IA´s Journal

[IA56]

LESSON 186

”Salvation of the world depends on me.”

Here is the statement that will one day take all arrogance away from every mind. Here is the thought of true humility, which holds no function as your own but that which has been given you. It offers your acceptance of a part assigned to you, without insisting on another role. It does not not judge your proper role. It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven´s plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven´s peace. Let us not fight our function. We did not establish it. It is not our idea. The means are given us but which it will be perfectly accomplished. All that we are asked to do is to accept our part in genuine humility, and not deny with self-deceiving arrogance that we are worthy. What is given us to do, we have the stength to do. Our minds are suited perfectly to take the part assigned to us by One Who knows us well. Today´s idea may seem quite sobering, until you see its meaning. All it says is that your Father still remembers you, and offers you the perfect trust. He holds in you who are His Son. It does not ask that you be different in any way from what you are. What could humility request but this? And what could arrogance deny but this? Today we will not shrink from our assignment on the specious grounds that modesty is outraged. It is pride that would deny the Call for God Himself. All false humility we lay aside today, that we may listen to God´s Voice reveal to us what He would have us do. We do not doubt our adequancy for the function He will offer us. We will be certain only that He knows our strength, our wisdom and our holiness. And if He deems us worthy, so we are. It is but arrogance that judges other-wise. There is one way, and only one, to be released from the imprisonment your plan to prove the false is true has brought to you. Accept the plan you did nto make instead. Judge not your value to it. If God´s Voice assures you that salvation needs your part, and that whole depends on you, be sure that it is so. The arrogant must cling towords, afraid to go beyond them to experience which might affront their stance.Yet are the humble free to hear the Voice Which tells them what they are, and what to do. Arrogance makes an image of yourself that is not real. It is this image which quails and retreats in terror, as the Voice of God assures yout hat you have the strength, the wisdom and the holiness to go beyond all images. You are not weak, as is the image of yourself. You are not ignorant and helpless. Sin can not tarnish the truth in you, and misery can come not near the holy home of God. All this the Voice for God relates to you. And as He speaks, the image trembles and seeks to attack the treat it does not know,sensing its basis crumble. Let it go. Salvation of the world depends on you,and not upon this little pile of dust. What can it tell the holy Son of God? Why need he be concerned with it at all? And so we find our peace. We will accept the function God has given us, for all illusions rest upon the wierd belief that we can make another for ourselves. Our self-made roles are shifting, and they seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of love and loving. We can laugh or weep, and greet the day with welcome or with tears. Our very being seems to change as we experience a thousand shifts in mood, and our emotions raise us high indeed, or dash us to the ground in hoplessness. Is this the Son of God? Could He create such instability and call it Son? He Who is changeless shares His attributes with His creation. All the images His Son appears to make have no effect on what he is. They blow across his mind like wind-swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust. These unsubstantial images will go, and leave your mind unclouded and serene, when you accept the function given you. The images you make give rise to but conflicting goals, impermanent and vague, uncertain and ambiguous. Who could be constant in his effeorts, or direct his energies and concentrated drive toward goals like these? The functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change ten times an hour at their most secure. What hope of gain can rest on goals like this? In lovely contrast, certain as the sun´s return each morning to dispel the night, your truly given function stands out clear and wholly unambiguous. There is no doubt of its validity. It comes from One Who knows no error, and His Voice is certain of Its messages. They will not change, nor be in conflict. All of them point to one goal, and one you can attain. Your plan may be impossible, but God´s can never fail because He is its Source. Do as God´s Voice directs. And if It asks a thing of you which seems impossible, remember Who it is That asks, and who would make denial. Then consider this; which is more likely to be right? The Voice That speaks for the Creator of all things. Who knows all things exactly as they are, or a distorted image of yourself, confused, bewildered, inconsistent and unsure of everything? Let not its voice direct you. Hear instead a certain Voice, Which tells you of a function given you by your Creator Who remembers you, and urges that you now remember Him. His gamle Voice is calling from the known to the unknowing. He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. He would make a restitution,though He is complete; a gift to you, although He knows that you have everything already. He has Thoughts which answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. For Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form. These are the forms which never can deceive, because they come from Formlessness Itself. Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still. Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. Such is your function here.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 187

”I bless the world because I bless myself.”

