Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God's teachers, and they will begin to look for him as soon as he has answered the Call. They were chosen for him because the form of the universal curriculum that he will teach is best for them in view of their level of understanding. His pupils have actually been waiting for him, for his coming is certain. Again, it is only a matter of time. Once he has chosen to fulfill his role, they are ready to fulfill theirs. Time waits on his choice, but not whom he will serve. When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him.
In order to understand the teaching-learning plan of salvation, it is necessary to grasp the concept of time which the course sets forth. Atonement corrects illusions, not truth. Therefore, it corrects what never was. Further, the plan for this correction was established and completed simultaneously, for the Will of God is entirely apart from time. So is all reality, being of Him. The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God's Son, in that same instant was God's Answer given. In time this happened very long ago. In reality it never happened at all.
The world of time is the world of illusion. What happened long ago seems to be happening now. Choices made long since appear to be open; yet to be made. What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach. Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there. As the course emphasizes, you are not free to choose the curriculum, or even the form in which you will learn it. You are free, however, to decide when you want to learn it. And as you accept it, it is already learned.
Time really, then, goes backward to an instant so ancient that it is beyond all memory and past even the possibility of remembering. Yet because it is an instant that is relived again and again and still again, it seems to be now. And thus it is that pupil and teacher seem to come together in the present, finding each other as if they had not met before. The pupil comes at the right time to the right place. This is inevitable, because he made the right choice in that ancient instant which he now relives. So has the teacher, too, made an inevitable choice out of an ancient past. God's Will in everything but seems to take time in the working-out. What could delay the power of eternity?
When pupil and teacher come together, a teaching-learning situation begins. For the teacher is not really the one who does the teaching. God's Teacher speaks to any two who join together for learning purposes. The relationship is holy because of that purpose, and God has promised to send His Spirit into any holy relationship. In the teaching-learning situation, each one learns that giving and receiving are the same. The demarcations they have drawn between their roles, their minds, their bodies, their needs, their interests, and all the differences they thought separated them from one another, fade and grow dim and disappear. Those who would learn the same course share one interest and one goal. And thus he who was the learner becomes a teacher of God Himself, for he has made the one decision that gave his teacher to him. He has seen in another person the same interests as his own.
A little hindrance can seem large indeed to those who do not understand that miracles are all the same. But teaching that is what this course is FOR. That is its only purpose, for only that is all there is to learn. And you can learn it many different ways. All learning is a help or hindrance to the gate of Heaven. Nothing in between is possible. There are TWO teachers only, who point in different ways. And you will go along the way your chosen teacher leads. There are but TWO directions you can take, while time remains and choice is meaningful. For never will another road be made, except the way to Heaven. You but choose whether to go TOWARD Heaven, or away to nowhere. There is nothing else to choose.
Nothing is ever lost but time, which, in the end, IS nothing. It is but a little hindrance to eternity, quite meaningless to the real Teacher of the world. But since you DO believe in its reality, why should you waste it going nowhere, when it CAN be used to reach a goal as high as learning can achieve? Think not the way to Heaven's gate is difficult at all. Nothing you undertake with certain purpose and high resolve and happy confidence, holding each other's hand and keeping step to Heaven's song, is difficult to do. But it IS hard indeed to wander off, alone and miserable, down a road which leads to nothing, and which HAS no purpose.
God gave His Teacher to REPLACE the one you made, NOT to CONFLICT with it. And what He would replace HAS BEEN replaced. Time lasted but an instant in your mind, with NO effect upon eternity. And so is ALL time past, and everything EXACTLY as it was before the way to nothingness was made. The tiny tick of time, in which the first mistake was made, and ALL of them within that ONE mistake, held also the Correction for that one, and ALL of them that came within the first. And in that tiny instant time was gone, for that was all it ever was. What God gave Answer to IS answered, and IS gone.
To you who still believe you live in time, and know not it is gone, the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze you still perceive in time, though it has long since gone. You think you live in what is past. Each thing you look upon you saw but for an instant, long ago, before its unreality gave way to truth. Not one illusion still remains unanswered in your mind. Uncertainty was brought to Certainty so long ago that it is hard indeed to hold it to your heart, as if it were before you still. The tiny instant you would keep, and make eternal, passed away in Heaven too soon for anything to notice it had come.
