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.
