IA´s Journal

[IA56]

The Consistency of Means and End

We have said much about discrepancies of means and end, and how these must be brought in line before your holy relationship can bring you only joy. But we have also said the means to meet the Holy Spirit´s goal will come from the same Source as does His purpose. Being so simple and direct, this course has nothing in it that is not consistent. The seeming inconsistencies,or parts you find more difficult than others, are merely indications of are as where means and end are still discrepant. And this produces great discomfort.This need not be. This course requires almost nothing of you. It is impossible to imagine one tht asks so little, or could offer more. The period of discomfort that follows the sudden change in a relationship from sin to holiness may not be almost over. To the extent you still experience it, you are refusing to leave the means to Him Who changed the purpose. You recognize you want the goal. Are you not also willing to accept the means? If you are not, letus admit that you are inconsistent. A purpose is attained by means, and if you want a purpose you must be willing to want the means as well. How can one be sincere and say, ”I want this above all else, and yet I do not want to learnthe means to get it?” To obtain the goal the Holy Spirit indeed asks little. And He asks no more to give the means as well. The means are second to the goal. And when you you will make the error of believing the means are difficult. Yet how can they be difficult if they are merely given you? They guarantee the goal,and they are perfectly in line with it. Before we look at them a little closer,remember if you think they are impossible, your wanting of the purpose has been shaken. For if a goal is possible to reach, the means to do so must be possible as well. It is impossible to see your brother as sinless and yet to look uponhim as a body. Is this not perfectly consistent with the goal of holiness? Forholiness is merely the result of letting the effect of sin be lifted, so whatwas always true is recognized. To see a sinless body is impossbible, forholiness is postive and the body is merely neutral. It is not sinful, butneither is it sinless. As nothing, which it is, the body cannot meaningfully beinvested with attributes of Christ or of the ego. Either must be an error, forboth would place the attributes where they cannot be. And both must be undonefor purpose of truth. The body is the means by which the ego tries to make theunholy relationship seem real. The unholy instant is the time of bodies. Butthe purpose here is sin. It cannot be attained but in illusion, and so theillusion of a brother as a holy is quite in keeping with the purpose ofunholiness. Because of this consistency, the means remain unquestioned whilethe end is cherished. Seeing adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary todesire. And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment and not vision. Forvision, like relationships, has no order. You either see or not. Who sees abrother´s body has laid a judgment on him, and sees him not. He does not reallysee him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the darkness of sin he is invisible.He can but be imagined in the darkness, and it is here that the illusions youhold about him are not held up to his reality. Here are illusions and realitykept separated. Here are illusions never brought to truth, and always hiddenfrom it. And here, in darkness, is your brother´s reality imagined as a body,in unholy relationships with other bodies, serving the cause of sin an instantbefore he dies. There is indeed a difference between this vain imagining andvision. The difference lies not in them, but in their purpose. Both are butmeans, each one appropriate to the end for which it is employed. Neither canserve the purpose of the other, for each one is a choice of purpose, empoyed ofits behalf. Either is meaningless without the end for which it was intented,nor is it valued as a separate thing apart from the intention. The means seemreal because the goal is valued. And judgment has no value unless the goal issin. The body cannot be looked upon except through judgment. To see the body isthe sign that you lack vision, and have denied the means the Holy Spirit offersyou to serve His purpose. How can a body relationship achieve its purposethrough them means of sin? Judgment you taught yourself; vision is learned fromHim Who would undo your teaching. His vision cannot see the body because itcannot look on sin. And thus it leads you to reality. Your holy brother, sightof whom is your release, is no illusion. Attempt to see him not in darkness,for your imaginings about him will seem real there. You closed your eyes toshut him out. Such was your purpose and while this purpose seems to have ameaning, the means for it attainment will be evaluated as worth the seeing, andso you will not see. Your questioning should not be, ”How can I see my brotherwithout the body?” Ask only, ”Do I really wish to see him sinless? And as youask, forget not this at his sinlessness is your escape from fear. Salvation isthe Holy Spirit´s goal. The means is vision. For what the seeing look upon issinless. No one who loves can judge, and what he sees is free of condemnation.And what he sees he did not make, for it was given him to see, as was thevision that made his seeing possible.

