The Lesson yesterday talked of the thousand choices we seem to have in the world of illusion, with many conflicting goals in front of us. This Lesson also reminded us that there really is only one choice to make and even that choice is already made, but to us it does seem that we are making a choice. However, this seeming choice, which is currently concealed by the illusion that we have many choices, depends on our learning. We are learning that the many forms that we seem to choose among conceal the fact that there is only one choice. That choice is for Heaven and for truth, but we made a choice for the ego, and now we identify with a false self, which is why the Atonement is needed. The Atonement is a correction of our mistaken choice.

Again the Lesson yesterday reminded us that time is for the purpose of correcting our mistaken choice for separation and our individuality. It is for learning that we really do want to make a choice for Heaven and to know again our eternal One Self. Time can now be used for the Holy Spirit's purpose, for helping us in making this choice for truth. As long as the illusion seems to offer us what we deem as satisfaction, we will continue to choose its offerings until we recognize it offers us nothing but pain. Today's Lesson says that, when we decide to accept the Atonement, it marks the end of choice. That is when we have come to the decision to accept ourselves as God created us. Until we come to this total acceptance, this total commitment, we keep questioning, seeking, doubting, denying, and keeping ourselves small. We keep asking "what am I?"

Why would we ask this question that God has already answered? Why do we stay in this confusion about our identity? He says, " Uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast, its magnitude can hardly be conceived." (W.139.3.1) We are living in denial of the truth about ourselves. Our minds are split into a part that knows the truth about ourselves (the right mind) and another part that does not know. We seem to live in this world, a world where none of the beliefs that we hold about ourselves is true. This journey of awakening is not supported by the world. Why is that? Because " It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are." (W.139.7.2) It is a world based on an insane thought of separation. " The ego made the world as it perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the reinterpreter of what the ego made, sees the world as a teaching device for bringing you home." (T.5.III.11.1)(ACIM OE T.5.V.42)  Now, what we have learned from the ego can become a classroom for its undoing with the help of our inner Teacher.
 
Apparently we will keep coming here until we give up all these questions and all of our doubt thoughts and accept the truth about ourselves. That is what Atonement is. It is about accepting the truth of who we are. It is a correction for our wrong-minded beliefs. To do so is to give up on our belief that we are a body living in this world. To do so is to heal the mind of all of its misconceptions, all of its self-concepts and all of the values that it holds. It is a process of undoing until we come to the place where we no longer question what we are. We are no longer deceived about our true Identity as the Christ. We come to the place where we know ourselves as eternal life, not as a bodily identity that seems to end in death. " To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead." (W.139.3.2) The truth is that we have never left God and are still one with Him. It is only in the insanity of our dreams that we believe that we are alive as bodies living in this world.
 
The choice we made in the tiny mad idea for the ego, and all that entails, is a belief that we have destroyed our reality and thus destroyed life. The truth is that we are alive now, as we have always been, because we have never left God, though we think we have. Now we think we are something else, and so life can only be known as it is, when we know who we are as the Christ.

" Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts? Whom does he question? Who can answer him?" (W.139.3.4-7) I love these questions, which show the parts of our minds. When I say, " I ask myself," who is the "I" that asks the "self?" This internal dialogue goes on between what seem to be the different parts of the mind. The questioner is the part that has chosen the ego. What he doubts is what he is. Whom he questions is himself. Who can answer him is only the Holy Spirit in the right mind.  " For it asks of one who knows the answer." (W.139.5.10) We won't hear the answer as long as we listen to the ego. The Self is reflected in the right mind, but seems to be a separate part of ourselves. The one that is questioning is not who we are. " Were it part of you, then certainty would be impossible." (W.139.5.11) We are not two parts in conflict. There is only one Self. The doubter is the one who has chosen to identify with the wrong mind. That choice is what has brought about all of our doubt thoughts. What he doubts is who he is, and the questions he asks are of the right mind, where the Answer is. We do not hear, because we are listening to the part that does not know, the voice of the ego.
 
This Lesson helps us to see how we can end the uncertainty of this constant questioning of ourselves. Sanity is in our minds at this very moment and we do have the answer. " We have not lost the knowledge that God gave us when He created us like Him." (W.139.11.4) If we don't hear the answer, it is because we don't want to be what we are. We are actively resisting the truth, believing that there will be a high cost to accepting it. But we already have accepted it in our right minds, where the Holy Spirit is. He is the memory of Life. This is our assurance that we can't die. But because we have " judged against it [the truth of our being] and denied its worth," (W.139.4.4) we think that we don't know what we are. And this is the source of all our uncertainty about ourselves. Just because we have denied the truth of what we are, does not change what we are. " Your denial made no change in what you are." (W.139.5.3) Part of us knows the truth about ourselves and the other part keeps denying this truth by believing its reality as a body. This is the split mind.
 
