The darkest of your hidden cornerstones holds your belief in guilt from your own awareness. For in that dark and secret place is the realization that you have betrayed God's Son, by condemning him to death. You do not even SUSPECT that this murderous but insane idea lies hidden there. For the ego's destructive urge is so intense, that nothing short of the crucifixion of God's Son can ultimately satisfy it. It does not know who the Son of God IS, because it is blind. But let it perceive guiltlessness ANYWHERE, and it will try to destroy it, because it is afraid.
Much of the ego's strange behavior is directly attributable to its definition of guilt. To the ego, THE GUILTLESS ARE GUILTY. Those who do NOT attack are its "enemies," because, by NOT VALUING its interpretation of salvation, they are in an excellent position to LET IT GO. They have approached the darkest and deepest cornerstone in the ego's foundation, and while it can withstand your raising all else to question, it guards this one secret with its life, for its existence DOES depend on keeping this secret. And it is this secret that we must look upon calmly, for the ego cannot protect you AGAINST truth, and in ITS presence the ego is dispelled.
In the calm light of truth, let us recognize that YOU BELIEVE YOU HAVE CRUCIFIED GOD'S SON. You have not admitted this "terrible" secret, because you still wish to crucify him, IF YOU COULD FIND HIM. But the wish has hidden him from you, because it is very fearful, AND YOU ARE AFRAID TO FIND HIM. You have handled this wish TO KILL YOURSELF by NOT KNOWING WHO YOU ARE, and identifying with something ELSE. You have projected guilt blindly and indiscriminately, but you have NOT uncovered its source. For the ego DOES want to kill you, and if you identify WITH it, you MUST believe ITS GOAL IS YOURS.
We once said that the crucifixion is the symbol of the ego. When it was confronted with the REAL guiltlessness of God's Son, it DID attempt to kill him. And the reason it gave was that guiltlessness is blasphemous to God. To the ego, THE EGO IS GOD, and guiltlessness MUST be interpreted AS THE FINAL GUILT WHICH FULLY JUSTIFIES MURDER. You do not yet understand that ALL your fear of this course stems ultimately from this interpretation, but if you will consider your reactions TO it, you will become increasingly convinced that this is so.
This course has explicitly stated that its goal FOR YOU is happiness and peace. Yet you are AFRAID of it. You have been told again and again that it will make you free, yet you react as if it is trying to IMPRISON you. Most of the time you DISMISS it, BUT YOU DO NOT DISMISS THE EGO'S THOUGHT SYSTEM. You HAVE seen its results and you STILL lack faith in it. You MUST, then, believe that, by NOT learning the course, YOU ARE PROTECTING YOURSELF. And you do NOT realize that it is only your guiltlessness that CAN protect you.
The Atonement has always been interpreted as the release from guilt, and this is correct, if it is understood. Yet even when I have interpreted it FOR you, you have rejected it, and have NOT accepted it FOR YOURSELF. You have recognized the futility of the ego and its offerings, but though you do not want it, you will not look upon the alternative with gladness. YOU ARE AFRAID OF REDEMPTION, and YOU BELIEVE IT WILL KILL YOU. Make no mistake about the depth of your fear. For you believe that, in the presence of truth, you will turn on yourself and DESTROY yourself.
Little children, this is not so. Your "guilty secret" is nothing, and if you will but bring it to light, the Light WILL dispel it. And then no dark cloud will remain between you and the remembrance of your Father. For you will remember His guiltless Son, who did not die because he is immortal. And you will see that you were redeemed WITH him, and have never been separated FROM him. In THIS understanding lies your remembering, for it is the recognition of love WITHOUT fear. There will be great joy in Heaven on your homecoming, and the joy will be YOURS. For the redeemed son of man IS the guiltless Son of God, and to recognize HIM, IS your redemption.
Who, then, is the therapist, and who is the patient? In the end, everyone is both. He who needs healing must heal. "Physician, heal thyself." Who else is there to heal? And who else is in need of healing? Each patient who comes to a therapist offers him a chance to heal himself. He is therefore his therapist. And every therapist must learn to heal from each patient who comes to him. He thus becomes his patient. God does not know of separation. What He knows is only that He has one Son. His knowledge is reflected in the ideal patient-therapist relationship. God comes to him who calls, and in Him he recognizes Himself.
Think carefully, teacher and therapist, for whom you pray, and who is in need of healing. For therapy is prayer, and healing is its aim and its result. What is prayer except the joining of minds in a relationship which Christ can enter? This is His home, into which psychotherapy invites Him. What is symptom cure, when another is always there to choose? But once Christ enters in, what choice is there except to have Him stay? There is no need for more than this, for it is everything. Healing is here, and happiness and peace. These are the "symptoms" of the ideal patient-therapist relationship, replacing those with which the patient came to ask for help.
The process that takes place in this relationship is actually one in which the therapist in his heart tells the patient that all his sins have been forgiven him, along with his own. What could be the difference between healing and forgiveness? Only Christ forgives, knowing His sinlessness. His vision heals perception and sickness disappears. Nor will it return again, once its cause has been removed. This, however, needs the help of a very advanced therapist, capable of joining with the patient in a holy relationship in which all sense of separation finally is overcome.
For this, one thing and one thing only is required: The therapist in no way confuses himself with God. All "unhealed healers" make this fundamental confusion in one form or another, because they must regard themselves as self-created rather than God-created. This confusion is rarely if ever in awareness, or the unhealed healer would instantly become a Teacher of God, devoting his life to the function of true healing. Before he reached this point, he thought he was in charge of the therapeutic process and was therefore responsible for its outcome. His patient's failures thus became his own mistakes, and guilt became the cover, dark and strong, for what should be the Holiness of Christ. Guilt is inevitable in those who use their judgment in making their decisions. Guilt is impossible in those through whom the Holy Spirit speaks.
The passing of guilt is the true aim of therapy and the obvious aim of forgiveness. In this their oneness can be clearly seen. Yet who could experience the end of guilt who feels responsible for his brother in the role of guide for him? Such a function presupposes a knowledge that no-one here can have; a certainty of past, present and future, and of all the effects that may occur in them. Only from this omniscient point of view would such a role be possible. Yet no perception is omniscient, nor is the tiny self of one alone against the universe able to assume he has such wisdom except in madness. That many therapists are mad is obvious. No unhealed healer can be wholly sane.
Yet it is as insane not to accept a function God has given you as to invent one He has not. The advanced therapist in no way can ever doubt the power that is in him. Nor does he doubt its Source. He understands all power in earth and Heaven belongs to him because of who he is. And he is this because of his Creator, Whose Love is in him and Who cannot fail. Think what this means; he has the gifts of God Himself to give away. His patients are God's saints, who call upon his sanctity to make it theirs. And as he gives it to them, they behold Christ's shining face as it looks back at them.
