68 Unless you
know something, you
cannot dissociate it. Knowledge therefore
precedes dissociation, and dissociation is nothing more than a
decision to forget. What has been forgotten then appears to be fearful, but
only because the dissociation was an
attack on truth. You are fearful
because you have forgotten. And you have
replaced your knowledge by an awareness of dreams because you are
afraid of your dissociation,
not of what you have dissociated. Even in this world's therapy, when dissociated material is
accepted,it ceases to be fearful, for the laws of mind always hold.
69 Yet to give up the dissociation of
reality brings more than merely lack of fear. In
this decision lie joy and peace and the glory of creation. Offer the Holy Spirit only your will to remember, for He retains the knowledge of God and of yourself
for you, waiting for your acceptance. Give up gladly
everything that would stand in the way of your remembering, for God is in your memory, and His Voice will tell you that you are part of Him when you are willing to remember Him and know your own reality again. Let nothing in this world delay your remembering of Him, for in this remembering is the knowledge of
yourself.
70 To remember is merely to restore to your mind
what is already there. You do not
make what you remember; you merely accept again what has been made but was rejected. The ability to accept truth in this world is the perceptual counterpart of creating in the Kingdom. God will do His part if you will do yours, and
His return in exchange for yours is the exchange of knowledge
for perception.
Nothing is beyond His Will for you. But signify your will to remember Him and behold! He will give you everything but for the asking.
71 When you attack, you are denying
yourself. You are specifically teaching yourself that you are
not what you are. Your denial of reality precludes the
acceptance of God's gift because you have accepted something
else in its place. If you understand that the misuse of defenses always constitutes an attack on truth and truth is God, you will realize why this is
always fearful. If you further recognize that you are
part of God, you will understand why it is that you always attack yourself
first.
72 [
All attack is self-attack. It cannot
be anything else. Arising from your
own decision
not to be what you
are, it is an attack on your identification. Attack is thus the way in which your identification is lost because, when you attack, you
must have forgotten what you are. And if your reality is God's, when
you attack you are not remembering
Him. This is not because He is gone, but because you are willing
actively not to remember Him.]
73 If you realized the complete havoc this makes of your peace of mind, you could not make such an insane decision. You make it only because you still believe that it can
get you something you
want. It follows, then, that you want something
other than peace of mind, but you have not considered what it must be. Yet the logical outcome of your decision is perfectly clear if you will
look at it. By deciding
against your reality, you have made yourself vigilant
against God and His Kingdom. And it is
this vigilance that makes you afraid to remember Him.
74 You have
not attacked God, and you
do love Him. Can you change your reality? No one can will to destroy himself. When you think you are attacking your self, it is a sure sign that you hate what you
think you are. And this, and
only this, can
be attacked by you. What you
think you are can be hateful, and what this strange image makes you do can be very destructive. Yet the destruction is no more real than the image, although those who make idols
do worship them. The idols are nothing, but their worshipers are the Sons of God in sickness.
75 God would have them released from their sickness and returned to His Mind. He will not
limit your power to help them because He has
given it to you. Do not be afraid of it because it is your salvation. What Comforter can there be for the sick Children of God except His power through
you? Remember that it does not matter
where in the Sonship He is accepted. He is
always accepted for all, and when
your mind receives Him, the remembrance of Him awakens throughout the Sonship. Heal your brothers simply by accepting God
for them.
76 Your minds are not separate, and God has only one channel for healing because He has but one Son. His remaining communication link with all His Children joins them together and them to Him. To be aware of this is to heal them because it is the awareness that no one is separate, and so no one is sick. To believe that a Son of God
can be sick is to believe that part of God can suffer. Love
cannot suffer because it cannot attack. The remembrance of love therefore brings invulnerability with it.
