How would you feel if you really knew God's peace was with you? Let yourself feel that now. Your peace surrounds me Father. Feel it surrounding you, hovering over you, holding you up. Where I go, your peace goes there with me. It sheds its light on everyone I meet. The truth is that the peace that is in our right minds has such a radiance that it brings this light to everyone who we think about or who crosses our path. Clearly it is not something that we do. It is done through us. It requires surrendering of our way. It comes through us when we bring awareness to the debris of the ego mind and are willing to release it. The light of our being will thus extend  to our brothers is just the form that it is most helpful. It means that when judgment arises in my mind that I look at it and recognize that I have thought wrongly about a situation or a brother and I can choose again.

I had an instance recently of being very angry with a brother and the justification for this anger seemed very strong. But I was willing to really look at it and see it as my mind projecting my own guilt onto someone who seemed "deserving" of it. Can't we always find the perfect targets for our own guilt? That is why the world was made. When I went into meditation and was willing to choose sanity I asked for help to see my brother as he really is. I asked for help to give up my own judgments so I could know the peace that I am. I know that whoever is in my life or whoever crosses my mind offers me this opportunity to wake up from this dream and remember that it is all about my mind. "Send them to me, my Father. Let me bring Your peace with me". (1.6-7) Those brothers that are part of our play are the ones that are needed by our minds to wake up from this dream by forgiving them for what they have not done. Think of the benefits to you of the role they have in your life as your saviors.   "Let me bring Your peace with me.   For I would save Your Son, as is Your Will, that I may come to recognize my Self". (1.7-8) 

Peace is an attribute in us. It is always there. But that is not our experience. We find that sometimes we are peaceful and often we are not. But it is by our decision alone as to whether we choose to listen to the ego or make a choice for truth. When I am not at peace it is because I have turned to the ego as my guide. Today I started my day in peace only to have a conversation that resulted in conflict. And so my peace vanished in that instant. And when we are out of peace, it seems that further opportunities to stay distressed show up. And why is that? Because when we experience guilt, we bring punishment to us. It is not a conscious process but we can bring it to consciousness and choose again. This is where the practice of our lessons come in to return us to peace through forgiveness. I am not always successful in doing that instantly. It helps me to remind myself that it is all only a mistake. The purpose of this situation is to show me the lack of peace that comes as a result of my misperceptions. This is how we learn. The Holy Spirit teaches us through contrasts. And I feel I am making progress when the upsets are no longer there for very long. What would have kept me out of peace for days is now shortened considerably,  sometimes to hours but more often to minutes or even seconds. We are just a thought away from the miracle. When we stubbornly resist and refuse to release the thought, then we keep ourselves in hell. How long is up to us. If we tell ourselves it is hard and we will never make it, then that is the truth for us as well. But the thought is coming from the ego mind and is thus not the truth. If we withdraw our belief from it, then it has no power over us. That is our part to do. The Holy Spirit waits patiently for our decision.  

So with each difficulty we experience with a brother, another opportunity is being offered to see the innocence in him. Salvation is in my own mind. It is my choice. Any irritation or frustration can quickly be identified and turned over to the Holy Spirit. And my gratitude for this teaching increases with each moment of recognition if the power that is in it. Where would we be without it?

It is therefore not for us to try to superimpose peace on any situation. That is not our job. That is what the ego tells us to do. But the ego does not have a clue. Our only responsibility is to be like the inventory manager who watches the mind and brings to the attention of the Holy Spirit all judgments, frustrations, thoughts that take us out of peace, our needs for specialness and our desire to win at someone's expense.  Willingly take responsibility for these thoughts and lay them at the feet of the Holy Spirit Who waits to offer you the miracle of grace instead.  We can't do it. I'm sure you have noticed how much resistance comes up and how much self honesty is called for.  We do need the help of the Holy Spirit. Our job is simply to bring awareness to our egoic thoughts and be willing to have our minds healed by not interfering with His function.  

What gets in the way for us is our pride, our defenses, our specialness, our belief in a role, a unique self with special characteristics that we try to maintain. We now need to do the work of deconstructing this self-made identity and be willing to look beneath the surface. We need to be willing to give up our spiritual pride and allow the light of the Holy Spirit to shine away the dark places in our mind where we must go with courage and honesty to uncover all the aspects of the self that we have kept from our awareness. The ego thought system is the program that continually runs under the surface of our minds that is the basis for all of our judgments, our plans, our wishes, our comparisons, and our categorizations. As a result, we react or feel a certain way which seems 'natural' to us. We have become habituated to a way of being that creates a lot of pain for us. But we are so habituated that we don't even recognize how much pain there really is.