What disappeared too quickly to affect the simple knowledge of the Son of God, can hardly still be there for you to choose to be your teacher. Only in the past, - an ancient past, too short to make a world in answer to creation, - did this world APPEAR to rise. So VERY long ago, for such a tiny interval of time that not one note in Heaven's song was missed. Yet, in each unforgiving act or thought, in every judgment, and in all belief in sin is that one instant still called back, as if it could be made again in time. You keep an ancient memory before your eyes. And he who lives in memories alone is unaware of where he IS.
Forgiveness is the great release from time. It is the key to learning that the past is over. Madness speaks no more. There IS no OTHER teacher and no OTHER way. For what has been undone no longer is. And who can stand upon a distant shore, and dream himself across an ocean, to a place and time that have long since gone by? How REAL a hindrance can this dream be to where he really IS? For this is fact, and does NOT change whatever dreams he has. Yet can he still IMAGINE he is elsewhere, and in another time. In the extreme, he can delude himself that this is true, and pass from mere imagining into belief and into madness, quite convinced that where he would prefer to be, he IS.
Is this a HINDRANCE to the place whereon he stands? Is any echo from the past that he may hear a fact in what is there to hear where he is now? And how much can his own delusions about time and place affect a change in where he REALLY is? The unforgiven is a voice that calls from out a past forever more gone by. And everything which points to it as real is but a wish that what is gone could be made real again, and seen as here and now, in place of what is REALLY now and here. Is this a HINDRANCE to the truth the past has gone, and CANNOT be returned to you? And do you WANT that fearful instant kept, when Heaven seemed to disappear, and God was feared and made a symbol of your hate?
Forget the time of terror that has been so long ago corrected and undone. Can sin withstand the Will of God? Can it be up to you to see the past, and put it in the present? You can NOT go back. And everything that points the way in the direction of the past but sets you on a mission whose accomplishment can ONLY be unreal. Such is the justice your ever loving Father has ensured MUST come to you. And from your own unfairness unto yourself has He protected you. You CANNOT lose your way, because there is no Way but His, and nowhere CAN you go, except to Him. Would He allow His Son to lose his way along a road long since a distant memory of a time gone by?
This course will teach you ONLY what is now. A dreadful instant in a distant past, now perfectly corrected, is of no concern or value. Let the dead and gone be peacefully forgotten. Resurrection has come to take its place. And now you are a part of Resurrection, NOT of death. No past illusions have the power to keep you in a place of death, a vault God's Son entered an instant, to be instantly restored unto His Father's Perfect Love. And how can he be kept in chains long since removed, and gone forever from his mind? The Son that God created is as free as God created him. He was reborn the instant that he chose to die, instead of live. And will you not forgive him now, because he made an error in the past that God remembers not, and is not there?
Now are you shifting back and forth, between the past and present. Sometimes the past seems real, as if it WERE the present. Voices FROM the past are heard, and then are doubted. You are like to one who still hallucinates, but lacks conviction in what he perceives. This is the borderland between the worlds, the bridge between the past and present. Here the shadow of the past remains, but still a present Light is dimly recognized. Once it is seen, this Light can never be forgotten. It MUST draw you from the past into the present, where you really ARE. The shadow voices do not CHANGE the laws of time or of eternity. They come from what is past and gone, but hinder not the true existence of the here and now.
The real world is the second part of the hallucination time and death are real, and have existence which can be perceived. This terrible illusion was denied in but the time it took for God to give His Answer to illusion for ALL time and EVERY circumstance. And then it was no more, to be experienced as there. Each day, and every minute in each day, and every instant that each minute holds, you but relive the single instant when the time of terror was replaced by Love. And so you die each day to live again, until you cross the gap between the past and present, which is NOT a gap at all.
Such is each life; a seeming interval from birth to death, and on to life again, a repetition of an instant gone by long ago, which CANNOT be relived. And ALL of time is but the mad belief that what is over is still here and now. Forgive the past and let it go, for it IS gone. You stand no longer on the ground that lies between the worlds. You HAVE gone on, and reached the world that lies at Heaven's gate. There IS no hindrance to the Will of God, nor any need that you repeat again a journey that was over long ago. Look gently on each other, and behold the world in which perception of your hate has been transformed into a world of Love.
