IA´s Journal

[IA56]

Beyond All Idols

Idols are quite specific. But your will is universal, being limitless. And so it has no form, nor is content for its expression in the terms of form. Idols are limits. They are the belief that there are forms that will bring happiness, and that, by limiting, is all attained.It is as if you said, ”I have no need of everything. This little thing I want,and it will be as everything to me.” And this must fail to satisfy, because it is your will that everything be yours. Decide for idols and you ask for loss.Decide for truth and everything is yours. It is not form you seek. What form can be a substitute for God the Father´s Love? What form can take the place ofall the love in the Divinity of God the Son? What idol can make two of what is one? And can the limitless be limited? You do not want an idol. It is not your will to have one. It will not bestow on you the gift you seek. When you decide upon the form of what you want, you lose the understanding of its purpose. So you see your will within the idol, thus reducing it to a specific form. Yet this could never be your will, because what shares in all creation cannot be content with small ideas and little things. Behind the search for every idollies the yearning for completion. Wholeness has no form because it is unlimited.To seek a special person or a thing to add to you to make yourself complete,can only mean that you believe some form is missing. And by finding this, you will achive completion in a form you like. This is the purpose of an idol; that you will not look beyond it, to the source of the belief that you are incomplete. Only if you had sinned could this be so. For sin is the idea you are alone and separated off from what is whole. And thus it would be necessary for the search for wholeness to be made beyond the boundaries of limits on yourself. It never is the idol that you want. But what you think it offers you,you want indeed and have the right to ask for. Nor could it be possible it be denied. Your will to be complete is but God´s Will, and this is given you by being His. God knows not form. He cannot answer you in terms that heve no meaning. And you will could not be satisfied with empty forms, made but to fill a gap that is not there. It is not this you want. Creation gives no separate person and no separate things the power to complete the Son of God. What idol can be called upon to give the Son of God what he already has? Completion is the function of God´s Son. He has no need to seek for it at all. Beyond all idols stands his holy will to be but what he is. For more than whole is meaningless. If there were change in him, if he could be reduced to any form and limited to what is not in him, he would not be as God created him. What idol can he need to be himself? For can he give a part of him away? What is not whole cannot make whole. But what is really asked for cannot be denied. Your will is garanted. Not in any form that would content you not, but in the whole completely lovely Thought God holds of you. Nothing that God knows not exists.And what He knows exists forever, changelessly. For thoughts endure as long as does the mind that thought of them. And in the Mind of God there is no ending,nor a time a in which His Thoughts were absent or could suffer change. Thoughts you think are in your mind, as you are the Mind Which thought of you. And so there are no separate parts in what exists within God´s Min d. It is forever one, eternally united and at peace. Thoughts seem to come and go. Yet all this means is that you are sometimes aware of them, and sometimes not. An unremembered thought is born again to you when it returns to your awareness.Yet it did not die when you forgot it. It was always there, but you were unaware of it. The Thought God holds of you is perfectly unchanged by your forgetting. It will always be exactly as it was before the time when you forgot, and will be just the same when you remember. And it is the same within the interval when you forgot. The Thoughts of God are far beyond all change,and shine forever. They await not birth. They wait for welcome and remembering.The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there. Yet still and white and lovely will it shine through all eternity. There was no time it was not there; no instant when its lights grew dimmer or less perfectever was. Who knows the Father knows this light, for He is the eternal sky that holds it safe, forever lifted up and anchored sure. Its perfect purity does not depend on whether it is seen on earth or not. The sky embrace it and softly holds it in its perfect place, which is as far from earth as earth from Heaven.It is not the distance nor the time that keeps this star invisible to earth.But those who seek for idols cannot know that star is there. Beyond all idols is the Thought God holds of you. Completely unaffected by the turmoil and the terror of the world, the dreams of birth and death that here are dreamed, the myriad of forms that fear can take; quite undisturbed, the Thought God holds of you remains exactly as it always was. Surrounded by a stillness so complete not sound of battle comes remotely near, it rests in certainty and perfect peace.Here is your one reality kept safe, completely unaware of all the world that worships idols, and that knows not God. In perfect sureness of its changelessness and of its rest in its eternal home, the Thought God holds of you has never left the Mind of its Creator, Whom it knows as its Creator knows that it is there. Where could the Thought God holds of you exist but where you are? Is your reality a thing apart from you, and in a world which your reality knows nothing of? Outside you there is no eternal sky, no changeless star and no realtiy. The mind of Heaven´s Son in Heaven is, for there the Mind of Father and of Son joined in creation which can have no end. You have not two realities, but one. Nor can you be aware of more than one. And idol or the Though tGod holds of you is your reality. Forget not, then, that idols must keep hidden what you are, not from the Mind of God, but from your own. The star shines still; the sky has never changed. But you, the holy Son of God Himself, are unaware of your reality.