Love

[IA56]

The Vision of Sinlessness

Vision will come to you at first in glimses, but they will be enough to show you what is given you who see your brother sinless. Truth is restored to you through your desire, as it was lost to you through your desire for something else. Open the holy place that you closed off by valuing the ”something else,” and what was never lost will quietly return. It has been saved for you.Vision would not be necessary had judgment not been made. Desire now its whole undoing, and it is done for you. Do you not want to know your own Identity? Would you not happily exchange your doubts for certainty? Would you not willingly be free of misery, and learn again of joy? Your holy relationship offers all this to you. As it was given you, so will be its effects. And as its holy purpose was not made by you, the means by which its happy end is yours is also not of you. Rejoice in what is yours but for the asking, and think not that you need make either means or end. All this is given you who would but see your brothersinless. All this is given, waiting on your desire but to receive it. Vision is freely given to those who ask to see. Your brother´s sinlessness is given youin shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit´s vision and to rejoice inalong with Him. For peace would come to to all who ask for it with real desire and sincerity of purpose, shared with the Holy Spirit and at one with Him on what salvation is. Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christmay rise before your vision and give you joy. And place no value on yourbrother´s body, which holds him to illusions of what he is. It is his desire tosee his sinlessness, as it is yours. And bless the Son of God in your relationship, nor see in him what you have made of him. The Holy Spirit guarantees that what God willed and gave you shall be yours. This is your purpose now, and the vision that makes it yours is ready to be given. You have the vision that enables you to see the body not. And as you look upon your brother, you will see an altar to your Father, holy as Heaven, glowing with radiant purity and sparkling with the shining lilies you laid upon it. What can you value more than this? Why do you think the body is a better home, a safer shelter for God´s Son? Why would you rather look on it than on the truth? Howcan the engine of destruction be perferred, and chosen to replace the holy home the Holy Spirit offers, where He will dwell with you? The body is the sign of weakness, vulnerability and loss of power. Can such a savior help you? Wouldyou turn in your distress and need for help unto the helpless? Is the pitifullylittle the perfect choice to call upon for strength? Judgment will see to maleyour savior weak. Yet it is you who need his strength. There is no problem, noevent or situation, no perplexity that vision will not solve. All is redeemedwhen looked upon the vision. For this is not your sight, and brings with thelaws beloved of Him Whose sight it is. Everything looked upon with vision fallsgently into place, according to the laws brought to it by His calm and certainsight. The end for everything He looks upon is always sure. For it will meetHis purpose, seen in unadjusted form and suited perfectly to meet it.Destructiveness becomes bening, and sin is turned to blessing under His gentlegaze. What can the body´s eyes perceive, any form and seeing it everywhere, ineverything. Look through its eyes, and everything will stand condemned beforeyou. All that could save you, you will never see. Your holy relationship, thesource of your salvation, will be deprived of meaning, and its most holypurpose bereft of means for its accomplishment. Judgment is but a toy, a whim,the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination. Butvision sets all things right, bringing them gently within the kindly sway ofHeaven´s laws. What if you recognize this world is an hallucination? What ifyou really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seemto walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves,are wholly unreal? Could you have faith in what you see, if you accepted this?And would you see it? Hallucinations disappear when they are recognized forwhat they are. This is the healing and the remedy. Believed them not and theyare gone. And all you need to do is recongize that you did this. Once youaccept this simple fact and take unto yourself the power you gave them, you arereleased from them. One thing is sure; hallucinations serve a purpose, and whenthat purpose is no longer held they disappear. Therefore, the question never iswhatever you want them, but always, do you want the purpose, each different andwith different values. Yet they are all the same. Again there is no order; onlya seeming hierarchy of values. Only two purpose are possible. And one is sin,the other holiness. Nothing is in between, and which you choose determines whatyou see. For what you see is merely how you elect to meet your goal.Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness. They are the means by whichthe outside world, projected from within, adjusts to sin and seems to withnessto its reality. It still is true that nothing is without. Yet upon nothing areall projections made. For it is the projection that gives the ”nothing” all themeaning that it holds. What has no meaning cannot be perceived. And meaningalways looks within to find itself, and then looks out. All meaning that yougive the world outside must thus reflect the sight you saw within; or better,if you saw at all or merely judged against. Vision is the means by which theHoly Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wildhallucinations that show you all the fearful outcomes of imagined sin into thecalm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentlesights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. They are Hissubstitues for all the terryfying sights and screaming sounds the ego´s purposebrought to your horrifeied awareness. They step away from sin, reminding youthat it is not reality which frightens you, and that the errors which you madecan be corrected. When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it changeto sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violanceand death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies,with clear, life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooksthat never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision? Andafter vision, who is there who could refuse what must come after? Think but aninstant just on this; you can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And neverneed you think that there is something else for you to see.

