Chapter Eight

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The Holy Instant

What if I were to tell you your homecoming, the full reestablishment of Truth in your consciousness, is but a moment away. In time, it seems like an almost mythical state, a goal so difficult to reach it lies somewhere in the future, attainable only after a long period of struggle. As long as you believe in sequential time will this be true for you, yet is that only a belief. It cannot be true that the Self, what you are and have always been, cannot be realized here and now. Only the false ideas that fill your mind, limiting it and distorting your perception, stand between your present state and the unified awareness of the Self. While it is true that for most who are lost in space and time, the process of undo­ing the false mind appears to be a lengthy one, this need not be.

At any moment, the Truth can shine into your mind and lift you above the illusion, if that is what you want and you are willing to meet Its conditions. The holy instant is waiting for you to let Truth into your awareness at any moment. Never is it far away, requiring a lengthy period of preparation to make your mind available to its coming. The Holy Spirit’s gifts to you require only that you be willing to receive them without trying to control the conditions under which they are given. For that reason, they are always available, independent of the apparent conditions of time. The Holy Spirit works in time but is not limited by it; His gifts are constantly given, coming from God Who knows not time.

The insistence that you must be prepared to receive what the Holy Spirit would give, prevents the reception of what you desperately need. This is simply a delaying tactic, an expression of unconscious resistance. What could be easier than to simply accept what is so freely given and obviously valuable? The constant need to control circumstances and conditions, very effectively keeps God away. To do this is to identify with the ego’s obsessive need to control, for it believes its safety depends on it. Believing itself to be constantly under threat, the conditions of life must be maintained according to the ego’s liking. What can only be experienced in the present is very threatening to the ego, which al­ways tries to limit the present by using it to reinforce the past and thus control the future.

What is important to the Holy Spirit’s purpose is unknown to the ego. What the ego judges as important is overlooked by the Holy Spirit, for He recognizes all things of the ego are meaningless. What is meaningless does not exist. You must learn to overlook the ego’s expression and its values if you are to replace illusion with Truth. Be aware of the movement of illusion in your mind, recognize it for what it is and choose again. Do this again and again and again, each moment and each minute and each hour until the momentum of illusion is reversed. Truth will take its place in your affections, loosening the shackles that have bound you for so long.

Only your willing cooperation with the ego’s plan to maintain separation, keeps you a prisoner to what you do not truly want. You are complicit in your own destruction. The ego has only the hold over your mind that you have given it. As you become aware of this fact and of the ego’s goal, the insanity of your choice of the ego as your guide becomes obvious and cannot be denied. The reluctance to accept this recognition, to choose again, will delay your homecoming. The life of separation is all you know; allegiance to the ego has been unquestioned for so long that you have forgotten your real Self.

The Christ has not forgotten you. He is waiting for the invitation to reveal His Presence in your mind, and will do so just as soon as you are ready. Do not delay this homecoming. Let the Holy Spirit teach you to recognize the errors you are making, the false beliefs in your mind and the actions that follow. Let Him correct your thoughts and return your mind to the ways of Truth. There is nothing else to be done; all else is just the perpetuation of the past with all its confusion, pain and suffering. Return to the present, the only moment there is, and discover where you are and what you have forgotten. Let the Holy Spirit reveal the place whereon you stand, the depth from which you come.

Not a moment will He waste; no effort on your part will not be rewarded and strengthened through His constant help and Presence. To your little willingness is added His own, making it a mighty force for change. You need do nothing by yourself, for He is always there, giving you what you need, telling you what you need to know, furthering your understanding. Now is the time to begin in earnest. Do not wait. Procrastination accomplishes nothing and merely prolongs the time of ignorance of your true purpose. If suffering has lost its appeal, and pleasure and pain seen as they are, you will not hesitate to consecrate your life to a higher purpose.

To delay the inevitable will bring no benefit, being the dedication to preserve separation and find safety and satisfaction in a world where they are absent. Happiness cannot be found while you build your house on shifting sands. There is no reason to pursue goals whose purpose is to conceal their meaninglessness. Your life lacks meaning while you seek for it where it cannot be found; meaning, like Truth, is within. It lies not outside of you, hidden among the shadows that seemingly surround you. Life’s purpose is revealed to you when you desire this above all else. Do not give purpose to what is purposeless, to that which conceals real purpose and meaning through its frantic activity and constant diversions. You were not meant to wander distractedly across a barren landscape occupied by phantoms that seem to come and go. Your Father has created you for a purpose; let the Holy Spirit teach you where purpose can be found.

Let Go The False

Now is the opportunity to leave behind all that you do not need. To reach the heights, the gates of Heaven, you must lighten your load by throwing out what is false and unnecessary. The constant exercise of judgment, a function that is not yours, is exhausting you and sapping your strength. Do not continue the same mistakes over and over and reap the same undesirable consequences. All the suffering in your life is the result of the belief in judgment, sin, and guilt. Lay down this sword you hold against your own throat to keep Love away. Only the constant and chaotic activity of your mind denies the Truth and keeps Love from your awareness.