Love

[IA56]

The Truth Behind Illusions

You will attack what does not satisfy, and thus you will not see you made it up. You always fight illusions.For the truth behind them is so lovely and so still in loving gentleness, were you aware of it you would forget defensivness entirely, and rush to its embrace. The truth could never be attacked. And this you knew when you made idols. They were made that this might be forgotten. You attack but false ideas,and never truthful ones. All idols are the false ideas you made to fill the gap you think arose between yourself and what is true. And you attack them for the things you think they represent. What lies beyond them cannot be attacked. The wearying, dissatisfying gods you made are blown-up children´s toys. A child is frightened when a wooden head springs up as a closed box is opened suddenly, or when a soft and silent woolly bear begins to squek as he takes hold of it. The rules he made for boxes and for bears have failed him, and have broken his”control” of what surrounds him. And he is afraid, because he thought the rules protected him. And he is afraid, because he thought the rules protected him.Now must he learn the boxes and the bears did not deceive him, broke no rules,nor mean his world is made chaotic and unsafe. He was mistaken. He misunderstood what made him safe, and thought that it had left. The gap that is not there is filled with toys in conuntless forms. And each one seems to break the rules you set for it. It never was the things you thought. It must appear to break you rules for safety, since the rules were wrong. But you are not endangered. You can laugh at popping heads and squeaking toys, as does the child who learns they are not threat to him. Yet while he likes to play with them, he still perceives them as obeying rules he made for his enjoyment. So there still are rules that they can seem to break and frighten him. Yet is heat the mercy of his toys? And can they represent a threat to him? Reality observes the laws of God, and not the rules you set. It is His laws that guarantee your safety. All illusions that you believe about yourself obey no laws. They seem to dance a little while, according to the rules you set for them. But then they fall and cannot rise again. They are but toys, my child, so do not grieve for them. Their dancing never brought you joy. But neither were they things to frighten you, nor make you safe if they obeyed your rules. They must be neither cherished nor attacked, but merely looked upon as children´s toys without a single meaning of their own. See one in them and you will see the mall. See none in them and they will touch you not. Appearances deceive because they are appearances and not reality. Dwell not on them in any form. They but obscure reality, and they bring fear because they hide the truth. Do not attack what you have made to let you be deceived, for thus you prove that you have been deceived. Attack has power to make illusions real. Yet what it makes is nothing. Who could be made fearful by a power that can have no real effect at all? What could it be but an illusion, making things appear like to itself?Look calmly at its toys, and understand that they are idols which but dance to vain desire. Give them not your worship, for they are not there. Yet this is equally forgotten in attack. God´s Son needs no defense against his dreams. His idols do not threaten him at all. His one mistake is the he thinks them real.What can the power of illusions do? Appearances can but decieve the mind that wants to be deceived. And you can make a simple choice that will forever Place you far beyond deception. You need not concern yourself with how this will be done, for this you cannot understand. But you will understand that Mighty changes have been quickly brought about, when you decide one very simple thing; you do not want whatever you believe an idol gives. For thus the Son of God declares that he is free of idols. And thus is he free. Salvation is a paradox indeed! What could it be except a happy dream? It asks you but that you forgive all things that no one ever did; to overlook what is not there, and not to look upon the unreal as reality. You are but asked to let your will be done, and seek no longer for the things you do not want. And you are asked to let yourself be free of all the dreams of what you never were, and seek no more to substitute the strength of idle wishes for the Will of God. Here does the dream of separation start to fade and disappear. For here the gap that is not there begins to be perceived without the toys of terror that you made. No more than this is asked. Be glad indeed salvation asks so little, not so much. It asks for nothing in reality. And ever in illusions it but asks forgiveness be the substitute for fear. Such is the only rule for happy dreams. The gap is emptied of the toys of fear, and the nits unreality its plain. Dreams are for nothing. And the Son of God can have no need of them. They offer him no single thing that he could ever want. He is delivered from illusions by his will, and but restored to what he is. What could God´s plan for his salvation be, except a means to give him to Himself?

Love

[IA56]

