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¹No one can look upon what your grievances conceal. Because your grievances are hiding the light of the world in you, everyone stands in darkness, and you beside him. But as the veil of your grievances is lifted, you are released with him. Share your salvation now with him who stood beside you when you were in hell. He is your brother in the light of the world which saves you both. 

²Today let us make another real attempt to reach the light in you. Before we undertake this in our more extended practice period, let us devote several minutes in thinking about what we are trying to do. We are literally attempting to get in touch with the salvation of the world. We are trying to see past the veil of darkness that keeps it concealed. We are trying to let the veil be lifted and see the tears of God's Son disappear in the sunlight. 

³Let us begin our longer practice period today with the full realization of all this and real determination to reach what is dearer to us than all else. Salvation is our only need. There is no other purpose here and no other function to fulfill. Learning salvation is our only goal. Let us end the ancient search today by finding the light in us and holding it up for everyone who searches with us to look upon and rejoice. 

⁴Very quietly now, with your eyes closed, try to let go of all the content which generally occupies your consciousness. Think of your mind as a vast round area, surrounded by a layer of heavy dark clouds. You can see only the clouds because you seem to be standing outside the whole area, and quite apart from it. 

⁵From where you stand, you can see no reason to believe there is a brilliant light hidden by the clouds. The clouds seem to be the only reality. They seem to be all there is to see. Therefore you do not attempt to go through them and past them, which is the only way in which you would be really convinced of their lack of substance. We will make this attempt today. 

⁶After you have thought about the importance of what you are trying to do for yourself and the world, try to settle down in perfect stillness, remembering only how much you want to reach the light in you today-now. Determine to go past the clouds. Reach out and touch them in your mind; brush them aside with your hand; feel them resting on your cheeks and forehead and eyelids as you go through them. Go on; clouds cannot stop you. 

⁷If you are doing the exercises properly, you will begin to feel a sense of being lifted up and carried ahead. Your little effort and small determination call on the power of the universe to help you, and God Himself will raise you from darkness into light. You are in accord with His Will. You cannot fail because your will is His. 

⁸Have confidence in your Father today. And be certain that He has heard you and has answered you. You may not recognize His answer yet, but you can indeed be sure that it is given you, and you will yet receive it. Try, as you attempt to go through the clouds to the light, to hold this confidence in your mind. Try to remember that you are at last joining your will to God's. Try to keep the thought clearly in mind that what you undertake with God must succeed. Then let the power of God work in you and through you, that His Will and yours may be done. 

⁹In the shorter practice periods, which you will want to do as often as possible in view of the importance of today's idea to you and your happiness, remind yourself that your grievances are hiding the light of the world from your awareness. Remind yourself also that you are not searching for it alone and that you do know where to look for it. Say, then: 

   I cannot see what I have hidden.
   Yet I want to let it be revealed to me
   for my salvation and the salvation of the world.

¹¹Also, be sure to tell yourself: 

   will be hidden from me,

¹³if you are tempted to hold anything against anyone today.  

ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections 

Love and blessings, Sarah 

[email protected]

Quotes in this article are from Foundation for Inner Peace edition; To locate the same quotes in the 'Original Edition', use this link:  http://www.jcim.net/acim_us/Acim.php    

A Course in Miracles   
TEXT 

Chapter Six

Attack and Fear

V. a. To Have, Give All to All           

⁵⁷ Like any good teacher, the Holy Spirit does know more than you do now, but He teaches only to make you equal with Him. This is because you had already taught wrongly, having believed what was not true. You did not believe in your own perfection. Could God teach you that you had made a split mind, when He knows your mind only as whole? What God does know is that His communication channels are not open to Him so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His Children are wholly joyous. This is an ongoing process, not in time, but in eternity. God's extending outward, though not His completeness, is blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one. So He thought, "My Children sleep and must be awakened."

⁵⁸ How can you wake children better and more kindly than by a gentle Voice that will not frighten them but will merely remind them that the night is over and the light has come? You do not inform them that the nightmares which frightened them so badly were not real because children believe in magic. You merely reassure them that they are safe now. Then you train them to recognize the difference between sleeping and waking, so that they will understand they need not be afraid of dreams. Then when bad dreams come, they will call on the light themselves to dispel them.

