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Chapter Twelve

The Peace of God

Peace is the natural condition of the mind when resting in its true nature. A mind not at peace is a mind at war with itself, for the absence of peace is fear. A state of mind in which fear is active, whether you are conscious of it or not, is a state of conflict. Conflict must always be present in your mind before it can be projected and appear outwardly. All outer conflict is simply a projection of the conflict within.

If you would be at peace, you must renounce conflict, the belief in attack. To give up attack is to withdraw your belief that you gain something thereby, and recognize that only loss can come of it. You must also relinquish the belief that you can be attacked. In truth, you cannot attack or be attacked; to discover this fact you must lay down all defenses. All desire to harm another, and the belief that you can be harmed, disappear when you lay down all defenses. Defense and attack go together; to give up one entirely is to give up the other as well.

When peace prevails in your mind, you are resting in the strength of Christ. The Christ in you is entirely without need or belief in attack, for It is not a body, and only bodies attack and defend. The Christ is Love only; in Love is found no attack, for Love encompasses all. There is no attack or defense when all is recognized as part of you, for perceived threat can only come from without, and nothing is outside of you or apart. The Christ in you, the Self, is One and includes all, for every mind is whole and contains all minds.

To realize this Oneness, to come to the clear understanding of this fact of your Being, requires direct experience of Truth beyond concepts, beyond thinking, beyond body and mind. This is a unitary experience beyond perception, beyond the duality of conceptual thinking. As such it cannot be described or captured by thought in any way; it is a completely different kind of experience that can only be given or revealed in your awareness.

The Truth of what you are dawns directly in your mind when you have been made ready. The purpose of spiritual practice, of spiritual discipline, is to bring you to this point of readiness. Whenever you choose Truth over illusion, Love over fear, the Holy Spirit’s direction over the ego’s, you take another step closer to that moment. There is no other direction to travel than towards this moment of Truth, for all other roads are but variations of the road to nowhere. To travel towards illusory destinations is not to travel at all; all journeys undertaken within a dream are but imagination. Truth will prevail in the end as all illusion falls away, and what was always there shines forth clearly in your mind as you.

The attainment of a steady and constant state of peace, can be said to be the goal of A Course in Miracles. A peaceful mind is quiet, and a quiet mind easily attains the condition in which God is remembered. A peaceful mind is happy and shares its happiness with everyone. A peaceful mind is kind, for it looks on everyone as itself. Its gratitude is offered to all, for it perceives the gifts it is constantly receiving from its brothers. Love and kindness are the hallmarks of a peaceful mind, offered to all its brothers without conditions, asking nothing in return.

When you desire only the Peace of God, It will be yours. God does not withhold His Gifts from His willing Sons. The absence of the Gifts of God in your life, in your awareness, is not because They have not been given. The mind must be made ready and empty, that it may accept Them. You must truly want Them, and be ready to meet the conditions under which you can become aware of what has already been given. They are waiting for your acceptance, nothing more. To be ready and open to receive the Gifts of God, is to make a place in your mind emptied of all illusion, pure and silent, wherein recognition can arise.

Awakening From the Dream

The only things lacking in your life are what you have refused to acknowledge. God gave you everything in your creation, and still is this true, even in this world. All apparent lack, all unmet needs, are but wrong choices you have made. Everything you need is given, if you allow it. This requires you however, to turn decision making over to the One Whose function it is. He alone has the knowledge to choose rightly, for He alone knows what is in your best interest. Your reliance on yourself to decide, which is to decide with the ego, has led to uncertainty, inconsistency, and variable results. To decide with the Holy Spirit is to always have what you truly need, and lack nothing.

If you do not actually perceive, are not aware of, your own best interest, how can you make the decisions that will result in happiness and true fulfillment? Certainly, if you look at your life honestly, recalling your many decisions over the years, it is apparent that you have made less than optimum choices on a regular basis. Just this self-honesty applied to your mind and your life in general, will demonstrate clearly the need for another way of thinking, of deciding, of living. And just as clearly evident is the necessity for help to make this change, as you cannot make the necessary changes from the level of mind on which you operate.

