Chapter Nine

---

Time and Purpose

Now is the moment when Truth returns. Now is when real learning takes place. Healing and release are always now. Forgiveness happens now, though it heals the past and releases the future. The eternal now, where time meets eternity, is the only moment of time that is real. Hence it is the only time that Truth can penetrate and reach your mind. The ego would have you live in the past, overlooking the present and chasing the future. In the present the ego does not exist; it must avoid the present at all costs. The Holy Spirit brings your mind back to the present, that you may hear Him and begin to experience life in a new way. You must return to the present, that the burden of the past be lifted from your mind and the future set free to continue the present. What is new and alive must be allowed to flower and grow in your mind, replacing what is over and dead.

Give time the Holy Spirit’s purpose. He knows how to use it to free you from the past you made to limit your mind and obscure the Truth. The ego uses time to perpetuate illusion, to maintain the bondage to fear and suffering. It would have the future be the continuation of a past that was over long ago. Trudging slowly along a road that goes nowhere, each day a stale repetition of the one gone before, until you are too weary to go on, with only the strength left to sink into oblivion and death; this is the ego’s goal for all who depend on it for direction and meaning.

Do not follow the guidance of one that knows nothing and leads you nowhere. Turn away from death and welcome life again. Your Father has given you a Teacher and Guide Who will lead you gently back to the promised land. To follow Him is to follow the Will given you by God in your creation. You have no other will. Yet it seems as if another will, apart from God’s Will, has taken Its place. As long as you believe your will is separate from God’s Will, you will resist doing what is necessary for salvation. You will think the Holy Spirit demands sacrifice of you, and your progress will be slow.

Is it a sacrifice to give up pain and suffering? Is it sacrifice to let go of what is valueless? Does it make sense to base your life on what is valueless, meaningless, incapable of bringing lasting satisfaction and fulfillment? Surely it is not sacrifice to give up the things of this world, illusory images without substance. The Holy Spirit will take nothing from you. He will wait until you recognize what is worthless and unnecessary, and withdraw your investment in illusion. Then He will teach you what is real and of immeasurable value to take its place.

Willingness to Learn

To do what must be done is the simplest thing in the world, yet for the mind of separation, it is the most difficult. The projections of your mind, both the imagery you see before you and your interpretations, complicate your mind to the point where real understanding and clarity are not possible. Projections of right and wrong, like all judgments, distort the mind and introduce varying and constantly changing criteria by which to understand the events and situations of life. Honest consistency becomes impossible; that is why no one can be consistently fair in their interpretations of the behavior of their brothers. Shifting and inconsistent thinking, evaluations that vary greatly from one situation to another; this is the state of your mind and your responses to the many events that occur in your life. And to this we may add the conscious and unconscious moods, feelings, and egoic defense mechanisms that are always in operation.

In such a state, even the recognition of what needs be done to free the mind of the self induced madness in which it is seemingly caught, is impossible without help from beyond the circle of insanity. How that help is given depends on your willingness to learn from the Holy Spirit, and the willingness to surrender your life, to turn it over. He is always available to you if you make yourself available to Him. An open, receptive mind, making decisions with His help, ever ready to be guided, always listening; such a mind easily receives the Holy Spirit’s direction and acts as guided. This releases the power of Spirit into your life, and the transformation of your mind is the inevitable result.

Willingness to recognize and accept that you know nothing is essential. The belief not only that you know, but that it is even possible to understand Truth from the standpoint of separation, is a great obstacle. Reliance on yourself alone, on the image you have made to take the place of what God created as your Self, is what has deprived you of the awareness of Reality. In order to return to that awareness, what is responsible for its loss must be relinquished. You must recognize the falsity of the whole thought system of which the self is an expression. As these beliefs are relinquished, investment is withdrawn from the self-identity. Eventually, after a period of disorientation, the self becomes empty and transparent, and the Reality of what you are begins to shine into your mind. Do not allow the sense of disorientation to frighten you. It will pass, as will all states and conditions of this world. Fear is never justified in any form, being the sign you have identified yourself with the state of separation. As such, it is simply an error, a forgetting of who you are, a remembering of the past as if it were still here now. The past cannot affect you unless you hold it in memory and give it the power of your belief.

