Lesson 105:

God's peace and joy are mine….

I give all to you in order that I recognize that it is mine. We obviously can’t give what we don’t have. So if I can give you, for you, total peace and joy, it must be mine to give…. Ah, the feeling that immediately accompanies this giving, it’s like slipping into a warm bath after a long cold night, surrendering to its ability to release…
Thoughts increase by being given away. I want for you perfect peace, which in turn release us to receive our joint inheritance. It is the holiest, most joyous experience I know. While immersed in it, there is not a trace of anything but the total extending, expanding forever, looping back to itself becoming all with all. It is the experience of limitlessness, speaking only to itself…

I have to give it to all, once received. I have no other choice but to complete myself in you and slip quietly into timelessness, allowing total immersion in the eternal waters of peace and joyous celebration of completion ~ How else could it happen?
Right now, I can hardly remember how used to think. How something was other than my Self… When there seemed to be a separate piece of nothing made to take the place of this glorious state of grace forever. It all seems surreal ~the world and all its ‘special’, separate, rejected parts.
It’s amusing to watch the mind make-up the world by attention to its memory. It seemingly starts with the erroneous desire for recall of the past, which starts bringing it into focus. Next, other ‘supporting’ thoughts magnetize together and things start to formulate. And simultaneously, present reality of limitless, joyous peace, gets push to the back of the mind, through the vigilance to realize something that is not there. Once fixated, the ego lays out innumerable possibilities, endless choices, options and alternatives to keep the mind busy and distracted and mindlessly involved in the scene on the screen. Win-lose hierarchies unfold; between the important and the not so important, the crucial and the critical, the better, stronger, and faster, the good, the bad and the ugly… And there ya go~ off to the races… or…
It is ours to slip with presence, back and beyond in the mind, and watch the traveling show from here, this place of total peace and joy, resting in the belly of creation and visit or gifts of the same to all we see before us… This is the presence of my Self as dreamer of the dream…. Ah, yes… this is the vigilance for only God and His Kingdom…
“Do only that”… The lessons of the Holy Spirit, laid out in words in chapter 6 of the Course text, give us the detailed instruction to allow the Holy Spirit to undo everything we have made, and translates it into a learning device which shows our belief in unreality by reinterpreting everything the ego uses to maintain the pretense of ‘separation’, to demonstrate against it… Click here to read some excerpts from this section:

It is with the deepest appreciation that I am joined with you in God’s peace and joy. I offer you the these gifts and my desire for your full acceptance of them, that full realization of the truth of what We Are as one be restored to full realization to all the Sonship.

Lesson 104:

I seek but what belongs to me in truth...

