BEEN solved, but you have removed YOURSELF from the solution? Yet faith MUST be where something has BEEN done, and where you SEE it done. A situation is a relationship, being the joining of thoughts. If problems are perceived, it is because the thoughts are judged to be IN CONFLICT. But if the goal is TRUTH, this is impossible. Some idea of bodies MUST have entered, for minds can NOT attack.

The thought of bodies IS the sign of faithlessness, for bodies CANNOT solve anything. And it is their INTRUSION on the relationship, an error in YOUR thoughts ABOUT the situation, that then became the JUSTIFICATION for your lack of faith. You WILL make this error, but be not at all concerned with that. The error does not matter. But do not USE the error to what SEEMS to be to your advantage, for that DOES matter. Faithlessness brought to faith, will never interfere with truth. But faithlessness used AGAINST truth will ALWAYS destroy faith. If you lack faith, ask that it be restored WHERE IT WAS LOST, and seek not to have it MADE UP TO YOU elsewhere, as if you had been unjustly DEPRIVED of it.

Only what YOU have not given CAN be lacking in ANY situation. But remember this; the goal of holiness was set for YOUR relationship, AND NOT BY YOU. YOU did not set it, because holiness can NOT BE SEEN except through faith, and your relationship was not holy BECAUSE your faith in one another was so limited and little. Your faith must grow, to meet the goal that has been set. The goal's REALITY will call this forth. For you will see that peace and faith will not come separately. What situation can you be in WITHOUT FAITH, and remain faithful to each other? EVERY situation in which you find yourselves, is but a means to meet the purpose set for YOUR relationship. See it as something ELSE, and you ARE faithless.

USE NOT YOUR FAITHLESSNESS. Let it enter, and look upon it calmly, but DO NOT USE IT. Faithlessness is the servant of illusion, and wholly faithful to its master. USE it, and it will carry you straight to illusions. Be tempted not by what it offers you. It interferes, not with the goal, but with the VALUE of the goal TO YOU. Accept not the illusion of peace it offers, but look upon its offering, and recognize it IS illusion. The GOAL of illusion is as closely tied to faithlessness, as faith to truth. If you lack faith in ANYONE to fulfill, AND PERFECTLY, his part in ANY situation dedicated IN ADVANCE to truth, YOUR dedication is divided. And so you have been faithless TO EACH OTHER, and USED your faithlessness AGAINST each other.

And you can use THIS in perfect safety. Yet, for all its might, so great it reaches past the stars and to the universe that lies beyond them, your little faithlessness can make IT useless, if you would use the faithlessness instead. But think on this, and learn the CAUSE of faithlessness; you think you hold against another what he has done to you. But what you REALLY blame him for is WHAT YOU DID TO HIM. It is not HIS past but YOURS, you hold against him. And you lack faith in HIM, because of what YOU were. Yet YOU are as innocent of what you were, as HE is. What never was is causeless, and IS NOT THERE to interfere with truth. There IS no cause for faithlessness, but there IS a Cause for faith.

That Cause has entered ANY situation that shares its purpose. The light of truth shines from the center of the situation, and touches everyone to whom the situation's purpose calls. IT CALLS TO EVERYONE. There is NO situation that does NOT involve your WHOLE RELATIONSHIP, in every aspect and complete in every part. You can leave NOTHING of yourself outside it, and keep the situation holy. For it shares the purpose of your whole relationship, and derives its meaning FROM it. Enter each situation with the faith that you would give each other, or you ARE faithless to your own relationship. YOUR faith will call the others to SHARE your purpose, as this same purpose called forth the faith in you.

And you will see the means you once employed to lead you to illusions, transformed to means for truth. Truth calls for faith, and faith makes room FOR TRUTH. When the Holy Spirit CHANGED the purpose of your relationship by exchanging yours for His, the goal He placed there WAS extended to every situation in which you entered, or will EVER enter. And EVERY situation was thus MADE FREE of the past, which WOULD have made it purposeLESS. You CALL FOR faith, because of Him Who walks with you in every situation. You are no longer wholly insane, NOR NO LONGER ALONE. For loneliness in God MUST be a dream. You whose relationship SHARES the Holy Spirit's goal, are SET APART from loneliness, because the truth has come. Its call for faith is strong. Use not your faithlessness against it, for it calls you to salvation and to peace.

