IA´s Journal

[IA56]

III The Third Obstacle: The Attraction of Death

To you and your brother, in whose special relationship the Holy Spirit entered, it is given to release and be released from the dedication to death. For it was offered you, and you accepted. Yet you must learn still more about this strange devotion, for it contains the third obstacle that Peace must flow across. No one can die unless he chooses death. What seems to be the fear of death is really its attraction. Guilt, too, is feared and fearful. Yet it could have no hold at all except on those who are attracted to it and seek it out. And so it is with death. Made by the ego, its dark shadow falls across all living things, because the ego is the ”enemy” of life. And yet a shadow cannot kill. What is a shadow to the living? They but walk past and it is gone. But what of those whose dedication is not to life; the black-draped ”sinners,”the ego´s mournful chorus, plodding so heavily away from life, dragging their chains and marching in the slow procession that honors their grim master, lord of death? Touch any one of them with the gentle hands of forgiveness, and Watch the chains fall away, along with yours. See him throw aside the black robe he was wearing to his funeral, and hear him laugh at death. The sentence sin would lay upon him he can escape through your forgiveness. This is no arrogance. It is the Will of God. What is impossible to you who chose His Will as yours? What is death to you? Your dedication is not to death, nor to its master. When you accepted the Holy Spirit´s purpose in place of the ego´s you renounced death, exchanging it for life. We know that an idea leaves not its source. And death is the result of the thought we call the ego, as surely as life is result of theThought of God.

Love

[IA56]

The Incorruptible Body

From the ego came sin and guilt and death, in opposition to life and innocence, and to the Will of God Himself. Where can such opposition lie but in the sick minds of the insane, dedicated to madness and set against the peace of Heaven? One thing is sure; God Who created neither sin nor death,will not that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin nor its results.The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they live. They are not following His Will; they are opposing it. And what is the black-draped body they would bury? A body which they dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, offered to sin to feed upon and keep itself alive; a thing condemned, demned by its maker and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself. You who believe you have condemned the Son of God to this are arrogant. But you who would release him are but honoring the Will of his Creator. The arrogance of sin, the pride of guilt, the sepulche of separation, all are part of your unrecognizeddedication to death. The glitter of guilt you laid upon the body would kill it.For what the ego loves, it kills for its obediance. But what obeys it not, itcannot kill. You have another dedication that would keep the body incorruptibleand perfect as long as it is useful for your holy purpose. The body no moredies than it can feel. It does nothing. Of itself it is neither corruptible norincorruptible. It is nothing. It is the result of a tiny, mad idea ofcorruption that can be corrected. For God has answered this insane idea withHis Own; an Answer Which left Him not, and therefore brings the Creator to theawareness of every mind which heard His Answer and accepted It. You who arededicated to the incorruptible have been given through your acceptance, thepower to release from corruption. What better way to teach the first andfundemental principle in a course on miracles than by showing you the one thatseems to be the hardest can be accomplished first? The body can but serve yourpurpose. As you look on it, so will it seem to be. Death, were it true, wouldbe the final and complete disruption of communication, which is the ego´s goal.Those who fear death see not how often and how loudly they call to it, and bidit come to save them from communication. For death is seen as safety, the greatdark savior from the lifht of truth, the answer to the Answer, the silence ofthe Voice That speaks for God. Yet the retreat to death ius not the end ofconflict. Only God´s Answer is its end. The obstacle of your seeming love fordeath that peace must flow across seems to be very great. For in it led hiddenall the ego´s secrets, all its strange devices for deception, all its sickideas and weird imaginings. Here is the final end of union, the triumph of theego´s making over creation, the victory of lifelessness on Life Itself. Underthe dusty edge of its distorted world the ego would lay the Son of God, slainby its orders, proof in his decay the God Himself is powerless before the ego´smight, unable to protect the life that He created against the ego´s savage wishto kill. My brother, child of our Father, this is a dream of death. There is nofuneral, no dark altars, no grim commandments nor twisted rituals ofcondemnation to wwhich the body leads you. Ask not release of it. But freeit from the merciless and unrelentingorders you laid upon it. But free if from the merciless and unrelenting ordersyou orders you laid upon it, and forgive it what you ordered it to do. In itsexaltation you cammanded it to die, for only death could conqure life. And whatbut insanity could look upon the defeat of God, and think it real? The fear ofdeath will go as its appeal is yielded to love´s real attraction. The end ofsin, which nestles guietly in the safety of your relationship, protected byyour union with your brother, and ready to grow into a might force of God isvery near. The infancy of salvation is carefully guarded by love, preseved fromevery thought that would attack it, and quietly made ready to fulfill themighty task for which it was given you. Your newborn purpose is nursed byangels, cherished by the Holy Spirit and protected by God Himself. It needs notyour protection; it is yours. For it is deathless, and within it lies the endof death. What danger can assail the wholly innocent? What can attack theguiltless? What fear can enter and disturb the peace of sinlessness? What hasgiven you, even its infancy, is in full communication with God and you. In itstiny hands it holds, is in full communication with God and you. In its tinyhands it holds, in perfect safety, every miracle you will perform, held out toyou. The miracle of life is ageless, born in time but nourished in eternity.Behold this infant, to whom you gave a resting place by your forgiveness ofyour brother, and see in it the Will of God. Here is the babe of Bethlehemreborn. And everyone who gives him shelter will follow him, not tot the cross,but to the resurrection and the life. When anything seems to you to be sourceof fear, when any situation strikes you with terror and makes your body trembleand the cold sweat of fear comes over it, remember it is always for one reason;the ego has perceived it as a symbol of fear, a sign of sin and death. Remember,then, that neither sign nor symbol should be confused with source, for theymust stand for something other than themselves. Their meaning cannot lie inthem, but must be sought in what they represent. And they may thus meaneverything or nothing, according to the truth or falsity of the idea which theyreflect. Confronted with such seeming uncertainty of meaning, judge it not.Remember the holy presence of the One given to you to be the Source of judgment.Give it to Him to judge for you, and say:

”Take this from me and look upon it, judging it for me. Letme not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor use it for destruction. Teach mehow to make of it an obstacle to peace, But let You use it for me, tofacilitate its coming.”

Love

[IA56]

IV The Forth Obstacle: The Fear of God

What would you see without the fear of death? What would you feel and think if death held no attraction to you? Very simply, you would remember your Father. The Creator of life, the Source of everything that lives,the Father of the universe and of the universe of universes, and of Everything that lies even beyond them would you remember. And as this memory rises in your mind, peace must still surmount a final obstacle, after which is salvation completed, and the Son of God entirely restored to sanity. For here your World does end. The fourth obstacle to be sormounted hangs like a heavy weil before the face of Christ. Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father´s Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to join with Him at last. For this dark veil, which seems to make the face of Christ Himself like to a leper´s and the bright rays of His Father´s Love and light His face with glory appear as streams of blood, fades in the blazing light beyond it when the fear of death is gone. This is the darkest veil, upheld by the belief in death and protected by its attraction. The dedication to death and to its sovereignty is but the solemn vow, the promise made in secret to the ego never to lifts this veil, not to approach it, nor even to suspect that it is there. This is thesecret bargain made with the ego to keep what lies beyond the veil foreverblotted out and unremembered. Here is your promise never to allow union to callyou out of sepraration; the great amnesia in which the memory of God seemsquite forgotten; the cleavage of your Self from you; - the fear of God, thefinal step in your dissociation. See how the belief in death would seem to”save” you. For if this were gone, what would you fear but life? It is theattraction of death that makes life seem to be ugly, cruel and tyrannical. Youare no more afraid of death than of the ego. There are your chosen friends. Forin your secret alliance with them you have agreed never to let the fear of Godbe lifted, so you could look upon the face of Christ and join Him in HisFather. Every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in just thesame way; the fear that raised it yields to the love beyond, and so the fear isgone. And so it is with this. The desire to get rid of peace and driven theHoly Spirit from you fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that youlove Him. The exaltation of the body is given up in favor of the spirit, whichyou love as you could never love the body. And the appeal of death is lostforever as love´s attraction stirs and calls to you. From beyond each of the obstaclesto love, Love Itself has called. And each has been surmounted by the power ofthe attraction of what lies beyond. Your wanting fear seemed to be holding themin place. Yet when you heard the Voice of Love beyond them, you answered andthey disappeared. And now you stand in terror before what you swore never tolook upon. Your eyes look down, remembering your promise to your ”friends.” The”loveliness” of sin, the dedicate appeal of guilt, the ”holy” waxen image ofdeath, and the fear of vengeance of the ego you swore in blood not to desert,and the fear of vengeance of the ego you swore in blood not to desert, all riseand bid you not to raise your eyes. For you realize that if you look in thisand let the veil be lifted, they will be gone forever. All of your ”friends.”your ”protectors” and your ”home” will vanish. Nothing that you remember nowwill you remember. It seems to you the world utterly abandon you if you butraise your eyes. Yet all that will occur is you will leave the world forever.This is the re-establishment of your will. Look upon it, open-eyed, and youwill nevermore believe that you are at the mercy of things beyond you, forcesyou cannot control, and thoughts that come to you against your will. It is yourwill to look on this. No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, nostab of fear nor the cold seat of seeming death can stand against your will.For what attracts you from beyond the veil is also deep within you, unseparatedfrom it and completely one.

Love

[IA56]

