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Good evening. And welcome to everyone who’s joining us on the Internet.

Well … sacrifice—a wonderful concept—something that has been lifted to a high level of importance and value. You’ve even spiritualized it.

And so, you see my death as a sacrifice when it wasn’t anything of the sort. But you say, “It says in the Bible that the greatest thing a brother can do is lay down his life for a brother, which is exactly what you did.”

Well, let’s not be confused. The holy instant is a moment in which you have laid down your right—your supposed right to think on your own, your supposed right to be an independent agent for change. It’s a moment in which you lay down your position as authorizer. It’s a moment in which you lay down your orphanhood because it’s a moment in which you turn once again to your Source, your Father, your Creator—whatever word you want to use—no longer claiming independence, and you say, “Father …” followed with a desire of some sort. There’s a rejoining that occurs in the holy instant.

In that joining, as we’ve been discussing, and you let the Father in, you let the Father’s perspective as His Gift to you infill you so that you stand in receipt of it as an experience—that’s not a sacrifice.

Now, when I apparently “sacrificed,” or was sacrificed—“the sacrificial lamb” as it’s put—I wasn’t engaging in sacrifice at all. I was demonstrating for everyone in the only way it could be demonstrated, that life is eternal, that life is deathless, that mortality is not the rule. Of course, it’s what everybody had been experiencing forever, and so there was no capacity at the moment from within that mindset—that belief structure—to imagine that life was eternal, that it was as a fact uninterruptible and that the experience of death was an illusion.

And so, someone from outside of the mindset, someone not experiencing that confusion, had to demonstrate it objectively, you might say, so that everyone might learn that life is deathless and that they should begin to immediately challenge their willingness to die, challenge the idea that it’s unalterable, that it’s unchangeable, that it’s a fact of life. You see?

Sacrificing disappears … and all of the spiritual definitions added to it, and all of the non-spiritual interpretations that have been developed to explain the human condition, all of those things will disappear when you indulge in or engage in the holy instant consciously and on purpose. Your sense of yourself that seems to be unholy will be replaced with the experience of your holiness. Not as a thing to flaunt, not as a behavior to acquire, but as the very nature of your Being that finds its presence in God—in the Creator, in your Source. And because it does that, it identifies who you Are truly, so you’re not confused about that.

Now, you’ve heard all of the wonderful stories about mothers who have sacrificed their personal goals for the benefit of their children, who’ve given up this or that because they loved their children so much that they worked three jobs to take care of them through the Depression and abandoned a career move, or whatever. And you might notice that mother-love is one of the strongest forms of sacrifice present on your globe and has been for some centuries.

It’s time to challenge these ideas. It’s time to stop embracing them. I don’t mean by that, that it’s time to go out and tell everybody else to stop doing it. I mean that in the quietness of your very own being, relative to yourself, you need to stop it! You need to stop valuing sacrifice. You need to stop doing without because that “matures” you.

You know, talking about maturation—becoming mature—if you noticed as you go through life, as a child you stand in the experience of being loved and as you mature, you shift from being loved to being Love. You shift from constantly standing in receipt, into the atmosphere and attitude and action of Loving—of Being Love and extending it.

Well, you know you could say that when that shift occurred, you gave up your life in some respects for your brother, for whoever it is that you’re now standing in the position of giving to, of caring for, of caring about, of having their best interests at heart. You see?

That’s laying down your life, we might say, as a “getter” so that you might be a “giver.” Is that sacrifice? Everyone who’s done it has learned that it’s fulfillment. And everyone who has watched someone who hasn’t made that transition and is fifty years old and still expecting the world to serve him his good on a silver platter, you recognize that that is sick. You understand that it’s not appropriate.

I’ll tell you something: The only sacrifice which could be identified as laying down your life for a brother, is your arriving at a point where everything other than yourself is more important to you than you. Because when that happens, your capacity to love, your capacity to be Love—your Birthright—infills you and overflows and is a blessing to everything your attention falls upon.

Is this something new? No. It’s as old as the hills. Did you know that that’s what the Course is talking about in its new language? Well, now you do.

The End of Sacrifice1

Fear not to recognize the whole idea of sacrifice as SOLELY of your making.