Forget not once this journey is begun the end is certain. Doubt along the way will come and go and go to come again. Yet is the ending sure. No-one can fail to do what God appointed him to do. When you forget, remember that you walk with Him and with His Word upon your heart. Who could despair when hope like this is his? Illusions of despair may seem to come, but learn how not to be deceived by them. Behind each one there is reality and there is God. Why would you wait for this and trade it for illusions, when His Love is but an instant farther on the road where all illusions end? The end IS sure and guaranteed by God. Who stands before a lifeless image when a step away the Holy of the Holies opens up an ancient door that leads beyond the world?
You ARE a stranger here, but you belong to Him Who loves you as He loves Himself. Ask but my help to roll the stone away, and it is done according to His Will.
We HAVE begun the journey. Long ago the end was written in the stars and set into the Heavens with a shining Ray that held it safe within eternity and through all time as well. And holds it still; unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable.
Be not afraid. We only start again an ancient journey long ago begun that but seems new. We have begun again upon a road we travelled on before and lost our way a little while. And now we try again. Our new beginning has the certainty the journey lacked 'til now. Look up and see His Word among the stars, where He has set your Name along with His. Look up and find your certain destiny the world would hide but God would have you see.
Let us wait here in silence, and kneel down an instant in our gratitude to Him Who called to us and helped us hear His Call. And then let us arise and go in faith along the way to Him. Now we are sure we do not walk alone. For God is here, and with Him all our brothers. Now we know that we will never lose the way again. The song begins again which had been stopped only an instant, though it seems to be unsung forever. What is here begun will grow in life and strength and hope, until the world is still an instant and forgets all that the dream of sin had made of it.
Let us go out and meet the newborn world, knowing that Christ has been reborn in it, and that the holiness of this rebirth will last forever. We had lost our way, but He has found it for us. Let us come and bid Him welcome Who returns to us to celebrate salvation and the end of all we thought we made. The morning star of this new day looks on a different world where God is welcomed and His Son with Him. We who complete Him offer thanks to Him, as He gives thanks to us. The Son is still, and in the peace that God has given him enters his home and is at peace at last.
THE MIRACLE DOES NOTHING. All it does is to UNdo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what HAS BEEN done. It does not add, but merely takes away. And what it takes away is long since gone, but, being kept in memory, APPEARS to have immediate effects. This world was over long ago. The thoughts that made it are no longer in the mind that thought of them, and loved them for a while. The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what has truly gone HAS no effects. REMEMBERING a cause can but produce ILLUSIONS of its presence, NOT effects.
All the effects of guilt are here no more. For guilt is over. In its passing went its consequences, left without a cause. Why would you cling to it in memory, if you did not DESIRE its effects? Remembering is as selective as perception, being its past tense. It is perception of the past, as if it were occurring NOW, and still were there to see. Memory, like perception, is a skill made up by you, to take the place of what God GAVE in your creation. And, like all the things you made, it can be used to serve ANOTHER purpose, and to be means for something ELSE. It can be used to heal, and NOT to hurt, if you so wish.
Nothing employed for healing represents an effort to do anything at all. It is a recognition that you HAVE no needs which mean that something must be DONE. It is an unselective memory, which is NOT used to INTERFERE with truth. All things the Holy Spirit can employ for healing have been given Him WITHOUT the content and the purposes for which they have been made. They are but skills WITHOUT an application. They AWAIT their use. They have NO dedication and NO aim.
Specialness is a lack of trust in anyone except yourself. Faith is invested in yourself alone. Everything else becomes your enemy, feared and attacked, deadly and dangerous, hated and worthy only of destruction. Whatever gentleness it offers is but deception, but its hate is real. In danger of destruction, it MUST kill, and YOU are drawn to it, to kill it first. And such is guilt's attraction. Here is death enthroned as savior; crucifixion is now redemption, and salvation can ONLY mean destruction of the world, EXCEPT YOURSELF.
