God and the Ego   

¹⁶ If sickness is separation, the will to heal and be healed is the first step toward recognizing what you truly want. Every attack is a step away from this, and every healing thought brings it closer. The Son of God has both Father and Son because he is both Father and Son. To unite having and being is only to unite your will with His, for He wills you Himself. And you will yourself to Him because, in your perfect understanding of Him, you know there is but One Will. Yet when you attack any part of God and His Kingdom, your understanding is not perfect, and what you will is therefore lost to you.

¹⁷ Healing thus becomes a lesson in understanding, and the more you practice it, the better teacher and learner you become. If you have denied truth, what better witnesses to its reality could you have than those who have been healed by it? But be sure to count yourself among them, for in your willingness to join them is your healing accomplished. Every miracle which you accomplish speaks to you of the Fatherhood of God. Every healing thought which you accept, either from your brother or in your own mind, teaches you that you are God's Son. In every hurtful thought you hold, wherever you perceive it, lies the denial of God's Fatherhood and your Sonship.

¹⁸ And denial is as total as love. You cannot deny part of yourself because the remainder will seem to be unintegrated and therefore without meaning. And being without meaning to you, you will not understand it. To deny meaning must be to fail to understand. You can heal only yourself, for only God's Son needs healing. He needs it because he does not understand himself and therefore knows not what he does. Having forgotten his will, he does not know what he wants.

¹⁹ Healing is a sign that he wants to make whole. And this willingness opens his own ears to the Voice of the Holy Spirit, whose message is wholeness. He will enable you to go far beyond the healing you would undertake, for beside your small willingness to make whole, He will lay His own complete Will and make yours whole. What can the Son of God not accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him? And yet the invitation must come from you, for you have surely learned that whom you invite as your guest will abide with you.

²⁰ The Holy Spirit cannot speak to an unwelcoming host because He will not be heard. The Eternal Guest remains, but His Voice grows faint in alien company. He needs your protection, but only because your care is a sign that you want Him. Think like Him ever so slightly, and the little spark becomes a blazing light that fills your mind so that He becomes your only Guest. Whenever you ask the ego to enter, you lessen His welcome. He will remain, but you have allied yourself against Him. Whatever journey you choose to take, He will go with you, waiting. You can safely trust His patience, for He cannot leave a part of God. Yet you need far more than patience.

²¹ You will never rest until you know your function and fulfill it, for only in this can your will and your Father's be wholly joined. To have Him is to be like Him, and He has given Himself to you. You who have God must be as God, for His function became yours with His gift. Invite this knowledge back into your minds, and let nothing that will obscure it enter. The Guest whom God sent you will teach you how to do this if you but recognize the little spark and are willing to let it grow. Your willingness need not be perfect because His is. If you will merely offer Him a little place, He will lighten it so much that you will gladly extend it. And by this extending, you will begin to remember creation.

²² Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only whom you invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest and how long he shall remain with you. Yet this is not real freedom, for it still depends on how you see it. The Holy Spirit is there, although He cannot help you without your invitation, and the ego is nothing whether you invite it in or not. Real freedom depends on welcoming reality, and of your guests, only He is real. Know, then, who abides with you merely by recognizing what is there already and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you.

IV. From Darkness to Light   

²³ When you are weary, remember you have hurt yourself. Your Comforter will rest you, but you cannot. You do not know how, for if you did you could never have grown weary. Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in any way, for that is not God's Will for His Son. Pain is not of Him, for He knows no attack and His peace surrounds you silently. God is very quiet, for there is no conflict in Him. Conflict is the root of all evil, for being blind, it does not see whom it attacks. Yet it always attacks the Son of God, and the Son of God is you.

²⁴ God's Son is indeed in need of comfort, for he knows not what he does, believing his will is not his own. The Kingdom is his, and yet he wanders homelessly. At home in God, he is lonely, and amid all his brothers, he is friendless. Would God let this be real if He did not will to be alone Himself? And if your will is His, it cannot be true of you because it is not true of Him. Oh, my children, if you knew what God wills for you, your joy would be complete! And what He wills has happened, for it was always true.

²⁵ When the light comes and you have said, "God's Will is mine," you will see such beauty that you will know it is not of you. Out of your joy you will create beauty in His name, for your joy could no more be contained than His. The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the Presence of God. I cannot tell you what this will be like, for your hearts are not ready. Yet I can tell you and remind you often that what God wills for Himself He wills for you, and what He wills for you is yours.

²⁶ The way is not hard, but it is very different. Yours is the way of pain, of which God knows nothing. That way is hard indeed and very lonely. Fear and grief are your guests, and they go with you and abide with you on the way. But the dark journey is not the way of God's Son. Walk in light, and do not see the dark companions, for they are not fit companions for the Son of God, who was created of light and in light. The Great Light always surrounds you and shines out from you. How can you see the dark companions in a light such as this? If you see them, it is only because you are denying the light. But deny them instead, for the light is here, and the way is clear.

²⁷ God hides nothing from His Son, even though His Son would hide himself. Yet the Son of God cannot hide his glory, for God wills him to be glorious and gave him the light that shines in him. You will never lose your way, for God leads you. When you wander, you but undertake a journey which is not real. The dark companions, the dark way, are all illusions. Turn toward the light, for the little spark in you is part of a light so great that it can sweep you out of all darkness forever. For your Father is your Creator, and you are like Him.

²⁸ The children of light cannot abide in darkness, for darkness is not in them. Do not be deceived by the dark comforters, and never let them enter the mind of God's Son, for they have no place in His temple. When you are tempted to deny Him, remember that there are no other gods that you can place before Him, and accept His Will for you in peace. For you cannot accept it otherwise.

²⁹ Only God's Comforter can comfort you. In the quiet of His temple, He waits to give you the peace that is yours. Give His peace that you may enter the temple and find it waiting for you. But be holy in the Presence of God, or you will not know that you are there. For what is unlike God cannot enter His Mind because it was not His Thought and therefore does not belong to Him. And your minds must be as pure as His if you would know what belongs to you. Guard carefully His temple, for He Himself dwells there and abides in peace. You cannot enter God's Presence with the dark companions beside you, but you also cannot enter alone.

³⁰All your brothers must enter with you, for until you have accepted them, you cannot enter. For you cannot understand Wholeness unless you are whole, and no part of the Son can be excluded if he would know the Wholeness of his Father. In your mind, you can accept the whole Sonship and bless it with the light your Father gave it. Then you will be worthy to dwell in the temple with Him because it is your will not to be alone. God blessed His Son forever. If you will bless him in time, you will be in eternity. Time cannot separate you from God if you use it on behalf of the eternal.