The Holy Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is there. But this is NOT a memory of past events, but ONLY of a PRESENT state.
You are so long accustomed to believe that memory holds only what is past, that it is hard for you to realize it is a skill that CAN remember NOW. The limitations on remembering the world imposes on it are as vast as those you let the world impose on YOU. There IS no link of memory to the past. If YOU would have it there, then there it IS. But ONLY your desire made the link, and ONLY you have held it to a part of time where guilt appears to linger still. The Holy Spirit's use of memory is quite APART from time. He does NOT seek to use it as a means to KEEP the past, but rather as a way TO LET IT GO.
Memory holds a message it receives, and does what it is GIVEN it to do. It does NOT write the message, nor appoint what it is FOR. Like to the body, it is purposeless within itself. And if it seems to serve to cherish ancient hate, and offer you the pictures of injustices and hurts that you were saving, this is what you asked its message BE, and this is what it IS. Committed to its vaults, the history of all the body's past is hidden there. All of the strange associations made to keep the past alive, the present dead, are stored within it, waiting your command that they be brought to you, and lived again. And thus do their effects appear to be INCREASED by time, which TOOK AWAY their cause.
Yet time is but another phase of what DOES NOTHING. It works hand in hand with all the other attributes with which you sought to keep concealed the truth about yourself. Time neither takes away, nor can restore. And yet you make strange use of it, as if the past had CAUSED the present, which is but a CONSEQUENCE, in which no change can be made possible, because its cause has GONE. And change must have a cause that will endure, or else it will not last. No change can be made in the present, if its cause is PAST. ONLY the past is held in memory, as you make use of it, and so it is a way to hold the past AGAINST the now.
Remember NOTHING that you taught yourself, for you were badly taught. Who would keep a senseless lesson in his mind, when he can learn and can preserve a BETTER one? When ancient memories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone. And so you CANNOT understand what they are FOR. Let not the cause that you would give them NOW be what it was that made them what they were, or seemed to be. Be GLAD that it is gone, for this is what you would be pardoned FROM. And see, instead, the NEW effects of cause accepted NOW, with consequences HERE.
They will surprise you with their loveliness. The ancient NEW ideas they bring will be the happy consequences of a cause so ancient that it FAR exceeds the span of memory that your perception sees. This is the Cause the Holy Spirit has remembered FOR you, when you would forget. It is NOT past, because He let it not be unremembered. It has never changed, because there never was a time in which He did not keep it safely in your mind. Its consequences will indeed SEEM new, because you thought that you remembered not their Cause. Yet, was It NEVER absent from your mind, for it was NOT your Father's Will that He be unremembered by His only Son.
What YOU remember never WAS. It came from causelessness which you CONFUSED with cause. It CAN deserve but laughter, when you learn you have remembered consequences which were causeless, and could never BE effects. The miracle reminds you of a Cause forever present, perfectly untouched by time and interference. NEVER changed from what It IS. And YOU are Its effects, as changeless and as perfect as Itself. Its memory does NOT lie in the past, nor waits the future. It is NOT revealed in miracles. They but remind you that It has not gone. When you forgive It for YOUR sins, It will no longer BE denied.
You who have sought to lay a judgment on your own Creator, cannot understand it is NOT He Who laid a judgment on His Son. You would DENY Him His effects, yet have they never BEEN denied. There WAS no time in which His Son could be condemned for what was causeless, and AGAINST His Will. What YOUR remembering would witness to, is but the fear of God. He has not DONE the thing you fear. No more have YOU. And so your innocence has NOT been lost. You need NO healing to be healed. In quietness, see in the miracle a lesson in allowing Cause to have Its OWN effects, and doing NOTHING that would interfere.
The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant, and is still. It reaches gently from that quiet time, and from the mind it healed in quiet then, to other minds to SHARE its quietness. And they will JOIN in doing nothing to prevent its radiant extension back into the Mind that caused ALL minds to be. Born out of sharing, there can BE no pause in time to cause the miracle delay in hastening to all unquiet minds, and bringing them an instant's stillness, when the memory of God returns to them. Their OWN remembering is quiet now, and what has come to take its place will not be wholly unremembered afterwards.
He to Whom time is given offers thanks for every quiet instant given Him. For in that instant is His memory allowed to offer all its treasures to the Son of God, for whom they have been kept. How gladly does He offer them unto the one for whom He has been given them! And His Creator SHARES His thanks, because He would not be deprived of His effects. The instant's silence that His Son accepts gives welcome to eternity and Him, and lets them enter where they would abide. For in that instant does the Son of God do NOTHING that would make himself afraid.
How instantly the memory of God arises in the mind that has no fear to keep the memory away. Its own remembering has gone. There IS no past to keep its fearful image in the way of glad awakening to present peace. The trumpets of eternity resound throughout the stillness, yet disturb it not. And what is NOW remembered is not fear, but rather is the Cause that fear was made to render unremembered and undone. The stillness speaks in gentle sounds of love the Son of God remembers from BEFORE his own remembering came IN BETWEEN the present and the past, to shut them out.