Section 7 - The Vision of Christ

The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world, and lose your own Soul. The Holy Spirit teaches that you CANNOT lose your Soul and there IS no gain in the world, for OF ITSELF, it profits nothing. To invest in something WITHOUT profit is surely to impoverish yourself, and the overhead is high. Not only is there no profit in the investment, but the cost TO YOU is enormous. For this investment costs you the world's reality, by DENYING YOURS, and gives you nothing in return. You CANNOT sell your Soul, but you CAN sell your AWARENESS of it.

You CHOSE to forget your Father, but you did NOT will to do so. And THEREFORE, you CAN decide otherwise. As it was MY decision, so is it YOURS. YOU DO NOT WANT THE WORLD. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it YOU look upon with love. This GIVES it the only reality it will ever have. ITS value is NOT in itself, but yours IS in you. As self value comes from self EXTENSION, so does the PERCEPTION of self value come from the projection of loving thoughts outward.

Make the world real unto YOURSELF, for the real world is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so it BELONGS to you. Correction is for all who cannot see. To open the eyes of the blind is the Holy Spirit's mission, for He knows that they have not LOST their vision, but merely sleep. He would awaken them from the sleep of forgetting, to the remembering of God. Christ's eyes are open, and He will look upon whatever you see with love - if you accept His vision as yours.

The Holy Spirit keeps the vision of Christ for every Son of God who sleeps. In His sight, the Son of God is perfect, and He longs to share His vision WITH you. He will SHOW you the real world, because God GAVE you Heaven. Through Him, your Father calls His Son to remember. The awakening of His Son begins with his investment in the REAL world, and BY this, he will learn to REinvest in HIMSELF. For reality is one with the Father AND the Son, and the Holy Spirit blesses the real world in Their Name.

When you have seen this real world, as you will surely do, you WILL remember us. But you must learn the cost of sleeping, AND REFUSE TO PAY IT. Only then will you decide to awake. And then the real world will spring to your sight, for Christ has never slept. He is waiting to be seen, for He has never lost sight of YOU. He looks quietly on the real world, which He would SHARE with you, because He knows of the Father's love for Him. And knowing this, He would give you what is yours.

In perfect peace, He waits for you at His Father's altar, holding out the Father's love to you, in the quiet light of the Holy Spirit's blessing. For the Holy Spirit will lead everyone home to his Father, where Christ waits as his Self. Every Child of God is one in Christ, for his Being is in Christ, as Christ's is in God. Christ's love for you is His love for His Father, which He knows because He knows His Father's love for Him. When the Holy Spirit has at last led you to Christ, at the altar to His Father, perception fuses into knowledge, because perception has become so holy that its transfer to Holiness is merely its natural extension.

Love transfers to love without ANY interference, for the situations are identical. Only the ABILITY to make this transfer is the product of learning. As you perceive more and more common elements in ALL situations, the transfer of your training, under the Holy Spirit's guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually, you learn to apply it to everyone and everything, for its applicability IS universal. When this has been accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the unification of the Laws of God. What is One cannot be perceived as separate, and the denial of the separation IS the reinstatement of knowledge.

At the altar of God, the holy perception of God's Son becomes so enlightened that light streams into it, and the Spirit of God's Son shines in the Mind of the Father, and becomes one with it. Very gently does God shine upon Himself, loving the extension of Himself which is His Son. The world has no purpose, as it blends into the Purpose of God. For the real world has slipped quietly into Heaven, where everything eternal in it has always been. There, the Redeemer and the redeemed join in perfect love of God, and of each other. Heaven is your home, and being in God, it must ALSO be in you.

