IA´s Journal

[IA56]

The Irreconcilable Beliefs

The memory of God comes to the quiet mind.It cannot come where there is conflict, for a mind at war against itself remembers not eternal gentleness. The means of war are not the means of peace,and what a war like would remember is not love. War is impossible unless belief in victory is cherished. Conflict within you must imply that you believe the ego has the power to be victorious. Why else would you identify with it? Surely you realize the ego is at war with God. Certain it is it has no enemy. Yet just as certain it its fixed belief it has an enemy that it must overcome and will succeed. Do you not realize a war against yourself would be a war on God? Is victory conceivable? And if it were, is this a victory that you would want? The death of God, if it was possible, would be your death. Is this a victory? The ego always marches to defeat, because it thinks that triumph over you is possible. And God thinks otherwise. This is no war; only the mad belief the Will of god can be attacked and overthrown. You may identify with this belief,but never will it be more than madness. And fear will regin in madness, and will seem to have replaced love there. This is the conflict´s purpose. And to those who think that it is possible, the means seem real. Be certain that it is impossible God and the ego, or yourself and it, will ever meet. You seem to meet, and make your strange alliance on grounds that have no meaning. For your beliefs converge upon the body, the ego´s chosen home, which you believe is yours. You meet at a mistake; an error in your self-appraisal. The ego join swith an illusion of yourself you share with it. And yet illusions cannot join.They are the same, and they are nothing. Their joining lies in nothingness; two are as meaningless as one or as a thousand. The ego joins with nothing, beingnothing. The victory it seeks is meaningless as is itself. Brother, the waragainst yourself is almost over. The journey´s end is at the place of peace.Would you not now accept the peace offered you here? This ”enemy” you fought asan intruder on your peace is here transformed, before your sight, into thegiver of your peace. Your ”enemy” was God Himself, to Whom all conflict,triumph and attack of any kind are all unknown. He loves you perfectly,completely and eternally. The Son of God at war with his Creator is a conditionas ridiculous as nature roaring at the wind in anger, proclaiming it is part ofitself no more. Could nature possibly establish this, and make it true? Nor isit up to you to say what shall be part of you and what is kept apart. The waragainst yourself was undertaken to teach the Son of God that he is not himself,and not his Father´s Son. For this, the memory of his Father must be forgotten.It is forgotten in the body´s life, and if you think you are a body, you willbelieve you have forgotten it. Yet truth can never be forgotten by itself, andyou have not forgotten what you are. Only a strange illusion of yourself, awish to triumph over what you are, remembers not. The war against yourself isbut the battle of two illusions, struggling to make them different from eachother, in the belief the one that conquers will be true. There is no conflictbetween them and the truth. Nor are they different from each other. Both arenot true. And so it matters not what form they take. What made them is insane,and they remain part of what made them. Madness holds out no menace to reality,and has no influence upon it. Illusions cannot triumph over truth, nor can theythreaten it in any way. And the reality that they deny is not a part of them.What you remember is a part of you. For you must be as God created you. Truthdoes not fight against illusions, nor do illusions fight against the truth.Illusions battle only with themselves. Being fragmented, they fragment. Buttruth is indivisible, and far beyond their little reach. You will remember whatyou know when you have learned you cannot be in conflict. One illusion aboutyourself can battle with another, yet the war of two illusions is a state wherenothing happens. There is no victor and there is no victory. And truth standsradiant, apart from conflict, untouched and quiet in the peace of God. Conflictmust be between two forces. It cannot exist between one power and nothingness.There is nothing you could attack that is not part of you. And by attacking ityou make two illusions of yourself, in conflict with each other. And thisoccurs whenever you look on anything that God created with anything but love.Conflict is fearful, for it is the birth of fear. Yet what is born of nothingcannot win reality through battle. Why would you fill your world with conflictswith yourself? Let all this madness be undone for you, and turn in peace to therememberance of God, still shining in your quiet mind. See how the conflict ofillusions disappears whe it is brought to truth! For it seems real only as longas it is seen as war between conflicting truths; the conqueror to be the truer,the more real, and the vanquisher of the illusion that was less real, made inillusion by defeat. Thus, conflict is the choice between illusions, one to becrowned as real, the other vanquished and despised. Here will the Father neverbe remembered. Yet no illusions can invade His home and drive Him out of whatHe loves forever. And what He loves must be forever quiet and at peace becauseit is His home. You who are beloved of Him are no illusion, being as true andholy as Himself. The stillness of your certainty of Him and of yourself is hometo both of You. Who dwell as one and not apart. Open the door of His most holyhome, and let forgiveness sweep away all trace of the belief in sin that keepsGod homeless and His Son with Him. You are not strangers in the house of God.Welcome your brother to the home where God has set him in serenity and peace,and dwells with him. Illusions have no place where love abides, protecting youfrom everything that is not true. You dwell in peace as limitless as itCreator, and everything is given those who would remember Him. Over His homethe Holy Spirit watches, sure that its peace can never be disturbed. How canthe resting place of God turn on itself, and seek to overcome the One Whodwells there ? And think what happens when the house of God perceives itselfdivided. The altar disappears, the light grows dim, and temple of the Holy Onebecomes a house of sin. And nothing is remembered except illusions. Illusionscan conflict, because their forms are different. And they do battle only toestablish which form is true. Illusions meets illusions; truth, itself. Themeeting of illusions leads to war. Peace, looking on itself, extends itself.War is the condition in which fear is born, and grows and seeks to dominate.Peace is the state where love abides, and seeks to share itself. Conflict andpeace are opposites. Where one abides the other cannot be; where either goesthe other disappears. So is the memory of God obscure in minds that have becomeillusion´s battleground. Yet far beyond this senseless war it shines, ready tobe remembered when you side with peace.