Joy and peace… These are ultimately the grand prize, aren’t they? As we begin to be self-aware, and as we start taking stock of our motives and reasons and excuses beyond merely looking at actions and justifications, we begin to get really honest with ourselves about ourselves. We begin to see a definite pattern immersing beneath it all ~ the quest for happiness and peace of mind, n’est pas? Is there any choice we ever make, that if we’re candid with ourselves, isn’t aimed for this experience? Everything from strategic planning for the future, to escapism, to competition, acquisition, romantic love, wanting children, not wanting them, committees and clubs, even defending and attacking, aren’t what we’re looking ultimately is to experience peace and joy?
Somewhere inside ourselves, we all have a deep innate sense that we deserve to be happy; that the gifts of joy and peace are the one ‘selfishness’ allowed, yes?....Perhaps we can’t totally separated ourselves from the truth of our inheritance, no matter how huge the mass hallucination is….We still forge every choice we make within it to get us back to a state that mimics what we cannot be without; our very make-up: joy and peace. We are compelled beyond our identity to seek them... because they are the truth. It is the call of love. We just run it through our sleeping mind’s constructs of self-images, etc… Why else would we pay penitence, make deals, defend our choices, keep up with the Jones, change things, self-improve, give things up, bargain…sell our soul…? We have it wired up that these things are necessary to acquire peace and joy… We can feel there is something more than this dance, something deep within, covered over by our compulsive efforts to get them. Yet it requires tremendous willingness to be still an instant and listen for the truth… (It turns out to be the short cut)…
I remember when I first tried to wrap my mind around the idea that perhaps everyone was doing exactly what they were, the very best they could at that moment in time, given all their beliefs and fears and understanding, because all of us are just trying to secure joy and peace for ourselves. I was working with this magnificent mentor at the time, and she was offering this context in response to my ‘parental issues’. I remember the resistance I had to giving up having been wronged by them in someway. I didn’t want I liked having, well, you know, a ready bag of justifications for all mistakes I didn’t want or feel I could bear, to be accountable for…
I remember the feeling of loneliness and tremendous fear the swelled at the very thought of trading in this idea for the righteous rights to victim hood, which I held so dear. These were my armor against a careless, vicious world where the bloodsuckers were no respecters of persons… All the ‘takers’ out there were my competitors in the battle of the fittest, which I felt I had already lost (and shouldn’t have)… How could I accept defeat with out this ‘martyr identity’ to keep me safe? After all, even few predators try to penetrate the walls of the martyr. That’s sort of a rule…
Anyway, here was my realization. I started to feel/see a benefit of adjusting my thinking to accept that perhaps my parents and others, did what they did because they either thought it would make them happier (even if it wasn’t going to come till after death, and they had judgment day to face and maybe a celestial kingdom to be worthy for, so…) or they were trying to find the shortest route to restore some semblance of peace of mind in a chaotic situation. Changed everything!
It’s impossible to not feel better if you shift the premise just this much; that perhaps nothing, anyone else did, or is doing is personal. ~ They’re just trying to be happy and at peace. It’s also impossible not to see that this was the truth for all. It’s not just a good justification, but an honest evaluation of motives, convoluted though it may seem, it is the constant ‘on-beam’ to find peace and joy. One can’t help but see the subtle layers emerge; see how much interpretation, actions, judgments, fears were ultimately, a quest for happiness. Ah, how deep the rabbit-hole goes, eh? The mere acceptance of the possibility of this idea of blamelessness seems to brush off some of the layers of vigilance (often referred to as stress). And what was underneath, do you suppose? Yes, you got it ~a little peace…
We seek but what belongs to us in truth and the truth is; joy and peace are attributes of the love of God, which fathered us. The very fabric of God’s thought of his Son is woven with the total, constant joy and peace of God. This is our inheritance… It is the stuff of our creation and nothing we have made-belief of ourselves, has altered this in anyway. Of course we seek joy and peace; it is the completion of our Self: the holy unity with each other and God as One.
Of course, this is all we want. It is the experience of the love that we are in truth. Nothing else will satisfy. The Atonement answered the possibility that we could completely forget this in the maze of separate thoughts of the past by placing the Holy Spirit indelibly within our mind, as the call to remember truth. Forgiveness is the mechanism, which the Holy Spirit employs when compulsion to revisit the past upon NOW, surfaces up.
We seek but what belongs to us in truth… and, every remnant of make-believe we have covered over it is seen for the nothingness it is and is cleared off the face of Christ. What we experience, shining beneath, within, is the pure, holy alter to God and his Son, where PEACE and JOY are ours, belonging to the truth…

Lesson 103:

“God, being Love, is also happiness… “

The premise is crucial. The Course guides us to bring all illusion to the truth. This is how practicing the principles of the Course and doing the daily lessons become when seeking only the truth… One begins with the premise: God is ~ And, I am as God created me… sinking deep into mind, past the body identity with all its sensations and thoughts and some- thing- nesses to the still point of light at the center of mind where truth resides. Here love is all that is ~expanding forever… Here one feels one with, already, always, this love… There is no world, right here, right now. There is no body, no ‘me’. Simply a blending with this limitless expansion of bliss…
Now, at some point one might start to notice a little itch ~ the impulse to think, to think an outside world, actually… It starts with the beginnings of a sense of ‘outer edges’ sneaking up and realizing ‘me’: thoughts, feelings, and identities… tapping… tapping… tapping… “A sight headache, a little tiredness, responsibilities waiting, commitments to keep, things to figure out, to not forget, to do… These are the illusions to be brought to truth. One can’t ignore them. Oh, believe me I’ve tried.
I had this idea of what “enlightenment” looked like and it didn’t include fears and desires and I only felt guilty for ‘not getting it right’. I actually had it wired up, that feeling ashamed that I couldn’t ‘do it any better, was the least I could do, to show God I was trying to be worthy. I was so very grateful to be experiencing the moments of what I would identify as “Love that erased all else”. It meant everything to me and I felt it was obviously grace to experience these brief instants.
These holy instances were beginning to string my fragile self together. The Course asks us to answer the ‘last un answered question’: “Do I want to see what I denied, because it is the truth?” ~ Yes! Oh yes. Here’s a moment of truth for you…truly a moment of truth for me; a moment of total release from the burden self… MIRACLE: I don’t know how the miracle happened, but I realized in the twinkling of an eye, that my gift of guilt was the shift to the premise of separation, making all other feelings, and peoples, and things, real to me; overlays of specifics on the face of Christ.
Oh my God, can I tell you about this miracle where everything I ever thought I was beholden to, flashed and burnt, in a blazing light of recognition? Well, not actually, eh? Experience can only be pointed to with words….
Now this grouping, however, this passage in the text just came to me to share; it speaks to the premise of the right-mindedness essential to accepting the Atonement. It speaks me eloquently of my experience. Here’s what it says:
“You merely ask the question. The answer is given. Seek not to answer, but merely to receive the answer as it is given. In preparing for the holy instant, do not attempt to make yourself holy to be ready to receive it. That is but to confuse your role with God’s. Atonement cannot come to those who think that they must first atone, but only to those who offer it nothing more than simple willingness to make way for it. Purification is of God alone, and therefore for you. Rather than seek to prepare yourself for Him, try to think thus:
I who am host to God am worthy of Him.
He Who established His dwelling place in me created it as He would have it be.
It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I do not interfere with His plan to restore to me my own awareness of my readiness, which is eternal.
I need add nothing to His plan.
But to receive it, I must be willing not to substitute my own in place of it.
And that is all. Add more, and you will merely take away the little that is asked. Remember you made guilt, and that your plan for the escape from guilt has been to bring Atonement to it, and make salvation fearful. And it is only fear that you will add, if you prepare yourself for love. The preparation for the holy instant belongs to Him Who gives it. Release yourself to Him Whose function is release. Do not assume His function for Him. Give Him but what He asks, that you may learn how little is your part, and how great is His.
It is this that makes the holy instant so easy and so natural. You make it difficult, because you insist there must be more that you need do. You find it difficult to accept the idea that you need give so little, to receive so much. And it is very hard for you to realize it is not personally insulting that your contribution and the Holy Spirit’s are so extremely disproportionate. You are still convinced that your understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing. Salvation is easy just it asks nothing you cannot give right now". (T-18.IV.5-7)

My guilt turned out to witness to my fear of God, which led me to deny the truth that God being Love was also happiness, and subsequently, to feel guilty, to fear God, was to be afraid of joy. It’s so obvious now.
Now, truth tells me: I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me. I need ‘do’ nothing but not to interfere with His plan to restore me to the full awareness of Love.
When we deny this basic, all inclusive premise, it sets up a state within the mind where it can appears “that there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy”. So as the ego I once aligned with, sends its sentinels, ”these images, with no reality in truth, that bear witness to the fear of God, forgetting His being Love, He must be joy”, tempting me to return to that ancient past overlaid on this present light, to obscure my vision, as it inevitably will… till forgiveness is complete, it is my role to choose once again the voice I’ll hear. I choose once again the premise from which I see and give my little willingness to not interfere, then lean back and trust… “God, being Love, is also happiness. And it is happiness I seek today. I cannot fail, because I seek the truth”… this is the premise of truth, easily slipped into and solid to operate in the so-called world in… It is much easier to experience, from the natural state of complete dependence of God, the truth of love, which has no gaps in it at all, allowing one to look beyond the shadowy, outlined figures of the past and into the light which joins us all as one … we are returned to peace… returned to God/love… returned to joy and happiness… Gratitude is my eternal son to you for joining me in the premise of truth, where our fuction and happiness are one…and LOVE is all….

