IA´s Journal

[IA56]

THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE ATONEMENT

The Acceptance of Reality.

Fear of the Will of God is one of the strangest beliefs the human mind has ever made. It could not possibly have occured unless the mind were already profundly split, making it possible for it to be afraid of what it really is. Reality cannot ”threaten” anything exept illusions, since reality can only uphold truth. The very fact that the Will of God, which is what you are, is percived as fearful, demostrates that you are afraid of what you are. It is not, then, the Will of God, which is what you are, is perceived as fearful, demostrates that you are afraid of what you are. It is not, then, the Will of God, which you are afraid , but yours. Your will is not the ego´s and that is why the ego is against you. What seems to be the fear of God is really the fear of your own reality. It is impossible to learn anything consistently in a state of panic. If the purpose of this course is to help you remember what you are, and if you believe that what you are is fearful, then it must follow that you will not learnthis course. Yet the reason for the course is that you do not know what you are. If you do not know what your realityis, why would you be so sure that it is fearful? The association of truth and fear, which would be highly artificial at most, is particularly inappropriate in the minds of those who do not know what truth is. All this could mean is that you are arbitrarily associating something beyond your awareness with something you do not want. It is evident, then, that you are judging something of which you are totally unaware. You have set up this strange situation so that it is impossible to escape from it without a Guide Who does know what your reality is. The purpose of this Guide is merely to remind you of what you want. He is not attempting to force an aliewn will upon you. He is merely making every possible effort, within the limits you impose on Him, to re-establish your own will in your awareness. You have imprisoned your will beyond your own awareness, where it remains, but cannot help you. When I said that the Holy Spirits´s function is to sort out the true from the false in your mind. I meant that He has the power to look into what you have hidden and recongize the Will of God there. His recognition of this Will can make it real to you because He is in your mind, and therefore He is your reality. If, then, His perception of your mind brings its reality to you, He is helping you to remember what you are. The only source of fear in this process is what you think you will lose. Yet it is only what the Holy Spirit sees that you can possibly have. I have emphasized many times that the Holy Spirit will never call upon to sacrifice anything. But if you ask the sacrifice of reality of yourself, the Holy Spirit must remind you that this is not God´s Will because it is not yours. There is no difference between your will and God´s. If you did not have a split mind, you would recognize that will is salvation becasue it is communication. It is impossible to communicate in alien tongues. You and your Creator can communicate through creation, because that, and only that is your jont Will. A divided mind cannot communicate, because it speaks for different things to the same mind. This loses the ability to communicate simply because confused communication does not mean anything. A message cannot be communicated unless it makes sense. How sensible can your message be, when you ask for what you do not want? Yet as long as you are afraid of your will, that is precisely what you are asking for. You may insist that the Holy Spirit does not answer you, but it might be wiser to consider the kind of questioner you are. You do not ask only for what you want. This is because you are afraid you might receive it, and you would. That is why you persist in asking the teacher who could not possibly give you what you want. Of Him you can never learn what it is, and this gives you the illusion of safety. Yet you cannot be safe from thruth, but only in truth. Reality is the only safety. Your will is your salvation because it is the same as God´s. The separation is nothing more than the belief that it is different. No right mind can believe that its will is stronger that God´s. If, then, a mind believes that its will is different from His, it can only dicide either that there is no God or that God´s Will is fearful. The former accounts for the atheist and the latter for the martyr, who believes that God demands sacrifices. Either of these insane dicisions will induce panic, because the atheist believes he is alone, and the martyr believes that God is crucifying him. Yet no one really wants either abandonment or retaliation, even though many may seek both. Can you ask the Holy Spirit for ”gifts” such as these, and actually expect to receive them? He cannot give you something you do not want. When you ask the Universal Giver for what you do not want, you are asking for what cannot be given because it was never created. It was never created, because it was never your will for you. Ultimately everyone must remember the Will of God, because ultimately everyone must recognize himself. This recognition is the recongnition that his will and God´s are one. In the presence of truth, there are no unbelievers and no sacrifieces. In the security of reality, fear is totally meaningless. To deny what is can only seem to be fearful. Fear cannot be real without a cause, and God is the only Cause. God is Love and you do want Him. This is your will. Ask for this and you will be answered, because you will be asking only for what belongs to you. When you ask the Holy Spirit for what would hurt you. He cannot aswere because nothing can hurt you, and so you are sking for nothing. Any wish that stems from the ego is a wish for nothing, and to ask for it is not a request. It is merelya denial in the form of a request. The Holy Spirit is not concerned with form, being aware only of meaning. The ego cannot ask the Holy Spirit for anything, because there is complete communication failure between them. Yet you can ask for evrything of the Holy Spirit, because your requests to Him are real, being of your right mind. Would the Holy Spirit deny the Will of God? And could He fail to recognize it in His Son? You do not recognize the enormous waste of energy you expend in denying truth. What would you say of something who persists in attempting the impossible, believing that to achive it is to succeed? The belief that you must have the impossible in order to be happy is totally at variance with the principle of creation. God could not will that happiness depended on what you would never have. The fact that God is Love does not require belief, but it does require acceptance. It is indeed possible for you to deny facts, although it is impossible for you to change them. If you hold your hands over your eyes, you will not see because you are interfeing with the laws of seeing. If you deny love, you will not know it because your cooperation is the law of its being. You cannot change laws you did not make, and the laws of happiness were created for you, not by you. Any attempt to deny what is must be fearful, and if the attempt is strong it will induce panic. Willing against reality, though impossible, can be made into a very persistent goa leven though you do not want it. But consider the result of this strange decision. You are devoting your mind to what you do not want. How real can this devotion be? If you do not want it, it was never created. If it were never created, it is nothing. Can you really devote yourself to nothing? God in His devotion to you created you devoted to everything, and gave you what you are devoted to. Otherwise you would not have been created perfectly. Reality is everything, and you have everything because you are real. You cannot make the unreal because the absence of reality is fearful, and fear cannot be created. As long as you believe that fear is possible, you will not create. Opposing orders of reality make reality meaningless, and reality is meaning. Remember, then, that God´s Will is already possible, and nothing els will ever be. This is the simple acceptance of reality, because only that is real. You cannot distort reality and know what it is. And if you do distort reality you will experience anxiety, depression and ultimately panic, because you are trying to make yourself unreal. When you feel these things, do not try to look beyond yourself for truth, for truth can only be within you. Say, therefore,

