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Love does not conquer all things,

but it does set all things right. T.4.90

¹ Vision depends upon today's idea. The light is in it, for it reconciles all seeming opposites. And what is light except the resolution, born of peace, of all your conflicts and mistaken thoughts into one concept which is wholly true? Even that one will disappear because the Thought behind it will appear instead, to take its place. And now we are at peace forever, for the dream is over now.

² True light which makes true vision possible is not the light the body's eyes behold. It is a state of mind which has become so unified that darkness cannot be perceived at all. And thus what is the same is seen as one, while what is not the same remains unnoticed, for it is not there.

³ This is the light which shows no opposites, and vision, being healed, has power to heal. This is the light that brings your peace of mind to other minds, to share it and be glad that they are one with you and with themselves. This is the light which heals because it brings single perception, based upon one frame of reference from which one meaning comes.

⁴ Here are both giving and receiving seen as different aspects of one Thought Whose truth does not depend on which is seen as first, nor which appears to be in second place. Here it is understood that both occur together, that the Thought remain complete. And in this understanding is the base on which all opposites are reconciled because they are perceived from the same frame of reference which unifies this Thought.

⁵ One thought, completely unified, will serve to unify all thought. This is the same as saying one correction will suffice for all correction or that to forgive one brother wholly is enough to bring salvation to all minds. For these are but some special cases of one law which holds for every kind of learning if it be directed by the One Who knows the truth.

⁶ To learn that giving and receiving are the same has special usefulness because it can be tried so easily and seen as true. And when this special case has proved it always works in every circumstance where it is tried, the thought behind it can be generalized to other areas of doubt and double vision. And from there it will extend and finally arrive at the one Thought Which underlies them all.

⁷ Today we practice with the special case of giving and receiving. We will use this simple L e s s o n in the obvious because it has results we cannot miss. To give is to receive. Today we will attempt to offer peace to everyone and see how quickly peace returns to us. Light is tranquillity, and in that peace is vision given us and we can see.

⁸ So we begin the practice periods with the instruction for today and say:

⁹ To give and to receive are one in truth.

¹⁰ Then close your eyes, and for five minutes think of what you would hold out to everyone to have it yours. You might, for instance, say:

¹¹ To everyone I offer quietness.

¹² Say each one slowly, and then pause a while, expecting to receive the gift you gave, and it will come to you in the amount in which you gave it. You will find you have exact return, for this is what you asked. It might be helpful, too, to think of one to whom to give your gifts. He represents the others, and through him you give to all.

¹³ Our very simple lesson for today will teach you much. Effect and cause will be far better understood from this time on, and we will make much faster progress now. Think of the exercises for today as quick advances in your learning, made still faster and more sure each time you say:

¹⁴ To give and to receive are one in truth.

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AUDIO: Lesson 108-mp3

VIDEO: Lesson 108-Video

PART 1 ~ PART 2

Chapter 9

VI. Salvation and God's Will

par 38-47

³⁸ God's Will is your salvation. Would He not have given you the means to find it? If He wills you to have it, He must have made it possible and very easy to obtain it. Your brothers are everywhere. You do not have to seek far for salvation. Every minute and every second gives you a chance to save yourself. Do not lose these chances, not because they will not return, but because delay of joy is needless. God wills you perfect happiness now. Is it possible that this is not also your will? And is it possible that this is not also the will of your brothers?

³⁹ Consider, then, that in this joint will you are all united, and in this only. There will be disagreement on anything else, but not on this. This, then, is where peace abides. And you abide in peace when you so decide. Yet you cannot abide in peace unless you accept the Atonement, because the Atonement is the way to peace. The reason is very simple and so obvious that it is often overlooked. That is because the ego is afraid of the obvious since obviousness is the essential characteristic of reality. Yet you cannot overlook it unless you are not looking.

⁴⁰ It is perfectly obvious that if the Holy Spirit looks with love on all He perceives, He looks with love on you. His evaluation of you is based on His knowledge of what you are, and so He evaluates you truly. And this evaluation must be in your mind because He is. The ego is also in your mind because you have accepted it there. Its evaluation of you, however, is the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit's because the ego does not love you. It is unaware of what you are and wholly mistrustful of everything it perceives because its own perceptions are so shifting. The ego is therefore capable of suspiciousness at best and viciousness at worst. That is its range. It cannot exceed it because of its uncertainty. And it can never go beyond it because it can never be certain.

⁴¹ You, then, have two conflicting evaluations of yourself in your minds, and they cannot both be true. You do not yet realize how completely different these evaluations are because you do not understand how lofty the Holy Spirit's perception of you really is. He is not deceived by anything you do because He never forgets what you are. The ego is deceived by everything you do, even when you respond to the Holy Spirit, because at such times its confusion increases. The ego is, therefore, particularly likely to attack you when you react lovingly because it has evaluated you as unloving, and you are going against its judgment.

⁴² The ego will begin to attack your motives as soon as they become clearly out of accord with its perception of you. This is when it will shift abruptly from suspiciousness to viciousness, since its uncertainty is increased. Yet it is surely pointless to attack in return. What can this mean except that you are agreeing with the ego's evaluation of what you are? If you are willing to see yourself as unloving, you will not be happy. You are condemning yourself and must therefore regard yourself as inadequate. Would you look to the ego to help you escape from a sense of inadequacy it has produced and must maintain for its existence? Can you escape from its evaluation of you by using its methods for keeping this picture intact?

⁴³ You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from within it. Its own range precludes this. You can only go beyond it, look back from a point where sanity exists, and see the contrast. Only by this contrast can insanity be judged as insane. With the grandeur of God in you, you have chosen to be little and to lament your littleness. Within the system which dictated this choice, the lament is inevitable. Your littleness is taken for granted there, and you do not ask, "Who granted it?" The question is meaningless within the ego's thought system because it opens the whole thought system to question.

⁴⁴ We said before that the ego does not know what a real question is. Lack of knowledge of any kind is always associated with unwillingness to know and produces a total lack of knowledge simply because knowledge is total. Not to question your littleness, therefore, is to deny all knowledge and keep the ego's whole thought system intact. You cannot retain part of a thought system because it can be questioned only at its foundation. And this must be questioned from beyond it because, within it, its foundation does stand. The Holy Spirit judges against the reality of the ego's thought system merely because He knows its foundation is not true. Therefore, nothing that arises from it means anything. The Holy Spirit judges every belief you hold in terms of where it comes from. If it comes from God, He knows it to be true. If it does not, He knows that it is meaningless.

⁴⁵ Whenever you question your value, say:

⁴⁶ God Himself is incomplete without me.

⁴⁷ Remember this when the ego speaks, and you will not hear it. The truth about you is so lofty that nothing unworthy of God is worthy of you. Choose, then, what you want in these terms and accept nothing that you would not offer to God as wholly fitting for Him, for you do not want anything else. Return your part of Him, and He will give you all of Himself in exchange for your return of what belongs to Him and renders Him complete.

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Allen Watson joined Robert Perry to form the Circle of Atonement in 1993 in Sedona, Arizona where Allen led retreats and workshops and authored many books based on “A Course in Miracles.”

One of his most popular books is: “A Workbook Companion: Vol I and II.”

Please send gifts of gratitude via PayPal to watsona@innocent.com.