Lesson 102:

I share God's Will for happiness for me… And I accept it as my function now…

Sounds simple enough… And truly it is, because it is the truth. If I am not feeling wholly joyous, I am seeing what is not there. This is a merely a call for love and unity which forgiveness answers instantly, the moment it is recognized. What’s painful about that? What is painful is only my desire to remain apart from Self to perpetuate my misbeilef that special-ness can offer me happiness.

If God extended His joy and His Son was the result, and I am His Son, how can I be anything but happy? An extension, unlike it mimicked opposite, projection, is for the purpose of inclusion. God’s love includes all creation and knows not of exclusion. Projection on the other hand, is the defense against this all-inclusiveness. It is the mechanism by which the idea of separation, once perceived, is maintained. What if I looked on you and only saw myself? How long would I maintain my rejection and joylessness then? How quickly would I offer every joyous thought and loving caress for you to feel and join with me in unending embrace and play and freedom? If I don’t separate you from me in my mind and project you over ‘there’, you are part of all that I am.

What if I saw that you held the golden key to the gates of unending happiness, where pain and fear were but silly thoughts disregarded as ridiculous somewhere in an ancient past, hardly a remnant on the crystal mind of perfect happiness and peace, being the effect of the Great Love of the Source that can have no opposite? What if the clear awareness that this precious, golden key belonging to you must be joined with the one I have tucked inside my heart. The deep awareness I seem to have been born with, as you were yours, not knowing its purpose but understanding it’s invaluable worth. What if together we realize that this was the moment we’ve been waiting for all our lives; to see it’s meaning and at last its purpose; exposing all purpose within this one instant when we fit our keys together, and we can enter but together? How long would I deprive my self of the kingdom of eternal happiness, if all of this where so? Wouldn’t my little special, ‘whatever’, that I keep only to ‘myself’ to make sure ‘I get mine’, be joyously exposed for the hollow fraud it is? And wouldn’t I accept this gladly? Ah, yes….

Happiness is ours. Right here, right now. We cannot not have it. Will we continue to answer to the seductive beckoning of the addiction to substitute the quest for pleasure and avoidance of pain when everything we wanted we have merely to receive wholeheartedly? Is a little pleasure this body has to offer worth the price of eternal bliss? Accepting the Atonement for ourselves answers no to all question of the pain/pleasure addiction as well as all other dressed-up, nothingness posers, and answers YES to us, the Son of God, who shares His Will for happiness with Him.

With deepest joy and appreciation I join with you in the one function we have, which we accept joyously, today…. sharing God’s Will for happiness, by seeing you and I are one...

Lesson 101:

“God's Will for me is perfect happiness…”

God's Will for me is perfect happiness… There is no sin; it has no consequence… God’s Will for me is perfect happiness… This is the truth, because there is no sin…

Ya know, when I first began my so-called journey with the Course, I had this idea that I thought of sin as this old religious construct used to control and manipulate vulnerable individuals looking for some promise of a ‘better life ~ even if they could only get it after death. I remember thinking about the whole catholic inquisition thing as well as the design of the theology I was raised in: “Control of the masses by way of impossible rules and constant fear of retribution, the dampening of joy by way of guilt, the terror of justice… quite ingenious really”. I did not see my self as personally connected to this thought system (degree of separation), as a matter of fact I sort of fancied myself as above this as only the ignorant, the ‘sheep’, could buy into such a mind-game---