Love

[IA56]

The Laws of Chaos

The ”laws” of chaos can be brought to light, though never understood Chaotic laws are hardly meaningful, and therefore out of reason´s sphere. Yet they appear to be an obstacle to reason and to truth. Let us, then, look upon them calmly, that we may look beyond them, understanding what they are, not what they would maintain. It is essential it be understood what they are for, because it is their purpose to make meaningless, and to attack the truth. Here are the laws that rule the world you made. And yet they govern nothing, and need not be broken; merely looked upon and gone beyond. The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone. Like all these principles, this one maintains that each is separate and has a different set of thoughts that set him off from others.This principle evolves from the belief there is a hierarchy of illusions; some are more valuable and therefore true. Each one establishes this for himself,and makes it true by his attack on what another values. And this is justified because the values differ, and those who hold them seem to be unlike, and theremore enemies. Think how this seems to interfere with the first principle of miracles. For this establishes degree of truth among illusions, making it seem that some of them are harder to overcome than others. If it were realized that they are all the same and equally untrue, it would be easy, then, to understand that miracles apply to all of them. Errors of any kind can be corrected because they are untrue. When brought to truth instead of to each other, they merely disappear. No part of nothing can be resistant to the truth than can another. The second law of chaos, dear indeed to every worshipper ofsin, is that each one must sin, and therefore deserves attack and death. Thisprinciple, closely related to the first, is the demand that errors call forpunishment and not correction. For the destruction of the one who makes theerror places him beyond correction and beyond forgiveness. What he has done isthus interpreted as an irrevocable sentence upon himself, which God Himself ispowerless to overcome. Sin cannot be remitted, being the belief the Son of Godcan make mistakes for which his own destruction becomes inevitable. Think whatthis seems to do to the relationship between the Father and the Son. Now itappears that they can never be one again. For one must always be condemned, andby the other. Now are they different, and enemies. And their relationship isone of opposition, just as the separate aspects of the Son meet only toconflict but not to join. One becomes weak, the other strong by his defeat. Andfear of God and of each other now appears as sensible, made real by what theSon of God has done both to himself and his Creator. The arrogance on which thelaws of chaos stand could not be more apparent than emerges here. Here is aprinciple that would define what the Creator of reality must be; what He mustthink and what He must believe; and how He must respond, believing it. It isnot seen as even necessary that He be asked about the truth of what has beenestablished for His belief. His Son can tell Him this, and He has but thechoice whether to take his word for it or be mistaken. This leads directly tothe third preposterous belief that seems to make chaos eternal. For if Godcannot be mistaken, He must accept his Son´s belief in what he is, and hate himfor it. See how the fear of God is reinforced by this third principle. Now itbecomes impossible to turn to Him for help in misery. For now He has become the”enemy” Who caused it, to Whom appeal is useless. Nor can salvation lie withinthe Son, whose every aspect seams to be at war with Him, and justified in itsattack. And now is conflict made inevitable, beyond the help of God. For nowsalvation must remain impossible, beyond the help of God. For now salvationmust remain impossible, because the savior has become the enemy. There can beno release and no escape. Atonement thus becomes a myth, and vengeance, notforgiveness, is the Will of God. From where all this begins, there is no sightof help that can succeed. Only destruction can be the outcome. And God Himselfseems to be siding with it, to overcome His Son. Think not the ego will enableyou to find escape from what it wants. That is the function of this course,which does not value what the ego cherishes. The ego values only what it takes.This leads to the fourth law of chaos, which, if the others are accepted, mustbe true. This seeming law is the belief you have what you have taken. By this,another´s loss becomes your gain, and thus it fails to recognize that you cannever take away save from yourself. Yet all the other laws must lead to this.For enemies do not give willingly to one another, nor would they seek to sharethe things they value. And what your enemies would keep from you must be worthhaving, because they keep it hidden from your sight. All of the mechanisms ofmadness are seen emergin here: The ”enemy” made strong by keeping hidden thevaluable inheritance that should be yours; your justified position and attackfor what has been withheld; and the inevitable loss the enemy must suffe tosave yourself. Thus do the guilty ones protest their ”innocence.” Were they notforced into this foul attack by the unscrupulous behavior of the enemy, theywould respond with only kindness. But in a savage world the kind cannotsurvive, so they must take or else be taken from. And now there is a vagueunanswered question, not yet ”explained.” What is this precious thing, thispriceless pearl, this hidden secret treasure, to be wrested in righteous wrathfrom this most treacherous and cunning enemy? It must be what you want butnever found. And now you ”understand” the reason why you found it not. For itwas taken from you by this enemy, and hidden where you would not think to look.He hid it in his body, making it to cover for his guilt, the hiding place forwhat belongs to you. Now must his body be destroyed and sacrificed, that youmay have that which belongs to you. His treachery demands his death, that youmay live. And you attack only in self-defense. But what is it you want thatneeds his death? Can you be sure your murderous attack is justified unless youknow what it is for? And here a final principle of chaos comes to the ”rescue.”It holds there is a substitute for love. This is the magic that will cure allof your pain; the missing factor