Table of Contents
Whenever humans are gathered together in Love, to fulfill Love’s purpose, I am there. No one can fail to seek the Truth. Every human mind is looking for Truth although you may not be conscious of that fact. Ultimately it does not matter whether you understand the true goal of human life, for you will be drawn to it in time. Until then you may substitute goals of your own making, goals without meaning, for the Truth you really seek. It does not matter. All things purposeless and temporary will pass away leaving only Truth in the end. The end is certain as are the means through which it is reached. You can make use of them when and where you choose. That and only that is up to you. To wait, or to decide for Truth here and now, are your only two options. If you make this decision now, you can save yourself much time and suffering. And I strongly recommend you do so.
What you do with your mind is all-important, for life is of the mind; even in this world your life takes place in consciousness. No matter how misidentified with the body the mind may be, if you are not aware of something, it does not exist for you. When you are unconscious, such as in a coma, do you have a life?
The function of mind is to be aware. In this world, awareness takes the form of perception, both inner and outer, and cognition. Understanding ties these two together to produce meaning which leads to purpose. Purpose is decided on the basis of the value you assign to the meaning you perceive. If something is meaningful to you, it is because of the value you see in it. Values are highly personal and can vary greatly, as can the perception of meaning. This variability contributes significantly to the chaos and conflict so visibly present in human life.
A multitude of individuals, pursuing multiple and sometimes conflicting goals based on starkly different perceptions of meaning, can hardly bring about a condition of peace in which all share equally. Only a common perception of the value of a shared goal, can bring about a unification of purpose. A meaningful goal that appeals to all, must arise from a recognition of the equal worth of each and every human being, without exception.
This recognition cannot happen on the level of ego mind, for it must arise from a deeper place, a higher state, where all are joined as one. The Unity in which all live and move and have their Being, is the Source of all that is true, good, and beautiful in human life. To deny this Unity, to shatter It into separate parts with no meaningful relationship to one another, is the ego’s purpose and the condition of its birth. The ego is constantly busy defending and maintaining the condition of separation. If you identify with the ego and turn your mind to the fulfillment of its purpose, you will not know peace, and the meaning of Love will be lost to you.
As you search for meaning, you may begin to realize that it cannot be found where it is not; it lies not within the experiences of separation, the limited perceptions of bodies and other objects, or the conceptualizations that are meaningless in themselves. In this dawning realization, at first perhaps just a hint, a glimpse of what lies just beyond everyday experience, you have your chance to begin, or at least to consider, charting a different course with a different guide at the helm. Until you are willing to consider there may be a different way to live, another way of seeing and understanding, a goal that can be reached, a happiness that can be found; until then you will continue down the same well-worn path to nowhere, pursuing phantom goals that lay somewhere up ahead, just out of reach, receding into the distance as you struggle vainly forward. To pursue a course of action that seeks what cannot be found will lead to hopelessness and a sense of despair. Hope waits upon your change of mind to restore it to its rightful place. When hope is invested in what cannot but lead you back to where you belong, despair will disappear and happiness will take its place.
Mind, by its very nature, has to create, to extend itself. This extension is its natural function, given by God in its creation to be its inherent and eternal purpose. Its function is blocked when Mind is split and given another purpose. While this cannot happen in reality, in dreams mind can be seen as if imbued with qualities it does not possess that give it another function to fulfill and thus make it unlike itself. Its reality cannot be lost, but can be veiled and reduced through distortion to what seems to be completely different.
Abilities can be invented to take Reality’s place; what is all powerful and forever free can seem to be a weak and pitiful thing, tied to a form destined for destruction, imprisoned by fear, and threatened by all that appears to surround it. How can that which is limitless and beyond threat of any kind become a limited form sentenced to pain, sickness, suffering, and death? No one in this world asks this important question, for Reality has been lost so long ago that not even its memory remains.
Yet somewhere in your mind abides the knowledge that has been forgotten, kept for you by the Holy Spirit Who resides deep in your unconscious mind, beyond the superficial levels populated by the ego. If He were not there linking you with your Creator still, you would be lost indeed in a self-made hell without hope of escape. His Presence guarantees the end of suffering and illusion, and the return Home to the Reality you left but in dreams.
