IA´s Journal

[IA56]

The Special Function

The grace of God rests gently on forgiving eyes, and everything they look on speaks of Hm to the beholder. He can see no evil; nothing in the world to fear, and no one who is different from himself. And as he loves them, so he looks upon himself with love and gentleness. He would no more condemn himself for his mistakes the damn another. He is not an arbiter of vengeance, nor a punisher of sin. The kindness of his sight rests on himself with all the tenderness it offers others. For he would only heal and only bless. And being in accord with what God wills, he has the power to heal and bless all those he looks on with the grace of God upon his sight. Eyes become used to darkness, and the light of brilliant day seems painful to the Eyes grown long accustomed to the dim effects perceived at twilight. And they turn away from sunlight and the clarity it brings to what they look upon. Dimness seems better; easier to see, and better recongized. Somehow the vague and more obscure seems easier to look upon; less painful to the eyes than what is wholly clear and unambiguous. Yet this is not what eyes are for, and who can say that he prefers the darkness and maintain he wants to see? The wish to see calls down the grace of God upon your eyes, and brings the gift of light that makes sight possible. Would you behold your brother? God is glad to have you look on him. He does not will your savior be unrecongized by you. Nor does He will that he remain without the function that He gave to him. Let him no more be lonely, for the lonely ones are those who see no function in the world for them to fill; no place where they are needed, and no aim which only they can perfectly fulfill. Such is the Holy Spirit´s kind perception of specialness; His use of what you made, to heal instead of harm. To each He gives a special function you made, to heal instead of harm. To each he gives a special function in salvation he alone can fill; a part of only him. Nor is the plan complete until he finds his special function, and fulfills the part assigned to him, to make himself complete within a world where in completion rules. Here, where the laws of God do not prevail in perfect form, can he yet do one perfect thing and make one perfect choice. And by this act of special faithfulness to onw perceived as other than himself, he learns the gift was given to himself, and so they must be one. Forgiveness is the only function meaningful in time. It is the means the Holy Spirit uses to translate specialness from sin into salvation.Forgiveness is for all. But when it rests on all it is complete, and every function of this world completed with it. Then is time no more. Yet while in time, there is still much to do. And each must do what is allotted him, for on his part does all the plan depend. He has a special part in time for so he chose,and choosing it, he made it for himself. His wish was not denied but changed in form, to let it serve his brother and himself, and thus become a means to save instead of lose. Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is not your home. Its laws are not imposed on you, its values are not yours. And this isseen and understood as each one takes his part in its undoing, as he did in making it. He has the means for either, as he always did. The specialness he chose to hurt himself did God appoint to be the means for his salvation, from the very instant that the choice was made. His special sin was made his special grace. His special hate became his special love. The Holy Spirit needs your special function, that His may be fulfilled. Think not you lack a special value here.You wanted it, and it is given you. All that you made can serve salvation easily and well. The son of god can make no choice the Holy Spirit cannot employ on his behalf, and not against himself. Only in darkness does your specialness appear to be attack. In light, you see it as your special function in the plan to save the Son of God from all attack, and let him understand that he is safe, as he has always been, and will remain in time and in eternity alike. This is the function given each of you for one another. Take it gently,then, from one another´s hand and let savaltion be perfectly fulfilled in both of you. Do this one thing, that everything be given you.

Love

[IA56]

