IA´s Journal

[IA56]

The Dreamer of the Dream

Suffering is an emphasis upon all that the world has done toinjure you. Here is the world´s demented version of salvarion clearly shown.Like to a dream of punishment, in which the dreamer is unconscious of whatbrought on the attack against himself, he sees himself attacked unjustly and bysomething not himself. He is the victim of this ”something else,”a thingoutside himself, for which he has no reason to be held responsible. He must beinnocent because he knows not what he does, but what is done to him. Yet is hisown attack upon himself apparent still, for it is he who bears the suffering.And he cannot escape because its source is been outside himself. Now you arebeing shown you can escpe. All that is needed is you look upon the problem asit is, and not the way that you have set it up. How could there be another wayto solve a problem that is very simple, but has been obscured by heavy cloudsof complication, which were made to keep the problem unresolved? Without theclouds the problem will emerge in all its primitive simplicity. The choice willnot be difficult, because the problem is absurb when clearly seen. No one hasdifficulty making up his mind to let a simple problem be resolved it it is seenas hurting him, and also very easily removed. The ”reasoning” by which theworld is made, on which it rests, by which it is maintained, is simply this:”You are hte cause of what I do. Your presence justifies my wrath, and youexist and think apart from me. While you attack I must be innocent. And what Isuffer from is your attack.” No one who looks upon this ”reasoning” exactly asit is could fail to see it does not follow and it makes no sense. Yet it seemssensible, because it looks as if the world were hurting you. And so it seems asif there is no need to go beyond the obvious in terms of cause. There is indeeda need. The world´s escape from condemnation is a need which those within theworld are joined in sharing. Yet they do not recongnize their common need. For eachone thinks that if he does his part, the condemnation of the world will rest onhim. And it is this that he perceives to be his part in its deliverance.Vengeance must have a focus. Otherwise is the avenger´s knife in his own hand,and pointed to himself. And he must see it in another´s hand, if he would be avictim of attack hed id not choose. And thus he suffers from the wounds a knifehe does not hold has made upon himself. This is the purpose of the world hesees. And looked at thus, the world provides the means by which this purposeseems to be fulfilled. The means attest the purpose, but are not themselves acause. Nor will the cause be changed by seeing it apart from its effects. Thecause produces the effects, which then bear witness to the cause, and notthemselves. Look, then, beyond effects. It is not here the cause of suffering andsin must lie. Adn dwell not on the suffering ans sin, for they are butreflections of their cause. The part you play in salvaging the world fromcondemnation is your own escape. Forget not that the witness to the world ofevil cannot speak except for what has seen a need for evil in the world. Andthis is where your guilt was first beheld. In separation from your brother wasthe first attack upon yourself again. And it is this the world bears witnessto. Seek not another cause, nor look among the mighty legions of its witnessesfor its undoing. They support its claim on your allegiance. What conceals thetruth is not where you should look to find the truth. The witnesses to sin allstand within one little space. And it is here you find the cause of yourperspective on the world. Once you were unaware of what the cause of everythingthe world appeared to thrust upon you, univited and unasked, must really be. Ofone thing you were sure: of all the many causes you perceived as bringing painand suffering to you, your guilt was not among them. Nor did you in any wayrequest them for yourself. This is how all illusions came about. The one whomakes them does not see himself as making them, and their reality does notdepend on him. Whatever cause they have is something quite apart from him, andwhat he sees is separate from his mind. He cannot doubt his dream´s reality,because he does not see the part he plays in making them and making them seemreal. No one can waken from a dream the world is dreaming for him. He becomes apart of something else´s dream. He cannot choose to waken from a dream hed id notmake. Helpless he stands, a victim to a dream conceived and cherished by aseparate mind. Careless indeed of him this mind must be, as thoughtless of hispeace and happiness as is the weather or the time of day. It loves him not, butcasts him as it will in any role that satisfies its dream. So little is hisworth that he is but a dancing shadow, leaping up and down according to asenseless plot conceived within the idle dreaming of the world. This is the onlypicutere you can see; the one alternative that you can choose, the otherpossiblity of cause, if you be not the dreamer of your dreams. And this is whatyou choose if you deny the cause of suffering is in your mind. Be glad indeedit is, for thus are you the one decider of your destiny in time. The choice isyours to make between a sleeping death and dreams of evil or a happy wakeningand joy of life. What could you choose between but life or death, waking orsleeping, peace or war, your dreams or your reality? This is a risk of thinkingdeath is peace, because the world equates the body with the Self Which Godcreated. Yet a thing can never be its opposite. And death is opposite to peace,because it is the opposite of life. And life is peace. Awaken and forget allthoughts of death, and you will find you have the peace of God. Yet if the choiceis really given you, then you must see the cause of the things you choosebetween exactly as they are and where they are. What choice can be made betweentwo states, but one of which is clearly recognized? Who could be free to choosebetween effects, when only one is seen as up to him? And honest choice couldnever be perceived as one in which the choice as split between a tiny you andan enormous world, with different dreams about the trust in you. The gapbetween reality and dreams lies not between the dreaming of the world is but apart of your own dream you gave away, and saw as if it were its start andending, both. Yet was it started the part you see and do not doublt is real.How could you doubt it while you lie asleep, and dream in secret that its causeis real? A brother separated from yourself, an ancient enemy, a murdere whostalks you in the night and plots your death, yet plans that it be lingeringand slow; of this you dream. Yet underneath this dream is yet another, in whichyou become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and the destroyer ofyour brother and the world alike. Here is the cause of suffering, the spacebetween your little dreams terror and of ancient hate, the instant of disaster,all are here. Here is the cause of unreality. And it is here that it will beundone. You are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No other cause it has, norever will. Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God´s Son, andmade him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made warupon himself. So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken toreality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless agentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed hiss calmer mind to welcome,not to fear, the Voice That calls with love to waken him. God willed he wakengently and with joy, and gave him means to waken without fear. Accept the dreamHe gave instead of yours. It is not difficult to change a dream when once thedreamer has been recongized. Rest in the Holy Spirit, and allow His gentledreams to take a place of those you dreamed in terror and in fear of death. Hebrings forgiving dreams, in which the choice is not who is the murderer and whoshall be the victim. In the dreams He brings there is no murder and there is nodeath. The dream of guilt is fading from your sight, although you eyes areclosed. A smile has come to lighten up your sleeping face. The sleep is peacfulnow, for these are happy dreams. Dream softly of your sinless brother, whounites with you in holy innocence. And from this dream the Lord of Heaven willHimself awaken His beloved Son. Dream of your brother´s kindnesses instead ofdwelling in your dreams on his mistakes. Select his thoughtfulness to dreamabout instead of counting up the hurts he gave. Forgive him his illusions, and givethanks to him for all the helpfulness to dream about instead of counting up thehurts he gave. Forgive him his illusions, and givet hanks to him for all thehelpfulness he gave. And do not brush aside his many gifts because he is notperfect in your dreams. He represents his Father, Whom you see as offering bothlife and death to you. Brother, He gives but life. Yet what you see as gifts toyou. Let all your brother´s gifts be seen in light of charity and kindnessoffered you. And let no pain disturb your dream of deep appreciation for hisgifts to you.

