Table of Contents
Love’s call will reach you if you let it. This call has gone on unceasingly since time began. Yet you have not heard it because you have not been listening. The din arising from the battlefield that is worldly life has drowned out every call for Truth. The sounds of conflict will always obscure the still, small voice of Spirit. Peace is more than the absence of strife. True peace is a condition in which the thought of conflict cannot arise for its cause has been healed.
All conflict has its origin in the state of mind where fear prevails and your brother is seen as separate and unrelated to you. Fear leads easily to hatred and anger. Anger is always the desire to attack, and what you fear you will hate. Hate perpetuates fear and attack, and the cycle continues without end as long as fear and separation rule your mind.
Peace begins with the recognition that my brother is myself, that only one of us is here. With that understanding, I begin to see that all conflict starts and ends with myself. Always and only it is myself I attack and nothing is gained thereby, for only loss results. What I do to my brother, I do to myself. I can never escape the effects of what I do for cause and effect are never separated.
The mind devoted to peace as its goal becomes a beacon, set on a hill, high above the battlefield. From there, it shines upon its brothers, helping them to lay down their arms and return to peace. Peace is the home of those who love God and would extend that Love to their brothers. Love follows peace as surely as fear follows conflict. When peace fills your heart, there is room for Love only; conflict will not find a home there.
All that will happen when you renounce conflict completely is that you will leave this world forever. The dream cannot hold you captive if you refuse to live by its terms. Belief in guilt and sin and therefore the continuance of fear and the attack that follows, are the conditions set by the ego for life in a world of apparent separation.
Do not believe what you see: a play of shadows appearing as if substantial, flickering images appearing on the screen of your mind. Do not be the willing victim of a trick you are playing on yourself any longer. You never really wanted to live in separation from your Father and your Self. It was all a mistake, an error, nothing more. An error that took hold of your mind and seemed to make a world of fear, suffering and death. You can leave this world at any time by changing your mind about its purpose. Let it be for you not your home but a way station, a place you are passing through, giving aid to other weary travelers before you leave it behind forever.
What would you do if I told you to give away all you have to the poor and follow me? Would you understand what I mean? To give all you have is to give only what is real, for that is what you have and that is all you have. You do not truly have what is not real; its possession is just a dream. What is real is only what comes from God, what was given in your creation. That you must give away for therein is its nature and meaning. By giving it to your brothers, you are able to keep it for yourself; your store of God’s treasures only increases.
Those who lack the awareness of what they are, are poor indeed in the only real sense. To give to them all you have, is to share the peace and the Love of God. To see the Light in your brothers is to recognize them as they are in Truth. In so doing, you are following in my footsteps, doing what I have done. I will never ask you to do anything I have not done. What I did can you do also. In fact, you must do it also for therein lies your salvation. Through my example, through what I learned, can anyone find salvation through forgiveness. I call upon my brothers to forgive as I have forgiven, for in that lies your escape from pain, sorrow, and death. My life was not for me alone; its lessons were learned for the benefit of everyone. My gift to my brothers was the way I lived and the triumph over death. I proved that death is not real, that you cannot be killed. My example removed all reasons to fear and hate, leaving only love and forgiveness as the response to everyone at all times and in all circumstances.
What was never true is not true now nor will ever be. The Truth has not left your mind. The Truth is your Mind, your Being, and your life. It has always been so and always will be. Do not let belief in the projected illusion take the place of Truth any longer. It is time to return to the home that has always been yours, that awaits your decision to be as you are truly.
This decision, despite all the apparent complexity and confusion that surrounds and obscures it, is actually quite simple. You need only be willing to recognize that you are not a body; you are not all the beliefs you hold about yourself. In that recognition lies your release from every form of bondage, from all pain and suffering. This willingness, rightly exercised, will develop and grow until you are reunited with your Self. The decision that permits the return of Truth is quite simple, straight forward, and consistent in its application. Unless it remains so throughout the duration of your return journey, you will suffer needless delay.
The journey home need not take a long time. It can happen instantly if you would so choose. At any stage, at any moment on the path of return, you can let go all apparent obstructions, all experience of illusion, and disappear into the Self. Yet is this seldom the case. Why? The mind vacillates in its willingness, it commitment, its purpose. Old tendencies and habits die hard.
The human mind is a battleground, a place of warring tendencies and desires. Impulses come and go, and thoughts arise in a constant stream that demands your attention. Reactions to outside events and the emotions that arise within pull you first one way and then another. Emotions arouse thoughts, thoughts oppose or judge emotions. A swirling maelstrom of activity is the mind of separation. This constant distraction, this constant battle for your affections and allegiance, drains your energy and weakens your purpose.
The calming of the mind to bring it to a state of peace and quietness is thus essential. A quiet mind has been made ready to receive the Truth which will not wait long to enter. Truth’s return is assured once the obstacles to its coming have been removed. You need only meet its conditions and you will be free once again.
