Message from the Divine! Raj

You must make roon for the constant flow, for the constant source that IS constant to be FELT by you.  Do whatever it takes to establish this as a habit, not by a sheer act of will, but rather as an act of willingNESS. 

 Really, that is all it takes.  It is that simple.  Willingness to pause from the knee jerk habit and listen as if for a song you know you really do know.  In each and every interaction, the song is playing.  Do you hear it?  Do you let it comfort and soothe you?  Are you relaying it's harmony and melody to all around you?

I say this because it is in the willingness to embody…to receive and embody this resonance, that you broadcast it.  And why do you do this?  To be, as I said last time, a spokesperson for God?  No.  You do this because it is utterly natural to you to do this.  And it's receipt and it's broadcast constitute LOVE.  Then life becomes not a flat character play, where the words and actions are the focal point, but a living, breathing, vitally alive experience of participation, we will say, with this resonance…AS you witness to it.

So how do you do this?  …the mind wants to know, to plan, to strategize here .  It is simple.  You pay attention.  You are willing to let your attention be trained by the Holy Spirit what to pay attention to, and how to pay attention.  As you do, the Holy Spirit expands your innate capacity to feel Reality.  Like an accordion, it, your attention, spreads out.  It feels spacious.  One could say, infinite.

We are not talking about in meditation here, though you are all used to this expansive feeling in that instance.  We are talking about EACH moment you are in, including reading this right now.  

As you are willing for the Holy Spirit, which as I have said is nothing more than your right mind, to inform you-as in information for the more that is present as that moment that thinking has habitually categorized and tucked neatly away as: "Oh, I know what this is!"….as you do this, as you are willing to be shown and schooled in not just how but to actually DO IT, you will find your attention to be gathering "other" information. 

You will also find that this other information is not information to file away, to compare and contrast with other bits of information.  It is instead a nourishing experience in and of itself.  It is information not about something or something else, but is itself, an experience of that one or that thing that is quite a bit more direct than you have found yourself experiencing in the past, prior to this, prior to the willingness to partner with and lean into this constant association with the Holy Spirit.  It is in this union, in this willingness for union, that the unification of your mind, your whole mindedness, has a chance of asserting itself, which I said last time NEEDS to happen.  

It is inevitable that the Reality that confronts you everyday will be seen, experienced and recognized.  The Holy Spirit, felt tangibly, offers a bit of grace and ease with this transition.  Cultivate the active willingness for this partnering and become accustomed to the feel, the Presence that not only comforts, but informs, what is right in front of you.

It is in this active, alive, constant feeling of being sourced, that your true nature and identity reveals itself to you…not as a thing, but as a verb…a constant present presence that witnesses, embodies and expresses LIFE.

RAJ/Jesus Explains Healing and Physical Regeneration

RAJ/Jesus Explains Healing and Physical Regeneration

QUESTION:   Boy, I don't need to ask anything because everything has been so marvelous for me this last year and a half.   And it seems that all I need to do is to wish for something and it's there before I even know about it. And physically, I'm having a little bit more problems. I can usually be able to help with a tooth that is hurting or something else. But I have problems with my eyes and I can't seem to get too much help on that. And I am wondering, are we just going to continue the way we are, or what do I do? Do I just accept it?

