Everything in this world is little, because it is made out of littleness. Littleness is the opposite of magnitude. You, who are created by God in His likeness, are magnificent in that you are infinite and unlimited and everywhere. To contrast that against being VERY SMALL, being little is the antithesis to Heaven.
This entire world therefore was made FROM the idea of being very small, little, confined, limited and isolated. This is why the "building blocks" of matter, particles and such, as so extremely tiny. They are the idea of the total extreme of being as little as possible, in OPPOSITION to the nature of Heaven, where everything is infinite. You made a world on the FOUNDATION of the idea of being as small as possible!
Human bodies, as large as they seem to be, are still extremely little, in contrast to the universe and to spirit. You might think therefore you are just this "little" person on a huge planet. This could not be further from the truth and is TOTALLY backwards, in defiance of God's will. You are gloriously magnificently massive, and this "bleak little world" is absolutely TINY in comparison to what you are. This is why "the body cannot contain you who are love." To remain in a little tiny body, confined to it, when you could spread your wings and envelop all of Creation, is a condemnation of what you are.
"T-15.III.1. Be not content with littleness. 2 But be sure you understand what littleness is, and why you could never be content with it. 3 Littleness is the offering you give yourself. 4 You offer this in place of magnitude, and you accept it. 5 Everything in this world is little because it is a world made out of littleness, in the strange belief that littleness can content you. 6 When you strive for anything in this world in the belief that it will bring you peace, you are belittling yourself and blinding yourself to glory. 7 Littleness and glory are the choices open to your striving and your vigilance. 8 You will always choose one at the expense of the other."
Also, in this world, things which are truly small are blown way out of proportion, and things which are large are made to look tiny. This world is a REVERSAL of the laws of God and the nature of Heaven. You who seem tiny, are really huge. What seems huge - this world, is really nothing.
Be not content with littleness, but be sure you understand what littleness is, and why you could never BE content with it. Littleness is the offering you gave YOURSELF. You offered this in place of magnitude, AND ACCEPTED IT. Everything in this world is little, because it is a world made out of littleness, in the strange belief that littleness CAN content you. When you strive for anything in the world, WITH THE BELIEF THAT IT WILL BRING YOU PEACE, you are belittling yourself, and blinding yourself to glory. Littleness and glory are the choices open to your striving and your vigilance. You will ALWAYS choose one AT THE EXPENSE of the other.
But what you do not realize, each time you choose, is that your choice is your evaluation OF YOURSELF. Choose littleness, and you will NOT have peace, for you will have judged yourself UNWORTHY of it. And whatever you offer as a substitute, is much too poor a gift to satisfy you. It is essential that you accept the fact, and accept it gladly, that there is NO form of littleness that can EVER content you. You are free to try as many as you wish, but all you will be doing is to delay your homecoming. For you will be content ONLY in magnitude, which IS your home.
There is a deep responsibility you owe yourself, and one which you must learn to remember ALL the time. The lesson will seem hard at first, but you will learn to love it, when you realize that it is true, and constitutes a tribute to your power. You who have sought AND FOUND littleness, remember this: Every decision that you make stems from WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE, and represents the value that you PUT upon yourself. Believe the little can content you, and, by LIMITING yourself, you will NOT be satisfied. For your function is NOT little, and it is only by finding your function, and fulfilling it that you can ESCAPE from littleness.
There is no doubt about what your function IS, for the Holy Spirit KNOWS what it is. There is no doubt about its magnitude, for it reaches you through Him, FROM Magnitude. You do not have to strive for it, because you HAVE it. All your striving must be directed AGAINST LITTLENESS, for it DOES require vigilance to protect your magnitude in this world. To hold your magnitude in perfect awareness, in a world of littleness, is a task the little cannot undertake. Yet it is asked of you, in tribute to your magnitude, and NOT your littleness. Nor is it asked of you alone.
The power of God will support every effort you make on behalf of the magnitude of His dear Son. Search for the little, and you DENY yourself His power. God is not willing that His Son be content with less than everything. For He is not content without His Son, and His Son cannot be content with less than His Father has given him. We asked you once before, "Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?" Let this question be asked you by the Holy Spirit in you, EVERY time you make a decision. For every decision you make DOES answer this, and invites sorrow or joy, accordingly.
When God GAVE Himself to you in your creation, He ESTABLISHED you as host to Him forever. He has NOT left you, and YOU have not left HIM. All your attempts to deny His magnitude, and make His Son hostage to the ego, CANNOT make little whom God has joined with Him. Every decision you make is made for Heaven or for hell, and will bring you AWARENESS of what you decided FOR. The Holy Spirit can hold your magnitude, clean of ALL littleness, clearly and in perfect safety in your minds, untouched by every little gift the world of littleness would offer you. But for this, you cannot side AGAINST Him in what He wills for you.