The Rock of Salvation

Yet if the Holy Spirit can commute each sentence that youlaid upon yourself into a blessing, then it cannot be a sin. Sin is the only thing in all the world that cannot change. It is immutable. And on its changelessness the world depends. The magic of the world can seem to hide the pain of sin from sinners, and deceive with glitter and with guile. Yet each one knows the cost of sin is death. And so it is. For sin is a request for death, a wish to make this world´s fundation sure as love, dependable as Heaven, and as strong as God Himself. The world is safe from love to everyone who thinks sin possible. Nor will it change. Yet is it possible what God created not should share the attributes of His creation, when it opposes it in every way? It cannot be the ”sinners´s” wish for death is just as strong as in God´s Will for life. Nor can the basis of a world? He did not make be firm and sure as Heaven.How could it be that hell and Heaven are the same? And is it possible that what He did not will cannot be changed? What is immutable besides His Will? And what can share its attributes escept itself? What wish can rise against His Will,and be immutable? If you could realize nothing is changeless but the Will of God, this course would not be difficult for you. For it is this that you do not believe. Yet there is nothing else you could believe, if you but looked at what it really is. Let us go back to what we said before, and think of it more carefully. It must be so that either God is mad, or is this world a place of madness. Not one Thought of His makes any sense at all within this world. And nothing that the world believes as true has any meaning in His Mind at all.What makes no sense and has no meaning is insanity. And what is madness cannot be the truth. If one belief so deeply valued here were true, then every Thought God ever had is an illusion. And if but one Thought of His is true, then all beliefs the world gives any meaning to are false, and make no sense at all.This is the choice you make. Do not attempt to see it differently, nor twist it into something it is not. For only this decision can you make. The rest is up to God, and not to you. To justify one value that the world upholds is to deny your Father´s sanity and yours. For God and His beloved Son do not Think differently. And it is the agreement of their thought that makes the Son aco-creator with the Mind whose Thought created him. So if he chooses to Believe one thought opposed to truth, he has decided he is not this Father´s Son becuase the Son is mad, and sanity must lie apart from both the Father and the Son. This you believe. Think not that this belief depends upon the form it takes. Who thinks, or is maintained by any form of reason, believes this to be true. Sin is not real because the Father and the Son are not insane. This World is meaningless because it rests on sin. Who could create the changeless if it does not rest on truth? The Holy Spirit has the power to change the whole foundation of the world you see to something else; a basis not insane, on whicha sane perception can be based, another world perceived. And one in which nothing is contradicted that would lead the Son of God to sanity and joy.Nothing attests to death and cruelty; to separation and to difference. For here is everything perceived as one, and so one loses that each one may gain. Test everything that you believe against this one requirement, and understand that everything that meets this one demand is worthy of your faith. But nothing else. What is not love is sin, and either one perceives the other as insane and meaningless. Love is the basis for a world perceived as wholly mad to sinners,who believe theirs is the way to sanity. But sin is equally insane within the sight of love, whose gentle eyes would look beyond the madness and restpeacefully on truth. Each sees a world immutable, as each defines the changeless and eternal truth of what you are. And each reflects the changelessand eternal truth of what you are. And each reflects a view of what the Father and the Son must be, to make that viewpoint meaningful and sane. Your special function is the special form in which the fact that God is not insane appears most sensible and meaningful to you. The content is the same. The form is suited to your special needs, and to the special time and place in which you think you find yourself, and where you can be free of place and time, and allthat you believe must limit you. The Son of God cannot be bound by time nor place nor anything God did not will. Yet if His Will is seen as madness, then the form of sanity which makes it most acceptable to those who are insane requires special choice. Nor can this choice be made by the insane, whose problem is their choices are not free, and made with reason in the light of sense. It would be madness to entrust salvation to the insane. Because He is not mad has God appointed One as sane as He to raise a saner world to meet the sight of everyone who chose insanity as his salvation. To this One is given the choice of form most suitable to him; one which will not attack the world he sees, but enter into it in quietness and show him he is mad. This One but points to an alternative, another way of looking at what he has seen before,and recognizes as the world in which he lives, and thought he understood before. Now must he question this, because the form of the alternative is one which he cannot deny, nor overlook, nor fail completely to perceive at all. To each his special function is designed to be perceived as possible, and more and more desired, as it proves to him that it is an alternative he really wants.From this position does his sinfulness, and all the sin he sees within the world, offer him less and less. Until he comes to understand it cost him his sanity, and stands between him and whatever hope he has of being sane. Nor is he left without escape from madness, for he has a special part in everyone´s escape. He can no more be left outside, without a special function in the hope of peace, than could the Father overlook His Son, and pass him by in carelesst houghtlessness. What is dependeable except God´s Love. And where does sanity abide except in Him? The One Who speaks for Him can show you this, in the alternative He chose especially for you. It is God´s Will that you remember this, and so emerge from deepest mourning into perfect joy. Accept the functionthat has been assingned to you in God´s Own plan to show His Son that hell and Heaven are different, not the same. And that in Heaven they are all the same, without the differences which would have made all hell of Heaven and a heaven of hell,had such insanity been possible. The whole belief that someone loses but reflects the underlying tenet God must be insane. For in this world it seems that one must gain because another lost. If this were true, then God is mad indeed! But what is this belief exept a form of the more basic tenet, ”Sin is real, and rules the world?” For every little gain must someone lose, and pay exact amount in blood and suffering. For otherwise would evil triumph, and destruction be the total cost of any gain at all. You who believe that God is mad, look carefully at this, but hardly both. Salvation is rebirth of the idea no one can lose for anyone to gain. And everyone must gain, if anyone would be a gainer. Here is sanity restored. And on this single roch of truth can faithin God´s eternal saneness rest in perfect confidence and perfect peace. Reasonis satisfied, for all insane beliefs can be corrected here. And sin must be impossible, if this is true. This is the rock on which salvation rests, the vantage point from which the Holy Spirit gives meaning and direction to theplan in which your special function has a part. For here your special functionis made whole, because it shares the function of the whole. Remember all temptation is but this; a mad belief that God´s insanity would make you sane and give you what you want; that either God or you must lose to madness because your aims can not be reconciled. Death demands life, but life is not maintained at any cost. No one can suffer for the Will of God to be fulfilled. Salvationis His Will because you share it. Not for you alone, but for the Self That isthe Son of God. He cannot lose, for if you could the loss would be his Father´s, and in Him no loss is possible. And this is sane because it is the truth.

Love

[IA56]