”Christ is in me, and where He is God must be, for Christ is part of Him”.

Love

[IA56]

The Answer to Prayer

Everyone who ever tried to use prayer to ask for something has experienced what appears to be failure. This is not only true in connection with specific things that might be harmful, but also in connection with requests that are strictly in line with this course. The latter in particular might be incorrectly interpreted as ”proof” that the course does not mean what it says. You must remember, however, that the course states, and repeatedly, that its purpose is the escape from fear. Let us supppose, that what you ask of the Holy Spirit is what you really want, but you are still afraid of it. Should this be the case, your attainment of it would no longer be what you want. This is why certain specific forms of healing are not achieved, ever when the state of healing is. An individual may ask for physical healing because he is fearful of bodily harm. At the same time, if he ere healed physically, the threat to his thought system might be considerably more fearful to him than its physical expression. In this case he is not really asking for release from fear, but for the removal of a symptom that he himself selected. This request is, therefore, not for healing at all. The Bible emhasizes that all prayer is answered, and this is indeed true. The very fact that the Holy Spirit has been asked for anything will ensure a response. Yet it is equally certain that no response given by Him will be one that would increase fear. It is possible that His answer will not be heard. It is impossible, however, that it will be lost. There are many answers you have already received but have not yet heard. I assure you that they are waiting for you. If you would know your prayers are answered, never doubt a Son of God. Do not question him and not confound him, for your faith in him is your faith in yourself. If you would know God and His Answer, believe in me whose faith in you cannot be shaken. Can you ask of the Holy Spirit truly, and doubt your brother? Believe his words are true because of the truth that is in him. You will unite with the truth in him, and his words will be true. As you hear him you will hear me. Listening to truth is the only way you can hear it now, and finally know it. The message your brother gives you is up to you. What does he say to you? What would you have him say? Your decision about him determines the message your receive. Remember that the Holy Spirit is in him, and His Voice speaks to you through him. What can so holy a brother tell you except truth? But are you listening to it? Your brother may not know who he is, but there is a light in his mind that does know. This light can shine into yours, giving truth to his words and making you able to heart hem. His words are the Holy Spirit´s answer to you. Is your faith in him strong enough to let you hear? You can no more pray for yourself alone than you can find joy for yourself alone. Prayer is the restatement of inclusion, directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. Salvation is of your brother. The Holy Spirit extends from your mind to his, and answers you. You cannot hear the Voice of God in yourself alone, because you are not alone. And His answer is only for what you are. You will not know the trust I have in you unless you extend it. You will not trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or believe that it is for you unless you hear it in others. It must be for your brother because it is for you. Would God have created a Voice for you alone? Could you hear His answer except as He answers all of God´s Sons? Hear of your brother what you would have hear of you, for you would not want me to be decived. I love you for the truth in you, as God does. Your deceptions may decieve you, but they cannot deceive me. Knowing what you are, I cannot doubt you. I hear only the Holy Spirit in you. Who speaks to me through you. If you would hear me, hear my brothers in whom God´s Voice speaks. The answer to all prayers lies in them. You will be answered as you hear the answer in everyone. Do not listen to anything else or you will not hear truly. Believe in your brothers because I believe in you, and you will learn that my belief in you is justified. Believve in me by believing in them, for the sake of what God gave them. They will answer you if yoou learn to ask only truth of them. Do not ask for blessings without blessing them, for only in this way can you learn how blessed you are. By following this way you are seeking the truth in you. This is not going beyond yourself but towards yourself. Hear only God´s Answer in His Sons, and you are answered. To disbelieve is to side against, or to attack. To belive is to accept, and to side with. To believe is not to credulous, but to accept and appreciate. What you do not believe you do not appreciate, and you cannot be greatful for what you do not value. This is a price you will pay for judgment, because judgments is the setting of a price. And as you set it you will pay it. If praying is equated with getting, you will set the price low but demand a high return. You will have forgotten, however, that your return is in proportion to your judgment of worth. If praying is asssociated with giving it cannot be perceived as loss, and the reciprocal relationship of giving and receiving will be recorgnized. The price will then be set high, because of the value of the retun. The price for getting is to lose sight of value, making it inevitable that you will not value what you receive. Valuing it little, you will not appreciate it and you will not want it. Never forget, then, that you set the value on what you receive, and price it by what you give. To believe that it is possible to get much for little is to believe that you can bargain with God. God´s laws are always fair and perfectly consistent. By giving you receive. But to receive is to accept, not to get. It is impossible not to have, but it is possible not to know you have. The recognition of having is the willingness for giving, and only by this willingness can you recognize what you have. What you give is therefore the value you put on what you have, being the exact measure of the value you put upon it. And this, in turn, is the measure of how much you want it. You can ask of the Holy Spirit, then, only by giving to Him, and you can give to Him only where you recognize Him. If you recognize Him in everyone, consider how much you will be asking of Him, and how much you will receive. He will deny you nothing because you have denied Him nothing, and so you can share everything. This is the way, and the only way to have His answer, because His answer is all you can ask for and want. Say, then, to everyone.