Allow the Holy Spirit to train your mind to let go the false and make room for the true. Let Him teach you the difference between Truth and illusion, and learn to become aware of the constant choices you are making. Learn to become consistent in your choosing of Truth over illusion. Turn decision making over to the One Whose function it is. Give Him your willingness that He may augment it with His own. The purified mind is empty, quiet, ready to welcome Truth as It comes. Be willing and welcoming; that is enough. Do not set your sights low, aim high. Your goal is far above this world and beyond it.

What you choose is up to you, the consequences will always follow. Choose Truth and Heaven Itself will bend to help. Choose illusion and you will prolong your unnecessary suffering. Thank the Holy Spirit and the Christ within you. Never forget them, the Truth of what you are, and the help that is always given. Make yourself available to receive help, and develop the clarity to use it effectively.

All Is Done

Do you know what is truly needed in every situation, what words will help, what action is called for? In all honesty you must admit you do not. Your ideas about what to do and what to say are too often determined by the past. Seldom are your truly present, without preconceived ideas that limit your understanding and shape your response. There is One however, Who knows always what help is needed, what can be given and received by everyone, with only good resulting for all. Do let Him guide your thoughts, words, and actions, your perceptions and understanding. His is the help you need. His is the help you want. Let this be the guiding principle of your life: He knows and I do not. Do not let your ignorance and the unconscious conceit that you know what you do not, cripple your mind and distort your responses.

Each day, every day, is given over to the Holy Spirit and dedicated to learning the lessons presented, thus fulfilling your responsibility. Nothing else need be done but do not forget to do nothing less. Whatever you are asked to do, do it cheerfully, with abundant willingness. All tasks assigned are for your highest good; you will only gain thereby. It may not be clear to you always that this is true, for the idea of sacrifice and the belief you must understand what you do before you do it, has been well established in your mind for a very long time. You must remember always you know nothing. This consistent remembrance frees your mind to allow the Holy Spirit to direct your life. In this way you can be consistently helpful to yourself and your brothers.

All that needs be done is done, all lessons assigned are learned; nothing is left undone or unlearned. The Holy Spirit holds the plan for the day for each one and all the people you will meet. He guides you throughout the day, helping you learn what is to be learned, inspiring your words and actions. His Love and strength are available for you to use; He is holding them for you until you are ready to accept them for yourself. The Love of God and the strength of God were given in your creation. They are your birthright. You cannot lose what was given by God although you can refuse to hold it in your awareness. The Holy Spirit holds everything that is yours, all that you have forgotten, until you are ready to allow its memory to return.

Ignorance and Wisdom

The admission of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. A very unfortunate characteristic of those blinded by their own ignorance is that they do not realize the state they are in. They do not realize they know nothing. Until this is recognized, your ignorance will be taken for understanding, and only the perpetuation of illusion and the suffering it brings will result. To know that you do not know is the awareness that makes room for true learning to occur. Full of its own ideas and beliefs, the mind cannot receive what is true and greatly needed. An undoing of the mind is absolutely necessary; all belief in illusion must be relinquished, all ideas that lead nowhere given up. Confidence in your ability to understand on your own, to figure things out, must be replaced by trust in the Holy Spirit and the willingness to learn what He teaches. Your understanding is always based on the thought system to which you adhere. You never learn on your own just as no decisions are made in isolation. You learn and you decide with the help of one of two possible teachers: the Holy Spirit or the ego. There are no others.

What is necessary always is to be aware of which teacher you are listening to at all times. From the teacher you choose, comes the lessons you learn. You never learn alone; you always teach those who share a lesson with you what you are learning. Teach fear and separation and you will suffer. Teach only Love and Unity and all are blessed together. There is nothing you cannot do when joined with your brothers through the power of Love and forgiveness. Your lessons in forgiveness are learned for all; that learning will spread till it covers the earth.

To do that which must be done requires a sorting out of what is necessary from what is not. Giving much time and energy to what is not needed is characteristic of the sleeping mind. By so doing, the mind is kept in a constant state of confusion about what is valuable and helpful and what is valueless. Under these conditions, reaching a state of clarity is impossible. You must be willing to let the Holy Spirit guide the process of sorting out what must be done from what must be discarded. Until this sorting out is accomplished to a meaningful degree, consistent decision making is not possible.

To do what is asked of you, what is required of you, is the way to happiness and salvation. This includes not only your actions and the words you speak, but also your thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. Everything in your mind and life, all the various parts of you, must be brought into alignment with a single purpose. There is no need to do anything on your own. To relinquish control of decision making, to turn it over, is a necessary condition for salvation to be given you. The need to control life, to control the present and plan for the future based on what was learned in the past, is the ego’s response to its own uncertainty. To know nothing is to be uncertain, and the ego knows nothing.