Do not let the habits of a life time continue to hold you prisoner. Freedom awaits your choice. Once that decision is truly made, and with the Holy Spirit’s help, nothing can stop you from attaining freedom. The choice for freedom is the choice for the Self, as the Self is forever free and beyond limits of any kind. The Self is Love, and Love cannot be bound; there is nothing that can hold It or obstruct It in any way.

What price freedom? How can that which is your birthright require payment of any kind? To recover, to return again to what has always been yours, is the result of your decision to let go of what has temporarily taken its place. Nothing given you by your Father has been lost. What you have been given by God you will always have, for what you have is what you are; you cannot lose or be apart from what you are except in dreams, and dreams will not last. The journey back to the realization of Truth but seems to be a journey. The distance you traverse from where you find yourself now to where you have always been, takes place in time as if eternity were not here now. You are standing at the end of time, imagining a journey that is not yet over, awaiting only your decision to let go all illusion and be again what you have always been. All teaching and learning, everything the Holy Spirit gives you, the slow development of willingness, the correction of your mind and perception; all this has a single purpose: to bring you to the point where this decision is remembered.

Cause and Effect

There is much to do but there is not much time to do it. Within you is the key to your dilemma of separation. Within your mind is where separation occurred and where it is still being maintained. The ‘external world’, being the effect of your thinking mind, reflects separation back to you. The world outpictures what you want to be true, and provides the ‘proof’ that you are separate from your Creator and your Self. The world provides you with a means to hide from God, while you continue to usurp His Function and fear His retribution. Both your thinking and its effects, the world you see, will change as you allow your mind and perception to be corrected. Your experience of yourself and the world will be transformed, for experience is the result of what you want to be true.

When you allow the Holy Spirit to teach you what you want to learn, you will begin to see yourself and the world in a new way. You will see the real condition you are in right now without fantasy or denial, and you will accept your responsibility for it. Without accepting responsibility for what you see and experience, you cannot be free of its effects. The refusal to recognize that you are not the helpless and innocent victim of the world that appears around you, keeps you an apparent prisoner, subject to the many events and conditions that occur.

The ego’s response to the world it sees is to perceive threat everywhere, and counter it through a continuing strategy of attack, defense, and projection. Its strategy cannot bring you peace, safety, or fulfillment, though you believe it can for that is all you know. The Holy Spirit’s function is to help you see all beliefs and strategies arising from the ego as meaningless, ineffective, and ultimately self destructive. Your safety does not depend on outward conditions or circumstances. No security can be found in a world of constant change and chaos. Within you, waiting to be allowed back into awareness, is everything you need or will ever need.

All your apparent problems, internal or external, begin with the one original error you have made. All other errors stem from this one. In the separation from God were the myriad problems, difficulties, and every kind of pain and suffering born. In the attempt to grapple with what are simply the consequences of your original error, the cause of all problems is veiled and hidden by continuing denial. You will never solve all the problems which appear in your life by responding on the level of form. Form is effect while mind is cause. Problems must be solved by removing their cause, not by responding to effect which will simply reappear in another form if the cause remains.

The Holy Spirit teaches you to overlook all effects that appear as problems by remembering where the problem, the one problem you have no matter the form, truly lies: separation from God. And there is one answer to them all given you by God: the Holy Spirit. He will provide the specific answer to all appearances if you ask. In a world of differences, of specifics, your one problem appears in many different forms; the one solution must then likewise be given in the form most appropriate.

Thought and Awareness

Do not allow unbelief or doubt to limit your mind. Mind itself responds to your decisions. Your intent directs it where you want it to go. Choose against doubt by recognizing its source. The ego doubts, delays, and resists all real change. You must learn to be aware of the origin of all thought that enters your mind. Thoughts given by the Holy Spirit will express peace, kindness, and Love. They will direct you towards Truth and away from fear. You are strengthened always by listening to the Holy Spirit and following His guidance.