Section 4 - Reason and the Holy Relationship

The introduction of reason into the ego's thought system is the beginning of its undoing. For reason and the ego are CONTRADICTORY. Nor is it possible for them to co-exist in your AWARENESS. And reason's goal IS to make plain, and therefore obvious. You can SEE reason. This is not a play on words, for here is the beginning of a vision that has meaning. Vision is sense, quite literally. If it is not the body's sight, it MUST be understood. FOR IT IS PLAIN, and what is obvious is NOT ambiguous. It CAN be understood. And here do reason and the ego separate, to go their DIFFERENT ways.

The ego's whole continuance depends on its belief you cannot learn this course. SHARE this belief, and reason will be unable to SEE your errors, and make way for their correction. For reason SEES THROUGH errors, telling you what you THOUGHT was real is not. Reason CAN see the difference between sin and mistakes, because it WANTS correction. Therefore it tells you what you thought was uncorrectable, CAN be corrected. And therefore MUST have been an error. The ego's OPPOSITION to correction leads to its fixed belief in sin, and DISREGARD of errors. IT looks on NOTHING that can be corrected.

Thus does the ego damn, and reason save. Reason is not salvation in itself, but it MAKES WAY for peace, and brings you to a state of mind in which salvation can be given you. Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and WITHOUT a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would TRY to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to ATTEMPT to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily BECAUSE it is an error. The FORM it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from REASON's eyes.

ONLY the form of error attracts the ego. Meaning it does not RECOGNIZE, and does not know if it is there or not. Everything which the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole, without the meaning that the whole would give. And yet mistakes, regardless of their form, can be corrected. Sin is but error in a special form the ego venerates. It would preserve ALL errors, and make them sins. For here is its OWN stability, its heavy anchor in the shifting world it made; the rock on which its church is built, and where its worshippers are bound to bodies, and believe the body's freedom is their own.

Reason will tell you that the FORM of error is not what makes it a mistake. If what the form CONCEALS is a mistake, the FORM can not prevent correction. The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see BEYOND what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and NOT see past it. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see ONLY illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside FORM of nothing. To this distorted form of vision, the OUTSIDE of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true.

Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it WERE a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see. For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. What was its maker's GOAL, but not to see? For THIS the body's eyes are perfect means. But NOT for seeing. See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning.

Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form MEANS understanding HAS BEEN obscured. Only MISTAKES have different forms, and so they CAN deceive. You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is NOT reality, it MUST be an illusion. And is Not THERE to see. And, IF you see it, you MUST be mistaken, for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it WERE. What cannot see BEYOND what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions AS THE TRUTH. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?

Let not the FORM of his mistakes keep you from him whose holiness is YOURS. Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you YOUR forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see. Let your awareness of your brother NOT be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body. What is there in him that you would attack, EXCEPT what you associate with his body, which YOU believe can sin? BEYOND his errors is his holiness, and YOUR salvation. You gave him not his holiness, but tried to see your sins in him, to save yourself. And yet his holiness IS your forgiveness. Can YOU be saved by making sinful the one whose holiness IS your salvation?

Section 3 - The Laws of Mind

To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother AND yourself by SHARING THE HOLY SPIRIT WITH HIM. This places you both WITHIN the Kingdom and restores ITS wholeness in your minds. This PARALLELS creation because it UNIFIES BY INCREASING, and INTEGRATES BY EXTENDING.

WHAT YOU PROJECT YOU BELIEVE. This is an immutable law of mind in this world as well as in the Kingdom. However, its CONTENT is somewhat different in this world from what it REALLY is, because the thoughts it governs are VERY different from the thoughts in the Kingdom. Laws must be adapted to circumstances, if they are to maintain order.

The outstanding characteristic of the laws of mind, as they operate in this world, is that by obeying them, and I assure you that you MUST obey them, you can arrive at diametrically opposed results. This is because the laws have adapted to the circumstances of this world, in which diametrically opposed outcomes are BELIEVED in. The laws of mind govern thoughts, and you DO respond to two conflicting voices. You have heard many arguments on behalf of "the freedoms," which would indeed have BEEN freedom if man had not chosen to FIGHT for them. That is why they perceive "the freedoms" as many instead of ONE.

