IA´s Journal

[IA56]

LESSON 177

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

163) ”There is not death. The Son of God is free.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

164) ”Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 178

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

165) ”Let not my mind deny theThought of God.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

166) ”I am entrusted with the gifts of God.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 179

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

167) ”There is one life, and that I share with God.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

168 ”Your grace is given me. I claim it now.”

”God is but Love, therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 180

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

169) ”By grace I live. By grace I am released.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

170) ”There is no cruelty in God and none in me.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

INTRODUCTION

Lesson 181-200

Our next few lessons make a special point of firming up your willingness to make your weak commitment strong; your scattered goals blend into one intent. You are not asked for total dedication all the time as yet. But you are asked to practice now in order to attain the sense of peace such unified commitment will bestow, if only intermittently. It is experiencing this that makes it sure that you will give your total willingness to following the way the course sets forth. Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizones, and direct approaches tothe special blocks that keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal. We are attempting now to lift these blocks, however briefly. Words alone can not convey the sense of liberation which their lifting brings. But the experience of freedom and peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself. Your motivation will be so intensified that words become of little consequence. You will be sure of what you want, and what is valueless. And so we start our journey beyond words by concentrating first on what impedes your progress still. Experience of what exists beyond defensiveness remains beyond achievement while it is denied. It may be there, but you cannot accept its presence. So we now attempt to go past all defenses for a little while each day. No more than that is asked, because no more than this is needed. It will be enough to guarantee the rest will come.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 181

”I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”

Trusting your brothers is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself. When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him. You do not look beyond his errors. Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self That lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours. Perception has a focus, and what you behold will change accordingly. Your vision now will shift, to give support to the intent which has replaced the one you held before. Remove your focus on your brother´s sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness. This faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their sins. For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you. And you will not trancend their sight and see the sinlessness that lies beyond.Therefore, in practicing today, we first let all such little focuses give wayto our great need to let our sinlessness become apparent. We instruct our minds that it is this we seek, and only this, for just a little while. We do not care about our future goals. And what we saw an instant previous has no concern forus within this interval of time wherein we practice changing our intent. We seek for innocence and nothing else. We seek for it with no concern but now. A major hazard to success has been involvement with your past and future goals.You have been quite preoccupied with how extremely different the goals this course is advocating are from those you held before. And you have also been dismayed by the depressing and restricting thought that, even if you should succeed, you will inevitably lose your way again. How could this matter? For the past is gone; the future but imagined. These concerns are but defenses against present change of focus in preception. Nothing more. We lay these pointless limitations by a little while. We do not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now. We enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within. We recognize that we have lost this goal if anger blocks our way in any form. And if a brother´s sins occur to us, our narrowed focus will restrict our sight, and turn our eyes upon our own mistakes, which we will magnify and call our ”sins.”So, for a little while, without regard to past or future, should such blocks arise we will transcend them with instructions to our minds to change their focus, as we say:

”It is not this that I would look upon.
I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”

And we also use this thought to keep us safe throughout the day. We do not seek for long-range goals. As each obstruction seems to block the vision of our sinlessness, we seek but for surcease an instant from the misery the focus upon sin will bring, and uncorrected will remain. Nor do we ask for fantasies. For what we seek to look upon is really there. And so our focus goes beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world. When seeing this is all we want to see, when this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours. And the Love He feels for us becomes our own as well. This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves. The world which once proclaimed our sins becomes the proof that we are sinless. And our love for everyone we look upon attests to our remembrance of the holy Self Which knows no sin, and never could conceive of anything without Its sinlessness. We seek for this remembrance as we turn our minds to practicing today. We look neither ahead nor backwards. We look straingt into the present. And we give our trust to the experience we ask for now. Our sinlessness is but the Will of God.This instant is our willing one with His.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 182

”I will be still an instant and go home.”