Now, I mention this because of how hilarious this was in the face of how I worshiped the god of guilt constantly, and made not one choice without consulting him for assignment of consequences for the living of my so-called life. Mine was a world in which I kept my little secret-self from the witness of ‘the others’. I brought it daily to the altar of this harsh, unrelenting, god. Dutifully I returned again and again. I couldn’t have escaped sin’s huge tentacles; there was nowhere to run, his sentinels were in every situation and relationship. With each choice, I knelt before the justice due my unworthiness… augh…

Hell, I couldn’t even escape into chemicals~ for just a second’s relief from the constant bearing down of judgment, without the inevitable shame the ‘losers’ share; the ‘punishment’ which meted out fresh wound upon the scars of self-loathing, the ‘scarlet letter’ for being danét. No, nothing was sacred it all belonged to him, the god of sin.

Now, I’m not saying I was full on aware of this at the time, who could dare to look on this while believing its reality and not just wanna kill themselves? Come to think of it, that is exactly how I felt when did look square in the face, upon this belief (as square as my self honesty could at the time). ~Actually, acutely, that is what it came to for me. Death to my so-called life, rather than suffer one more inquisition with the elders of guilt and shame and punishment and suffering. The entire towel had to be thrown in… completely….

And I thought I was living a ‘happy’ life. ~That’s the thing. Denial can become a very good friend. His companions include: distractions, rules for being a good friend, ways to be special, good deeds, ways to do it ‘right’ next time, things I ‘could have said ~ that I’ll say next time, great ideas for building a better future ~hell, for building a better self. Sort of like “Cosmo” or “Allure” magazine; complete with to do lists, wishful thinking ~idealistic hopefulness, my own personal bag of tricks and definitely the ”brighter” future. I did my best to align myself with these mighty companions, but inevitably the sentinels of darkness would seek me out and filet me before my god…. Till finally, I tossed in the towel ~left my toys, and went Home…

Sin is such an interesting concept, is it not? So all pervasive, in the background of every story, built into the very fabric by which we structure ourselves, our societies, countries, worlds. Actually the entire time/space cosmos is dependent on it; complete with seasons, and night and day and ‘proper purposes’ and uses for everything. Quite spectacular is this whole blueprint. Ingenious? Yes. Inspired? I think not. Ingenuity is the trademark of the ego. It has no creative capabilities at all. It can mimic creation at best, and scare one into believing it can destroy it, at worst. What if none of this were real?

What if the ache deep within, the longing for perfect happiness; where no sign of the reality of sin could be recognized, what if the call of love to love that we always feel deep beyond our psyche and body and the world were the real thing? What if we were wrong about the very core of life itself, just simply mistaken? Certainly, we’ve had plenty of nightmares that seemed real enough, that when awaken from brought not only relief but also a perspective of their lucidity… What if this so-called life where ideas like sin, opposition, night and day, was but just one of those? What if it is all just an idea mistakenly believed and which fathered a dream world?

Reason tells us that the Creator of all that is must be the fabric of its creation, that ideas leave not their source, and nothing could be apart from itself. If God is love, how could sin be real?

In the beginning of the text of the Course, Jesus details out the process of forgetting truth and believing illusion. Here’s what it says:

~ First, you believe that what God created can be changed by your own mind.

~ Second, you believe that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect or lacking.

~ Third, you believe that you can distort the creations of God, including yourself.