Love

[IA56]

REASON AND PERCEPTION

Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result and not a cause. And that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaninless. Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos. Damnation is your judgment on yourself, and this you will project upon the world. See it as damned, and all you see is what you did to hurt the Son of God. If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free. There is no choice that lies between these two decisions. And you will see the withness to the choice you made, and learn this to recognize which one you chose.

Love

[CFTraveler]

"There is no order of difficulty in miracles" is a powerful phrase. It's what's kept me alive. Thanks for reminding me.

[IA56]

"There is no order of difficulty in miracles" is a powerful phrase. It's what's kept me alive. Thanks for reminding me.

Thank you CFT for telling this, it is very powerful indeed.

Love
ia

[IA56]

The Forgotten Song

Never forget the world the sightless ”see” must be imagined,for what it really looks like is unknown to them. They must infer what could be seen from evidence forever indirect; and reconstruct their inference as they stumble and fall because of what they did not recognize, or walk unharmed through open doorways that they thought were closed. And so it is with you. You do not see. Your cues for inference are wrong, and so you stumble and fall down upon the stones you did not recognize, but fail to be aware you can go through the doors you thought were closed, but which stand open before unseeing eyes,waiting to welcome you. How foolish to imagine what the world must look like.It must be seen before you recognize it for what it is. You can be shown which doors are open, and you can see where safety lies; and which way leads to darkness, which to light. Judgment will always give you false directions, but vision shows you where to go. Why should you guess? There is no need to learn through pain. And gentle lessons are acquired joyously, and are rememberedgladly. What gives you happiness you want to learn and not forget. It is notthis you would deny. Your question is whether the means by which this course islearned, will bring to you the joy it promises. If you believed it would, thelearning of it would be no problem. You are not a happy learner yet because youstill remain uncertain that vision gives you more than judgment does, and youhave learned that both you cannot have. The blind become accustomed to theirworld by their adjustments to it. They think they know their way about in it.They learned it, not through joyous lessons, but through the stern necessityuof limits they believed they could not overcome. And still believing this, theyhold those lessons dear, and cling to them because they cannot see. They do notunderstand the lessons keep them blind. This they do not believe. And so theykeep the world they learned to ”see” in their imagination, believing that theirchoice is that or nothing. They hate the world they learned through pain. Andeverything they think is in it serves to remind them that they are incompleteand bitterly deprived. Thus they define their life where they live, adjustingto it as they think they must, afraid to lose the little that they have. And soit is with all who see the body as all they have and all their brothers have.They try to reach each other, and they fail, and fail again. And they adjust toloneliness, believing that to keep the body is to save the little that theyhave. Listen, and try to think if you remember what we will speak of now.Listen, - perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten;dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar, like a song whose name is longforgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered.Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody,attached not to a person or a place or anything particular. But you remember,from just this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the settingwhere you heard it, and how you loved those who were there and listened withyou. The notes are nothing. Yet you have kept them with you, not forthemselves, but as a soft reminder of what would make you weep if youremembered how dear it was to you. You could remember, yet you are afraid,believing you would lose the world you learned since then. And yet you knowthat nothing in the world you learned is half so dear as this. Listen, and seeif you remember an ancient song you knew so long ago, and held more dear thanany melody you taught yourself to cherish since. Beyond the body, beyond thesun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc ofgolden light that stretches as you look into a great and shining circle. Andall the circle fills with light before your eyes. The edges of the circledisappear, and what is in it is no longer contained at all. The light expandsand covers everything, extending to infinity forever shining and with no breakor limit anywhere. Within it everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor isit possible to imagine that anything could be outside, for there is nowherethat this light is not. This is the vision of the Son of God, whom you knowwell. Here is the sight of him who know his Father. Here is the memory of whatyou are; a part of this, with all of it within, and joined to all as surely asall is joined in you. Accept the vision that can show you this, and not thebody. You know the ancient song, and know it well. Nothing will ever be as dearto you as is this ancient hymn the Son of God sings to his Father still. Andnow the blind can see, for that same song they sing in honor of their Creatorgives praise to them as well. The blindness that they made will not withstandthe memory of this song. And they will look upon the vision of the Son of God,remembering who he is they sing of. What is a miracle but this rememering? Andwho is there in whom this memory lies not? The light in one awaken it in all.And when you see it in your brother, you are remembering for everyone.