Yet dreams are real to the dreamer and illusions are strong in their effects. No one asleep in this world thinks what he sees is but imagination, without the power to affect him unless he wished it so. Wish makes a world and projection establishes it as you would have it be. Desire produces form and belief gives it reality through perception. Yet is illusion, illusion still. Reality is not the result of idle wishes placed outside the mind that thought them and esteemed them as true. Reality is One, all parts joined in a Unity that extends forever, created by God in His Likeness and all encompassed by His Being; It leaves not the Mind of Its Creator to appear as if outside and separate. Madness makes a world that could not be, carving separate figures out of what is One. These shadows appear to move about, and come and go, until the Light of Love returns to shine them away.
Is this what you truly want? Or would you not rather awaken to your natural state of peace, Love, and freedom, of absolute safety and Oneness with all of Life and your Creator, forever and ever without end? If the answer to this question is yes, and only the insane would answer no, the contrast is made clear between Truth and illusion, your real identity established by God in your creation and the illusion of the self made in dreams. You choose sanity or insanity as your state of mind and experience. One or the other must always prevail. There is nothing in between these two choices, and the one you choose at any given time determines your experience until you choose again.
The means are given you when you are ready and willing to use them. All the help that you need, and are willing to accept, will be given. Nothing is held back that would be beneficial in any way. If you would use what is given you as means by which to escape this world, you must learn and accept the fact that you know nothing. All the learning that you acquired in the past, all that you taught yourself to believe, is meaningless and will only obscure the present. Your focus must be shifted from the past to the present, and what is past must be completely forgotten to make way for Truth. You cannot reach the Truth through learning, but learning can help prepare the way for Truth’s return, if it be guided by the One Whose function it is to lead you Home.
What has been learned through the ego’s eyes can only blind you to the Truth, for the ego’s purpose is to obstruct Truth in every way, that it may be replaced by the illusions of fear and separation. The ego does not recognize or understand Truth but it does recognize threat, for the Truth would free you from the ego’s dominion and completely undo the effects of separation forever. Until then, you must be vigilant and remember constantly that you are choosing between two alternatives with every thought, feeling, word, and act; and of these two only one is real. One choice leads to suffering, pure and simple; the other to the end of suffering. Who but the insane would find this choice difficult? Madness obscures; that is its function. To darken the mind and conceal what would otherwise be crystal clear is the inevitable result if the mind is devoted to insanity as its goal.
Do not accept the ego’s goal as yours nor let its purpose betray you. The ego has never supported your true and highest interest, and it never will. Only your decision seems to give it the power to direct your thoughts, control your understanding, and distort and reduce your perception. To choose sanity is to choose against the ego in every way. This is the only choice you will ever have to make.
Do you want the Truth or don’t you? It is not necessary to understand what Truth is or how to find it to answer yes. In fact, to realize Truth requires the recognition of your complete ignorance. No one living in separation from their Source can even begin to understand what is far beyond experience, perception, and learning. Reality cannot be found by a mind living in isolation, alone and separate.
You will be given the means and directed how to apply them. Help is needed to break out of the self-enclosed prison in which you appear to be living; it must come from beyond the circle of nothingness that seems to surround you. No one can escape this world alone. Help must come from beyond separation, from beyond the mind that sees partially and understands nothing that it sees. Only a perspective that sees everything, recognizes the difference between Truth and illusion, and knows you as you truly are, could guide you out of the chaotic maze of madness wherein your mind has imprisoned itself.
Learning to differentiate between Truth and illusion is not an easy task, but you must learn to see clearly. Confusion rules the self-imprisoned mind: confusion about what is true and what is false; about who, what, and where you are; about the nature and meaning of what you see. The mind that sleeps yet thinks itself awake does not know itself. The self it appears to be in dreams is the means by which the true Self is replaced. Yet a self that is not real cannot take the place of Truth, unless that is your wish. A self born of the wish to be what you are not, and not be what you are, must be a thing of madness and not a Self at all. An image, worshipped and acclaimed as it may be, could never be the Son that God created. He does not create what perception rules, a tiny thing that crumbles into dust when its little life is over.
Whenever the decision is made to be what you are not, to act as if the state of separation is your home, you will lose. What is lost is not known to you as long as the decision against it remains in force. You cannot know what you are while you are choosing to be what you are not. To choose illusion is to choose against Truth, as they are mutually exclusive, and the presence of one is the absence of the other. You would never choose wrongly if the memory of Truth had not been driven from your mind and lost to you, until you decide for It once again.