in your madness that makes it ”sane.” This isthe reason why you must attack. Here is what makes your vengeance justified.Behold, unveiled, the ego´s secret gift, torn form your brother´s body, hidden therein malice and in hatred for the one to whom the gift belongs. He would depriveyou of the secret ingredient that would give meaning to your life. Thesubstitute for love, born of your enmity to one another, must be salvation. Ithas no substitute, and there is only one. And all your relationships have butthe purpose of seizing it and making it your own. Never is your possession madecomplete. And never will your brother cease his attack on you for what youstole. Nor will God end His vengeance upon both, for in His madness He musthave this substitute for love, and kill you both. You who believe you walk insanity with feet on solid ground, and though a world where meaning can befound, consider this: There are the principles which make the ground beneathyour feet seem solid. And it is here you look for meaning. These are the lawsyou made for your salvation. They hold in place the substitute for Heaven whichyou prefer. This is their purpose; they were made for this. There is no pointin asking what they mean. This is apparent. The means of madness must beinsane. Are you as certain that you realize the goal is madness? No one wantsmadness, nor does anyone cling to his madness if he sees that this is what itis. What protects madness is the belief that it is true. It is the function ofinsanity to take the place of truth. It must be seen as truth to be believed.And if it is the truth, then must its opposite, which was the truth before, bemadness now. Such a reversal, completely turned around, with madness sanity,illusions true, attack a kindness, hatred love, and murder benediction, is thegoal of the laws of chaos serve. These are the means by which the laws of Godappear to be reversed. Here do the laws of sin appear to hold love captive, andlet sin go free. These do not seem to be the goals of chaos, for by the greatreversal they appear to be the laws of order. How could it not be so? Chaos islawlessness, and has no laws. To be believed, its seeming laws must beperceived as real. Ther goal of madness must be seen as sanity. And fear, withashen lips and sighless eyes, blinded and terrible to look upon, is lifted tothe throne of love, its dying conqueror, its substitute, the savior fromsalvation. How lovely do the laws of fear make death appear. Givet hanks untothe hero on love´s throne, who saved the Son of God for fear and death! Andyet, how can it be that laws like these can be believed? There is a strangedevice that makes it possible. Nor is it unfamiliar; we have seen how itappears to function many times before. In truth it does not function, yet indreams, where only shadows play the major roles, it seems most powerful. Nolaws of chos could compel belief but the emhasis on form and disregard ofcontent. No one would thinks that one of these laws is true sees what it says.Some forms it takes seem to have meaning, and that is all. How can some formsof murder not mean death? Can an attack in any form be love? What form ofcondemnation is a blessing? Who makes his savior powerless and finds salvation?Let not the form of the attack on him decive you. You cannot seek to harm himand be saved. Who can find safety from attack by turning on himself? How can itmatter what the form this madness takes? It is a judgment that defeats itself,condemning what it says it wants to save. Be not deceived when madness takes aform you think is lovely. What is intent on your destruction is not yourfriend. You would maintain, and think it true, that you do not believe thesesenseless laws, nor act upon them. And when you look at what they say, theycannot be believed. Brother, you do believe them. For how else could youperceive the form they take, with content such as this? Can any form of this betenable? Yet you believe them for the form they take, and do not recognize thecontent. It never changes. Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it inloveliness, pet it and pamper it, and make it live? And can you be content withan illusion that you are living? There is no life outside of Heaven. Where Godcreated life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life isillusion. At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both arejudgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning.Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere.Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusion stands; senseless, impossibleand beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven.Illusions are but forms. Their content is never true. The laws of chaos governall illusions. Their forms conflict, making it seem quite possible to valuesome above the others. Yet each one rests as surely on the belief the laws ofchaos are the laws of order as do the others. Each one upholds these lawscompletely, offering a certain witness that these laws are true. The seeminggentler forms of attack are no less certain in their witnessing, or theirresults. Certain it is illusions will bring fear because of the beliefs thatthey imply, not for their form. And lack of faith in love, in any form, atteststo chaos as reality. From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. Itis because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step inordered thought. The steps to chaos do follow neatly from their starting point.Each is a different form in the progression of truth´s reversal, leading stilldeeper into terror and away from truth. Think not one step is smaller thananother, nor that return from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven liesin each one. And where your thinking starts, there must it end. Brother, takenot one step in the descent to hell. For haveing taken one, you will notrecognize the rest for what they are. And they will follow. Attack in any formhas placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads from Heaven. Yet anyinstant it is possible to have all this undone. How can you know whether youchose the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell? Quite easily. How do you feel?Is peace in your awareness? Are you certain which way to go? And are you surethe goal of Heaven can be reached? If not, you walk alone. Ask, then, yourFriend to join with you, and give youcertainty of where you go.