The recognition that fundamental change is needed and you must be helped by a Higher Power, opens the mind to receive this help from the Holy Spirit. You cannot find your way out of the prison you have constructed for yourself and the world alone; the self-identity you have invented, from which your thinking and perceiving arise, denies Truth and defends itself against It.

If you would escape bondage and allow the return of freedom, the willingness to renounce your very self-identity must develop, and it will be developed in time. You are simply giving up what was never real and has been the cause of ignorance, fear, pain, suffering, and death. The self you have made has never given you anything of lasting value; its meaningless gifts have taken the place of what God gave you in your creation. The Self you truly are is so far beyond the self you have made, that were you to become aware of this fact, you would see immediately that to give up the self is no sacrifice.

The Holy Spirit guides you through the process of undoing all the illusion and falsity that distort and cloud your mind. He guides your learning as you learn to see what is true, what is illusion, and the difference between them. The more important this is to you, the faster you will learn, and the greater will be the rewards.

Nothing you do in this world is as meaningful as returning your mind to Wholeness, awakening from the dream of separation. You do this not for yourself alone, for in every awakening are all minds blessed equally, and the way is made a little shorter for those who still dream. You will not leave this world alone, for all your brothers are joined with you in the one Unity that is eternal.

Now is the time to awaken! Time is growing short and the world has grown weary of conflict and death. Your brothers are tired of following the same well-worn path that leads nowhere and ends only in death. Their weary hearts cry out for relief from pain and suffering, from the burden of sorrow that weighs them down and darkens all the days of their lives. You hold the key that releases them from evil dreams and terrible fates. Yet you cannot give it until you have accepted it for yourself, until it has become yours.

Forgiveness is the key that will release every heart from the bondage of separation. The mind that accepts forgiveness as its function here, will be set free to return to its true Home. Forgiveness, practiced truly and consistently, returns your mind to Love; those who are given to Love know not sorrow. Heaven waits only on your decision to forgive a world of sin and guilt, and thus bring Love to a world where Love is denied.

A Call for Love

This is your world in all respects: it is an invention and projection of your mind, in which each plays the part assigned to him in your dream. Who but you, its maker, can save it? You are the hero of your own dream, following a path laid down so long ago, even the memory of it has been lost. You need not follow this path unto the end, for you can leave any time you choose. Yet must this choice be total and final.

Until that moment comes, you must forgive the world and everyone and everything in it; thus do you save yourself and the world. The world was made as a place of separation, where fear rules and Love is absent. Only Love can save the world, for the world was made as a replacement for the Love of God. God’s Love cannot be lost except in dreams; Love’s return shines away all dreams forever.

No matter who or what you appear to be forgiving, you are always and only forgiving yourself. There is no one else to forgive, for even mind asleep is still One. All you see is in you, and you are in all you see; it has always been so. Always it is only yourself you attack, and only yourself you forgive. As this fact becomes increasingly clear to you, the practice of forgiveness becomes easier. Forgiveness becomes self-evidently the only thing to do in all circumstances, at all times.

As you learn to see all unloving acts as simply a call for Love, to give Love will be your natural response. The more Love you give, the more Love you will have, and it will become obvious to you that you are Love and that Love is all there is. To live as an exemplar of Love in a loveless place, a bright and shining Light in a world of great darkness, is a great responsibility and a great privilege.

It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive. To know you are forgiven, you are guiltless, you must deny sin and guilt in all the forms in which they seem to appear. Only thus will you come to know that sin and guilt do not exist. You must see your brothers as guiltless to know that you too are forgiven. As you see your brother, so will you see yourself; you and your brother are guilty or guiltless together, for what is true of one is true of all others.

