The idea for today is obviously a continuation and extension of the preceding one. This time, however, specific mind-searching periods are necessary in addition to applying the idea to particular situations as they arise. Five practice periods are urged, allowing a full minute for each.
In the practice periods, begin by repeating the idea to yourself. Then close your eyes and search your mind carefully for situations past, present or anticipated, which arouse anger in you. The anger may take the form of any reaction ranging from mild irritation to rage. The degree of the emotion you experience does not matter. You will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury.
Try, therefore, not to let the "little" thoughts of anger escape you in the practice periods. Remember that you do not really recognize what really arouses anger in you, and nothing that you believe in this connection means anything. You will probably be tempted to dwell more on some situations than on others, on the fallacious grounds that they are more "obvious." This is not so. It is merely an example of the belief that some forms of attack are more justified than others.
As you search your mind for all the forms in which attack thoughts present themselves, hold each one in mind and tell yourself;
"I am determined to see ____ (name of person) differently."
"I am determined to see ____ (specify the situation) differently."
Try to be as specific as possible. You may, for example, focus your anger on a particular attribute of a particular person, believing that the anger is limited to this aspect. If your perception of the person is suffering from this form of distortion, say:
"I am determined to see____ (specify the attribute) in____ (name of person) differently."
Today's idea is really another form of the preceding one, except that it is more specific as to the emotion aroused. Actually, a meaningless world is impossible. Nothing without meaning exists. However, it does not follow that you will not perceive something that has no meaning. On the contrary, you will be particularly likely to think you do perceive it.
Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct.
It is essential, therefore, that you learn to recognize the meaningless, and accept it without fear. If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes which it does not possess, and crowd it with images that do not exist. To the ego illusions are safety devices, as they must also be to you who equate yourself with the ego.
The exercises for today, which should be done about three or four times, for not more than a minute or so at most each time, are to be practiced in a somewhat different way from the preceding ones. With eyes closed, repeat today's idea to yourself. Then open your eyes and look about you slowly, saying:
"I am looking at a meaningless world."
Repeat this statement to yourself as you look about. Then close your eyes and conclude with:
"A meaningless world engenders fear because I think I am in competition with God."
You may find it difficult to avoid resistance, in one form or another, to this concluding statement. Whatever form such resistance may take, remind yourself that you are really afraid of such a thought because of the "vengeance" of the "enemy." You are not expected to believe the statement at this point, and will probably try to dismiss it as preposterous. Note carefully, however, any signs of overt or covert fear which it may arouse.
This is our first attempt at stating an explicit cause and effect relationship of a kind which you are very inexperienced in recognizing. Do not dwell on the concluding statement, and try not even to think of it except during the exercise periods. That will suffice at present.
Healing is always certain. It is impossible to let illusions be brought to truth and keep the illusions. Truth demonstrates illusions have no value. The teacher of God has seen the correction of his errors in the mind of the patient, recognizing it for what it is. Having accepted the Atonement for himself, he has also accepted it for the patient. Yet what if the patient uses sickness as a way of life, believing healing is the way to death? When this is so, a sudden healing may precipitate intense depression, and a sense of loss so deep that the patient may even try to destroy himself. Having nothing to live for, he may ask for death. Healing must wait, for his protection.
Healing will always stand aside when it would be seen as threat. The instant it is welcome it is there. Where healing has been given it will be received. And what is time before the gifts of God? We have referred many times in the text to the storehouse of treasures laid up equally for the giver and the receiver of God's gifts. Not one is lost, for they can but increase. No teacher of God should feel disappointed if he has offered healing and it does not appear to have been received. It is not up to him to judge when his gift should be accepted. Let him be certain it has been received, and trust that it will be accepted when it is recognized as a blessing and not a curse.
It is not the function of God's teachers to evaluate the outcome of their gifts. It is merely their function to give them. Once they have done that, they have also given the outcome, for that is part of the gift. No-one can give if he is concerned with the result of the giving. That is a limitation on the giving itself, and neither the giver nor the receiver would have the gift. Trust is an essential part of giving; in fact, it is the part that makes sharing possible, the part that guarantees the giver will not lose, but only gain. Who gives a gift, and then remains with it, to be sure it is used as the giver deems appropriate? Such is not giving but imprisoning.
It is the relinquishing of all concern about the gift that makes it truly given. And it is trust that makes true giving possible. Healing is the change of mind that the Holy Spirit in the patient's mind is seeking for him. And it is the Holy Spirit in the mind of the giver Who gives the gift to him. How can it be lost? How can it be ineffectual? How can it be wasted? God's treasure house can never be empty. And if one gift were missing it would not be full. Yet is its fullness guaranteed by God. What concern, then, can a teacher of God have about what becomes of his gifts? Given by God to God, who in this holy exchange can receive less than everything?
The first thing to remember about miracles is that there is no order of difficulty among them. One is not harder or bigger than another. They are all the same.
Miracles do not matter. They are quite unimportant.
They occur naturally as an expression of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense, everything that comes from love is a miracle.
This explains the first point related to the lack of order. ALL expressions of love are maximal.
This is why the "thing in itself" does not matter. The only thing that matters is the Source, and this is far beyond human evaluation.
(Q and A re: first 3 points.) Q (Helen Schucman) Would you regard this communication as a kind of miracle? A. There is nothing special or surprising about this at all. The ONE thing that happened was the Universal Miracle which was the experience of intense love that you have felt. (Don't get embarrassed by the idea of love. Embarrassment is only a form of fear, and actually a particularly dangerous form because it reflects egocentricity.
Do not feel guilty about the fact that you are doubting this. Just re-read them and their truth will come to you. I love you, and I am not afraid or embarrassed or doubtful. MY strength will support you, so don't worry and leave the rest to me. But when you see Bill, be SURE you tell him how much he helped you through by giving you the right message, and don't bother with worrying about how you received it. That doesn't matter either. You were just afraid.)
(Helen Schucman fearful in taxi about a communication which related Dave's healing and Jonathan's hernia. She thought it would be safer to dissociate the two. Instructions were: refer to point 1 and re-read NOW.)
ALL miracles mean Life, and God is the giver of Life. He will direct you VERY specifically.
(Plan ahead is good advice in this world, where you should and must control and direct where you have accepted responsibility. But the Universal Plan is in more appropriate hands. You will know all you need to know. Make NO attempts to plan ahead in this respect.)
Miracles are habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles are usually misguided, and this will make the talent useless.
Miracles are natural. When they do NOT occur something has gone wrong.
Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first.
Miracles are a form of healing. They supply a lack, and are performed by those who have more for those who have less.
Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are ALWAYS miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws.
A miracle is a reversal of the physical order because it brings more love to the giver AND the receiver. (A miracle is misunderstood when it is regarded as a spectacle.)
This is a crucial question both for teacher and pupil. If this issue is mishandled, the teacher of God has hurt himself and has also attacked his pupil. This strengthens fear and makes the magic seem quite real to both of them. How to deal with magic thus becomes a major lesson for the teacher of God to master. His first responsibility in this is not to attack it. If a magic thought arouses anger in any form, God's teacher can be sure that he is strengthening his own belief in sin and has condemned himself. He can be sure as well that he has asked for depression, pain, fear and disaster to come to him. Let him remember, then, it is not this that he would teach because it is not this that he would learn.
There is, however, a temptation to respond to magic in a way that reinforces it. Nor is this always obvious. It can, in fact, be easily concealed beneath a wish to help. It is this double wish that makes the help of little value, and must lead to undesired outcomes. Nor should it be forgotten that the outcome that results will always come to teacher and to pupil. How many times has it been emphasized that you give but to yourself? And where could this be better shown than in the kinds of help the teacher gives to those who need his aid? Here is his gift most clearly given him. For he will give only what he has chosen for himself. And in this gift is his judgment upon the holy Son of God.
It is easiest to let error be corrected where it is most apparent, and errors can be recognized by their results. A lesson truly taught can lead to nothing but release for teacher and pupil, who have shared in one intent. Attack can enter only if perception of separate goals has entered. And this must indeed have been the case if the result is anything but joy. The single aim of the teacher turns the divided goal of the pupil into one direction, with the call for help becoming his one appeal. This then is easily responded to with just one answer, and this answer will enter the teacher's mind unfailingly. From there it shines into his pupil's mind, making it one with his.
Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no-one can be angry at a fact. It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what appear as facts. Regardless, too, of the intensity of the anger which is aroused. It may be merely slight irritation, perhaps too mild to be even clearly recognized. Or it may also take the form of intense rage, accompanied by thoughts of violence, fantasied or apparently acted out. It does not matter. All of these reactions are the same. They obscure the truth, and this can never be a matter of degree. Either truth is apparent or it is not. It cannot be partially recognized. Who is unaware of truth must look upon illusions.
Anger in response to perceived magic thoughts is a basic cause of fear. Consider what this reaction means, and its centrality in the world's thought system becomes apparent. A magic thought, by its mere presence, acknowledges a separation from God. It states, in the clearest form possible, that the mind which thinks it believes it has a separate will that can oppose the Will of God and succeed. That this can hardly be a fact is obvious. Yet that it can be believed as fact is surely so. And herein lies the birthplace of guilt. Who usurps the place of God and takes it for himself now has a deadly "enemy." And he must stand alone in his protection, and make himself a shield to keep him safe from fury that can never be abated and vengeance that can never be satisfied.
How can this unfair battle be resolved? Its ending is inevitable, for its outcome must be death. How then can one believe in one's defenses? Magic again must help. Forget the battle. Accept it as a fact and then forget it. Do not remember the impossible odds against you. Do not remember the immensity of the "enemy," and do not think about your frailty in comparison. Accept your separation, but do not remember how it came about. Believe that you have won it, but do not retain the slightest memory of Who your great "opponent" really is. Projecting your "forgetting" onto Him, it seems to you He has forgotten, too.
But what will now be your reaction to all magic thoughts? They can but reawaken sleeping guilt, which you have hidden but have not let go. Each one says clearly to your frightened mind, "You have usurped the place of God. Think not He has forgotten." Here we have the fear of God most starkly represented. For in that thought has guilt already raised madness to the throne of God Himself. And now there is no hope. Except to kill. Here is salvation now. An angry Father pursues His guilty Son. Kill or be killed, for here alone is choice. Beyond this there is none, for what was done cannot be done without. The stain of blood can never be removed, and anyone who bears this stain on him must meet with death.
Into this hopeless situation God sends His teachers. They bring the light of hope from God Himself. There is a Way in which escape is possible. It can be learned and taught, but it requires patience and abundant willingness. Given that, the lesson's manifest simplicity stands out like an intense white light against a black horizon, for such it is. If anger comes from an interpretation and not a fact, it is never justified. Once this is even dimly grasped, the Way is open. Now it is possible to take the next step. The interpretation can be changed at last. Magic thoughts need not lead to condemnation, for they do not really have the power to give rise to guilt. And so they can be overlooked, and thus forgiven in the truest sense.
Madness but seems terrible. In truth it has no power to make anything. Like the magic which becomes its servant, it neither attacks nor protects. To see it and to recognize its thought system is to look on nothing. Can nothing give rise to anger? Hardly so. Remember then, teacher of God, that anger recognizes a reality that is not there; yet is the anger certain witness that you do believe in it as fact. Now is escape impossible until you see you have responded to your own interpretation, which you have projected on an outside world. Let this grim sword be taken from you now. There is no death. This sword does not exist. The fear of God is causeless. But His Love is Cause of everything beyond all fear, and thus forever real and always true.
Today's idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment which all the separated ones experience. Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering, and intense fear of loss.
The separated ones have invented many "cures" for what they believe to be the "ills of the world." But the one thing they do not do is to question the reality of the problem. Yet its effects cannot be cured because it is not real. The idea for today has the power to end all this foolishness forever. And foolishness it is, despite the serious and tragic forms it may take.
Deep within you is everything that is perfect, ready to radiate through you and out into the whole world. It will cure all sorrow and pain and fear and loss because it will heal the mind that thought these things were real, and suffered out of its allegiance to these beliefs.
You can never be deprived of your perfect holiness because its Source goes with you wherever you go. You can never suffer because the Source of all joy goes with you wherever you go. You can never be alone because the Source of all life goes with you wherever you go. Nothing can destroy your peace of mind because God goes with you wherever you go.
We understand that you do not believe all this. How could you, when the truth is hidden deep within, under a heavy cloud of insane thoughts, dense and obscuring, yet representing all you see?
Today we will make our first real attempt to get past this dark and heavy cloud, and to go through it to the light beyond. There will be only one long practice period today. In the morning, as soon as you get up if possible, sit quietly for some three to five minutes with your eyes closed. At the beginning of this practice period, repeat today's idea very slowly. Then make no effort to think of anything. Try, instead, to get a sense of turning inward, past all the idle thoughts of the world. Try to enter very deeply into your own mind, keeping it clear of any thoughts that might divert your attention.
From time to time you may repeat today's idea, if you find it helpful. But most of all, try to sink down and inward, away from the world and all the foolish thoughts of the world. You are trying to reach past all these things. You are trying to leave appearances and approach reality.
It is quite possible to reach God. In fact it is very easy, because it is the most natural thing in the world. You might even say it is the only natural thing in the world. The way will open if you believe that it is possible. This exercise can bring very startling results even the first time it is attempted, and sooner or later it is always successful. We will go into more detail in connection with this kind of practice as we go along. But it will never fail completely, and instant success is possible.
Throughout the day use today's idea often, repeating it very slowly, and preferably with eyes closed. Think of what you are saying; what the words mean. Concentrate on the holiness which they imply about you; on the unfailing companionship which is yours; on the complete protection that surrounds you.
You can indeed afford to laugh at fear thoughts, remembering that God goes with you wherever you go.
The teachers of God have no set teaching level. Each teaching-learning situation involves a different relationship at the beginning, although the ultimate goal is always the same; to make of the relationship a holy relationship, in which both can look upon the Son of God as sinless. There is no-one from whom a teacher of God cannot learn, so there is no-one whom he cannot teach. However, from a practical point of view he cannot meet everyone, nor can everyone find him. Therefore, the plan includes very specific contacts to be made for each teacher of God. There are no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. They are ready for each other.
The simplest level of teaching appears to be quite superficial. It consists of what seem to be very casual encounters; a chance meeting of two apparent strangers in an elevator, a child who is not looking where he is going running into an adult "by accident," two students who happen to walk home together. These are not chance encounters. Each of them has the potential for becoming a teaching-learning situation. Perhaps the seeming strangers in the elevator will smile to one another, perhaps the man will not scold the child for bumping into him; perhaps the students will become friends. Even at the level of the most casual encounter, it is possible for two people to lose sight of separate interests, if only for a moment. That moment will be enough. Salvation has come.
It is difficult to understand that levels of teaching the universal course is a concept as meaningless in reality as is time. The illusion of one permits the illusion of the other. In time, the teacher of God seems to begin to change his mind about the world with a single decision, and then learns more and more about the new direction as he teaches it. We have covered the illusion of time already, but the illusion of levels of teaching seems to be something different. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate that these levels cannot exist is simply to say that any level of the teaching-learning situation is part of God's plan for Atonement, and His plan can have no levels, being a reflection of His Will. Salvation is always ready and always there. God's teachers work at different levels, but the result is always the same.
Each teaching-learning situation is maximal in the sense that each person involved will learn the most that he can from the other person at that time. In this sense, and in this sense only, we can speak of levels of teaching. Using the term in this way, the second level of teaching is a more sustained relationship, in which, for a time, two people enter into a fairly intense teaching-learning situation and then appear to separate. As with the first level, these meetings are not accidental, nor is what appears to be the end of the relationship a real end. Again, each has learned the most he can at the time. Yet all who meet will someday meet again, for it is the destiny of all relationships to become holy. God is not mistaken in His Son.
The third level of teaching occurs in relationships which, once they are formed, are lifelong. These are teaching-learning situations in which each person is given a chosen learning partner who presents him with unlimited opportunities for learning. These relationships are generally few, because their existence implies that those involved have reached a stage simultaneously in which the teaching-learning balance is actually perfect. This does not mean that they necessarily recognize this; in fact, they generally do not. They may even be quite hostile to each other for some time, and perhaps for life. Yet should they decide to learn it, the perfect lesson is before them and can be learned. And if they decide to learn that lesson, they become the saviors of the teachers who falter and may even seem to fail. No teacher of God can fail to find the Help he needs.
The darkest of your hidden cornerstones holds your belief in guilt from your own awareness. For in that dark and secret place is the realization that you have betrayed God's Son, by condemning him to death. You do not even SUSPECT that this murderous but insane idea lies hidden there. For the ego's destructive urge is so intense, that nothing short of the crucifixion of God's Son can ultimately satisfy it. It does not know who the Son of God IS, because it is blind. But let it perceive guiltlessness ANYWHERE, and it will try to destroy it, because it is afraid.