What could the purpose of the body Be BUT specialness? And it is this that makes it frail and helpless in its own defense. It was CONCEIVED to make YOU frail and helpless. The goal of separation is its curse. But bodies HAVE no goal. Purpose is of the mind. And minds can change, as they desire. What they ARE, and all their attributes, CANNOT change. But what they hold as purpose CAN be changed, and body states must shift accordingly. Of itself, the body can do nothing. See it as means to hurt, and it is hurt. See it as means to heal, and it is healed.
YOU CAN BUT HURT YOURSELF. This has been oft repeated, but is difficult to grasp as yet. To minds intent on specialness, it is impossible. But to those who wish to heal and NOT attack, it is quite obvious. The purpose of attack is in the MIND, and its effects are felt but where it IS. Nor is mind limited; so must it be that harmful purpose hurts the mind AS ONE. Nothing could make LESS sense to specialness. Nothing could make MORE sense to miracles. For miracles are merely change of purpose from hurt to healing.
This shift in purpose DOES "endanger" specialness, but only in the sense that all illusions are "threatened" by the truth. They will NOT stand before it, yet what comfort has ever been in them, that you would keep the gift your Father asks from Him, and give it there instead? Given to HIM, the universe is yours. Offered to THEM, no gifts can be returned. What you have given specialness has left you bankrupt, and your treasure-house barren and empty, with an open door inviting everything that would disturb your peace to enter and destroy.
Long ago we said consider not the means by which salvation is attained, nor how to reach it. But DO consider, and consider well, whether it be your WISH that you might see your brother sinless. To specialness the answer MUST be "no." A sinless brother IS its enemy, while sin, if it were possible, WOULD be its friend. Your brother's "sins" would justify itself, and GIVE it meaning that the truth denies. All that is real proclaims his sinlessness. All that is false proclaims his sins as real. If HE is sinful, then is YOUR reality not real, but just a dream of specialness which lasts an instant, crumbling into dust.
Do not defend this senseless dream, in which God is bereft of what He loves, and you remain beyond salvation. Only this is certain, in this shifting world which has NO meaning in reality: When peace is not with you ENTIRELY, and when you suffer pain of ANY kind, you have beheld some sin within your brother, AND HAVE REJOICED at what you thought was there. Your specialness seemed safe BECAUSE of it. And thus you saved what YOU appointed to be your savior, and crucified the one whom God has given you instead. So are you bound with him, for you ARE one with him. And so is specialness HIS enemy, and YOURS as well.
The attraction of guilt produces fear of love. For love would NEVER look on guilt at all. It is the NATURE of love to look upon ONLY the truth, for there it sees itself, with which it would unite in holy union and completion. As love must look past fear, so must fear see love not. For love contains the END of guilt, as surely as fear DEPENDS on it. Love is attracted ONLY to love. Overlooking guilt completely, IT SEES NO FEAR. Being wholly without attack, it COULD not be afraid.
Fear is attracted to what love sees NOT. And each believes that what the other looks upon does not exist. Fear looks on guilt with just the same devotion that love looks on itself. And each has messengers which they send forth, and which return to them with messages written in the language in which their going forth was asked. Love's messengers are gently sent, and return with messages of love and gentleness. The messengers of fear are harshly ordered to seek out guilt, and cherish every scrap of evil and sin that they can find, losing none of them on pain of death, and laying them respectfully before their lord and master.
Perception cannot obey two masters, each asking for messages of different things, in different languages. What fear would feed upon, love overlooks. What fear DEMANDS, love cannot even SEE. The fierce attraction that guilt holds for fear, is wholly absent from love's gentle perception. What love would look upon is meaningless to fear, and quite invisible. Relationships in this world are the result of how the world is seen. And this depends on which emotion was called on to send its messengers to look upon it, and return with word of what they saw.
Fear's messengers are trained through terror, and they tremble when their master calls upon them to serve him. For fear is merciless even to its friends. Its messengers steal guiltily away in hungry search of guilt, for they are kept cold and starving, and made very vicious by their master, who allows them to feast only upon what they return to him. No little shred of guilt escapes their hungry eyes. And in their savage search for sin, they pounce on any living thing they see, and carry it screaming to their master, to be devoured.