You have one responsibility: to accept the Atonement for yourself. This is very simple in principle, yet in practice it may take a long time before its simplicity is apparent. Your mind is very complicated, being composed of different levels of awareness, many different thoughts and beliefs that often conflict, various impulses, tendencies, moods, feelings, emotions and attitudes. Thoughts and feelings chase each other across the surface of your aware­ness like clouds across the sky, driven by the wind. Constantly changing, giving you no rest, this confusing and apparently complex activity must be skillfully undone.

Complexity cannot be met with more complexity; this merely confuses the mind even more. The great complexity of mind is itself a condition of confusion and contradiction. You cannot undo confusion by increasing it. Confusion is undone by the application of clarity which must come from beyond the mind lost in its own complexity. The Holy Spirit teaches you the only meaningful distinction that can be made regarding the content and activity of your mind. Everything that arises in your awareness, all that you experience within or without, is either true or not true. No other distinction can be made that is meaningful or helpful. Truth or illusion are all that you can ever choose between.

Let this simple understanding be the basis from which you approach the chaotic maelstrom that is the ego mind. Its simplicity will cut through the layers of complexity and confusion that blind you to the Truth within. As you learn to distinguish the true from the false consistently, clarity and peace will return to your mind, replacing its frantic activity with a quiet certainty.

There are no meaningful distinctions to be made between illusions; no matter what form they may take, the content is the same. Form is but the veil concealing content. You must learn to look past the veil and discern what lies behind it. The Holy Spirit will teach you to perceive truly, that confusion may leave your mind. He will guide your decisions and He always chooses what is good and true. As decision making becomes consistent with the help of the Guide God has given you, you will see the road rise up before you, stretching to the gates of Heaven.

Whenever a decision needs to be made, remember Whose function it is. This is particularly difficult for those who continue to assert their autonomy, the need to control life according to one’s liking and preferences. What you like, what you prefer, is habit determined by past learning. Remember always that you were badly taught. You are unable to tell the difference between pain and pleasure though you think you can. You do not know what anything means, what it is for, yet are unaware of this fact. In your attempts to control life, you are always operating from the past with the ego as your guide. Allowing the one who knows nothing to guide your decisions is asking for disaster. It is extremely important to become aware of the ego’s motives and its complete unsuitability to be your guide, and to face this fact honestly. Otherwise you will not relinquish your habitual dependency on the ego, leaving no room for the Guide given you by your Father to take its place.

Nowhere can you find happiness but within your mind. It cannot be found outside, for happiness is the true state of your mind and is independent of time or place. No special circumstances or conditions are necessary nor can real happiness be disturbed by events. To rediscover happiness while living in the world of separation, is not possible unless you are fulfilling your function here. Forgiveness is your function in a world where Love is denied, assigned you by God through the Holy Spirit, Whose function it is to teach you yours and help you fulfill it. Happiness is not possible without the commitment to Love; forgiveness is the demonstration and the expression of that commitment. In this world, all is Love or the call for Love. Your responsibility is to give Love always.

Teacher of God

Nowhere in the world is there reason to fear or to respond with anything less than Love. Your response is always based on what you think you are. This holds true for all times and all circumstances. If you think you are a body, housing a ‘person’ separate and different from everyone and everything, your responses to what arises in your life and mind will vary greatly. Variable response is the sign of an uncertain mind, unsure of itself and its course of action. The mind that sees itself under constant threat due to the apparent fragility of its self identity, cannot respond in a consistent manner. Consistency requires understanding and clarity, traits lacking in a mind riddled with fear. Those who identify with weakness will always suffer from the constant influence of fear, and their decision making will be distorted accordingly. What you think you are is the thought system that is the basis of your responses to yourself and the world around you. And you will project your beliefs onto the world you see which will then reflect them back, perception being always a reflection of what you want to be true.

Into this confused and uncertain situation come the Teachers of God to bring clarity and healing. Their task is to teach another way of thinking, living, and understanding. They do this in the simplest and most direct way possible through demonstration. By what they do and how they do it, what they say, how they treat all others with whom they come into contact, they demonstrate another way to live in all respects. Love, kindness, and non-judgment do they bring to all areas of life and everyone they meet. Unfailingly gentle, they show forth the strength that is gentleness and the patience that never fails.

The example set by the Teachers of God is not missed by those around them. Although they do not preach, their actions speak louder than words. A way of living is shown the children of separation, one that is the opposite of the worldly life in every respect. Their words are given to those who would hear them, their help and goodwill is given to all. The Teachers of God need not be concerned about what to say or what to do. Their mind is joined with the Teacher of Teachers; from Him, they receive their guidance in all things. The words they need are given them. What to do, the tasks of the day, are likewise given, and they receive all help they need to complete what is assigned to them. Nowhere is there any room for error unless they forget from Whom comes their strength and help. And then they remember again, and all errors are corrected and the consequences undone.

