"Father, I made an image of myself, and it is this I call the Son of God. Yet is creation as it always was, for Your creation is unchangeable. Let me not worship idols. I am he my Father loves. His holiness remains the light of Heaven and the Love of God. Is not what is beloved of You secure? Is not the light of Heaven infinite? Is not Your Son my true Identity, when You created everything that is?"
Now are we one in shared Identity, with God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us. And so we offer blessing to all things, uniting lovingly with all the world, which our forgiveness has made one with us.
My Self is holy beyond all the thoughts of holiness of which I now conceive. Its shimmering and perfect purity is far more brilliant than is any light that I have ever looked upon. Its love is limitless, with an intensity which holds all things within it in the calm of quiet certainty. Its strength comes not from burning impulses which move the world, but from the boundless Love of God Himself. How far beyond this world my Self must be, and yet how near to me and close to God.
"Father, You know my true Identity. Reveal It now to me who am Your Son, that I may waken to the truth in You, and know that Heaven is restored to me."
I seek my own identity, and find it in these words: "Love, Which created me, is what I am." Now need I seek no more. Love has prevailed. So still it waited for my coming home, that I will turn away no longer from the holy face of Christ. And what I look upon attests the truth of the identity I sought to lose, but which my Father has kept safe for me.
"Father, my thanks to You for what I am; for keeping my identity untouched and sinless in the midst of all the thoughts of sin my foolish mind made up. And thanks to You for saving me from them. Amen." W(472)
Where would I go but Heaven? What could be a substitute for happiness? What gift could I prefer before the peace of God? What treasure would I seek and find and keep that can compare with my Identity? And would I rather live with fear than love?
"You are my goal, my Father. What but You could I desire to have? What way but that which leads to You could I desire to walk? And what except the memory of You could signify to me the end of dreams and futile substitutions for the truth? You are my only goal. Your Son would be as You created Him. What way but this could I expect to recognize my Self, and be at one with my Identity?"
"Father, I did not make myself, although in my insanity I thought I did. Yet, as Your Thought, I have not left my Source, remaining part of What created me. Your Son, my Father, calls on You today. Let me remember You created me. Let me remember my Identity. And let my sinlessness arise again before Christ's vision, through which I would look upon my brothers and myself today."
Now is our Source remembered, and Therein we find our true Identity at last. Holy indeed are we, because our Source can know no sin. And we who are His Sons are like each other, and alike to Him.
Here is your declaration of release from bondage of the world. And here as well is all the world released. You do not see what you have done by giving to the world the role of jailor to the Son of God. What could it be but vicious and afraid, fearful of shadows, punitive and wild, lacking all reason, blind, insane and sad?
What have you done that this should be your world? What have you done that this is what you see? Deny your own identity and this is what remains. You look on chaos and proclaim it as yourself. There is no sight that fails to witness this to you. There is no sound that does not speak of frailty within you and without; no breath you draw that does not seem to bring you nearer death; no hope you hold but will dissolve in tears.
Deny your own identity and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought which mocks creation and which laughs at God. Deny your own identity and you assail the universe alone, without a friend, a tiny particle of dust against the legions of your enemies. Deny your own identity and look on evil, sin and death, and watch despair snatch from your fingers every scrap of hope, leaving you nothing but the wish to die.
Yet what is it except a game you play in which identity can be denied? You are as God created you. All else but this one thing is folly to believe. In this one thought is everything set free. In this one truth are all illusions gone. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything; the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality.
But let today's idea find a place among your thoughts, and you have risen far above the world and all the worldly thoughts that hold it prisoner. And from this place of safety and escape you will return and set it free. For he who can accept his true identity is truly saved. And his salvation is the gift he gives to everyone in gratitude to Him Who pointed out the way to happiness that changed his whole perception of the world.
One holy thought like this and you are free; you are the holy Son of God Himself. And with this holy thought you learn as well that you have freed the world. You have no need to use it cruelly and then perceive this savage need in it. You set it free of your imprisonment. You will not see a devastating image of yourself walking the world in terror, with the world twisting in agony because your fears have laid the mark of death upon its heart.
Be glad today how very easily is hell undone. You need but tell yourself:
"I am the holy Son of God Himself.
I cannot suffer; cannot be in pain;
I cannot lose, nor can I fail to do
All that salvation asks."
And in that thought is everything you look on wholly changed.
A miracle has lighted up all dark and ancient caverns where the rites of death echoed since time began. For time has lost its hold upon the world. The Son of God has come in glory to redeem the lost, to save the helpless and to give the world the gift of his forgiveness. Who could see the world as dark and sinful when God's Son has come again at last to set it free?
You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you.
Then let the Son of God awaken from his sleep, and opening his holy eyes return again to bless the world he made. In error it began. But it will end in the reflection of his holiness. And we will sleep no more and dream of death. Then join with me today. Your glory is the light that saves the world. Do not withhold salvation longer. Look about the world and see the suffering there. Is not your heart willing to bring your weary brothers rest?
They must await your own release. They stay in chains 'til you are free. They cannot see the mercy of the world until you find it for yourself. They suffer pain until you have denied its hold on you. They die 'til you accept your own Eternal Life. You are the holy Son of God Himself. Remember this and all the world is free. Remember this and earth and Heaven are one.
Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function. Why should we attack our minds, and give them images of pain? Why should we teach them they are powerless, when God holds out His power and His Love, and bids them take what is already theirs? The mind that is made willing to accept God's gifts has been restored to Spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own. The Self Which God created cannot sin, and therefore cannot suffer. Let us choose today that He be our Identity, and thus escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us.
"Father, Your Son can not be hurt. And if we think we suffer, we but fail to know our one Identity we share with You. We would return to It today, to be made free forever from all our mistakes, and to be saved from what we thought we were."
"Father, I give all that is mine today to Christ, to use in any way that best will serve the purpose which I share with Him. Nothing is mine alone, for He and I have joined in purpose. Thus has learning come almost to its appointed end. A while I work with Him to serve His purpose. Then I lose myself in my Identity, and recognize that Christ is but my Self."
Within me is Eternal Innocence, because it is God's Will that It be there forever and forever. I, His Son, whose will is limitless as is His own, can will no change in this. For to deny my Father's Will is to deny my own. To look within is but to find my will as God created it, and as it is. I fear to look within because I think I made another will which is not true, and made it real. Yet it has no effects. Within me is the holiness of God. Within me is the memory of Him.
"The step I take today, my Father, is my sure release from idle dreams of sin. Your altar stands serene and undefiled. It is the holy altar to my Self, and there I find my true Identity."
This is the thought that can be used to say that death and sorrow are the certain lot of all who come here, for their joys are gone before they are possessed, or even grasped. Yet this is also the idea that lets no false perception keep us in its hold, nor represents more than a passing cloud upon a sky eternally serene. And it is this serenity we seek, unclouded, obvious and sure, today.
"We seek Your holy world today. For we, Your loving Sons, have lost our way a while. But we have listened to Your Voice, and learned exactly what to do to be restored to Heaven and our true Identity. And we give thanks today the world endures but for an instant. We would go beyond that tiny instant to eternity."
Prayer has no beginning and no end. It is a part of life. But it does change in form, and grows with learning until it reaches its formless state, and fuses into total communication with God. In its asking form it need not, and often does not, make appeal to God, or even involve belief in Him. At that level prayer is merely wanting, out of a sense of scarcity and lack.
The prayer, or asking-out-of-need, always involves feelings of weakness and inadequacy, and could never be made by a Son of God who knows Who he is. No-one, then, who is sure of his Identity could pray in this form. Yet it is also true that no-one who is uncertain of his Identity could avoid praying in this way. And prayer is as continual as life. Everyone prays without ceasing. Ask and you have received, for you have established what it is you want.
It is also possible to reach a higher form of asking-out-of-need, for in this world prayer must be used for reparation, and so it must entail levels of learning. Here, the asking may be addressed to God in honest belief, though not yet with understanding. A vague and usually unstable sense of identification has generally been reached, but it tends to be blurred by a deep-rooted sense of sin. It is possible at this level to continue to ask for things of this world in various forms, but it is also possible to ask for qualities such as honesty or goodness, and particularly for forgiveness for the many sources of guilt that inevitably underlie any prayer of need. Without guilt there is no scarcity. The sinless have no needs.
At this level also comes that curious contradiction in terms known as "praying for one's enemies." The contradiction lies not in the actual words, but in the way they are usually interpreted. While you believe you have enemies, you have limited prayer to the laws of this world, and limited your ability to receive and accept to the same narrow margins. And yet, if you have enemies you have need of prayer, and great need, too. What does the phrase really mean? Pray for yourself, that you may not seek to imprison Christ and thereby lose the recognition of your own Identity. Be traitor to no-one, or you will be treacherous to yourself. An enemy is the symbol for an imprisoned Christ. And who could He be except yourself?
The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom. Now it is no longer a contradiction in terms. Rather it is a statement of the unity of Christ and a recognition of His sinlessness. And now it has become holy, for it acknowledges the Son of God as he was created.
Let it never be forgotten that prayer at any level is always for yourself. If you unite with anyone in prayer, you make him part of you. The enemy is you, as is the Christ. Before it can become holy, then, prayer becomes a choice. You do not choose for another. You can but choose for yourself. Pray truly for your enemies, then, for herein lies your own salvation. Forgive them for your sins, and you will be forgiven indeed.
Prayer is a ladder reaching up to Heaven. At the top there is a transformation much like your own, for prayer is part of you. The things of earth are left behind, all unremembered. There is no asking, for there is no lack. Identity in Christ is fully recognized as set forever, beyond all change and incorruptible. The light no longer flickers, and will never go out.
Now, without needs of any kind, and clad forever in the pure sinlessness which is the gift of God to you, His Son, prayer can again become what it was meant to be. For now it rises as a song of thanks to your Creator, sung without words, or thoughts, or vain desires, unneedful now of anything at all. So it extends, as it was meant to do. And for this giving God Himself gives thanks.
God is the goal of every prayer, giving it timelessness instead of end. Nor has it a beginning, because the goal has never changed. Prayer in its earlier forms is an illusion, because there is no need for a ladder to reach what one has never left. Yet prayer is part of forgiveness as long as forgiveness, itself an illusion, remains unattained. Prayer is tied up with learning until the goal of learning has been reached. And then all things will be transformed together, and returned unblemished into the Mind of God.
Being beyond learning, this state cannot be described. The stages necessary to its attainment, however, need to be understood, if peace is to be restored to the Son of God, who lives now with the illusion of death and the fear of God.
"I ask Your blessing on my sight today. It is the means which You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes, and look beyond them. It is given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me. And through His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth. I ask for the illusion which transcends all those I made. Today I choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ, and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except Your holy Son."
Today our sight is blessed indeed. We share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours. We are one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity.
All that is needful is to train our minds to overlook all little, senseless aims, and to remember that our goal is God. His memory is hidden in our minds, obscured but by our pointless little goals which offer nothing and do not exist. Shall we continue to allow God's grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead? God is our only goal, our only Love. We have no aim but to remember Him.
"Our goal is but to follow in the way that leads to You. We have no goal but this. What could we want but to remember You? What could we seek but our Identity?"
Forgiveness is the only gift I give because it is the only gift I want, and everything I give I give myself. This is salvation's simple formula. And I, who would be saved, would make it mine, to be the way I live within a world that needs salvation, and that will be saved as I accept Atonement for myself.
"Father, how certain are Your ways; how sure their outcome, and how truly faithfully is every step in my salvation set already, and accomplished by Your grace. Thanks be to You for Your eternal gifts, and thanks to You for my Identity."
Accepting the Atonement for yourself means NOT to give support to someone's dream of sickness and of death. It means that you share NOT his wish to separate, and let him turn illusions on himself. Nor do you wish that they be turned instead on YOU. Thus have they NO effects. And YOU are free of dreams of pain because you let HIM be. UNLESS you help him, YOU will suffer pain with him because that is your wish. And you become a figure in HIS dream of pain, as he in YOURS. So do you BOTH become illusions, and without identity. You could be anyone or anything, depending on whose evil dream you share. You can be sure of just ONE thing; that you are evil, for you share in dreams of fear.
There is a way of finding certainty RIGHT HERE AND NOW. Refuse to be a part of fearful dreams, WHATEVER form they take. For you will lose identity in them. You FIND yourself by NOT accepting them as causing you, and GIVING you effects. You stand apart from them, but NOT apart from him who dreams them. Thus you separate the dreamer from the dream, and join with ONE, but let the OTHER go. The dream is but illusion in the mind. And with the MIND you WOULD unite, but NEVER with the dream. It is the DREAM you fear, and NOT the mind. You see them as the same, because you think that YOU are but a dream. And what is real and what is but illusion IN YOURSELF you do not know and cannot tell apart.
Like you, your brother thinks HE is a dream. Share not in his illusion of himself. For YOUR identity depends on his reality. Think, rather, of him as a mind in which illusions still persist, but as a mind which brother is to you. He is not brother made by what he DREAMS, nor is his body, "hero" of the dream, your brother. It is his REALITY that is your brother, as is yours to him. Your mind and his ARE joined in brotherhood. His body and his dreams but SEEM to make a little gap, where yours have joined with his. And yet, between your MINDS there IS no gap. To join his dreams is thus to meet him NOT, because his dreams would SEPARATE from you.
Therefore release him, merely by your claim on brotherhood, and NOT on dreams of fear. Let him acknowledge who he IS, by not supporting his illusions by your faith, for if you do, you will have faith in YOURS. With faith in yours, HE will not be released, and YOU are kept in bondage to his dreams. And dreams of fear will haunt the little gap, inhabited but by illusions which you have SUPPORTED in each other's minds. Be certain, if you do YOUR part, he will do his, for he will JOIN you where YOU stand. Call not to him to meet you in the gap BETWEEN you, or you MUST believe that it is YOUR reality, as well as his. You CANNOT do his part, but this you DO when you become a passive figure in his dream INSTEAD of dreamer of your own.
Identity in dreams is meaningless BECAUSE the dreamer and the dream are one. Who shares a dream must BE the dream he shares, because, BY sharing, is a cause produced. You share confusion, and you ARE confused, for in the gap no stable self exists. What is the same seems different, because what IS the same appears to be unlike. His dreams are yours, because you LET them be. But, if you took your OWN away, would he be free of them, and of his own as well. Your dreams are witnesses to his, and his attest the truth of yours. But if you see there IS no truth in yours, his dreams will disappear before his eyes, and he will understand what MADE the dream.
The Holy Spirit is in BOTH your minds, and He IS One, because there is no gap that separates His Oneness from Itself. The gap between your bodies matters not, for what is joined in Him is ALWAYS one. No-one is sick, if someone ELSE accepts his union WITH him. His desire to be a sick and separated mind can NOT remain without a witness or a cause. And both ARE gone, if someone wills to be united with him. He has dreamed that he was separated from his brother, who, by sharing NOT his dream, has left the space between them vacant. And the Father comes to join His Son the Holy Spirit joined.
The Holy Spirit's Function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God, and put the pieces into place again. This holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture IN ITSELF. To each he offers his identity, which the WHOLE picture represents, instead of just a little, broken bit, which he insisted was himself. And when he sees THIS picture, he will RECOGNIZE himself. If you share not your brother's evil dreams, this IS the picture that the miracle will place within the little gap, left clean of all the seeds of sickness and of sin. And here the Father will receive His Son, because His Son was gracious to himself.
I thank you, Father, knowing you will come to close each little gap that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. Your Holiness, complete and perfect, lies in every one of them. And they ARE joined, because what is in one IS in them all. How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is recognized as being part of the completed picture of God's Son. The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. For the Whole is in each one. And every aspect of the Son of God is just the same as every other part. Join not your brother's dream, but join with HIM, and where you join His Son, the Father IS.
Who seeks for substitutes, when he perceives HE HAS LOST NOTHING? Who would WANT to have the "benefits" of sickness, when he has received the simple happiness of health? What God has given cannot BE a loss, and what is not of Him has NO effects. What, then, would you perceive within the gap? The seeds of sickness come from the belief that there is JOY in separation, and its giving up WOULD BE A SACRIFICE. But miracles are the result, when you do not insist on seeing in the gap what is not there. Your willingness to LET illusions go is all the Healer of God's Son requires. He will place the miracle of healing where the seeds of sickness were. And there will be NO loss, but ONLY gain.
"Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. Through this I come to You. Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again. I am redeemed when I elect to follow in this way. You have not left me comfortless. I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to It. Father, I would hear Your Voice, and find Your peace today. For I would love my own Identity, and find in Him the memory of You."
I will identify with what I think is refuge and security. I will behold myself where I perceive my strength, and think I live within the citadel where I am safe, and cannot be attacked. Let me today seek not security in danger, nor attempt to find my peace in murderous attack. I live in God. In Him I find my refuge and my strength. In Him is my Identity. In Him is everlasting peace. And only there will I remember Who I really am.
"Let me not seekfor idols. I would come, my Father, home to You today. I choose to be as You created me, and find the Son whom You created as my Self."
"Why should I wait, my Father, for the joy You promised me? For You will keep Your Word You gave Your Son in exile. I am sure my treasure waits for me, and I need but reach out my hand to find it. Even now my fingers touch it. It is very close. I need not wait an instant more, to be at peace forever. It is You I choose, and my Identity along with You. Your Son would be Himself, and know You as his Father and Creator and his Love."
My true identity is so secure, so lofty, sinless, glorious and great, wholly beneficent and free from guilt, that Heaven looks to It to give it light. It lights the world as well. It is the gift my Father gave me, and the one as well I give the world. There is no gift but This that can be either given or received. This is reality, and only This. This is illusion's end. It is the Truth.
"My Name, oh Father, still is known to You. I have forgotten it, and do not know where I am going, who I am, or what it is I do. Remind me, Father, now, for I am weary of the world I see. Reveal what You would have me see instead." W(467)
Today's idea identifies you with your One Self. It accepts no split identity, nor tries to weave opposing factors into unity. It simply states the truth. Practice this truth today as often as you can, for it will bring your mind from conflict to the quiet fields of peace. No chill of fear can enter, for your mind has been absolved of madness, letting go illusions of a split identity.
We state again the truth about your Self, the holy Son of God Who rests in you; Whose mind has been restored to sanity. You are the Spirit lovingly endowed with all your Father's Love and peace and joy. You are the Spirit Which completes Himself, and shares His Function as Creator. He is with you always, as you are with Him.
Today we try to bring reality still closer to your mind. Each time you practice, awareness is brought a little nearer at least; sometimes a thousand years or more are saved. The minutes which you give are multiplied over and over, for the miracle makes use of time, but is not ruled by it. Salvation is a miracle, the first and last; the first that is the last, for it is one.
You are the Spirit in Whose Mind abides the miracle in which all time stands still; the miracle in which a minute spent in using these ideas becomes a time which has no length and which has no end. Give, then, these minutes willingly, and count on Him Who promised to lay timelessness beside them. He will offer all His strength to every little effort which you make.
Give Him the minutes which He needs today to help you understand with Him you are the Spirit that abides in Him, and Which calls through His Voice to every living thing; offers His sight to everyone who asks; replaces errors with the simple truth.
The Holy Spirit will be glad to take five minutes of each hour from your hands, and carry them around this aching world where pain and misery appear to rule. He will not overlook one open mind that will accept the healing gifts they bring, and He will lay them everywhere He knows they will be welcome. And they will increase in healing power each time someone accepts them as his thoughts, and uses them to heal.
Thus will your gifts to Him be multiplied a thousand-fold and tens of thousands more. And when it is returned to you, it will surpass in might the little gift you gave as much as does the radiance of the sun outshine the tiny gleam a firefly makes an uncertain moment, and goes out. The steady brilliance of this light remains, and leads you out of darkness, nor will you be able to forget the way again.
Begin these happy exercises with the words the Holy Spirit speaks to you, and let them echo round the world through Him:
"Spirit am I, a holy Son of God,
Free of all limits, safe and healed and whole,
Free to forgive, and free to save the world."
Expressed through you, the Holy Spirit will accept this gift which you received of Him, increase its power, and give it back to you.
Offer each practice period today gladly to Him. And He will speak to you, reminding you that you are Spirit, one with Him and God, your brothers and your Self. Listen for His assurance every time you speak the word He offers you today, and let Him tell your mind that they are true. Use them against temptation, and escape its sorry consequences if you yield to the belief that you are something else. The Holy Spirit gives you peace today. Receive His words, and offer them to Him.
The world you see is based on SACRIFICE of oneness. It is a picture of a COMPLETE disunity and total LACK of joining. Around each entity is built a wall so seeming solid that it looks as if what is inside can never reach without, and what is out can never reach and join with what is locked away within the wall. Each part must SACRIFICE the other part to keep itself complete. For if they joined, each one would LOSE its own identity, and BY their separation are their selves maintained. The little that the body fences off BECOMES the self, preserved through sacrifice of all the rest. And all the rest must LOSE this little part, remaining incomplete to keep its own identity intact.
In THIS perception of your self the BODY's loss would be a sacrifice indeed. And sight of bodies becomes the sign that sacrifice IS limited, and something still remains for you alone. And FOR this little to belong to you, are limits placed on EVERYTHING outside, just as they are on everything you think is YOURS. For giving and receiving ARE the same. And to ACCEPT the limits of a body is to IMPOSE these limits on each brother that you see. For you MUST see him as you see yourself. The body IS a loss, and CAN be made to sacrifice. And while you see your brother as a body,APART from you and separate in his cell, you are demanding sacrifice of him AND you.
What greater sacrifice could be demanded than that God's Son perceive himself without his Father? And his Father be without His Son? Yet EVERY sacrifice demands that they be separate and without the other. The memory of God MUST be denied, if ANY sacrifice is asked of ANYONE. What witness to the wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? He is INVISIBLE in such a world. Nor can his song of union and of joy be heard at all. Yet is it given him to make the world recede before his song and sight of him REPLACE the body's eyes.