~ Fourth, you believe that you can create yourself, and that the direction of your own creation is up to you. (click here to read the whole section)

One of the gifts that working in a psych-ward gave me was to show me that what appeared completely insane to everyone else around, could be absolutely real to the person experiencing it; things like voices heard, the so-called facts of a situation, let alone what the characters were doing and what their motives were, this person could be absolutely certain of their reality and sanity. Their ‘reality’ was absolutely as real as ‘the nose on your face’, to the person experiencing it. We didn’t call them liars. We quietly diagnosed them, insane... Even mere neurosis, which we could laughingly agree we all shared at some level, could become so real to the one believing it, as to totally twist the perception of the person involved so they could hardly recognize the facts when looked squarely at them. The Course gives this definition of sin: “Sin is insanity. It is the means by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks to let illusions take the place of truth. And being mad, it sees illusions where the truth should be, and where it really is”. Sounds familiar, eh?
All I ever wanted was to be happy. It’s true for all of us, oui? God’s Will for us is perfect happiness… So our happiness must be so, guaranteed by God. It is already ours. So, sin cannot possibly be real since happiness and misery have no meeting ground and cannot coexist.
When I desired happiness with my whole heart, it became mine wholeheartedly and has remained with me consistently. It is never not there. Even when the play and all its characters get really intense, happiness watches through my vision, from my seat above the battleground, recognizing the call for love as what it is ~the opportunity to forgive and allow the unity of love. My experience is that, once the decision to accept the Atonement for oneself has been unreservedly made, we experience the joy of our Father’s Will for us, already present, in full bloom, joyously awaiting full expression ~ happiness is our experience of constant joy that soundtracks our steady waking-up, by way of forgiveness and acceptance of the Atonement… We experience it by giving up the desire for something anything else. There is no sin; it has no consequences… Now that’s the truth, isn’t it. It doesn’t even leave any room for questioning… Huh, funny how that goes, and such a belly laugh for those of us who sought to ‘figure it all out.’
Laugh with me a while ~ we can all agree there is nothing like a really good laugh, to set things feeling right as rain, n’est pas… And let us listen to the soundtrack of joy given us because it is God’s Will, to move to the rhythm of our lives, today, in perfect happiness… Thanks for the dance ~

Lesson 100:

“My part is essential to God's plan for salvation… “

This holographic fact, beats petty little ‘special-nesses’ hands down! It is so obviously REAL, that special-ness seems apparent as an ego marketing device; to separate off a little trait or accomplishment or wound and attempt to shine the attention of the world to spotlight ‘me’ ~it sounds so cheap now, put that way, without all the frills and substantiating evidence of some kind of ‘special’ worth, n’est pas?
But oh, how I have sought to find salvation there… I actually used to think my worthiness depended on being better, stronger, faster, than, well, whoever, preferably everyone. Of course this is an impossible goal even or especially in this world, which was designed by the belief in scarcity and played out in the dynamic that someone must lose for someone to win. But rather than examine the validity of this belief, I accepted inevitable defeat at the perfection level and lowered the bar for myself… It became one where I would look for any special thing that seemed to separate me out from all the rest… It seems ridiculous to me now to even try to follow that pathetic thought of nothingness and the patterns it weaved within my mind to keep me hooked on distraction through judgment; trying, obsessing, figuring it out, compulsion, ~ terror…when the fact, as always was staring me boldly down. The fact being that all along my brother/competitor held the key to recognizing the Christ in me and the wholly inclusive, absolute joy that cannot be added to nor lost in any way… The concept doesn’t even exist, here…
I thought I knew what happiness was. I was wrong. I thought I was happy, but I was only temporarily not in conflict (or at least in denial of the conflict within myself. It was always temporary; I had to try to hang on to it. I failed. Can this really be called happiness? Is it possible that something so illusive and subjective could content the Son of God, when what defines us is the changeless, limitless wholeness of creation? These are the questions I eventually had to face within myself. Once again, I didn’t know what anything means… How sweet to turn to the One Who does know, and how joyous the return…Now every brother; every person and situation is the way I experience the joy and happiness within myself, by seeing only Christ, seeing with His eyes, touching with His heart, allowing my self to be healed. Can there be any greater happiness in this world than this; to look without judgment, but with the vision the Holy Spirit offers, and upon it, see the end of time and the holy instant of eternity, now? How blessed are we who have accepted that our part in God’s plan for salvation is essential, and His Will for us that we be happy! This is the reflection of God’s Love I choose today, for eternity is now. Let us place our faith in this… This is our holy instant of freedom and we are hand in hand, never to be apart…
This is the experience given by simply letting go of our plan for salvation and accepting God’s. It turns out that to accept God’s plan, one must accept all ~ No compromise of any kind can be accepted if full joy is to be received. Imagine being this significant to God~ that He be not complete with out you ~ that all creation is dependant on my acceptance of my Self, as Christ, the wholly Son of God. Ummm, feels right, yes? It is now seen in, and by way, of every one and thing and situation and circumstance once believed real and mistakenly placed faith in… Yet now, it is placed correctly in the light beyond, joining in purpose with each essential aspect of God’s plan. It is the decision for happiness.
There is now compromise in the decision to be happy. It is the acceptance of God’s Will and seeing it is the only will. Atonement and happiness are the same for the accomplishment of God’s plan for salvation. He has saved us for our Self and His Will for perfect happiness for all…. Happiness is our natural state; the only one we share in truth. What joy it is to have no reservations… Faith reveals that indeed, one part is all parts and wholeness is essential nature of God’s plan. Doubt has given way to certainty, and fear to trust…
Ahhhhhhhhhh…. the joyous fulfillment that comes with doing God’s Will. Truly, nothing else is and nothing else can bring happiness…
God’s will for us is perfect happiness. Let us today, accept that our part is essential in God’s plan for salvation, just give our five minutes to go beyond and allow the joyous magnitude of What We Are fold over us in the total comfort of our Creator’s Love… Can we allow the experience of pure happiness, because it is God’s Will for us… we admit that we don’t know of happiness, due to the un-lasting nature of the happiness we have thought we had, that slipped out of our hands at the emergence of yet another problem to solve… Together, we let go all our ideas of what happiness is and sink beneath the surface of our minds, and sinking deeper still, toward the great light within. We can release all thoughts, for God’s thought of us, and His Will for us, is our homing device. So we can rest in peace as we go gently by temptation to think apart from Him, and let the momentum of the truth carry us, as we meet our Self in Christ…
~My deepest gratitude to you for accepting your essential part and joining mine… It has been accomplished already, and now we walk the journey of remembering together… I am nothing without you and everything as One… in fact, We are the One! ~l love you forever and ever in the joyous wholeness that is One ~

Lesson 99:

Salvation is my only function here….