Love

[IA56]

The Responsibillity for Sight

We have repeated how little is asked of you to learn this course. It is the same small willingness you need to have your whole relationship transformed to joy; the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit for which He gives you everything; the very little on which salvation rests; the tiny change of mind by which the crusifixtion is changed to resurrection. And behind true, it is so simple that it cannot fail to be compleately understood. Rejected yes, but not abiguous. And if you choose against it now it will not be because it is obscure, but rather that this little cost seemed, in your judgment, to be too much to pay for peace. This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no resevation, forhere the power of salvation lies:

”I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the
goal I would achieve.
And everything that seems to happen to me
I ask for, and receive as I have asked.”

Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done to you. Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of your mistakes will disappear. It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events ouside of him. It is impossible that happenings that come to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident. No accident nor chance is possible within the universe as God created it, outside of which is nothing. Suffer, and you decided sin war your goal. Be happy, andyou gave the power of decision to Him Who must decide for God for you. This isthe little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, and even this He gives to you tog ive yourself. For by this gift is given you the power to release your savior,that he may give salvation unto you. Begrudge not then this little offering. Withhold it, and you keep the world as now you see it. Give it away, andeverything you see goes with it. Never was so much given for so little. In the holy instant is this exchange effected and maintained. Here is the world you do not want brought to the one you do. And here the one you do is given youbecause you want it. Yet for this, the power of your wanting must first be recognized. You must accept its strength, and not its weakness. You must perceive that what is strong enough to make a world can let it go, and can accept correction if it is willing to see that it was wrong. The world you seeis but the idle witness that you were right. This witness s insane. You trainedit in its testimony, and as it gave it back to you, you listened and convicedyourself that what it saw was true. You did this to yourself. See only this,and you will also see how circular the reasoning on which your ”seeing” rests.This was not given you. This was your gift to you and to your brother. Bewilling, then, to have it taken from him and be replaced with truth. And as youlook upon the change in him, it will be given you to see it in yourself.Perhaps you do not see the need for you to given this little offering. Lookcloser, then, at what it is. And, very simply, see in it the whole exchange ofseparation for salvation. All that the ego is, is an idea that it is possiblethat things should happen to the Son of God without his will; and thus withoutthe Will of his Creator, Whose Will cannot be separate from his own. This isthe Son of God´s replacement for his will, a mad revolt against what mustforever be. This is the statement that he has the power to make God powerlessand so to take it for himself, and leave himself without what God has willedfor him. This is the mad idea you have enshrined upon your altars, and whichyou worship. And everything that threatens this seems to attack your faith, forhere is it invested. Think not that you are faithless, for your belief andtrust in this is strong indeed.The Holy Spirit can give you faith in holinessand vision to see it easily