Think but how holy you must be, from whom the Voice for God calls lovingly unto your brother, that you may awake in him the Voice that answers to YOUR call. And think how holy HE must be, when in him sleeps your OWN salvation, with HIS freedom joined. However much you wish he be condemned, God is in him. And never will you know He is in YOU as well, while you attack His chosen home, and battle with His host. Regard him gently. Look with loving eyes on him who carries Christ within him, that you may behold His glory, and rejoice that Heaven is NOT separate from you.
Is it too much to ask a little trust for him who carries Christ to you, that you may be forgiven ALL your sins, and left without a single one you cherish still. Forget not that a shadow held between your brother and yourself obscures the Face of Christ and memory of God. And would you trade Them for an ancient hate? The ground whereon you stand is holy ground BECAUSE of Them Who, standing there with you, have blessed it with THEIR innocence and peace. The blood of hatred fades, to let the grass grow green again, and let the flowers be all white and sparkling in the summer sun. What was a place of death has now become a living temple in a world of light.
Because of Them. It is Their Presence Which has lifted holiness again to take its ancient place upon an ancient throne. Because of Them have miracles sprung up as grass and flowers on the barren ground which hate had scorched and rendered desolate. What hate has wrought have They undone. And now you stand on ground so holy Heaven leans to join with it, and make it like Itself. The shadow of an ancient hate has gone, and all the blight and withering have passed forever from the land where They have come.
What is a hundred or a thousand years to Them, or tens of thousands? When They come, time's purpose is fulfilled. What never WAS passes to nothingness when They have come. What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes home. The incomplete is made complete again. And Heaven's joy has been increased because what is its own has been restored to it. The bloodied earth is cleansed, and the insane have shed their garments of insanity, to join Them on the ground whereon you stand.
Heaven is grateful for this gift of what has been withheld so long. For They have come to gather in Their Own. What has been blocked is opened; what was held APART from light is given up that light may shine on it, and leave no space nor distance lingering between the light of Heaven and the world. The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love. And They come quickly to the living temple, where a home for Them has been set up. There is no place in Heaven holier. And They HAVE come to dwell within the temple offered them, to be THEIR resting place as well as YOURS.
What hatred has released to love becomes the brightest light in Heaven's radiance. And all the lights in Heaven brighter grow in gratitude for what has been restored. Around you angels hover lovingly, to keep away all darkened thoughts of sin, and KEEP the light where it has entered in. Your footprints lighten up the world, for where you walk forgiveness goes with you. No-one on earth but offers thanks to one who has restored his home, and sheltered him from bitter winter and the freezing cold. And shall the Lord of Heaven and His Son give LESS in gratitude for so much MORE?
Now is the temple of the living God rebuilt as host again to Him by Whom it was created. Where He dwells His Son dwells with Him, NEVER separate. And They give thanks that They are welcome made at last. Where stood a cross stands now the risen Christ, and ancient scars are healed within His sight. An ancient miracle has come to bless, and to REPLACE an ancient enmity that came to kill. In gentle gratitude do God the Father AND the Son return to what is Theirs, and will forever be. Now is the Holy Spirit's purpose done. For They have come! For They have come at last!
Let’s take a closer look at this.
"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its power declines if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel."
"If this were the real world, God WOULD be cruel. For no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation, and be loving. LOVE DOES NOT KILL TO SAVE. For if it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the ego's interpretation, not God's."
Now. THINK about this for a moment. Jesus is describing a world in which children are born. These children are born in pain. They grow. They have bodies. They have brains. Their minds are trapped in their brains. They wither and suffer. And they go through bodily death.
Now, WHICH world is that talking about? What world is it WHERE THIS HAPPENS? It should be PLAIN AND SIMPLE. It is obvious! This is talking about planet Earth. In common parlance, "THE WORLD." Earth, the physical planet. "The world" that pretty much anyone would refer to as the world. The world where children are born, have brains, grow old, and die. It is THAT WORLD that is being referenced. The world where YOU WERE BORN, into the body of a child, with your mind trapped in your brain. THAT WORLD. **THIS WORLD**. Earth. Not an interpretation OF it. THIS WORLD. ITSELF. The planet.