The dawning of this certainty seeps into the sleeping mind as the acceptance of the Atonement wakes the dreamer of the dream… 0ne looks upon the world with this one thought in mind: “God is still Love, and this is not His Will… Salvation is my only function here.” Here’s how it goes…
Sit with me for a moment within the peace this single-minded opening brings… Ah, the glorious freedom that comes with wholehearted devotion to this thought. Salvation is my only function here… forgive what ever might come to distract my mind from its only purpose here… that simple, simply that…
As long as any part of us remains to think we are ‘here’, this is the only gig in town… It goes like this: I accept my part in God’s plan for salvation, forgiving every seeming construct that fleshes out a world and that peoples it with self-concepts… Forgiveness and salvation are the same… both being still illusions, since this separated world ~ the impossible~ could never have really occurred ~ but it occurred within the mind that remembered not to laugh at a tiny, passing, crazy idea. This allowed the fantasy of fear to crystallize its presence within the mind for an instant (so miniscule all creation folded over it in love encompassing it within and continuing on its merry way)… Yet a thought, the free mind the Son of God has, regardless what it is, resides with all the power of creation within it, and at the ready for extension. It is the innocent nature of creation to give of itself to complete itself… One glitch in the flow, one resisted, misplaced thought and boom, a world of make believe, contained only within the tiny little fantasy thought universe…
An unreal thought produces an unreal existence. All beliefs and attitudes and particles and waves encapsulated within this idea of a world of usurpation are held together by the time/space construct, which seems to continue along linear lines of past, present and future and here and there, closer and further away. All the ego’s gifts; the promise of Specialness by way of sacrifice, patterns our thinking in habitual, mindless repetitive loops of smallness; seek feeling good ~avoid feeling bad.
For this we accept its conditions gladly: distract, worry, deny, acquire, keep adding to~ more, more, more…We know our so-called ‘selves’ only as a conglomerate of addictive strategies… And we surrender to their dictates; the pleasure/pain negotiations, obsession/compulsion, teaching/ learning, habits… These are the tools that flesh out the reality of what is not, to substantiate it as real and a viable substitute for truth.
One~ is the thought we share with God, the unity of all creation with the completion of love. This lesson gives us terms to work with while we remain identified as within this framework where both truth and illusion seem to exist…
Salvation and forgiveness; these are our guidepost terms, as the lesson states: “Thus do both terms imply a thing impossible but yet which has occurred, resulting in a state of conflict seen between what is and what could never be… Truth and illusions both are equal now, for both have happened. The impossible becomes the thing you need forgiveness for, salvation from. Salvation now becomes the borderland between the truth and the illusion. It reflects the truth because it is the means by which you can escape illusions. Yet it is not yet the truth because it undoes what was never done.”
Of Course, God placed the reconciliation of the irreconcilable within the flow of spirit that that could not be interrupted… We call this the Holy Spirit, and we feel it as the deep, familiar Love of our Creator, speaking, guiding from this place deep within… listen…
His is the vision to look upon illusion, see the false as false, requesting truth reveal itself and see only love reflected there. And everything is re-ordered and transformed before our very eyes, into a device for its accomplishment. This is God’s plan for salvation for which we are a part. It is the meeting place where earth and Heaven can be reconciled within a mind where both of them have seemingly taken residency.
We need only follow where the reasoning served up in the lesson’s questioning leads us … “What joins the separated mind and thoughts with Mind and Thought which are forever One? What plan could hold the truth inviolate, yet recognize the need illusions bring, and offer means by which they are undone without attack and with no touch of pain? What but a Thought of God could be this plan, by which the never done is overlooked, and sins forgotten which were never real?” Reason tells us this must be so and loosens us up for our acceptance of our only function to be realized as “the way”… We need but listen to the voice for God that speaks of only this…
He gently uses our experience of ‘conflict constructs’ and shows the contrast between our experience in illusion, and the truth reflected here which is accompanied by deep, abiding joy and peace …“The Holy Spirit holds this plan of God exactly as it was received of Him within the Mind of God and in your own. It is apart from time in that its Source is timeless. Yet it operates in time, because of your belief that time is real. Unshaken does the Holy Spirit look on what you see… Yet does He know one thing must still be true; God is still Love, and this is not His Will.” We are free, now, to fulfill our function through the Holy Spirit and experience our Holiness as the Son, which God created as Himself.
This has now become our mantra of love while waking to and from the dream: ‘God is still Love, and this is not his Will… He has a plan, of which I am an essential part… I joyously I accept my part that it is my special function to fulfill…I will forgive and see this differently… I forgive and this will disappear… Salvation and forgiveness are the same… Salvation is my only function here… resulting in the peace of God’.
Not a half bad gig, if you ask me! Indeed, it has given me and continues to give me, everything I need. Within, it reconciles everything I every thought I ever had need of, resolving all pain and fear associated with the conflicted mind with the simple, all encompassing Love thought and the peace of God in a boundless experience of eternity, paid forward to NOW… One simply asks and it is given~ what is my Father’s Will for me? I want to know… and boom! Everything for nothing at my fingertips…
And within, it feels like fireworks of gratitude and love in constant celebration of God ~so glorious is He and all creation… I Love it! I love you. And I am humbled by the joy it turns me into… ~Thanks for joining me here, now, forever in Love~