The Lifting of the Veil

Forget not that you came this far together, you and your brother. And it was surely not the ego that led you here. No obstacle to Peace can be surmounted through its help. It does not open up its secrets, and bid you look on them and go beyond them. It would not have you see its weakness, and learn it has no power to keep you from the truth. The Guide Who brought you here remains with you, and when you raise your eyes you will be ready to look on one another in innocence born of complete forgiveness of each other´s illusions, and through the eyes of faith that sees them not. No one can look upon the fear of God unterrified, unless he has accepted the Atonement and learned illusions are not real. No one can stand before this obstacle alone,for he could not have reached this far unless his brother walked besides him.And no one would dare to look on it without complete forgiveness of of his brother in his heart. Stand you here a while and tremble not. You will be ready. Let us join together in a holyt instant, here in this place where thepurpose, given in a holy instant, has led you. And le tus join in faith that HeWho brought us here together will offer you the innocence you need, and thatyou will accept it fo my love and His. Nor is it possible to look on this toosoon. This is the place to which everyone must come when he is ready. Once hehas found his brother he is ready. Yet merely to reach the place is not enough.A journey without a purpose is still meaningless, and even when it is over itseems to make no sense. How can you know that it is over unless you realize itspurpose is accomplished? Here, with the journey´s end before you, you see itspurpose. And it is here you choose whether to look upon it or wander on, onlyto return and make the choice again. To look upon the fear of God does needsome preparation. Only the sane can look on stark insanity and raving madnesswith pity and compassion, but not with fear. For only if they share in it doesit seem fearful, and you dos hare in it until you look upon your brother withperfect faith and love and tenderness. Before complete forgiveness you stillstand unforgiving. You are afraid of God because you fear your brother. Thoseyou do not forgive you fear. And no one raches love with fear beside him. Thisbrother who stands beside you still seems to be a stranger. You do not knowhim, and your interpretation of him is very fearful. And you attack him still,to keep what seems to be yourself unharmed. Yet in his hands is your salvation. You seehis madness, which you hate because you share it. And all the pity andforgiveness that would heal it given way to fear. Brother, you need forgivenessof each other, for you will share in madness or in Heaven together. And youwill raise your eyes in faith together, or not at all. Beside each of you isone who offers the chalice of Atonement, for the Holy Spirit is in him. Wouldyou hold his sins against him, or accept his gift to you? Is this giver ofsalvation your friend of eneymy? Choose which he is, remembering that you willreceive of him according to your choice. He has in him the power to forgiveyour sin, as your for him. Neither can give it to himself alone. And yet yoursavior stands beside each one. Let him be what he is, and seek not to make oflove an enemy. Behold your Friend, the Christ Who stands beside you. How holyand beautiful He is! You thought He sinned because you cast the veil of sinupon Him to hide His loveliness. Yet still He holds forgiveness out to you, toshare His holiness. This ”enemy,” this ”stranger” still offers you salvation asHis Friend. The ”enemies” of Christ, the worshippers of sin, know not whom theyattack. This is your brother, crucified by sin and waiting for release formpain. Would you not offer him forgiveness, when only he can offer it to you?For his redemtion he will give you yours, as surely as God created every livingthing and loves it. And he will give it truly, for it wil be both offered andreceived. There is no grace of Heaven that you cannot offer to one another, andreceive it you offer it to him. Redemption has been given you to give eachother, and thus receive it. Whom you forgive is free, and what you give youshare. Forgive the sins your brother thinks he has committed, and all the guiltyou think you see in him. Here is the holy place of resurrection, to which wecome again; to which we will return until redemption is accomplished and received.Think who your brother is, before you would condemn him. And offer thanks toGod that he is holy, and has been given the gift of holiness for you. Join himin gladness, and remove all trace of guilt from his disturbed and torturedmind. Help him to lift the heavy burden of sin you laid upon him and heaccepted as his own, and toss it lightly and with happy laughter away from him.Press it not like thorns against his brow, nor nail him to it, unredeemed andhopeless. Give faith to one another, for faith and hope and mercy are yours togive. Into the hands that give, the gift is given. Look on your brother, andsee in him the gift of God you would receive. It is almost Easter, the time ofresurrection. Let us give redemption to each other and share in it, that we mayrise as one in resurrection, not separate in death. Behold the gift of freedomthat I gave the Holy Spirit for both of you. Aned be you free together, as youoffer to the Holy Spirit this same gift. And giving it, receive it of Him inreturn for what you gave. He leadeth you and me together, that we might meethere in this holy place, and make the same decision. Free your brother here, asI free you. Give him the self-same gift, nor look upon him with comdemnation ofany kind. See him as guiltless as I look on you, and overlook the sins hethinks he sees within himself. Offer your brother freedom and complete releasefrom sin, here in the garden of seeming agony and death. So will we preparetogether the way unto the resurrection of God´s Son, and let him rise again toglad remembrance of his Father, Who knows no sin, no death, but only eternal.Together we will disappear into the Presence beyond the veil, not to be lostbut fouund; not to be seen but known. And knowing, nothing in the plan God hasestablished for salvation will be left undone. This is the journey´s purpose,without which is the journey meaningless. Here is the peace of God, given toyou eternally by Him. Here is the rest and quiet that you seek, the reason forthe journey from its beginning. Heaven is the gift you owe your brother, thedebt of gratitude you offer to the Son of God in thanks for what he is, andwhat his Father created him to be. Think carefully how you would look upon thegiver of this gift, for as you look on him so will the gift itself appear tobe. As he is seen as either the giver of guilt or salvation, so will hisoffering be seen and so received. The crucified give pain because they are inpain. But the redeemed give joy because they have been healed of pain. Everyonegives as he receives, but he must choose what it will be that he receives. Andhe will recongnize his choice by wht he gives, and what is given him. Nor is itgiven anything in hell or Heaven to interfere with his decision. You came thisfar because the journey was your choice. And no one undertaken to do what hebelieves is meaningless. What you had faith in still is faithful, and watchesover you in faith so gentle yet so strong that it would lift you far beyond theveil, and place the Son of God safely within the sure protection of his Father.Here is the only purpose that gives this world, and the long journey throughthis world, whatever meaninng lies in them. Beyond this, they are meaningless.You and your brother stand together, still without conviction they have apurpose. Yet it is given you to see this purpose in your holy Friend, andrecognize it as your own.