Much of the ego's strange behavior is directly attributable to its definition of guilt. To the ego, THE GUILTLESS ARE GUILTY. Those who do NOT attack are its "enemies," because, by NOT VALUING its interpretation of salvation, they are in an excellent position to LET IT GO. They have approached the darkest and deepest cornerstone in the ego's foundation, and while it can withstand your raising all else to question, it guards this one secret with its life, for its existence DOES depend on keeping this secret. And it is this secret that we must look upon calmly, for the ego cannot protect you AGAINST truth, and in ITS presence the ego is dispelled.
In the calm light of truth, let us recognize that YOU BELIEVE YOU HAVE CRUCIFIED GOD'S SON. You have not admitted this "terrible" secret, because you still wish to crucify him, IF YOU COULD FIND HIM. But the wish has hidden him from you, because it is very fearful, AND YOU ARE AFRAID TO FIND HIM. You have handled this wish TO KILL YOURSELF by NOT KNOWING WHO YOU ARE, and identifying with something ELSE. You have projected guilt blindly and indiscriminately, but you have NOT uncovered its source. For the ego DOES want to kill you, and if you identify WITH it, you MUST believe ITS GOAL IS YOURS.
We once said that the crucifixion is the symbol of the ego. When it was confronted with the REAL guiltlessness of God's Son, it DID attempt to kill him. And the reason it gave was that guiltlessness is blasphemous to God. To the ego, THE EGO IS GOD, and guiltlessness MUST be interpreted AS THE FINAL GUILT WHICH FULLY JUSTIFIES MURDER. You do not yet understand that ALL your fear of this course stems ultimately from this interpretation, but if you will consider your reactions TO it, you will become increasingly convinced that this is so.
This course has explicitly stated that its goal FOR YOU is happiness and peace. Yet you are AFRAID of it. You have been told again and again that it will make you free, yet you react as if it is trying to IMPRISON you. Most of the time you DISMISS it, BUT YOU DO NOT DISMISS THE EGO'S THOUGHT SYSTEM. You HAVE seen its results and you STILL lack faith in it. You MUST, then, believe that, by NOT learning the course, YOU ARE PROTECTING YOURSELF. And you do NOT realize that it is only your guiltlessness that CAN protect you.
The Atonement has always been interpreted as the release from guilt, and this is correct, if it is understood. Yet even when I have interpreted it FOR you, you have rejected it, and have NOT accepted it FOR YOURSELF. You have recognized the futility of the ego and its offerings, but though you do not want it, you will not look upon the alternative with gladness. YOU ARE AFRAID OF REDEMPTION, and YOU BELIEVE IT WILL KILL YOU. Make no mistake about the depth of your fear. For you believe that, in the presence of truth, you will turn on yourself and DESTROY yourself.
Little children, this is not so. Your "guilty secret" is nothing, and if you will but bring it to light, the Light WILL dispel it. And then no dark cloud will remain between you and the remembrance of your Father. For you will remember His guiltless Son, who did not die because he is immortal. And you will see that you were redeemed WITH him, and have never been separated FROM him. In THIS understanding lies your remembering, for it is the recognition of love WITHOUT fear. There will be great joy in Heaven on your homecoming, and the joy will be YOURS. For the redeemed son of man IS the guiltless Son of God, and to recognize HIM, IS your redemption.
Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you? In no fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely. Nothing you see here, sleeping or waking, comes near to such loveliness, and nothing will you value like unto this, nor hold so dear. Nothing that you remember, that made your heart seem to sing with joy, has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. FOR YOU WILL SEE THE SON OF GOD. You will behold the beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and that He thanks the Father for. He was created to see this FOR YOU, until you learned to see it for yourself. And all His teaching leads to seeing it and giving thanks with Him.
This loveliness is NOT a fantasy. It is the real world, bright, and clean and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here, for everything has BEEN forgiven, and there ARE no fantasies to hide the truth. The bridge between that world and this is SO little and SO easy to cross that you could not believe it is the meeting-place of worlds so different. Yet this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world at all. This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time into eternity, and beyond all ugliness, into beauty that will enchant you, and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection.
This step, the smallest ever taken by anything, is still the greatest accomplishment of all, in God's plan of Atonement. All else is learned, but THIS is GIVEN, complete and wholly perfect. No-one but Him Who PLANNED salvation could complete it thus. The real world, in its loveliness, YOU learn to reach. Fantasies are all undone, no-one and nothing remains still bound by them, and, by YOUR OWN forgiveness, you are FREE TO SEE. And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it. And, with this final blessing of God's Son UPON HIMSELF, the REAL perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.
The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him.
The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception will undertake WITH you the careful searching of the mind that MADE this world, and uncover TO YOU the SEEMING reasons for your making it. In the light of the REAL reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will SHOW you that there is NO reason here at all. Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release.
All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing all illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there, he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there in peace.
Even salvation will become a dream, and vanish from his mind. For salvation IS the end of dreams, and, with the closing of the dream, will have no meaning. Who, awake in Heaven, COULD dream that there could ever be NEED of salvation? How much do you WANT salvation? It will GIVE you the real world, trembling with readiness to BE given you. The eagerness of the Holy Spirit to give you this, is so intense He would not wait, although He waits in patience. MEET His patience with your IMpatience at delay in meeting Him. Go out in gladness to meet with your Redeemer, and walk with Him, in trust, out of this world, and into the real world of beauty and forgiveness.
You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin. You think if anyone could see the truth about you he would be repelled, recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake. You think if what is true about you were revealed to you, you would be struck with horror so intense that you would rush to death by your own hand, living on after seeing this being impossible.
These are beliefs so firmly fixed that it is difficult to help you see that they are based on nothing. That you have made mistakes is obvious. That you have sought salvation in strange ways; have been deceived, deceiving and afraid of foolish fantasies and savage dreams; and have bowed down to idols made of dust; all this is true by what you now believe.
Today we question this, not from the point of view of what you think, but from a very different reference point, from which such idle thoughts are meaningless. These thoughts are not according to God's Will. These weird beliefs He does not share with you. This is enough to prove that they are wrong, but you do not perceive that this is so.
Why would you not be overjoyed to be assured that all the evil which you think you did was never done, that all your "sins" are nothing; that you are as pure and holy as you were created, and that light and joy and peace abide in you? Your image of yourself cannot withstand the Will of God. You think that this is death, but it is life. You think you are destroyed, but you are saved.
The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad nor good. It is unreal, and nothing more than that. It does not battle with the Son of God. It does not hurt him, nor attack his peace. It has not changed creation, nor reduced eternal sinlessness to sin and love to hate. What power can this self you made possess, when it would contradict the Will of God?
Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Over and over this must be repeated until it is accepted. It is true. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Nothing can touch it, nor can change what God created as eternal. The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you.
Salvation requires the acceptance of but one thought; you are as God created you, not what you made of yourself. Whatever evil you may think you did, you are as God created you. Whatever mistakes you made, the truth about you is unchanged. Creation is eternal and unalterable. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. You are and will forever be exactly as you were created. Light and joy and peace abide in you because God put them there.
In our longer exercise periods today, which would be most profitable if done for the first five minutes of every waking hour, we will begin by stating the truth about our creation:
"Light and joy and peace abide in me.
My sinlessness is guaranteed by God."
Then put away your foolish self-images, and spend the rest of the practice period in trying to experience what God has given you, in place of what you have decreed for yourself.
You are what God created, or what you made. One Self is true; the other is not there. Try to experience the unity of your One Self. Try to appreciate Its holiness and the Love from Which It was created. Try not to interfere with the Self Which God created as you by hiding Its majesty behind the tiny idols of evil and sinfulness you have made to replace It. Let It come into Its own. Here you are; This is you. And light and joy and peace abide in you because this is so.
You may not be willing or even able to use the first five minutes of each hour for these exercises. Try, however, to do so when you can. At least remember to repeat these thoughts each hour:
"Light and joy and peace abide in me.
My sinlessness is guaranteed by God."
Then try to devote at least a minute or so to closing your eyes and realizing that this is a statement of the truth about you.
If a situation arises which seems to be disturbing, quickly dispel the illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts again. Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently:
"Light and joy and peace abide in you.
Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God."
You can do much for the world's salvation today. You can do much today to bring you closer to the part in salvation which God has assigned to you. And you can do much today to bring the conviction to your mind that the idea for the day is true indeed.