Love

[IA56]

The ”Hero” of the Dream

The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world.There is no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream in which itacts if it were a person to be seen and be believed. It takes the central placein every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by other bodies, borninto the world outside the body, lives a little while and dies, to be united inthe dust with other bodies dying like itself. In the brief time allotted it tolive, it seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies. Its safety is itsmain concern. Its comfort is its guiding rule. It tries to look for pleasure,and avoid the things that would be hurtful. Above all, it tries to teach itselfits pains and joys are different and can be told apart. The dreaming of theworld takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to prove it isautonomous and real. It puts things on itself that it has brought with littlemetal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and real. It worksto get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless thingsit does not need and does not even want. It hires other bodies, that they mayprotect it and collect more senseless things that it can call its own. It looksabout for special bodies that can share its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is acomqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But in some phases of the dream, it isthe slave of bodies that would hurt and torture it. The body´s serialadventures, from the time of birht to dying is the theme of eveyr dream theworld has ever had. The ”hero” of this dream will never change, nor will itspurpose. Though the dream itself takes many forms, and seems to show a greatvariety of places and events wherein its ”hero” finds itself, the dream has butone purpose, taught in many ways. This single lesson does it try to teachagain, and still again, and yet once more; that it is cause and not effect. Andyou are its effect, and cannot be its cause. Thus are you not the dreamer, butthe dream. And so you wander idly in and out of place and events that itcontrives. That this is all the body does is true, for it is but a figure in adream. But who reacts to figures in a dream unless he sees them as if they werereal? The instant that he sees them as they are they have no more effects onhim, because he understands he gave them their effects by causing them andmaking them seem real. How willing are you to escape effects of all the dreamsthe world has ever had? Is ti your wish to let no dream appear to be the causeof what it is you do? Then let us merely look upon the dream´s beginning forthe part you see is but the second part, whose cause lies in the first. No oneasleep and dreaming in the world remembers his attack upon himself. No onebelieves there really was a time when he knew nothing of a body, and couldnever have conceived this world as real. He would have seen at once that thereideas are one illusion, too ridiculous for anything but to be laughed away. Howserious they now appear to be! And no one can remember when they would have metwith laughter and with disbelief. We can remember this, if we but look directlyat their cause. And we will see the grounds for laughter, not a cause for fear.Let us return the dream he gave away unto dreamer, who perceives the dream asseparate from himself and done to him. Into eternity, where all is one, therecrept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In hisforgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of bothaccomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them both away, andunderstand that time cannot intrude upon eternity. It is a joke to think thattime can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is no time. Atimlessness in which is time made real; a part of God that can attack itself; aseparate brother as an enemy ; a mind within a body all are forms ofcircularity whose ending starts at its beginning, ending at its cause. Theworld you see depcits exactly what you thought you did. Except that now youthink that what you did is being done to you. The guilt for what you thought isbeing placed outside yourself, and on a guilty world that dreams your dreamsand thinks your thoughts instead of you. It brings its vengeance, not your own.It keeps you narrowly confined within a body, which it punishes because of allthe sinful things the body does within its dream. You have no power to make thebody stop its evil deeds because you did not make it, and cannot control itsactions nor its purpose nor its fate. The world but demonstrates an ancienttruth; you will believe that others do to you exactly what you think you did tothem. But once deluded into blaming them you will not see the cause of whatthey do, because you want the guilt to rest on them. How childish is thetetulant device to keep your innocence by pushing guilt outside yourself, butnever letting go! It is not easy to perceive the jest when all around you doyour eyes behold its heavy consequences, but without their trifling cause.Without the cause do its effects seem serious and sad indeed. Yet they butfollow. And it is their cause that follows nothing and is but a jest. In gentlelaughter does the Holy Spirit perceive the cause, and looks not to effects. Howelse could He correct your error, who have overlooked the cause entirely? Hebids you bring each terrible effect to Him that you may look together on itsfoolish cause and laugh with Him a while. You judge effects, but He has judgedtheir cause. And by His judgment are effects removed. Perhaps you come intears. But hear Him say, ”My brother, holy Son of God, behold your idle dream,in which this could occur.” And you will leave the holy instant with yourlaughter and your brother´s joined with His. The secret of salvation is butthis: That you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of theattack, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain andsuffering you feel, this is still true. For you could not react at all tofigures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. This single lesson learnedwill set you free from suffering, whatever form it takes. The Holy Spirit willrepeat this one inclusive lesson of deliverance until it has been learned,regaredless ot the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt youbring to Him He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this oneanswer takes away the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The formaffects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the singel cause ofall of them, no matter what their form. And you will understand the miracle reflectthe simple statement, ”I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.”Bring, then, all forms of suffering to Him Who knows that every one is like therest. He sees no difference where none exist, and He will teach you how eachone is caused. None has a different cause from all the rest, and all of themare easily undone by but a single lesson truly learned. Salvation is a secretyou have kept but from yourself. The universe proclaims it so. Yet to itswitnesses you pay no heed at all. For they attest the thing you do not want toknow. They seem to keep it secret from you. Yet you need but learn you chosebut not to listen, not to see. How differently will you perceive the world whenthis is recongnized! When you forgive the world your guilt, you will be free otit. Its innocence does not demand your guilt, nor does your guiltlessness reston its sins. This is the obvious; a secret kept from no one but yourself. Andit is this that has maintained you separate from the world, and kept yourbrother separate form you. Now need you but to learn that both of you areinnocent or guilty. The one thing that is impossible is that you be unlike eachother; that they both be true. This is the only secret yet to learn. And itwill be no secret you are healed.