You know, just because others may practice sacrifice, may value it, may have lifted it up to lofty positions, and just because they may have talked about it to you, it wasn’t necessary for you to pick it up. How many people may have talked to you about being an automobile-mechanic? And you didn’t become an automobile-mechanic and you still don’t know the first thing about what goes on under the hood of the car. You see? Everything about caring for automobiles did not become a part of your life—you didn’t make it part of your life even though there are auto-mechanics all over the world. So …

Fear not to recognize the whole idea of sacrifice …

… or anything else …

… as SOLELY of your making. And seek not safety by attempting to protect yourself from where it is not.

That’s really not difficult …

… seek not safety by attempting to protect yourself from where it …

… sacrifice …

… is not.

Well, where might those places be? Well, one of them is in your Brother. Another one is in God.

But you think your Brother demands sacrifice and you think God demands sacrifice. And so you protect yourself from both your Brother and from your Father through the developed art of skillful negotiation where you have a relationship but it’s one that you are controlling with only one goal and that is to protect yourself against the inevitable loss that you will experience if you were undefended with your Brother or with your Father.

… seek not safety by attempting to protect yourself from where it is not. Your brothers and your Father have become very fearful to you. And you would bargain with them for a few special relationships in which you think you see some scraps of safety. Do not try longer to keep apart your thoughts and the Thought that has been given you.

When you listen, when you hear Guidance, when the Holy Spirit speaks to you, when your Guide speaks to you, when the Father speaks to you and you hear it … what? It happens in the same place where your thoughts occur. But, you say, “I’ve had a revelation or I have had a spiritual insight.” And although you experienced it in your conscious awareness, you say it came from somewhere else. It came from Heaven. It came from the Father, Who’s “out there” somewhere. It came from the Holy Spirit—part of the Trinity—again, somewhere else.

And you keep your thoughts and the Thought apart by definition. Don’t do that anymore.

Do not try longer to keep apart your thoughts and the Thought that has been given you…

… or any Thoughts that have been given you.

When they are brought together and perceived where they ARE, .

… which means, perceived as present in your mind, not present “out there” somewhere that you overheard, and other thoughts present in your mind that you call, “yours.”

When they are brought together and perceived where they ARE, the choice between them is nothing more than a gentle awakening, and as simple as opening your eyes to daylight when you have no more need of sleep.

See, it’s simple. It’s complicated if you’ve got to reconcile yourself with the Holy Spirit “out there” or God “out there” and you “in here.” That’s difficult to reconcile. You might say that’s difficult to wrap your mind around. But when you realize that they’re both occurring in the same place, then reconciling them is simple. You just shift your attention. You just value this more than that. Do you see? All of this is, at the bottom line, utterly simple. You make it complicated and sacrifice is part of the way you make it complicated.

If you’re shifting from a misperception in your mind to the Knowing of Truth in your mind, that’s the “Journey without Distance,” that’s you coming back into your sanity. You see? It’s a simple shift and it’s a shift that occurs in the holy instant, which is why the holy instant is such an important thing to be discussing.

The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come.

This light, this shining star in you, is the Holy Spirit—that which is nothing more than your right Mind—your Christhood. It’s that simple.

But, you see, that’s scary! You’d rather have God and the Holy Spirit “out there” different from you, unapproachable but of some benefit to you because They love you. You see? As long as they’re “out there,” you don’t have to change. You don’t have to sacrifice what has come to be important to you, even though it’s a bunch of illusions.

Christmas is the penetration of the Christ consciousness, of the Christ into human experience. Christmas is when you let the Holy Spirit in. It’s when you let your right Mind register with you and change you by enlarging you, by increasing your capacity to Know the truth instead of be unconscious of it and live your life as though it’s nothing more than what you call the human condition, in which sacrifice constantly occurs and is important.

He comes …

… the Christ …

… demanding NOTHING.

“Oh-h …” but you say, “He does. He wants me to give up my right to get angry. He wants me to give up my passion for achievement. He wants me to stop chasing the carrot!” You see? That’s because all of those forms of ignorance you value and you find no way to appreciate yourself without your engaging in them. And yet Someone who Knows the truth, the greater truth about you, must tell you so that you just might hesitate a moment—just an instant—on your chase after that carrot, because what will happen will not be sacrifice, but fulfillment.