No one can give unless he has.In fact, giving is proof of having We have made this point before. What seems to make it hard to credit is not this. No one can doubt that you must first possess what you would give. It is the second phase on which the world and true perception differ. Having had an given, then the world assert that you have lost what you possessed. The truth maintains that giving will increase what you possess. How is this possible? For it is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body´s eyes will not perceive it yours. Yet we have learned that things but represent the thoughts that make them. And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind. Perhaps the form in which the tought seems to appear is changed in giving. Yet it must return to him who gives. Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable. It must be more. Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them. If you are to save the world, your first must accept salvation for yourself. But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon. Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. Now you can perceive that by your giving is your store increased. Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them. What you thought you did not have its hereby proven yours. Yet value not its form. For this will change and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. No form endures. It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable. Give gladly. You can only gain thereby. The thought remains, and grows in strength as it is reinforced by giving. Thoughts extend as they are shared, for they can not be lost. There is no giver and receiver in the sense of the world conceives of them. There is a giver who retains; another who will give as well. And both must gain in this exchange, for each will have the thought in form most helpful to him. What he seems to lose is always something he will value less than what will surely be returned to him. Never forget you give but to yourself. Whounder stands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice. Nor can he fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take. He laughs as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty, starvation and at death.He recognizes sacrifice remains the one idea that stands behind them all, and in his gentle laughter are they healed. Illusions recgonized must disappear.Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering. Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers, when you choose to see all suffering as what it is. The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.Never believe that you can sacrifice. There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. If the thouhgt of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once. Never believe that you can sacrifice. There is no Place for sacrifice in what has any value. If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen and correction must be made. Your blessing will correct it. Given first to you, it now is yours to give as well. No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of on who has forgiven and has blessed himself. The lilies that your brother offers you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer him beside them. Who could fear to look upon such lovely holiness? The great illusion of the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the purity that you will look on here. Be not afraid to look. The blessedness you will behold will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect gift forever there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away. Now are we one in thought, for fear has gone. And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and on Thought, we stand together as one Son of God. Not separate from Him Who is our Source; not distant from one brother who is part of our one Self Whose innocence has joined us all as one, we stand in blessedness, and give as we receive. The name of God is on our lips. And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father´s Love. Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world. What we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it everywhere. We would behold it shining with the grace of God in everyone. We would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon. And to ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see. For where we see it, it will be returned to us in form of lilies we can lay upon our altar, making it a home for Innicence Itself, Who dwells in us and offers us His Holiness as ours.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 188

”The peace of God is shining in me now.”

Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now.Enlightenment is but a recognition, nor a change at all. Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home. This light can not be lost. Why wait to find it in the future,or believe it has been lost already, or was never there? It can so easily be looked upon that arguments which prove it is not there become ridiculous. Who can deny the presence of what he beholds in him? It is not difficult to look within, for there all vision starts. There is no sight, be it or dreams or from a truer Source, that is not but the shadow of the seen through inward vision.There preception starts, and there it ends. It has no source but this. The peace of God is shining in your now, and from your heart extends around the world. It pauses to caress each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that remains forever and forever. What it gives must be eternal. It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless. It brings renewal to all tired hearts,and lights all vision as it passes by. All of its gifts are given everyone, and everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give, and yo who have received. The shining in your mind reminds the world of what it has forgotten, and the world restores the memory to you as well. From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks. And in His blessing does the light in you shine brighter,adding to the gifts you have to offer to the world. The peace of God can never be contained. Who recognizes it within himself must give it. And the means forgiving it are in his understanding. He forgives because he recognized the truth in him. The peace of God is shining in you new, and in all living things. In quietness is it acknowledged universally. For what you inward vision looks upon is your preception of the universe. Sit quietly and close your eyes. The light within you is sufficient. It alone has power to give the gift of sight to you.Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within. They know the way. For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy messsengers of God Himself. These thoughts you think within Him. They recognize their home. And they point surely to their Source, Where God the Father and the Son are one. God´s peace is shining onthem, but they must remian with you as well, for they were born within your mind, as yours was born in God´s. They lead you back to peace, from where they came but to remind you how you must return. They heed your Father´s Voice when you refuse to listen. And they urge you gently to accept His Word for what you are, instead of fantasies and shadows. They remind you tht you are the co-creator of all things that live. For as the peace of God is shining in you,it must shine on them. We practice coming nearer to the light in us today. We take our wandering thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. We will not let them stray. We let the light within our minds direct them to come home. We have betrayed them,ordering that they depart from us. But now we call them back, and wash them clean of strange desires and disordered wishes. We restore to them the holiness of their inheritance. Thus are our minds restored with them, and we acknowledge that the peace of God still shines in us, and from us to all living things that share our life. We will forgive them all, absolving all the world from waht we thought it did to us. For it is we who make the world as we would have it. Now we choose that it be innocent, devoid of sin and open to salvation. And we lay our saving blessing on it, as we say:

”The peace of God is shining in me now.
Let all things shine upon me in that peace,
And let me bless them with the light in me.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 189

”I feel the Love of God with in me now.”

There is a light in you the world can not perceive. And with its eyes you will not see this light, for you are blinded by the world. Yet you have eyes to see it. It is there for you to look upon. It was not placed in you to be kept hidden from your sight. This light is a reflection of the thought we practice now. To feel the Love of God within you is to see the world anew, shining in innocence, alive with hope, and blessed with perfect charity and love. Who could feel fear in such a world as this? It welcomes you, rejoices that you came, and sings your praise as it keeps you safe from every form of danger and of pain. It offers you a warm and gentle home in which to stay a while. It blesses you throughout the day, and watches through the night as silent guardian of your holy sleep. It sees salvation in you, and protects the light in you, in which it sees it own. It offers you its flowers and its snow, in thank fulness for your benevolence. This is the world the Love of God reveals. It is so different from the world you see through darkened eyes of malice and of fear, that one belies the other. Only one can be perceivved at all. The other one is wholly meaningless. A world in which forgiveness shines on everything, and peace offers its gentle light to everyone, is inconceivable to those who see a world of hatred rising from attack, poised to avenge, to murder and destroy. Yet is the world of hatred equally unseen and inconceivable to those who feel God´s Love in them. Their world reflects the quietness and that shines in them; the gentleness and innocence they see surrounding them; the joy with which they look out from the endless wells of joy within. What they have felt in them they look upon, and see its sure reflection everywhere. What would you see? The choice is given you. But learn and do not let your mind forget this law of seeing: You will look upon that which you feel within. If hatred finds a place within your heart, you will perceive a fearful world, held cruelly in death´s sharp-pointed, body fingers. If you feel the Love of God within you, you will look out on a world of mercy and of love. Today we pass illusions, as we seek to reach to what is true in us, and feel its all-embracing tenderness, its Love which knows us perfect as itself, its sight which is the gift its Love bestows on us. We learn the way today. It is as sure as Love itself, to which it carries us. For its simlicity avoids the snares the foolish convolutions of the world´s apparent reasoning but serve to hide. Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, or every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing.Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God. Is it not He Who knows the way to you? You need not know the way to Him. Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. God will do His part in joyful and immediate response. Ask and receive. But do not make demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be. For in that way is your reality proclaimed as well. And so today we do not choose the way in which we go to Him. But we do choose to let Him come. And with this choice we rest.And in our quiet hearts and open minds, His Love will blaze its pathway of itself. What has not been denied is surely there, if it be true and can besurely reached. God knows His Son, and knows the way to him. He does not need His Son to show Him how to find His way. Through every opened door His Love shines outward from its home within, and lightens up the world in innocence.

”Father, we do not know the way to You. But we have called, and You have answered us. We will not interfere.Salvation´s ways are not our own, for they belong to You. And it is unto You we look for them. Our hands are open to receive Your gifts. We have not thoughts we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are, or Who created us. Yours is the way that we would find and follow. And we ask but that Your Will, which is our own as well, be done in us and in the world, that it become a part of Heaven now. Amen.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 190

”I choose they joy of God instead of pain.”