The Oneness of all of God’s Creation prevails even in this world, although in distorted form. You think you see difference and variation, and in this world they appear to be real, yet this is but dreaming. In a dream of time, differences appear, yet is all difference temporary and will disappear when the dream is over. God’s Son is One, now and forever; nothing can ever change or affect Oneness however it may appear in dreams.

The Truth and Dreams

Why do dreams seem more real than the Truth? The Truth was forgotten, driven from the mind of God’s Son so long ago that dreaming has become the only experience you remember. The mind identifies with what it believes, and it believes what it experiences. This becomes a closed circle in which you see what you want to be true, and believe it true because you see it. Thus desire becomes experience, experience leads to belief, and you cannot see beyond it. To question the reality you see from within this closed circle seems to be but madness. Questioning must come from a place outside the circle, if it is to be effective.

The Holy Spirit leads you gently along the path of questioning the “reality” you have believed in for so long. He will not snatch it from you, but will rather demonstrate through your relationship with Him, there are other laws, higher laws. Eventually you will discover these spiritual laws alone are true, and all other laws you thought you obeyed for so long are but the stuff of dreams.

When the dreamlike nature of this world begins to be apparent to you, the fixed belief in the “reality” you see will lose its hold on your mind. Through the opening that has been made, the Holy Spirit can gently lead you to a new experience of yourself and the world. This repeated demonstration of what is true and yet beyond the world you see will, in time, undo your belief in the reality of the world, and make room for true understanding to take its place.

The mind can only experience what it is willing to experience. Once the willingness to know Truth again is established, the way lies open before you. The Self returns to your awareness when you are willing to give up the self you have made. The recognition that the world you see is not the reality you seek, but rather is the defense against it, will, if truly accepted, begin the process of returning your Self to your awareness.

The return of the Self is truly cause for celebration, for it is the return of freedom from bondage, and it heralds the return of God’s Son to His Father’s Kingdom. To experience yourself as you really are, as the Self, is far beyond all the pleasures and amusements of this world. In Its Presence, they fade into the nothingness they have always been.

You have never really wanted the self you have made. It is, to say the least, a pitiful thing, identified with a fragile body destined to sicken and die. Prone to suffer, under constant threat, frozen in a configuration of attack and defense, the self is cut off and isolated from its brothers by the belief in separation. It offers you neither certainty nor safety. Its belief in the “reality” of death casts a shadow across your entire life, sorrow marking your every step in the long and weary journey from birth to death.

Give Up the World

Thank your Father and the Holy Spirit that none of this is true! Thank the Holy Spirit Who leads you out of this senseless and pitiless maze. Thank the Self, the Christ in you, Who has never been affected in the least by the apparent experiences of the dream. And thank your brothers, created One with you, who offer you the role of savior until they are ready to accept this responsibility themselves. Through the acceptance of this role, you take responsibility for the healing of the world and everything in it, and through the healing you offer to all, are you healed. You cannot be healed alone, for healing, which is the return to Wholeness, is for all; each mind which accepts healing, accepts it for all. The savior of the world extends the healing he has received to all, thus is he healed.

When healing is all you offer to your brothers, at all times, in every circumstance, healing is made complete. Only the return of your mind to perfect Wholeness is healing; in Wholeness is no illusion, and it is only illusions that must be healed. When all illusions that darken and limit your mind have been undone, you will leave this world forever.

The belief in illusion, and the constant choices maintaining it, keep the world of separation before your eyes, seeming to be the place where you find yourself. Give up all investment in illusion, through the recognition it is not true and offers you only continuing pain, suffering, and sorrow, and the Truth will once again shine forth in your mind as you. And never again will you be fooled by the meaningless gifts the ego offers.

You chose to deceive yourself about what you are long ago, and the memory of that has been your reality for too long. Now is the time for you and your brothers to remember the Truth rather than illusion, and choose accordingly. You never wanted to suffer, to live a prisoner in a dream of death. It was simply an error and can be undone at any time, if you so decide.