enough. But you have not left open and unoccupiedthe altar where the gift belong. Where they should be, you have set up youridols to something else. This other ”will,” which seems to tell you what musthappen, you give reality. And what would show you otherwise must therefore seemunreal. All that is asked of you is to make room for truth. You are not askedto make or do what lies beyond your understanding. All you are asked to do islet it in; only to stop your interference with what will happen of itself;simply to recognize again the presence of what you thought you gave away. Bewilling, for an instant, to leave your altars free of what you placed uponthem, and what is really there you cannot fail to see. The holy instant is notan instant of creation, but of recognition. For recognition comes of vision andsuspended judgment. Then only it is possible to look within and see what mustbe there, plainly in sight, and wholly independent of inference and judgment.Undoing is not your task, but it is up to you to welcome it or not. Faith anddesire go hand in hand, for everyone believes in what he wants. We have alreadysaid that wishful thinking is how the ego deals with what it wants, to make itso. There is not better demonstration of the power of wanting, and therefore offaith, to make its goals seem real and possible. Faith in the unreal leads toadjustment of reality to make it fit the goal of madness. The goal of sininduces the perception of a fearful world to justify its purpose. What youdesire, you will see. And if its reality in false, you will uphold it by notrealizing all the adjustments you have introduced to make it so. When vison isdenied, confusion of cause and effect becomes inevitable. The purpose nowbecomes to keep obscure the cause of the effect, and make effect appear to be acause. The seeming independence of effect enables it to be regarded as standingby itself, and capable of serving as a cause of the events and feelings itsmaker thinks it couses. Earlier, we spoke of your desire to create your ownCreator, and be father and not son to Him. This is the same desire. The Son isthe effect, whose Cause he would deny. And so he seems to be the cause, and toconfuse the two is merely to fail to understand them both. It is as needfulthat you recognize you made the world you see, as that you recognize that youdid not create yourself. They are the same mistake. Nothing created not by yourCreator has any influence over you. And if you think what you have made cantell you what you see and feel, and place your faith in its ability to do so,you are denying your Creator and believing that you made yourself. For if youthink the world you made has power to make you what it wills, you are comfusingSon and Father; effect and Source. The Son´s creation are like his Father´s.Yet in creating them the Son does not delude himself that he is independent ofhis Source. His union with It is the Source of his creating. Apart from this hehas no power to create, and what he makes is meaningless. It changes nothing increation, depends intirely upon the madness of its maker, and cannot serve tojustify the madness. Your brother thinks he made the world with you. Thus hedenies creation. With you, het hinks the world he made, made him. Thus hedenies he made it. Yet the truth is you were both created by loving Father, Whocreated you together and as one. See what ”proves” otherwise, and you deny yourwhole reality. But grant that everything that seems to stand between you,keeping you from each other and separate from your Father, you made in secret,and the instant of release has come to you. All its effects are gone, becauseits source has been uncovered. It is its seeming independence of its sourcethat keeps you prisoner. This is the same mistake as thinking you areindependent of the Source by Which you were created, and have never left.

