Christ's Second Coming gives the Son of God the gift to hear the Voice for God proclaim that what is false is false, and what is true has never changed. And this the judgment is in which perception ends. At first you see a world which has accepted this as true, projected from a now corrected mind. And with this holy sight, perception gives a silent blessing and then disappears, its goal accomplished and its mission done.
The final judgment on the world contains no condemnation. For it sees the world as totally forgiven, without sin, and wholly purposeless. Without a cause, and now without a function in Christ's sight, it merely slips away to nothingness. There it was born, and there it ends as well. And all the figures in the dream in which the world began go with it. Bodies now are useless, and will therefore fade away, because the Son of God is limitless.
You who believed that God's Last Judgment would condemn the world to hell along with you, accept this holy truth: God's Judgment is the gift of the Correction He bestowed on all your errors, freeing you from them, and all effects they ever seemed to have. To fear God's saving grace is but to fear complete release from suffering, return to peace, security and happiness, and union with your own Identity.
God's Final Judgment is as merciful as every step in His appointed plan to bless His Son, and call Him to return to the eternal peace He shares with him. Be not afraid of Love. For It alone can heal all sorrow, wipe away all tears, and gently waken from his dreams of pain the Son whom God acknowledges as His. Be not afraid of this. Salvation asks you give it welcome. And the world awaits your glad acceptance, which will set it free.
This is God's Final Judgment: "You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever loved, as limitless as Your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure. Therefore awaken and return to Me. I am Your Father and you are My Son."
Miracles praise God through men. They praise God by honoring his Creations, affirming their perfection. They heal because they deny body-identification and affirm Soul-identification. By perceiving the Spirit, they adjust the levels and see them in proper alignment. This places the Spirit at the center, where Souls can communicate directly.
Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. Man should thank God for what he really is. The Children of God are very holy. The miracle honors their holiness.
God's Creations cannot lose their holiness, although it can be hidden. The miracle uncovers it, and brings it into the light where it belongs.
Holiness can never be really hidden in darkness, but man can deceive himself on this point. This illusion makes him fearful, because in his heart he KNOWS it is an illusion. Like all illusions, he exerts enormous efforts to establish their validity. The miracle sets validity where it belongs. Eternal validity belongs only to the Soul. The miracle acknowledges only the Truth. It thus dispels man's illusions about himself, and puts him into communion with himself and with God.
Christ inspires all miracles, which are essentially intercessions. They intercede for man's holiness, and make him holy. They place man beyond the physical laws, and raise him into the sphere of celestial order. In this order, man IS perfect.
The Soul never loses its communion with God. Only the mind and body need Atonement. The miracle joins in the Atonement of Christ by placing the mind in the service of the Spirit. This establishes the proper function of mind, and abolishes its errors.
Miracles honor man, BECAUSE he is loveable. They dispel illusions about himself, and perceive the light in him. They thus atone for his errors by freeing him from his own nightmares. They release him from a prison in which he has imprisoned himself. By freeing his mind from illusions, they restore his sanity, and place him at the feet of Jesus.
(Biblical quotation re healing of devil possessed man, in which the sufferer was subsequently found healed in his right mind, and sitting at feet of Jesus. Helen Schucman note.)
(Tell Bill man's mind can be possessed by illusions, but his Spirit is eternally free. If a mind creates without love, it can create an empty shell. This CAN be possessed by evil. But the Atonement restores the Soul to its proper place. Unless there is emptiness there is no danger, and emptiness is a false creation. The mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable.)
The miracle restores the Soul to its fullness. By atoning for lack, it establishes perfect protection. The strength of the Soul leaves no room for intrusions. The forgiven are filled with the Soul, and their Soul forgives in return. It is the duty of the released to release their brothers.
The forgiven ARE the means of Atonement. Those released by Christ must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the plan of Atonement.
Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the spirit unite with Christ for the salvation (or release) of all God's Creations.