The insane, thinking they are God, are not afraid to offer weakness to the Son of God. But what they see in him because of this they fear indeed. The unhealed healer cannot but be fearful of his patients, and suspect them of the treachery he sees in him. He tries to heal, and thus at times he may. But he will not succeed except to some extent and for a little while. He does not see the Christ in him who calls. What answer can he give to one who seems to be a stranger; alien to the truth and poor in wisdom, without the god who must be given him? Behold your God in him, for what you see will be your Answer.
Think what the joining of two brothers really means. And then forget the world and all its little triumphs and its dreams of death. The same are one, and nothing now can be remembered of the world of guilt. The room becomes a temple, and the street a stream of stardust brushing lightly past all sickly dreams. Healing is done, for what is perfect needs no healing, and what remains to be forgiven where there is no sin?
Be thankful, therapist, that you can see such things as this, if you but understand your proper role. But if you fail in that, you have denied that God created you, and so you will not know you are His Son. Who is your brother now? What saint can come to take you home with him? You lost the way. And can you now expect to see in him an answer that you have refused to give? Heal and be healed. There is no other choice of pathways that can ever lead to peace. Oh let your patient in, for he has come to you from God. Is not his holiness enough to wake your memory of Him?
All the separated ones have a basic fear of retaliation and abandonment. This is because they BELIEVE in attack and rejection, so this is what they perceive and teach and LEARN. These insane concepts are clearly the result of their own dissociation and projection. What you teach you are, but it is quite apparent that you can teach wrongly, and therefore TEACH YOURSELVES WRONG. Many thought that I was attacking them, even though it is quite apparent that I was NOT. An insane learner learns strange lessons.
What you must understand is that, when you do not SHARE a thought system, you ARE weakening it. Those who BELIEVE in it therefore perceive this as an ATTACK ON THEM. This is because everyone identifies himself WITH his thought system, and EVERY thought system centers on WHAT YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE. If the center of the thought system is TRUE, only truth extends outward from it. But if a lie is at its center, only DECEPTION proceeds from it.
All good teachers realize that only fundamental change will last. But they do NOT begin at that level. Strengthening MOTIVATION for change is their first and foremost goal. It is also their last and final one. Increasing motivation for change IN THE LEARNER is all that a teacher NEED do to GUARANTEE change. This is because a change in motivation IS a change of mind, and this will INEVITABLY produce fundamental change BECAUSE the mind IS fundamental.
The first step in the reversal or undoing process, then, is the UNDOING of the getting concept. Accordingly, the Holy Spirit's first lesson was: To HAVE, GIVE all TO all. We said that this is apt to INCREASE conflict temporarily, and we can clarify this still further now. At this point, the equality of having and being is not yet perceived. Until it IS, having still appears to be the OPPOSITE of being. Therefore, the first lesson SEEMS to contain a contradiction because it is BEING LEARNED BY A CONFLICTED MIND. This MEANS conflicting motivation, and so the lesson CANNOT be learned consistently as yet.
Further, the mind of the learner projects its own split, and therefore does NOT perceive consistent minds in others, making him suspicious of THEIR motivations. This is the real reason why in many respects the first lesson is the hardest to learn. Still strongly aware of the ego in himself, and responding primarily TO the ego in others, he is being taught to react to BOTH as if what he DOES believe IS NOT TRUE.
Upside down as always, the ego perceives the first lesson as insane. In fact, this is its only alternative here, because the other one, which would be much LESS acceptable, would obviously be that IT is insane. The ego's judgment, then, is predetermined by what it IS, though not more so than is any other product of thought. The fundamental change will still occur with the change of mind IN THE THINKER.
Meanwhile, the increasing clarity of the Holy Spirit's voice makes it impossible for the learner NOT TO LISTEN. For a time, then, he IS receiving conflicting messages AND ACCEPTING BOTH. This is the classic "double bind" in communication, which you wrote about yourselves quite recently, and with good examples too. It is interesting that Helen claimed at the time that she had never heard of it and did not understand it. You might remember our brother's insistence on its inclusion. Helen thought he had become (quite) irrational on this point, but it was quite strongly reinforced in HIS mind, and so he wanted to teach it in his text. This, of course, was a very good way for YOU to learn it.
The way out of conflict between two opposing thought systems is clearly TO CHOOSE ONE AND RELINQUISH THE OTHER. If you identify WITH your thought system, and you cannot escape this, and if you accept two thought systems which are in COMPLETE DISagreement, peace of mind IS impossible. If you TEACH both, which you will surely do as long as you ACCEPT both, you are teaching conflict and LEARNING it. But you DO want peace, or you would not have called upon the voice for PEACE to help you. His LESSON is not insane, but the CONFLICT IS.
There can BE no conflict between sanity and insanity, because only one is true, and therefore only ONE is REAL. The ego tries to persuade you that it is up to YOU to decide which voice is true. But the Holy Spirit teaches you that truth was created by God, and YOUR decision CANNOT change it. As you begin to realize the quiet power of His Voice AND ITS PERFECT CONSISTENCY, it MUST dawn on your minds that you are trying to undo a decision which was made irrevocably FOR you. That is why we suggested before that there was help in reminding yourselves to allow the Holy Spirit to decide for God for YOU.
You are NOT asked to make insane decisions, although you are free to THINK you are. But it MUST be insane to believe IT IS UP TO YOU to decide what God's Creations ARE. The Holy Spirit perceives the conflict EXACTLY AS IT IS. Therefore, His second lesson is: To HAVE peace, TEACH peace to LEARN it.
This is still a preliminary step, because having and being are still not equated but it is more advanced than the first step, which is really only a thought REVERSAL. The second step is a positive affirmation of WHAT YOU WANT. This, then IS a step in the direction OUT of conflict, because it means that alternatives have been considered, and ONE has been chosen as MORE DESIRABLE.
But the evaluation "more desirable" still implies that the desirable has degrees. Therefore, although this step is essential for the ultimate decision, it is clearly NOT the final one.
It should be clear that the recognition of the lack of order in miracles has not yet been accepted, because NOTHING is difficult that is WHOLLY DESIRED. To desire wholly is to CREATE, and creating CANNOT be difficult if God Himself created you AS a creator. The second step, then, is still perceptual but it is nevertheless a giant step toward the unified perception that parallels God's knowing.
As you take this step and HOLD THIS DIRECTION, you will be pushing toward the center of your thought system, where the FUNDAMENTAL change will occur. You are only beginning this step now, but you have started on this way by realizing that ONLY ONE WAY IS POSSIBLE. You do not yet realize this consistently, and so your progress is intermittent, but the second step is easier than the first, because it FOLLOWS. The very fact that you have accepted THAT is a demonstration of your growing awareness that the Holy Spirit WILL lead you on.