Love

[IA56]

THE UNDOING OF FEAR
The Present Memory

The miracle does nothing. All it does is to undo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what has been done. It does not add, but merely takes away. And what it takes away is long since gone, but being kept in memory appears to have immediate effects. This world was over long ago. The thoughts that made it are no longer in the mind that thought of them and loved them for a little while. The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what has truly gone has no effects. Remembering a cause can but produce illusions of its presence, not effects. All the effects of guilt are here no more. For guilt is over. In its passing went its consequences, left without a cause. Why would you cling to it in memory if you did not desire its effects? Remembering is as selective as preception, being its past tense. It is perception of the past as if it were occuring now, and still were there to see. Memory, like perception,is a skill made by you to take the place of what God gave in your creation. And like all the things you made, it can be used to serve another purpose, and tobe means for something else. It can be used to heal and not to hurt, if you so wish it be. Nothing employed for healing represents an effort to do anything at all. It is a recognition that you have no needs which mean that something must be done. It is an unselective memory, that is not used to interfere with truth.All things the Holy Spirit can employ for healing have been given Him, without the content and the purpose for which they have been made. They are but skills without an application. They await their use. They have no dedication and no aim. The Holy Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is there.Yet this is not a memory of past events, but only of a present state. You are so long accustomed to believe that memory holds only what is past, that it is hard for you to realize it is a skill that can remember now. The limitations on remembering the world imposes on it are as vast as those you let the World impose on you. There is no link of memory to the past. If you would have it there, then there it is. But only your desire made the link, and only you have held it to a part of time where guilt appears to linger still. The Holy Spirit´s use of memory is guite apart from time. He does not seek to use it asa means to keep the past, but rather as a way to let it go. Memory holds the message it receives, and does what it is given to do. It does not write the message, nor appoint what it is for. Like to the body, it is purposeless within itself. And if it seems to serve to cherish ancient hate, and gives youpictures of injustices and hurts that you were saving, this is what you askedits message he and that it is. Committed to its vaults, the history of all thebody´s past is hidden there. All of the strange associations made to keep the pastalive, the present dead, are stored witin it, waiting your command that they bebrought to you, and lived again. And thus do their effects appear to beincreased by time, which took away their cause. Yet time is but another phaseof what does nothing. It works hand in hand with all the other attributes withwhich you seek to keep concealed the truth about yourself. Time neither takesaway nor can restore. And yet you make strange use of it, as if the past hadcaused the present, which is but a consequence in which no change can be madepossible because its cause has gone. Yet change must have a cause that willendure, or else it will not last. No change can be made in the present if its causeis past. Only the past is held in memory as you make use of it, and so it is away to hold the past against the now. Remember nothing that you taughtyourself, for you were badly taught. And who would keep a senseless lesson inhis mind, when he can learn and can preserve a better one? When ancientmemories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone. And so you cannotunderstand what they are for. Let not the cause that you would givet hem now bewhat it was that made them what they were, or seemed to be. Be glad that it isgone, for this is what you would be pardoned from. And see, instead, the neweffects of cause accepted now, with consequences here. They will surpise youwith their loveliness. The ancient new ideas they bring will be the happy consequensesof a cause so ancient that it far exeeds to span of memory which yourperception sees. This is the Cause of Holy Spirit has remembered for you, whenyou would forget. It is not past because He let it not be unremembered. It hasnever changed, because there never was a time in which Hed id not keep Itsafely in your mind. Its consequences will indeed seem new, because you thoughtthat you remembered not their Cause. Yet was It never absent from your mind,for it was not your Father´s Will that He be unremembered by His Son. What youremember never was. It came from causelessness which you confused with cause.It can deserve but laughter, when you learn you have remembered consequencesthat were causeless and could never be effects. The miracle reminds you of aCause forever present, perfectly untouched by time and interference. Neverchanged from what It is. And you are Its effects, and changeless and as perfectas Itself. Its memory does not lie in past, nor waits the future. It is notrevealed in miracles. They bu tremind you that It will no longer be denied. Youwho have sought to lay a judgment on your own Creator cannot understand it isnot He Who laid a judgment on His Son. You would deny Him His effects, yet havethey never been denied. There was no time in which His Son could be condemnedfor what was causeless and against His Will. What your remembering wouldwitness to is but the fear of God. He has not done the thing you fear. No morehave you. And so your innocence has not been lost. You need no healing to behealed. In quietness, see in the miracle a lesson in allowing Cause to have ItsOwn effects, and doing nothing that would interfere. The miracle comes quietlyinto the mind that stops an instant and is still. It reaches gently from thatquiet time, and from the mind it healed is quiet then, to other minds to shareits quietness. And they will join in doing nothing to prevent its radiantextension back into the Mind Which caused all minds to be. Born out of sharing,there can be no pause in time to cause the miracle delay in hastening to allunquiet minds, and bringing them an instant´s stillness, when the memory of Godreturns to them. Their own remembering is quiet now, and what has come to takeits place will not be wholly unremembered afterwards. He to Whom time is givenoffers thanks for every quiet instant given Him. For in that instant is God´smemory allowed to offer all its treasures to the Son of God, from whom theyhave been kept. How gladly does He offer them unto the one from whom He hasbeen given them! And His Creator shares His thanks, because He would not bedeprived of His effects. The instant´s silence that His Son accepts givenwelcome to eternity and Him, and lets Them enter where They would abide. For inthat instant does the Son of God do nothing that would make himself afraid. Howinstantly the memory of God arises in the mind that has no fear to keep thememory away! Its own remembering has gone. There is no past to keep its fearfulimage in the way of glad awakening to present peace. The ♥♥♥♥♥ets of eternityresound throughout the stillness, yet disturb it not. And what is nowremembered is not fear, but rather is the Cause that fear was made to renderunremembered and undone. The stillness speaks in gentle sounds of love the Sonof God remembers from before his own remembering came in between the presentand the past, to shut them out. Now is the Son of God at last aware of presentCause and Its bening effects. Now does he understand what he has made iscauseless, having no effects at all. He has done nothing. And in seeing this,he understands he never had a need for doing anything, and never did. His Causeis Its effects. There never was a cause beside it that could tenerate adifferent past or future. Its effects are changelessly eternal, beyond fear,and past the world of sin entirely. What has been lost, to see the causelessnot? And where is sacrifice, when memory of God has come to take the place ofloss? What better way to close the little gap between illusions and realitythan to allow the memory of God to flow across it, makein it a bridge aninstant will suffice to reach beyond? For God has closed it with Himself, Hismemory has not gone by, and left a stranded Son forever on a shore where he canglimpse another shore that he can never reach. His Father wills that he belifted up and gently carried over. He has built the bridge, and it is He Whowill transport His Son across it. Have no fear that He will fail in what Hewills. Nor that you be excluded from the Will that is for you.