To do what needs to be done requires only your willingness, nothing more, nothing less. To add to what is already complete is unnecessary. The Self is whole, has everything and lacks nothing. It needs no help to be Itself, but you need help to clear your mind of all that prevents the memory of the Self from returning to your awareness. The self you have made has eclipsed what God created and taken its place in your experience. The experience of the Self and the experience of the self are completely different in every respect.
The self is tiny, surrounded by a hostile and uncaring world, separate from everything it sees. Confined to a body and dominated by fear, it is constantly changing, driven by an unceasing stream of thoughts, feelings, and impulses that confuse it and blind it to true beauty, Love, and peace.
The Self is vast, without boundaries or limits of any kind, like the sky. Everything It sees is part of It, for It is all encompassing and from Its Unity is nothing excluded. The Self loves all, embraces all, and from the deep peace and joy which are Its very nature, It extends Itself creating without beginning or end. Unshakeable and unchanging, It knows only the True and Eternal.
Who would not choose the Self if he but knew how easily the memory would return? Freedom is yours the moment you want it above all else. If you look for it where it is not, you will not find it. While you are busy identifying yourself with a body, freedom will never be yours, for it has nothing to do with form. Freedom is of the Mind. Where mind has been healed of the beliefs that deny freedom, its natural freedom will return, and you will be happy once again.
When the Self has been realized, the freedom of Being will stand revealed. Never again will you be attracted by brightly colored prison walls or gaily painted bars that seem to hold out the hope of finding happiness in bondage. Do not trade the promise of freedom for the meaningless comfort of a body surrounded by the ephemeral possessions of a material world. This world offers you nothing but death. Every pleasure, every kind of stimulation, the hollow honors it bestows, the achievements it holds before your eyes; all serve to divert your attention from the grim specter of death that stalks you unceasingly. There is no life here, only a masquerade of life concealing the real nature of existence and separation. Life is of Mind, and It comes from beyond the body. The body cannot contain Life nor limit It in any way. Life has never been born in a body nor lost as the body returns to dust.
Without seeing how your mind works, seeing it in action, how can you ever understand it? You must learn to understand what you do and why, if you are to bring about the necessary change. The mind is always responding from the past, and through its responses keeps the past alive, avoids the present, and shapes a future that is the continuation of the past. Nothing new is allowed to intervene. And so it goes on and on, the mind repeating itself over and over again, as life becomes a stale pattern of events trudging wearily onwards towards a distant goal always just beyond your reach.
If you would have a future unlike the past, you must change the way you respond in the present. Your responses in the present moment are either a repetition of the past or they are something else entirely. Your mind must be free in the present to rediscover its true nature. The past, operating in the present to shape and limit it, keeps the mind in bondage. Reality is bypassed, replaced by what is already over or imagined. Truth can only be realized in the present, for the present alone is real. The past is memory, the future imagination. Truth has nothing to do with memory or imagination, and cannot be captured by images of past or future, being formless and beyond egoic conceptualization.
The ego, the belief in separation, is maintained by avoidance of the present. Illusion brought to Truth disappears in Its Presence. The ego avoids the present by keeping the past alive, thus covering over the present, and assuring a future that is the projection and continuation of what is already over. Only thus can it survive.
If you would realize the Self, you must bring your mind into the present where Its Reality can be revealed. To live in the past and chase the future is to live in dreams. The Self cannot be found in dreams. The choice between Truth or illusion, Love or fear, is the choice between the present or the past. Either you realize the Self and return to freedom, or you continue as the self always searching but never finding.
The self, a self-invented limitation on and denial of what you truly are, will never be free. How can that which denies itself freedom and is an active defense against it, find what it is so clearly deciding against? Keeping alive the past is the means used to completely obscure the present and maintain an unbroken continuity of illusion based in the past and stretching to the future. There is no place for Truth in the ego’s world.
Yet even here Truth cannot be completely obscured, for It waits for you in the present, underneath the loud and incessant chatter of the ego mind, resting in deepest peace. A quiet mind is an invitation to Truth to enter and claim its Home once again. You who have worked so hard to maintain illusion and protect yourself from Truth, need only lay down your defenses and the Self will return to your awareness. Only defenselessness will bring you to a true state of safety. In this condition of harmlessness, you will again know God.