Now is the Son of God at last aware of PRESENT Cause and Its benign effects. Now does he understand what he has made is causeless, making NO effects at all. He HAS done nothing. And, in seeing THIS, he understands he never had a NEED for doing ANYTHING, and never did. His Cause IS Its effects. There never WAS a cause besides It, that could generate a DIFFERENT past or future. ITS effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin entirely. What has been lost to see the causeless NOT? And where is sacrifice, when memory of God has come to TAKE THE PLACE of loss?
What better way to close the little gap between illusions and reality than to allow the memory of God to flow ACROSS it, making it a bridge an instant will suffice to reach beyond? For God has closed it with Himself. His memory has NOT gone by, and left a stranded Son forever on a shore where he can glimpse ANOTHER shore which he can never reach. His Father wills that he be lifted up, and gently carried over. HE has built the bridge, and it is He Who will transport His Son across it. Have no fear that He will fail in what He wills. Nor that you be excluded from the Will that IS for you.
You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred, and realize its full extent. And you may think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and dispel it WITHOUT the need for you to raise it to awareness yourself. But there is one more complication which you have interposed between yourself and the Atonement, that you do not yet realize. We have said that no one will countenance fear, IF HE RECOGNIZES IT. But in your disordered state, YOU ARE NOT AFRAID OF FEAR. You do not LIKE it, but it is NOT your desire to attack which really frightens you. You are not seriously disturbed by your hostility. You keep it hidden, because you are MORE afraid of what it covers.
You could look even upon the ego's darkest cornerstone WITHOUT fear, if you did not believe that, WITHOUT THE EGO, you would find, within yourself, something you fear even more. YOU ARE NOT AFRAID OF CRUCIFIXION. Your real terror is of REDEMPTION. Under the ego's dark foundation is the memory of God, and it is of THIS that you are really afraid. For this memory would INSTANTLY restore you to your proper place, and it is THIS place that you have sought to LEAVE.
Your fear of attack is nothing, compared to your fear of love. You would be willing to look upon your savage wish to kill God's Son, IF YOU DID NOT BELIEVE THAT IT SAVES YOU FROM LOVE. For this wish CAUSED the separation. You have protected it, because you do not WANT the separation healed, and you realize that, by REMOVING the dark cloud that obscures it, your love for your Father would IMPEL you to answer His call, and leap into Heaven. You believe that attack is salvation, to PREVENT you from this. For still deeper than the ego's foundation, and MUCH stronger than IT will ever be, is your intense and burning love of God, AND HIS FOR YOU.
THIS IS WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO HIDE. In honesty, is it not harder for you to say "I love" than "I hate?" For you associate love with weakness and hatred with strength, and your REAL power seems to you as your real weakness. For you could NOT control your joyous response to the call of love if you heard it, and the whole world you THINK you control WOULD vanish. The Holy Spirit, then, seems to be ATTACKING YOUR FORTRESS, for you would SHUT OUT GOD, and He does not will to BE excluded.
You have built your whole insane belief system, because you think you would be HELPLESS in God's Presence. And you would SAVE yourself from His love, because you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid it would sweep you AWAY from yourself, AND MAKE YOU LITTLE. For you believe that magnitude lies in defiance, and attack is grandeur. YOU THINK YOU HAVE MADE A WORLD THAT GOD WOULD DESTROY. And by loving Him, WHICH YOU DO, you would throw this world away, WHICH YOU WOULD.
Therefore, you have used the world to COVER YOUR LOVE, and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego's foundation, the CLOSER you come to the Love that is hidden beneath it. AND IT IS THIS THAT FRIGHTENS YOU. You can accept insanity, BECAUSE YOU MADE IT. But you cannot accept love, BECAUSE YOU DID NOT. You would rather be slaves of the crucifixion, than Sons of God in redemption. For your INDIVIDUAL death is more valued than your living Oneness, and what is GIVEN you, is not so dear as what you MADE. You are more afraid of God than of the ego, and love cannot enter where it is not welcome. But hatred CAN, for it enters of ITS will, and cares not for YOURS.
The reason you must look upon your delusions, and not keep them hidden, is that THEY DO NOT REST ON THEIR OWN FOUNDATION. In concealment, they APPEAR to do so, and thus they seem to be SELF-SUSTAINED. THIS is the fundamental illusion on which they rest. For BENEATH them, and concealed as long as THEY are hidden, is the loving mind that THOUGHT it made them in anger. And the pain in this mind is so apparent, when it is uncovered, that its need of healing cannot BE denied. Not all the tricks and games that you have offered it can heal it, for HERE is the REAL crucifixion of God's Son.
And yet he is NOT crucified. For here is both his pain AND his healing, for the Holy Spirit's vision is merciful, and His remedy is quick. Do not HIDE suffering from His sight, but bring it gladly TO Him. Lay before His eternal sanity ALL your hurt, and LET Him heal you. Do not leave any spot of pain hidden from His Light, and search your minds carefully for any thoughts which you may fear to uncover. For He will heal every little thought that you have kept to hurt you, and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of God.
