Table of Contents
Good evening. And welcome to everyone as well who is joining us on the internet.
The things we have been speaking about over the last few weeks in many ways have caused some polarization to occur rather than peace. And it’s important for this not to continue.
I’ll ask a question. What is a miracle?
A sudden shift of perception.1
And when you say the sudden shift of perception is from peace to fear?
No.
Good. A miracle is a shift of perception in which mutually-agreed-upon definitions, or beliefs, have dissolved leaving in their place the Experience of Peace, the Experience of Love, and the capacity to extend love that nurtures and promotes further sudden shifts of perception.
We’ve been talking about correction. Since you are all emerging from an ego frame of reference, it’s very easy for the word “correction” to be misunderstood. You have what are called “houses of correction,” don’t you? These are places where punishment is brought to bear upon those who were found guilty. But can that be what correction means as we’re talking about it? The recognition that there’s a need for correction is interpreted by the ego, the voice for fear, as a call for punishment. Justice, in other words. But the Voice for Truth expresses the call for correction, and it’s calling for healing. It’s calling for a sudden shift of perception.
So please understand that when we’re talking about correction, we’re talking about that which promotes healing. That which promotes healing is that which is an act in the world of embodying that which in every way promotes transformation, regeneration and redemption, whether it’s physical, whether it’s mental, emotional, whether it’s between individuals or between nations. And so even if the acts that embody what will promote healing are firm, unyielding, unequivocal, they are done in a way that promotes healing more than it promotes harm.
And an example I have used in the past is a surgeon who has to perform surgery. He causes injury by making an incision, but he knows how to do that with the least amount of injury or detriment to his patient. And he does it because that is what will save that person’s life. Healing is the motive and the method embodies it. Healing is the motive and the method embodies it. He says “No” to cancer. He says (the physician) “No” to peritonitis, if there’s been a burst appendix. And he does whatever is necessary to bring the body back into harmony and peace with itself.
So when you say “No,” it is not a means of meting out punishment. It is not a means of attaining justice. It’s only real meaning can be to promote healing through means that promote healing.
That is all I wanted to say to begin with, and we will go directly into the Text here.
Nothing and everything cannot coexist. To believe in one is to deny the other. Fear is really nothing and love is everything. Whenever light enters darkness, the darkness is abolished. What you believe is true for you. In this sense the separation has occurred, and to deny it is merely to use denial inappropriately.2
Okay. We’re going to stop right there. A very important point.
What you believe is true for you.
I don’t think it can be any more clearly stated that what covers up the Truth from you is what you believe. Your beliefs, whether good or bad, preoccupy your attention, coloring What Is Actually There so that you don’t see it. A sudden shift of perception is when your attentiveness to your belief breaks down suddenly and What Is Really Present has a chance of registering with you so that you see truly. And in that true seeing, you are not only able, you’re more than happy to release the belief that you were committed to, in order to continue to experience the joy of seeing What Is True.
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However, to concentrate on error is only a further error. The initial corrective procedure is to recognize temporarily that there is a problem, but only as an indication that immediate correction is needed.
There’s our word “correction” again. Yes.
Now it’s very important you’re having a consistent opportunity not to hone in on the problem. A problem is constantly being presented to you as being a problem. And you must all remember that that is simply a call for you to recognize that, yes, there is a problem, and that it calls for correction, so that you can shift your attention to listening for what will correct the problem.
And you know what? You won’t really be open, genuinely open to experience the influx of Light and Clarity, the influx of what will correct the problem, if your motive isn’t Love. And that means that you must be willing to look at your so-called enemy—the one, let us say, who you have to temporarily or momentarily recognize as the problem—and embrace him with love. Now this doesn’t mean that you become lovey-dovey. It means that you care enough about that Christ, that One who is the Son of God, you care enough about him to want to know what will promote a sudden shift of perception, what will promote his willingness to abandon his justification for being a problem. If you don’t remember that, then you will listen with a bias. You will listen for an influx of the Father’s Will with a bias, and the bias will be that you will be expecting to hear something that will bring about justice. In other words, punishment. And it’s essential not to become sidetracked that way, because healing is truly needed here.
Yes.
What if it’s a problem that seems to be beyond my purview to do anything about? There are many problems in the world that aren’t my problem. There are people dying of AIDS in Africa and I feel bad for them, but that’s not my problem. There’s nothing I can do about that. There are people dying of hunger all over the world, but that’s not my problem. If I see a hungry man, I’ll be sure to feed him. But … but what am I to do with these problems I’m inundated with that aren’t my problem, that seem to be beyond my scope and my power as the one of six billion I am here in the world?