AsideHelen Schucman commented on awakening with the phrase "God is not Mocked," with anticipation of punishment.)
Interpretation: "God is not mocked" was intended as reassurance. You are afraid that what you wrote last night was contradictory, conflicting with some earlier points, especially because you were writing while you were all doped up. Remember, "God is not mocked" under any circumstances.
Contradictions in MY word mean lack of understanding, or scribal failures, which I make every effort to correct. But they are still NOT crucial. The Bible has the same problem, I assure you, and it's STILL being edited. Consider the power of MY WORD, in that it has withstood all the attacks of error, and is the Source of Truth.
(Tell Bill that there are certain advantages in being a Psychologist. A major one is the understanding of projection, and the extent of its results. Possession is very closely related to projection. "Lucifer" could be literally translated "Light Bearer." He literally PROJECTED himself from Heaven. Projection still has this "hurling" connotation, because it involves hurling something you DO NOT want, and regard as dangerous and frightening, to someone else. This is the opposite of the Golden Rule, and having placed this rule upside down, the reverse of miracles, or projection, follows automatically.)
The correction lies in accepting what is true in YOURSELF, by bringing ALL that you are into light. (Helen Schucman fearful of writing next part.) Cacey sic was wrong about Possession, and he was also wrong about hurting himself. One of the major problems with miracle workers is that they are so sure that what they are doing is right, because they KNOW it stems from love, that they do not pause to let ME establish MY limits.
While what he (Cacey sic) did came from Me, he could NOT be induced to ask me each time whether I wanted him to perform this PARTICULAR miracle. If he had, he would not have performed any miracles that could not get through constructively, and would thus have saved himself unnecessary strain. He burned himself out with indiscriminate miracles, and to this extent did not fulfill his own full purpose, and was also subject to the Scribal error I mentioned at the start. The Disciples were also prone to this.
The answer is NEVER perform a miracle without asking me IF you should. This spares you from exhaustion, and because you act under direct communication the trance becomes unnecessary. Because miracles are expressions of love, it does NOT follow that they will always be effective. I am the only one who can perform miracles indiscriminately, because I AM the Atonement. You have a ROLE in Atonement, which I will dictate TO you.
Remember, you already have a point about the involuntary nature of miracles. We also have established the fact that everything involuntary belongs under Christ-control, NOT under yours. Under Christ-control, Miracles REPLENISH the doer as well as the receiver.
Possession really means "Not under Christ-Control", thus making him (the mind?) vulnerable to projection. The references to the earth-bound entering bodies really refer to the "taking over" by their own earth-bound "thoughts." This IS Demon Possession. After all, Lucifer fell, but he was still an angel. He is thus the symbol for man. Atonement is the knowledge that the belief that angels can fall is false. It is true that mind can create projections as well as miracles, but it's NOT true that projections are REAL. Any psychologist should understand this. This is what is meant by "The Truth shall set you free."
Christ-controlled miracles are part of the Atonement, but Christ-guidance is personal, and leads to PERSONAL salvation. The impersonal nature of miracles is an essential ingredient, because this enables Me to control their distribution as I see fit.
Christ-guidance, on the other hand, leads to the highly PERSONAL experience of Revelation. This is why it involves PERSONAL choice. A guide does NOT control, by definition, but he does DIRECT, leaving the following up to you. "Lead us not into temptation" means "guide us out of our own errors." Note that the word is "lead", NOT order.
"Take up thy cross and follow me" should be interpreted to read "Recognize your errors and choose to abandon them by following My guidance."
(Tell Bill when he is afraid of Possession, he need only remember that error cannot really threaten Truth, which ALWAYS can withstand its assaults. ONLY the error is really vulnerable.) The "Princes of this World" are princes only because they are really angels. But they are free to establish their kingdom where they see fit.
If you will remember that ALL princes INHERIT their power from the Father, the right choice becomes inevitable.
The soul is in a state of grace forever.
Man's reality is ONLY his soul.
Therefore, man is in a state of Grace forever.