The ego is nothing but a thought of doubt about our reality. It is madness. It has occupied the mind that now doubts itself and has become unsure of what it is. " Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself, and be unsure of what you really are." (W.139.6.1) Thus, Atonement is the acceptance of the truth about ourselves. It is the release of the question of what we are. It is the acceptance of the Answer. It is accepting that " I remain as God created me." (W.139.11.3) The truth is already in our minds. (W.139.8.2) It is not something we have to seek. We can choose to stop our minds from occupying " themselves with senseless musings." (W.139.8.5) " We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us like Him." (W.139.11.4) That knowledge is still in our minds to be accessed there. What is stopping us? The only thing stopping us is our own fear and our distractions from this holy aim. All of the things of this world that distract us are the " foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around the Holy Son of God." (W.139.12.2) They have no substance, but only appear to be a complex web that cannot hold us back. " And learn the fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apart from your awareness." (W.139.12.3) They cannot hold back our awareness of the truth about ourselves, if we don't let them. When we let them hold us back, then they do indeed feel powerful and strong to us. In this dream they seem to have a very strong hold.
 
We have an important assignment given us by Jesus today. The assignment is to remind ourselves hourly that we remain as God created us. It will never be affirmed by what the world values and what we value in the world. Whenever we experience doubt, confusion, distress of any kind, we can look at our thoughts without judgment with the Holy Spirit. We need to tell ourselves the truth often that we were created perfect, whole and totally innocent. Everything we think we have done to destroy the truth about ourselves is simply a dream, and while we acknowledge this truth, the only way we can experience it is to be vigilant of our thoughts. Then we can see how our thoughts are blocking this truth. These are thoughts of anger, despair, worry, fears, demands, expectations, specialness, judgment, arrogance, etc. Jesus can't change our thoughts for us. We must do the work. We made these thoughts.

When we release these blocks and do accept the Atonement (healing) for ourselves, we do it for the whole Sonship, as there is only one mind. Every brother is a part of that one mind. We will know our magnificence when we see it everywhere and in everyone. In this endless love that is available to us in every moment, we will rejoice as we join with our brothers and sisters in Oneness. So let us look with kindness on everyone, extend blessings to those we cross paths with today and refrain from analyzing the motives of others or correcting our brothers. Our acceptance of our own joy and peace is the gift that we give and thus receive for ourselves, and we do this in gratitude and joy.

He asks us to lay aside all thoughts that would distract us from our holy aim. Anytime today that you witness your unhappiness, your pain or distress, or even happiness as coming from something outside of you, realize that you are denying the truth of who you are, and thus denying the healing. So taking responsibility for our judgments and our attacks coming from within ourselves or from the world is the first step in healing. We need to spend the day being vigilant regarding any thoughts that attack the truth of who we are. All our doubts, confusion, and uncertainties are opportunities to be questioned. They are not the truth.

" For several minutes let your mind be cleared of all the foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around the holy Son of God. And learn the fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apart from your awareness, as you say: I will accept Atonement for myself, for I remain as God created me." (W.139.12.2-3) These fragile chains are the ego's thought system of sin, guilt, fear, suffering and death. To us they do not seem fragile at all. We can only recognize the nothingness of these illusions when we question them and bring them to the light of truth. It is the process of forgiveness as described in the Course. It is a process of looking without judgment at the ego thought system, which can only be done when we look with the Holy Spirit.
 
Bring forth the memory of how dear your brothers are in truth, and how much a part of you is every mind, how faithful they have been to us and how our Father's love contains them all. Bring them all into the circle of light and love, leaving no one outside of your loving embrace. We do that by seeing how we try to separate from our brothers with our judgments and by seeing differences and comparisons, or through our special relationships. Any thoughts we hold that separate us from our brothers is how we deny our Identity.
 

Love and blessings, Sarah

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³³ We have said that you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered by the eternal to the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it increases as it is given. The other has many forms, for the content of individual illusions differs greatly. Yet they have one thing in common-they are all insane. They are made of sights which are not seen and sounds which are not heard. They make up a private world which cannot be shared. For they are meaningful only to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only he perceives them.

 

³⁴ Each one peoples his world with figures from his individual past, and it is because of this that private worlds do differ. Yet the figures that he sees were never real, for they are made up only of his reactions to his brothers and do not include their reactions to him. Therefore he does not see that he made them and that they are not whole. For these figures have no witnesses, being perceived in one separate mind only.