Pain is a wrong perspective.When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes that will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclamis God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Father´s hatred of His Son, the sinfulness He sees in him,and His insane desire for revenge and death. Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false? Pain is but witness to the Son´s mistake in what he thinks he is.It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by Etenal Love, Which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love. Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself. If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God. For vengeance is not part of love. And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain. Peace to such foolishness! The time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. There is no need to think of them as savage crimes, or secret sins with weighty consequence. Who but a madman could conceive of them as cause of anything? Their witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared thant he insane illusions which it shields, and tries to demonstrate must still be true. It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness. My holy brother, think of this awhile: The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want. Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangealbe, forever and forever. And would youdeny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain; as sickly place where living things must come at last to die? The world may seem to cause you pain. And yet the world, as causeless, has no Power to cause. As an effect, it cannot make effects. As an illusion, it is what you wish. Your idle wishes reprents its pains. Your strange desire bring it evil dreams. Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live. Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. Pain is the ransom you have gladly pain not to be free. In pain is God denied the Son He loves. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way Before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery. Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven´s Peace holds all things still at last. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear.Let no attack enter with you. Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with you seek to hide your holiness. Here will you understand there is no pain. Here does the joy of God belongs to you. This is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson that contains all of salvation´s power. It is this: Pain is illusion; joy, reality. Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening. Pain is deception; joy alone is truth. And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven. Let our gratitude unto our Teacher fill our hearts, as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 191

”I am the holy Son of God Himself.”

Here is your declaration of release from bondage of the world. And here as well is all the world released.You do not see what you have done by giving to the world the role of jailer to the Son of God. What could it be but vicious and afraid, fearful of shadows,punitive and wild, lacking all reason, blind, insane with hate? What have you done that this should be your world? What have you done that this is what you see? Deny your own Identiy, and this is what remains. You look on chaos and proclaim it is yourself. There is no sight that frails to witness this to you.There is no sound that does not speak of frailty within you and without; no breath you draw that does not seem to bring your nearer death; no hope you hold but will dissolve in tears. Deny your own Identity, and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought that mocks creation and that laughs at God. Deny your own Identity, and you assail the universe alone, without a friend, a tiny particle of dust against the legions of your enemies. Deny your own Identity, and look on evil, sin and death, and watch despair snatch from your fingers every scrap of hope, leaving you nothing but the wish to die. Yet what is it exept a game you play in which identity can be denied? You are as God created you. All else but this one thing is folly to believe. In this one thought is everyone set free. In this one truth are all illusions gone. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything, the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality.But let today´s idea find a place among your thoughts and you have risen far above the world, and all the worldly thoughts tht hold it prisoner. And from this place of safety and escape you will return and set it free. For he who can accept his true Identity is truly saved. And his salvation is the gift he gives to everyone, in gratitude to Him Who pointed out the way to happiness that changed his whole perspective of the world. One holy thought like this and you are free: You are the holy Son of God Himself. And with this holy thought you learn as well that you have freed the world. You have no need to use it cruelly, and then perceive this savage need in it. You set it free of your imprisonment. You will not see a devastating image of yourself walking the world in terror, with the world twisting in agony because your fears have laid the mark of death upon its heart. Be glad today how very easily is hell undone.You need but tell yourself:

”I am the holy Son of God Himself,
I cannot suffer, cannot be in pain;
I cannot suffer loss, nor fail to do
All that salvation asks.”