Justice Returned to Love

The Holy Spirit can use all that you give to Him for your salvation. But He cannot use what you withhold, for He cannot take it from you without your willingness. For if He did, you would believe He wrested it from you against your will. And so you would not learn it is your will to be without it. You need to give it to Him wholly willingly, for if you could you had no need for Him. But this He needs; that you prefer He take it than that you keep it for yourself alone, and recognize that what brings loss to no one you would not know.This much is necessary to add to the idea no one can lose for you to gain. And nothing more. Here is the only principle salvation needs. Nor is it necessary that your faith in it be stong, unswering, and without attack from all beliefs opposed to it. You have no fixed allegiance. But remember salvation is not needed by the saved. You are not called upon to do what one divided still against himself would find impossible. Have little faith that wisdom could befound in such a state of mind. But be you thankful that only little faith is asked of you. What but a little faith remains to those who still believe in sin? What could they know of Heaven and the justice of the saved? There is a kind of justice in salvation of which the world knows nothing. To the world, justice and vengeance are the same, for sinners see justice only as their punisment, perhaps sustained by someone else, but not escaped. The laws of sin demand a victim, Who it may be makes little difference. But death must be the cost and must be paid. This is not justice, but insanity. Yet how could justice be defined without insanity where love means hate, and death is seen as victory and triumph over eternity and timelessness and life? You who know not of justice still can ask, and learn the answer. Justice looks on all in the same way. It is not just that one should lack for what another has. For that is vengeance in whatever form it takes. Justice demands no sacrifice, for any sacrifice is made that sin may be preserved and kept. It is a payment offered for the cost of sin, but not the total cost. The rest is taken from another, to be laid beside your little payment, to ”atone” for all that you would keep, and not give up. So is the victim seen as partly you, with someone else by far the greater part.So is the victim seen as partly you, with someone else by far the greater part. And in the total cost, the greater his the less is yours. And justice, being blind, is satisfied by being paid, it matters not by whom. Can this be justice? God knows not of this. But justice does He know, and knows it well. For He is wholly fair to everyone. Vengeance is alien to God´s Mind because He knows of justice. To be just is to be fair, and not be vengeful. Fairness and vengeanceare impossible, for each one contradicts the other and denies that it is real.It is impossible for you to share the Holy Spirit´s justice with a mind thatcan conceive of specialness at all. Yet how could He be just if He condemns asinner for the crimes he did not do, but thinks he did? And where would justicebe if He demanded of the ones obsessed with the idea of punishment that theylay it aside, unaided, and perceive it is not true? It is extremly hard forthose who still believe sin meaningful to understand the Holy Spirit´s justice.They must believe Hes hares their own confusion, and cannot avoid the vengeancethat their own belief in justice must entail. And so they fear the Holy Spirit,and perceive the ”wrath” of God in Him. Nor can they trust trust Him not tostrike them dead with lighting bolts torn from the ”fires” of Heaven by God´sOwn angry Hand. They do believe that Heaven is hell, and are afraid of love.And deep suspicion and the chill of fear comes over them when they are toldthat they have never sinned. Their world depends on sin´s stability. And theyperceive the ”threat” of what God knows as justice to be more destructive tothemselves and their world than vengeance, which they understand and love. Sodo they think the loss of sin a curse. And flee the Holy Spirit as if He was amessenger from hell, sent from above, in trachery and guide, to work God´svengeance on them in the guise of a deliverer to deceive within an angel´scloak. And what escape has He for them except a door to hell that seems to looklike Heaven´s gate? Yet justice cannot punish those who ask for punishment, buthave a Judge Who knows that they are wholly innocent in truth. In justice He isbound to set them free, and give them all the honor they deserve and havedenied themselves because they are not fair, and cannot understand that theyare innocent. Love is not understandable to sinners because they think thatjustice is split off from love, and stands for something else. And thus is loveperceived as weak, and vengeance strong. For love has lost when judgment leftits side, and is too weak to save from punishment. But vengeance without lovehas gained in strength by being separate and apart from love. And what butvengeance now can help and save, while love stands feebly by with helplesshands, bereft of justive and vitality, and powerless to save? What can Love askof you who think that all of this is true? Could He, in justice and in love,believe in your confusion you have much to give? You are not asked to trust Himfar. No more than what you see He offers you, and what you recognize you couldnot give yourself. In God´s Own justice does He recognize all you deserve, butunderstands as well that you cannot accept it for yourself. It is His specialfunction to hold out to you the gifts the innocent deserve. And every one thatyou accept brings joy to Him as well as you. He knows that Heaven is richermade by each one you accept. And God rejoices as His Son receives what lovingjustice knows to be his due. For love and justice are not different. Becausethey are the same does mercy stand at God´s right hand, and gives the Son ofGod the power to forgive himself of sin. To him who merits everything, how canit be that anything be kept from him? For that would be injustice, and unfairindeed to all the holiness that is in him, however much he recognize it not.God knows of no injustice. He would not allow His Son be judged by those whoseek his death, and could not see his worth at all. What honest witnesses couldthey call forth to speak on his behalf? And who would come to plead for him,and not against his life? No justice would be given him by you. Yet God ensured that justice would be done unto the Son He loves, and would protect from all unfairness you might seek to offer, believing vengeance is his proper due. As specialness cares not who pays the cost of sin, so it be paid, the Holy Spirit heeds not who looks on innocence at last, provided it is seen and recognized. For just one witness is enough, if he sees truly. Simple justice asks no more. Of each one does the Holy Spirit ask if he will be that one, so justice may return to love and there be satisfied. Each special function He allots is but for this; that each one learn that love and justice are not spearate. And both are stregthened by their union with each other. Without love is justice prejudiced and weak. And love without justice is impossible. For love is fair, and cannot chasten without cause. What cause can be to warrant an attack upon the innocent? In justice, then, does love correct mistakes, but not invengeance. For what would be unjust to innocence. You can be perfect witness tothe power of love and justice, if you understand it is impossible the Son of God could merit vengeance. You need not perceive, in every circumstance, that this is true. Nor need you look to your expereince within the world, which is but shadows of all that is really happening within yourself. The understanding that you need comes not of you, but from a larger Self, so great and holy that He could not doubt His innocence. Your special function is a call to Him, that He may smile on you whose sinlessness He shares. His understanding will be yours.And so the Holy Spirit´s special function has been fulfilled. God´s Son has found a witness unto his sinlessness and not his sins. God´s Son has found a witness unto his sinlessness and not his sins. How little need you give the Holy Spirit that simple justice may be given you. Without impartially there is no justice. How can specialness be just? Judge not because you cannot, not because you are a miserable sinner too. How can the special really understand that justice is the same for everyone? To take from one to give another must bean injustice to them both, since they are equal in the Holy Spirit´s sight.Their Father gave the same inheritance to both. Who would have more or less is not aware that he has everything. He is no judge of what must be another´s due,because he thinks he is deprived. And so must he be envious, and try to take away from whom he judges. He is not impartial, and cannot fairly see another´s rights because his own have been obscured to him. You have the right to all the universe; to perfect peace, complete deliverance from all effects of sin, andto the life eternal, joyous and complete in every way, as God appointed for His Holy Son. This is the only justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. Your special function shows you nothing else but perfect justice can prevail for you. And you are safe from vengeance in all forms. The World deceives, but it cannot relace God´s justice with a version of its own. For only love is just, and can perceive what justice must accord the Son of God. Let love decide, and never fear that you, in your unfairness, will deprive yourself of what God´s justice has allotted you.

