April 25, 2018

Day 198 - A Course in Miracles

Day 198 - A Course in Miracles


Chapter Eighteen: The Dream and the Reality

IV. Light in the Dream

24 You who have spent your lives in bringing truth to illusion, reality to fantasy, have walked the way of dreams. For you have gone from waking to sleeping and on and on to a yet deeper sleep. Each dream has led to other dreams, and every fantasy which seemed to bring a light into the darkness but made the darkness deeper. Your goal was darkness in which no ray of light could enter. And you sought a blackness so complete that you could hide from truth forever in complete insanity. What you forgot was simply that God cannot destroy Himself. The light is in you. Darkness can cover it but cannot put it out.

25 As the light comes nearer, you will rush to darkness, shrinking from the truth, sometimes retreating to the lesser forms of fear and sometimes to stark terror. But you will advance because your goal is the advance from fear to truth. You know this. The goal which you accepted is the goal of knowledge, for which you signified your willingness. Fear seems to live in darkness, and when you are afraid, you have stepped back. Let us then join quickly in an instant of light, and it will be enough to remind you that your goal is light. Truth has rushed to meet you since you called upon it.

26 If you knew Who walks beside you on this way which you have chosen, fear would be impossible. You do not know because the journey into darkness has been long and cruel, and you have gone deep into it. A little flicker of your eyelids, closed so long, has not yet been sufficient to give you confidence in yourselves, so long despised. You go toward love, still hating it and terribly afraid of its judgment upon you. And you do not realize that you are not afraid of love, but only of what you have made of it. You are advancing to love's meaning and away from all illusions in which you have surrounded it. When you retreat to the illusion, your fear increases, for there is little doubt that what you think it means is fearful. Yet what is that to us who travel surely and very swiftly away from fear?

27 You who hold each other's hand also hold mine, for when you joined each other you were not alone. Do you believe that I would leave you in the darkness you agreed to leave with me? In your relationship is this world's light. And fear must disappear before you now. Be tempted not to snatch away the gift of faith you offered to each other. You will succeed only in frightening yourselves. The gift is given forever, for God Himself received it. You cannot take it back. You have accepted God. The holiness of your relationship is established in Heaven. You do not understand what you accepted, but remember that your understanding is not necessary. All that was necessary was merely the wish to understand. That wish was the desire to be holy. The will of God is granted you. For you desire the only thing you ever had or ever were.

28 Each instant that we spend together will teach you that this goal is possible and will strengthen your desire to reach it. And in your desire lies its accomplishment. Your desire is now in complete accord with all the power of the Holy Spirit's Will. No little, faltering footsteps that you may take can separate your desire from His Will and from His strength. I hold your hand as surely as you agreed to take each other's. You will not separate, for I stand with you and walk with you in your advance to truth. And where we go, we carry God with us.

29 In your relationship, you have joined with me in bringing Heaven to the Son of God, who hid in darkness. You have been willing to bring the darkness to light, and this willingness has given strength to everyone who would remain in darkness. Those who would see will see. And they will join with me in carrying their light into the darkness when the darkness in them is offered to the light and is removed forever. My need for you, joined with me in the holy light of your relationship, is your need for salvation. Would I not give you what you gave to me? For when you joined each other, you answered me.

30 You who are now the bringers of salvation have the function of bringing light to darkness. The darkness in you has been brought to light. Carry it back to darkness from the holy instant to which you brought it. We are made whole in our desire to make whole. Let not time worry you, for all the fear that you experience is really past. Time has been readjusted to help us do together what your separate pasts would hinder. You have gone past fear, for no two minds can join in the desire for love without love's joining them.

31 Not one light in Heaven but goes with you. Not one ray that shines forever in the Mind of God but shines on you. Heaven is joined with you in your advance to Heaven. When such great light has joined with you to give the little spark of your desire the power of God Himself, can you remain in darkness? You are coming home together after a long and meaningless journey which you undertook apart and which led nowhere. You have found each other and will light each other's way. And from this light will the Great Rays extend back into darkness and forward unto God to shine away the past and so make room for His eternal Presence, in which everything is radiant in the light.