The Only Purpose

The real world is the state of mind in which the only purpose of the world is seen to be forgiveness. Fear is not its goal, for the escape from guilt becomes its aim. The value of forgiveness is perceived and takes the place of idols, are sought no longer,for their ”gifts” are not held dear. No rules are idly set, and no demands are made of anyone or anything to twist and fit into the dream of fear. Instead,there is a recognized that all things must be first forgiven, and then understood. Here, it is thought that understanding is acquired by attack.There, it is clear that by attack is understanding lost. The folly of persuing guilt as goal is fully reconginzed. And idols are not wanted there, for guilt is understood as the sole cause of pain in any form. No on is tempted by its vain appeal, for suffering and death have been perceived as things not wanted and not striven for. The possiblility of freedom has been grasped and welcomed,and the means by which it can be gained can now be understood. The world becomes a place of hope, because its only purpose is to be a place where hope of happiness can be fulfilled. And no one stands outside this hope, because the world has been united in belief the purpose of the world is one which all must share, if hope be more than just a dream. Not yet is Heaven quite remembered,for the purpose of forgivness still remians. Yet everyone is certain he will go beyond forgiveness, and he but remains until it is made perfect in himself. He has no wish for anything but this. And fear has dropped away, because he is united in his purpose with himself. There is a hope of happiness in him so sureand constant he can barely stand and wait a little longer, with his feet still touching earth. Yet is he glad to wait till every hand is joined, and every heart made ready to arise and go with him. For thus is he made ready for the step in which is all forgiveness left behind. The final step is God´s, because it is but God Who could create a perfect Son and share His Fatherhood with him. No one outside of Heaven knows how this can be, for understanding this is Heaven itself. Even the real world has a purpose still beneath creation and eternity. And so is Heaven´s Son prepared to be himself, and to remember that the Son of God knows everything his Father understands, and understands it perfectly with Him. The real world still falls short of this, for this is God´sOwn purpose; only His, and yet completely shared and perfectly fulfilled. The real world is a state in which the mind has learned how easily do idols go when they are still perceived but wanted not. How willingly the mind can let them go when it has understood that idols are nothing and nowhere, and are purposeless.For only then can guilt and sin be seen without a prupose, and as meaningless.Thus is the real world´s purpose gently brought into awareness, to replace the goal of sin and guilt. And all that stood between your image of yourself and what you are, forgiveness washes joyfully away. Yet God need not create His Sonagain, that what is his be given back to him. The gap between your brother and yourself was never there. And what the Son of God knew is creation he must know again. When brothers join in purpose in the world of fear, they stand already at the edge of the real world. Perhaps they still look back, and think they seean idol that they want. Yet has their path been surely set away from idol stoward reality. For when they joined their hands it was Christ´s hand they took, and they will look on Him Whose hand they hold. The face of Christ is looked upon before the Father is remembered. For He must be unremembered till His Son has reached beyond forgiveness to the Love of God. Yet is the Love of Christ accepted first. And then will come the knowledge. They are one. How lightand easy is the step across the narrow boundaries of the world of fear when you have recognizied Whose hand you hold! Within your hand is everyone you need to walk with perfect confidence away from fear forever, and to go straight on, and quickly reach to gate of Heaven itself. For He Whose hand you hold was waiting but for you to join Him. Now that you have come, would He delay in showing youthe way that He must walk with you? His blessing lies on you as surely as His Father´s Love rests upon Him. His gratitude to you is past you understanding,for you have enabled Him to rise from chains and go with you, together, to His Father´s house. And ancient hate is passing from the world. And with it goes all hatred and all fear. Look back no longer, for what lies ahead is all you ever wanted in your heart. Give up the world! But not to sacrifice. You never wanted it. What happiness have you sought here that did not bring you pain? What moment of content has not been bought at fearful price in coins of suffering? Joy has no cost. It is your sacred right, and what you pay for is not happiness. Be speeded on your way by honstly, and let not your expereinces here decived in retospekt. They were notf ree from bitter cost and joyless consequensce. Do not look back except in honesty. And when an idol tempts you, think of this:

There never was a time an idol brought
You anything except the ”gift”of guilt.
Not one was bought except the cost of pain,
Nor was it ever paid by you alone.

Be merciful unto your brother,then. And do not choose and idol thoughtlessly, remembering that he will pay the cost as well as you. For he will be delayed when you look back, and you will not perceive Whose loving hand you hold. Look forward, then, and walk in confidence, with happy hearts that beat in hope and do not pound in fear. The Will of God forever lies in those whose hands are joined. Until they joined,they thought He was their enemy. But when they joined and shared a purpose,they were free to learn their will is one. And thus the Will of God must reach to their awareness. Nor can they forget for long that it is but their own.

Love

[IA56]

The Justification for Forgiveness

Anger is nerver justified.Attack has no foundation. It is here escape from fear begins, and will be made complete. Here is the real world given in exchange for dreams of terror. For it is on this forgiveness rests, and is but natural. You are not asked to offer pardon where attack is due, and would be justified. For that would mean that you forgive a sin by overlooking what is really there. This is not pardon. For it would assume that, by responding in a way which is not justified, your pardon will become the answer to attack that has been made. And thus is pardon inappropriate, by being garanted where it is not due. Pardon is Always justified. It has a sure foundation. You do not forgive the unforgivable, nor overlook a real attack that calls for punishment. Salvation does not lie in being asked to make unnatural responses which are inappropriate to what is real. Instead, it merely asks that you respond appropriately to what is not real by not perceiving what has not occured. If pardon were unjustified, you would be asked to sacrifice your rights when you return forgiveness for attack. But you are merely asked to see forgiveness as the natural reaction to distress that rests on error, and thus calls for help. Forgiveness is the only sane response. It keeps your rights from being sacrificed. This understanding is the only change that lets the real world rise to take the place of dream of terror.Fear cannot arise unless attack is justified, and if it had a real Foundation pardon would have none. The real world is achieved when you perceive the basis of forgiveness is quite real and fully justified. While you regard it as a gift unwarranted, it must uphold the guilt you would ”forgive.” Unjustified forgiveness is attack. And this is all the world can ever give. It pardons”sinners” sometimes, but remains aware that they have sinned. And so they do not merit the forgiveness that it gives. This is the false forgiveness which the world employs to keep the sense of sin alive. And recognizing God is just,it seems impossible His pardon could be real. Thus is the fear of God the sure result of seeing pardon as unmerited. No one who sees himself as guilty can avoid the fear of God. But he is saved from this dilemma if he can forgive. The mind must think of its Creator as it looks upon itself. If you can see your brother merits pardon, you have learned forgiveness is your right as much ashis. Nor will you think that God intends for you a fearful judgment that your brother does not merit. For it is the truth that you can merit neither more norless than he. Forgiveness recognized as merited will heal. It gives the miracle its strength to overlook illusions. This is how you learn that you must be forgiven too. There can be no appearance that can not be overlooked. For if there were, it would be necessary first there be some sin that stands beyond forgiveness. There would be an error that is more than a mistake; a special form of error that remains unchangeable, eternal, and beyond correction or escape. There would be one mistake that had the power to undo creation, and to make a world that could replace it and destroy the Will of God. Only if this were possible could there be some appearances that could withstand the miracle,and not be healed by it. There is no surer proof idolatry is what you wish than a belief there are some forms of sickness and of joylessness forgiveness cannot heal. This means that you prefer to keep some idols, and are not prepared, as yet, to let all idols go. And thus you think that some apperances are real and not appearances at all. Be not deceived about the meaning of a fixed belief that some appearances are harder to look past than others are. It always means you think forgiveness must be limited. And you have set a goal of partial pardon and a limited escape from guilt for you. What can this be except a false forgiveness of yourself, and everyone who seems apart from you? It must be true the miracle can heal all forms of sickness, or it cannot heal. Its purpose cannto be to judge which forms are real, and which appearances are true. If one appearance must remain apart from healing, one illusion must be part of truth.And you could not escape all guilt, but only some of it. You must forgive God´s Son entirely. Or you will keep an image of yourself that is not whole, and will remain afraid to look within and find escape from every idol there. Salvation rests on faith there cannot be some forms of guilt that you cannot forgive. And so there cannot be appearances that have replaced the truth about God´s Son.Look on your brother with the willingness to see him as he is. And do not keep a part of him outside your willingness that he be healed. To heal is to make whole. And what is whole can have no missing parts that have been kept outside.Forgiveness rests on recognizing this, and being glad there cannot be some forms of sickness which the miracle must lack the power to heal. God´s Son is perfect, or he cannot be God´s Son. Nor will you know him, if you think he does not merit the escape from guilt in all its consequences and its forms. There is no way to think of him but this, if you would know the truth about yourself.