But the argument that underlies the DEFENSE of freedom is perfectly valid. Because it is true, it should not be FOUGHT for, but it SHOULD be sided WITH. Those who are AGAINST freedom believe that its outcome will hurt them, which CANNOT be true. But those who are FOR freedom, even if they are misguided in HOW they defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which IS true. Whenever anyone can listen fairly to both sides of ANY issue, he WILL make the right decision. This is because he HAS the answer. Conflict can indeed be projected, but it MUST be intrapersonal first.

The term "intraPERSONAL" is an ego term, because "personal" implies of ONE person, and NOT of others. "Interpersonal" has a similar error, because it implies something that exists between DIFFERENT individuals. When we spoke before of the extremely PERSONAL nature of revelation, we followed this statement immediately with a description of the inevitable outcomes of the revelation in terms of SHARING. A PERSON conceives of himself as separate, largely because he perceives OF himself as bounded by a body. ONLY if he perceives as a MIND can he overcome this. THEN he is free to use terms like "intraMENTAL" and "interMENTAL" WITHOUT seeing them as different and conflicting, because minds CAN be in perfect accord.

OUTSIDE the Kingdom, the law which prevails INSIDE it is ADAPTED to "what you project you believe." This is its TEACHING form, because outside the Kingdom teaching is mandatory because learning is essential. This form of the law clearly implies that you will learn what YOU are from what you have projected onto others and therefore believe THEY are. IN the Kingdom, there is no teaching OR learning, because there is no BELIEF. There is only CERTAINTY. God and His Sons, in the surety of Being, KNOW that what you project you ARE.

The Holy Spirit IS the translator of the Laws of God to those who do NOT understand them. YOU could not do this yourselves because conflicted minds CANNOT be faithful to one meaning, and will therefore CHANGE THE MEANING TO PRESERVE THE FORM. The Holy Spirit's purpose in translating is naturally EXACTLY the opposite. He translates ONLY to preserve the original meaning in ALL respects and in ALL languages. Therefore, He OPPOSES differences in form as meaningful, and emphasizes always that THESE DIFFERENCES DO NOT MATTER. The meaning of His message is ALWAYS the same, and ONLY the meaning matters.

God's Law of Creation, in perfect form, does NOT involve the USE of truth to convince His sons OF truth. The EXTENSION of truth, which IS the Law of the Kingdom, rests only on the knowledge of WHAT TRUTH IS. This is your INHERITANCE, and requires no learning at all. But when you DISinherited YOURSELVES, you BECAME learners. No-one questions the intimate connection of learning and memory. Learning is impossible WITHOUT memory, because it CANNOT be consistent UNLESS it is remembered.

That is why the Holy Spirit IS a lesson in remembering. We said before that He teaches remembering and FORGETTING, but the forgetting aspect is only TO MAKE THE REMEMBERING CONSISTENT. You forget to REMEMBER BETTER. You will NOT understand His translations while you listen to two ways of perceiving them. Therefore, you must forget or relinquish one to UNDERSTAND the other. This is the only way you can LEARN consistency, so that you can finally BE consistent. What can the perfect consistency of the Kingdom MEAN to the confused? It MUST be apparent that confusion INTERFERES with meaning, and therefore PREVENTS THE LEARNER FROM APPRECIATING IT.

There is NO confusion in the Kingdom, because there IS only one meaning. This Meaning comes from God and IS God. Because it is also YOU, you share it and EXTEND it AS YOUR CREATOR DID. This needs no translation, because it is perfectly understood, but it DOES need extension because it MEANS extension. Communication here is perfectly direct and perfectly united. It is totally without strain, because nothing discordant EVER enters. That is why it IS the Kingdom of God. It belongs to Him and is therefore LIKE Him. That IS its reality, and nothing CAN assail it.