When Truth is valued once again, the shabby offerings of the ego will be recognized for what they are: nothingness. What you value determines what you see, what you seek, and what you think you find. This in turn determines the direction in which you go, and the experiences and circumstances of your life. What you choose is what you get. It matters not whether you are conscious of what you are choosing or the consequences of your choices. Your choosing is what shapes and controls your life down to the smallest detail. No one and nothing outside of you is responsible for what happens to you. You are responsible for what you see, feel, and experience. To accept this responsibility is absolutely essential if you are to free yourself from the world and its apparently externally imposed conditions. Nothing can affect you in any way unless you give it the power to do so.
Whenever the self feels threatened, it responds by attacking itself, although it does not realize it is doing so. The perceived source of threat is believed to be the object of its attack in self defense. There are two errors that arise from this misperception. The self that believes it is threatened, cannot attack unless it forgets who it is and where its safety truly lies. The Self cannot be threatened by anything in any way, being invulnerable and kept forever safe in the Mind of God beyond all space and time. The Self knows only Love and no attack is possible in the Presence of Love. Love knows not fear, and attack without fear is impossible. To even consider attack, you must deny and dissociate from the Self. To do so is to attack the Truth of your Being. Thus you are always the first victim of your own attack.
By attacking your brother, even though you perceive attack as justified, you are again literally attacking yourself, as your brother is yourself. Even in separation, mind is One; everyone you see is part of you as you are part of them. The Oneness of the Sonship cannot be lost, though the awareness of It has vanished from the mind.
In dreams of separation you play a game of attack and defense, as the role of attacker shifts back and forth with changing circumstances. Always do you feel justified in what you do, and the guilt you see is laid upon your brother while you are innocent. Thus are you twice attacked and once denied, and the belief in sin and guilt is strengthened once again. Without guilt there could be no attack. Attack rests on guilt as surely as forgiveness rests upon innocence.
In truth there is no basis for attack. Attack is never justified. God’s Son is guiltless. Unless you see Him guilty, you would not attack nor believe you could be attacked. Attack and defense are complementary parts of the same belief, for you cannot have one without the other. To believe in attack in any form will leave you at the mercy of a dangerous world, a world waiting for you to let down your guard. Life becomes a constant play of fear, of threats real or imagined stalking you always, waiting for the opportune time to strike. Such a life is joyless and loveless, for you have chosen fear as your companion, and Love is not welcome where fear rules. Fear rules its kingdom harshly, allowing none of its subjects to escape its pitiless gaze.
Without fear is life a joyous occasion with the constant opportunity to love and be loved. Only those who love can be truly happy. Happiness, like Love, is your natural condition and will always prevail unless you choose otherwise. To fear is to choose otherwise. Although fear does not seem to be a choice, it rules your mind by your invitation. In different forms it seems to take on different roles, yet all have but one purpose: to deny Love Its rightful home. Without Love do you become what you are not, not in Reality but in dreams. Dreams seem real to the one who made them and then forgot his role as their maker. They will last until their cause is discovered, and you accept total responsibility for them.
The inevitable result of delusion is the loss of contact with Reality. This is true in all its forms regardless of degree or kind. When delusion is permitted to take the place of Reality, only chaos and suffering will result. When delusion replaces Truth in your mind, a state of consciousness develops that does not know itself or anything else. To not know yourself must be a state of utter confusion. You cannot be happy while you do not know who you are or what your purpose is. God has given you a purpose, a function, and unless you fulfill it, happiness will elude you.
Happiness is not the result of external conditions, of achievements, or pleasures of any kind. The limited satisfaction such things may bring cannot last nor give you a deep sense of fulfillment. All things of this world come and go in a ceaseless parade of constantly changing appearances and conditions, here one moment and gone the next. Happiness is of the Self, your natural condition as God created you. As part of Truth, it does not come and go nor is it dependent on changing circumstances. What is true, is true always and unaffected by change of any kind. You are happy for no reason. Happiness does not need a reason, it simply is.
You will never find happiness in this world. It is not here. Even if it could be found, changing conditions and circumstances would make it impossible to keep. Happiness can only be found by going beyond this world, back to what is true. When you find the Self, the Christ, your true identity, you find a joy and happiness that is lasting and imperishable.