Send not these savage messengers into the world, to feast upon it, and to prey upon reality. For they will bring you word of bones and skin and flesh. They have been taught to seek for the corruptible, and to return with gorges filled with things decayed and rotted. To them, such things are beautiful, because they seem to allay their savage pangs of hunger. For they are frantic with the pain of fear, and would avert the punishment of him who sends them forth, by offering him what THEY hold dear.
The Holy Spirit has given you love's messengers, to send INSTEAD of those YOU trained through fear. THEY are as eager to return to you what they hold dear, as are the others. If you send THEM forth, they will see only the blameless and the beautiful, the gentle and the kind. They will be as careful to let no little act of charity, no tiny expression of forgiveness, no little breaths of love, escape their notice. And they will return, with all the happy things they found, to share them lovingly with you. Be not AFRAID of them. They offer you salvation. Theirs are the messages of SAFETY. For THEY see the world as kind.
If you send forth ONLY the messengers the Holy Spirit gave you, WANTING no messages but theirs, you will see fear no more. The world will be transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt, and softly brushed with beauty. The world contains no fear that YOU laid not upon it. And none you cannot ask love's messengers to REMOVE from it, and see it still. The Holy Spirit has given you HIS messengers, to send each other, and return to each with what love sees. They have been given to REPLACE the hungry dogs of fear you sent instead. And they go forth to signify the END of fear.
Love, too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden, where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard. This is a feast which honors your holy relationship, and at which everyone is welcomed as an honored guest. And in a holy instant grace is said by everyone together, as they join in gentleness before the table of communion. And I will join you there, as long ago I promised, and promise still. For in your new relationship am I made welcome, and where I am made welcome, there I AM.
I am made welcome in the state of grace, which means YOU HAVE AT LAST FORGIVEN ME. For I became the symbol of your sin, and so I had to die INSTEAD of you. To the ego, sin MEANS death, and so Atonement IS ACHIEVED THROUGH MURDER. Salvation is looked upon as a way by which the Son of God was killed, instead of YOU. Yet would I offer you my BODY, you whom I love, KNOWING its littleness? Or would I teach that bodies cannot keep us apart? Mine was of no greater value than yours; no better means for the COMMUNICATION of salvation, but NOT its Source.
No one can die for anyone, and death does not atone for sin. But you can LIVE to show it is not REAL. The body DOES appear to be the symbol of sin, while you believe that it can get you what you want. While you believe that it can give you pleasure, you will ALSO believe that it can bring you pain. To think you could be satisfied and happy with so little, IS to hurt yourself. And to LIMIT the happiness that you would have, CALLS upon pain to fill your meager store, and make your lives complete. This IS completion, as the ego sees it. For guilt creeps in where happiness has been removed, and SUBSTITUTES for it.
Communion is another kind of completion, which goes beyond guilt BECAUSE it goes beyond the body. Communion comes with peace, and peace MUST transcend the body.
Never forget the world the sightless "see" MUST be imagined. And what it REALLY looks like IS unknown to them. They must infer what COULD be seen, from evidence forever indirect, and RECONSTRUCT their inferences as they stumble and fall because of what they did NOT recognize, or walk unharmed through open doorways that they THOUGHT were closed. And so it is with you. You do NOT see. Your cues for inference are wrong, and so you stumble and fall down upon the stones you did not recognize. But fail to be aware you CAN go through the doors you THOUGHT were closed, but which stand open before unseeing eyes, waiting to WELCOME you.
How foolish it is to attempt to judge what could be seen instead. It is not necessary to IMAGINE what the world must look like. It must be SEEN, before you recognize it for what it is. You can be SHOWN which doors are open, and you can SEE where safety lies. And which way leads to darkness; which to light. Judgment will ALWAYS give you false directions. But vision SHOWS you where to go. Why should you guess? There is no NEED to learn through pain. And gentle lessons are acquired joyously, and are remembered gladly. What gives you happiness you WANT to learn. and NOT forget.
It is not this you would deny. YOUR question is whether the means by which this course is learned WILL bring the joy it promises. If you BELIEVED it would, the LEARNING of it would be NO problem. You are not happy learners yet, because you still remain uncertain that vision gives you MORE than judgment does, and you HAVE learned that both you CANNOT have. The blind become ACCUSTOMED to their world by their adjustments TO it. They think they know their way about in it. They learned it not through joyous lessons, but through the stern necessity of limits they believed they could not overcome. And, STILL believing this, they hold those lessons dear, and cling to them BECAUSE they cannot see.