Nothing is lost by giving up the world; you gain everything thereby. It cannot be difficult to choose between everything and nothing, when once you see each for what it is and the difference between them. The willful failure to clearly discern Truth from illusion, and the resulting confusion, but seems to make the choice difficult. When once you make the commitment to realize the Truth of what you are, to let go all illusion, you will be helped and guided back to your true Home in Heaven.

The only meaningful goal in this world is to learn the difference between Truth and illusion. This is a process usually requiring a lengthy period of learning that takes place day by day, as you learn through your experience. The Holy Spirit must guide this endeavor, and trust in Him is essential. You do not understand the difference between Truth and illusion; thus you are unable to recognize them as they are.

You do not know how to learn in the spiritual sense, for it is a very different kind of learning than what you know. You must learn how to learn, and learn to see and understand in a new way. Unlike worldly learning, lessons are not restricted to certain times, nor do they take place only under certain conditions. Your very life, everything that happens, all your relationships of any kind, all thoughts, feelings, and desires; all of this is the material of which your lessons are composed, and learning goes on continuously without interruption. There are no days off or holidays.

If you would learn what the Holy Spirit would teach, just this willingness, and the commitment it engenders, must be developed. Your mind is based on illusion, your identity depends on it, your experience is shaped by it. Mind is constantly busy and through its habitual and unconscious tendencies, is maintaining and perpetuating an illusory world and identity. Nothing less than a commitment that is continuously active, and an unceasing desire for Truth, will provide the willingness through which illusion is undone and the mind made ready to welcome Truth. The Holy Spirit needs your willingness; He can do nothing without it.

The willingness to be healed, to let the Truth return and take Its rightful place, is all you truly need. Nothing more, but also nothing less. Since the mind was split, separated from its Source, the will has been imprisoned. It cannot truly function unless Mind is whole. The active willingness necessary for salvation enables the mind to be returned to Wholeness, and liberates the imprisoned will. There is no true exercise of will in a world of separation, for will, like Love, is absent when the mind is split.

Two Treasures

Do you really need all the things you want and seem to find necessary? How many of the various objects and conditions you seek will bring you true happiness? Has anything you have ever done, any goals you have attained no matter how lofty, any possessions or conditions of life you have established, brought you true and lasting happiness? Does continuing down the same path, doing what has never brought happiness before, bring any hope of a different result?

The mind is blinded by desire, crippled by fear, and distorted by greed; this is its true condition in the world of separation. How can you, while in this condition, be capable of good and rational decisions? The only rational decision you can make is to decide not to decide, to turn over decision making to the Holy Spirit. He will decide rightly for you, and for everyone affected by any decision you make. To decide by yourself, using the past as your guide, is to decide self-destructively. To so decide is to act in concert with the ego; this is never in your best interest. The ego will always direct you so as to maintain separation and deny Love. Doing so is the cause of all the pain, misery, and loneliness that marks your life.

By the way you live, by the lessons you learn, is your life shaped and determined. All that happens is but response to what you value and what you desire. Value and desire only what is true, and you will be blessed with joy, peace, Love, and freedom. Continue the futile chase after the things of this world and, however hard you may try, no matter how successful you may be, happiness will elude you, and sorrow and loss will be your reward.

Whatever you really want, what attracts your mind and keeps it fixed on itself, will dominate you and control your life. What is valued by you above all else will be your treasure, and where your treasure is, your heart is also. Be very careful about what you treasure; it will be the cornerstone upon which your life is established. Treasure illusion in any form, no matter how attractive, and you are treasuring death, for that is where illusion always leads; and fear and suffering will precede you and prepare the way. Desire instead with all your heart the Truth, and Truth only, and you will be restored to Life eternal. These are the only two treasures there are or ever will be.

Illusion comes in many forms but the content is always the same. Do not allow the many forms in which illusion appears, to blind you to what you really choose: death. No matter how attractive the wrapping, is death still death. You deserve life though the ego believes you merit only death. Do not listen to its voice, for it knows nothing and leads you nowhere.

