Lesson 190

I choose the joy of God instead of pain.

p1. Pain is a wrong perspective. 2
When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. 3
It is not a fact at all. 4 There is no form
it takes that will not disappear if seen aright. 5
For pain proclaims God cruel. 6 How could it
be real in any form? 7 It witnesses to God the
Father’s hatred of His Son, the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane
desire for revenge and death.

p2. Can such projections be attested to? 2
Can they be anything but wholly false? 3 Pain
is but witness to the Son’s mistakes in what he thinks he is. 4
It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed;
for attack on what is wholly unassailable. 5
It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love, which could not leave
the Son whom It created out of love.

p3. Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. 2
It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and
seen as traitor to Himself. 3 If God is real,
there is no pain. 4 If pain is real, there is
no God. 5 For vengeance is not part of love.
6 And fear, denying love and using pain to prove
that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. 7
The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father
he has slain.

p4. Peace to such foolishness! 2 The
time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. 3
There is no need to think of them as savage crimes, or secret sins with
weighty consequence. 4 Who but a madman could
conceive of them as cause of anything? 5 Their
witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared than the insane
illusions which it shields, and tries to demonstrate must still be true.

p5. It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. 2
Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. 3
There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression.
4 No one but yourself affects you. 5
There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad,
or weak or frail. 6 But it is you who have the
power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are.
7 As you perceive the harmlessness in them,
they will accept your holy will as theirs. 8
And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.

p6. My holy brother, think of this awhile: The world you see does
nothing. 2 It has no effects at all. 3
It merely represents your thoughts. 4 And it
will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy
of God as what you really want. 5 Your Self
is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable, forever
and forever. 6 And would you deny a little corner
of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain; a
sickly place where living things must come at last to die?

p7. The world may seem to cause you pain. 2
And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. 3
As an effect, it cannot make effects. 4 As an
illusion, it is what you wish. 5 Your idle wishes
represent its pains. 6 Your strange desires
bring it evil dreams. 7 Your thoughts of death
envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live.

p8. Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc
in your holy mind. 2 Pain is the ransom you
have gladly paid not to be free. 3 In pain is
God denied the Son He loves. 4 In pain does
fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven.
5 And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter
place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught
of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery.

p9. Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet
place where Heaven’s peace holds all things still at last. 2
Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. 3
Let no attack enter with you. 4 Lay down the
cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside
the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness.

p10. Here will you understand there is no pain. 2
Here does the joy of God belong to you. 3 This
is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson that contains all
of salvation’s power. 4 It is this: Pain is
illusion; joy, reality. 5 Pain is but sleep;
joy is awakening. 6 Pain is deception; joy alone
is truth.

p11. And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made;
we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and
Heaven. 2 Let our gratitude unto our Teacher
fill our hearts, as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness
in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of
Heaven for the darkness of the world.

Posted on July 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment | permanent link

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Lesson 189

I feel the Love of God within me now.

p1. There is a light in you the world can not perceive. 2
And with its eyes you will not see this light, for you are blinded by the
world. 3 Yet you have eyes to see it. 4
It is there for you to look upon. 5 It was not
placed in you to be kept hidden from your sight. 6
This light is a reflection of the thought we practice now. 7
To feel the Love of God within you is to see the world anew, shining in
innocence, alive with hope, and blessed with perfect charity and love.

p2. Who could feel fear in such a world as this? 2
It welcomes you, rejoices that you came, and sings your praises as it keeps
you safe from every form of danger and of pain. 3
It offers you a warm and gentle home in which to stay a while. 4
It blesses you throughout the day, and watches through the night as silent
guardian of your holy sleep. 5 It sees salvation
in you, and protects the light in you, in which it sees its own. 6
It offers you its flowers and its snow, in thankfulness for your benevolence.

p3. This is the world the Love of God reveals. 2
It is so different from the world you see through darkened eyes of malice
and of fear, that one belies the other. 3 Only
one can be perceived at all. 4 The other one
is wholly meaningless. 5 A world in which forgiveness
shines on everything, and peace offers its gentle light to everyone, is
inconceivable to those who see a world of hatred rising from attack, poised
to avenge, to murder and destroy.

p4. Yet is the world of hatred equally unseen and inconceivable
to those who feel God’s Love in them. 2 Their
world reflects the quietness and peace that shines in them; the gentleness
and innocence they see surrounding them; the joy with which they look out
from the endless wells of joy within. 3 What
they have felt in them they look upon, and see its sure reflection everywhere.