Beneath all your grandiosity, which you hold so dear, is your real call for help. For you call for love to your Father, as your Father calls you to Himself. In that place, which you have hidden, you will only to unite with the Father, in loving remembrance of Him. You will find this place of truth as you see it in your brothers, for though they may deceive themselves, like you they long for the grandeur that is in them. And perceiving it you will WELCOME it, and it will be yours. For grandeur is the RIGHT of God's Son, and no illusions can satisfy him, or save him from what he IS.
Only his love is real, and he will be content ONLY with his reality. Save him from his illusions, that you may accept the magnitude of your Father in peace and joy. But exempt no one from your love, or you will be hiding a dark place in your minds, where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. And you will exempt YOURSELF from His healing power, for by not offering total love, YOU will not be healed completely. And healing must be as complete as fear, for love cannot enter where there is one spot of fear to mar its welcome.
You who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in your right minds. You were at peace until you asked for special favor, and God did not give it. For the request was alien to Him, and you could not ask this of a Father who truly loved His Son. Therefore, you made of Him an UNloving father, demanding of Him what only such a father COULD give. And the peace of God's Son was shattered, for he no longer understood his Father. He feared what he had made, but still more did he fear his REAL Father, having attacked his glorious equality WITH Him.
In peace he needed nothing, and asked for nothing. In war he DEMANDED everything, and FOUND nothing. For how could the gentleness of love respond to his demands, EXCEPT by departing in peace, and returning to the Father? If the Son did not wish to REMAIN in peace, he could not remain at all. For a darkened mind cannot live in the light, and it must seek a place of darkness, where it can believe it is where it is NOT. God did not ALLOW this to happen. But you DEMANDED that it happen, and therefore believed that it was so.
To SINGLE OUT is to MAKE ALONE, and thus MAKE LONELY. God did not do this to you. Could He SET YOU APART, KNOWING that your peace lies in His Oneness? He denied you only your request for pain, for suffering is not of His creation. Having GIVEN you creation, He could not take it FROM you. He could but answer your insane request with a sane answer, which would abide with you in your insanity. AND THIS HE DID. No-one who hears His answer but will give up insanity. For His answer is the reference point BEYOND delusions, from which you can look back on them, and see them as insane. But seek this place and you WILL find it, for Love is in you, and will lead you there.
Here is the second step we take to free your mind from the belief in outside force pitted against your own. You make attempts at kindness and forgiveness. Yet you turn them to attack again, unless you find external gratitude and lavish thanks. Your gifts must be received with honor, lest they be withdrawn. And so you think God's gifts are loans at best; at worst, deceptions which would cheat you of defenses to ensure that when He strikes He will not fail to kill.
How easily are God and guilt confused by those who know not what their thoughts can do. Deny your strength, and weakness must become salvation to you. See yourself as bound, and bars become your home. Nor will you leave the prison house or claim your strength until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed and found and fully recognized.
The world must thank you when you offer it release from your illusions. Yet your thanks belong to you as well, for its release can only mirror yours. Your gratitude is all your gifts require, that they be a lasting offering of a thankful heart released from hell forever. Is it this you would undo by taking back your gifts because they were not honored? It is you who honor them and give them fitting thanks, for it is you who have received the gifts.
It does not matter if another thinks your gifts unworthy. In his mind there is a part which joins with yours in thanking you. It does not matter if your gifts seem lost and ineffectual. They are received where they are given. In your gratitude are they accepted universally, and thankfully acknowledged by the Heart of God Himself. And would you take them back, when He has gratefully accepted them?
God blesses every gift you give to Him and every gift is given Him because it can be given only to yourself, and what belongs to God must be His Own. Yet you will never realize His gifts are sure, eternal, changeless, limitless, forever giving out, extending love and adding to your never-ending joy, while you forgive but to attack again.
Withdraw the gifts you give, and you will think that what is given you has been withdrawn. But learn to let forgiveness take away the sins you think you see outside yourself, and you can never think the gifts of God are lent but for a little while, before He snatches them away again in death. For death will have no meaning for you then. And with the end of this belief is fear forever over. Thank your Self for this, for He is grateful only unto God, and He gives thanks for you unto Himself.
To everyone who lives will Christ yet come, for everyone must live and breathe in Him. His Being in His Father is secure because Their Will is One. Their gratitude to all They have created has no end, for gratitude remains a part of love. Thanks be to you, the holy Son of God, for as you were created you contain all things within your Self. And you are still as God created you. Nor can you dim the light of your perfection. In your heart the Heart of God is laid. He holds you dear because you are Himself. All gratitude belongs to you because of what you are.
Give thanks as you receive it. Be you free of all ingratitude to anyone who makes your Self complete. And from this Self is no one left outside. Give thanks for all the countless channels that extend this Self. All that you do is given unto Him. All that you think can only be His Thoughts, sharing with Him the holy Thoughts of God. Earn now the gratitude you have denied yourself when you forgot the function God has given you. But never think that He has ever ceased to offer thanks to you.