They do not understand the lessons KEEP them blind. This they do NOT believe. And so they keep the world they learned to "see" in their imagination, believing that their choice is that, or nothing. They hate the world they learned through pain. And everything they think is in it, serves to remind them that THEY are incomplete and bitterly deprived. Thus they DEFINE their life and where they live it, ADJUSTING to it as they think they must, afraid to lose the little that they have. And so it is with all who see the body as all they have, and all their brothers have. They try to reach each other, and they fail. And fail again. And they ADJUST to loneliness, believing that to KEEP the body is to SAVE the little that they have.
Listen, and try to think if you remember what we will speak of now. Listen, -- perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar. Like a song whose name is long forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached not to a person or a place, or anything particular. But you remember, from just this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you heard it, and how you loved those who were there, and listened with you.
The notes are nothing; yet you have kept them with you, not for themselves, but as a soft reminder of what would make you weep, if you remembered how dear it was to you. You COULD remember, yet you are afraid, believing you would lose the world you learned since then. And yet you know that nothing in the world you learned is half so dear as this. Listen, and see if you remember an ancient song you knew so long ago, and held more dear than any melody you taught yourself to cherish since. Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past EVERYTHING you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes.
The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it no longer is contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity, forever shining, and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it, EVERYTHING is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything COULD be outside. For there IS nowhere that this light is not. This is the vision of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you ARE; a PART of this, with ALL of it within you, and JOINED to all of it as surely as all is joined to you.
ACCEPT the vision that can show you this, and NOT the body. You KNOW the ancient song, and know it well. Nothing will ever be as dear to you as is this ancient hymn of love the Son of God sings to his Father still. And now the blind can see, for that same song they sing in honor of their Creator, gives praise to them as well. The blindness that they made will not withstand the memory of this song. And they will look upon the vision of the Son of God, remembering who he is they sing of. What is a miracle, but this remembering? And who is there in whom this memory lies not? The light in one, awakens it in all. And, when you see it in each other, you ARE remembering for everyone.
Illusions are made as substitutes for truth, for which no substitutes are possible. Creator separate from creation was the first illusion, where all gifts of fear were born. For now creation could not be like its Creator, Who could never leave what He Himself created part of Him. Now must there be a substitute for love, which cannot have an opposite in truth and, being all, can have no substitute. So fear was made, and with it came the need for gifts to lend the substance to the dream in which there is no substance. Now the dream seems to have value, for its offerings appear as hope and strength and even love, if only for an instant. They content the frightened dreamer for a little while, and let him not remember the first dream which gifts of fear but offer him again.
The seeming solace of illusions' gifts are now his armor, and the sword he holds to save himself from waking. For before he could awaken, he would first be forced to call to mind the first dream once again. It is not God Who asks a price of him, but having drawn a veil across the truth, he now must let the veil be drawn away so that its lack of substance can be seen. No one would hesitate to leave a dream of shock and terror, merciless decay and sickening contortions, with despair always in sight and death not far behind, if he believed that it was but a dream. Yet if he thinks that he must first go through a greater terror still, he must see hope in what will now appear the "better" dream.
And now he seeks within his dream to find what gifts it may contain. What can you get within its shadows? Who can save you now by giving you the love you threw away? What can you learn to do to make yourself a master over others? What is there that is your special gift within the dream? Find these and do not waken from the dream, for it can give you what you think you lack. And if you waken all its gifts will go, your armor and your sword will disappear, and vultures, always circling overhead, will claim you as their lawful prey at last.
Oh children of the Father you forgot, you have not put your idols in His place, nor made Him give the gifts of fear you made. Let me be Savior from illusions. Truth may be concealed from you by evil dreams, but it is only from the dreams that you have need of saving. Truth is still untouched by your deceptions. But you cannot go past that first dream without a Savior's hand in yours. Each gift of fear would hold you back unless you let me lift it from your mind by showing you that it is but a dream within a larger dream of hopelessness in which there is no hope. Take not its gifts, for they condemn you to a lasting hell which will endure when all the seeming joy the gifts appeared to give has passed away.