Good question.
Can I offer something that suddenly came to me?
You may indeed
Well if we give our mind to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit directs our attention to what needs healing. And also I noticed in our work that only those who I can bless, and only those who have a blessing for me, show up in my experience. There is great order to my life when I do a fundamental acknowledgment, and that is to let the Holy Spirit govern each moment of my day.
Indeed. We spoke last week about the fact that minds are joined and there are no private thoughts, and therefore when you do listen and you are guided, the very fact of listening, regardless of what you hear, makes it easier for everyone else to listen as well. The very act of turning toward the Altar, the very fact of inquiring of the Holy Spirit, or the Father, or Me, constitutes an act that every one is a participant in, whether they realize it or not. And your simple act of turning to the Father with inquiry, with curiosity, to know what will bring about healing, blesses absolutely everyone. It’s the leaven that leavens the whole lump.
Now notice that I didn’t suggest that you join with all of your starving brothers in your mind, and try from your mind to their mind to bless them. It’s the act of not attempting to do anything from your separate sense of self, it’s the act of joining with One Who Is Awake, or with the Father, that constitutes the Real blessing, and blesses absolutely all of the Brotherhood, not just those on your planet. That’s why it’s the leaven that leavens the whole lump. And then you do what you are led to do, whether it’s something local in your immediate vicinity, or whether it’s something on a larger scale.
But you know what? Your sense of community in your own mind has to include more than the township you live in. Your sense of community truly needs to be global. If your sense of community is global where you are consciously wanting healing, the sudden shift of perception that constitutes the miracle for all of your Brothers everywhere, you will find that this will color or affect every aspect of your day. Your behavior will be different.
And I might say that the way you move your little finger when you’re not even thinking about your little finger will have a global or a universal affect, much like the commercial that used to be on your TV’s where a butterfly in Japan has an affect in an entirely different part of your globe just by flapping its wings. But even more than that, as citizens of your world, as members of a global Brotherhood, and your conscious caring that every one of you experience the very best will begin to be reflected in the governments that represent you.
I’m addressing anyone from any country living under any government. When there is an intent to bless, when there is an intent to heal, when there is an intent to experience the happy dream, those who represent you will begin to represent that. But you know what? You have to express it. You have to embody it in words. You have to become, as I have said, involved.
What I am intending to do here is to get the ball rolling, set this into motion with each of you, so that you might care enough not to get caught up in any current sense of justice that might be … that you might be invited to participate in. But rather, for you to become consciously involved in healing, which absolutely does require saying “No” to that which doesn’t represent the happy dream, to that which doesn’t represent harmony, to that which promotes harm.
What you might be given to do might feel quite inconsequential, not in the least bit earthshaking. But the little amount of force that the flapping of a butterfly wing involves does indeed have its affect globally. All I’m trying to do is to help you bring your attention to where it needs to be in order to promote the sudden shifts of consciousness.
Thank you
You are welcome. Let us continue …
This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay.
What does the temporary recognition that there’s a problem … read that again …
The initial corrective procedure is to recognize temporarily that there is a problem, but only as an indication that immediate correction is needed. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay. It should be emphasized, however, that ultimately no compromise is possible between everything and nothing. Time is …
Now that means that there can be no compromise between your beliefs and What Is Real. There can be no compromise between your mutually-agreed-upon definitions about what a thing is and What It Actually Is. They won’t merge. They won’t blend. They won’t meld. Your belief will ultimately simply be abandoned.
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Time is essentially a device by which all compromise in this respect can be given up.
Ah! Time is not there for the resolution of a problem. It’s there for the purpose of compromise being given up. Compromise being given up means coming to the point where you give full commitment, full commitment to one thing, The Truth, in which there is no suggestion or insinuation of anything to compromise about.
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It only seems to be abolished by degrees, because time itself involves intervals that do not exist. Miscreation made this necessary as a corrective device. The statement “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” needs only one slight correction to be meaningful in this context; “He gave it to His only begotten Son.”
…”He gave it to His only begotten Son.”
What did he give? He gave …
The world.