And THAT WORLD..... THIS WORLD....is very very clearlly being described by Jesus, as a CRUEL WORLD. He is also clearly talking about that world, where children are born, as being the kind of world that God COULD NOT HAVE CREATED. Otherwise, if He would have created such a world, HE WOULD BE CRUEL. Creating a world where children are born as bodies with brains who grow old and die, IS A CRUEL WORLD, the likes of which a LOVING FATHER would NEVER EVER EVER CREATE. Never. God would NEVER create a world where ANYTHING is born, where ANYTHING has its mind trapped in a brain, and where ANYTHING grows or dies. God does not create such cruelty!
"This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."
"If this were the real world, God WOULD be cruel."
THIS WORLD, EARTH, IS NOT REAL!!!!!!
This is not in any way talking about a world of ego perception. It is not talking about dream interpretations of Earth. It is not talking about your projections onto the world. It is not talking about any kind of perception. It is not talking about an internal private world that you project onto the "Real world of earth". Earth is NOT THE REAL WORLD. It is NOT created by God.
If you assign Earth to God’s creation, you are claiming literally that God is CRUEL because a world where CHILDREN ARE BORN, GROW OLD, AND DIE, IS A FUCKING CRUEL WORLD!!!! If you then attempt to NOT claim he is cruel while assigning the world to him, you are in DOUBLE DENIAL, wearing rose tinted glasses and glossing over the sheer cruelty and suffering that is INHERENT to this entire universe. When was the last time you saw a living dinosaur? Never. Why? Massive cruelty. Massive death. It’s not cruel merely because "ego interprets it as cruel". It is fundamentally cruel. To say it is not cruel and "love it" is UTTERLY INSANE. You cannot love death and it is insane to do so.
God did not, would not, can never, will not, has not and does not desire to, create a world where CHILDREN ARE BORN AND DIE. At all. In any way. God does not create babies! God does not create ANY KIND OF BODY. Not humans, not animals, not insects, not planets. "God did not create the body." God did not create ANY children’s bodies. Not one. Not even yours. God does not create a WORLD where children are born and die, where creatures have brains, or where there are bodies of ANY KIND. God does not create cruel planets with mass extinctions and being snuffed out in a supernova!!
Some people really seem to defend against this. But if you think the world IS NOT CRUEL, in an attempt to make it OKAY WITH GOD, and to justify that God MUST have created it because YOU think it is heaven on earth, there is a really profound level of denial happening. The world is *exremely* cruel. And I do not say this as a judgement or an unforgiveness. It simply is not heaven. Or heaven like. Not even remotely. The world is made of the idea of death. "Without the idea of death there is no world." Even true perception will ONLY reveal the TRUTH ABOUT this world, which is that it is FALSE, UNREAL, DOES NOT EXIST, IS NOT GOD’S NATURE, AND IS NOT LIFE.
God’s world is Heaven. It is not Earth. It is another realm unlike this universe. Nothing there but shines and shines forever. If you think God made the Earth, you have NO IDEA what God is like. A loving father could never create such mayhem and conflict and mindless destruction.
The psychotherapist is a leader in the sense that he walks slightly ahead of the patient, and helps him to avoid a few of the pitfalls along the road by seeing them first. Ideally, he is also a follower, for One should walk ahead of him to give him light to see. Without this One, both will merely stumble blindly on to nowhere. It is, however, impossible that this One be wholly absent if the goal is healing. He may, however, not be recognized. And so the little light that can be then accepted is all there is to light the way to truth.
Healing is limited by the limitations of the psychotherapist, as it is limited by those of the patient. The aim of the process, therefore, is to transcend these limits. Neither can do this alone, but when they join, the potentiality for transcending all limitations has been given them. Now the extent of their success depends on how much of this potentiality they are willing to use. The willingness may come from either one at the beginning, and as the other shares it, it will grow. Progress becomes a matter of decision; it can reach almost to Heaven or go no further than a step or two from hell.