Section 2 - The Imagined World

Never forget the world the sightless "see" MUST be imagined. And what it REALLY looks like IS unknown to them. They must infer what COULD be seen, from evidence forever indirect, and RECONSTRUCT their inferences as they stumble and fall because of what they did NOT recognize, or walk unharmed through open doorways that they THOUGHT were closed. And so it is with you. You do NOT see. Your cues for inference are wrong, and so you stumble and fall down upon the stones you did not recognize. But fail to be aware you CAN go through the doors you THOUGHT were closed, but which stand open before unseeing eyes, waiting to WELCOME you.

It is not this you would deny. YOUR question is whether the means by which this course is learned WILL bring the joy it promises. If you BELIEVED it would, the LEARNING of it would be NO problem. You are not happy learners yet, because you still remain uncertain that vision gives you MORE than judgment does, and you HAVE learned that both you CANNOT have. The blind become ACCUSTOMED to their world by their adjustments TO it. They think they know their way about in it. They learned it not through joyous lessons, but through the stern necessity of limits they believed they could not overcome. And, STILL believing this, they hold those lessons dear, and cling to them BECAUSE they cannot see.

They do not understand the lessons KEEP them blind. This they do NOT believe. And so they keep the world they learned to "see" in their imagination, believing that their choice is that, or nothing. They hate the world they learned through pain. And everything they think is in it, serves to remind them that THEY are incomplete and bitterly deprived. Thus they DEFINE their life and where they live it, ADJUSTING to it as they think they must, afraid to lose the little that they have. And so it is with all who see the body as all they have, and all their brothers have. They try to reach each other, and they fail. And fail again. And they ADJUST to loneliness, believing that to KEEP the body is to SAVE the little that they have.

Listen, and try to think if you remember what we will speak of now. Listen, -- perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar. Like a song whose name is long forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached not to a person or a place, or anything particular. But you remember, from just this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you heard it, and how you loved those who were there, and listened with you.

The notes are nothing; yet you have kept them with you, not for themselves, but as a soft reminder of what would make you weep, if you remembered how dear it was to you. You COULD remember, yet you are afraid, believing you would lose the world you learned since then. And yet you know that nothing in the world you learned is half so dear as this. Listen, and see if you remember an ancient song you knew so long ago, and held more dear than any melody you taught yourself to cherish since. Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past EVERYTHING you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes.

The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it no longer is contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity, forever shining, and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it, EVERYTHING is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything COULD be outside. For there IS nowhere that this light is not. This is the vision of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you ARE; a PART of this, with ALL of it within you, and JOINED to all of it as surely as all is joined to you.

ACCEPT the vision that can show you this, and NOT the body. You KNOW the ancient song, and know it well. Nothing will ever be as dear to you as is this ancient hymn of love the Son of God sings to his Father still. And now the blind can see, for that same song they sing in honor of their Creator, gives praise to them as well. The blindness that they made will not withstand the memory of this song. And they will look upon the vision of the Son of God, remembering who he is they sing of. What is a miracle, but this remembering? And who is there in whom this memory lies not? The light in one, awakens it in all. And, when you see it in each other, you ARE remembering for everyone.

Section 4 - The Reward of Teaching

You have taught well, and yet you have not learned how to ACCEPT the comfort of your teaching. If you will consider WHAT you have taught, and how alien it is to what you THOUGHT you knew, you will be COMPELLED to recognize that your Teacher came from BEYOND your thought-system, and so could look upon it fairly, and perceive it was untrue. And He MUST have done so from the basis of a very different thought-system, and one with NOTHING IN COMMON WITH YOURS. For certainly, what He has taught, and what you taught THROUGH Him, HAS nothing in common with what you taught BEFORE He came. And the results have been to bring peace where there was pain, and suffering has disappeared, to be replaced by joy.

You HAVE taught freedom, but you have NOT learned how to be free. We once said, "By their fruits ye shall know them, and they shall know themselves." For it is certain that you judge YOURSELF according to your teaching. The ego's teaching produces IMMEDIATE results, because ITS decisions are immediately ACCEPTED AS YOUR CHOICE. And this acceptance MEANS that you are willing to judge yourself accordingly. Cause and effect are very clear in the ego's thought-system, because all your learning has been directed toward ESTABLISHING the relationship between them. And would you NOT have faith in what you have so diligently taught yourself to believe? But remember how much care you have exerted in choosing its witnesses, and in AVOIDING those who spoke for the Cause of truth, and ITS effects.