Love

[IA56]

Salvation Without Compromise

It is not true you do not recognize some of the forms attack can take? If it is true attack in any form will hurt you, and will do so just as much as in another form that you do recognize, then it must follow that you do not always recognize the source of pain. Attack in any form is equally destructive. Its purpose does not change. Its sole intent is murder, and what form of murder serves to cover the massive guilt andd frantic fear of punishment the murderer must feel? He may deny he is a murderer and justify his savagery with smiles as he attacks. Yet he will suffer, and will look on his intent in nightmares where the smiles are gone, and where the purpose rises to meet his horrified awareness and pursue him still. For no one thinks of murder and escapes the guilt the thought entails. If the intent is death, what matter the form it takes? Is death in any form, however lovely and charitable it may seem to be, a blessing and a sign to Voice for God speaks through you to your brother? The wrapping does not make the gift you give. An empty box, however beautiful and gently given, still contains nothing. And neither the receiver nor the giver is long deceived. Withhold forgiveness for your brother and you attack him. You give him nothing, and recive of him but what you gave.Salvation is no compromise of any kind. To compromise is to accept but part of what you want; to take a little and give up the rest. Salvation gives up nothing. It is complete for everyone. Let the idea of compromise but enter, and the awareness of salvation´s purpose is lost because it is not recognized. Itis denied where compromise has been accepted, for compromise is the belief salvation is impossible. It would maintain you can attack a little, love a little, and know the difference. Thus it would teach a little of the same can still be different, and yet the same remain intact, as one. Does this make sense?Can it be understood? This course is easy just because it makes no compromise.Yet it seems difficult to those who still believe that compromise is possible.They do not see that, if it is, salvation is attack. Yet it is certain thebelief that salvation is impossible cannot uphold a quiet, calm assurance ithas come. Forgiveness cannot be withheld a little. Nor is it possible to attackfor this and love for that and understand forgiveness. Would you not want torecognize assault upon your peace in any form, if only thus does it becomeimpossible that you lose sight of it? It can be kept shining before yourvision, forever clear and never out of sight, if you defend it not. Those whobelieve that peace can be defended, and that attack is justified on its behalf,cannot perceive it lies within them. How could they know? Could they acceptforgiveness side by side with the belief that murder takes some forms by whichtheir peace is saved? Would they be willing to accept the fact their savagepurpose is directed against themselves? No one unites with enemies, nor is atone with them in purpose. And no one compromises with an enemy but hates himstill, for what he kept from him. Mistake not truce for peace, nor compromisefor the escape from conflict. To be released from conflict means that it isover. The door is open; you have left the battleground. You have not lingeredthere in cowering hope that it will not return because the guns are stilled aninstant, and the fear that haunts the place of death is not apparent. There isno safety in a battleground. You can look down on it in safety from above andnot be touched. But from within it you can find no safety. Not one tree leftstill standing will shelter you. Not one illusion of protection stands againstthe faith in murder. Here stands the body, torn between the natural desire tocommunicate and the unnatural intent to murder and to die. Think you the formthat murder takes can offer safety? Can guilt be absent from a batterfield?

Love

[IA56]