Accepting the Atonement for yourself means NOT to give support to someone's dream of sickness and of death. It means that you share NOT his wish to separate, and let him turn illusions on himself. Nor do you wish that they be turned instead on YOU. Thus have they NO effects. And YOU are free of dreams of pain because you let HIM be. UNLESS you help him, YOU will suffer pain with him because that is your wish. And you become a figure in HIS dream of pain, as he in YOURS. So do you BOTH become illusions, and without identity. You could be anyone or anything, depending on whose evil dream you share. You can be sure of just ONE thing; that you are evil, for you share in dreams of fear.
There is a way of finding certainty RIGHT HERE AND NOW. Refuse to be a part of fearful dreams, WHATEVER form they take. For you will lose identity in them. You FIND yourself by NOT accepting them as causing you, and GIVING you effects. You stand apart from them, but NOT apart from him who dreams them. Thus you separate the dreamer from the dream, and join with ONE, but let the OTHER go. The dream is but illusion in the mind. And with the MIND you WOULD unite, but NEVER with the dream. It is the DREAM you fear, and NOT the mind. You see them as the same, because you think that YOU are but a dream. And what is real and what is but illusion IN YOURSELF you do not know and cannot tell apart.
Like you, your brother thinks HE is a dream. Share not in his illusion of himself. For YOUR identity depends on his reality. Think, rather, of him as a mind in which illusions still persist, but as a mind which brother is to you. He is not brother made by what he DREAMS, nor is his body, "hero" of the dream, your brother. It is his REALITY that is your brother, as is yours to him. Your mind and his ARE joined in brotherhood. His body and his dreams but SEEM to make a little gap, where yours have joined with his. And yet, between your MINDS there IS no gap. To join his dreams is thus to meet him NOT, because his dreams would SEPARATE from you.
Therefore release him, merely by your claim on brotherhood, and NOT on dreams of fear. Let him acknowledge who he IS, by not supporting his illusions by your faith, for if you do, you will have faith in YOURS. With faith in yours, HE will not be released, and YOU are kept in bondage to his dreams. And dreams of fear will haunt the little gap, inhabited but by illusions which you have SUPPORTED in each other's minds. Be certain, if you do YOUR part, he will do his, for he will JOIN you where YOU stand. Call not to him to meet you in the gap BETWEEN you, or you MUST believe that it is YOUR reality, as well as his. You CANNOT do his part, but this you DO when you become a passive figure in his dream INSTEAD of dreamer of your own.
Identity in dreams is meaningless BECAUSE the dreamer and the dream are one. Who shares a dream must BE the dream he shares, because, BY sharing, is a cause produced. You share confusion, and you ARE confused, for in the gap no stable self exists. What is the same seems different, because what IS the same appears to be unlike. His dreams are yours, because you LET them be. But, if you took your OWN away, would he be free of them, and of his own as well. Your dreams are witnesses to his, and his attest the truth of yours. But if you see there IS no truth in yours, his dreams will disappear before his eyes, and he will understand what MADE the dream.
The Holy Spirit is in BOTH your minds, and He IS One, because there is no gap that separates His Oneness from Itself. The gap between your bodies matters not, for what is joined in Him is ALWAYS one. No-one is sick, if someone ELSE accepts his union WITH him. His desire to be a sick and separated mind can NOT remain without a witness or a cause. And both ARE gone, if someone wills to be united with him. He has dreamed that he was separated from his brother, who, by sharing NOT his dream, has left the space between them vacant. And the Father comes to join His Son the Holy Spirit joined.
The Holy Spirit's Function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God, and put the pieces into place again. This holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture IN ITSELF. To each he offers his identity, which the WHOLE picture represents, instead of just a little, broken bit, which he insisted was himself. And when he sees THIS picture, he will RECOGNIZE himself. If you share not your brother's evil dreams, this IS the picture that the miracle will place within the little gap, left clean of all the seeds of sickness and of sin. And here the Father will receive His Son, because His Son was gracious to himself.
I thank you, Father, knowing you will come to close each little gap that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. Your Holiness, complete and perfect, lies in every one of them. And they ARE joined, because what is in one IS in them all. How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is recognized as being part of the completed picture of God's Son. The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. For the Whole is in each one. And every aspect of the Son of God is just the same as every other part. Join not your brother's dream, but join with HIM, and where you join His Son, the Father IS.
Who seeks for substitutes, when he perceives HE HAS LOST NOTHING? Who would WANT to have the "benefits" of sickness, when he has received the simple happiness of health? What God has given cannot BE a loss, and what is not of Him has NO effects. What, then, would you perceive within the gap? The seeds of sickness come from the belief that there is JOY in separation, and its giving up WOULD BE A SACRIFICE. But miracles are the result, when you do not insist on seeing in the gap what is not there. Your willingness to LET illusions go is all the Healer of God's Son requires. He will place the miracle of healing where the seeds of sickness were. And there will be NO loss, but ONLY gain.
Attitudes toward the body are attitudes toward ATTACK. The ego's definitions of ANYTHING are childish, and are ALWAYS based on what it believes a thing is FOR. This is because it is incapable of true generalizations, and equates what it sees with the function IT ascribes to it. It does NOT equate it with what it IS. To the ego, the body IS TO ATTACK WITH. Equating YOU with the body, it teaches that YOU are to attack with, because THIS IS WHAT IT BELIEVES. The body, then, is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function.
The reason why definitions by function are inferior is merely because they may well be inaccurate. Functions are part of being, since they arise FROM it. But the relationship is NOT reciprocal. The whole does define the part, but the part does NOT define the whole. This is as true of knowledge as it is of perception. The reason why to KNOW in part is to know entirely is merely because of the fundamental difference between knowledge and perception. In perception, the whole is built up of parts, which can separate and reassemble in different constellations. Knowledge never changes, so that its constellation is permanent. The only areas in which part-whole relationships have any meaning are those in which change is possible. There IS no difference between the whole and the part where change is impossible.
The body exists in a world which seems to contain two voices which are fighting for its possession. In this perceived constellation, the body is regarded as capable of shifting its control from one to the other, making the concept of both health and sickness possible. The ego makes a fundamental confusion between means and ends, as it always does. Regarding the body as an end, it has no real use for it at all, because it is NOT an end. You must have noticed an outstanding characteristic of every end that the ego has accepted as its own. When you have achieved it, IT HAS NOT SATISFIED YOU. This is why the ego is forced to shift from one end to another without ceasing, so that YOU will continue to hope it can offer you something.