To find all that is real, your mind must be healed of all that is not. To be healed is to be restored to Wholeness. All that is limited and partial must leave your most holy mind that Wholeness can take Its rightful place. When illusion rules, Truth vanishes, for you can choose one or the other but never both. A choice for one is a choice against the other, and your state of mind demonstrates what you have chosen. Joy, peace, and happiness are witnesses for Truth. Their presence indicates you have chosen sanity, and are recognizing the difference between madness and Love. In this recognition is the beginning of your journey homeward.
While insanity is seen as desirable, as a real choice, you merely travel the same well-worn path, following a circular route marked by your footsteps since time immemorial. You are weary now, and are sensing there is an end to the journey, a goal that waits for you, and a joyous welcome to greet your return. Heaven is incomplete without you and calls to you unceasingly. When you return is your decision but return you will, for there is no place else to go. All other roads start nowhere, go nowhere, and return to nowhere, over and over again.
You will continue this senseless journey as long as you prefer madness and suffering over sanity and peace. While attack and defense limit your mind and experience, and fear casts its dark shadow across your life, so long will Love be homeless. When you have finally had enough of meaninglessness, of helplessness, you will become open to the possibility of another way to live, and the Holy Spirit will begin to shine into your mind and light your way Home.
Whenever you are as bathed in Light, your vision will be unobstructed and clear, and you will see the Light in your brother. Light reaches out to Light, and in that joining you are One. It is impossible to see the Light in another and not join with It. Light, like Love, is One. No one is excluded; all are forever joined together in the One Light. When mind recovers its Wholeness, its Light begins to shine brightly, dispelling the darkness of the world until you see the same Light shining everywhere and in everything. When that day comes, you will rejoice, for you will be seeing truly, as the Light of God in your mind enables true vision.
The body’s eyes are incapable of seeing truly, for they were made to see separation and difference. They can never see Wholeness. That which sees partially can never see beyond form. Wholeness and Light are beyond form and are not limited by it. Where differences fade and separation ends, there Wholeness begins. True vision, wholly unified perception, is of the mind, not the body; it sees beyond the body to the Light wherein all are joined. The appearances of form, the distortions of separation, cannot obstruct true vision or dilute its purity.
Whenever you are called upon to decide a course of action, only two choices confront you. In the world of appearances this does not seem to be the case. There seems to be a variety of possibilities, each different from the others in form and outcome. Some are judged more desirable than others, some less. In such a situation, confusion often results and deciding is made difficult.
Clarity of mind is essential to making right choices. A multitude of apparent choices makes clear decision making impossible. Such is the situation you face when you make decisions by yourself. In actuality, no decisions are made in isolation. What you identify with becomes your guide in decision making. Identify with the body, with separation, and the ego is your guide, the thought system of separation is the context. Identify with Spirit, the Self in you, Truth, and the Holy Spirit will gently direct you. His direction is always in your highest interest and will lead you away from pain and fear.
The only two choices possible for you to make, at any time and under any circumstance, cannot be recognized on the level of form. The world of forms will always present you with many apparently different possibilities. No matter what appears before you in form, the content does not vary. Everything is either true or false. There is nothing in between and no other choices that can be made. You always choose Truth or illusion in everything you do, say, or think. Although this may not be apparent, this the law that governs all your choosing. The content of anything is its meaning, as content and meaning are inseparable. In the world of form, content is not readily apparent. The purpose of form is to obscure content beneath a parade of constantly shifting figures that mask the nothingness they represent but are meant to conceal.
To choose truly in this world, you need a guide who sees through the masks that illusion presents to you, to the underlying content and judges truly. He is not fooled by changing appearances, shifting meanings, or attractive wrappings. He knows the only distinction that can be made and must be made. Truth or illusion, Reality or dreams, the only two choices you ever have or ever will have. You must learn the difference between Truth and illusion and learn it well, for you are constantly choosing between the two. The Holy Spirit will lead you along the path of learning if you let Him, for the choice of which teacher to follow is always up to you. There are only two: one teaches Truth and gently reveals it to you; the other has been teaching illusion since first you chose to give him your mind. The ego will continue to teach nothingness and take you nowhere until you withdraw your allegiance.
The Holy Spirit can only teach you if you become willing to recognize your ignorance and willing to let go of all you thought you knew. You need not do this all at once; indeed, rarely does this happen; but you must be willing to move in that direction, to let go beliefs, thought patterns, and habitual behavior, little by little, as you are slowly but surely led back along the road to Truth. If you are willing to be as nothing, you will discover you are everything.