Above the Battleground

The fear of God is fear of life, and not of death. Yet He remains the only place of safety. In Him is no attack, and no illusion in any form stalks Heaven. Heaven is wholly true. No differen centers, and what is all the same cannot conflict. You are not asked to fight against your wish to murder. But you are asked to realize the form it takes conceals the same intent. And it is this you fear, and not the form. What is not love is murder. What is not loving must be an attack. Every illusion is an assault on truth, and every one does violence to the idea of love because it seems to be of equal truth. What can be equal to the truth, yet different? Murder and love are incompatible. Yet if they both are true, then must they be the same, and in distinguishable from one another. So will they be to those who see God´s Son a body. For it is not the body that is like the Son´s Creator.And what is lifeless cannot be the Son of Life. How can a body be extended to hold the universe? Can it create, and be what it creates? And can it offer its creations all that it is and never suffer loss? God does not share His function with a body. He gave the function to create unto His Son because it is His Own. It is not sinful to believe the function of the Son is murder, but it is insanity. What is the same can have no different function. Creation is the means for God´s extension, and what is His must be His Son´s as well. Either the Father and Son are murderers, or neither is. Life makes not death, creating like itself. The lovely light of your relationship is like the Love of God. It cannot yet assume the holy function God gave His Son, for your forgiveness of your brother is not complete as yet, and so it cannot be extended to all creation. Each form of murder and attack that still attracts you and that you do not recognize for what it is, limits the healing and the miracles you have the power to extend to all. Yet does the Holy Spirit understand how it increase your little gifts and make them mighty. Also He understands how yourrelationship is raised above the battleground, in it no more. This is yourpart; to realize that murder in any form is not your will. The overlooking of thebattleground is now your purpose. Be lifted up, and from a higher place lookdown upon it. From there will your perspective be quite different. Here in themidst of it, it does seem real. Here you have chosen to be part of it. Heremurder is your choice. Yet from above, the choice is miracles instead ofmurder. And the perspective coming from this choice shows you the battle is notreal, and easily escaped. Bodies may battle, but the clash of forms ismeaningless. And it is over when you realize it never was begun. How can abattle be perceived as nothingness when you engage in it? How can the truth ofmiracles be recognized if murder is your choice? When the temptation to attackrises to make your mind darkened and murderous, remember you can see the battlefrom above. Even in forms you do not recognize, the signs you know. There is astab of pain, a twinge of guilt, and above all, a loss of peace. This you knowwell. When they occur leave not your place on high, but quicly choose a miracleinstead of murder. And God Himself and all the lights of Heaven will gentlylean to you, and hold you up. For you have chosen to remain where He would haveyou, and no illusion can attack the peace of God together with His Son. See noone from the battleground, for there you look on him from nowhere. You have noreference point from where to look, where meaning can be given what you see.For only bodies could attack and murder, and if this your purpose, then you mustbe solitary. From below, it cannot be surmounted. From above, the limits itexerts on those in battle still are gone, and not perceived. The body standsbetween the Father and the Heaven He created from His Son because it has nopurpose. Think what is given those who share their Father´s purpose, and whoknow that it is theirs. They want for nothing. Sorrow of any kind isinconceivable. Only the light they love is in awareness, and only love shinesupon them forever. It is their past, their present and their future; always thesame, eternally complete and wholly shared. They know it is impossible theirhappiness could ever suffer change of any kind. Perhaps you think thebattleground can offer something you can win. Can it be anything that offersyou a perfect calmness, and a sense of love so deep and quiet that no touch ofdoubt can ever mar your certainty? And that will last forever? Those with thestrength of God in their awareness could never think of battle. What could theygain but loss of their perfection? For everything fought for on thebattleground is of the body; something it seems to offer or to own. No one whoknows that he has everything could seek for limitation, nor could he value thebody´s offerings. The senselessness of conquest is quite apparent from thequiet sphere above the battleground. What can conflict with everything? Andwith the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murderhard to make?

Love

[IA56]

THE GOAL OF SPECIALNESS

Forget not that the motivation for this course is the attainment and the keeping of the state of peace. Given this state the mind is quiet, and the condition in which God is remembered is attained. It is not necessary to tell Him what to do. He will not fail. Where He can enter, there He is already. And can it be He cannot enter where He wills to be? Peace will be yours because it is His Will. Can you believe a shadow can hold back the Will that holds the universe secure? God does not wait upon illusions to let Him be Himself. No more His Son. They are. And what illusion that idly seems to drift between them has the power to defeat what is Their Will? To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your learning. No belief is neutral. Every one has the power to dictate each decision you make. For a decision is a conclusion based on everything that you believe. It is the outcome of belief, and follows it as surely as does suffering follow guilt and freedom sinlessness. There is no substitute for peace. What God creates has no alternative. The truth arises from what He knows. And your decisions come from your beliefs as certainly as all creation rose in His Mind because of what He knows.

Love

[CFTraveler]

"Forget not that the motivation for this course is the attainment and the keeping of the state of peace. Given this state the mind is quiet, and the condition in which God is remembered is attained." Often people ask me what the benefits of meditation are- I always back off from saying something like this, because I'm afraid if I sound 'religious' I'll turn them off. But it's what I think.

[IA56]

"Forget not that the motivation for this course is the attainment and the keeping of the state of peace. Given this state the mind is quiet, and the condition in which God is remembered is attained." Often people ask me what the benefits of meditation are- I always back off from saying something like this, because I'm afraid if I sound 'religious' I'll turn them off. But it's what I think.

Yes, that is Always the risk, but our World is "built" on "religion" isn´t it, and why it will alwatys turn us off from the Peace....
As I told in the beginning of this journal that it is written Little too "religious" it would have bean better to remind that "Jesus Christ" did not come here to start an religon, only to free us...and what have we "humans" done....exactly...
But this course is so good that it can´t be hidden away.....