Decide for God through Him. For littleness, and the belief that you can be CONTENT with littleness, are the decisions YOU have made about yourself. The power and the glory that lie in you, from God, are for all who, like you, perceive themselves as little, and have deceived themselves into believing that littleness can be blown up, BY THEM, into a sense of magnitude that can content them. Neither GIVE littleness, nor ACCEPT it. All honor is due the host of God. Your littleness deceives you, but your magnitude is of Him Who dwells in you, and in Whom you dwell. Touch no-one, then, with littleness, in the Name of Christ, eternal Host unto His Father.
In this season, which celebrates the birth of holiness into this world, join with me who decided for holiness for YOU. It is our task TOGETHER to restore the awareness of magnitude, to the host whom God appointed for Himself. It is beyond ALL your littleness to give the gift of God, but NOT beyond YOU. For God would give Himself THROUGH you. He reaches from you to everyone, and beyond everyone, to His Son's creations, but WITHOUT leaving you. Far beyond your little world, but still in you, He extends forever. Yet He brings all his extensions to you, as host to Him.
Is it a sacrifice to leave littleness behind, and wander not in vain? It is not sacrifice to wake to glory. But it IS a sacrifice to accept anything LESS than glory. Learn that you MUST be worthy of the Prince of Peace, born in you, in honor of Him Whose host you are. You know not what love means because you have sought to purchase it with little gifts, thus VALUING it too little to be able to understand its magnitude. LOVE IS NOT LITTLE, and love dwells in you, for you are host to Him. Before the greatness that lives in you, your poor appreciation of yourself, and all the little offerings you have given, slip into nothingness.
Holy Child of God, when will you learn that ONLY holiness can content you, and give you peace? Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did. It is BECAUSE I learned for YOU, that you can learn of ME. I would but teach you what is yours, so that, together, we can replace the shabby littleness, that binds the host of God to guilt and weakness, with the glad awareness of the glory that is in him. My birth in you is your awakening to grandeur. Welcome me not into a manger, but into the altar to holiness, where holiness abides in perfect peace.
My Kingdom is not of this world, because it is in YOU. And YOU are of your Father. Let us join in honoring you, who MUST remain forever BEYOND littleness. Decide with me, who have decided to abide with you. I will as my Father wills, knowing His Will is constant, and at peace forever with Itself. You will be content with nothing BUT His Will. Accept no less, remembering that everything I learned is yours. What my Father loves, I love as He does, and I can no more accept it as what it is NOT, than He can. And no more can YOU.
When you have learned to accept what you are, you will make no more gifts to offer to yourselves, for you will know you are COMPLETE, in need of nothing, and unable to accept ANYTHING for yourself. But you will gladly give, HAVING received. The host of God need not seek to find ANYTHING. If you are wholly willing to leave Salvation to the plan of God, and UNwilling to attempt to grasp for peace YOURSELF, Salvation will be GIVEN you. But think not you can substitute YOUR plan for His. Rather, join with me in His, that we may release all those who would be bound, proclaiming together that the Son of God is host to Him.
Thus will we let no-one forget what YOU would remember. And thus WILL you remember it. Call forth in everyone ONLY the remembrance of God, and of the Heaven that is in him. For where you would help your brother be, there will you think YOU are. Hear not his call for hell and littleness, but only his call for Heaven and greatness. Forget not that his call is yours, and answer him with me. God's power is forever on the side of His host, for it protects ONLY the peace in which He dwells. Lay not littleness before His holy altar, which rises above the stars, and reaches even to Heaven, because of what is GIVEN it.
"Only salvation can be said to cure."
There is only one problem - the sense of separation from God. God is immortality and permanent health. If you deny God, you are denying life and inducing death. It is ONLY the separation from God which CAUSES ALL SUFFERING, including all forms of sickness and death.
To deny God is to attack your health. Defending yourself against God is an attack thought, attacking your invulnerability. Sickness becomes a defense against the truth (God), made to "protect you from God", but with the actual effect of "protecting you from health." In sickness you are attempting to "save your life" by protecting yourself from life. This is clearly insane and cannot work.
"Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival."
"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt (are mortal)."
"It is your task to heal the sense of separation that has made him sick."
"The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved."
There is no other problem. ALL sickness is caused by separating from God. Denying God induces illness. Your mind is the sole cause of all suffering, even death. The ONLY solution is the atonement, which COMPLETELY erases all sense of separation and accepts God as truth. This makes the denial of health impossible, making sickness and death impossible. Atonement cures wholly because it represents WHOLENESS.
"The perceptual content of miracles is wholeness."
"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone."
"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take. Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick (but does result in this), for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. (which heals the sick) And that is cure indeed.
***For sickness now is gone***, with nothing left to which it can return." Atonement is the restoration of your immortality. It makes you utterly invulnerable. You can no longer be sick or die. Nothing can happen against your will. You have no need for defenses because you know you cannot be attacked. Nothing real can be threatened.