September 24, 1969
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.
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.
You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred, and realize its full extent. And you may think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and dispel it WITHOUT the need for you to raise it to awareness yourself. But there is one more complication which you have interposed between yourself and the Atonement, that you do not yet realize. We have said that no one will countenance fear, IF HE RECOGNIZES IT. But in your disordered state, YOU ARE NOT AFRAID OF FEAR. You do not LIKE it, but it is NOT your desire to attack which really frightens you. You are not seriously disturbed by your hostility. You keep it hidden, because you are MORE afraid of what it covers.
You could look even upon the ego's darkest cornerstone WITHOUT fear, if you did not believe that, WITHOUT THE EGO, you would find, within yourself, something you fear even more. YOU ARE NOT AFRAID OF CRUCIFIXION. Your real terror is of REDEMPTION. Under the ego's dark foundation is the memory of God, and it is of THIS that you are really afraid. For this memory would INSTANTLY restore you to your proper place, and it is THIS place that you have sought to LEAVE.
Your fear of attack is nothing, compared to your fear of love. You would be willing to look upon your savage wish to kill God's Son, IF YOU DID NOT BELIEVE THAT IT SAVES YOU FROM LOVE. For this wish CAUSED the separation. You have protected it, because you do not WANT the separation healed, and you realize that, by REMOVING the dark cloud that obscures it, your love for your Father would IMPEL you to answer His call, and leap into Heaven. You believe that attack is salvation, to PREVENT you from this. For still deeper than the ego's foundation, and MUCH stronger than IT will ever be, is your intense and burning love of God, AND HIS FOR YOU.
THIS IS WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO HIDE. In honesty, is it not harder for you to say "I love" than "I hate?" For you associate love with weakness and hatred with strength, and your REAL power seems to you as your real weakness. For you could NOT control your joyous response to the call of love if you heard it, and the whole world you THINK you control WOULD vanish. The Holy Spirit, then, seems to be ATTACKING YOUR FORTRESS, for you would SHUT OUT GOD, and He does not will to BE excluded.
You have built your whole insane belief system, because you think you would be HELPLESS in God's Presence. And you would SAVE yourself from His love, because you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid it would sweep you AWAY from yourself, AND MAKE YOU LITTLE. For you believe that magnitude lies in defiance, and attack is grandeur. YOU THINK YOU HAVE MADE A WORLD THAT GOD WOULD DESTROY. And by loving Him, WHICH YOU DO, you would throw this world away, WHICH YOU WOULD.
Therefore, you have used the world to COVER YOUR LOVE, and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego's foundation, the CLOSER you come to the Love that is hidden beneath it. AND IT IS THIS THAT FRIGHTENS YOU. You can accept insanity, BECAUSE YOU MADE IT. But you cannot accept love, BECAUSE YOU DID NOT. You would rather be slaves of the crucifixion, than Sons of God in redemption. For your INDIVIDUAL death is more valued than your living Oneness, and what is GIVEN you, is not so dear as what you MADE. You are more afraid of God than of the ego, and love cannot enter where it is not welcome. But hatred CAN, for it enters of ITS will, and cares not for YOURS.
The reason you must look upon your delusions, and not keep them hidden, is that THEY DO NOT REST ON THEIR OWN FOUNDATION. In concealment, they APPEAR to do so, and thus they seem to be SELF-SUSTAINED. THIS is the fundamental illusion on which they rest. For BENEATH them, and concealed as long as THEY are hidden, is the loving mind that THOUGHT it made them in anger. And the pain in this mind is so apparent, when it is uncovered, that its need of healing cannot BE denied. Not all the tricks and games that you have offered it can heal it, for HERE is the REAL crucifixion of God's Son.
And yet he is NOT crucified. For here is both his pain AND his healing, for the Holy Spirit's vision is merciful, and His remedy is quick. Do not HIDE suffering from His sight, but bring it gladly TO Him. Lay before His eternal sanity ALL your hurt, and LET Him heal you. Do not leave any spot of pain hidden from His Light, and search your minds carefully for any thoughts which you may fear to uncover. For He will heal every little thought that you have kept to hurt you, and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of God.
Beneath all your grandiosity, which you hold so dear, is your real call for help. For you call for love to your Father, as your Father calls you to Himself. In that place, which you have hidden, you will only to unite with the Father, in loving remembrance of Him. You will find this place of truth as you see it in your brothers, for though they may deceive themselves, like you they long for the grandeur that is in them. And perceiving it you will WELCOME it, and it will be yours. For grandeur is the RIGHT of God's Son, and no illusions can satisfy him, or save him from what he IS.
Only his love is real, and he will be content ONLY with his reality. Save him from his illusions, that you may accept the magnitude of your Father in peace and joy. But exempt no one from your love, or you will be hiding a dark place in your minds, where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. And you will exempt YOURSELF from His healing power, for by not offering total love, YOU will not be healed completely. And healing must be as complete as fear, for love cannot enter where there is one spot of fear to mar its welcome.
You who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in your right minds. You were at peace until you asked for special favor, and God did not give it. For the request was alien to Him, and you could not ask this of a Father who truly loved His Son. Therefore, you made of Him an UNloving father, demanding of Him what only such a father COULD give. And the peace of God's Son was shattered, for he no longer understood his Father. He feared what he had made, but still more did he fear his REAL Father, having attacked his glorious equality WITH Him.
In peace he needed nothing, and asked for nothing. In war he DEMANDED everything, and FOUND nothing. For how could the gentleness of love respond to his demands, EXCEPT by departing in peace, and returning to the Father? If the Son did not wish to REMAIN in peace, he could not remain at all. For a darkened mind cannot live in the light, and it must seek a place of darkness, where it can believe it is where it is NOT. God did not ALLOW this to happen. But you DEMANDED that it happen, and therefore believed that it was so.
To SINGLE OUT is to MAKE ALONE, and thus MAKE LONELY. God did not do this to you. Could He SET YOU APART, KNOWING that your peace lies in His Oneness? He denied you only your request for pain, for suffering is not of His creation. Having GIVEN you creation, He could not take it FROM you. He could but answer your insane request with a sane answer, which would abide with you in your insanity. AND THIS HE DID. No-one who hears His answer but will give up insanity. For His answer is the reference point BEYOND delusions, from which you can look back on them, and see them as insane. But seek this place and you WILL find it, for Love is in you, and will lead you there.
The holy relationship is the EXPRESSION of the holy instant, in living in this world. Like EVERYTHING about salvation, the holy instant is a PRACTICAL device, WITNESSED by its results. The holy instant NEVER fails. The EXPERIENCE of it is ALWAYS felt. But, without EXPRESSION, IT IS NOT REMEMBERED. The holy relationship is a constant reminder of the experience in which the relationship became what it is. And, as the UNholy relationship is a continuing hymn of hate in praise of ITS maker, so is the holy relationship a happy song of praise to the REDEEMER of relationships. The holy relationship, a MAJOR step toward the perception of the real world, is LEARNED. It is the old, unholy relationship, transformed and seen anew.
The holy relationship is a phenomenal teaching accomplishment. In all its aspects, as it begins, develops, and becomes accomplished, it represents the REVERSAL of the unholy relationship. Be comforted in this; The ONLY difficult phase is the beginning. For here, the GOAL of the relationship is abruptly shifted to the EXACT OPPOSITE of what it was. This is the FIRST result of OFFERING the relationship to the Holy Spirit, to use for HIS purposes. This invitation is ACCEPTED IMMEDIATELY, and the Holy Spirit wastes no time in introducing the practical results of asking Him to enter. AT ONCE, HIS goal REPLACES yours.
This is accomplished very rapidly. But it makes the relationship seem disturbed, disjunctive and even quite distressing. The reason is quite clear. For the relationship, AS IT IS, is out of line with its own goal, and clearly unsuited to the purpose which has been ACCEPTED for it. In its UNholy condition, YOUR goal was all that SEEMED to give it meaning. Now, it seems to make NO sense. Many relationships have been broken off at this point, and the pursuit of the old goal re-established in ANOTHER relationship. For, once the unholy relationship has ACCEPTED the goal of holiness, it can never again be what it was.