Those who would see the witnesses to truth INSTEAD of to illusion merely ask that they might see a PURPOSE in the world that gives it sense and makes it meaningful. WITHOUT your special function HAS this world no meaning for you. Yet it can become a treasure house as rich and limitless as Heaven Itself. No instant passes here in which your brother's holiness can NOT be seen, to add a limitless supply to every meager scrap and tiny crumb of happiness that you allot yourself. You CAN lose sight of oneness, but can NOT make sacrifice of its reality. Nor can you LOSE what you would sacrifice, nor keep the Holy Spirit from His task of showing you that it has NOT been lost.
Hear, then, the song your brother sings to you. And LET the world recede, and TAKE the rest his witness offers on behalf of peace. But judge him not, for you will hear no song of liberation for yourself, nor see what it is given him to witness to, that YOU may see it and rejoice WITH him. Make not his holiness a sacrifice to your belief in sin. You sacrifice YOUR innocence with his, and die each time you see in him a sin deserving death. Yet every instant can you be reborn, and given life again. His holiness gives life to you, who CANNOT die because his sinlessness is known to God, and can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out because he sees it not.
You who would make a sacrifice of life, and make your eyes and ears bear witness to the death of God and of His holy Son, think not that you have power to make of them what God willed not they be. In Heaven God's Son is NOT imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin. And as he is in Heaven, so MUST he be eternally and everywhere. He is the same forever. Born again each instant, untouched by time, and FAR beyond the reach of ANY sacrifice of life OR death. For neither did he make, and only ONE was given him, by One Who KNOWS His gifts can NEVER suffer sacrifice and loss.
God's justice rests in gentleness upon His Son, and keeps him safe from ALL injustices the world would lay upon him. COULD it be that YOU could make his sins reality, and sacrifice his Father's Will for him? Condemn him not by seeing him within the rotting prison where he sees himself. It is your special function to ensure the door be opened, that he may come forth to shine on you, and give you back the gift of freedom by receiving it of you. What is the Holy Spirit's Special Function but to release the holy Son of God from the imprisonment he made, to KEEP himself from justice? Could YOUR function be a task apart and SEPARATE from His Own?
There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten. Where no memory of sin and of illusion linger still. There is a place in you which time has left, and echoes of eternity are heard. There is a resting place so still no sound except a hymn to Heaven rises up to gladden God the Father and the Son. Where Both abide are They remembered Both. And where They are is Heaven and is peace. Think not that you can change Their dwelling place. For your Identity abides in Them, and where They are, forever must YOU be.
The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within. Here is the role the Holy Spirit gives to you who wait upon the Son of God, and would behold him waken and be glad: He is a part of you, and you of him, BECAUSE he is his Father's Son, and not for ANY purpose you may see in him. Nothing is asked of you but to ACCEPT the Changeless and Eternal that abide in him, for YOUR Identity is there.
The peace in you CAN but be found in him. And every thought of love you offer him but brings you nearer to your wakening to peace eternal and to endless joy. This sacred Son of God is like yourself; the mirror of his Father's Love for you, the soft reminder of his Father's Love by which he was created, and which still abides in him, as It abides in you. Be very still, and hear God's Voice in him, and let It tell you what his function is. He was created that YOU might be whole, for only the complete can be a part of God's Completion, Which created you.
There is no gift the Father asks of you but that you see in all creation but the shining glory of His Gift to you. Behold His Son, His perfect gift, in whom his Father shines forever, and to whom is all creation given as his own. BECAUSE he has it is it given you, and where it lies in him behold YOUR peace. The quiet that surrounds you dwells in him, and FROM this quiet come the happy dreams in which your hands are joined in innocence. These are not hands that grasp in dreams of pain. They hold no sword, for they have left their hold on every vain illusion of the world. And, being empty, they received instead a brother's hand in which completeness lay.
If you but knew the glorious goal that lies beyond forgiveness, you would not keep hold on any thought, however light the touch of evil on it may appear to be. For you would understand how great the cost of holding anything God did not give in minds that can direct the hand to bless, and lead God's Son unto His Father's house. Would you not WANT to be a friend to him, created by his Father as His home? If God esteems him worthy of Himself, would YOU attack him with the hands of hate? Who would lay bloody hands on Heaven itself, and hope to find its peace? Your brother thinks he holds the hand of death. Believe him not. But learn, instead, how blessed are you who can release him, just by offering him yours.
A dream is given you in which he is your Savior, NOT your enemy in hate. A dream is given you in which you have forgiven him for all his dreams of death; a dream of hope you SHARE with him, instead of dreaming evil separate dreams of hate. Why does it seem so hard to share this dream? Because, unless the Holy Spirit gives the dream its function, it was made for hate, and will continue in death's services. Each form it takes in some way calls for death. And those who serve the lord of death have come to worship in a separated world, each with his tiny spear and rusted sword, to keep his ancient promises to die.
Such is the core of fear in every dream that has been kept apart from use by Him Who sees a different function for a dream. When dreams are SHARED, they lose the function of attack and separation, even though it was for this that every dream was made. Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness is found. Let us be glad indeed that this is so, and seek not the eternal in this world. Forgiving dreams are means to step aside from dreaming of a world OUTSIDE yourself. And leading finally beyond ALL dreams, unto the peace of everlasting life.
The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made. Your world is seen through eyes of fear, and brings the witnesses of terror to your mind. The real world cannot be perceived except through eyes forgiveness blesses, so they see a world where terror is impossible, and witnesses to fear can not be found.
The real world holds a counterpart for each unhappy thought reflected in your world; a sure correction for the sights of fear and sounds of battle which your world contains. The real world shows a world seen differently, through quiet eyes and with a mind at peace. Nothing but rest is here. There are no cries of pain and sorrow heard, for nothing here remains outside forgiveness. And the sights are gentle. Only happy sights and sounds can reach the mind that has forgiven itself.
What need has such a mind for thoughts of death, attack and murder? What can it perceive surrounding it but safety, love and joy? What is there it would choose to be condemned, and what is there that it would judge against? The world it sees arises from a mind at peace within itself. No danger lurks in anything it sees, for it is kind and only kindness does it look upon.
The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God's Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father's Love; the certain promise that he is redeemed. The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless.
The Holy Spirit has no need of time when it has served His purpose. Now He waits but that one instant more for God to take His final step, and time has disappeared, taking perception with it as it goes, and leaving but the Truth to be Itself. That instant is our goal, for it contains the memory of God. And as we look upon a world forgiven, it is He Who calls to us and comes to take us home, reminding us of our Identity Which our forgiveness has restored to us.
Salvation is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to Him at last. It cannot not be kept. It guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born in time will end as well. God's Word is given every mind which thinks that it has separate thoughts, and will replace these thoughts of conflict with the Thought of peace.
The Thought of peace was given to God's Son the instant that his mind had thought of war. There was no need for such a Thought before, for peace was given without opposite, and merely was. But when the mind is split, there is a need of healing. So the Thought Which has the power to heal the split became a part of every fragment of the mind which still was one, but failed to recognize its oneness. Now it did not know itself, and thought its own identity was lost.
Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust. And what they hid is now revealed; an altar to the holy Name of God whereon His Word is written, with the gifts of your forgiveness laid before It, and the memory of God not far behind.
Let us come daily to this holy place, and spend a while together. Here we share our final dream. It is a dream in which there is no sorrow, for it holds a hint of all the glory given us by God. The grass is pushing through the soil, the trees are budding now, and birds have come to live within their branches. Earth is being born again in new perception. Night has gone, and we have come together in the light.
From here we give salvation to the world, for it is here salvation was received. The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all.
It is your forgiveness that will bring the world of darkness to the light. It is your forgiveness that lets you recognize the light in which you see. Forgiveness is the demonstration that you are the light of the world. Through your forgiveness does the truth about yourself return to your memory. Therefore in your forgiveness lies your salvation.
Illusions about yourself and the world are one. That is why all forgiveness is a gift to yourself. Your goal is to find out who you are, having denied your identity by attacking creation and its Creator. Now you are learning how to remember the truth. For this, attack must be replaced by forgiveness, so that thoughts of life may replace thoughts of death.
Remember that in every attack you call upon your own weakness, while every time you forgive you call upon the strength of Christ in you. Do you not then begin to understand what forgiveness will do for you? It will remove all sense of weakness, strain and fatigue from your mind. It will take away all fear and guilt and pain. It will restore the invulnerability and power God gave His Son to your awareness.
Let us be glad to begin and end this day by practicing today's idea, and to use it as frequently as possible throughout the day. It will help to make the day as happy for you as God wants you to be. And it will help those around you, as well as those who seem to be far away in space and time, to share this happiness with you.
As often as you can, closing your eyes if possible, say to yourself:
"Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.
I would fulfill my function that I may be happy."
Then devote a minute or two to considering your function, and the happiness and release it will bring you.
Let related thoughts come freely, for your heart will recognize these words, and in your mind is the awareness that they are true. Should your attention wander, repeat the idea and add:
"I would remember this because I want to be happy."
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."
Although in truth the term sacrifice is altogether meaningless, it does have meaning in the world. Like all things in the world its meaning is temporary, and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came when there is no more use for it. Now its real meaning is a lesson. Like all lessons it is an illusion, for in reality there is nothing to learn. Yet this illusion must be replaced by a corrective device; another illusion that replaces the first, so both can finally disappear. The first illusion, which must be displaced before another thought system can take hold, is that it is a sacrifice to give up the things of this world. What could this be but an illusion, since this world itself is nothing more than that?
It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give. What can the sacrifice of nothing mean? It cannot mean that you have less because of it. There is no sacrifice in the world's terms that does not involve the body. Think a while about what the world calls sacrifice. Power, fame, money, physical pleasure; who is the hero to whom all these things belong? Could they mean anything except to a body? Yet a body cannot evaluate. By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its identity and losing sight of what it really is.
Once this confusion has occurred, it becomes impossible for the mind to understand that all the "pleasures" of the world are nothing. But what a sacrifice,- and it is sacrifice indeed - all this entails! Now has the mind condemned itself to seek without finding; to be forever dissatisfied and discontented; to know not what it really wants to find. Who can escape this self-condemnation? Only through God's Word could this be possible. For self-condemnation is a decision about identity, and no-one doubts what he believes he is. He can doubt all things, but never this.
God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the Face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No-one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice which its values would demand of him. To them he sacrifices all his freedom. To them he sacrifices all his peace. And to possess them must he sacrifice his hope of Heaven and remembrance of his Father's Love. Who in his sane mind chooses nothing as a substitute for everything?
What is the real meaning of sacrifice? It is the cost of believing in illusions. It is the price that must be paid for the denial of truth. There is no pleasure of the world that does not demand this, for otherwise the pleasure would be seen as pain. And no-one asks for pain if he recognizes it. It is the idea of sacrifice that makes him blind. He does not see what he is asking for. And so he seeks it in a thousand ways and in a thousand places, each time believing it is there and each time disappointed in the end. "Seek but do not find" remains this world's stern decree, and no-one who pursues the world's goals can do otherwise.
You may believe this course requires sacrifice of all you really hold dear. In one sense that is true, for you hold dear the things that crucify God's Son. And it is the course's aim to set him free. But do not be mistaken about what sacrifice means. It always means the giving up of what you want. And what, oh teacher of God, is it that you want? You have been called by God, and you have answered. Would you now sacrifice that Call? Few have heard it as yet, and they can but turn to you. There is no other hope in all the world that they can trust. There is no other voice in all the world that echoes God's. If you would sacrifice the truth, they stay in hell. And if they stay, you will remain with them.
Do not forget that sacrifice is total. There are no "half sacrifices." You cannot give up Heaven partially. You cannot be a little bit in hell. The Word of God has no exceptions. It is this that makes It holy and beyond the world. It is Its holiness that points to God. It is Its holiness that makes you safe. It is denied if you attack any brother for anything. For it is here the split with God occurs. A split that is impossible. A split that cannot happen. Yet a split in which you surely will believe, because you have set up a situation that is impossible. And in this situation the impossible can seem to happen. It seems to happen at the "sacrifice" of truth.
Teacher of God, do not forget the meaning of sacrifice, and remember what each decision you make must mean in terms of cost. Decide for God, and everything is given you at no cost at all. Decide against Him and you choose nothing at the expense of the awareness of everything. What would you teach? Remember only what you would learn. For it is here that your concern should be. Atonement is for you. Your learning claims it and your learning gives it. The world contains it not, but learn this course and it is yours. God holds out His Word to you, for He has need of teachers. What other way is there to save His Son?
Christ's Second Coming, which is sure as God, is merely the correction of mistakes and the return of sanity. It is a part of the condition which restores the never-lost, and re-establishes what is forever and forever true. It is the invitation to God's Word to take illusion's place; the willingness to let forgiveness rest upon all things without exception and without reserve.
It is the all-inclusive nature of Christ's Second Coming that permits it to embrace the world, and hold you safe within its gentle advent which encompasses all living things with you. There is no end to the release the Second Coming brings, as God's creation must be limitless. Forgiveness lights the Second Coming's way because it shines on everyone as one.
The Second Coming ends the lessons which the Holy Spirit teaches, making way for the Last Judgment, in which learning ends in one last summary that will extend beyond itself, and reaching up to God. The Second Coming is the time in which all minds are given to the hands of Christ, to be returned to Spirit in the Name of true creation and the Will of God.
The Second Coming is the one event in time which time itself can not affect. For every one who ever came to die, or yet will come or who is present now, is equally released from what he made. In this equality is Christ restored as one Identity, in Which all Sons of God acknowledge that they all are one. And God the Father smiles upon His Son, His one creation and His only joy.
Pray that this Second Coming will be soon, but do not rest with that. It needs your eyes and ears and hands and feet. It needs your voice. And most of all it needs your willingness. Let us rejoice that we can do God's Will, and join together in Its holy light. Behold, the Son of God is one in us, and we can reach our Father's Love through him.
THERE IS NOTHING OUTSIDE YOU. That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is in that realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to you. For God created only this, and He did not depart from it, nor leave it separate from Himself. The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father, and dwells not apart from Him. Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else. Nothing OUTSIDE THIS Oneness, and NOTHING ELSE within.
What could God give, but knowledge of Himself? What else IS there to give? The belief that you could give AND GET something, else, something OUTSIDE yourself, has cost you the awareness of Heaven, and the loss of knowledge of your identity. And you have done a stranger thing than you yet realize. You have displaced your guilt to your bodies, FROM YOUR MINDS. Yet a body CANNOT be guilty, for it can do nothing of itself. You who think you hate your bodies, deceive yourselves. YOU HATE YOUR MINDS, for guilt has entered into them, and they would remain separate, which they CANNOT DO.
Minds ARE joined; bodies are not. Only by assigning to the mind the properties OF THE BODY, does separation SEEM to be possible. And it is MIND that seems to be fragmented and private and ALONE. Its guilt, which KEEPS it separate, is projected to the body, which suffers and dies, BECAUSE IT IS ATTACKED to hold the separation in the mind, and let it NOT KNOW its unity. Mind cannot attack, but it CAN make fantasies, and direct the body to act them out. But it is never what the BODY does that seems to satisfy. Unless the mind BELIEVES the body is ACTUALLY acting out ITS fantasies, it will attack the body by INCREASING the projection of its guilt upon it.
In this, the mind is CLEARLY delusional. It cannot attack, but maintains it CAN, and USES what it does to hurt the body, to PROVE it can. The mind can not attack, but it CAN deceive itself. And this is ALL it does, when it believes it has attacked the body, It CAN project its guilt, but it will NOT lose it through projection. And though it clearly can MISPERCEIVE the function of the body, it CANNOT change its function from what the Holy Spirit ESTABLISHES it to be. The body was NOT made by love. But love does not condemn it, and can use it lovingly, respecting what the Son of God has made, and using it to SAVE him from illusions.
Would you not have the instruments of separation RE-INTERPRETED as means for salvation, and USED for purposes of love? Would you not welcome AND SUPPORT the shift from fantasies of vengeance to RELEASE from them? Your PERCEPTION of the body can clearly be sick, but project this not upon the body. For your wish to make destructive what CANNOT destroy, can have no REAL effect at all. And what God created is only what He would have it be, being His Will.
You cannot make His Will destructive. You can make FANTASIES, in which your will CONFLICTS with His, but that is all. It is insane to use the body as the scapegoat for guilt; DIRECTING its attack, and BLAMING it for what you wished it to do. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACT OUT FANTASIES. For it is still the FANTASIES you want, and they have nothing to do with what the body does. IT does not dream of them, and they but make IT a liability, where it COULD be an asset. For fantasies have made your body your "enemy," weak, vulnerable, and treacherous, "worthy" of the hate which you invest in it.
How has this served you? You have IDENTIFIED with this thing you hate, the instrument of vengeance, and the perceived source of your guilt. YOU have done this to a thing that has no meaning, proclaiming it to be the dwelling place of the Son of God, and turning it AGAINST him. This is the host of God that YOU have made. And neither God nor His most holy Son can enter an abode which harbors hate, and where you have sown the seeds of vengeance, violence, and death.
This thing you made to serve your guilt, stands between you and other minds. The minds ARE joined, but you do not IDENTIFY with them. You SEE yourself as locked in a separate prison, remote and unreachable, incapable of reaching out as being reached. You HATE the prison that you made, and would destroy it. Yet you would NOT escape from it, leaving it unharmed, WITHOUT your guilt upon it. But only thus CAN you escape. The home of vengeance is not yours; The place you set aside to house your hatred is NOT a prison, but an ILLUSION OF YOURSELF.
The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication which is an eternal property of mind. But the communication is INTERNAL. Mind reaches to ITSELF. It is NOT made up of different PARTS, which reach each other. It does not go OUT. Within ITSELF, it HAS no limits, and there is nothing OUTSIDE it. It encompasses EVERYTHING. It encompasses you ENTIRELY; you within it, and it within you. There IS nothing else, anywhere or ever. The body is OUTSIDE you, and SEEMS to surround you, shutting you off from others, and keeping you APART from them, and them from you.
IT IS NOT THERE. There IS no barrier between God and His Son, nor can His Son be separated from himself, except in illusion. This is NOT his reality, though he believes it IS. Yet this could only BE, IF God were wrong. God would have had to create DIFFERENTLY, and to have separated HIMSELF from His Son, to make this possible. He would have had to create DIFFERENT things, and to establish different ORDERS of reality, only SOME of which were love. Yet love must be forever like itself, changeless forever, and forever WITHOUT alternative. And so it is.
YOU cannot put a barrier around yourself, because God placed none between HIMSELF and you. Your hand can stretch out, and reach to Heaven. You whose hands are joined have begun to reach BEYOND the body, but NOT outside yourselves. To reach your shared identity TOGETHER. Could this be OUTSIDE you? Where God is not? Is He a body, and did He create you as He is not, and where He CANNOT be? You are surrounded ONLY by Him. What limits CAN there be on you, whom HE encompasses?
Everyone has experienced what he would call a sense of being transported BEYOND himself. This feeling of liberation FAR exceeds the DREAM of freedom sometimes experienced in special relationships. It is a sense of actual ESCAPE from limitations. If you will consider what this "transportation" REALLY entails, you will realize that it is a sudden UNawareness of the body, and a joining of your self and SOMETHING ELSE, in which your mind ENLARGES to encompass it. It becomes PART of you, as you UNITE with it. And BOTH become whole, as NEITHER is perceived as separate.
What REALLY happens is that you have GIVEN UP the illusion of a LIMITED awareness, and lost your fear of union. The love that INSTANTLY replaces it EXTENDS to what has freed you, and UNITES you with it. And, while this lasts, you are NOT uncertain of your identity, and would not limit it. You have escaped from fear to peace, asking no questions of reality, but merely ACCEPTING it. You have accepted this INSTEAD of the body, and have LET yourself be ONE with something beyond it, simply by NOT letting your mind be limited BY it.
This can occur REGARDLESS of the physical distance that SEEMS to be between you and what you join; of your respective positions in space; and of your differences in size and seeming quality. Time is not relevant; it can occur with something past, present, or anticipated. The "something" can be ANYTHING and ANYWHERE; a sound, a sight, a thought, a memory, even a more GENERAL idea, WITHOUT specific reference. But, in every case, you join it without RESERVATION, because you love it, and would BE with it. And so you rush to meet it, letting your limits melt away, suspending ALL the "laws" your body obeys, and gently SETTING THEM ASIDE.
There is no violence at all in this escape. The body is NOT attacked, but merely PROPERLY PERCEIVED. It does not limit you, merely because YOU would not have it so. You are not really "lifted out" of it; it cannot CONTAIN you. You go where you would be; GAINING, NOT losing, a sense of self. In these instants of release from physical restrictions, you experience much of what happens in the holy instant; the lifting of the barriers of time and space, the sudden experience of peace and joy, and, above all, the LACK of awareness of the body, and of the questioning WHETHER OR NOT ALL THIS IS POSSIBLE. It IS possible, BECAUSE YOU WANT IT.
The sudden EXPANSION of the self that takes place with your DESIRE for it, is the irresistible appeal the holy instant holds. It calls to you to be yourself, within its safe embrace. There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom. Come to this place of refuge, where you can be yourself in peace. NOT through destruction, NOT through a "breaking out," but merely by a quiet "melting in." For peace will join you there, simply because YOU have been willing to let go the limits YOU have placed on love, and JOINED it where it is, and where it led you, in answer to its gentle call to be at peace.
Is healing frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers. They stand firmly in the way of trust and peace, proclaiming that the frail can HAVE no trust, and that the damaged HAVE no grounds for peace. Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and trust him still? He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not, because your damaged body shows that you must be protected FROM him. To forgive may be an act of charity, but NOT his due. He may be PITIED for his guilt, but NOT exonerated. And if you forgive him his transgressions, you but ADD to all the guilt that he has really earned.