”Because I will to know myself, I see you as God´s Son and my brother”

Love

[IA56]

The Correction of Error.

The alertness of the ego to the errors of other egos is not the kind of vigilance the Holy Spirit would have you maintain. Egos are critical in terms of the kind of ”sense” they stand for. They understand this kind of sense, because it is sensible to them. To the Holy Spirit it makes no sense at all. To the ego it is kind and right and good to point out errors and ”correct” them.This makes perfect sense to the ego, which is unaware of what errors are and what correction is. Errors are of the ego, and correction of errors lies in the relinquisment of the ego. When you correct a brother, you are telling him that he is wrong. He may be making no sense at the time, and it is certain that, if he is speaking from the ego, he will not be making sense. But your task is still to tell him he is right. You do not tell him this verbally, if he is speaking foolishly. He needs correction at another level, because his error is at another level. He is still right, because he is a Son of God. His ego is always wrong, no matter what it says or does. If you point out the errors of your brother´s ego you must be seeing through yours, because the Holy Spiritdoes not perceive his errors. This must be true, since there is no communication between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego makes no sense, and the Holy Spirit does not attempt to understand anything that arises from it. Since He does not understand it, He does not judge it, knowing that nothing the ego makes means anything. When you react at all to errors, you are not listening to the Holy Spirit. He has merely disregarded them, and if you attend to them you are not hearing Him. If you do not hear Him, you are listening to your ego and making as little sense as the brother whose errors you perceive. This cannot be correction. Yet it is more than merely a lack of correction for him. It is the giving up of correction in yourself. When a brother behaves insanely, you can heal him only by perceiving the sanity in him. If you perceivve his errors and accept them, ou are accepting yours. If you want to give yours over to the Holy Spirit, you must do this with his. Unless this becomes the one way in which you handle all errors, you cannot understand how all errors are undone. How is this different form telling you that what you teach you learn? Your brother is as right as you are, and if you think he is wrong you are condemning yourself. You cannot correct yourself. It is possible, then, for you to correct another? Yet you can see him truly, because it is possible for you to see yourself truly. It is not up to you to change your brother, but merely to accept him as he is. His errors do not come from the truth that is in him, and only this truth is yours. His errors cannot change this, and can have no effect at allonthe truth in you. To perceive errors in anyone, and to react to them as if they were real, is to make them real to you. You will not escape paying the price for this, not because you are being punished for it, but because you are following the wrong guide and will therefore lose your way. Your brother´s errors are not of him, any more than yours are of you. Accept his errors as real, and you have attacked yourself. If you would find your way and keep it, see only truth beside you for you walk together. The Holy Spirit in you forgives all things in you and in your brother. His errors are forgiven with yours. Atonement is no more separate than love. Atonement cannot be separate because it comes from love. Any attempt you make to correct a brother means that you believe correction by you is possible, and this can only be the arrogance of the ego. Correction is of God, Who does not know of arrogance. The Holy Spirit forgives everything because God created everything. Do not undertake His function, or you will forget yours. Accept only the function of healing in time, because that is what time is for. God gave you the function to create in eternity. You do not need to learn that, but you do need to learn to want it. For that all learning was made. This is the Holy Spirit´s use of an ability that you do not need, but that you made. Give it to Him! You do not understand how to use it. He will teach you how to see yourself without condemnation, by learning how to look on everything without it. Condemnation will then not be real to you, and all your errors will be forgiven.