⁵⁹ A wise teacher teaches through approach, not avoidance. He does not emphasize what you must avoid to escape from harm so much as what you need to learn to have joy. This is true even of the world's teachers. Consider the confusion a child would experience if he were told, "Do not do this because it might hurt you and make you unsafe, but if you do that you will escape from harm and be safe, and then you will not be afraid." All of this could be included in only three words: "Do only that!" This simple statement is perfectly clear, easily understood, and very easily remembered.

⁶⁰ The Holy Spirit never itemizes errors because He does not frighten children, and those who lack wisdom are children. Yet He always answers their call, and His dependability makes them more certain. Children do confuse fantasy and reality, and they are frightened because they do not know the difference. The Holy Spirit makes no distinction among dreams. He merely shines them away. His light is always the call to awake, whatever you have been dreaming. Nothing lasting lies in dreams, and the Holy Spirit, shining with the light from God Himself, speaks only for what lasts forever.

⁶¹ When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that you will last forever. Many think this is accomplished through death, but nothing is accomplished through death because death is nothing. Everything is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the Mind. The body neither lives nor dies because it cannot contain you who are life. If we share the same mind, you can overcome death because I did. Death is an attempt to resolve conflict by not willing at all. Like any other impossible solution which the ego attempts, it will not work.

⁶² God did not make the body because it is destructible and therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of what you think you are. It is clearly a separation device and therefore does not exist. The Holy Spirit, as always, takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device for you. Again as always, He re-interprets what the ego uses as an argument for separation into a demonstration against it. If the mind can heal the body but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be stronger. Every miracle demonstrates this.

⁶³ We have said that the Holy Spirit is the motivation for miracles. This is because He always tells you that only the mind is real since only the mind can be shared. The body is separate and therefore cannot be part of you. To be of one mind is meaningful, but to be of one body is meaningless. By the laws of mind, then, the body is meaningless. To the Holy Spirit, there is no order of difficulty in miracles. This is familiar enough to you by now, but it has not yet become believable. Therefore, you do not understand it and cannot use it.

⁶⁴ We have too much to accomplish on behalf of the Kingdom to let this crucial concept slip away. It is a real foundation stone of the thought system I teach and want you to teach. You cannot perform miracles without believing it because it is a belief in perfect equality. Only one equal gift can be offered to the equal Sons of God, and that is full appreciation. Nothing more and nothing less. Without a range, an order of difficulty is meaningless, and there must be no range in what you offer to each other.

⁶⁵ The Holy Spirit, who leads to God, translates communication into being, just as He ultimately translates perception into knowledge. [You do not lose what you communicate.] The ego uses the body for attack, for pleasure, and for pride. The insanity of this perception makes it a fearful one indeed. The Holy Spirit sees the body only as a means of communication and because communicating is sharing, it becomes communion. You might argue that fear as well as love can be communicated and therefore can be shared. Yet this is not so real as it sounds. Those who communicate fear are promoting attack, and attack always breaks communication, making it impossible.

⁶⁶ Egos do join together in temporary allegiance but always for what each one can get separately. The Holy Spirit communicates only what each one can give to all. He never takes anything back because He wants you to keep it. Therefore, His teaching begins with the lesson:

⁶⁷ To have, give all to all.

⁶⁸ This is a very preliminary step, and the only one you must take for yourself. It is not even necessary that you complete the step yourself, but it is necessary that you turn in that direction. Having chosen to go that way, you place yourself in charge of the journey, where you and only you must remain.

⁶⁹ This step appears to exacerbate conflict rather than resolve it because it is the beginning step in reversing your perception and turning it right-side up. This conflicts with the upside-down perception which you have not yet abandoned, or the change in direction would not have been necessary. Some people remain at this step for a very long time, experiencing very acute conflict. At this point, many try to accept the conflict rather than take the next step towards its resolution. Having taken the first step, however, they will be helped. Once they have chosen what they cannot complete alone, they are no longer alone.

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