If you did not feel guilty, you could not attack. For condemnation is the root of attack. It is the judgment of one mind by another as UNWORTHY of love, and DESERVING of punishment. But herein lies the split. For the mind that judges, perceives itself as SEPARATE from the mind being judged, believing that by punishing ANOTHER, IT will escape punishment. All this is but the delusional attempt of the mind to deny itself, and ESCAPE THE PENALTY OF DENIAL. It is NOT an attempt to RELINQUISH denial, but to HOLD ON TO IT. For it is guilt that has obscured the Father to you, and it is guilt that has driven you insane. The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God's Son was the beginning of the separation, as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end.
The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its powers decline if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.
If this were the real world, God WOULD be cruel. For no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation, and be loving. LOVE DOES NOT KILL TO SAVE. For if it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the ego's interpretation, NOT God's. Only the world of guilt could demand this, for only the guilty could CONCEIVE of it. Adam's "sin" could have touched none of you, had you not believed that it was the FATHER Who drove him out of Paradise. For it is in THAT belief that knowledge of the Father was lost, for it is only those who do not understand Him that COULD believe it.
This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son CANNOT be crucified, this is the world you will see. But you will NOT realize this, until you accept the eternal fact that GOD'S SON IS NOT GUILTY. He DESERVES only love, because he has GIVEN only love. He cannot be condemned, because he has never condemned. The Atonement is the final lesson he need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, HE HAS NO NEED OF SALVATION.
Long ago we said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers, whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary, by teaching their pupils all they know. The Holy Spirit wills ONLY this, for sharing the Father's love for His Son, He wills to remove all guilt from his mind, that he may remember his Father in peace. For peace and guilt are antithetical, and the Father can BE remembered ONLY in peace. Love and guilt cannot coexist, and to accept one is to DENY the other.
Guilt hides Christ from your sight, for it is the denial of the blamelessness of God's Son. In this strange world which you have made, the Son of God HAS sinned. How could you SEE him, then? By making HIM invisible, the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt which you accepted, and you hold it dear. For the blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was, and can never be. Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God's Son IS without guilt.
As you look upon yourselves and judge what you do honestly, as you have been asked to do, you may be tempted to wonder how you can be guiltless. But consider this. You are NOT guiltless in time, but IN ETERNITY. You HAVE "sinned" IN THE PAST, but there IS no past. Always has no direction. Time seems to go in one direction, but when you reach its end, it will roll up like a long carpet that has spread along the past behind you, and will disappear. As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty, you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless, for so it is.
The journey which the Son of God has set HIMSELF is foolish indeed. But the journey on which his Father sets him is one of release and joy. The Father is not cruel, and His Son CANNOT hurt himself. The retaliation which he fears, AND WHICH HE SEES, will never touch him, for although he BELIEVES in it, the Holy Spirit KNOWS it is not true. He stands at the end of time, where YOU must be, because He is WITH you. He has ALWAYS undone everything unworthy of the Son of God, for such was His mission, given BY God. And what God gives HAS always been.
You will see me as you learn the Son of God is guiltless. He has always sought his guiltlessness, and he has FOUND it. For everyone is seeking to escape from the prison he has made, and the way to find release is not denied him. Being IN him, he has found it. WHEN he finds it is only a matter of time, and time is but an illusion. For the Son of God is guiltless NOW, and the brightness of his purity shines untouched forever in God's Mind. God's Son will ALWAYS be as he was created. Deny YOUR world, and judge him not. For his eternal guiltlessness is in the mind of his Father, and protects him forever.
When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will realize that THERE IS NO GUILT IN GOD'S SON. And ONLY as you look upon him as guiltless, can you understand his Oneness. For the IDEA of guilt brings a belief of condemnation of one by another, projecting separation in place of unity. You can condemn only yourself, and by doing so, you cannot know that you are God's Son. For you have denied the condition of his Being, which is his perfect blamelessness. Out of Love he was created, and in Love he abides. Goodness and mercy have always followed him, for he has always extended the Love of his Father.
As you perceive the holy companions who travel with you, you will realize that there IS no journey, but only an awakening. The Son of God, who sleepeth not, has kept faith with his Father FOR you. There is no road to travel ON, and no time to travel THROUGH. For God waits not for His Son in time, being forever unwilling to be without him. And so it has always been. Let the holiness of God's Son shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens your mind, and by accepting his purity AS yours, learn of him that it IS yours.
You are invulnerable BECAUSE you are guiltless. You can hold on to the past ONLY through guilt. For guilt establishes that you WILL BE punished for what you have done, and thus depends on one-dimensional time, proceeding from past to future. No-one who believes this, can understand what ALWAYS means. And therefore guilt MUST deprive you of the appreciation of eternity. You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now. Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in your minds, to ensure the ego's continuity. For if what it HAS BEEN WILL BE punished, it's continuity WOULD be guaranteed.