Love

[IA56]

The Holy Spirit´s Plan of Forgivness.

Atonement is for all, because it is the way to undo the belief that anything is for you alone. To forgive is to overlook. Look, then, beyond error and do not let your perception rest upon it, for you will believe what your perception holds. Accept as true only what your brother is, if you would know yourself. Perceive what he is not and you cannot know what you are, because you see him falsely. Remember always that your Identity is shared, and that Its sharing is Its reality. You have a part to play in the Atonement, but the plan of the Atonement is beyond you.You do not understand how to overlook errors, or you would not make them. It would merely be further error to believe either that you do not make them, or that you can correct them without a Guide to correction. And if you do not follow this Guide, your errors will not be corrected. The plan is not yours because of your limited ideas about what you are. This sense of limitation is where all errors arise. The way to undo them, therefore, is not of you but for you. The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because you have forgotten how to do it. The Holy Spirit merely reminds you of the natural use of your abilities. By reinterpreting the ability to attack into the ability to share, He translates what you have made into what God created. If you would accomplish this though Him you cannot look on your abilities through the eyes of the ego, or you will judget hem as it does. All their harmfulness lies in the ego´s judgment. All their helpfulness lies in the judgment of the Holy Spirit. The ego, too, has a plan of forgivness because you are asking for one, though not of the right teacher. The ego´s plan, of course, makes no sense and will not work. By following its plan you will merely place yourself in an impossible situation, to which the ego always leads you. The ego´s plan is to have you see error clearly first, and then overlook it. Yet how can you overlook what you have made real? By seeing it clearly, you have made it real and cannot overlook it. This is where the ego is forced to appeal to ”mysteries,” insisting that you must accept the meaningless to save yourself. Many have tried to do this in my name, forgetting that my words make perfect sense because they come from God. They are as sensible now as they ever were, because they speak of ideas that are eternal.Forgivness that is learned of me does not use fear to undo fear. Nor does it make real the unreal and then destroy it. Forgivness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus keeping it unreal for you. Do not leta ny belief in its realness enter your mind, or you will also believe that you must undo what you have made in order to be forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit the effects of error are non existent. By steadily and consistently cancelling out all its effects, everywhere and in all respects, He teaches that the ego does not exist and proves it. Follow the Holy Spirit´s teaching in forgivness, then, because forgivness is His function and He knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what I meant when I said that miracles are natural, and when they do not occur something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow the Holy Spirit´s plan of salvation, recognizing that you do not understand what it is. His work is not your function, and unless you accept this you cannot learn what your function is. The confusion of functions is so typical of the ego that you should be quite familar with it by now. The ego believes that all functions belong to it, even though it has no idea what they are. This is more than mere confusio n.It is particularly dangerous combination of grandiosity and confusion that makes the ego likely to attack anyone and anything for no reason at all. This is exactly what the ego does It is unpredictable in its reasponses, because it ha no idea of what it perceives. If you have no idea what is happening, how appropriately can you expect to react? You might ask yourself, regardless of how you may account for the reaction, whether its upredictablitlty places the ego in a sound position as your guide. Let me repeat that the ego´s qualifications as a guide are singularly unfortunate, and that it is a remarkably poor choice as a teacher of salvation. Anyone who elects a totally insane guide must be totally insane himself. Nor is it true that you do not realize the guide is insane. You realize it because I realize it, and you have judged it by the same standard I have. The ego literally lives on borrowed time, and its days are numbered. Do not fear the Last Judgment, but welcome it and do not wait, for the ego´s time is ”borrowed” from your eternity. This is the Second Coming that was made for you as the First was created. The Second Coming is merely the return of sense. Can this possibly be fearful? What can be fearful but fantasy, and who turns to fantasy unless he despairs of finding satisfaction in reality? Yet it is certain that you will never find satisfaction in fantasy, so that your only hope is to change your mind about reality. Only if the decision that reality is fearful is wrong can God be right. And I assure you that God is right. Be glad, then, that you have been wrong, but this was only because you did not know who you were. Had you known, you could no more have been wrong than God can. The impossible can happen only in fantasy. When you search for reality in fantasies you will not find it. The symbols of fantasy are of the ego, and of these you will find many. But do not look for meaning in them. They have no more meaning than the fantasies into which they are woven. Fairy tales can be pleasant of fearful, but no on calls them true. Children may beleive them, and so, for a while, the tales are true for them. Yet when reality dawns, the fantasies are gone. Reality has not gone in the meanwhile. The Second Coming is the awareness of reality, not its return. Behold, my child, reality is here. It belongs to you and me and God, and is perfectly satisfying to all of us. Only this awarness heals, because it is the awarness of truth.

Love

[IA56]

The Unhealed Healer.