Two Voices

The ego’s voice must be clearly identified in your mind, that you may choose against it. This takes much dedication and perseverance, for you have identified yourself with the ego for a very long time. The Holy Spirit will work carefully with you, teaching you to become aware of the two voices to which you can listen. If you allow Him, He will speak to you clearly, in response to every need and request. His counsel is always gentle, never demanding; His quiet voice will always give you the answer that is needed. As you learn to trust, you will ask for His direction in all that you do, for His guidance is what you need.

To teach you the difference between the two voices, and the results that follow your choice for one or the other, is the Holy Spirit’s function. If you will honestly listen and apply what He teaches you, you will learn to recognize the ego’s voice and all the ways it speaks to you. Through thoughts, feelings, emotions, perceptions, impulses, and desires, it constantly shapes your mind and controls your actions. All response arising from conscious or unconscious egoic identification, will always perpetuate the past and reinforce bondage and limitation.

Identification with the ego is so constant, habitual, and deeply ingrained, that much help, commitment, and effort are required to free the mind. The ego is nothing in itself, yet the power of belief and long association give it seeming strength and persistence. So long accustomed to turning your mind over to the machinery of the belief system of separation, you cannot see anything else.

The Holy Spirit will help undo the attachment to imprisonment, if that be your true desire, and you give Him your willingness. To identify with the ego is to willingly support your imprisonment, for to do so is to give your energy to its perpetuation. Only the energy of your mind, through the power of belief, limits you. You have chosen to identify yourself as a body in separation, with all that entails; and only your choice can set you free to be what you are in Truth. To continue the error in identification that prevents freedom and assures the continuation of fear and separation, is surely insanity. If you have been practicing A Course in Miracles, you have come far enough along to recognize this by now.

Sanity’s response to illusion, to all that causes pain, suffering, and limitation, is to choose against it. The Holy Spirit will guide every response away from falsity, towards Truth, strongly reinforcing it through the results He brings. You need not know how He does it, indeed you cannot know, for the miracle comes from beyond human consciousness. The mind given to the return of sanity, needs the help the Holy Spirit gives from beyond the circle of insanity that holds you prisoner. The decision is still yours to make, for your free will cannot be infringed upon, yet is help needed to understand what must be done and to do it. To your willingness is added His, to strengthen it and establish stability. When mind is split, will is imprisoned. The willingness to return to the Kingdom must be developed within, and nurtured and strengthened through commitment and perseverance. Through right learning is the mind made ready to choose only what is true.

Your Single Purpose

The best thing you can do is to do nothing. To recognize this fact is to realize that your efforts are not needed. All egoically directed effort, no matter how well-intentioned, is an attempt to add to God’s Plan which is already perfect. To attempt to add to His Plan is to interfere with It, and prevent It from accomplishing Its goal of setting you free.

The Great Plan of Atonement is an undoing, not a doing; your one responsibility is to accept It for yourself. The recognition that you know nothing is essential, if you are to turn over decision making to the Holy Spirit. To recognize you know nothing, is to realize you can do nothing to help the Holy Spirit, for all effective action rests on right understanding. Your cooperation, commitment, and willingness, are all that is required of you. You need not do more than your part, but you must not do less.

If you are intent on returning to your true state, this intention must rule the conditions of your life. Unwavering intention directed by a single purpose will be successful in time. How long, is determined by the strength of your commitment and perseverance. To give yourself to the process of salvation unreservedly, to turn your life and will over to God, will shorten time immeasurably. There is nothing you cannot do with the help of the Holy Spirit. He is waiting for just this total giving of yourself to the higher purpose, to God, for that allows Him to give you all the Gifts of God He has been keeping for you since time began.