How do we recognize the thoughts that keep us out of peace? We simply need to look....and look with willingness, vigilance and total responsibility. We are not used to looking at our thoughts. But by looking without judging them, we can become very practiced at acknowledging and turning them over. We can learn to question every thought that shows up and choose not to invest it with truth. The ego lies.  The people and situations in our lives will give us lots of opportunity to bring forward our unhealed thoughts. Everything and everyone becomes a symbol for our minds, allowing us to look at the thoughts in our mind. 

Like in a storm, there is a quiet place in the center where all is still. That is the place in our mind where peace resides. It is always there. It is always available. We can know that and yet sometimes obsessively cling to being right about the way we see things rather than giving it up and choosing our peace instead. This kind of stubborn resistance is the purview of the ego. Yet today we are reminded that we are continually surrounded by God's peace. It goes with us wherever we go. We can "shed its light on everyone we meet". Every meeting is truly a holy encounter. There are no accidents in salvation. Every meeting can be used by the Holy Spirit. There is a reason behind EVERY encounter and potential in every one of them for our healing. "There is no one from whom a teacher of God cannot learn, so there is no one whom he cannot teach. However, from a practical point of view he cannot meet everyone, nor can everyone find him. Therefore, the plan includes very specific contacts to be made for each one. There are no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. They are ready for each other." (M.3.I.)

Mostly we leave this potential unfulfilled because we think we know what the relationship is for or we have our own objectives interposed on it rather than asking the Holy Spirit what it is for? As Jesus said in the Psychotherapy Manual, P.3.III "No one is sent by accident to anyone. Relationships are always purposeful. Whatever their purpose may have been before the Holy Spirit entered them, they are always His potential temple; the resting place of Christ and home of God Himself. Whoever comes has been sent". 

So today, we pray "Send them to me my Father." Or as the prayer of St. Francis says "let me be an instrument of thy peace". Because as T.6.V reminds us in the lessons of the Holy Spirit, "To have peace, teach peace to learn it". So every encounter today can offer that opportunity to teach peace to learn it. Thus we know that we have it in us.  We will know it is in us when it is extended through us. It is not this character in the dream who are doing it. When we think we know how to extend peace to someone we are turning to the ego mind rather than letting it automatically extend through us. And this lesson is so much about extending it so that we can recognize the truth about ourselves. It is truly in giving that we receive as this prayer of St. Francis says. And it is in this place of peace that we know our safety. Thus the lesson is so similar to the one we practiced yesterday. We are truly safe in His embrace.

 Love and blessings Sarah

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¹⁶ The opposite of illusions is not disillusionment, but truth. Only to the ego, to which truth is meaningless, do they appear to be the only alternatives and different from each other. In truth they are the same. Both bring the same amount of misery, though each one seems to be the way to lose the misery the other brings. Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness. Yet in these dark and heavy garments are those who seek illusions covered and hidden from the joy of truth.

¹⁷ Truth is the opposite of illusions because it offers joy. What else but joy could be the opposite of misery? To leave one kind of misery and seek another is hardly an escape. To change illusions is to make no change. The search for joy in misery is senseless, for how could joy be found in misery? All that is possible in the dark world of misery is to select some aspects out of it, see them as different, and define the difference as joy. Yet to perceive a difference where none exists will surely fail to make a difference.

¹⁸ Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death to their believers. The form in which they are accepted is irrelevant. No form of misery in reason's eyes can be confused with joy. Joy is eternal. You can be sure indeed that any seeming happiness that does not last is really fear. Joy does not turn to sorrow, for the eternal cannot change. But sorrow can be turned to joy, for time gives way to the eternal. Only the timeless must remain unchanged, but everything in time can change with time. Yet if the change be real and not imagined, illusions must give way to truth and not to other dreams that are but equally unreal. This is no difference.

¹⁹ Reason will tell you that the only way to escape from misery is to recognize it and go the other way. Truth is the same and misery the same, but they are different from each other in every way, in every instance, and without exception. To believe that one exception can exist is to confuse what is the same with what is different. One illusion cherished and defended against the truth makes all truth meaningless and all illusions real. Such is the power of belief. It cannot compromise. And faith in innocence is faith in sin if the belief excludes one living thing and holds it out apart from its forgiveness.