The unhealed CANNOT pardon. For they are the witnesses that pardon is unfair. They would retain the CONSEQUENCES of the guilt they overlook. Yet no-one CAN forgive a sin which he believes is real. And what has consequences MUST be real, because what it has DONE is there to see. Forgiveness is NOT pity, which but seeks to pardon what it knows to be the truth. Good cannot BE returned for evil, for forgiveness does not first ESTABLISH sin, and THEN forgive it. Who can say and MEAN, "My brother, you have injured me, and yet, because I am the BETTER of the two, I pardon you my hurt." HIS pardon and YOUR hurt can NOT exist together. One DENIES the other, and MUST make it false.
To witness sin, and yet forgive it, is a paradox which reason cannot see. For it maintains what has been done to you DESERVES no pardon. And, by GIVING it, you grant your brother mercy, but retain the proof he is not REALLY innocent. The sick remain accusers. They cannot forgive their brothers AND themselves as well. For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. He holds not the proof of sin, before his brother's eyes. And thus he MUST have overlooked it, and removed it from his own. Forgiveness CANNOT be for one, and not the other. Who forgives IS healed. And in his healing lies the PROOF that he has truly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that he still would hold against himself or any living thing.
Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect.
What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you.
Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt. The ancient Calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto his own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream.
How just are miracles! For they bestow an equal gift of full deliverance from guilt upon your brother AND yourself. YOUR healing saves HIM pain, as well as you. And YOU are healed BECAUSE you wished him well. This is the law the miracle obeys; That healing sees no specialness at all. It does NOT come from pity, but from love. And love would prove ALL suffering is but a vain imagining, a foolish wish with NO effects. Your health is a result of your desire to see your brother with no blood upon his hands, nor guilt upon his heart made heavy with the proof of sin. And what you wish is GIVEN you to see.
The "cost" of your serenity is his. This is the "price" the Holy Spirit and the world interpret differently. The world perceives in it a statement of the "fact" that your salvation SACRIFICES his. The Holy Spirit knows YOUR healing is the witness UNTO his, and CANNOT be apart from him at all. As long as he consents to suffer, YOU will be unhealed. But you can show him his suffering is purposeless and wholly without cause. Show him YOUR healing, and he will consent no more to suffer. For his innocence HAS BEEN established in your sight AND his. And laughter will REPLACE your sighs BECAUSE God's Son remembered that he IS God's Son.
Who, then, fears healing? Only those to whom their brother's sacrifice and pain is seen to represent their own serenity. Their helplessness and weakness represent grounds on which they justify his pain. The constant sting of guilt he suffers serves to prove that he is slave, and they are free. The constant pain THEY suffer demonstrates that they are free BECAUSE they hold him bound. And sickness is desired to prevent a shift of balance in the sacrifice. How could the Holy Spirit be deterred an instant, even less, to reason with an argument for sickness such as this? And need YOUR healing be delayed because you pause to listen to insanity?
Correction is NOT your function. It belongs to One Who knows of fairness, NOT of guilt. If you assume correction's role, you LOSE the function of forgiveness. No-one can forgive until he learns correction is BUT to forgive, and NEVER to accuse. Alone, you CANNOT see they are the same, and therefore is correction NOT of you. Identity and function are the same, and BY your function do you know yourself. And thus, if you confuse your function with the function of Another, you MUST be confused about yourself and who you are. What is the separation but a wish to take God's Function from Him and DENY that it is His? Yet if it is NOT His it is not YOURS, for YOU must lose what you would take away.
In a split mind, identity MUST seem to be divided. Nor can anyone perceive a function unified which has conflicting purposes and different ends. Correction, to a mind so split, MUST be a way to punish sins you think are YOURS in someone else. And thus does he become your victim, NOT your brother, DIFFERENT from you in that he is MORE GUILTY, thus in need of your correction, as the one MORE INNOCENT than he. This splits HIS function off from yours, and gives you both a DIFFERENT role. And so you CANNOT be perceived as one, and with a single function that would MEAN a shared identity with but ONE end.
Correction YOU would do MUST separate, because that is the function given it BY you. When you perceive correction is the SAME as pardon, then you also know the Holy Spirit's Mind and yours are One. And so your OWN identity is found. Yet must He work with what is GIVEN Him, and you allow Him only HALF your mind. And thus He represents the OTHER half, and seems to have a DIFFERENT purpose from the one you cherish, and you THINK is yours. Thus does your function seem DIVIDED, with a half IN OPPOSITION to a half. And these two halves appear to represent a split within a self perceived as two.
Consider how this self perception MUST extend, and do not overlook the fact that EVERY thought extends, because that is its purpose, being what it really IS. From an idea of self AS TWO, there comes a NECESSARY view of function split BETWEEN the two. And what you would correct is only HALF the error, which you think is ALL of it. Your BROTHER's sins become the central target for correction, lest your errors and his own be seen as one. YOURS are mistakes, but HIS are sins, and NOT the same as yours. HIS merit punishment, while yours, in fairness, should be overlooked.
In THIS interpretation of correction, your own mistakes you will not even SEE. The FOCUS of correction has been placed OUTSIDE yourself, on one who CANNOT be a part of you while this perception lasts. What is condemned can never be returned to its accuser, who has hated it, AND HATES IT STILL. This is your brother, focus of your hate, unworthy to be part of you, and thus OUTSIDE your self, the other half, which is denied. Only what is left, WITHOUT his presence, is perceived as ALL of you. To this remaining half the Holy Spirit must represent the OTHER half, until you recognize it IS the other half. And this He does by giving BOTH of you a function that is one, NOT different.
Correction IS the function given both, but neither one alone. And when it is fulfilled as SHARED, it MUST correct mistakes in both of you. It CANNOT leave mistakes in one unhealed, and make the other free. THAT is DIVIDED purpose, which cannot BE shared, and so it CANNOT be the function which the Holy Spirit sees as His. And you can rest assured that He will NOT fulfill a function that He cannot understand, and recognize as His. For only thus can He keep YOURS preserved intact, DESPITE your separated view of what your function IS. If He UPHELD divided function, you were lost indeed. His INABILITY to see His goal divided and distinct for each of you preserves your Self from being made aware of any function OTHER than Its Own.
And thus is healing given BOTH of you. Correction MUST be left to One Who knows correction and forgiveness ARE the same. With HALF a mind, this is NOT understood. Leave, then, correction to the Mind That IS united, functioning as One BECAUSE It is not split in purpose, and conceives a single function as Its ONLY one. Here is the function GIVEN It conceived to be Its Own, and NOT apart from that Its Giver keeps BECAUSE it has been shared. In His ACCEPTANCE of this function lies the means whereby your mind is unified. His SINGLE purpose unifies the halves of you that you perceive as separate. And each forgives the other, that he may accept his OTHER half as PART of him.
When no perception stands between God and His Creation, or between His Children and their own, the knowledge of creation MUST continue forever. The reflections that you accept into the mirror of your minds in time, but bring eternity nearer or farther.
But eternity ITSELF is beyond ALL time. Reach out of time and touch it, with the help of its reflection IN you, and you will turn FROM time to holiness, as surely as the reflection of holiness calls everyone to lay all guilt aside. Reflect the peace of Heaven HERE, and bring this world to Heaven. For the REFLECTION of truth draws everyone TO truth. And as they enter INTO it, they leave ALL reflections behind. In Heaven, reality is SHARED, and not reflected. By sharing its reflection HERE, its truth becomes the only perception which the Son of God accepts. And thus, remembrance of His Father dawns on him, and he can no longer be satisfied with anything but his own reality.
You on earth have no conception of limitlessness, for the world you seem to live in IS a world of limits. In this world, it is NOT true that anything without order of difficulty can occur. The miracle, therefore, has a unique function, and is motivated by a unique Teacher, Who brings the laws of another world to this one. The miracle is the one thing you can do that TRANSCENDS order, being based, NOT on differences, but on equality. Miracles are NOT in competition, and the number you can do is LIMITLESS. They can be simultaneous and legion. This is not difficult to understand, once you conceive of them as possible at all.
What is more difficult to grasp is the lack of order of magnitude, which stamps the miracle as something that MUST come from elsewhere, NOT from here. From the world's viewpoint, this is quite impossible. You have experienced the lack of competition among your thoughts, which, even though they may conflict, can occur to you together, and in great numbers. You are so used to this, that it can cause you little surprise. Yet you are also used to classifying some of your thoughts as more important, larger, or better, wiser, or more productive and valuable, than others. And this is true about the thoughts that cross the mind of those who think they live apart. For some are reflections of Heaven, while others are motivated by the ego, which but SEEMS to think.
The result is a weaving, changing pattern that never rests, and is never still. It shifts unceasingly across the mirror of your mind, and the reflections of Heaven last but a moment, and grow dim, as darkness blots them out. Where there was light, darkness removes it in an instant, and alternating patterns of light and darkness, darkness and light, sweep constantly across your minds. The little sanity that still remains is held together by a sense of order which YOU establish. The very fact that you can DO this, and bring ANY order into chaos, shows you that you are NOT an ego, and that MORE than an ego MUST be in you. For the ego IS chaos, and if it were all of you, no order at all would be possible.
But, though the order which you impose upon your minds limits the ego, IT ALSO LIMITS YOU. To order is to judge, and to arrange BY judgment. Therefore, it is NOT your function, but the Holy Spirit's. It will seem very difficult for you to learn that YOU HAVE NO BASIS AT ALL for ordering your thoughts. This lesson the Holy Spirit teaches, by giving you shining examples, to show you that your way of ordering is wrong, but that a better way is OFFERED you. The miracle offers EXACTLY the same response to EVERY call for help. IT DOES NOT JUDGE THE CALL. It merely recognizes what it IS, and answers accordingly. It does NOT consider which call is louder, or greater, or more important.
You may wonder how you, who are still bound to judgment, can be asked to do that which requires no judgment of your own. The answer is very simple. The power of God, and NOT of you, engenders miracles. The miracle ITSELF is but the witness that you HAVE the power of God in you. That is the reason that the miracle gives EQUAL blessing to ALL who share in it, and that is also why EVERYONE shares in it. The power of God IS limitless. And, being always maximal, it offers EVERYTHING to EVERY call from ANYONE. There is no order here. A call for help is GIVEN help. The only judgment involved at all is in the Holy Spirit's one division into two categories; one of love, and the other, the call for love.
You cannot safely make this division, for you are much too confused, either to recognize love, or to believe that EVERYTHING else is nothing but a NEED for love. You are too bound to form, and NOT to content. What you CONSIDER content, is not content at all. It is merely form, and nothing else. For you do NOT respond to what a brother REALLY offers you, but only to the particular perception of his offering by which your EGO judges it. The ego is incapable of understanding content, and is totally unconcerned with it. To the ego, if the form is acceptable, the content MUST be. Otherwise, it will attack the form.
You who believe you understand something of the dynamics of the mind, let me assure you that you know NOTHING of it at all. For of yourselves, you COULD not know of it. The study of the ego is NOT the study of the mind. In fact, the ego enjoys the study of itself, and thoroughly approves the undertakings of the students who would analyze it, approving its importance. Yet they but study form, with meaningless content. For their teacher is senseless, though careful to conceal this fact behind a lot of words that sound impressive, but which lack ANY consistent sense when they are put together.
This is the characteristic of the ego's judgments. SEPARATELY, they seem to hold, but PUT THEM TOGETHER, and the system of thought which arises from JOINING them, is incoherent and utterly chaotic. For form is not enough for meaning, and the underlying LACK of content, makes a cohesive system impossible. SEPARATION therefore remains the ego's chosen condition. For no-one ALONE can judge the ego truly. But when two or more JOIN TOGETHER in searching for truth, the ego can no longer defend its lack of content. The fact of union tells them it is not true.
It is impossible to remember God in secret and alone. For remembering Him means you are NOT alone, and willing to remember it. Take no thought FOR YOURSELF, for no thought you hold IS for yourself. If you would remember your Father, let the Holy Spirit order your thoughts, and give only the answer with which He answers you. Everyone seeks for love, as you do, and knows it not, unless he joins WITH you in seeking it. If you undertake the search TOGETHER, you bring with you a light so powerful, that what you see is GIVEN meaning. The lonely journey fails, because it has EXCLUDED what it would FIND.
As God communicates to the Holy Spirit in you, so does the Holy Spirit TRANSLATE His communications THROUGH you, so YOU can understand them. God has no secret communications, for everything of Him is perfectly open, and freely accessible to all, being FOR all. Nothing lives in secret, and what you would hide from the Holy Spirit IS nothing. Every interpretation you would lay upon a brother is senseless. Let the Holy Spirit SHOW HIM TO YOU, and teach you both his love and NEED for love. Neither his mind, NOR YOURS, holds but these two orders of thought. The miracle is the recognition that this is true.
Where there is love, your brother MUST give it to you, because of what it IS. But where there is NEED for love, YOU must give it, because of what YOU are. Long ago we said this course will teach you what you are, restoring to you your identity. And we have already learned that this identity is shared. THE MIRACLE BECOMES THE MEANS OF SHARING IT. By SUPPLYING your identity, WHEREVER it is NOT recognized, YOU will recognize it. And God Himself, Who wills to be with His Son forever, will bless each recognition of His Son, with all the love He holds for him. Nor will the power of all His love be absent from any miracle you offer TO His Son. How, then, can there be ANY order of difficulty among them?
You are entitled to miracles because of what you are. You will receive miracles because of what God is. And you will offer miracles because you are one with God. Again, how simple is salvation! It is merely a statement of your true identity. It is this that we will celebrate today.
Your claim to miracles does not lie in your illusions about yourself. It does not depend on any magical powers you have ascribed to yourself, nor on any of the rituals you have devised. It is inherent in the truth of what you are. It is implicit in what God your Father is. It was ensured in your creation, and guaranteed by the laws of God.
Today we will claim the miracles which are your right, since they belong to you. You have been promised full release from the world you made. You have been assured that the Kingdom of God is within you, and can never be lost. We ask no more than what belongs to us in truth. Today, however, we will also make sure that we will not content ourselves with less.
Begin the longer practice periods by telling yourself quite confidently that you are entitled to miracles. Closing your eyes, remind yourself that you are asking only for what is rightfully yours. Remind yourself also that miracles are never taken from one and given to another, and that in asking for your rights you are upholding the rights of everyone. Miracles do not obey the laws of this world. They merely follow from the laws of God.
After this brief introductory phase, wait quietly for the assurance that your request is granted. You have asked for the salvation of the world and for your own. You have requested that you be given the means by which this is accomplished. You cannot fail to be assured in this. You are but asking that the Will of God be done.
In doing this, you do not really ask for anything. You state a fact that cannot be denied. The Holy Spirit cannot but assure you that your request is granted. The fact that you accepted must be so. There is no room for doubt and uncertainty today. We are asking a real question at last. The answer is a simple statement of a simple fact. You will receive the assurance that you seek.
Our shorter practice periods will be frequent, and will also be devoted to a reminder of a simple fact. Tell yourself often today:
"I am entitled to miracles."
Ask for them whenever a situation arises in which they are called for. You will recognize these situations, you are not relying on yourself to find them, and you are therefore fully entitled to receive them whenever you ask. Remember, too, not to be satisfied with less than the perfect answer. Be quick to tell yourself, should you be tempted:
"I will not trade miracles for grievances.
I want only what belongs to me.
God has established miracles as my right."
God indeed can be reached directly, for there is no distance between Him and His Son. His awareness is in everyone's memory and His Word is written on everyone's heart. Yet this awareness and this memory can arise across the threshold of the unconscious only where all barriers to truth have been removed. In how many is this the case? Here then is the role of God's teachers. They too have not attained the necessary understanding as yet, but they have joined with others. This is what sets them apart from the world. And it is this that enables others to leave the world with them. Alone they are nothing. But in their joining is the Power of God.
There are those who have reached God directly, retaining no trace of worldly limits and remembering their own Identity perfectly. These might be called the Teachers of teachers because, although they are no longer visible, their image can yet be called upon. And they will appear when and where it is helpful for them to do so. To those to whom such appearances would be frightening, they give their ideas. No-one can call on them in vain. Nor is there anyone of whom they are unaware. All needs are known to them, and all mistakes are recognized and overlooked by them. The time will come when this is understood. And meanwhile, they give all their gifts to the teachers of God who look to them for help, asking all things in Their Name and in no other.
Sometimes a teacher of God may have a brief experience of direct union with God. In this world, it is almost impossible that this endure. It can, perhaps, be won after much devotion and dedication, and then be maintained for most of the time on earth. But this is so rare that it cannot be considered a realistic goal. If it happens, so be it. If it does not happen, so be it as well. All worldly states must be illusory. If God were reached directly in sustained awareness, the body would not be long maintained. Those who have laid the body down merely to extend their helpfulness to those remaining behind are few indeed. And they need helpers who are still in bondage and still asleep, so that by their awakening can God's Voice be heard.
Do not despair, then, because of limitations. It is your function to escape from them, but not to be without them. If you would be heard by those who suffer, you must speak their language. If you would be Saviors, you must understand what needs to be escaped. Salvation is not theoretical. Behold the problem, ask for the answer, and then accept the answer when it comes. Nor will its coming be long delayed. All the help you can accept will be provided, and not one need you have will not be met. Let us not, then, be too concerned with goals for which you are not ready. God takes you where you are and welcomes you. What more could you desire, when this is all you need?
You live by symbols. You have made up names for everything you see. Each one becomes a separate entity, identified by its own name. By this you carve it out of unity. By this you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it. This space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings in terms of place and time; all bodies which are greeted with a name.
This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world's perception is achieved. You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will.
What are these names by which the world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept apart and holding bits of mind as separate awarenesses? You gave these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have perception be. The nameless things were given names, and thus reality was given them as well. For what is named is given meaning, and will then be seen as meaningful, a cause of true effects, with consequence inherent in itself.
This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth. Its enemy is wholeness. It conceives of little things, and looks upon them. And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision which sees differently become the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny.
Yet does this other vision still remain a natural direction for the mind to channel its perception. It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names and thousands more. Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved and concepts can be meaningfully shared.
This is the sum of the inheritance the world bestows. And everyone who learns to think that it is so accepts the signs and symbols which assert the world is real. It is for this they stand. They leave no doubt that what is named is there. It can be seen, as is anticipated. What denies that it is true is but illusion, for it is the ultimate reality. To question it is madness; to accept its presence is the proof of sanity.
Such is the teaching of the world. It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through. But the sooner he perceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises, how doubtful its results, the sooner does he question its effects. Learning which stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning. In its proper place, it serves but as a starting point from which another kind of learning can begin, a new perception can be gained, and all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn as they are raised to doubt.
Think not you made the world. Illusions, yes! But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming. When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. His true identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is. His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own. And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his.
It would indeed be strange if you were asked to go beyond all symbols of the world, forgetting them forever; yet were asked to take a teaching function. You have need to use the symbols of the world a while. But be you not deceived by them as well. They do not stand for anything at all, and in your practicing it is this thought which will release you from them. They become but means by which you can communicate in ways the world can understand, but which you recognize is not the unity where true communication can be found.
Thus what you need are intervals each day in which the learning of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go into the sunlight and forget the darkness. Here you understand the Word, the Name Which God has given you; the One Identity Which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true. And then step back to darkness, not because you think it real, but only to proclaim its unreality in terms which still have meaning in the world which darkness rules.
Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness. Yet accept them not as your reality. The Holy Spirit uses all of them, but He does not forget creation has One Name, One Meaning and a single Source Which unifies all things within Itself. Use all the names the world bestows on them but for convenience, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with you.
God has no name. And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson does all learning end. All names are unified; all space is filled with truth's reflection. Every gap is closed, and separation healed. The Name of God is the inheritance He gave to those who chose the teaching of the world to take the place of Heaven. In our practicing, our purpose is to let our minds accept what He has given as the answer to the pitiful inheritance you made as fitting tribute to the Son He loves.
No one can fail who seeks the meaning of the Name of God. Experience must come to supplement the Word. But first you must accept One Name for all reality, and realize the many names you gave its aspects have distorted what you see but have not interfered with truth at all. One Name we bring into our practicing. One Name we use to unify our sight.
And though we use a different name for each awareness of an aspect of God's Son, we understand that they have but One Name Which He has given them. It is this Name we use in practicing. And through Its use, all foolish separations disappear which kept us blind. And we are given strength to see beyond them. Now our sight is blessed with blessings we can give as we receive.
"Father, our Name is Yours. In It we are united with all living things, and You Who are their One Creator. What we made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your Own Reality. And we are glad and thankful we were wrong. All our mistakes we give to you, that we may be absolved of all effects our errors seemed to have. And we accept the truth You give in place of every one of them. Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made. Your Name unites us in the Oneness which is our inheritance and peace. Amen."
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.
Today we are continuing with the idea for yesterday, adding another dimension to it. You cannot see in darkness, and you cannot make light. You can make darkness and then think you see in it, but light reflects life, and is therefore an aspect of creation. Creation and darkness cannot coexist, but light and life must go together, being but different aspects of creation.
In order to see, one must recognize that light is within, not without. You do not see outside yourself. Nor is the equipment for seeing outside you. An essential part of this equipment is the light which makes seeing possible. It is with you always, making vision possible in every circumstance.
Today we are going to attempt to reach that light. For that purpose, we will use a form of practice which has been suggested once before, and which we will utilize increasingly. It is a particularly difficult form for the undisciplined mind because it represents a major goal of mind training. It embodies precisely what the untrained mind lacks. Yet the training must be accomplished if you are to see.
Have at least three practice periods today, each lasting three-to-five minutes. A longer time is highly recommended, but only if you find the time merely slipping by with little or no sense of strain. The form of exercise we will use today is the most natural and easy one in the world for the trained mind, just as it seems to be the most unnatural and difficult for the untrained mind.
Your mind is no longer wholly untrained. You are quite ready to learn the form of exercise we will use today, but you may find that you will encounter strong resistance. The reason is very simple. While you practice in this form, you leave behind everything that you now believe, and all the thoughts which you have made up. Properly speaking, this is the release from hell. Perceived through the ego's eyes, it is loss of identity and a descent into hell.