"The mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable."
"Those who accept Atonement, ARE invulnerable."
"You are invulnerable BECAUSE you are guiltless."
"This heals the Separation, and places within man the one defense against all Separation-mind errors which can make him perfectly invulnerable." When you separate from (deny, oppose) God, you block your awareness of the presence of love (life) within you. Seeing lack and being in need, you seek for what is absent, outside of you. This begins "seek and do not find." You will not find it outside because it is inside.
You look for yourself, your love, your life and health, outside of you, where they do not exist. Seeking outside of yourself for this CAUSES sickness and suffering, because it takes you AWAY from God and life, which are WITHIN you. You try to find them where they do not exist, and the more you try the worse you suffer. Seeking for God outside yourself is the avoidance of God within yourself.
"Peace is an attribute ***in YOU. You cannot find it outside.*** All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace." Perceiving a lack of love within, you project lack without. This makes a world of lack. Coming from the internal attack on God, it is a projected attack-world. "The world was made as an attack on God." "The world of bodies is the world of sin." "The world is a (projected) picture of the crucifixion of God's son."
This is also a projection of, and a disowning of, causal power. You don't want to admit that YOU CAUSE YOUR OWN SUFFERING - ie you are the one denying health. You imagine that causation is outside of you, and you see yourself as caused BY it. This frames the world as "sinning against you" ie causing you against your will, making you a powerless effect. This sets you up to be a victim, or receiver of the world, which you now "sense" through the body's inputs.
You have given the world, which you are dreaming/hallucinating, all the power it seems to have. You have given YOUR power away in trying to empower it to have power over you. You have given it your causality and will. You think it has your life, and contains your self. And you see it as causing you. It is therefore attacking you. It is your enemy and your savior, because it does things to you.
The world now is seen as a world of sin, in which the world can hurt you. It decides when you will suffer. It decides how you become sick. It decides when you will die and how much pain you will endure. All of this seems to happen against your will from the outside in. Anything the world can do TO you, is against your will, regardless of it seeming to be positive or negative.
You then divide up the world into separate parts to try to "spiritualize" some and "demonize" others. You pick and choose certain aspects of the world to "do things to you" that you prefer. You try to avoid its attacks, while collecting its lovely treasures. You defend against its harsh weather with your little fragile house. You seek for its fancy cars while trying to avoid a crash. You want only the good food not the bad stuff. And so you make a bargain with the world, to try to induce it to "do only good things to you", while avoiding all the bad things. And when it seems to go well, you think you are "living the dream." But you have gained the world, and lost your soul.
"What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."
The world is two-faced. The world is self-contradictory. It offers you pain, and offers you salvation from that pain. It hurts you, then offers you healing. It threatens to destroy you, then tries to save you. This is because the world has come from the belief that BOTH heaven and hell exist. That life and death are both possible. And so the world depicts the contradiction of opposites. It seems to partly help, and partly hurt.
As a result, EVERYTHING in the world is not one thing, but two. It is a world of dualities and a double-edged sword. Everything which seems to help, MUST also hurt. Everything which seems to hurt, in some way helps. Snake venom can be a partial medicine. Surgery can kill you. ALL foods have toxicity to them, some worse than others. All medicines exaggerate certain body functions while depressing others. The external manipulation of the body is thus seen as the only sane solution to being externally manipulated.
This is actually inescapable. Anything the world can seem to do to you against your will is MAGIC. All magic is a mixture of attack and defense. To be "affected by the world" is still a state of being victimized and in need, regardless of whether the effects are preferred.
We try to focus ourselves on finding the "least harmful solution" to problems, to minimize the risks, and to skew the picture to make it seem like there are "completely harmless solutions". We have a fictional idea that some things in the world are totally harmless. But the world HAS NO harmless solutions. EVERY one of its solutions is a problem in its own right. Its effects cause more effects.
In fact, the world has a somewhat sinister motive, which can appear to be hidden. It basically wants you dead. Sooner or later. Even if it gives you scraps and hopes and promises, every one of its helping hands is laced with poison. Its every attempt to "make you happy" sets you up for loss and sadness.
Anything it can give to you, it can just as easily take away. Anything you "get" from it, is a deception with a cost. This is because the world was made WITH and FROM the notion of the REJECTION OF LIFE. The world is made of the idea of death, because it came from rejecting immortality. So it cannot actually offer you life. It cannot give you wholeness. And it cannot provide a CURE for anything - or a cure for ITSELF. And being the inducer of death, it will do anything BUT cure death.
"There is a tendency to think the world can offer consolation and escape from problems that its purpose is to keep."
"Without the idea of death there is no world."
"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. ... All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."
Because the world comes from the wish to die, ie the wish to deny God and health, it is driven by a MOTIVE of death. That was the PURPOSE in making it, as an attack upon God and life. Death motivates the world, and everything in the world ultimately drives TOWARD death. It cannot therefore induce immortality, cure you completely, or restore your wholeness. It cannot save you, nor can it give you eternal life. It MUST fail, because it came from the failure to recognize the truth.