It has been particularly difficult to overcome the ego's belief in the body as an end because this is synonymous with ATTACK AS AN END. The ego has a REAL INVESTMENT IN SICKNESS. If you are sick, how can you object to the ego's firm belief that you are NOT invulnerable? This is a particularly appealing argument from the ego's point of view, because it obscures the obvious attack which underlies the sickness. If you accepted THIS, and also decided AGAINST attack, you could not give this false witness to the ego's stand. It is hard to perceive this as a false witness, because you do not realize that it IS entirely out of keeping with what YOU want. This witness, then, appears to be innocent and trustworthy only because YOU have not seriously cross-examined him.
If you did, you would not consider sickness such a strong witness on behalf of the ego's views. A more honest statement would be as follows: Those who WANT the ego are predisposed to defend it. Therefore, their choice of witnesses should be suspect from the beginning. The ego does not call upon witnesses who might disagree with its case, NOR DOES THE HOLY SPIRIT. We have said before that judgment IS the function of the Holy Spirit, and one which He is perfectly equipped to fulfill. The ego, as a judge, gives anything BUT an impartial trial (judgment.) When the ego calls on a witness, it has ALREADY MADE IT AN ALLY. It is still true that the body has no function of itself. This is because it is NOT an end. The ego, however, establishes it AS an end because, as such, IT WILL LOSE ITS TRUE FUNCTION.
This is the purpose of everything the ego does. Its sole aim is to lose sight of the functions of EVERYTHING. A sick body does not make any sense. It COULD not make any sense, since sickness is not what it is FOR. Sickness is meaningful only if the two basic premises on which the ego's interpretation of the body rests are true. These are specifically first that the body is for attack, and also that you ARE a body. Without this, sickness is completely inconceivable. Sickness is a way of demonstrating that YOU CAN BE HURT. It is a witness to your frailty, your vulnerability, and your extreme need to depend on external guidance. The ego uses this as its best argument for your need for ITS guidance. It dictates endless prescriptions for AVOIDING this catastrophic outcome. The Holy Spirit, perfectly aware of the same data, does not bother to analyze it at all. If the data are meaningless, there is no point in treating them at all.
The function of truth is to collect data which are TRUE. There is no point in trying to make sense out of meaningless data. ANY way they are handled results in nothing. The more complicated the results become, the harder it may be to recognize their nothingness, but it is not necessary to examine ALL possible outcomes to which premises give rise to judge the PREMISES truly.
A learning DEVICE is NOT a teacher. IT cannot tell you how you feel. YOU do not KNOW how you feel, because YOU HAVE ACCEPTED THE EGO's CONFUSION, and YOU think A LEARNING DEVICE CAN TELL YOU HOW YOU FEEL. Sickness is merely another example of your insistence on asking for guidance of a teacher who DOES NOT KNOW THE ANSWER. The ego is INCAPABLE of knowing how you feel. When we said that the ego DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING, we said the one thing about the ego that is wholly true. But there is a corollary. If knowledge is being, and the ego has no knowledge, then the ego HAS NO BEING.
You might ask how the voice of something which does not exist can be so insistent. Have you ever seriously considered the distorting power of something you WANT, even if it is not true? You have had many instances of how what you want can distort what you see and hear. No one can doubt the ego's skill in building up false cases. And no one can doubt your willingness to listen, until YOU will not to tolerate ANYTHING except truth.
When YOU lay the ego aside it will be gone. The Holy Spirit's voice is as loud as your willingness to listen. It cannot be louder without violating your will, which He seeks to free but never to command. He will teach you to use your body ONLY to reach your brothers so He can teach His message through you. This will heal them and THEREFORE heal you. Everything used in accordance with its function as HE sees it CANNOT be sick. Everything used otherwise IS.
Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness. Do not let it reflect your will to attack. Health is the natural state of anything whose interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit, who perceives no attack on anything. Health is the result of relinquishing ALL attempts to use the body lovelessly. It is the beginning of the proper perspective on life, under the guidance of the one teacher who knows what life IS, being the voice for Life Itself.
It cannot be emphasized too often that CORRECTING perception is merely a temporary expedient. It is necessary ONLY because Misperception is a BLOCK to knowledge, while ACCURATE perception is a stepping-stone TOWARD it. The whole value of right perception lies in the inevitable judgment which it necessarily entails that it is UNNECESSARY. This removes the block entirely.
You may ask how this is possible as long as you appear to be living in this world. And since this is a sensible question, it has a sensible answer. But you must be careful that you really understand the question. What IS the you who are living in this world? Bill will probably have more trouble with this than you, but if he will try not to close his mind, he may decide that we are NOT engaging in denial after all.
To help him, it might be wise to review a number of the concepts with which he does not appear to have trouble, except at times. He liked the idea of invisibility, and was particularly open to the concept of different orders of reality. He also found the notion of varying densities of energy appealing. While he may yet agree that these are merely teaching aids, this is a good time to employ them.
Immortality is a constant state. It is as true now as it ever was or will be, because it implies NO CHANGE AT ALL. It is not a continuum, and it is NOT understood by comparing it with any opposite. Knowledge NEVER involves comparisons. That is its essential difference from everything else the mind can grasp.
"A little knowledge" is not dangerous except to the ego. Vaguely the ego senses threat, and, being unable to realize that "a little knowledge" is a meaningless phrase because "all" and "a little" in this context are the same, decides that since "all" is impossible, the fear does not lie in this. "A little," however, is a scarcity concept, and this the ego understands well. Regarding "all" as impossible, "a little" is perceived as the real threat.
The essential thing to remember always is that the ego DOES NOT RECOGNIZE the real source of its perceived threat. And if YOU associate yourself WITH the ego, YOU do not perceive the whole situation as it really is. Only your allegiance to it gives the ego ANY power over you. We have spoken of the ego as if it were a separate thing, acting on its own. This was necessary to persuade you that you cannot dismiss it lightly, and MUST realize how much of your thinking is ego-directed. But we cannot safely leave it at that, or you will regard yourselves as necessarily conflicted as long as you are here, or more properly, BELIEVE that you are here.
The ego is nothing more than a PART of your belief about yourselves. Your other life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will be totally unaffected by your attempts to dissociate. The ratio of repression and dissociation of truth varies with the individual ego-illusion (tell Bill that phrase is VERY good), but dissociation is always involved, or you would not believe that you ARE here.
When I told Bill to concentrate on the phrase "here I am, Lord," I did not mean "in this world" by "here." I wanted him to think of himself as a separate consciousness, capable of direct communication with the Creator of that consciousness. He, too, MUST begin to think of himself as a very powerful receiving and sending channel, a description I once gave you symbolically. Remember that HE understood it before you did, because you are more dissociative and less repressed.