The temptation of the ego becomes extremely intense, with this shift in goals. For the relationship has NOT, as yet, been changed sufficiently to make its former goal completely WITHOUT attraction, and its structure is 'threatened' by the recognition of its inappropriateness for meeting its new purpose. The conflict between the goal and the structure of the relationship is SO apparent that they CANNOT co-exist. Yet now, THE GOAL WILL NOT BE CHANGED. Set firmly in the unholy relationship, there IS no course except to CHANGE THE RELATIONSHIP to fit the goal. Until this HAPPY solution is seen and accepted as the ONLY WAY OUT of this conflict, the RELATIONSHIP seems to be severely strained.
It would NOT be kinder to shift the goal more slowly. For the CONTRAST would be obscured, and the ego given time to re-interpret each slow step, according to its liking. Only a radical shift in purpose COULD induce a COMPLETE change of mind about what the whole relationship IS FOR. As this change develops, and is finally accomplished, it grows increasingly beneficent and joyous. But, at the beginning, the situation is experienced as very precarious. A relationship, undertaken by two individuals for their unholy purposes, suddenly has HOLINESS for its goal.
As these two CONTEMPLATE their relationship from the point of view of this new purpose, they are inevitably appalled. Their perception of the relationship may even become quite disorganized. And yet, the FORMER organization of their perception, no longer serves the purpose THEY have agreed to set. THIS IS THE TIME FOR FAITH. You LET this goal be set for you. That WAS an act of faith. Do not ABANDON faith, now that the REWARDS of faith are being introduced. If you believed the Holy Spirit was THERE to ACCEPT the relationship, why would you now not STILL believe that He is there, to PURIFY what He has taken under His guidance?
Have faith in EACH OTHER in what but SEEMS to be a trying time. THE GOAL IS SET. And your relationship has SANITY as its purpose. Now you find yourselves in an INSANE relationship, RECOGNIZED as such IN THE LIGHT OF ITS GOAL. Now the ego counsels thus; substitute for this ANOTHER relationship, to which your FORMER goal was QUITE appropriate. You can ESCAPE from your distress, ONLY BY GETTING RID OF EACH OTHER. You need not part entirely, if you choose not to do so. But you MUST exclude MAJOR AREAS of fantasy FROM each other, TO SAVE YOUR SANITY.
Hear not this now! Have faith in Him Who ANSWERED you. He heard; has He not been very explicit in His answer? You are NOT now wholly insane. Can you DENY that He HAS given a MOST explicit statement? Now He asks for faith a little longer, even in bewilderment. For this will go, and you will see the JUSTIFICATION for your faith emerge, to bring you shining conviction. Abandon Him not now, NOR EACH OTHER. This relationship HAS BEEN reborn as holy. Accept with gladness what you do not understand, and LET it be explained to you, as you perceive its purpose work in it, to MAKE it holy.
You will find many opportunities to blame EACH OTHER for the 'failure' of your relationship. For it will seem, at times, to have NO purpose. A sense of aimlessness will come to haunt you, and to remind you of all the ways you once SOUGHT for satisfaction, and THOUGHT you found it. Forget not now the misery you REALLY found. And do not now breathe life into your failing egos. For your relationship has NOT been disrupted. IT HAS BEEN SAVED. You are very new in the ways of salvation, and think you have LOST your way. YOUR way IS lost, but think not this is LOSS.
In your newness, remember that you have started again, TOGETHER. And take each other's hand, to walk together along a road far more familiar than you now believe. Is it not certain, that you will remember a goal unchanged throughout eternity? For you have chosen but the goal of God, from which your true intent was NEVER absent. Throughout the Sonship is the song of freedom heard, in joyous echo of your choice. You have joined with many, in the holy instant, and THEY have joined with you. Think not your choice will leave YOU comfortless. For God Himself has blessed your special relationship. JOIN in His blessing, and withhold not yours upon it. For all it needs now IS your blessing, that you may see that in it rests salvation.
Condemn salvation not, for it HAS come to you. And welcome it TOGETHER, for it has come to JOIN you together, in a relationship in which ALL the Sonship is together blessed. You undertook, TOGETHER to invite the Holy Spirit into your relationship. He could not have entered otherwise. And, though you have made many mistakes since then, you have also made enormous efforts to help Him do His work. And He has NOT been lacking in appreciation for all you have done for Him, nor does He see the mistakes at all.
Have you been similarly grateful to each other? Have you consistently appreciated the GOOD efforts, and OVERLOOKED mistakes? Or has your appreciation flickered and grown dim, in what SEEMED to be the LIGHT of the mistakes? You are now entering upon a campaign to blame EACH OTHER for the discomfort of the situation in which you find yourselves. And by this LACK of thanks and gratitude, you make YOURSELVES unable to EXPRESS the holy instant, and thus you lose sight of it. The experience of an instant, HOWEVER compelling it may be, is easily forgotten, if you allow time to close over it. It must be kept shining and gracious, in your AWARENESS of time, but not CONCEALED within it. The instant remains. But where are YOU?
To give thanks to each other is to APPRECIATE the holy instant, and thus enable its RESULTS to be accepted AND SHARED. To ATTACK each other is not to LOSE the instant, but TO MAKE IT POWERLESS IN ITS EFFECTS. You HAVE received the holy instant, but you have established a condition IN WHICH YOU CANNOT USE IT. As a result, you do not realize that it is WITH YOU STILL. And, by CUTTING YOURSELF OFF from its EXPRESSION, you have denied yourself its benefit. You REINFORCE this, every time YOU ATTACK EACH OTHER, for the attack MUST blind you to YOURSELF. And it IS impossible to DENY yourself, and recognize what has been given, and RECEIVED by you.
You stand together in the holy Presence of Truth Itself. Here is the goal, together WITH you. Think you not the goal ITSELF will gladly arrange the MEANS for its accomplishment? It is just this same DISCREPANCY between the purpose which has BEEN accepted and the means as they stand now, that SEEMS to make you suffer, but which makes Heaven glad. If Heaven were OUTSIDE you, you could NOT share in its gladness. But, because it is WITHIN, the gladness, too, IS yours. You ARE joined in purpose, but remain still separate and divided on the means. Yet the GOAL is fixed, firm and unalterable. And the means will surely fall in place, BECAUSE the goal is sure.
And YOU will share the gladness of the Sonship that it is so. As you begin to recognize, and ACCEPT the gifts you have so freely given to EACH OTHER, you will also accept the EFFECTS of the holy instant, and use them to correct ALL your mistakes, and free you from THEIR results. And, learning this, you will have ALSO learned how to release ALL the Sonship, and offer it in gladness and thanksgiving to Him Who gave you YOUR release, and Who would EXTEND it through you.
WHAT DO YOU WANT? Light or darkness, knowledge or ignorance are yours, but not both. Opposites must be brought together, and not kept apart. For their separation is only in your mind, and they are reconciled by union, as YOU are. In union, everything that is not real MUST disappear, for truth IS union. As darkness disappears in light, so ignorance fades away when knowledge dawns. Perception is the medium by which ignorance is BROUGHT to knowledge. But the perception must be without deceit, for otherwise, it becomes the messenger of ignorance, rather than a helper in the search for truth.
The search for truth is but the honest searching out of everything that INTERFERES with truth. TRUTH IS. And can be neither lost, nor sought, nor found. It is there, wherever YOU are, being WITHIN you. But it CAN be recognized or unrecognized, real or false, to YOU. If you hide it, it becomes unreal to you, BECAUSE you hid it, and SURROUNDED IT WITH FEAR. Under each cornerstone of fear, on which you have erected your insane system of belief, THE TRUTH LIES HIDDEN. Yet you cannot know this, for, by HIDING truth in fear, you see no reason to believe the more you LOOK at fear, the LESS you see it, and the clearer WHAT IT CONCEALS becomes.
It is not possible to convince the unknowing that they know. From their point of view, IT IS NOT TRUE. Yet it IS true, because GOD knows it. These are clearly opposite viewpoints of what the "unknowing" ARE. To God, unknowing is impossible. It is therefore not a point of view at all, but merely a belief in something that does not exist. It is only this BELIEF that the unknowing have, and BY it, they are wrong about themselves. They have DEFINED themselves as they were NOT created. Their creation was NOT a point of view, but rather, a CERTAINTY. Uncertainty BROUGHT to certainty does not retain ANY conviction of reality.
You must have noticed that the emphasis has been on bringing what is undesirable TO the desirable, what you do NOT want to what you DO. You will realize that salvation MUST come to you this way, if you consider what dissociation IS. Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking, whereby two systems of belief, which CANNOT coexist, are BOTH MAINTAINED. It HAS BEEN recognized that, if they were BROUGHT TOGETHER, their joint acceptance WOULD become impossible. But, if one is kept in darkness FROM THE OTHER, their SEPARATION seems to keep them both alive, and equal in their reality. Their JOINING thus becomes the source of fear, for, if they meet, acceptance MUST be withdrawn from one of them.
