1. Condemn your savior not because he thinks he is a body. For beyond his dreams is his reality. But he must learn he is a savior first before he can remember what he is. And he must save who would be saved. On saving you depends his happiness. For who is savior but the one who gives salvation? Thus he learns it must be his to give. Unless he gives he will not know he has, for giving is the proof of having. Only those who think that God is lessened by their strength could fail to understand this must be so. For who could give unless he has, and who could lose by giving what must be increased thereby?
2. Think you the Father lost Himself when He created you? Was He made weak because He shared His Love? Was He made incomplete by your perfection? Or are you the proof that He is perfect and complete? Deny Him not His witness in the dream His Son prefers to his reality. He must be savior from the dream he made, that he be free of it. He must see someone else as not a body, one with him without the wall the world has built to keep apart all living things who know not that they live.
3. Within the dream of bodies and of death is yet one theme of truth; no more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark, where God still shines. You cannot wake yourself. Yet you can let yourself be wakened. You can overlook your brother’s dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions he becomes your savior from your dreams. And as you see him shining in the space of light where God abides within the darkness, you will see that God Himself is where his body is. Before this light, the body disappears as heavy shadows must give way to light. The darkness cannot choose that it remain. The coming of the light means it is gone. In glory will you see your brother then and understand what really fills the gap so long perceived as keeping you apart. There, in its place, God’s witness has set forth the gentle way of kindness to God’s Son. Whom you forgive is given power to forgive you your illusions. By your gift of freedom is it given unto you.
4. Make way for love, which you did not create, but which you can extend. On earth this means forgive your brother, that the darkness may be lifted from your mind. When light has come to him through your forgiveness, he will not forget his savior, leaving him unsaved. For it was in your face he saw the light that he would keep beside him, as he walks through darkness to the everlasting Light.
5. How holy are you, that the Son of God can be your savior in the midst of dreams of desolation and disaster. See how eagerly he comes and steps aside from heavy shadows that have hidden him, and shines on you in gratitude and love. He is himself, but not himself alone. And as his Father lost not part of him in your creation, so the light in him is brighter still because you gave your light to him, to save him from the dark. And now the light in you must be as bright as shines in him. This is the spark that shines within the dream; that you can help him waken and be sure his waking eyes will rest on you. And in his glad salvation you are saved.[1]
For those of us who have not yet learned that we cannot lose love by sharing it with all of Creation, Jesus uses Creation itself to teach us this concept. Did God lose Himself when He created you? Was God weakened by sharing His Love? Is God depleted through our perfection and completion? When we contemplate God as the eternal Ideal of Love, of course we do not consider Creation as His death sentence, but as a natural expression of His Love for love, as we all experience it, must be shared to be love. I cannot love my cat without there being a cat to love! I cannot love you without there being a you to love. I cannot even love myself without there being a me to love. Love must be shared to be love. It is not like money, or tobacco, or any tangible substance. Love must be expended to exist at all. And so as we come to envision our Father as the Attribute of Love we implicitly understand that God cannot be depleted by extending more of Himself.
This then is the key to salvation, for learning, accepting, and applying this concept saves us from the realm that opposes love, which has made opposites for every aspect of the truth. As our minds are enlightened, the cloudy, stormy world of love and hate, good and evil, peace and war, joy and sorrow gives way to the Kingdom which never fluctuates, which never goes back and forth between two opposites. This Kingdom is the truth of God, it is Reality and not the bewildering maze of choosing between legions of opposing viewpoints and dead-end paths. We are delivered from the ongoing downward cycle of untruth, the frivolous pursuit of truth and purpose and meaning where it cannot be found.
We can step out of condemnation, out of the pet peeves we have toward this behavior and that one, we can stop disliking one another for our human foibles, for our crassness and bad manners, for our crimes against humanity, ridiculous self-promotion, and small-minded opinions that we promote as “truth!” I can look at you and see beyond all that to your reality. Beyond all your gossipy ways, your digging about in the past to find meaning and purpose, your mean-spirited, spiteful mannerisms to the real and beautiful you. And I give that You to you when I overlook and “forgive” all that other stuff that happens in the gap of separation, in the dream of you not being You.
When I give You to you, I am not being the bigger and better human giving out of my so-called generosity and goodness to the under-privileged, to a lesser intellect, to get my name in the paper or to give myself a little silver star for being nice to the unworthy. When I see Christ in you, the Christ in me does not get smaller and weaker. As long as I cherish any form of faithlessness in my giving You to you, I am kidding myself! My religion is a dead thing, an empty belief system that only perpetuates the gap between us. When I give You to you, I am finding in You my salvation. I am finding Christ in you because until I see the Christ in you I will never come to the Christ in me.
Jesus tells us in paragraph three that we cannot wake ourselves, but we find our awakening in each other. Unlike the world’s call to be “awoke,” pointing fingers of blame and shame, making enemies, calling for enforced reforms, as God’s Witnesses we awaken each other by overlooking the pointless squabbles and accusations of the world, by forgiving humanity’s dream of good and evil. As God’s witness, we step out of that realm. We are not looking for anyone or anything to blame. Instead we are called to see each other from beyond the body, we are called to see each other past the misperceptions and illusions made to keep us apart and give us reason to despise and prey upon each other, thus deserving of decay and death.
In the realm of bodies and death – the truth about us remains in each shattered piece, in every shard that puts space and outlines between us. And this is the light of God. It is in you, and it is in me, it is there with you in your mansion, in your barracks, in your cell, in your house, in your office, and it is in everything and everybody you spy with your little human eyes. You are part of God and God is part of you and yet you will not awaken to this beautiful everlasting truth until you overlook all that keeps you apart from me and completely and perfectly forgive every single aspect of any illusions that would pull us and keep us apart.
You can profess Christ as your savior all you want, but until you see Christ in me, all of your professions are empty of meaning. Before the light of God, all that would separate us, all the twisted doctrinal beliefs, all the “thou shalls and thou shalt nots,” all our different body parts, all our array of so-called sins and self-righteous posturing melts away! The coming of the Light means all the darkness is gone. In place of all that judgment, condemnation, and intent to punish and avenge, the witnesses to God set forth the gentle way – whom you forgive is given power to forgive you – see the living Christ in me and the freedom and liberty of resurrection and everlasting life is given you!
God’s witnesses make way for love, for when we make way for love, we make way for God Which is Love. Here this means that we forgive each other to lift the darkness from our minds. When you forgive me, you are not doing me a favor, for when you unlock me from the dark chambers of your mind, you are setting yourself free from the dark chambers of your mind. As long as you would imprison me there, judging my every word and thought and deed, harboring and cherishing my wrongdoing, my failures and foibles, my ignorance and shame – you imprison yourself in that dim dungeon, reeking of vermin, waste, and filth. This is why we do not demand apologies from others or hold them to vows to “never do that again.” We overlook what happens in this realm for what we overlook is only fiction, it could never have any substance or eternal say in our identity, unless we would hold on to it, keeping it close, getting it out every once in a while for a chew, trying to find some nutrition in it. As witness to God we reach past any sickly impulse to derive pleasure from such madness.
The Christ in you is only as bright as the Christ in me! You can only be truly awoke when you get past the dream of blame and shame and see me as the means to your salvation – not your condemnation, vengeance, or spite. For only when you see me as part of the Sonship of God will you be able to accept your own Sonship. This is the way to God for in God we are one and forever.
[1]A Course in Miracles. Chapter 29 The awakening iii God’s witnesses. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
For daily 2021 Workbook lessons visit www.i-choose-love.com courtesy of Linda R.
Audio credit: www.eckiefriar.com
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