Egoic thought covers a wide range of topics, of feelings and emotions. The ego consistently focuses on the past or imagines a future. Judgment and condemnation are ever present. Always egoic thought is based on separation, on the position of a separate being, and the importance of your needs, your desires, your likes and dislikes, your comfort and security. Always the ego fluctuates between fear and desire, attack and defense. The whole movement of egoic thought is self-obsessed, chaotic, and at times contradictory. Frenzied thoughts come and go in rapid succession, tripping over one another. There is no peace to be found while you identify with the constant parade of madness in your mind.

Truth comes to a quiet mind, a mind made ready for Its coming. The constant inner noise and activity of the egoic thought process drowns out the still, small voice of Spirit that would call you home. You cannot listen to two voices just as you cannot serve two masters. The choice is yours as always. Listen honestly to the thoughts that cross your mind unceasingly. Become aware of what they represent. Ask yourself is this what I truly want as my guide to action and understanding? Do I want chaos, confusion, and contradiction, to dominate my thinking and deciding?

There is another way along which the Holy Spirit will lead you. Truth, peace, and Love will accompany you, and true reason will be your guiding light. You must develop the practice of being constantly aware of the thoughts, impulses, feelings, and images that crowd your mind, the constant activity and momentum of the past. You have been carried along by this process for so long that you identify with it, believing yourself to be the source, the thinker of these thoughts. There is no thinker. There is only the memory of the past, playing out constantly in your mind as if the past were happening now. The ego is the source of the inner process of thought that dominates your awareness. It will never speak truthfully to you, being itself an illusion. Yet its constant activity convinces you that it is you. Thus has the belief arisen that egoic thoughts are your thoughts, that you are thinking them.

Let the Holy Spirit help you be continuously aware of the activity of your mind. Let Him teach you the difference between His communications which are true and helpful and lead you in the direction of Truth, and the ego’s communications which are false and lead you away from It. You will learn over time that you no longer want to be a body, an ego identity whose chaotic and frantic thought process does not give you a moment’s peace. As this understanding becomes established, it will lead to a progressively increasing rejection of the entire thought system of separation and its expression as the egoic thought stream that flows constantly through your mind.

Constant vigilance is needed to undo the habitual identification with the egoic stream of thought, and free your mind from its domination. You must be aware of what passes through your mind, and maintain a sense of being beyond the thoughts, if you would be able to choose the thoughts you want to think. To be aware, as thoughts pass through your mind, from the vantage point of an alert, quiet awareness is essential. You will find as you progress with this ‘mind watching’, that it will become increasing clear to you these thoughts of which you are becoming aware, are not your thoughts despite their obvious familiarity. You will also begin to notice their repetitive nature; the same thoughts and feelings repeat themselves over and over again. And it is not unusual for thoughts to conflict with and contradict each other.

The more consistently aware you become of the continuous stream of thoughts, feelings, and images, the more clearly you will see the chaotic and insane nature of the whole process. It is a process whose purpose is to occupy your mind, dominate your attention, and keep you self identified as a mind in separation with its own private thoughts. None of the thoughts of which you are aware, are real thoughts; they are not from God. Nothing that is ‘private’, belonging to you alone and incapable of being shared, is real.

Your real thoughts are only those you think with God; they cannot be described for they are not conceptual. The thoughts you think you are thinking are taking the place of your real thoughts, thus obstructing your awareness of them. While the egoic thought process is absorbing your attention, your mind is effectively blank; the Light cannot shine in and through the mind while it is occupied by illusion. What can end the domination of illusion is the consistent vigilance against it.

Being aware of the constant activity of your mind will free you of it. You are free to choose your thoughts only when you are aware of them as they arise. By learning what is Truth and what is illusion, and the difference between them, you have a sound basis from which to choose. Vigilance, being aware moment to moment of the minds activity, enables you to choose the thoughts you want to keep. Being able to choose what you want to think on the basis of what is true, will eventually free your mind of the ego’s chaotic, meaningless, and self destructive thought process. This is not an easy task but it is a necessary one.