This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown.Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here.Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind again. No one but knows whereof we speak. Yet some try put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time, and keep their sadness from them. Others willdeny that they are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. Still otherswill maintain that what we speak of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. Yet who, in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny he undertands the words we speak? We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is not at home. He goes uncertainly aboutin endless search, seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing what it is he seeks. A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents his restless mind. He does not understand he builds in vain. The home he seeks can not be made by him. There is no substitute for Heaven. All he ever made was hell.Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. The childhood of your body, and its place of shelter, are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened. Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father´s house, and know that He is alien here. This childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy ground. It is His holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one. It is this Child in your Father knows as His Own Son.It is this Child Who knows His Father. He desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. He does not ask for more than jus a few instant of respite; just an interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that fills His Father´s house. You are His home as well. He will return. But give Him just a little time to be Himself,within the peace that is His home, resting in silence and in peace and love.This Child needs your protection. He is far from home. He is so little that He seems so easily shut out. His tiny voice so readily obscured, His call for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and hars and rasping noises of the world. Yet does He know that in you still abides His sure protection. You will fail Him not. He will go home, and you along with Him. This Child is your defenselessness; your strength. He trusts in you. He came because He knew you would not fail. He whispers of His home unceasingly to you. For He would bring you back with Him, that He Himself might stay, and not return again where He does not belong, and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts.His patience has no limits. He will wait until you hear His gentle voice within you, calling you to let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at home and you with Him. When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home. Rest with Him frequently today. For He was willing to become a little Child that you might learn of Him how strong is he who comes without defenses, offering only love´s messages to those who think he is their enemy. He holds the might of Heaven in His hand and calls them friend, and gives His strength to them, that they may see He would be Friends to them. He asks that they protect Him, for His home is far away, an He will not return to it alone.Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his home. For he must learn that what he would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is protected by defenselessness. Go home with Him from time to time today. You are as much an alien here as He. Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing, and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence. Christ has called you friend and brother. He has even come to ask your help in letting Him go home today,completed and completely. He has come as does a little child, who must beseech his father for protection and for love. He rules the universe, and yet He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take illusions as your gods no more.You have not lost your innocence. It is for this you yearn. This is your heart´s desire. This is the voice you hear, and this the call which cannot be denied. The holy Child remains with you. His home is yours. Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. And now the way is open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. Be still an instant and go home with Him, and be at peace a while.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 183

”I call upon God´s Name and on my own.”

God´s Name is holy, but not holier than yours. To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. A father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him. His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity. Your Father´s Name reminds you who you are, even within a world that does not know; even though you have not remembered it. God´s Name can not be heard without response, nor said without an echo in the mind that calls you to remember. Say His Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which you stand, and sing to you as they spread out their wings to keep you safe, and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your holiness. Repeat God´s Name, and all the world responds by laying down illusions. Every dream the world holds dear has suddelny gone by, and where it seemed to stand you find a star; a miracle of grace. The sick arise, healed of their sickly thoughts. The blind can see; the deaf can hear. The sorrowful cast off their mourning, and the tears of pain are dried as happy laughter comes to bless the world. Repeat the Name of God, a little names have lost their meaning. No temptation but becomes a nameless and unwanted thing before God´s Name. Repeat His Name, and see how easily you will forget the name of all the gods you valued. They have lost the name god you gave them. They become anonymous and valueless to you, although before you let the Name of God replace their little names, you stood before them worshipfully, naming them as gods.Repeat the Name of God, and call upon you Self, Whose Name is His. Repeat His Name,and all tiny, nameless things on earth slip into right perspective. Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Son of God. And should you join a brother as you sit with him in silence, and repeat God´s Name along with him within your quiet mind, you have established there an altar which reaches to God Himself and to His Son. Practice but this today; repeat God´s Name slowly again and still again. Become oblivious to every name but His. Near nothing else. Let all your thoughts become anchored to This. No other world we use except at the beginning, when we say today´s idea but once. And then God´s Name becomes our only thought, our only word, the only thing that occupies our minds, the only wish we have, the only sound with any meaning, and the only Name of Everything that we desire to see; of everything that we would call our own. Thus do we give an invitation which can never be refused. And God will come, and answer it Himself. Think not He hears the little prayers of those who call on Him with names of idols cherished by the world. They cannot reach Him thus. He cannot hear request that He be not Himself, or that His Son receive another name than His. Repeat God´s Name, and you acknowledge Him as sole Creator of reality. And you acknowledge also that His Son is part of Him, creating in His Name. Sit silently, and let His Name become the all-encompassing idea that holds you mind completely. Let all thoughts be still except this one. And to all other thoughts respond with this, and see God´s Name replace the thousand Little names you gave your thoughts, not realizing that there is on Name for all there is, and all that there will be. Today you can achieve a state in which you will experience the gift of grace. You can escape all bondage of the world, and give the world the same realese you found. You can remember what the world forgot, and offer it your own remembering. You can accept today the part you paln inits salvation, and your own as well. And both can be accomplished perfectly.Turn to the Name of God for your release, and it is given you. No prayer but this is necessary, for it holds them all within it. Words are insignificant,and all request unneeded when God´s Son calls on his Father´s Name. His Father´s Thoughts becomes his own. He makes his claim to all his Father gave, is giving still, and will forever give. He calls on Him to let all things he thoughts he made be nameless now, and in their place the holy Name of God becomes his judgment of their worthlessness. All little things are silent. Little sounds are soundless now. The little things of earth have disappeared.The universe consists of nothing but the Son of God, who calls upon his Father.And his Father´s Voice gives answer in his Father´s holy Name. In this eternal, still relationship, in which communication far transcends all words, and yet exceeds in depth and height what ever words could possibly convey, is peace eternal. In our Father´s Name, we would experience this peace today. And in His Name, it shall be given us.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 184