Letting the Holy Spirit determine the learning curriculum is the decision that allows the return of Truth. This decision must be made again and again until it becomes completely consistent. Every moment you are choosing your guide to thinking, feeling, and acting. Many choices are made too quickly to immediately register in consciousness, but their effects appear as how you are feeling, thinking, and acting. The state of mind you are experiencing indicates the choice you have made. If you are abiding in a state of peace, joy, and happiness, if Love characterizes your thinking and your responses to others, you have chosen rightly. Any other state of mind is an expression of fear in one of its many forms, and indicates illusion was your choice. In that case, the necessity to choose again becomes apparent.
Errors of all kinds can be and will be corrected. No error is set in stone, forever true, and beyond correction. The belief in uncorrectable error is the belief in sin. The Holy Spirit sees all error as nothing more than some form of illusion that calls for correction. He knows the Son of God is guiltless no matter what the appearance in the dream. All errors are corrected and the mind gently reminded of Truth by the Voice for God. This is His function and He fulfills it perfectly.
If you would have all errors corrected by the Holy Spirit and their consequences undone, you must learn to recognize error in all its forms. Error unrecognized cannot be corrected, for it is not your will. Any decision made by you, at any time and under any circumstances, remains in effect until you decide to change it. All error is simply a wrong decision.
The Holy Spirit will undo all errors, all belief in illusion, and all the consequences of wrong decisions, one by one, until your mind is returned to Wholeness. He cannot do this, however, without your cooperation in every way. Your active willingness to let all falsity in your mind be undone is your gift to Him. This willingness must be constantly given, for you are continually deciding with everything you think, feel, or do. All that passes through your mind comes from Truth or illusion. Every thought that appears in awareness, arises from the egoic levels of the unconscious or the deeper level where the Holy Spirit resides. Constant vigilance is needed to choose rightly. A mind left to wander habitually, unwatched, cannot be corrected, for you are condoning its activity by your unawareness. All thought has effects on some level.
When you choose to watch your mind moment by moment, to maintain a constant self-awareness, you will discover your mind is constantly dwelling on the past or projecting a future. It is never present right now. Thought is never in the present. Its origin is in the past and its destination is the future; the present enters not in. Awareness, however, is found only in the present; it is alive and immediate, never past or anticipated. Through awareness, in awareness, you are conscious of thoughts. Thoughts arise from the unconscious and appear in consciousness as if projected onto a screen. All thought comes from the ego or the Holy Spirit levels of the unconscious.
The ego attempts to fill awareness with a constant stream of thoughts, impulses, images, and feelings, all of which have one purpose: To absorb your attention completely and use the energy of awareness to maintain perception, understanding, and experience, within the narrow limits it has established. Only thus can the fiction of its existence be maintained. The ego is the continuation of a mistake in identity made so long ago, it is past remembering. Only the continuation of that past error can assure its survival, for in the present the ego is unmasked, and its nothingness is revealed.
To free your mind of this incessant activity is not an easy task but a necessary one. You must become aware of its activity at all times, for mind is always active, it never sleeps. Illusion must be corrected each and every moment. No untruth can be left to mar your Holy Mind. This requires the constant action of willingness and dedication to a single purpose. Constant vigilance has been maintained in defense of the ego. Constant vigilance must be maintained against it that it may be undone. The mind that is whole is free of the limitations the ego has imposed upon it. Withdraw your interest in being an ego in separation, a bodily identity doomed to wither and die, and your mind will be free to return to its Home in Truth.
The Holy Spirit will guide you every step of the way, if you permit Him to do so. This permission must be constantly given, constantly reaffirmed moment by moment, for the habits that have dominated your mind since time began are well established and ceaselessly active. The momentum of eons must be reversed and your life given a new goal and purpose. There is but one meaningful purpose in this world.
To awaken from this dream of limitation and death is your purpose here. No other purpose this world has or ever will have. Too long have you wandered, alone and friendless, weary unto death. The world has never been your home nor will it ever be. Your stay here is temporary, as is everything you see and experience. No lasting happiness is possible in such a place. Yet even here can peace be found. When the incessant chatter that fills the mind has been stilled, peace can return and establish its home. Every time peace is chosen over conflict, and Love over fear, you have taken another step toward Heaven where the gates will swing open to welcome you back. In truth you have never left, but in idle dreams you are lost to your Self until the Light gently shines into your mind to remind and awaken you from the deep sleep of forgetfulness.