The ego´s plan for forgivness is far more widely used than God´s. This is because it is undertaken by unhealed healers, and is therefore of the ego. Let us consider that unhealed healer more carefully now. By definition, he is trying to give what he has not received. If an unhealed healer is a theologian, for example, he may begin with the premise, ”I am a miserable sinner, and so are you”. If he is a psychotherapist, he is more likely to start with the equally incridible belief that attack is real for both himself and the patient, but that it does not matter for either of them. I have repeatedly said that beliefs of the ego cannot be shared, and this is why they are unreal. How, then, can ”uncovering” them make them real? Every healer who searches fantasies for truth must be unhealed, because he does not know where to look for truth, and therefore does not have the answer to the problem of healing. There is an advantage to bringing nightmares into awareness, but only to teach that they are not real, and that anything they contain is meaningless. The unhealed healer cannot do this because he does not believe it. All unhealed healers follow the ego´s plan for forgivness in one form and another. If they are theologians they are likely to condemn themselves, teach condemnation and advocate a fearful solution. Projecting condemnation onto God, they make Him appear retaliative, and fear His retribution. What they have done is merely to identify with the ego, and by perceiving what it does, condemn themselves because of this confusion. It is understandable that there has been revolts against this concept, but to revolt against it is still to believe in it. Some newer forms of the ego´s plan are as unhelpful as the older ones, because form does not matter and the content has not changed. In one of the newer forms, for example, a psychotherapist may interpret the ego´s symbols in a nightmare, and then use them to prove that the nightmare is real. Having made it real, he then attempts to dispel its effects by depreciationg the importance of the dreamer. This would be a healing approach if the dreamer were also indentified as unreal. Yet if the dreamer is equated with the mind, the mind´s corrective power through the Holy Spirit is denied. This is a contradiction even in the ego´s terms, and one which it usually notes even in its confusion. If the way to counteract fear is to reduce the importance of the mind, how can this build ego strength? Such evident inconsistencies account for why no one has really explained what happens in psychotherapy. Nothing really does. Nothing real has happened to the unhealed healer, and he must learn from his own teaching. His ego will always seek to get something from the situation. The unhealed healer therefore does not know how to give, and consequently cannot share. He cannot correct because he is not working correctively. He believes that it is up to him to teach the patient what is real, although he does not know it himself. What, then, should happen? When God said, ”Let there be light,” there was light. Can you find light by analyzing darkness, as the pshychotherapist does, or like the theologian, by acknowledging darkness in yourself and lookinjg for a distant light to remove it? Healing is not mysterious. Nothing will change unless it is understood, since light is understanding. A ”miserable sinner” cannot be healed without magic, nor can an ”unimprotant mind” steem itself without magic. Both forms of the ego´s approach, must arrive at an impasse; the characteristic ”impossible situation” to which the ego always leads. It may help someone to point out where he is heading, but the point is lost unless he is also helped to change his direction. The unhealed healer cannot do this for him, since he cannot do it for himself. The only meaningful contribution the healer can make is to present an example of one whose direction has been changed for him, and who no longer believes in nightmares of any kind. The light in his mind will therefore answer the questioner, who must decide with God that there is light because he sees it. And by his acknowledgment the healer knows it is there. That is how perception ultimately is translated into knowledge. The miracle worker begins by perceiving light, and translate his perception into sureness by continually extending it and accepting its acknowledgment. Its effects assure him it is there. A therapist does not heal; he lets healing be. He can point to darkness bu the cannot bring light of himself, for light is not of him. Yet, being for him, it must also be for his patient. The Holy Spirit is the only Therapist. He makes healing clear in any situation in which He is the Guide. You can only let Him fulfill His function. He needs no help for this. He will tell you exactly what to do to help anyone He sends to you for help, and will speak to him through you if you do not interfere. Remeber that you choose the guide for helping,and the wrong choice will not help. But remember also that the right one will. Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God. As you awaken other minds to the Holy Spirit through Him, and not yourself, you will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world. But the laws you are obeying work. ”The good is what works” is a sound through insufficient statement. Only the good can work. Nothing els works at all.This course offers a very direct and a very simple learning situation, amd provides the Guide Who tells you what to do. If you do it,you will see that it works. Its results are more convincing than its words. They will convice you that the words are true. By following the right Guide, you will learn the simplest of all lessons:
”By their fruits ye shall know them, And they shall know themselves”.

Love

[IA56]

The Acceptance of Your Brother.