”The Name of God is my inheritnace.”

You live by symbols. You have made up names for everything you see. Each one becomes a spearate entity, identified by its own name. By this you carve it out of unity. By this you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it. This space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings is terms of place and time, all bodies which are greeted by a name. This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world´s perception is achieved. You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will. What are these names by which the world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept apart from holding bits of mind as separate awareness? You gave these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have perception be. The nameless things were given names, and thus reality was given them as well. For what is named is given meaning and will then be seen as meaningful; a cause of ture effect, with consequence inherent in itself. This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth. Its enemy is wholeness. It conceives of little things and looks upon them. And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision that sees differently, becomes the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny. Yet does this other vision still remain a natural direction for the mind to channel its perception. It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names,and thousands more. Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved, and concepts can be meaningfully shared. This is the sum of the inheritnace the world bestows. And everyone who learns to think that it is so accepts the signs and synbols that assert the world is real. It is for this they stand. They leave no doubt that what is named is there. It can be seen, as is anticipated. What denies that it is true is but illusion, for it is the ultimate reality. To question it is madness; to accept its presence is the proof of sanity. Such is the teaching o the world. It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through. But the sooner he perceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises,how doubtful its results, the sooner does he question its effects. Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning. In its proper place, it serves but as a starting point from which another kind of learning can begin, a new perception can be gained, and all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn as they are raised to doubt. Think not you made the world. Illusions, yes! But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming. When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. His true Identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is.His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own. And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his. It would indeed be strange if you were asked to go beyond all symbols of the world, forgetting them forever; yet were asked to take a teaching function. You have need to use the symbols of the world a while. But be you not deceived by them as well. They do not stand for anything at all, and in your practicing itis this thought that will release you from them. They become but means by which you can communicate in ways the world can understand, but which you recognizeis not the unity where true communication can be found. Thus what you need are intervals each day in which the learning of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go into the sunlight and forget the darkness. Here you understand the Word, the Name Which God has given you; the one Identity Which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true. And then step back to darkness, not because you think it real, but only to proclaim its unreality in terms which still have meaning in the world that darkness rules. Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness. Yet accept them not as your reality. The Holy Spirit uses all of them, but He does not forget creation has one Name, one Meaning, and a single Source Which unifies all things within Itself. Use all the names the world bestows on them but for conveniance, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with you. God has no name. And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson does all learning end. All names are unified; all space is filled with truth´s reflection. Every gap is closed, and separation healed. The Name of God is the inheritance He gave to those who chose the teaching of the world to take the place of Heaven. In our practicing, our purpose is to let our minds accept what God has given as the answer to the pitiful inheritance you made as fitting tribute to the Son He loves. No one can fail who seeks the meaning of the Name of God. Experience must come to supplement the Word. But first you must accept the Name for all reality, and realize the many names you gave its aspects have distorted what you see, but have not interfered with truth at all. One Name we bring into our practicing. One Name we use unify our sight. And though we use a different name for each awarness of an aspect of God´s Son, we understand that they have but one Name, Which He has given them. It is this Name we use in practicing. And through Its use, all foolish separations disappear which kept us blind. And we are given strength to see beyond them. Now our sight is blessed with blessings we can give as we receive.

”Father, our Name is Yours. In It we are united with all living things, and You Who are their one Creator.What we made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your Own Reality. And we are glad and thankful we were wrong. All our mistakes we give to You, that we may be absolved from all effects our errors seemed to have. And we accept the truth You give, in place of every one of them. Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made. Your Name unites us in the oneness which is our inheritance and peace. Amen.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 185

”I want the peace of God.”