Love

[IA56]

Faith, Belief and Vision
All special relationship have sin as their goal. For theyare bargains with reality, towards which the seeming union is adjusted. Forget not this; to bargain is to set a limit, and any brother with whom you have alimited relationship, you hate. You may attempt to keep the bargain in the name of ”fairness,” sometimes demanding payment of yourself, perhaps more often ofthe other.Thus in the ”fairness” you attmept to ease the guilt that comes from the accepted purose of the relationship. And that is why the Holy Spirit mustchange its purpose to make it useful to Him and harmless to you. If you accept this change, you have accepted the idea of making room for truth. The source of sin is gone. You may imagine that you still experience its effects, but it is not your purpose and you no longer want it. No one allows a purpose to be replaced while he desires it, for nothing is so cherished and protected as is agoal the mind accepts. This it will allow, grimly or happily, but always with faith and with the persistence that faith inevitably brings. The power of faith is never recognized if it is placed in sin. But it iss always recognized if it is placed in love. Why is it strange to you that faith can move mountains? Thisis indeed a little feat for such a power. For faith can keep the Son of God inchainsas long as he believes he is in chains. And when he is released from themit will be simply because he no longer believes in them, withdrawing faith thatthey can hold him, and placing it in his freedom instead. It is impossible toplace equal faith in oppoisitedirections. What faith you give to sin you take away from holiness. And whatyou offer holiness has been removed from sin. Faith and belief and vision arethe means by which the goal of holiness iss reached. Through them the Holy Spiritleads you to the real world, and away from all illusions where your faith waslaid. This is His direction; the only one He ever sees. And when you wander, Hereminds you there is but one. His faith and His belief and vision are all foryou. And when you have accepted them completely instead of yours, you will haveneed of them no longer. For faith and vision and belief are meaningful onlybefore the state of certainty is reached. In Heaven they are unknown. YetHeaven is reached through them. It is impossible that the Son of God lackfaith, bu the can choose where he would have it be. Faithlessness is not a lackof faith, but faith in nothing. Faith given to illusions does not lack power,for by it does the Son of God believe that he is powerless. Thus is hefaithless to himself, but strong in faith in his illusions about himself. Forfaith, perception and belief you made, as means for losing certainty andfinding sin. This mad direction was your choice, and by your faith in what youchose, you made what you desire. The Holy Spirit has a use for all the meansfor sin by which you sought to find it. But as He uses them they lead away fromsin, because His purpose lies in the opposite direction. He sees the means youuse, but not the purpose for which you made them. He would not take them fromyou, for He sees their value as a means for what He wills for you. You madeperception that you might choose among your brothers, and seek for sin withthem. The Holy Spirit sees perception as a means to teach you that the visionof the holy relationship is all you want to see. Then will you give your faithto holiness, desiring the believing in it because of your desire. Faith and beliefbecome attached to vision, as all the means that once served sin are redirectednow toward holiness. For what you think is sin is limitation, and whom you tryto limit to the body you hate because you fear. In your refusal to forgive him,you would condemn him to the body because the means for sin are dear to you.And so the body has your faith and your belief. But holiness would set yourbrother free, removing hatred by removing fear, not as a symptom, but at itssource. Those who would free their brothers from the body can have no fear. They haverenounced the means for sin by choosing to let all limitations be removed. Asthey desire to look upon their brothers in holiness, the power of belief andfaith goes far beyond the body, supporting vision, not obstructing it. Butfirst they chose to recognize how much their faith had limited theirunderstanding of the world, desiring to place its power elsewhere shouldanother point of view be given them. The miracles that follow this decision arealso born of faith. For all who choose to look away from sin are given vision,and are led to holiness. Those who believe in sin must think the Holy Spiritasks for sacrifice, for this is how they think their purpose is accomplished.Brother, the Holy Spirit knows that sacrifice brings nothing. He makes nobargain. And if you seek to limit Him, you will hate Him because you areafraid. The gift that He has given you is more than anything that stands thisside of Heaven. The instant for its recognition is at hand. Join your awarenessto what been already joined. The faith you give your brother can accompishthis. For He Who loves the world is seeing it for you, without one spot of sinupon it, and in the innocence that makes the sight of it as beautiful asHeaven. Your faith in sacrifice has given it great power in your sight; exeptyou do not realize you cannot see because of it. For sacrifice musgt be exactedof a body, and by another body. The mind could neither ask it nor receive it ofitself. And no more could the body. The intention is in the mind, which triesto use the body to carry out the means for sin in which the mind believes. Thusis the joining of mind and body an inescapable belief of those who values sin.And so is sacrifice invariably a means for limitation , and thus for hate.Think you the Holy Spirit is concerned with this? He gives not what it is Hispurpose to lead you from. You think He would deprive you for your good. But ”good”and ”deprivation” are opposites, and cannot meanifully join in any way. It islike saying that the moon and sun are one because they come with night and day,and so they must be joined. Yet sight of one is but the sign the other hasdiappeared from sight. Nor is it possible thaqt what gives light be one withwhat depends on darkness to be seen. Neither demands the sacrifice of theother. Yet on the absence of the other does each depend. The body was made tobe a sacrifice to sin, and in the darkness so it still is seen. Yet in thelight of vision it is looked upon quite differently. You can have faith in itto serve the Holy Spirit´s goal, and give it power to serve as means to helpthe blind to see. But in their seeing they look past it, as do you. The faithand the belief you gave it belongs beyond. You gave perception and belief andfaith from mind to body. Let them now be given back to what produced them, andcan use them still to save itself from what it made.