How can you become increasingly aware of the Holy Spirit in you ecept by His effects? You cannot see Him with your eyes nor hear Him with your ears. How, then, can you perceive Him at all? If you inspire joy and others react to you with joy, even though you are not experiencing joy yourself there must be something in you that is capable of producing it. If it is in you and can produce joy, and if you see that it does produce joy in others, you must be dissociating it in yourself. It seems to you that the Holy Spirit does not produce joy consistently in you only because you do not consistently arouse joy in others. Their reactions to you are your evaluations of His consistnecy. When you are inconsistent you will not always give rise to joy, and so you will not always recongnize His consitency. What you offer to your brother you offer to Him, because He cannot go beyond your offering in His giving. This is not because He limits His giving, but simply because you have limited your receiving. The decision to receive is the decision to accept. If your brothers are part of you, will you accept them? Only they can teach you what you are, for your learning is the result of what you taught them. What you call upon in them you call upon in yourself. And as you call upon it in them it becomes real to you. God has but one Son, knowing them all as one. Only God Himself is more than they but they are not less than He is. Would you know what this means? If what you do to my brother you do to me, and if you do everything for yourself because we are part of you, everything we do belongs to you as well. Everyone God created is part of you and shares His glory with you. His Glory belongs to Him, but it is equally yours. You cannot , then, be less glorious than He is. God is more than you only because He created you, but not even this would He keep from you. Therefore you can create as Hed id, and you dissociation will not alter this. Neither God´s Light nor yours is dimmed because you do not see. Because the Sonship must create as one, you remember creation whenever you recognize part of creation. Each part you remember adds to your wholeness because each part is whole. Wholeness is indivisible, but you cannot learn of your wholeness until you see it everywhere. You can know yourself only as God knows His Son, for knowledge is shared with God. When you awake in Him you will know your magnitude by accepting His limitlessness as yours. But meanwhile you will judge it as you judge your brother´s , and will accept it as you accept his. You are not yet awake, but you can learn how to awaken. Very simply the Holy Spirit teaches you to awaken others. As you see them waken you will learn what waking means, and because you have chosen to wake them, their gratitude and their appreciation of what you have given them will teach you its value. They will become the witnesses to your reality as you were created witnesses to God´s. Yet when the Sonship comes together and accepts its oneness it will be known by its creations, who witness to its reality as the Son does to the Father. Miracles have no place in eternity, because they are reparative. Yet while you still need healing, your miracles are the only witness to your reality that you can recognize. You cannot perform a miracle for yourself, because miracles are a way of giving acceptance and receiving it. In time the giving comes first, though they are simultaneous in eternity, where they cannot be separated. When you have learned they are the same, the need for time is over. Eternity is one time, its only dimension being ”always” This cannot mean anything to you until you remember God´s open Arms, and finally know His open Mind. Like Him, you are ”always”; in His Mind and with a mind like His. In your open mind are your creations, in perfect communication born of perfect understanding. Could you but accept one of them you would not want anything the world has to offer. Everything else would be totally meaningless. God´s meaning is incomplete without you, and you are incomplete without your creations. Accept your brother in this world and accept nothing else, for in him you will find your creations because he created them with you. You will never know that you are co-creator with God until you learn that your brother is co-creator with you.

Love

[IA56]

The Two Evaluations

God´s will is your salvation. Would He not have given you the means to find it? If He wills you to have it, He must have made it possible and easy to obtain it. Your brothers are everywhere. You do not have to seek far for salvation. Every minute and every second given you a chance to save yourself. Do not lose these chances, not because they will not return, but because delay of joy is needless. God wills you perfect happiness now. Is it possible that this is not also your will? And is it possible that this is not also the will of your brothers? Concider, then, that in this joint will you are all united, and in this only. There may be disagreement on anything else, but not on this. This, then, is where peace abides. And you abide in peace when you so decide. Yet you cannot abide in peace unless you accept the Atonement, because the Atonement is the way to peace. The reason is very simple, and so obvious, since obviousness is the essential characteristic of reality. Yet you cannot overlook it unless you are not looking. It is perfectly obvious that if the Holy Spirit looks with love on all He looks with love on you. His evaluation of you is based on His knowledge of what you are, and so He evaluates you truly. And this evaluation must be in your mind, because He is. The ego is also in your mind, because you have accepted it there. Its evaluation of you, however, is the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit´s, because the ego does not love you. It is unaware of what you are, and wholly mistrustful of everything it perceives because its perceptions are so shifting. The ego is therefore capable of suspiciousness at best and viciousness at worst. That is its range. It cannot exceed it because of its uncertainty. And it can never go beyond it because it can never be certain. You, then, have two conflicting evaluations of yourself in your mind, and they cannot both be true. You do not yet realize how completely different these evaluations are, because you do not understand how lofty the Holy Spirit´s perception of you really is. He is not deceived by anything you do, because He never forgets what you are. The ego is deceived by everything you do, especially when you respond to the Holy Spirit, because at such time its confusion increases. The ego is, therefore, particularly likely to attack you when you react lovingly, because it has evaluated you as unloving and you are going against its judgment. The ego will attack your motives as soon as they become clearly out of accord with its perceptions of you. This is when it will shift abruptly from suspiciousness to viciousness, since its uncertainty is increased. Yet it is surely pointless to attack in return. What can this mean except that you are agreeing with the ego´s evaluation of what you are? If you choose to see yourself as unloving you will not be happy. You are condemning yourself and must therefore regard yourself as inadequate. Would you look to the ego to help you escape from a sense of inadequacy it has produced, and must maintain for its existence? Can you escape from its evaluation of you by using its methods for keeping this picture intact? You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from within it. Its range precludes this. You can only go beyond it, look back from a point where sanity exists and see the contrast. Only by this contrast can insanity be judged as insane. With the grandeur of God in you, you have chosen to be little and to lament your littleness. Within the system that dictated this choice the lament is inevitable. Your littleness is taken for granted there and you do not ask, ”Who grabted it?” The question is meaningless within the ego´s thought system, because it would open the whole thought system to question. I have said that the ego does not know what a real question is. Lack of knowledge of any kind is always associated with unwillingness to know, and this produces a total lack of knowledge simply because knowledge is total. Not to question your littleness therefore is to deny all knowledge, and keep the ego´s whole thought system intact. You cannot retain part of a thought system, because it can be questioned only at ist foundation. And this must be questioned from beyond it, because within it its foundation does stand. The Holy Spirit judges against the reality of the ego´s thought system merely because He knows its foundation is not true. Therefore, nothing that arises from it means anything. He judges every belief you hold in terms of where it comes from. If it comes from God, He knows it to be true. If it does not, He knows that it is meaningless. What ever you question your value , say:

”God Himself is complete without me”.

Remember this when the ego speaks, and you will not hear it. The truth about you is so lofty that nothing anworthy of God is worthy of you. Choose, then, what you want in these terms, and accept nothing that you would not offer to God as wholly fitting for Him. You do not want anything else. Return your part of Him, and He will give you all of Himself in exchange for the return of what belongs to Him and renders Him complete.

Love

[IA56]

Grandeur versus Grandiosity.

Grandeur is of God, and only of Him. Therefore it is in you. Whenever you become aware of it, however dimly, you abondon the ego automatically, because in the presence of the grandeur of God the meaninglessness of the ego becomes perfectly apparant. When this occurs, even though it does not understand it, the ego believes that its ”enemy” has struck, and attempts to offer gifts to induce you to return to its ”protection”. Self-inflation of the ego is its alternative to the grandeur of God. Which will you choose? Grandiosity is always a cover for despair. It is without hope because it is not real. It is an attempt to conteract your littleness, based on the belief that the littleness is real. Without this belief grandiosity is meaningless, and you would not possibly want it. The essence of grandiosity is competiveness, because it always involves attack. It is a delusional attempt to outdo, but not to undo. We said before that the ego vacillates between suspiciousness and viciousness. It ramains suspious as long as you despair of yourself. It shifts to viciousness when you decide not to tolerate self-abasement and seek relief. Then it offers you the illusion of attack as a ”solution”. The ego does not understand the difference between grandeur and grandiosity, because it sees no difference between miracle impulses and ego-alien beliefs of its own. I told you that the ego is aware of threat to its existence, but makes no distinctions between these two very different kinds of threat. Its profound sense of vulnerablility renders it incapable of judgment except in terms of attack. When the ego experiences threat, its only decision is whether to attack now or to withdraw to attack later. If you accept its offer of grandiosity it will attack immediately. If you do not, it will wait. The ego is immobilized in the presence of God´s grandeur, because His grandeur establishes your freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because you will give up all investment in it. Grandeur is totally without illusions, and because it is real it is compellingly convincing. Yet the conviction of reality will not remain with you unless you do not allow the ego to attack it. The ego will make every effort to recover and mobilize its energies against your releasee. It will tell you that you are insane, and argue that grandeur cannot be a real part of you because of the littleness in which it believes. Yet your grandeur is not delusional because you did not make it. You made grandiosity and are afraid of it because it is a form of attack, but your grandeur is of God, Who created it out of His Love. From your grandeur you can only bless, because your grandeur is your abundance. By blessing you hold it in your mind, protecting it from illusions and keeping yourself in the Mind of God. Remember always that you cannot be anywhere except in the Mind of God. When you forget this, you will despair and you will attack. The ego depends solely on your willingness to tolerate it. If you are willing to look upon your grandeur you cannto despair, and therefore you cannot want the ego. Your grandeur is God´s answer to the ego, because it is true. Littleness and grandeur cannot coexist, nor is it possible for them to alternate. Littleness and grandiosity can and must alternate, since both are untrue and are therefore on the same level. Being the level of shift, it is experienced as shifting and extremes are its essential characteristic. Truth and littleness are denialss of each other because grandeur is truth. Truth oes not vacillate; it is always true. When grandeur slips away from you, you have replaced it with something you have made. Perhaps it is the belief in littleness; perhaps it is the belief in grandiosity. Yet it must be insane because it is not true. Your grandeur will never deceive you, but your illusions always will. Your grandeur willnever deceive you, but your illusions always will. Illusions are deceptions. You cannot triumph, but you are exalted. And in your exalted state you seek others like you and rejoice with them. It is easy to distinguish grandeur from grandisousity, because love is returned and pride is not. Pride will not produce miracles, and will therefore deprive you of the true witnesses to your reality. Truth is not obscure nor hidden, but its obviousness to you lies in the joy you bring to its witnesses, who show it to you. They attest to your grandeur, but they cannot attest to pride because pride is not shared. God wants you to behold what He created because it is His joy. Can your grandeur be arrogant when God Himself witnesses to it? And what can be real that has no witnesses? What good can come from it? And if no good can come of it the Holy Spirit cannot use it. What He cannot transform to the Will of God does not exist at all. Grandiousity is delusional, because it is used to replace your grandeur. Yet what God has created cannot be replaced. God is incomplete without you because His grandeur is total, and you cannot be missing from it. You are altogether irreplaceble in the Mindof God. No one else can fill your part of it, and while you leave your part of it empty your eternal place merely waits for your return. God, through His Voice, reminds you of it, and God Himself keeps you extensions safe within it. Yet you do not know them until you return to them. You cannot replace the Kingdom, and you cannot replace yourself. God, Who knows your value, would not have it so, and so it is not so. Your value is in God´s Mind, and therefore not in your alone. To accept yourself as God created you cannot be arrogance, because it is the denial of arrogance. To accept your littleness is rrogant, because it means that you believe your evaluation of yourself is truer than God´s. Yet if truth is indivisible, your evaluation of yourself must be God´s. You did not establish your value and it needs no defense. Nothing can attack it nor prevail over it. It does not vary. It merely is. Ask the Holy Spirit what it is and He will tell you, but do not be afraid of His answer, because it comes from God. It is an exalted answer because of its Source, but the Source is true and so it its answer. Listen and do not question what your hear, for God does not deceive. He would have you replace the ego´s belief in littleness with His Own exalted Answer to what you are, so that you can cease to question it and know it for what it is.