Love

[IA56]

The Justice of Heaven

What can it be but arrogance to think your little errors cannot be undone by Heaven´s justice? And what could this mean except that they are sins and not mistakes, forever uncorrecatable, and to be met with vengeance, not with justice? Are you willing to be released from all effects of sin? You cannot answer this until you see all that the answer must entail. For if you answer ”yes" it means you will forego all values of this world in favor of the peace of Heaven. Not one sin would you retain. And not one doubt that this is possible will you hold dear that sin be kept in place. You mean that truth has greater value now than all illusions. And you recognize that truth must be revealed to you, because you know not what it is. To give reluctantly is not to gain the gift, becuase you are reluctant to accept it. It is saved for you until reluctance to receive it disappears, and you are willing it be given you. God´s justice warrants gratitude, not fear. Nothing you give is lost to you or anyone, but cherished and preserved in Heaven, where all of the treasures given to God´s Son are kept for him, and offered anyone who but holds out his hand in willingness they be received. Nor is the treasure less as it is given out. Each gift but adds to the supply. For God is fair. He does not fight against His Son´s reluctance to perceive salvation as a gift from Him.Yet would His justice not be satisfied until it is received by everyone. Be certain any answer to a problem the Holy Spirit solves will always be one in which no one loses. And this must be true, because He asks no sacrifice of anyone. An answer which demands the slightest loss to anyone has not resolved the problem, but has added to it and made it greater, harder to resolve and more unfair. It is impossible the Holy Spirit could see unfariness as a resolution.To Him, what is unfair must be corrected because it is unfair. And every error is a perception in which one, at least, is seen unfairly. Thus is justice not accorded to the Son of God. When anyone is seen as losing, he has been condemned. And punishment becomes his due instead of justice. The sight of innocence makes punishment impossible, and justice sure. The Holy Spirit´s perception leaves no ground for an attack. Only a loss could justify attack,and loss of any kind He cannot see. The world solves problems in another way.It sees a resolution as a state in which it is decided who shall win and who shall lose; how much the one shall take, and how much can the loser still defend. Yet does the problem still remain unsolved, for only justice can set up a state in which there is no loser; no one left unfairly treated and deprived,and thus with grounds for vengeance. Problem solving cannont be vengeance,which at best can bring another problem added to the first, in which the murder is not obvious. The Holy Spirit´s problem solving is the way in which the problem ends. It has been solved because it has been met with justice. Until it has it will recur, because it has not yet been solved. The principle that justice means no one can lose is crucial to this course. For miracles depend on justice. Not as it is seen through this world´s eyes, but as God knows it and as knowledge is reflected in the sight the Holy Spirit gives. No one deserves to lose. And what would be unjust to him cannot occur. Healing must be for everyone, because he does not merit an attack of any kind. What order can there be in miracles, unless someone deserves to suffer more and others less? And is this justice to the wholly innocent? A miracle is justice. It is not a special gift to some, to be withheld form others as less worthy, more condemned, and thus apart from healing. Who is there who can be separate from salvation, if its purpose is the end of specialness? Where is salvation´s justice if some errors are unforgivable, and warrant vengeance in place of healing and return of peace? Salvation cannot seek to help God´s Son be more unfair than he has sought to be. If miracles, the Holy spirit´s gift, were given specially to an elect and special group, and kept apart from others as less deserving, then is He ally to specialness. What He cannot perceive He bears no witness to. And everyone is equally entitled to His gift of healing and deliverance and peace.To give a problem to the Holy Spirit to solve for you means that you want it solved. To keep it for yourself to solve without His help is to decide it should remain unsettled, unresolved, and lasting in its power of injustice and attack. No one can be unjust to you, unless you have decided first to be unjust. And then must problems rise to block your way, and peace be scattered by the winds of hate. Unless you think that all your brothers have an equal right to miracles with you, you will not claim your right to them because you were unjust to one with equal rights. Seek to deny and you will feel denied.Seek to deprive, and you have been deprived. A miracle can never be received because another could recive it not. Only forgiveness offers miracles. And pardon must be just to everyone. The little problems that you keep and hide become your secret sins, because you did not choose to let them be removed for you. And so they gather dust and grow, until they cover everything that you perceive and leave you fair to no one. Not one right do you believe you have.And bitterness, with vengeance justified and mercy lost, condemns you as unworthy of forgiveness. The unforgiven have no mercy to bestow upon another.That is why your sole responsibility must be to take forgiveness for yourself.The miracle that you receive, you give. Each one becomes an illustration of the law on which salvatin rests; that justice must be done to all, if anyone is to be healed. No one can lose, and everyone must benefit. Each miracle is anexample of what justice can accomplish when it is offered to everyone alike. It is received and given equally. It is awareness that giving and receiving are the same. Because it does not make the same unlike, it sees no differences where none exists. And thus it is the same for everyone, because it sees no differences in them. Its offering is universal, and it teaches but one message:

WHAT IS GOD´S BELONGS TO EVERYONE, AND IS HIS DUE.

Love

[IA56]

THE TRANSITION
The ”Sacrifice” of Oneness

In the ”dynamics” of attack is sacrifice a key idea. It ist he pivot upon which all compromise, all desperat attempts to strike a bargain,and all conflicts achieve a seeming balance. It is the symbol of the central theme that somebody must lose. Its focus on the body is apparent, for it is always an attempt to limit loss. The body is itself a sacrifice; a giving up of power in the name of saving just a little for yourself. To see a brother in another body, separate from yours, is the expression of a wish to see a Little part of him and sacrifice the rest. Look at the world, and you will see nothing attached to anything beyond itself. All seeming entities can come a Little nearer, or go a little farther off, but cannot join. The world you see is based on ”sacrifice”of oneness. It is a picture of complete disunity and total lack of joining. Around each entity is built a wall so seeming solid that it looks as if what is inside can never reach without, and what is out can never reach and join with what is locked away within the wall. Each part must sacrifice the other part, to keep itself complete. For if they joined each one would lose its own identity, and by their separation are their selves maintained. The Little that the body fences off becomes the self, preserved through sacrifice of all the rest. And all the rest must lost this little part, remaining incomplete to keep its own identiy intact. In this perception of yourself the body´s loss would be a sacrifice indeed. For sight of bodies becomes the sign that sacrifice is limited, and something still remains for you alone. And for this little to belong to you are limits placed on everything outside, just as they are on same. And to accept the limits of a body is to impose these limits on each brother whom you see. For you must see him as you see yourself. The body is a loss, and can be made to sacrifice. And while you see your brother as a body, apart from you and separate in his cell, you are demanding sacrifice of him and you. What greater sacrifice could be demanded than that God´s Son perceive himself without his Father? And his Father be without His Son? Yet every sacrifice demands that they be separate and without the other. The memory of God must be denied if any sacrifice is asked of anyone. What witness to the wholeness of God´s Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? He is invisible in such a world. Nor can his song of union and love be heard at all. Yet is it given him to make the world recede before his son, and sight of him replace the body´s eyes. Those who would see the witnesses to truth instead of illusion merely ask that they might see a purpose in the world that gives it sense and makes it meaningful. Without you specialfunction has this world no meaning for you. Yet it can become a treasure house as rich and limitless as Heaven itself. No instant passes here in which you brother´s holiness cannot be seen, to add a limitless supply to every meager scrap and tiny crumb of happiness that you allot yourself. You can lose sight of oneness, but can not make sacrifice of its reality. Nor can you lose what you would sacrifice, nor keep the Holy Spirit from His task of showing you thatit has not been lost. Hear, then, the song your brother sings to you, and let the world recede, and take the rest his witness offers on behalf of peace. But judge him not, for you will hear no song of liberation for yourself, nor see what it is given him to witness to, that you may see it and rejoice with him.Make not his holiness a sacrifice to your belief in sin. You sacrifice you innocence with his, and die each time you see in him a sin deserving death. Yet every instant can you be reborn, and given life again. His holiness gives Life to you, who cannot die because his sinlessness is known to God; and can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out because he sees it not. You who would make a sacrifice of life, and make you eyes and ears bear witness to the death of God and of His holy Son, think not that you have Power to make of them what God willed not they be. In Heaven, God´s Son is not imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin. And as he is in Heaven, so must he be eternally and everywhere. He is the same forever. Born again each instant, untouched by time, and far beyond the reach of any sacrifice of life or death. For neither did he make, and only one was given him by One Who Knows His gifts can never suffer sacrifice and loss. God´s justice rests in gentleness upon His Son, and keeps him safe from all injustice the world would lay upon him. Could it be that you could make his sins reality, and sacrifice his Father´s Will for him? Condemn him not by seeing him within the rotting prison where he sees himself. It is your special function to ensure the door be opened, that he may come forth to shine in you, and give you back the gift of freedom by receiving it of you. What is the Holy Spirit´s special function but to relese the holy Son of God from the imprisonment he made to keep himself from justice? Could your function be a task apart and separate from His Own?