But the guarantee of your continuity is God's, not the ego's. And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless. The future IN TIME is ALWAYS associated with expiation, and ONLY guilt could induce a sense of NEED for expiation. Accepting the guiltlessness of the Son of God AS YOURS is therefore God's way of reminding you of His Son, and what he is in truth. For God has never condemned His Son, and being guiltless, he IS eternal.
You cannot dispel guilt by making it real, and THEN atoning for it. For this is the ego's plan, which it offers INSTEAD of dispelling it. The ego believes in ATONEMENT THROUGH ATTACK, being fully committed to the insane notion that attack IS salvation. And YOU who cherish guilt must ALSO believe it, for how else but by identifying WITH the ego, could you hold dear what you do not want?
The ego teaches you to attack yourself BECAUSE you are guilty, and this MUST INCREASE the guilt, for guilt is the RESULT of attack. In the ego's teaching, then, there IS no escape from guilt. For attack MAKES GUILT REAL, and if it is real there IS no way to overcome it. The Holy Spirit dispels it simply through the calm recognition that it has never been. As He looks upon the guiltless Son of God, he KNOWS this is true. And being true for you, you CANNOT attack yourself, for WITHOUT guilt, attack is impossible. You, then, ARE saved BECAUSE God's Son is guiltless. And being wholly pure, you ARE invulnerable.
If sickness is separation, the will to heal and BE HEALED is the first step toward RECOGNIZING WHAT YOU TRULY WANT. Every ATTACK is a step AWAY from this, and every healing thought brings it closer. The Son of God HAS both Father and Son because he IS both Father and Son.
To unite having and being is only to unite your will with His, for He wills you HIMSELF. And you will yourself to HIM, because in your perfect understanding of Him, you KNOW there IS but One Will. But when you attack ANY part of God and His Kingdom, your understanding is NOT perfect, and what YOU will is therefore lost to you.
Healing thus becomes A LESSON IN UNDERSTANDING, and the more you practice it, the better teacher AND LEARNER you become. If you have DENIED truth, what better witnesses to its reality could you have, than those who have been healed BY it? But be sure to count yourself among them, for in your willingness to JOIN them is YOUR healing accomplished.
Every miracle which you accomplish speaks to you of the Fatherhood of God. Every healing thought which you ACCEPT, either FROM your brother or in your OWN mind, teaches you that you are God's Son. But in every hurtful thought you hold, wherever you perceive it, lies the denial of God's Fatherhood and your Sonship. And denial IS as total as love. You cannot deny PART of yourself, simply because the remainder will seem to be unintegrated, and therefore without meaning. And being without meaning TO YOU, you will not understand it. To deny meaning MUST be to fail to understand.
You can only heal yourself, for only God's Son NEEDS healing. He needs it because he does not understand himself, and therefore knows not what he does. Having forgotten his will, he does not know what he WANTS. Healing is a sign that HE WANTS TO MAKE WHOLE. And this willingness opens his OWN ears to the Voice of the Holy Spirit, Whose message IS wholeness. He will enable you to go far beyond the healing YOU would undertake, for beside your small willingness to make whole He will lay His Own COMPLETE Will and make YOURS whole. What can the Son of God NOT accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him?
And yet the invitation must come from you, for you have surely learned that whom you invite as your guest WILL abide with you. The Holy Spirit cannot speak to an unwelcoming host, BECAUSE HE WILL NOT BE HEARD. The Eternal Guest remains, but His Voice grows faint in alien company. He needs your protection, but only because your care is a sign that you WANT Him. Think like Him ever so slightly, and the little spark becomes a blazing light that fills your mind so that He becomes your only Guest.
Whenever you ask the ego to enter, you lessen His welcome. HE will remain, but YOU have allied yourself AGAINST Him. Whatever journey you choose to take, He will go with you, waiting. You can safely trust His patience, for He CANNOT leave a part of God. But you will far more than patience. You will never rest until you know your function AND FULFILL IT, for only in this can your will and your Father's be wholly joined. To HAVE Him is to be LIKE Him, and He has GIVEN Himself to you.
You who have God MUST be as God, for HIS function became YOURS with His gift. Invite this knowledge back into your minds, and let nothing that will obscure it enter. The Guest whom God sent you will teach you how to do this, if you but recognize the little spark, and are WILLING TO LET IT GROW. YOUR willingness need not be perfect, because His IS. If you will merely offer Him a little place, He will lighten it so much, that you will gladly extend it. And by THIS extending, you will begin to remember Creation.
Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only whom YOU invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest, and how long he shall remain with you. But this is not REAL freedom, for it depends on how you see it. For the Holy Spirit is THERE, although He cannot help you without your invitation, and the ego is nothing, whether you invite it in or not. Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real. Know, then, Who abides with you, merely by recognizing WHAT IS ALREADY THERE, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you.