Atonement undoes all errors in this respect, and thus uproots the REAL source of fear. If you will check back at the reference to uprooting, you will understand it better in this context.
(Tell Bill that WHENEVER God's reassurances are experienced as threat, it is ALWAYS because man is defending his misplaced and misdirected love and loyalty. That is what projection always involves.)
"Casting spells" merely means "affirming error", and error is lack of love. When man projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made. This distortion makes them vulnerable to the curse of others, since they have already cursed themselves. The miracle worker can only bless, and this undoes the curse and frees the soul from prison.
(Tell Bill that his slip about (rivet) should be noted. Some slips reach consciousness from the un-Christ-controlled subconscious, and betray a lack of love.)
But others (slips) come from the superconscious, which IS in communion with God, and which can also break into consciousness.
HIS slip (rivet) was an expression of a Soul gaining enough strength to request freedom from prison. It will ultimately DEMAND it.
Special Revelation for Helen Schucman
You are wholly lovely. A perfect shaft of pure light. Before your loveliness the stars stand transfixed, and bow to the power of your will.
What do children know of their creation, except what their Creator tells them?
You were created ABOVE the angels because your role involves creation as well as protection.
You who are in the image of the Father need bow only to HIM, before whom I kneel with you.
Note: This revelation was permitted because you did NOT project onto Bill the blame for your omission to ASK ME if you should transcribe the notes. The fact that HE should have done so does not exempt you from your own omission.
Thanks for blessing him with a miracle rather than cursing him with projection.
NOTE FURTHER: HE needn't feel concerned about it either; so he forgot? It happens all the time, until the habit of asking becomes involuntary.
(Helen Schucman meeting with Dr. Wise and Dr. Damrosch. Dr. D permitted an opportunity for questioning in his capacity as chairman of the flu board for asking re B's flu shot. This was an example of how miracles should work. You did not jump into the question yourself, and even though you DID rush for the phone on Red's advice, you exerted no pressure on B's reluctance.)
This gave ME a chance to let you leave it to the real expert, whom I sent to answer the question.
Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra- and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer sees the truth as God created it. This is what is meant by the point on "perspective adjustment."
A miracle is a correction factor introduced into false thinking by ME.
It acts as a catalyst, shaking up erroneous perception and snapping it into place. This correction factor places man under the Atonement principle, where his perception is healed. Until this has occurred, perception of the Divine Order is impossible. True depth perception becomes possible only at the highest order of perceptual integration.
The Spiritual eye is the mechanism of miracles, because what the Spiritual eye perceives IS truth. The Spiritual eye perceives both the Creations of God AND the creations of man. Among the creations of man, it can also separate the true from the false by its ability to perceive totally rather than selectively. It thus becomes the proper instrument for reality testing, which always involves the necessary distinction between the true and the false.
The miracle dissolves error because the Spiritual eye identifies error as false or unreal. This is the same as saying that by seeing light, darkness automatically disappears.
Darkness is lack of light. It does not have unique properties of its own. It is an example of the scarcity fallacy, from which only error can proceed.
(Truth is always abundant... Those who perceive and acknowledge that they have everything have no need for driven behavior of any kind. Helen Schucman has other personal material related to this re pregnancy.)
While we have recognized that the ego's plan for salvation is the opposite of God's, we have not yet emphasized that it is an active attack on His plan, and a deliberate attempt to destroy it. In the attack, God is assigned the attributes which are actually associated with the ego, while the ego appears to take on the attributes of God.
The ego's fundamental wish is to replace God. In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of this wish. For it is this wish which seems to surround the mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone, and unable to reach other minds except through the body which was made to imprison it. The limit on communication cannot be the best means to expand communication. Yet the ego would have you believe that it is.
Although the attempt to keep the limitations which a body would impose is obvious here, it is perhaps not so apparent why holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation. But let us consider the kinds of things which you are apt to hold grievances for. Are they not always associated with something a body does? A person says something we do not like; he does something that displeases us; he "betrays" his hostile thoughts in his behavior.