"It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world. Its ONLY purpose is TO PROVE GUILT REAL. No worldly thought or act or feeling has a motivation other than this one. These are the witnesses that are called forth to be believed, and lend conviction to the system they speak for and represent."
"Everything in this world is little, because it is a world made out of littleness, in the strange belief that littleness CAN content you. When you strive for anything in the world, WITH THE BELIEF THAT IT WILL BRING YOU PEACE, you are belittling yourself, and blinding yourself to glory." "There is NOTHING in the world to teach him that the logic of the world is totally insane, and leads to nothing."
"There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail."
"There is a light which this world cannot give."
"It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace, or upset you in any way."
Anything the world "does to you" is magic. Magic is the idea of a cause outside of yourself affecting you against your will. It is the opposite to internally-sourced miracles. This takes the form of anything the world seems to do to harm you, as well as anything the world seems to do to help you.
While you may prefer the "good stuff", having the world "do good things to you" is just as much a state of victimhood. It still focuses on you getting from the outside, what you lack inside, without your insides changing. It's still a state where you WANT the world to do something "to you" against your will, FORCING you to "be happy." This is "forgiveness to destroy", because you seek for the world to be the source of change, rather than yourself.
Since the world attacks and defends, and since its motive is ultimately death, and since it CANNOT induce wholeness or a total cure, ALL of its remedies are AT BEST partial. All of its remedies MUST therefore do the opposite to what they claim to do, as well. They MUST be two-faced and deceptive. If it is to "help you", it MUST also hurt you. There is ALWAYS a price to pay, and it does not help to deny this.
This means that ALL foods have a negative side-effect. There is no such thing as a perfect diet. It means that ALL medicines have harmful side effects. All surgeries have high risks of serious threats to your health. All vaccines INDUCE what they are ultimately trying to avoid. In some cases literally, while in others the form is less obvious.
It may not take the form of a certain vaccine "causing the virus" it was trying to prevent, but the real PURPOSE of a vaccine is to "ward off death", which it CANNOT really do. And in fact it must IN SOME WAY, induce it, to some degree. It MUST induce other symptoms as a result of its "interference". Some of these symptoms may be mild to barely noticeable, while others may be life threatening.
This has nothing to do with the competence of medical workers, or the proficiency of scientists, or the wonders of modern medicine, or the seemingly wonderful "benefits" of an extremely wide range of magical solutions. It would APPEAR that "lives are saved" by such things. Provided you recognize that at the same time, lives were also attacked by such things. There is NEVER a possibility of a perfect total "cure" through ANY magical external means. ONLY atonement can be said to cure completely.
This simply goes back to the fact that the ONLY PROBLEM is the separation from God, which is the sole cause of inducing all sickness, suffering and death. The MIND creates what appear to be viruses and invasions, putting them into the world. The world only then APPEARS to be their source. ONLY by correcting THAT problem, will sickness and death TRULY become impossible. Anything which does not address this ACTUAL problem, will not ultimately ward off death, even if it appears to in the short term.
This is the main problem which ALL magical solutions share. They appear to change the body, BUT NOT the mind. They may make the body seem healthier, but do nothing to fix the dripping tap of death-inducing separation.
There is no pill for "the separation". There is no medication that can induce runion with God. There is no surgery which can cut out the ego. There is no bandaid sufficient enough to heal the wound of the denial of health. And no vaccine can EVER fully guarantee your safety or that of others. It may seem to do SOMETHING, but it cannot do everything.
What that leaves you with is one of two options.
1) Heal the separation from God, accept atonement, receive a complete CURE, and never suffer again. This makes all sickness impossible because you choose to stop causing it, and there is no other cause.
2) Avoid healing the separation, MAINTAIN sickness, choose from a selection of LIMITED and PARTIALLY EFFECTIVE magical treatments which WILL hurt you in some way, and try to live with the consequences.
If you think that you can elect to use magical remedies WITHOUT ill effects, you are in denial. They only seem to do anything BECAUSE of your denial. You might weigh up the seeming risks, look at the manmade "statistics", and decide for yourself (or preferably with God) as to whether to indulge in magic or not. But let's be clear, for your health as well, that any magical solution cannot ONLY heal. It has to also cause some form of harm. It is because you BELIEVE in harm that you think you NEED it in the first place, and this belief works against your health.
Maybe you are willing to accept that, although you cannot honestly be fully at peace about it. No-one who recognizes without denial what magical solutions ARE and WHY they exist and WHAT their motive is, can rest in peace. You can resign yourself to a compromise, willing to suffer in some ways to OFFSET the others. But this is how the world worlds. This is the laws of physics and entropy. You become willing to suffer a seemingly "smaller pain" in exchange for the reduction of a larger one. It's a tradeoff. You buy and sell risk in an effort to minimize cost, while always having a cost.