Love

[IA56]

The Idols of Sickness.

Nothing beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving, because nothing is beyond you. Time and eternity are both in your mind, and will conflict until you perceive time solely as a means to regain eternity. You cannot do this as long as you believe that anything happening to you is caused by factors outside yourself. You must learn that time is solely at your disposal, and that nothing in the world can take this responsibility from you. You can violate God´s laws in your imagination, but you cannot escape from them. They were established for your protection and are as inviolate as your safety.God created nothing beside you and nothing beside you exists, for you are part of Him. What except Him can exist? Nothing beyond Him can happen, because nothing except Him is real. Your creations add to Him as you do, but nothing is added that is different because everything as always been. What can upset you except the ephemeral, and how can the ephemeral be real if you are God´s only creation that happens to you. Your holy mind establishes everything that happens to you. Every response you make to everything you perceive is up to you, because your mind determines your perception of it. God does not change His Mind about you, for He is not uncertain of Himself. And what He knows can be known, because He does not know it only for Himself. He created you for Himself, but He gave you the power to create for yourself so you would be like Him. That is why your mind is holy. Can anything exceed the Love of God? Can anything, then, exceed your will? Nothing can reach you from beyond it because, being in God, you encompass everything. Believe this, and you will realize how much is up to you. When anything threatens your peace of mind, ask yourself, ”Has God changed His mind about me?” Then accept His decision, for it is indeed changeless, and refuse to change your mind about yourself. God will never decide against you, or He would be deciding against Himself.

Love

[IA56]

At Home in God.

You do not know your creations simply because you would decide against them as long as your mind is split, and to attack what you have created is impossible. But remember that it is as impossible for God. The law of creation is that you love your creations as yourself, because they are part of you. Everything that was created is therefore perfectly safe, because the law of God protect it by His Love. Any part of your mind that does not know this has banished itself from knowledge, because it has not met its conditions. Who could have done this but you? Recognize this gladly, for in the recognition lies the realization that your banishment is not of God, and therefore does not exist. You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perffectly capable of awakening to reality. Is it your decision to do so? You recognize from your own experience that what you see in dreams you think is real while you are asleep. Yet the instant you waken you realize that everything that seemed to happen in the dream did not happen at all. You do not think this strange, even though all the laws of what you awakento were violated while you slept. Is it not possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another, without really waking? Would you bother to reconcile what happened in conflicting dreams, or would you dismiss both together if you discovered that reality is in accord with neither? You do not remember being awake. When you hear this Holy Spirit you may feel better because loving them seems possible to you, but you do not remember yet that it once was so. And it is in this remembering that you will know it can be so again. What is possible has not yet been accomplished. Yet what has once been is so now, if it is eternal. When you remember, you will know that what you remember is eternal, and therefore is now. You will remember everything the instant you desire it wholly, for if you to desire wholly is to create, you will have willed away the separation, returning your mind simultaneously to your Creator and your creations. Knowing them you will have no wish to sleep, but only the desire to waken and be glad. Dreams will be impossible because you will want only truth, and being at last your will, it will be yours.

Love