77 Do not side with sickness in the presence of a Son of God even if
he believes in it, for
your acceptance of God in him
acknowledges the love of God which he has forgotten. Your recognition of him as
part of God teaches him the truth about himself, which he is denying. Would you
strengthen his denial of God and thus lose sight of
yourself? Or would you remind him of his wholeness and remember your Creator
with him? To believe a Son of God is sick is to worship the same idol he does. God created love,
not idolatry. All forms of idolatry are caricatures of creation, taught by sick minds which are too divided to know that creation
shares power and
never usurps it. Sickness is idolatry because it is the belief that power can be taken
from you. Yet this is impossible because you are part of God, Who
is all power.
78 A sick god
must be an idol, made in the image of what its maker thinks
he is. And that is exactly what the ego
does perceive in a Son of God; a sick god, self-created, self-sufficient, very vicious, and very vulnerable. Is
this the idol you would worship? Is
this the image you would be vigilant to
save? [Are you
really afraid of losing
this?] Look calmly at the logical conclusion of the ego's thought system and judge whether its offering is really what you want, for this
is what it offers you. To
obtain this you are willing to attack the divinity of your brothers and thus lose sight of
yours. And you are willing to keep it hidden and to protect this idol, which you think will save you from the dangers which the idol itself
stands for, but which do not exist.
79 There are no idolaters in the Kingdom, but there is great appreciation for every Soul which God created because of the calm knowledge that each one is part of Him. God's Son knows no idols, but he
does know his Father. Health in this world is the counterpart of value in Heaven. It is not my merit that I contribute to you but my love, for you do not value yourselves. When you do not value yourself, you become sick, but
my value of you can heal you because the value of God's Son is one. When I said, "My peace I give unto you," I meant it. Peace came from God through me to
you. It was for you, although you did not ask.
80 When a brother is sick, it is because he is
not asking for peace and therefore does not know he
has it. The
acceptance of peace is the denial of illusion, and sickness
is an illusion. Yet every Son of God has the power to deny illusions
anywhere in the Kingdom merely by denying them completely in himself. I can heal you because I know you. I know your value
for you, and it is this value that makes you whole. A whole mind is not idolatrous and does not know of conflicting laws. I will heal you merely because I have only
one message, and it is true. Your faith in it will make you whole when you have faith in me.
81 I do not bring God's message with deception, and you will learn this as you learn that you always receive as much as you
accept. You could accept peace
now for everyone you meet and offer them perfect freedom from
all illusions because
you heard. But have no other gods before Him, or you will
not hear. God is not jealous of the gods you make, but
you are. You would save them and serve them because you believe that they made
you. You think they are your father because you are projecting onto them the fearful fact that
you made them to
replace God. Yet when they seem to speak to you, remember that nothing
can replace God, and whatever replacements you have attempted
are nothing.
82 Very simply, then, you may
believe you are afraid of nothingness, but you are really afraid of
nothing. And in
that awareness you are healed. You
will hear the god you listen to. You
made the god of sickness, and
by making him, you made yourself able to hear him. Yet you did not create him because he is
not the Will of the Father. He is therefore not eternal and will be
unmade for you the instant you signify your willingness to accept
only the eternal. If God has but one Son, there is but one God. You share reality with Him because reality is not divided. To accept other gods before Him is to place other images before
yourself.
83 You do not realize how much you listen to your gods and how vigilant you are on their behalf. Yet they exist only
because you honor them. Place honor where it is due, and peace will be yours. It is your inheritance from your
real Father. You cannot make your father, and the father you made did not make you. Honor is not due to illusions, for to honor them is to honor nothing. Yet fear is not due them either, for nothing cannot be fearful. You have chosen to fear love
because of its perfect harmlessness, and because of this fear, you have been willing to give up your own perfect helpfulness and your own perfect Help.
84 Only at the altar of God will you find peace. And this altar is in you because God put it there. His Voice still calls you to return, and He will be heard when you place no other gods before Him. You can give up the god of sickness for your brothers; in fact, you would
have to do so if you give him up for yourself. For if you see him anywhere, you have accepted him. And if you accept him, you
will bow down and worship him because he was made as God's replacement. He is the belief that you can
choose which god is real. Although it is perfectly clear that this has nothing to do with reality, it is equally clear that it has
everything to do with reality as you perceive it.