Does not the fact that you have NOT learned what you HAVE taught, show you that you do NOT perceive the Sonship as one? And does it not also show you that you do not regard YOURSELF as one? For it is impossible to teach successfully, WHOLLY without conviction, and it is equally impossible that conviction be OUTSIDE you. You could never have taught freedom, unless you DID believe in it. And it MUST be that what you taught CAME FROM YOURSELF. And yet, this self you clearly DO NOT KNOW, and do not recognize EVEN THOUGH IT FUNCTIONS. What functions, must be THERE. And it is ONLY if you deny WHAT IT HAS DONE, that you could possibly deny its presence.

This is a course in how to KNOW yourself. You have TAUGHT what you are, but have NOT let what you are, teach YOU. You have been VERY careful to avoid the obvious, and NOT to see the REAL cause and effect relationship that is PERFECTLY apparent. Yet, within you, is EVERYTHING you taught. What can it be, that has NOT learned it? It must be this that is REALLY outside yourself, NOT by your own projection, BUT IN TRUTH. And it is this, that you have TAKEN IN, that is NOT you. What YOU accept into your minds, does not REALLY change them. Illusions are but beliefs in WHAT IS NOT THERE. And the seeming conflict between truth and illusion can ONLY be resolved by SEPARATING YOURSELF FROM THE ILLUSION, and NOT from truth.

You who are host to God, are also host to THEM. For nothing real has ever left the mind of its Creator. And what is NOT real was NEVER there. You are NOT two selves in conflict. What is BEYOND GOD? If you who hold Him, and whom He holds, ARE the universe, all else must be OUTSIDE, where NOTHING is. YOU have taught this, and from far off in the universe, yet NOT beyond yourself, the witnesses to your teaching have gathered to help you learn. Their gratitude has joined with yours and God's, to strengthen your faith in what you taught. FOR WHAT YOU TAUGHT IS TRUE. Alone, you stand OUTSIDE your teaching and APART from it. But WITH them, you MUST learn that you but taught YOURSELF, and LEARNED from the conviction you SHARED with them.

This year you will begin to learn, and make learning COMMENSURATE with teaching. You have CHOSEN this, by your own willingness to teach. Though you seemed to suffer for it, the joy of teaching will yet be yours. For the joy of teaching is IN THE LEARNER, who offers it to the teacher in gratitude, and shares it WITH him. As you learn, your gratitude to your SELF, Who teaches you what He IS, will grow and help you honor Him. And you will learn His power and strength and purity, and love Him as His Father does. His Kingdom has no limits and no end, and there is nothing in Him that is not perfect and eternal. All this is YOU, and nothing OUTSIDE of this IS you. To your most Holy Self all praise is due, for what you are, and for what He is Who created you AS you are.

Sooner or later must everyone bridge the gap which he imagines exists between his selves. Each one builds this bridge, which CARRIES HIM ACROSS the gap, as soon as he is willing to expend some little effort on behalf of bridging it. His little efforts are powerfully supplemented by the strength of Heaven, and by the united will of all who make Heaven what it is, being joined within it. And so the one who would cross over, is literally transported there. Your bridge is builded stronger than you think, and your foot is planted firmly on it. Have no fear that the attraction of those who stand on the other side and wait for you, will not draw you safely across. For you WILL come where you would be, and where your Self awaits you.

Section 5 - Practicing the Holy Instant

This course is not beyond IMMEDIATE learning, unless you prefer to believe that WHAT GOD WILLS TAKES TIME. And this means ONLY that you would rather DELAY the recognition that His Will IS so. The holy instant is THIS one, and EVERY one. The one you WANT it to be, it IS. The one you would NOT have it be, is lost to you. YOU must decide on WHEN it is. Delay it not. For beyond the past and future, in which you will NOT find it, it stands in shimmering readiness for your acceptance.