The Teachers of God rest content in the readiness to receive the gifts God has given them. Their trust allows the Holy Spirit to guide them in all they do and say. Their thoughts are given over to Love; what is not love is given over to correction. The Teachers of God know that everything that happens, whether within or without, is either Love or a call for Love. Their function is therefore very simple. They give Love to all and everyone and everything without exception. To what is Love they join, to the call for Love they respond with Love. Always do they answer the call for Love, and always do they let their answer be guided. A smile, a kind word, a helping hand, the form changes to fit the need but always is the content the same. A call for Love is recognized, and Love is given in the form most helpful.

No matter what happens, your responsibility is to respond with Love, forgiveness, and a willingness to help. There is no other way for a Teacher of God to live than in this manner. When once you accept that role, you accept responsibility for the world and everything in it. Your brothers need your help to recognize Truth and the way that leads to It. They call to you, asking you constantly to lead them out of hell, to help them see the cause of their suffering and the solution. You begin to help by seeing the one Light in your brother that also shines in you. Through your forgiveness of your brother and the world, you cease to lay upon them the burden of your guilt. By granting this freedom is it also given you. As your guilt is healed, so will all others appear guiltless in your eyes. Only the guilty condemn others for what they think they have done. The mind healed of guilt sees only the innocence of God’s Son wherever it looks.

The task of the Teacher of God is to be helpful to all, giving help wherever it is needed. To this task we dedicate each day, resting in our willingness to learn the lessons the day brings. Through learning the day’s lessons you are healed, and you are never healed alone. All the brothers with whom and through whom your healing takes place, are healed along with you. All you meet or see or chance upon over the course of the day will likewise benefit. No one is omitted, for healing is always given for all. Being aware of this fact, you rest in the certainty that whatever you do is done for the good of all, when you speak and act as you are guided.

Without the Teachers of God, there would be no salvation. They give form to the lessons the Holy Spirit teaches. For those as yet unable to turn to Him for help, they represent Him, offering His help in a form that can be recognized. There is nothing they cannot do; their trust and willingness given to the Holy Spirit makes all miracles possible. They offer miracles to all they look upon, one for every problem that appears. In their company, all tears are replaced with happy laughter, all sadness with gratitude and joy.

Miracles

Do not underestimate the extent to which miracles can change your life and set your feet on the path to God. Their purpose is to demonstrate to those lost in the darkness of the dream that there is a higher law, a law that supersedes the ‘laws’ of the dream. The miracle provides you with a means to correct all erroneous perception, and replace it with right understanding. As stated in A Course in Miracles, miracles wait in shining silence behind all problems you think you have. Let the miracle correct everything in your mind that stands between you and God. Its purpose is to bring you back to your Father through the demonstration you are under no laws but His. As an expression of Love, the miracle blesses giver and receiver. As corrector of perception, it demonstrates that nothing you perceive is what you think. Through its function of collapsing time, the miracle shows you that time is not real, that you are not a prisoner in a world of time.

Let miracles into your life through the acceptance of the One who brings them, the Holy Spirit. He will teach you all you need to know to allow miracles to transform life and perception. Miracle mindedness must be established in your mind to take the place of the fear that formerly ruled. When fear is replaced by miracles, Love will return to transform the mind. Do not keep It waiting; give your assent to the healing power of the miracle that Love may re­claim your life. Love, forgiveness, miracles, healing; these are but different names for the return of sanity and freedom.

Miracles are always available when your mind has been made ready to receive them. The Holy Spirit is the inspiration for miracles. He teaches you the conditions that must be met for miracles to be present in your life. Miracles are completely natural events. When they do not occur, something is wrong. In the human condition, miracles are not recognized or generally experienced, as the density of the mind of separation excludes the possibility of miracles. Miracles are expressions of Love; thus they bless the giver and receiver equally. If you would receive the power of miracles into your life, you must reach a state of miracle mindedness. This requires faith, faith in the unseen, faith in the Holy Spirit. He makes miracles available to you if you ask sincerely with an open mind and a pure heart. True forgiveness is itself a miracle that blesses giver and receiver.

Let all help be given you that you may be able to help those sent to you for healing. You are never healed alone; healing is for all and must be shared to be received. Do not refuse your brothers’ pleas for help. They call to you to lead them out of darkness. Would you refuse to answer when you hold the key to deliverance in your hand? Alone, you are as helpless as they; joined with your brother, is all power given to you both. Joining in Love and shared purpose, together you walk the road back to God as the gates of Heaven open wide to receive you. No one enters Heaven except hand in hand with their brothers. Alone, the gate is barred by your own decision; the state of alone­ness, separation from all others, is the denial of Heaven. In Heaven all souls are joined in a Oneness without beginning or end.