This question really answers itself. Healing cannot be repeated. If the patient is healed, what remains to heal him from? And if the healing is certain, as we have already said it is, what is there to repeat? For a teacher of God to remain concerned about the result of healing is to limit the healing. It is now the teacher of God himself whose mind needs to be healed. And it is this he must facilitate. He is now the patient, and he must so regard himself. He has made a mistake, and must be willing to change his mind about it. He lacked the trust that makes for giving truly, and so he has not received the benefit of his gift.
Whenever a teacher of God has tried to be a channel for healing he has succeeded. Should he be tempted to doubt this, he should not repeat his previous effort. That was already maximal, because the Holy Spirit so accepted it and so used it. Now the teacher of God has only one course to follow. He must use his reason to tell himself that he has given the problem to One Who cannot fail, and recognize that his own uncertainty is not love but fear, and therefore hate. His position has thus become untenable, for he is offering hate to one to whom he offered love. This is impossible. Having offered love, only love can be received.
It is in this that the teacher of God must trust. This is what is really meant by the statement that the one responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. The teacher of God is a miracle worker because he gives the gifts he has received. Yet he must first accept them. He need do no more, nor is there more that he could do. By accepting healing he can give it. If he doubts this, let him remember Who gave the gift and Who received it. Thus is his doubt corrected. He thought the gifts of God could be withdrawn. That was a mistake, but hardly one to stay with. And so the teacher of God can only recognize it for what it is, and let it be corrected for him.
One of the more difficult temptations to recognize is that to doubt a healing because of the appearance of continuing symptoms is a mistake in the form of lack of trust. As such, it is an attack. Usually it seems to be just the opposite. It does appear unreasonable at first to be told that continued concern is attack. It has all the appearance of love. Yet love without trust is impossible, and doubt and trust cannot coexist. And hate must be the opposite of love, regardless of the form it takes. Doubt not the gift, and it is impossible to doubt its result. This is the certainty that gives God's teachers the power to be miracle workers, for they have put their trust in Him.
The real basis for doubt about the outcome of any problem that has been given to God's Teacher for resolution is always self-doubt. And that necessarily implies that trust has been placed in an illusory self, for only such a self can be doubted. This illusion can take many forms. Perhaps there is a fear of weakness and vulnerability. Perhaps there is fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy. Perhaps there is a guilty embarrassment stemming from false humility. The form of the mistake is not important. What is important is only the recognition of a mistake as a mistake.
The mistake is always some form of concern with the self to the exclusion of the patient. It is a failure to recognize him as part of the self, and thus represents a confusion in identity. Conflict about what you are has entered your mind, and you have become deceived about yourself. And you are deceived about yourself because you have denied the Source of your creation. If you are offering only healing, you cannot doubt. If you really want the problem solved, you cannot doubt. If you are certain what the problem is, you cannot doubt. Doubt is the result of conflicting wishes. Be sure of what you want, and doubt becomes impossible.
No one can give what he has not received. To give a thing requires first you have it in your own possession. Here the laws of Heaven and the world agree. But here they also separate. The world believes that to possess a thing it must be kept. Salvation teaches otherwise. To give is how to recognize you have received. It is the proof that what you have is yours.
You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. You recognize your brother as yourself, and thus do you perceive that you are whole. There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away.
Christ's vision is a miracle. It comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects Eternal Love and the rebirth of love which never dies, but has been kept obscure. Christ's vision pictures Heaven, for it sees a world so like to Heaven that what God created perfect can be mirrored there. The darkened glass the world presents can show but twisted images in broken parts. The real world pictures Heaven's innocence.
Christ's vision is the miracle in which all miracles are born. It is their source, remaining with each miracle you give, and yet remaining yours. It is the bond by which the giver and receiver are united in extension here on earth as they are one in Heaven. Christ beholds no sin in anyone, and in His sight the sinless are as one. Their holiness was given by His Father and Himself.
Christ's vision is the bridge between the worlds, and in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there, transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them. Holiness has been restored to vision, and the blind can see.
This is the Holy Spirit's single gift; the treasure house to which you can appeal with perfect certainty for everything that can contribute to your happiness. All are laid here already. All can be received but for the asking. Here the door is never locked, and no one is denied his least request or his most urgent need. There is no sickness not already healed. No lack unsatisfied, no need unmet, within this golden treasury of Christ.
Here does the world remember what was lost when it was made. For here it is repaired, made new again but in a different light. What was to be the home of sin becomes the center of redemption and the hearth of mercy, where the suffering are healed and welcome. No one will be turned away from this new home, where his salvation waits. No one is stranger to him. No one asks for anything of him except the gift of his acceptance of his welcoming
Christ's vision is the holy ground in which the lilies of forgiveness set their roots. This is their home. They can be brought from here back to the world, but they can never grow in its unnourishing and shallow soil. They need the light and warmth and kindly care Christ's charity provides. They need the love with which He looks on them. And they become His messengers which give as they received.