Yet you cannot bring it into glad awareness while you do not want it, for it holds the whole RELEASE from littleness. Your practice MUST therefore rest upon your willingness to let all littleness go. The instant in which magnitude will dawn upon you, is but as far away as your DESIRE for it. As long as you desire it not, and cherish littleness instead, by so much is it far from you. By so much as you want it, will you bring it nearer. Think not that you can find Salvation in your own way, and HAVE it.

Give over EVERY plan that you have made for your Salvation, in exchange for God's. HIS will content you, for there IS nothing else that can bring you peace. For peace is of God, and of no-one beside Him. Be humble before Him, and yet great IN Him. And value NO plan of the ego, BEFORE the plan of God. For you leave your place in His plan, which you MUST fulfill if you would join with me, empty by your decision to join in any plan BUT His. I call you to fulfill your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world, for its release from littleness. God would have His host abide in perfect freedom.

You can claim the holy instant ANY time and ANYWHERE you want it. In your practice, try to give over EVERY plan you have accepted, for finding magnitude in littleness. IT IS NOT THERE. USE the holy instant ONLY to recognize that you alone CANNOT know where it is, and can only DECEIVE yourself. I stand within the holy instant, as clear as you would have me. And the extent to which you learn to be willing to ACCEPT me, IS the measure of the time in which the holy instant will be yours. I call to you to make the holy instant yours AT ONCE, for the release from littleness in the mind of the host of God, depends on willingness, and NOT on time.

The reason why this course is simple, is that TRUTH is simple. Complexity is of the ego, and is nothing more than the ego's attempt to obscure the obvious. You could live forever in the holy instant, BEGINNING NOW and reaching to eternity, but for a very simple reason. Do not obscure the simplicity of this reason, for, if you do, it will be ONLY because you prefer NOT to recognize it, and NOT to let it go. The simple reason, stated simply as what it is, is this: The holy instant is a time in which you receive AND GIVE perfect communication. This means, however, that it is a time in which your mind is OPEN, both to receive AND give. It is the recognition that all minds ARE in communication. It therefore seeks to CHANGE nothing, but merely to ACCEPT everything.

How can you do this when you would prefer to have PRIVATE thoughts, AND KEEP THEM? The ONLY way you COULD do this, is to DENY the perfect communication that makes the holy instant WHAT IT IS. You BELIEVE that it is possible to harbor thoughts you would NOT share, and that Salvation lies in keeping your thoughts TO YOURSELF ALONE. For, in private thoughts, KNOWN ONLY TO YOURSELF, you think you find a way to keep what you would HAVE alone, and share what YOU would share. And then you wonder why it is that you are not in full communication with those around you, and with God, Who surrounds ALL of you together.

Every thought you would keep hidden shuts communication off, BECAUSE YOU WOULD HAVE IT SO. It is impossible to RECOGNIZE perfect communication, while BREAKING communication holds value to you. Ask yourselves honestly, "Would I WANT to have perfect communication, and am I WHOLLY willing to let EVERYTHING that INTERFERES WITH IT, go forever?" If the answer is "no," then the Holy Spirit's readiness to GIVE it to you, is not enough to make it yours, for you are NOT ready to share it WITH Him. And it cannot come into a mind that has decided to OPPOSE it. For the holy instant is given and received with EQUAL willingness, being the acceptance of the SINGLE Will that governs ALL thought.

The necessary condition for the holy instant, does NOT require that you have no thoughts that are not pure. But it DOES require that you have none that you would KEEP. Innocence is not of your making. It is GIVEN you, the instant you would HAVE it. But it would not BE Atonement, if there were no NEED for Atonement. You will not be able to ACCEPT perfect communication, as long as you would HIDE it from yourself. For what you would hide IS hidden. In your practice, then, try only to be vigilant AGAINST DECEPTION, and seek not to PROTECT the thoughts you would keep unto yourself. Let the Holy Spirit's purity shine them away, and bring ALL your awareness to the READINESS for purity He offers you. Thus will He make you ready to acknowledge that you ARE host to God, and hostage to no-one and to nothing.

Lesson 155 "I will step back and let Him lead the way."