ANSWER:   Absolutely not!  Never just accept limitation, whether it is physical or in terms of a relationship or finances, etc. Again, "It is the Father's Good Pleasure to give you The Kingdom." Absolutely none of what constitutes your perfection in all areas is withheld from you. It is your birthright to be experiencing It.
Now, and this is important for everyone, do not let your frustration at not experiencing it occupy your thought to the point that you are distracted from giving permission for your perfection to be experienced; giving permission for your healing.
Now, I simply encourage you, each night, just before you fall asleep, to ask your Healing Team, to address the issue with your eyes, ask for a Healing Session during the night, while you are sleeping.  Then, during the daytime, when you feel yourself being bothered relative to your eyes, or even if just the thought comes to you, acknowledge that perfect vision is your Birthright.
Remind yourself that it is the intent of your body to identify the presence of you, perfectly! That it is therefore the intent of your eyes to perform their function, perfectly. That is their intent. That is their inclination, and by acknowledging it, you engage in a little bit of re-programming of your mind-sets  in acknowledging that it is your birthright to experience your perfection, physically.
And indeed, it is the intent of your body to identify you perfectly. You are  beginning to come into alignment with the Truth.  At least relative to a your thinking, you are coming into alignment with the Truth. And that is what allows for the penetration of the Truth to occur and regenerate. Now it is absolutely appropriate to any of you to assume that because you are a certain age, simply means you have traveled around the Sun a certain number of times.
It is absolutely inappropriate for you to believe or accept the idea that because you are a certain age, there are certain things you must just accept: That  you  must just realize that you can't do what you used to do and that you shouldn't even bother to try anymore.
The fullness of the Expression of God that constitutes your identity and your individuality and your existence is as fresh and new today as it was when you were two hours old.  God isn't running down. God's Self-Expression isn't becoming weakened.  God Is still Omnipotent, And Omnipresent.  And any limitation that one is feeling is invalid and illusory.
But one does, through the use of Imagination, begin to embrace mis-taken concepts. And then, that one begins to behave according to the concepts. All age problems are not old age problems. There are teenagers who are suffering from being teenagers. And there are those who are in there forties, who are suffering from "mid life crisis," and there are those who are 24 or 25 who are not yet feeling a strong sense of their presence and substantiality.
They're not, in their mind, quite grown up and they're not kids anymore. And that is a problem, an age problem. But whether you are 14, or whether you are 80, are whether you are 40.  In other words, whether you have traveled around the sun 14 times or 80 times, having experienced a little bit of space travel, you are always the full representation of Mind, the full representation or manifestation of God expressing HimSelf/HerSelf.
The Creation of God that constitutes your conscious experience of Being, is forever new and forever vital. And those who, getting into their "twilight years," which is just another ridiculous concept, who put off living because there's not enough time left to complete any of it, will find themselves, after they have passed on, as I said yesterday, with the same opportunities to continue to engage in Life.
And I will tell you, you will not suddenly find yourself to be a babe again, with what might seem to be a natural feeling of having a whole life ahead of you with freshness. You will find yourself experiencing yourself just as you were before you passed on. And then you will say, wow, I'm not going to postpone living any more. Why didn't I realize that 20 years ago, when I was 60.
The moment you begin to say, "I guess I'm just going to have to put up with my limitations," again, whether you're 60 or 20, you are simply succumbing to a mis-perception, an aberration of Awareness. And if you indulge in it, you begin to undermine your sense of your own integrity, both physically and mentally. And you begin to squelch the Life Force within you.
The Life Force is there. The ideas come to engage in Life, but then the intellect and the conditioning comes in and says, "Well, I never saw anybody else do this.  Of course Aunt Agnes would slide down a bannister at 85 years old, but she was eccentric."  I'll tell you, Aunt Agnes was engaging in life and that's why she had the spunk. Because she didn't squelch herself.
Remember that.  If  the Father has withheld nothing of What He Is from His Self Expression, meaning you, then the vitality and vigor of Life are forever present for you to embody. And generally speaking, as a youngster, you dared to embody it without hesitation. But as you became educated and you learned how to be intelligent, you reasoned yourself right out of the spontaneous willingness to be the embodiment of Life.
And that is what I am here to encourage you to stop doing.  Stop withdrawing the permission to experience your perfection, your wholeness and your vitality no matter what age you are.
Now, if you were to pass on at this very instant, you would find yourself still appearing just as you appear. Believing what you believed just a moment ago, except that where you experienced some doubt as to whether you will exist at the moment after death, that ignorance will be annihilated by the fact that you find yourself still existing.
And so the fear of death will be gone. That is the one belief that is altered, annihilated by virtue of the experience of passing on. Now if this were to happen at this moment, you would find others who went on before you, if they had not reincarnated in the meantime, those who you remember as being elderly, who are not manifesting elderlyness, you will find that they have experienced regeneration of their bodies.
It is because they gave up the inclination to just accept where they were. They gave up the inclination to just put up with old age and because also, they had the example of others who went before them who were manifesting more youth, who were physically regenerated.
Now at the moment, you don't have many examples of physical regeneration. There are healings here and there with young people and it is easy to say, well is because they are young and their body has an active immune system. And also, perhaps, they were more spiritually alert and that allowed for regenerative healing.
But those are all just excuses, for not embodying regenerative processes right now. And I cannot say it too often, Now is the accepted time. Don't wait to engage in Waking Up  after  you pass on, don't wait to engage in re-embracing Life  after  you have passed on.
Start giving permission today! No matter what your seeming age, give permission for the perfect Self Expression of the Father/Mother God, to be embodied right where you are. Give permission for the ever new expression of the Father that appears as you to be physically embodied.   Let the perfection of your Being come forth. And I will encourage all of you who have a meta-physical studious orientation, not to turn this into an intellectual process of work.
I encourage you with a certain abandonment and freedom and lightness, to just give permission to yourself to let what the Father Is, fill you and become embodied for no good reason at all other than it expresses that which is essentially natural and normal to divine existence which is the only existence you have to experience, unless you choose to abide in your faulty imagination.  And then you will seem to experience less, in that which is Divinely Natural.
Your Birthright doesn't have to be earned. You do not have to become worthy of God's Love. And you do not have to become worthy of His Will for you, which is  for you to experience yourself in your right Mind with a clear undistorted perception of your perfect body and with the capacity to recognize your world as God is Being It, rather than as your limited perception allows you to see It.
Literally, we are not talking about something that you must gain, that is not natural to you and which therefore requires some practice or exercise, some spiritual exercise or some practice of spiritually correct thinking, in order for you to gain this thing that is not fundamentally natural to you.
The children who are being born today, are being born into an environment and a social setting that is far more spiritually enlightened than society of a thousand y ears ago.  How is it that they are able to cope without having had to go through all of the last 1000 years and the social changes that were worked through, by those who were making the social changes?
It is because they don't come in with pre-conceptions. And they simply embrace what Is. They give permission for there to be cars and airplanes, they give permission for there to be not only color television, but little tiny color televisions, with VCR's that fit in the palm of your hand. They don't have to go through getting used to the wonders of radio and talking pictures, and the development of color film, and the development of black and white TV, etc., in order to be able to embrace this marvel of technology called a portable, handheld color TV, VCR. Likewise, it truly is unnecessary for everyone to go through meta-physical processes of intellect and reasoning in order to deserve to see perfectly. . . or in order to deserve to experience physical regeneration. There simply needs to be the child like willingness to give permission to embrace what is already your Birthright to be experiencing.
And this is the part of the process of yielding, yielding into your Birthright.  Everyone is going to yield into the experience of reality, or the Kingdom Of Heaven.   Everyone simply needs to say, Yes! to their fulfillment, and fulfillment does include the experience of regeneration and healing whether you're 80 or 40, or 25, or 14.
And that's the Truth.
QUESTION:  Thank You.
ANSWER:   You are indeed, welcome.