You CANNOT have them both, for each DENIES the other. Apart, this fact is lost from sight, for each, in a SEPARATE place, CAN be endowed with firm belief. BRING THEM TOGETHER, and the fact of their complete incompatibility is instantly apparent. One WILL go, BECAUSE the other is seen in the SAME place. Light cannot enter darkness, when a mind BELIEVES in darkness, and will not let it go. Truth does not struggle AGAINST ignorance, and love does not ATTACK fear. What needs no protection, does not defend itself. Defense was of YOUR making. God knows it not.
The Holy Spirit uses defenses ON BEHALF of truth, only because you made them AGAINST it. His perception of them, according to HIS purpose, merely changes them into a CALL FOR what you have ATTACKED WITH them. Defenses, like everything you made, must be gently turned to your own good, translated by Him from means of self-destruction, to means of preservation and release. His task is mighty, but the power of God is with Him. Therefore, to Him, it is so easy, that it was accomplished the instant it was given Him for you.
Do not delay yourselves in your return to peace, by wondering how He can fulfill what God has given Him to do. Leave that to Him Who knows! You are not asked to do mighty tasks yourself. You are merely asked to do the little He SUGGESTS you do, trusting Him only to the small extent of believing that, if He asks it, you can do it. You will SEE how easily ALL that He asks can be accomplished. He asks of you but this; - bring to Him every secret you have locked away from Him. Open every door to Him, and bid Him enter the darkness, and lighten it away.
At YOUR request, He enters gladly. He brings the light to darkness, if you make the darkness OPEN to Him. But what you hide, He cannot look upon. For He sees FOR YOU, and unless you look WITH Him, He CANNOT see. The vision of Christ is not for Him alone, but for Him WITH YOU. Bring, therefore, all your dark and secret thoughts to Him, and look upon them WITH Him. He holds the light, and you the darkness. They CANNOT coexist, when both of you TOGETHER look on them. His judgment MUST prevail, and He will GIVE it to you, as you join your perception to His. Joining with Him in seeing, is the way in which you learn to share with Him the interpretation of perception that leads to knowledge.
You cannot see alone. Sharing perception with Him Whom God has given you, teaches you how to RECOGNIZE what you see. It is the recognition that NOTHING you see means ANYTHING alone. Seeing WITH Him will SHOW you that all meaning, INCLUDING YOURS, comes not from double vision, but from the gentle fusing of everything into one meaning, one emotion and one purpose. God has one Purpose, which He shares with you. The single vision, which the Holy Spirit offers you, will bring this Oneness to your mind with clarity and brightness so intense, you could not wish, for all the world, not to accept what God would have you have. Behold your will, accepting it as His, with all His love as yours. All honor to you through Him, and through Him unto God.
In the darkness you have obscured the glory God gave you, and the power that He bestowed upon His guiltless Son. All that, lies hidden in every darkened place shrouded in guilt, and in the dark denial of innocence. Behind the dark doors which you have closed lies nothing, BECAUSE nothing CAN obscure the gift of God. It is the CLOSING of the doors, that interferes with recognition of the power of God that shines in you. Banish not power from your mind, but let all that would hide your glory, be brought to the judgment of the Holy Spirit, and there undone. Whom He would save for glory IS saved for it. He has promised the Father that, through Him, you would be released from littleness to glory.
To what He promised God, He is wholly faithful, for He shared WITH God the promise that was given to Him to share with YOU. He shares it still, FOR YOU. Everything that promises otherwise, great or small, however much or little valued, He will replace with the one promise GIVEN unto Him to lay upon the altar to your Father and His Son. No altar stands to God WITHOUT His Son. And NOTHING brought there that is not equally worthy of BOTH, but will be REPLACED by gifts wholly acceptable to Father AND to Son. Can you offer guilt to God? You cannot, then, offer it to His Son. For they are NOT apart, and gifts to one ARE offered to the other.
You know not God, because you know not this. And yet you DO know God, and ALSO this. All this is safe WITHIN you, where the Holy Spirit shines. He shines not in division, but in the meeting-place where God, UNITED with His Son, speaks to His Son THROUGH Him. Communication between what cannot BE divided CANNOT cease. The holy meeting-place of the unseparated Father and His Son lies in the Holy Spirit, and in YOU. All interference in the communication that God Himself wills with His Son is quite impossible here. Unbroken and uninterrupted love flows constantly between the Father and the Son, as BOTH would have it be. And so it IS.
Let your minds wander not through darkened corridors, AWAY from Light's center. You may choose to lead YOURSELVES astray, but you can only be BROUGHT TOGETHER by the Guide appointed FOR you. He will surely lead you to where God and His Son await your recognition. They are joined in giving you the gift of Oneness, before which ALL separation vanishes. Unite with what you ARE. You CANNOT join with anything EXCEPT reality. God's glory and His Son's BELONG to you in truth. They HAVE no opposite, and nothing else CAN you bestow upon yourselves.
There is no substitute for truth. And truth will make this plain to you, as you are brought into the place where you must MEET with truth. And there you must be led, through gentle understanding, which can lead you nowhere else. Where God is, there are YOU. Such IS the truth. Nothing can change the knowledge GIVEN you by God into UNknowing. Everything God created KNOWS its Creator. For this is how creation is accomplished, by the Creator, and by His creations. In the holy meeting-place are joined the Father and His creations, and the creations of His Son, with them together.
There is one link which joins them all together, holding them in the Oneness out of which creation happens. The link with which the Father joins Himself to those He gives the power to create LIKE Him, can NEVER be dissolved. Heaven itself is union with ALL of creation, and with its One Creator. And Heaven remains the Will of God for YOU. Lay no gifts other than this upon your altars, for nothing can coexist BESIDE it. Here, your meager offerings are BROUGHT TOGETHER with the gift of God, and only what is worthy of the Father will be accepted by the Son, for whom it was intended. To whom God gives Himself, He IS given. Your little gifts will vanish, on the altar where He has placed His Own.
You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the REAL source of your guilt, and KEEP from your awareness the full perception THAT IT IS INSANE. Displacement ALWAYS is maintained by the illusion that the source, from which attention is diverted, MUST BE TRUE. And MUST BE FEARFUL, or you would not have displaced the guilt onto what you believed to be LESS fearful. You are therefore willing, with little opposition, to look upon all sorts of "sources" underneath awareness, provided that they are not the deeper source, to which they bear no real relationship at all. Insane ideas HAVE no real relationships, for that is why they ARE insane.
No real relationship can rest on guilt, or even hold one spot of it, to mar its purity. For all relationships which guilt has touched, are used but to avoid the person AND the guilt. What strange relationships you have made for this strange purpose! And you forgot that real relationships are holy, and cannot be used by YOU at all. They are used ONLY by the Holy Spirit, and it is that that MAKES them pure. If you displace YOUR guilt upon them, the Holy Spirit cannot use them. For, by pre-empting FOR YOUR OWN ends what you should have given HIM, he cannot use them unto YOUR release. No-one who would unite in ANY way, with ANYONE, for his OWN salvation will find it in that strange relationship. It is not shared, and so it is not real.
In any union with a brother, in which you seek to lay YOUR guilt upon him, or share it WITH him, or perceive his own, YOU WILL FEEL GUILTY. Nor will you find satisfaction and peace with him, because your union with him IS NOT REAL. You will see guilt in that relationship, BECAUSE YOU PUT IT THERE. It is inevitable that those who suffer guilt WILL attempt to displace it, because they DO believe in it. Yet, though they suffer, they will not look within, AND LET IT GO. They cannot know they love, and cannot understand WHAT LOVING IS. Their main concern is to perceive the source of guilt OUTSIDE themselves, BEYOND their own control.
When you maintain that YOU are guilty, but the source LIES IN THE PAST, you are NOT looking inward. The past is NOT in you. Your weird associations to it HAVE no meaning in the present. Yet you let them stand BETWEEN you and your brothers, with whom you find no REAL relationships at all. Can you EXPECT to use your brothers as a means to solve the past, and still to see them as they really ARE? Salvation is not found by those who use their brothers to resolve problems WHICH ARE NOT THERE. You wanted not salvation in the past. Would you impose your idle wishes on the present, and hope to find salvation NOW?