”I thank You, Father, for Your perfect Son,
And in this glory will I see my own.”

Here is the joyful statement that there are no forms of evil that can overcome the Will of God; and glad acknowledgment that guilt has not succeeded by your wish to make illusions real. And what is this except a simple statement of the truth? Look on your brother with this hope in you, and you will understand he could not make an error that could change the truth in him. It is not difficult to overlook mistakes that have been given no effects. But what you see as having power to make an idol of the Son of God you will not pardon. For he has become to you a graven image and a sign of death. Is this you savior? Is his Father wrong about His Son? Or have you been deceived in him who has been given you to heal, for your salvation and deliverance?

Love

[IA56]

The New Interpretation

Would God have left the meaning of the world to your interpretation? If He had, it has no meaning. For it cannot be that meaning changes constantly, and yet is true. The Holy Spirit looks upon the world as with one purpose, changelessly established. And no situation can affect ist aim, but must be in accord with it. For only if its aim could change with every situation could each one be open to interpretation which is differently every time you think of it. You add an element into the script you write for every minute in the day, and all that happens now means something else. You take away another element, and every meaning shifts accordingly.What do your scripts reflect except your plans for what the day should be? And thus you judge disaster and success, advance, retreat, and gain and loss. These judgments all are made according to the roles the script assigns. The fact they have no meaning in themselves is demonstrated by the ease with which theselabels change with other judgments, made on different aspects of expereince. And then, in looking back, you think you see another meaning in what Went before. What have you really done, except to show there was no meaning there?But you assigned a meaning in the light of goals that change, with every meaning shifting as they change. Only a constant purpose can endow events with stable meaning. But if must accord one meaning to them all. If they are given different meaning, it must be that they reflect but different purposes. And this is all the meaning that they have. Can this be meaning? Can confusion be what meaning means? Perception cannot be in constant flux, and make allowance for stability of meaning but to show you wrote a fearful script, and are afraid accordingly. But not because the thing you fear has fearful meaning in itself.A common purpose is the only means whereby perception can be stabilized, and one interpretation given to the world and all experiences here. In this shared purpose in one judgment shared by everyone and everything you see. You do not have to judge, for you have learned one meaning has been given everything, and you are glad to see it everywhere. It cannot change because you would perceive it everywhere, unchanged by circumstance. And so you offer it to all events,and let them offer you stability. Escape form judgment simply lies in this; all things have but one purpose, which you share with all the world. And nothing inthe world can be opposed to it, for it belongs to everything, as it belongs to you. In single purpose is the end of all ideas of sacrifice, which must assume a different purpose for the one who gains and him who loses. There could be no thought of sacrifice apart from this idea. And it is this idea of different goals that makes perception shift and meaning change. In one united goal diest his become impossible, for your agreement makes interpretation stabilize and last. How can communicatin really be established while the symbols that are used mean different things? The Holy Spirit´s goal gives one interpretation,meaningful to you and to your brother. Thus can you communicate with him, and he with you. In symbols that you both can understand the sacrifice of meaning is undone. All sacrifice entails the loss of your ability to see relationships among events. And looked at separately they have no meaning. For there is no light by which they can be seen and understood. They have no purpose. And what they are for cannot be seen. In any thought of loss there is no meaning. No one has agreed with you on what it means. It is a part of a distorted script, which cannot be interpreted with meaning. It must be forever unintelligible. This is not communication. Your dark dreams are but the senseless, isolated scrips you write in sleep. Look not to separate dreams for meaning. Only dreams of pardon can be shared. They mean the same to both of you. Do not intepret out of solitude, for what you see means nothing. It will shift in what it stands for,and you will believe the world is an uncertain place, in which you walk in danger and undertainty. It is but your interpretation which are lacking instability, for they are not in line with what you really are. This is a state so seemingly unsafe that fear must rise. Do not continue thus, my brother. We have one Interpreter. And through His use of symbols are we joined, so that they mean the same to all of us. Our common language lets us speak to all our brothers, and to understand with them forgiveness has been given to us all, and thus we can communicate again.