And what is the world? It’s more than just the world. It’s the Kingdom of Heaven. God has given you All That He Is. God has given you Creation. Because He (What He Is) is fully embodied in you as you. And isn’t it interesting that your believing that and making commitment to it brings you everlasting life? As long as you are having some belief other than that, some belief of your own creation, you cause yourself to become blinded to your Everlasting Life, your Eternality, your Indestructibility, your Permanence, just because you’ve chosen to honor a belief of your own making, and you’ve joined with someone else in it in a mutually-agreed-upon definition.
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Can I ask or just expand on this one point? I think it’s interesting here. It says, “Atonement can be accepted without delay,” and Atonement’s an Act of Love. Could you just comment on accepting what would apparently be a task? Is that … am I seeing that right? The Atonement would be a task, an Act of Love. It’s like accept your job.
Well, the Atonement is an Act of Love. That’s a good way of putting it. I would say that’s your Function. That is your Purpose. And you could say, yes, that is your job. Yes, I accept it. That’s utter wisdom, yes, and simple wisdom, but one that you feel doesn’t have the priority that defending yourself in a conflicted world does.
No, unfortunately you’re right.
Raj, you said earlier, that our big problem is our mutually-agreed-upon definitions. And it just flashed on me that in order to dissolve those, we must see everything that is going on as a call for love.
And therefore an opportunity for you to be at your post, on the job, being the Presence of Love.
Right. Which would eliminate all the definitions of what we think we are seeing if we choose only to see whatever we think is happening as a call for love. That will eliminate all the definitions, wouldn’t it?
It would. Yes. All of your definitions have been put into place as a means of defense. And it’s impossible to love and defend yourself simultaneously.
It would shift the whole impetus.
Absolutely. And each one of you that does it, contributes to the total shift immeasurably if it’s done with commitment.
I want to be very clear on this.
Indeed.
Because we have encyclopedia full of definitions. [small chuckle]
That is correct. That’s why I talk about being willing to look at everything with innocent eyes, meaning innocent of any distortions caused by preexisting mindsets, mutually-agreed-upon definitions, cherished beliefs. There must be a willingness to look at everything with curiosity because there is more there than what you are seeing, and the more that’s there is literally the Presence of God visible. And why not be curious to see that?
This would certainly eliminate fear.
Of course. But you won’t find the fear eliminated until you dare to love. And you know what? We need more people being willing to dare to love, to risk the chance that becoming defenseless will reveal to them their invulnerability. But your conditioning says, “Lay down your defenses and you will be vulnerable.” But you can’t love until you are willing to lay down your defenses.
We can put it another way because that sounds as though it would be a test that you might fail at. You can just dare to love and not worry about having to lay down your defenses. You can have an object of your affection, or you can have a principle that’s of value to you in your mind that says: “What I want for the world is healing. What I want for my Brother is the happy dream. And I’m asking the Father to reveal to me what I can do to contribute to my Brother’s experience of a happy dream. What can I do to contribute to the sudden shift of perception that constitutes the miracle?” And you can leave the abandonment of self-defense on the back burner without even giving any thought to it. And your impulse to care and to embody caring can move you right past any reluctance to releasing your defenses that you would experience if you were sitting there saying, “How am I going to release my defenses?” You see?
Something that helped me years ago come to this point that you’re emphasizing is I took the attitude that, “There are no strangers quote ‘out there,’ there’s only family or friends that I haven’t met,” which really helped me to eliminate the anxiety of encounter.
Indeed
And I think if we could kind of adopt that type of attitude, we’d be halfway there at least as far as worrying about what they are going to think or not think, or things like that.
That is another way of saying what I have been saying this evening. Yes. Exactly.
It’s served me very well so far.
And if there is someone who is afraid of you, you will care enough to find ways to reduce their fear, by being involved with them even though they are afraid of you, and finding ongoing ways to provide them with evidence that they don’t need to be afraid of you.
That’s a very good point.
Behave like a friend and provide the evidence that you’re a friend that proves that they don’t need to be afraid of you. But that means being involved with someone who is afraid of you and behaving as though they have reason to be afraid of you.
This would be recognizing their call for love …
That is correct
… instead of interpreting them as attack.
That is correct. Yes.
It should especially be noted that God has only one Son. If all His creations are His Sons, every one must be an integral part of the whole Sonship. The Sonship in its oneness transcends the sum of its parts. However, this is obscured as long as any of its parts is missing. That is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved until all the parts of the Sonship have returned.