p5. What would you see? 2 The choice
is given you. 3 But learn and do not let your
mind forget this law of seeing: You will look upon that which you feel within.
4 If hatred finds a place within your heart,
you will perceive a fearful world, held cruelly in death’s sharp-pointed,
bony fingers. 5 If you feel the Love of God
within you, you will look out on a world of mercy and of love.

p6. Today we pass illusions, as we seek to reach to what is true
in us, and feel its all-embracing tenderness, its Love which knows us perfect
as itself, its sight which is the gift its Love bestows on us. 2
We learn the way today. 3 It is as sure as Love
itself, to which it carries us. 4 For its simplicity
avoids the snares the foolish convolutions of the world’s apparent reasoning
but serve to hide.

p7. Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what
you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world;
all images you hold about yourself. 2 Empty
your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad,
of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed.
3 Hold onto nothing. 4
Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you
ever learned before from anything. 5 Forget
this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your
God.

p8. Is it not He Who knows the way to you? 2
You need not know the way to Him. 3 Your part
is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the Son
and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. 4
God will do His part in joyful and immediate response. 5
Ask and receive. 6 But do not make demands,
nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. 7
The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be. 8
For in that way is your reality proclaimed as well.

p9. And so today we do not choose the way in which we go to Him.
2 But we do choose to let Him come. 3
And with this choice we rest. 4 And in our quiet
hearts and open minds, His Love will blaze its pathway of itself. 5
What has not been denied is surely there, if it be true and can be surely
reached. 6 God knows His Son, and knows the
way to him. 7 He does not need His Son to show
Him how to find His way. 8 Through every opened
door His Love shines outward from its home within, and lightens up the world
in innocence.

p10. Father, we do not know the way to You. 2
But we have called, and You have answered us. 3
We will not interfere. 4 Salvation’s ways are
not our own, for they belong to You. 5 And it
is unto You we look for them. 6 Our hands are
open to receive Your gifts. 7 We have no thoughts
we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are, or Who created
us. 8 Yours is the way that we would find and
follow. 9 And we ask but that Your Will, which
is our own as well, be done in us and in the world, that it become a part
of Heaven now. 10 Amen.

Posted on July 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment | permanent link

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Lesson 188

The peace of God is shining in me now.

p1. Why wait for Heaven? 2 Those who
seek the light are merely covering their eyes. 3
The light is in them now. 4 Enlightenment is
but a recognition, not a change at all. 5 Light
is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as
well. 6 The light came with you from your native
home, and stayed with you because it is your own. 7
It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. 8
It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where
it came from and you are at home.

p2. This light can not be lost. 2 Why
wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already, or was
never there? 3 It can so easily be looked upon
that arguments which prove it is not there become ridiculous. 4
Who can deny the presence of what he beholds in him? 5
It is not difficult to look within, for there all vision starts. 6
There is no sight, be it of dreams or from a truer Source, that is not but
the shadow of the seen through inward vision. 7
There perception starts, and there it ends. 8
It has no source but this.

p3. The peace of God is shining in you now, and from your heart
extends around the world. 2 It pauses to caress
each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that remains forever and
forever. 3 What it gives must be eternal. 4
It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless. 5
It brings renewal to all tired hearts, and lights all vision as it passes
by. 6 All of its gifts are given everyone, and
everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give, and you who have received.

p4. The shining in your mind reminds the world of what it has forgotten,
and the world restores the memory to you as well. 2
From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned.
3 To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself
give thanks. 4 And in His blessing does the
light in you shine brighter, adding to the gifts you have to offer to the
world.

p5. The peace of God can never be contained. 2
Who recognizes it within himself must give it. 3
And the means for giving it are in his understanding. 4
He forgives because he recognized the truth in him. 5
The peace of God is shining in you now, and in all living things. 6
In quietness is it acknowledged universally. 7
For what your inward vision looks upon is your perception of the universe.

p6. Sit quietly and close your eyes. 2
The light within you is sufficient. 3 It alone
has power to give the gift of sight to you. 4
Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within.
5 They know the way. 6
For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside yourself,
become the holy messengers of God Himself.

p7. These thoughts you think with Him. 2
They recognize their home. 3 And they point
surely to their Source, Where God the Father and the Son are One. 4
God’s peace is shining on them, but they must remain with you as well, for
they were born within your mind, as yours was born in God’s. 5
They lead you back to peace, from where they came but to remind you how
you must return.