It is quite possible for psychotherapy to seem to fail. It is even possible for the result to look like retrogression. But in the end there must be some success. One asks for help; another hears and tries to answer in the form of help. This is the formula for salvation, and must heal. Divided goals alone can interfere with perfect healing. One wholly egoless therapist could heal the world without a word, merely by being there. No-one need see him or talk to him or even know of his existence. His simple Presence is enough to heal.
The ideal therapist is one with Christ. But healing is a process, not a fact. The therapist cannot progress without the patient, and the patient cannot be ready to receive the Christ or he could not be sick. In a sense, the egoless psychotherapist is an abstraction that stands at the end of the process of healing, too advanced to believe in sickness and too near to God to keep his feet on earth. Now he can help through those in need of help, for thus he carries out the plan established for salvation. The psychotherapist becomes his patient, working through other patients to express his thoughts as he receives them from the Mind of Christ.
When shitty stuff happens, you want it to stop.
But it's a lesson. It's trying to teach you something. Its motive of teaching is very much for you and supportive of you and helping you. It is not a motive of attack. At least, if you decide to use it this way.
What if this thing is trying to educate you, to give you training, so that you will learn something you didn't know, so that you can become able to help other people who you later encounter who are going through the same thing?
Perhaps then you will have transitioned from being a student to being able to teach what you have mastered.
Life will throw you first-hand challenges. Like, right in your face, when you don't want it. And your ego will claim it wants it to go away. Why does it want it to go away? Perhaps it doesn't want you to use it for forgiveness? Perhaps it doesn't want you to listen and learn and grow and wake up?
Would you welcome the lesson if you knew it was designed specifically, and solely, to help you, and through your willingness, end up helping others as well? What if it is for everyone's highest good? What if Holy Spirit wants you to be learning this and it isn't some kind of evil curriculum given you by the devil?
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.
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.
You are harmless and cannot be harmed.
You walk around completely safe and invulnerable, impenetrable, immune, immortal.
All of your needs are met. You are whole and complete. You need nothing from outside of you at all. You have everything because you have God.
You know who you are and you are completely innocent. There is no trace of sin or guilt or fear in you. You are joyful all the time.
You know that nobody has ever done anything to you, to any degree. You also know that you have never done anything to anyone else.
You don't need any help, you do nothing alone, and you are completely provided for. God looks after you permanently.
You know you have not changed. Nothing has influenced you and you are as immaculately yourself as you have always been in God's Creation.
You need not change nor grow nor evolve because you are already flawless and complete. You lack nothing and have no faults or limitations.
Your mind is perfectly clear, serene, aware and present. You recognize your true self in everything you witness.
You have no special needs or special interests. Everyone is your calm friend and supporter. You heal because you are healed and you share everything with everyone.
All you have was given you by God and you are not attached to anything else, because what God gave you is completely satisfying and freely given, to be extended to all.
No longer are you confused or lost or deceived by an ego. There is no ego here. You are yourself, free to be.
This is what you've always been. This is what will continue forever. Anything not aligned with this is the ego and is not true.
It is not possible to hold a thought of accusation in your own mind, which seems to be about someone else, without YOU also receiving side-effects from that thought. That thought is toxic.
A thought of attack, even if it's a justified attack, is still an attack. And attack thoughts have attacking properties. It's like a nasty, dark, spiky, painful energy in your mind. Do you think you get away with not being affected by that?
So here's the conundrum. You cannot have a negative thought about anyone else without it affecting you. You have to put the negative thought into your own interior mind-garden, and it's going to grow a bunch of weeds there. It's going to attack YOU as much as it attacks someone else.
It's all or nothing. Either the thought applies to you AND them, or it doesn't apply to either of you.
When you're in the business of having the kind of thoughts that apply 'separately' to separate people, those are INSANE thoughts.
If you would realize that your attack thoughts (about other people) are attacking your invulnerability, you would not have them.
If you would realize that you cannot hate someone without hating yourself, you would not hate.
If you would realize that you can't judge and condemn someone without you also feeling condemned, you would not do it.