And, and of course, my being with you in this way is to provide an invitation to you to return, to provide you with an embodied expression of my love and of the love of the whole Brotherhood, of all of the Brotherhood who are awake, so that you might know that there is a place to come to where your welcome is already prepared for you, so that you might feel justified in turning toward Home. In effect I am reducing your fear of coming Home. I am reducing your fear of me. I am being with you the way you need to be with those who are afraid of you, those who feel that you are their enemy.
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Only then can the meaning of wholeness in the true sense be understood. Any part of the Sonship can believe in error or incompleteness if he so chooses. However, if he does so, he is believing in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the Atonement.
There you go.
Any part of the Sonship can believe in error or incompleteness …
It’s not a sin. To believe in incompleteness is what has been called “the fall.” But there it is right there.
Any part of the Sonship can believe in error or incompleteness if he so chooses.
It’s not a mortal sin. It’s not something that causes you to be subject to ultimate punishment if you come back Home. You see? You can do it. You can do it if you want to. What it means though is that you’re believing in the existence of nothingness. That’s why it’s not a sin and that’s is why you can’t be punished. You can’t be punished for believing something that isn’t true, and thinking that something is happening that isn’t happening, or thinking you have done something that you haven’t done. The correction of this error is the Atonement—the sudden shift of perception that causes you to be able to engage in an Act of Love toward your Brother and embody God in the world, thus causing the world to become a truer representation of creation that’s called the happy dream.
My goodness we’ve gotten through two paragraphs. [audience laughter]
Has any Brother forgotten twice? Has any Brother, you know, come back Home and left again?
Only you. I’m joking. [audience laughter] No.
Once is enough.
Once provides all the learning that is needed.
I have already briefly spoken about readiness, but some additional points might be helpful here. Readiness is only the prerequisite for accomplishment.
It’s only the prerequisite for accomplishment. Yes
The two should not be confused. As soon as a state of readiness occurs, there is usually some degree of desire to accomplish, but it is by no means necessarily undivided.
And there’s the key. The moment it’s undivided, the accomplishment is done. The moment the desire is undivided, indecision (confusion) disappears. A shift has occurred and it’s done. So the key is in the absence of division.
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The state does not imply more than a potential for a change of mind.
That is the state of readiness. Indeed, to be miracle-ready can sometimes be thought of as the destination. You see? But it’s just the first step. And then there must be the mind training, the mental self-discipline brought into play that allows you to become focused. Your attention becoming undivided, undistracted. And the moment it is not … the moment it is no longer divided, the miracle-readiness transitions into miracle accomplished.
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Confidence cannot develop fully until mastery has been accomplished.
Mastery meaning becoming single-minded, undivided attention, undivided desire.
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We have already attempted to correct the fundamental error that fear can be mastered, and have emphasized that the only real mastery is through love. Readiness is only the beginning of confidence. You may think this implies that an enormous amount of time is necessary between readiness and mastery, but let me remind you that time and space are under my control.
Confidence. You think of confidence as something you bolster up, you rev it up. You actually use your bodies—many of you workout, many of you exercise, many of you jog—and you do this to get your body into shape. And part of the reason is that the more cohesive your body feels, the more you think you can feel confident in the actions you engage in with your body.
But confidence here is the state of undivided single-mindedness; when you have a desire that is undivided, undistracted by anything. Confidence is knowing that 2+2 = 4. This confidence doesn’t require force. It’s a knowing of an unalterable fact that you have absolutely no question about in your mind. You see? That’s confidence. Confidence isn’t bravado. You see? It’s not forcefulness. It’s unchangeable, peaceful, awareness of an unalterable fact. Confidence when experienced shows you that there is no need for defense of anything. And usually you associate confidence with a capacity to defend yourself well. So I want you to consider this meaning for the word “confidence.”
It says, “But let me remind you that time and space are under my control.” Does that imply that … that are long as we are ready and are in the process of becoming masterful with the mind, that … that through the Grace of God at any moment, it can click.
Absolutely.
So that there is a jump, an immediate shift and we’re awake.
What is called a time collapse. You may not be suddenly totally awake, but there will be a sudden shift of perception.
So that you’re more awake.
Yes.
Relatively speaking.
That is correct. Exactly.
Does this fit right in with you having control of everything that doesn’t matter? Is that …
Yes, it does.
Time and space doesn’t matter.
Of course, that is correct.
I keep having this niggling question which is a little like his—unresolved. How do you apply what has just been said in this paragraph to what many would call “the incorrigibles.” I still am confused.