There is a way of living in the world that is not here, although it seems to be. You do not change appearance, though you smile more frequently, Your forehead is serene; your eyes are quiet. And the ones who walk the world as you do recognize their own. Yet those who have not yet perceived the way will recognize you also, and believe that you are like them as you were before.

The world is an illusion. Those who choose to come to it are seeking for a place where they can be illusions, and avoid their own Reality. Yet when they find their own Reality is even here, then they step back and let It lead the way. What other choice is really theirs to make? To let illusion walk ahead of truth is madness, but to let illusion sink behind the truth, and let the truth stand forth as what it is, is simple sanity.

This is the simple choice we make today. The mad illusion will remain awhile in evidence, for those to look upon who chose to come, and have not yet rejoiced to find they were mistaken in the choice. They cannot learn directly from the truth, because they have denied that it is so. And so they need a Teacher Who perceives their madness, but Who still can look beyond illusion to the simple truth in them.

If truth demanded they give up the world, it would appear to them as if it asked the sacrifice of something that is real. Many have chosen to renounce the world while still believing its reality, and they have suffered from a sense of loss and have not been released accordingly. Others have chosen nothing but the world, and they have suffered from a sense of loss still deeper, which they did not understand.

Between these paths there is another road which leads away from loss of every kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both are quickly left behind. This is the way appointed for you now. You walk this path as others walk, nor do you seem to be distinct from them although you are indeed. Thus can you serve them while you serve yourself, and set their footsteps on the way which God has opened up to you, and them through you.

Illusion still appears to cling to you, that you may reach them. Yet it has stepped back, and it is not illusion that they hear you speak of, nor illusion which you bring their eyes to look on and their minds to grasp. Now can the truth, which walks ahead of you, speak to them through illusion, for the road leads past illusion now, while on the way you call to them that they may follow you.

All roads will lead to this one in the end. For sacrifice and deprivation are paths which lead nowhere, choices for defeat, and aims which will remain impossible. All this steps back as truth comes forth in you, to lead your brothers from the ways of death, and set them on the way to happiness. Their suffering is but illusion. Yet they need a guide to lead them out of it, for they mistake illusion for the truth.

Such is salvation's call, and nothing more. It asks that you accept the truth, and let It go before you, lighting up the path of ransom from illusion. It is not a ransom with a price. There is no cost, but only gain. Illusion can but seem to hold in chains the holy Son of God. It is but from illusions he is saved. As they step back he finds himself again.

Walk safely now yet carefully, because this path is new to you. And you may find that you are tempted still to walk ahead of truth, and let illusion be your guide. Your holy brothers have been given you to follow in your footsteps, as you walk with certainty of purpose to the truth. It goes before you now, that they may see something with which they can identify; something they understand to lead the way.

Yet at the journey's ending there will be no gap, no distance between truth and you. And all illusions walking in the way you travelled will be gone from you as well, with nothing left to keep the truth apart from God's completion, holy as Himself. Step back in faith, and let truth lead the way. You know not where you go, but One Who knows goes with you. Let Him lead you with the rest.

When dreams are over, time has closed the door on all the things that pass and miracles are purposeless, the holy Son of God will make no journeys. There will be no wish to be illusion rather than the truth. And we step forth toward this, as we progress along the way that truth points out to us. This is our final journey, which we make for everyone. We must not lose our way. For as truth goes before us so it goes before our brothers, who will follow us.

We walk to God. Pause and reflect on this. Could any way be holier, or more deserving of your effort, of your love, and of your full intent? What way could give you more than everything, or offer less and still content the holy Son of God? We walk to God. The truth that walks before us now is One with Him, and leads us to where He has always been. What way but this could be a path which you would choose instead?

Your feet are safely set upon the road which leads the world to God. Look not to ways that seem to lead you elsewhere. Dreams are not a worthy guide for you who are God's Son. Forget not He has placed His hand in yours, and given you your brothers in His Trust that you are worthy of His Trust in you. He cannot be deceived. His Trust has made your pathway certain and your goal secure. You will not fail your brothers nor your Self.