If you can stand aside from the ego ever so little, you will have no difficulty in recognizing that its opposition and fears are meaningless. You might find it helpful to remind yourself from time to time that to reach light is to escape from darkness, whatever you may believe to the contrary. God is the Light in which you see. You are attempting to reach Him.
Begin the practice period by repeating today's idea with your eyes open, and close them slowly, repeating the idea several times more. Then try to sink into your mind, letting go every kind of interference and intrusions by quietly sinking past them. Your mind cannot be stopped in this unless you choose to stop it. It is merely taking its natural course. Try to observe your passing thoughts without involvement, and slip quietly by them.
While no particular form of approach is advocated, what is needful is a sense of the importance of what you are doing, its inestimable value to you, and an awareness that you are attempting something very holy. Salvation is your happiest accomplishment. It is also the only one that has any meaning, because it is the only one that has any use to you at all.
If resistance rises in any form, pause long enough to repeat today's idea, keeping your eyes closed unless you are aware of fear. In that case, you will probably find it more reassuring to open your eyes briefly. Try, however, to return to the exercises as soon as possible.
If you are doing the exercises correctly, you should experience some sense of relaxation, and even a feeling that you are approaching, if not actually entering into light. Try to think of light, formless and without limit, as you pass by the thoughts of this world. And do not forget that they cannot hold you to the world unless you give them the power to do so.
Throughout the day, repeat the idea often, with eyes open or closed as seems better to you at the time. Do not forget. Above all, be determined not to forget today.
Today's idea does not describe the way you see yourself now. It does, however, describe what vision will show you. It is difficult for anyone who thinks he is in this world to believe this of himself. Yet the reason he thinks he is in this world is because he does not believe it.
You will believe that you are part of where you think you are. That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want. And you want it to protect the image of yourself which you have made. The image is part of it. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. It is not vision. Images cannot see.
The idea for today presents a very different view of yourself. By establishing your Source it establishes your identity, and it describes you as you must really be in truth. We will use a somewhat different kind of application for today's idea, because the emphasis for today is on the perceiver, rather than on what he perceives.
For each of the three five-minute practice periods today, begin by repeating today's idea to yourself, and then close your eyes and search your mind for the various kinds of descriptive terms in which you see yourself. Include all of the ego-based attributes which you ascribe to yourself, positive or negative, desirable or undesirable, grandiose or debased. All of them are equally unreal because you do not look upon yourself through the eyes of holiness.
In the earlier part of the mind-searching period, you will probably emphasize what you consider to be the more negative aspects of your perception of yourself. Toward the latter part of the exercise period, however, more self-inflating descriptive terms may well cross your mind. Try to recognize that the direction of your fantasies about yourself does not matter. Illusions have no direction in reality. They are merely not true.
A suitable unselected list for applying the idea for today might be as follows:
"I see myself as imposed on."
"I see myself as depressed."
"I see myself as failing."
"I see myself as endangered."
"I see myself as helpless."
"I see myself as victorious."
"I see myself as losing out."
"I see myself as charitable."
"I see myself as virtuous."
You should not think of these terms in an abstract way. They will occur to you as various situations, personalities, and events in which you figure cross your mind. Pick up any specific situation that occurs to you, identify the descriptive term or terms which you feel are applicable to your reactions to that situation, and use them in applying today's idea. After you have named each one, add:
"But my mind is part of God's. I am very holy."
During the longer exercise periods, there will probably be intervals in which nothing specific occurs to you. Do not strain to think up specific things to fill the interval, but merely relax and repeat today's idea slowly until something occurs to you. Although nothing that does occur should be omitted from the exercises, nothing should be "dug out" with effort. Neither force nor discrimination should be used.
As often as possible during the day, pick up a specific attribute or attributes which you are ascribing to yourself at the time, and apply the idea for today to them, adding the idea to each of them in the form stated above. If nothing particular occurs to you, merely repeat the idea to yourself, with closed eyes.
No one can heal unless he understands what purpose sickness seems to serve. For then he understands as well its purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. When this is seen, healing is automatic. It dispels this meaningless illusion by the same approach which carries all of them to truth, and merely leaves them there to disappear.
Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self deception. And like all the rest its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself.
Defenses are not unintentional, nor are they made without awareness. They are secret magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you would believe. They seem to be unconscious but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. In that second, even less, in which the choice is made, you recognize exactly what you would attempt to do, and then proceed to think that it is done.
Who but yourself evaluates a threat, decides escape is necessary, and sets up a series of defenses to reduce the threat that has been judged as real? All this cannot be done unconsciously. But afterwards your plan requires that you must forget you made it, so it seems to be external to your own intent; a happening beyond your state of mind, an outcome with a real effect on you, instead of one effected by your self.
It is this quick forgetting of the part you play in making your "reality" which makes defenses seem to be beyond your own control. But what you have forgot can be remembered, given willingness to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by oblivion. Your not remembering is but the sign that this decision still remains in force, as far as your desires are concerned. Mistake this not for fact. Defenses must make facts unrecognizable. They aim at doing this, and this they seem to do.
Every defense takes fragments of the whole, assembles them without regard to all their true relationships, and thus constructs illusions of a whole which is not there. It is this process which imposes threat, and not whatever outcome may result. When parts are wrested from the whole and seen as separate and as wholes within themselves, they become symbols standing for attack upon the whole, successful in effect, and never to be seen as whole again. And yet you have forgotten that they stand but for your own decision of what should be real, to take the place of what is real.
Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay when, for an instant, truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick, that truth may go away, and threaten your establishments no more. How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth? Because it proves the body is not separate from you, and so you must be separate from the truth.
You suffer pain because the body does, and in this pain are you made one with it. Thus is your "true" identity preserved, and the strange, haunting thought that you might be something beyond this little pile of dust silenced and stilled. For see, this dust can make you suffer, twist your limbs and stop your heart, commanding you to die and cease to be.
Thus is the body stronger than the truth, which asks you live but cannot overcome your choice to die. And so the body is more powerful than Everlasting Life, Heaven more frail than hell, and God's design for the salvation of His Son opposed by a decision stronger than His Will. His Son is dust, the Father incomplete, and chaos sits in triumph on His throne.
Such is your planning for your own defense. And you believe that Heaven quails before such mad attacks as these, with God made blind by your illusions, truth turned into lies, and all the universe made slaves to laws which your defenses would impose on it. Yet who believes illusions but the one who made them up? Who else can see them and react to them as if they were the truth?
God knows not of your plans to change His Will. The universe remains unheeding of the laws by which you thought to govern it. And Heaven has not bowed to hell, nor life to death. You can but choose to think you die, or suffer sickness or distort the truth in any way. What is created is apart from all of this. Defenses are plans to defeat what cannot be attacked. What is unalterable cannot change. And what is wholly sinless cannot sin.
Such is the simple truth. It does not make appeal to might nor triumph. It does not command obedience, nor seek to prove how pitiful and futile your attempts to plan defenses which would alter it. It merely wants to give you happiness, for such its purpose is. Perhaps it sighs a little when you throw away its gifts, and yet it knows with perfect certainty that what God wills for you must be received.
It is this fact which demonstrates that time is an illusion. For it lets you think what God has given you is not the truth right now, as it must be. The Thoughts of God are quite apart from time. For time is but another meaningless defense you made against the truth. Yet what God wills is here, and you remain as He created you.
Truth has a power far beyond defense, for no illusions can remain where it has been allowed to enter. And it comes to any mind that would lay down its arms and cease to play with folly. It is found at any time; today, if you will choose to practice giving welcome to the truth.
This is our aim today. And we will give a quarter of an hour twice to ask the truth to come to us and set us free. And truth will come, for it has never been apart from us. It merely waits for just this invitation which we give today. We introduce it with a healing prayer to help us rise above defensiveness, and let the truth be as it has always been:
"Sickness is a defense against the truth.
I will accept the truth of what I am,
And let my mind be wholly healed today."
Healing will flash across your open mind as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. There will be no dark corners sickness can conceal and keep defended from the light of truth. There will be no dim figures from your dreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes insanely sought, remaining in your mind. It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey.
Now is the body healed because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. And you will recognize you practiced well by this; the body should not feel at all. If you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, of pain or pleasure. No response at all is in the mind to what the body does. Its usefulness remains, and nothing more.
Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is fully guaranteed because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible.
Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick. Give instant remedy, should this occur, by not allowing your defensiveness to hurt you longer. Do not be confused about what must be healed, but tell yourself:
"I have forgotten what I really am,
For I mistook my body for myself.
Sickness is a defense against the truth,
But I am not a body. And my mind
Cannot attack. So I can not be sick."
It is your Father's holy Will that you complete Himself and that your Self shall be His sacred Son, forever pure as He, of love created and in love preserved, extending love, creating in its Name, forever one with God and with your Self. Yet what can such a function mean within a world of envy, hatred and attack?
Therefore you have a function in the world in its own terms. For who can understand a language far beyond his simple grasp? Forgiveness represents your function here. It is not God's creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone. And who would pardon Heaven? Yet on earth you need the means to let illusion go. Creation merely waits for your return to be acknowledged, not to be complete.
Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-borne, it has no form at all. Yet God created One Who has the power to translate into form the wholly formless. What He makes are dreams, but of a kind so close to waking that the light of day already shines in them, and eyes already opening behold the joyful sights their offerings contain.
Forgiveness gently looks upon all things unknown in Heaven, sees them disappear, and leaves the world a clean and unmarked slate on which the Word of God can now replace the senseless symbols written there before. Forgiveness is the means by which the fear of death is overcome because it holds no fierce attraction now, and guilt is gone. Forgiveness lets the body be perceived as what it is; a simple teaching aid to be laid by when learning is complete, but hardly changing him who learns at all.
The mind without the body cannot make mistakes. It cannot think that it will die, nor be the prey of merciless attack. Anger becomes impossible, and where is terror then? What fears could still assail those who have lost the source of all attack; the core of anguish and the seat of fear? Only forgiveness can relieve the mind of thinking that the body is its home. Only forgiveness can restore the peace that God intended for His holy Son. Only forgiveness can persuade the Son to look again upon his holiness.
With anger gone, you will indeed perceive that for Christ's vision and the gift of sight no sacrifice was asked, and only pain was lifted from a sick and tortured mind. Is this unwelcome? Is it to be feared? Or is it to be hoped for, met with thanks and joyously accepted? We are one, and therefore give up nothing, for we have indeed been given everything by God.
Yet do we need forgiveness to perceive that this is so. Without its kindly light we grope in darkness, using reason but to justify our rage and our attack. Our understanding is so limited that what we think we understand is but confusion born of error. We are lost in mists of shifting dreams and fearful thoughts, our eyes shut tight against the light; our minds engaged in worshipping what is not there.
Who can be born again in Christ but him who has forgiven everyone he sees or thinks of or imagines? Who could be set free while he imprisons anyone? A jailor is not free, for he is bound together with his prisoner. He must be sure that he does not escape, and so he spends his time in keeping watch on him. The bars which limit him become the world in which the jailor lives, along with him. And it is on his freedom that the way to liberty depends for both of them.
Therefore hold no one prisoner. Release instead of bind, for thus are you made free. The way is simple. Every time you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head. And it will fall or be averted as you choose to be condemned or free. Thus does each one who seems to tempt you to be angry represent your Savior from the prison-house of death. And so you owe him thanks instead of pain.
Be merciful today. The Son of God deserves your mercy. It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. Deny him not. His Father's Love for him belongs to you. Your function here on earth is only to forgive him, that you may accept him back as your identity. He is as God created him. And you are what he is. Forgive him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him.
There is no need for help to enter Heaven for you never left. But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs about your Identity, Which God alone established in reality. Helpers are given you in many forms, although upon the altar They are one. Beyond each one there is a Thought of God, and this will never change. But they have names which differ for a time, for time needs symbols, being itself unreal. Their names are legion, but we will not go beyond the names the course itself employs. God does not help because He knows no need. But He creates all Helpers of His Son while he believes his fantasies are true. Thank God for them for they will lead you home.
The Name of Jesus is the Name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. So he became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God. The man was an illusion, for he seemed to be a separate being, walking by himself, within a body that appeared to hold his self from Self, as all illusions do. Yet who can save unless he sees illusions and then identifies them as what they are? Jesus remains a Savior because he saw the false without accepting it as true. And Christ needed his form that He might appear to men and save them from their own illusions.
In his complete identification with the Christ--the perfect Son of God, His one creation and His happiness, forever like Himself and One with Him - Jesus became what all of us must be. He led the way for us to follow him. He leads us back to God because he saw the road before him, and he followed it. He made a clean distinction, still obscure to us, between the false and true. He offered us all a final demonstration that it is impossible to kill God's Son; nor can his life in any way be changed by sin and evil, malice, fear or death.
And therefore all your sins have been forgiven because they carried no effects at all. And so they were but dreams. Arise with him who showed you this because you owe him this who shared your dreams that they might be dispelled. And shares them still, to be at one with you.
Is he the Christ? Oh yes, along with you. His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of us. He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God. And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision, for the eyes of Christ are shared. Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a brother whom you knew since you were born, for such indeed he is. Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only brother to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God.
Is he God's only Helper? No, indeed. For Christ takes many forms with different names until their oneness can be recognized. But Jesus is for you the bearer of Christ's single message of the Love of God. You need no other. It is possible to read his words and benefit from them without accepting him into your life. Yet he would help you yet a little more if you will share your pains and joys with him, and leave them both to find the peace of God. Yet still it is his lesson most of all that he would have you learn, and it is this:
"There is no death because the Son of God is like his Father. Nothing you can do can change Eternal Love. Forget your dreams of sin and guilt, and come with me instead to share the resurrection of God's Son. And bring with you all those whom He has sent to you to care for as I care for you."
God's Name is holy, but no holier than yours. To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. A father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him. His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity. Your Father's Name reminds you who you are, even within a world which does not know; even though you have not remembered it.
God's Name can not be heard without response, nor said without an echo in the mind which calls you to remember. Say His Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which you stand, and sing to you as they spread out their wings to keep you safe, and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your holiness.
Repeat God's Name and all the world responds by laying down illusions. Every dream the world holds dear has suddenly gone by, and where it seemed to stand you find a star; a miracle of grace. The sick arise, healed of their sickly thoughts. The blind can see; the deaf can hear. The sorrowful cast off their mourning, and the tears of pain are dried as happy laughter comes to bless the world.
Repeat the Name of God and little names have lost their meaning. No temptation but becomes a nameless and unwanted thing before God's Name. Repeat His Name and see how easily you will forget the names of all the gods you valued. They have lost the name of god you gave them. They become anonymous and valueless to you, although before you let the Name of God replace their little names, you stood before them worshipfully, naming them as gods.
Repeat the Name of God and call upon your Self, Whose Name is His. Repeat His Name and all the tiny, nameless things on earth slip into right perspective. Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace nor bodies for the holy Son of God. And should you join a brother as you sit with him in silence, and repeat God's Name along with him within your quiet minds, you have established there an altar which reaches to God Himself and to His Son.
Practice but this today; repeat God's Name slowly again and still again. Become oblivious to every name but His. Hear nothing else. Let all your thoughts become anchored on This. No other words we use except at the beginning, when we say today's idea but once. And then God's Name becomes our only thought, our only word, the only thing that occupies our minds, the only wish we have, the only sound with any meaning, and the only Name of everything that we desire to see; of everything that we would call our own.
Thus do we give an invitation which can never be refused. And God will come and answer it Himself. Think not He hears the little prayers of those who call on Him with names of idols cherished by the world. They cannot reach Him thus. He cannot hear requests that He be not Himself, or that His Son receive another name than His. Repeat His Name and you acknowledge Him as sole Creator of Reality. And you acknowledge also that His Son is part of Him, creating in His Name.
Sit silently and let His Name become the all-encompassing idea which holds your mind completely. Let all thoughts be still except this one. And to all other thoughts respond with This, and see God's Name replace the thousand little names you gave your thoughts, not realizing that there is One Name for all there is, and all that there will be.
Today you can achieve a state in which you will experience the gifts of grace. You can escape all bondage of the world, and give the world the same release you found. You can remember what the world forgot, and offer it your own remembering. You can accept today the part you play in its salvation and your own as well, and both can be accomplished perfectly.
Turn to the Name of God for your release, and it is given you. No prayer but this is necessary, for it holds them all within it. Words are insignificant and all requests unneeded when God's Son calls on His Father's Name. His Father's Thoughts become his own. He makes his claim to all his Father gave, is giving still, and will forever give. He calls on Him to let all things he thought he made be nameless now, and in their place the holy Name of God becomes his judgment of their worthlessness.
All little things are silent. Little sounds are soundless now. The little things of earth have disappeared. The universe consists of nothing but the Son of God who calls upon his Father. And his Father's Voice gives answer in his Father's holy Name. In this eternal, still relationship, in which communication far transcends all words and yet exceeds in depth and height whatever words could possibly convey, is peace eternal. In our Father's Name, we would experience this peace today. And in His Name it shall be given us.
This question really answers itself. Healing cannot be repeated. If the patient is healed, what remains to heal him from? And if the healing is certain, as we have already said it is, what is there to repeat? For a teacher of God to remain concerned about the result of healing is to limit the healing. It is now the teacher of God himself whose mind needs to be healed. And it is this he must facilitate. He is now the patient, and he must so regard himself. He has made a mistake, and must be willing to change his mind about it. He lacked the trust that makes for giving truly, and so he has not received the benefit of his gift.
Whenever a teacher of God has tried to be a channel for healing he has succeeded. Should he be tempted to doubt this, he should not repeat his previous effort. That was already maximal, because the Holy Spirit so accepted it and so used it. Now the teacher of God has only one course to follow. He must use his reason to tell himself that he has given the problem to One Who cannot fail, and recognize that his own uncertainty is not love but fear, and therefore hate. His position has thus become untenable, for he is offering hate to one to whom he offered love. This is impossible. Having offered love, only love can be received.
It is in this that the teacher of God must trust. This is what is really meant by the statement that the one responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. The teacher of God is a miracle worker because he gives the gifts he has received. Yet he must first accept them. He need do no more, nor is there more that he could do. By accepting healing he can give it. If he doubts this, let him remember Who gave the gift and Who received it. Thus is his doubt corrected. He thought the gifts of God could be withdrawn. That was a mistake, but hardly one to stay with. And so the teacher of God can only recognize it for what it is, and let it be corrected for him.
One of the more difficult temptations to recognize is that to doubt a healing because of the appearance of continuing symptoms is a mistake in the form of lack of trust. As such, it is an attack. Usually it seems to be just the opposite. It does appear unreasonable at first to be told that continued concern is attack. It has all the appearance of love. Yet love without trust is impossible, and doubt and trust cannot coexist. And hate must be the opposite of love, regardless of the form it takes. Doubt not the gift, and it is impossible to doubt its result. This is the certainty that gives God's teachers the power to be miracle workers, for they have put their trust in Him.
The real basis for doubt about the outcome of any problem that has been given to God's Teacher for resolution is always self-doubt. And that necessarily implies that trust has been placed in an illusory self, for only such a self can be doubted. This illusion can take many forms. Perhaps there is a fear of weakness and vulnerability. Perhaps there is fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy. Perhaps there is a guilty embarrassment stemming from false humility. The form of the mistake is not important. What is important is only the recognition of a mistake as a mistake.
The mistake is always some form of concern with the self to the exclusion of the patient. It is a failure to recognize him as part of the self, and thus represents a confusion in identity. Conflict about what you are has entered your mind, and you have become deceived about yourself. And you are deceived about yourself because you have denied the Source of your creation. If you are offering only healing, you cannot doubt. If you really want the problem solved, you cannot doubt. If you are certain what the problem is, you cannot doubt. Doubt is the result of conflicting wishes. Be sure of what you want, and doubt becomes impossible.
But the essential thing is learning that YOU DO NOT KNOW. Knowledge is power, and all power is of God. You who have tried to keep power for yourselves, have lost it. You still HAVE the power, but you have interposed so much between it and your AWARENESS of it, that you cannot use it. EVERYTHING you have taught yourselves has made your power more and more obscure to you. You know not WHAT it is, nor WHERE. You have made a SEMBLANCE of power, and a SHOW of strength, so pitiful that it MUST fail you. For power is not seeming strength, and truth is beyond a semblance of any kind.
Yet all that stands between you, and the power of God in you, is but your learning of the false, and your attempts to UNDO THE TRUE. Be willing, then, for ALL of it to be undone, and be glad that you are not bound to it forever. For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it. Can God learn how NOT to be God? And can His Son, GIVEN all power BY Him, learn to be powerLESS? What have you taught yourselves that you can possibly prefer to keep, in place of what you HAVE, and what you ARE?
Atonement teaches you how to escape forever from everything that you have taught yourselves in the past, by showing you ONLY what you ARE NOW. Learning HAS BEEN accomplished, BEFORE its effects are manifest. Learning is therefore IN THE PAST, but its influence DETERMINES the present, by giving it whatever meaning it holds for you. Your learning gives the present NO MEANING AT ALL. Nothing you have ever learned can help you understand the present, or teach you how to undo the past. Your past IS what you have taught yourselves.
LET IT ALL GO. Do NOT attempt to understand ANY event, or ANYTHING, or ANYONE in its light, for the light of darkness, by which you TRY to see, can ONLY obscure. Put no confidence at all in darkness to illuminate your understanding, for if you do, you CONTRADICT the light, and thereby THINK you see the darkness. Yet darkness cannot BE seen, for it is nothing more than a condition in which seeing becomes impossible. You who have not yet brought ALL of the darkness you have taught yourselves unto the light in you, can hardly judge the truth and value of this course. Yet God did not abandon you. And so you have another lesson, sent from Him, ALREADY learned for every Child of Light, by Him to Whom God gave it.