You should listen to Susan Tuttle. She had this incredible answer.
I still am confused. Okay, I’ll be more specific. Let’s say there are those who appear one’s friends, and yet, there’s a gap. There is a constant ongoing lack of rapport manifested. I’m sure everyone has had that experience in an ongoing difficulty in which you see on the horizon the potential for healing, but yet it just keeps missing.
Well in a way, you could liken that scenario to the one on the world stage at the present time. One must say “No” to the incorrigible behavior, while at the same time being available to be the Presence of Love which invites a change of mind on the part of the one being incorrigible, desiring for healing to be the goal, knowing all along that the one seeming to be incorrigible is a fellow Christ, a Brother, a Sister, the direct and unalterable Expression of God, no matter how they’re seeing themselves, and being willing to be that point of love that comes forth as education. Education being the provision of the example of your benign-ness.
Would or could you be specific in terms of who is being incorrigible—the one that is threatening war, or the one that is the objective of that? And wherein lies the perspective that we might become clearer to see? When three countries in the world support one, and the rest of the country is saying “No, we have to deal with the incorrigible in another way …”
Let me just throw this out. That’s three more than I had willing to witness for me at the time of the crucifixion. The number willing to support does not necessarily determine the correctness of the one being supported.
Thereby we probably have two incorrigibles with extreme.
No. If it is not clear to you where a call for correction exists in this case, I encourage you to listen again. I encourage you to listen within again, more deeply. Whether the steps being taken are occurring awkwardly or not, whether they are happening for the very best reasons or not, they are essential steps.
Is that clear enough for you?
Yes. I believe …
Now this is one of the reasons that I pointed out earlier this evening and wanted to get out into the air, so to speak, the fact that the reasons for steps of correction must be healing, and not punishment. This is the place where adjustment needs to occur in the global family.
Paul is reluctant to let me speak for fear of being on the hot seat, so to speak.
We will go to Trish’s question, and I will finagle what I have to say behind Paul’s back.
Raj, I got a glimpse of what I think you’re saying here about education. What I’m not seeing on the world scene is the reasons for the hostilities, which I feel really need to be surfaced, rather than …
What hostilities are you talking of?
The hostilities between the governments. What’s promoting or provoking war in the first place. The issues that are not being addressed, such as poverty, the imbalance of the world’s wealth, greed, inhumanity, inhumanness. These issues. And the inquiry of religious fanaticism hiding behind… because of deep inner seated jealousies, ancient jealousies, hiding behind God to exercise these hatreds. This is the education I feel that needs to be re-educated, even to the point of maybe helicopters with pamphlets. [laughing] There are things I feel that can be done and now, rather than this constant focus and preoccupation as whether we should go to war, whether we should not go to war. This is not, to me, this is not where the focus needs to be.
At the moment that is where the focus needs to be. The focus needs to be on the meaning of the word “No.” And it needs to be focused exactly where it’s being focused.
Well, but this other …
As I have said before, once you have restrained unrestrained expressions of harm,…
I see. Yeah, I see what you’re saying.
… then education can begin.
Okay.
It is a shame that it has gotten to the point where there is unrestrained expression of harm. Education should have come into play much sooner.
Long before this. But they go hand in hand. I mean this is the intent of restraint, and then education.
At the bottom line that is correct. That is at the bottom line what this uncivilized, civilized world is attempting to embody right now. But just as with any tax bill, or appropriations bill, that goes through your Congress, there are little agendas tacked on. And the little agendas will need ultimately to be dropped off so that the fundamental humane acts of love that constitute being truly civilized are the alpha and omega of the action that’s engaged in, without the private little leveraging agendas that get tacked onto it for personal gain, or national gain, and so on.
So it’s first things first.
Yes. First thing you have to do is get their attention. The first thing I have to do is get your attention. And you’re not an enemy. Until one’s … until the attention is gotten, communication can’t occur. And until communication can occur, resolution and healing cannot occur. And if the reason for communication is love, then the manner in which communication is engaged in will in all respects conform to the end goal, which is the mutual experience of love. Friendship.
And you know what? In order for that to happen, as you all know, each of you has to become defenseless, so that you might be able to be genuine with each other, so that you can speak from your heart of hearts, and so that you might voice the discrepancies that you see that you have been experiencing. Not as a form of attack, but as a point for the two of you to become mutually clearer about where there can be healing.
You surface the truth of the issues.