No sacrifice of any kind, of anyone, is asked by Him. In His Presence, the whole idea of sacrifice loses all meaning.

Why? Because the experience of fulfillment is absolutely satisfying, an experience that you’ve never had in the practice of sacrifice and you know what satisfying is.

In His Presence, the whole idea of sacrifice loses all meaning.

In the Presence of your right Mind, sacrifice loses all meaning. Why? Because you find yourself made whole.

For He is Host to God …

… the Holy Spirit, which is nothing more than your right Mind …

… is host to God.

Now, it already is. We read last week:

Salvation is simple being of God, and therefore very easy to understand. Do not try to project if from you and see it OUTSIDE yourself.

Like I said, “Holy Spirit ‘out there,’ God ‘out there.’”

Do not try to project it from you and see it OUTSIDE yourself. In you are both the question and the answer; the demand for sacrifice and the peace of God.

You see, that’s the point you have to remember. Both, you might say, both sides of the conflict are in one place and that’s why all it requires is a shift of attention—a shifting of valuing—in you … like opening your eyes, if they’ve been closed.

For He is Host to God. And you need but invite Him in …

And you need but invite Him…

(Paul: Just a moment …)

And you need but invite Him in Who is there ALREADY, by recognizing that His Host is One, and no thought alien to His Oneness can abide with Him there.

You see? The Holy Spirit is there already in you because it’s your right Mind being held in trust while you’re dallying with an ego perception—with a thought of being an orphan. It’s already there.

Love must be total to give Him welcome…

… all that means is that Love must be present without any distractions of fear, of guilt, of hate, of anger, blah…blah…blah.

Love must be total…

… which simply means that it must be there without anything else being practiced. You see? It’s not like … “Oh-h, you’ve got to find some way to embrace the wholeness of love.” No. All you have to do is stop practicing fear and guilt. Just stop it for a moment and Love will be total. You see? Simplicity.

Love must be total to give Him welcome, for the Presence of holiness CREATES the holiness which surrounds it.

The presence of holiness is what you are when you abandon fear and guilt. And it creates the holiness that surrounds it. It creates the holiness of all because nothing extraneous is being introduced because you’re neglecting to practice fear and guilt.

No fear can touch the Host Who cradles God in the time of Christ, for the Host is as holy as the Perfect Innocence which He protects, and Whose power protects Him.

Now, you can think of a manger scene here if you want, but that would misdirect your attention.

The holiness of it all is the holiness that is embedded in you because you are the holy Son of God—you are God’s direct expression of Himself, totally. The meaning of this, the experience of this is awaiting you as you dare to practice the holy instant, meaning, you dare to become quiet and set aside the practice of fear and guilt, you neglect to value it and you say, “Father, what is the truth here? I wish to have the experience of Your perspective which I understand is mine, is my Birthright, but haven’t had the experience of yet.”

This Christmas, give the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING that would hurt you.

Well, remember we’re giving Christmas a different definition here, aren’t we? So here we are very close to Thanksgiving—November—very close to Christmas. And so, when it says:

This Christmas, give the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING that would hurt you.

You could say, “Okay, timely that we’re reading about it at this time of year, right?” [chuckles] But what will happen in January and February and March? Are you going to then wait until twelve months later, where these words have some significance or are you going to take this moment … and this moment … and this moment … and avail yourself of the holy instant with the desire to shift from the childhood “getting” to the mature presence of mind that is Love, that does care, that exists for the purpose of blessing his brother and everything because you recognize that what your brother is and what everything is, is Creation Itself—the Presence of God—and is therefore, worthy of the blessing of your seeing it for what it is and joying in it?

Joy to the World. What … the world out there? The world, when the shepherds 2000 years ago were out on the hills? No. The world of any given moment that you are experiencing because you have no choice, you’re conscious. And if you’re conscious, you’re going to be conscious of something. And the something that you’re conscious of is Creation Itself. Let It in, so that you can Joy to the World, because you’re experiencing what It is and not inserting anything between you and It that alters your experience of It and causes you to be ignorant of your Birthright, holy Son of God that you Are.