Choice and Habit

Due to the lingering effects of all choices made without the help of the Holy Spirit, the momentum of illusion will continue even after you have turned resolutely in the direction of Truth. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the habitual nature of your responses to the changing events of everyday life. To respond effectively is to respond from a position of moment to moment awareness of the mind’s content; yet this readiness does not stop the flow of thoughts from the past and their influence on your mind. All that is false and all its effects must be skillfully undone by the Holy Spirit with your cooperation. This undoing must go on throughout each day, day in and day out, until the mind becomes quiet, empty, and free. Nothing must remain to sully the purity of your holy mind.

Only the resolute and consistent response of Truth to falsity will free your mind from the effects of illusion. Illusion has surrounded and ruled your mind for so long you know nothing else. It is as if a spell has been cast over you like a kind of hypnotism . You see what the hypnotist tells you to see, and all else you overlook and ignore. While you prefer fantasies to Reality, sleeping to awakening, you will continue to sleep walk through life, imagining yourself to be something you are not, reacting to the shadows you think surround you. They are not there. Be willing to have this shown to you, and you will walk out of the world of shadows into the bright sunlight.

Let the Holy Spirit take you by the hand and show you the dark shadows that seem to threaten you are your imagination, not to be feared but forgiven. Let Him show you the bright and shining Truth that waits behind every fearful dream you have ever had. You have hypnotized yourself into seeing what is not there, and not seeing what waits to set you free. As the self-hypnotism is lifted, the world before you will appear very different. Its natural brightness will become evident, and in time real vision will develop, revealing the Light that is in everything.

Whatever you do, do with Love. This will bring power and meaning to all your doing. A state of mind in which you remember to regard all things with Love, appreciation, and gratitude, will do much to set you free. By remembering to offer Love only, you will learn that you are Love. When Love is all you want, then Love will be all you see. Those who give only Love are truly blessed, for they are giving only what blesses to their brothers.

To bring all that you are back into your life will reveal your aliveness in all its fullness. Without awareness of all that you are, you are living partially, your life is incomplete. No matter how you try to find meaning in a state of incompleteness, you will not succeed. Your wholeness, your completeness, is your meaning. Meaning need not be sought somewhere outside of you. Like all that is real, meaning is within you, part of your very Being. The search for meaning is the great, yet unconscious motivation that drives human seeking. All such seeking will end in failure, for humans do not know what they seek. To search for you know not what, will lead to nothing but frustration and disappointment.

Do not let the force of habit rule your mind and limit your perception. Habit dulls the vision, casting a grey veil across everything you see. It robs life of its freshness and immediacy, reducing experience to dull routine. The mind of the self functions in habits, as habit. If by habit we mean a pattern of thought or behavior that repeats itself regularly and more or less automatically, then we could describe the entire ego mind as a configuration of habits. To function automatically, habitually, in repeating patterns, is to be acting from the past, as the past. The present is covered over, and all it has to offer goes unnoticed.

The Power of Willingness

Do you want to awaken to the Truth of what you are? That is the question you must answer. The answer you give determines the course of your life in general as well as its many details. To answer that question affirmatively will lead you to everything that is real and lasting. To answer in the negative, whether consciously or unconsciously, will lead you on a journey to nowhere. Salvation is the only goal worthy of attainment. Every other purpose is nothingness disguised to appear as if it were something. Would you go nowhere or would you make the only journey possible of completion? And if the answer is yes, all of Heaven will rejoice with you.

To all of your efforts on behalf of Truth are added the mighty strength of the Holy Spirit. He responds to the slightest inclination, the smallest effort, with all the power of Heaven. No desire for Truth, no opening in your mind, goes unnoticed or unsupported. He waits with infinite patience for your willingness to take even the smallest step in the direction of Truth. All He needs is your little willingness; to that He adds His own, making it a mighty force for Truth. Without your willingness, the Holy Spirit can do nothing, for only willingness can open your mind to receive the help it needs. Nothing can enter a closed mind; Truth can come only where It is invited.