Love
ia

[IA56]

Specialness as a Substitute for Love

Love is extention. To withhold the smallest gift is not to know love´s purpose. Love offers everything forever. Hold back but one belief, one offering, and love is gone, because you asked a substitute to take its place. And now must war, the substitute for peace, come with the one alternative that you can choose for love. Your choosing it has given it all the reality it seems to have. Belief will never openly attack each other because conflicting outcomes are impossible. But an unrecognized belief is a decision to war is secret, where the results of conflict are kept unknown and never brought to reason, to be considered senisble or not. And many senseless outcomes have been reached, and meaningless decisions have been made and kept hidden, to become beliefs now given power to direct all subsequent decisions. Mistake you not the power of these hidden warriors to disrupt your peace. For it is at their mercy while you decide to leave it there. The secret enemies of peace, your least decission to choose attack instead of love, unrecognized and swift to challenge you to combat and to violence far more inclusive than you think, are there by your election. Do not deny their precence nor their terrible results. All that can be denied is their reality, but not theiroutcome. All that is ever cherished as a hidden belief, to be defended though unreconginzed, is faith in specialness. This takes many forms, but Always clashes with the reality of God´s creation and with the grandeur that He gave His Son. What else could justify attack? For who could hate someone whose Self is his, and Whom he knows? Only the special could have enemies, for they are different and not the same. And difference of any kind imposes orders of reality, and a need to judge that cannot be escaped. What God created cannot be attacked, for there is nothing in the universe unlike itself. But what is different calls for judgment, and this must come form someone ”better,” someone incapable of being like what he condemns, ”above” it, sinless by comparison with it. And thus does specialness become a means and end at once. For specialness not only sets apart, but serves as grounds from which attack on those who seem ”beneath” the special one is ”natural” and ”just”. The special ones feel weak and frail because of differences, for what would make them special is their enemy. Yet they protect its enmity and call it ”friend”. On its behalf they fight against the universe, for nothing in the world they value more. Specialness is the great dictator of the wrong decisions. Here is the grand illusion of what you are and what your brother is. And here is what must make the body dear and worth preserving. Specialness must be defended.Illusions can attack it, and they do. For what your brother must become to keep your specialness is an illusion. He who is ”worse” than you must be attacked,so that your specialness can live on his defeat. For specialness is triumph,and its victory is his defeat and shame. How can he live, with all your sins upon him? And who must be his conqueror but you? Would it be possible for you to hate your brother if you were like him? Could you attack him if you realized your journey with him, to a goal that is the same? Would you not help him reachit in every way you could, if his attainment of it were perceived as yours? Youare his enemy in specialness; his friend in a shared purpose. Specialness cannever share, for it depends on goals that you alone can reach. And he mustnever reach them, or your goal is jepordized. Can love have meaning where thegoal is triumph? And what decision can be made for this that will not hurt you?Your brother is your friend because his Father created him like you. There isno difference. You have been given to each other that love might be extended, notcut off from one another. What you keep is lost to you. God gave you bothHimself, and to remember this is now the only purpose that you share. And so itis the only one you have. Could you attack each other if you chose to see nospecialness of any kind between you? Look fairly at whatever makes you giveeach other only partial welcome, or would let you think that you are better offapart. Is it not always your belief your specialness is limited by yourrelationship? And is not this the ”enemy” that makes you both illusions to eachother? The fear of God and of each other comes from each unrecognized belief inspecialness. For each demands the other bow to it against his will. And GodHimself must honor it or suffer vengeance. Every twinge of malice, or stab ofhate or wish to separate arises here. For here the purpose that you sharebecomes obscure from both of you. You would oppose this course because itteaches you you are alike. You have no purpose that is not the same, and noneyour Father does not share with you. For your relationship has been made cleanof special goals. And would you now defeat the goal of holiness that Heavengave it? What perspective can the special have that does not change with everyseeming blow, each slight, or fancied judgment on itself? Those who are specialmust defend illusions against the truth. For what is specialness but an attack uponthe Will of God? You love your brother not while it is this you would defendagainst him. This is what he attacks, and you protect. Here is the ground ofbattle which you wage against him. Here must he be your enemy and not yourfriend. Never can there be peace among the different. He is your friend becauseyou are the same.