Love

[IA56]

THE VISION OF HOLINESS
Holy Week

This is Palm Sunday, the celebration of victory and thea acceptance of the truth. Let us not spend this holy week brooding on the crucifixion of God´s Son, but happily in the celebration of his release. For Easter is the sign of peace, not pain. A slain Christ has no meaning. But arisen Christ becomes the symbol of the Son of God´s forgiveness on himself; the sign he looks upon himself as healed and whole. This week begins with palms and ends with lilies, the white and holy sign the Son of God is innocent. Let no dark sign of crusifixion intervene between the journey and its purpose; between the acceptance of the truth and its expression. This week we celebrate life,not death. And we honor the perfect purity of the Son of God, and not his sins.Offer your brother the gift of lilies, not the crown of thorns; the gift of love and not the ”gift” of fear. You stand beside your brother, thorns in one hand and lilies in the other, uncertain which to give. Join now with me and throw away the thorns, offering the lilies to replace them. This Easter I would have the gift of your forgiveness offered by you to me, and returned by me to you. We cannot be united in crucifixtion and in death. Nor can the resurrection be complete till your forgiveness rests in Christ, along with mine. A week is short, and yet this holy week is the symbol of the whole journey the Son of Godhas undertaken. He started with the sign of victory, the promise of the resurrection, already given him. Let him not wander into the temptation of crucifixion, and delay him there. Help him to go in peace beyond it, with thelight of his own innocence lighting his way to his redemption and release. Hold him not back with thorns and nails when his redemption is so near. But let the whitness of your shining gift of lilies speed him on his way to resurrection.If you see glimses of the face of Christ behind the veil, looking between the snow white petals of the lilies you have received and given as your gift, you will behold your brother´s face and recognize it. I was a stranger and you took me in, not knowing who I was. Yet for your gift of lilies you will know. In your forgiveness of this stranger, alien to you yet your ancient Friend, lies his release and your redemption with him. The time of Easter is a time of joy and not of mourning. Look on your risen Friend, and celebrate his holiness along with me. For Easter is the time of your salvation, along with me.

Love

[IA56]

The Gift of Lilies

Look upon all the trinkles made to hang upon the body, or to cover it or for its use. See all the useless things made for its eyes to see.Think on the many offerings made for its pleasure, and remember all these we remade to make seem lovely what you hate. Would you employ this hated thing to draw your brother to you, and to attract his body´s eyes? Learn you but offer him a crown of thorns, not recognizing it for what it is, and trying to justify your own interpretation of its value by his acceptance. Yet still the gift proclaims his worthlessness to you, as his acceptance and delight acknowledges the lack of value he placeds on himself. Gifts are not made through bodies, if they be truly given and received. For bodies can neither offer nor accept; hold out nor take. Only the mind can value, and only the mind decides on what itwould receive and give. And every gift it offers depends on what it would receive the gifts it wants by offering them to those who come unto its chosen home, or those it would attract to it. And there they will exchange theirgifts, offering and receiving what their minds judge to be worthy of them. Eachgift is an evaluation of the receiver and the giver. No one but sees his chosenhome as an altar to himself. No one but seeks to draw to it the worshippers ofwhaqt he placed upon it, making it worthy of their devotion. And each has set alight upon his altar, that they may see what he has placed upon it and take itfor their own. Here is the value that you lay upon your brother and onyourself. Here is your gift to both; your judgment on the Son of God for whathe is. Forget not that it is your savior to whom the gift is offered. Offer himthorns and you aree crucified. Offer him lilies and it is yourself you free. Ihave great need for lilies, for the Son of God has not forgiven me. And can Ioffer him forgiveness when he offers thorns to me? For he who offers thorns to anyoneis against me still, and who is whole without him? Be you his this first uponthe altar in your chosen home, and see what you have laid upon it to offer me.If it be thorns whose points gleam sharply in a blood-red light, the body isyour chosen home and it is separation that you offer me. And yet the thorns aregone. Look you still closer at them now, and you will see your altar is nolonger what it was. You look still with the body´s eyes, and they can see butthorns. Yet you have asked for and received another sight. Those who accept theHoly Spirit´s purpose as their own share also His vision. And what enables Himto see His purpose shine forth from every altar now is yours as well as His. Hesees no strangers; only dearly loved and loving friends. He sees no thorns butonly lilies, gleaming in the gentle glow of peace that shines on everything Helooks upon and loves. The Easter, look with different eyes upon your brother.You have forgiven me. And yet cannot use your gift of lilies while you see themnot. Nor can you use what I have given unless you share it. The Holy Spirit´svision is no idle gift, no plaything to be tossed about a while and laid aside.Listen and hear this carefully, nor think it but a dream, a careless thought toplay with, or to toy you would pick up from time to time and then put by. Forif you do, so will it be to you. You have the vision now to look past allillusions. It has been given you to see no thorns, no strangers and noobstacles to peace. The fear of God is nothing to you now. Who is afraid tolook upon illusions, knowing his savior stands beside Him? With him, yourvision has become the greates power for the undoing of illusion that GodHimself could give. For what God gave the Holy Spirit, you have received. TheSon of God looks unto you for his release. For you have asked for and beengiven the strength to look upon this final obstacle, and see no thorns nornails to crusify the Son of God, and crown himn king of death. Your chosen homeis on the other side, beyond the veil. It has been carefully prepared for you,and it is ready to receive you now. You will not see it with the body´s eyes.Yet all you need you have. Your home has called to you since time began, norhave you ever failed entirely to hear. You heard, but knew not how to look, norwhere. And now you know. In you the knowledge lies, ready to be unveiled andfreed from all the terror that kept it hidden. There is no fear in love. The songof Easter is the glad refrain the Son of God was never crucified. Let us liftup our eyes together, not in fear but faith. And there will be no fear in us,for in our vision will be no illusions; only a pathway to the open door ofHeaven, the home we share in quietness and where we live in gentleness andpeace, as one together. Would you not have your holy brother lead you there?His innocence will light your way, offering you its guiding light and sureprotection, and shining from the holy altar within him where you laid thelilies of forgiveness. Let him be to you the savior from illusions, and look onhim with the new vision that looks upon the lilies and brings you joy. We gobeyond the veil of fear, lighting each other´s way. The holiness that leads usin within us, as is our home. So will we find what we were meant to find by HimWho leads us. This is the way to Heaven and to peace of Easter, in which wejoin in glad awareness that the Son of God is risen from the past, and hasawakened to the present. Now is he free, unlimited in his communicatio with allthat is within him. Now are the lilies of his innocence untouched by guilt, andperfectly protected form the cold chill of fear and withering blight of sinalike. Your gift has saved him from the thorns and nails, and his strong arm isfree to guide you safely through them and beyond. Walk with him now rejoicing,for the savior from illusions has come to greet you, and lead you home withhim. Here is your savior and your friend, released from crusifixion throughyour vision, and free to lead you now where he would be. He will not leave you,nor forsake the savior in his pain. And gladly will you walk the way ofinnocence togeher, singing as you behod the open door of Heaven and recognizethe home that called to you. Give joyously to one another the freedom and thestrength to lead you there. And come before each other´s holy altar where the strengthand freedom wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness that leads youhome. The lamp is lift in both of youfor one another. And by the hands thatgave it to your brother shall but both of you be led past fear to love.