~excerpt from Gathering with Raj in Carmel 1990

RAJ Q&A VERMONT 1992

RAJ Q&A VERMONT 1992

 

QUESTION:  I have a contrasting feeling about that.  For the last year I have been discovering the person inside of me.  And the comfort of being with a group of people who I know are seeking that divinity, does not mean so much of sharing and but listening and of observing myself, and the gentle nature that I feel from being around people in less loquacious ways.

Raj, my question in my search during this last year, and all of the wonderful things that I have discovered that makes me feel a part of the universe, and of the word “service” has emerged a number of times, and the feeling of service has emerged, and as I listen to definitions of service and exploring what it might mean and how I might be as a person in service.  And incidentally, the Mother Theresa film this evening I feel...  I have applied to the Peace Corp and this is a dream that I have had since 1962, to be a part of that. 

And so my question to you is:  if you see me in that role?  And if I feel it’s a logical extension and I would simply like some collaboration that you might give me on that path of service?  And maybe if it’s not the Peace Corp, it’s something else.  But I would like some direction about the meaning and your interpretation of being of service.

ANSWER:  I will say first of all that it is a marvelously congruent next step for you.

Service... Servant...  If you wish to serve your fellow man, you had better not try to serve your fellow man, else your fellow man will eat you up.  You will sacrifice yourself.  You will be what you serve.  If you wish to be of service to your fellow man, you had better be in touch with what you Are. 

I will soften that a little bit.  If you wish to serve your fellow man, then I encourage you to desire to be in touch with your Self, with a capital “S”.  I encourage you to daily say, “Today I will make no decisions by myself.”  I encourage you to join, not with your fellow man whom you would serve, but to join with that ballast in you that keeps you in balance.  And that ballast in you is the Holy Spirit (the disowned part of yourself that is held in trust, while you think that you are just an ego). 