And in that thought is everything you look on wholly changed. A miracle has lighted up all dark and ancient caverns, where the rites of death echoed since time began. For times has lost its hold upon the world. The Son of God has come in glory to redeem the lost, to save the helpless, and to give the world the gift of this forgiveness. Who could see the world as dark and sinful, when God´s Son has come again at last to set it free? You who perceive yourself as weak and frail,with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born to die, to weep and suffer pain,hear this: All power is given unto you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet then you accordit mercy, will its mercy shine on you. Then let the Son of God awaken from his sleep, and opening his holy eyes, return again to bless the world he made. In error it began, but it will end in the reflection of his holiness. And he will sleep no more and dream of death. Then join with me today. Your glory is the light that saves the world. Do not withhold salvation longer. Look about the world, and see the suffering there. Is not your heart willing to bring your weary brothers rest? They must await your own release. They stay in chains till you are free. They cannot see the mercy of the world until you find it in yourself. They suffer pain until you have denied its hold on you. They die till you accept your own eternal life. You are the holy Son of God Himself. Remember this, and all the world is free. Remember this, and earth and Heaven are one.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 192

”I have a function God would have me fill.”

It is your Father´s holy Will that you complete Himself, and that your Self shall be His sacred Son, forever pure as He, of love created and in love preserved, extending love, creating in its Name, forever one with God and with your Self. Yet what can such a function mean within a world, of envy, hatred and attack? Therefore, you have a functionin the world in its own terms. For who can understand a language far beyond his simple grasp? Forgiveness reresents your function here. It is not God´s creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone. And who would pardon Heaven? Yet on earth, you need the means to let illusions go. Creation merely waits for your return to be acknowledged, not to be complete. Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgivenessis the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-born, it has no form at all. Yet God created One Who has the power to translate in form the wholly formless. What He makes are dreams, but of a kind so close to waking that the light of day already shines in them, and eyes already opening behold the joyful sights their offerings contain. Forgiveness gently looks upon all things unknown in Heaven, sees them disappear, and leaves the world a clean and unmarked slate on which the Word of God can now replace the senseless symbols written there before. Forgiveness is the means by which the fear of death is overcome,because it holds no fierce attraction now and guilt is gone. Forgiveness lets the body be perceived as what it is; a simple teaching aid, to be laid by whenl earning is complete, but hardly changing him who learns at all. The mind without the body cannot make mistakes. It cannot think that it will die, nor be the prey of merciless attack. Anger becomes impossible, and where is terror then? What fears could still assail those who have lost the source of all attack, the core of anguish and the seat of fear? Only forgiveness can restore the peace that God intended for His holy Son. Only forgiveness can persuade the Son to look again upon his holiness. With anger gone, you will indeed perceive that, for Christ´s vision and the gift of sight, no sacrifice was asked, and only pain was lifted from a sick and tortured mind. Is this unwelcome? Is it to be feared? Or is it to be hoped for, met with thanks and joyously accepted? We are one, and therefore give up nothing. But we have indeed been given everything by God. Yet do we need forgiveness to perceive that this is so.Without its kindly light we grope in darkness, using reason but to justify our rage and our attack. Our understanding is so limited that what we think we understands is but confusion born of error. We are lost in mists of shifting dreams and fearful thoughts, our eyes shut tight against the light; our minds engaged in worshipping what is not there. Who can be born again in Christ but him who has forgiven everyone he sees or thinks of or imagines? Who could be set free while he imprisons anyone? A jailer is not free, for he is bound together with his prisoner. He must be sure that he does not escape, and so he spends his time in keeping watch on him. The bars that limit him become the world in which his jailer lives, along with him. And it is on his freedom that the way to liberty depends for both of them. Therefore, hold no one prisoner.Release instead of bind, for thus are you made free. The way is simple. Everytime you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head. And it will fall or be averted as you choose to be condemned or free. Thus does each one who seems to tempt you to be angry represent you savior from the prison hour of death. And so you owe him thanks instead of pain. Be merciful today. The Son of God deserves your mercy. It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. Deny him not. His Father´s Love for him belongs to you. Your function here on earth in only to forgive him, that you may accept him back as your Identity. He is as God created him. And you are what he is. Forgive him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 193

”All things are lessons God would have me learn.”