Love Always

Do not let the fear inherent in the state of separation, cast its dark shadow across the whole of your life. No part of human life is unaffected by the fear lying hidden in the mind. Thought, feeling, and perception; all are distorted and fragmented by unconscious fear. Human motivation is often driven by fear though it is usually not apparent. The different forms fear may take, the unawareness of its presence and influence, the dissociation from what you have suppressed, often hide from you the source of the motivation that drives your actions.

Love is a much better motivator than fear which replaced Love after the separation. Love’s motivation brings us together for the good of all. Fear divides us, with each staking out his tiny kingdom and erecting thick walls for its defense. Love would break down all barriers that separate, and bring together its children into one big and happy family. Fear fragments the family of God, bringing chaos and conflict into all relations. Love only gives, and fear only takes away.

Always respond with Love no matter what occurs, and only good will come for all. To bring fear to any situation is to fragment and separate. Conflict then inevitably results. When Love is all you want to give, then Love is all you will receive. Never is there any need for anything short of Love, for Love is all there is. Everything that is not Love, is but part of a dream wherein you have lost yourself for a moment. Only Love exists; God is Love, and you are Love as you were created. Nothing God did not create exists at all. Fear, guilt, and the mad world that arose from them are imagination, shadows in the clouds that obscure your vision, nothing else. A nightmare still trapped in your mem­ory and experienced as if here and now. It will not prevail against Love.

The End of the Dream

Now is the time to relinquish all nightmares, letting the Light shine through, dispelling the darkness. They no longer interest you; you have had enough suffering, enough pain and disappointment. Too much time has been wasted in idle pursuits that go nowhere and accomplish nothing. What is there to gain in a world where chaos rules and shadows play at being real? Abandon this madness before it drags you down once again to play the game of death, a game where only loss rises to meet you. The dream will end when you finally tire of it, not before. Learn to face its conditions honestly, let go of denial and dissociation. Remember the glorious Reality that waits for you beyond the dream. Remember your Father Who calls to you unceasingly. And remember the Holy Spirit, Whose care and concern for you are unceasing, Who guides you along the path He has chosen for you. The Holy Spirit will take you to the gates of Heaven. Give Him your complete trust, thereby do you learn to trust your Self.

In the discarding of all that is untrue, you will find the Truth. Your mind is filled with false ideas about yourself and the world. From this arises the partial perception and limited experiences of separation that characterize the sleeping mind. The Self has not left your mind; the Self is your mind, your real Mind. Only the configuration of your mind in a state of self invented illusion, based on attack and defense, conceals the Truth that still abides deep in your awareness. Hence you need not search for Truth outside your mind nor struggle to find It within.

What is needed is two-fold: become aware of illusion in all its forms and all its operations, and learn the difference between Truth and illusion thoroughly. The Holy Spirit guides this process, teaching you true perception and bringing you to genuine understanding. Without His help, you cannot break through the illusion you have constructed to limit your mind. Withdraw your allegiance to the world you have made, to the illusion that characterizes your ex­perience in every way. Without your active support, illusion will collapse, and that which it was made to conceal will shine forth.

Do not under any circumstances forget who you are and the help that is always available. The constant identification with the self you have made, and the operant belief that you are alone and must find your own understanding and solution to the problems you face, keep you frozen as the illusory self. Illusory beliefs must be raised to question and carefully examined. Willingness to let them go, to learn another way of being, of thinking and perceiving, must be cultivated and allowed to strengthen. All falsity must be honestly recognized and let go. This happens day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, as you become frequently, even continually, aware of the content and activity of your mind. The process of letting go, of choosing again, is crucial. The false, the past, the illusion, must be chosen against in the present, in its activity and operation. Constant vigilance must be practiced for the mind is constantly active. The mind is continuing the past, the habitual, through its activity, or it is being corrected and directed towards freedom and Truth. There is nothing in between these two choices.

The Past

Do not allow the past in the form of habits and tendencies to continue its domination of your mind. You gain nothing by doing so. The same problems and misery will continue unabated until you learn to change your mind, to choose again over and over throughout the day, and set your life on a different course. The ego is firmly established in the past which is its home. The past is your home too until you recognize it for what it is and open your mind to the recognition of your true home. The ego’s home is a prison with gaily colored walls and bars concealed behind the promises it holds out; a hollow shell that houses only death. Leave the dead and rejoin the living. You were never meant to inhabit the house of death.

You are life itself, eternal, joyous and free. You will return to your natural and authentic state. This has never been in doubt; God’s Will assures your return. This can happen sooner or later according to your decision, for you alone determine the conditions of your life. They may appear to be due to outside forces, forces that lie beyond your control, but this is not true. You are the dreamer of the dream; you are responsible for what happens, you alone. You choose the feelings and thoughts you would express, and decide on the goal you would achieve. Do not waste time on goals that rise up before you like mirages, receding always just beyond reach. If you should attain such a goal, you find always you are holding nothingness; like sand it slips through your fingers. Choose the one goal that is possible to reach for it is always here and now. Salvation is yours any moment you truly want it. The Holy Instant is always available, waiting for you to let go the past and return to the present, to Love.