When you lean into, and depend upon, and yield to the Holy Spirit, you are integrating your limited sense of yourself with the wholeness of what you Are.  And the wholeness of what you Are is not in anyway separate from everything else.  And so in that experience of your wholeness you literally feel your oneness with everything.  And without a false sense of separation that creates fear, there is the peaceful perspective of that which is utterly appropriate in your actions.  And when you behave in the world from that place, everyone will say you have served them. 

If you try to serve your fellow man without doing this, your fellow man will recognize your willingness to give your power away, and they will take charge of you, and you will be the puppet at the end of the strings that are attached to their fingers.  And then you will say in all misery, “There must not be a God, because when I have decided to express love to my fellow man, I have just been used.”  That’s because the fundamental, basic, initial, connectedness with your Being, and the joining with the Holy Spirit that that means, didn’t occur first, providing the ballast or balance that allows you to be truly appropriate in transformational ways. 

This might sound like a complicated task, or a big hurdle to be able to get over, and maybe it will take you more time to get over it than you have before you should tackle joining the Peace Corps.  No.  Join it, today, tomorrow, while you are in the groups.  Be with your fellow man and woman with the desire to know what the Father’s Will is, with a desire to have a perspective that is not based on what you perceive their needs to be, but based upon what you feel impelled by the Holy Spirit to do. 

Your desire to participate in the Peace Corps, came as a result of listening.  It is an evidence of emerging clarity.  And so, it is appropriate for you to take that step.  But just remember each step of the way, listen to the Holy Spirit. 

Paul would become apparently utterly useless if he was really trying to help you, and if you became the focal point, and if he cared what you thought about his “help.”  But his attention is with me, and he is expressing what is unfolding in his conscious experience as a result of that listening.  And then, you might say, that as a result of that you feel unity, you feel touched, you feel heard, you feel embraced, and you are likely to say that Paul is very helpful. 

And yet as I said earlier, he has been out of control for ten years, and has no sense of having accomplished a task of being helpful.  Because, if you want to know the truth, he doesn’t even have any idea of why what I might be saying to you would be helpful.  But it doesn’t change the fact that he is experiencing meaningfulness within himself, and everyone else is experiencing meaningfulness, and therefore there is fulfillment—obvious fulfillment. 

I have said it before and I will say it again:  The most direct route to your fellow man is right through the center of your Being.  So if you want to help your fellow man, go into that place in you where you can experience your divinity, and in that experience have the inescapable recognition that your experience of your divinity proves the divinity of your fellow man. 

And then, just as with Mother Theresa, you may look at anyone in any apparent condition and see the Christ.  And in seeing the Christ, be that act of love that I have described as the recognition of that which is Real, with a capital “R”, in each and everything—which is transformational, which is the leaven that leavens the whole lump. 

Enjoy this new adventure, but don’t become so excited with its novelty that you stop experiencing it from your best centered, connected place.  That’s the end of the answer.

QUESTION:  I have a follow up on that.  There seems to be a conflict between being so self-centered, and then being interested in other people.  And you described my problem very clearly in your answer to me.

ANSWER:  That was a description of the solution. 

QUESTION:  Well, it’s also the problem.  All right I’ve written it down, so I’ll review what you said as my solution.  Thank you.

ANSWER:  Indeed, you have illustrated a wonderful point.  Everyone, at sometime or another, arrives at a point of saying in all frustration and despair, “I can’t do this.”  And you judge yourself and you feel miserable and your words have stated the problem.  And then in the moment of your deepest despair you realize that that statement is the answer—“I can’t do this.”  And you feel the relief that you don’t have to continue trying to do what you can’t do. 

The realization that you really can’t do it is a revelation that you had been bound by your concepts to do something that it was not reasonable for you to do, and your conditioning continued to tell you that it was reasonable.  And the moment you say, “I can’t do it,” and you feel the relief of it, your world that expected you to do it, or supported your belief that you ought to be able to do it, will reconfigure and no longer support your belief that you ought to be able to do it.  And it will confirm that you cannot do it, and that the world doesn’t expect you to do it. 