When God is all you want, when returning to your Home in Heaven is the single purpose around which your life revolves, all will be given you. Until this single focus of dedication has been attained, you have not asked for all help in Heaven and earth, and thus are not open to receive it. The openness, the desire, and the willingness to receive, are necessary to receive anything. Nothing can be given you against your will; Ask and you shall receive is a simple statement of this fact. Everything you ask for is given you, even in this world; it matters not whether you are conscious of the request. All requests of mind receive the appropriate response; that is the law of mind.

To become completely aware of what you are asking for at all times is one of the goals of the mind training of A Course in Miracles. If your requests are always met, and you do not like what you are getting, then you must cease asking for what you do not want, for what causes you pain. To do this requires a constant vigilance, a continuous self-awareness.

To know your mind, not in a static way based on analysis or conceptualization, but as it is moment to moment in its activity, its aliveness, is essential. This is what I am referring to in A Course in Miracles when I say, “An untrained mind can do nothing.” To know your mind as it is, in action, in life, makes possible the conscious exercise of choice. You cannot consistently make right choices unless you are aware that your mind is constantly choosing, and are aware of what it is choosing.

The mind of separation, lost in ignorance and unawareness, is dominated by its habitual tendencies and thought patterns. They were established in the past, and their function is to seemingly keep the past alive in the present, thus replacing any possibility of real present awareness with a static configuration of thought, feeling, and behavior that was established long ago. Yet the past is over and no longer here. To operate as if it is, and this is what you do when you identify with the ego’s thought system, is to reject the very life of your Being.

Life Itself, Reality Itself, is of the present, and only the present; only the present is real, for it is in the present that Eternity meets time. To bring your awareness into the present is a major goal of the mind training. You exist only here and now; only in the present moment can correction of the mind take place and real learning be established.

Sanity and Responsibility

The mind of ignorance is in a state of illusory separation from itself. A mind that does not know itself, its Reality, is ignorant in the most profound and basic sense. Surely it is fantastic, and seemingly highly improbable, that you would not know who or what you truly are. Yet this is exactly the condition in which the mind of separation finds itself. You have taught yourself that you are what you could never be, and are not what you could never not be. This is quite amazing in itself, but rather than devote more time to admiring what you have done, let us devote your time and energy to undoing the error, that you may return to sanity and be your Self again.

The responsibility for the return to the Kingdom is yours alone. All help will be given you, if you will only ask. There is nothing you cannot do with the help of the Holy Spirit; He returns to you the power of mind and understanding that has been lost from awareness. Whatever else you may do, there is one thing at which you cannot fail: You cannot fail to be the Self created by God. No matter what your experience now, it is only a matter of time before the memory of your Father returns to your awareness and sets you free. In truth, it has already happened, though in your journey through time, it appears as if you have not yet reached this point.

Time is but illusion, a game of shadows you play with yourself until you tire of it. The figures that seem to come and go, the events seemingly happening around you, are but phantom projections of the belief in separation. The world you see exists in your mind only, and is maintained by thought. Change your thoughts about the world, let all illusion in your mind be undone, and the world will change accordingly. There is no world without you, and only by offering freedom to all you see, is freedom restored to you. No one leaves here alone; in your liberation from bondage are all your brothers included. No one will be left behind.

The purpose of life is to discover who you are, not as an ego identity, but who you are in your totality as God’s Holy Son. There is no other purpose to life in this world worthy of you. The shiny baubles offered by the ego to distract you from your true purpose, have no real or lasting value. Until this is clearly understood, you will waste much time chasing nothingness and prolong the suffering inherent in the valuing of illusion.

Nothing in the world of separation offers anything you truly want, anything that is not empty and devoid of true fulfillment. Not until this is deeply understood and accepted, are you willing to let go all attachment to the things and experiences of this world. So long as you value and desire anything here, will you be a willing prisoner of what you have made. Illusion is one; to desire any part of it is to have all of it. While you try to hold onto this world in any way, the idea of sacrifice will rule your mind.