Love

[IA56]

Reversing Effect and Cause

Without a cause there can be no effects, and yet without effects there is no cause. The cause a cause is made by its effects; the Father is a Father by His Son. Effects do not create their cause, but they establish,its causation. Thus, the Son gives Fatherhood to his Creator, and receives the gift that he has given Him. It is because he is God´s Son that he must also be a father, who creates as God created him. The circle of creation has no end.Its starting and its ending are the same. But in itself it holds the universe of all creation, without beginning and without an end. Fatherhood is creation.Love must be extended. Purity is not confined. It is the nature of the innocent to be forever uncontained, without a barrier of limitaiton. Thus is purity not the body. Nor can it be found where limitation is. The body can be healed by its effects, which are as limitless as is itself. Yet must all healing come about because the mind is recognized as not within the body, and its innocence is quite apart from it, and where all healing is. Where, then, is healing? Only where its cause is given its effects. For sickness is a meaningless attempt to give effects to causelessness, and make it be a cause. Always in sickness does the Son of God attempt to make himself his cause, and not allow himself to be his Father´s Son. For this impossible desire, he does not believe that he isLove´s effect, and must be cause because of wht he is. The cause of healing isthe only Cause of everything. It has but one effect. And in the recognition,causelessness is given no effects and none is seen. A mind within a body and aworld of other bodies, each with separate minds, are your ”creations,”you the ”other”mind, creating with effects unlike yourself. And as their ”father,” you must belike them. Nothing at all has happened but that you have put yourself to sleep,and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself, awaken you, butmerely shows you who the dreamer is. It teaches you there is a choice of dreamswhile you are still asleep, depending on the purpose of your dreaming. Do youwish for dreams of healing, or for dreams of death? A dream is like a memory inthat it pictures what you wanted shown to you. An empty storehouse, with anopen door, holds all your shreds of memories and dreams. Yet if you are thedreamer, you perceive this much at least: That you have caused the dream, andcan accept another dream as well. But for this change in content of the dream,it must be realized that it is you who dreamed the dreaming that you do notlike. It is but an effect that you have caused, and you would not be cause ofthis effect. In dreams of murder and attack are you the victim in a dying bodyslain. But in forgiving dreams is no one asked to be the victim and thesufferer. These are the happy dreams the miracle exchanges for your own. Itdoes not ask you make another; only that you see you made the one you wouldexchange for this. This world is causeless, as is every dream, that anyone hasdreamed within the world. No plans are possible, and no design exists thatcould be found and understood. What else could be expected from a thing thathas no cause? Yet if it has no cause, it has no purpose. You may cause a dream,but never will you give it real effects. For that would change its cause, andit is this you cannot do. The dreamer of a dream is not awake, but does notknow he sleeps. He sees illusions of himself as sick or well, depressed ofhappy, but without a stable cause with guaranteed effects. The miracleestablishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is acrusial step in dealing with illusions. No one is afraid of them when heperceives he made them up. The fear was held in place because hed id not seethat he was author of the dream, and not a figure in the dream. He giveshimself the consequences that he dreams he gave his brother. And it is but thisthe dream has put together and has offended him, to show him that his wisheshave been done. Thus does he fear his own attack, but sees it as another´shands. As victim, he is suffering from its effects, but not their cause. Heauthored not his own attack, and he is innocent of what he caused. The miracledoes nothing but to show him that he has done nothing. What he fears is causewithout the consequences that would make it cause. And so it never was. Theseparation started with the dream the Father was deprived of His effects, and powerlessto keep them since He was no longer their Creator. In the dream, the dreamermade himself. But what he made was turned against him, taking on the role ofits creator, as the dream have hated him. His body is their slav which theyabuse because the motives he has given it have they adopted as their own. Andhate it for the vengeance it would offer them. It is their vengeance on thebody which appears to prove the dreamer could not be the maker of the dream.Effects and cause are first split off, and then reversed, so that effects becomesa cause; the cause, effect. This is the separation´s final step, with whichsalvation, which proceeds to go the other way, begins. This final step is aneffect of what has gone before, appearing as a cause. The miracle is the firststep in giving back to cause the function of causation, not effect. For theconfusion has produced the dream, and while it lasts will wakiening be feared.Nor will the call to wakening be heard, becasue it seems to be the call to fear.Like every lesson that the Holy Spirit requests you learn, the miracle isclear. It demonstrates what He would have you learn, and shows you its effectsare what you want. In His forgiving dreams are the effects of your undone, andhated enemies perceived as friends with merciful intent. Their enmity is seenas causeless now, because they did not make it. And you can accept the role ofmaker of their hate, because you see that it has no effects. Now are you freedfrom this much of the dream; the world is neutral, and the bodies that stillseem to move about as separate things need not be feared. And so they are notsick. The miracle returns the cause of fear to you who made it. But it alsoshows that, having no effects, it is not cause, because the function ofcausation is to have effects. And where effects are gone, there is no cause.Thus is the body healed by miracles because they show the mind made sickness,and employed the body to be victim, or effect, or what it made. Yet half thelesson will not teach the whole. The miracle is useless if you learn but thatthe body can be healed, for this is not the lesson it was sent to teach. Thelesson is the mind was sick that thought the body coud be sick; projecting outits guilt caused nothing, and had no effects. This world is full of miracles.They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sinand guilt. They are the dream´s alternative, the choice to be the dreamer,rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. They are the gladeffects of taking back the consequence of sickness to its cause. The body isreleased because the mind acknowledges ”this is not done to me, but I am doingthis.” And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead. Beginninghere, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descentto separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder done, and allthe dreaming of the world undone.