Love

[IA56]

Sin as an Adjustment

The belief in sin is an adjustment. And and adjustment is achange; a shift in perception, or a belief that what was so before has been made different. Every adjustment is therefore a distortion, and calls upon defenses to uphold it against reality. Knowledge require no adjustments and, infact, is lost if any shift or change is undertaken. For this reduces it at once to mere perception; a way of looking in which certainly is lost and doubt has entered. To this impaired condition are adjustments necessary, because it is not true. Who need adjust to truth, which calls on only what he is, to undertand? Adjustments of any kind are of the ego. For it is the ego´s fixed belief that all relationships depend upon adjustments, to make of them what it would have them be. Direct relationships, in which there are no interferences, are always seen as dangerous. The ego is the self-appointed mediator of all relationships, making whatever adjustments it seems necessary the interposing them between those who would meet, to keep them separate and prevent theirunion. It is this studied interference that makes it difficult for you to recognize your holy relationship for what it is. The holy do not interfere withtruth. They are not afraid of it, for it is within the truth they recognizetheir holiness, and rejoice at what they see. They look on it directly, withoutattempting to adjust themselves to it, or it to them. And so they see that itwas in them, not deciding first where they would have it be. Their lookingmerely asks a question, and it is what they see that answers them. You make theworld and then adjust to it, and it to you. Nor is there any difference betweenyourself and it in your perception, which made them both. A simple question yetremains, and needs an answer. Do you like what you have made? – a world ofmurder and attack, through which you thread your timid way through constantdangers, alone and frightened, hoping at most that death will wait a littlelonger before it overtakes you and you disappear. You made this up. It is apicture of what you think you are; of how you see yourself. A murderer isfrightened, and those who kill fear death. All these are but the fearfulthoughts of those who would adjust themselves to a world made fearful by theiradjustments. And they look out in sorrow from what is sad within, and seesadness there. Have you not wondered what the world is really like; how itwould look through happy eyes? The world you see is but a judgment on yourself.It is not there at all. Yet judgment lays a sentence on it, justifies it andmakes it real. Such is the world you see; a judgment on yourself, and made byyou. This sickly picture of yourself is carefully preserved by the ego, whoseimage it is and which it loves, and placed outside you in the world. And tothis world must you adjust as long as you believe this picture is outside, andhas you at its mercy. This world is merciless, and were it outside you,you should indeed be fearful. Yet it wasyou who made it merciless, and now if mercilessness seems to look back at you.It can be corrected. Who in a holy relationship can long remain unholy? The worldthe holy see in one with them, just as the world the ego looks upon is likeitself. The world the holy see is beautiful because they see their innocence init. They did not tell it what it was; they did not make adjustments in it. Theydid not tell it what it was; they did not make adjustments to fit their orders.They gently questioned it and whispered, ”What are you?” And He Who watchesover all perception answered. Take not the judgment of the world as answer tothe question, ”What am I?” The world believes in sin, but the belief that madeit as you see it is not outside you. Seek not to make the Son of God adjust tohis insanity. There is a stranger in him, who wandered carelessly into the homeof truth and who will wander off. He came without a purpose, but he will notremain before the shining light the Holy Spirit offered, and you accepted. Forthere the stranger is made homeless and you are welcome. Ask not this transientstranger, ”’What am I?” He is the only thing in all the the universe that doesnot know. Yet it is he you ask, and it is to his answer that you would adjust.This one wild thought, fierce in its arrogance, and yet so tiny and someaningless it slips unnoticed through the universe of truth, becomes yourguide. To it you turn to ask the meaning of the universe. And of the one blindthing in all the seeing universe of truth you ask, ”How shall I look upon theSon of God?” Does one ask judgment of what is totally bereft of judgment? Andif you have, would you believe the answer, and adjust to it as if it were thetruth? The world you look on is the answer that it gave you, and you have givenit power to adjust the world to make its answer true. You asked this puff ofmadness for the meaning of your unholy relationship, and adjusted it accordingto its insane answer. How happy did it make you? Did you meet with joy to blessthe Son of God, and give him thanks for all the happiness that he held out toyou? Did you recongnize your brother as the eternal gift of God to you? Did yousee the holiness that shone in both of you, to bless the other? That is thepurpose of your holy relationship. Ask not the means of its attainment of theone thing that still would have it be unholy. Give it not power to adjust themeans and end. Prisones bound with heavy chains for years, starved andemaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness theyremember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free.It takes a while for them to understand what freedom is. You groped but feeblyin the dust and found your brother´s hand, uncertain whether to let it go or totake hold on life so long forgotten. Strengthen you hold and raise your eyesunto your strong companion, in whom the meaning of your freedom lies. He seemedto be crucified beside you. And let his holiness remained untouched andperfect, and with him beside you, you shall this day enter with him toParadise, and know the peace of God. Such is my will for both of you, and foreach of you for one another and for himself. Here there is only holiness andjoining without limit. For what is Heaven but union, direct and perfect, andwithout the veil of fear upon it? Here are we one, looking with perfectgentleness upon each other and on ourselves. Here all thoughts of anyseparation between us become impossible. You who were prisoners in separationare now made free in Paradise. And here would I unite with you, my friends, mybrothers and my Self. Your gift unto your brother has given me the certaintyour union will be soon. Share, then, this faith with me, and know that it isjustified. There is no fear in perfect love because it knows no sin, and itmust look on others as on itself. Looking with charity within, what can it fearwithout? The innocent see safety, and the pure in heart see God within His Son,and look unto the Son to lead them to the Father. And where else would they gobut where they will to be? Each of you now will lead the other to the Father assurely as God created His Son holy, and kept him so. In your brother is thelight of God´s eternal promise of your immortality. See him as sinless, andthere can be no fear in you.