It is a truth, “To thine own self be true, and it must”—it doesn’t say it might or it ought to—“it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” 

What is the gift you have to give?  What is the gift that any of you have to give?  You exist.  There is a reason for your existing.  The reason for your existing is to make the gift of who you Are—the Individualized, but unlimited expression of God. 

How can you make the gift of your Self if you don’t know who you Are?  It is selfish to make a gift when your hands are empty.  It is selfish to ignore yourself for the sake of others and their perceived needs, which they will be most happy to convince you of and prove to you are real—for which there is no solution.  They will be happy to convince you of that. 

You know why it is selfish to serve others?  Because in ignoring yourself you don’t make the gift of you, and it would seem that some aspect of God is unexpressed.  You are withholding God from expression when you are trying to be what someone else needs you to be.  And yet, if you do care enough to be what the ego calls selfish and you do yield enough, you do sacrifice the masks and the misperceptions and the false definitions of yourself, and you do begin to feel who you essentially Are, which means to feel the presence of God. 

Then what will happen where you are is the Movement of God.  And it will be congruent and it will be transformational and everyone will say, “You have been most helpful.  You have changed my life.”  And you will say, “But I didn’t do anything.  I don’t know why you would say that.  But I am very happy for you.  And I thank you for loving me in your expression of gratitude.” 

The ego is a hundred and eighty degrees out of sync, that’s why it’s a liar and the father of the lie.  It says the exact opposite of the truth.  And it says to be loving you must extend yourself to others at your own expense.  Martyrdom is the sign of great spirituality.  That’s the end of the answer.

"You are the only dynamic point of transformation that exist."

Do you know that you are a more efficacious voice for transformation in the world than any book, teaching, philosophy or religion? In fact, you are the only dynamic point of transformation that exists!

Teachings and thought systems have not the capacity to embody Love, and only Love embodied is transformational. How to be the presence of Love cannot be taught. Therefore, all that any religious or spiritual teaching worth its salt can do is point you in the direction of that inner point of honest struggle and decision, wherein you yield to God - where you do more than say, "Thy will be done," and actually set aside your own in favor of His.

Do not ask any book or teaching to reveal God to you. It is impossible. To revere a document or a set of words will only distract you from the reverence due the altar in your heart where We await you, and your freedom from illusion, too. It is so easy, but preoccupation with external props can make it difficult if they are used improperly. Do not make gods of them and bow to them. Do not revolve your life around their words, but let the words inspire you to go within. From there release the words that helped you to that inner place, and open up to Him in all simplicity, humility. Don't hold Him to the words that brought you to the point of feeling His sweet love for you, just as you would not hold Him to the suffering it sometimes takes to bring you to your knees and open up your heart.

Whatever brings you to that place within where all the bullshit stops, be grateful for. But do not idolize the means by which your honesty came into play and opened up the door to your Inheritance. Once opened, you will be the Love that can't be taught, and transformation will occur, for you will be about your Father's business, hopelessly original in everything you say and do and be.

Rajpur
Kingston

ACIM Lesson 188 "The peace of God is shining in me now.

Lesson 188
(beginning day 188)

The peace of God is shining in me now.

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

This light can not be lost. Why wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already, or was never there? It can so easily be looked upon that arguments which prove it is not there become ridiculous. Who can deny the presence of what he beholds in him? It is not difficult to look within, for there all vision starts. 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. There perception starts, and there it ends. It has no source but this.

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

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

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

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

These thoughts you think with Him. They recognize their home. And they point surely to their Source, Where God the Father and the Son are One. 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. They lead you back to peace, from where they came but to remind you how you must return.

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

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

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. We will forgive them all, absolving all the world from what we thought it did to us. For it is we who make the world as we would have it. Now we choose that it be innocent, devoid of sin and open to salvation. And we lay our saving blessing on it, as we say:


The peace of God is shining in me now.

Let all things shine upon me in that peace, And let me bless them with the light in me.

ACIM Lesson 187 "I bless the world because I bless myself."

Lesson 187
(beginning day 187)

I bless the world because I bless myself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The lilies that your brother offers you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer him beside them. Who could fear to look upon such lovely holiness? The great illusion of the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the purity that you will look on here. Be not afraid to look. 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.

Now are we one in thought, for fear has gone. And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and one Thought, we stand together as one Son of God. 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. The Name of God is on our lips. And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father's Love.

Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world. What we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it everywhere. We would behold it shining with the grace of God in everyone. We would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon. And to ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see. 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.