Determine, then, to be NOT as you were. Use no relationship to hold you to the past, but with each one, each day, be born again. A minute, even less, will be enough to free you from the past, and give your mind in peace over to the Atonement. When everyone is welcome to you as you would have YOURSELF be welcome to your Father, you will see no guilt in you. For you will have ACCEPTED the Atonement, which shone within you all the while you dreamed of guilt, and would not look within and SEE it.
As long as you believe that guilt is justified in ANY way, in ANYONE, WHATEVER he may do, you will not look within, where you would ALWAYS find Atonement. The end of guilt will never come as long as you believe THERE IS A REASON FOR IT. For you must learn that guilt is ALWAYS totally insane, and HAS no reason. The Holy Spirit seeks not to dispel REALITY. If GUILT were real, ATONEMENT would not be. The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, NOT to establish them as real, and THEN forgive them. The Holy Spirit does not KEEP illusions in your mind to frighten you, and show them to you fearfully, to demonstrate what He has saved you FROM.
WHAT HE HAS SAVED YOU FROM IS GONE. Give NO reality to guilt, and see NO reason for it. The Holy Spirit does what God would have Him do, and has ALWAYS done so. He has SEEN separation, but KNOWS of union. He TEACHES healing, but He also KNOWS of creation. He would have you see and teach as He does, and through Him. But what He knows, you do NOT know, though it is yours. NOW it is given you to heal and teach, to make what WILL BE, now. As yet it is NOT now. The Son of God believes that he is lost in guilt, alone in a dark world, where pain is pressing everywhere upon him, FROM WITHOUT. When he has looked within, and seen the radiance there, he will remember how much his Father loves him. And it will seem incredible that he had ever thought his Father loved him not, and looked upon him as condemned.
The moment that you realize GUILT IS INSANE, WHOLLY unjustified, and WHOLLY without reason, you will NOT fear to look upon Atonement, and ACCEPT IT WHOLLY. You who have been unmerciful unto yourselves, do not remember your Father's love. And, looking without mercy upon your brothers, you do not remember how much YOU love HIM. Yet it is forever true. In shining peace within you, is the perfect purity in which you were created. Fear not to look upon the lovely truth in you. Look THROUGH the cloud of guilt that dims your vision, and look PAST darkness, to the holy place where you will see the light.
The altar to your Father is as pure as He Who raised it to Himself. Nothing can keep FROM you what Christ would have you see. His will is like His Father's, and He offers mercy to every Child of God, as He would have YOU do. RELEASE from guilt, as you would BE released. There is no other way to look within, and see the light of love shining as steadily, and as surely, as God Himself has always loved His Son. AND AS HIS SON LOVES HIM. There is no fear in love, for love is guiltless. You who have ALWAYS loved your Father can have no fear, for ANY reason, to look within, and see your holiness.
You CANNOT be as you believed you WERE. Your guilt is without reason, because it is not in the Mind of God, where YOU are. And this IS reason, which the Holy Spirit would RESTORE to you. He would remove ONLY illusions. All else He would have you see. And in Christ's vision He would show you the perfect purity that is forever within God's Son. You cannot enter into REAL relationship with ANY of God's Sons, unless you love them all, and EQUALLY. Love is not special. If you single out PART of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on ALL your relationships, and MAKING them unreal.
You can love ONLY as God loves. Seek not to love UNLIKE Him, for there IS no love apart from His. Until you recognize that this is true, you will have no idea WHAT LOVE IS LIKE. No-one who condemns a brother, can see HIMSELF as guiltless in the peace of God. If he IS guiltless and in peace, AND SEES IT NOT, he IS delusional, and has NOT looked upon himself. To him I say, "Behold the Son of God, and look upon his purity, and be still. In quiet, look upon his holiness, and offer thanks unto his Father, that no guilt has ever touched him."
No illusion that you have ever held against him, has touched his innocence in any way. His shining purity, wholly untouched by guilt, and wholly loving, is bright within you. Let us look upon him together, and love him. For in our love of him IS your guiltlessness. But look upon yourself, and gladness and appreciation for what you will see, will banish guilt forever. I thank You, Father, for the purity of Your most holy Son, whom Thou hast created guiltless forever.
Like you, my faith and my belief are centered on what I treasure. The difference is that I love ONLY what God loves WITH me, and, because of this, I treasure you beyond the value that you set on yourselves, even unto the worth that God has placed upon you. I love all that He created. And all my faith and my belief I offer unto it. My faith in you is strong as all the love I give my Father. My trust in you is without limit, and without the fear that you will hear me not. I thank the Father for your loveliness, and for the many gifts that you will let me offer to the Kingdom, in honor of its wholeness that is of God.
Praise be unto you, who make the Father One with His Own Son. Alone we are all lowly, but together, we shine with brightness so intense, that none of us alone can even think on it. Before the glorious radiance of the Kingdom, guilt melts away, and, transformed into kindness, will never more be what it was. Every reaction that you experience will be so purified, that it is fitting as a hymn of praise unto your Father. See only praise of Him in what He has created, for He will never cease His praise of YOU. United in this praise, we stand before the gates of Heaven, where we will surely enter, in our blamelessness. God loves you. Could I, then, lack faith in you, and love Him perfectly?
Forgetfulness and sleep, and even death, become the ego's best advice for how to deal with the perceived and harsh intrusion of guilt on peace. Yet no-one sees himself in conflict, and ravaged by a cruel war, unless he believes that BOTH "opponents" in the war are real. Believing this, he must escape, for such a war would surely end his peace of mind, and so destroy him. But if he could but realize the war is between forces that are real and UNREAL powers, he could look upon himself, and SEE his freedom. No-one finds himself ravaged and torn in endless battles, which he HIMSELF perceives as wholly without meaning.
God would not have His Son embattled, and so His Son's imagined "enemy," which he made, is TOTALLY unreal. You are but trying to escape a bitter war from which you HAVE escaped. The war is gone. For you have heard the hymn of freedom, rising unto Heaven. Gladness and joy belong to God for your release, because YOU made it not. But, as you made not freedom, so you made not a war that could ENDANGER freedom. Nothing destructive ever was, or will be. The war, the guilt, the past, are gone as one, into the unreality from whence they came.
We have spoken of many different human symptoms, and at this level there IS almost endless variation. But there is only one cause for all of them. The authority problem IS "the root of all evil." Money is but one of its many reflections, and is a reasonably representative example of the kind of thinking which stems from it. The idea of buying and selling implies precisely the kind of exchange that the Souls cannot understand at all, because their own Supply is always abundant, and all their demands are fully met.
Every symptom which the ego has made involves a contradiction in terms. This is because the mind is split between the ego and the Soul, so that WHATEVER the ego makes is incomplete and contradictory. Consider what a "speechless professor" means as a concept. It literally means a "non-professing professor," or a "nonspeaking speaker."
Untenable positions such as this are the result of the authority problem, which, because it accepts the one inconceivable thought as its premise, can only produce ideas which are inconceivable. Bill may claim (and has certainly done so in the past) that the PROFESSORSHIP was thrust upon him. This is not true. He wanted it very much, and also worked hard to get it. He would not have had to work so hard either, if he had not misunderstood it.
The term "profess" is used quite frequently in the Bible, but in a somewhat different context. To profess is to identify with an idea and offer the idea to others to be THEIR own. The idea does NOT lessen; it becomes STRONGER. The teacher clarifies his own ideas and strengthens them BY teaching them.
Teacher and pupil, therapist and patient, are all alike in the learning process. They are in the SAME order of learning, and unless they SHARE their lessons they will lack conviction. If a salesman must believe in the product he sells, how much more must a teacher believe in the ideas which he professes. But he needs another condition; he must also believe in the students to whom he offers his ideas.
Bill could not be afraid to teach unless he still believes that interaction means loss, and that learning means separation. He stands guard over his own ideas, because he wants to protect his thought-system as it is, and learning MEANS change. Change is always fearful to the separated, because they cannot conceive of it as a change toward HEALING the separation. They ALWAYS perceive it as a change for further separation, because separation WAS their first experience of change.
Bill, your whole fear of teaching is nothing but an example of your own intense separation anxiety, which you have handled with the usual series of mixed defenses in the combined pattern of attack on truth and defense of error, which characterizes ALL ego-thinking.
You insist that if you allow no change to enter into your EGO, your SOUL will find peace. This profound confusion is possible only if one maintains that the SAME thought-system can stand on two foundations.