Do not underestimate the power of willingness to accomplish miracles. Everything starts there. Willingness is the positive response of the one freedom left to you in the state of separation: the power to choose. Willingness or unwillingness informs every choice you make. Do not allow weakness or apathy to paralyze your willingness to choose the miracle. The miracle would deliver you from all weakness, all falsity. Do not let what the miracle would save you from, prevent you from accepting the help it brings.

Fear and Illusion

There is nothing to fear in the world of illusion. Threat, like all illusion, is non-existent. What is non-existent can have no effects. In thought, you can choose to believe the effects of illusion, and this will make them real for you. The apparent effects you experience are not real effects; they are as illusory as their source. The birthplace of all illusions is the mind that cherishes them as an escape from Reality Itself. Without the support of your mind, illusions would disappear and their effects with them.

Is this what you want; to be free of all illusion in every way for always? There is no freedom but the freedom of true existence. As the Self, as Spirit, you have always been and always will be free; nothing can limit you in any way. This was God’s gift to you in your creation. His gifts can never be lost; they are what you are. Being Itself cannot be lost or changed in any way. Do not despair if freedom seems lost to you. It is but a seeming loss, a temporary state of confusion in your mind about who you are. Like all of illusion, it will be corrected, leaving only Truth to be Itself.

The undoing of illusion, the correction of the falsity in your mind, is the only thing you need be concerned with. All else will take care of itself when your commitment is given wholly to the realization of Truth. Accept the Atonement for yourself without reservation, and everything needed will be provided; nothing will be lacking. Your Father knows what you need, and the Holy Spirit translates His gifts into the forms you recognize.

You live in a world of form and difference; thus your needs appear to take many forms. God’s One Answer appears as if in different forms to address the needs you believe you have. Yet is His Answer still One. Love will provide and keep you safe through the changing circumstances and conditions of life. Never will you be left comfortless or lacking. If this appears to be the case, be sure you have cut yourself off from the possibility of receiving the help you need. Now you must examine your mind and become aware of your motives. Somewhere in your mind, you are refusing the help that is available, and choosing misery and isolation in its place. Help cannot be received without willingness and clarity. The willingness to do your part is always necessary.

Give and Forgive

Do not refuse to do what the Holy Spirit asks of you. To refuse to give will block your receiving. Give all you have and then give more, and your cup will always be running over. Those who are blessed with the gifts of God will give all that they have received. By giving away what you have been given, it becomes yours to keep. Your store will be continually increasing; the more you give, the more you will have. You have an inexhaustible supply of gifts to give, your storehouse is always full.

Those who have accepted their part in God’s Great Plan recognize the importance of giving to all. Your Father only gives. “Be you perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” Give all to all, and forgive the world and everyone and everything in it. Give and forgive; let this be the rule that guides your life. Thus will you be doing God’s Will, and bringing Heaven’s blessing to a tired and suffering world.

Let all those who come to you be comforted. You are meant to be a help to all, bringing God’s blessings to a world that has lost all hope. A Teacher of God is a Light shining in the darkness, illuminating the way for others to follow. You must accept the responsibilities you are given; that is how you fulfill your part in the Great Plan. In completing your part, you are released from all illusions and returned to your eternal condition of peace and freedom. Only you can complete the part assigned to you, and only thus are you made whole and complete again. Doing God’s work is not a burden; it is joy itself. You will never be happy unless you are fulfilling the function given you by God. To do what God wills is to follow your true will, for your will is God’s Will.

A Teacher of God has a single purpose, and it is to this he devotes his life each day. All the day’s activities are seen in the light of this single purpose. No difficulty arises, whether within or without, that is not easily resolved through the Power of love expressed as the willingness to love, to forgive, and to heal. Miracles are the Teacher of God’s constant companions for he has welcomed them into his life. What you have welcomed with an open mind and heart, you will be given, and what is given you can be given to all.