Indeed. But you know what the truth of the issue is, at the bottom line? Everybody wants to be loved. Everyone wants to be respected. Everyone wants to be able to feel love for everyone else. Everyone wants to feel safe in giving and receiving love, and in being respected. That’s it at the bottom line. And if you are all the direct Expression of God, and therefore the Christ—plain, pure and simple then you are all worthy of respect and love and kindness, and nothing less.
There is a United States in order for there to be a united world that even goes beyond the meaning of united states. Everyone is going to have to desire for there to be peace, and desire it enough to behave in a way that inspires others to let down their defenses, in order to find that in the absence of their defenses they don’t get attacked and that they are safe. And when the desire that all of you embody for your Brothers globally to feel safe, and where there can be open communion one with another around the globe, when that desire becomes undivided, that’s when [snap of the fingers] it happens. That is when it’s done. That’s when the first domino falls, and the second and the third and the fourth and the fifth, and on, and on.
Are you getting it?
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay over these last three weeks we’ve been working really hard to pin you down.
Working really hard?
To pin you down on the issues that are facing us. You have told us several times that Hitler is now awake.
Indeed.
When Hitler was embodied he was responsible for an awful lot of inhumanity.
Not all by himself.
No, not all by himself, but as a symbol he represents and was the leader, at least of the fascist movement. And at the time the free world said, “No, we are not going to have this.” And the free world said “No” with such ferocity that it went down in history as World War II. And many people died during this war, and there were many atrocities during this war. Did the ferocity of the free world, did the ferocity of the free world saying “No,” did that play a role in Hitler’s awakening? And was it the most healing thing for the world to do at the time under those circumstances?
It’s a dangerous question you ask. It played a role in his awakening only in the sense that the Holy Spirit can use every event on behalf of the one waking up. But let’s not think that the world, or the United States and a few allies saying an unequivocal “No” to Saddam Hussein will have the beneficent effect of promoting his awakening, and therefore perhaps further justify saying “No” vehemently.
You know what I do want you to … I want everyone who’s hearing what I am saying to know? Everyone… many are surprised that Hitler is awake after such a short passage of time since the atrocities he engaged in. It’s possible for Saddam Hussein to wake up tomorrow and not some years after his death. It’s possible for each one of you to wake up tomorrow. Keep that in mind because it keeps perspective. Because at the same time you say “No” with physical force, you will know and you will be open to the possibility of a sudden shift of perception—a spontaneous, sudden shift of perception on his part. And there is a need for a sudden shift of perception on his part.
The ferocity of the “No” that you spoke of in World War II was an example of, we will say, relatively speaking, a global desire that came close to a point of being undivided. And when a desire for that which represents Truth and God and Life becomes undivided, as I said, the desire becomes fulfilled spontaneously. Which is another reason that I have been addressing everyone’s willingness, or the need for everyone to be willing to become involved to the point of saying “No” where “No” needs to be said, and “Yes” where “Yes” needs to be said.
So that whether you join the infantry and go to the front, or whether you’re at home, your un-private thoughts, your un-private commitment—because there are no private thoughts—do join on behalf of healing. Again not punishment, healing. And you know what? The potential for redemption.
If someone has a highly communicable disease, you quarantine him. Why? Well because at the bottom line you’re unaware of your invulnerability as a Child of God. If you knew that you could not be subject to something that God didn’t create, you would not quarantine the person with this disease. That wouldn’t correct the problem. But it would determine how you behaved relative to him. As long as you don’t know how to be in the presence of the communicable disease without catching it, you quarantine him, or her, and then you take steps to heal. So, is this making sense?
You do what you have to do under the circumstances at your present point of growth, your present point of awakening, while at the same time turning toward the Altar to be open to even clearer views of Reality As God Is Being It, so that that might become embodied in the Gift of Love that constitutes the Act of Love that is the Atonement.
So right now everyone is engaged in acts of confinement of a problem that are in many ways gross, not very spiritual, because you don’t yet have the spiritual means to do it otherwise. So you do it the way you have to do it, while at the same time remembering what I brought out at the beginning this evening. That correction means healing, not punishment. So that you might not forget that your focus of attention needs to be on healing, transformation, regeneration, redemption. If healing is the goal, then every aspect of the means of arriving at the healing will reflect and embody that goal.
Even war? If it has to come to that? If you hold the idea that the intent is for healing and transformation, not for punishment?
Even the forceful confinement or restraining of a continuing intent to bring harm, yes. If you wish to call that war, you may.