We are not dealing here with what the person is. On the contrary, we are exclusively concerned with what he does in a body. We are doing more than failing to help in freeing him from its limitations. We are actively trying to hold him to it by confusing it with him, and judging them as one. Herein is God attacked, for if His Son is only a body, so must He be as well. A creator wholly unlike his creation is inconceivable.
If God is a body, what must His plan for salvation be? What could it be but death? In trying to present Himself as the Author of life and not of death, He is a liar and a deceiver, full of false promises, and offering illusions in place of truth. The body's apparent reality makes this view of God quite convincing. In fact, if the body were real, it would be difficult indeed to escape this conclusion. And every grievance that you hold insists that the body is real. It overlooks entirely what your brother is. It reinforces your belief that he is a body, and condemns him for it. And it asserts that his salvation must be death, projecting this attack onto God, and holding Him responsible for it.
To this carefully prepared arena, where angry animals seek for prey and mercy cannot enter, the ego comes to save you. God made you a body. Very well. Let us accept this and be glad. As a body, do not let yourself be deprived of what the body offers. Take the little you can get. God gave you nothing. The body is your only savior. It is the death of God and your salvation. This is the universal belief of the world you see.
Some hate the body, and try to hurt and humiliate it. Others love the body, and try to glorify and exalt it. But while it stands at the center of your concept of yourself, you are attacking God's plan for salvation, and holding your grievances against Him and His creations, that you may not hear the Voice of truth and welcome it as Friend. Your chosen Savior takes His place instead. It is your friend; He is your enemy. We will try today to stop these senseless attacks on salvation. We will try to welcome it instead.
Our upside-down perception has been ruinous to our peace of mind. We have seen ourselves in a body and the truth outside us, locked away from our awareness by the body's limitations. Now we are going to try to see this differently. The light of truth is in us, where it was placed by God. It is the body that is outside us, and is not our concern. To be without a body is to be in our natural state. To recognize the light of truth in us is to recognize ourselves as we are. To see our Self as separate from the body is to end the attack on God's plan for salvation, and to accept it instead. And wherever it is accepted it is accomplished already.
Our goal in the longer practice periods today is to become aware that God's plan for salvation has already been accomplished in us. To achieve this goal, we must replace attack with acceptance. As long as we attack it, we cannot understand what God's plan for us is. We are therefore attacking what we do not recognize. Now we are going to try to lay judgment aside, and ask what God's plan for us is:
"What is salvation, Father?
I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand."
Then we will wait in quiet for His answer.
We have attacked God's plan for salvation, without waiting to hear what it is. We have shouted our grievances so loudly that we have not listened to His Voice. We have used our grievances to close our eyes and stop our ears. Now we would see and hear and learn. "What is salvation, Father?" Ask and you will be answered. Seek and you will find.
We are no longer asking the ego what salvation is and where to find it. We are asking it of truth. Be certain, then, that the answer will be true because of Whom you ask. Whenever you feel your confidence wane and your hope of success flicker and go out, repeat your question and your request, remembering that you are asking them of the infinite Creator of infinity, Who created you like Himself:
"What is salvation, Father?
I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand."
He will answer. Be determined to hear.
One or perhaps two shorter practice periods an hour will be enough for today, since they will be somewhat longer than usual. The exercises are as follows:
"Holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation.
Let me accept it instead.
What is salvation, Father?"
Then wait a minute or so in silence, preferably with your eyes closed, and listen for His answer.
Today's idea remains the central thought on which salvation rests. For healing is the opposite of all the world's ideas which dwell on sickness and on separate states. Sickness is a retreat from others, and a shutting off of joining. It becomes a door that closes on a separate self, and keeps it isolated and alone.
Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount. The world obeys the laws that sickness serves, but healing operates apart from them.