ACIM Lesson 186 "Salvation of the world depends on me."

Lesson 186
(beginning day 186)

Salvation of the world depends on me.

Here is the statement that will one day take all arrogance away from every mind. Here is the thought of true humility, which holds no function as your own but that which has been given you. It offers your acceptance of a part assigned to you, without insisting on another role. It does not judge your proper role. It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven's plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven's peace.

Let us not fight our function. We did not establish it. It is not our idea. The means are given us by which it will be perfectly accomplished. All that we are asked to do is to accept our part in genuine humility, and not deny with self-deceiving arrogance that we are worthy. What is given us to do, we have the strength to do. Our minds are suited perfectly to take the part assigned to us by One Who knows us well.

Today's idea may seem quite sobering, until you see its meaning. All it says is that your Father still remembers you, and offers you the perfect trust He holds in you who are His Son. It does not ask that you be different in any way from what you are. What could humility request but this? And what could arrogance deny but this? Today we will not shrink from our assignment on the specious grounds that modesty is outraged. It is pride that would deny the Call for God Himself.

All false humility we lay aside today, that we may listen to God's Voice reveal to us what He would have us do. We do not doubt our adequacy for the function He will offer us. We will be certain only that He knows our strengths, our wisdom and our holiness. And if He deems us worthy, so we are. It is but arrogance that judges otherwise.

There is one way, and only one, to be released from the imprisonment your plan to prove the false is true has brought to you. Accept the plan you did not make instead. Judge not your value to it. If God's Voice assures you that salvation needs your part, and that the whole depends on you, be sure that it is so. The arrogant must cling to words, afraid to go beyond them to experience which might affront their stance. Yet are the humble free to hear the Voice which tells them what they are, and what to do.

Arrogance makes an image of yourself that is not real. It is this image which quails and retreats in terror, as the Voice for God assures you that you have the strength, the wisdom and the holiness to go beyond all images. You are not weak, as is the image of yourself. You are not ignorant and helpless. Sin can not tarnish the truth in you, and misery can come not near the holy home of God.

All this the Voice for God relates to you. And as He speaks, the image trembles and seeks to attack the threat it does not know, sensing its basis crumble. Let it go. Salvation of the world depends on you, and not upon this little pile of dust. What can it tell the holy Son of God? Why need he be concerned with it at all?

And so we find our peace. We will accept the function God has given us, for all illusions rest upon the weird belief that we can make another for ourselves. Our self-made roles are shifting, and they seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of love and loving. We can laugh or weep, and greet the day with welcome or with tears. Our very being seems to change as we experience a thousand shifts in mood, and our emotions raise us high indeed, or dash us to the ground in hopelessness.

Is this the Son of God? Could He create such instability and call it Son? He Who is changeless shares His attributes with His creation. All the images His Son appears to make have no effect on what he is. They blow across his mind like wind-swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust.

These unsubstantial images will go, and leave your mind unclouded and serene, when you accept the function given you. The images you make give rise to but conflicting goals, impermanent and vague, uncertain and ambiguous. Who could be constant in his efforts, or direct his energies and concentrated drive toward goals like these? The functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change ten times an hour at their most secure. What hope of gain can rest on goals like this?

In lovely contrast, certain as the sun's return each morning to dispel the night, your truly given function stands out clear and wholly unambiguous. There is no doubt of its validity. It comes from One Who knows no error, and His Voice is certain of Its messages. They will not change, nor be in conflict. All of them point to one goal, and one you can attain. Your plan may be impossible, but God's can never fail because He is its Source.

Do as God's Voice directs. And if It asks a thing of you which seems impossible, remember Who it is that asks, and who would make denial. Then consider this; which is more likely to be right? The Voice that speaks for the Creator of all things, Who knows all things exactly as they are, or a distorted image of yourself, confused, bewildered, inconsistent and unsure of everything? Let not its voice direct you. Hear instead a certain Voice, which tells you of a function given you by your Creator Who remembers you, and urges that you now remember Him.

His gentle Voice is calling from the known to the unknowing. He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. He would make a restitution, though He is complete; a gift to you, although He knows that you have everything already. He has Thoughts which answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. For Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form.

These are the forms which never can deceive, because they come from Formlessness Itself. Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still. Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. Such is your function here.