Love

[IA56]

The Treachery of Specialness

Comparison must be an ego device, for love makes none. Specialness always makes comparisons. It is established by a lack seen in another, and maintained by serching for, and keeping clear in sight,all lacks it can perceive. This does it seek, and this it looks upon. And always whom it thus diminishes would be your savior, had you not chosen to make of him a tiny measure of your specialness instead. Against the littleness you see in him you stand as tall and stalely, clean and honest, pure and unsullied,by comparison with what you see. Nor do you understand it is yourself that you diminish thus. Pursuit of specialness is always at the cost of peace. Who can attack his savior and cut him down, yet recognize his strong support? Who can detract from his omnipotence, yet share his power? And who can use him as the gauge of littleness, and be released from limits? You have a function in salvation. Its pursuit will bring you joy. But the pursuit of specialness must bring you pain. Here is a goal that would defeat salvation, and thus run conter to the Will of God. To value specialness is to esteem an alien will to which illusions of yourself are dearer than the truth. Specialness is the idea of sin made real. Sin is impossible even to imagine without this base. For sin arose from it, out of nothingness; an evil flower with no roots at all. Here is theself-made ”savior,” the ”creator” who creates unlike the Father, and which made His Son like to itself and not like unto Him. His ”special” sons are many,never one, each one in exile from himself, and Him of Whom they are a part. Nor do they love the Oneness Which created them as one with Him. They chose their specialness instead of Heaven and instead of peace, and wrapped it carefully in sin, so keep it ”safe” from truth. You are not special. If you think you are,and would defend your specialness against the truth of what you really are, how can you know the truth? What answer that the Holy Spirit gives can reach you,when it is your specialness to which you listen, and which asks and answers?Its tiny answer, soundless in the melody that pours from God to your eternally in loving praise of what you are, is all you listen to. And that vast song of honorand of love for what you are seems silent and unheard before its ”mightiness.”You strain your ears to hear its soundless voice, and yet the Call of GodHimself is soundless to you. You can defend your specialness, but never willyou hear the Voice of God beside it. They speak a different language and theyfall on different ears. To every special one a different message, and one withdifferent meaning, is the truth. Yet how can truth be different to each one?The special messages the special hear convince them they are different andapart; each in his special sins and ”safe” from love, which does not see hisspecialness at all. Christ´s vision is their ”enemy,” for it sees not what theywould look upon, and it would show them that the specialness they think theysee is an illusion. What would they see instead? The shining radiance of theSon of God, so like his Father that the memory of Him springs instantly tomind. And with this memory, the Son remembers his own creations, as like to himas he is to his Father. And all the world he made, and all his specialness, andall the sins he held in its defense against himself, will vanish as his mindaccepts the truth about himself, as it returns to take their place. This is theonly ”cost” of truth: You will no longer see what never was, nor hear whatmakes no sound. Is it a sacrifice to give up nothing, and to receive the Loveof God forever? You who have chained your savior to your specialness, and givenit his place, remember this: He has not lost the power to forgive you all thesins you think you placed between him and the function, any more than you canchange the truth in him and in yourself. But be you sertain that the truth isjust the same in both. It gives no different messages, and has no meaning. Andit is one you both can understand, and one that brings release to both of you.Here stands your brother with the key to Heaven in his hand, held out to you.Let not the dream of specialness remain between you. What is one is joined intruth. Think of the loveliness that you will see within yourself, when you havelooked on him as on a friend. He is the enemy of specialness, but only friendto what is real in you. Not one attack you thought you made on him has takenfrom him the gift that God would have him give to you. His need to give it isas great as yours to have it. Let him forgive you all your specialness, andmake you whole in mind and one with him. He waits for your forgiveness onlythat he may return it unto you. It is not God Who has condemned His Son, butyou, to save his specialness and kill his Self. You have come far along the wayof truth; to far to falter now. Just one step more, and every vestige of thefear of God will melt away in love. Your brother´s specialness and yours areenemies, and bound in hate to kill each other and deny they are the same. Yetit is not illusions that have reached this final obstacle which seems to makeGod and His Heaven to remote that they cannot be reached. Here is this holyplace does truth stand waiting to receive you both in silent blessing, and inpeace so real and so encompassing that nothing stands outside. Leave allillusions of yourself outside this place, to which you come in hope andhonesty. Here is your savior from your specialness. He is in need of youracceptance of himself as part of you, as you for his. You are alike to God asGod is to Himself. He is not special, for He would not keep one part of what Heis unto Himself, not given to His Son but kept for Him alone. And it is thisyou fear, for if He is not special, then He willed His Son to be like Him, andyour brother is like you. Not special, but possessed of everything, includingyou. Give him but what he has, remembering God gave Himself to both of you inequal love, that both might share the universe with Him Who chose that love couldnever be divided, and kept separate from what it is and must forever be. Youare your brother´s; part of love was not denied to him. But can it be that youhave lost because he is complete? What has been gien him makes you complete, asit does him. God´s Love gave you to him and him to you because He gave Himself.What is the same as God is one with Him. And only specialness could make thetruth of God and you as one seem anything but Heaven, with the hope of peace atlast in sight. Specaialness is the seal of treachery upon the gift of love.Whatever serves its purpose must be given to kill. No gift that bears its sealbut offers treachery to giver and receiver. Not one glance from eyes it veilsbut looks on sight of death. Not one believer in its potency but seeks forbargains and for compromise that would establish sin love´s substitute, and serveit faitfully. And no relationship that holds its purpose dear but clings tomurder as safety´s weapon, and the great defender of all illusions form the ”threat”of love. The hope of specialness makes it seem possible God made the body asthe prison house that keeps His Son form Him. For it demands a special placeGod cannot enter, and a hiding place where none is welcome but your tiny self.Nothing is scared here but unto you, and you alone, apart and separate from allour brotheres; safe from all intrusions of sanity upon illusions; safe from Godand safe for conflict everlasting. Here are the gates of hell you closed uponyourself, to rule in madness and in loneliness your special kingdom, apart fromGod, away from truth and from salvation. The key you threw away God gave yourbrother, whose holy hands would offer it to you when you were ready to acceptHis plan for your salvation in the place of yours. How could this readiness bereached save through the sight of all your misery, and the awareness that yourplan has failed, and will forever fail to bring you peace and joy of any kind?Through this despair you travel now, yet it is but illusion of despair. Thedeath of specialness is not your death, but your awakening into life eternal.You but emerge from an illusion of what you are to the acceptance of yourselfas God created you.