The Peace of God is not simply the end of conflict; nor is It a state of deep relaxation, the absence of tension. The Peace of God is not of this world, nor has It anything to do with the things of this world. You cannot find such peace here, for It comes from beyond and covers the world and everything in it with Its blessing. To find the Peace of God, you must want It and value It more than earthly states and pleasures, more than all goals and accomplishments the world offers. The Peace of God outshines this place of darkness in every way.
God will give you this gift of peace when you are ready and willing to receive it. To be ready is to lay down all defenses and all belief in attack. Attack in any form is always the denial of peace. Attack always destroys understanding, for its only goal is destruction. To destroy is to kill, and where murder is valued, peace will not be found.
To call on the Holy Spirit for help in solving every problem that confronts you, is the only wholly sane thing to do. He, and He alone, has the vision and understanding to see all consequences of all possible responses and their effect upon everyone involved. To ask for and accept His guidance is to assure that only good will result from your decision in every way. The decision He directs you to make will always be in your best and highest interest. You will be guided away from pain, in a way that will only strengthen you. All decisions should be referred to His guidance if you would leave pain, suffering, and limitation behind.
Truth cannot be realized until mind has been purified and made ready for Its return. The Holy Spirit’s function is to guide you from dreams to awakening, from illusion to Truth. He does this by guiding you through a process of undoing all you have learned under the ego’s tutelage, and then replacing false ideas and beliefs with true ideas that point to and reflect the Truth. All that you have taught yourself is false, and the effects of your learning are the confusion, uncertainty, and suffering that characterize human life.
To learn what is true must precede the experiencing of Truth, for It cannot enter a mind dedicated to maintaining illusion. Illusion has replaced Truth in your mind and experience. One or the other will occupy your mind and shape your understanding, but not both. As has been often said, you cannot serve two masters. The importance of correcting your thinking cannot be overemphasized. Your thoughts make the world you see, and your thoughts shape your perception. In literal terms you see the world you want to see, and it is thought that makes this possible. All thought that originates from the ego consciousness, has as its purpose, to mislead you into choosing and maintaining the illusion of separation and all that it entails.
Freedom and peace require that you learn to choose differently, and that your basis for choosing be completely transformed. With the ego as your guide, all choice is based on the thought system of separation. The ego identifies with the body as its home, and sees itself surrounded by a hostile and uncaring world against which it must defend itself constantly. Sometimes it must attack in order to protect its interests; and its attack is always justified for it sees its brother as guilty and thus maintains its innocence. Scarcity stalks the ego’s world. For one to gain, another must lose, with gain and loss constantly shifting back and forth in changing patterns. Never can lasting security be found but must always be wrested from life no matter what the condition or circumstance. Never can the ego relax its vigilance, for it trusts no one completely or consistently.
The Holy Spirit teaches a thought system that is the opposite of the ego’s in every way. He teaches that you are not separate from anyone or anything you see. Under His gentle guidance, you will learn you and your brother are One, always have been and always will be; you share a common purpose and goal regardless of appearances. You will learn to see a forgiven world, a kind and loving world, as you choose to give up attack and lay down all defenses. The world will be freed of the burden of fear and guilt you have laid upon it.
As your mind is healed and your spiritual vision awakened, you will see Heaven reflected here, the Love and Light of God everywhere. This Light will shine forth from all living things and in that Light are you joined with your brother as One. Nothing will threaten you for you will know you are not a body. Only bodies can be threatened, can attack and be attacked. This is the stuff of dreams, but dreams mean nothing to the dreamer whose eyes are opening to the Truth that waits beyond all dreams.
Under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, you must learn to recognize the falsity that characterizes your mind and dominates your thinking. A mind so long accustomed to the darkness of illusion, must become aware of its prison and how it is maintained. Steps must be taken to release the self-imposed bonds that prevent freedom. You begin by becoming conscious of how your thoughts control and direct your responses, how they limit understanding and keep the past alive in the present. The past must be recognized for what it is: a stale repetition of lessons learned long ago, lessons that have no meaning now. Yet you cling to them and repeat them again and again as if the past were still here before you.