This Christmas…

… this moment …

… give the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING that would hurt you. LET yourself be healed completely that you may join with Him in healing, and let us celebrate our release together by releasing everyone …

… else …

… by releasing everyone with us. Leave nothing behind, for release is total, and when you have accepted it with me you will GIVE it with me.

Listen …

All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in our relationship, which is as innocent as our relationship with our Father, and as powerful.

Lay down your life as the up-and-coming orphan. Join me as who you actually Are. Let me in. Want to experience the truth—whatever that might actually turn out to be—more than you want to continue the centuries-old habits that have just been handed down generation after generation, after generation and have neglected to illuminate the fact that everybody is in bondage to an illusion, to a practice of sacrifice, of being incomplete, of never having enough but striving for it and enjoying the strife and feeling blessed by what the strife brings to you.

Pain will be brought to us and disappear in our presence, and without pain there can BE no sacrifice. And without sacrifice there love MUST be.

Oh my… you’re coming up upon the Christmas time and you will be seduced into admiring and valuing the entry into the human condition of the Christ, which was the first of two steps as it’s believed. The first step was the birth of the Christ and the second step was the death of the Christ. They go together like bookends, they’re inseparable and they teach an incredible lesson—a religious lesson … CRAP! DON’T BUY IT! Sacrifice proves nothing except insanity. Sacrifice demonstrates nothing but confusion. Sacrifice is the result of nothing but ignorance.

Be alert this week. Watch for all the places where sacrifice seem to come into play, either as a “suffer it to be so now,” or as something of great value that is going to bless those for whom sacrifice occurred, or even bless the one who did the sacrificing. Watch for it. Let red flags go up so that you don’t experience them unquestionably, or at the worst, with reverence.

If you’re not willing to look at sacrifice as it comes up in your daily life with an immediate intent to reject it, you’re not going to be primed for the holy instant. The holy instant will not happen. You will be impressed with the sacrifice and the qualities of it, whether they are uplifting or whether they down-trod you.

Be alert! This section is called The End of Sacrifice. And I promise you the end of sacrifice will not come as long as you employ it and value it and revere it instead of the holy instant.

You may not truly grasp what the blessing of the holy instant is, but you won’t find out until you employ it, until you engage in it. And you do know … you do know that the practice sacrifice—of fear and guilt—does not ever in any way constitute true fulfillment. It doesn’t constitute healing.

We are to join together in the conscious awareness of truth so that ignorance and confusion can be dispelled or healed and all of the evidences of it disappear.

… without sacrifice there love MUST be.

And therefore, there it is.

You who believe that sacrifice IS love must learn that sacrifice is SEPARATION from love.

He gave up his life for you—the son or daughter in the Armed Forces. They gave up their lives for the sake of freedom. Wow! I do not mean to be disrespectful, but it’s time to be lifted out of the arena in which the sacrificing of ones life is noteworthy and praiseworthy and the raising of the dead replaces it! It’s time for something new to happen that constitutes fulfillment for everyone rather than suffering sacrifice and finding ways to tolerate it.

This is the meaning of Christmas. It’s not a date on a calendar. It’s an intent, an action of an individuality to rouse himself out of his stupid rest, to rouse himself out of his insanity by abandoning privacy—the right to independence, because there is so much more to be experienced that is unquestionably satisfying, unquestionably fulfilling, unquestionably the presence and evidence of Love—not just kindness from one to another, but the presence of Love that God is… divine Love.

Again …

You who believe that sacrifice IS love …

… and sort of melt when you hear of the marvelous sacrifice that someone went through.

You who believe that sacrifice IS love must learn that sacrifice is SEPARATION from love. For sacrifice brings guilt as surely as love brings peace.

Why would I take this time? Why would I work with everyone, we’ll say, for 2000 years? Because it’s your Birthright to be experiencing peace—the peace that Love brings. That’s something I want you to join me in. Why? So you can do something nice for your brother? No. So that you might, in your conscious intent to know the truth, find yourself seeing God in each and everything and stand in awe and amazement and praise of it … that you know what? Your brother, whom you’re looking at, will recognize as an experience he’s not had before, that blesses him therefore, or that blesses everything that you’re looking at. It’s your Birthright to be that Presence and it’s the Birthright of everything to be experiencing that Movement or Presence in you.