I’m trying to be very clear on supporting what needs to be done with the right attitude.
What I want to point out is that the more individuals on your globe who will become involved and take a stand “Yes” or “No”—”Yes” for that which reflects and identifies God, and “No” to that which does not—the more on your globe that would take a position, cast their vote, the less and less likely it would be that a single missile would be fired, or shot would be fired. But if that kind of resolve cannot be arrived at in the mind of mankind, then absolutely missiles will have to be launched, bullets will have to be fired, and the confinement will have to be accomplished. You cannot look at something that does not reflect God and is aggressively opposite to Love, and say, “I will not say ‘No’ to this until I can do it from a supreme level of divine spirituality.” You’ve got to say “No” in whatever way works.
I think you’ve really cleared up a lot of confusion around this, this evening, and I thank you, at least for myself.
Well, I’m not quiet at peace with this because I notice that whatever goes on, on the big scene usually does show up personally. And I certainly have been met with the last few months, a year or so, with an ongoing message that certainly I felt was broadcast as a dinner bell before, let’s say, the pending threat of war has shown up. And that message which I can’t say that I’ve gotten a handle on, or have healed is this. That our main enslavement or preoccupation is with two things, and this is what my Guide said, that keeps us in a box, each one of us in the box.
And those two messages or the temptation around mutual agreements, are righteousness and personal power. And I feel if I had healed that within the point of my awareness, I may not be seeing on the world stage what I see today. And even so, I’m keen to it, and anytime when the air of, let’s say, where my interest is drawn to what is right, or righteousness. Everyone on the war scene feels like their a good guy in a bad world. And that to me still stands as the dilemma.
And I’m sure that’s why we have this whole book, and the time to work out this dilemma of how … at least I am still working on how do I talk away, argue away, in my own awareness the issue of righteousness, and out of the valuing of righteousness that I would attempt to exercise personal power. That to me has been where I’ve been working within, you know, behind the scenes to reckon with those two issues as I feel is the basis of the correction. So I’ll be quiet.
I can answer this relatively briefly. Righteousness and personal power are selfish. They’re always with the focus on the self, the self feeling righteous, the self wanting personal power. It is very simply the nature of the ego, which is incapable of extension, which is incapable of embrace, which is incapable of putting another’s interest before its own.
Don’t you find it interesting that the Atonement is an Act of Love, and not something else? It’s the specific thing which breaks the dream. It’s the specific thing that undoes the illusions. Because an Act of Love is not selfish. It doesn’t relate to one’s self. It requires involvement or joining. And more than the joining that happens between one person and another, it’s the primary joining that one has to engage in with the Father in order to be infilled with What Love Really Is, and the inspiration of it that causes it to spontaneously bubble forth and embrace another, thus breaking the isolation.
Again that’s the point of what I wanted to convey tonight. Correction means healing, not punishment, where correction is needed. And it involves each one’s willingness to provide the correction where it’s needed, not with any sense of righteousness, not with any sense of personal power, but as a communication of benign-ness and friendship.
And you know what? Every single country in this world has friends that it needs to reestablish its friendship with. You get that? Not enemies that they have to establish friendships with, but old friends, forever friends, that they have forgotten their friendship with and need to reestablish those friendships that could never actually end. And that’s it in a nutshell. And just to be utterly clear. If one of the friends, by virtue of both friends forgetting that they were friends, has become so frightened that there is low trust and that one continues to be unfriendly when overtures of friendliness are extended, the one who has become clear enough to care, to extend friendship once again, must refrain from becoming reactive to the lack of trust, and persist in extending friendship apparently over time, over a period of time, with persistence, so that, for lack of better words, a history of friendship and benign-ness has been embodied, acted out, in the world. And do this for however long it takes for the more frightened friend to lay down his fear. And that must be the goal.
If the frightened friend is inclined to express his fear in harmful acts, steps must be taken to keep those harmful acts from becoming actualized. Why? So that harm does not occur to either one while the reestablishing of an ancient friendship occurs.
Does that answer your question?
Yes, thank you.
The next section which we will begin on next week is called “The Meaning of the Last Judgment.” Good timing.
I love you.
Two things. I know this sounds trite. Love one another as I have loved you. Second thing, I encourage all of you to revisit last week’s Gathering, because in it you will find that I described exactly how to deal with Saddam Hussein, and I did it by describing at some length how I deal with you.
Okay, I look forward to being with you next week.
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