NOTHING can reach the Soul from the ego, and nothing FROM the Soul can strengthen the ego, or reduce the conflict within it. The ego IS a contradiction. Man's self and God's Self ARE in opposition. They are opposed in creation, in will, and in outcome. They are fundamentally irreconcilable because the Soul cannot perceive, and the ego cannot know. They are therefore NOT IN COMMUNICATION, and can never BE in communication.
Nevertheless the ego can learn, because its maker can be misguided, but CANNOT make the totally lifeless out of the life-given. The Soul need not be taught, but the ego MUST. The ultimate reason why learning or teaching is perceived as frightening is because true learning DOES lead to the relinquishment (NOT destruction) of the ego to the light of the Soul. This is the change the ego MUST fear, because it does not share my charity.
My lesson was like yours, and because I learned it I can teach it. I never attack your egos (in spite of H's strange beliefs to the contrary), but I DO try to teach them how their thought-systems have arisen. When I remind you of your TRUE Creation, your egos cannot BUT respond with fear.
Bill, teaching and learning are your greatest strengths now, because you MUST change your mind and help others change theirs. It is pointless to refuse to tolerate change or changing because you believe that you can demonstrate by doing so that the Separation never occurred. The dreamer who doubts the reality of his dream while he is still dreaming it is not really healing the level-split.
You HAVE dreamed of a separated ego, and you HAVE believed in a world which rested upon it. This is very real to you. You cannot undo this by doing nothing and not changing.
If you are willing to renounce the role of guardians of your thought-systems and open them to me, I will correct them very gently, and lead you home. Every good teacher hopes to give his students so much of his own thinking that they will one day no longer need him. This is the one real goal of the parent, teacher, and therapist. This goal will not be achieved by those who believe that they will LOSE their child or pupil or patient if they succeed.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to convince the ego of this, because it goes against all of its own laws. But remember that laws are set up to protect the continuity of the system in which the law-maker believes. It is natural enough for the ego to try to protect itself, once YOU have made it. But it is NOT natural for YOU to want to obey its laws unless YOU believe in them.
The ego cannot make this choice because of the nature of its origin. But YOU can, because of the nature of YOURS. Egos can clash in any situation, but Souls cannot clash at all. If you perceive a teacher as merely a "larger ego," you WILL be afraid, because to ENLARGE an ego IS to increase separation anxiety. Do not engage in this foolishness, Bill. I will teach with you and live with you, if you will think with me.
But my goal will always be to absolve you finally from the need for a teacher. This is the OPPOSITE of the ego-oriented teacher's goal. He is concerned with the effect of HIS ego on OTHER egos, and he therefore interprets their interaction as a means of ego preservation. This is no less true if he is afraid to teach than if he is frankly out to dominate through teaching. The form of the symptom is only a reflection of his particular way of handling the separation anxiety.
ALL separation anxiety is a symptom of a continuing will to remain separated. This cannot be repeated too often because you have NOT learned it. Bill, you are afraid to teach ONLY because you are afraid of the impression your image of yourself will make ON OTHER IMAGES. You believe that their APPROVAL of your image will exalt it, but also that your separation anxiety will be increased. You also believe that their DISAPPROVAL of it will lessen the separation anxiety, but at the cost of depression.
I would not be able to devote myself to teaching if I believed either of these ideas, and YOU will not be a devoted teacher yourself as long as you maintain them. I am constantly being perceived as a teacher either to be exalted or rejected, but I do not accept either perception for myself.
Your own worth is NOT established by your teaching. Your worth was established by God. As long as you dispute this, EVERYTHING you do will be fearful, and particularly any situation which lends itself easily to the superior-inferior fallacy. Teachers must be patient, and repeat their lessons until they are learned. I am willing to do so, because I have no right to set your learning limits for you.
Once again, - NOTHING you do, or think, or will, or make is necessary to establish your worth. This point IS NOT DEBATABLE except in delusions. Your ego is NEVER at stake because God did not create it. Your Soul is never at stake because He DID. Any confusion on this point IS a delusion, and no form of devotion is possible as long as this delusion lasts.
Bill, if you will to be a devoted teacher rather than an egocentric one, you will not be afraid. The teaching situation IS fearful if it is misused as an ego involvement. If you become afraid, it is BECAUSE you are using it this way. But the devoted teacher perceives the situation AS IT IS, and NOT as HE wills it. He does not see it as dangerous because HE is not exploiting it.
The ego tries to exploit ALL situations into forms of praise for itself in order to overcome its doubts. It will be doubtful forever, or better, as long as you believe in it. You who made it CANNOT trust it, because you KNOW it is not real. The ONLY sane solution is not to try to change reality, which is indeed a fearful attempt, but to see it as it is. YOU are part of reality, which stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego, but within easy reach of your Soul.
Bill, again I tell you that when you are afraid, be still and KNOW that God is real and YOU are His beloved son in whom he is well pleased. Do not let your ego dispute this, because the ego cannot know what is as far beyond its reach as you are. God is NOT the author of fear. YOU are. You have willed, therefore, to create unlike Him, and you have made fear for yourselves.
You are not at peace, because you are not fulfilling your function. God gave you a very lofty responsibility which you are not meeting. You KNOW this, and you are afraid. But your egos have chosen to be afraid INSTEAD of meeting it. When you awaken you will not be able to understand this, because it is literally incredible.
DO NOT BELIEVE THE INCREDIBLE NOW. Any attempt to increase its believableness is merely to postpone the inevitable. The word "inevitable" is fearful to the ego, but joyous to the Soul. God IS inevitable and you CANNOT avoid Him any more than He can avoid YOU.
The ego is afraid of the Soul's joy, because once you have experienced this, you will withdraw all protection from your ego and become totally without investment in fear. Your investment is great now, because fear is a witness to the Separation, and your ego rejoices when you witness to it.
Leave it behind. Do not listen to it, and do not preserve it. Listen only to God, who is as incapable of deception as are the Souls he created. As teachers and therapists, release yourselves and release others. Do not present a false and unworthy picture of yourselves TO others, or accept such a picture OF them yourselves.
The ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for you, because it cannot build otherwise. Do not try to make this impoverished house stand. ITS weakness IS your strength. Only God could make a home that was worthy of His Creations, who have chosen to leave it empty by their own dispossession.
His Home will stand forever, and is ready for you when you choose to enter. Of this you can be wholly certain. God is as incapable of creating the perishable as your ego is of making the eternal.
Of your egos you can do nothing to save yourselves or others. But of your Souls you can do everything for the salvation of both. Humility is a lesson for the ego, not for the Soul. The Soul is beyond humility, because it recognizes its radiance, and gladly sheds its light everywhere.
The meek shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble, and this gives them better perception. The Kingdom of Heaven is the right of the Soul, whose beauty and dignity are beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the love of God for His Creations, who are wholly worthy of Him and ONLY of Him. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for a creation of God Himself.
I will substitute for your ego if you will, but NEVER for your Soul. A father can safely leave a child with an elder brother who has shown himself responsible, but this involves no confusion about the child's origin. The brother can protect the child's body and his ego, which are very closely associated, but he does not confuse HIMSELF with the father because he does this, although the child may.
The reason why I can be entrusted with YOUR body and YOUR egos is simply because this enables YOU not to be concerned with them, and ME to teach you their unimportance. I could not understand their importance to YOU if I had not once been tempted to believe them myself. Let us undertake to learn this lesson together, so we can also be free of them together.
I need devoted teachers as much as I need devoted priestesses. They both heal the mind, and that is always my own aim. The Soul is far beyond the need of your protection OR mine.
The Biblical quotation should read "In this world you need NOT have tribulation BECAUSE I have overcome the world." THAT is why you should "be of good cheer."
B's course was very carefully chosen, because "abnormal psychology" IS ego psychology. This is precisely the kind of content which should never be taught FROM the ego whose abnormality should be lessened by teaching, not increased. You, Bill, are particularly well suited to perceive this difference, and can therefore teach this course as it should be taught. Most teachers have an unfortunate tendency to teach the COURSE abnormally, and many of the students are apt to suffer considerable perceptual distortion because of their own authority problem.
Your teaching assignment (and I assure you it IS an assignment) will be to present perceptual distortions without either engaging in them yourself, or encouraging your students to do so. This interpretation of your role and theirs is too charitable to induce fear. If you adhere to this role, you will both engender and experience hope, and you will inspire rather than dispirit the future teachers and therapists I am entrusting to you.
I promise to attend myself, and you should at least credit with me with some dependability in keeping my own promises. I never make them lightly, because I know the need my brothers have for trust.
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.)