Do not pretend though that medicines or a vaccine or an injection or a pill or a certain kind of food or drink or even any form of salvation - sex, drugs, rock and roll - can undo the separation in the mind and truly prevent illness. Nothing external can fix the INTERNAL problem. The internal problem has CAUSED the external to appear, as an hallucinated world of suffering. And then you are looking to a made-up death-induced world, to save you from death. It cannot ultimately work.
"For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death."
This doesn't mean you shouldn't necessarily USE magic IF you need to, want to, or for whatever reason. Sometimes such thing can seem to alleviate suffering. People wouldn't likely take them if they didn't "seem to help". Some people cannot "live" without external support, major medications, physical apparatus, and various other help. Surgery can seem to save lives. But surgery can also induce complications.
"All material means which man accepts as remedies for bodily ills are simply restatements of magic principles. It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. Thereafter, it is a second mis-step to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents. It does not follow, however, that the application of these very weak corrective devices are evil."
Your best bet is seeking spiritual guidance from a higher source - the Holy Spirit - Jesus - Angels etc.... as to what to choose. And if that means you have to "settle" for non-miraculous external help, for a non-whole treatment, due to what you are willing to accept right now, so be it. But then keep working on your forgiveness and moving towards the acceptance of atonement as well. Atonement is the GUARANTEE of health forever.
Please don't misinterpret that this post is telling you what to do or not to do, NOR is it trying to paint vaccines in an unfair or negative light or to "put you off". They are what they are. They can only do what they do. If you're okay with that, so be it. It's your free will choice.
Attack is ALWAYS physical. When attack in ANY form enters your mind, you are EQUATING YOURSELF WITH A BODY. This is the ego's INTERPRETATION of the body. You do not have to ATTACK physically to accept this interpretation; you ARE accepting it simply by the belief that attack can GET YOU SOMETHING YOU WANT. If you did NOT believe this, the IDEA of attack would have no appeal to you.
When you equate yourself with a body, you will ALWAYS experience depression. When a Child of God thinks of himself in this way, he is belittling himself and seeing his brothers as similarly belittled. Since he can find himself ONLY in them, he has cut himself off from salvation. Remember that the Holy Spirit interprets the body ONLY as a means of communication. Being the communication link between God and His separated Sons, He interprets everything YOU have in the light of what HE is.
The ego SEPARATES through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches THROUGH it to others. You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy Spirit does because you do not interpret their bodies AND YOURS solely as a means of JOINING THEIR MINDS and uniting them with yours and mine. This interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has NONE. If you use it for attack it is harmful to you. But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you. If you use the body for this, and ONLY for this, you CANNOT use it for attack. In the service of uniting, it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion IS.
This is God's way of making unlimited what YOU have limited. His Voice does not see the body as YOU do, because He knows the ONLY reality that ANYTHING can have is the service it can render God on behalf of the function HE has given. Communication ENDS separation. Attack PROMOTES it. The body is ugly or beautiful, savage or holy, helpful or harmful, according to the use to which it is put. And in the body of another you will see the use to which you put YOURS.
If the body becomes for you a means which you give to the Holy Spirit to use on behalf of the union of the Sonship, you will not see ANYTHING physical except as WHAT IT IS. Use it for truth, and you will see it truly. MISuse it and you WILL misunderstand it, because you have already done so BY misusing it. Interpret ANYTHING apart from the Holy Spirit, and you will mistrust it. This will lead you to hatred and attack and LOSS OF PEACE.
But ALL loss comes only from your own misunderstanding. Loss of ANY kind is impossible. When you look upon a brother as a physical entity, HIS power and glory are lost to you and SO ARE YOURS. You HAVE attacked him, and you MUST have attacked yourself first. Do not see him this way for your OWN salvation, which MUST bring him his. Do not ALLOW him to belittle himself in YOUR mind, but give him freedom from his belief in littleness, and escape from YOURS. As part of YOU, HE is holy. As part of ME, YOU are. To communicate with part of God Himself is to reach beyond the Kingdom to its Creator, through His Voice which He has established as part of YOU.
Rejoice, then, that of yourselves you can do nothing. You are not OF yourselves. And He of Whom you ARE has willed your power and glory FOR you, with which you can perfectly accomplish His holy Will for you when you so will it yourself. He has not withdrawn His gifts from YOU, but YOU have withdrawn them from Him. Let no Son of God remain hidden for His Name's sake, because His Name is YOURS.
Remember that the Bible says, "The word (or thought) was made flesh." Strictly speaking, this is impossible, since it seems to involve the translation of one order of reality into another. Different orders of reality merely SEEM to exist, just as different orders of miracles do. Thought cannot be MADE into flesh except by belief, because thought is NOT physical. But thought IS communication, for which the body can be used. This is the only NATURAL use to which it can be put. To use the body UNnaturally is to lose sight of the Holy Spirit's purpose, and thus to confuse the goal of His curriculum.