Love

[IA56]

Entering The Ark

Nothing can hurt you unless you give it the power to do so.Yet you give power as the laws of this world interpret giving; as you give you lose. It is not up to you to give power at all. Power is of God, given by Him and reawekened by the Holy Spirit, Who knows that as you give you gain. He gives no power to sin, and therefore it has none; nor to its results as this world sees them, - sickness and death and misery and pain. These things have not occured because the Holy Spirit sees them not, and gives no power to their seeming source. Thus would He keep you free from them. Being without illusion of what you are, the Holy Spirit merely gives everything to God, Who has already given and received all that is true. The untrue He has neither received nor given. Sin has no place in Heaven, where its results are alien and can no more enter than can their source. And there in lies your need to see your brother sinless. In him is Heaven. See sin in him instead, and Heaven is lostto you. But see him as he is, and what is yours shines from him to you. Yoursavior gives you only love, but what you would receive of him is up to you. Itlies in him to overlook all your mistakes, and therein lies his own salvation.And so it is with yours. It is the reawakening of the laws of God in minds thathave established other laws, and given them power to enforce what God creatednot. Your insane laws were made to guarantee that you would make mistakes, andgive them power over you by accepting their results as your just due. Whatcould this be but madness? And is it this that you would see within yhoursavior from insanity? He is as free from this as you are, and in the freedomthat you see in him you see your own. For this you share. What God has given followsHis laws, and His alone. Nor is it possible for those who follow them to sufferthe results of any other source. Those who choose freedom will experience onlyits results. Their power is of God, and they will give it only to what God hasgiven, to share with them. Nothing but this can touch them, for they see onlythis, sharing their power according to the Will of God. And thus their freedom is established and maintained.It is upheld through all temptation to imprison and to be imprisoned. It is ofthem who learned of freedom that you should ask what freedom is. Ask not thesparrow how the eagle soars, for those with little wings have not accepted forthemselves the power to share with you. The sinless give as they received. See,then, the power of sinlessness within your brother, and share with him thepower of the release from sin you offered him. To each who walks this earth in seemingsolitude is a savior given, whose special function here is to release him, andso to free himself. In the world of separation each is appointed separately,though they are all the same. Yet those who know that they are all the sameneed not salvation. And each one finds his savior when he is ready to look uponthe face of Christ, and see Him sinless. The plan is not of you, nor need yoube concerned with anything except the part that has been given you to learn.For He Who knows the rest will see to it without your help. Butt hink not thatHe does not need your part to help Him with the rest. For in your part lies allof it, without which is no part complete, nor is the whole completed withoutyour part. The ark of peace is entered two by two, yet the beginning of anotherworld goes with them. Each holy relationship must enter here, to learn itsspecial function in the Holy Spirit´s plan, now that it shares His purpose. Andas this purpose is fulfilled, a new world rises in which sin can enter not, andwhere the Son of God can enter without fear and where he rests a while, toforget imprisonment and to remember freedom. How can he enter, to rest and toremember, without you? Except you be there, he is not complete. And it is hiscompletion that he remembers there. This is the purpose given you. Think notthat your forgiveness of your brother serves but you two alone. For the wholenew world rests in the hands of every two who enters here to rest. And as theyrest, the face of Christ shines on them and they remember the laws of God,forgetting all the rest and yearning only to have His laws perfectly fulfilledinthem and all their brothers. Think you when this has been achieved that youwill rest without them? You could no more leave one of them outside than Icould leave you, and forget part of myself. You may wonder how you can be at peacewhen, while you are in time, there is so much that must be done before the wayto peace is open. Perhaps this seems impossible to you. But ask yourself if itis possible that God would have a plan for your salvation that does not work.Once you accept His plan as the one function that you would fulfill, there willbe nothing else the Holy Spirit will not arrange for you without your effort.He will go before you making straight your path, and leaving in your way nostones to trip on, and no obstacles to bar your way. Nothing you need will bedenied you. Not one seeming difficulty but will melt away before you reach it.You need taken thought for nothing, careless of everything except the onllypurpose that you would fulfill. As that was given you, so will its fulfillmentbe. God´s guarantee will hold against all obstacles, for it rests on certaintyand not contingency. It rests on you. And what can be more certain than a Sonof God?