What needs to be done in every situation and circumstance no matter the conditions, is to be present wholly with whatever occurs without judgment or reaction. You can only respond fully each moment if you are not limited by or trapped by the past. If the past is operating in your mind and dominating the present, you will project onto and interpret what is happening; never will you meet the situation as it is. Only with a clear and open mind can freedom be found no matter what the circumstances, and this freedom is offered to all through the Holy Spirit.
Freedom is the gift of being present without the past, being free to act from a state of Love and Presence. To bring to the now only Love and openness is to offer healing to everyone and everything. Only by giving healing to all will you receive it. No one can be excluded from receiving the gifts you offer if you would keep them for yourself. No matter what you would do, do it with Love and you will be blessed. Happiness will always accompany Love just as sorrow will always follow fear.
Whenever there is any doubt as to who you are and Who your Father is, stop and ask yourself this question. Who is it that doubts? What is it that does not know what it is? The ego is ignorant of the Truth of what you are for the ego knows nothing. The ego was born as a response to the terror of separation, as the identity that took the place of your true identity. Meant to be the denial of what you are in Truth and the defense against it, the ego will only tell you that you are what you are not. Do not look to the ego for validation or clarification. It will always tell you that you are a body, destined to sicken and die, for this is what it believes.
The Holy Spirit alone knows your true identity and holds that knowledge for you until you are ready to accept it. Nothing prevents you from remembering who you are except your refusal to do so. The fear engendered by the ego in your mind prevents the willingness to remember from arising to awareness to set you free. The defense against the return of the Self is so strong, well established, and consistent, that you need help to free yourself.
Although the defenses that keep you prisoner are of your own making, you have forgotten that fact and so have lost control of them. They operate below the threshold of conscious awareness; thus are they virtually autonomous and completely effective at keeping the Truth away. Truth does not oppose and cannot enter a mind where It is actively resisted. As conscious mind, caught in a dream you do not realize you are dreaming, you go about your life completely oblivious to the Truth that is in you and all around you. I once said, “You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free.” The Truth is freedom itself. It then follows that not to know Truth is a state without freedom, a condition of imprisonment.
The ego’s goal is to keep you ignorant of who you are. Only by so doing can it keep the walls that contain your mind intact. To identify with the ego, the sense of being a separate identity, is to live in a state of ignorance. Such a state is literally harmful to your well being for the state of illusion is both the cause and the condition of suffering.
Yet is there always a solution to suffering of any kind and the ignorance that is its cause. Truth, born of right understanding and correctly applied, will remove the cause and with the disappearance of the cause do the effects vanish also. The solution to illusion, which is always a state of willful, albeit unconscious ignorance of Truth, is the choosing against illusion and the return of Truth. Light will always shine away darkness, not by attacking or opposing it, but by simply being what It is. Darkness, illusion, cannot exist in the Presence of Truth. The awareness of Truth is the answer to separation and all apparent problems that arise therefrom. Awareness of Truth is not a mental construct, a concept, for Truth cannot be made an object of thought. It cannot be experienced within the context of subject/object perception. Truth must be directly experienced in Mind Itself as what you are. There is no other way to find It and no other place It can be found.
Whatever can be seen, heard, or perceived in any way is not real. Whatever can be thought of or about is not Truth. Truth cannot be captured by word, thought, or concept. It lies forever beyond the reach of the mind of separation and its activities, for Truth is One. In It is everything that is real; all of God’s Creation is part of It, and nothing that was not created by God is real or true. Only the Truth is true, and what is not the Truth is not true.
Nothing that is made by the ego as part of separation and upholding the belief in separation, has anything to do with Truth. All projections of mind are illusions meant to conceal Truth, to obscure It and shatter It into many discontinuous pieces with no relationship to one another. Do not be fooled by color and form, by differences great and small. They do not matter. They are not there.
The purpose of the world you see is to blind you to Truth, to cover It up with names and labels, categories and descriptions. What is One always and only, appears as many, separated by time, space, and difference. Only thus is the fiction of the ego’s existence maintained. The ego cannot survive where separation has been replaced by Unity, for the ego is the belief in separation, the thought system that arises from this belief, and the fictitious person to whom these thoughts and the body seem to belong.
The personal identity is a phantom, the ghost in the machine that isn’t there. When you look for it as if it were something substantial, you cannot find it. The body is a wholly neutral thing and has no volition of itself. It simply responds to the mind’s commands. There is no entity in mind. The mind is just a collection of thoughts, feelings, and impulses that was set in motion a long time ago. The sense of the ‘I’, of me, is just another thought although it is the most basic thought as it arose from the idea of separation, and in its arising, seemed to make separation possible by providing a central thought or axis around which the experience of separation could be constructed, and from which separation could be projected in an almost endless series of divisions.