To say these words is nothing.But to mean these words is everything. If you could but mean them for just an instant, there would be no further sorrow possible for you in any form; in any place of time. Heaven would be completely given back to full awareness, memory of God entirely restored, the resurrection of all creation full recognized. No one can mean these words and not be healed. He cannot play with dreams, nor think he is himself a dream. He cannot make a hell and think it real. He wants the peace of God, and it is given him. For that is all he wants, and that is all he will receive. Many have said these words. But few indeed have meant them. You have but to look upon the world you see around you to be sure how very few they are. The world would be completely changed, should any two agree these words express the only thing they want. Two minds with one intent become so strong that what they will becomes the Will of God. For minds can only join in truth. In dreams, no two can share the same intent. To each, the hero of the dream is different; the outcome wanted not the same for both. Loser and gainer merely shift about in changing patterns, as the ration of gain to loss and loss to gain takes on a different aspect or another form. Yet compromise alone adream can bring. Sometimes it takes the form of union, but only the form. The meaning must escape the dream, for comromising is the goal of dreaming. Minds cannot unite in dreams. They merely bargain. And what bargain can give them the peace of God? Illusions come to take His place. And what He means is lost to sleeping minds intent on compromise, each to his gain and to another´s loss. To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams. For no one means these words who wants illusions, and who therefore seeks the means which bring illusions. He has looked on them, and found them wanting. Now he seeks to go beyond them, recongizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others. Dreams are one to him. And he has learned their only difference is one of form, for one will bring the same despair and misery as do the rest. The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with other minds, for that is how peace is obtained. And when the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given, in a form each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand. Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for him in such a way that he can not mistake it, if his asking is sincere. But if he asks without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will meet with acceptance and be truly learned. Let us today devote our practicing to recongnizing that we really mean the words we say. We want the peace of God. This is no idle wish. These words do not request another dream be given us. They do not ask for compromise,nor try to make another bargain in the hope that there may yet be one that can succeed where all the rest have failed. To mean these words ackonowledges illusions are in vain, requesting the eternal in the place of shifting dreamswhich seem to change in what they offer, but are one in nothingness. Today devote your practice periods to carful searching of your mind, to find the dreams you cherish still. What do you ask for in your heart? Forget the words you use is making your requests. Consider but what you believe will comfort you, and bring you happiness. But be you not dismayed by lingering illusions,for their form is not what matters now. Let not some dreams be more acceptable,reserving shame and secrecy for others. They are one. And being one, one question should be asked of all of them, ”Is this what I would have, in place of Heaven and the peace of God?” This is the choice you make. Be not deceived that it is otherwise. No compromise is possible in this. You choose God´s peace, or you have asked for dreams. And dreams will come as you requested them. Yet will God´s peace come just as certainly, and to remain with you forever. It will not be gone with every twist and turning of the road, and reappear, unrecogized, informs which shift and change with every step you take. You want the peace of God.And so do all who seem to seek for dreams. For them as well as for yourself,you ask but this when you make this request with deep sincerity. For thus you reach to what they really want, and join your own intent with what they seek above all things, perhaps unknown to them, but sure to you. You have been weak at times, uncertain in your purpose, and unsure of what you wanted, where to look for it, and where to turn for help in the attempt. Help has been given you. And would you not avail yourself of it by sharing it? No one who truly seeks the peace of God can fain to find it. For he merely asks that he decieve himself no longer by denying to himself what is God´s Will. Who can remain unsatisfied who asks for what he as already? Who could be unanswered who requests an answer which is his to give? The peace of God is yours. For you was peace created, given you by its Creator, and established as His Own eternal gift. How can you fail, when you but ask for what He wills for you? And how could your request be limited to you alone? No gift of God can be unshared. It is this attribute that sets the gifts of God apart from every dream that Evers eemed to take the place of truth. No one can lose and everyone must gain whenever any gift of God has been requested and received by anyone. God gives but to unite. To take away is meaningless to Him. And when it is as meaningless to you, you can be sure you share one Will with Him, and He with you. And you will also know you share one Will with all your brothers, whose intent is yours. It is this one intent we seek today, uniting our desire with the need of every heart, the call of every mind, the hope that lies beyond despair, the love attack would hide, the brohterhood that hate has sought to sever, but which still remains as God created it. With Help like this beside us, can we fail today as we request the peace of God be given us?

Love