Your great debt to each other is something you should never forget. It is exactly the same debt that you owe to me. Whenever you react egotistically toward each other, you are throwing away the graciousness of your indebtedness and the holy perception it would produce. The reason why the term "holy" can be used here is that, as you learn how much you ARE indebted to the whole Sonship which includes me, you come as close to knowledge as perception ever can. This gap is so small knowledge can easily flow across it and obliterate it forever.
You have very little trust in me as yet, but it will increase as you turn more and more often to me instead of to your egos for guidance. The results will convince you increasingly that your choice in turning to me is the only sane one you can make. No one who has learned from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs much conditioning. The ego cannot withstand the conditioning process, because the process itself DEMONSTRATES that there is another way.
The classic conditioning by rewards model has always been most effective. Howard Hunt made a very good point in this connection, even though he did not understand that the real reason why conditioning through pain is not the most efficient method is because pain itself is an ego-illusion, and can never induce more than a temporary effect.
The rewards of God are immediately recognized as eternal. Since this recognition is made by YOU and NOT by your ego, the recognition ITSELF establishes that you and your ego CANNOT be identical. You may believe that you have already accepted the difference, but you are by no means convinced as yet. The very fact that you are preoccupied with the idea of escaping FROM the ego shows this.
You cannot escape from the ego by humbling it, or controlling it, or punishing it. The ego and the Soul DO NOT KNOW each other. The separated mind cannot maintain the separation EXCEPT by dissociating. Having done this, it utilizes repression against all truly natural impulses, not because the EGO is a separate thing, but because you want to believe that YOU are. The ego is a device for maintaining this belief, but it is still only YOUR willingness to use the device that enables it to endure.
My trust in you is greater than yours in me at the moment, but it will not always be that way. Your mission is very simple. You have been chosen to live so as to demonstrate that You are NOT an ego. I repeat that I do not choose God's channels wrongly. The Holy One shares my trust and always approves my Atonement decisions, because my will is never out of accord with His.
I have told you several times that I am in charge of the whole Atonement. This is ONLY because I completed my part in it as a man, and can now complete it through other men. My chosen receiving and sending channels cannot fail, because I will lend them MY strength as long as theirs is wanting. I will go with you to the Holy One, and through MY perception HE can bridge the little gap. Your gratitude to each OTHER is the only gift I want. I will bring it to God for you, knowing that to know your brother IS to know God.
A little knowledge is an all-encompassing thing. If you are grateful to each other you are grateful to God for what He created. Through your gratitude you can come to know each other, and one moment of real recognition makes all men your brothers because they are all of your Father. Love does not conquer all things, but it DOES set all things right.
Because you are all the Kingdom of God, I can lead you back to your own creations, which you do not yet know. God has kept them very safe in HIS knowing while your attention has wandered. Bill gave you a very important idea when he told you that what has been dissociated IS STILL THERE. I am grateful to him for that, and I hope he will not decide that it is true only for you. Even though dissociation is much more apparent in you, and repression is much more evident in him, each of you utilizes both.
Wisdom always dictates that a therapist work through WEAKER defenses first. That is why I suggested to Bill that he persuade you to deal with REPRESSION first. We have only just about reached the point where dissociation means much to you, because it is so important to your misbeliefs. Bill might do well, - and you could help him here, - to concentrate more on HIS dissociative tendencies and not try to deal with repression yet.
I hinted at this when I remarked on his habit of disengaging himself, and when I spoke to him about distantiation. These are all forms of dissociation, and these weaker forms were always more evident in him than in you. That is because dissociation was so extreme in your case that you did not have to hide it because you were not aware that it was there. Bill, on the other hand, DOES dissociate more than he thinks, and that is why he cannot listen. He does not need to go through the same course in repression that you did, because he will give up his major misdefense AFTER he has rid himself of the lesser ones.
Do not disturb yourself about repression, Bill, but DO train yourself to be alert to any tendency to withdraw from your brothers. Withdrawal is frightening, and you do not recognize all the forms it takes in you. Helen is right that she will experience things that will cut across all her perceptions because of their stunning knowledge. You were right that this will occur when she learns to recognize what she ALREADY knows and has dissociated.
You, Bill, will learn somewhat differently, because you are afraid of all complete involvements, and believe that they lessen YOU. You have learned to be so much more clear-sighted about this that you should be ready to oppose it in yourself RELATIVELY easily. As you come closer to a brother, you DO approach me, and as you withdraw from him I become distant to you.
Your giant step forward was to INSIST on a collaborative venture. This does NOT go against the true spirit of meditation at all. It is inherent IN it. Meditation is a collaborative venture with GOD. It CANNOT be undertaken successfully by those who disengage themselves from the Sonship, because they are disengaging themselves from me. God will come to you only as you will give Him to your brothers. Learn first of them, and you will be ready to hear God as you hear them. That is because the function of love is One.
How can you teach someone the value of something he has thrown away deliberately? He must have thrown it away because he did NOT value it. You can only show him how miserable he is WITHOUT it, and bring it near very slowly, so he can learn how his misery lessens as he approaches it. This conditions him to associate his misery with its ABSENCE, and to associate the OPPOSITE of misery with its presence. It gradually becomes desirable, as he changes his mind about its worth.
I am conditioning you to associate misery with the ego, and joy with your Soul. You have conditioned yourself the other way around. But a far greater reward will break through any conditioning, if it is repeatedly offered when the old habit is broken. You are still free to choose. But can you really WANT the rewards of the ego in the presence of the rewards of God?
If God's Will for you is complete peace and joy, unless you experience ONLY this you MUST be refusing to acknowledge His Will. His Will does not vacillate, being changeless forever. When you are not at peace, it can only be because you do not believe you are IN HIM. Yet He is all in all. His peace IS complete, and you MUST be included in it. His laws govern you because they govern EVERYTHING. You cannot exempt yourself from His laws, although you CAN disobey them. But if you do, and ONLY if you do, you WILL feel lonely and helpless, because you ARE denying yourself everything.
I am come as a light into the world which DOES deny itself everything. It does this simply by dissociating itself FROM everything. It is therefore an illusion of isolation, MAINTAINED by fear of the same loneliness which IS its illusion. I have told you that I am with you always even to the end of the world. That is WHY I am the light of the world. If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, THE LONELINESS IS GONE. You CANNOT maintain the illusion of loneliness if you are NOT alone.
My purpose, then, IS to overcome the world. I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it because of WHAT IT IS. Light does not ATTACK darkness, but it DOES shine it away. If my light goes with you everywhere, YOU shine it away WITH ME. The light becomes OURS, and you CANNOT abide in darkness, any more than darkness can abide anywhere you go. The remembrance of me IS the remembrance of yourself and of Him Who sent me to you.