This lesson shines with God's glory, for in it lies His power, which He shares so gladly with His Son. Learn of His happiness, which is yours. But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons MUST be brought willingly to truth, and joyously laid down, by hands open to receive, not closed to take. Every dark lesson that you bring to Him Who teaches light, He will accept FROM you, BECAUSE YOU DO NOT WANT IT. And He will gladly EXCHANGE each one for the bright lesson He has learned FOR you. Never believe that ANY lesson you have learned, APART from Him, means ANYTHING.
You have one test, as sure as God, by which to recognize if what you learned is true. If you are WHOLLY free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet, or even THINK of you, SHARE in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned GOD's lesson, and NOT yours. Unless all this is true, there ARE dark lessons in your minds, which hurt and hinder you, AND EVERYONE AROUND YOU. The ABSENCE of PERFECT peace means but ONE thing; you THINK you do not will for God's Son what His Father wills for him. Every dark lesson teaches this, on one form or another. And each bright lesson, with which the Holy Spirit will REPLACE the dark ones you do NOT accept and hide, teaches you that you will WITH the Father unto His Son.
Do not be concerned how you can learn a lesson so COMPLETELY different from everything you have taught yourselves. How would you know? Your part is very simple. You need only recognize that everything YOU learned you DO NOT WANT. Ask to BE taught, and do NOT use your experiences to confirm what YOU have learned. When your peace is threatened, or disturbed in ANY way, say to yourself, "I do not know what anything, INCLUDING THIS, means. And so I do NOT know HOW TO RESPOND TO IT. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now." By this refusal to attempt to teach yourself what you do not know, the Guide Whom God has given you, will speak to you. HE will take His rightful place in your awareness, the instant YOU abandon it, and offer it to Him.
YOU cannot be your guide to miracles, for it is you who made them necessary. And, because you did, the means on which you can DEPEND for miracles, has been provided FOR you. God's Son can make no needs His Father will not meet, if he but turn to Him ever so little. Yet He cannot COMPEL His Son to turn to Him, and remain Himself. It is impossible that God lose His identity, for if He did, YOU WOULD LOSE YOURS. And BEING yours, He cannot change Himself, for your identity IS changeless. The miracle ACKNOWLEDGES His changelessness, by seeing His Son as he always was, and NOT as he would make himself. The miracle brings the effect which ONLY guiltlessness CAN bring, and thus establishes the fact that guiltlessness MUST BE.
How can you, so firmly bound to guilt and committed so to remain, establish FOR YOURSELF your guiltlessness? This is impossible. But be sure that you are willing to acknowledge that it IS impossible. It is only because you think that you can run some little part, or deal with certain aspects of your lives alone, that the guidance of the Holy Spirit is limited. Thus would you make HIM undependable, and USE this fancied undependability as an excuse for keeping certain dark lessons FROM Him. And, by so limiting the guidance that you would ACCEPT, YOU are unable to DEPEND on miracles, to answer ALL your problems FOR you.
Do you think that what the Holy Spirit would have you GIVE, He would withhold from YOU? You have NO problems which He cannot solve, by offering YOU a miracle. Miracles are for YOU. And EVERY fear or pain or trial you have HAS BEEN undone. HE has brought ALL of them to light, having ACCEPTED them INSTEAD of you, and recognized that they never were. There ARE no dark lessons He has not ALREADY lightened FOR you. The lessons you would teach yourselves, He has corrected already. They do not exist in His Mind at all. For the past binds HIM not, and therefore binds not you.
He does not see time as you do. And each miracle He offers you, CORRECTS your use of time, and makes it His. He Who has freed you from the past, would teach you, you ARE free of it. He would but have you accept His accomplishments AS YOURS, because He did them FOR you. And because He did, they ARE yours. He has MADE you free of what you made. You can deny Him, but you CANNOT call upon Him in vain. He ALWAYS gives what HE has made, IN PLACE of you. He would establish His bright teaching so firmly in your mind, that no dark lessons of guilt can abide in what He has established as holy by His Presence.
Thank God that He is there, and works through you. And all His works are yours. He offers YOU a miracle, with every one you LET Him do through you. God's Son will ALWAYS be indivisible. As we are held as one in God, so do we learn as one in Him. God's Teacher is as like to His Creator as is His Son, and through His Teacher does God proclaim His Oneness AND His Son's. Listen in silence, and do NOT raise your voice against Him. For He teaches the miracle of Oneness, and before HIS lesson, division disappears. Teach LIKE Him here, and you WILL remember that you have ALWAYS created like your Father. The miracle of creation has never ceased, having the holy stamp of immortality upon it. This is the Will of God for all creation, and all creation joins in willing this.
Those who remember always that THEY know nothing, but who have become willing to learn EVERYTHING, will learn it. But whenever they trust THEMSELVES, they will NOT learn. They have destroyed their motivation for learning, BY THINKING THEY ALREADY KNOW. Think not you understand ANYTHING, until you pass the test of perfect peace, for peace and understanding GO TOGETHER, and never can be found alone. Each brings the other WITH it, for it is the law of God that they be not separate. They are cause and effect, each to the other, so, where one is absent, the other CANNOT be.
Only those who see they CANNOT know, UNLESS the effects of understanding are with them, can really learn at all. And for this, IT MUST BE PEACE THEY WANT, and nothing else. Whenever you think YOU know, peace will depart from you, because you have abandoned the Teacher of Peace. Whenever you fully realize that YOU KNOW NOT, peace will return, for you will have invited Him to do so, by abandoning the ego on behalf of Him. Call not upon the ego for ANYTHING. It is only that, that you need do. The Holy Spirit will, OF HIMSELF, fill every mind that so makes room for Him. If you want peace, you MUST abandon the teacher of attack.
The Teacher of Peace can NEVER abandon YOU. YOU can desert HIM, but He will never reciprocate. For His faith in you IS His understanding. It is as firm as is His faith in His Creator, and He knows that faith in His Creator MUST encompass faith in creation. In this consistency, lies His holiness, which He CANNOT abandon, for it is not His Will to do so. With your perfection ever in His sight, He gives the gift of peace to everyone who perceives the NEED for peace, and who would have it. Make way for peace, and it will come. For understanding IS in you, and from it, peace MUST come.
The power of God, from which they both arise, is yours as surely as it is His. You think you know Him not, only because, alone, it is impossible to know Him. But see the mighty works that He will do through you, and you MUST be convinced you did them through Him. It is impossible to deny the Source of effects so powerful, they COULD not be of you. Leave room for Him, and you will find yourself so filled with power, that NOTHING will prevail against your peace. And this will be the test by which you recognize that you HAVE understood.
Today we will again give thanks for our identity in God. Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in all we do, power and strength available to us in all our undertakings. We can fail in nothing. Everything we touch takes on a shining light which blesses and which heals. At one with God and with the universe, we go our way rejoicing, with the thought that God Himself goes everywhere with us.
How holy are our minds! And everything we see reflects the holiness within the mind at one with God and with itself. How easily do errors disappear, and death give place to everlasting life. Our shining footprints point the way to truth, for God is our Companion as we walk the world a little while. And those who come to follow us will recognize the way because the light we carry stays behind, yet still remains with us as we walk on.
What we receive is our eternal gift to those who follow after, and to those who went before or stayed with us a while. And God, Who loves us with the equal love in which we were created, smiles on us and offers us the happiness we gave.
Today we will not doubt His Love for us, nor question His protection and His care. No meaningless anxieties can come between our faith and our awareness of His Presence. We are one with Him today in recognition and remembrance. We feel Him in our hearts. Our minds contain His Thoughts, our eyes behold His loveliness in all we look upon. Today we see only the loving and the loveable.
We see it in appearances of pain, and pain gives way to peace. We see it in the frantic, in the sad and the distressed, the lonely and afraid, who are restored to the tranquility and peace of mind in which they were created. And we see it in the dying and the dead as well, restoring them to life. All this we see because we saw it first within ourselves.
No miracle can ever be denied to those who know that they are one with God. No thought of theirs but has the power to heal all forms of suffering in anyone in times gone by and times as yet to come as easily as in the ones who walk beside them now. Their thoughts are timeless, and apart from distance as apart from time.
We join in this awareness as we say that we are one with God. For in these words we say as well that we are saved and healed; that we can save and heal accordingly. We have accepted and we now would give, for we would keep the gifts our Father gave. Today we would experience ourselves at one with Him, so that the world may share our recognition of reality. In our experience the world is freed. As we deny our separation from our Father, it is healed along with us.
Peace be to you today. Secure your peace by practicing awareness you are one with your Creator, as He is with you. Sometime today, whenever it seems best, devote a half an hour to the thought that you are one with God. This is our first attempt at an extended period for which we give no rules nor special words to guide your meditation. We will trust God's Voice to speak as He sees fit today, certain He will not fail. Abide with Him this half an hour. He will do the rest.
Your benefit will not be less if you believe that nothing happened. You may not be ready to accept the gain today. Yet sometime, somewhere, it will come to you, nor will you fail to recognize it when it dawns with certainty upon your mind. This half an hour will be framed in gold, with every minute like a diamond set around the mirror that this exercise will offer you. And you will see Christ's Face upon it, in reflection of your own.
Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will see your own transfiguration in the glass this holy half an hour will hold out to you, to look upon yourself. When you are ready; you will find it there, within your mind and waiting to be found. You will remember then the Thought to which you gave this half an hour, thankfully aware no time was ever better spent. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will look into this glass, and understand the sinless light you see belongs to you; the loveliness you look on is your own.
Count this half hour as your gift to God, in certainty that His return will be a sense of love you cannot understand, a joy too deep for you to comprehend, a sight too holy for the body's eyes to see, and yet you can be sure some day, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will understand and comprehend and see. Add further jewels to the golden frame that holds the mirror offered you today by hourly repeating to yourself:
"Let me remember I am one with God,
At one with all my brothers and my Self,
In everlasting holiness and peace."
What is a sense of sickness but a sense of limitation? Of a splitting OFF and separating FROM? A gap perceived BETWEEN ourselves and what is seen as health? The good is seen OUTSIDE; the evil, IN. And thus is sickness separating OFF the self from good, and KEEPING evil there. God is the ALTERNATE to dreams of fear. Who shares in them can NEVER share in Him. But who WITHDRAWS his mind from sharing them IS sharing Him. There IS no other choice. Except you share it, NOTHING can exist, and YOU exist because God shared His Will with you, that His creation might create.
It is the SHARING of the evil dreams, of hate and malice, bitterness and death, of sin and suffering, of pain and loss, that makes them real. UNSHARED they are perceived as meaningless. The fear is gone from them BECAUSE YOU DID NOT GIVE THEM YOUR SUPPORT. Where fear has gone, there love MUST come, because there ARE but these alternatives. Where one appears, the other DISappears. And which you SHARE becomes the only one you HAVE. You HAVE the one which you accept, because it is the only one you WANT. You share NO evil dreams, if you forgive the dreamer, and perceive that he is NOT the dream he made. And so he CANNOT be a part of YOURS, from which you BOTH are free. Forgiveness SEPARATES the dreamer from the evil dream, and thus releases him.
Remember if you SHARE an evil dream, you will believe you ARE the dream you share. And, fearing it, you will not WANT to know your own identity, because you think that IT is fearful. And you WILL deny your Self, and walk upon an alien ground which your Creator did not make, and where you seem to be a "something" you are not. You WILL make war upon your Self, Which SEEMS to be your enemy, and WILL attack your brother, as a part of what you hate. There is no compromise. You are your Self, or an illusion. What CAN be between illusion and the truth? A middle ground, where you can be a thing that is NOT you, MUST be a dream, and CANNOT be the truth.
You have conceived a little gap between illusions and the truth to be the place where all your safety lies, and where your Self is safely hidden by what you have made. Here is a world established that is sick, and this the world the body's eyes perceive. Here are the sounds it hears, the voices which its ears were made to hear. Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see nor hear. It does not know what seeing IS; what listening is FOR. It is as little able to perceive as it can judge, or understand, or know. Its eyes are blind, its ears are deaf. It can NOT think, and so it cannot HAVE effects.
What is there God created can be sick? And what that He created not can BE? Let not your eyes behold a dream; your ears bear witness to illusion. They were made to look upon a world that is not there; to hear the voices that can make no sounds. Yet are there other sounds and other sights which can be seen and heard and UNDERSTOOD. For eyes and ears are senses without sense, and what they see and hear they but report. It is not THEY that hear and see, but YOU, who PUT TOGETHER every jagged piece, each senseless scrap and shred of evidence, and MAKE a witness to the world you want.
Let not the body's ears and eyes perceive these countless fragments seen within the gap that YOU imagined, and let THEM persuade their maker his imaginings were real. Creation proves reality because it SHARES the function ALL creation shares. It is not made of little bits of glass, a piece of wood, a thread or two perhaps, and put together to ATTEST its truth. Reality does not depend on THIS. There IS no gap which separates the truth from dreams and from illusions. Truth has left no room for them in ANY place or time. For It fills every place and every time, and makes them wholly indivisible.
You who believe there is a little gap between you do not understand that it is HERE that you are kept as prisoners in a world perceived to be EXISTING here. The world you see does not exist BECAUSE the place where you perceive it is not real. The gap is carefully concealed in fog, and misty pictures rise to cover it with vague, uncertain forms and changing shapes, forever unsubstantial and unsure. Yet in the gap is NOTHING. And there ARE no awesome secrets and no darkened tombs where terror rises from the bones of death. Look at the little gap, and you behold the innocence and emptiness of sin that you will see within yourself, when you have lost the fear of recognizing love.
The Holy Spirit will NEVER teach you that you are sinful. ERRORS He will correct, but this makes no-one fearful. You are indeed afraid to look within, and see the sin you THINK is there. This you would NOT be fearful to admit. Fear in association with sin the ego deems quite appropriate, and smiles approvingly. IT has no fear to let you feel ashamed. It doubts not your belief and faith in sin. Its temples do not shake because of THIS. Your faith that sin is there but witnesses your desire that it BE there to see. This merely SEEMS to be the source of fear. Remember that the ego is NOT alone. Its rule IS tempered. And its unknown "Enemy," Whom it cannot even see, it FEARS.
Loudly the ego tells you NOT to look inward, for if you do, your eyes will light on sin, and God will strike you blind. This you believe, and so you do NOT look. Yet this is NOT the ego's hidden fear, nor YOURS who serve it. Loudly indeed the ego claims it IS. TOO loudly and TOO often. For underneath this constant shout and frantic proclamation, the ego is NOT certain it is so. Beneath your fear to look within because of sin is yet ANOTHER fear, and one which makes the ego tremble. What if you looked within, and saw NO sin? This "fearful" question is one the ego NEVER asks. And you who ask it now ARE "threatening" the ego's whole defensive system too seriously for it to bother to PRETEND it is your friend.
Those who have joined their brothers HAVE detached themselves from their belief that their identity lies in the ego. A holy relationship is one in which you join with what IS part of you in TRUTH. And your belief in sin has been ALREADY shaken, nor are you now ENTIRELY unwilling to look within and see it NOT. Your liberation still is only partial; still limited and incomplete, yet born WITHIN you. Not wholly mad, you HAVE been willing to look on much of your insanity, and RECOGNIZE its madness. Your faith is moving inward, PAST insanity, and on to reason. And what your reason tells you now, the ego would not hear.
The Holy Spirit's purpose was accepted by the part of your mind the ego knows not of. No more did YOU. And yet this part, with which you now identify, is NOT afraid to look upon ITSELF. It KNOWS that it is sinless. How otherwise COULD it have been willing to see the Holy Spirit's purpose as its own? This part has seen your brother, and RECOGNIZED him perfectly, since time began. And it desired nothing but to JOIN with him, and to be free again, as once it was. It has been waiting for the birth of freedom; the ACCEPTANCE of release to come to you. And now you recognize that it was NOT the ego that joined the Holy Spirit's purpose, and so there MUST be something else.
Think not that THIS is madness. For this your REASON tells you. And it follows PERFECTLY from what you have ALREADY learned. There is NO inconsistency in what the Holy Spirit teaches. This is the reasoning of the SANE. You have perceived the EGO'S madness, and NOT been made afraid, because you did not choose to SHARE in it. At times it still deceives you. Yet, in your saner moments, its ranting strikes no terror in your hearts. For you have realized that all the gifts it would withdraw from you in rage at your "presumptuous" wish to look within, you do not WANT. The few remaining trinkets still seem to shine and catch your eye. Yet you would not "sell" Heaven to have them.
And now the ego IS afraid. But what it hears in terror, the OTHER part hears as the sweetest music; the song it longed to hear since first the ego came into your minds. The ego's weakness is ITS strength. The song of freedom, which sings the praises of ANOTHER world, brings to it hope of peace. For it REMEMBERS Heaven. And now it sees that Heaven HAS come to earth at last, from which the ego's rule has kept it out so long. Heaven has come because it found a home in your relationship on earth. And earth can hold no longer what has been GIVEN Heaven as its own.
Look gently on each other, and remember the ego's WEAKNESS is revealed in BOTH your sight. What it would keep apart has met and joined, and looks upon the ego unafraid. Little children, innocent of sin, follow in gladness the way to certainty. Be not held back by fear's insane insistence that sureness lies in doubt. This HAS no meaning. What matters it to you how loudly it is proclaimed? The senseless is not made meaningful by repetition and by clamor. The quiet way is open. Follow it happily, and question not what MUST be so.
Vision will come to you at first in glimpses, but they will be enough to show you what is given YOU who see your brother sinless.
Truth is restored to you through your desire, as it was lost to you through your desire for something ELSE. Open the holy place which you closed off by VALUING the something else, and what was never lost will quietly return. It HAS been saved for you. Vision would not be necessary, had judgment not been made. Desire now its whole undoing, and it is done FOR you. Do you not WANT to know your own identity? Would you not happily exchange your doubts for certainty? Would you not willingly be FREE of misery, and learn again of joy? Your holy relationship offers all this to you. As IT was given you, so will be its EFFECTS.
And as its holy purpose was not made by you, the means by which its happy end is yours is also not of you. Rejoice in what is yours but for the asking. And think not that you need make either means OR end. All this is GIVEN you, who would but SEE your brother sinless. All this is GIVEN, waiting on your desire but to RECEIVE it. Vision is freely given to those who ask to see. Your brother's sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit's vision, and to rejoice in, along with Him. For peace will come to all who ask for it with real desire and sincerity of purpose, SHARED with the Holy Spirit, and at one with Him on what salvation IS.
Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision, and give you joy. And place NO value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is. It is HIS desire to see his sinlessness, as it is YOURS. And bless the Son of God in your relationship, nor see in him what you have MADE of him. The Holy Spirit GUARANTEES that what God has willed and given shall be yours. This is YOUR purpose now, and the vision that makes it yours is ready to be given. You have the vision that enables you to see the body not. And as you look upon each other, you will see an altar to your Father, holy as Heaven, glowing with radiant purity, and sparkling with the shining lilies you laid upon it.
What can you value more than this? Why do you think the body is a better home, a safer shelter for God's Son? Why would you rather look on IT, than on the truth? How can the engine of destruction be PREFERRED, and chosen to REPLACE the holy home the Holy Spirit offers, where HE will dwell WITH you? The body is the sign of weakness, vulnerability, and LOSS of power. Can such a Savior HELP you? Would you turn, in your distress and need for help, unto the HELPLESS? Is the pitifully LITTLE the perfect choice to call upon for strength? Judgment WILL seem to make your Savior weak. But it is YOU who need his strength.
There is no problem, no event or situation, no perplexity, that vision will not solve. All is redeemed, when looked upon with vision. For this is not YOUR sight, and brings with it the laws beloved of Him Whose sight it IS. Everything looked upon with vision falls gently into place, according to the laws brought TO it by His calm and certain sight. The end, for everything HE looks upon, is ALWAYS sure. For it will meet His purpose, seen in UNADJUSTED form, and suited perfectly to meet it. Destructiveness becomes benign, and sin is turned to blessing under His gentle gaze.
What can the body's eyes perceive, with power to CORRECT? Its eyes ADJUST to sin, unable to overlook it in ANY form, and seeing it EVERYWHERE, in EVERYTHING. Look through ITS eyes, and EVERYTHING will stand condemned before you. All that could SAVE you, you will never see. Your holy relationship, the SOURCE of your salvation, will be DEPRIVED of meaning, and its most holy purpose bereft of means for its accomplishment. Judgment is but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination. But vision sets all things right, bringing them gently within the kindly sway of Heaven's laws.
What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal? Could you have FAITH in what you see, if you ACCEPTED this? AND WOULD YOU SEE IT? Hallucinations disappear when they are RECOGNIZED for what they are. This IS the healing and the remedy. Believe them not, and they ARE gone. And all YOU need to do is recognize YOU DID THIS. Once you ACCEPT this simple fact, and take unto YOURSELF the power you GAVE them, YOU are released from them.
One thing is sure; hallucinations serve a purpose, and when that PURPOSE is no longer held, THEY disappear. Therefore, the question never is whether you want THEM, but ALWAYS do you want the purpose that they serve? This world SEEMS to hold out many purposes, each different, and with different values. Yet they are all the same. Again, there is no order, but a SEEMING hierarchy of values. Only two purposes are possible. And one is sin; the other holiness. Nothing is in between, and which you choose determines what you see. For what you see is merely HOW you elect to meet your goal.
Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness. They are the means by which the OUTSIDE world, projected from within, ADJUSTS to sin, and SEEMS to witness to its reality. It still is true that nothing IS without. Yet, upon nothing, are ALL projections made. For it is the PROJECTION which gives the "nothing" ALL the meaning that it holds. What has NO meaning, cannot BE perceived. And meaning ALWAYS looks within, to find itself. And THEN looks out. ALL meaning that you give the world outside, must thus reflect the sight you saw WITHIN. Or better, IF you saw at all, or merely judged AGAINST.
Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations, that show you all fearful outcomes of imagined sin, into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. They are HIS substitutes for all the terrifying sights and screaming sounds the ego's purpose brought to your horrified awareness. They step AWAY from sin, reminding you that it is NOT reality that frightens you, and that the errors which you made CAN be corrected.