What you are in truth is not a physical or mental or emotional quantity. What you are is completely unknown to the senses or to the thinking mind. Spirit is beyond all measurement, all conceptualization, all perception. It can only be known directly by Mind as Itself. This knowledge is not of this world for it does not lie within the limits of time and space. You cannot reach such knowledge through your efforts; the ‘you’ must disappear so that the Self can reveal Itself in your mind as what you truly are, beyond all thought and all sense of a separate identity.
If what you truly are has no basis in separation, and is in fact the demonstration that separation is impossible, then the separate identity that seems to be you cannot exist. In order for a thing to exist, its existence must be possible. Nothing whose existence is impossible can exist at all. Yet you find yourself an apparent bodily identity, separate from everything you see, and nowhere in the world around you is the Unity of all even remotely suggested by your experience. How can that be?
You are dreaming a dream, an impossible dream. Yet like all dreams, does the impossible and improbable seem to be true, and the conditions of your dreaming seem to determine your life and its purpose. The dreamer has forgotten the Reality from which he comes although he has never left it. Dreaming can seem to last a long, long time, yet when it is over you will see it lasted but an instant. That is all the time it took for an entire universe of dreams to arise, play out its drama, and disappear again. What else could a world made of nothingness do but vanish from the mind that gave it birth when that mind grew tired of dreaming, of its childish play, and let the memory of Truth return. And the Truth will set you free from your own nightmares. Nothing has imprisoned you in a dream of death but your decision to be what you are not, and nothing can return you to the freedom you have always known but your willingness to know your Self again. Whatever the cost of freedom, you will pay it gladly if you could but remember, even for a moment, the freedom you have always known in God.
In this world freedom must be earned for it has been thrown away and replaced with what denies and devalues it; fear has taken its place. Fear and freedom are incompatible; freedom is a state in which fear is absent. Fear denies freedom just as freedom demonstrates that fear cannot exist. The absence of fear is Love and freedom. They are never apart and they remain with you forever. If you are to realize freedom however, you must renounce fear in all its forms and lay down all desire to attack. It is fear and only fear that robs you of freedom. In fact, when you invented fear, you turned your back on the freedom in which you were created and chose slavery instead.
Whatever you may do with your mind, you are expressing freedom or you are giving form to fear. These are the only two possibilities. Sure it is the many different responses that seem to be required in life do not appear to be limited to these two, yet that is all you are ever called upon to choose between. One choice leads you back to Heaven, the other maintains your place in hell. You cannot return to Heaven unless you are free to do so. To let fear rule your mind is to imprison yourself and lose sight of your true home.
Freedom begins with the recognition that fear and fear only is the obstacle to freedom. Fear weakens you, leaving you cowering behind thick walls whose purpose is to protect you from what threatens you. Yet what threatens you is a fearful projection of your own mind. When you take back your projections, ceasing to give them an autonomy they do not possess, they will lose their hold over you and you will be free.
Nothing can limit your freedom but your own thoughts. They are used to construct your prison or they are used to set you free; the choice of how they are used is yours and yours alone. It is not necessary to think according to what you have been taught by the ego. That is merely habit and is valueless in itself. The ego would have you believe that what is true is false, and what is false is true. What it teaches is always the opposite of Truth; the ego cannot survive in the Presence of Truth so it must always obscure, avoid, deny, or contradict what is true. Everything the ego has ever taught you is false and will only hurt you.
Freedom is the return to Reality. Only there will it be found. The ego is the denial of Reality; it does not know freedom for it cannot know that in whose presence it will disappear. You need not ask the ego about freedom nor accept its ideas about anything. All ideas that arise from ego consciousness make no sense and will only mislead you. What else can you expect from a mistake made so long ago and then forgotten, though it lives on in your mind as if the past were present still? Lay it down my brother, lay your burden down and return to life.
The needs you perceive are not real. They are part of the dream, and the belief that you are in need of anything is itself a fundamental delusion that upholds the foundation of the false identity. For what but a body, seemingly fragile and requiring constant care and attention, would have needs that must be constantly attended to? The illusory needs whose fulfillment takes so much of your time and energy, have but one purpose: to distract you from recognizing the one and only need you have in the world of separation.
The return of the memory of God to your awareness is the only need that is real. To heal the separation is the purpose of life, the only purpose that is meaningful and capable of accomplishment. If you devote your life to awakening from the dream, to fulfilling your only need, all your other ‘needs’ will be met. Your Father gave answer to all problems and needs His Son experienced in the dream projection once and for all through the creation of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes God’s one Answer and translates It into forms you recognize that meet your needs as you perceive them.
Do not forget that you are not a body. Nothing else will free your mind. Only the recognition of what you are not will open the way to experiencing what you are in Truth. You are not confined by a physical form unless you choose to be. This choice can be undone by choosing once again.