Love

[IA56]

Many Forms; One Correction

It is not difficult to understand the reasons why you do not ask the Holy Spirit to solve all problems for you. He has not greater difficylty in resolving some than others. Every problem is the same to Him, because each one is solved in just the same respect and through the same approach. The aspectst hat need solving do not change, whatever form the problem seems to take. A problem can appear in many forms, and it will do so while the problem lasts. It serves no purpose to attempt to solve it in a special form. It will recur and then recur again and yet again, until it has been answered for all time and will not rise again in any form. And only then are you released from it. The Holy Spirit offers you release from every problem that you think you have. They are the same to Him because each one, regardless of the form it seems to take, is a demand that someone suffer loss and make a sacrifice that you might gain. And when the situation is worked out so no one loses is the problem gone,because it was an error in perception that now has been corrected. One mistake is not more difficult for Him to bring to truth than is another. For there is but one mistake; the whole idea that loss is possible, and could result in gain for anyone. If this were true, then God would be unfair; sin would be possible, attack be justified and vengeance fair. This one mistake, in any form, has one correction. There is no loss; to think there is, is a mistake. You have no problems, though you think you have. And yet you could not think so if you saw then vanish one by one, without regard to size, complexity, or place and time, or any attribute which you perceive that makes each one seem different from the rest. Think not the limits you impose on what you see can limit God in any way.The miracle of justice can correct all errors. Every problem in an error. It does in justice to the Son of God, and therefore is not true. The Holy Spirit does not evaluate injustice as great or small, or more or less. They have no properties to Him. They are mistakes from which the Son of God is suffering,but needlessly. And so He takes, the thorns and nails away. He does not pause to judge whether the hurt be large or little. He makes one judgment; that to hurt God´s Son must be unfair and therefore is not so. You who believe it safe to give but some mistakes to be corrected while you keep the others to yourself, remember this: Justice is total. There is no such thing as partial justice. If the Son of God is guilty then is he condemned, and he deserves no mercy from the God of justice. But ask not God to punish him because you find him guilty and would have him die. God offers you the means to see his innocence. Would it be fair to punish him becauce you will not look at what is there to see? Each time you keep a problem for yourself to solve, or judge that it is one that has no resolution, you have made it great, and past the hope of healing. You deny the miracle of justice can be fair. If God is just, then can there be no problem that justice cannot solve. But you believe that some injustice are fair and good, and necessary to preserve yourself. It is these problems that you think are great and cannot be resolved. For there are those you want to suffer loss, and no one whom you wish to be preserved from sacrifice entirely. Consider once again your special function. One is given you to see in him his perfect sinlessness. And you will ask no sacrifice of him becauce you could not will he suffers loss. The miracle of justice you call forth will rest on you as surely as on him. Nor will the Holy Spirit be content until it is received by everyone. For what you give to Him is everyone´s, and by your giving it can He ensure that everyone receives equally. Think, then, how great you own release will be when you are willing to recieve correction for all your problems. You will not keep one, for pain in any form you will not want. And you will see each little hurt resolved before the Holy Spirit´s gentle sight. For all of them are little in His sight, and worth no more than just a tiny sigh before they disappear, to be forever undone and unremembered.What seemed once to be a special problem, a mistake without a remedy, or an affliction without a cure, has been transformed into a universal blessing.Sacrifice is gone. And in its place the Love of God can be remembered, and will shine away all memory of sacrifice and loss. God cannot be remembered untilj ustice is loved instead of feared. He cannot be unjust to anyone of anything, because He knows that everything that is belongs to Him, and will forever be as He created it. Nothing He loves but must be sinless an beyond attack. Your specialf unction opens wide the door beyond which is the memory of His Love kept perfectly intact and undefiled. And all you need to do is but to wish that Heaven be given you instead of hell, and every bolt and barrier that seems to holds the door securely barred and locked will merely fall away and disappear. For it is not your Father´s Will that you should offer or receive less than He gave, when He created you in perfect love.

Love

[IA56]

The Boderland

Complexity is not of God. How could it be, when all He knows is one? He knows of one creation, one reality, one truth and but one Son.Nothing conflicts with oneness. How, then, could there be complexity in Him?What is there to decide? For it is conflict that makes choice possible. The truth is simple; it is one, without an opposite. And how could strife enter in its simple presence, and bring complexity where oneness is? The truth makes no decisions, for there is nothing to decide between. And only if there were could choosing be a necessary step in the advance toward oneness. What is Everything leaves room for nothing else. Yet is this magnitude beyond the scope of this curriculum. Nor is is necessary we dwell on anything that cannot be immediately grasped. There is a boderland of thought that stands between this world and Heaven. It is not a place, and when you reach it is apart from time. Here is the meeting place where thoughts are brought together; where conflict values meet and all illusions are laid down beside the truth, where they are judged to be untrue. This boderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven. Here is every thought made pure and wholly simple. Here is sin denied, and everything that is received instead. This is the journey´s end. We have referred to it as the real world. And yet there is a contradiction here, in that the words imply a limited reality, a partial truth, a segment of the unviers made true. This is because knowledge makes no attack upon perception. They are brought together, and only one continues past the gate where Oneness is. Salvation is a boderland where place and time and choice have meaning still, and yet it can be seen that they are temporary, out of place, and every choice has been already made. Nothing the Son of God believes can be destroyed. But what is truth to him must be brought to the last comparisson that he will ever make; the last evaluation that will be possible, the final judgment upon this world. It is the judgment of the truth upon illusion, of knowledge on perception: ”It has no meaning, and does not exist.” This is not your decision. It is but a simple statement of a simple fact. But in this world there are no simple facts, because what is the same and what is different remain unclear. The one essential thing to make a choice at all is this distinction. And herein lies the difference between the worlds. In this one, choice is made impossible. In the real world is choosing simplified. Salvation stops just short of Heaven, for only perception needs salvation. Heaven was never lost, and so cannot be saved. Yet who can make a choice between the wish for Heaven and the wish for hell unless he recongnizes they are not the same? This difference is the learning goal this course has set. It will not go beyond this aim. Its only purpose is to teach what is the same and what is different, leaving room to make the only choice that can be made. There is no basis for a choice in this complex and over-complicated world. For no one understands what is the same, and seems to choose where no choice really is. The real world is the area of choice made real, not in the outcome, but in the perception of alternatives for choice. That there is choiceis an illusion. Yet with in this one lies the undoing of every illusion, not excepting this. Is not this like your special function, where the separation is undone by change of purpose in what once was specialness, and now is union? All illusions are but one. And in the recognition this is so lies the ability to give up all attempts to choose between them, and to make them different. There is no conflict here. No sacrifice is possible inthe relinquishment of an illusion recognized as such. Where all reality has been withdrawn from what was never true, can it be hard to give it up, and choose what must be true?