When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and SEEN it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision? And AFTER vision, who is there who COULD refuse what MUST come after? Think but an instant just on this. YOU can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And NEVER need you think that there IS something else for you to see.
Atonement is for all, because it is the way to UNDO the belief that ANYTHING is for you ALONE. To forgive is to OVERLOOK. Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your perception HOLDS. Accept as true only what your brother IS, if you would know yourself. Perceive what he is NOT, and you CANNOT know what you are, BECAUSE you see HIM falsely. Remember always that your identity is shared, and that its sharing IS its reality.
You have a PART to play in the Atonement. But the plan of the Atonement IS beyond you. You do not know how to OVERLOOK errors, or you would not make them. It would merely be further error to think either that you do NOT make them, or that you can CORRECT them without a GUIDE TO CORRECTION. And if you do not FOLLOW this Guide, your errors will NOT be corrected. The plan is not yours BECAUSE of your limited ideas about WHAT YOU ARE. But this limitation IS where ALL ERRORS ARISE. The way to UNDO them is, therefore, not OF you, but FOR you.
The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO IT. The Holy Spirit merely reminds you of what is your NATURAL ability. By RE-INTERPRETING the ability to ATTACK, which you DID make, into the ability to SHARE, He TRANSLATES what you have made, into what God created. But if you would accomplish this THROUGH Him, you cannot look on your abilities through the eyes of the ego, or you will judge them as IT does. All their harmfulness lies in ITS judgment. All their HELPFULNESS lies in the judgment of the Holy Spirit.
The ego has a plan of forgiveness, because you are ASKING for one, but not of the right teacher. The EGO's plan, of course, MAKES NO SENSE and WILL NOT WORK. By following it, you will merely place yourself in an impossible situation, to which the ego ALWAYS leads you. Its plan is to have you SEE ERROR CLEARLY FIRST, and THEN overlook it. But how CAN you overlook what you have made real? By seeing it clearly, you HAVE made it real, and CANNOT overlook it.
This is where the ego is forced into appealing to mysteries, and begins to insist that you accept the meaningless, to save yourself. Many have tried to do this in my name, forgetting that my words make PERFECT sense, because they come from GOD. They are as sensible now as they ever were, because they speak of ideas which are eternal. Forgiveness that is learned of ME does not use fear to UNDO fear. Nor does it make real the UNreal, and then destroy it.
Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit, the effects of error are TOTALLY non-existent. By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT. Follow His teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness IS His function, and HE knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what we meant when we once said that miracles are NATURAL, and when they do NOT occur, something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow HIS plan of Salvation, in recognition of the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. His work is NOT your function, and unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what your function IS.
The confusion of functions is so typical of the ego, that you should be quite familiar with it by now. The ego believes that ALL functions belong to IT, even though it has no idea what they ARE. This is more than mere confusion. It is a particularly dangerous combination of grandiosity AND confusion, that makes it likely that the ego will attack anyone and anything, for no reason at all. This is exactly what it DOES. It is TOTALLY unpredictable in its responses, because it has no idea WHAT it heard.
If one has no idea what is happening, how appropriately can you EXPECT him to react? But you might still ask yourself, regardless of how you can ACCOUNT for the reactions, whether they place the ego in a very sound position as a guide for YOURS. It seems absurd to have to emphasize repeatedly that the ego's qualifications as a guide are singularly unfortunate, and that it is a remarkably poor choice as a teacher of salvation. Yet this question, ridiculous as it seems, is REALLY the crucial issue in the whole separation fantasy.
Anyone who elects a totally insane guide, MUST be totally insane himself. It is not true that you do not know the guide is insane. YOU know it because I know it, and you HAVE judged it by the same Standard as I have. The ego literally lives on borrowed time, and ITS days ARE numbered. Do not fear the last judgment, but welcome it and do not wait, for the ego's time is borrowed from YOUR eternity. This IS the Second Coming, which was made FOR you, as the First was created.
The Second Coming is merely the return of SENSE. Can this POSSIBLY be fearful? What can be fearful but fantasy, and no one turns to fantasy unless he despairs of satisfaction in reality. But it is CERTAIN that he will NEVER find satisfaction in fantasy, so that his ONLY hope is to change his mind about REALITY. Only if the decision that reality is fearful is WRONG, can GOD be right. And I ASSURE you that God IS right.
Be glad, then, that you HAVE been wrong, but this was only because you did not know who you WERE. Had you REMEMBERED, you could no more have been wrong than God can. The impossible can happen ONLY in fantasy. When you search for reality in fantasies, you will not find it. The symbols of fantasy are of the ego, and of THESE you will find many. But do not look for meaning in them. They have no more meaning than the fantasies into which they are woven.
Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful, pretty or ugly, but NO ONE calls them TRUE. Children may believe them, and so, for a while, they ARE true for them. But when Reality dawns, they are gone. REALITY has NOT gone in the meanwhile. The Second Coming is the AWARENESS of Reality, not its RETURN. Behold, my children, Reality is here. It belongs to you and me and God, and is perfectly satisfying to all of us. Only THIS awareness heals, because it is the awareness of truth.
Only you can limit your creative power, but God wills to release it. He no more wills you to deprive yourselves of YOUR creations than He wills to deprive Himself of His.
Do not withhold your gifts to the Sonship, or you withhold yourself from God. Selfishness is of the ego but self-fullness is of the Soul because that is how He created it. The Holy Spirit is the part of the mind that lies between the ego and the Soul, mediating between them ALWAYS IN FAVOR OF THE SOUL. To the ego this is partiality, and it therefore responds as if it were the part that is being sided AGAINST. To the Soul this is truth, because it knows its own fullness and cannot conceive of ANY part from which it is excluded. The soul KNOWS that the consciousness of all its brothers is included in its own, as IT is included in God. The power of the whole Sonship AND OF ITS CREATOR is therefore its OWN fullness, rendering its Creation and its creating equally whole and equal in perfection.
The ego cannot prevail against a totality which includes God, and any totality MUST include God. Everything He created is given ALL His power because it is part of Him and shares His Being WITH Him. Creating is the OPPOSITE of loss, as blessing is the opposite of sacrifice. Being MUST be extended. That is how it retains the knowledge of itSELF. The soul yearns to share ITS Being as ITS Creator did. Created BY sharing, its will is to create. It does NOT wish to CONTAIN God, but to EXTEND HIS BEING.
The extension of God's Being is the Soul's only function. ITS fullness cannot be contained any more than can the fullness of its Creator. Fullness IS extension. The ego's whole thought system BLOCKS extension, and therefore blocks YOUR ONLY FUNCTION. It therefore blocks your joy and THIS is why you perceive yourselves as unfulfilled. Unless you create, you ARE unfulfilled. But God does NOT know unfulfillment, and therefore you MUST create. YOU may not know your own creations, but this can no more interfere with their reality than your unawareness of your Soul can interfere with its being.
The Kingdom is forever extending, because it is in the Mind of God. YOU do not know your joy because you do not know your own self-fullness. Exclude ANY part of the Kingdom FROM yourself, and you are NOT whole. A split mind CANNOT perceive its fullness, and needs the miracle OF its wholeness to dawn upon it and heal it. This reawakens its wholeness IN it and restores it to the Kingdom because of its ACCEPTANCE of wholeness. The full appreciation of its self-fullness makes selfishness impossible, and extension inevitable. That is why there is perfect peace in the Kingdom. Every Soul IS fulfilling its function, and ONLY complete fulfillment IS peace.
Insanity APPEARS to add to reality, but no-one would claim that what it adds is true. Insanity is therefore the NON-extension of truth, which blocks joy because it blocks Creation and therefore blocks self-FULFILLMENT. The unfulfilled MUST be depressed, because their self-fullness is UNKNOWN to them. Your creations are protected FOR you because the Holy Spirit, Who is in your minds, knows of them, and can bring them INTO your awareness whenever you will let Him. They ARE there as part of your own being, because YOUR fulfillment INCLUDES them. The creations of every Son of God are yours, because every creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Sonship as a whole.
You have not failed to add to the inheritance of the Sons of God, and thus have not failed to secure it for yourselves. If it was the will of God to give it to you, He gave it forever. If it was His will that you have it forever, He gave you the means for keeping it, and YOU HAVE DONE SO. Disobeying God's will is meaningful only to the insane. In truth, it is impossible.
Your self-fullness is as boundless as God's. Like His, it extends forever and in perfect peace. Its radiance is so intense that it creates in perfect joy, and only the whole can be born of its wholeness. Be confident that you have never lost your identity and the extension which maintains it in wholeness and peace. Miracles are AN EXPRESSION OF THIS CONFIDENCE. They are reflections both of your own proper identification WITH your brothers, and of your own awareness that YOUR identification IS maintained by extension. The miracle is A LESSON IN TOTAL PERCEPTION. By including ANY part of totality in the lesson, you HAVE included the whole.
You have said that, when you write of the Kingdom and your own creations which belong to it, you are describing WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW. This is true in a sense, but no more true than your failure to acknowledge the whole result of the ego's premises. The Kingdom is the result of premises, as much as this world is. You HAVE carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING. But you do not really BELIEVE this, or you could not possibly maintain it. If you REALLY saw this result, you COULD not want it. The ONLY reason why you could possibly want ANY part of it is because YOU DO NOT SEE THE WHOLE OF IT.
You therefore ARE willing to look at the ego's premises but NOT at their logical outcome. Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? Your creations ARE the logical outcome of His premises. HIS thinking has established them FOR you. They are therefore THERE, EXACTLY where they belong. They belong to your mind, as part of your identification with HIS. But your state of mind and your recognition of WHAT IS IN YOUR MIND depends, at any given moment, on what you believe ABOUT your mind. Whatever these beliefs may be, they are the premises which will determine WHAT YOU ACCEPT INTO YOUR MINDS.
It is surely clear that you can both accept into your minds what is NOT really there, and DENY WHAT IS. Neither of these possibilities requires further elaboration, although both are clearly indefensible even if YOU elect to defend them. But the function which God Himself GAVE your minds through His you may DENY but you CANNOT prevent. They are the logical outcome of what you ARE. The ability to SEE a logical outcome depends on the WILLINGNESS TO SEE IT, but its TRUTH has nothing to do with your willingness at all. Truth is GOD's will. SHARE His Will, and you will share what He KNOWS. Deny His Will AS YOURS, and you are denying His Kingdom AND yours.
The Holy Spirit will direct you ONLY so as to avoid all pain. The UNDOING of pain must OBVIOUSLY avoid this. No-one would surely OBJECT to this goal IF HE RECOGNIZED IT. The problem is NOT whether what He says is true, but whether or not you want to LISTEN to what He says.
The slave of idols is a WILLING slave. For willing he MUST be, to let himself bow down in worship to what has no life, and seek for power in the powerless. What happened to the holy Son of God, that this could BE his wish; to let himself fall lower than the stones upon the ground, and look to idols that they raise him up? Hear, then, your story in the dream you made, and ask yourself if it be not the truth that you believe that it is NOT a dream. A dream of judgment came into the mind that God created perfect as Himself. And in that dream was Heaven changed to hell, and God made enemy unto His Son.
How can His Son AWAKEN from the dream? It is a dream of judgment. So must he judge NOT, and he WILL waken. For the dream will seem to last while he is PART of it. Judge not, for he who judges WILL have need of idols, which will hold the judgment off from resting on himself. Nor CAN he know the Self he has condemned. Judge not, because you make yourself a PART of evil dreams, where idols are your "true" identity, and your salvation from the judgment laid, in terror and in guilt, upon yourself. All figures in the dream are idols, made to save you FROM the dream. Yet they are PART of what they have been made to save you FROM.
Thus does an idol KEEP the dream alive and terrible. For who would wish for one UNLESS he were in terror and despair? And this the idol REPRESENTS, and so its worship IS the worship of despair and terror, and the dream from which they come. Judgment is an INjustice to God's Son, and it IS justice that who judges HIM will not escape the penalty he laid upon HIMSELF within the dream he made. God knows of justice; NOT of penalty. But in the dream of judgment, you attack and ARE condemned. And WISH to be the slave of idols, who are interposed BETWEEN your judgment and the penalty it brings.
There CAN be no salvation in the dream, as YOU are dreaming it. For idols MUST be part of it, to save you from what you believe you have accomplished, and have done to make you sinful, and put out the Light within you. Little children, It is there. You do but dream, and idols are the toys you dream you play with. Who has need of toys but children? They pretend they rule the world, and give their toys the power to move about, and talk and think and feel, and speak for them. Yet everything their toys appear to do is in the minds of those who play with them. But they are eager to forget that they made up the dream in which their toys are real, and recognize their wishes are their own.
Nightmares are childish dreams. Their toys have turned against the child who thought he made them real. Yet CAN a dream attack? Or CAN a toy grow large and dangerous and fierce and wild? This does the child believe BECAUSE he fears his thoughts, and gives them to his toys instead. And their reality becomes his own, because they seem to SAVE him from his thoughts. Yet do they KEEP his thoughts alive and real, but seen OUTSIDE himself, where they can turn against him for his treachery to them. He thinks he NEEDS them that he may escape his thoughts, because he thinks the THOUGHTS are real. And so he makes of ANYTHING a toy, to make his world remain outside himself, and play that HE is but a part of it.
There is a time when childhood should be passed and gone forever. Seek not to retain the toys of children. Put them all away, for you have need of them no more. The dream of judgment is a children's game, in which the child becomes the father, powerful, but with the little wisdom of the child. What hurts him is destroyed; what helps him, blessed. Except he judges this as does a child, who does not KNOW what hurts and what will heal. And bad things seem to happen, and he is afraid of all the chaos in a world he thinks is governed by the laws he made. Yet is the real world unaffected by the world he thinks is real. Nor have its laws been changed because he did not understand.
The real world still is but a dream. Except the figures have been changed. They are not seen as idols which betray. It is a dream in which no-one is used to substitute for something else, or interposed between the thoughts the mind conceives and what it sees. No-one is used for something he is not, for childish things have all been put away. And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into a dream where all is joy, because that is the PURPOSE that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love.
Forgiving dreams have little need to last. They are not made to separate the mind from what it thinks. They do not seek to prove the dream is being dreamed by someone ELSE. And in these dreams a melody is heard which everyone remembers, though he has not heard it since before all time began. Forgiveness, once complete, brings timelessness so close the song of Heaven can be heard, not with the ears, but with the holiness that never left the altar which abides forever deep within the Son of God. And when he hears this song again, he knows he NEVER heard it not. And where IS time, when dreams of judgment have been put away?
Whenever you feel fear in any form, - and you ARE fearful if you do not feel a deep content, a certainty of help, a calm assurance Heaven goes with you, - be sure you made an idol, and believe it will betray you. For, beneath your hope that it will save you, lie the guilt and pain of self-betrayal and uncertainty, so deep and bitter that the dream can not conceal completely all your sense of doom. Your self-betrayal MUST result in fear, and fear IS judgment, leading surely to the frantic search for idols and for death. Forgiving dreams remind you that you live in safety, and have NOT attacked yourself.
So do your childish terrors melt away, and dreams become a sign that you have made a new beginning, NOT another try to worship idols, and to KEEP attack. Forgiving dreams are kind to everyone who figures in the dream. And so they bring the dreamer full release from dreams of fear. He does not fear his judgment, for he has judged no-one, nor has sought to be released THROUGH judgment from what judgment MUST impose. And all the while he is remembering what he forgot when judgment seemed to be the way to SAVE him from its penalty.
Perception selects, and MAKES the world you see. It literally PICKS IT OUT, as mind directs. The laws of size and shape and brightness would hold, perhaps, if other things were equal. They are NOT equal. For what you look FOR you are far more likely to discover, REGARDLESS of its color, shape, or size, than what you would prefer to OVERLOOK. The still small Voice for God, is NOT drowned out by all the ego's raucous screams and senseless ravings, to those who WANT to hear. Perception is a choice, and NOT a fact.
But on this choice depends far more than you may realize as yet. For, on the voice you choose to hear, and on the sights you choose to see, depends ENTIRELY your whole belief of what you ARE. Perception is a witness but to this, and never to reality. Yet it can show you the conditions in which AWARENESS of reality is possible, or those where it could NEVER be. Reality needs no cooperation from you, to be itself. But your awareness of it NEEDS your help, because it IS your choice.
Listen to what the ego says, and see what it DIRECTS you see, and it is sure that you will see YOURSELF as tiny, vulnerable, and afraid. You WILL experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings of impermanence and unreality. You WILL believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond your own control, and far more powerful than you. And you WILL think the world you made directs your destiny. For this will be your FAITH. But never believe, because it is your faith, it makes REALITY. There is ANOTHER vision and ANOTHER voice, in which your freedom lies, awaiting but your choice. And, if you place your faith in them, you will perceive ANOTHER Self in YOU.
This other self sees miracles as natural. They are as simple and as natural to it as breathing to the body. They are the OBVIOUS response to calls for help, the ONLY one it makes. Miracles seem unnatural to the ego, because it does not understand how SEPARATE minds can influence each other. Nor COULD they do so. But minds cannot BE separate. This other self is PERFECTLY aware of this. And thus it recognizes that miracles do NOT affect ANOTHER'S mind, only its OWN. They always change YOUR mind. There IS no other.
You do not realize the whole extent to which the idea of separation has INTERFERED with reason. Reason lies in the other self you have CUT OFF from your awareness. And nothing you have allowed to STAY in it is CAPABLE of reason. How can the segment of the mind DEVOID of reason understand what reason IS? Or grasp the information it would give? All sorts of QUESTIONS may arise in it, but, if the basic question stems from REASON, it will not ask it. Like ALL that stems from reason, the basic question is obvious, simple, and remains unasked. But think not reason could not ANSWER it.
God's plan for your salvation could not have been established WITHOUT your will and your consent. It MUST have been accepted by the Son of God, for what God wills for him, he MUST receive. For God wills not, apart from him. Nor does the Will of God wait upon time to be accomplished. Therefore, what JOINED the Will of God MUST be in you NOW, being eternal. You MUST have set aside a place in which the Holy Spirit can abide, and where He IS. He must HAVE BEEN there since the need for Him arose, and was fulfilled in the same instant.
Such would your REASON tell you, if you listened. Yet such is clearly NOT the ego's "reasoning." Its alien nature, TO THE EGO, is proof you will NOT find the answer there. Yet if it MUST be so, it must exist. And, if it exists FOR you, and has your freedom as the purpose GIVEN it, you MUST be free to FIND it. God's plan is simple; NEVER circular, and NEVER Self-defeating. He has no Thoughts except the Self-EXTENDING, and in this, YOUR will MUST be included. Thus there MUST be a part of you that KNOWS His Will and SHARES It.
It is NOT meaningful to ask if what MUST be is so. But it IS meaningful to ask why you are UNAWARE of what is so. For this MUST have an answer, if the plan of God for your salvation is complete. And it must BE complete, because its Source knows not of incompletion. Where would the answer BE, but in the Source? And where are YOU but there, where this same Answer is? Your identity, as much a true EFFECT of this same Source as is this Answer, must therefore be TOGETHER and the SAME.
Oh yes, you know this. And more than this alone. But any part of knowledge threatens dissociation as much as ALL of it. And all of it will COME with any part. Here is the part you CAN accept. What reason points to, you CAN see, because the witnesses on its behalf ARE clear. Only the TOTALLY insane can disregard them. And you HAVE gone past this. Reason is a means which serves the Holy Spirit's purpose in its OWN right. It is not RE-INTERPRETED and REDIRECTED from the goal of sin, as are the others. For reason is BEYOND the ego's range of means.
Faith and perception and belief can be misplaced, and serve the great deceiver's needs, as well as truth. But reason has no place at all in madness, nor can it be ADJUSTED to fit its ends. Faith and belief are STRONG in madness, guiding perception toward what the mind has valued. But reason enters NOT AT ALL in this. For the perception would fall away at once, if reason were applied. There IS no reason in insanity, for it depends ENTIRELY on reason's absence. The ego NEVER uses it, because it does not realize that it EXISTS.
The partially insane HAVE access to it. And only they have NEED of it. KNOWLEDGE does not depend on it, and madness keeps it OUT. The part of mind where reason lies was dedicated, by your will in union with your Father's, to the UNDOING of insanity. Here was the Holy Spirit's purpose accepted and accomplished, both at once. Reason is ALIEN to insanity, and those who use it have gained a means which cannot BE applied to sin. Knowledge is far beyond attainment of ANY kind. But reason CAN serve to open doors you closed AGAINST it.
You have come very close to this. Faith and belief have shifted, and you HAVE asked the question that the ego will NEVER ask. Does not your reason tell you now the question MUST have come from something that you do NOT know, but must BELONG to you? Faith and belief, upheld by reason, CANNOT fail to lead to changed perception. And, in THIS change, is room made way for vision. Vision extends BEYOND itself, as does the purpose which it serves, and ALL the means for its accomplishment.
All things are given you. God's trust in you is limitless. He knows His Son. He gives without exception, holding nothing back that can contribute to your happiness. And yet, unless your will is one with His, His gifts are not received. But what would make you think there is another will than His?
Here is the paradox that underlies the making of the world. This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real. Yet those who think it real must still believe there is another will, and one which leads to opposite effects from those He wills. Impossible indeed; but every mind which looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. But never in One God.
The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange beliefs. He must believe that to accept God's gifts, however evident they may become, however urgently he may be called to claim them as his own, is being pressed to treachery against himself. He must deny their presence, contradict the truth, and suffer to preserve the world he made.
Here is the only home he thinks he knows. Here is the only safety he believes that he can find. Without the world he made is he an outcast, homeless and afraid. He does not realize that it is here he is afraid indeed, and homeless too; an outcast wandering so far from home, so long away, he does not realize he has forgotten where he came from, where he goes, and even who he really is.
Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings God's gifts go with him, all unknown to him. He cannot lose them. But he will not look at what is given him. He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees about him everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but dwindles as he goes ahead to nowhere. Still he wanders on in misery and poverty, alone though God is with him, and a treasure his so great that everything the world contains is valueless before its magnitude.
He seems a sorry figure, weary, worn, in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road he walks. No one but has identified with him, for everyone who comes here has pursued the path he follows, and has felt defeat and hopelessness as he is feeling them. Yet is he really tragic when you see that he is following the way he chose, and need but realize Who walks with him, and open up his treasures to be free?
This is your chosen self, the one you made as a replacement for reality. This is the self you savagely defend against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses with proof to show this is not you. You heed them not. You go on your appointed way, with eyes cast down lest you might catch a glimpse of truth, and be released from self deception and set free.
You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ's touch upon your shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts. How could you then proclaim your poverty in exile? He would make you laugh at this perception of yourself. Where is self-pity then? And what becomes of all the tragedy you sought to make for him whom God intended only joy?
Your ancient fear has come upon you now, and justice has caught up with you at last. Christ's hand has touched your shoulder, and you feel that you are not alone. You even think the miserable self you thought was you may not be your identity. Perhaps God's Word is truer than your own. Perhaps His gifts to you are real. Perhaps He has not wholly been outwitted by your plan to keep His Son in deep oblivion, and go the way you chose without your Self.
God's Will does not oppose. It merely is. It is not God you have imprisoned in your plan to lose your Self. He does not know about a plan so alien to His Will. There was a need He did not understand, to which He gave an Answer. That is all. And you who have this Answer given you have need no more of anything but this.
Now do we live, for now we cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be. One walks with you Who gently answers all your fears with this one merciful reply, "It is not so." He points to all the gifts you have each time the thought of poverty oppresses you, and speaks of His Companionship when you perceive yourself as lonely and afraid.
Yet He reminds you still of one thing more you had forgotten. For His touch on you has made you like Himself. The gifts you have are not for you alone. What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to give. This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved you from the solitude you sought to make, in which to hide from God. He has reminded you of all the gifts that God has given you. He speaks as well of what becomes your will when you accept these gifts, and recognize they are your own.
The gifts are yours, entrusted to your care, to give to all who chose the lonely road you have escaped. They do not understand they but pursue their wishes. It is you who teach them now. For you have learned of Christ there is another way for them to walk. Teach them by showing them the happiness that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ and recognize God's gifts. Let sorrow not tempt you to be unfaithful to your trust.
Your sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to you for their release. Your tears are theirs. If you are sick you but withhold their healing. What you fear but teaches them their fears are justified. Your hand becomes the giver of Christ's touch; your change of mind becomes the proof that who accepts God's gifts can never suffer anything. You are entrusted with the world's release from pain.
Betray it not. Become the living proof of what Christ's touch can offer everyone. God has entrusted all His gifts to you. Be witness in your happiness to how transformed the mind becomes which chooses to accept His gifts and feel the touch of Christ. Such is your mission now. For God entrusts the giving of His gifts to all who have received them. He has shared His joy with you. And now you go to share it with the world.
Temptation has ONE lesson it would teach, in ALL its forms, WHEREVER it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach. Would you BE this, if Christ appeared to you in all His glory, asking you but this, "Choose once again if you would take your place among the Saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there." For He HAS come, and He IS asking this.
How do you make the choice? How easily is this explained! You ALWAYS choose between YOUR weakness and the strength of Christ in you. And what you choose is what you think is real. Simply by never using weakness to direct your actions, you have given it no power. And the Light of Christ in you is given charge of everything you do. For you have brought your weakness unto Him, and He has given you His strength instead. Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you.
In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created altars unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you. His holiness is yours because He is the ONLY power that is real in you. His strength is yours because He is the Self that God created as His ONLY Son. The images you make can not prevail against what God Himself would have you be.
Be never fearful of temptation then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ's strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before. For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, and disappears before His holy sight. The Saviors of the world, who see like Him, are merely those who chose His strength instead of their own weakness, seen APART from Him. They will redeem the world, for they are joined to all the power of the Will of God. And what they will is ONLY what He wills.
Learn, then, the happy habit of response to ALL temptation to perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:
"I am as God created me. His Son
can suffer nothing. And I AM His Son."
Thus is Christ's strength INVITED to prevail, replacing all your weakness with the strength that comes from God, and that can NEVER fail. And thus are miracles as natural as fear and agony APPEARED to be before the choice for holiness was made. For IN that choice are false distinctions gone, illusory alternatives laid by, and nothing left to INTERFERE with truth.
You ARE as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon, REGARDLESS of the images you see. What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive YOURSELF defenseless and in hell. Yield NOT to this, and you will see ALL pain in EVERY form WHEREVER it occurs but disappear as mists before the sun. A miracle has come to heal God's Son, and close the door upon his dreams of weakness, opening the way to his salvation and release. Choose once again what you would have him be, remembering that every choice you make establishes your own identity as you will see it, and believe it IS.
Deny me not the little gift I ask, when in exchange I lay before your feet the peace of God, and power to bring this peace to everyone who wanders in the world, uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear. For it is given you to JOIN with him, and through the Christ in you unveil his eyes, and let him look upon the Christ in him. My brothers in salvation, do not fail to hear my voice and listen to my words. I ask for nothing but your OWN release. There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven. To your tired eyes I bring a vision of a different world, so new and clean and fresh you will forget the pain and sorrow that you saw before.
But this a vision is which you must SHARE with everyone you see. For otherwise you will behold it not. To GIVE this gift is how to make it yours. And God ordained, in loving kindness, that it BE for you. Let us be glad that we can walk the world, and find so many chances to perceive another situation where His gift can once again be recognized as ours. And thus will all the vestiges of hell, the secret sins and hidden hates be gone, and all the loveliness which they concealed appear like lawns of Heaven to our sight, to lift us high above the thorny roads we travelled on before the Christ appeared.
Hear me, my brothers, hear and join with me. God has ordained I cannot call in vain. And in His certainty I rest content. For you WILL hear, and you WILL choose again. And in this choice is everyone made free. I thank You, Father, for these holy ones who are my brothers as they are Your Sons. My faith in them is Yours. I am as sure that they will come to me as You are sure of what they are, and will forever be. They will accept the gift I offer them because You gave it me on their behalf. And as I would but do Your holy Will, so will they choose. And I give thanks for them.
Salvation's song will echo through the world with every choice they make. For we are one in purpose, and the end of hell is near. In joyous welcome is my hand outstretched to every brother who would join with me in reaching past temptation, and who looks with fixed determination toward the light that shines beyond in perfect constancy. Give me my own, for they belong to You. And can You fail in what is but Your Will? I give You thanks for what my brothers are, and as each one elects to join with me, the song of thanks from earth to Heaven grows from tiny, scattered threads of melody to one inclusive chorus from a world redeemed from hell, and giving thanks to You.
And now we say "Amen." For Christ has come to dwell in the abode You set for Him before time was, in calm Eternity. The journey closes, ending at the place where it began. No trace of it remains. Not one illusion is accorded faith, and not one spot of darkness still remains to hide the Face of Christ from anyone. Thy Will is done, complete and perfectly, and all creation recognizes You and knows You as the only Source it has. Clear in Your Likeness does the Light shine forth from everything that lives and moves in You. For we have reached where all of us are One, and we ARE home where You would have us be.
The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. Depression MEANS that you have foresworn God. Men are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not know what it means. They do not realize that, to deny God, is to deny their own identity, and in this sense, the wages of sin IS death. The sense is very literal; -- denial of Life perceives its opposite, as ALL forms of denial replace what IS, with what is NOT. No-one can really DO this, but that you can THINK you can, and BELIEVE YOU HAVE, is beyond dispute.
Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others, AND NOT YOURSELF, have done this TO you. You WILL receive the message you give, because it is the message you WANT. You may believe that you judge your brothers by the messages they give YOU, but you HAVE judged them by the message you give THEM. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them, that could bring joy to YOU. It is the DENIAL of the spark that brings depression, and whenever you see your brothers WITHOUT it, you ARE denying God.
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. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly WANT them. Blasphemy, then, is SELF-destructive, not God destructive. It means that you are willing NOT to know yourself, IN ORDER to be sick. This IS the offering which your god demands, because having made him out of YOUR insanity, he IS an insane idea. He has many forms, but though he may seem like many different things, he is but one idea;-- the denial of God.
Sickness and death entered the mind of God's Son against His Will. The "attack on God" made His Son think he was fatherless, and out of his depression he made the god of depression. This was his alternative to joy, because he would not accept the fact that, although he was a creator, he had been created. Yet the Son IS helpless without the Father, Who alone IS his Help. We said before that of yourselves you can do nothing, but you are not OF yourselves. If you were, what you have made would be true, and you could never escape.
It is BECAUSE you did not make yourselves, that you need be troubled by nothing. Your gods are nothing, because your Father did not create them. You cannot make creators who are unlike your Creator, any more than He could have created a Son who was unlike Him. If creation is sharing, it cannot create what is unlike itself. It can share only what it IS. Depression is isolation, and so it could not have BEEN created.
Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken. But this can be corrected, and God will help you, knowing that you could not sin against Him. You denied Him BECAUSE you loved Him, knowing that if you RECOGNIZED your love for Him, you COULD not deny Him. Your denial therefore MEANS that you love Him, and THAT YOU KNOW HE LOVES YOU. Remember that what you deny you MUST have known. And if you can accept denial, YOU CAN ACCEPT ITS UNDOING.
Your Father has not denied you. He does not retaliate, but He DOES call to you to return. When you think He has not answered your call, YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED HIS. He calls to you from every part of the Sonship, because of His love for His Son. If you hear His message, He HAS answered you, and you will learn what you are of Him, if you hear aright. The love of God is in everything He created, for His Son is everywhere. Look with peace upon your brothers, and God will come rushing into your heart, in gratitude for your gift to Him.
Do not look to the god of sickness for healing, but only to the God of love, for healing is the acknowledgment of Him. When you acknowledge Him, you will KNOW that He has never ceased to acknowledge you, and that in His acknowledgment OF you lies your Being. You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do. Remember, though, that to do this IS blasphemy, for it means that you are looking without love on God and His Creation, from which He cannot be separated. Only the eternal can be loved, for love does not die. What is of God is His forever, and you ARE of God. Would He allow Himself to suffer? And would He offer His Son anything that is not acceptable to Him?
If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE. Your Father created you Wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free.
You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God, in His love, would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with you, because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with you would be to attack HIMSELF, and God is not insane. When you denied HIM, you WERE insane. Would you have Him SHARE your insanity? God will never cease to love His Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son's Creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave HIMSELF to you in your Creation, and His gifts ARE eternal. Would you deny yourself to Him?
Out of your gifts to Him, the Kingdom will be restored to His Son. His Son removed himself from His gift by refusing to accept what had been created FOR him, and what he himself had created in the name of His Father. Heaven waits for his return, for it was created as the dwelling place of God's Son. You are not at home anywhere else, or in any other condition. Do not deny yourself the joy which was created FOR you, for the misery you have made for yourselves. God has given you the means for undoing what you have made. Listen, and you WILL learn what you are.
If God knows His children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to perceive them as guilty. If God knows His children as wholly without pain, it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows his children to be wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel depressed. All these illusions, and the many other forms which blasphemy may take, are REFUSALS TO ACCEPT CREATION AS IT IS. If God created His Son perfect, that is how you must learn to see him, to learn of his reality. And as part of the Sonship, THAT IS HOW YOU MUST SEE YOURSELF TO LEARN YOURS.
Do not perceive ANYTHING God did not create, or you ARE denying Him. His is the ONLY Fatherhood, and it is yours only because HE has given it to you. Your gifts to YOURSELF are meaningless, but your gifts to YOUR creations are like His, because they are given in His Name. That is why your creations are as real as His. But the real Fatherhood must be acknowledged, if the real Son is to be known. You believe that the sick things which you have made are your real creations, because you believe that the sick images you perceive are the Sons of God.
Only if you ACCEPT the Fatherhood of God will you have anything, because His Fatherhood GAVE you everything. That is why to deny Him IS to deny yourself. Arrogance is the denial of love, because love shares and arrogance withholds. As long as both appear to you to be desirable, the concept of choice, which is not of God, will remain with you. While this is not true in Eternity, it IS true in time, so that, while time lasts in YOUR minds, there WILL be choices. Time itself WAS your choice. If you would remember Eternity, you must learn to look on only the Eternal. If you allow yourselves to become preoccupied with the temporal, you are LIVING IN TIME. As always, your choice is determined by what you value. Time and Eternity cannot both be real, because they contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you will begin to understand Eternity, and make it yours.
This section is inserted here because it deals with a more fundamental misuse of knowledge, referred to in the Bible as the cause of the Fall (or Separation). There are several introductory remarks which are intended to make these explanations less fear-provoking. The first is a couplet which I drew to your attention during the fragments of Midsummer Night's Dream, which you heard last night:
"Be as thou wast wont to be
See as thou wast wont to see."
It is noteworthy that these words were said by Oberon in releasing Titania from her own errors, both of being and perceiving. These were the words which re-established her true identity as well as her true abilities and judgment. The similarity here is obvious.
There are also some definitions, which I asked you to take from the dictionary, which will also be helpful. Their somewhat unusual nature is due to the fact that they are not first definitions in their chronological appearance. Nevertheless, the fact that each of them does appear in the dictionary should be reassuring.
Project (verb): to extend forward or out.
Project (noun): a plan in the mind
World: a natural grand division. (Note that you originally wrote "word" instead of "world.")
We will refer later to projection as related to both mental illness and mental health. It will also be commented on that Lucifer literally projected himself from heaven. We also have observed that man can create an empty shell, but cannot create nothing at all. This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection.
The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible, was not originally an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that the pre-Separation state was essentially one in which man needed nothing. The Tree of Knowledge, again an overly-literal concept, (as is clearly shown by the subsequent reference to "eating of the fruit of the tree") is a symbolic reference to some of the misuses of knowledge referred to in the section immediately preceding this one. There is, however, considerable clarification of this concept, which must be understood before the real meaning of the "detour into fear" can be fully comprehended. Projection, as defined above, (this refers to the verb) is a fundamental attribute of God, which he also gave to his Son. In the Creation, God projected his Creative Ability out of Himself toward the Souls which He created, and also imbued them with the same loving wish (or will) to create. We have commented before on the FUNDAMENTAL error involved in confusing what has been created with what is being created. We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect. There is no emptiness in him. The next point, too, has already been made, but bears repetition here. The Soul, because of its own likeness to its Creator, is creative. No Child of God is capable of losing this ability, because it is inherent in what he IS.
Whenever projection in its inappropriate sense is utilized, it ALWAYS implies that some emptiness (or lack of everything) must exist, and that it is within man's ability to put his own ideas there INSTEAD of the truth. If you will consider carefully what this entails, the following will become quite apparent:
First, the assumption is implicit that what God has Created can be changed by the mind of Man.
Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect (or wanting) is intruded.
Third, the belief that man can distort the Creations of God (including himself) has arisen, and is tolerated.
Fourth, that since man can create himself, the direction of his own creation is up to him.
These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the Separation. None of this existed before, nor does it actually exist now. The world, as defined above, WAS made as a natural grand division, or projecting outward of God. That is why everything which He Created is like Him.
It should be noted that the opposite of pro is con. Strictly speaking, then, the opposite of projecting is conjecting, a term which referred to a state of uncertainty or guess work. Other errors arise in connection with ancillary defenses, to be considered later. For example, dejection, which is obviously associated with depression, injection, which can be misinterpreted readily enough, in terms of possession fallacies (particularly penetration), and rejection, which is clearly associated with denial. It should be noted also that rejection can be used as refusing, a term which necessarily involves a perception of what is refused as something unworthy.
Projection as undertaken by God was very similar to the kind of inner radiance which the Children of the Father inherit from Him. It is important to note that the term "project outward" necessarily implies that the real source of projection is internal. This is as true of the Son as of the Father.
The world, in its original connotation, included both the proper creation of man by God, AND the proper creation by man in his Right Mind. The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given. Nothing in either of these statements implies any sort of level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order.
When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception.
Man's spiritual eye can sleep, but as will shortly appear in the notes (reference Bob, elevator operator) a sleeping eye can still see. One translation of the Fall, a view emphasized by Mary Baker Eddy, and worthy of note, is that "a deep sleep fell upon Adam." While the Bible continues to associate this sleep as a kind of anesthetic utilized for protection of Adam during the creation of Eve, Mrs. Eddy was correct in emphasizing that nowhere is there any reference made to his waking up. While Christian Science is clearly incomplete, this point is much in its favor.
The history of man in the world as he saw it has not been characterized by any genuine or comprehensive re-awakening, or re-birth. This is impossible as long as man projects in the spirit of miscreation. It still remains within him to project as God projected his own Spirit to him. In reality, this is his ONLY choice, because his free will was made for his own joy in creating the perfect.
All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception of man's ability to USURP the power of God. It is again emphasized that he neither CAN nor HAS been able to do this. In this statement lies the real justification for his escape from fear. This is brought about by his acceptance of the Atonement, which places him in a position to realize that his own errors never really occurred.
When the deep sleep fell upon Adam, he was then in a condition to experience nightmares, precisely because he was sleeping. If a light is suddenly turned on while someone is dreaming, and the content of his dream is fearful, he is initially likely to interpret the light itself as part of the content of his own dream. However, as soon as he awakens, the light is correctly perceived as the release from the dream, which is no longer accorded reality. I would like to conclude this with the Biblical injunction "Go ye and do likewise." It is quite apparent that this depends on the kind of knowledge which was NOT referred to by the "Tree of Knowledge" which bore lies as fruit. The knowledge that illuminates rather than obscures is the knowledge which not only makes you free, but also shows you clearly that you ARE free.
Lead in for p. 61 (after insert)
The preceding sections were inserted because of the necessity of distinguishing between real and false knowledge. Having made this distinction, it is well to return to the errors already listed a while back. It might be well to recapitulate them here. The first involved the fallacy that only the physical is real. The second involved things rather than people. The third involves the endowment of the physical with non-physical properties. And the fourth clarified the misuse of knowledge. All of them were subsumed under possession fallacies. The denial mechanism for three has already been set forth in some detail, and will also continue after the following:
(Retyped)
The corresponding denial mechanism for 1) is the sense of PHYSICAL inability, or IMPOTENCE. The denial mechanism for 2) is often bankruptcy. Collectors of things often drive themselves well beyond their financial means, in an attempt to force discontinuance. If this idea of cessation cannot be tolerated, a strange compromise involving BOTH insatiable possessiveness and insatiable throwing-away (bankruptcy) may result. An example is the inveterate or compulsive gambler, particularly the horse-racing addict. Here, the conflicted drive is displaced both from people AND things, and is invested in animals. The implied DEROGATION of people is the cause of the underlying EXTREME superstition of the horse racing addict.
The alcoholic is in a similar position, except that his hostility is more inward than outward directed.
Defenses aimed at protecting (or retaining) error are particularly hard to undo, because they introduce second-order misperceptions which obscure the underlying errors still further.
The pseudo-corrective mechanism of three is apt to be more varied because of the more inclusive nature of the error, which has already been mentioned. Some of the possibilities are listed below:
One aspect of the possession/possessed conflict can be raised to predominance. If this is attempted in connection with POSSESSING, it leads to the paranoid solution. The underlying component of "being possessed" is retained in the "persecution" fantasies, which are generally concomitants.
If "being possessed" is brought to ascendance, a state of some sort of possession by external forces results, but NOT with a major emphasis on attacking others. Attack BY others becomes the more obvious component. In the more virulent forms, there is a sense of being possessed by demons, and unless there is vacillation with a), a catatonic solution is more likely than a paranoid one.
The FOCUSED paranoid has become more rigid in his solution, and centers on ONE source of projection to escape from vacillation. (Aside: It should be noted that this type of paranoia is an upside down form of religion, because of its obvious attempt to unify into oneness.)
Both 1, 2, and 4 are more likely to produce neurotic rather than psychotic states, though this is by no means guaranteed. However, 3 is inherently more vulnerable to the psychotic correction, again because of the more fundamental level confusion which is involved.
It should be noted, however, that the greater fear which is induced by 3 can ITSELF reach psychotic proportions, thus forcing the individual closer and closer to a psychotic solution.
It is emphasized here that these differences have no effect at all on the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease. This is because of the miracle's inherent avoidance of within-error distinctions. Its SOLE concern is to distinguish between truth, on the one hand, and ALL kinds of error, on the other. This is why some miracles SEEM to be of greater magnitude than others. But remember the first point in this course, i.e., that there is no order of difficulty in miracles.
The emphasis on mental illness which is marked in these notes reflects the "UNDOING" aspect of the miracle. The "DOING" aspect is, of course, much more important. But a true miracle cannot occur on a false basis. Sometimes the undoing must precede it.
At other times, both can occur simultaneously, but you are not up to this at the moment.
Further, insights into mental illness can be misused, and lead to preoccupation with one's own symptoms. This is why this area is less constructive for most people than a course primarily devoted to mental health. However, some professions will find (some?) principles of mental illness constructive, especially those which are concerned with mental illness in others. This obviously includes psychologists.
The obvious correction for ALL types of the possession-fallacy is to redefine possession correctly. In the sense of "taking over," the concept does not exist at all in divine reality, which is the only level of reality where real existence is a meaningful term.
No one CAN be "taken over" unless he wills to be. However, if he places his mind under tyranny, rather than authority, he intrudes the submission/dominance concept onto free will himself. This produces the obvious contradiction inherent in any formulation that associates free will with imprisonment. Even in very mild forms, this kind of association is risky, and may spread quite unexpectedly, particularly under external stress. This is because it can be internally controlled ONLY if EXTERNAL conditions are peaceful. This is not safe, because external conditions are produced by the thoughts of many, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet.