Love

[IA56]

Changeless Reality

Appearances deceive, but can be changed. Reality is changeless. It does not deceive at all, and if you fail to see beyond appearances you are deceived. For everything you see will change,and yet you thought it real before, and now you think it real again. Reality is thus reduced to form, and capable of change. Reality is changeless. It is this that makes it real, and keeps it separate from all appearances. It must transcend all form to be itself. It cannot change. The miracle is means to demonstrate that all appearances can change because they are appearances, and cannot have the changelessness reality entails. The miracle attest salvation from appearances by showing they can change. Your brother has a changelessness in him behyond appearance and deception, both. It is obscured by changing views of him that you perceive as his reality. The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health, his perfect freedom from all forms of lack, and safety from disaster of all kinds. The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can be easily be changed. This demonstrates that it was never real, and could not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects that anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal because the change. What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? It does not seem to be the wish that no reality be so. Yet it is an assertion that some forms of idols have a powerful appeal that makes them harder to resist than those you would not want to have reality. Temptation, then, is nothing more than this; a prayer the miracle touch not some dreams, but keep their unreality obscure and give to them reality instead. And Heaven gives no answer to the prayer, nor can a miracle be given you to heal appearances you do not like. You have established limits. What you ask is given you, but not of God Who knows no limits. You have limited yourself. Reality is changeless. Miracles but show what you have interposed between reality and your awareness is unreal, and does not interfere at all. The cost of the belief there must be some appearances beyond and hope of change is that the miracle cannot come forth from you consistently. For you have asked it be withheld from power to heal all dreams. There is no miracle you cannot have when you desire healing. But there is no miracle that can begiven you unless you want it. Choose what you would heal, and He Who gives all miracles has not been given freedom to bestow His gifts upon God´s Son. When he is tempted, he denies reality. And he becomes the willing slave of what he chose instead. Because reality is changeless is a miracle already there to heal all things that change, and offer them to you to see in happy form, devoid offear. It will be given you to look upon your brother thus. But not while you would have it otherwise in some respects. For this but means you would not have him healed and whole. The Christ in him is perfect. Is it this that you would look upon? Then let there be no dreams about him that you would prefer to seeing this. And you will see the Christ in him because you let Him come to you. And when He has appeared to you, you will be certain you are like Him, for He is the changeless in your brother and in you. This will you look upon when you decide there is not one appearance you would hold in place of what your brother really is. Let no temptation to prefer a dream allow uncertainty to enter here. Be not made guilty and afraid when yo are tempted by a dream of what he is. But do not give it Power to replace the changeless in him in your sight of him. There is no false appearance but will fade, if you request a miracle instead. There is no painfrom which he is not free, if you would have him be what he is. Why should you fear to see the Christ in him? You but behold yourself in what you see. As he is healed are you made free of guilt, for his appearance is your own to you.

Love

[IA56]