Love

[IA56]

The Forgiveness of Specialness

Forgiveness is the end of specialness. Only illusion can be forgiven, and then they disappear. Forgiveness is released from all illusion, and that is why it is impossible but partly to forgive. No one who clings to one illusion can see himself as sinless, for he holds one error to himself as lovely still. And so he calls it ”unforgivable,”and makes it sin.How can he then give his forgiveness wholly, when he would not receive it for himself? For it is sure he would receive it wholly the instant that he gave it so. And thus his secret guilt would disappear, forgiven by himself. Whatever form of specialness you cherish, you have made sin. Inviolate it stands, strongly defended with all your puny might against the Will of God. And thus it stands against yourself; your enemy, not God´s. So does it seem to split you off from God, and make you separate from Him as its defender. You would protect what God created not. And yet, this idol that seems to give you power has taken it away. For you have given your brother´s birthright to it, leaving him alone and unforgiven, and yourself in sin beside him, both in misery, before the idol that can save you not. It is not you that is so vulnerable and open to attack that just a word, a little whisper that you do not like, a circumstance that suits you not, or an event that you did not anticipate upsets your world, and hurls it into chaos. Truth is not frail. Illusions leave it perfectly unmoved.But specialness is not the truth is you. It can be thrown off balance by anything. What rests on nothing never can be stable. However large and overblown it seems to be, it still must rock and turn and whirl about with everybreeze. Without foundation nothing is secure. Would God have left His Son insuch a state, where safety has no meaning? No, His Son is safe, resting on Him.It is your specialness that is attacked by everything that walks and breathes,or creeps or crawls, or even lives at all. Nothing is safe from its attack, andit is safe from nothing. It will forevermore be unforgiving, for that is whatit is; a secret vow that what God wants for you will never be, and that youwill oppose His Will forever. Nor it is possible the two can over be the same,while specialness stands like a flaming sword of death between them, and makesthem enemies. God asks for your forgiveness. He would have no separation, likean alien will, rise between what He wills for you and what you will. They arethe same, for neither one wills specialness. How could they will the death oflove itself? Yet they are powerless to make attack upon illusions to be broughtto them, and left behind. Salvation challanges not even death. And God Himself,Who knows that death is not your will, must say, ”Thy will be done” because youthink it is. Forgive the great Creator of the universe, the Source of life, oflove and holiness, the perfect Father of a perfect Son, for your illusions ofyour specialness. Here is the hell you chose to be your home. He chose not thisfor you. Ask not He enters this. The way is barred to love and to salvation.Yet if you would release your brother form the depths of hell, you haveforgiven Him Whose Will it is you rest forever in the arms of peace, in perfectsafety, and without the heat and malice of one thought of specialness to maryour rest. Forgive the Holy One the specialness He could not give, and that youmade instead. The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world ofloveliness they do not see. Freedom and peace and joy stands there, beside thebier on which they sleep, and call them to come forth and waken from theirdream of death. Yet they hear nothing. They are lost in dreams of specialness.They hate the call that would awaken them, and they curse God because Hed id notmake their dream reality. Curse God and die, but not by Him Who make not death;by only in the dream. Open your eyes a little; see the savior God gave to youthat you might look on him, and give him back his birthright. It is yours. The slavesof specialness will yet be free. Such is the Will of God and of His Son. Would Godcondemn Himself to hell and to damnation? And do you will that this be doneunto your salvior? God calls to you from him to join His Will to save you bothfrom hell. Look on the print of nails upon his hands that he holds out for yourforgiveness. God asks your mercy on His Son and on Himself. Deny Them not. Theyask of you but that your will be done. They seek your love that you may loveyourself. Love not your specialness instead of Them. The print of nails are onyour hand as well. Forgive your Father it was not His Will that you becrucified.

Love