The Holy Spirit does not try to take anything you value from you. He simply teaches that what you value and cling to so tightly, is valueless. To awaken from the dream and leave the world forever, does not require that you give up what is real and meaningful. Nothing that you see is real, or has any value in itself whatsoever. Awakening simply requires you to recognize and accept this fact as self-evident. To give up what was never real, what has never been other than worthless, is surely not a sacrifice. To relinquish what brings only fear, pain, and suffering, cannot result in loss. Only the mind still hypnotized by the illusory play of images, lost in its own dream projections, would think otherwise.

The return of sanity to your mind is the recognition of what is real, true, and completely desirable, and what is illusion, false, and completely worthless. Sanity must include the consistent clarity to tell the difference between Truth and illusion, at all times and in all situations. The action of sanity is to choose only Truth and reject illusion. A sane mind will never do what will hurt you or anyone else. When your mind is restored to sanity, it will operate from Love, as Love, and will refuse entry to fear in any form.

Fear itself is insanity, as it leads to attack and defense against what does not exist. All hallucinations, all imagery, all projections of what has no basis in Truth, arise from and are sustained by fear. The wish to be as you are not, to be other than what God created as you, has its origin in the fearful response to the original error of separation.

Sanity is the condition of mind in which Love operates and fear is absent. Each mind must choose, each and every moment, whether to live sanely and extend Love to all, or to lose itself in the chaos of insanity and let itself be ruled by fear.

Commitment and Salvation

Whenever the time is right, salvation will come; it is available each and every moment it is truly desired. Through your decisions, your choices, you accept or reject the salvation that is always available. A choice for Truth, for Love, is a decision to accept salvation, just as a choice for illusion, for the ego, is a rejection of it. Salvation is the result of an irrevocable decision for Truth, a commitment that is unshakeable. Nothing can come between you and what you truly want with all your heart.

The journey back to Truth is marked by a growing sense of commitment, a constantly strengthening intent to realize Truth, to return to your Father, that becomes your single purpose. As investment is withdrawn from the ego, from bodily identification, the mind is progressively freed of habitual tendencies, of the past, and allowed to return to its true nature as freedom and presence here and now.

As ego, you are never really in the present except as the resistance to it. The mind misidentified as a body, a separate entity in time and space, is the denial of the Self, of Truth. As the Self is always and only in the present, the resistance to being truly present, a fundamental characteristic of the ego, is also an effective defense against the Truth. The ego uses time to maintain the illusion by keeping alive the past and using it to cover over and avoid the present, thus perpetuating a future that is the continuation of the past.

The Holy Spirit uses time in a completely different manner; He guides you so as to undo the past in the present and thus set the future free. By returning you to the present, the only time there is, are you enabled to reunite with your Self which is timeless. The skillful use of time is essential, if you are to escape from it. The seemingly endless and inexorable march of time in a continuous sequence of past, present, and future, holds you in a trap that appears real and beyond your control. Yet is time but an illusion that need not limit you, and indeed cannot, without your consent.

Through the Holy Spirit’s direction, you are helped to establish your awareness in the present by being constantly vigilant. This constant vigilance for Truth and against the ego, leads eventually to freedom of mind. Through the practice of continuous self awareness, moment to moment, you learn to know your mind as it is, not as you imagine it to be. Only what you are aware of can be consciously decided for or against. What is not accessible to consciousness remains in your mind, exerting its influence. For the healing of the mind to occur, all of its content, all its hidden corners and deep unconscious layers, must be uncovered and brought into the Light of awareness. What is true and helpful will be kept; what is false must be decided against and given to the Holy Spirit to correct. Nothing else will return the mind to Wholeness.

The Light in You

The Light in you is what the world longs to behold, for It shines away all darkness. So long the darkness has covered the earth and saddened the hearts of all who come here. The Light begins as a tiny point, barely visible, seemingly covered over by the sleep of ignorance. Yet within this tiny point is the Light of the world Whose function is to shine forth, illuminating the way back to God.