God does not know of learning.Yet His Will extends to what He does not understand, in that He wills the happiness. His Son inherited of Him be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in Him. That is His Will. And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done. God sees no contradictions. Yet His Son Believes he sees them. Thus he has a need for One Who can correct his erring sight, and give his vision that will lead him back to where perception ceases. God does not perceive at all. Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe. There are the lessons God would have you learn. His Will reflects the mall, and they reflects His loving kindness to the Son He loves. Each lesson hasa central thought, the same in all of them. The form alone is changed, with different circumstances and events; with different characters and different themes, apparent but not real. They are the same in fundamental content. It is this:

”Forgive, and you will see this differently.”

Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form. It is this sameness which makes learning sure, because the lesson is so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end. No one can hide forever from a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is recognizedas easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple lesson there.

”Forgive, and you will see this differently.”

There are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all your pain, all suffering regardless of its form. These are the words with which temptation ends, and guilt,abandoned, is reversed no more. These are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of fear. These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world. Shall we not learn to say these words when we are tempted to Believe that pain is real, and death becomes our choice instead of life? Shall we not learn to say these words when we have understood their power to release all minds from bondage? There are words which give you power over all events that seem to have been given power over you. You see them rightly when you hold these words in full awareness, and do not forget these words apply to everything you see or any brother looks upon amiss. How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn?Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind that sees the pain through eyes the mind directs. God would not have you suffer thus. He would help you forgive yourself. His Son does not remember who he is. And God would have him not to forget His Love, and all the gifts His Love brings with it.Would you now renounce your own salvation? Would you fail to learn the simple lessons Heaven´s Teacher sets before you, that all pain may disappear and God may be rememberd by His Son? All things are lessons God would have you learn.He would not leave an unforgiving thought without correction, nor one thorn or nail to hurt His holy Son in any way. He would ensure his holy rest remain untroubled and serene, without a care, in an eternal home which cares for him. And He would have all tears be wiped away, no remaining yet unshed, and none but waiting their appointed time to fall. For God has willed that laughter should replace each one, and that His Son be free again. We will attempt today to overcome a thousand seeming obstacles to peace in just one day. Let mercy come to you more quickly. Do not try to hold it off another day, another minute or another instant. Time was made for this. Use it today for what its purpose is.Morning and night, devote what time you can to serve its proper aim, and do not let the time be less than meets your deepest need. Give all you can, and give a little more. For now we would arise in haste and go unto our Fathers´s house.We have been gone too long, and we would linger here no more. And as we practice, let us think about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and kept apart from healing. Let us give them all to Him Who knows the way to look upon them so that they will disappear. Truth is His message; truth His teaching is. His are the lessons God would have us learn. Each hour, spend a little time today, and in the days to come, in practicing the lesson in forgiveness in the form established for the day. And try to give it application to the happenings the hour brought, so that the next one is free of the one before. The chains of time are easily unloosened in this way. Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one that follows, and when that one goes, let everything that happens in its course go with it. Thus will you remain unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time. This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look one verything that lets it be to you another step to Him, and to salvation of the world. To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:

”I will forgive, and this wil ldisappear.”

To every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering, repeat these self same words. And then you hold the key that opens Heaven´s gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself. Do not deny the little steps He asks you to take to Him.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 194

”I place the future in the Hands of God.”

