IA´s Journal

[IA56]

LESSON 327

"I need but call and You will answer me."

I am not asked to take salvation on the basis of an unsupported
faith. For God has promised He will hear my call, and answer me
Himself. Let me but learn from my experience that this is true, and
faith in Him must surely come to me. This is the faith that will
endure, and take me farther and still farther on the road that leads to
Him. For thus I will be sure that He has not abandoned me and loves
me still, awaiting but my call to give me all the help I need to come to
Him.

"Father, I thank You that Your promise will never fail in my
experience, if I but test them out. Let me attempt therefore to try
them, and to judge them not. Your Word is one with You. You give
¨the means whereby conviction comes, and surety of Your abiding
Love is gained at last."

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 328

"I choose the second place to gain the first."

What seems to be the second place is first, for all things we perceive
are upside down until we listen to the Voice of God. It seems that we
will gain autonomy but by our striving to be separate, and that our
independence from the rest of God´s creation is the way in which
salvation is obtained. Yet all we find is sickness, suffering and loss
and death. This is not what our Father wills for us, nor is there any
second to His Will. To join with His is but to find our own. And since
our will is His, it is to Him that we must go to recongnize our will.

"There is no will but Yours. And I am glad that nothing I imagine
contradicts what You would have me be. It is Your Will that I be
wholly safe, eternally at peace. And happily I share that Will which
You, my Father, gave as part of me."

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 329

"I have already chosen what You will."

"Father, I thought I wandered from Your Will, defied it, broke its
laws, and interposed a second will more powerful than Yours. Yet
what I am in truth is but Your Will, extended and extending. This am
I, and this will never change. As You are One, so am I one with You.
And this I chose in my creation, where my will became forever one
with Yours. That choice was made for all eternity. It cannot change,
and be in opposition to itself. Father, my will is Yours. And I am safe,
untroubled and serene, in endless joy, because it is Your Will that it
be so."

Today we will accept our union with each other and our Source.
We have no will apart from His, and all of us are one because His Will
is shared by all of us. Through it we recognize that we are one.
Through it we find our way at last to God.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 330

"I will not hurt myself again today."

Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function. Why
should we attack our minds, and give them images of pain? Why
should we teach them they are powerless, when God holds out His
Power and His Love, and bids them take what is already theirs? The
mind that is made willing to accept God´s gifts has been restored to
spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God ünited
with its own. The Self Which God created cannot sin, and therefore
cannot suffer. Let us choose today that He be our Identity, and thus
escape forever from all things the dream of ferar appears to offer us.

"Father, Your Son can not be hurt. And if we think we suffer, we
but fail to know our one Identity we share with You. We would
return to It today, to be made free forever from all our mistakes, and
to be saved from what we thought we were."

Love

[IA56]

WHAT IS THE EGO?

The ego is idolatry; the sign of limited and separated self, born in a
body, doomed to suffer and to end its Life in death. It is the "will" that
sees the Will of God as enemy, and takes a form in which it is
denied. The ego is the "proof" that strength is weak and love is
fearful, life is really death, and what opposes God alone is true.
The ego is insane. In fear it stands beyond the Eveywhere, apart
from All, in separation from the Infinite. In its insanity it thinks it
has become a victor over God Himself. And in its terrible autonomy
it "sees" the Will of God has been destroyed. It dreams of
punishment, and trembles at the figures in its dreams; its enemies,
who seek to murder it before it can ensure its safety by attacking
them.
The Son of God is egoless. What can he know of madness and the
death of God, when he abides in Him? What can he know of sorrow
and of suffering, when he lives in eternal joy? What can he know of
fear and punishment, of sin and guilt, of hatered and attack, when all
there is surrounding him is everlasting peace, forever conflict-free
and undisturbed, in deepest silence and tranquility?
To know reality is not to see the ego and its thoughts, its works,
its acts, its laws and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its
salvation, and the cost belief in it entails. In suffering, the price for¨
faith in it is so immense that crusifixion of the Son of God is offered
daily at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the altar
where its sickly followers prepare to die.
Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the
altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself. And peace will be
restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son,
His dweling place, His joy, His love, completely His, completely
one with Him.