Love

[IA56]

Heralds of Eternity

In this world, God´s Son comes closest to himself in a holy relationship. There he begins to find certainty his Father has in him. And there he finds his function of restoring his Father´s laws to what was held outside them, and finding what was lost. Only in time can anything be lost, and never lost forever. So do the parts of God´s Son gradually join in time, and with each joining in the end of time brought nearer. Each miracle of joining is amighty herald of eternity. No one who has a single purpose, unified and sure,can be afraid. No one who shares his purpose with him can not be one with him.Each herald of eternity sings of the end of sin and fear. Each speaks in time of what is far beyond it. Two voices raised togehter call to the hearts of everyone, to let them beat as one. And in that single heartbeat is the unity oflove proclaimed and given welcome. Peace to your holy relationship, which has the power to hold the unity of the Son of God together. You give to one Another for everyone, and in your gift in everyone made glad. Forget not Who has givenyou the gifts you give, and through your not forgetting this, will you rememberWho gave the gifts to Him to give to you. It is impossible to overestimate yourbrother´s value. Only the ego does this, but all it means is that it wants theother for itself, and therefore values him too little. What is inestimableclearly cannot be evaluated. Do you recognize the fear that rises from themeaningless attempt to judge what lies so far beyond your judgment you cannoteven see it? Judge not what is invisible to you or you will never see it, butwait in patience for its coming. It will be given you to see your brother´sworth when all you want for him is peace. And what you want for him you willreceive. How can you estimate the worth of him who offers peace to you? Whatwould you want exept his offering? His worth has been established by hisFather, and you will recognize it as you receive his Father´s gift through him.What is in him will shine so brightly in your greatful vision that you will merely love him and be glad. You will not think to judge him, for who would seethe face of Christ and yet insist that judgment still has meaning? For this insistence is of those who do not see. Vision or judgment is your choice, but never both of these. Your brother´s body is as little use to you as it is tohim. When it is used only as the holy spirit teaches, it has no function. For minds need not the body to communicate. The sight that sees the body has no usewhich serves the purpose of a holy relationship. And while you look upon your brotherthus, the means and end have not been brought in line. Why should it take somany holy instants to let this be accomplished, when one would do? There is butone. The little breath of eternity that runs through time like golden light isall the same; nothing before it, nothing afterwards. You look upon each holyinstant as a different point in time. It never changes. All that is ever heldor will ever hold is here right now. The past takes nothing from it, and thefuture will adde no more. Here, then, is everything. Here is the loveliness ofyour relationship, with means and end in perfect harmony already. Here is theperfect faith that you will one day offer to your brother already offered you;and here the limitless forgiveness you will give each other already given, theface of Christ you yet will look upon already seen. Can you evaluate the giverof a gift like this? Would you exchange this gift for any other? This giftreturns the laws of God to your remembrance. And merely by remembering them,the laws that held you prisoner to pain and death must be forgotten. This is nogift your brother´s body offers you. The veil that hides the gift hiden him as well. He is the gift, and yet he knows it not. No more do you. And yet, havefaith that He Who sees the gift in both of you will offer and receive it foryou both. And through His vision will you see it, and through His understandingrecongize it and love it as your own. Be comforted, and feel the Holy Spirit watching over you in love and perfect confidence in what He sees. He knows the Son of God, and shares his Father´s certainty the universe rests in his gentlehands in safety and in peace. Le tus consider now what he must learn, to sharehis Father´s confidence in him. What is he, that the Creator of the universe should offer it to him and know it rests in safety? He looks upon himself notas his Father knows him. And yet it is impossible the confidence of God should be misplaced.