It is impossible that anyone be healed alone. In sickness must he be apart and separate. But healing is his own decision to be one again, and to accept his Self with all its parts intact and unassailed. In sickness does his Self appear to be dismembered and without the unity which gives It life. But healing is accomplished as he sees the body has no power to attack the universal Oneness of God's Son. Sickness would prove that lies must be the truth. But healing demonstrates that truth is true.
The separation sickness would impose has never really happened. To be healed is merely to accept what always was the simple truth, and always will remain exactly as it has forever been. Yet eyes accustomed to illusions must be shown that what they look upon is false. So healing, never needed by the truth, must demonstrate that sickness is not real.
Healing might thus be called a counter-dream which cancels out the dream of sickness in the name of truth, but not in truth itself. Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins that never were accomplished, healing but removes illusions that have not occurred. Just as the real world will arise to take the place of what has never been at all, healing offers restitution for imagined states and false ideas which dreams embroider into pictures of the truth.
Yet think not healing is unworthy of your function here. For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real. The body seems to be more solid and more stable than the mind. And love becomes a dream, while fear remains the one reality which can be seen and justified and fully understood.
Just as forgiveness shines away all sin, and the real world will occupy the place of what you made, so healing must replace the fantasies of sickness which you hold before the simple truth. When sickness has been seen to disappear in spite of all the laws which hold it cannot but be real, then questions have been answered. And the laws can be no longer cherished nor obeyed.
Healing is freedom, for it demonstrates that dreams will not prevail against the truth. Healing is shared. And by this attribute it proves that laws unlike the ones which hold that sickness is inevitable are more potent than their sickly opposites. Healing is strength. For by its gentle hand is weakness overcome. And minds which were walled off within a body free to join with other minds, to be forever strong.
Healing, forgiveness, and the glad exchange of all the world of sorrow for a world where sadness cannot enter, are the means by which the Holy Spirit urges you to follow Him. His gentle lessons teach how easily salvation can be yours; how little practice you need undertake to let His laws replace the ones you made, to hold yourself a prisoner to death. His life becomes your own as you extend the little help He asks in freeing you from everything that ever caused you pain.
And as you let yourself be healed, you see all those around you, or who cross your mind, or whom you touch, or those who seem to have no contact with you, healed along with you. Perhaps you will not recognize them all, nor realize how great your offering to all the world, when you let healing come to you. But you are never healed alone. And legions upon legions will receive the gift which you receive when you are healed.
Those who are healed become the instruments of healing. Nor does time elapse between the instant they are healed and all the grace of healing it is given them to give. What is opposed to God does not exist, and who accepts it not within his mind becomes a haven where the weary can remain to rest. For here is truth bestowed, and here are all illusions brought to truth.
Would you not offer shelter to God's will? You but invite your Self to be at home, and can this invitation be refused? Ask the inevitable to occur and you will never fail. The other choice is but to ask what cannot be to be, and this cannot succeed. Today we ask that only truth will occupy our minds; that thoughts of healing will this day go forth from what is healed to what must yet be healed, aware that they will both occur as one.
We will remember, as the hour strikes, our function is to let our minds be healed that we may carry healing to the world, exchanging curse for blessing, pain for joy, and separation for the peace of God. Is not a minute of the hour worth the giving to receive a gift like this? Is not a little time a small expense to offer for the gift of everything?
Yet must we be prepared for such a gift. And so we will begin the day with this, and give ten minutes to these thoughts with which we will conclude today at night as well:
"When I am healed I am not healed alone.
And I would share my healing with the world,
That sickness may be banished from the mind
Of God's One Son, Who is my only Self."
Let healing be through you this very day. And as you rest in quiet be prepared to give as you receive, to hold but what you give, and to receive the Word of God to take the place of all the foolish thoughts that ever were imagined. Now we come together to make well all that was sick, and offer blessing where there was attack. Nor will we let this function be forgot as every hour of the day slips by, remembering our function with this thought:
"When I am healed I am not healed alone.
And I would bless my brothers, for I would
Be healed with them as they are healed with me."