Love

[IA56]

The Agreement to Join

What waits in perfect certainty beyond salvation is not our concern. For you have barely started to allow your first, uncertain steps to be directed up the ladder separation led you down. The miracle alone is your concern at present. Here is where we must begin. And having started, will the way be made serene and simple in the rising up to waking and the ending of the dream. When you accept a miracle, you do not add your dream of fear to one that is already being dremed.Without support, the dream will fade away without effects. For it is your support that strengthens it. No mind is sick until another mind agrees that they are separate. And thus it is their joint decision to be sick. If you withhold agreement ande accept the part you play in making sickness real, the other mind cannot project its guilt without your aid in letting it perceive itself as separate and apart from you. Thus is the body not perceived as sick by both your minds from separate points of view. Uniting with a brother´s mind prevents the cause of sickness and perceived effects. Healing is the effect of minds that join, as sickness comes from minds that separate. The miracle does nothing just because the minds are joined, and cannot separate. Yet in the dreaming has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which are separated and which cannot join. Do not allow your brother to be sick, for if he is, have you abandoned him to hiss own dream by sharing it with him. He has not seen tthe cause of sickness where it is, and you have overlooked the gap between you, where the sickness has been bred. Thus are you joined insickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherised, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to Him. Fight not His coming with illusions, for itis His coming that you want above all things that seem to glister in the dream.The end of dreaming is the end of fear, and love has never in the world of dreams. The gap is little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every formof ill, because it is a wish to keep apart and not to join. And thus it seems to give a cause to sickness which is not its cause. The purpose of the gap is al lthe cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you separated, in a body which you see as if it were the cause of pain. The cause of pain is spearation,not the body, which is only its effect. Yet separation is but empty space,enclosing nothing, doing nothing, and as unsubstantial as the empty Place between the ripple s that a ship has made in passing by. And covered just as fast, as water rushes in to close the gap, and as the waves in joining cover it. Where is the gap between the waves when they have joined, and covered up the space which seemed to keep them separate for a little while? Where are the grounds for sickness when the minds have joined to close the little gap between them, where the seeds of sickness seemed to grow? God builds the bridge, but only in the space left clean and vacant by the miracle. The seeds of sicknessand the shame of guilt He cannot bridge, for He can not destroy the alien will that He created not. Let its effects be gone and clutch them not with eager hands,to keep them for yourself. The miracle will brush them all aside, and thus make room for Him Who wills to come and bridge His Son´s returning to Himself.Count, then, the silver miracles and golden dreams of happiness as all thet reasures you would keep within the storehouse of the world. The door is open,not the thieves, but to your starving brothers, who mistook for gold the shining of a pebble, and who stored a heep of snow that shone like silver. They have nothing left behind the open door. What is the world except a little gap perceived to tear eternity apart, and break it into days and months and years?And what are you who live within the world except a picture of the Son of God in broken pieces, each concealed within a separate and uncertain bit of clay?Be not afraid, but let your world be lit by miracles. And where the gap was seen to stand between you, join your brother there. And sickness will be seen without a cause. The dream of healing in forgiveness lies, and gently shows you that you never sinned. The miracle would leave no proof of guilt to bring you witness to what never was. And in your storehouse it will make a place of welcome for your Father and your Self. The door is open, that all those may come who would no longer starve, and would enjoy the feast of plenty set Before them there. And they will meet with your invited Guests the miracle has asked to come to you. This is a feast unlike indeed to those the dreaming of the world has shown. For here, the more that anyone receives, the more is left for all the rest to share. The Guests have brought unlimited supply with Them. And no one is deprived or can deprive. Here is a feast the Father lays before His Son, and shares it equally with him. And in Their sharing there can be no gapin which abudance falters and grows thin. Here can the lean years enter not, fortime waits not upon this feast, which has no end. For Love has set its table in the space that seemed to keep your Guests apart from you.