Whatever occupies your mind that is not Love, be it thoughts, feelings, beliefs, or memories, must be relinquished to make room for Love. All that is not Love must be healed that Love may return and claim its own. Love belongs to you and you belong to Love. As A Course in Miracles states so simply and eloquently, “Teach only Love for that is what you are.” If Love is what you are and you do not experience Love as it is, then you are not experiencing yourself as you are. To be the Self, the Christ, is to be Love only. If you are not being Love only, then you are being something other than what you are in Truth. This substitute identity has robbed you of your true identity by taking its place. However, this was not foisted upon you; it was a decision you made long ago, and it remains in effect until you change your mind and choose again.
What if you let go all fear, renounced fear forever, recognized it for the nothingness it is, and decided to feel only the emotion that is real, Love? What if you decided to love only, only to love? What would happen? You would be free and joy would flood your mind and carry you to God. God is Love and you are a part of His Love, a creation of His Love, and you are Love. As a channel of His Love and mercy, you have the privilege of bringing Love to a world that has denied itself what it needs most. You bring a Love that shines into all the dark and secret places hidden in the human mind. Love will illuminate all fear, all grievances. It will expose the deep sorrow, and the twisted hates that cast their dark shadow across the mind of separation. Love sees all and shines away all darkness, all that denies Love, through its beneficent gaze.
Whenever you are tempted to choose fear over Love, remember what that choice has cost you in pain and suffering. It has cost you the Peace of God and the knowledge of your true relationship with Him. Would you perpetuate this separation or would you repair it? Every choice for fear and attack in any form continues the rejection of your Creator and the deep loneliness that has marked your life ever since. Do not forget what you are choosing with each decision you make: life or death.
Love will always lead you back to life eternal. It shines away death in all its disguises leaving only the One Light. The Love and Light of Your Father is what you are. By offering only That and nothing else, you will find there is nothing else. God is your Being, your Mind, your Love, and your Life. Never forget this for your Father never forgets you.
Do not underestimate your resistance to Love, for it plays a major role in keeping the separation in place. If you would drop all defenses and simply love, this world would fall away and you would find yourself in the Presence of your Creator. Unfortunately, it is this you fear more than anything in this world although this is your only need.
When you are called upon to love, the ego offers you a distorted version of love to take Love’s rightful place. The ego teaches that you are unworthy of real Love because of your sinful nature. It then teaches you that your brothers are likewise guilty. Thus the only basis you share on which Love can be established between you is your mutual unworthiness. You and your brother agree that since you are both guilty and un-worthy of being loved, your relationship will maintain this guilt by never bringing it to conscious awareness. Instead, you take turns projecting onto each other in an attempt to keep guilt alive without taking responsibility for it. What results is a love/hate dynamic that characterizes to some extent most human relationships. If you honestly search your mind, you will find that you have grievances towards everyone no matter how much you think you love them.
Such relationships offer you but a parody of what Love is. Yet is there still, though masked by the ego’s distortions, a kernel of Love’s meaning to be found. In the honest sharing, the recognition of a true common interest, and the human attempt to forgive in good faith, Love is faintly reflected but that is enough. All your relationships have the potential to be holy relationships, and that is what they must become if you are to know Love again. Through your relationships with your brothers, you have the chance to learn forgiveness and true giving.
Whenever the opportunity arises to give, you must respond for you are always giving but to yourself. Every chance to help another by giving is a chance to share the gifts of God you have received and thus increase what you have. All that is real will only be increased by giving it away; that is why it is given you. Do not underestimate the power of your giving. Giving will set you free. It is Love that gives; and when your giving has become total, Love will return.
The ego gives always to get, but the Christ in you gives because it is His nature and brings Him joy. You cannot lose by giving truly, by giving from your heart. Whatever is given will return to you, albeit in a different form. Your store of divine gifts increases with every act of giving. Your Father only gives, He never takes. If you would be like Him, and you are like Him, you must give everything to everyone. By so doing, you are set free from the ego’s thought system of fear and sacrifice. To give cannot be a sacrifice if you only gain thereby.
What the ego would have you do is limit giving to only a few and exclude all others. Even with these few however, giving is too often a kind of exchange where each gives to get. Giving that you may receive something in return is not true giving; it is rather a thinly disguised attempt to manipulate each other. Love does not manipulate, and all real giving is an expression of Love. Every gift truly given always arises from Love and includes Love no matter the form or circumstance.
Whether you should give or not is never the question. Always it is only the opportunity to give that is important. You have innumerable occasions every day to give to your brothers. A smile, a kind word, a chance to help, the form of the gift matters not. You must give and give freely, and you will always receive. As you give all you truly have freely to all your brothers, you will receive freely from your Father. He is always giving you everything as He did in your Creation, but unless you give to all as He does, you cannot accept His gifts.
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