Today´s idea takes another step toward quick salvation, and a giant stride it is indeed! So great the distance is that it encompasses, it sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal insight and obstacles behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to Heaven´s gate; that quick place of peace, where you await with certainty the final step of God. How far are we progressing now from earth! How close are we approaching to our goal! How short the journey still to be pursued! Accept today´s idea, and you have passed all anxiety, all pits of hell, all blackness of depression, thoughts of sin, and devastation brought about by guilt. Accept today´s idea, and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that locked the door to freedom on it. You are saved, and your salvation thus becomes the gift you give the world, because you have received. In no one instant is depression felt, or pain experienced or loss perceived. In no one instant sorrow can be set upon a throne, and worshipped faithfully. In no one instant can one even die. And so each instant given unto God in passing, with the next one given Him already, is a time of your release from sadness, pain and even death itself. God holds your future as He holds your past and present. They are one to Him, and so they should be one to you.Yet in this world, the temporal progression still seems real. And so you are not asked to understand the lack of sequence really found in time. You are but asked to let the future go, and place it in God´s Hands. And you will see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in His Hands as well, because the past will punish you no more, and future dread will now be meaningless. Release the future. For the past is gone, and what is present, freed from its bequest of grief and misery, of pain and loss, becomes the instant in which time escapes the bondage of illusions where it runs its pitiless, inevitable course. Then is each instant which was slave to time transformed into a holy instant, when the light that was kept hidden in God´s Son is freed to bless the world. Now is he free, and all his glory shines upon a world made free with him, to share his holiness. If you can see the lesson for today as the deliverance it really is, you will not hesitate to give as much consistent effort as you can, to make it be a part of you. As it becomes athought that rules your mind, a habit in your problem-solving repertoire, a way of quick reaction to temptation, you extend your learning to the world. And as you learn to see salvation in all things, so will the world perceive that it is saved. What worry can best the one who gives his future to the loving Hands of God? What can he suffer? What can cause him pain, or bring expereince of loss to him? What can he fear? And what can he regard except with love? For he who has escaped all fear of future pain has found his way to present peace, and certainty of care the world can never threaten. He is sure that his perception may be faulty, but will never lack correction. He is free to choose again when he has been deceived; to change his mind when he has made mistakes. Place,then, your future in the Hands of God. For thus you call the memory of Him to come again, replacing all your thoughts of sin and evil with the truth of love.Think you the world could fail to gain thereby, and every living creature not respond with healed perception? Who entrusts himself to God has also placed the world within the Hands to which he has himself appealed for comfort and security.He lays aside the sick illusions of the world along with his, and offers Peace to both. Now are we saved indeed. For in God´s Hands we rest untroubled, sure that only good can come to us. If we forget, we will be gently reassured. If we accept an unforgiving thought, it will be soon replaced by love´s reflection.And if we are tempted to attack, we will appeal to Him Who guards our rest to take the choice for us that leaves temptation far behind. No longer is the world our enemy, for we have chosen that we be its Friend.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 195

”Love is the way I walk in gratitude.”

Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. The most that they can do is see themselves as better off than others. And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they. How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause? And who could suffer less because he sees another suffer more? Your gratitude is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world. It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering. But it is equally insane to fail in gratitude to One Who offers you the certain means where by all pain is healed, and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness. Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs, and follow in the way He sets Before them, to escape a prision that they thought container no door to the deliverance they now perceive. Your brothers is your ”enemy” because you see in him the rival for your peace; a plunderer who takes his joy from you, and leaves you nothing but a black despair so bitter and relentless that there is no hope remaining. Now is vengeance all there is to wish for. Now can you but try to bring him down to lie in death with you, as useless as yourself; as little left within his grasping fingers as in yours. You do not offer God your gratitude because your brother is more slave than you, nor could you sanely been raged if he seems freer. Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love. We offer thanks to God our Father that in usall things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound. For who can bargain in the name of love? Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity. And let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you; the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn and seeming loss of real apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. All these go with you. Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us. We thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him. And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness, nor impair or change our function to complete the One Whois Himself completion. We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing, and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us. Then let our brothers lean their tired heads against our shoulders as they rest awhile. We offer thanks for them. For if we can direct them to the place that we would find, the way is opening at last to us. An incident door is swinging free again; a long forgotten World re-echoes in our memory, and gathers clarity as we are willing once again to hear. Walk, then, in gratitude the way of love.For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside. What more remains as obstacles to peace? The fear of God is now undone at last, and we forgive without comparing. Thus we cannot choose to overlook some things, and yet retain some other things still locked away as ”sins.” When your forgiveness is complete you will have total gratitude, for you will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as your Self. Today we learn to think of gratitude in peace of anger, malice and revenge. We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perseption which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed about without a thought or carefor us of for our future. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us, and calls us Son. Can there be more than this? Our gratitude will pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of. Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found. For gratitude is but an aspect of the Love which is the Source of all creation. God gives thanks to you, His Son, for being what you are; His Own completion and the Source of love, along with Him. Your gratitude to Him is one with His to you. For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God.

Love