Love

[IA56]

The Greater Joining

Accepting the Atonement for yourself means not to give support to someone´s dream of sickness and of death.It means that you share not his wish to separate, and let him turn illusions of himself. Nor do you wish that they be turned, instead, on you. Thus have they no effects. And you are free of dreams of pain because you let him be. Unless you help him, you will suffer pain with him because that is your wish. And you become a figure in his dream of pain, as he is yours. So do you both becomei llusions, and without identity. You could be anyone of anything, depending on whos evil dream you share. You can be sure of just one thing; that you are evil, for you share in dreams of fear. There is a way of finding certainty right here and now. Refuse to be a part of fearful dreams whatever form they take, for you will lose identity in them. You find yourself by not accepting them as causing you, and giving you effects. You stand part from them, but not apart from him who dreams them. Thus you separate the dreamer from the dream, and join in one,but let the other go. The dream is but illusion in the mind. And with the mind you would unite, but never with the dream. It is the dream you fear, and not the mind. You see them as the same, because you think that you are but a dream.And what is real and what is but illusion in yourself you do not know and cannot tell apart. Like you, your brother thinks he is a dream. Share not in his illusion of himself, for your identity depends on his reality. Think,rather, of him as a mind in which illusions still persist, but as a mind which brother is to you. He is not brother made by what he dreams, nor is his body,”hero” of the dream, your brother. It is his reality that is your brother, as is yours to him. Your mind and his are joined in brotherhood. His body and his dreams but seem to make a little gap, where your shave joined with his. And yet, between your minds there is no gap. To join his dreams is thus to meet him not, because his dreams would separate from you. Therefore release him, merely by your claim on brotherhood, and not a dream of fear. Let him acknowledge whohe is, by not supporting his illusions by your faith, but if you do, you will have faith in yours. With faith in yours, he will not be released, and you are kept in bondage to his dream. And dreams of fear will haunt the little gap,inhabited but by illusions which you have supported in each other´s minds. Be certain, if you do your part, he will do his, for he will join you where you stand. Call not to him to meet you in the gap between you, or you must Believe that it is your reality as well as his. You cannot do his part, but this you do when you become a passive figure in his dreams, instead of dreamer of your own.Identity in dreams is meaningless because the dreamer and the dream are one.Who shares a dream must be the dream he shares, because by sharing is a cause produced. You share confusion and you are confused, for in the gap no stable self exists. What is the same seems different, because what is the same appears to be unlike. His dream are yours because you lett hem be. But if you took your own away would he be free of them, and o fhis own as well. Your dream are witnesses to his, and his attest the truth of yours. Your dream are witnessesto his, and his attest the truth of yours. Yet if you see there is no truth in yours, his dream will go, and he will understand what made the dream. The Holy Spirit is in both your minds, and He is One because there is no gap that separates His Oneness from Itself. The gap between your bodies matters not, for what is joined in Him is always one. No one is sick if someone else accepts his union with him. His desire to be sick and separated mind can not remain without a witness or a cause. And both are gone if someone wills to be united with him.He has dreams that he was separated from his brother who, by sharing not his dream, has left the space between them vacant. And the Father comes to join His Son the Holy Spirit joined. The Holy Spirit´s function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God and put the space into place again. This holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that Thinks it is a picture in itself. To each he offers his Identity, Which the whole picture represents, instead of just a little, broken bit that he insisted was himself. And when he sees this picture he will recongnize himself. If you share not your brother´s evil dream, this is the picture that the miracle will Place within the gap, left clean of all the seeds of sickness oand of sin. And here the Father will receive His Son, because His Son was gracious to himself. I thank You, Father, knowing You will come to close each little gap that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. Your holiness, complete and perfect, lies in every one of them. And they are joined because what is in one is in them all. How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is recognized as being part of the completed picture of God´s Son! The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. For the whole is in each one. And every aspect ofthe Son of God is just the same as every other part. Join not your brother´s dreams but join with him, and where you join His Son the Father is. Who seeks for substitutes when he perceives he has lost nothing? Who could want to have the ”benefits” of sickness when he has recieved the simple happiness of health?What God as given cannot be a loss, and what is not of Him has no effects.What, then, would you perceive within the gap? The seeds of sickness come from the belief that there is joy in separation, and its giving up would be a sacrifice. But miracles are the result when you do not insist on seeing in the gap what is not there. Your willingness to let illusions go is all the Healer of God´s Son requires. He will place the seeds of healing where the seeds of sickness were. And there will be no loss, but only gain.

Love

[IA56]

The Alternative to Dream of Fear

What is a sense of sickness but a sense of limitation? Of a splitting off and separating from? A gap perceived between your selfves and what is seen as health? The good is seen outside; the evil, in. And thus is sickness separating off the self from good, and keeping evil in. God is the Alternate to dreams of fear. Who shares in them can never share in Him. But who withdraws his mind from sharing them is sharing Him.There is no other choice. Except you share it, nothing can exist. And you exist because God shares His Will with you, that His creation might create. It is the sharing of the evil dream of hate and malice, bitterness and death, of sin and suffering and pain and loss, that makes them real. Unshared, they are perceived as meaningless. The fear is gone from them because you did not givet hem your support. Where fear has gone there love must come, because there are but these alternatives. Where one appears, the other disappears. And which you share becomes the only one you have. You have the one that you accept, because the only one you have. You have the one that you accept, because it is the only one you wish to have. You share no evil dream if you forgive the dreamer, and perceive that he is not the dream he made. And so he cannot be a part of yours, from which you both are free.Forgiveness separates the dreamer from the evil dream, and thus releases him.Remember if you share an evil dream, and thus release him. Remember if you share an evil dream, you will believe you are the dream you share. And fearing it, you will not want to know your own Identity, because you think that It is fearful. And you will deny your Self, and walk upon an alien ground which your Creator did not make, and where you seem to be a something you are not. You will make war upon your Self, Which seems to be your enemy; and will attack your brother, as a part of what you hate. There is no compromise. You are your Self or an illusion. What can be between illusion and the truth? A middle ground, where you can be a thing that is not you, must be a dream and cannot be the truth. You have conceived a little gap between illusions and the truth to be the place where all your safety lies, and where your Self is safely hidden by what you have made. Here is a world established that is sick, and this the world the body´s eyes perceive. Here are the sounds it hears; the voices thatits ears were made to hear. Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see nor hear. It does not know what seeing is; what listening is for. It is a little able to perceive as it can judge or understand or know. Its eyes are blind; its ears are deaf. It can not think, and so it cannot have effects. What is there God created to be sick? And what that He created not can be? Let not your eyes behold a dream; your ears bear witness to illusion. They were made to look upon a world that is not there; to hear the voices that can make no sound. Yet are there other sounds and other sights that can be seen and heard and understood. For eyes and ears are senses without sense, and what they see and hear they but report. It is not they that hear and see, but you, who put together every jagged piece, each senseless scrap and shred of evidence, and make a witness to the world you want. Let not the body´s ears and eyes perceive these countless fragments seen within the gap that you imagined,and lett them persuade their maker his imaginings are real. Creation proves reality becuse it shares the funcition all creation shares. It is not made of little bits of glass, a piece of wood, a thread or two, perhaps, all put togehter to attest its truth. Reality does not depend on this. There is no gap that separates the truth from dreams and from illusions. Truth has left no room for them in any place or time. For it fills every place and every time, and makes them wholly invisible. You who believe there is a little gap between you and your brother, do not see that it is here you are as prisoners in a World perceived to be existing here. The world you see does not exist, because theplace where you perceive it is not real. The gap is carefully concealed in fog,and misty pictures rise to cover it with vague uncertain forms and changing shapes, forever unsubstantial and unsure. Yet in the gap is nothing. And there are no awesome secrets and no darkened tombs where terror rises from the bones of death. Look at the little gap, and you behold the innocence and emptiness of sin that you will see within yourself, when you have lost the fear of recongnizing love.