Do not be tempted. Do not fall away into the shadows, and a deeper sleep in which the waking seems to be the dream. Help me give you salvation. Let us share the strength of Christ, and look upon the dream in which illusions started, and which serves to keep their birthplace secret and apart from the illumination of the truth. Come unto me. There is no need to dream of an escape from dreaming. It will fail. For if the dream were real, escape would be impossible, and there would be no hope except illusions. Do not yield to this. It is not so. For I am not a dream that comes in mockery. Salvation needs your help as well as mine. Do not forget you do not answer for yourself alone.
My call to you is that you offer help from all the dreams the holy Son of God imagines, from the time that first of dreams was given false reality until all dreaming ends forever. Could a gift be holier than this? And could the need within a world of dreams be more acute or more compelling? Give me help in this, and not one gift the world may seek to give, or one illusion held against the truth, can bind you longer. Time can have no sway upon you, nor can any laws of earth have power over you. Your hands will heal, and give the gifts that you accept of me.
How joyful and how holy is our way when death has no dominion, and the dream of separation, agony and loss has been dispelled forever. Do not think that anything the gifts of fear hold out is worth an instant's hesitation, when the gate of Heaven stands before you and the Christ of God is waiting your return. Be still and hear Him, for His call to you could not be more insistent nor more dear, for it is but the call of Love Itself, Which will not cease to speak of God to you. You have forgot, but He is faithful still, because He is so like His Father He remembers Him forever in His Love. And He cannot forget creation is inseparable from Creator, so He understands that you are part of God and of the Son created like Himself.
How dear are you to Him, a part in which is every gift of God forever laid, without whom is Christ incomplete, Who is completion of His Father. Can a dream destroy a truth so holy and so pure that it encompasses all truth, and leaves nothing beyond Itself? Can you betray a love so perfect that its gifts become Itself in oneness, and this single gift is all there is to give and to receive? Oh come and let creation be again all that it always was and still will be forever and forever. Let the dream of time be given its appointed end, and let God's Son have mercy on himself.
There is a silence covering the world that was an ancient dream so long ago no one remembers now. Its time is done, and in the little space it seemed to have is nothingness. The dream has gone, and all its dreams of gifts have disappeared as well. The first dream has been seen and understood for merely an illusion of the fear on which the world was based. Behind the dream, reaching to everything, embracing all, creation and Creator still remain in perfect harmony and perfect love.
This is beyond the gate at which we stand. And shall we stay to wait upon a dream? Your holiness is mine, and mine is His. Here is His gift, complete and undefiled. It is Himself He gives, and it is this that is the truth in you. How beautiful are you who stand beside me at the gate, and call with me that everyone may come and step aside from time. Put out your hand to touch eternity and disappear into its perfect rest. Here is the peace that God intended for the Child He loves. Enter with me and let its quietness cover the earth forever. It is done. Father, your Voice has called us home at last: gone is the dream. Awake, My Child, in love.
I once asked if you were willing to sell all you have, and give to the poor and follow me. This is what I meant: If you had no investment in anything in this world, you could teach the poor where THEIR treasure IS. The poor are merely those who have invested wrongly, and they are poor indeed! And because they are in need, it is given to you to help them, since you are among them. Consider how perfectly your lesson would be learned, IF YOU WERE UNWILLING TO SHARE THEIR POVERTY. For poverty is lack, and there is but one lack, since there is but one need.
Suppose a brother insists on having you do something you think you do not want to do. The very fact of his insistence should tell you that HE BELIEVES SALVATION LIES IN IT. If you insist on refusing, and experience a quick response of opposition, YOU are believing that YOUR salvation lies in NOT doing it. You, then, are making the same mistake that HE is, and are making his error real to both of you. Insistence means INVESTMENT, and what you invest in is ALWAYS related to your notion of salvation. The question is always two-fold; first, WHAT is to be saved, and second, how can it BE saved?
Whenever you become angry with a brother, for WHATEVER reason, you are believing that the EGO is to be saved, AND TO BE SAVED BY ATTACK. If HE attacks, you are agreeing with this belief, and if YOU attack, you are reinforcing it. REMEMBER THAT THOSE WHO ATTACK ARE POOR. Their poverty asks for gifts, NOT for further impoverishment. You who could help them are surely acting destructively, if you accept their poverty AS YOURS. If you had not invested AS THEY HAD, it would never occur to you to overlook their need.