Your Father’s Will

Let the indivisible Unity of which you are a part be the guiding influence in your life. Life lived as the Whole rather than as a separate part, is perfectly fulfilling. You are the Whole; you contain and are contained by everything. There is nothing that is not your Mind.

Apparently separate existence is but a dream you are dreaming. While you continue to sleep, the dream seems real, much as your nightly dreams seem real until you awake. Then you see clearly that you were dreaming and you do not mistake those dreams for reality. When you awake from the sleep of ignorance, you will know that the world you see and everything in it was nothing more than a passing dream that is now over. The spiritual sun is rising, and its Light shines away the darkness of the long night’s sleep. Step forward into the Light and take your rightful place as the Christ, God’s holy Creation. Even now you are the Christ as you have always been. The dream cannot affect your Reality, only your awareness of It.

To do your Father’s Will is to do your will. You will never be happy by following an alien will that leads you only to death. Do not mistake the familiarity born of long association for Truth. You have lived in an unnatural way for so long, it seems natural to you. Eyes long accustomed to darkness do not remember the Light. What is gone even from memory is not missed. However, a world bereft of the Light and Love of God’s Presence is not your home.

Your Father calls to you unceasingly but you do not hear Him. Your ears are closed to the song of Heaven for you prefer the din of earthly life. The constant noise of the ego drowns out the cries of suffering that surround you. You do not hear the pleas for help from your brothers lost in the darkness. They call to you to save them. You are their savior as they are savior to you. Do not leave their call unanswered; to respond to their call is to hear your own. You cannot hear your Father calling unless you recognize your brother as yourself. Heaven’s call goes out to God’s One Son; it is answered by the many fragments who are still One though they have forgotten. Each one who answers, answers for all. You cannot respond to Truth from separation. One Son of God is awakening though It may appear as the many.

Grace and Willingness

When the time comes to let it all go, will you be ready? To let go is to relinquish all attachment, all need to hold on to something. The end of suffering is the release of all that causes it. What are the causes? False beliefs about yourself and the world. What else could bring about a state of suffering in the mind created perfect by God? Suffering is illusion; the mind that thinks suffering real, has forgotten what it is and imagines itself to be something else entirely. That something else is a body, housing a mind with which it is identical. Could such an identity shift truly occur? Only in dreams where you seem to be as you are not. All authentic spiritual thought systems attempt to teach that you are not a body, separate from everything you see and your creative Source. You are Mind and Reality Itself. Only your ignorance of your eternal Reality, a kind of amnesia that is actively maintained, keeps the true experience of your Self from your awareness.

Do not let this ignorance, this forgetfulness, continue; it is a willful ignorance. If you have made a choice to forget, to banish from your mind, you can choose again to let what was denied return. The purpose of this teaching is to help you make this choice. You need help to recover what you have apparently lost, for your mind is limited and distorted by false beliefs. This has led to a state of mind and experience that is self convincing and self justifying, and you cannot see beyond it. Only the One Who is outside of the narrow little circle of illusion and rooted in Truth, can help you to free yourself from the effects of ignorance.

All that must be done, is done through grace. Without the grace of God, you would be lost forever in the dream you have made. You must be willing, however, to accept His grace, to welcome it into your life and allow it to work. Willingness is indispensable; without it nothing can be done.

One of the goals of this teaching is the redirecting of your willingness from illusion to Truth. For a long, long time, you have been willing to live in a state of separation from your Creator and your Self. You have chosen to be apart from your brothers and all that surrounds you. You have sought safety in various defenses, physical and mental. Fulfillment has been sought through the attainment of personal goals and accomplishments; pleasure and stimulation of many kinds have been fervently pursued. And you have tried to find Love in special relationships which exclude all others. Guilt, fear, and sorrow have been your constant companions. At the end of this senseless series of journeys, death waits to finally release you from what you have made. Or so you think.