You WERE in darkness until God's Will was done completely by ANY part of the Sonship. When it was, it was perfectly accomplished by ALL. How else could it BE perfectly accomplished? My mission was simply to UNITE the Will of the Sonship WITH the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father's Will myself. This is the awareness I came to give YOU, and YOUR problem in accepting it IS the problem of this world. Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I AM the salvation of the world.
The world MUST despise and reject me, because the world IS the belief that love is impossible. YOUR reactions to me ARE the reactions of the world to God. If you will accept the fact that I am with you, you are DENYING the world and ACCEPTING GOD. My will IS His, and YOUR will to hear me IS the decision to hear His Voice and abide in His Will. As He sent me to you, so will I send you to others. But I will go to them WITH you, so we can teach them union and peace.
Do you not think the world needs peace as much as you do? Do you not want to give it to the world as much as you want to receive it? For unless you do, you will NOT receive it. If you will to have it of me, you MUST give it. Rehabilitation does not come from anyone ELSE. You can have GUIDANCE from without, but you must ACCEPT it from within. The guidance must become what YOU want, or else it will be meaningless to you. That is why rehabilitation is a collaborative venture. I can tell you what to DO, but this will not really help you unless you collaborate by believing that I KNOW what to do. Only then will your MIND will to follow me.
Without YOUR will, you cannot be rehabilitated. MOTIVATION TO BE HEALED is the crucial factor in rehabilitation. Without this, you are deciding AGAINST healing, and your veto of my will FOR you MAKES HEALING IMPOSSIBLE. If healing IS our joint will, unless our wills ARE joined you CANNOT be healed. This is obvious when you consider what healing is FOR.
Healing is the way in which the separation is overcome. Separation is overcome by UNION. It CANNOT be overcome by separating. The WILL to unite must be unequivocal, or the will ITSELF is separated or NOT WHOLE. Your will is the means by which you determine your own condition, because will is the MECHANISM OF DECISION. It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly. My will cannot OVERCOME yours, because YOURS IS AS POWERFUL AS MINE. If it were not so, the Sons of God would be unequal.
All things BECOME possible through our joint will. But my will alone will not help you. Your will is as free as mine, and God Himself would not go against it. I cannot will what God does not will. I CAN offer you my will to make yours invincible by this sharing, but I CANNOT oppose yours without competing with it and thereby violating God's Will for you. Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His. God GAVE your will its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of His.
If you want to be LIKE me, I will help you, knowing that we ARE alike. If you want to be DIFFERENT, I will wait until you change your mind. I can TEACH you, but only you can choose to LISTEN to my teaching. How else can it be, if God's Kingdom IS freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of ANY kind, and the perfect equality of ALL God's Sons cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another. God's Sons are equal in will, all being the Will of their Father. This is the ONLY lesson I can teach, knowing that it is true.
When your will is NOT mine, it is not Our Father's. This means that you have imprisoned YOURS, and have not LET it be free. Of yourselves you can do nothing, because of yourselves you ARE nothing. I am nothing without the Father, and YOU are nothing without me because by DENYING the Father you deny YOURSELF. I will ALWAYS remember you, and in MY remembrance OF you lies your remembrance of YOURSELF. In our remembrance of EACH OTHER lies our remembrance of God. And in this remembrance lies your freedom, because your freedom is in Him.
Join then with me in praise of Him AND you whom He created. This is our gift of gratitude to Him, which He will share with ALL His Creations, to whom He gives equally whatever is acceptable to Him. BECAUSE it is acceptable to Him, it is the gift of freedom, which IS His Will for all His Sons. By OFFERING freedom you will be free, because freedom is the only gift which you can offer to God's Sons, being an acknowledgment of what they are and what HE is.
Freedom is creation because it is love. What you seek to imprison you do NOT love. Therefore, when you seek to imprison ANYONE, including YOURSELF, you do not love him and you cannot identify with him. When you imprison yourself, you are losing sight of your true identification with me and with the Father. Your identification IS with the Father and with the Son. It CANNOT be with one and not the other. If you are part of one, you MUST be part of the other because they ARE One.
The Holy Trinity is holy BECAUSE It is One. If you exclude YOURSELF from this union, you are perceiving the Holy Trinity as separated. You MUST be included in It, because It IS everything. Unless you take your place in It and fulfill your function AS part of It, It is as bereft as YOU are. No part of It can be imprisoned if Its Truth is to be known.
Can you be separated from your identification and be at peace? Dissociation is NOT a solution; it is a DELUSION. The delusional believe that truth will ASSAIL them, and so they DO NOT SEE IT because they prefer the delusion. Judging truth as something they do NOT want, they perceive deception and block knowledge. Help them by offering them YOUR unified will on their behalf, as I am offering you mine on YOURS. Alone we can do nothing, but TOGETHER our wills fuse into something whose power is far beyond the power of its separate parts.
By NOT BEING SEPARATE, the Will of God is established IN ours and AS ours. This will is invincible BECAUSE it is undivided. The UNDIVIDED will of the Sonship is the perfect creator, being wholly in the likeness of God, Whose Will it IS. YOU cannot be exempt from it, if you are to understand what it is and what YOU are. By separating your will from mine, you ARE exempting yourself from the Will of God which IS yourself.
But to heal is still to make whole. Therefore to heal is to UNITE with those who are LIKE you, because perceiving this likeness IS to recognize the Father. If YOUR perfection is in Him and ONLY in Him, how can you KNOW it WITHOUT recognizing Him? The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself. There IS no separation of God and His Creation. You will learn this as you learn that there is no separation of YOUR will and mine.
Let the love of God shine upon you by your acceptance of me. MY reality is yours and His. By joining YOUR will with mine, you are signifying your awareness that the Will of God is One. His Oneness and ours are not separate, because His Oneness ENCOMPASSES ours. To join WITH me is to restore His power TO you BECAUSE we are sharing it. I offer you only the recognition of His power in you, but in that lies ALL truth. As WE unite, we unite with Him. Glory be to the union of God and His Holy Sons, because all glory lies IN them because they ARE united.
The miracles WE do bear witness to the Will of the Father for His Son, and to our joy in uniting WITH His Will FOR us. When you unite with me, you are uniting WITHOUT the ego, because I have renounced the ego in myself, and therefore CANNOT unite with yours. OUR union is therefore the way to renounce the ego in YOURSELVES. The truth in both of us is BEYOND the ego. By willing that, you HAVE gone beyond it toward truth.