Love

[IA56]

The Secret Vows

Who punishes the body is insane.For here the little gap is seen, and yet it is not here. It has not judged itself, nor make itself to be what it is not. It does not seek to make of pain a joy and look for lasting pleasures in the dust. It does not tell you what its purpose is and cannot understand what it is for. It does not tell you what its purpose is and cannot understand what it is for. It does not victimize, because it has not will, no preferences and no doubts. It does not wonder what it is.And so it has no need to be compretitive. It can be victimized, but cannot feel itself as victim. It accepts no role, but does what it is told, without attack.It is indeed a senseless point of view to hold responsible for sight a thing that cannot see, and blame it for the sounds you do not like, although it cannot hear. It suffers not the punishment you give because it has no feeling.It behaves in ways you want, but never makes the choice. It is not born and does not die. It can but follow aimlessly the path on which it has been set.And if that path is changed, it walks as easily another way. It takes no sides and judges not the road it travels. It perceives no gap, because it does not hate, it can be used for hate, but it cannot be hateful made thereby. The thing you hate and fear and loathe and want, the body does not know. You send it forth to seek for separation and to be a separate thing. And then you hate it,not for what it is, but for the uses you have made of it. You shrink from what it sees and what it hears, and hate its frailty and littleness. And you despite its acts, but not your own. It sees and acts for you. It hears your voice. And it is fail and little by your wish. It seems to punish you, and thus deserve your hatred for the limitations that it brings to you. Yet you have made of it a symbol for the limitations that you want your mind to have and see and keep. The body represents the gap between the little bit of mind you call your own and all the rest of what is really yours. You hate it, yet you think it is your self, and that, without it, would your self be lost. This is the secret vow that you have made with every brother who would walk apart. This is the secret oath you take again, wherever you perceive yourself attacked. No on can suffer if he does not see himself attacked, and losing by attack. Unstated and unheard in consiousness is every pledge to sickness. Yet it is a promise to another to be hurt by him, and to attack him in return. Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that it will suffer pain. It is the obvious effect of what was made in secret, in agreement with another´s secret wish to be apart from you, as you would be apart from him. Unless you both agree that is your wish, it can have no effects. Whoever says, ”There is no gap between my mind and yours” had kept God´s promise, not his tiny oath to be forever faithful unto death. And by his healing is his brother healed. Let this be your agreement with each one; that you be one with him and not apart. And he will keep the promise that you make with him, because it is the one that he has made to God, as God has made to him. God keeps His promises; His Son keeps his. In his creation did his Father say, ”You are beloved of Me and I of you forever. Be your perfect as Myself,for you can never be apart from Me.” His Son remembers not that he replied ”I Will,” though in that promise he was born. Yet God reminds him of it every time he does not share a promise to be sick, but lets his mind be healed and unified. His secret vows are powerless before the Will of God, Whose promises he shares. And what he substitutes is not his will, who has made promise of himself to God.

Love

[IA56]