Whenever you let the past go completely, the present can be born anew, free of distortion and limitation. The ego represents the past; the ego is the past, the memory of all that has gone before. All the hurts, fears, slights, pleasures, and pains of a world born of separation from God, are carried by the ego and laid upon the present. You cannot truly experience now while carrying the burden of the past and perceiving through its distorted vision. Lay down all burdens, all memories of the past, and greet the present with empty hands, an open mind and a loving heart. Love is found only in the present for Love, like all Truth, is not of time.

The body’s eyes see only the past, appearing as if it were happening now. A world imagined is what you look upon, a projection of your mind, a memory of what is over and gone. It lives on in your mind, out-pictured as if it were here still, that you may learn the lessons needed to take you to the end of learning where all memories end, leaving only Truth in their stead. Do not lose yourself in dreams by forgetting their purpose. Everything that happens in the world of separation has a higher purpose if you let it be revealed. The Holy Spirit uses all events, situations, relationships, and circumstances, to teach you what you are. There is nothing that occurs that He cannot use to guide you towards freedom and the end of suffering. Never is the form important in and of itself; it is the lesson it brings, the content, that you must learn to recognize.

Do let the Holy Spirit teach you the difference between Truth and illusion, Love and fear. You constantly mistake one for the other and have paid dearly for this error. You must learn to perceive with absolute clarity the Truth behind all illusion, all forms, and call It forth to witness. The bewildering variety of appearances and circumstances, the constantly changing parade of thoughts and images, the unpredictable moods and feelings that come and go; all the change going on within and without serve to confuse and absorb the mind, concealing the changeless Reality from your awareness.

You must learn to look past form and variation and find the changeless within the constantly changing. This cannot be done without the help of the Holy Spirit Who overlooks all illusion, seeing only the changeless. He will give you His vision when you are ready to join your mind with His. True vision will show you the Truth reflected everywhere in everything. Love, Light, and Unity, everywhere, embracing everything.

Forgiveness and Unity

Forgiveness will take you to the Unity that underlies the world of separation. The refusal to forgive, to love, maintains and reinforces separation, and keeps the belief in attack inviolate. What else but the release of what affirms separation and denies Unity could open the way for Its return? Into this open mind comes forgiveness, the affirmation of Truth. Forgiveness leads you to the recognition of your Oneness with the world and everything in it. The mind that forgives, that takes complete responsibility for all that happens without the need to project guilt and blame, has accepted all things as part of itself. In recognition and acceptance of the One Unity, you are set free to be your Self.

Without loving kindness, life becomes harsh and joyless. The unloving suffer from a sense of deep guilt that is projected onto their brothers, thus further strengthening the belief in guilt. To escape the belief of their unworthiness and the deep sense of guilt, they must engage in frantic activity, which keeps the mind diverted and strengthens the tendency to dissociate from the content of consciousness that arouses fear. As long as this is done however, that from which you dissociate remains in the mind, exerting its influence in many ways. All the content of consciousness, whether you are aware of it or not, affects the mind and the behavior that arises from it. Do not try to change be­havior without changing the beliefs that elicit and shape it.

The Mind

All starts with the mind. Your awareness and its contents are your experience. Perception, emotion, feelings, thoughts, all take place in awareness, in consciousness. The world you see that appears as if outside of you, is like everything else in your mind. It has no reality apart from what you have given it. That this is not apparent is the result of a decision you have made to be separate from your Creator and your Self as He created It. There is no separa­tion without form; thus a world was imagined, populated by many separate forms that move about, each with its own history and purpose.

You were created as Mind; even now Mind is what you are. All form is but image, projected and appearing as if outside of you. There is nothing outside of you. As you were created, you are whole, containing everything within you. Every mind contains all minds for all mind is One. Each contains and is the Whole.

Your mind is where a transformation must take place, nowhere else. There is nowhere else. In Truth, salvation, which is awakening, is not a change at all but a lifting, a clearing out of all that clouds your mind. Salvation is the return to awareness of what you are now and have always been. Driven from awareness by the wish to be as you are not, Truth merely waits until you are willing to welcome It again. Your experience of yourself and the world is trans­formed by awakening from your long sleep of forgetfulness. Until that blessed day, be vigilant for Truth and the Kingdom, remembering always your holy purpose.

What You Must Do

Do not look back and dwell on what you have done but look instead at what you must do. There is much to be learned, much to be undone, in order for freedom to be restored. Each day, and each experience of each day, is an opportunity to learn the lessons the Holy Spirit teaches and unlearn what is taught by the ego. Patiently, step by step, you retrace the steps you took in the descent into separation, undoing each in turn. When all are undone, your Father will take the last step, and you will return to the Kingdom forever.