THE FINAL VISION
The Simplicity of Salvation

How simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be. The impossible has not occured, and can have no effects. And that is all. Can this be hard to learn by anyone who wants it to be true? Only unwillingness to learn it could make such an easy lesson difficult. How hard is it to see that what is false can not be true, and what is true can not be false? You can no longer say that you perceive no differences in false and true. You have been told excatly how to tell one from the other, and just what to do if you become confused. Why,then, do you persist in learning not such simple things? There is a reason. But confuse it not with difficutly in the simple things salvation asks you learn.It teaches but the very obvious. It merely goes from one apparent lesson to the next, in easy steps that lead you gently from on to another, with no strain a tall. This cannot be confusing, yet you are confused. For some how you believe that what is totally confused is easier to learn and understand. What you have taught yourself is such a giant learning feat it is indeed incredible. But you accomplished it because you wanted to, and did not pause in diligence to judge it hard to learn or too complex to grasp. No one who understands what you have learned, how carefully you learned it, and the pains to which you went to practice and repeat the lessons endlessly, in every form you could conceive of them,could ever doubt the power of your learning skill. There is no greater power in the worlds. The world was made by it, and even now depends on nothing else. The lessons you have taught yourself have been so overlearned and fixed they rise like heavy curtains to obscure the simple and obvious. Say not you cannot learn them. For your power to learn is strong enough to teach you that your will is not your own, your thoughts do not belong to you, and even you are someone else. Who could maintain that lessons such as these are easy? Yet you have learned more than this. You have continued, taking every step, however difficult, without complaint, until a world was built that suited you. And every lesson that makes up the world arises from the first acomplisment of learning;an enormity so great the Holy Spirit´s Voice seems small and still before its magnitude. The world began with one strange lesson, powerful enough to render God forgotten, and His Son and alien to himself, in exile from the home where God Himself established him. You who have taught yourself the Son of God is guilty, say not that you cannot learn the simple things salvation teaches you! Learning is an ability you made and gave yourself. It was not made to do the Will of God, but to uphold a wish that it could be opposed, and that a will apart from it was yet more real than it. And this has learning sought to demonstrate, and you have learned what it was made to teach. Now does you ancient overlearning stand implaceble before that Voice of truth, and teach you that Its lessons are not true; too hard to lern, too difficult to see, and too opposed to what is really true. Yet you will learn them, for their learning is the only purpose for your learning skill the Holy Spirit sees in all the world.His simple lessons in forgiveness have a power mightier than yours, beause they call from God and from your Self to you. Is this a little Voice, so small and still It cannot rise above the senseless noise of sounds have no meaning? God willed not His Son forget Him. And the power of His Will is in the Voice That speaks for Him. Which lesson will you learn? What outcome is inevitable, sure as God, and far beyond all doubt and question? Can it be your little learning, strange in outcome and incredible in difficulty will withstand the simple lessons being taught to you in every moment of each day, since time began and learning had been made? The lessons to be learned are only two. Each has its outcomee in a different world. And each world follows surely from its source.The certain outcome of the lesson that God´s Son is guilty is the world you see. It is a world of terror and despair. Nor is there hope of happiness in it.There is no plan for safety you can make that ever will succeed. There is no joy that you can seek for here and hope to find. Yet this is not the only outcome with your learning can produce.However much you may have over learned your chosen task, the lesson that reflects the Love of God is stronger still. And you will learn God´s Son is innocent, and see another world. The outcome of the lesson that God´s Son is guiltless is a world in which there is no fear, and everything is lit with hope and sparkles with a gentle friendliness. Nothing but calls to you in soft appeal to be your friend, and let it join with you. And never does a call remain unheard, misunderstood, nor left unanswered inthe self same tongue in which the call was made. And you will understand it was this call that everyone and everything within the world has always made, but you had not perceived it as it was. And now you see you were mistaken. You had been deceived by forms the call was hidden in. And so you did not hear it, and had lost a friend who always wanted to be part of you. The soft, eternal calling of each part of God´s creation to the whole is heard throughout the world this second lesson brings. There is no living thing that does not share the universal Will that it be whole, and that you do not leave its call unheard. Without your answer is it left to die, as it is saved from death when you have heard its calling as the ancient call to life, and understood that it is but your own. The Christ in you remembers God with all the certainty with which He knows His Love. But only if His Son all the certainty with which He knows His Love. But only if His Son is innocent can He be Love. For God were fear indeed if he whom He created innocent could be a slave to guilt. God´s perfect Son remembers his creation.But in guilt he has forgotten what he really is. The fear of God results assurely from the lesson that His Son is guilty as God´s Love must be remembered when he learns his innocence. For hate must father fear, and look upon its father as itself. How wrong are you who fail to hear the call that echoes past each seeming call to death, that sings behind each murderous attack and pleads that love restore the dying world. You do not understand Who calls to you beyond each form of hate; each call to war. Yet you will recognize Him as you give Him anser in the language that He calls. He will appear when you have answered Him, and you will know in Him that God is Love. What is temptation but a wish to make the wrong decision on what you would learn, and have an outcome that you do not want? It is the recognition that it is a state of mind unwanted that becomes the means whereby the choice is reassessed; another outcome seen to be preferred. You are decieved if you believe you want disaster and disunity and pain. Hear not the call for this within yourself. But listen, rather, tothe deeper call beyond it that appeals for peace and joy. And all the World will give you joy and peace. For as you hear, you answer. And behold! Your answer is the poof of what you learned. Its outcome is the world you look upon.Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean and what their purpose is. Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for. We do not know. Let every image held of everyone be loosened from our minds and swept away. Be innocent of judgment, unaware of any thoughts of evil or of good that ever crossed your mind of anyone. Now do you know him not. But you are free to learn of him, and learn of him anew. Now is he born again to you, and you are born again to him, without the past that sentenced him to die, and you with him. Now is he free to live as you are free, because an ancient learning passed away, and left a place for truth to be reborn.

Love

[IA56]

Walking with Christ

An ancient lesson is not overcome by the opposing of the new and old. It is not vanquished that the truth be known, nor fought against to lose the truth´s appeal. There is no battle that must be prepared; no time to be expended, and no plans that need be laid for bringing in the new. There is an ancient battle being waged against the truth, but truth does not respond. Who could be hurt in such a war, unless he hurts himself? He has no enemy in truth. And can he be assailed by dreams? Let us review again what seems to stand between you and the truth of what you are. For there are steps in its relinquishment. The first is a decision that you make. But afterwards, the truth is given you. You would establish truth.And by your wish you set two choices to be made, each time you think you must decide on anything. Neither is true. Nor are they different. Yet must we see them both, before you can look past them to the one alternative that is a different choice. But not in dreams you made, that this might be obscured to you. What you would choose between is not a choice and gives but the illusion it is free, for it will have one outcome either way. Thus is it really not a choice at all. The leader and the follower emerge as separate roles, each seeming to possess advantages you would not want to lose. So in their fusion there appears to be the hope of satisfaction and of peace. You see your selfdivided into both these roles, forever split between the two. And every friend or enemy becomes a means to help you save yourself from this. Perhaps you call it love. Perhaps you think that it is murder justified at last. You hate the one you gave the leader´s role when you would have it, and you hate as well his not assuming it at times you want to let the follower in you arise, and give away the role of leadership. And this is what you made your brother for, and learnd to think that this his purpose is. Unless he serves it, he has not fulfilled the function that was given him by you. And thus he merits death,because he has no purpose and no usefulness to you. And what of him? What doe she want of you? What could he want, but what you want of him? Here in is life as easily as death, for what you choose you choose as well for him. Two calls you make to him, as he to you. Between these two is choice, because from them there is a different outcome. If he be the leader or the follower to you it matters not,for you have chosen death. But if he calls for death or calls for life, for hate or for forgiveness and for help, is not the same in outcome. Hear the one,and you are separate from him and are lost. But hear the other, and you join with him and in your answer is salvation found. The voice you hear in him is but your own.What does he ask you for! And listen well! For he is asking what will come to you, because you see an image of yourself and hear your voice requesting what you want. Before you answer, pause to think of this:

”The answer that I give my brother is
What I am asking for. And what I learn
Of him is what I learn about myself.”