Take from His storehouse, that its treasures may increase. His lilies do not leave their home when they are carried back into the world. Their roots remain. They do not leave their source, but carry its beneficence with them, and turn the world into a garden like the one they came from, and to which they go again with added fragrance. Now are they twice blessed. The messages they brought from Christ have been delivered and returned to them. And they return them gladly unto Him.
Behold the store of miracles set out for you to give. Are you not worth the gift, when God appointed it be given you? Judge not God's Son, but follow in the way He has established. Christ has dreamed the dream of a forgiven world. It is His gift whereby a sweet transition can be made from death to life, from hopelessness to hope. Let us an instant dream with Him. His dream awakens us to truth. His vision gives the means for a return to our unlost and everlasting sanctity in God.
Is it not true you do NOT recognize some of the forms attack can take? If it is true attack in ANY form will hurt you, and will do so just as much as in another form which you DO recognize, then it MUST follow that you do not always RECOGNIZE the source of pain. ATTACK IN ANY FORM IS EQUALLY DESTRUCTIVE. Its PURPOSE does not change. Its sole intent is murder, and what FORM of murder serves to cover the massive guilt and frantic fear of punishment the murderer MUST feel? He may deny he IS a murderer, and justify his savagery with smiles as he attacks.
Yet he will suffer, and will look on his intent in nightmares, where the smiles are gone, and where the purpose rises to meet his horrified awareness, and pursue him still. For no-one THINKS of murder, and escapes the guilt the thought entails. If the INTENT is death, what matter the form it takes? Is death in ANY form, however lovely and charitable it may SEEM to be, a blessing and a sign the Voice for God speaks through you to your brother? The wrapping does not make the gift you give. An empty box, however beautiful and gently given, still contains nothing, and neither the receiver NOR THE GIVER is long deceived. WITHHOLD forgiveness from your brother, and you ATTACK him. You GIVE him nothing, and receive of him but what you gave.
Salvation is no compromise of any kind. To compromise is to accept but PART of what you want; to take a little; and GIVE UP the rest. Salvation gives up nothing. It is complete for everyone. Let the IDEA of compromise but enter, and the awareness of salvation's PURPOSE is lost, because it is not recognized. It is DENIED where compromise has been accepted. For compromise is the belief SALVATION is impossible. It would maintain you can attack a little, love a little, AND KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. Thus it would teach a little of the same can still be different, and yet the same remain intact, as one. Does this make sense? Can it BE understood?
This course is easy just BECAUSE it makes no compromise. Yet it SEEMS difficult to those who still believe that compromise is possible. They do NOT see that, if it is, SALVATION IS ATTACK. Yet it is certain the belief that salvation is impossible can NOT uphold a quiet, calm assurance it has come. Forgiveness cannot BE withheld a little. Nor is it possible to attack for this and love for that, and UNDERSTAND forgiveness. Would you not WANT to recognize assault upon your peace in ANY form, if only thus does it become impossible that YOU lose sight of it? It CAN be kept shining before your vision, forever clear and NEVER out of sight, if YOU defend it not.
Those who believe that peace can BE defended, and that attack is JUSTIFIED on its behalf, can NOT perceive it lies within them. How COULD they know? Could they ACCEPT forgiveness side by side with the belief that murder takes some forms by which their peace is SAVED? Would they be WILLING to accept the fact their savage purpose is directed against themselves? No-one unites with enemies, nor is at one with them in purpose. And no-one COMPROMISES with an enemy but hates him still, for what he KEPT from him. Mistake not truce for peace, nor compromise for the ESCAPE from conflict.
To be RELEASED from conflict means that IT IS OVER. The door is open; you have LEFT the battleground. You have NOT lingered there in cowering hope, because the guns are stilled an instant and the fear that haunts the place of death is not apparent, that it will not return. There IS no safety in a battleground. You can look down on it in safety from above, and NOT be touched. But, from within it, you can find NO safety. Not one tree left standing still will shelter you. Not one illusion of protection stands against the faith in murder. Here stands the body, torn between the natural desire to communicate, and the unnatural intent to murder and to die.
Think you the FORM that murder takes can offer safety? Can guilt be ABSENT from a battlefield? Do not remain in conflict, for there IS no war without attack.
The Atonement is in time, but not FOR time. Being for YOU, it is for the eternal. What holds remembrance of God, CANNOT be bound by time. No more are you. For, unless GOD is bound, you CANNOT be. An instant, offered to the Holy Spirit, is offered to God on your behalf, and in that instant, you will awaken gently in Him.
In the blessed instant, you will let go ALL your past learning, and the Holy Spirit will quickly offer you the WHOLE lesson of peace. What can take time, when ALL the obstacles to learning it have been removed? Truth is so far beyond time, that ALL of it happens at once. For as it was created one, so its oneness depends not on time at all. Be not concerned with time, and fear not the instant of holiness which will remove ALL fear. For the instant of peace is eternal, BECAUSE it is wholly WITHOUT fear. It WILL come, being the lesson God gives you, through the Teacher HE has appointed, to translate time to eternity.