Love

[IA56]

The Temple of the Holy Spirit

The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with his Creator. If it were elsewhere it would rest contingency, but there is nothing else. And this is wholly loving and forever. Yet has the Son of God invested an unholy relationship between him and his Father. His real relationship is one of perfect union and unbroken continuity. The one he makeis partial, self-cretered, broken into fragments and full of fear. The one created by his Father is wholly self-encomppasing and self-extending. The one he made is wholly self-destructive and self-limiting. Nothing can show the contrast better than the experience of both a holy and an unholy relationship.The first is based on love, and rests on it serene and undisturbed. The body does not intrude upon it. Any relationship in which the body enters is based not on love, but on idolatry. Love whishes to be known, completely understood and shared. It has no secrets; nothing that it would keep apart and hide. Itwalks in sunlight, open-eyed and calm, in smiling welcome and in sincerity sosimple and so obvious it cannot be misunderstood. But idols do not share. Idolsaccept, but never make return. They can be loved, but cannot love. They do notunderstand what they are offered, and any relationship in which they enter haslost its meaning. They live in secrecy, hating the sunlight and happy in thebody´s darkness, where they can hide and keep their secrets hiden along withthem. And they hve no relationships, for no one else is welcome there. Theysmile on no one, and those who smile on them they do not see. Love has nodarkened temples where mysteries are kept obscure and hidden from the sun. Itdoes not seek for power, but for relationships. The body is the ego´s chosenweapon for seeking power through relationships. And it s relatioships must beunholy, for what they are it does not even see. It wants them solely for theofferings on which its idols thrive. The rest it merely throws away, for allthat it could offer is seen as valueless. Homeless, the ego seeks as manybodies as it can collect to place its idols in, and so establish them astemples to itself. The Holy Spirit´s temple is not a body, but a relationship.The body is is an isolated speck of darkness; a hidden secret room, a tiny spotof sensless mystery, a meaningless enclosure carefully protected, yet hidingnothing. Here the unholy relationship escapes reality, and seeks for crumbs tokeep itself alive. Here it is ”safe,” for here love can never be. Would He Whosees the face of Christ choose as His home the only place in all the universewhere it can not be seen? You cannot make the body the Holy Spirit´s temple,and it will never be the seat of love. It is the home of the idolater, and oflove´s condemnation. For here is love made fearful and hope abandoned. Even theidols that are worshipped here are shrouded in mystery, and kept apart fromthose who worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no relationships and noreturn. Here is the ”mystery,” of separation perceived in awe and held inreverence. What God would have not be is here kept ”safe” from Him. But whatyou do not realize is what you fear within your brothers, and would not see inhim, is what makes God seem fearful to you, and kept unknown. Idolaters willalways be afraid of love, for nothing so severly threatens them as love´sapproach. Let love draw near them and overlook the body, as it will surely do,and they retreat in fear, feeling the seeming firm foundation of their templebegin to shake and loosen. Brother, you tremble with them. Yet what you fear isbut the herald of escape. This place of darkness is not your home. Your templeis not threatened. You are an idolaters no longer. The Holy Spirit´s purposelies safe in your relationship, and not your body. You have escaped the body.Where you are the body cannot enter, for the Holy Spirit has set His templethere. There is no order in relationships. They either are or not. An unholyrelationship is no relationship. It is a state of isolation, which seems to bewhat it is not. No more than that. The instant that the mad idea of making yourrelationship with God unholy seemed to be possible, all your relationships weremade meaningless. In that unholy instant time was born, and bodies made tohouse the mad idea and give it the illusion of reality. And so it seemed tohave a home that held together for a little while in time, and vanished. Forwhat could house this mad idea against reality but for an instant? Idols mustdisappear, and leave no trace behind their going. The unholy relationshipreflects the true relationship the Son of God has with his Father in reality.The Holy Spirit rests within it in the certainty it will endure forever. Itsfirm foundation is eternally upheld by truth, and love shines on it with thegentle smile and tender blessing it offers to its own. Here the unholy instantis exchanged in gladness for the holy one of safe return. Here is the way totrue relationships held gently open, through which you walk together, leavingthe body thankfully behind and resting in the Everlasting Arms. Love´s arms areopen to receive you, and give you peace forever. The body is the ego´s idol;the belief in sin made flesh and then projected outward. This produces whatseems to be a wall of flesh around the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spotof space and time, behold unto death, and given but an instant in which to sighand grieve and die in honor of its master. And this unholy instant seems to belife; an instant of despair, a tiny island of dry sand, bereft of water and setuncertainty upon oblivion. Here does the Son of God stop briefly by, to offerhis devotion to death´s idols and then pass on. And here he is more dead thanliving. Yet it is also here he makes his choice again between idoltary andlove. Here it is given him to choose to spend this instant paying tribute tothe body, or let himself be given freedom from it. Here he can accept the holyinstant, offered him to replace the unholy one he choses before. And here canhe learn relationships are his salvation, and not his doom. You who arelearning this may still be fearful, but you are not immobilized. The holyinstant is of greater value now to you than its unholy seeming counterpart, andyou have learned you really want but one. This is no time for sadness. Perhapsconfusion, but hardly discouragement. You have a real relationship, and it hasmeaning. It is as like your real relationship with God as equal things are likeunto each other. Idoltary is past and meaningless. Perhaps you fear yourbrother a little yet; perhaps a shadow of the fear of God remains with you. Yetwhat is that to those who have been given one true relationship beyond thebody? Can they be long held back from looking on the face of Christ? And canthey long withhold the memory of their relationship with their Father fromthemselves, and keep remembrance of His Love apart from their awareness?

Love