To give the Holy Spirit the power of decision for your life, is ultimately necessary if you are to return to Heaven. He alone knows the way and what must be done at every step. He holds your part in the Great Plan in His Mind until you are ready to accept your responsibility for it. Then he reveals it to you little by little, as you become more willing to receive it. You have a special part to play in God’s Plan for salvation that can be filled only by you. Your strengths and abilities are used, and your awakening to the Truth of your Being is its core and foundation. No one but you can fulfill your part; the Great Plan is incomplete without you. All of God’s Sons are needed, for the Plan was created for Them and no one is excluded.
When you turn your mind over to the Guide God has given you, happiness can return and joy can be yours once again. Without His help, you will repeat the same errors over and over. Your life will be stuck in a repeating pattern of anxiety and futility, with no escape. There is no way out of the dilemma you have made without help. This help must come from outside the narrow circle that contains your mind and defines your existence. The Holy Spirit dwells in your higher mind, just as the ego lives in lower mind; the part contained and defined by partial perception and apparent physical limitations. From His vantage point, He sees what you see but recognizes it as illusion. He understands that to you it is real in your experience. He must work with your mind where it is and with what it has made and surrounded itself with: a world of many separate forms, of uncertainty and danger, of attack and defense. All that you have made and believe in must be reinterpreted, all false belief corrected, and everything given another purpose.
The purpose of the world according to the ego’s thought system is to keep you in bondage. To the ego, your safety lies behind thick prison walls and bristling defenses. You must be shown and gently led to the understanding that your safety is not found by attacking or defending yourself against what is not real, but by laying down all defenses in the recognition you cannot be attacked or threatened in any way. When this understanding is established in your mind, you can begin the process of giving up attack and defense. This is done thought by thought as you learn to recognize error, withdraw your support, and allow the Holy Spirit to correct all attack thoughts of any kind that enter your awareness. The laying down of all belief in the efficacy of attack, opens your mind to Love. Where It is welcome, Love rushes in, preparing your mind for the full return of Truth.
Forgiveness and the renunciation of all attack are inextricably linked. To refuse to forgive is to condemn, and all condemnation is attack just as all forgiveness is the expression of Love. Love without forgiveness is impossible, for Love sees only the Holiness and innocence of God’s Son; It is incapable of grievances and condemnation. Love knows the Reality of God’s Creation and rushes to join It, overlooking all illusion. As an aspect of God Himself, Love has nothing to do with illusion and is unaffected by it in any way. Forgiveness is the highest expression of Love in this world. Through Its unflinching and all encompassing application, is Heaven Itself reflected.
Forgiveness is the function of those who would bring Love in a world made dark by hate, peace to a place of fear and conflict. Peace accompanies Love as surely as conflict follows fear. Love is the opposite of fear in every way, and in Its Presence is fear healed. Forgiveness reacts not to fear and hate, refusing all condemnation no matter what the appearance. Under its gentle gaze are the effects of all appearances undone, all pain healed, all conflict resolved. There is nothing forgiveness cannot heal through the miracle of Love it offers.
Forgiveness is the home of those who love God. To live in a state of mind characterized by forgiveness, is to offer God’s Love and blessing to all without exception. To truly love your brother is to accept him as he is, and overlook all apparent transgressions he appears to have committed against you or anyone. Forgiveness remembers neither you nor your brother are bodies, and therefore whatever your bodies may do or say cannot be held against you. Nothing that seems to happen in this world of dreams can be held against God’s Son, for nothing here is real. You cannot attack or be attacked except in dreams and who, awake to Reality, would believe in dreams?
Forgiveness rests on the sure recognition there is nothing to forgive, for in dreams nothing real is happening. God’s Son merely imagines what he sees, and experiences imaginary effects. Hallucinations and their effects seem real to those who believe in them. The power of mind expressed through belief makes the effects seem real. You have been given the power to create like God. You can misuse this power, and you have, by making, by miscreating a world that could never exist. The mind believes in what it makes; and this belief gives your world its imaginary power to affect you. Withdraw your belief and its effects will cease. Withdraw your mind entirely and the world you see before you will disappear. Forgiveness will lead to the end of the world of separation as surely as fear and guilt perpetuate it. As an all conditional expression of Love, forgiveness will quietly heal all appearances of guilt through the recognition they are not true. Guilt is the dark cornerstone on which the ego’s thought system rests. As that thought system gives rise to a world of fear, pain, and separation, so will the world be transformed when its foundation has been undone and replaced by Love.
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