²⁰ Both reason and the ego will tell you this, but what they make of it is not the same. The ego will assure you now that it is impossible for you to see no guilt in anyone. And if this vision is the only means by which escape from guilt can be attained, then the belief in sin must be eternal. Yet reason looks on this another way, for reason sees the source of an idea as what will make it true or false. This must be so if the idea is like its source. Therefore, says reason, if escape from guilt was given to the Holy Spirit as His purpose, and by One to Whom nothing He wills can be impossible, the means for its attainment are more than possible. They must be there, and you must have them.

²¹ This is a crucial period in this course, for here the separation of you and the ego must be made complete. For if you have the means to let the Holy Spirit's purpose be accomplished, they can be used. And through their use will you gain faith in them. Yet to the ego this must be impossible, and no one undertakes to do what holds no hope of ever being done. You know what your Creator wills is possible, but what you made believes it is not so. Now must you choose between yourself and an illusion of yourself. Not both, but one. There is no point in trying to avoid this one decision. It must be made. Faith and belief can fall to either side, but reason tells you that misery lies only on one side and joy upon the other.

²² Forsake not now each other. For you who are the same will not decide alone nor differently. Either you give each other life or death; either you are each other's savior or his judge, offering him sanctuary or condemnation. This course will be believed entirely or not at all. For it is wholly true or wholly false and cannot be but partially believed. And you will either escape from misery entirely or not at all. Reason will tell you that there is no middle ground where you can pause uncertainly, waiting to choose between the joy of Heaven and the misery of hell. Until you choose Heaven, you are in hell and misery.

²³ There is no part of Heaven you can take and weave into illusions. Nor is there one illusion you can enter Heaven with. A savior cannot be a judge, nor mercy condemnation. And vision cannot damn, but only bless. Whose function is to save will save. How he will do it is beyond your understanding, but when must be your choice. For time you made, and time you can command. You are no more a slave to time than to the world you made.

²⁴ Let us look closer at the whole illusion that what you made has power to enslave its maker. This is the same belief that caused the separation. It is the meaningless idea that thoughts can leave the thinker's mind, be different from it, and in opposition to it. If this were true, thoughts would not be the mind's extensions but its enemies. And here we see again another form of the same fundamental illusion we have seen many times before. Only if it were possible the Son of God could leave his Father's Mind, make himself different, and oppose His Will, would it be possible that the self he made and all it made should be his master.

²⁵ Behold the great projection, but look on it with the decision that it must be healed and not with fear. Nothing you made has any power over you unless you still would be apart from your Creator and with a will opposed to His. For only if you would believe His Son could be His enemy does it seem possible that what you made is yours. You would condemn His joy to misery and make Him different. And all the misery you made has been your own. Are you not glad to learn it is not true? Is it not welcome news to hear not one of the illusions that you made replaced the truth?

²⁶ Only your thoughts have been impossible. Salvation cannot be. It is impossible to look upon your savior as your enemy and recognize him. Yet it is possible to recognize him for what he is if God would have it so. What God has given to your holy relationship is there. For what He gave the Holy Spirit to give to you, He gave. Would you not look upon the savior that has been given you? And would you not exchange in gratitude the function of an executioner you gave him for the one he has in truth? Receive of him what God has given him for you, not what you tried to give yourself.

²⁷ Beyond the bodies that you interposed between you and shining in the golden light which reaches it from the bright endless circle that extends forever is your holy relationship, beloved of God Himself. How still it rests, in time and yet beyond, immortal yet on earth. How great the power that lies in it. Time waits upon its will, and earth will be as it would have it be. Here is no separate will nor the desire that anything be separate. Its will has no exceptions, and what it wills is true. Every illusion brought to its forgiveness is gently overlooked and disappears. For at its center Christ has been reborn to light His home with vision that overlooks the world. Would you not have this holy home be yours as well? No misery is here, but only joy.

²⁸ All you need do to dwell in quiet here with Christ is share His vision. Quickly and gladly is His vision given to anyone who is but willing to see his brother sinless. And no one can remain beyond this willingness if you would be released entirely from all effects of sin. Would you have partial forgiveness for yourself? Can you reach Heaven while a single sin still tempts you to remain in misery? Heaven is the home of perfect purity, and God created it for you. Look on your holy brother, sinless as yourself, and let him lead you there.