There is no 'separate justice'. There is no person A being guilty and person B being innocent. Either all are innocent or all are guilty. The accused and the accuser are both guilty.
The ego's laws, the law of the land, are all based on this idea. Someone is to blame, and someone is not. This is not a law based in sanity.
God's law says that whatever is true of one, is true of all. Whatever applies to one, applies to all. One law that applies equally to everyone and finds everyone equally innocent. That is the only sane law.
Today let us be thankful. We have come to gentler pathways and to smoother roads. There is no thought of turning back, and no implacable resistance to the truth. A bit of wavering remains, some small objections and a little hesitance, but we can well be grateful for our gains, which are far greater than we realize. A day devoted now to gratitude will add the benefit of some insight into the real extent of all the gains which you have made; the gifts you have received.
Be glad today in loving thankfulness your Father has not left you to yourself, nor let you wander in the dark alone. Be grateful He has saved you from the self you thought you made to take the place of Him and His creation. Give Him thanks today. Give thanks that He has not abandoned you, and that His Love forever will remain shining on you, forever without change.
Give thanks as well that you are changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself. Be grateful you are saved. Be glad you have a function in salvation to fulfill. Be thankful that your value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom God established as His Son.
Today in gratitude we lift our hearts above despair, and raise our thankful eyes, no longer looking downward to the dust. We sing the song of thankfulness today in honor of the Self Which God has willed to be our true identity in Him. Today we smile on everyone we see, and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to do what is appointed us to do.
We do not go alone. And we give thanks that in our solitude a Friend has come to speak the saving Word of God to us. And thanks to you for listening to Him. His Word is soundless if it be not heard. In thanking Him the thanks are yours as well. An unheard message will not save the world, however mighty be the Voice that speaks, however loving may the message be.
Thanks be to you who heard, for you become the messengers who bring His Voice with you, and let it echo round and round the world. Receive the thanks of God today, as you give thanks to Him. For He would offer you the thanks you give, since He receives your gifts in loving gratitude, and gives them back a thousand and a hundred thousand more than they were given. He will bless your gifts by sharing them with you. And so they grow in power and in strength until they fill the world with gladness and with gratitude.
Receive His thanks and offer yours to Him for fifteen minutes twice today. And you will realize to Whom you offer thanks, and Whom He thanks as you are thanking Him. This holy half an hour given Him will be returned to you in terms of years for every second; power to save the world eons more quickly for your thanks to Him.
Receive His thanks, and you will understand how lovingly He holds you in His Mind, how deep and limitless His care for you, how perfect is His gratitude to you. Remember hourly to think of Him, and give Him thanks for everything He gave His Son, that he might rise above the world remembering His Father and his Self.
When you first find your 'next teacher' on your path, you will be excited because they represent the next teachings that you are ready to be exposed to, and it all seems new and exciting. There is a honeymoon period. It seems to you that this teacher will give you what you're missing.
Over time, you learn stuff, and you start to feel a lack of ease (dis-ease?) and discord and you grow disillusioned and frustrated. The reason is that the lesson here is less obvious. The teacher THEMSELVES are the lesson. Their challenge to you, perhaps the things they've been teaching you, perhaps hold you back in some ways. This is particularly true if the teaching is not teaching the whole truth.
What's required of you is to come to realize how the teacher has limitations and what those limitations are - to become aware enough of the truth that you can discern that this person is not all you thought they were and perhaps there is more truth somewhere else. In other words, you need to receive from the teacher what you came together to share, and then you become awakened enough to realize that its time to move on - that you need a new greater teaching that maybe someone else has to provide.
So the lesson isn't so much, what this teaching is going to transfer to you or tell you about or what tools they give etc. The lesson is, that the teacher themselves are an obstacle and an idol and you need to learn to detach from that and recognize the truth in yourself rather than thinking that it must 'come from' them. You might get to that realization by way of what the teacher is sharing with you, or IN SPITE of it, and especially in spite of it if the teacher is not telling the whole truth. Because if you're making progress, it's because you're waking up and that means you're shining more light and now you can see what you didn't see before.