RECOGNIZE WHAT DOES NOT MATTER, and if your brothers ask you for something "outrageous," do it BECAUSE it does not matter. Refuse, and your OPPOSITION establishes that it DOES matter to you. It is only you, therefore, who have MADE the request outrageous, for nothing can BE asked OF you, and EVERY request of a brother is FOR you. Why would you insist in DENYING him? For to do so is to deny yourself, and impoverish both. HE is asking for salvation, as YOU are. Poverty is of the ego, and never of God. No "outrageous" request CAN be made of one who recognizes what is valuable, and wants to accept nothing else.
Salvation is for the mind, and it is attained through peace. This is the only thing that CAN be saved, and the ONLY way to save it. Any response OTHER than love, arises from a confusion about the "what" and the "how" of salvation. And this is the ONLY answer. Never lose sight of this, and never allow yourself to believe, even for an instant, that there is another answer. For you will surely place yourself among the poor, who do not understand that they dwell in abundance and that salvation is come.
To identify with the ego is to attack yourself, and MAKE YOURSELF POOR. That is why everyone who identifies with the ego FEELS DEPRIVED. What he EXPERIENCES is then depression or anger, but what he DID is to exchange his self-love for self-hate, MAKING HIM AFRAID OF HIMSELF. He does NOT realize this. Even if he is fully aware of ANXIETY, he does NOT perceive its source AS HIS OWN EGO IDENTIFICATION, and he ALWAYS tries to handle it by making some sort of insane "arrangement" with the world. He ALWAYS perceives this world as OUTSIDE HIMSELF, for this is crucial to his adjustment. He does NOT realize that HE MAKES THIS WORLD, for there IS no world outside him.
If only the loving thoughts of God's Son ARE the world's reality, the real world MUST be IN HIS MIND. His insane thoughts, too, must be in his mind, but an INTERNAL conflict of this magnitude he cannot tolerate. For a split mind IS endangered, and the recognition that it encompasses COMPLETELY opposed thoughts within itself IS intolerable. Therefore, the mind projects the split, NOT the reality. EVERYTHING you perceive as the outside world, is merely your attempt to maintain your ego identification, for everyone believes that identification is salvation.
But consider what has happened, for thoughts have consequences to the thinker. You are AT ODDS with the world as you perceive it because you think IT is antagonistic to you. THIS IS A NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE OF WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. You have projected outward what IS antagonistic to what is inward, and therefore you would HAVE to perceive it this way. That is why you MUST realize that your hatred IS in your mind, and NOT OUTSIDE IT, before you can get rid of it. And why you MUST get rid of it, BEFORE you can perceive the world as it really is.
Long ago we said that God so loved the world that He gave it TO His only-begotten Son. (that whosoever believeth on him should never see death). God DOES love the real world, and those who perceive its reality CANNOT see the world of death. For death is not OF the real world, in which everything is eternal. God gave you the real world in exchange for the one you made, out of your split mind, and which IS the symbol of death. For if you could REALLY separate yourselves from the Mind of God, you WOULD die. And the world you perceive IS a world of separation.
You were willing to accept even death to deny your Father. But He would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. You still could not will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is NOT a world of will, because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him. And this desire IS NOT WILL. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it.
Yet this world is ONLY in the mind of its maker, along with his REAL salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing WHERE it is, will you gain control over it. For you DO have control over your mind, for the mind is the mechanism of decision. If you will recognize that ALL attack which you perceive, is in your own mind, and NOWHERE ELSE, you will at last have placed its source, and where it began it must end. For in this place also lies salvation. The altar of God, where Christ abideth, is there.
You have defiled the altar, but NOT the world. But Christ has placed the Atonement on the altar FOR you. Bring your perceptions of the world to this altar, for it is the altar to truth. There you will see your vision changed, and there you will learn to see truly. From this place, where God and His Son dwell in peace, and where you are welcome, you will look out in peace, and behold the world truly. But to find the place, you must relinquish your investment in the world as YOU have projected it, allowing the Holy Spirit to project the real world TO you, from the altar of God. -