p8. They heed your Father’s Voice when you refuse to listen. 2
And they urge you gently to accept His Word for what you are, instead of
fantasies and shadows. 3 They remind you that
you are the co-creator of all things that live. 4
For as the peace of God is shining in you, it must shine on them.

p9. We practice coming nearer to the light in us today. 2
We take our wandering thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they
fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. 3
We will not let them stray. 4 We let the light
within our minds direct them to come home. 5
We have betrayed them, ordering that they depart from us. 6
But now we call them back, and wash them clean of strange desires and disordered
wishes. 7 We restore to them the holiness of
their inheritance.

p10. Thus are our minds restored with them, and we acknowledge
that the peace of God still shines in us, and from us to all living things
that share our life. 2 We will forgive them
all, absolving all the world from what we thought it did to us. 3
For it is we who make the world as we would have it. 4
Now we choose that it be innocent, devoid of sin and open to salvation.
5 And we lay our saving blessing on it, as we
say:

Posted on July 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment | permanent link

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Lesson 187

I bless the world because I bless myself.

p1. No one can give unless he has. 2
In fact, giving is proof of having. 3 We have
made this point before. 4 What seems to make
it hard to credit is not this. 5 No one can
doubt that you must first possess what you would give. 6
It is the second phase on which the world and true perception differ. 7
Having had and given, then the world asserts that you have lost what you
possessed. 8 The truth maintains that giving
will increase what you possess.

p2. How is this possible? 2 For it
is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body’s eyes will not
perceive it yours. 3 Yet we have learned that
things but represent the thoughts that make them. 4
And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen
them in your own mind. 5 Perhaps the form in
which the thought seems to appear is changed in giving. 6
Yet it must return to him who gives. 7 Nor can
the form it takes be less acceptable. 8 It must
be more.

p3. Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them. 2
If you are to save the world, you first accept salvation for yourself. 3
But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it
brings to everyone you look upon. 4 Herein is
the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. 5
Now you can perceive that by your giving is your store increased.

p4. Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away,
and you are sure that you will never lose them. 2
What you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours. 3
Yet value not its form. 4 For this will change
and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. 5
No form endures. 6 It is the thought behind
the form of things that lives unchangeable.

p5. Give gladly. 2 You can only gain
thereby. 3 The thought remains, and grows in
strength as it is reinforced by giving. 4 Thoughts
extend as they are shared, for they can not be lost. 5
There is no giver and receiver in the sense the world conceives of them.
6 There is a giver who retains; another who
will give as well. 7 And both must gain in this
exchange, for each will have the thought in form most helpful to him. 8
What he seems to lose is always something he will value less than what will
surely be returned to him.

p6. Never forget you give but to yourself. 2
Who understands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice. 3
Nor can he fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take. 4
He laughs as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty,
starvation and at death. 5 He recognizes sacrifice
remains the one idea that stands behind them all, and in his gentle laughter
are they healed.

p7. Illusion recognized must disappear. 2
Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering. 3
Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers, when you choose to see all suffering
as what it is. 4 The thought of sacrifice gives
rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. 5
And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.

p8. Never believe that you can sacrifice. 2
There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. 3
If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen and
correction must be made. 4 Your blessing will
correct it. 5 Given first to you, it now is
yours to give as well. 6 No form of sacrifice
and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and
has blessed himself.

p9. The lilies that your brother offers you are laid upon your
altar, with the ones you offer him beside them. 2
Who could fear to look upon such lovely holiness? 3
The great illusion of the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the
purity that you will look on here. 4 Be not
afraid to look. 5 The blessedness you will behold
will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect gift forever
there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away.

p10. Now are we one in thought, for fear has gone. 2
And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and one Thought,
we stand together as one Son of God. 3 Not separate
from Him Who is our Source; not distant from one brother who is part of
our one Self Whose innocence has joined us all as one, we stand in blessedness,
and give as we receive. 4 The Name of God is
on our lips. 5 And as we look within, we see
the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father’s Love.

p11. Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world. 2
What we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it everywhere.
3 We would behold it shining with the grace
of God in everyone. 4 We would not have it be
withheld from anything we look upon. 5 And to
ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see. 6
For where we see it, it will be returned to us in form of lilies we can
lay upon our altar, making it a home for Innocence Itself, Who dwells in
us and offers us His Holiness as ours.

Posted on July 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment | permanent link

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