Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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1 Death is a thought which takes on many forms, often
unrecognized. It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety, or doubt; as
anger, faithlessness, and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and
all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you.
All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as
savior and as giver of release.
2 Embodiment of fear, the host of sin, god of the guilty, and
the lord of all illusions and deceptions, does the thought of death seem
mighty. For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand;
all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp. All goals perceived but in
its sightless eyes. The frail, the helpless, and the sick bow down
before its image, thinking it alone is real, inevitable, worthy of their
trust. For it alone will surely come.
3 All things but death are seen to be unsure, too quickly
lost however hard to gain, uncertain in their outcome, apt to fail the
hopes they once engendered and to leave the taste of dust and ashes in
their wake in place of aspirations and of dreams. But death is counted
on. For it will come with certain footsteps when the time has come for
its arrival. It will never fail to take all life as hostage to itself.
4 Would you bow down to idols such as this? Here is the
strength and might of God Himself perceived within an idol made of dust.
Here is the opposite of God proclaimed as lord of all creation, stronger
than God’s Will for life, the endlessness of love and Heaven’s perfect,
changeless constancy. Here is the Will of Father and of Son defeated
finally and laid to rest beneath the headstone death has placed upon the
body of the holy Son of God.
5 Unholy in defeat, he has become what death would have him
be. His epitaph, which death itself has written, gives no name to him,
for he has passed to dust. It says but this: “Here lies a witness God is
dead.” And this it writes again and still again, while all the while its
worshipers agree, and kneeling down with foreheads to the ground, they
whisper fearfully that it is so.
6 It is impossible to worship death in any form and still
select a few you would not cherish and would yet avoid while still
believing in the rest. For death is total. Either all things die or else
they live and cannot die. No compromise is possible. For here again we
see an obvious position which we must accept if we be sane; what
contradicts one thought entirely cannot be true unless its opposite is
proven false.
7 The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even
the insane have difficulty in believing it. For it implies that God was
once alive and somehow perished, killed, apparently, by those who did
not want him to survive. Their stronger will could triumph over His, and
so eternal life gave way to death. And with the Father died the Son as
well.
8 Death’s worshipers may be afraid. And yet can thoughts like
these be fearful? If they saw that it is only this which they believed,
they would be instantly released. And you will show them this today.
There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form for their
salvation and our own as well. God made not death. Whatever form it
takes must therefore be illusion. This the stand we take today. And it
is given us to look past death and see the life beyond.
9 Our Father, bless our eyes today. We are Your messengers,
and we would look upon the glorious reflection of Your love which shines
in everything. We live and breathe in You alone. We are not separate
from Your eternal life. There is no death, for death is not Your Will.
And we abide where You have placed us, in the Life we share with You and
with all living things, to be like You and part of You forever. We
accept Your thoughts as ours, and our will is one with Yours eternally.
Amen.