Then let us wait an instant andbe still, forgetting everything we thought we heard; remembering how much we do not know. This brother neither leads nor follows us, but walks beside us on the self same road. He is like us, as near or far away from what he want as he willlet him be. We make no gains he does not make with us, and we fall back if he doesn not advance. Take not his hand in anger but in love, for in his progress do you count your own. And we go separately alon the way unless you keep him safely by your side. Because he is your equal in God´s Love, you will be saved from all appearances and answer to the Christ Who calls to you. Be still and listen. Think not ancient thoughts. Forget the dismal lessons that you learned aobut this Son of God who calls to you. Christ calls to all with equaltenderness, seeing no leaders and no followers, and hearing but one answer to them all. Because He hears on Voice, he cannot hear a different answer from the one He gave when God appointed Him His only Son. Be vary still an instant. Come without all thought of what you ever learned before, and put aside all images you made. The old will fall away before the new without your opposition or intent. There will be no attack upon the things you thought were precious and in need of care. There will be no assault upon your wish to hear a call that never has been made. Nothing will hurt you in this holy place, to which you come to listen silently and learn the truth of what you really want. No more than this will you be asked to learn. But as you hear it, you will understand you need but come away without the thoughts you did not want, and that were never true. Forgive your brother all appearances, that are but ancient lessons you have taught yourself about the sinfulness in you. Hear but his call formercy and release from all the fearful images he holds of what he is and of what you must be. He is afraid to walk with you, and thinks perhaps a bit behind, a bit ahead would be safer place for him to be. Can you make progress if you think the same, advancing only when he would step back, and falling back when he would go ahead? For so do you forget the journey´s goal, which is but to decide to walk with him, so neither leads nor follows. Thus it is a way you go together, not alone. And in this choice is learning´s outcome changed, for Christ has been reborn to both of you. An instant spet without your old ideas of who your great companion is and what he should be asking for, will be enought to let this happen. And you will perceive his purpose is the same as It takes, perhaps, a different form in him, but it is not the form you answer to.He asks and you receive, for you have come with but one purpose; that you both may learn you love each other with a brother´s love. And as a brother, must his Father be the same as yours, as he is like yourself. Together is your joint inheritance remembered and accepted by you both. Alone it is denied to both of you. Is it not clear that while you still insist on leading or on following,you think you walk alone, with no one by your side? This is the road to nowhere,for the light cannot be given while you walk alone, and so you cannot see which way you go. And thus there is confusion, and a sense of endless doubting as you stagger back and forward in the darkness and alone. Yet these are but appearances of what the journey is, and how it must be made. For next to you is One Who holds the light before you, so that every step is made in certainty and sureness of the road. A blindfold can indeed obscure your sight, but cannot make the way itself grow dark. And He Who travels with you has the light.

Love

[IA56]

The Self-Accused

Only the self-accused condemn. As you prepare to make a choice that will result in different outcomes, thereis first one thing that must be overlearned. It must become a habit of response to all temptation, and to every situation that occurs. Learn this, and learn it well, for it is here delay of happiness is shortened by a span of time you cannot realize. You never hate your brother for his sins, but only for your own. Whatever form his sins appear to take, it but obscures the fact that you believe it to be yours, and therefore meriting a ”just” attack. Why should his sins be sins, if you did not believe they could not be forgiven in you? Why are they real in him, if you did not believe that they are your reality? And why do you attack them everywhere except you hate yourself? Are you a sin? You answer ”yes”whenever you attack, for by attack do you assert that you are guilty, and must give as you deserve. And what can you deserve but what you are? If you did notbelieve that you deserved attack, it never would occur to you to give attack toanyone at all. Why should you? What would be the gain to you? What could the outcome be that you would want? And how could murder bring you benefit? Sins are in bodies. They are not perceived in minds. They are not seen as purposes,but actions. Bodies act, and minds do not. And therefore must the body be at fault for what it does. It is not seen to be a passive thing, obeying your commands, and doing nothing of itself at all. If you are sin you are a body,for the minds acts not. And purpose must be in the body, not the mind. The body must act on its own, and motivate itself. If you are sin you lock the mind within the body, and you give its purpose to its prison house, which act sinstead of it. A jailer does not follow orders, but enforces orders on the prisoner. Yet is the body prisoner, and not the mind. The boyd thinks not houghts. It has no power to lern, to pardon, nor enslave. It gives no orders that the mind need serve, nor sets conditions that it must obey. It holds in prison but the willing mind that would abide in it. It sickens at the bidding of the mind that would become its prisoner. And it grows old and dies, because the mind is sick within itself. Learning is all that causes change. And so the body, where no learning can occur, could never change unless the mind preferred the body change in its appearances, to suit the purpose given by the mind. For mind can learn, and there is all change made. The mind that thinks it is a sin has but one purpose; that the body be the source of sin, to keep it in the prison house it chose and guards and holds itself at bay, a sleeping prisoner to the snarling dogs of hate and evil, sickness and attack; of pain and age, of grief and suffering. Here are the thoughts of sacrifice preserved, for here guilt rules, and orders that the world be like itself; a place where nothing can find mercy, nor survive the ravages of fear except in murder and in death. For here are you made sin, and sin cannot abide the joyous and the free, for they are enemies which sin must kill. In death is sin preserved, and those who Think that they are sin must die for what they think they are. Let us be glad that you will see what you believe, and that it has been given you to change what you believe. The body will but follow. It can never lead you whre you would not be. It does not guard your sleep, nor interfere with your awakening. Release your body from imprisonment, and you will se no one as prisoner to what you have escaped. You will not want to hold in guilt your chosen enemies, nor keepin chains, to the illusion of a changing love, the ones you think are friends.The innocent release in gratitude for their release. And what they see upholds their freedom from imprisonment and death. Open your mind to change, and there will be no ancient penalty exacted from your brother or yourself. For God has said there is no sacrifice that can be asked; there is no sacrifice that can be made.