Our success in transcending the ego is guaranteed by God, and I can share my perfect confidence IN His Promise because I know He gave me this confidence for both of us and ALL of us. I bring His Peace back to all His Children, because I received it of Him for us all. Nothing can prevail against our united wills, because nothing can prevail against God's. Would ye know the Will of God for YOU? Ask it of me, who knows it for you, and you will find it. I will deny YOU nothing, as God denies ME nothing.
Ours is simply the journey back to God Who is our home. Whenever fear intrudes anywhere along the road to peace, it is ALWAYS because the ego has attempted to JOIN the journey with us AND CANNOT DO SO. Sensing defeat and angered by it, it regards itself as rejected and becomes retaliative. You are invulnerable to its retaliation BECAUSE I AM WITH YOU. On this journey, you have chosen me as your companion INSTEAD of your ego. Do not try to hold on to both, or you will try to go in different directions and will lose the way.
The ego's way is not mine, but it is also NOT YOURS. The Holy Spirit has one direction for ALL minds, and the one He taught me IS yours. Let us not lose sight of His direction through illusions, for ONLY illusions of another direction can obscure the one for which God's Voice speaks in all of us. Never accord the ego the power to interfere with the journey, because it HAS none, and the journey is the way to what is TRUE. Leave ALL deception behind, and reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back.
I DO go before you, because I AM beyond the ego. Reach therefore for my hand because you WANT to transcend the ego. My will will NEVER be wanting, and if you want to share it YOU WILL. I give it willingly and gladly, because I need YOU as much as you need ME.
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.
Remember that the Holy Spirit is the ANSWER, not the question. The ego always speaks first, because it is capricious and does NOT mean its maker well. This is because it believes, and correctly, that its maker may withdraw his support from it at any moment. If it meant you well, it would be glad, as the Holy Spirit will be glad when He has brought you home and you no longer need His guidance. The ego does NOT regard itself as part of you. Herein lies its primary perceptual error, the foundation of its whole thought system.
When God created you, He made you part of Him. That is why attack WITHIN the Kingdom is impossible. But YOU made the ego without love, and so it does not love YOU. You could not remain WITHIN the Kingdom without love, and since the Kingdom IS love, you believe you are WITHOUT it. This enables the ego to regard itself as SEPARATE AND OUTSIDE ITS MAKER, thus speaking for the part of your mind that believes YOU are separate and outside the Mind of God.
The ego, then, raised the first question that was ever asked, but it can never answer it. That question, which was "What are you?" was the beginning of doubt. The ego has never answered ANY questions since, though it has raised a great many. The most inventive activities of the ego have never done more than OBSCURE THE QUESTION, because you HAVE the answer, and THE EGO IS AFRAID OF YOU. You cannot really understand conflict until YOU fully understand one basic fact that the ego does not know. The Holy Spirit does not speak first, but He ALWAYS answers. EVERYONE has called upon Him for help at one time or another, and in one way or another, AND HAS BEEN ANSWERED. Since the Holy Spirit answers truly, He answers FOR ALL TIME, and that means that EVERYONE HAS THE ANSWER NOW.
The ego cannot hear the Holy Spirit, but it DOES feel that part of the same mind that made it is AGAINST it. It interprets this wholly as a justification for ATTACKING its maker. The ego believes that the best defense is attack, and WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE THIS. Unless you DO believe it, you will not side with it. And the ego feels badly in need of allies, though not of brothers.
Perceiving something alien to itself in your MIND, the ego turns to the body, NOT the mind as its ally BECAUSE the body is not part of you. This makes the body the ego's friend. But it is an alliance frankly based on separation. If you side with this alliance, you WILL be afraid, because you are siding with an alliance OF fear. The ego and the body conspire AGAINST your minds, and because they realize that their "enemy" CAN end them both merely by knowing they are not part of him, they join in the attack together. This is perhaps the strangest perception of all, if you consider what it really involves. The ego, which is not real, attempts to persuade the mind, which IS real, that it IS its own learning device, and that the learning device is more real than IT is. No-one in his right mind could POSSIBLY believe this, and no-one in his right mind DOES believe it.
Hear, then, the one answer of the Holy Spirit to ALL the questions which the ego raises. You are a Child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, which He created as part of Him. Nothing else exists, and ONLY this is real. You have chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep is not real, and God calls you to awake. There will be nothing left of your dream when you hear Him, because you WILL be awake. Your dreams have contained many of the ego's symbols, and they have confused you. But that was only because you were asleep and DID NOT KNOW.
When you awake, you will see the Truth around you and in you, and you will no longer believe in dreams, because they will have no reality for you. But the Kingdom and all that you have created there will have great reality for you, because they are beautiful and true. In the Kingdom, where you are and what you are is perfectly certain. There is no doubt there, because the first question was never asked. Having finally been wholly answered, IT HAS NEVER BEEN. BEING alone lives in the Kingdom, where everything lives in God without question. The time that was spent on questioning in the dream has given way to the Creation and to its Eternity.
YOU are as certain as God, because you are as true as He is. But what was once quite certain in your minds has become only the ABILITY for certainty. The introduction of abilities into being was the beginning of UNcertainty, because abilities are POTENTIALS, not accomplishments. Your abilities are totally useless in the presence of God's accomplishments and also of yours. Accomplishments are RESULTS which HAVE BEEN achieved. When they are perfect, abilities are meaningless.
It is curious that the perfect must now be perfected. In fact, it is impossible. But you must remember that when you put yourselves in an impossible situation, you believed that the impossible WAS possible.
Abilities must be DEVELOPED, or you cannot use them. This is not true of anything that God created, but it is the kindest solution possible to what YOU have made. In an impossible situation, you can develop your abilities to the point where they CAN GET YOU OUT OF IT. You have a guide to how to develop them, but you have no commander EXCEPT YOURSELF. This leaves YOU in charge of the Kingdom, with both a guide to FIND it and a MEANS to keep it. You have a model to follow who will strengthen YOUR command, and never detract from it in any way. You therefore retain the central place in your perceived enslavement, a fact which ITSELF demonstrates that you are NOT enslaved.
You are in an impossible situation only because you thought it was possible to be in one. You WOULD be in an impossible situation if God showed you your perfection, and PROVED to you that you were wrong. This would demonstrate that the perfect were inadequate to bring THEMSELVES to the awareness of their perfection, and thus side with the belief that those who have everything need help, and are therefore helpless.
This is the kind of reasoning that the ego engages in, but God, who KNOWS that His creations are perfect does NOT insult them. This would be as impossible as the ego's notion that it has insulted Him. That is why the Holy Spirit NEVER commands. To command is to assume INequality, which the Holy Spirit demonstrates does not exist. Fidelity to premises is a law of the mind, and everything God created is faithful to His laws. But fidelity to other laws is also possible, not because the laws are true, but because YOU MADE THEM.