 

³⁵ It is through these strange and shadowy figures that the insane relate to their insane world. For they see only those who remind them of these images, and it is to them that they relate. Thus do they communicate with those who are not there, and it is they who answer them, and no one hears their answer save him who called upon them, and he alone believes they answered him. Projection makes perception, and you cannot see beyond it. Again and again have men attacked each other because they saw in them a shadow figure in their own private world. And thus it is that you must attack yourself first, for what you attack is not in others. Its only reality is in your own mind, and by attacking others, you are literally attacking what is not there.

 

³⁶ The delusional can be very destructive, for they do not recognize that they have condemned themselves. They do not wish to die, yet they will not let condemnation go. And so they separate into their private worlds, where everything is disordered and where what is within appears to be without. Yet what is within they do not see, for the reality of their brothers they cannot see.

 

³⁷ You have but two emotions, yet in your private world you react to each of them as though it were the other. For love cannot abide in a world apart, where when it comes it is not recognized. If you see your own hatred as your brother, you are not seeing him. Everyone draws nigh unto what he loves and recoils from what he fears. And you react with fear to love and draw away from it. Yet fear attracts you, and believing it is love, you call it to yourself. Your private world is filled with the figures of fear you have invited into it, and all the love your brothers offer you, you do not see. As you look with open eyes upon your world, it must occur to you that you have withdrawn into insanity.

 

³⁸ You see what is not there, and you hear what is soundless. Your behavioral manifestations of emotions are the opposite of what the emotions are. You communicate with no one, and you are as isolated from reality as if you were alone in all the universe. In your madness, you overlook reality completely, and you see only your own split mind everywhere you look. God calls you and you do not hear, for you are preoccupied with your own voice. And the vision of Christ is not in your sight, for you look upon yourself alone.

 

³⁹ Little children, would you offer this to your Father? For if you offer it to yourself, you are offering it to Him. And He will not return it, for it is unworthy of you because it is unworthy of Him. Yet He would release you from it and set you free. His sane answer tells you that what you have offered yourself is not true, but His offering to you has never changed. You who know not what you do can learn what insanity is and look beyond it. It is given you to learn how to deny insanity and come forth from your private world in peace.

 

⁴⁰ You will see all that you denied in your brothers because you denied it in yourself. For you will love them, and by drawing nigh unto them, you will draw them to yourself, perceiving them as witnesses to your reality, which you share with God. I am with them as I am with you, and we will draw them from their private worlds, for as we are united, so would we unite with them. The Father welcomes all of us in gladness, and gladness is what we should offer Him. For every Son of God is given you to whom God gave Himself. And it is God to Whom you must offer them to recognize His gift to you.

 

⁴¹ Vision depends on light, and you cannot see in darkness. Yet in the darkness in the private world of sleep, you see in dreams, although your eyes are closed. And it is here that what you see you made. But let the darkness go, and all you made you will no longer see, for sight of it depends upon denying vision. Yet from denying vision, it does not follow that you cannot see. But this is what denial does, for by it you accept insanity, believing you can make a private world and rule your own perceptions. Yet for this, light must be excluded. Dreams disappear when light has come and you can see.

 

⁴² Do not seek vision through your eyes, for you made your way of seeing that you might see in darkness, and in this you are deceived. Beyond this darkness and yet still within you is the vision of Christ, Who looks on all in light. Your vision comes from fear, as His from love. And He sees for you as your witness to the real world. He is the Holy Spirit's manifestation, looking always on the real world and calling forth its witnesses and drawing them unto you. For He loves what He sees within you, and He would extend it. And He will not return unto the Father until He has extended your perception even unto Him. And there perception is no more, for He has returned you to the Father with Him.

 

⁴³ You have but two emotions, and one you made and one was given you. Each is a way of seeing, and different worlds arise from their different visions. See through the vision that is given you, for through Christ's vision He beholds Himself. And seeing what He is, He knows His Father. Beyond your darkest dreams, He sees God's guiltless Son within you, shining in perfect radiance, which is undimmed by your dreams. And this you will see as you look with Him, for His vision is His gift of love to you, given Him of the Father for you.

 

⁴⁴ The Holy Spirit is the light in which Christ stands revealed. And all who would behold Him can see Him, for they have asked for light. Nor will they see Him alone, for He is no more alone than they are. Because they saw the Son, they have risen in Him to the Father. And all this will they understand because they looked within and saw beyond the darkness the Christ in them and recognized Him. In the sanity of His vision, they looked upon themselves with love, seeing themselves as the Holy Spirit sees them. And with this vision of the truth in them came all the beauty of the world to shine upon them.

 

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