The Ark of Safety

God asks for nothing, and His Son, like Him, need ask for nothing. For there is no lack in him. An empty space, a little gap, would be a lack. And it is only there that he could want to something he has not. A space where God is not, a gap between the Father and the Son is not the Will of either, who have promised to be one. God´s promise is a promise to Himself, and there is no one who could be untrue to what He wills as part of what He is. The promise that there is no gap between Himself and what He is cannot be false. What will can come between what must be one, and inWhose Wholeness there can be no gap? The beautiful relationship you have with all your brothers is a part of you because it is a part of God Himself. Are you no sick, if you deny yourself your wholeness and your health, the Source of help, the Call to healing and the Call to heal? Your savior waits for healing,and the world waits with him. Nor are you apart from it. For healing will beone or not at all, its oneness being where the healing is. What could correct for separation but its opposite? There is no middle ground in any aspect of salvation. You accept is wholly or accept it not. What is unseparated must be joined. And what is joined cannot be separated. Either there is a gap between you and your brother, or you are as one. There is no in between, no other choice, and no allegiance to be split between the two. A split alligance is but faithlessness to both, and merely sets you spinning round, to grasp uncertainly at any straw that seems to hold some promise of relief. Yet who can build this home upon a straw, and count on it as shelter from the wind? The body can be made a home like this, because it lacks foundation in the truth. And yet,because it does, it can be seen as not your home, but merely as an aid to help you reach the Home where God abides. With this as purpose is the body healed.It is not used to witness to the dream of separation and disease. Nor it is idly blamed for what it did not do. It serves to help the healing of God´s Son,and for this purpose it cannot be sick. It will not join a purpose not your own,and you have chosen that it not be sick. All miracles are based upon this choice, and given you the instant it is made. No forms of sickness are immune,becasue the choice cannot be made in terms of form. The choice of sicknessseems to be of form, yet it is one, as is its opposite. And you are sick or well, accordingly. But never you alone. This world is but the dream that you can be alone, and think without affecting those apart from you. To be alone must mean you are apart, and if you are, you cannot but be sick. This seems to prove that you must be apart. Yet all it means is that you tried to keep a promise to be true to faithlessness. Yet faithlessness is sickness. It is like the house set upon straw. It seems to be quite solid and substantial in itself.Yet its stability cannot be judged apart from its foundation. If it rests on straw,there is no need to bar the door and lock the window and make fast the bolts. The wind will topple it, and rain will come and carry it into oblivion. What is the sense in seeking to be safe in what was made for danger and for fear? Why burden it with further locks and chains and heavy anchors, when its weaknesslies, not in itself, but in the frailty of the little gap of nothingness where on it stands? What can be safe that rests upon a shadow? Would you build your home upon what will collapse beneath a feather´s weight? Your home is built upon your brother´s health, upon his happiness, his sinlessness and Everything his Father promised him. No secret promise you have made instead his shaken the Foundation of his home. The wind will blow upon it and the rain will be at against it, but with no effect. The world will wash away and yet this house will stand forever, for its strength lies not within itself alone. It is an ark of safety, resting on God´s promise that His Son is safe forever in Himself.What gap can interpose itself between the safety of this shelter and its Source? From here the body can be seen as what it is, and neither less nor more in worth than the extent to which it can be used to liberate God´s Son unto of holiness a little while, because it shares your Father´s Will with you.

Love

[IA56]

THE AWAKENING
The Closing of the Gap

There is no time, no place, no state where God is absent. There is nothing to be feared. There is no way in which a gap could be conceived of in the Wholeness that is His. The compromise the least and the little gap would represent in His eternal Love is quite impossible. For it would mean His Love could harbor just a hint of hate, His gentleness turn sometimes to attack, and His eternal patience sometimes fail. All this do you believe, when you perceive a gap between your brother and yourself. How could you trust Him, then? For He must be deceptive in His Love, Be wary, then; let him not come too close, and leave a gap between you and His Love, through which you can escape if there be need for you to flee. Here is the fear of God most plainly seen. For love is treacherous to those who fear,since fear and hate can never be apart. No one who hates but is afraid of love,and therefore must he be afraid of God. Certain it is he knows not what love means. He fears to love and loves to hate, and so het hinks that love is fearful; hat is love. This is the consequence the little gap must bring to those who cherish it, and think that it is their salvation and their hope. The fear of God! The greatest obstacle that peace must flow across has not yet gone.The rest are past, but this one still remains to block your path, and make the way to light seem dark and fearful, perilous and bleak. You had decided that your brother is your enemy. Sometimes a friend, perhaps, provided that your separate interests made your friendship possible a little while. But not without a gap between you, les the turn again into an enemy. A cautious frienship, limited in scope and carefully restricted in amount, became the treaty you had made with him. You shared a qualified entente, in which a clause of separation was a point on which you both agreed to keep intact. And violating this was thought to be breach of treaty not to be allowd. The gap between you is not one of space between two separate bodies. This but seems to be dividing off your separate minds. It is the symbol of a promise made to meet when you prefer, and separate until you both elect to meet again. And then your bodies seem to get in touch, and signify a meeting place to join. But always is it possible to go your separate ways. Conditional upon the ”right” to separate will you agree to meet from time to time, and keep apart in intervals of separation, which protect you from the ”sacrifice” of love. The body saves you,for it gets away from total sacrifice and gives you time in which to build again your separate seves, which you believe diminish as yo meet. The body could not separate your minds unless you wanted it to be a cause of separationand of distance seen between you. Thus do you endow it with a power that lies not within itself. And herein lies its power over you. For now you think that it determines when you meet, and limits your ability to make communion with each other´s mind. And now it tells you where to go and how to go there, what is feasible for you to undertake, and what you cannot do. It dictates what its health can tolerate, and what will tire it and make it sick. And its ”inherent”weaknesses set up the limitations on what you would do, and keep your purpose limited and weak. The body will accommondate to this, if you would have it so.It will allow but limited indulgences in ”love” with intervals of hatred inbetween. And it will take command of when to ”love,” and when to shrink more safely into fear. It will be sick because you do not know what loving means. And so you must misuse each circumstance and everyone you meet, and see in thema purpose not your own. It is not love that asks a sacrifice. But fear demands the sacrifice of love, for in love´s presence fear cannot abide. For hate to be maintained, love must be feared; and only sometimes presen, sometimes gone.Thus is love seen as treacherous, because it seems to come and go uncertainly,and offer no stability to you. You do not see how limited and weak is your allegiance, and how frequently you have demanded that love go away, and leave you quietly alone in ”peace”. The body, innocent of any goal, is your exuse for variable goals you hold, and force the body to maintain. You do not fear its weakness, but its lack of strength or weakness. Would you recongize that nothing stands between you? Would you know there is no gap behind which you can hide? There is a shock that comes to those who learn their savior is their enemy no more. There is a wariness that is aroused by learning that the body is not real. And there are overtones of seeming fear around the happy message, ”God is Love”. Yet all that happens when the gap is gone is peace eternal. Nothing more than that, and nothing less. Without the fear of God, what could induce you to abandon Him? What toys or trinkets in the gap could serve to hold you back an instant from His Love? Would you allow the body to say ”no” to Heaven´scalling, were you not afraid to find a loss of self in finding God? Yet can yourself be lost by being found?

Love