Love

[IA56]

Where Sin Has Left

Forgiveness is this world´s equivalent of Heaven´s justice.It translates the world of sin into a simple word, where justice can be reflected from beyond the gate behind which total lack of limits lies. Nothing in boundless love could need forgiveness. And what is charity within the World gives way to simple justice past the gate that opens into Heaven. No one forgives unless he has believed in sin, becomes the means by which he learns he has done nothing to forgive. Forgiveness always rests upon the one who offers it, until he sees himself as needing it no more. And thus is he returned to has real funciton of creating, which his forgiveness offer him again. Forgiveness turns the world of sin into a world of glory, wonderful to see. Each flower shines in light, and every bird sings of the joy of Heaven. There is no sadness and there is no parting here, for everything is totally forgiven. And what has been forgiven must join, for nothing stands between to keep them separate and apart. The sinless must perceive that they are one, for nothing stands between to push the other off. And in the space that sin left vacant do they join as one, in gladness recognizing what is part of them has not been kept apart and separate. The holy place on which you stand is but the space that sin has left. And here you see the face of Christ, arising in its place. Who could behold the face of Christ and not recall His Father as He really is? Who could fear love,and stand upon the ground where sin has left a place for Heaven´s altar to rise and tower far above the world, and reach beyond the universe to touch the Heart of all creation? What is Heaven but a song of gratitude and love and praise by everything created to the Source of its creation? The holies of altars is set where once sin was believed to be. And here does every light of Heaven come, to be rekindled and increased in joy. For here is what was lost restored to them,and all their radiance made whole again. Forgiveness brings no little miraclest o lay before the gate of Heaven. Here the Son of God Himself comes to receive each gift that brings him nearer to his home. Not one is lost, and none is cherised more than any other. Each reminds him of his Father´s Love as surely as the rest. And each one teaches him that what he feared he loves the most.What but a miracle could change his mind, so that he understands that love cannot be feared? What other miracle is there but this? And what else need there be to make hte space between you disappear? Where sin once was perceived will rise a world that will become an altar to the truth, and you will join the lights of Heaven there, and sing their song of gratitude and praise. And as they come to you to be complete, so will you go with them. For no one hears the song of Heaven and remains without a voice that adds its power to the song, and makes it sweeter still. And each one joins the singing at the altar that was raised within the tiny spot that sin proclaimed to be its own. And what was tiny then has soared into a magintude of song in which the universe has joined with but a single voice. This tiny spot of sin that stands between you still is holding back the happy opening of Heaven´s gate. How little is the hindrance that withholds the wealth of Heaven from you. And how great will be joy in Heaven when you join the mighty chours to the Love of God!

Love

[IA56]