Why should you be at THEIR mercy? This issue is VERY closely related to the whole possession issue. You insist on thinking that people CAN possess you, if you believe that their thoughts (or the external environment) can affect you, regardless of WHAT they think. You are perfectly unaffected by ALL expressions of lack of love. These can be either from yourself and others, or from yourself to others, or from others to you. (I'm glad you passed that test. It was crucial. This is ref. to Helen Schucman reluctance to take dictations as given.)
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. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others.
This is a course in miracles. And, as such, the laws of healing must be understood before the purpose of the course can be accomplished. Let us review the principles that we have covered, and arrange them in a way that summarizes all that must occur for healing to be possible. For when it once is possible, it MUST occur. ALL sickness comes from separation. When the separation is denied, it goes. For it IS gone as soon as the idea which brought it has been healed and been replaced by sanity. Sickness and sin are seen as consequence and cause, in a relationship kept hidden from awareness, that it may be carefully preserved from reason's light.
Guilt ASKS FOR punishment, and its request is granted. NOT in truth, but in the world of shadows and illusions BUILT on sin. The Son of God perceives what he would see, because perception IS a wish fulfilled. Perception changes, MADE to take the place of changeless knowledge. Yet is truth unchanged. It cannot BE perceived, but only known. What is perceived takes many forms, but NONE has meaning. Brought to truth, its senselessness is quite apparent. Kept APART from truth, it SEEMS to have a meaning and be real. Perception's laws are OPPOSITE to truth, and what IS true of knowledge is NOT true of ANYTHING that is apart from it. Yet has God given Answer to the world of sickness, Which applies to ALL its forms.
God's Answer is eternal, though It operates in time, where It is needed. But, because It IS of God, the laws of time do not affect Its workings. It is in this world, but NOT a part of it. For It is real, and dwells where all reality MUST be. Ideas leave not their source, and their effects but SEEM to be apart from them. Ideas are of the mind. What is projected OUT, and seems to be EXTERNAL to the mind, is NOT outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has NOT left its source. God's Answer lies where the belief in sin MUST be, for only there can its effects be utterly undone, and without cause.
Perception's laws must be reversed, because they ARE reversals of the laws of truth. The laws of truth FOREVER will be true, and cannot BE reversed; yet can be SEEN as upside down. And this must be corrected where the illusion of reversal lies. It is impossible that one illusion be LESS amenable to truth than are the rest. But it IS possible that some are given greater VALUE, and less willingly OFFERED to truth for healing and for help. NO illusion has ANY truth in it. Yet it appears some are MORE true than others, although this clearly makes no sense at all. All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is PREFERENCE, NOT reality.
What relevance has preference to the truth? Illusions are illusions, and are false. Your preference gives them NO reality. Not one is true in ANY way, and all must yield with equal ease to what God gave as Answer to them all. God's Will is One. And ANY wish that SEEMS to go AGAINST His Will has NO foundation in the truth. Sin is not error, for it goes BEYOND correction to impossibility. Yet the belief that it is real has made some errors seem forever PAST the hope of healing, and the lasting grounds for hell. If this were so, would Heaven be opposed by its own opposite, as real as it.
Then would God's Will be split in two, and all creation be subjected to the laws of two opposing powers, until God becomes impatient, splits the world apart, and relegates attack unto Himself. Thus has He lost His Mind, proclaiming sin has taken His reality from Him, and brought His Love at last to vengeance' heels. For such an insane picture, an insane defense can be expected, but can NOT establish that the picture must be true. Nothing GIVES meaning where no meaning IS. And truth needs NO defense to make it true. Illusions HAVE no witnesses, and no effects. Who looks on them is but deceived.
Forgiveness is the only function here, and serves to bring the joy this world denies to every aspect of God's Son where sin was thought to rule. Perhaps you do not see the role forgiveness plays in ending death, and ALL beliefs that rise from mists of guilt. Sins are beliefs which you impose between your brother and yourself. They limit you to time and place, and give a little space to you; ANOTHER little space to him. This separating off is symbolized, in your perception, by a body which is clearly separate and a thing apart. Yet what this symbol REPRESENTS is but your wish to BE apart and separate.
Forgiveness TAKES AWAY what stands between your brother and yourself. It is the wish that you be JOINED with him, and NOT alone. We call it "wish" because it still conceives of other choices, and has not yet reached beyond the world of choice entirely. Yet is this wish in line with Heaven's state, and not in OPPOSITION to God's Will. Although it falls far short of giving you your full inheritance, it DOES remove the obstacles which YOU have placed between the Heaven where you are, and RECOGNITION of where and what you are. Facts are unchanged. But facts can be denied and thus unknown, though they were known BEFORE they were denied.
Salvation, perfect and complete, asks but a LITTLE wish that what is true be true. A LITTLE willingness to overlook what is not there. A LITTLE sigh that speaks for Heaven as a preference to this world which death and desolation seem to rule. In joyous answer will creation rise within you, to REPLACE the world you see with Heaven, wholly perfect and complete. What is forgiveness, but a willingness that truth be true? What can remain unhealed and broken from a Unity Which holds all things within Itself? There is NO sin. And EVERY miracle is possible the INSTANT that the Son of God perceives his wishes and the Will of God are One.
What is the Will of God? He wills His Son have everything. And this He guaranteed when He created him AS everything. It is impossible that anything be lost, if what you HAVE is what you ARE. This is the miracle by which creation became YOUR function, sharing it with God. It is not understood APART from Him, and therefore has no meaning in this world. Here does the Son of God ask NOT too much, but FAR too little. He would sacrifice his own identity WITH everything, to find a LITTLE treasure of his own. And this he cannot do, without a sense of isolation, loss, and loneliness. This IS the treasure he has sought to find. And he COULD only be afraid of it.
Is fear a treasure? Can uncertainty be what you WANT? Or is it a mistake about your will, and what you REALLY are? Let us consider what the error IS, so it can be corrected, NOT protected. Sin is belief attack can be projected OUTSIDE the mind where the belief arose. Here is the firm conviction that ideas CAN leave their source made real and meaningful. And FROM this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise. This world is an attempt to prove your innocence, while cherishing attack. Its failure lies in that you STILL FEEL guilty, though without understanding WHY. Effects are SEPARATED from their source. They SEEM to be BEYOND you to control or to prevent.
What has been KEPT apart can never join. Cause and effect are one, NOT separate. God wills you learn what always has been true. That he created you as part of Him, and this must still be true BECAUSE ideas leave not their source. Such is creation's law; that each idea the mind conceives but ADDS to its abundance, NEVER takes away. This is as true of what is idly wished as what is truly willed, because the mind can wish to be deceived, but CANNOT make it be what it is not. And to believe ideas can leave their source is to invite illusions to be true, WITHOUT SUCCESS. Nor never will success BE possible in trying to deceive the Son of God.
The miracle is possible when cause and consequence are brought together, NOT kept separate. The healing of effect WITHOUT the cause can merely shift effects to other forms. And this is NOT release. God's Son could never be content with LESS than full salvation, and ESCAPE from guilt. For otherwise he still demands that he must make SOME sacrifice, and thus denies that EVERYTHING is his, unlimited by loss of any kind. A tiny sacrifice is just the same in its EFFECTS as is the WHOLE idea of sacrifice. If loss in ANY form is possible, then is God's Son made incomplete and not himself. Nor will he know himself, nor recognize his will. He has foresworn his Father AND himself, and made them both his enemy in hate.
Illusions serve the purpose they were MADE to serve. And FROM their purpose, they derive whatever meaning that they seem to have. God gave to ALL illusions that were made ANOTHER purpose that would justify a miracle, WHATEVER form they took. In every miracle ALL healing lies, for God gave Answer to them all as one. And what is one to Him must BE the same. If you believe what is the same is different, you but deceive yourself. What God calls one will be forever one, NOT separate. His Kingdom IS united; thus it was created, and thus will it ever be. The miracle but calls your ancient name, which you WILL recognize because the truth is in your memory. And to this name your brother calls for his release and yours. Heaven is shining on the Son of God. Deny him not, that YOU may be released.
Each instant is the Son of God reborn, until he chooses NOT to die again. In every wish to hurt he chooses death, instead of what his Father wills for him. Yet every instant offers life to him, because his Father wills that he should live. In crucifixion is redemption laid, for healing is not needed where there is no pain or suffering. Forgiveness is the ANSWER to attack of any kind. So is attack DEPRIVED of its effects, and hate is answered in the Name of Love. To you to whom it has been given to save the Son of God from crucifixion and from hell and death, all glory be forever. For you HAVE power to save the Son of God, because his Father willed that it be so. And in your hand does ALL salvation lie, to be both offered and received as one.
To use the power God has given you as He would have it used is natural. It is NOT arrogant to be as He created you, or to make use of what He gave to answer ALL His Son's mistakes, and set him free. But it IS arrogant to LAY ASIDE the power that He gave, and choose a little, senseless wish instead of what He wills. The gift of God to you is limitless. There is NO circumstance it cannot answer, and NO problem which is not resolved within its gracious light. Abide in peace, where God would have you be. And be the means whereby your brother finds the peace in which YOUR wishes are fulfilled. Let us unite in bringing blessing to the world of sin and death. For what can save each one of us, can save us all. There is no difference among the Sons of God.
The Unity that specialness denies will save them all, for what is One can HAVE no specialness. And EVERYTHING belongs to each of them. No wishes lie between a brother and his own. To get from one is to deprive them all. And yet to bless but one gives blessing to them all as one. Your ancient name belongs to everyone, as theirs to you. Call on your brother's name, and God will answer, for on Him you call. Could He refuse to answer, when He has ALREADY answered all who call on Him? A miracle can make no change at all. But it CAN make what always has been true be RECOGNIZED by those who know it not. And by this little gift of truth but let to be itself; the Son of God allowed to be himself, and all creation freed to call upon the Name of God as one.
Miracles are an industrial necessity. Industry depends on cooperation, and cooperation depends on miracles. (see page 8)
1 Miracles are cobwebs of iron. They unite human frailty to the strength of God. (see page 7)
(add for 21. Helen Schucman considered changing "iron" to "steel." Correction: No. Steel would NOT be a better word. Steel is very useful but it would have to be tempered by fire. Iron is the raw material. The point of miracles is that they replace fire, thus making it unnecessary.)
Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles, man accepts God's forgiveness by extending it to others. The second step is inherent in the first, because light cannot tolerate darkness. Light dispels darkness automatically, by definition.
EXPLANATORY INSTRUCTIONS: Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacy that darkness can hide. Man believes that what he cannot see does not exist, and his physical eyes cannot see in the dark. This is a very primitive solution, and has led to a denial of the spiritual eye, which always depends on light. Remember the Biblical injunction: "May I never forget that THINE eye is ever upon me, beholding the evil and the good."
There are two stages, one lower and one higher, which are involved in the escape from darkness: 1) the recognition that darkness CANNOT hide. This usually does entail fear.
2) The recognition that there is nothing you WANT to hide, even if you could. This brings escape from fear.
Corrections Re Pt. 21 cobwebs of iron. "This is upside down as stated. The part about 'uniting human frailty with the strength of God' is all right, but the explanation stops too soon. If iron is the 'raw material', cobwebs can't become the iron. That is only the way it seems, because cobwebs are associated with the frailty and iron with strength. If you look carefully at the phrasing, you will see it is reversed (one point already tells you that miracles reverse the physical or lower order laws.)
The raw material, or iron, is heavy but crude, and stands for the body, which is a crude creation. The cobweb concept is closer to how the body SHOULD be regarded, i.e., as an airy and temporary home, which can just be blown away with a slight breeze.
(21. 2) The point should read "A miracle reawakens the awareness that the spirit, and not the body, is the altar of Truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle."
(22a) A miracle rearranges the order of perception, and places the levels in their true perspective. This heals at all levels, because all sickness comes from confusing the levels.
(Tell Bill about the idea (which is still dim to Helen Schucman) that the reason is not that you (plural) distantiate, doubt, or cannot believe. It is more of a reaction formation against a pull which you both recognize is so intense that you are afraid that you will be uprooted. But remember that a cobweb is really stronger than the iron, if you see it properly. This fear is also why you couldn't get the point straight.)
By the way, it is not true that you are both 'JUST SCRIBES'. You might remember that the Scribes were very wise and holy men and are even sometimes spelled with a capital S. If you want to go further, you might change the meaning of 'just' from 'merely' to 'honest', a term used in the Bible in association with 'might' or 'strength.' Tell Bill you couldn't make that pun if the original phrasing had been singular. (Helen Schucman aside about liking the first about assumption failure more.) Answer: It was cuter, but this one MEANS more. The REAL reason you don't like it is because it refers to you in a VERY lofty position. This makes you nervous.)
Correction: And don't lose sight of the emphasis on cooperation, or the NOT SINGULAR. That point about "industrial necessity" should read "corporate", referring to the body of Christ which is a way of referring to the Church. But the Church of God is only the sum of the souls he created, which IS the corporate body of Christ. Correct to read: "A Miracle makes souls one in God," and leave in the next part about cooperation.
Further correction: "God" should read "Christ." The Father and the Son are not identical, but you CAN say "Like Father, LIKE Son."
(Remind Bill to get another notebook. I don't give up as easily as HE does. If I could get YOU to listen, which was a miracle in itself, I can get him to register. He should appreciate this more than anyone else, having had some trouble with this problem himself.)
"Lord heal me" is the only legitimate prayer. This also means "Lord atone for me," because the only thing man should pray for is forgiveness. He HAS everything else.
Now take this personally, and listen to Divine logic: If, when you have been forgiven, you have everything else, and
If you have been forgiven
Then you HAVE everything else.
This happens to be the simplest of all propositions.
IF P then Q
P
Therefore, Q
The real question is, is P true. If you will review the evidence, I think you will find this inescapable. I went on very personal record to this effect, and I am the only completely True Witness for God. You have every right to examine MY credentials - in fact, I urge you to do so. You haven't read the Bible in years.
Special Explanatory Note: As soon as you (H and B) have entered the second phase, you will be not only willing to enter into communion, but will also understand peace and joy. Your commitment is not yet total. That is why you still have more to learn than to teach. When your equilibrium stabilizes, you can teach AS MUCH as you learn. This will give you the proper sense of balance. Meanwhile, remember that NO EFFORT IS WASTED. Unless you remember this, you cannot avail yourself of MY efforts, which are limitless.
(Have a good day.) Since only eternity is real, why not use the illusion of time constructively? You might remember that "underneath are the Everlasting Arms."
BIBLICAL QUOTATION: "If you are ashamed of me before men, I will be ashamed of you before God," (Helen Schucman ? of misquote.) is interpreted as a threat ONLY as long you remain in the first step. (see bottom of p. 6 for steps.)
What it REALLY means is that if you are ashamed of me (or embarrassed by love), you will project and therefore make it impossible for me to reach you. Make every effort you can NOT to do this. I will help you as much as you will let me.
Miracles make time and tide wait for all men. They can heal the sick and raise the dead because man himself made both death and taxes, and can abolish both. Note: Tax also means "strain." (One definition for miracles is: "That which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit.") (from Dictionary, third definition)
YOU are a miracle. God creates only "that which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit." Man is capable of this kind of creation, too, being in the image and likeness of his own Creator. Anything else is only his own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real.
Miracles are a part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which, when completed, is the Atonement. This process works all the time and in all dimensions of time. (e.g. given of Helen Schucman report rewrite for Esther! Esther had hurt something you loved, by writing a report you regarded as very bad. You atoned for her by writing one in her name that was very good. Actually, it was not your responsibility professionally to do this, but because you DO love the Shield you recognized that in this case, you ARE your brother's keeper. While you did not cancel Esther's sin (later defined as "lack of love") you DID cancel out its EFFECTS.
Someday I want to tell Esther that not only is she forgiven but that the effects of all her sins are cancelled. This is what I have already told you. When I can tell her, she will be afraid for a long time, because she will remember many things, consciously or unconsciously, including the Shield report, a lack of love which you cancelled out in advance by a miracle of devotion.
I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I undertook to begin. My Atonement was for the canceling out of all sins (i.e., lack of love) which human beings could not otherwise correct. That is what the Biblical statement "underneath are the Everlasting Arms" means. (Helen Schucman explanation: This means that He will backstop whenever human miracles will not suffice for atonement purposes. However, it is perfectly clear that when a person can atone by miracles, both giver and receiver are atoning. It is better to atone this way because of the mutual benefits involved.)"Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these, my children" really ends with "you do it unto yourself and ME." The reason why YOU come before me is because I do not need miracles for my own Atonement, but I stand at the end in case YOU fail temporarily.
SPECIAL EXPLANATION: (In response to Helen Schucman request re possible corrections.) Change the word "sin" to "absence of love." Sin is a manmade word with threat connotations which he made up himself. No REAL threat is involved anywhere. Just because "nature abhors a vacuum," which is true enough, it does NOT follow that "a vacuum is filled with hellfire." Nothing is gained by frightening yourself, and it is very destructive. Miracles need freedom from fear. Part of their Atonement value involves just that. Note that the word "atone" really means "undo."
The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything TO you. (That is, to restore the awareness. Later clarification.) You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did.
Having been restored to your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. You now share MY inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is "Listen, Learn, and DO."
This means Listen to My Voice, Learn to undo the error, and DO something to correct it.
The first two are not enough. The real members of MY party are ACTIVE workers.
The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability. I repeat that you will see Miracles through your hands through MINE. Conviction really comes through accomplishment. Remember that ability is the potential, Achievement is its expression, and Atonement is the Purpose.
24 A miracle is a Universal Blessing from God through Me to all My Brothers. Explanation: You once said that souls cannot rest until everyone has found salvation. This happens to be true. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive. The Disciples were officially and specifically told to heal others, as Physicians of the Lord. They were also told to heal themselves, and were promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. Atonement is the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have professed Me.
(ASIDE. Tell B that that is what Professor really means. As an Assoc. Prof., he must become associated with My strength. As an Asst. Prof., you must assist both him and Me. The Children need both strength and help. You cannot help until you are strong. The Everlasting Arms are your strength, and the Wisdom of God is your help.)
"Heaven and Earth shall pass away" means that they will not always exist as separate states. My Word, which is the Resurrection and the Light, shall not pass away, because Life is Eternal. YOU are the work of God, and His Work is wholly loveable and wholly loving. This is how a man MUST think of himself in his heart, because this is what he IS.
Add: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
Remember the point about Miracles as a means of organizing different levels of consciousness. Miracles come from the (below conscious) (subconscious) level. Revelations come from the above conscious level. The conscious level is in between and reacts to either sub- or super-conscious impulses in varying ratios. Freud was right about the classification, but not the names. He was also right that the content of consciousness is fleeting. Consciousness is the level which engages in the world, and is capable of responding to both external and internal impulses. Having no impulses from itself, and being primarily a mechanism for inducing response, it can be very wrong.
For example, if the identification is with the body, consciousness may distort superconscious impulses by denying their Source, and seeking their impact in the orgasm. This is the result of the "mistaken identity" confusion.
If you will look back at the description of the EFFECTS of Revelation you will see that there ARE some similarities in the experiential results but hardly in the content.
(This and preceding paragraph go later)
Revelations induce complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear. They represent the original form of communication between God and His Souls, before the intrusion of fire and ice made this impossible. It should be noted that they involve an extremely personal sense of closeness to Creation, which man tries to find in sexual relationships. This confusion is responsible for the depression and fear which are often associated with sex.
Sex is often associated with lack of love, but Revelation is PURELY a love experience. Physical closeness CANNOT achieve this. As was said before, the subconscious impulses properly induce Miracles, which ARE interpersonal, and result in closeness to others. This can be misunderstood by a personally willful consciousness as an impulse toward sexual gratification.
The Revelation unites Souls directly with God.
The Miracle unites Souls directly with each other. Neither emanates from consciousness, but both are EXPERIENCED there. This is essential, because consciousness is the state which PRODUCES action, though it DOES NOT Inspire it.
Man is free to believe what he chooses. What he DOES attests to what he believes.
The deeper levels of his subconscious always contain the impulse to Miracles, but he is free to fill its superficial levels, which are closer to consciousness, with the impulses of this world and to identify himself with them. This results in denying himself access to the miracle level underneath. In conscious actions, then, his interpersonal relationships also become superficial, and miracle-inspired relating becomes impossible.
Miracles are a way of EARNING release from fear.
Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY BEEN abolished. Miracles are thus a means, and Revelations are an end. In this sense, they work together.
(Tell Bill that miracles DO NOT depend on Revelation. They INDUCE it. He is quite capable of miracles already, but he is still too fearful for Revelations.)
Note that YOUR (Helen Schucman) Revelation occurred specifically after you had engaged at the visionary level in a process of DENYING fear.
Revelation is intensely personal, and is actually not translatable into conscious content at all. That is why any attempt to describe it in words is usually incomprehensible, even to the writer himself at another time. This is why the Book of Revelations is essentially incomprehensible. Revelation induces ONLY experience. Miracles, on the other hand, induce interpersonal ACTION. In the end, these are more useful, because of their IMPERSONAL nature.
In this phase of learning, working miracles is more valuable because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you. The experience cannot last.
(Tell Bill that your propensity for Revelations, which is very great, is the result of a high level of past communion. Its transitory nature comes from the descent into fear, which has not yet been overcome. His own "suspended" state mitigates both extremes. This has been very apparent in the course of both of your recent developmental patterns.)
Miracles are the essential course of ACTION for both of you. They will strengthen him and stabilize you.
(NOTE that the much more personal than usual notes you are taking today reflect the Revelatory experience. This does NOT produce the more generalizeable quality which this course is aimed at. They may, nevertheless, be of great help to Bill personally, since you asked for something that WOULD help him personally. It depends on how he listens, and how well he understands the COOPERATIVE nature of your joint experience. You can help only by reading this note FIRST. Ask him later if this should be included in the written part of the course at all or whether you should keep these notes separately. He is in charge of these decisions.)
(Tell Bill he should try to understand the VERY important difference between Christ-control and Christ-guidance. This is what made him fearful yesterday.)