Love

[IA56]

The Fear to look Within

The Holy Spirit will never teach you that you are sinful. Errors He will correct, but this makes no on fearful. You are indeed afraid to look within and see the sin you think is there. This you would not be fearful to admit. Fear is association with sin the ego deems quite appropriate, and smiles approvingly. It has no fear to let you feel ashamed. It doubts not your belief and faith in sin. Its temples do not shake because of this. Your faith that sin is there but witnesses to your desire that it be there to see. This merely seems to be the source of fear. Remember that the egois not alone. Its rule is tempered, and its unknown ”enemy,” Whome it cannot even see, it fears. Loudly the ego tells you not to look inward, for if you do your eyes will light on sin, and God will strike you blind. This you believe,and so you do not look. Yet this is not the ego´s hidden fear, nor yours who serve it. Loudly indeed the ego claims it is; too loudly and too often. For underneath this constant shout and frantic proclamation, the ego is not certainit is so. Beneath your fear to look within because of sin is yet another fear,and one which makes the ego tremble. What if you looked within and saw no sin?This ”fearful” question is one the ego never asks. And you who ask it now arethreatening the ego´s whole defensive system too seriously for it to bother topretend it is your friend. Those who have joined their brothers have detachedthemselves from their belief that their identity lies in the ego. A holyrelationship is one in which you join with what is part of you in truth. Andyou belief in sin has been already shaken, nor are you now entirely unwillingto look within and see it not. Your liberation still is only partial; stilllimited and incomplete, yet born within you. Not wholly mad, you have beenwilling to look on much of your insanity and recognize its madness. Your faithis moving inward, past insanity and on to reason. And what your reason tellsyou now the ego would not hear. The Holy Spirit´s purpose was accepted by thepart of your mind the ego knows not of. No more did you. And yet this part,with which you now identify, is not afraid to look upon itself. It knows nosin. How, otherwise, could it have been willing to see the Holy Spirit´spurpose as its own? This part has seen your brother, and recognized himperfectly since time began. And it desired nothing but to join with him and to be free again, as once it was. It hasbeen waiting for the birth of freedom; the acceptance of release to come toyou. And now you recognize that it was not the ego that joined the HolySpirit´s purpose, and so there must be something else. Think not that this ismadness. For this your reason tells you, and it follows perfectly from what youhave already learned. There is no inconsisntency in what the Holy Spiritteaches. This is the reasoning of the sane. You have perceived the ego´smadness, and not been made afraid because you did not choose to share in it. Attimes it still deceives you. Yet in your saner moments, its ranting strikes noterror in your heart. For you have realized that all the gifts it wouldwithdraw from you, in rage at your ”presumptuous”wish to look within, you donot want. A few remaining trinkets still seem to shine and catch you eye. Yetyou would not ”sell” Heaven to have them. And now the ego is afraid. Yet whatit hears in terror, the other part hears as the sweetest music; the son itlonged to hear since first the ego came into your mind. The ego´s weakness isits strength. The song if freedom, which sings the praise of another world,brings to it hope of peace. For it remembers Heaven, and now it sees thatHeaven has come to earth at last, from which the ego´s rule has kept in out solong. Heaven has come because it found a home in your relationship on earth.And earth can hold no longer what has been given Heaven as its own. Look gentlyon your brother, and remember the ego´s weakness is revelead in both yoursight. What it would keep apart has met and joined, and looks upon the egounafraid. Little child, innocent of sin, follow in gladness the way tocertainty. Be not held back by fear´s insane insistence that sureness lies indoubt. This has no meaning. What matters it to you how loudly it is proclaimed?The senseless is not made meaningful by repetition and by clamor. The quiet wayis open. Follow it happily, and question not what must be so.

Love

[IA56]