The Little Hindrance

A little hindrance can seem large indeed to those who do not understand that miracles are all the same. Yet teaching that is what this course is for. This is its only purpose, for only that is all there is to learn. And you can learn it many different ways. All learning is a help or hindrance to the gate or Heaven. Nothing in between is possible. There are two teachers only, who point in different ways. And you will go along the way your chosen teacher leads. There are but two directions you can take, while timeremains and choice is meaningful. For never will another road be made exept the wayt to Heaven. You but choose whether to go toward Heaven, or away to nowhere.There is nothing else to choose. Nothing is ever lost but time, which in the end is meaningless. For it is but a little hindrance to eternity, quite meaningless to the real Teacher of the world. Yet since you do believe in it,why should you wast it going nowhere, when it can be used to reach a goal as high as learning can achive? Think not the way to Heave´s gate is difficult at all. Nothing you undertake with certain purpose and high resolve and happy confidence, holding your brother´s hand and keeping step to Heaven´s song, is difficult to do. But it is hard indeed to wander off, alone and miserable, down a road that leads to nothing and that has no purpose. God gave His Teacher to replace the one you made, not to conflict with it. And what He would replace has been replaced. Time lasted but an instant in your mind, with no effect upon eternity. And so it is all time passed, and everything exactly as it was Before the way to nothingness was made. The tiny tick of time in which the first miracle was made, and all of them that came within the first. And in that tinyi nstant time was gone, for that was all it ever was. What God gave answer to is answered and is gone. To you who still believe you live in time and know not it is gone, the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze you still perceive in time, through it has long since gone. Yout hink you live in what is past. Each thing you look upon you saw but for an instant, long ago, before its unreality gave way to truth. Not one illusion still remains unanswered in your mind. Uncertainty was brought to certainty solong ago that it is hard indeed to hold it to your heart, as if it were Before you still. The tiny instant you would keep and make eternal, passed away in Heaven too soon for anything to notice it had come. What disappeared tooquickly to affect the simple knowledge of the Son of God can hardly still be there, for you to choose to be your teacher. Only in the past, - and ancient past, too short to make a world in answer to creation, - did this world appear to rise. So very long ago, for such a tiny interval of time, that not one note in Heavens´s song was missed. Yet in each unforgivning art or thought, in every judgment and in all belief in sin, is that one instant still called back, as if it could be made again in time. You keep an ancient memory before your eyes.And he who lives in memories alone is unaware of where he is. Is this a hindrance to the place wher on he stands? Is any echo from the past that he maya fact in what is there to hear wher he is now? And how much can his own illusions about time and place effect a change in where he really is? Theun forgiven is a voice that calls from out a past forever more gone by. Andeverything that points to it as real is but a wish that what is gone could be made real again and seen as here and now, in place of what is really now and here. Is this a hindrance to the truth the past is gone, and cannot be returned to you? And do you want that fearful instant kept, when Heaven seemed to disappear and God was feared and made a symbol of your hate? Forget the time of terror that has been so long ago corrected and undone. Can sin withstand the Will of God? Can it be up to you to see the past and put it in the present? Youcan not go back. And everything that points the way in the direction of the past but sets you on a mission whose accomplishment can only be unreal. Such is the justice your All-Loving Father has ensured must come to you. And from your own unfairness to yourself has He protedted you. You cannot lose your way because there is no way but His, and nowhere can you go except to Him. Would God allow His Son to lose his way along a road long since a memory of time gone by? A dreadful instant in a distant past, now perfectly corrected, is of no concern nor value. Let the dead and gone be peacefully forgotten. Resurrection has come to take its place. And now you are a part of resurrection, not of death. No past illusions have the power to keep you in a place of death, avault God´s Son entered and instant, to be instantly restored unto His Father´sperfect love. And how can he be kept in chains long since removed and gone forever from his mind? The Son whom God created is a free as God created him.He was reborn the instant that he chose to die instead of live. And will you not forgive him now, because he made an error in the past that God remembers not, and is not there? Now you are shifting back and forth between the past and present. Sometime the past seems real, as if it were the present. Voices from the past are heard and then are doubted. You are like to one who still hallucinates, but lacks conviction in what he perceives. This is the boderland between the worlds, the bridge between the past and present. Here the shadow of the past remains, but still a present light is dimly recognized. Once it is seen, this light can never be forgotten. It must draw you from the past into the present, where you really are. The shadow voices do not change the laws of time nor of eternity. They come from what is past and gone, and hinder not the true existence of the here and now. The real worlds is the second part of the hallucination time and death are real, and have existence that can be perceived. This terrible illusion was denied in but the time it look for God to give His Answer to illusion for all time and every circumstance. And then it was no more to be experienced as there. Each day, and every minute in each day,and every instant that each minutes holds, you but relive the single instant when the time of terror took the place of love. And so you die each day to live again, until you cross the gap between the past and present, which is not a gap at all. Such is each life; a seeming interval from birth to death and on to life again, a repetition of an instant gone by long ago that cannot be relieved. And all of time is but the map belief that what is over is still here and now. Forgive the past and let it go, for it is gone. You stand no longer onthe ground that lies between the worlds. You have gone on, and reached the world that lies at Heaven´s gate. There is no hindrance to the Will of God, nor any need that you repeat again a journey that was over long ago. Look gently on your brother, and behold the world in which perception of your hate has been transformed into a world of love.

Love

[IA56]

The Appointed Friend

Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so. Not because it has the power to hurt, but just because you have denied it is but an illusion, and make it real. And it is real to you. It is not nothing. And through its perceived reality has entered all the world of sick illusions. All belief in sin, in power of attack, in hurt and harm, in sacrifice and death, has come to you. For no one can make one illusion real, and still escape the rest. For who can choose to keep the ones that he prefers, and find the safety that the truth alone can give? Who can believe illusions are the same, and still maintain that even one is best? Lead not your little life in solitude, with one illusion as your only friend. This is no friendship worthy of God´s Son, nor one with which he could remain content. Yet God has given him a better Friend, in Whom all power in earth and Heaven rests. The one illusion that you think is friend obscures His grace and majesty from you, and keeps His friendship and forgiveness from your welcoming embrace. Without Him you are friendless. Seek not another friend to take His place. There is no other friend. What God appointed has no substitute, for what illusion can replace the truth? Who dwells with shadows is alone indeed, and loneliness is not the Will of God.Would you allow one shadow to usurp the throne that God appointed for yourFriend, if you but realized its emptiness has left your empty and unoccupied?Make no illusion friend, for if you do, it can but take the place of Him Whom God has called your Friend. And it is He Who is your only Friend in truth. He brings you gifts that are not of this world, and only He to Whom they have been given can make sure that you receive them. He will place them on your throne,when you make room for Him on His.

Love