L e s s o n 198

Only my condemnation injures me.

1 Injury is impossible. And yet illusion makes illusion. If you can condemn, you can be injured. For you have believed that you can injure, and the right you have established for yourself can be now used against you till you lay it down as valueless, unwanted, and unreal. Then does illusion cease to have effects, and all it seemed to have will be undone. Then are you free, for freedom is your gift, and you can now receive the gift you gave.

2 Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge. To condemn is thus impossible in truth. What seems to be its influence and its effects have not occurred at all. Yet must we deal with them a while as if they had. Illusion makes illusion. Except one. Forgiveness is illusion that is answer to the rest.

3 Forgiveness sweeps all other dreams away, and though it is itself a dream, it breeds no others. All illusions save this one must multiply a thousand fold. But this is where illusions end. Forgiveness is the end of dreams because it is a dream of waking. It is not itself the truth. Yet does it point to where the truth must be and gives direction with the certainty of God Himself. It is a dream in which the Son of God awakens to his Self and to his Father, knowing They are one.

4 Forgiveness is the only road that leads out of disaster, past all suffering, and finally away from death. How could there be another way, when this one is the plan of God Himself? And why would you oppose it, quarrel with it, seek to find a thousand ways in which it must be wrong, a thousand other possibilities?

5 Is it not wiser to be glad you hold the answer to your problems in your hand? Is it not more intelligent to thank the One Who gives salvation, and accept His gift with gratitude? And is it not a kindness to yourself to hear His Voice and learn the simple lessons He would teach, instead of trying to dismiss His Words and substitute your own in place of His?

6 His Words will work. His Words will save. His Words contain all hope, all blessing and all joy that ever can be found upon this earth. His Words are born in God, and come to you with Heaven's love upon them. Those who hear His Words have heard the song of Heaven, for these are the words which all will merge as one at last. And as this one will fade away, the Word of God will come to take its place, for it will be remembered then and loved.

7 This world has many seeming separate haunts where mercy has no meaning and attack appears as justified. Yet all are one-a place where death is offered to God's Son and to his Father. You may think They have accepted, but if you will look again upon the place where you beheld Their blood, you will perceive a miracle instead.

8 How foolish to believe that They could die! How foolish to believe you can attack! How mad to think that you could be condemned and that the holy Son of God can die! The stillness of your Self remains unmoved, untouched by thoughts like these, and unaware of any condemnation which could need forgiveness. Dreams of any kind are strange and alien to the truth. Yet what but Truth could have a Thought which builds a bridge to truth which brings illusions to the other side?

9 Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you. The truth bestows these words upon your mind that you may find the key to light and let the darkness end:

10 Only my condemnation injures me. Only my own forgiveness sets me free.

11 Do not forget today that there can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought. Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal.

12 Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father. Let today be celebrated both on earth and in your holy home as well. Be kind to both, as you forgive the trespasses you thought them guilty of, and see your innocence shining upon you from the face of Christ.

13 Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of earth, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the Word of God alone remains upon it. Only that can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son.

14 There is no condemnation in him. He is perfect in his holiness. He needs no thoughts of mercy. Who could give him gifts when everything is his? And who could dream of offering forgiveness to the Son of Sinlessness Itself, so like to Him Whose Son he is, that to behold the Son is to perceive no more and only know the Father? In this vision of the Son, so brief that not an instant stands between this single sight and timelessness itself, you see the vision of yourself and then you disappear forever into God.

15 Today we come still nearer to the end of everything that yet would stand between this vision and our sight. And we are glad that we have come this far and recognize that He Who brought us here will not forsake us now. For He would give to us the gift that God has given us through Him today. Now is the time of your deliverance. The time has come. The time has come today.


365 Days Through A Course in Miracles
            A Daily Miracle Lesson


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