What would be gained if God proved to you that you have thought insanely? Can God lose His own certainty? We have frequently stated that what you teach you ARE. Would you have God teach you that you have sinned? If He confronted the self you have made with the Truth He created FOR you, what could you be but afraid? You would doubt your sanity, which is the one thing in which you can FIND the sanity He gave you. God does not teach. To teach is to imply a lack which God KNOWS is not there. God is not conflicted. Teaching aims at change, but God created ONLY the changeless.
The separation was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in COMMUNICATION. A harsh and strident form of communication arose as the ego's voice. It could not shatter the peace of God, but it COULD shatter YOURS. God did not blot it out, because to eradicate it would be to attack it. Being questioned, He did not question. He merely gave the Answer.
God's answer IS your teacher.
We have already discussed the Last Judgment in some though insufficient detail. After the Last Judgment, there isn't any more. This is symbolic only in the sense that everybody is much better off WITHOUT judgment. When the Bible says "Judge not that ye be not judged" it merely means that if you judge the reality of others at all, you will be unable to avoid judging your own. The choice to judge rather than know has been the cause of the loss of peace. Judgment is the process on which perception but not cognition rests. We covered this before in terms of selectivity. Evaluation was said at that time to be its obvious prerequisite.
Judgment ALWAYS involves rejection. It is not an ability which emphasizes ONLY the positive aspects of what is judged, whether it be in or out of the self. However, what has been perceived and rejected, (or judged and found wanting) remains in the unconscious because it HAS been perceived. Watson had a very relevant notion of the unconscious in this connection. In fact, it was so relevant that he dropped it as officially out of accord with Behaviorism. He was right on both counts.
One of the illusions from which human perception suffers is that what it perceives and judges against has no effect. This cannot be true, unless man also believes that what his judgment vetoes does not exist. He evidently does not believe this, or he would not have judged against it. It does not really matter, in the end, whether you judge right or wrong. Either way, you are placing your belief in the unreal. This cannot be avoided in any type of judgment, because it IMPLIES the belief that reality is yours to choose FROM.
Neither of you has any idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourselves and your brothers totally without judgment. If you will look back at the earlier notes about what you and your brothers ARE, you will realize that judging them in any way is really without meaning. In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely BECAUSE you ARE judging them. All uncertainty comes from a totally fallacious belief that you are under the coercion of judgment. You do not need it to organize your life, and you certainly do not need it to organize yourselves.
When you look upon knowledge, all judgment is automatically suspended, and this is the process that enables recognition to REPLACE perception. Man is very fearful of everything he has perceived and refused to accept. He believes that because he has refused to accept it, he has lost control over it. This is why he sees it in nightmares, or in pleasant disguise in what seems to be happier dreams. Nothing that you have refused to accept can be brought into awareness. It does NOT follow that it is dangerous. But it DOES follow that you have made it dangerous.
When you feel tired, it is merely because you have judged yourself as capable of being tired. When you laugh at someone it is because you have judged him as debased. When you laugh at yourself, you are singularly likely to laugh at others, if only because you cannot tolerate being more debased THAN others. All of this does make you tired, because it is essentially disheartening. You are not really capable of being tired, but you are very capable of wearying yourselves.
The strain of constant judgment is virtually intolerable. It is a curious thing that any ability which is so debilitating should be so deeply cherished. But there is a very good reason for this. (This, however, depends upon what you mean by good.)
If you wish to be the author of reality, which is totally impossible anyway, then you will insist on holding on to judgment. You will also use the term with considerable fear and believe that judgment will someday be used against you. To whatever extent it IS used against you, it is due ONLY to your belief in its efficacy as a weapon of defense for your own authority.
The issue of authority is really a question of authorship. When an individual has a "authority problem," it is ALWAYS because he believes he is the author of himself, and resents his own projection that you share his delusion in this respect. He then perceives the situation as one in which two people are literally fighting for his own authorship. This is the fundamental error of all those who believe they have usurped the power of God.
The belief is very frightening to them, but hardly troubles God at all. He is, however, eager to undo it, not to punish His children, but ONLY because He knows that it makes them unhappy. Souls were given their own true authorship, and men preferred to remain anonymous when they chose to separate themselves FROM their Author. The word "authority" has been one of their most fearful symbols ever since. Authority has been used for great cruelty, because, being uncertain of their true Authorship, men believe that their creation was anonymous. This has left them in a position where it SOUNDS meaningful to consider the possibility that they must have created themselves.
The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in the minds of man that some people have gone so far as to doubt whether they were ever created at all. Despite the apparent contradiction in this position, it is in one sense more tenable than the view that they created themselves. At least, it acknowledged the fact some TRUE authorship is necessary for existence.
Only those who give over all desire to reject can KNOW that their own rejection is impossible. You have not usurped the power of God, but you HAVE lost it. Fortunately, when you lose something, this does not mean that the something has gone. It merely means that YOU do not know where it is. Existence does not depend on your ability to identify it, or even to place it. It is perfectly possible to look on reality without judgment, and merely KNOW it is there. By knowing this, you are not doubting its reality at all.
Peace is a natural heritage of the Soul. Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance, but he is NOT free to establish what his inheritance IS. The problem which everyone MUST decide is the fundamental question of his own authorship. All fear comes ultimately, and sometimes by way of very devious routes, from the denial of Authorship. The offense is never to God, but only to the denier himself. He has thrown away the reason for his own peace, and sees himself only in pieces. This strange perception IS an authority problem. It is also the basis for castration anxiety, since both forms of error are fundamentally the same.
Neither you nor Bill can find peace while this authority problem continues. But the truth is still that there IS no problem about this. There is no man who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. If this has been the result of his own free will, he must regard his will as if it were NOT free, or the obviously circular reasoning of his own position would be quite apparent.
Free will MUST lead to freedom. Judgment always imprisons, because it separates segments of reality according to highly unstable scales of desire. Wishes are not facts, by definition. To wish is to imply that willing is not sufficient. However, no one really believes that what is wished is as real as what is willed. Instead of "seek you first the Kingdom of Heaven" say "Will ye first the Kingdom of Heaven," and you have said "I know what I am, and I will to accept my own inheritance."
It is ESSENTIAL that this whole authority problem be voluntarily dismissed at once and for all before B's course. Neither of you understands how important this is for your sanity. You are both quite insane on this point. (This is not a judgment. It is merely a fact. (No, Helen, you SHOULD use the word "fact." This is just as much a fact as God is. A fact is literally a "making" or a starting point. You DO start from this point, and your thinking is inverted because of it.)