There are many journeys you may take in the dream of separation, all leading nowhere but for one: the journey back to God. In truth, it is not a journey at all for you have never left God’s Mind, yet in this world does it seem to be a journey whose destination waits in some far off future time. And journey you must as all are destined to return; of that there is no doubt. Only in time does the outcome seem uncertain and time itself is an illusion. Do not rest content with some future idea of salvation. Salvation is always now and now only. Neither in the future nor in the past will you find Truth; Truth is not remembered or imagined but is directly experienced as what you are now. How and when you attain It is but part of the dream. You have always been the Christ, the Holy Creation of God, and forever so will you remain.

To refuse to do what is asked of you by the Holy Spirit, is to refuse to act in your own best interest. The mind asleep does not know what is in its highest interest. You do not recognize what will bring you pain, for you cannot distinguish between pain and pleasure, often confusing one for the other. The search for security, which dominates human life in the world of dreams, is a futile attempt to deny the insecurity inherent in life as a bodily identity. Living as a fragile body in a world of constant change, of rapidly shifting circumstances and conditions, constantly arouses a sense of threat, of danger. The search for security, the erection of defenses, the attempt to control the present and maintain stability into an unknown future; all these are the response of the ego to what it perceives but does not understand. If you continue to see the world through the ego’s eyes, you will remain a prisoner to its misperceptions and wrong understanding. Your security cannot be found where there is none, or in a state of identifying with what you are not. All that you will find in an illusory world is the continuation of fear, pain, conflict, suffering and death.

Do not let the mistaken beliefs of the past continue to dominate and shape your life. Turn to the One Who shows you the way to Truth and freedom. With your consent, He will take you there. The only thing you need remember is that you know nothing. This thought, kept clearly in mind, will serve as a reminder to let go all old ideas and beliefs, and open your mind to learn what the Holy Spirit teaches. The mind must be emptied of the old, of the past, to be ready to welcome the new. The Holy Spirit teaches you to recognize all that you have learned is meaningless. With that realization firmly established, and your mind empty and open to receive the new, learning will inevitably follow.

Learning and Experience

Learning that is not of this world is something entirely new. It is not just a replacing of the old beliefs you have carried so long with new ideas. New ideas must point to, must represent, experience that is not of this world. This experience is what the learning of the Holy Spirit’s thought system will lead you to; experience that takes place in the world of separation, but Whose Source is beyond. What is beyond will remain beyond; It is reflected here for those willing to perceive It. Through the wholeness of perception, and a consistent and uncompromising commitment to forgive, the Love, Light, and Unity of Heaven are reflected in the dream. The real world is the new home of those whose feet still walk the earth, but whose minds have reached the gates of Heaven.

To do what must be done may seem difficult at first due to the egoic resistance. You have been long accustomed to devoting your time and energy to remaining asleep. You have worked very hard to make the meaningless meaningful, to find value in what is valueless, and to avoid the Truth that lies as if buried deep within you. All of your life has been a movement away from the Self. Now you must turn around and begin the journey that leads in another direction. You must move towards Truth and not away from It. This requires a training of the mind, the mind that is fundamentally undisciplined, at the mercy of its unconscious fears and desires. Confusion, unclarity, and conflict, are the hallmarks of an untrained mind. To undo, to correct the false and meaningless thought system of separation, everything you have believed and the mental habits and tendencies that are part of it, is indeed a daunting task. Remember Who goes with you every step of the way.

Just when you need help, it is given, not before. All things are done when and as needed. Let all things be given, let all be revealed. There is One Who knows all, Who guides you always. Accept the plans He gives you in place of your own; His will work, yours will not. There is no reason to doubt His knowledge and beneficence. He will never desert you or you Him. You may delay and resist, postpone the final reckoning; you cannot stop it or avoid it for­ever. Your Father wills that you return to Him; what He wills is already true. You but wait for the recognition of that fact to reach your mind. God does not wait on time. In truth, neither do you.

Do you know the way you must follow? Are you aware of what needs be done, and how? To admit you do not know opens the mind to receive the necessary guidance. To recognize your ignorance is the prerequisite for knowledge to return. Learn to remember always, at all times and in all situations, that you are not alone. Do not try to understand anything in isolation, by yourself. Nothing is understood alone; always your understanding is shaped by the thought system to which you adhere and the guide you thus choose. Learn to remember to ask always, at all times, the Guide your Father has given you to help you understand. Let Him guide your thoughts, words, and ac­tions, that you may become a Light unto your brothers, a lamp to shine the Light on the way they too must follow. You listen to the Holy Spirit not for yourself alone; all that you are given is to be shared with your brothers.