Love

[IA56]

The Real Alternative

There is a tendency to think the world can offer consolation and escape from problems that its purpose is to keep. Why should this be? Because it is a place where choice among illusions seems to be the only choice. And you are in control of outcome of your choosing. Thus you think, within the narrow band from birth to death, a Little time is given you to use for you alone; a time when everyone conflicts with you, but you can choose which road will lead you out of conflict, and away from difficulties that concern you not. Yet they are your concern. How, then, can you escape from them by leaving them behind? What must go with you, you will take with you whatever road you choose to walk along. Real choce is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappontment, nothingness and death. There is no choice in its alternative.Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that problems could not be escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its road are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while,before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not what will the ending be, but when it comes. There is no choice where every end is sure. Perhaps you would prefer to try them all, before you really learn they are but one. The roads this world can offer seem to be quite large in number, but the time must come when everyone begins to see how like they are to one another. Men have died on seeing this, because they saw no way except the pathways offered by the world. And learning they led nowhere, lost their hope. And yet this was the time when they could have learned their greatest lesson. All must reach this point, and go beyond it. It is true indeed there is no choice at all within the world. But this is not the lesson in itself. The lesson has a purpose, and in this you come to understand what it is for. Why would you seek to try another road, another person or another place,when you have learned the way the lesson starts, but do not yet perceive what it is for? Its purpose is the answer to the serch that all must undertake who still believe there is another answer to be found. Learn now, without despair,there is no hope of answer in the world. But do not judge the lesson that is but begun with this. Seek not another sign post in the world that seems to Point to still another road. No longer look for hope where there is none. Make fast your learning now, and understand you but waste time unless you go beyond what you have learned to what is yet to learn. For from this lowest point will learning lead to heights of happiness, in which you see the purpose of the lesson shining clear, and perfectly within your learning grasp. Who would be willing to be turned away from all the roadways of the world, unless he understood their real futility? It is not needful that he should begin with this, to seek another way instead? For while he sees a choice where there is none, what Power of decision can he use? The great release of power must begin with learning where it really has a use. And what decision has power if it be applied in situations without choice? The learning that the world can offer but one choice, no matter what its form may be, is the beginning of acceptance that there is a real alternative instead. To fight against this step is to defeat your purpose here. You did not come to learn to find a road the world does not contain. The serch for different pathways in the world is but the search for different forms of truth. And this would keep the truth from being reached.Think not that happinesss is ever found by following a road away from it. This makes no sense, and cannot be the way. To you who seem to find this course to be too difficult to learn, let me repeat that to achieve a goal you must proceed in its direction, not away from it. And every road that leads to other way will not advance the purpose to be found. If this be difficult to understand, then is this course impossible to learn. But only then. For otherwise, it is a simple teaching in the obvious. There is a choice that you have power to make when you have seen the real alternaives. Until that point is reached you have no choice, and you can but decide how you would choose the better to deceive yourself again. This course attempts to teach no more than that the power of decision cannot lie in choosing different forms of what isstill the same illusiojn and the same mistake. All choices in the world depend on this; you choose between your brother and yourself, and will gain as much as he will lose, and what you lose is what is given him. How utterly opposed to truth is this, when all the lesson´s purpose is to teach that what your brother loses you have lost, and what he gains is what is given you. He has not left His Thoughts! But you forgot His Presence and remembered not His Love. No pathway in the world can lead to Him, nor any worldly goal be one with His. What road in all the world will lead within, when every road was made to separate thej ourney from the purpose it must have unless it be but futile wandering? All roads that lead away from what you are will lead you to confusion and despair.Yet has He never left His Thoughts to die, without their Source forever in themselves. He has not left His Thoughts He could no more depart from them than they could keep Him out. In unity with Him do they abide, and in their oneness both are kept complete. There is no road that leads away from Him. A journey from yourself does not exist. How foolish and insane it is to think that there could be a road with such an aim! Where could it go? And how could you be made to travel on it, walking there without your own reality at one with you? Forgive yourself your madness, and forget all senseless journeys and all goal-less aims. They have no meaning. You can not escape from what you are. For God is merciful, and did not let His Son abandon Him. For what He is be thankful, for in that is your escape from madness and from death. Nowhere but where He is can you be found. There is no path that does not lead to Him.

Love