LESSON 331

"There is no conflict, for my will is Yours."

"How foolish, Father, to beleive Your Son could cause himself to
suffer! Could he make a plan for his damnation, and be left without a
certain way to his release? You love me, Father. You could never
leave me desolate, to die within a world of pain and cruelty. How
could I think that Love has left Itself? There is no will except the Will
of Love. Fear is a dream, and has no will that can conflict with Yours,
Conflicts is sleep, and peace awakening. Death is illusion; Life, eternal
truth. There is no opposition to Your Will. There is no conflict, for
my will is Yours."

Forgineness shows us that God´s Will is one, and that we share it.
Let us look upon the holy sights forgiveness shows today, that we
may find the peace of God. Amen.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 332

"Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free."

The ego makes illusions. Truth undoes its evil dreams by shining
them away. Truth never makes attack. It merely is. And by its
presence is the mind recalled from fantasies, awaking to the real.
Forgiveness bids this presence enter in, and takes its rightful place
within the mind. Without forgiveness is the mind in chanins,
believing in its own futility. Yet with forgiveness does the light shine
through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the
means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance.

"We would not bind the world again today. Fear holds it prisoner.
And yet Your Love has given us the means to set it free. Father, we
would release it now. For as we offer freedom, it is given us. And we
would not remain as prisoners, while You are holding freedom out to
us."

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 333

"Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here."

Conflict must be resolved. It cannot be evaded, set aside, denied,
disquised, seen somewhere else, called by another name, or hidden
by deceit of any kind, if it would be escaped. It must be seen exactly
as it is, where it is thought to be, in the reality which has been given
it, and with the purpose that the mind accorded it. For only then are
its defenses lifted, and the truth can shine upon it as it disappears.

"Father, forgiveness is the light You chose to shine away all
conflict and all doubt, and light the way for our return to You. No
light but this can end our evil dream. No light but this can save the
world. For this alone will never fail in anything being Your gift to
Your beloved Son."

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 334

"Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives."

I will not wait Another day to find the treasures that my Father
offers me. Illusions are all vain, and dreams are gone even while
they are woven out of thoughts that rest on false preceptions. Let
me not accept such meager gifts again today. God´s Voice is offering
the peace of God to all who hear and choose to follow Him. This is
my choice today. And so I go to find the treasures God has given
me.

"I seek but the eternal. For Your Son can be content with nothing
less than this. What, then, can be his solace but what You are offering
to his bewildered mind mind and frightened heart, to give him certainty
and bring him peace? Today I would behold my brother sinless. This
Your Will for me, for so will I behold my sinlessness."

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 335

I choose to see my brother´s sinlessness."

Forgiveness is a choice. I never see my brother as he is, for that is
far beyond perception. What I see in him is merely what I wish to
see,because it stands for what I want to be the truth. It is to this
alone I respond, however much I seem to be impelled by ourside
happenings.I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see,
and only this. My brother´s sinlessness shows me that I would look
upon my own. And I will see it, having choosen to behold my brother
in its holy light.

"What could restore Your memory to me, except to see my
brother´s sinlessness? His holiness reminds me that he was created
one with me, and like myself. In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I
find the memory of You as well."

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 336

"Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined."

Forgiveness is the means appointed for perception´s ending.
Knowledge is restored after perception first is changed, and then
gives way entirely to what remains forever past its highest reach.
For sights and sounds, at best, can serve but to recall the memory
that lies beyond them all. Forgiveness sweeps away distortions, and
opens the hidden altar to the truth. Its lilies shine into the mind, and
call it to return and look within, to find what it has vainly sought
without. For here, and only here, is peace of mind restored, for this
the dwelling place of God Himself.

"In quiet may forgiveness wipe away my Dream of separation and
of sin. Then let me, Father, look within, and find Your promise of my
sinlessness is kept. Your Word remains unchanged within my mind.
Your Love is still abiding in my heart."

Love