Guilt is the CONDITION of sacrifice, as peace is the condition for the awareness of your relationship with God.

What does that mean … your relationship with God? It means your connection with your Father, your inseparableness, the fact that you can’t be divided from Him and therefore, your Identity is forever intact and forever unchangeable, forever divine, forever holy. And therefore, your Being—your very existing—is constituted of an ever present joy to the world, an ever-present joying in the world. I don’t mean inside the world, you’re joying in what It is.

This calendar Christmas season, can end up being when the Real Christmas occurs in you, in you, in you, in you, in you… in all of you. That’s what the holy instant is about.

Through guilt you exclude your Father and your brothers from yourself. Through peace you invite them back, and realize that they are where your invitation bids them be.

Does she piss you off? Does he gripe your ass? Are all of them worthy of your disdain or discrediting or criticism? Well, then that’s where you invite them to be …

… they are where your invitation bids them be.

And you invite them to be separate and different and less than and different from you, and therefore, incompatible, therefore alien and on and on and on.

However…

Through peace you invite them back, and realize that they are where your invitation bids them be.

You see? Take responsibility back. You’re the one deciding what they’re there for. You’re the one inviting them to be where you see them to be, where you want them to be, where you need them to be so that you might become more credible, so that you might be on a higher rung on the ladder than they are. You see?

What you excluded from yourself seems fearful, for you endowed it with fear and tried to cast it out, though it was part of you. Who can perceive part of himself as loathsome, and live within himself in peace? And who can try to resolve the perceived conflict of Heaven and hell in him by casting Heaven out and giving it the attributes of hell, without experiencing himself as incomplete and lonely?

It’s impossible! Sacrifice is not valuable. Sacrifice is mean-spirited. Sacrifice is the expression of hate, because pain is associated with it, not peace. Be very black and white about it in your mind, because it is very clear. And until it becomes very clear and you consciously embrace it, as I said, the red flags won’t go up as evidences and occasions of sacrifice occur during your day. And you’ll amble on in your ignorance through another day and you’ll probably feel that what Raj is saying just doesn’t cut it. You know what? My saying things doesn’t cut anything. My saying things occurs only to inspire you to engage in a new way of being in your mind—where both the question and the answer are, where the demand for sacrifice and the peace of God are.

Sacrifice is not a pleasant subject. But I haven’t only talked about sacrifice tonight. I’ve talked about joy. I’ve talked about fulfillment. I’ve talked about love and peace that are healing. I’ve talked about engaging in the holy instant and joining, wanting to know the truth that transforms you and what you’ve been experiencing, from just a world and universe, to the direct spot-on clear view of Creation here and now.

So I am making a Christmas gift. A joyful gift. A Gift of joy. And I’m saying, and I’m saying this to each of you for you to practice on yourself, within yourself: Stop valuing sacrifice. Embrace the holy instant. Give the Holy Spirit everything that would hurt you.

That which is nothing more than your right Mind has only one intent: To reunite your Mind, to cause the distractions that seem to fragment your mind to dissolve so the fragmentation ceases.

Love surrounds you. The Father’s Love surrounds you. My Love surrounds you. The Holy Spirit’s Love surrounds you. And you know what? We’re all actively engaged in providing you with the stimulation—the stimulus to have a light bulb go on—another word for the Christmas Star.

And so I soberly join with you in this coming week, in your willingness to give your attention to the truth, to give your attention to the light bulb going on, to give your attention to that in which sacrifice does not exist.

I love you very much. Love Peace, stop loving sacrifice. Treat it like trash. You don’t get excited about trash. You just drop it in the trashcan, don’t you? You go over and you pick it up, a little bit of litter, and you walk over and drop it in the trashcan and you go on your way doing joyous, fulfilling things.

The Holy Spirit will send the trash men around to pick up the trashcans. You don’t have to worry about cleaning up your trash—your old used sacrifices.

  1. T15.10 The End of Sacrifice 



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