There is nothing so frustrating to a learner as to place him in a curriculum which he cannot learn. His sense of adequacy suffers, and he MUST become depressed. Being faced with an impossible learning situation, REGARDLESS of why it is impossible, is the most depressing thing in the world. In fact, it is ultimately WHY the world is depressing. The Holy Spirit's curriculum is NEVER depressing because it is a curriculum in joy. Whenever the reaction to learning is depression, it is only because the goal of the curriculum has been lost sight of.
In the world, not even the body is perceived as whole. Its purpose is seen as fragmented into many functions which bear little or no relationship to each other, so that it appears to be ruled by chaos. Guided by the ego, it IS. Guided by the Holy Spirit, it is NOT. It becomes ONLY a means by which the part of the mind which you have separated from your Soul can reach beyond its distortions and RETURN to the Soul. The ego's temple thus becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, where devotion to Him replaces devotion to the ego. In this sense the body DOES become a temple to God, because His Voice abides in it by directing the use TO WHICH YOU PUT IT.
Healing is the result of using the body SOLELY for communication. Since this IS natural, it heals by making whole, which is also natural. ALL mind is whole, and the belief that part of it is physical or NOT MIND is a fragmented (or sick) interpretation. Mind CANNOT be made physical, but it CAN be made manifest THROUGH the physical if it uses the body to GO BEYOND itself. By reaching OUT, the mind EXTENDS itself. It does not STOP at the body, for if it does it is blocked in its purpose. A mind which has been blocked has allowed itself to be vulnerable to attack, because it has TURNED AGAINST ITSELF.
The removal of blocks, then, is the ONLY way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not IN it. If the mind believes the body is its GOAL, it WILL distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot BUT foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else.
To use a medium of communication as a medium of ATTACK is an obvious confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously WITH THE SAME THING, and NOT suffer? Perception of the body can be unified only by ONE PURPOSE. This releases the mind from the temptation to see it in many lights, and gives it over ENTIRELY to the One Light in which it can be really understood at all.
To confuse a learning device with a curriculum GOAL is a fundamental confusion. Learning can hardly be meaningfully arrested at its own aids, and hope to understand them OR its real purpose. Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished ONLY if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND's FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND's JOY.
The opposite of joy is depression. When your learning promotes depression INSTEAD of joy, you CANNOT be listening to God's joyous teacher, and you MUST be learning amiss. To see a body as anything EXCEPT a means of pure extension is to limit your mind and HURT YOURSELF. Health is therefore nothing more than united purpose. If the body is brought under the purpose of the mind, it becomes whole because the mind's purpose IS one.
Attack can only be an assumed goal of the body, but the body APART from the mind HAS NO PURPOSE AT ALL. You are NOT limited by the body, and thought CANNOT be made flesh. But mind can be manifested through the body if it goes beyond it and DOES NOT INTERPRET IT AS LIMITATION. Whenever you see another as limited TO or BY the body, you are imposing this limit ON YOURSELF. Are you willing to ACCEPT this, when your whole purpose for learning should be to escape FROM limitations?
To conceive of the body as a means of attack of any kind, and to entertain even the possibility that joy could POSSIBLY result, is a clear-cut indication of a poor learner. He has accepted a learning goal in obvious contradiction to the unified purpose of the curriculum, and is interfering with his ability to accept it AS HIS OWN.
Joy is unified purpose, and unified purpose is ONLY God's. When yours is unified, it IS His. Interfere with His purpose, and YOU NEED SALVATION. You have condemned yourself, but condemnation is not of God. Therefore, it is not true. No more are any of the RESULTS of your condemnation. When you see a brother as a body, you are condemning him BECAUSE you have condemned yourself. But if ALL condemnation is unreal, and it MUST be unreal because it is a form of attack, then it can HAVE no results.
Do not allow yourselves to suffer from the results of what is not true. Free your minds from the belief that this is possible. In its complete impossibility, and your full awareness OF its complete impossibility, lies your only hope for release. But what other hope would you want? Freedom from illusions lies only in not BELIEVING them. THERE IS NO ATTACK, but there IS unlimited communication and therefore unlimited power and wholeness. The power of wholeness is EXTENSION. Do not arrest your thought in this world, and you will open your mind to Creation in God.
No-one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are PROTECTED. There is no need to shrink from illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more closely at the ego's thought system, because together we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not WANT it, you MUST be ready. Let us be very calm in doing this, for we are merely looking honestly for truth. The "dynamics" of the ego will be our lesson for a while, for we must look first at this to look beyond it, since you HAVE made it real. We will UNDO this error quietly together, and then look beyond it to truth.