First must the mind awaken from its dream, ever so little, and the Light will shine a little brighter, like the tiny gleam of the firefly in the darkness of the night. Let the mind go a little farther on the path towards Truth, and the Light shines brighter still as the darkness begins to lift. Every step closer to Truth and the Light shines still more until It becomes a bright and shining star, set in the heavens above you, illuminating the path before you, guiding you Home. You need not worry if you lose the way, for the Light will never leave you; It will unerringly guide you back to the way you must walk. This Light is part of you forever, given you by God in your creation. This natural radiance of Mind shines brightly in Heaven and on earth.

The Light in a mind awakening from the dream extends to other minds, dispelling the sleep of ignorance, supporting the ongoing awakening of your brothers. You are Light, Mind, Spirit, Love, joy. You are the One Self of all that lives. Nothing you do or say can ever change what God created perfect as Himself. Let your Light so shine before men that their minds may be lighted also, until all of God’s children are joined in one great circle of joyous Light extending forever.

Forgiveness frees your mind, allowing its Light to shine brightly. Light is the opposite of darkness, not in truth, but in dreams of death where opposition seems to rule. Forgiveness ends opposition, for Love does not oppose, and a forgiving mind accepts everyone and everything as they are. Without judgement and the need to attack, are all things acceptable, and all grounds for conflict vanish, for guilt and judgement drive the mind to project and attack. Without them is the mind at peace, extending its Light everywhere, shining away darkness until only Light remains.

The mind of forgiveness shines its gentle Light on all without exceptions. When all are forgiven and seen as guiltless, are all then seen as part of yourself. No one is left outside for innocence extends to all, and in this foreshadowing of the Unity of God’s Son, are all blessed equally.

Forgiveness undoes the foundation of the belief system of separation; it brings you to the place where learning ends, and experience that is not of this world awaits you. Forgiveness, practiced rightly and consistently applied, will heal your mind of all guilt, of all grievances, allowing Holiness to be revealed. You are Holiness Itself as are all of your brothers. Through forgiveness is the guiltlessness of God’s Son made apparent, letting His innocence shine forth for all the world to see. The world is waiting for just this sight of innocence, that the burden of sin weighing so heavily upon it be lifted, setting it free at last.

While you languish in sin, guilty and condemned, does the world suffer with you; in your healing is it made whole. When guilt and sin have vanished from the mind that cherished them awhile, does the world become a different place, shining in the reflection of God’s Love.

We are nearing the end of our journey now, with Holiness Itself walking beside us and the Light shining brightly in our minds for all to see. There is a Light in your eyes, a Light that goes out to all you look upon, that blesses everything you see. The world has forgotten this Light, yet longs for It to return and heal all its sorrows. The Light in you has the power to heal all sickness, all pain, and all suffering that darkens the mind of God’s Holy Son.

All illusion gives way before the Holy Light that shines in the Mind of Christ. This Light is not of this world; It comes from Heaven, blessing all who live in misery and separation, thinking they are what they are not. This Light cannot be denied for It is part of Truth Itself. You who live and suffer and die in a world ruled by fear and hate, still carry this Light within you as a tiny spark. This spark waits but for the right conditions to blaze forth and grow into a mighty power that will consume all illusion, all that is false, leaving you transformed into Light Itself.

The nature of mind is Light, Its natural creative radiance. Mind extends Itself as Light and Love, and thus is Creation extended endlessly. Only the creations of Light are real; the universe of Light is the province of God and your true Home. Light, formless and infinite, conscious and eternal, is what you are. Until you accept this fact, you will continue trying to be what you are not. Better to accept the Truth now, and save yourself time and suffering.

All are destined to return to God for there is nowhere else to go; all other roads lead nowhere. When you tire of the long journey that ends only in death, you will be ready to begin the journey homeward. Your Father waits for your return and great is the rejoicing on that day.



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