The Funktion of Reason

Perception selects, and makes the world yousee. It literally picks it out as the mind directs. The law of size and shape and brightness would hold, perhaps, if other things were equal. They are not equal. For what you look for you are far more likely to discover than what you would prefer to overlook. The still, small Voice for God is not drowned out by all the ego´s raucous screams and senseless ravings to those who want to hear it. Perception is a choice and not a fact. But on this choice depends far more than you may realize as yet. For on the voice you choose to hear, and on the sights you choose to see, depends entirely your whole belief in what you are.Perception is a witness but to this, and never to reality. Yet it can show you the conditions in which awareness of reality is possible, or those where it could never be. Reality needs no cooperation from you to be itself. But your awareness of it needs your help, because it is your choice. Listen to what the ego says, and see what it directs you see, and it is sure that you will see yourself as tiny, vulnerable and afraid. You will experience depression, a sense of wothlessness, and feelings of impermanence and unreality. You will believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond you own control, and far more powerful than you. And you willthink the world you made directs your destiny. For this will be your faith. Butnever believe because it is your faith it makes reality. There is anothervision and another Voice in Which your freedom lies, awaiting your choice. Andif you place your faith in them, you will perceive another Self in you. Thisother Self sees miracles as natural. They are simple and as natural to It asbreathing to the body. They are the obvious response to calls for help, the onlyone It makes. Miracles seem unnatural to the ego because it does not understandhow separate minds can influence each other. Nor could they do so. But mindscannot be separate. This other Self is perfectly aware of this. And thus Itrecognizes that miracles do not affect another´s mind, only Its Own. There isno other. You do not realize the whole extent to which the idea of separationhas interfered with reason. Reason lies in the other Self you have cut off fromyou awareness. And nothing you have allowed to stay in your awareness incapable of reason. How can the segment of the mind devoid of reason understandwhat reason is, or grasp the information it would give? All sorts of questionsmay arise in it, but if the basic question stems from reason, it will not askit. Like all that stems from reason, the basic question is obvious, simple andremains unasked. But think not reason could nott answer it. God´s plan for yoursalvation could not have been established without your will and your consent.It must have been accepted by the Son of God, for what God wills for him hemust receive. For God wills not apart from him, nor does the Will of God waitupon time to be accompished. Therefore, what joined the Will of God must be inyour now, being eternal. You must have set aside a place in which the HolySpirit can abide, and where He is. He must have been there since the need forHim arose, and was clearly not the ego´s reasoning. Your reason´s alien natureto the ego is proof you will not find the answer there. Yet if it exists foryou, and has your freedom as the purpose given it, you must be free to find it.God´s plan is simple; never circular and never self-defeating. He has noThoughts except the Self-extending, and in this your will must be included. Thus,there must be a part of you that knows His Will and shares it. It is notmeaningful to ask if what must be is so. But it is meanigful to ask why you areunaware of what is so, for this must have an answer if the plan of God for yoursalvation is complete. And it must be complete, because its Soursce knows notof incompletion. Where would the answer be but in the Source? And where are youbut there, where this same answer is? Your Identity, as much a true effect ofthis same Source as is the answer, must therefore be together and the same. Oyes, you know this, and more than this alone. Yet any part of knowledgethreatens dissociation as much as all of it. And all of it will come with anypart. Here is the part you can accpet. What reason points to you can see,because the witnesses and its behalf are clear. Only the totally insane candisregard them, and you have gone past this. Reason is a means that serves theHoly Spirit´s purpose in its own right. It is not reinterpreted and redirectedfrom the goal of sin, as are the others. For reason is beyond the ego´s rangeof means. Faith and perception and belief can be misplaced, and serve the greatdeceiver´s needs as well as truth. But reason has no place at all in madness,nor can it be adjusted to fit its end. Faith and belief are strong in madness,guiding perception toward what the mind has valued. But reason enters not atall in this. For the perception would fall away at once, if reason wereapplied. There is no reason in insanity, for it depends entirely on reason´sabsence. The ego never uses it, because it does not realize that it exists. Thepartially insane have access to it, and only they have need of it. Knowledgedoes not depend on it, and madness keeps it out. The part of mind where reasonlies was dedicated, by your will in union with your Father´s to the undoing ofinsanity. Here was the Holy Spirit´s purpose accepted and accomplished, both atonce. Reason is alien to insanity, and those who use it have gained a meanswhich cannot be applied to sin. Knowledge is far beyond attainment of any kind.But reason can serve to open doors you closed against it. You have come veryclose to this. Faith and belief have shifted, and you have asked the questionthe ego will never ask. Does not your reason tell you now the question musthave come from something that you do not know, but must belong to you? Faithand belief, upheld by reason, cannot fail to lead to changed perception. And inthis change is room made way for vision. Vision extends behond itself, as doesthe purpose that it serves, and all the means for its accomlishment.

Love