What is healing, but the removal of all that STANDS IN THE WAY of knowledge? And how else can one dispel illusions EXCEPT by looking at them directly, WITHOUT protecting them? Be not afraid, therefore, for what you will be looking at IS the source of fear, but you have learned surely by now, that FEAR IS NOT REAL. We have accepted the fact already that its EFFECTS can be dispelled, merely by denying THEIR reality. The next step is obviously to recognize that WHAT HAS NO EFFECTS DOES NOT EXIST.
Laws do not operate in a vacuum, and what leads to nothing HAS NOT HAPPENED. If reality is recognized BY ITS EXTENSION, what extends to nothing CANNOT be real. Do not be afraid, then, to look upon fear, for it cannot BE seen. Clarity undoes confusion by definition, and to look upon darkness through light MUST dispel it. Let us begin this lesson in "ego dynamics", by understanding that the term itself does not mean anything. In fact, it contains exactly the contradiction in terms that MAKES it meaningless. "Dynamics" implies the power to DO something, and the whole separation fallacy lies in the belief that the ego HAS the power to do ANYTHING.
The ego is fearful BECAUSE you believe this. But the truth is very simple; ALL POWER IS OF GOD. What is NOT of Him has no power to do ANYTHING. When we look at the ego, then, we are NOT considering dynamics, but delusions. We can surely regard a delusional system without fear, for it cannot have any effects if its source is not true. Fear becomes more obviously inappropriate if one recognizes the ego's GOAL, which is so clearly senseless that any effort exerted on its behalf is NECESSARILY expended on nothing.
The ego's goal is quite explicitly EGO AUTONOMY. From the beginning, then, its PURPOSE is to be separate, sufficient unto itself, and independent of any power EXCEPT ITS OWN. This is WHY it is the symbol of separation. Every idea has a purpose, and its purpose is always the natural extension of what it IS. Everything that stems from the ego is the natural outcome of its central belief, and the way to undo its RESULTS, is merely to recognize that their SOURCE is NOT natural, being out of accord with your TRUE nature.
We once said that to will contrary to God is wishful thinking, and not real willing. His Will is One, because the extension of His Will CANNOT be unlike ITSELF. The real conflict you experience, then, is between the ego's idle wishes and the Will of God, WHICH YOU SHARE. Can this BE a real conflict? Yours is the independence of Creation, NOT of autonomy. Your whole creative function lies in your complete dependence on God, Whose function He shares WITH you. By HIS willingness to share it, He becomes as dependent on you, as you are on HIM. Do not ascribe the ego's arrogance to Him, Who wills NOT to be independent of YOU. He has included YOU in HIS Autonomy. Can YOU believe that autonomy is meaningful APART from Him?
The belief in EGO autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your dependence on God, IN WHICH YOUR FREEDOM LIES. The ego sees ALL dependency as threatening, and has twisted even your longing for God into a means of establishing ITSELF. But do not be deceived by ITS interpretation of your conflict. The ego ALWAYS attacks on behalf of separation. Believing it HAS the power to do this, it does nothing else, because its goal of autonomy IS nothing else. The ego is totally confused about reality, BUT IT DOES NOT LOSE SIGHT OF ITS GOAL. It is much more vigilant than YOU are, BECAUSE it is perfectly certain of its purpose. YOU are confused, because you do NOT know YOURS.
What you must learn to recognize is that the LAST thing the ego wishes you to realize, is THAT YOU ARE AFRAID OF IT. For if the ego gives rise to fear, it is DIMINISHING your independence, and WEAKENING your power. Yet its one claim to your allegiance is that it can GIVE power to you. Without THIS belief, you would not listen to it at all. How, then, can its existence continue, if you realize that by accepting it, you ARE belittling yourself, and DEPRIVING yourself of power?
The ego can and does allow you to regard yourself as supercilious, unbelieving, "light hearted -," distant, emotionally shallow, callous, uninvolved, and even desperate, BUT NOT REALLY AFRAID. MINIMIZING fear, but NOT its undoing, is the ego's constant effort, and is indeed the skill at which it is VERY ingenious. How can it preach separation WITHOUT upholding it through fear, and would you listen to it, if you recognized this IS what it is doing?
YOUR recognition that whatever seems to separate you from God is ONLY fear, regardless of the form it takes, and quite apart from HOW THE EGO WANTS YOU TO EXPERIENCE IT, is therefore the basic ego threat. Its dream of autonomy is shaken to its foundation by this awareness. For though you may countenance a false idea of independence, you will NOT accept the cost of fear, IF YOU RECOGNIZE IT. Yet this IS the cost, and the ego CANNOT minimize it. For if you overlook love, you are overlooking YOURSELF, and you MUST fear UNreality BECAUSE YOU HAVE DENIED YOURSELF. By believing that you have successfully attacked truth, YOU ARE BELIEVING THAT ATTACK HAS POWER. Very simply, then, YOU HAVE BECOME AFRAID OF YOURSELF. And no one wills to learn what he believes would DESTROY him.