A New Life

To teach you how to recognize what is necessary and what is not, what is helpful to the accomplishment of your single purpose and what hinders and obstructs it, is the purpose of this teaching. To that end, you are being guided by both the words before you and the intent from which they arise. Words do not only carry meaning, they give form to intent. I am asking you to join with me and all your brothers who have accepted our part in God’s Great Plan of Atonement. We need your help. Each and every one of you has an important part to play. The Great Plan is not complete until everyone has accepted their part and completed it.

You can delay as long as you want, wander down a thousand dark alleys that go nowhere, keep yourself endlessly busy doing nothing. Sooner or later you will have had enough of suffering; your pain threshold will be reached. Not until then will many of you be willing to look for another way to live, a real solution to conflict, pain, and suffering. A solution that carries you beyond their reach forever. And some will recognize the Light that calls to them and respond, recognizing that conflict and suffering are unnecessary, thus shortening their journey immeasurably. Do not wait my brothers, do not delay. All delay is a needless prolonging of fear and misery. Do not resist the inevitable return of freedom and Love. Do not cling to fear and suffering as the basis of your life. You never wanted this; you have been dreaming a dream of forgetfulness. Surrounded by dream figures, you have forgotten who you are for a moment. Now is the time to let the memory of what you are return to your awareness, transforming your life and returning you to the Kingdom. Now, only now.

Begin a new life this very day, a life dedicated to Love and Truth. Leave fear and conflict behind. They will wither away as you withdraw your interest and belief that you gained something thereby. Life itself awaits you. What you have been experiencing as life is a pale shadow, a sickly distortion of what you are meant to be. Fear not you will be asked to give up what is near and dear to you. What you value so highly has come at the expense of everything that has real value, and has never brought you anything but loss and sorrow. No real sacrifice is asked of you. Can it be a sacrifice to give up what is meaningless and valueless? You are merely asked to lay aside the cause of pain and suffering, and accept peace, freedom, and Love in its place. Can that be a difficult choice to make? Any difficulty around this choice is but the resistance to see what you have valued so long for what it really is.

Do not wait any longer in the vain hope you will find fulfillment and peace of mind in a world that lacks both. There is too much to be done to waste time in vain imaginings. Take up the thread of spiritual life, turn over decision making to the One Whose function it is, and learn of Him what must be done. Let go the empty conceit that you know anything of value. Let your mind be emptied of all that came before, of all that is past. Learn to greet each present moment, each new day, with a happy mind and an open heart. Be ready to listen and willing to learn always. And above all, let peace and forgiveness be your gift to everyone you meet.

Do Not Be Concerned

What is the next step to take after your mind has been reoriented and turned towards Truth? You must begin to understand what is required of you, what is needed for salvation. Certain changes must take place in your mind. This purification cannot be avoided. Purification may be described as the emptying out of your mind and heart of all that is false; the beliefs, ideas, and the habits of thought, feeling, and action that characterize the mind self-identified as an ego occupying a body. This process is direct and constant, requiring a total commitment on your part to be completed. Love and forgiveness must replace fear and guilt, and all need to attack and defend must be relinquished. Only then can you discover where your real safety lies. Only then do you become capable of welcoming Truth as it is.

Do not be concerned if at times you seem to falter, if your dedication wavers. This is a natural part of the process, for you are learning to accept and trust a new Teacher while still operating from the lessons you learned in the past. This back and forth, this movement in fits and starts, will usually characterize your journey until you began to see unequivocally the real value of what is true, and the actual suffering that results from every choice for illusion. You have not been completely aware of the consequences of all thinking, feeling, and action that arises from fear, from egoic motivation. In fact, you have not been aware of how deeply fear pervades your mind and influences your life. The mind in separation must dissociate from the fear and guilt at its core in order to function at all. Yet it will not allow them to be healed, for they are the basis of separation and the world you see.

It is essential that you become completely aware of the condition you are in, of how you would feel if your true state were not disguised by dissociation and denial. The habitual and unconscious actions of your mind keep the ego’s control in place. In fact, they are part of the ego’s solution to separation, a solution that is no solution at all, but rather a temporary escape that lessens anxiety just enough to keep you going as its host. Fear must be avoided and controlled, but never completely released, or you would not need the ego as your guide and teacher. Without fear and guilt, Love would arise to your awareness, and the memory of God would not be far behind.

Do not give up hope ever. Do not be discouraged. The way may seem long and hard, the road stretching out before you to the far horizon, but you are not alone. Your Guide and Teacher goes with you, angels are your constant companions. The holy instant is available at every moment to lift you out of this world, giving you a taste of Heaven. Patience, infinite patience, is needed as long as you still journey through time. Yet time is illusion; Truth is never absent. Do not forget what awaits when you reach the gates of Heaven: a glorious homecoming, a celebration of the return of Light and Love and freedom. Nothing you have experienced in this world can even faintly compare with that bright moment.