Blessed is God's Teacher, Whose joy it is to teach God's holy Son his holiness. His joy is not contained in time. His teaching is for you, BECAUSE His joy is yours. Through Him, YOU stand before God's altar, where He gently translated hell into Heaven. For it is only in Heaven that God would have you be. How long can it take, to be where God would have you? For you ARE where you have forever been, and will forever be. All that you have, you have forever. The blessed instant reaches out to ENCOMPASS time, as God extends Himself to encompass you.
You who have spent days, hours, and even years, in chaining your brothers TO your egos, in an attempt to support it, and uphold its WEAKNESS, do not perceive the Source of STRENGTH. In the holy instant, you will unchain ALL of your brothers, and refuse to support either THEIR weakness, OR YOUR OWN. You do not realize how much you have MISUSED your brothers, by seeing them as sources of EGO support. As a result, they witness TO the ego in your perception, and SEEM to provide reasons for NOT letting it go. Yet they are far stronger, and MUCH more compelling witnesses for the Holy Spirit. And they support His STRENGTH.
It is, therefore, your choice, whether they support the ego or the Holy Spirit IN YOU. And you will know which you have chosen, by THEIR reactions. A Son of God who has been released through the Holy Spirit in a brother, IF THE RELEASE IS COMPLETE, is ALWAYS recognized. He cannot BE denied. As long as YOU remain uncertain, it can be ONLY because you have not given COMPLETE release. And, because of this, you have not yet given one single instant COMPLETELY to the Holy Spirit. For, when you HAVE, you will be SURE you have. You will be sure, because the witness TO Him will speak so clearly OF Him, that you will hear, and UNDERSTAND.
You WILL doubt, until you hear ONE witness whom you have WHOLLY released through the Holy Spirit. And then you will doubt no more. The holy instant has not yet happened to you. But it will, and you will recognize it, with perfect certainty. No gift of God is recognized in any other way. You can practice the mechanics of the holy instant, and will learn much from doing so. But its shining and glittering brilliance, which will literally blind you to this world by its OWN vision, you can NOT supply. And here it is, ALL in this instant, complete, accomplished, and GIVEN WHOLLY.
Start NOW, to practice your little part in SEPARATING OUT the holy instant. You will receive very specific instructions, as you go along. To learn to separate out this single second, and begin to experience it as timeless, is to begin to experience yourself as NOT separate. Fear not that you will not be given help in this. God's Teacher, and His lesson will support your strength. It is only your weakness that will depart from you in this practice, for it is the practice of the power of God in you. Use it but for one instant, and you will never deny it again. Who can deny the Presence of what the universe bows to, in appreciation and gladness? Before the recognition of the universe, which witnesses to it, YOUR doubts MUST disappear. -
Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal. And as you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead.
Today we go beyond the grievances, to look upon the miracle instead. We will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees. We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence, to behold the Son of God.
He waits for you behind your grievances, and as you lay them down he will appear in shining light where each one stood before. For every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts, you see the Son of God where he has always been. He stands in light, but you were in the dark. Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see. Today we will attempt to see God's Son. We will not let ourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our grievances. So is the seeing of the world reversed, as we look out toward truth, away from fear.
We will select one person you have used as target for your grievances, and lay the grievances aside, and look at him. Someone, perhaps, you fear and even hate; someone you think you love who angers you; someone you call a friend, but whom you see as difficult at times, or hard to please; demanding, irritating, or untrue to the ideal he should accept as his according to the role you set for him.
You know the one to choose; his name has crossed your mind already. He will be the one of whom we ask God's Son be shown to us. Through seeing him behind the grievances that we have held against him, you will learn that what lay hidden while you saw him not is there in everyone, and can be seen. He who was enemy is more than friend when he is freed to take the holy role the Holy Spirit has assigned to him. Let him be Savior unto you today. Such is his role in God your Father's plan.
Our longer practice periods today will see him in this role. We will attempt to hold him in our mind, first as you now consider him. We will review his faults, the difficulties you have had with him, the pain he caused you, his neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts he gave. We will regard his body with its flaws and better points as well, as we will think of his mistakes and even of his "sins."
Then let us ask of Him who knows this Son of God in his reality and truth, that we may look on him a different way, and see our Savior shining in the light of true forgiveness, given unto us. We ask Him in the Holy Name of God and of His Son, as holy as Himself:
"Let me behold my Savior in this one
You have appointed as the One for me
To ask to lead me to the holy light
In which he stands, that I may join with him."
The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances.
What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your Savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours. The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him will free you both. Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining Savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of him. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him, that you might be saved.
God thanks you for these quiet times today, in which you laid your images aside, and looked upon the miracle of love the Holy Spirit showed you in their place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for not one Thought of God but must rejoice as you are saved, and all the world with you.
We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us as part of God's salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we allow each one we meet to save us, and refuse to hide his light behind our grievances. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of, or remember from the past, allow the role of Savior to be given, that you may share it with them. For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:
"Let miracles replace all grievances."