If the ego's goal of autonomy COULD be accomplished GOD's purpose could be DEFEATED, and this IS impossible. Only by learning what fear IS, can you finally learn to distinguish the possible from the impossible, and the false from the true. According to the ego's teaching, ITS goal CAN be accomplished, and GOD's Purpose can NOT. According to the Holy Spirit's teaching, ONLY God's Purpose IS accomplishment, and it is ALREADY accomplished.
God is as dependent on you as you are on Him, because HIS autonomy ENCOMPASSES yours, and is therefore incomplete WITHOUT it. You can only ESTABLISH your autonomy by identifying WITH Him, and FULFILLING YOUR FUNCTION AS IT EXISTS IN TRUTH. The ego believes that to accomplish ITS goal IS happiness. But it is given YOU to know that GOD's function IS yours, and happiness CANNOT be found apart from your joint will. Recognize only that the ego's goal, which you have pursued quite diligently, has merely brought you FEAR, and it becomes difficult to maintain that FEAR is happiness.
UPHELD by fear, this IS what the ego would have you believe. Yet God's Son is not insane, and CANNOT believe it. Let him but RECOGNIZE it, and he will NOT accept it. For only the insane would choose fear IN PLACE of love, and only the insane could believe that love can be gained by ATTACK. But the sane KNOW that only attack COULD produce fear, from which the love of God COMPLETELY protects them.
The ego analyzes; the Holy Spirit ACCEPTS. The appreciation of wholeness comes ONLY through acceptance, for to analyze MEANS to separate out. The attempt to understand totality by BREAKING IT UP is clearly the characteristically contradictory approach of the ego to everything. Never forget that the ego believes that power, understanding AND TRUTH lie in separation. And to ESTABLISH this belief it MUST attack. Unaware that the belief cannot BE established, and obsessed with the conviction that separation IS salvation, the ego attacks everything it perceives, by breaking it up into small and disconnected parts, without meaningful relationships, and thus without meaning. The ego will ALWAYS substitute chaos for meaning, for if separation is salvation, harmony is threat.
The ego's interpretations of the laws of perception are, and would HAVE to be, the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit's. The ego FOCUSES ON ERROR, and OVERLOOKS TRUTH. It makes real every mistake it perceives, and with characteristically circular reasoning, concludes that, BECAUSE of the mistake, consistent truth must be meaningless. The next step, then, is obvious. If consistent truth is meaningless, INCONSISTENCY must be true if truth has meaning. Holding error clearly in mind, and protecting what it has made real, the ego proceeds to the next step in its thought system; that error is real, and TRUTH IS ERROR.
The ego makes no attempt to UNDERSTAND this, and it is clearly not understandable. But the ego does make EVERY attempt to DEMONSTRATE it, and THIS it does constantly. Analyzing to ATTACK meaning, the ego DOES succeed in overlooking it, and is left with a series of fragmented perceptions WHICH IT UNIFIES ON BEHALF OF ITSELF. This, then, becomes the universe it perceives and it is this universe which, in turn, becomes its demonstration of its own reality.
Do not underestimate the appeal of the ego's demonstrations to those who would listen. Selective perception chooses its witnesses carefully, and its witnesses ARE consistent. The case for insanity IS strong to the insane. For reasoning ends at its beginning, and no thought system transcends its source. Yet reasoning without meaning CANNOT demonstrate anything, and those who are convinced by it, MUST be deluded. Can the ego teach truly, when it overlooks truth? Can it perceive what it has DENIED? Its witnesses DO attest to its DENIAL, but hardly to WHAT it has denied. The ego looks straight at the Father and does not see Him, for it has denied His Son.
Would YOU remember the Father? Accept His Son and you WILL remember Him. Nothing can demonstrate that His Son is unworthy, for nothing can prove that a lie is true. What you see of His Son through the eyes of the ego is a demonstration that His Son does not exist, yet where the Son is, the Father MUST be. Accept what God does NOT deny, and HE will demonstrate its truth. The witnesses for God stand in His Light and behold what HE created. Their silence is the sign that they have beheld God's Son, and in the Presence of Christ, THEY need demonstrate nothing, for Christ speaks to them of Himself and of His Father. They are silent because Christ speaks to them, and it is His words that THEY speak.
Every brother you meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego, depending on what you perceive in him. Everyone convinces you of WHAT YOU WANT TO PERCEIVE, and of the reality of the Kingdom you have chosen for your vigilance. Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought-system YOU WANT TO BE TRUE. Every brother has the power to release you, IF YOU WILL TO BE FREE. You cannot accept false witness of him, unless you have evoked false witnesses AGAINST him. If HE speaks not of Christ to YOU, YOU spoke not of Christ to him. You hear but your own voice, and if Christ speaks through you, YOU will hear Him.